A Dangerous Friend by Ward Just Read Free Book Online Page B

screen a reliable mirror of the world's injustice. The French couldn't hold Indochina and they couldn't hold Algeria, no matter what General de Gaulle promised. Probably even Bangui would be lost to them, so they lived in a threatened might-have-been world.
    Yet this much was also true. Those few French who remained in the various colonial outposts would have valuable insights. You would have to look from their prism into your prism. Rostok was quite emphatic about it, intrigued as he was when Sydney described the Armand connection. Claude Armand could be very helpful if he chose to be. He would have friends, and the friends would have friends. And from Claude and his friends and the friends of the friends, Sydney would learn the lay of the land, the solidarity or lack of it among the colonials, and their relations with the government and the government's enemies. What did these colonials want for themselves? And when they peered into the future, what did they see? Rostok knew without a doubt that they saw a future identical to the past, a plantation life that flourished without regard to the politics that surrounded it. They saw themselves as a still center inside the vortex, and as long as they moved with the vortex, the center would remain—still. The administration at Saigon or Hanoi would have no more effect than a hurricane to a bottom-dwelling fish.
    Discover what you can, Sydney.
    That's your first assignment.
    First question: How does a plantation operate effectively in the middle of a war when the enemy controlled the countryside, provided the security, and collected the taxes? Rostok had offered the obvious answer: They paid off the Viet Cong in Xuan Loc as forty years before saloonkeepers in the Loop paid off Scarface Al while the police looked the other way; and the police, too, were rewarded for their trouble. The American ambassador had a theory that the so-called insurgency was little more than simple banditry, a convenient way to make a living in uncertain times. A Chicago shakedown racket, the ambassador called it—and perhaps Claude Armand would offer a disinterested view of this theory, or at the least the view of the saloonkeeper.
    This was Sydney's first intimation of the parallel world, and what he saw in his imagination was an ambiance not far removed from that of the Abenaki Club, well-tended gardens surrounding a graceful, low-slung bungalow with a swimming pool and perhaps a croquet court in the shade of a great Asian sandalwood, dogs and children underfoot, white-coated servants passing cocktails and canapés on silver trays in an atmosphere as tidy and civil and sound as safe Switzerland.
    He did not mention this vision to Rostok, fearing that it was out of date. Rostok believed that if Syd used his wits, became friendly with the Xuan Loc Armands, perhaps did them an unbidden favor, they would be eager to share their insights and information, perhaps introduce him to other French expatriates living between the lines, trying to make ends meet. These French would be mindful naturally that the Americans controlled the South Vietnamese. The Americans would have to be taken into account, lest the Americans become thoughtless.
    Sydney was dismayed that the discussion had turned into an argument and wondered now how he could make amends.
    Monsieur muttered something to Missy in French.
    He said to Sydney, More wine?
    It's very good, Sydney said. It's excellent.
    It's ordinary wine, Monsieur said.
    A breeze had come up and the night was no longer so still, dry leaves clattering now in the trees. The temperature had fallen. The snow-furred summits of the mountains at the head of the valley glittered in the yellow moonlight. One of the peaks looked like a miniature Mont Blanc. Sydney felt the old man's eyes on him, an ominous measurement. He looked into the darkness and tried again.
    Perhaps you're right about the situation in Vietnam, he said. I've yet to see anything firsthand. I've never been