With a Little Help from my Friends, sort of

It only took me less than a day to figure out that the local Gendarme, and MPs both Vietnamese and American were watching out for me trying to leave the city. Even if I intended to simply leave the country to fly elsewhere.

Whoever had thought that flying into a country in the midst of a civil war, then to attempt to cross a border that is being used to infiltrate men and material into that country from another country fighting it's own civil war should have had his head examined. When I saw Conrad, I was going to have a long talk with him and a wall. I haven't played handball in years, and he would be perfect as the ball.

As bad as the situation was, this was my best route. I was bound for the far side of Prey Veng Province and even the Cambodian capital was further away. The name means grand of long forest. This was the closest I could come except for The Tân Biên district of Tay Ninh.

I had jokingly suggested they could merely fly me in by seaplane and let me travel up the Mekong, but the man who briefed me, DeWinter, had said that thanks to smuggling, which was has been rampant along Gulf of Thailand for centuries, I might run into either the Cambodian or US Navy and American Coast Guard patrols for that trade. Or have to deal with the Coast Guard 82 footers and Army Swift boats on the river itself. No, when I returned, it would be DeWinter as the hand ball. I'd have to fold him up and tie his limbs down to make him round enough, but right now I was in the mood to do just that.

I shook my head angrily. Fine, you've sent me in here and have gotten me trapped, you damn Brimstone Society fools! Unless, that is, I want to cross the DMZ and fly out of Hanoi! Why don't I just turn myself into the Americans...

I paused for a long moment. Even if I were able to evade their net, they knew where I was headed, the border with Prey Veng. They would put cordons inside of cordons, Air Cav, surveillance aircraft, the first bloody Marine Division if they could pull it off. All to stop me from crossing the border on a mission that was meant to save humanity. But not good enough if they did not sign off on it.

Wait a minute. I picked up the phone, and called Conrad in London. He whined about how early I was calling him, but I flat didn't care. I didn't yell at him, I very rarely raise my voice. I told him what I needed, and told him by god I wanted it within 24 hours. He told me which embassy to go to.

The next evening, I went through my special equipment case. It was listed as being carried by a bonded carrier, (Me) though that was with my German ID, not my Austrian one. I had to hope the two stooges had not really understood the one I had shown them. I packed all but the German passport into a package marked to send back to the Brimstone Society via DHL.

The next morning, I walked down to the I Corps base in town. I went up the the gate guard, carrying my case. "Excuse me. I am told the authorities are looking for me?" I handed him my German passport. He nodded, not looking up, then looked at the passport photo. Only then did he look at me. I could hear his heart race as he drew his sidearm, and I looked at it curiously as he fumbled for the phone. "Alert! The woman is here!"

I stood there as if I were too stupid to understand as half a dozen soldiers in two jeeps roared down to confront me. They surrounded me, and one tried to take my case. I flipped open the ID Conrad had sent to the British Embassy. "That case is registered as being carried by a bonded courier. I cannot allow you to take it." He tried to tug it away, and I swung with him as he pulled, then tripped him so he landed on his back. I was slammed down on the ground with someone grinding his M16's flash protector into my cheek. It wasn't until then that they realized it was cuffed to my wrist.

"I am a bonded Courier of Garantierte Sicherheit Unternehmens, Guaranteed Security Company of Bern Switzerland. No one, not even customs agents are allowed to open this case." I rasped out. "You will take me to your officers, now!"

It took several minutes for them to figure out that the only way to take the case away would be to either to cut the cuff, or my wrist. Either one would have pissed me off. Do you know how long it would take for me to regenerate my hand? I had just about decided to show them exactly what I could do regardless of the consequences when the officer who had sent them showed up, and told the sergeant that had been threatening to blow my head off if I didn't open the case right this effing minute to stand down.

Finally I was handcuffed, and dragged into a jeep. Two men, one ahead of me, the other beside me had me covered. I sat there, a statue of flesh, ignoring them. After a time I was dragged into an interrogation room. I ignored it as they cuffed my free hand to the chair, with the case sitting on a table in front of me. After about two hours, a man in an Army uniform with Intelligence flashes on his collar point and shoulder flash came in. He was a captain, and reading a file, obviously mine.

He sat down, leafing through the file, ignoring me. It's a standard ploy; 'I am so important that you can wait for me to talk to you'. They do it hoping you will talk first, get nervous. If I hadn't seen it in every form for over a century, it might have even worked. I just watched him.

That bothered him, so he closed the file, then opened my passport. It wasn't really a forgery; it was a legitimate passport issued to me, and if they ran my name, it would come back as valid. The same was true of my Bonded Courier ID. Of course the Company was owned by the Society, so that was not a problem either.

"Is this the best you could do?" He asked in very bad Russian.

"Captain, I speak just about every European language, so answering in Russian does not make me Russian, any more than you speaking it does." I replied in English. "I also speak seven Asian Languages, including three forms of Chinese, Afrikaans and Swahili, which does not make me Asian, or African. But since my English is better than your Russian, let's converse in that."

He frowned, looking at my passport. "Rayna Valeria Belescu." He read. "That is not a German name."

"It is Romanian. As am I by birth."

"So how did some Commie get a German passport?"

I sighed. "I know how bad the American school system is with European history, so I will explain using small words. My mother fled ahead of the Soviet Army until she reached Bavaria, where she met the American Army coming East. When the war ended, we were in a Displaced Persons camp, and while the Communists were busy demanding that their own be returned, including, mind you, Russians that had fled the revolution almost forty years before, they were not as adamant about those from the nations they had occupied, including my homeland, so we were not forced to return unless we wished to."

"That would make you, what, 38?" He looked at the picture, then at me again. "Pretty well preserved for 38. I would have thought you were in your mid 20s."

"Good genetics, Captain." Actually I had looked like my 'mid 20s' since my real mid twenties in the early 19th century. "After the war those who decided to stay in Western Europe were allowed to apply for citizenship, and my mother and I were among them. I have been a naturalized German citizen since 1948."

He set the passport down, then motioned toward the case. "About this case. Open it."

"No, Captain." He gave me a sharp look. "Under International Law, a bonded courier's case is like a diplomatic bag. Without a court order with proof of guilt, you cannot demand that I open it, even if I could."

"You can't open it?"

"I have no need to open it. It is not my place to know what I am carrying. I was hired for my honesty and integrity; not my curiosity."

"I can get a court order." He warned.

"With what probable cause? That I have an accent from Eastern Europe and you 'believe' I am a spy?" I laughed. "Would the Communists really send someone obvious?"

He glared at me. "You contacted a man named Phan about going to Prey Veng via Tay Ninh Province." I nodded. "Care to tell me why?"

"I am carrying the case to a British archeologist named Ronald Abernathy. He is in Prey Veng Province, and thanks to a smuggler, he has been named as a smuggler of artifacts." I raised my hand. "This is not the first time he has been accused, and it will probably not be the last. But every such claim before has proven false. He cannot leave Cambodia via the normal routes; the Cambodian authorities are naturally very interested in stopping the exportation of such artifacts and would use extreme measures to find out what he he might have. They would not care if he dies under interrogation.

"The organization he works for; an offshoot of the British Museum, was worried, since he went to Prey Veng thanks to one of his local associates, and there are no artifacts to steal there. I was commissioned to find him and deliver this case and then to assist him in crossing the border into Vietnam, where he can go to the local British Legation and request assistance."

"So they what, expect you to cross an international border, deal with the idea that you're going to be facing not only the Khmer Rouge but the Viet Cong, and the indigenous forces of both countries and the American forces, and expect you to succeed? Who are you? Wonder Woman?"

I smiled. "Let us just say that I am very good at my job."

"No one is that good."

I looked at him, and I knew from his heartbeat that he was confused, and a bit frightened. "I am."

"Phan is dead." I looked at him, pretending to be surprised. "Why did you contact him of all people?"

"I was given a list of a dozen contacts known by my Agency to be connected with smuggling. He would know where I should attempt a crossing in the next four or five days."

He settled down, visibly drawing in his strength. "So you need to go to Tay Ninh. Why don't I get you there."

"That is ill advised, Captain." I warned him. "I can cross alone, but more than one would be dangerous."

"Then I can report that I assisted you."

"Be warned, Captain. This is not some exercise at your military Academy. I understand exactly what I face. You could die; and all you take with you."

"That may be true." He snarled. "But I will be right behind you with my .45 in your back. If I die, you die."

I looked at him. He was a damn fool, but I had to try. "That, I would not bet on."

Border

I ended up flying into Tân Biên district in a Huey. Captain Sanders had lived down to my expectations; he brought four men with him, and flew with me there. We dropped five kilometers from the border, and his claim that I would have his .45 in my back was a reality. I had the case, and him behind me as we approached the border.

I was in full battle mode; as I have not been since the 30s when I fought against the Nazi Gegengheist Gruppe (Counter-Ghost Group) during the war.

We approached the border. I used the demon eye I had after facing Beliar so many decades earlier. Between it and the natural attributes I received by being a Dhamphir I could see the hell he was leading us into.

"Captain Saunders, we're headed into an ambush." I told him.

"Yeah. Pull the other one, bitch. It has bells on it."

Fine, idiot. I circled my right wrist, reducing the cuff's length until all I had was a bar of steel. There were five of them, and six of us, counting me. I twisted on last time, the cuff chain shattering. "If you want to live, duck."

"What?" He said as a flare went off where our point man was. I dropped, set down the case, and dived for the jungle around us as hell reigned. I rolled, then dived aside as his .45 fired. I felt the burn of the round punching though me from the back through my stomach. The bastard had shot me!

I rolled, coming up. The demon eye I had earned three decades before scanned, along with everything I gained from having Kagan as my father. I could see five of them, two to the left, three to the right. I targeted the pair behind us, moving with all my natural speed. One of the men there had drawn a whistle after blasting the Captain's team, and blew it before realizing he had a living homing missile incoming. I hit him before he could raise the Dragunov rifle, ripping out his throat with my nails. Behind him the second man had a DPM machine gun He tried to turn it, and I pinned him to the ground. I was in pain, and I reacted using my father's race.

I bit him, feeling his blood fill and heal me. He screamed, beating at me as I stole his life. When he fell, I was healed, and I snatched up the sniper's rifle from their leader. The other three had moved down to the trail, and using my father's sight, I could see them clearly even in the darkness. I chose starting at the front, and killed them, one by one. When they were all dead, I checked their weapons. One had a PPD Pistolet-Pulemyot Degtyaryova, the knock off the of German Bergmann MP 28 made by Vasily Degtyaryov back in the 1930s. It used the 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge.

There were three of the Model C96 better known as broom handle Mausers, one in 7.62 Tokarev, another in 9mm, and; I wanted to gasp in pleasure, .45 ACP caliber. It was a classic! There were two who had an Ak47, and I took one rifle and all of the additional magazines from them along with the Dragunov. I left the machine gun. I could have carried it, but it would slow me down, and while the ammunition could be stripped from the belt, carrying it would only make me carry the rifle longer. Though I did strip out enough to fill the 20 round magazine.

Only then did I search the American dead. There were four carrying M16s and I took the magazines from all of them along with the grenades for the M16/79 one had carried which I appropriated. Two bandoliers of grenades along with the drum magazines from the Degtyaryov, three magazines for the AK, and eight for the M16. None of the Americans had even gotten off a shot, except for Saunders shooting me. I packed all of the ammunition into a backpack one of the Americans was carrying along with all the food the dead had, and all of their canteens. I hung the Mausers in their wooden holsters/ gun stocks around my waist, one on either hip, the last in the back. I extended the slings on the rifles until they were hanging on me like a pack animal. Finally I slid on the pack.

Only then did I return to my case. Saunders was curled up in a ball of pain, clutching the wound in his side. I flipped the case around and opened it. "You said you couldn't open it." He gasped.

"You did not need to know what was in it." I pulled out my swords, twin Turkish sabers that I strapped to my back. Except for my passport, which had not been returned, there was nothing in it worth carrying on except for three rolls of French Louis D'Or gold coins. I pocketed them.

"You lied."

"No, I told almost all of the truth except for the case, and my mission. We know Abernathy is dead. I am going to find out how and why he was killed, then to avenge him"

"Help... me."

"I feel no sympathy for you, Captain Saunders. I did not ask you to accompany me. You decided that. You had a gun in my back if you recall." I motioned at where the bullet had come out. "You even shot me."

"You're... healed."

"Yes."

"How?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Radio." He pointed at the man who had gone down in front of him.

"Smashed." I replied. I could hear his heart beat rise as his body tried to move what little blood remained. I took his pistol, removing the magazine and the extra he carried, then pressed it back into his hand. "Your back was broken by the bullet. You will not live out the night. This way, you can go on if you wish." He clutched it, then raised it, aiming at my face. "Shooting me again will not get you out alive."

I stood, adjusting the weapons. Carrying three rifles, three pistols, and all the assorted ammunition would be a pain, but as I had to expend the bullets, I would discard the weapons. Except for the .45 caliber and 9mm Broomhandles, I could see the old Imperial crest on the head stamp, and the serial number was only 4 numbers long, meaning it was one of the first produced back in the last century. Those I would keep even empty. I drew out the .45, and began thumbing shells from the magazine I had taken from his pistol as I walked away.

There was a single crack from behind me, but I kept on walking.