Chapter 1

Friday, July 2nd

Ruth Wasserman had been a news reporter and syndicated columnist for various San Francisco newspapers for the past twenty-five years.   This very day she was about to generate the biggest story of her career. Too bad she had to die to do it.

The man in the beret stood in the gathering twilight watching her approach. He had his story ready, though the groceries she carried were an unexpected bonus. He would offer to carry them up for her as he waited for “Bobby”. If she refused, well, then, he would show her the gun and force her upstairs. He felt a tingle of anticipation shoot through him as she waddled towards him. He hadn’t been this close to her in 29 years. A lifetime ago … and yet her memory still haunted his dreams. He felt for the reassurance of the silenced .22 semi-automatic tucked securely in his waistband. The wait was finally over. It was payback time!

Chapter 2

November 1966

His last day of freedom for seven years dawned cold, crisp and cloudless over the South China Sea. A beautiful day for flying, the young Lieutenant thought as he came up on the flight deck of the USS Ticonderoga. His mission, as explained to him in the just concluded flight briefing, was to bomb a truck staging area between Vinh and Thanh Hoa on the coast of North Vietnam.

Always an honors student, he had graduated 8^th out of 692 in the U.S. Naval Academy class of 1964. This was his 16^th mission over North Vietnam, and he was beginning to feel invincible.

That feeling, along with his F8E Crusader, was shattered by a Russian made S-A2 Surface to Air Missile about 10:32 a.m. that very day … November 28, 1966, two days after Thanksgiving and exactly two months shy of his 25^th birthday.

He parachuted into a small village that seemed overpopulated with exceptionally hostile people. The soldiers who captured him stood idly by as the villagers beat him senseless — jarring loose five teeth and breaking his right leg.

If he thought this was to be an isolated incidence of random cruelty, he was sadly mistaken. He reached the Hoa Lo prison — dubbed the Hanoi Hilton by those who passed through her horrors — on December 2^nd. It was to be his home for the next seven years.

By the time he reached Hanoi that December, the Communists already knew they could never win the military battle raging in the South. In the fall of 1966, they conceived a new strategy for winning the war … make it one of attrition. By doing so, they hoped to undermine the American people’s will to fight. In this strategy, the Prisoners of War were to play an integral part.

On Christmas day 1966, the young pilot was dragged into an interrogation cell in the south wing of the Hoa Lo prison and made to sit on a low stool in the middle of the room. The leg broken by the villagers had never been set and stuck out at a grotesque angle. He was asked to write information on his ship, airplane, the ordinance it was carrying and his bombing mission.

Even though the Lieutenant knew the North Vietnamese had this information already and were asking simply to compromise him, he invoked the Geneva accords and politely refused to answer. In response, the guard stationed behind him struck the side of his head with the butt of his AK 47. The blow opened a two-inch gash on his skull and sent him crashing to the floor like a rag doll. The interrogator, a Vietnamese Major who would be christened “Pigeye” by the prisoners because of the way his eyes protruded from his face, screamed, “You will answer. You will answer” … and stomped on his broken leg.

Immediately, four guards appeared and pulled him back to his cell. Throwing him on the stone floor, they proceeded to beat him with their fists and boots. Forcing him onto his stomach, they tied his arms together from shoulders to wrists. The pain coursed through him unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He was certain his breast-bone was going to break through his skin. His right shoulder was pulled from its socket. The agony was so great, he lost control of his bowels.

“This can’t be happening,” his mind told him. “Humans just don’t do this to other humans.” His whole body, every fiber of his being, was consumed in pain. They abandoned him in the middle of the tiny cell. Struggling to his feet, the smell of his own feces sharp in his nostrils, he tried to rub off the ropes on the granite walls. His efforts only increased the pain. Drenched in sweat, he started to scream. He screamed and cried until he had no voice left, and then he cried and screamed noiselessly.

Early the next morning, they came for him. Without relieving the pressure from the ropes, they dragged him back to the interrogation room. Pigeye asked him again to sign a confession. The young pilot, the toughest kid in his neighborhood, the guy who once played an entire half of high school football with a badly broken wrist, the Lieutenant who thought he could and would withstand any pain, even pain unto death, before he betrayed his Country and his Military Code of Conduct, sobbed noiselessly his assent. It had taken less than one day to break him.

The torture continued intermittently for the next four years. Every time the North Vietnamese wanted to manipulate the American public,, they trotted out a “confession” from some downed pilot. The American press always ran the story. Consequently, the Communists began winning the war for public opinion.

In an attempt to break any residual will-to-resist on the part of the POW’s, the Communists began broadcasting statements over the camp loudspeakers by American journalists and dissidents opposed to the war. In 1969, Americans started arriving in North Vietnam, not to help seek the prisoners release, but to use them for propaganda purposes. Selected prisoners were chosen to meet with the visiting Americans. It was all a staged show, properly rehearsed and managed for the television cameras. The prisoner was supposed to bow to his captors, look apologetic in front of the visitors, and ask them to help end the war so they could all go home.

“Excuse me,” the man in the beret said as Ruth put down her groceries and rummaged through her purse for her keys.

Startled, she watched him limp up the stairs toward her. “I was supposed to meet Bobby at seven-thirty, but got here early. I’m in from L.A. and he told me if I arrived early to see his landlady. That she was a nice person and a friend and probably would let me wait for him in his flat. I know this is an imposition and I’m embarrassed to ask, but I saw you coming and … well, here I am.”

Just like Bobby, Ruth thought. His way of showing off his newest boyfriend. Nice looking, too, in an older, Hippie sort of way. If he wasn’t gay, she might have been interested herself. She smiled at the thought. “I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to let you in Bobby’s place without him telling me it was okay,” she said, “but you’re welcome to come up to my place and wait, if you want. You’ll know when he comes home. You can hear him coming up the front steps from my living room.”

“Well, the least I can do is carry your groceries for you. Here, let me take those.” She unlocked the door, and together they walked up the interior stairs to her flat.

Ruth’s Victorian had been turned into a duplex. Ruth lived upstairs, Bobby below. “You can put the bags on the counter there, if you like,” she said as she put her purse on the kitchen table. The man did as he was asked, and then slipped off his backpack and put it on the table next to her purse. “How long have you known Bobby?” she asked conversationally.

“Never met him before in my life,” the man answered casually.

“But … I thought you said…” It was when she turned towards him that she first saw the gun.

“I lied.” He pointed the gun at her. “Please, no hysterics,” he said calmly.

Fear bolted through her like electricity. She steadied herself on the kitchen counter. He had taken off his hat and was in the process of taking off his jacket.

“Ruth … you and me? We’re going to have a little chat. Please sit down.”

“Why me? What do you want from me?” she stammered. “I don’t have much. If its money you want, I have about $500 in the top drawer of my dresser. Please … take it and go. I won’t say a word to anyone. I promise.”

“I’m not here for money, Ruth. I’m here for you. Look at me.” He came closer, bending to her eye-level. “Take a good look. Try to remember. Go way back. We’ve met before. A long time ago…”

He knew something was up. For the past two weeks, he had been fed like a visiting dignitary. Three, maybe four, times a day, a guard would come in and place roasted rabbit, duck, pork and lots of rice in front of him. The only thing missing was silver and a napkin. From an emaciated 120 lbs., he actually started to gain weight. He was allowed out in the yard to get some sun and exercise an hour a day. He still couldn’t talk to the other prisoners, but what the hell. This was great. He felt better than he had in four years. It was early October. The boards were taken off his windows and his cell was given a fresh coat of whitewash. He even received a new waste bucket. Luxury.

All this turned out to be in preparation for a meeting with an “American delegation.” He was sure he had been selected because he had been broken and they owned him. Since the prisoners were not allowed to speak with one another, he was unaware that every prisoner had broken under the torture. But the food had given him his strength back. Like Samson’s hair in the Bible. His will to resist returned. When the day came, he was led into a room where four women were seated on couches in front of television cameras. They represented an organization called “Women Against Imperialistic War.” Introductions were made. Jennifer Tower, Rebecca Bryant, Heidi Schmidt, and their leader, Ruth Wasserman.

“Think back, Ruth. Twenty-nine years ago this October. You sat in a small room in Hanoi with three other women … and a prisoner… me.”

“My God,” she gasped, her hand trailing down her cheek in disbelief.

“You wrote about our little meeting. In fact, thanks to me, you won a Pulitzer Prize.”

Wasserman stared numbly at him, swaying like a metronome in her chair.

“Do you know what they did to me that day after you all left? Of course you don’t. You didn’t see the ugly things they did to me. To all of us. Blinded as you were by your righteousness. I suspect that even if you did know, you wouldn’t have cared much anyway.”

They seated him in a sofa across from the women. No one spoke for a minute, sizing each other up. The television cameras were turned on. The women, speaking into the cameras, started the interview by telling their audience how evil it was for America to deliberately target innocent women and children. They then introduced him as an apologetic American pilot who, because he had been so humanely treated by his captors, had seen the error of his ways. They asked him his name and hometown. Did he have anything to say to his family? What hospital was he assigned to bomb on his run over North Vietnam? He simply looked at them for a few moments and quietly asked, “Why are you here? Do you hate your country that much?” The two questions hung there in space, like ominous soap bubbles. The women were silent. They looked searchingly at one another for help. This was not how the interview was supposed to go. “Are you Communists?” the pilot asked.

“No,” one of the four replied, somewhat flustered, looking nervously at the camera. For the next two hours, the women verbally attacked him on America’s illegal and immoral war policy. After they left, he was led back to his cell. An hour later, they came for him. Pigeye was furious.

“They fed me my toes, Ruth. Because you told them I was impudent.”

“I don’t remember saying that. You’re making this up.”

“Well, believe me, I remember. I was tied up in ropes. You have no idea how much that hurts. Like a son-of-a-bitch! I was tied in positions the human body was not made to be in. I was left that way for ten straight days. In one way, I owe you my life. If I hadn’t hated you so much and dreamed about what I’d do to you, if and when I got out of there, I probably would have died. You kept me going, believe it or not.” He reached into his pocket and placed a mini-cassette recorder on the table in front of her. “Sorry, I don’t have a video camera like you did. Just this humble audiotape. But now I get to interrogate you. Maybe I can write an article about our time together and become famous like you did with me. And, Ruth … please don’t lie to me. I pretty much have the story from the other three women who were there that day.”

“You’ve talked to them?” she asked incredulously.

“All within the last year,” he said. “Doing my own research paper, so to speak. But before I begin, Ruth, I’d like you to open the backpack and empty the contents on the table.” He leveled the gun at her for emphasis.

She pulled it over to her and undid the straps. Cautiously putting her hand into the opening, she froze. Shaking uncontrollably, her hands pulled out a long length of rope.