Chapter Five

As Arienne nearly pulled him through the lobby - and out the door of the hotel - Barton’s senses began to return. He did not immediately return to full awareness - but he was at least alert enough to look both ways before he crossed the street - something she didn’t seem to find necessary. For the moment most of his awareness was of her.

She was babbling on to him, a pleasant sound that did nothing to clear Barton’ head and return him to reality. She had a charming sweetness to her tone - but if this encounter had not been accompanied by his reoccurring dream - Barton would not have been so enraptured. The fact was that her appearance, exactly as how it had been in the dream, was happening right now. He was still transfixed by it all.

In this moment all Barton’s attention was on her. His eyes took her in as if they were the only two people in the world. He saw that she was about five inches shorter than his own 5 feet and eleven inch height. That would make her about five-six or so. But she was none the less a compelling and even imposing figure.

Her broad shoulders and physical build betrayed that she was an athlete. Her calves and her shoulders confirmed that general observation. They were well toned and defined – they looked almost as if she lifted weights - in addition to her other athletics.

Once as she raised her arm to point something out about a tree above them, her loose sleeve slipped downward and revealed her biceps. Barton was surprised to see it even more defined and toned than her legs. She had muscles.

Her biceps compared to his and other men of his team were generally smaller but more than adequate. Her biceps were probably as large as his RTO Bakers, maybe bigger. They were not as large as his - and certainly not as large as Bighorse’s or Marks, or even Fitz’s - but they were impressive, none the less.

She wore a loose skirt so he could not see her rear as much as he would have liked to complete his appraisal. But from time to time the skirt formed around her compact buttocks in such a way that satisfied him that only athletics could give her the total body definition and muscles that she had.

She glided; she fairly oozed physical prowess and the resulting confidence it often evoked. She was an impressive and captivating young woman. As they walked and talked, Arienne scarcely ever let go of his hand.

The only time she did was when she excitedly darted forward to show him something. It was only at those times that Barton got to see the full definition of her body. Then she would return quickly and grasp his hand again. That was fine with Barton; he liked being with her and feeling her closeness.

She drew him into her; she drew him in ways he had never felt before. None of these trancelike observations helped Barton answer the questions that kept coming back to his mind: Who was she and why was he here with her? What would his mission be with her?

His eyes kept coming back to her face, despite the allure of her voice and her body. He decided that even the clarity of the dream brought little justice to her face and especially her eyes. The dream could not reveal the light and life in them - nor could it convey her charm and the sweetness of her voice.

Barton sighed as he walked. He had to find his voice - he had to have some answers. All that she had told him so far was charming and light - but she said nothing really about herself - about how she came to be here, nor did anything she said reveal any danger she was in.

When the thought of her danger - for she had to be in some danger he thought. There had been fear in her face in some parts of the dream. So far all his dreams had been about delivering people who were in harm’s way.

Barton became fully alert. He felt chagrined that he had allowed himself to be so taken in by her beauty - to be so mesmerized by it and the dream - that he lost his attention on their surroundings and his duty. He forced himself to break his attention on her.

He looked around and quickly surveyed the scene. He saw no immediate threats, only a car some ways back with three men in it. It was a non-descript darkly painted car and at the moment posed no threat.

Something gnawed at him in the recesses of his mind never-the-less. His tactical awareness was returning to him. He was beginning to realize that he was just as much in danger - maybe more so - than she was. He was in danger of falling head over heels in love with her, or maybe it was the idea of her. He sighed again.

If Arienne had noticed his two sighs she gave no indication. Barton took a hard look at her - forcing himself to be objective - freeing his mind as much as he could from his rapidly building emotional feelings toward her.

He had been brought here for a purpose he insisted to himself. He was sure the reason for being here was to deliver her from some great danger yet to manifest itself.
Try as he might, even in an attempt to do a non-emotional appraisal, his thoughts once again admired her beauty. When he was trying to assess the tactical situation, what he found himself doing was appraising her.

He quickly concluded that the only thing that kept Arienne from being the perfect beauty was that her breasts were a little small - certainly no larger than a “B” cup and he doubted that she was even that large - and her rear was a little bit small, too.

But when one gets this close to perfection - Barton mused with a half smile in his mind - such minor flaws must be made up for in her other considerable attributes and conditions. Her rear was small because of her conditioning, and he was sure would eventually develop into a thing of beauty.

She was still very young. And the breasts - Well, they were adequate. As one of his friends had callously put it one time, over a mouthful is wasted. Barton shamed himself for recollecting that. Inwardly in his mind Barton slapped himself.

Not for his again appraising Arienne, but for the fact that he was thinking like a lover instead of a protector. He sighed for a third time - and this sigh - perhaps because it was deeper and more regretful, drew Arienne’s attention.

For the first time since she had risen and offered her hand to him - the look of wonder and raptness left her face. She looked at him with a look of concern, and maybe worry on her face. Somehow his sigh had broken the spell she was also under.

“What is it’, she asked in her slightly French accented English?

“Oh, nothing”, said Barton, but he glanced around again. The same car that had been behind them was still behind them approximately the same distance. That had set alarm bells ringing in Barton’s mind. It should have moved off by now and either turned off, or passed them.

For it not to have might have been innocent - but it could also mean that it was marking them - and that they were being followed. For the moment it might be a threat, or it might not be. To be sure, Barton needed answers.

Barton did not want to alarm Arienne unnecessarily. He engaged her more and started to ask her questions about this or that - all the while keeping an eye on the car out of his peripheral vision or with occasional glances. He paused the two of them from their walking a couple of times. The car paused too.

By now he had asked her how she came to be at the hotel. She told him that her and her family lived there. After some more questions that Arienne answered with some reservations and pausing for thought - but answered anyway - Barton began to have a more developed picture in his mind as to who and what Arienne was.

Her pausing told him several things about her. Despite her sweetness and charming babble earlier - Arienne had a reserved and cultured side - that did not immediately yield answers to just anybody who asked. Despite what seemed to be almost recognition in her look of surprise, Barton reminded himself that he was a perfect stranger to her.

Her answers and her pausing for thought told him she was a woman of some upbringing. Her clothes and the way she held herself told him the same thing. She was not a woman of low birth and was not a waif of the streets. So she didn’t just live at the hotel, she had some standing there.

The fact that she paused - in deciding whether to answer his questions and how - showed that she wasn’t foolish either. Since she had answered them, it also showed that at least to some degree she trusted him. Barton filled up the picture of who and what she was with the details she provided him - whether she knew she was doing so - but he suspected that she did know.

Still, some questions remained unanswered. And the car was still back there. In his occasional non-directed glances at it - Barton had surveyed it not so much as a threat - but to identify it as part of a puzzle that he was trying to solve. It was a little beat up and the paint was fading - but here in Vietnam - it didn’t stand out.

There was one variable that he had to solve before he identified it as a threat. Why would someone be following them? He dismissed that it could be following him. It had to be following her.

But why? He asked her who her father was and where was he? Barton had to eliminate that her father was an important or rich man who might have security following and protecting his daughter.

She said - again with a pause and a bit more reluctantly than Barton would have liked - that her father owned the hotel, and that she imagined that was where he was. He told her not to look around until her told her too. He asked her calmly if her father employed any security to look after her and the hotel.

She said that her father did have two men, one who looked after the hotel and another who went with her or the family when they were out. She grew a little bit more concerned and her face showed it as he asked these questions.

Barton stepped close to her. He told her that he was going to hug her and turn her a bit. He told her to look over his shoulder at the car behind them and see if she recognized the car or any of the men inside it. That was fine with Arienne. She found herself wanting his embrace, even if it was in this circumstance.

Barton hugged her but in doing so - as she looked first at his face and into his eyes - he told her, “Just glance and maybe glance again, but don’t stare and don’t look like you are focusing on them.”

Without alarming her - he needed to make sure that she didn’t give away that they were aware of being followed - just in case it wasn’t her father’s men behind them. Barton had a growing suspicion - if not yet the conviction of his senses - that it wasn’t. For one thing there were three men in the car, not the two she said was in her father’s employ.

For Arienne it was a mixed feeling that she had when she was in Barton’s arms. She could feel his muscles and the strength of his arms as he held her. This time it was Arienne who sighed. She would have liked to have surrendered to the moment and laid her head on his shoulder - the shoulder of her deliver - but now was not the time.

She felt safe there in his arms - more than she would have imagined at the thought of the emerging threat - but she was also becoming alarmed. Something in his voice said to beware. She glanced at the car and the men as he told her.

They were not anyone she knew or had ever seen. One appeared to be Caucasian - and the other two Vietnamese. She tucked her head into Barton’s shoulder and brought her arms up around his neck. She was following his lead - acting the way he had told her to act. It was true that she was maintaining the ruse - but she also did it because she wanted too.

“They don’t work for my father’, she said, raising her lips to his ear. “I have never seen any of them before, and it is not our car”. Barton could hear an alarm in her voice now.

Barton stepped back from her to read her eyes. Her eyes were large and had some fear in them. “Okay”, he said, “Just act normal. We are a young couple, out for a stroll. It will be okay, just trust me, okay?”

He looked into her eyes and began to prepare her for what they would do together in a calm reassuring voice. “Up ahead, We will cross an intersection and walk about a hundred meters past it." He said meters because he wasn’t sure she knew what a hundred yards was. "If they are still following us then - we will cross the street and find a shop with as many people in it as we can find and go inside.”

Arienne nodded. There was an assurance about him. He was calm in both his voice and his actions. Most of the fear left her eyes. Arienne was confident that her deliverer would protect her.

He had spotted the car and the threat. She didn’t know who he really was, anymore than Barton knew who she was. She realized she knew less about him than he now knew about her, but she trusted him. He had been sent to deliver her and protect her. Of that she would allow no doubt.

They crossed the intersection. The car paused far longer than it should have and then continued to follow them. They crossed the street and found a cafe that had a dozen or so people in it. They were all seated when Barton and Arienne walked it.

Barton was disappointed when he noted that they were all Vietnamese - and that not one of them even looked around - or at them as they entered. His experience taught him that they would not be the help he had hoped for.

Barton saw at a glance that too many years of being subjugated by outside forces - and being used by corrupt leaders, of a sense of general futility – had robbed them of their independence and self reliance. They were nothing but sheep.

But he hoped that their mere presence might be enough to dissuade the three men from following them in here. Even if it didn’t - it gave him a space to think of a way out of this - without endangering Arienne further.

He led Arienne across the room to the furthest table from the door. He seated her with her back to the wall facing the door and then he sat beside her. He seated himself so that he could step between her and the door if the need arose.

Through the windows at the front of the café, he saw the car pulled up to the door. The two Vietnamese stepped out. Then the car pulled off. Barton looked around the café. He could see a back door behind the kitchen as a waiter stepped through the intervening bamboo curtain. He suspected that the car was going there and that the third man would join them shortly.

The two men who stepped from the car came inside the café and eyed them from the start. They were not here to eat. They were after a quarry. Both their eyes went to Arienne – from that Barton could see clearly from their objective was - Barton rose from his chair.

One of the men focused his eyes on Barton as he did so - the other man moved to his (Barton’s) left to circle Barton to get to Arienne. Arienne stayed seated for a moment - but then she also instinctively stood as Barton moved to intercept the man coming at him.

Arienne was going to follow Barton, but she knew he had to have room to maneuver. She stood at the table - with it between her and the man advancing toward her - she stayed ready to move in Barton’s direction - when she could see the time came for her to do so.

Both men produced knives that Barton saw at a glance had about five or six inch blades. Barton felt the Arkansas toothpick strapped to his leg with a considerably longer blade than theirs. He considered whether or not he should produce his own. Perhaps it might deter them.

But the two were too far apart to engage as one. He knew that he needed to dispatch his immediate adversary as quickly as he could – so he could get back to protect Arienne. He had decided in that instant of deliberation that a protracted knife fight was not the best way to prosecute the engagement.

For one it would probably take too much time with the circling and looking for an opening. Barton also knew he wasn’t that much of a knife fighter. He chose to engage the man hand to hand. He hoped that the man would try to close on him quickly to try to dispatch him and then rejoin his partner in grabbing the girl.

Barton had settled in his mind that this is what this was all about, either a kidnapping for ransom or worse yet, a kidnapping for white slavery. The man did as Barton had hoped. Barton could see the man was no match for him in physical strength or stature.

When the other man rushed at him, Barton feinted left. His attacker followed Barton’s feint with his knife which gave Barton the opening he needed. He stepped back quickly to his right and then into the attacker. In almost the same motion, Barton pivoted ninety degrees as he seized the man’s arms at the wrist.

Then he continued his pivot as he raised and then ducked under the man’s arm. As he did so, he stood erect, raising the man’s arm despite the resistance his attacker offered.
After he had cleared the man’s arm - he used the momentum of his pivot and put all the strength and adrenaline he possessed in the same motion.

He drove his adversaries own blade home into his attacker’s body just under the man’s sternum and upward into what he hoped was the man’s heart. The blade struck home and the man grunted and folded lifelessly. Barton shoved the man down onto his back and stepped back from his body, turning back to the table where Arienne was now battling with the other Vietnamese.

Arienne had seen that Barton was engaged with the other man. Fresh admiration for her deliverer filled her as she saw no fear in his eyes - or in his movements - as he engaged the two men. She had tried to step back from the table and away from the second assailant - but the second man darted to his left and cut her off.

Now a few moments later - the second Vietnamese man was getting more than he bargained for from Arienne. For one thing, she was as big as he was. He had her in weight by a few pounds - but she was as tall as him and stronger than him.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t afraid of the knife - but she took courage from Barton - she wasn’t going to just yield to the threat of it. She wanted to buy Barton enough time to get back to her - struggling with the man seemed to her to be the best way to accomplish that. She took Barton’s exampled as the man advanced close to her and grabbed for his knife.

In the brief moments that it took Barton to dispatch the first assailant - her movements and the second assailants wrestling with her - placed the man with his back to Barton as he stepped quickly back to the two of them.

Barton closed on him before the man had time to recognize that his fellow assailant was down. He seized the man’s chin and hair from behind and snapped his neck. He let him drop to the floor. He killed him just as he had killed the three sentries on the mission that had resulted in the rescue of PFC Howard and his team.

The whole attack and its conclusion had taken less than a couple of minutes once it was joined. None of the patrons of the café even lifted their eyes - except briefly when it was over. But even then they didn’t meet Barton’s eyes and quickly lowered their eyes.

Barton didn’t have time or an interest in staring them down anyway. He wanted Arienne away from this. He stepped around the body of the man he had just killed and reached his hand to Arienne with as much reassurance in his eyes as he could put in them. His heart was still racing and there was the other man to account for.

“We have to move”, he told her. They moved quickly to the door just as another man - a slight Caucasian dressed in a Vietnamese style suit - entered the café. Barton turned to look at Arienne as he opened the door for her. He saw her look at the other man - and saw a look of recognition in her eyes. The man nodded to her and stepped aside. Barton nodded in turn at the man and escorted Arienne to the outside.

“Walk calmly - but quickly - across the street”, he told her, “I will be close behind”. Barton looked ahead, to both flanks, and behind him. He could only guess who the man that Arienne had recognized was. But he saw no threat in her eyes toward the man. He hoped that the man would either somehow deter the third assailant - at least delay him - long enough to give them time to get some distance from the café. He needn’t have given it much thought.

The man was one of her father’s security employees - the one who had usually accompanied them on their trips outside the hotel. His name was Francois Depardieu. He and the other security man - his boss, Pierre De Pleiss - had been with Jacque virtually since the hotel opened under his management and before that served with him.

He had been taken by surprise when Arienne left the hotel. He had turned his eyes only for a minute or so - and suddenly - she wasn’t there in the café any longer. He had looked outside to see her familiar figure going down the street with a young man he had never seen before.

But she obviously (by the way she acted carefree) didn’t think she was in any danger. He had felt her anger once or twice before at being too closely guarded, so he had kept his distance. He had not been as vigilant as he should have been - and as a result he had not seen the threat of the car and its occupants - until it was too late to intervene.

But the young man had. He didn’t see much of what went on in the café - but he saw its aftermath as he stepped inside. He saw that the two men - who had followed them into the café - now lying dead on the floor. They had undoubtedly both been armed with knives.

One had a knife sticking from his body and the other had one lying beside him on the floor. Somehow this young man had dispatched them both - in extraordinarily little time, for he had not been that far behind them - and with no injury to himself or Arienne.

He had not seen fear in Arienne’s eyes either as he looked at her when she passed him. Whatever had happened there had only given her grim determination - for that is what he saw on her face and in her eyes. There was no doubt that, for the moment at least, Arienne was in good hands. Now there was the third man to deal with. Francois reached inside his jacket for his pistol. Then he reached inside his jacket on the other side for his silencer.

He surveyed the patrons, none of whom even gave him a glance. He screwed the silencer on his pistol as he walked across the café - to where he could position himself where he could see the third man come in the back door.

He had seen the same things that Barton had seen - the car exiting from in front of the café - but he had also seen it turn right into the alley behind the cafe. He figured, as Barton had – that the driver might enter the café from the rear.

He glanced at the front door just to make sure he didn’t double back. The young man with Arienne had dispatched the two without a sound that could be heard outside - so Francois doubted that the third assailant knew what had happened to his partners in crime. He suspected that he would come in without any real apprehensive of the danger he faced.

When the third man stepped inside the café, he was more irritated than wary. His accomplices had been supposed to drag the young woman out the back door after they had dispatched the young man. He came inside after waiting a bit, merely to see what the holdup was.

He walked through the kitchen with his pistol drawn - but unaware that Francois Depardieu already had his pistol trained on him - as soon as he entered the back door. As he ducked through the curtain into the café from the kitchen, Francois’ pistol coughed twice. Either shot, both in the head, would have killed him.

He was dead before his body hit the ground. Francois carefully and deliberately unscrewed his silencer from his pistol. He placed both of them back in their holsters inside his suit. He looked at the patrons - daring any to even meet his eyes.

He walked calmly across the café and out the door. He surveyed ahead of him across the street to catch sight of Arienne and her escort. He saw them about three hundred meters ahead on the opposite side of the street. They had made up a lot of ground in the short time he had taken to eliminate the last threat.

But they did not look hurried or like they were leaving the scene of now a triple slaying. Francois again took note of the young man with Arienne. He was obviously a very cool headed and skilled young man. He smiled as he started trotting up his side of the street. For his own job security - he needed to get to the hotel - by at least the time they did.

On the opposite side of the street Barton was surveying all sides as they advanced briskly. He kept Arienne close by to his side - but always on the inside of him, away from the street - where he saw the greatest possibility of threat coming from.

When he saw the man - that Arienne had since identified as they went as part of their security team - emerge from the café, and begin trotting up the street, he noticed that the man was not looking back. Both the fact that he had entered the café and spent some time there - as well as the fact that he was not looking back - meant that he had eliminated the threat from the rear Barton figured.

Barton relaxed his pace and allowed the man to draw abreast of them on the other side of the street. He and Arienne resumed their talking after he told her that he would watch, but he didn’t think they were any longer in danger. With that she relaxed also and curiously giggled.

Barton recognized it was a nervous giggle - the result of the adrenaline leaving her - now that the danger appeared to have past. Barton looked at her almost in awe. She had handled herself well, but for now it was time to put it behind them.

Barton didn’t want to talk about what had just happened. He asked her about her athletics. It might have seemed out of place - but it somehow was okay with Arienne. She drew a dead breath and began to answer him about the sports she played. They talked about her mostly, about track, tennis and about weight lifting.

When they were about three hundred meters from the hotel, Barton looked at her and asked her - in a teasing way - how good an athlete she was? She looked curiously at him - not knowing exactly what the source of his question was - or at what he was getting at.

She saw a light and even a twinkle in his eye that she had not seen before. She had seen his rapt attention of her at the first - which pleased her greatly. Then she had seen danger in his eyes when he had spotted the threat of the car behind them. Then she had seen the grim determination on his face and in his eyes - when the men entered the café. Finally she had seen the look in his eyes after he had killed the two men who had attacked them.

It was that look that had brought a feeling of iciness and dread to her heart and her thoughts. Now she saw this new look. She didn’t know the look of teasing in his eyes, but she liked it: Almost as much as she had liked the look of rapt attention he had at first seeing her. “What do you mean?”, she asked him demandingly - rising to the challenge.

Without reacting to her question, or rather without replying directly to her, he pointed to a tree up ahead near the side walk, about two hundred yards ahead. “Want to race”, he asked? “You have a bit shorter legs than me, so I will give you a ten meter head start, just to make it fair. We will race to that tree", he said pointing head. "We will see which one of us is the better athlete, if you are game?”

She didn’t reply. She just glanced at him as a saucy smile came over her face - then without warning she began sprinting as if her life depended on it. Barton thrilled to see her sprinters legs and muscles - as she quickly reached top speed. He gave her only the margin he told her he would. He could see quickly that she was fast - and that it would require his best effort to catch her.

They ran soundlessly except for the slap of their feet on the concrete - and the rasping of their breathing as they both gave their best effort – then there was a thrill of laughter from Arienne as she sensed him drawing up to her as they neared the tree.

If there had been a tape at the finish line, Barton could have perhaps beaten her by leaning (since he was taller), but it would have been close even then Barton told himself. Through their rasping breaths Barton said, “You beat me fair and square.”

“Only because you gave me a head start”, she responded graciously.

“True, but you did prove you are a good athlete, nonetheless”, Barton replied as his breath returned to him more and more. Both of them smiled and then they hugged each other. It was the hug of comradeship between two fellow athletes but it was more than that.

The danger they had met together – the dream they had shared and their walking and talking together - all added to the moment as well. Both of them consciously put the attack behind them. The run and the hug helped both of them put it out of their minds even more.

As they drew back - they hesitated - their faces near each other. Both of them nearly kissed each other. Barton did not kiss her because in that instant - he remembered his mission to protect her, to deliver her from harm - not to get attached to her.

The fact was that he was drawn to her – but that fact only added to his burden. It had almost prevented him from recognizing the threat. Now he couldn’t afford to get drawn in again. At least that is what he told himself, but it was not the reality he found himself in.

Arienne didn’t kiss Barton because she so wished that Barton would make the move instead. When Barton squeezed her arms, smiled and stepped back, she was disappointed. But she told herself, only for the moment. She told herself - if he doesn’t kiss me next time - I will make the move. She knew there would be a next time. She would see to that.

She took Barton’s hand - but this time it was not so much that she took his hand and led him - but that they took each other's hands and walked together. They walked the last hundred yards together, crossed the street and entered the hotel. They walked as if nothing had happened and nothing bothered them. In a way, that was true.

They were at ease together - trusting and believing in each other. They walked back to where it had all began for them and sat down in the café. They ordered cokes and sat talking. They were the only customers in the café for a few minutes. But even if there had been others, it would not have mattered. They only had eyes for each other - even if Barton was trying hard to resist her, and doing a pitiful job of it.

Barton asked her questions about the hotel - how old was it and how did it come to be? He asked her about how she and her family had come to be here and so forth. Behind them Francois had entered the hotel and went immediately to his chief, Pierre De Pleiss.

Pierre had been his commander in intelligence - when they were at Dien Bien Phu - with the French Foreign Legion and the French paratroopers. Pierre’s commander had been Jacque LeFontaine. It still galled the three of them - especially Jacque - that the military brass had not listened to them about not locating the forward operating base there. It was in a valley surrounded by high hills. They also hadn’t listened to their threat assessments due to its location.

It was true that the valley afforded a level plain on which a runway could be - and subsequently was - easily and quickly built. It was true that it was geographically located equidistant to the various points of their operations. But their combined troop strength - of the French forces and the loyalist native troops – compared to the vast amount of territory to be held from the Viet Minh incursions - left them little strength to defend the territory.

What Jacque had tried unsuccessfully to point out was that the high hills surrounding the valley could become a trap to them - if the Viet Minh were to seize the ridges around the base - and place long range artillery there.

He also pointed out that their intelligence developed from French contacts in North Vietnam indicated that the Viet Minh had substantial quantities of American 105mm and 155mm field artillery pieces - that the American had lost to the Chinese in the latter stages of the Korean War.

Jacque had informed them that the Chinese had given the artillery pieces along with a vast amount of ammunition to the Viet Minh. It was not so much that the generals and the civilian authorities in the defense ministry doubted that part of the accuracy of Jacque’s reports. It was that they doubted that the Viet Minh could make any effective use of the artillery pieces. Their response was an equivalent of ‘so what’?

They had voiced the objection to that being of any concern to them - since the Viet Minh would still have to overcome two formidable obstacles before they could ever bring the guns to bear: One, transporting the heavy artillery over hundreds of miles of rough terrain where there were few roads - none of which would support heavy trucks capable of either towing or hauling the artillery.

Secondly, they would have to infiltrate, seize and hold the ridges in order to commence and maintain the bombardment that Jacque warned them about. They scoffed at the Viet Minh’s ability to accomplish these feats. In the end they dismissed Jacque’s warnings out of hand.

Jacque had studied the American Revolution while at the academy. France’s ally, the colonial army, had been dismissed by the British commanders much as his superiors were now dismissing the Viet Minh. He remembered one particular disaster for the British that had similarities.

The British had a base at Boston that they believed impregnable. The American had no heavy artillery with which to bombard them and with which to batter down their defenses. All that disdain of the capabilities of the Americans had vanished in horror for the British - when the Americans under Ethan Allen had conquered the British Fort Ticonderoga.

Although it was hundreds of miles from the battle area - they had broken down the artillery pieces, and using ox carts and sleds - had transported them to Boston. The colonialists had then set up the artillery pieces on the hills overlooking the British positions and had shelled the British with their own guns. Jacque had feared back then that history was about to repeat itself.

Jacque had been so outraged by their refusal to listen and at least make contingency plans that he had resigned from the French Army long before the final battle there for Dien Bien Phu. He had not wanted to go back to France, but had instead gone to Saigon.

He had taken his entire saving and bought into the hotel as a minority owner and operating officer of the hotel. He hadn’t known much about hotel management but he had been smart and had listened to the right people. Over the years he had bought out the other minority owners one by one and had now became the sole owner after fifteen years at the hotel.

Pierre and Francois had been with him for all but six months of that time. Now Francois made his report to Pierre. He left out the parts that were not particularly flattering of him - like Arienne and Barton being out of the hotel and way down the street before he located them - and his not being in a position to intervene in the attack.

Pierre listened patiently and carefully, but he could tell that Francois was leaving out details and could only surmise why. He questioned Francois when he was finished and little by little obtained all the facts. Then he told Francois that perhaps he ought to retire to the lobby and make absolutely certain that Arienne did not get past him this time.

When Francois tried to protest to defend his honor, Pierre silenced him. He told him that he would cover for him - as best he could - but that he didn’t want him around when he made his own report to Jacque, who both knew doted on his daughter. Francois had to agree that he didn’t want to be there lest Jacque skin him alive for his near failure that could have been disastrous.

As Pierre was making his report to Jacque, Arienne was answering Barton’s questions about the hotel and her family. Her mother and infant brother had arrived in Saigon six months after her father had bought into the hotel ownership.

She had been born here and as a result she told him, had both French and Vietnamese citizenship. She was technically Vietnamese with French ancestry, but the family of course, regarded her as French.

From the moment she had first recognized Barton as being the man who had appeared in her dream, she had not thought about her fears of being pregnant. She was yet to realize that, and was not thinking of it now. She was only thinking of the moment.

She was thinking of being with Barton. It was pure joy to be delivered from the fear that had tried to consume her in the last few days. But she did not think of that now. The events of the last hour had driven that far from her consciousness. There was only here and now for her. Now she only thought about not being so alone. Had not God answered her prayer?

When Barton inquired about the hotel’s history - she told Barton that as best as she could remember - the hotel was built as the ‘Hotel Continental Palace’ by a man named Pierre Cazeau. There had been a time when she could have recited the fact like a tour guide - but now she just gave Barton the highlights.

She said Cazeau had been a big home-appliance and construction material manufacturer in France before the turn of the century but had fallen in love with Indo China, and Saigon in particular.

She said that the name of the street it was on was called ‘Catinat Street”. She said that was because it was Saigon's "Canebière" – which was the name of a street in the city of Marseille, France. They somewhat matched the name when they built this street - to remind them of their homeland - to bring a piece of it here. Barton didn’t particularly understand that part but he nodded politely as Arienne recited the hotel history.

She told him that in 1911, the hotel was bought by a man named Duke Monpensier. She said that during it's hey days then, the famous French writer André Malreaux - whom Barton, not being French, had never heard of - and his wife Clara were among the hotel’s permanent clients from 1924-1925.

The next owner was Mathieu Franchini who bought the hotel and ran it for nearly 30 years. She said that just before the time of the defeat at Dien Bien Phu. Franchini feared - seeing that the French colonial regime was coming to an end, too. Since the French would doubtlessly be leaving if that occurred - they would be withdrawing their troops from Vietnam, too.

Mathieu Franchini saw an unacceptable risk and decided to sell to a new group of owners - at a reduced price. One of the new owners - and the only one willing to stay and face the risks of managing it - was her father.

She said that the Americans had a long standing history with the hotel also. She dutifully recited that before Franchini’s selling the place, during the Second World War, many American weekly magazines had their bureaus headquartered at the hotel - among them was the New York Times, which had most of the first floor - while Newsweek had most of the second, including the area where her father’s office was now.

Her father and the family now owned the hotel completely she said and smiled. They weren’t rich she said, but they were ‘okay’. Barton laughed at how Americanized her English was - and that she used the term 'okay' correctly and told her that. She was mockingly offended that he would doubt her use of even slang English.

Finally she summarized her recital by saying that most of the clientele was news reporters covering the war and military personnel. Very few businessmen or writers came to their hotel - as they had done in the old days - she said in a sad lamenting tone. It was as if she missed not having been at the old hotel during its glory years - or not having it at its glory now.

The mention of the old days led to a discussion of architecture - and led to them having their heads close together - looking upwards at features above them. Barton asked her a great many questions about its furnishings, its art work and the way the hotel was trimmed out.

They were in the middle of such a discussion when Jacque LeFontaine walked in searching for his daughter and her deliverer. He had Pierre and Francois in tow behind him.