Perfect Justice Read Online Free PDF Page B

safe place to raise precious little girls like Amber anymore. Well, I’m not going to let that happen. Not again. Do you understand?”
    Ben nodded. He sure as hell did.

5.
    C OLONEL NGUYEN SAT ON the makeshift porch of his home in Coi Than Tien and gazed up at the stars. The sentinels of the night. So calm, so unchanging. When he was younger, he knew the names of all the constellations. He knew where to find the brightest stars in the sky and how to follow their progress. Now he had no time for such amusements. Now when he looked at the sky, it was only to wonder if there could really be someone up there, someone overseeing this cruel and bitter world.
    He glanced at his wife, Lan, and their eighteen-month-old daughter, Thuy, whom they called Mary. Their four-year-old, Huong (Holly), was already asleep. Lan held Mary in her lap and rocked her gently. Mary’s tiny eyelids were fluttering; soon she would be in the land of dreams. Her face was the very image of contentment; it made Nguyen’s heart swell. If only life could always be thus. If only contentment was not merely for those blissfully unaware.
    The porch wasn’t much of a porch, just as their home wasn’t much of a home. It was a Quonset hut, actually, bolted together from surplus corrugated metal. The porch was no more than a thin stretch of dirt; Nguyen had built a wooden railing around it to create the illusion of a real porch.
    It embarrassed the Colonel to have his wife and children live in such conditions. Back in the homeland, his family had been wealthy, important. They had the best of everything. But that was a different country, a country that no longer existed. And it was a long time ago. So long now that, as he gazed at the stars and cast his mind back, he could barely remember it.
    Lan eased out of her rocking chair. Mary’s soft, rhythmic breathing assured them she was soundly sleeping. Lan tiptoed inside the hut to put her down for the night. Nguyen couldn’t help but smile; he loved nothing more than watching his wife and daughters. When he recalled how close he had come to losing his wife, to never having any children at all, he shuddered.
    Back in Vietnam, Nguyen had been one of the most important men in the South Vietnamese army. He had personally served in the Airborne and in Special Forces; he had commanded a unit of over twenty thousand combat troops. His men had seen some of the bloodiest action in the entire bloody war. Many of the most critical South Vietnamese victories came as a direct result of Nguyen and his soldiers.
    When Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese, Nguyen reluctantly fled the country. He hated the thought of leaving his homeland; he could not imagine being separated from the soil of his birth. But the North Vietnamese had not hidden the fact that they intended to “chastise” high-ranking South Vietnamese officers, particularly those responsible for critical military victories. Nguyen had two choices: flee Vietnam or face incarceration, torture, and death.
    The Americans were precious little help. Nguyen didn’t blame them personally. They were caught short like everyone else when Saigon fell, as their many plans and schemes were destroyed. In the utter turmoil and chaos that followed, he was separated from Lan. He managed to get out before the fall; she didn’t.
    Colonel Nguyen made his way to America and took a series of hard-labor jobs—sweeping floors, washing dishes, shoveling out horse stalls. Most of his spare time was devoted to trying to get Lan to America. He contacted all the proper agencies and authorities; no one could offer any assistance. He became more and more despondent as he became more and more afraid he would never see her again.
    In the meantime Lan had somehow managed to evade the Vietcong rover packs more than ready to exact revenge upon the families of high-ranking officers who had slipped through their fingers. In time, she managed to fight her way onto a boat full of refugees. Boat was a