Page 103 of Cry Havoc

The rickshaw came to a stop, and Ella leaned forward with cash and pressed it into the hand of their driver before Tom could protest.

“Let me get this,” he said.

“Already done. Follow me.”

Tom exited the rickshaw and helped Ella down from her side.

The driver pedaled off, leaving them in front of a towering pagoda.

Ella stepped off the street and into the temple’s small tree-lined courtyard.

“We’re here,” she said. She seemed sad.

“It’s beautiful,” Tom said.

The multitiered structure rose naturally from the earth and seemed to blend with the trees at its lower levels, leaving them behind as it rose toward the heavens.

“I used to think so,” Ella said, her hand going to the amulet at her neck.

“What happened?”

“Five years ago. It was August. I was already back at university—Sorbonne in Paris—or I would have been here that night as well, with my mother.”

Tom stood next to her as she gazed up at the pagoda.

“It was in the early-morning hours that they came, just after midnight. Army Special Forces and police loyal to Diêm and his brother attacked the defenseless monks and nuns with machine guns and grenades. It was a massacre. They even stole the charred heart of Thích Qu?ng Ð?c from the altar. Do you know who he was?”

Tom nodded.

“Of course you do. The entire world knows, or at least they knew.”

Pictures of the burning Buddhist monk had headlined every newspaper around the globe in June 1963, when Thích Qu?ng Ð?c self-immolated in downtown Saigon protesting the persecution of Buddhists by the Diêm regime.

“My mother was never found. Three months later, Diêm and his brother were assassinated. My father used all his power and contacts in a futile attempt to find answers.”

“Ella, I am so sorry.”

“Diêm was a puppet of your Kennedy administration.”

Tom did not know what to say.

“I weep for those who died. I mourn my mother.” She rubbed the amulet around her neck between her fingers. “I am caught between two worlds, Tom. My father is Catholic, and my mother was Buddhist. I just want peace.”

“So do I.”

“This was my mother’s,” Ella said of her necklace. “She gave it to me before I left for Paris. She told me it was for protection. Maybe if she had been wearing it that night, she would still be with us.”

She paused.

“I should be dead. I know it sounds strange, but that night during Tet, the night you saved me, I wasn’t scared. I was wearing this. It gave me strength. I felt my mother was with me. It was as if she was telling me not to worry, that she would protect me. And then she brought you to me. The door opened and all of a sudden you were there. You took the evil away. Then you were kneeling next to me asking if I was hurt.”

Tom swallowed, fighting back his emotions.

“This amulet, she protects me through it.” She turned to him. “Do you believe me?”

Tom nodded.

“And you, do you have something that protects you?”