Chapter 1: Who I Am

My home, Palm Lagoon in Langley Park, Maryland, sat in an area of peninsulas and swamps, at the spot where the Atlantic and Pacific oceans meet.

Langley Park was considered strategic for military expansions and vital for economic developments, being the center of the important crossroad in the ocean, where main waterways to different countries meet.

Lisa and I joined the American Army. I was Army Specialist Lisa Komtum, coordinating military intelligence with remote field operations.  I was serving a tour of duty in Vietnam. Laura Manning was Army Private First Class also on her final tour of duty in Vietnam.  

On this scouring mission, to scour the combat zones for the rebels ambushing the American soldiers, we sat next to each other on the edge of the Gold Nuggets River flowing through Saigon, to watch for the boats sailing toward the U.S. Army base in Cu Chi Bay. We heard the sound of the boats’ engines coming close.  The boats had a dim headlight on their brows.

The wind blew in gusts, sending the leaves falling fast to scatter on the river’s surface. Laura looked at the overcast sky. I looked toward a hut located in the Mystery Forest where helicopters could not land. “Laura, look,” I said, “Thieves are removing bronze statues of American soldiers from the Allied Marine Memorial Monument.”   

The boats stopped at a dock near where we sat. At this section of the river, the water flowed in fast undercurrents.

“Oh no,” Laura said. “Who are those men in black stocking head covers, with their evil eyes glaring through the holes in the head covers?” She looked at me for guidance.

“They sure look ferocious,” I said. “We must be careful to stay out of their way, and not blow our cover. It’s best for us to avoid being seen.”

The disguised men got off the boats and walked up the steps of the dock.  We heard a rattle coming from inside a hedge behind us, and saw footprints with clearly defined boot treads imprinted on the dirt track leading away from the hedge and toward the hut.

We crawled to the hedge on our stomachs and carefully pushed open space in the hedge, and froze upon seeing a camera perched on the twigs.

We followed the footprints and came up to the hut surrounded by papaya trees. Upon deciding that the hut was abandoned, we entered it.

I nudged the door slightly and it opened. Laura stepped through the door to the first floor, and walked over to the right to stare at the blank screen of and old television, then turned to look out of the glass window with straw mat serving as curtain. 

As I entered the quiet room after Laura, the smells of tobacco smoke and of Rebel Whiskey greeted my nostrils. I turned up my nose and sniffed, trying to detect the smell of cassava that the rebels were well known for routinely eating for meals.

That’s it. I smelled a faint odor of boiled cassava, and it seemed to come from upstairs. Despite my misgivings about us possibly being near rebels, but the hut seeming to be empty of occupants, and there being no sounds of voices or movements, I decided to give it a shot. I walked over to the window and stood beside her, looking at the dirt driveway leading from the front of the hut to the river.

 At the bottom of the driveway, a mimosa tree stands at the curb on one side of the driveway. LED light fixtures installed on top of the poles standing by the tree illuminated the whole area of the hut. Jeeps parked haphazardly by the tree.

From the window, we watched the disguised men get down from the jeeps and walk up the driveway toward the window. As they approached haft way to the window, another man in normal civilian clothing walked up to them.

A disguised man called by the others as Rebel Leader Tony Chan grabbed the civilian man by the collar and kept jabbing his finger at the man’s face as he spoke. The man just stood with his head hung low as he listened to the leader.

“We’ve got intelligence all wrong,” Tony Chan growled. “Useless informer. After all, someone selected by me should have what it takes to fulfill the Rebel Revolutionary Party’s expectations. I'll let you useless informer know what stuff I’m made of.”

The man winced while the leader continued in angrier tone. “Useless informer, I'll put you to work in detonating explosives and detecting mines by walking barefoot across suspected minefields in the ground of the Assassin Jungle."

I saw American Military Police jeeps coming from the direction of the Army National Military Cemetery. The disguised men all hopped back into their jeeps and pulled them out of the parking space, the engines surging at a wild high speed and the tires scraping against gravel as they drove away. The man looked toward the window where we were looking out.

“Let’s get out of here any way we can.” Lisa said. “I sense danger coming.” 

As we turned to walk out the door, we heard the voice of Rebel Leader Tony Chan coming down from upstairs. “I’m the most feared rebel leader. If I caught anyone infiltrating into our secret operation hut here, I’ll eat them alive.”

Laura glanced at me, her eyes wide in fear. I signaled with my eyes and hands for us to get out of there. But there were rebels standing guards out in front.

Amid the howling wind hissing through the crack between the windowpanes, we heard the voices of people talking in a conspiratorial tone coming from outside the hut, and saw the informer handling bags of boiled cassavas to the guarding rebels. They all sat down to eat the cassava and drink Rebel Whiskey to drunkenness.

As we stood figuring how to get out of the house without being seen, we saw hedgehogs carrying twigs with green leaves coming in and out through a hole in the wall wide enough for one person to crawl through. They carried twigs into the room and gnawed on the leaves to eat them. They kept going out and coming back in carrying more leafy twigs. This indicated the hole led to the outside. And I remembered seeing this type of hedges only on the side of the hut where there were no windows on the wall.

Lisa and crawled through the hole in single file and got out of the hut. We ran away down a path and got to the top of the path where it met the road. We saw disguised men trying to hide the bronze statues they had stolen among the rocks near the hut. Nearby, sunflower plants stood waving in the sunlight.

Then we were surrounded by the disguised men.

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An American military rescuing helicopter circled over the area and dropped parachute flares.

We scrambled to climb up to a rise in the ground and found a collapsed parachute at the edge of the river. We cut the parachute into strips and tied them together to make a string. Then we formed the string into SOS on the ground. We raised our hands high and waved at the sky.

A rescuing helicopter zoomed down toward us and hovered over our heads. Steel ropes were lowered down for us. Just as the ropes reached us, the disguised men shot at the helicopters, and they flew away.

We saw American Marines drop out of helicopters at a nearby section of the river. The disguised men and the American Marines engaged in shooting.

We loaded the stolen bronze statues onto a docked speedboat of the disguised men. When we were done loading the statues, we climbed into the boat.

The river was churning in waves. Laura was standing at the edge of the boat. The disguised men charged out of the trees and came toward us. I raised the speed of the boat, and as it swerved and shot away, Laura’s arms flailing for balance as she fell into the water.

When the boat was out to a safe distance in the ocean, I stopped the boat and looked toward the shore for Laura, but she was nowhere to be seen. The disguised men were walking away and Laura was not among them. 

I sped the boat back to the spot where Laura had fallen into the water and waited for a while, but she never came up again. I dug up a sunflower plant and planted it at the spot where Private First Class Laura Manning had fallen.

After the tour of duty in Vietnam, I came back to my hometown in Langley Park, Maryland. I spent most of her time aimlessly wandering around on the streets of Langley Park.

I was offered a job working for the CIA in the Langley Park government complex. I was a computer geek who wrote computer programs that Cross-check a suspect fingerprint against other prints in police databases.

A gang of three named Werewolfpack had come to Langley Park and carried out gang activities. All three members of the Werewofpack have matching fingerprints.

The U.S. government had tracked down the Werewofpack they said working out of my house and thrown a dragnet around the house.

I had rigged up a high-tech surveillance antenna connecting from the outdoor underground camouflaged secret room to my house.

I saw plain clothes FBI agents from a Maryland field office parachute down from the Search and Capture helicopters and land around my house. I ran into the secret room to hide.

I was able to watch the FBI agents raiding my home, combing through every rooms in the house, breaking open my safe with a crowbar.

I heard an FBI agent saying the search warrant was related to Werewolfpack’s gang activities. 

What the hell? The FBI agents came out of my house carrying only the big carton box that contained free sample boxes of new designed condoms I was supposed to deliver to advertising agencies.     

I had gone on the run and the CIA set up a manhunt for me.  

While on the run, I saw a house with sunflower plants growing in the garden at the back of the house. I sneaked out to the sunflower plants, staring at them.

I saw a face looking out of the house’s window. Then police cars came and surrounded me.

After looking at my identification papers, a Police Officer said, “We’ve found Army specialist Lisa Komtum at last.”

The police took me to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, a Military hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.

The psychologist at the hospital Timothy Harmon looked at me, gauging my expressions. “Are You Happy?”

I looked into space past the psychologist. “No, I'm not happy at all.”

“Can you please tell me why you’re here?” the psychologist asked.

 I looked at psychologist Timothy Harmon. “You have no authority to seek information from the President of the United States.”

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