Mai

The book commences at the end of hostilities known as the Indochina Wars. A high ranking French officer, near death, is taken from a field hospital by a Viet Minh intelligence officer and spirited out of the country to Hong Kong. The French authorities target him as the scapegoat for the disaster. The North Vietnamese need him because of the topography charts and maps he has made which will be used in the forthcoming battle against the South. A brief but fortuitous relationship with his chief surgeon will set him up in a business empire that reaches all the way to America and France. His maps guide a new American transport plane, the Spider, en route from Khe Sanh to bring down a Russian Mig 21 in Thunder Canyon. His stepson, Jean, the son of the Viet Minh officer who helped him escape to Hong Kong follows his stepfather’s career and graduates from the Sorbonne as a civil engineer. He is posted to French Guiana and Berlin, finds the love of his life in the Chocolate Box in Paris, and thwarts a terrorist attack on the Moroccan King. Finally, he is approached by his old friend Yuri the KGB chief in East Germany who needs his help.