Pol chuckled and handed up another bottle out of the bag. ‘It’s all under control, my dear Murray!’ He suddenly sounded more cheerful. ‘These sacks will be loaded with the others. The flight is all in order. The weather excellent.’
‘Excellent,’ Murray echoed, as Jackie got out of the Land Rover and stood smiling at him. He smiled back, listening to a small plane whining up into the grey morning.
Over by the side door of the C 46 Ribinovitz stood towering over the crew of Laotians working the forklift. The man in charge had started to jabber in a confusion of pidgin French and English; but Ribinovitz cut him short with what sounded very much like Lao. The man nodded and gave a shrill order to the driver of the forklift, who started to back his vehicle, empty, away from the loading-door in the plane, round to the rear of the tip-truck. Ribinovitz had already hurried back and let down the rear-flaps. The forklift stopped exactly opposite them. Murray watched and thought how easy and simple it all was. Perhaps just a little too easy, too simple. He began to open Pol’s new bottle of whisky, watching in a kind of daze as the two flat spatula forks rose on their pistons to the level of the truck floor. The driver edged forward, sliding the forks deep under the first half-dozen sacks, lifting them a few inches, then reversing slowly, carrying them over to the door of the C 46 where the kickers had now appeared — wiry little men in spotted camouflage who began to wheel the rice-sacks up the roller-tracks into the hull of the aircraft.
Murray went over and stood beside Jackie, glancing down at her hard swelling breasts — calculating that if each of the packets of fifty-dollar bills under her dress contained two hundred and fifty bills, those two breasts at this moment were worth twenty-five thousand dollars. Meanwhile, over by the plane, the next load of sacks was being pushed aboard — a couple of hundred million dollars, at least. Perhaps it was the hard light of day, or just the Johnny Walker, but he began to feel a dull sense of futility.
He said quietly, ‘Jacqueline, chérie!’ — leading her away from the others who were all busy watching the operation over by the plane. ‘Why don’t we just walk away — slowly — now? Over to the main gates and back into town. We’ll take the ferry and be in Thailand in an hour. We’ve got our passports. Our visas are valid. We can be in Bangkok by tonight — if we hurry and make the morning train.’
She had turned and was staring at him, her eyes bright and puzzled. ‘Are you drunk?’ she said suddenly.
‘A little.’
‘You’re mad!’
‘Not mad, love. Practical. Let’s get out while the going’s good. We only have to walk over there to the gates.’
‘Dressed like that!’ Her laugh was more a snort of scorn; and he looked down — at the M16 still slung across his waist, the baggy fatigue pants, the big clumsy combat boots yellow with mud from the dam.
‘I can change in town. You can buy me some new clothes.’
‘I buy you clothes? While you run out — when everything’s going so well!’
‘It’s going too well, Jackie. The alert and then the attack together — that phone call you got before our lunch at the Cercle in Saigon.’
‘I don’t understand. What’s all that got to do with us now? We’ve got the money, haven’t we? We’ve got fifteen hundred million dollars — and now you begin complaining! And it was all your plan in the first place. I just don’t understand you.’
‘It was my plan. But other people are taking over now. It’s no longer in my hands.’
‘What other people?’
‘I don’t know, Jackie.’
She looked at him, slowly, almost brutally, no tenderness or understanding now in those big dark eyes. ‘You want my money?’ she said, touching one breast. ‘You can have it all. But not me. I’m not running.’
He looked wearily back at her, listening to another tiny plane taking off far across the field. ‘Listen, Jackie. With twenty-five thousand dollars we can start all over again. You don’t even have to get rid of your husband now — thanks to Sammy.’
She wrinkled her nose with a sly little smile as she took his arm. ‘Viens, tu dis des bêtises! All nonsense! You talk as though we’re going to be caught. By who? By those little spotter-planes up there? What are they going to find?’
Ryderbeit came over, drawing on a cigar and grinning hugely. ‘Well children? Oh what a beautiful morning — and everything’s coming our way!’
Murray smiled bravely back. ‘When’s the take-off?’
‘In about ten minutes. Ribinovitz has just gone up to start the props.’
‘You’re happy about those two boys, Sammy?’
Ryderbeit shrugged. ‘Well, if you’re happy about Pol, then I’m happy about the pilots. They’ve done all right so far. Why?’
‘No reason,’ said Murray. One of the C 46 engines grunted and swung to life. The forklift was moving back for the last load now. Taylor was climbing up through the cabin door. Murray suddenly felt very, very tired. I’ve had too much bloody whisky, he thought: too much whisky, too much worry. I should be like Ryderbeit, enjoying a king-size cigar at five-thirty in the morning. Or like No-Entry Jones — cool and calm and able — a man who can roll with the punch. He looked at Pol, who had come over to share the Johnny Walker with Ryderbeit, both drinking from the bottle. Jackie had lit a cigarette and stood quietly watching.
Perhaps this is the moment of truth, Murray thought — or the moment before the truth. The misty airfield with the dead brown Ilyushins in the grass beside them and the little ‘Bird-dogs’ droning up half a mile ahead; while less than twenty yards away was a planeload with fifteen hundred million dollars in rice-bags.
Ryderbeit yelled, ‘Right, children, all aboard!’
CHAPTER 4
Murray was half-asleep in his hammock-seat when the plane took off. He dreamt of a tomb of black water where the corpses of two pilots floated slowly about in the casket of a sunken aircraft — of a chateau in France with tall stone walls and a row of Citroën police cars drawing up at the gates — the officer saluting graciously, apologising to madame for the inconvenience…
He woke to see Ryderbeit embracing each of Jackie’s well-stacked bosoms, shouting between kisses, ‘It’ll be the biggest balloon ever built, darling! Cruising speed of over a hundred miles an hour — and a gondola big enough for three hundred people. Bars, casino, nightclub, sunken baths, bedrooms with gold-leaf for wallpaper…’ He looked across at Murray and laughed. ‘You’ll be on the maiden flight, soldier! You and Jackie and Charlie boy here, and we’ll be flyin’ anywhere you like to go. Though I have to be a bit careful where I put foot, on account o’ my troubles. Most o’ the time it’ll just be flyin’ — nice and gentle like, over the Alps, Himalayas, Andes — just where you say, soldier!’
Pol sat opposite them, solemn-faced with the shotgun on his knees and the whisky bottle between his feet. He raised a smile when he caught Murray’s eye, and Ryderbeit shouted, ‘What about you, Charlie? What are you going to do?’
‘I shall get drunk,’ said Pol. ‘Then maybe I shall find an alias and creep into Les Halles at four in the morning and find a bottle of Montrachet and two dozen oysters.’ But there was no joy in his voice, no light in his eye. Perhaps he was just tired too.
‘Where are we?’ said Murray. It was nearly an hour since they’d taken off from Vientiane.
‘Another ninety minutes,’ said Pol.
‘And what about you, No-Entry? What great plans have you got now you’re a multi-millionaire?’ Ryderbeit yelled.
The Negro, who had been dozing behind his dark glasses, stirred up in his seat. ‘I’m a modest man, Sammy. I’ll buy meself a farm maybe — somewhere like in Spain or Mexico where I can breed animals and have a pool-room and a gymnasium, with maybe a boxing ring where I can train a few young fighters. Just strictly a quiet life for me, Sammy.’
Murray fell asleep again. And this time his sleep was heavy and dreamless, unbroken even by the violent jolts and drops as they climbed into the high mountains. Only once, when
he was on the point of waking, did he have a sudden electrifying image. He saw the pilot Taylor, with his slack mouth and button nostrils, at a diplomatic reception in Vientiane, wearing shelves of epaulettes on a dove-grey uniform that hung badly on him as though it had been made for a nobler generation…
He woke in a panic. Ryderbeit was shouting at him, ‘We’re goin’ down, soldier! Fasten your seatbelt, no smoking, we hope you enjoyed your flight and that Air U.SA. has seen the bloody last of us!’
Murray twisted his head, watching through the small round window the clouds racing up towards him, suddenly gone, and he was looking at the ground, tilted on its side like a lime-green wall, with the white thread of a road running across it, joining a town — just a jumble of huts next to a complex of runways looking like criss-crossed strips of Elastoplast. He swallowed hard to clear his ears, holding the metal rungs under his seat, his M16 still laid across his lap, catching Ryderbeit’s eye and seeing him wink and give the thumbs-up sign. The plane flattened out, both engines going strong, flying down low now over rice fields drawn across with fine lines like freshly-cut turf, the edges of the fields dotted with sultana-shaped trees that reminded Murray of those trees they stick on architects’ models.
All around was an amphitheatre of dark hills streaked with rain. There were planes — small bat-winged jets — lined up on the runways in front of a camouflaged control tower. Pol suddenly unfastened his belt, stood up with his shotgun and started to sway clumsily down between the rows of sacks towards the pilot’s cabin.
The plane bumped down a moment later, and Ryderbeit snapped his belt free and stood up, even before they stopped. Murray was shouting above the roar of the reversing props: ‘It’s a bloody big airport they’ve chosen, Sammy!’
But Ryderbeit had already bounded to the open side-door and was peering out, while the plane slewed round to a halt. Murray got up and stood beside him. From the ground the place looked less formidable: a grey Asian town, with the rain splashing off the tarmac. Ryderbeit leapt out, his M16 in his hand, with No-Entry Jones right behind. Murray waited to give Jackie a hand down. Once outside he looked round and saw no sign of Pol or the two pilots. The engines behind them came to a stop. There was a sudden weird silence, broken only by the hiss of rain.
They began to walk together, out across the tarmac towards the control tower. As they did so they saw a number of men coming towards them. Small men in uniform — drab and grey-green like the landscape — flat, short-peaked caps, skeleton-handled machine-pistols in their hands.
Ryderbeit stopped and swung round. ‘Where’s old Charlie?’ he yelled.
Murray grinned unhappily and shook his head. ‘Charlie’s out there in front,’ he said, still walking. Even through the rain he could read the name on the control tower; and now, as he took Jackie gently round the waist and held her tightly, he recognised the framed photograph above the door of the building — the frail, wispy-bearded features of the little man who had once worked as a pastry cook in a London hotel and was now known as Uncle Ho, Hero of the People.
Ryderbeit had seen it too and just stood with his hands helpless round his M16. The soldiers were coming closer — fanning out in two groups, one towards them, the other round towards the C 46.
‘Dien Bien Phu,’ said Jackie softly, with a strange reverence, reading the name on the control tower.
Ryderbeit turned, his gun dropping limply on to the wet tarmac. ‘We’re in North Vietnam,’ he muttered. ‘Fuck!’
***
Want to carry on the adventure? Read GENTLEMAN TRAITOR — Book Three in the Charles Pol Espionage Thriller series.
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ALSO BY ALAN WILLIAMS
THE CHARLES POL SERIES
Barbouze
Gentleman Traitor
Shah-Mak
Dead Secret
Holy of Holies
OTHER NOVELS
Long Run South
The Widow’s War
Snake Water
The Beria Papers
The Brotherhood
Published by Sapere Books.
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Copyright © Alan Williams, 1970.
Alan Williams has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events, other than those clearly in the public domain, are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales are purely coincidental.
eBook ISBN: 9781913335908
The Tale of the Lazy Dog Page 29