“Well, it’s been a fake ever since that 1975 revolution. Even now the authorities are unwilling to let any archaeological experts probe and scrutinise the image. They know what the results would dig up. What stands in Luang Phabang today is old and valuable in its own right, a medieval Buddha taken from a temple outside of Vientiane. What it is certainly not is the original Pha Bang. The one sitting pretty for world leaders to marvel at and kiss is a heavily doctored fraud. The jewels are of a poor quality and the gold thin and of a low carat.”
“So what’s the story with the original?” Mike enquired.
“There was utter chaos as the war came to a close in 1975. All kinds of rumours were circulating. The main players in the revolution were the Pathet Laos, a communist inspired outfit that ousted the government and took power, a privilege they still hold today. Naturally they could not do this on their own, so had the backing of Chinese and Soviet paymasters, who could pull a lot of strings. Both had military advisors at ground level with mind warping power and unorthodox methods to their work. Amongst the first casualties were the revered Royal family.”
“Yeah, I read about that. Weren’t they squirreled away in some cave?” He remembered reading of this in one of the guide books on the long ride up from Bangkok..
“More likely starved to death! They were never seen again. Stuck them away from the world gaze in some dark hole. If they were capable of ditching their royal heritage in such a savage way they were certainly capable of illicitly procuring a precious Buddha. I expect they knew the importance of the Pha Bang to the general populace in both a spiritual and cultural sense. They got away with disposing of the Royal family but would not get away with looting the national treasure.”
“So they took it away?”
“Not without a suitable replica being fronted as the real thing. For this they required a Buddha of a certain age. They were few around in 1975, many finding themselves in show gardens of Chinese dignitaries as conversation pieces. Others suffered extensive war damage and were consigned to exhibits in western museums. But perseverance saw them through and they were able to source the remnants of one from a looted temple on the outskirts of Vientiane. It was not as old and lacked the gold and jewel adornments, though still bore the scars from several centuries of sitting on a cold platform in front of queues of faithful pilgrims. It was also incomplete, damaged beyond repair, stripped of jewellery and cut to pieces. It was near perfect! The trick was the age of the metal they were working with. What they had was an old Buddha that at least could pass rudimentary checks. Most would be too relived to see it there after the revolution at all. There were plenty of gifted goldsmiths scattered around Thailand, an art most tourists today can admire. All they needed were a few enhancements in the jewellery department, a recast body and they were free to switch it with the genuine piece.”
“OK, but that still doesn’t explain why we are here. Surely the real Pha Bang would be safely tucked up in a Moscow subterranean cubby-hole beneath a bureaucrat’s villa. Either that or it would be long smelted for all those juicy ingredients?”
“I guess that was the idea Mike. They probably intended to treat is as a heist and spread the spoils. The big factor in all of this was that 1975 was something of a chaotic year in Laos. They were in the midst of a nasty revolution don’t forget! The logistics for moving a large priceless Buddha were far from favourable. Moving it across borders without detection proved too tricky. There were too many armed factions around. Things were unstable and highly dangerous.”
“You mean that the Pha Bang never left the country?”
“It probably made it no further than the plains. Given the time and the utter chaos surrounding the country this was probably the obvious choice. It served as the front line for many years in the struggle for power. The place was remote and lawless, near ideal. There were plenty of non-charted caves and the like. Loads of stuff must have been secreted away during that period. I figure they hoped to stash it away quietly until the situation settled.”
“So what then happened?” Mike was enthralled with Louise’s depth of knowledge and passion for something he was just starting to get a handle on.
“Luckily for us our bureaucratic friends in Vientiane love to document. They became very good at it, largely in recording forced submissions and vows against capitalist evils, that sort of thing. Someone high up in the grey buildings of government, PC38 I would guess, decided that they should record this secret resting place of the Pha Bang. Perhaps in doing so they thought it gave the whole exercise some credibility. With a spot of canny foresight they split the record into two documents and ensured it was written in Russian.”
Louise took a moment to adjust her blouse, aware of several mosquitoes humming in the background. She didn’t want any further red blemishes adding to those causing irritation around her navel. Before Mike could phrase a further question she continued with her graphical insight.
“With so much instability, staff and military advisors were changing constantly. There was a huge amount of distrust. Some went back to Russia, others straight to the morgue. Don’t forget there was still a lot of terrorist activity, causing near bureaucratic meltdown. In one such case the archives themselves were hit by a bomb carried down in a battered suitcase. Soon after one-clued up defector got hold of some files and fled to Thailand. His temptation was probably financial gain rather than by any political ambition. Luckily there was a good deal of useful stuff that would otherwise have been lost forever. They included one half of the Russian transcript. This found its way to a back office desk at the American embassy in Bangkok. There it sat, waiting to be noticed for its sheer importance.”
Again astounded by her knowledge, Mike pushed her forward. “So what then?”
“Well, sadly a few years passed whilst it languished in a brown envelope, catalogued for future reference. Then came the eighties. We’re not talking big hair and shoulder pads. A new war was brewing, a small border conflict few in the west knew was happening. This time there were different armies scrambling for power in the jungles; the new communist Laos troops backed by China and well equipped Thai soldiers, covertly aided by the CIA. It was more a skirmish than a full-blown war. After some months little was gained other than a few spears being pointed around.”
“Whilst the Thai’s put down their troops in the front-line and provided the visible muscle-power, the Americans took care of the intelligence. They used a few left over contacts from the Vietnam War to run sorties within Laos. Amongst these useful allies were tribal Hmong, many still in hiding in the mountains and rural plains. Regular drops were organised to provide them with vital equipment and information. It kept them going in their natural hatred for the Laos government. The American’s loved it because they were virulently anti-communist and they were able to maintain a level of instability within the troubled region. ”
“At some point some bright spark at the US Embassy in Bangkok came across the Russian transcript. I guess they presumed the document to be important as it referred to a cave system on the Plan of Jars with mention to a hidden icon. They almost certainly didn’t realise that it was one of two. Without having access to the plain directly, they decided to arrange for this document to be dropped in to Laos on a regular sortie in order that Hmong allied to the CIA could go looking for it. They never received the canister and without briefing were unaware of its importance.”
“Wow, that’s some story” Mike replied, aware he was digesting some potentially explosive information. “Is this where Dan comes into the picture, your newly discovered Canadian father!”
“I know, this is where it gets even crazier. Yes, Dan was flying some of these covert missions, more as a freelance than anything else. On this particular mission he hit some engine troubles before the drop. He was several thousand feet above the tree-tops and braced himself for a severe crash landing. All he could see were trees. As he brought th
e plane down he noticed a disguised clearing, a gap that might just save him. This was an area inhabited by Ping and his Hmong, secretly cultivated for the crops you’ve seen.”
“I guess there must have been a lot of suspicion at first?”
Louise flicked a further insect away before continuing. She no longer noticed how often she did this. “Sure, as he scrambled from the plane he was soon surrounded. At the time he was looked on as a possible government spy, maybe even on some form of international customs sortie. They were naturally worried about their livelihood. After the passing of some weeks the suspicion lifted. Dan gradually became accepted.”
“The wreckage was left for a while. Living so remotely in the jungle the Hmong were uninterested in many of the gadgets and saw no purpose in rummaging through the craft. If anything the kids adopted it. There aren’t any toyshops out this way. They saw it as a gift sent from the gods! They got to explore every inch, eventually pulling out the delivery canisters which made their way back to base. As the documents were written in Russian nobody could read them, never mind realise the importance.”
“Hope you’re still with me?” She gave the briefest of smiles, knowing that Mike was hooked on her story as much as one of the wide-eyed bar skivvies in Vientiane was a doll to opium. She needed his unwavering support and trust.
“This was what Dan hit on yesterday,” Mike replied, barely needing to prompt. Louise was close to full flow.
“That’s right. There’s a lot more to it though. As you know, an associate of Ping’s came to the camp to spend time with the Hmong. He had a varied career, one that began in civil service in the Laotian capital. Ping used him more over the years as he possessed a number of talents. One of the more legal ones was a fluency in three languages, including Russian, learnt at the state university. One day, more as a parlour game than serious exercise, Ping gave the Russian document to him in order to see if it made any sense. You can imagine the tense excitement that came once he deciphered a historic walk-through of what the Laos communists did with the Pha Bang years before!”
“The catch-point was that it was only one of two. When the Pha Bang was being secretly squirreled away they needed to index its final resting place. They knew that this document would end up as a new age treasure map. To save it getting into the wrong hands, or perhaps the right hands depending on your point-of-view, they split the exact coded location in two. Both parts were needed to pinpoint which cubby hole they sealed it in.”
“So having got our hands on one document, it was a race to find the other before powerful adversaries got there first.”
Once again, Mike noticed how aligned Louise was with her new cause. When she spoke, the word “our” came up time and again. She’d rarely showed this much passion, even when the topic of Bristol City FC came up at the Poacher back in Portishead.
“This was the one with the national archive,” he asked. “Did you find it?”
“Well, you’re right about the archive. We figured if it still existed it would remain with the national archives. Many of the documents from the war period were moved over to the museum storerooms for historical reference. Naturally we did our best to begin searching as soon as we could. We managed to get a sympathiser within the museum to spend time routing through the mountains of paperwork. We had no idea what it would be listed under. Many of the files were still interned in cargo boxes, nailed shut to keep both spiders and prying eyes away. It was an impossible task.”
“Anyway I suppose a more direct answer to your question would be no. No we did not find the second document. Despite such a thorough search nothing ever came up. We can only imagine and fear that the other half of the document has landed up in the grip of someone less sympathetic to the Pha Bang’s historical and spiritual properties. We are talking of something priceless here, beyond measure in wealth. It doesn’t come with a barcode and price-tag. We already know that the cost was too tempting for our translator. In spilling the beans he paid with his life, a knife attack outside the museum. There are criminal gangs out there happy to melt down the precious metals and seal wasted dollars in a Swiss bank account. Others simply want it to disappear, stay hidden from the world’s lens. Its sudden emergence would raise many uncomfortable questions. They’ll all kill. Most would hope you died slowly. In coming this far with us you’re in more danger than you could possibly imagine.”
“Thanks for your optimism and that, but how can we find this golden Buddha without both documents?” Mike replied, knowing that Louise would have already thought of this one.
“We’re expecting a guest - a very special one.” Louise explained. “A local villager witnessed some trucks turn up near here towards the end of the war. Nothing too unusual in that other than the fact that they turned up under cover of night, used some regular army POWs with rollers and winches to unload a large crate. He got a sneak preview before the shooting started. All of the POWs were massacred on the spot, their bodies burnt. A few local boys from the village joined them, gunned down for getting too close. After the men left he ran for the safety of his village, too scared to think on it any further. The elders claimed there was a curse on the plain and forbade anyone to venture there. Many thought that evil spirits brought on these acts of bloody violence. It was a long time before anyone returned.”
Mike could see Louise deep in thought, presumably recreating the scene within her mind. Too many people had died on the plain, many of them innocent of any crime save being there. The plain still omitted a feeling of unknown vengeance to this day. Any traveller caught alone would be sure to feel the same unsettling shiver. He thought of leaving her in quiet contemplation before she looked up, suddenly aware that she needed to finish.
“Anyway, luckily for us we have one brave villager on our side. He saw where they were heading all of those years ago and thinks he can lead us to the entrance of the cave.”
Mike left soon afterwards, eager to be with his own thoughts and digest much of what he had just learnt. He slowly moved between some of the urns, careful where he trod. They reminded him of ancient chimneys, feeding the smoke away from hidden homes far below the ground. Although Dan said the experts believed them to be funeral urns he preferred the romantic version, the long forgotten king storing his rice wine to share at banquets to come. The plain gave a feel of the fairy tale, a place so remote that it felt strangely alien and magical. Keep an eye out for the wicked witch and you just might make it OK.
Looking at his mobile phone he was amazed to see he now had a signal. He typed in a number memorised on his journey.
Thirty
Peter Vaughn was a man who took his job seriously. By his very nature, he was an outdoors man. Deep tanned forearms spoke of a person whose career path matched his aspirations. Decades in the wind and sun helped carve a dark weathered look, a skin no longer sensitive to bursts of rain or dry gusts of brittle wind. In this respect the plains treated him very well. Rising soon after sunrise, he would make his way to an isolated area of the plain, one which he had now been visiting for many weeks. Here he would stay going about his day just long enough to witness the beautiful sunsets, crimson light sign posting his way back to base. Rarely would he see more than a handful of people, most of those on the two mile walk to the town where he billeted himself.
Before him was the chromed arm for the detector. With so many pieces of shrapnel densely embedded, each square metre alerted him continually, audible bleeps exposing foreign bodies scattered deep within the grainy soil, until he might find traces of explosive, unstable and apt to rip apart any footsteps causing sudden movement from above. Most days he struck gold, unearthing many fragments of the anti-personnel mines buried like sleeping sharks. Not only was the Plain of Jars the most bombed place on the planet; it was also one of the most mined. Most were several decades past their used date and frequently blew off violently of their own accord. The job was one of the more dangerous and stre
ssful on the UN statute books. Good applicants were hard to find. The health and safety manual seemed to skip the section on risk management.
Not that Peter worked for the UN anymore. That was left behind soon after retiring from his engineering regiment. These days he jokingly referred to himself as a charity worker, though admittedly not the type who wrote letters for good causes. His current employer was a local one, translated roughly as “Safety for All”. They specialised in mine detection, specifically on the plain, where they wouldn’t be short of work for many years to come. Most of the budget came from national and international bodies, enough to employ a number of western contractors full-time. Their brief was to carry out an active de-mining program; whilst passing on skills to an eager local population, happy to reclaim greater expanses of farmland from the lush plain and provide a safe haven for their children and livestock. Peter preferred to give brief demonstrations to handfuls of locals, though rarely took any out into the field. Here he worked alone. Partly this was because working a live minefield required utmost concentration, being an area of extreme mortal danger, but largely because he liked it this way.
Which was why he was particularly sensitive to strangers. In this part of the plain it was so quiet you could point out every animal crossing within a mile. People were a category to themselves. Human activity stood up like the hills around them. Nothing could go unnoticed to Peter.
Strange then that he should spy two unusual groups, both travelling in the same direction, an area even he had yet to map out and clear. Early in the day the trucks had arrived, old agricultural ones with canvas awnings and running boards. The thumping diesels scattered birds long before he made out the dust accompanying the small convoy. Figures ran before it, pushing rudimentary rollers chained up to ignite high level mines and unspent explosives. It was highly risky but surely they had their reasons. The route taken appeared to come under the direction of an enthusiastic local, easily identified by a light cotton tunic worn by many in this region for generations. With local knowledge they might stand half-a-chance of steering through the plain without losing most of their trucks and occupants in an eruption of spent explosive. Only half though.
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