Whistleblower and Never Say Die

by Tess Gerritsen

  She heard the squeak of wheels, the wheeze of an out-of-breath driver. Now Oliver’s uncles had joined the procession.

  “Go away,” she said. “I don’t want a ride.”

  “Sun very hot, very strong today. Maybe you faint. Once I see Russian lady faint.” Oliver shook his head at the memory. “It was very bad sight.”

  “Go away!”

  Undaunted, Oliver turned to Guy. “How about you, Daddy?”

  Guy slapped a few bills into Oliver’s grubby hand. “There’s a thousand. Now scram.”

  Oliver vanished. Unfortunately, Guy wasn’t so easily brushed off. He followed Willy into the town marketplace, past stands piled high with melons and mangoes, past counters where freshly butchered meat gathered flies.

  “I was going to tell you about your father,” Guy said. “I just wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”

  “I’m not afraid of the truth.”

  “Sure you are! You’re trying to protect him. That’s why you keep ignoring the evidence.”

  “He wasn’t a traitor!”

  “You still love him, don’t you?”

  She turned sharply and walked away. Guy was right beside her. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Did I hit a nerve?”

  “Why should I care about him? He walked out on us.”

  “And you still feel guilty about it.”

  “Guilty?” She stopped. “Me?”

  “That’s right. Somewhere in that little-girl head of yours, you still blame yourself for his leaving. Maybe you had a fight, the way kids and dads always do, and you said something you shouldn’t have. But before you had the chance to make up, he took off. And his plane went down. And here you are, twenty years later, still trying to make it up to him.”

  “Practicing psychiatry without a license now?”

  “It doesn’t take a shrink to know what goes on in a kid’s head. I was fourteen when my old man walked out. I never got over being abandoned, either. Now I worry about my own kid. And it hurts.”

  She stared at him, astonished. “You have a child?”

  “In a manner of speaking.” He looked down. “The boy’s mother and I, we weren’t married. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  You walked out on them, she thought. Your father left you. You left your son. The world never changes.

  “He wasn’t a traitor,” she insisted, returning to the matter at hand. “He was a lot of things—irresponsible, careless, insensitive. But he wouldn’t turn against his own country.”

  “But he’s on that list of suspects. If he’s not Friar Tuck himself, he’s probably connected somehow. And it’s got to be a dangerous link. That’s why someone’s trying to stop you. That’s why you’re hitting brick walls wherever you turn. That’s why, with every step you take, you’re being followed.”

  “What!” In reflex, she turned to scan the crowd.

  “Don’t be so obvious.” Guy grabbed her arm and dragged her to a pharmacy window. “Man at two o’clock,” he murmured, nodding at a reflection in the glass. “Blue shirt, black trousers.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I just don’t know who he’s working for.”

  “He looks Vietnamese.”

  “But he could be working for the Russians. Or the Chinese. They both have a stake in this country.”

  Even as she stared at the reflection, the man in the blue shirt melted into the crowd. She knew he was still lingering nearby; she could feel his gaze on her back.

  “What do I do, Guy?” she whispered. “How do I get rid of him?”

  “You can’t. Just keep in mind he’s there. That you’re probably under constant surveillance. In fact, we seem to be under the surveillance of a whole damn army.” At least a dozen faces were now reflected there, all of them crowded close and peering curiously at the two foreigners. In the back, a familiar figure kept bouncing up and down, waving at them in the glass.

  “Hello, Daddy!” came a yell.

  Guy sighed. “We can’t even get rid of him.”

  Willy stared hard at Guy’s reflection. And she thought, But I can get rid of you.

  Major Nathan Donnell of the Casualty Resolution team had shocking red hair, a booming voice and a cigar that stank to high heaven. Guy didn’t know which was worse—the stench of that cigar or the odor of decay emanating from the four skeletons on the table. Maybe that’s why Nate smoked those rotten cigars; they masked the smell of death.

  The skeletons, each labeled with an ID number, were laid out on separate tarps. Also on the table were four plastic bags containing the personal effects and various other items found with the skeletons. After twenty or more years in this climate, not much remained of these bodies except dirt-encrusted bones and teeth. At least that much was left; sometimes fragments were all they had to work with.

  Nate was reading aloud from the accompanying reports. In that grim setting, his resonant voice sounded somehow obscene, echoing off the walls of the Quonset hut. “Number 784-A, found in jungle, twelve klicks west of Camp Hawthorne. Army dog tag nearby—name, Elmore Stukey, Pfc.”

  “The tag was lying nearby?” Guy asked. “Not around the neck?”

  Nate glanced at the Vietnamese liaison officer, who was standing off to the side. “Is that correct? It wasn’t around the neck?”

  The Vietnamese man nodded. “That is what the report said.”

  “Elmore Stukey,” muttered Guy, opening the man’s military medical record. “Six foot two, Caucasian, perfect teeth.” He looked at the skeleton. Just a glance at the femur told him the man on the table couldn’t have stood much taller than five-six. He shook his head. “Wrong guy.”

  “Cross off Stukey?”

  “Cross off Stukey. But note that someone made off with his dog tag.”

  Nate let out a morbid laugh. “Not a good sign.”

  “What about these other three?”

  “Oh, those.” Nate flipped to another report. “Those three were found together eight klicks north of LZ Bird. Had that U.S. Army helmet lying close by. Not much else around.”

  Guy focused automatically on the relevant details: pelvic shape, configuration of incisors. “Those two are females, probably Asian,” he noted. “But that one…” He took out a tape measure, ran it along the dirt-stained femur. “Male, five foot nine or thereabouts. Hmm. Silver fillings on numbers one and two.” He nodded. “Possible.”

  Nate glanced at the Vietnamese liaison officer. “Number 786-A. I’ll be flying him back for further examination.”

  “And the others?”

  “What do you think, Guy?”

  Guy shrugged. “We’ll take 784-A, as well. Just to be safe. But the two females are yours.”

  The Vietnamese nodded. “We will make the arrangements,” he said, and quietly withdrew.

  There was a silence as Nate lit up another cigar, shook out the match. “Well, you sure made quick work of it. I wasn’t expecting you here till tomorrow.”

  “Something came up.”

  “Yeah?” Nate’s expression was thoughtful through the stinking cloud of smoke. “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Maybe.”

  Nate nodded toward the door. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps.”

  They walked outside and stood in the dusty courtyard of the old military compound. Barbed wire curled on the wall above them. A rattling air conditioner dripped water from a window of the Quonset hut.

  “So,” said Nate, contentedly puffing on his cigar. “Is this business or personal?”

  “Both. I need some information.”

  “Not classified, I hope.”

  “You tell me.”

  Nate laughed and squinted up at the barbed wire. “I may not tell you anything. But ask anyway.”

  “You were on the repatriation team back in ’73, right?”

  “Seventy-three through ’75. But my job didn’t amount to much. Just smi
led a lot and passed out razors and toothbrushes. You know, a welcome-home handshake for returning POWs.”

  “Did you happen to shake hands with any POWs from Tuyen Quan?”

  “Not many. Half a dozen. That was a pretty miserable camp. Had an outbreak of typhoid near the end. A lot of ’em died in captivity.”

  “But not all of them. One of the POWs was a guy named Luis Valdez. Remember him?”

  “Just the name. And only because I heard he shot himself the day after he got home. I thought it was a crying shame.”

  “Then you never met him?”

  “No, he went through closed debriefing. Totally separate channel. No outside contact.”

  Guy frowned, wondering about that closed debriefing. Why had Intelligence shut Valdez off from the others?

  “What about the other POWs from Tuyen Quan?” asked Guy. “Did anyone talk about Valdez? Mention why he was kept apart?”

  “Not really. Hey, they were a pretty delirious bunch. All they could talk about was going home. Seeing their families. Anyway, I don’t think any of them knew Valdez. The camp held its prisoners two to a cell, and Valdez’s cellmate wasn’t in the group.”

  “Dead?”

  “No. Refused to get on the plane. If you can believe it.”

  “Didn’t want to fly?”

  “Didn’t want to go home, period.”

  “You remember his name?”

  “Hell, yes. I had to file a ten-page report on the guy. Lassiter. Sam Lassiter. Incident got me a reprimand.”

  “What happened?”

  “We tried to drag him aboard. He kept yelling that he wanted to stay in Nam. And he was this big blond Viking, you know? Six foot four, kicking and screaming like a two-year-old. Should’ve seen the Vietnamese, laughing at it all. Anyway, the guy got loose and tore off into the crowd. At that point, we figured, what the hell. Let the jerk stay if he wants to.”

  “Then he never went home?”

  Nate blew out a cloud of cigar smoke. “Never did. For a while, we tried to keep tabs on him. Last we heard, he was sighted over in Cantho, but that was a few years ago. Since then he could’ve moved on. Or died.” Nate glanced around at the barren compound. “Nuts—that’s my diagnosis. Gotta be nuts to stay in this godforsaken country.”

  Maybe not, thought Guy. Maybe he didn’t have a choice.

  “What happened to the other guys from Tuyen?” Guy asked. “After they got home?”

  “They had the usual problems. Post-traumatic-stress reaction, you know. But they adjusted okay. Or as well as could be expected.”

  “All except Valdez.”

  “Yeah. All except Valdez.” Nate flicked off a cigar ash. “Couldn’t do a thing for him, or for wackos like Lassiter. When they’re gone, they’re gone. All those kids—they were too young for that war. Didn’t have their heads together to begin with. Whenever I think of Lassiter and Valdez, it makes me feel pretty damn useless.”

  “You did what you could.”

  Nate nodded. “Well, I guess we’re good for something.” Nate sighed and looked over at the Quonset hut. “At least 786-A’s finally going home.”

  The Russians were singing again. Otherwise it was a pleasant enough evening. The beer was cold, the bartender discreetly attentive. From his perch at the rooftop bar, Guy watched the Russkies slosh another round of Stolichnaya into their glasses. They, at least, seemed to be having a good time; it was more than he could say for himself.

  He had to come up with a plan, and fast. Everything he’d learned, from Alain Gerard that morning and from Nate Donnell that afternoon, had backed up what he’d already suspected: that Willy Maitland was in over her pretty head. He was convinced that the attack in Bangkok hadn’t been a robbery attempt. Someone was out to stop her. Someone who didn’t want her rooting around in Bill Maitland’s past. The CIA? The Vietnamese? Wild Bill himself?

  That last thought he discarded as impossible. No man, no matter how desperate, would send someone to attack his own daughter.

  But what if it had been meant only as a warning? A scare tactic?

  All the possibilities, all the permutations, were giving Guy a headache. Was Maitland alive? What was his connection to Friar Tuck? Were they one and the same man?

  Why was the Ariel Group involved?

  That was the other part of the puzzle—the Ariel Group. Guy mentally replayed that visit they’d paid him two weeks ago. The two men who’d appeared in his office had been unremarkable: clean shaven, dark suits, nondescript ties, the sort of faces you’d forget the instant they walked out your door. Only when they’d presented the check for twenty thousand dollars did he sit up and take notice. Whoever they were, they had cash to burn. And there was more money waiting—a lot more—if only he’d do them one small favor: locate a certain pilot known as Friar Tuck. “Your patriotic duty,” they’d called it. The man was a traitor, a red-blooded American who’d gone over to the other side. Still, Guy had hesitated. It wasn’t his kind of job. He wasn’t a bounty hunter.

  That’s when they’d played their trump card.

  Ariel, Ariel. He kept mulling over the name. Something Biblical. Lionlike men. Odd name for a vets organization. If that’s what they were.

  Ariel wasn’t the only group hunting the elusive Friar Tuck. The CIA had a bounty on the man. For all Guy knew, the Vietnamese, the French and the men from Mars were after the pilot, as well.

  And at the very eye of the hurricane was naive, stubborn, impossible Willy Maitland.

  That she was so damnably attractive only made things worse. She was a maddening combination of toughness and vulnerability, and he’d been torn between using her and protecting her. Did any of that make sense?

  The rhythmic thud of disco music drifted up from a lower floor. He considered heading downstairs to find some willing dance partner and trample a few toes. As he took another swallow of beer, a familiar figure passed through his peripheral vision. Turning, he saw Willy head for a table near the railing. He wondered if she’d consider joining him for a drink.

  Obviously not, he decided, seeing how determinedly she was ignoring him. She stared off at the night, her back rigid, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. A strand of tawny hair slid over her cheek, and she tucked it behind her ear, a tight little gesture that made him think of a schoolmarm.

  He decided to ignore her, too. But the more fiercely he tried to shove all thought of her from his mind, the more her image seemed to burn into his brain. Even as he focused his gaze on the bartender’s dwindling bottle of Stolichnaya, he felt her presence, like a crackling fire radiating somewhere behind him.

  What the hell. He’d give it one more try.

  He shoved to his feet and strode across the rooftop.

  Willy sensed his approach but didn’t bother to look up, even when he grabbed a chair, sat down and leaned across the table.

  “I still think we can work together,” he said.

  She sniffed. “I doubt it.”

  “Can’t we at least talk about it?”

  “I don’t have a thing to say to you, Mr. Barnard.”

  “So it’s back to Mr. Barnard.”

  Her frigid gaze met his across the table. “I could call you something else. I could call you a—”

  “Can we skip the sweet talk? Look, I’ve been to see a friend of mine—”

  “You have friends? Amazing.”

  “Nate was part of the welcome-home team back in ’75. Met a lot of returning POWs. Including the men from Tuyen Quan.”

  Suddenly she looked interested. “He knew Luis Valdez?”

  “No. Valdez was routed through classified debriefing. No one got near him. But Valdez had a cellmate in Tuyen Quan, a man named Sam Lassiter. Nate says Lassiter didn’t go home.”

  “He died?”

  “He never left the country.”

  She leaned forward, her whole body suddenly rigid with excitement. “He’s still here in Nam?”

  “Was a few years ago anyway. In Cantho. It’s a river town
in the Delta, about a hundred and fifty kilometers southwest of here.”

  “Not very far,” she said, her mind obviously racing. “I could leave tomorrow morning…get there by afternoon…”

  “And just how are you going to get there?”

  “What do you mean, how? By car, of course.”

  “You think Mr. Ainh’s going to let you waltz off on your own?”

  “That’s what bribes are for. Some people will do anything for a buck. Won’t they?”

  He met her hard gaze with one equally unflinching. “Forget the damn money. Don’t you see someone’s trying to use both of us? I want to know why.” He leaned forward, his voice soft, coaxing. “I’ve made arrangements for a driver to Cantho first thing in the morning. We can tell Ainh I’ve invited you along for the ride. You know, just another tourist visiting the—”

  She laughed. “You must think I have the IQ of a turnip. Why should I trust you? Bounty hunter. Opportunist. Jerk.”

  “Lovely evening, isn’t it?” cut in a cheery voice.

  Dodge Hamilton, drink in hand, beamed down at them. He was greeted with dead silence.

  “Oh, dear. Am I intruding?”

  “Not at all,” Willy said with a sigh, pulling a chair out for the ubiquitous Englishman. No doubt he wanted company for his misery, and she would do fine. They could commiserate a little more about his lost story and her lost father.

  “No, really, I wouldn’t dream of—”

  “I insist.” Willy tossed a lethal glance at Guy. “Mr. Barnard was just leaving.”

  Hamilton’s gaze shifted from Guy to the offered chair. “Well, if you insist.” He settled uneasily into the chair, set his glass down on the table and looked at Willy. “What I wanted to ask you, Miss Maitland, is whether you’d consent to an interview.”

  “Me? Why on earth?”

  “I decided on a new focus for my Saigon story—a daughter’s search for her father. Such a touching angle. A sentimental journey into—”

  “Bad idea,” Guy said, cutting in.

  “Why?” asked Hamilton.