Final Answers

by Greg Dinallo

  Two bodyguards enter the office in response. These are big, powerful Asians in street clothes. One levels what looks like an Uzi submachine gun at us. The other confiscates the pistol from Kate’s handbag, then scoops up the Ingram and frisks us.

  “Don’t look so betrayed,” Chen Dai says, a sly grin tugging at one corner of his mouth. “I didn’t promise you would leave here alive. I promised you answers. And, before you die, you shall have them.”

  36

  It is cold and dark, and the clang of the thick steel door, which slammed shut behind us with terrifying finality, is still ringing in my ears.

  We’re in a room somewhere in the bowels of the plant, having been marched at gunpoint down several flights of stairs and through a storage area where drums of chemicals and sacks of raw opium are stored. Chen Dai’s thugs shoved us inside with such force we went sprawling across the concrete floor. It’s hard and cold like a Boston sidewalk in the dead of winter.

  I get to my feet slowly, rubbing an elbow and searching the darkness for Kate, but the absence of light is total.

  “Cal?” she calls out in a shaky voice.

  “Kate? Kate, you okay?”

  “I think so. I can’t see a thing. Where are you?”

  “Here. Over here. I’ll stay put and keep talking. Come to my voice. Just keep coming toward the sound. Walk slowly, keep your hands out in front of you, and come in the direction of my voice.”

  I hear her shoes shuffling on the floor, then the rustle of clothes as she approaches. I keep talking and extend my arms, groping for her gently until our hands meet and we clutch at each other.

  “That bastard,” she says bitterly.

  “Easy. Take it easy.”

  “I’m freezing. What is this place?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Maybe a wine cellar or something.”

  Our voices echo as if we’re in a large space. We move cautiously until my hand finds a wall. The surface has a metallic feel and is so cold my fingertips almost stick to it. We pause, waiting for our eyes to become accustomed to the darkness. After a few minutes, I make out a ghostly form rising above us along the opposite wall. It appears to be some kind of scaffold or lattice-type structure. Maybe it is a wine cellar. I hope so. I could handle a bottle or two of a robust Bordeaux about now. I try to determine where we are in relation to the door but to no avail. I’ve turned around too many times. It’s a fifty-fifty proposition. We start moving to the right, feeling our way along the wall. We’ve gone a short distance when I stumble over something and grab onto Kate to keep from falling.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. Hang on a sec.”

  I drop into a crouch and find a body at my feet. A man’s body as best I can determine. It feels rigid, as if it’s frozen stiff. I’m about to stand when I hear a number of sharp clicks behind me, then a buzzing sound overhead, which is followed by the flickering of bluish light.

  Kate’s found a bank of light switches.

  There’s a slight pause before the place is bathed in harsh fluorescent brilliance, before I’m stunned to find myself face-to-face with Ajacier’s corpse. I don’t see any blood, bruises, or wounds. He evidently froze to death. I’m staring at him, thinking the slate is really clean now, when Kate, who’s facing away from me, screams in total horror. She screams and screams, and screams again. I’ve never heard anyone scream like that. Not even in combat. It’s a primal wail of anguish that comes from deep inside her. I look up and gasp, recoiling at a gruesome sight. Chen Dai has kept his promise, kept it with characteristic viciousness. The final answers have been suddenly and shockingly revealed—dozens and dozens of them.

  There, so close I can almost reach out and touch it, is a wall of boots—pairs of boots—military boots. Dusted with light frost, their heavily textured soles confront me just as they did at collection points in Vietnam where the bodies of dead GIs were processed. But these corpses are neither covered with ponchos nor hastily stacked like firewood. No. Feet together, toes pointing skyward, these are neatly stored on metal racks—four high, perhaps fifty or more wide with aisles between them—half of which are empty. They go from floor to ceiling along one wall of the long, narrow room, which I realize is a massive, walk-in freezer. The system of lightweight poles and brackets make the cadavers appear to be floating eerily in space. Each is encased in a plastic bag that is tied about the ankles; each has a plastic identification sleeve hanging beneath the boots, which contains a pair of dog tags; each offers a chilling glimpse of hands, face, uniform, flight suit.

  Traumatized, unable to move or speak, Kate and I stare at each other in total disbelief until she emits an anguished cry and lunges into my arms. We’re shaking from fear and subfreezing cold, trying to keep from retching, our hearts pounding in our chests. We stay like this, bodies pressed together, arms wrapped around torsos, providing comfort and minimizing heat loss. It’s a few minutes before my head clears and I begin thinking about finding a way out of here.

  “Feeling a little better?”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Kate? You okay?”

  She nods imperceptibly, without looking at me. Her attention is fixed on the corpses, her eyes wide, piercing, staring at them obsessively, despite the unnerving details revealed by the wash of cold light.

  “Just take it easy for a couple of minutes. I’m going to have a look around.”

  She nods again.

  “It might be a good idea if I put out some of these lights.”

  “No,” she replies firmly, without the slightest hint of uncertainty in her voice. She lets go of me, then turns and walks toward the wall of boots.

  “Kate. Kate, don’t.” I catch up and step around in front of her. “I have to, Cal. I have to know he’s here.”

  She resumes the long walk to the far end of the racks. Her steps are halting, but her head is thrown back in angry defiance, just like it was that day on the pier. She pauses briefly at the first pair of boots, steeling herself to the task, then gently rubs the frost from the plastic sleeve to read the name on the dog tags. She moves to the next sleeve, and then the next, her pace quickening, gradually building into a frenzied search. I’m soon doing the same, trying, with little success, to keep from putting faces to the names: Lucas, Carlucci, Nugent, Horowitz, Garcia, Abney, White, Rosenthal, Jackson, Smith, Perez. Each time I brush the frost from one of the plastic sleeves, I flashback to that day in Washington, to that chilling moment when I brushed the snow from the black granite and found my name. I don’t know how long we’ve been at it when I sense the silence and glance over at Kate.

  She’s deathly still, clutching a single dog tag on a chain. Her hand is trembling uncontrollably as I approach. I gently take it in mine, steadying it, and read the name—Ackerman, John W. She wipes away some tears, then raises her eyes. They reveal emotions I’ve never seen before in one person at the same time: devastation at the absolute horror of our discovery, and delight at the incredible relief that the decades of uncertainty are finally over. It’s as if our present circumstances are meaningless, as if she could die happily with her newfound peace.

  She slips the chain around her neck and clutches the dog tag in a fist. I’ve no doubt that I’d find mine if I keep searching, no doubt that these are the ninety-eight men on the list—ninety-seven plus Pettibone’s corpse with my tags. It didn’t vanish. It was taken here to make certain it would never be found. Like Ajacier. Like us.

  I touch her face. The tears have frozen on her cheeks. We’re both shivering from the cold. I don’t know how long we can last, but I remember from survival school that a naked human exposed to forty below zero and thirty-mile-an-hour winds would have a life expectancy of about fifteen minutes. Kate and I are clothed, it’s probably just below freezing in here, and there’s no wind—so I know we’ll last a lot longer than that.

  I begin with the steel door. As I feared, there is no handle on the inside, only a keyhole. As I also feared, a quick survey confirms there ar
en’t any other exits, hatches, windows, gratings, or ducts. The room is hermetically sealed. I’m at a loss until the buzz of the fluorescents gets my attention. My eyes drift to the bank of light switches next to the door. An idea is starting to take shape, when Kate calls me.

  In one of the rows of empty racks, she’s found several boxes of plastic bags, balls of twine, and a stack of Army ponchos. They’re probably twenty-five years old, but the ones in the middle are still pliable. I throw several over Kate’s shoulders, then one over mine. She’s helping me fasten it when she suddenly grabs the collar in her fists, pulls my face close to hers, and says, “We have to get out of here.”

  “Yes, Kate, I know. I’m working on it.”

  “No. I mean, we have to, Cal. We have to. You don’t understand.”

  At first I think she’s panicking, but her voice is even, her eyes focused and clear, then it dawns on me what she means, what’s driving her. “For them.”

  She brightens and nods emphatically.

  “I understand. I was trying to tell you I might have a way.” I brief her while sorting through the contents of her handbag for some things I’ll need and come across the camera. I’d forgotten all about it. “Any shots left in that?”

  She checks the frame counter and nods. “Why?”

  “You heard what the man said about pictures. You think you can take some while I work on getting us out of here?”

  Kate nods with determination and goes to work.

  I go to the electrical box and use her nail file to unscrew the cover plate, exposing the six switches along with a jumble of multicolored wires. I carefully begin pulling them from the box. Closer inspection reveals they’re the three standard color-coded groups of black, white, and green—positive, negative, and ground respectively. Those of like color are twisted together and capped with a self-threading plastic insulator.

  I pirate two short lengths of green ground wire, then remove the insulator cap from the black group, twist one of the pirated wires around them, and screw the cap back on. I do the same with the white group, taking care to keep the two leads, which I’ve just wired in, far apart. Next, I remove one of the switches from the box and disconnect the wires. A bank of fluorescents at the opposite end of the freezer goes out. I make sure the switch is in the off position, then twist the lead from the black group around one terminal, the lead from the white group around the other, and tighten down the screws. I’m installing the switch back in the box when Kate finishes taking the pictures and joins me.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Wiring all the positives to one side of the switch and all the negatives to the other. When I throw it, well, it’ll be sort of like tossing a hair drier in a bucket of water while it’s plugged in.”

  The switch is the industrial type with a hard click-point and will require a strong upward pull to throw it. Considering what I expect to happen, it’s not something I want to do with my fingers. While I tighten the connections, Kate fetches the twine she’d found earlier I tie the end tightly around the switch, then throw the ball over the top bracket on the pole nearest the wall. It takes me several tries, but it finally loops over and goes rolling across the floor. I pay out the line as far away as possible from the panel. Then I gently reel it in until it’s taut.

  “Ready?”

  Kate nods and winces in anticipation.

  I jerk the line sharply.

  The switch emits a loud click.

  An instant later, all the lights in the freezer go out as the electrical panel explodes with the sharp crack of lightning, sending a shower of sparks and flames shooting outward. The pyrotechnics are short-lived, but the box continues to glow in the darkness, giving off hissing sounds and acrid smoke that curls lazily into the air.

  I don’t know what else was wired into those circuits, but judging from the number of conduits and connections and the high-tech nature of the plant, chances are pretty good that some equipment is down or, at the least, a technician is staring at a panel with a lot of flashing caution lights. In either event I’m counting on someone coming down here to investigate.

  Waiting in total darkness makes it seem like an eternity, but it isn’t long before we hear the harsh metallic thwack of the latch. Since the door opens out, eliminating the possibility of hiding behind it, I curl up on the floor beneath the electrical panel to create the impression I was injured while toying with it. Kate crouches in a corner concealed by the blackness.

  The door to the freezer creaks open.

  A shaft of light widens as the guard enters, letting the door clang shut behind him. He has a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. He sweeps the beam around the space, then crosses toward the still-smoldering electrical panel.

  I hear his footsteps, then see his shoes coming toward me. They stop within inches of my face as he pauses to examine the panel and length of burnt twine hanging from above. I moan weakly to get his attention. He crouches to investigate. I wait until the last possible instant before blasting him with Kate’s canister of Mace. He shrieks in agony and recoils, dropping the flashlight and pistol as his hands claw wildly at his eyes. Kate scoops up the flashlight, I grab the pistol and descend on him, confiscating his walkie-talkie and keys, which I give to Kate. While I keep an eye on the guard, she hurries to the door with the flashlight, trying several keys before finding the one that unlocks it. We slip out of the freezer, looking about warily. There’s no one else in the area.

  It feels like we stepped into an oven. We shed the ponchos and take a moment to get our circulation going, letting the warmth penetrate deep into our nearly frozen bodies. We’re making our way through the storage area—between the drums, sacks, and crates, all labeled in Lao—when Kate suddenly detours to some boxes and begins tearing one of them open.

  “What’re you doing?”

  She points to the markings on the boxes. “These are lab smocks. Those are surgical masks.”

  Moments later, we’re hurrying down a corridor appropriately attired, searching for the staircase. We push through a set of doors into a large room and stop dead in our tracks. We’re staring at rows of stainless steel autopsy tables, trays of embalming instruments, and transfer cases. Dusty, untouched for over twenty years, the air still reeks of chemicals and death, of the heinous practice of inserting packages of heroin in the chest cavities of dead GIs.

  We waste no time getting out of there, finally finding the staircase that takes us up into the plant. The landing opens into a corridor. One side is a glass partition beyond which workers in smocks and masks busily tend their stations. Up ahead a group turns a corner, startling us. We keep walking as they approach making small talk. One says something to Kate in passing. She mutters a short reply in Thai. We quicken our pace and make our way to the personnel exit, discarding the lab smocks and masks in a trash receptacle before exiting into the parking area.

  “That was close,” Kate says, relieved.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That guy commented on my Reeboks. They’re very hard to get here. I said I have a friend in Bangkok.”

  There’s no sign of Chen Dai’s helicopter as we walk to the Peugeot. We drive across the grounds slowly, passing the security kiosk, and through the exit gate, which opens automatically on approach. I swing onto the road and, suppressing my impulse to put the pedal to the floor, head south toward the Mekong at a normal speed.

  Kate is stretched out next to me, her head thrown back against the seat, a serene expression on her face. We drive in silence through the darkened countryside. Finally she sits up and turns to me with a little smile. “So, tell me. Does A stand for answers, or doesn’t it?”

  “Sure does,” I reply, telling her what I’d figured out about the list, concluding, “Tickner said he thought Chen Dai had an ace in the hole. He didn’t have one. He had damn near a hundred of ‘em.”

  “The MIAs were bargaining chips if things ever went wrong.”

  “Why else keep them all these years? The
y were useless for smuggling, but they’d make dandy hostages. The threat wouldn’t have been, ‘Back off or they die,’ but, ‘Back off or they’ll never be repatriated.’ “

  “Yes, but he can kiss his aid package good-bye if this gets out now.”

  “That’s what he’s been worried about all along.”

  “He could’ve gotten rid of them.”

  “He will. Soon as the deal with Uncle Sam is finalized and the money starts rolling in.”

  “But we’re going to make sure it doesn’t.” Kate removes the camera from her bag and begins rewinding the film.

  We continue south until we reach Thanon Fa Ngum, the main boulevard that snakes along the river, then heads west into the heart of Vientiane. A short time later, we turn into Rue Bartholini— a short street between Chantha Kumman and Lan Xang—and are relieved to see another well-known symbol of free enterprise aglow in the darkness up ahead. It’s red, white, and blue, just like the Pepsi sign, but this one is rippling in a light breeze and has a field of stars. Embassies are sovereign territory and, as the Marine guard checks our passports and opens the gate, I can’t help thinking, it sure feels good to be back in the United States.

  37

  A comfortable bed, a good night’s sleep, a couple of great meals, and hot, hot showers. Kate and I are fulfilled and at peace with the world. The champion of evil will be crushed, the good and just shall prevail.

  But something is wrong.

  In my euphoria, I’ve made an uncharacteristic error of omission when writing the equation. I’ve totally forgotten about other forces and factors—powerful and determined ones—which might have an impact on it. In fact, I haven’t even considered the possibility, let alone calculated the odds. I’ve been away from my laptop too long.

  The uneasy feeling surfaces just after breakfast when we are informed by an embassy staffer that Tickner and Colonel Webster have arrived from Bangkok and are waiting for us in a conference room.