by Marc Olden
He served as bodyguard to arms dealers, Arab sheiks, visiting American film stars, the children of wealthy industrialists. A few British businessmen consulted him on security measures for themselves and their companies and once he served as go-between in a Rome kidnapping. He was getting older, but not richer.
To pay for private medical care for Unity, Sparrowhawk turned thief. He stole industrial secrets and church antiques coveted by a private collector and love letters being used by a New Scotland Yard detective to blackmail a homosexual member of Parliament. It was with relief that he returned to soldiering late in 1974, accepting a job with South African forces to help track down black guerrillas on the country’s northern border. The contract lasted a month, paid little and was notable only in that Sparrowhawk killed a Russian woman.
A pair of Russians were in the South African bush to gauge the amounts of black military resistance to that country’s white regime; they were serving as temporary advisers to the guerrillas when all fell into an ambush set by Sparrowhawk. One of the two Russians could have escaped, but stayed behind to help his wounded comrade. When it was apparent that neither could get away, the one who had not been wounded fought with a ferocity that stunned Sparrowhawk.
It was Sparrowhawk who finally killed him, only to learn that the determined fighter had been a heavyset woman with the slant eyes of her Tartar forebears; the comrade she had refused to leave was her husband. When she saw that he was mortally wounded, she had fought to the death rather than surrender. Sparrowhawk was impressed and disturbed by her bravery. Anyone who seemed fearless in the face of death left him uneasy.
On his return to Johannesburg he was offered five thousand pounds to escort a diamond dealer to Saigon, where the dealer was to purchase gems owned by a South Vietnamese general. The Vietnam War, which in truth had begun in 1946 with France opposing Ho Chi Minh, was winding down. American troops, per the Paris cease-fire agreement of January 1973, had been withdrawing from Southeast Asia for the past two years. A small number of military advisers remained, along with the American embassy personnel in Saigon. However, it was only a matter of weeks before the NVA, the North Vietnamese Army, would move south and take Saigon.
The general that Sparrowhawk and the diamond dealer came to South Vietnam to meet was planning to leave, but not empty-handed. Diamonds, like gold, were an inflation-proof currency.
When the diamond deal was concluded Sparrowhawk was offered more work in Saigon. With the CIA.
Ruttencutter, the slim, icy New Yorker who proposed that Sparrowhawk work for “the Company,” said, “We’ve little choice. The Paris treaty planted an international commission in this city and its people are watching us like hawks. The feeling is it’s best not to bring any more of our own people here. So we’re forced to use independents, free-lancers like yourself. You come highly recommended”
“Terribly kind of you.” In the humid monsoon weather, in sticky heat, Ruttencutter never perspired. He talked out of the side of his mouth, which Sparrowhawk found amusing.
“Means you keep a low profile,” said Ruttencutter. “Poles, French, Hungarians are hot to hang truce violations on us. Bastards spend most of their time with the bar girls. I hope they get a dose of the clap that won’t quit.”
“Not to veer off on too sharp a tangent, but what do I do in a war which appears to be nearing its end?”
“This and that. One thing and another. Specifically? Let’s say you act as a courier between here and Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Laos. Make a little trip to Cambodia. Ride shotgun on certain flights on a certain airline in which we have an interest. Join some of our people on little trips outside of Saigon.”
Sparrowhawk’s eyes narrowed. “Sounds quite scenic, actually. You’re leaving out something.”
“Which is?”
“You neglected to mention killing for you.”
Ruttencutter looked away. “Whatever will be, will be, as they say.” He turned back to Sparrowhawk. “Ten thousand dollars a month. Interested?”
Sparrowhawk gave him a concentrated look, then said: “When do we commence our association?”
Special jobs. One involved taking part in the interrogation of Viet Cong prisoners kidnapped from villages at the CIA’s request by Robbie Ambrose and Dorian Raymond, two American SEALs who did the odd task now and again for the frozen Ruttencutter. Sparrowhawk and the SEALs formed an attachment of sorts, though neither GI struck him as a giant intellect. Robbie, however, had an appealing politeness that hid the most extraordinary capacity for violence. An amazing hand-to-hand fighter. Dorian was somewhat dimmer, with infantile dreams of sudden wealth and a taste for dissipation.
Being involved with the CIA brought all three into contact with George Chihara, an influential Japanese businessman and one of Saigon’s prime movers and shakers. Chihara was also a CIA front; the airline ostensibly owned by him was actually CIA backed and used to transport opium grown by northern tribesmen to Saigon, to fatten the bank accounts of South Vietnamese politicians and generals. Aiding the opium traffic was the price America seemed willing to pay for allies in the fight against communism.
Sparrowhawk found Chihara more than slightly reptilian in appearance. Chihara also had the Japanese reserve with strangers, and kept his home and family apart from his business dealings. From the beginning, Sparrowhawk doubted Chihara could be trusted. His airline flew CIA agents to and from the north; the roads and surrounding countryside were almost entirely in the hands of the North Vietnamese and air travel was not merely the safest way of travel. It was the only way.
Chihara also arranged for CIA agents to receive the high black-market rate for dollars, and used his considerable influence with Saigon politicians, when asked by the Americans. All of this, plus Chihara’s legitimate business had made him rich. He was to grow even richer from his association with Paul Molise, an American Mafioso who had come to Saigon for opium. Chihara saw that he got all he needed.
Robbie knew quite a bit about Paul Molise, a lean, intense man who insisted on wearing three-piece suits at all times and actually had a university education, something Sparrowhawk would never have associated with the son of a wog thug.
“Paulie’s different,” said Robbie. “Smooth. Like spit on a doorknob. College, computers. Got smarts up the ass. Father heads the biggest ‘family’ in New York. Capo di tutti capi. Boss of bosses. Paulie’s king shit. He’s got generals on his payroll. American generals, man. Has gooks bought and paid for, too. Politicians, generals. That’s how he gets all the dope he needs.”
Sparrowhawk, like most Brits, found American criminals fascinating. “I thought the Mafia was getting its heroin out of Turkey and Marseilles.”
“No more. American and French cops put a stop to that. Busted people in the States, France, Sicily. Plus the Turks aren’t letting their people grow opium anymore. You got brown heroin and pink heroin coming out of Mexico. But addicts like white. Best white around is over here. Fry your brains, that shit. Get it right from ‘the Golden Triangle.’ Burma, Thailand, Laos. Figure a way to get it to the States and, man, you’re in business. Molise has a few other things going for him, too.”
“Such as?”
“Well, major, it’s like this. Construction. Somebody’s got to build bases, roads, airfields, movie theaters, bowling alleys, ice cream parlors. I mean you got to have those things, right? Army figures Americans can do it better than the gooks, so they hire Americans. Lot of money changes hands, but what the hell. Enough left over for everybody. Then there’s slot machines for the soldiers’ clubs, liquor, food, jukeboxes, furniture, kitchen equipment. You name it. See, you got to have these things, else GIs go crazy. I bet Molise is copping a fortune out of this war. Far as he’s concerned the war can goddamn go on forever.”
Sparrowhawk’s nose wrinkled in disgust. Not at the profit being made. God knows he was not that naive. What he found disgraceful was the pampering of field soldiers. No wonder America was losing the war. The Viet Cong went all day on a han
dful of uncooked rice and ditch water. No comparison.
He said, “I gather Mr. Chihara isn’t exactly destitute himself.”
“If you mean he’s getting his out of this war, you’re right. Gold, dope, his businesses. Ol’ George—
“You said gold.”
“Seen it myself, me and Dorian. We had to go into Cambodia. Bring back an agent before they wasted his ass. Gook agent. Should have left him there, but that’s beside the point. Used one of Chihara’s planes. Made a stop in some fuckin’ town, can’t remember the name, but it was gold bars we picked up. Seen it myself, me and Dorian. See, major, you got to remember right now paper money ain’t worth diddley squat. Gold, diamonds, dope. That’s worth something. If you want to leave this armpit of a country and have something to show for it you go for something hard like that”
“Gold, diamonds, dope.”
“There you go.”
Robbie lowered his voice. “Tell you something else. Ol’ George is buying all the gold and diamonds he can get his hands on. Buying it from all over the place, here, up north, Thailand, Laos. All over the place. Sends them planes of his out and they come back nice and heavy. Be willing to bet that ol’ George has a pile of shit hidden somewhere.”
“How do you know he hasn’t sent it all out of the country?”
“Some of it, sure. Not all of it. He’s got it coming in every week. Couldn’t possibly have sent it all out.”
April 1975. Paul Molise took his time stubbing out a cigarette. “How many days you figure before this city falls to the Cong?”
Sparrowhawk said, “Hours. Days. For certain, within the week. There’ll be the usual bloodbath, phony trials, the customary purge. A lot of people will die and their deaths won’t be easy. Communists are puritanical and puritans are among the most sadistic bastards on God’s green earth. I’ve seen what they’ve done in other countries. I don’t expect it to be any different here.”
“I invited you and Robbie here for a reason.” Molise poured scotch into two glasses. Robbie had previously shook his head in refusal. The three men were in Molise’s suite in a hotel on Nguyen Hue Boulevard. Three stories below in the street an overturned jeep still burned where looters had left the vehicle and its dead driver. Smoke from midnight fires floated from the U.S. embassy, the presidential palace and a handful of government buildings, where documents were being burned to keep them out of Communist hands. Power and peace of mind now belonged only to those able to buy their way out of the doomed city.
Molise said, “I want to talk about George Chihara.”
Sparrowhawk looked at Robbie. Dear God, we pay for everything in this life. Molise had promised Sparrowhawk the job of a lifetime, the presidency of a private intelligence firm in New York at a salary larger than anything Sparrowhawk had ever dreamed of. Tonight that promise had given Molise the right to drag Sparrowhawk and Robbie out into Saigon’s dangerous streets for a little chat. After curfew, no less.
Sparrowhawk was already a part-time employee of Paul Molise. With CIA permission the Englishman occasionally served as his bodyguard, particularly when the American was carrying large amounts of cash around Saigon to pay for heroin or morphine base. Molise, Chihara, Ruttencutter, the French underworld and South Vietnam’s leading politicians all knew one another. Narcotics, Sparrowhawk observed, had a way of bringing people together.
“Before I get into Chihara,” said Molise, “I’d like to start by saying I want you”—he pointed to Sparrowhawk—“to delay your departure from Saigon.”
“You must be mad. I’m booked on a helicopter leaving this cesspool in forty-eight hours.”
“Call it a favor. To me.”
Has me by the balls, thought Sparrowhawk, and all because of that New York job. Having taken the bugger’s bread, I must now sing his song. On the other hand, what good is the promise of lucrative employment to a dead man?
“I have no wish to rot in a Viet Cong jail cell,” Sparrowhawk said.
“Five hundred thousand dollars for twenty-four hours of your time,” said Molise. “The money will be waiting for you when you arrive in New York. Or I can put it in a bank of your choice anywhere in the world.”
Sparrowhawk’s eyes narrowed.
Molise finished his scotch and poured another. “I was to go back to my father with the biggest heroin deal since we first started dealing with these assholes. But I can’t do that now, thanks to Mr. Chihara.”
Sparrowhawk knew why. Two days ago Saigon customs officials had received a tip that someone planned to smuggle 100 kilos of heroin out of the country. Ordinarily the officials would have been bribed and the heroin allowed to continue on its way, in this case to Canada, then down to New York. All of Saigon knew the heroin, purchased at a cost of several million, belonged to Paul Molise. And the city knew that someone he trusted had betrayed him.
“Chihara fucked me,” Molise said. “Don’t ask me how I know. I know, that’s all. The people who told me are very reliable. Chihara and everybody else want to get out of Saigon with all the money they can. He’s got people in his pocket I can’t touch and I’m talking about the presidential palace, which is as high as you can go in this town. It’s a crazy time over here now. All of us, we’re playing a game without rules. Saigon’s going down the toilet and nobody gives a rat’s ass. So nobody keeps their word anymore.”
Molise shook his head. Down on the street there was the whack of a single pistol shot. None of the men moved. In Saigon gunshots were as common as motorbikes.
“My money, my heroin and I can’t do shit about it. Chihara arranges a deal for me, then screws me and I’m supposed to walk away and keep quiet” He said something softly, in Italian, eyes glazed with hatred. Sparrowhawk didn’t understand the word, but the meaning was clear.
Vengeance.
Sparrowhawk ignored his drink. He had a feeling his life was going to change forever. Best keep a clear head for the next few minutes.
Molise said, “Fucking Chihara got a third of what the Buddha-heads took from me. They had me set up all the time. Anyway, couple days from now Chihara’s moving one last load of gold and diamonds out of Saigon. Along with his share of my heroin. Cong’s overrun the airfield at Bien Hoa, so there goes Chihara’s planes. He’s made arrangements to get out by ship, which is tied up right now in the Saigon River.”
Molise leaned forward and aimed his drink at Sparrowhawk. “I want you to bring Chihara’s ass to me. Bring that bastard to me, along with his diamonds and gold and my heroin. No way I can face my father again until I’ve dealt with this fucking business and believe me, I’m going to, one way or another. You lose respect you lose everything and, mister, no way am I going to lose respect I don’t have my own people here. I’ve got an accountant who’s down the hall in his room with the runs and I’ve got one construction man meeting with some people tonight to get whatever he can for the equipment I’m forced to leave behind. But no shooters. I don’t have shooters. Anyway, I don’t want Chihara dead. Dead isn’t good enough. Want him to bleed. Want him to wake up every morning and know that what’s happening to him is because of me.”
Chihara has planted thorns, thought Sparrowhawk. Therefore he can hardly expect to gather roses.
Molise said, “I’m turning him over to the Cong. They have a price on his head and they’ll be glad to see him. When they finish with Mr. Chihara the bastard will wish he was dead a hundred times over.”
“He’s got a wife and two daughters,” Sparrowhawk said.
“They go, too. But you do a job on them. Something special before you kill them. Use your imagination. I want Chihara to suffer and I want him to know I did it.”
Sparrowhawk took his first sip of scotch. Well, that would certainly settle Mr. Chihara’s account. Sparrowhawk, however, could see no reason to do anything special to a man’s wife and daughters. Should he agree to handle this dirty business the women would be treated respectfully. A double tap for each and that’s the end of it.
“I think you can
bring Dorian in on this, too,” Molise said. “Where is he anyway?”
“Fucking his brains out over on Tu Do Street,” Robbie said. “Whores are practically giving it away. Some of the girls figure if they’re nice to Dorian maybe he’ll help them to get out before the Cong takes over.”
Molise said, “I’ve got a rundown on Chihara’s villa. Guards, servants, all the information you’ll need. He’ll move the gold and diamonds out on a truck. Seven guards armed with automatic weapons. You’ll have to take them out”
Robbie shrugged. “No problem.”
Using a thumbnail, a thoughtful Sparrowhawk stroked a waxed end of his mustache. Robbie, lad, there was a problem.
Behind a narrowed gaze the Englishman leaned toward Molise and said coldly, “Now let’s have the real story.”
The Italian stared at him for a long time, then looked away. “I’m paying you—”
Sparrowhawk was on his feet, punctuating his words with a clenched fist “You’re not bloody well paying me enough to get myself killed. No more games, sir. If. You. Please. Chihara’s a CIA agent. You’re too close to Ruttencutter to do this on your own. You had to have clearance first, which means someone has concocted an altogether different brew from the one you’re describing to me. Before you remove a country’s agents from the face of this earth you get permission.”
Molise rubbed his unshaven chin. “It’s been cleared. Believe me, it’s been cleared.”
“Oh, I do believe you. And since this concerns my life and Robbie’s, I’d prefer you keep me fully informed. Why do Ruttencutter and the CIA want to destroy George Chihara, a man who, until now, has served the Company well and true?”
Molise stared at the ceiling, where a small lizard crawled from behind a slowly revolving wooden fan to begin a long trek across the ceiling and toward the front door. “Two reasons. Actually, one. They want to trade him for one of their guys the Cong’s had for over a year. An American.”