‘And so I set about him with my Cajun hands. A minute later his white pants have turned red with blood and he’s crying at my fingertips. I even feel sorry for him as the tent falls silent, the hyenas stop howling and he crashes to the floor under my left hook. I take a bow and head over to the referee for my money. And then he comes for me, sneaks up behind me and skull fucks the back of my head. I’m down on the canvas in the slime looking up at the lights and the wagging tongues and teeth at ringside. He’s kicking at my ribs, stamping on my stomach. I can hardly breathe.
‘I shake myself, spring up and stand still as stone watching him. A light switches on in his head and he’s scared, because now it starts, now we cross the line. He sees I’m more interested in killing him than the hundred bucks and he starts to look at the big clock ringside, praying the minutes will go quick. I hit him so many times his face is unrecognizable, even his coiffured moustache has turned red. His head falls limp and he stops breathing.
‘Someone calls the cops, my friend’s drifted and a man is pulling at me to put on my shirt and leave with him. He tells me he’s a soldier and if I don’t leave now, I’m sure as hell going to prison. I look around me, the lights are on and the hyena faces have vanished; all I see is a dead man twice my size laying face-down in an empty tent.’ Carabas closed his eyes and smiled to himself. ‘And there followed my baptism into the Marines, I was adopted. My new mentor, the guy who lead me away, was a gunny sergeant and I was inducted into Westpoint on an unofficial scholarship the next week. Nothing stranger than life, Frenchman. Darkness has always been my cornerman, and you know what? He’s never let me down yet.’ Carabas cricked the muscles in his neck and looked at Jacques affectionately, ‘Leave me now.’
Deschamps limped from the room with shame. Through the meshed window he watched the knife slide across the vein and the man’s lifeforce sprayed over the white walls. Carabas took the man’s wilting head in his hands and held his mouth to his own as if in an embrace. Jacques rushed back into the room, ‘What the hell are you doing?’
The Colonel said nothing. For a moment longer he clamped the other’s lips to his own then let the head fall like a sodden rag-doll, rolling his eyes back in their sockets, breathing in deep. He turned to Jacques with a spent, delirious smile. ‘Taking his soul. Get some sleep, we fly to Laos in the morning.’ Then Carabas was gone, leaving Jacques with the corpse.
He placed his hands on the dead man’s open eyes and delicately closed them, silently muttering a prayer to the Lady who had forsaken him.
- 21 -
Hang Bac St was empty, an ill wind blowing through the shuttered streets and rattling rooftop tiles on tube houses. Giselle waited on the other side of the road a little back from King’s café. I didn’t want to mess her about but the American’s letter had jolted me from feeling sorry for myself. The most important thing was to return to England with some kind of explanation for Skip’s family, and clearly King had one.
Giselle zipped up her fleece, took out a cigarette and lit it.
‘I won’t be long,’ I said.
The ground-floor shutter was drawn. Upstairs, behind the blinds the frenetic movements of two figures darted about like puppets in a shadow show. There was no answer when I rang the bell, so I threw a stone at the window. After a moment Gerald poked his nose out like a mole coming up for air, his wife screaming at him in the background. He waved her away and disappeared. As the bolt slid back on the door a minute later, my stomach knotted itself.
‘Jesus - which bit of “get the fuck out” you having problems with?’ he said with exasperation. King immediately clocked Giselle, his forehead sheened in sweat, ‘Who’s the girl?’
‘Just a friend.’
‘Ok – but she stays outside. You better come in and this’ll have to be quick, we’re leaving.’
‘Hanoi?’
He didn’t answer, ushering me in with a final scowl at Giselle before bolting the door. He considered me a moment, there was no anger in his eyes as he booted up one of his machines and pointed for me to sit beside him, more a sense of resignation. The dust-coated fan in the terminal was wheezing like an old man, the hard drive spluttering to life. King seemed to be doing the same, hacking up poisonous sounding stuff with a stertorous cough. As he punched in the web address of the Bangkok Post, his fingers slipped on the keys. I noticed they too were sweating. He cursed and re-typed the address, up popped the website and he scrolled down to what he was looking for and motioned me to read, his gaze averted.
GRISLY FATE FOR WAR VETERAN
“Lucan Maybury, 68, a Veteran of the American Conflict in Vietnam, was found murdered in his apartment this morning in Bangkok’s Lat Phrao district. Maybury, a convicted drug felon, had served nine years of a life sentence until pressure groups succeeded this week in their appeal for an early release from Bang Kwang Prison. The barbaric nature of his death has shocked Police and officials alike, who are suggesting he was the victim of a possible cult slaughter. This comes just a week after English traveller, Skip Martin, 29, was killed in a similar fashion, near the Khao San Rd…”
‘You read it yet?’
I sat back stunned, too shocked to say anything. The last time I saw Maybury was in jail. He was going to die there and there’d been no mention of an early release. I couldn’t speak.
‘A buddy of mine in the Bangkok Police Department said his stomach was prized open and his lungs pinned over the ribs like wings, just like they did to your friend.’
I felt a convulsion in my throat as I pictured the ragged Australian with the bleeding welts on his back. As if he hadn’t undergone enough misery in his squalid life of prison guards and booby-trapped tunnels. Again I tried to speak but he placed a firm hand on my shoulder to steady me. ‘It’s starting all over again. Listen, it’s not your fault, I mean that.’
Why does everyone keep saying that? I felt like a walking hex. The floor slid away from me, the computer screen wobbling as if it were about to burst from the monitor. ‘It all comes back to me though… my being here. It’s like a trigger or something.’ I said.
Suddenly Hanoi didn’t seem quite so safe anymore, I wiped the sweat from my eyes. King said nothing. ‘What do you mean, “It’s starting all over again”, Gerald?’
He closed his eyes and sighed. ‘Something tells me this has been waiting to happen. I thought we’d left all of it behind us forty odd years ago, that’s what I don’t understand… I mean, the fucker’s dead now.’
I knew he wasn’t talking about Maybury. I tried to verbalize things to make sense of it all. ‘Lucan was released while I’ve been here in Hanoi - I saw him less than a week ago in Bang Kwang. Why would anyone be so desperate to get him freed after leaving him in there for nine years?’
King looked at the floor and smoothed his hair across his head, the air redolent of pomade and sweat. ‘Maybe they knew you’d go and find him and he’d talk. So they silenced him.’
‘The same people who killed Skip... the same fashion of killing.’ I tried to reason, now there were two bodies to consider. Both King and I had lost someone, perhaps now he’d come clean with everything he knew.
‘I don’t think we’re dealing with people, Al, at least if you define “people” as animals with a conscience.’ Said King.
The darkness of the room crowded in, our voices close as if we were in a cave. I was on the edge of a discovery, but if I’m honest most of me was already heading for the door with fear.
The old soldier surreptitiously wiped a tear and cleared his throat. ‘He never even called me to let me know he was out. I contacted Amnesty International this morning to see if it was them that got his appeal pushed through but they had no idea - not one single person there had been informed of his release. The same story at the Australian Embassy.’
‘Which means?’
‘Means someone important wanted it kept un
der wraps for what they was about to do. The past is the present and future rolled into one.’
‘You’re going to have to talk to me like an eight year old, otherwise I won’t have a clue what you’re saying.’
He turned to me sharply. ‘Sometimes they come back, kid. I told Amnesty Lucan’d been set up.’
‘Only the King of Thailand can pardon lifers and get them out early, right?’
‘Exactly, or unless it’s done quietly.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Gerald - stop talking in riddles. Who got to Maybury?’
He wasn’t interested in my outburst, Gerald seemed lost in his own thoughts. ‘Those fuckers played him like the fool on a tarot deck, he walked straight into a tiger trap. And by the way, he got involved in the later game because of your dad.’
I bristled, ‘I’ve had enough of your intimations, if you want to tell me who’s behind this, fine. If not I’ll find out for myself and you’ll end up with more blood on your conscience.’ I made for the door, as I reached the latch and started unbolting it his reflexes kicked in, ‘Alain, there were murders… in Laos.’
I stopped, ‘Lucan was in Laos?’
‘Look, I know you have a right to find out what happened to your friend but these are bad bones you’re picking over… We were all in Laos; Jacques, me, Lucan and Him.’
‘You’re talking about this Carabas man again?’
He looked disgustedly at the floor, as if having their names bunched together made them complicit in one another’s sins. ‘There was killings all the time, it was war, but in Laos it was different, not just bullets… He used to tear VC and Pathet Lao open like crabs, open their ribcages and stretch the guts over the bones like red wings. Said he was taking souls.’
I swallowed hard, thinking the unthinkable. ‘Is this how Dad died?’
He looked at me, a terrible sadness in his eyes. ‘I don’t honestly know. Nobody knows what happened to Jaques.’
I stood over him and unfolded my arms, my fists involuntarily bunching. ‘Are you sure?’
He shook his head weakly, ‘Yes. His body was never recovered. An Agency ghoul called Knowles reported him missing, but that was later, I’d already moved to Bangkok by then. Your dad and Maybury were called back for one last mission in ’75’.
The year Dad disappeared, his last job.
‘Your old man had something Carabas wanted.’ King coughed and produced a blue Ventolin, ‘Nervous cough. Haven’t had to use this thing in years and then you show up. It’s a shitter.’
‘What about the key?’ I said impatiently then cursed to myself. Now it was my turn to make a Freudian slip.
King’s face lit up like a candle, he sat back and let rip a frightened whinny. ‘So, you’ve got the key? Jesus, no wonder they’re after you!’
‘Alright so I’ve got a key. What’s it for?’
‘I knew there was something about you kid, soon’s I saw you walking down the street. How d’you get it?’
Unsure of whether to trust him I told him my story; from the footsteps on the roof, my dead Grandmother and her will, the map and key… to the tragedy in Bangkok. He listened in silence and I noted the resignation on his face, as if both our fates had already been ordained.
I didn’t expect his next response, just when it looked like we were being straight with one another he said, ‘You’ve got to get going, all points to you now don’t you see? First your Grandmother… she was killed and you were followed. Then your place being burgled… the two-headed symbol on the Thai’s arm and your friend Skip buys it. It’s their signature,’ He shivered as if someone had walked over his ready grave, ‘and they’re onto you, just like they got to Lucan.’
‘What’s their signature?’ I said impatiently, ‘You mean the snake tattoo?’
‘I mean all of it.’ He said flatly.
‘If Lucan was killed because he knew something then that means you…’
He turned off the computer, we sat in darkness listening to the wind howling outside, ‘Yup, means I’m next in line for the stomach surgery. That’s why I’m leaving Hanoi,’ he said quietly. ‘Anybody else know you’re here, anybody at all? Think!’
‘No. My Mum… the girl outside… and some friend of Dad’s from the war; a veteran called Sammy Casbaron. But he doesn’t know I’m in Hanoi.’
‘Who?’ He asked sharply. I fished out Casbaron’s business card from my wallet and handed it to him, he took out his half-moon glasses and put it under his nose.
He studied the gold lettering and passed back the card. ‘What’s he look like this Casbaron?’ He asked,
‘A bit like a Caterpillar truck that’s been set on fire with a mop of hair on the top. You know him?’
‘No, can’t say I do, what was his division?’
I told him I had no idea. He rebooted the terminal and typed out the URL address on the business card, but Google came up with only a holding page. It didn’t have any functionality whatsoever.
‘Strange. Is there anyone else?’ he asked
‘No.’ I said.
King let out a sigh, his shoulders sagging with the weight of the past. ‘Well someone knows you’re on the trail and while you’re here there’s every chance you won’t wake up in the morning.’
My stomach was racing with butterflies, in the mirror I saw I was wearing the same haunted expression he’d had on the lake the day before. ‘And you?’
‘You got wax in your ears? We’re leavin’ in the morning and we’re not coming back. And you can forget that shit I threw you about waiting for them to come. If there’s one thing I learnt in the Nam, it’s not waiting for someone to pop your ass, you keep movin’.’
‘I still don’t know who I’m supposed to be running from?’ I said breathlessly,
‘You made the connection last night. You want a shot of whisky, this is going to take a few minutes?’
‘I’m on the wagon.’
‘I apologize. You mind?’
I waved him away and King went to the bar and poured himself a hefty measure of Sang Thip.
‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ I asked,
‘Reckon you’re gonna need one.’
I went to the window and looked out on the bone-cold street, Giselle had gone.
‘Please, keep the window shut and sit down, Alain.’ He wiped his brow and tinkled the ice in his glass. There were torpedo-shaped sweat marks under his armpits even though the room was cold. ‘That snake symbol on the guy’s arm, it’s very old… a cult that started around fifteen hundred years ago. Look carefully next time one of those fuckers comes at you and you’ll see a particular tattoo; the sign of two snakes around a mountain. Black Dragon Mountain, the place their spiritual leader was last seen in the 6th Century.
‘The Bangkok Post is on the money, it’s a ritual killing. Up till now I figured the cult was buried in the past along with Carabas. See, he revived it. Back in ’68 he cooked up an army of Hmong tribespeople. And he paid them well, with money for heads and ears. But he also did other things. He took children, lots of them. This is what we heard.
‘By the time I met him, your dad was tired with the war, we all were. We did as little as we could and tried to stay alive a little longer, but Carabas when he got to Laos? He just disappeared into thin air. I mean none of us knew where he was. You know, I hear he used to play a game at Quantico; he’d challenge anyone to catch him creeping into their room at night, if they did he paid them a hundred bucks. No-one ever caught him.’
‘Gerald, just keep to the story will you.’
‘By ’69, Carabas was classified as MIA and he’d stopped talking to the ‘Bubble.’
‘”Bubble”?’
‘CIA headquarters in Bangkok, not important. So, we’re all hoping he’s dead and sleeping better for it. Then one of my Raven buddies
says he’s flyin’ north of Luang Nam Tha one night, and he sees fires around an old Khmer temple in the jungle… so, he goes in low, real low close to the treetops, and he thinks he sees the Colonel and his men. They’ve taken over a temple. There are hundreds of kids around him, like ants. And Carabas is sat in the middle. The Raven gets outta there pretty quick as it’s a no fly zone, the Chinks are there in numbers mustering to assist the Lao commies.
‘Of course no-one believed him, we figured the Colonel was dead for sure, after some of the suicide raids he’d been running against the Pathet Lao, and the fact we hadn’t heard of him for so long. But then a few days later a renegade force of Hmong charge on the chinky camp in Luang Nam Tha and nearly starts World War Three. You see the Chinese aren’t supposed to be there, but they don’t much like being attacked by a bunch of feral tribesmen and driven back to Boten over the Chinese border either. Dink survivors spoke of a huge Western man with a shiny bald head and blood smeared across his face. There was some weird shit too, black eyes they said, black stuff spilling from his mouth.
‘The US unreservedly swears it wasn’t their man - that he’s dead, but now they have a serious problem on their hands – they have to find him and erase him before it blows into an international incident. See, if Carabas is proved to still be breathing, then a decorated American soldier is aggressing our Chinese friends and the Whitehouse is unquestionably full of bullshit.’
‘Cue China entering the Vietnam War and turning it the wrong way,’ I said.
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