The Jake Fonko Series: Books 1 - 3

by B. Hesse Pflingger

  “Good idea,” she whispered breathily in my ear. “First how about you undo me out of this one?” Ah, Soh Soon. If she was typical, I could understand why there were more Chinese than anybody else.

  We had a somber dinner, our last one in Bangkok. Even the best food the Oriental could offer tasted like Charlie Rats. We piddled around until packing couldn’t be postponed any longer, then took her stuff down to the lobby and sat waiting for her ride to show up. The string quartet, while pleasant, wasn’t enough to cheer us. Suddenly she blurted, “My gosh, forget something in your room. Give me key, I run up and get it!” She scurried off to the elevators. By the time she got back, the white Chevrolet was parked out front, and Kevin had come in to get her. She seemed flustered.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah, okay,” she said. “Ride here already? Oh, Jake, so sorry to go. You one great guy, do so much help for me. Don’t think me bad person. Come see me in L.A., as soon as can, okay?” She gave me a big hug and a kiss. Kevin shot me a thumb’s up and then carefully stowed her brand new Louis Vuitton luggage (courtesy of Major Smith’s credit card) into the trunk of the Chevy. He gallantly ushered her into the back seat and drove off. I watched the car disappear into the traffic, missing her already.

  Feeling a little weepy and wistful, I returned to my room, where I found my red silk pouch laying on the floor, opened and empty.

  11

  Soh Soon had opened the red silk pouch and left it there on the floor when she ran up to my room. Fortunately, I’d emptied it myself the day before. Was my schmardt finally catching up with my oldt? Or had luck pulled me through once again? Either way, I’d settle for the result. But why had she done it? She didn’t need the money. Had her father put her up to it—take the bribe back once I’d delivered the goods, and what could I do about it? That made no sense. Then why? And why had she been so stupid as to leave it lying there, out in the middle of the floor, where I couldn’t help but notice it right away, and no doubts about who’d done it? If she’d just stuck it back where she’d found it, I’d have never known a thing.

  Well, if I ever saw her again, I’d ask her about it, not that I’d have any reason to believe her story. One thing I could be thankful for, at least—it made the parting easier. I’d be missing her a lot less than I’d thought a few minutes before. Who can you trust any more?

  Did I have a surprise waiting for me when I finally found out the truth.

  I’d taken the diamonds out of the purse the previous morning because Sarge had told me about a new line of business of his since he arrived in Thailand. He was posted near a big refugee camp. “Them refugees from that Cambodia,” he explained, “some of them come across that border with rubies, sapphires, diamonds. It was all the wealth they could bring with ‘em, what they could carry, don’t you see? So I’m in the jewel business now—folks ain’t so anxious for gold here as they was in Nam. I buy those jewels and stones and such for American dollars, he’p those refugees start a brand new life. I give ‘em a good price, just take my usual profit, and you know them Chinamen would cheat ‘em blind if they got the chance.”

  “You do diamonds?” I asked him. “I brought a few of those out myself.”

  “Lemme take a look at what you got,” he said. “Mebbe I can do a little business for you.” So we walked back along the river to the Oriental. I’d put my silk pouch of diamonds in the hotel safe—good procedure for valuables wherever you’re traveling—without mentioning it to Soh Soon. I shook those uncut diamonds out of that red silk purse, put the biggest one and the smallest one back in the safe, and took the other fourteen out to show Sarge. He held one in the sunlight between two big fingers and squinted at it. “Son of a gun,” he breathed, “them’s investment grade!” Inspecting the rest, he added, .”..and not a one of ‘em will cut to smaller than two carats! You been pullin’ down a mighty paycheck somewhere, Jake, you surely have.”

  “Any market for them here in Bangkok?”

  “Lemme see what I can do,” he said. “There’s a Jewish feller in town I’ve done a little business with. He might give me a good price. You know, them Jews just love them diamonds! I’ll pay him a visit later in the day.”

  So I gave him those fourteen diamonds to sell. I had plans for the other two still in the safe. I’d put the empty silk pouch in my pocket and later, when changing my clothes, stuck it amongst the things in my duffel, where Soh Soon found it.

  Sarge joined me for dinner the evening after she left. He came bearing good news. “You should have seen his eyes light up, Jake! Never seen a jewel dealer do that before, usually they’s as cold as a dead flounder when you’re tryin’ to sell ‘em something. You brought some high quality stones out with you, that you did. We dickered around for a while, but we done enough business together, we both knowed what a fair price was.” He took a brown-paper-wrapped package out of the briefcase he was carrying. Holding it in my lap down out of sight, I ripped an end of it open and took a peek. It was a thick brick of U.S. $100 bills. I tugged a bunch free, made a little roll of them and reached it over toward Sarge. “This an okay commission for your trouble? It looks like about ten percent, I think.”

  Sarge backed away as far as he could go without pushing his chair away from the table. “Oh, no, Jake! No way. This was strictly a favor, and I don’t take no commissions on favors. You put those right back where you got ‘em!”

  “Well, come on, Sarge. You sold those diamonds for me. You gave me all that gear for Cambodia. At least let me cover that gold you gave me.”

  “That little bit? Just some old worn out extras I had lying around, thought you might be able to bring me in some business. Hadn’t been for them Khmer Rougers, no tellin’ how many customers you might have lined up. Not your fault, not at all. I’m just glad for the way things worked out for you.”

  Just what I was afraid of. How do you repay a guy like that? Maybe I’d find some way later. I had an idea how to do it, but there was something else on my mind. “What do you think about me signing on with the CIA? Todd Sonarr’s been coming on real strong. He doesn’t want to take no for an answer, but I’m having a hard time coming up with yes.”

  “Say, lemme tell you a piece of interesting news I found out today. I had some friends check into a few things, and what they tell me is that you got into OCS fair and square and on your own. There ain’t no evidence of any outside string-pulling, your test scores and ratings and recommendations was top of the line. Sonarr must have picked you up for his mole project after that, not before like he claimed. You’re a genuine officer, not some kind of set-up like he said.”

  “Well, that isn’t the only lie that sonofabitch told me. So maybe you’re right then, he’s using that to pressure me into coming aboard the Company. I don’t know—he seems to want me pretty badly. He seems to think I’d be good at covert ops.”

  “Look at it this way, Jake. From what’s happened over the last few months, you got a good look at that CIA, and now you know a few things about ‘em. You know the kind of work you’d be doing. You know the way they’d have you going about it. You know the kind of people you’d be working with. And you know the kind of people you’d be working for. So you just ignore all that pressure. I think you must know enough about it to make up your own mind.”

  Sarge sure had a way of getting right to the heart of a matter.

  I told him about Soh Soon’s little going away present the night before. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sonarr and his scams and cons. The CIA pulling shit all over Indochina, messing over these people’s lives without a second thought. Commie spies every time you turn around, and the agents we recruit either doubled or worthless con artists. Arms and drug dealers everywhere. Driffter and his munchkins up in the hills running a slave labor camp. Mousey Gracie spying for him in the Phnom Penh CIA station. South Vietnam full of corrupt politicans and military officers. Even worse in Cambodia—Lon Nol an
d the Khmer Rouge make our Mafia look like a bunch of Halloween pranksters. Poon and his smuggling, and to cap it all, Soh Soon tries to rip me off. Is it my imagination, or is everybody in Asia some kind of crook?”

  “I can’t rightly answer that, Jake. There’s a billion or so of ‘em I haven’t met yet. But mebbe they ain’t so different from folks back home—most mostly good, a few mostly bad. How many folks in the U.S. pays all their taxes if they can get away with not doin’ it? You think our politicians is squeaky clean—how do you suppose the Kennedys come by all that money? And how about ol’ LBJ—retires a multimillionaire after a lifetime on public servant salary? Businessmen makin’ inside deals right and left, riggin’ contract bids, all them little tricks they have. I hear some of our finest, most upstandin’ citizens—doctors and lawyers and bankers—are makin’ their share outta the drug business. Man, we even had a gang of sergeant majors taking Mafia kickbacks on servicemen club contracts—Army guys cheatin’ their own troops, can you believe it? You know anybody who never stiffed the telephone company? How many of your friends never did no shoplifting, or no vandalizing just for the hell of it? If folks somewhere was any different, you might find a place in the world with no preachers and no religions and no policemen and no jailhouses—I’ve traveled some, and I’ve never found any place like that.”

  “Maybe I just overdosed on sleaze these last couple months. Back in the LRRPs, out in the jungle, things were simpler. It was just you and your team, and you knew you could trust them. You got your orders, and you carried them out. You knew who the enemy was, and what to do about him. Not so clear cut when you get mixed up in the civilian side of things. I guess I’m feeling a little down today—after all we’d gone through together, why would Soh Soon do something like that?”

  “Yeah, that’s a real puzzle,” Sarge reflected. “What I seen of her, I wouldn’t have thought she was the type to pull that kind of stunt. Mebbe it wasn’t her own idea. If I was you, I wouldn’t judge her too harsh until I found out more about it.”

  Sarge was probably right, but I was having a hard time being objective just then. I’d almost have rather lost the diamonds, than lost Soh Soon like that. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure I can’t throw in with the CIA. But supposing I turn Sonarr down, what then? I’m out of the army, and that’s all I’ve done since 1969. I can’t picture myself selling insurance.”

  Sarge leaned toward me across the table. “You know the way it looks to me, Jake?” he said conspiratorially. “It looks to me like you’re way ahead of the game right now. You got that fat check from the government. You sold them diamonds for a pretty penny. You’re playin’ with house money now! You got more in your hand than you’d earn from twenty years of soldierin’. No need to hurry into anything. Go back to L.A., get back with your folks and your friends. Spend some time with that Dana you told me about. Enjoy yourself for a while. See what turns up. You might even think about going into business for yourself. You’ve seen the kind of money a man can make by helpin’ other folks out. The kind of job you did down there in Cambodia, why there’s lots of folks in the world’d pay top dollar for help like that. You could do it as well as anybody, better than most others I’ve seen. Asia may be full of sleazeballs and scumbags, but you managed to deal with ‘em and come out on top. No need for no damn CIA job. Freelancers can do okay in that line of work.”

  Okay, I had him cornered now. He’d left me the opening I’d been looking for. “Business for myself? That’s an idea worth considering. In fact,” I said, “I already had one idea for a business.” I reached into my pocket. “I’d been thinking of going into the diamond business. I wonder if you could do me one more little favor?”

  “Any time, Jake, you know that.”

  “Here.” I pressed one of my last two diamonds, the biggest of the entire lot, into his palm. I planned to keep the smallest one as a souvenir of my recent adventure, along with my Khmer Rouge black pajamas and red ball point pen. “This is one of my samples. I want you to hang on to this, just in case you run into some business. You know, to show them what the goods look like. Will you do that for me?”

  Sarge broke out into a big, billowing smile. Jews weren’t the only ones who loved diamonds. “Jake, count on it,” he said, tossing that glassy chunk of carbon crystal up and clutching it tightly as it dropped back into his grasp. “Any business I run across, I’ll surely direct it straight to you.”

  A Note From the Editor

  With pride and trepidation, I present the fascinating and incredible, yet to the best of my knowledge completely true, first installment in the saga of the amazing Mr. Jake Fonko. Pride, because as a dedicated professional, it is my extreme pleasure to carry out my duty to discover and disseminate new knowledge. Trepidation, because in the academic world hard data have long since driven out soft; and subjective, single-source history as I have compiled here will, I fear, be greeted by many of my colleagues with reservation, at best. So much the worse for them, of course, but doctrinaire outlooks such as those which unfortunately pervade my field of study inevitably pose the threat of difficulties and embarrassment to any scholar who dares challenge them. How, after all, can living history compete with statistical analysis, data mining, computer simulations and mathematical models? Such is my cross, and gladly I bear it.

  Permit me to introduce myself. I am B. Hesse Pflingger, professor of contemporary history at California State University, Cucamonga. My area of specialization is the analysis of international flashpoints1—temporal and geopolitical nexuses that carry the potential to decisively alter the global correlation of forces (to use a term favored by the Soviets). Some time ago a research and teaching assistant of mine, Ms. Bertha Sikorski, approached me with a singular request. It seems she had attended one of those Malibu parties for the so-called “rich and famous” at the beachside home of a Hollywood film producer, Edward LeGrande. There she met Mr. Fonko. She was at the time carrying out research for her Master’s thesis (subsequently completed and successfully defended), the title being “An analysis of the efficaciousness of covert counter-insurgent interventions in altering the trajectories of certain indigenous anti-Western movements: How badly did the CIA fuck up in Iran?” Her conversations with Mr. Fonko convinced her that his knowledge of such matters would be highly useful to her project, and she desired my clearance to use him as a key source.

  Ms. Sikorski had compiled for me several excellent bibliographies, and had done yeoperson service in assisting my preparation for my new course, Trends 305: I harbor no reservation whatsoever concerning her scholarly abilities and commitment. However, unlike the typical female graduate student, she not only has a lot upstairs, but also is, one might say, amply constructed in the mezzanine as well, and is susceptible to male attention to the extent that she, one might say, never lacks for gentlemen callers. As her thesis advisor I felt it prudent, as a matter of maintaining academic integrity, to investigate further this mysterious Mr. Fonko, for whom Ms. Sikorski made such an enthusiastic case. They had exchanged particulars, so I was able to call him on the telephone and arrange an appointment for the purpose of “checking him out,” as it were.

  My first interview with Mr. Fonko, while reassuring, did not entirely allay my concerns. I found him to be knowledgeable and articulate, far more so than one might expect from an admitted college dropout. Certainly he was a congenial conversationalist, exhibiting considerably more substance than the run-of-the-mill “bullshit artist.” Yet many of his revelations and assertions seemed a bit, well, extravagant. We passed a pleasant several hours, during which I took copious notes on some of the more uncertain, obscure and/or doubtful points.

  Back on campus, spurred by Ms. Sikorski’s impatient urging and my own curiosity, I carefully vetted various pieces of his information that one might legitimately question. To my initial amazement and growing delight, in every case where the facts were known and verified by scholarly sources, the man wa
s spot on! By all appearances, Ms. Sikorski had stumbled onto a potential fount of living history.

  Subsequent interviews were arranged with Mr. Fonko, at his Malibu home, on campus, over drinks in taverns, on the beach, usually with Ms. Sikorski in tow and always with tape recorder in hand. I quickly developed an affection for the affable Mr. Fonko, as indeed most people would, I suspect. Perhaps my personal affinity for him was so strong because he is a military man, and while I never myself was privileged to serve, my father had been a supply clerk at Fort Ord during the Korean War, and I had always reveled in the many tales of soldiering that he had to tell.

  As our meetings with the excellent Mr. Fonko progressed, Ms. Sikorski and I recorded his involvement in just about every significant global event during the final decades of the 20th century—Vietnam, Cambodia, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Grenada and Kuwait, to name only a fraction. He had facilitated the Shah’s egress from Iran; had nearly prevented Indira Gandhi’s tragic assassination; had held in his hands evidence that could have blown sky high Wall Street inside trading, Robert Maxwell’s publishing empire, and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, years before those scandals came to light. He was personally acquainted with Pol Pot, Robert Vesco, Mother Teresa, John DeLorean, Manuel Noreiga, Saddam Hussein, Michael Jackson…the list could continue ad infinitum.

  Yet because of his peculiar roles in these matters, his name is unknown to all but a handful in the uppermost echelons of global espionage (yes, as best I could, I verified that too!). There is no doubt in my mind that his story must be told, as world owes Mr. Fonko many debts, which can never be repaid, but which at least should be acknowledged. I have dedicated myself to telling it. Or rather, letting him tell it himself, as any commentary I might intrude into his narratives as captured on tape (save grammar and sentence flow, of course—only newscasters, actors and politicians speak with fluency, and of course they are merely parroting prepared text) would not improve them.