Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

by Dorothy Gilman

  "Patience, Bishop," said Carstairs. "It's only morning there, people have been sleeping."

  Bishop yawned. "Lucky them." The telex began clicking again and Bishop leaned over it. "It says 'extremely fluid situation ...'"

  "That ubiquitous phrase that means they don't know what the hell's going on," Carstairs said with a sigh. "Whether right-wing fanatics are behind this, liberals, an old power elite or a new one, and above all whether they're pro- or anti-American and will succeed or fail."

  "Wait, there's more," Bishop told him. "No Americans killed—that's a relief, sorry as I am about the others. Ah —here we are—the coup is now rumored to be led by a General Lueng Nuang."

  "Files," Carstairs said quickly. "He should be there. If not, try the computer."

  "Right." As he walked past the phone he saw its red light flashing and plucked it from its nest, saying "Carstairs's office ..." He handed the phone to Carstairs. "It's Mornajay's assistant, Mrs. Hudson."

  "Good—I told her I'd like to interview Mornajay's appointment Monday morning at the time of the phone call now, at this very moment—" He glanced at his watch. "At this very moment it's 7:20 Friday morning over there and people already know what Friday's like, and have also," he added pointedly, "had a charming sleep tonight, which you and I may be denied, and they're actually experiencing a day we've not reached yet."

  "You're being whimsical," growled Carstairs.

  "No, I suspect rather metaphysical," Bishop said, considering this. "Fraught with time-and-space speculations, surely? Do you think, by the way, that Mornajay's mysterious flight to Bangkok had anything to do with this coup?"

  Carstairs said with a wry smile, "The department provides no crystal balls, unfortunately. Of course anything's possible but if news of a pending coup drew him there then everyone Upstairs would know where he was, and above all his assistant. No, my best instincts tell me that something else is afoot."

  "Are you thinking this because of his insistence on using a novice like McAndrews?"

  Carstairs looked troubled. "That, too, is completely out of character for the very efficient Mornajay, but so is his bolting and leaving so many stones unturned."

  "With the possibility of nasty things under those stones?" suggested Bishop. "There—I've said it. I know you swear at him a lot but what's your impression of the man?"

  "A cold and uncomfortable person, all brain and no heart," Carstairs said. "Comes from cold country too— Minneapolis. You heard Holloway describe him: a large man with a large ego to match."

  Bishop shook his head. "Very mysterious, although I have to confess that what worries me most about this coup are the eleven people reported dead, and thirty-six injured, and McAndrews still hasn't turned up a clue as to where Emily and Cyrus might be."

  Carstairs said briskly, "Nonsense, they'd scarcely be—" He stopped, looking startled.

  "Ah, but we don't know where they are, do we?" said Bishop pleasantly. "Dare I remind you of the many times you believed Mrs. Pollifax to be somewhere she wasn't? A few years ago you thought she was stuck in Istanbul and she turned up in prison halfway across the country in Kayseri. You were sure she was in Bulgaria and she telephoned us from Switzerland. You thought her dead in Mexico and she turned up bobbing along in a boat on the Adriatic, so how can you say they're not in Bangkok? Damn it," he said impatiently, "it's been hours since we notified the U.S. Embassy they're missing. Where are they, and why don't we hear from someone?"

  "Patience, Bishop," said Carstairs. "It's only morning there, people have been sleeping."

  Bishop yawned. "Lucky them." The telex began clicking again and Bishop leaned over it. "It says 'extremely fluid situation ...'"

  "That ubiquitous phrase that means they don't know what the hell's going on," Carstairs said with a sigh. "Whether right-wing fanatics are behind this, liberals, an old power elite or a new one, and above all whether they're pro- or anti-American and will succeed or fail."

  "Wait, there's more," Bishop told him. "No Americans killed—that's a relief, sorry as I am about the others. Ah —here we are—the coup is now rumored to be led by a General Lueng Nuang."

  "Files," Carstairs said quickly. "He should be there. If not, try the computer."

  "Right." As he walked past the phone he saw its red light flashing and plucked it from its nest, saying "Carstairs's office ..." He handed the phone to Carstairs. "It's Mornajay's assistant, Mrs. Hudson."

  "Good—I told her I'd like to interview Mornajay's appointment Monday morning at the time of the phone call from Bangkok; he or she may have overheard something helpful... Yes, Mrs. Hudson," he said, and turned silent, listening closely.

  Bishop, curious, gave him sidelong glances as he searched for a file on General Lueng. When Carstairs did speak again Bishop jumped.

  "Who?" he said in a startled voice, and began scribbling notes. When he'd thanked Mrs. Hudson he dialed a number and asked to speak to a man named Lester Thomson.

  Bishop found two paragraphs in the files on General Lueng and extracted them to read. He noted that the general had been a member of the Thai Parliament eight years ago, until it had been discovered that his personal fortune had ballooned to five million Thai dollars due to bribes and to payoffs in drug smuggling. Reading between the lines Bishop gathered that several others in high positions had also been involved, but that General Lueng had been made an example of to please the Americans, who were still investing thousands in helping to root out the drug trade. General Lueng had languished in prison for all of three months, had then been exiled out of the country and had returned within a year to become a general in the army again, from which Bishop concluded dryly that there was a deficiency of generals in the country, and that the old-boy system was alive and flourishing. While he scanned the material he could hear Carstairs introducing himself on the phone to Thomson and asking if he could see him as soon as possible.

  "He's coming right over," Carstairs told Bishop, the call ended.

  "But who is he?"

  A wicked little smile hovered on Carstairs's lips. "Would you believe he's DEA?"

  "Drug Enforcement Agency?" Bishop was astonished. "That was Mornajay's appointment on Monday?" It was not unusual for the various intelligence agencies to share information but technically such give-and-take was supposed to be authorized by Upstairs. Then he remembered that Mornajay was Upstairs, one of the top elite and presumably answerable to no one.

  Thomson was prompt: a bulky man with Irish-blue eyes and a shrewd, humorous face. "You caught me just as I was leaving my office," he said. "You say this has something to do with my appointment on Monday with Mornajay?"

  Carstairs nodded. "Yes."

  There was silence while the two men eyed each other speculatively, and then Thomson said without expression, "He walked out in the middle of our appointment, and I've been trying to reach him ever since. His assistant has been extremely evasive when I've called, telling me he'll return my call, except he doesn't."

  "You were seeing him on a matter of importance?"

  'Top-level importance—to Mornajay," said Thomson.

  They're fencing—Thomson knows something, thought Bishop, and waited.

  Carstairs said softly, "His assistant Mrs. Hudson has not been frank with you. Understandably, given the situation. Actually you seem to be the last person to have seen Mornajay, he's disappeared."

  "Disappeared!"

  "Apparently due to a mysterious phone call that came through while you were there."

  Thomson shook his head. "Not necessarily."

  Carstairs regarded him with interest. "Care to explain that? You said you were there on a matter of top-level importance to Mornajay?

  Thomson brought out a cigarette and became very busy lighting it. When he put away his lighter he leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. "All right, I'll level with you, but strictly off the record."

  "Agreed," said Carstairs.

  "Frankly, I feel I've been sitting on dynamite and I'm not sure how to
handle it. I came to see Mornajay first thing on Monday to present him with certain facts we'd learned after months of undercover work. I wanted him to explain certain coincidences—"

  Carstairs's brows rose. "Coincidences?"

  Thomson stirred restlessly. "I'd feel better about telling this if I'd been able to finish my conversation with Mornajay. As it is, I'd only begun to sketch out the facts I'd brought him when he had a phone call and cut short our appointment. Very coldly and very curtly. Doesn't anyone know where he is?"

  Carstairs studied him carefully. "I appreciate your candor," he said. "I think I can be equally as candid. Would it interest you to know—and this too is off the record—that after a number of phone calls we've established the fact that Mornajay's been seen in Thailand?"

  Thomson said quietly, "That shocks me."

  "Can you tell us why?"

  Thomson sighed. "Okay, I'll sketch it in... As you know, the DEA is particularly active in Thailand, where we're doing our level best to help the government stamp out the drug racket, which I might add is at times like a finger in the proverbial dyke. We keep track of the various warlords with their private armies and the Chinese go-betweens and merchants, and so on."

  "The chiu chao? inquired Carstairs.

  Thomson nodded. 'They're involved, yes—that network of unions and guilds that goes back centuries to ancient China, the same network that put Chiang Khai-shek in power in China... Unfortunately when Mao took over China the chiu chao simply filtered out into Hong Kong, Macao, San Francisco and so on. A very closed group with enormous influence. Their banks—oh, they're very respectable now—are involved in laundering drug money, and for over a year now we've also known that one of their top men is non-Chinese, and an American."

  Carstairs said incredulously, "American? With the chiu chao? Impossible, they'd never permit it."

  Thomson said tersely, "He married into it—a woman named Chin-Ling."

  Bishop froze. It needed all of his discipline to keep from giving Carstairs the quick sidelong glance that would betray to Thomson that the name was not unfamiliar.

  Carstairs said evenly, "Go on..."

  "We've called this chap Mr. X, because in certain—er —wire-tapping episodes, that's how they refer to him. Very few people have ever seen him, he seems to operate mainly by telephone and by cable and to supply information and move large sums of money for them. He's very clever, very organized.

  "But three weeks ago," he continued, "we lucked into something: one of their chaps was odd man out in an inside power play, and he had very strong suspicions that he was being poisoned. He came to us and turned informant."

  Bishop waited, his mouth open, a strange feeling gripping him.

  "He was in a position to give us something of a report on Mr. X," went on Thomson slowly. "He told us, for instance, that Mr. X knew Southeast Asia very well, having spent some years there during the Vietnam War, that he has apartments in Hong Kong and Bangkok, supports a wife in Bangkok but is seldom in either place. He uses the names Charlie Tegner and Kenneth Lance but his real name is Mornajay, first name unknown. He's about forty-five, was born in Minneapolis and it was during his stay in Asia during the war that he met and married this little Chinese girl named Chin-Ling, who just happened to have very high connections in the chiu chao."

  Bishop closed his mouth with a snap. It was happening, he was hearing it and it was incredible.

  Carstairs said pleasantly, "And you have discovered that Mornajay here at CIA was in Vietnam during the war, is roughly forty-five or forty-seven, was born in Minneapolis and by curious coincidence his first name is Lance."

  "Yes," said Thomson uncomfortably. "Another embarrassment for the CIA?"

  There was silence and then Carstairs said smoothly, not acknowledging the hit, "Your appointment was interrupted by a phone call. Any idea who from?"

  Thomson shook his head. "No, he took the call in an adjoining room behind a closed door."

  Carstairs said nothing. Aha, thought Bishop, he's not going to share what he knows about the call being from Chin-Ling.

  "And you really think," said Carstairs quietly, "that Mornajay could be your Mr. X?"

  Thomson sighed. "I don't know, and he's in such a formidable position of authority that it's a hell of a responsibility, this. I'd feel happier about it if he'd been given the chance to deny it. Or explain it. Instead he's apparently just—bolted?"

  Carstairs nodded. "The worst possible thing he could do."

  "Have you told them Upstairs that he's in Thailand?"

  Carstairs shook his head. "Not yet. They know of his absence now and it obviously baffles them but no alerts have been sent out. If he doesn't return—"

  Thomson said slowly, "It sounds to me as if he's on the run. What would make a man like this—if he is our Mr. X—risk everything to live a double life? I only met him last Monday but he struck me as—you'll forgive me, but he struck me as very colorless and frankly dull."

  "But organized," put in Carstairs. "Highly organized."

  "Money?" suggested Thomson, frowning. "Power?"

  Bishop said impulsively, "How about the sheer exhilaration of living a double life?"

  "Possible," Thomson said, nodding. "Certainly that would make the money secondary, and if he deals mainly in cables and phone calls, heaven only knows it could be managed long-distance. Tricky but not impossible."

  Bishop said flippantly, "It would certainly explain his never marrying if he already has a wife."

  But no one was listening. "Since he gives every evidence now of being Mr. X," Thomson said, "I'll alert the office in Chiang Mai. If he's going underground I'd guess that he's heading into the mountains, probably to find Wen Sa, shelter with him and eventually work out an escape route under a new identity. We already know of a Thai general involved in the business, a General Lueng."

  Carstairs laughed. "Heard about the coup?"

  "No, what coup?"

  "Began 6 A.M. Bangkok time, led, we hear, by a General Lueng."

  "The plot thickens."

  A coup... Mrs. Pollifax and Cyrus missing... Mornajay in Thailand... Listening, Bishop acknowledged that his alarm was mounting, not only at the thought of a traitor in the Department, and Mornajay of all people, but over two people very special to him. He had barely digested the fact that Emily and Cyrus had vanished when it had been followed by Mornajay's mysterious disappearance, and he was still reeling over Holloway's report that the man was seen in Bangkok only thirty-six hours ago. Because Bishop was much fonder of Emily Pollifax than of Lance Mornajay he worried now about a possible connection. He asked himself if Ruamsak's information might have concerned Mornajay's identity as Mr. X, and if this was possible, could Mornajay be behind Ruamsak's murder and the abduction of Cyrus Reed? Once the thought of Mornajay's defection was accepted it brought with it a nightmare of conjecture and worry.

  Carstairs said grimly, "I think that in the continued absence of Mornajay we take this conversation Upstairs right now, don't you? I think we have to assume that Mornajay is a very dangerous man now, both to himself and to the Department."

  CHAPTER

  10

  Dimly Mrs. Pollifax became aware of a man's voice calling out in a strange language, of a woman answering and footsteps running. Tentatively she opened her eyes to see an expanse of red earth, a house with a thatch roof that swept down to nearly meet the ground, a young woman emerging from that house wearing a headdress that dripped silver coins. She closed her eyes; she was not, after all, at home or in bed, and there was something urgent and pressing, something lost that she had to find. Or someone.

  When she opened her eyes again she was lying on a mat on the open platform or veranda of a thatch house, and she had not been hallucinating about strange bright headdresses because the woman bending over her was wearing one. Next to the woman stood a man looking down at Mrs. Poll if ax, a young man with high smooth cheekbones and intense bright eyes. He was not Bonchoo; he wore wide-legged black trousers and a dark
shirt and a knife in his belt, and Bonchoo hadn't looked like this. "Bonchoo," she murmured, and then, struggling to sit up, "Bonchoo?"

  The young man called out to someone behind him in the shadows and moved out of sight. Sitting up, Mrs. Pollifax saw that she was virtually surrounded by children and women, all of whom wore the same headdresses and were staring at her in amazement, at her feet, her clothes, her face. Her shoes had been removed and the woman bending over her was applying a cool and soothing paste to the blisters on her feet. Her headdress was so near to her that Mrs. Pollifax's eyes could wander in awe over its intricate rows of hammered-silver circlets, its lines of tiny white buttons and red beads, all fringed by silver coins, the headdress rising to a peak in a cone of marvelous embroidery and a flash of red feathers. Feeling her glance, the woman looked up and smiled shyly. Her face was small and worn, but sensitive, with a sweetness that surprised Mrs. Pollifax.

  The man's call brought Bonchoo, and seeing Bonchoo again, that broad enigmatic face with its scar and its absurd hat, she felt a flood of relief and affection. "Bonchoo," she repeated, smiling.

  He was followed by a gnarled little old woman wearing an identical headdress except that hers was shabbier but no less resplendent. "She brings water," Bonchoo told her, pointing to the jug the woman carried. "She boiled it for you, 1 saw to that. Treat it like gold, and not too much at once."

  The old woman beamed at her, nodding vigorously as Mrs. Pollifax clutched the jug and drank. The water was still warm, and when she had assuaged some of her thirst she put the jug down to cool but she kept a hand around it possessively.

  "Next she says you must drink this," Bonchoo told her, holding out a cup hollowed from the burl of a tree. "It's herb tea—altitude-medicine for the heart."

  She tasted it, made a face but obediently emptied the cup and to her surprise almost at once her heart stopped fluttering and steadied to a slower, stronger beat. She said in astonishment, "I do feel better, it works, please thank her. Bonchoo, I apologize for fainting but tell me what's happened, have you seen the headman, can we leave now?"