“Yes, commander,” said Makan, a small, skinny Hmong.
“Okay. Next, we get off the street. Drive back to the motel and hide out until Operative Two takes down the Finance Ministry building. It has been wired with explosives and will go off at three-thirty. The bureaucrats should be in a state of panic after the second bombing takes place. But we have to be careful and lay low to avoid security sweeps. The PLA will be out in full force, setting up road blocks, pulling people over and searching their vehicles. We need to be prepared…for anything,” Kanoa Lee said.
* * * *
A pale glow of morning light curled under the curtained window at the back of the room. Seabury was already up when he heard Tory stirring in the bed behind him.
“Give me a couple of minutes,” she said, heading for the sink.
He heard the rustle of her clothing as she removed her top. The sound of the water splashing and the rub of a towel over her torso pricked his skin. A tingling sensation welled up inside him and dropped lower into his loins. He thought about being in bed with her. What it would feel like the first time he kissed her. How would she respond when he touched her there, and entered her? As she stood with her back to him, he knew she was aware of his eyes on her. He was also aware of his own feelings. Making love to her was playing a dangerous game when the game eventually led to commitments. The sea was his home. He valued his freedom so he had to be careful. He turned away and quickly put the thoughts out of his mind.
It was two weeks past the winter equinox. Morning broke earlier now, Seabury noticed as he parted the curtain and looked outside. Above the trees on the other side of the reservoir, a faint line of crimson colored the sky.
At the knock on the door, Seabury turned around. He crossed the room and cracked open the door.
“Two guards on the pier outside,” said Mister Cheeb. “They come this way, toward the boat shop.”
Tory heard the news. She followed Seabury back outside into the shop.
“Hurry!” Cheeb said. “You need a disguise.”
He handed Seabury and Tory each a green hat, black jacket and a brown handmade scarf. They put on the clothing and covered their faces with the scarves, hoping to fool the guards into believing they were Hmong hill tribe people.
Cheeb switched off the light above the front door and rolled the bike outside onto the pier. Peng slipped past them and hurried down to the other end of the pier, in the opposite direction from where the guards were coming. Tory mounted the motorcycle, taking control. Seabury climbed on behind her. She was about to start the engine and ride off when the thickset figure of a Lao MP stepped out from the shadows at the edge of the building, swung a rifle in Tory’s face and told her to get off the bike. Cheeb and the guard exchanged words.
At the other end of the pier, yelling down a ladder at two Hmong boat tenders, Peng started a commotion. The other MP ran toward the noise, his cuffs and nightstick banging off the side of his right leg as he motored down the pier.
Cheeb went on talking, gesturing wildly with his hands. He pointed back at Seabury, who pulled the scarf close to his face and waited. Tory got in on the act, backing up Cheeb’s story, pleading with the guard. She kept her voice low but full of pain and anguish, telling the guard in English hospital, death and pointing back at Seabury. If he understood it correctly, she told the guard his wife had just died in the hospital.
Seabury was quick to play the part of the aggrieved husband. He bent over, shuddered and feigned tears, hoping the guard would believe them. The guard came around to the back of the bike and stared at Seabury. He pointed at the scarf.
“Take off,” he said.
Seabury pulled the scarf back over his nose, as shouts carried back from the other end of the pier. The guard swung back toward the commotion. He heard the shouting, saw the other guard getting into it with Peng, who was yelling down at the boat tenders. The tenders stared up at him from below, dazed and confused by the shouting.
“Please,” said Tory, staring at the guard. His thick, meaty face was wrinkled in confusion. “The hospital—we need to go.”
Seabury pantomimed grief and sorrow, bent over holding his chest. He kept his eyes pinned to the round. A few seconds flew by. A few more.
Still confused, the guard shook his head. He hunched shoulders and shook his head again. The sound of loud voices sprang back at him from the pier. A moment later he stepped back from the bike. He looked at Tory, and waved a hand at her in a dismissive gesture. Tory started the bike and sped past him, not waiting for him to change his mind.
On the dirt road that ran parallel to the parking lot, Seabury twisted back and looked over his shoulder at the end of the pier. Cheeb and Peng stood surrounded by the two guards. The boat tenders had already gone down inside their boats. The heavyset guard who had stopped Tory jammed a thumb in the air and ordered Cheeb and Peng back toward the boat shop.
“I hope they’re not in trouble,” Tory shouted back over her shoulder at Seabury as she roared around the reservoir.
“Nah, they’ll just pay a fine, or talk their way out of it. I’m sure they’ll be alright,” Seabury said.
They drove west for another twelve miles, then joined the main road north toward Phonsavan and the Plain of Jars.
Chapter Sixteen
They ate a breakfast of sticky rice and cold chicken, and drank their black coffee in silence until Kanoa Lee signaled to the sergeant. The warehouse doors opened and the sergeant drove the van out onto the highway and merged with the morning commute into Vientiane.
The sun shone in the side window and the traffic slowed along Semsenthai Road, bumper to bumper and backed up the closer they got to the city limits.
“It looks like a good day for a bombing, or a good day to die,” the sergeant said with a slight chuckle.
Lee did not respond. The Telecom building stood opposite the Siam Commercial Bank, a few blocks up from the Presidential Palace, on Fa Ngum and Mahasat Streets, near the Mekong River.
The familiar reddish-orange banner of the Chinese Communist Part adorned the square, white, three-story building with a red thatched roof complete with a hammer and sickle, hanging from a wire cable above the front door. In the outer parking stone islands loomed, painted with zebra stripes. Trees and bushes bordered the delivery entrance on the right side of the building.
The sergeant flashed his commercial business license to the guard at the gate of the parking lot. The guard nodded and the sergeant turned right into a square courtyard, and then left again and drove around in back of the building. In a row of windows above hem the sound of computer terminals churning out information accompanied people scurrying by in a wave of flickering light. The van swung into a garage in the building underground. After they’d changed out their delivery uniforms into white shirts, slacks and ties, the sergeant set the timer on the urea-nitrate bomb. They left immediately, moving back out of the garage and around the side of the building toward the front gate.
Across the lot the over-zealous guard came out of the guard house and walked toward them.
“If there’s trouble,” Simok said, “let me at him first. Okay?”
“Stay calm,” Kanoa Lee said, slowing his stride. “Let’s not do anything rash.”
Half way across the lot, Simok shot in front of Lee and, waving across at the guard as if they were long, lost friends, he approached him with a warm, friendly smile. Lee and Simok had building permit badges, but they weren’t authentic and Lee knew that they wouldn’t pass inspection on close scrutiny. He had to make a quick decision. The mission was top priority, even if it meant sacrificing the life of his boyhood friend.
Lee took the quickest exit out the front gate, leaving Simok behind. A second security guard arrived and quickly they surrounded Simok while a third raced out the front gate after Kanoa Lee.
“Building ID, please,” the first guard said to Simok.
A brief exchange of words followed, and when Simok failed to come up with a badge that looked authent
ic, the guards drew revolvers and marched him over to a military cruiser. They shoved him into the back seat and drove off through the front gate.
Meanwhile, the sidewalk spilled over with people. Weaving through, Lee glanced back over his shoulder. The cop, a bear-like brute, quickened his pace, shoving people aside as he shouldered his way up the walk.
Food stalls appeared up ahead. Large metal pots on burners bubbled up noodles and bits of white port. Fried chicken hung from wire racks. Warm packets of wild rice lay stacked together on the tables as customers crowded the stalls and made purchases.
Half way down the block, Lee ducked into a side alley. He kept going and disappeared under a canopy that shaded the cooking stall from rays of sun slanting through the buildings down the alley. Looking straight ahead, he saw the bear shoot by the mouth of the alley and continue up the block. He relaxed a minute and caught his breath before the commotion started. Down the street the Telecom building went up in a loud explosion.
A wave of tremors shook the ground. It jolted the concrete and rippled across the alley in a thunderous roar. Pots and pans banged together. Dishes splattered across the ground. Inside the cooking stall, hot water splashed out of one of the pots. A woman jumped back and screamed in horror but avoided being scalded. The ground shook again and the tremor let up. People stood for a moment looking at each other in stunned silence. Gradually, they came to life and rushed back out of the alley toward the street. Lee saw the bear retrace his steps and dash past the front of the alley back toward the area of the bomb blast.
Hurrying through the crowd in the opposite direction, Lee felt a knot of fear stapled to the middle of his chest. For the first time since he’d bolted from the parking lot, the image of Simok flashed through his mind. He could see the police with clubs and nightsticks beating him. He could feel the metal clips going over his testicles, the electricity being turned on, the jolts to his body with quick, explosive spasms, frying him. Poor Simok!
Would he crack under pressure? Would he compromise the mission? After all, every man had a breaking point but Lee knew his old friend very well. Simok was a good soldier and a good soldier would die first rather than compromise the mission. Up ahead, Lee saw Makan waiting with the car. He hurried toward him.
Chapter Seventeen
Driving to Phonsavan wasn’t going to be easy, Seabury figured. On a good road he would reach the town in a matter of hours, but not so here where a large part of the highway was cracked and full of potholes. Over the years, the hot dry weather and the heavy rains of the monsoon season had taken its toll. The deep ruts that appeared suddenly were enough to damage the front end of a car or swallow a motorcycle. The bus trip from Vientiane to Phonsavan took over ten hours. A trip by motorcycle would take even longer. Traveling by day was risky. Traveling at night was dangerous and foolhardy. Bandits lurked everywhere. Above the roar of the engine, Seabury yelled up to Tory.
“Pull inside those trees up there on the right. I’ll take over.”
Tory found a wide spot at the edge of the road and pulled over. Seabury got off the back of the motorcycle, yawned and stretched. Tory set the bike on its stand and climbed off to stretch her legs. As they swapped positions and Seabury climbed on in front, his cell phone rang. Mae Mongkol’s voice crackled down the line.
“I got what you want,” she said. He heard pages ruffle back into the phone. “I checked your text late last night. I thought I’d better come in early and get to work. It sounded important.”
“Go on. I’m listening.”
“Okay, here’s what I have,” she said. “Tony Sun’s father Vincent, died in 1989. He was an import-export dealer who made most of his money during the Vietnam War. He had connections to the Hong Kong underground and sold U.S. military ordinance there on the black market. It was mostly small arms weapons, pistols, handguns, M16’s, that sort of thing. When he wasn’t selling guns on the black market in Hong Kong, he was selling heroin out of the Golden Triangle in Burma.
“His main weapon’s supplier was a guy named Joe Greer, an army supply sergeant stationed in Saigon during the early part of the war. Happy Joe, they called him, because he was always laughing and joking around. And why not, with the kind of money he was making, supplying heroin to U.S. troops and gun-running for Vincent Sun. Later on, Greer was shipped off to Laos during the so-called Secret War, circa 1961-75, and that stopped his black market operation.”
“What happened to him?”
“MIA in 1972 and presumed dead. He left a widow, and a fourteen year-old boy living in a Laotian village up country. The boy lived with his mother until her death in 1992. After that he drifted back to Honolulu where the family originally lived and he was in and out of prison for B&E and assault charges. He’s a pretty violent person. Anyway, later on in a subtle twist of irony, he resurfaced over here in Bangkok of all places. He’s been in and out of jail on various charged ranging from petty theft to drug possession. But he never seems to stay in prison very long. His name’s Hyde Greer.”
The name had the same impact as a hard blow to Seabury’s stomach. Two teenagers in a schoolyard. One boy insults the other. They settle it after school. One boy wins the fight, the other loses.
“You’ll never guess who Hyde Greer was trafficking drugs for?”
The pain left Seabury’s stomach. It shot high up into his chest, pounded at his heart and shortened his breath.
“Are you okay?” Mae said. “You seem a little… distant.”
“No, go on,” Seabury said, taking deep breaths as he tried to control his breathing.
“Well, here’s where it gets dicey. Greer was arrested on drug charges while working for Jarrett Stark—”
“Stark?”
“Yes, he was his mule, operating in and out of Thailand. But it’s the same old story, isn’t it? Stark’s politically connected. So he and Greer beat the drug charges, after which Stark remained in Bangkok, while Greer traipsed in and out of the country as free as a lark. There’s something more you need to know about this guy, Hyde Greer. He’s mentally ill, not just your average nutcase, but a sociopath who’s as dangerous as a ticking time bomb. Let me explain. When he was trafficking drugs under the nose of the law in Laos, or rather paying off the police, young teenage girls in lowland villages along the Mekong River outside Vientiane started to disappear. Village elders reported to the policed about seeing a man with brown flowing hair talking to the girls just before they went missing. The villagers, Lao Loum people, or lowland Lao, call him Crazy Boy. To this day, they’re scared of him. Some call him a cannibal, others a vampire or evil spirit. When the bodies of the teenagers were eventually found, their genitals had been removed…and they were cannibalized.”
“Cannibalized?” Seabury shuddered. It was worse than he’d expected.
“Yes, as terrible as it sounds, there were teeth marks all over the bodies. Some of them were half-eaten. The police tried to link Greer to the crimes, but could never find enough evidence to convict him.”
“Or they were paid off.”
“Yes,” Mae said, “that’s what I’m thinking. Anyway, you be careful up there. This psycho was reported to have crossed the border into Laos a few days ago. To make matters worse, he’s been sighted up near the Plain of Jars.”
Seabury felt a chill pass through him as his mind connected the dots. “How’d you get all that information,” he asked Mae, trying to keep his voice calm while his body strained with tension.
“I have my sources.”
“That’s why I pay you the big bucks.”
“Don’t I wish,” she said, chuckling.
Checking his watch, Seabury glanced around at Tory, and held his hand up, signaling that he was almost finished before he turned back to the phone.
“Okay. One more thing,” he said to Mae. “Get me Howard H. Hatcher’s bio.”
“The U.S. Ambassador to Laos?”
“Bright girl.” He rubbed his jaw and thought for a second. “Also get me information on the Rav
en Program. It was a covert operation that the American military used during the Secret War in Laos. There’s a link here I want to follow up on.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll need it—”
“I know… like yesterday.” She rang off.
Seabury slumped forward on the bike. A nest of vipers hissed beneath his skin. He tried hard to remove the thought of a face-off with Hyde Greer from his mind. Gripping the handles of the bike, he turned around and looked at Tory.
“You know,” he said with a weak smile. “I’m getting tired of this old man routine.” He pulled the cap off his head and the scarf from his face and stuffed them into the front pocket of his jacket. Wiping sweat from his brow, he said, “There, I feel twenty years younger.”
“Don’t stretch it, Mister,” Tory chuckled. “Forty or fifty, maybe. But twenty years younger? Please… give me a break. You’d have to be on your second or third incarnation.”
“Are we enjoying ourselves?”
“Out here, miles from nowhere, with the police after us, the sun beating down causing every pore in my body to open and my clothes feeling as wet as if I’d been sprayed with a garden hose, do you have to ask?”
“Dramatic. Maybe there’s a job for you on the Silver Screen.”
She wrinkled her nose and shook a playful finger at him, but didn’t reply to his barb about the Silver Screen.
As Seabury pulled back onto the highway, he shuddered at the thought of Crazy Boy’s history of molesting and killing teenage girls. He wondered if Victoria Hong was even alive.
Chapter Eighteen
Kanoa Lee switched on the television. The screen flickered on and off a few times in the gray, feeble, half-light of the motel room. The image popped up and down on the screen, then slowed and settled sharply into focus so he could see it clearly now without straining his eyes. A van and a camera crew from the local news station stood in front of a cordoned-off area, where the dark rubbery jackets of fire-fighters glistened under a broiling sun. They labored beyond the L-shaped wedge of two gleaming red fire engines. Gallons of water shot out from the metal nozzles of nylon fire hoses onto the carnage. The front of the Telecom building had collapsed into a pile of rubble. Thick clouds of ash and smoke billowed high into the air and a strange, calmness choked the area. In the foreground, beyond the strip of yellow crime scene tape, a prism of red and blue pulsating light flashed from the roofs of police cruisers parked nearby. In the distance the steady, noise of sirens filled the air.
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