The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  “But if I could guarantee you wouldn’t get caught? Would you do it then?”

  “For two million dollars? And no chance of getting caught?” He took a mouthful of beer as he thought about it. “Yeah, I would. I’ve nothing against the idea in principle. Is that what you have in mind, Joel?”

  Tyler shook his head. “I’m still feeling my way, Dan. Bear with me. Would you steal?”

  “Steal what?”

  Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know. From a shop, maybe. Would you throw a brick through a jeweller’s window and take a two million dollar necklace?”

  “Too risky.”

  “Okay, if I could put together a team which was breaking into a jeweller’s shop at night, and if I could guarantee that there was a ninety per cent chance of us getting away clean and that your share of the take would be two million, would you do it?”

  Lehman waggled his head from side to side and chewed his lip like a schoolboy trying to solve an algebra problem. “It’s too hypothetical,” he said.

  “Gut feeling,” pressed Tyler. “Give me your gut feeling.”

  “Yeah, I’d do it.”

  “And what if it meant going in during the day, with guns but not planning to use them. If I could guarantee the same odds of success. Would you do it then?”

  “Depends on the team,” said Lehman.

  “Good guys. Guys like you.”

  “Vets?”

  Lehman felt Tyler’s eyes bore into his own like blue ice daggers. “Yes. Vets like you.”

  “Who?”

  Tyler smiled tightly. “First we have to decide whether or not you want to be part of it, Dan. It wouldn’t be fair to the rest. If you’d already agreed you wouldn’t want me to be telling someone who might run off and spill his guts, would you?”

  “It sounds like you don’t trust me, Joel.”

  “I don’t trust anybody. Not completely. Not until I know them.”

  “Tell me one thing. Is Bart Lewis part of this?”

  “Would it make a difference?”

  “No, I guess not.” Lehman studied his own reflection in the mirror. Middle-aged, grim expression as usual, slightly hunched over his glass of beer, sweat stains under the arms of his shirt, seven o’clock shadow around his cheeks. A man on the run, not knowing how long it would take until Mario Cilento’s contract was fulfilled. That wasn’t how Dan Lehman wanted to end his days, on the receiving end of an assassin’s bullet. “It’s a robbery?” Lehman asked.

  “It’s a robbery,” confirmed Tyler.

  “Where?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “When?”

  “Weeks rather than months. You’d have to stay in South-East Asia. But that’s not a problem for you, is it?”

  Lehman ignored the question, figuring it was probably rhetorical anyway. “And the chance of success is ninety per cent?”

  “Who can tell, Dan? I was using that as an example. I don’t plan to get caught, that’s for sure. And I’ll explain everything to you nearer the time. But I can say that as far as I’m concerned it’ll be a completely successful operation. And if it all goes to plan, nobody will get caught. If it goes wrong, I would hope we’d be able to abort safely. And I should stress that all I want you for is your helicopter experience, nothing more. You won’t be carrying a weapon, not unless you want to.”

  “Was the two million dollars hypothetical, too?”

  Tyler shook his head. “No, that’ll be your cut. Two million dollars. Cash. Are you in?”

  Lehman looked at his reflection again. He straightened his back and smiled. “Yeah, I’m in. Who else is in on it?”

  “Bart Lewis. Eric Horvitz. And Larry Carmody.”

  Lehman frowned.

  “Something wrong?” asked Tyler.

  “I guess I’m just surprised that you’d want Horvitz and Carmody. I mean, Bart’s a regular guy, and if you’re planning to use a chopper then he’s obviously useful, but Horvitz and Carmody?”

  “They’ve both seen combat, they can handle the pressure. Sure, they’ve got problems, but that’s more because they’ve had trouble adapting to life back in the States rather than anything intrinsically wrong with them. They’ll be fine, believe me. I’ve seen their files, their war records. And Lewis is more than just a regular guy – he’s a decorated crew chief and was one of the army’s best mechanics. I’m an excellent judge of character, Dan. That’s why I chose you.”

  “Did you arrange for them to come on this trip?” Lehman asked.

  Tyler smiled. “Secrets, Dan,” he said quietly.

  “What about me? Did you know about me before I left the States?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that Lewis, Horvitz and I were all approached by a guy called Dick Marks, saying he was some sort of psychiatrist with an organisation that helped vets return to Vietnam. What was it called? The US-Indochina Reconciliation Project?”

  Tyler nodded. “The organisation exists, but Dick Marks works for me, not for it. And his name isn’t Marks, either.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” said Lehman.

  “I needed a pilot, a good one,” explained Tyler. “I needed a mechanic, and I needed two men who know how to handle themselves in combat. I had you all checked out in the States, but I wanted to see for myself before I approached you. I wanted to feel you out. See what sort of condition you were in, physical and mental.”

  Lehman shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense,” he said. “You didn’t know until the last minute that I was coming. Hell, I didn’t know myself.”

  “To be honest, Dan, you weren’t my first choice. I’d already contacted a chopper pilot in Phoenix but he broke his leg three weeks ago. I already had Lewis, Horvitz and Carmody lined up. Marks and I were trawling all over the place looking for a suitable pilot. You were a godsend.”

  “I had the skills you need, and I have a good reason for needing cash.”

  “That’s about it,” agreed Tyler.

  Lehman wondered what Tyler had said to convince Lewis, Horvitz and Carmody that they should take part in whatever it was that he had planned. Tyler was a control freak, that was for sure; he seemed to enjoy manipulating people, and while he claimed to be able to spot people’s strengths he had an uncanny knack of finding people’s weak points. The carrot and the stick. In Lehman’s case the carrot was the two million dollars. And the stick? The fear of the contract hanging over him, and the unspoken threat that Tyler could quite easily inform a certain Mr Cilento of Lehman’s present whereabouts. “So what happens now?” asked Lehman.

  Tyler smiled, stood up, and placed his empty glass on top of the mini-bar. “I have to keep some secrets, Dan. You’ll get the details soon enough.” He stepped towards Lehman and Lehman got to his feet. Tyler stuck out his hand like a car salesman wanting to seal a deal with a handshake. They shook hands and Tyler patted Lehman on the back. “I’m glad you’re on board, Dan. Really glad.”

  Lehman saw Tyler out and then poured himself another beer. He went over to the window and pulled back the blinds. The water in the swimming pool glinted far below. Someone was swimming a slow breast stroke, pale white skin in the blue water.

  Lehman hadn’t been too surprised by Tyler’s choice of men. He’d spent a great deal of the trip in Vietnam talking to Lewis, Carmody and Horvitz, and now it was clear why. He’d been sounding them out, getting the measure of them and working out which buttons to press to get them to agree to join him. Lehman nursed his beer and wondered what buttons Tyler had pressed. Carmody would probably have been the easiest to persuade; from what Lehman had seen the man was bordering on psychotic and had a lot of anger inside. Tyler would have offered him a way of expressing that anger, of getting it out of his system and of making money at the same time. Horvitz? Eric Horvitz was a real mystery. Something was burning inside him, it wasn’t anger, it was something else, something colder. Lehman didn’t know much about Horvitz but he supposed that Tyler had managed to go de
eper into his psyche. Maybe he’d offered him a chance to relive his glory days. A last hurrah. Even Lehman could appreciate the fact that most of the vets had never been so alive as they had been during their time in Vietnam and maybe that was what Horvitz missed. The robbery might give him the adrenaline rush that life after Vietnam denied him. That left Bart Lewis. He seemed a straight enough guy, but Lehman couldn’t imagine him wanting to take part in a robbery, even though there was little doubt that he needed the money. He’d said several times that his garage business in Baltimore wasn’t doing too well and he had a young son who he wanted to put through college when he was old enough. Lewis would have been easy to hit with an investment programme. All Lehman would have had to do would be to tell him it was a sure thing, that it would provide a nest egg for when his kid needed to go to college, tell him that his son would be proud of him and Lewis would already be reaching for a pen to sign the cheque. Lehman felt a sudden wave of emotion for Lewis, a desire to protect him from life’s sharks.

  There was a knock at the door and Lehman stood up to answer it. Lorn stood outside in a black shirt and yellow wrap-around skirt. She looked up at him and gave him a beaming smile. “Hello,” she said brightly.

  “Hello,” he said.

  Her smile widened, showing perfect, white teeth. “I come see you,” she said.

  “I can see that,” he answered. He frowned. “Are you okay? The manager didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”

  “No, I okay,” she said. “I want see you.” Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she smiled. She looked shorter than when Lehman had seen her in the bar and he realised it was because she’d swapped her high heel shoes for a simple pair of sandals.

  She pouted, her lower lip pushed forward as she waited for him to ask her in. He could feel her eyes pleading and he melted. He stepped to the side and opened the door wider. “Come in,” he said.

  She stepped inside the room and looked around. “Bathroom there?” she asked, nodding towards a door.

  “Yeah,” said Lehman. Part of him wanted to ask her to leave, but he could feel himself growing hard at the thought of being in bed with her.

  She dropped her brown leather handbag on the dressing-table by the television and headed for the bathroom. “I shower,” she said gaily over her shoulder. “You want come with me?”

  Lehman wrestled with his conscience for about ten seconds before following her.

  Neil Coleman sat at his desk with a grin from ear to ear, luxuriating in the warm feeling of a job well done. He swung his feet up on to his desk and sipped his fifth cup of coffee of the day. The one thing that would make his morning perfect would be a cigarette, but he was determined to quit once and for all. On his desk was an internal memo from the Commissioner’s office, congratulating him on the previous night’s work. The glowing praise would look good on his record, even though he knew that it wouldn’t lead to promotion, but it was the speed with which it had reached his desk that had impressed him. Normally it was only bad news which travelled quickly through the police bureaucracy.

  Coleman yawned and closed his eyes. He had been up all night, and spent most of it in the front seat of a police van overlooking Chek Mun Hoi Hap, the narrow channel which linked Tolo Harbour with the sea. Hui had been with him, and there had been six uniformed constables sweating in the back. Hui had offered Coleman a cigarette on at least three different occasions, and each time had expressed apologetic surprise when he had refused. Coleman was sure he was doing it on purpose.

  They’d spotted the men loading the cars on to three high-powered speedboats at two o’clock in the morning. Coleman had parked the vehicle at Wu Kai Sha from where they could see most of the harbour and the landing area where they’d been told the stolen cars would be loaded. The tip had come from one of Coleman’s contacts, a triad member who’d been feeding him information in exchange for cash for the past couple of years. He’d phoned Coleman and said that a rival triad was planning to send six stolen cars to China and had given him detailed instructions on where and when. Coleman had the feeling that his informer was more interested in the police damaging a rival triad than he was in the money, but he’d take information any way he could get it.

  He’d requisitioned a pair of night-vision glasses – the sort the army used to spot illegal immigrants trying to sneak across the border from China – and had watched a group of young men drive three Mercedes, a Nissan saloon and two Toyotas off the Tolo Highway and head towards a gently sloping beach. They were accompanied by two green trucks which drove right up to the water’s edge. As a dozen men climbed out of the back of the trucks, Hui had called up the Marine Police on his radio. They had six launches in position, three just beyond the channel at Bluff Head, one off Chek Chau and two more on the apex of Ocean Point. The launches could effectively seal off the channel when required.

  The triads had been incredibly well organised. In the space of ten minutes they unloaded several dozen planks of wood and steel barrels from the trucks and had constructed a rough pier stretching thirty feet out to sea. Coleman scanned the harbour and eventually spotted the three speedboats bobbing close to Ma Shi Chau, a small island about three kilometers offshore. Coleman pointed them out to Hui and he radioed the details over to the Marine Police.

  One of the triads aimed a torch out to sea and flashed the beam. On-off. On-off. On-off. There was an answering flash from one of the speedboats and then all three began coursing through the waves.

  “It’s going down,” said Coleman, under his breath. It was rare for there to be any sort of excitement in the Stolen Vehicles Unit and he relished every moment.

  The first speedboat cut its power and made a long, arcing turn to take it parallel to the home-made pier. Ropes were thrown to moor the boat and a Mercedes was driven gingerly along the wooden planks. The driver timed his final approach to the swell of the waves, surging forward at just the right moment and driving up to the front of the boat. Coleman tried to make out the registration number, hoping that it was William Fielding’s car, but it was too far away.

  The driver got out of the car, climbed out of the boat and ran back along the pier as the second car, a Toyota, made the trip. When it was safely in the boat and the driver back on the pier, the boat surged away and out towards the channel.

  Coleman nodded and Hui called in the Marine Police. Their instructions were to apprehend the boats one at a time as they reached the mouth of the channel.

  The second boat was loaded with two Mercedes and it also headed for the open sea. Coleman waited until the fifth car was driving along the pier before telling Hui to bring in the rest of the team, four vanloads of uniformed constables who had been waiting in nearby Ma Liu Shui.

  A voice crackled in Cantonese over the radio and Hui translated for Coleman, the sole gweilo occupant of the van. “They have the first two boats in custody,” he said, a wide grin on his face. He flicked a Marlboro out of its pack and lit it with a blue disposable lighter. He offered one to Coleman who shook his head and pointedly wound down his window.

  From their viewpoint on the Wu Kai Sha peninsula they were able to see the four police vans roar up to the beach and the constables dash out to round up the men. They were armed but no shots were fired and within five minutes the triads were being marched to the vans with their hands handcuffed behind their backs.

  “Let’s go,” said Coleman. Hui started the van’s engine and they drove quickly to the Tolo Highway to help collect the evidence they needed: the cars, the pier and the triad vans. It had been a major success and those who took part in the operation had been on a high ever since.

  One of the drivers was already offering to talk to them about other vehicles if they didn’t press charges and he promised to blow the smuggling chain wide open. The threat of a criminal record was a potent weapon against potential informers because countries like Canada and Australia always insisted on proof that new immigrants were not law-breakers. The triads were as keen as the middle classes to leave Hong Kong
, and within the next day or so Coleman hoped to persuade more of the triad soldiers to open up. It had been a great day. The only disappointment had been that William Fielding’s Mercedes hadn’t been among the cars they’d recovered.

  Thoughts of the chairman of the Kowloon and Canton Bank brought Debbie to mind. Coleman swung his feet off his desk and reached for his phone. He dialled the Fielding house and he tapped his fingers against his in-tray. Debbie answered, to his surprise.

  “Debbie? It’s Neil.”

  “Oh. Hello, Neil. How are you?” She sounded distant, as if she were thinking about something else. Coleman felt tongue-tied. He’d expected one of the maids to pick up the phone.

  He told her about the bust and how they’d recovered the stolen cars.

  “That’s great,” she said. “Was one of them my dad’s?”

  He had to admit that he hadn’t recovered her father’s Mercedes yet and he could tell that she was disappointed.

  “Anyway, I was wondering if we could go out one day this week and celebrate,” Coleman said.

  “I’d love to, Neil, but I’ve a really hectic work schedule. We’re up against a deadline so it’s nose to the grindstone all week.”

  “Okay,” he said, trying to hide his frustration. “What about Saturday?”

  She sighed. “Can’t, I’m afraid. Mum and Dad are giving a dinner party for a couple of their friends who are leaving Hong Kong. I have to be there.”

  “Can’t I come?” asked Coleman, trying not to sound like he was pleading.

  “You wouldn’t enjoy it, Neil. I’ll call you next week, okay?”

  Coleman bit his lip, hard enough to make himself wince. “Debbie, is something wrong?”

  “Wrong?” she said. “What do you mean?”

  “We haven’t been out for weeks now. I miss you.”

  “That’s nice,” she said.

  “Don’t you miss me?” he said, squeezing his thighs together. He knew he sounded like a teenager and he hated himself for it.