Blood Is a Stranger

by Roland Perry

  ‘They won’t help,’ Webb said.

  ‘I only smoke five or six a week,’ Webb said.

  ‘How virtuous.’

  ‘Why did you get out so quickly?’ Webb asked, with a nod at the surf.

  ‘Being bumped against the sand dampened my enthusiasm.’

  Webb eyed him from behind sunglasses.

  ‘What did you want to see me about?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘Kampuchea.’

  ‘What about it?’

  Webb pointed. ‘Well look there. One of nature’s most perfect life forms.’

  Cardinal shielded his eyes. He could make out a fin carving through the water beyond the surfers. ‘Jesus! We had better warn them!’ He looked up the beach. There was no one on duty.

  ‘Calm down, Kenny boy,’ Webb said. He leant back on his elbows. ‘They can probably see it. Besides, it’s too late now if it wants breakfast.’

  Cardinal dashed to the water’s edge. He waved his arms, shouted and watched in horror as the shark skimmed closer to the three surfers, who were oblivious to any danger.

  ‘No need getting in a panic,’ Webb said with a big laugh. ‘I told you they couldn’t hear!’

  The shark was moving ever closer and seemed to be out of the surfers’ line of vision. Because of the turbulent water, they appeared to be preoccupied with staying on their boards and watching for a decent wave.

  Cardinal sprinted along the water’s edge, waving and yelling. He ran up a path and scrambled up a rock face to a vantage point. Cardinal hurled stones and yelled. He moved higher, into the surfers’ line of vision. One of them looked up and saw him. He struggled his way towards another board. Soon all three had spotted the shark, which was weaving among them. They caught whatever surf escalator they could into shore and away from the shark.

  Cardinal walked down to the water’s edge to meet the surfers. They hurled their boards on the sand. All of them thank Cardinal laconically but there was no mistaking their gratitude.

  ‘Well, well,’ Webb said. ‘Done our good deed for the day, have we?’

  Cardinal sat down and lit another cigar.

  ‘You bastard! You couldn’t have cared a damn!’

  ‘Those creeps know the dangers,’ Webb said dismissively. ‘You can’t play mother to everyone. If they want to go out that far on a no-surf day, then fuck ‘em!’

  The surfers took off their wet suits and laid them on their boards to dry in the wind. They pointed out to sea. The shark had disappeared.

  ‘You watch those pricks,’ Webb said. ‘They’ll be out there again soon.’

  Cardinal rolled over on to his elbows to face him. ‘You mentioned Kampuchea.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Webb. ‘I’m going.’

  Cardinal puffed on the cigar.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Two days, maybe three. We’ve heard that a couple of likely Froggies have booked a trip to Bangkok. Air France, first class.’ He added wistfully,’The Frogs always do it in style. The French hosties are the best after Gulf Air.’ He grinned at Cardinal. ‘I’m going to have a little gander. They tell me the fun places are the refugee camps along the Thai – Kampuchea border. Best whores in South-East Asia.’

  ‘What do you plan to do there?’

  ‘If the weather’s good, I might go Frog-hunting. Wonderful sport. Oddly enough, the last time I did that I went via Gulf Air to Oman. Picked up the best bloody hostess you’ve ever seen. A tremendous bird.’

  Cardinal watched the surfers donning their wet-suits. They were returning to the water.

  ‘I was wondering,’ Webb said, ‘if you would like to come along?’

  The TV monitor in the network’s Melbourne studios showed Dr Andrew Coombes demonstrating how the laser worked. The editor was talking, but Rhonda had lost concentration. She was thinking about Cardinal. She had left several messages on his answer machine in the last twenty-four hours. He had responded to the first two but had missed her, then there was nothing. He had promised he would come to Melbourne to stay with her and be ready for any additional questions she wished to ask him on camera. Rhonda half expected him to turn up and surprise her.

  As the second day without any communication began, she became worried.

  Rhonda rang Perdonny.

  ‘No, he said.’ I haven’t heard from him. I have been trying to catch Webb, and I haven’t heard from him, either. Did Cardinal say anything to you about him?’

  ‘Only that I should mention to his “uncle” that Webb had helped save his life,’ Rhonda said. ‘And that’s another thing. Willow Wilson says he has no nephew. Webb lied.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I have never trusted him,’ Perdonny said. ‘I had to force him to help me get Cardinal off Bum.’

  ‘Why? Was he frightened?’

  ‘Fear is not one of his emotions,’ Perdonny said. ‘And that was what bothered me about his reluctance to fly in. I had to point a gun at him in the end.’

  ‘That doesn’t explain his motives.’

  ‘I was suspicious when Cardinal was caught on Ambon,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I can’t believe that Bakin would arrest Cardinal and let the pilot helping him escape go free. And it was strange that I was put under house arrest at the same time.’

  Rhonda was anxious. ‘You don’t think that Webb would have tried to get into Kampuchea with Ken?’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Could you find out if Webb has been given an assignment?’

  ‘I’ll do it now.’

  ‘Robert, get back to me as soon as you know.’

  10

  The truck bumped along the road due east of Bangkok, intermittently honking its horn at bike riders. The vehicle’s windows were draped with hes-sian bags and Cardinal occasionally stood up to look out.

  He and Webb had been in the vehicle since they had arrived in Bangkok seven hours earlier, and both men had tried to catch up on sleep after the nine-hour night flight from Sydney. The road’s undulations ensured that they could only doze.

  The truck stopped once at a village half-way to the Kampuchean border. After buying a coke and a watermelon, Cardinal wandered behind the thatched huts to a vegetable farm protected from the sun by long cotton sheets. About a kilometre beyond the farm were the ruins of a Buddhist temple.

  Cardinal began to walk towards it.

  ‘Hey,’ Webb yelled, ‘Gotta go, mate.’ Webb had insisted that they spend the minimum time away from the hidden interior of the truck. Cardinal was certain the ASIO man had a plan. Whenever Cardinal sought information he was told, ‘If you want to see your son, leave the thinking to me.’ It left him little choice and caused him to be sensitive to everything Webb said or did.

  Cardinal noticed that he only became interested in the view of rice fields in the last hour of the journey as they approached the Kampuchean border. He often asked a question of their Kampuchean escort, Ank Adum, who rode shot-gun up” front next to the driver, also Kampuchean. Adum was about thirty and tall by Khmer standards. He had a lighter skin than most of his race.

  Adum reeked of a Chicago cologne, ‘His’, which Cardinal remembered using twenty years ago.

  ‘Where’d you learn English,’ Cardinal said.

  ‘When Americans in Phnom Penh,’ Adum said, in his butchered GI idiom. ‘It was a cool time, man. Lots of dollars, lots of girls.’

  Moments after Adum announced they were approaching the border, they could see a roadblock about five kilometres along the flat stretch. Army trucks and jeeps in the fields either side were surrounded by about a hundred soldiers lounging in the vehicles’ meagre shade.

  ‘Bugger!’ Webb said. Adum slowed down as they approached the roadblock. A Thai soldier holding a rifle stepped in front of them and held up his hand. He wore a yellow singlet under his flapjacket.

  Webb held up a military pass. The soldier shook his head.

  ‘Tax,’ the sol
dier said. A second soldier came over and banged his fist on the bonnet.

  ‘Bastards want a donation!’ Webb said, getting out of the truck. He was joined by Adum. Webb spoke aggressively in Thai, which surprised the soldiers. Cardinal watched both men step quickly to the crooked barrier pole, which was pushed aside. The men saluted as the truck roared past on to a muddy, unmade road.

  ‘What the hell did you say to him?’ Cardinal asked.

  ‘I told them to pull their fingers out,’ Webb, ‘cause I’m a mate of General Siam’s. He runs this whole border area.’

  Adum began to giggle.

  Ten kilometres on they were stopped again by soldiers. They kept gesturing with their rifles to a hillier jungle area two kilometres away.

  ‘According to these fine representatives of the Royal Thai Army,’ Webb said, his voice laced with sarcasm, ‘Vietnamese patrols are camped beyond that hill. There was been fighting there this morning.’

  Cardinal looked out over the flat, green plain of rice paddies. Old men could be seen perched on bullock carts. Cardinal could see a long caravan of perhaps fifty horses carrying heavy packs and accompanied by a hundred Thais, including some soldiers. It was wending its way through the rice fields well wide of the jungle area and the Vietnamese.

  Cardinal was soon surrounded by swarms of children, some no older than four, carrying plastic bags of rice. He smiled at some of them, brushed away flies and walked a little way along the road to stretch his legs. He found himself close to a long line of adults, most in faded sarongs. He strolled along the queue, conscious of the stares and shy smiles. The line began at a platform piled high with blue cartons and crates containing rusted cans of fruit and meat. Stencilled on the side of the carton in red letters was the sign, ‘Donated by the USA.’

  Webb called to Cardinal. They were led through the dustbowl of huts in neat lines beside rough sewage channels. At Adum’s home they were introduced to his diminutive wife, Angfu. She began to assemble two screens. They partitioned off an area for the two foreigners. Adum leaned against a wall smothered by yellowing copies of the Bangkok Post.

  ‘You CIA?’ he asked Cardinal who glanced at Webb.

  ‘They think everyone with an American accent must be CIA,’ Webb laughed.

  ‘Why?’ Cardinal asked Adum. He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘No, Adum,’ Webb said sharply, ‘Mr Cardinal is an American art dealer. He is not a spy.’

  ‘Not a goddamned spy!’ Adum said, giggling.

  ‘When are the Frenchies due in?’ Webb asked.

  ‘My friends now say maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow early, okay?’

  ‘Not really,’ Webb muttered. He began to unlock his suitcase. ‘I was hoping for more precision.’

  ‘We think they go Bangkok for massage,’ Adum preferred with a truncated giggle.

  ‘That could be their last,’ Webb said, ‘the fucking idiots!’

  A dog began to dig a hole in the earthern floor of the hut. Webb rummaged in the case and took out a thick envelope.

  ‘Shut the door,’ he snapped, and Angfu obeyed with some difficulty, for the cardboard packing cases the door was made of did not fit easily. Webb counted out twenty American fifty dollar bills and handed them to the young man. His eyes bulged and he thanked Webb.

  Cardinal felt uneasy. The man had been telling them that he never received money for work, only trinkets and other ‘things’ which were not easy to barter for food.

  Rhonda opened the locked cupboard where she usually stored the cannisters carrying her documentary footage. She rummaged through several shelves. The footage didn’t seem to be there. She fumbled off some cannister lids. Still nothing. Rhonda frowned. She moved to a filing cabinet, where she occasionally left them. There were two in there marked ‘Yellowcake-Laser Connection’, the name she had given her project. She tore off the lids. There was some film in them, but it didn’t look familiar. She held the reel up to the light. It was an off-take from another project. She let the reel fall.

  ‘Oh, Christ, no!’ she said aloud. She walked quickly to a bookshelf where she stored her floppy discs. The boxes were also gone. Rhonda shut her eyes and took some deep breaths. She phoned her editor.

  ‘Rob, just tell me you’ve got all the yellowcake story footage,’ she said anxiously.

  ‘Nuh, sorry darlin’,’ Rob said.

  ‘I’m going to slit my throat!’

  ‘Why, what’s missing?’

  ‘Every reel! Every disc!’

  ‘Fuck me dead!’

  The phone rang. It was Perdonny.

  ‘Cardinal and Webb are missing,’ he told her.

  ‘God, that’s all I need!’ said Rhonda.

  ‘ASIO has not assigned Webb anywhere on any project,’ he reported. ‘I got that from his department head. He doesn’t know where Webb is. No one else seems to know either.’

  ‘And Ken?’

  ‘I went to his Bronte home. It was locked up. He did leave a message on my answering machine to say that he would be out of the country for a few days.’

  ‘Is there any way of checking airlines, and so on?’

  ‘It’s being done. But it is a bit after the event.’

  ‘Christ! I need Ken here! Not missing in Kampuchea, if he has gone there!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Rhonda.’

  ‘Is there any way I can find out more about Webb?’

  ‘That would be classified. I can try, but it won’t be easy.’

  ‘Did he ever hint that he worked for anyone else apart from ASIO?’ Rhonda asked, mindful of Perdonny’s probable extra-ASIO affiliations. She was unnerved and suspicious.

  ‘Spider left the SAS ten years ago,’ he said. ‘I can only account for the last five years when he made the Darwin-Java run for us.’

  ‘Could he have had another paymaster in that period?’

  Perdonny cleared his throat. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded. ‘He always acted as if he had plenty of money. He did own that Beachcraft.’

  ‘just suppose he did have someone else paying him for Intelligence work,’ Rhonda said, with more than a tinge of desperation. ‘Who could it be?’

  ‘Rhonda, you know I’m not a speculator.’

  ‘A guess, Robert. M16? The CIA? The KGB? The Mossad? The French? I don’t think he should be called Spider,’ she said. ‘Funnel would be more appropriate.’

  ‘None of them, all of them, I really wouldn’t want to make a stab at that.’

  After the call, her thoughts turned to Bill Hewson. If anyone could fill in the blanks on Webb’s profile, he could.

  ‘Bastards. Bastards! Bastards!’

  Webb was in a temper. He used binoculars along the flat, winding road. Night was turning into a clear day, and the French couriers had not appeared. Lying alongside him was a fully automatic rifle with telescopic sights and six hand grenades. He had been up since midnight, and his eyes had a red ring of fatigue around them.

  Cardinal crept along the road from the truck. It had been hidden in a village at a fork in the road. One trail led to Adum’s home at camp site 2, and the other to camp site 8, and the refugee base of the Khmer Rouge, where the people from DGSE – the French counter-espionage service – would be heading, according to Webb’s sources in Bangkok. Cardinal crouched beside Webb, who flung the binoculars at him.

  ‘Make yourself useful,’ Webb snapped. ‘The Frogs will be in a brown jeep. If you see it, or any firing, yell! I’m going to have a crap!’

  ‘I wish you would tell me what you have planned,’ Cardinal said. Webb stopped in his tracks holding a roll of toilet paper.

  ‘I told you, leave it to me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘Do you have to murder them?’

  ‘Who said I was? Christ, you give me the shits! Literally!’ He stormed off to a canal.

  Cardinal scanned the road, focusing as far as he could. Then he let his eyes rove over the countryside. There was the odd bullock already being put to work, and the area
looked as tranquil as it had the previous evening. He had not heard anything apart from distant muffled gunfire during the night, which had hardly stirred him from five hours slumber. He spotted conical straw hats in the fields to his left. They were still and looked like they belonged to scarecrows. He kept the focus on them and blinked to make sure his eyes were not deceiving him. They began moving through the grass about forty metres from the road. Movement on the other side distracted him too. He looked along the road and could see the object of the excitement. A high-sided vehicle was moving their way.

  Cardinal glanced around for Webb and called out for him. There was no reply. Cardinal returned his gaze to the oncoming vehicle. Through the early morning heat haze he could make out the colour. It was the jeep. The binoculars picked out the faces of two men in the front. Two others were in the backseat. Those in front wore smart hats and the one in the driver’s seat had his face against the window as if he were alseep. Cardinal turned again to shout for Webb, but he was a few metres behind him, creeping low and waving his hand to an unseen figure between them and the road.

  ‘Keep your head right down!’ Webb said. ‘The little brown Frogmobile has arrived!’ He was positioning himself, the rifle ready for firing. Cardinal watched the newcomers and felt the tension tighten. They were slowing down. The driver was leaning forward, his hands close together on the top of the steering wheel, as he peered into the distance. A long sixty seconds later there was an explosion and a puff of smoke from the jeep. Cardinal’s immediate thought was that it had back-fired. But it was pitched sideways, almost in slow-motion, and the full impact of the sound reverberated down the road. There was a hole in the side of the truck.

  ‘What the hell hit them?’ Cardinal said.

  ‘One hundred and thirty millimetre cannon,’ Webb said, ‘that’s what!’ He jumped to his feet and ran along the grass.

  Several figures were moving towards the van. Cardinal stood up. He could see one, two, and then a third man struggling from the crippled jeep. They were surrounded. One man fell to his knees and fired a hand-gun but was flattened by return blasts from six rifles. The remaining two froze and cringed close to the jeep, their arms held high in surrender. One dropped a hand and appeared to be grabbing at a rifle on the ground. Webb and other gunmen opened up and both men crumpled where they stood.