BLIND SPOT (Murder on the Mekong, A Novella)

by Rivers, Hart;

  Blind Spot

  Murder on the Mekong, Prequel to Book Two

  Hart Rivers

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  Copyright 2016 by John L. Hart and Olivia Rupprecht. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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  Published by ePublishing Works!

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  eBook ISBN: 978-1-947833-84-5

  Contents

  Teachers

  Another Kind of Teacher

  Bad Mouse

  Dear Reader

  Reader Invitation

  UNKNOWABLE

  Purchase UNKNOWABLE

  Also by Hart Rivers

  About the Authors

  We all have a fatal flaw, and we don’t know what it is. This fatal flaw is the shortcoming that we don’t know about or can’t do anything about. It is our undoing because it is precisely in our blind spot.”

  Deng Ming-Dao in Scholar Warrior p.229

  Teachers

  An Island Near Nha Trang

  Republic of Vietnam

  March, 1970

  He dove down through crystal blue water with just goggles, snorkel, and a Hawaiian sling spear, the angled rays of the morning sun sending bright shimmering shafts of light through the South China Sea. His sleek and brown martial-arts-honed body absorbed the soothing caress of the water; it felt like silk against JD’s skin, growing cooler the deeper he went. Clouds of yellow tang grazed on golden and green coral mounds and mingled with bright butterfly fish. A brilliant rainbow of a parrot fish gnawed at the coral with them while a startling blue speckled peacock grouper waited to gulp a surgeonfish.

  Diving deeper, JD saw the stealthy move of another predator. Yes, there. He paused to watch the octopus. Cautiously, carefully, and so smoothly it moved. Its remarkable eyes—eyes that swiveled independently like a chameleon and could see not just ahead, but an entire panorama—had not yet spotted him. Eyes that were connected to a strange and brilliant mind that could solve puzzles, have a remarkable remembrance of human faces, strategically navigate mazes. In that, and more, JD and this particular predator had much in common.

  As he contemplated the octopus in one of his favorite places in all the world, a certain small island off shore from Nha Trang, JD sought peace. Here, he had sanctuary. Here, he could be away from war, intrigue, and the business from which he made his living: spycraft and assassination. Here, he could read, write, paint, practice calligraphy, go diving into the crystal blue deep. He could do all the things that brought him inside himself. Usually.

  But not now. Despite his peaceful surroundings JD was agitated, unbalanced, and knew he was not thinking clearly at all. Such a state of mind was life threatening for someone in his line of work, and his attempt to seek solace to better plot his next move wasn’t conjuring its usual magic.

  “Help” or “bangmang” was an unfamiliar concept for him and definitely not a sound easily uttered whether in English or Mandarin. For a child left behind by his suicidal mother, and whose pitiless father abandoned him with the words “you are dead to me,” help was what you did for yourself. Until you couldn’t.

  There was one person inside his lifelong emotional wall who could help him now, but reaching out to a brother who was supposedly dead—and needed to stay supposedly dead for a grander purpose—was not as easy as picking up a phone and dialing for…

  Bangmang.

  He had to find a way. Things were different from the last time he saw Zhang. Critical. And why? Because he’d done something he never should have done. He never should have let Kate gently breach an emotional wall as untrespassable and foreboding as the one surrounding China. He never should have let her touch his heart and suffer the consequences for it.

  Because of him, Kate was in dire peril, and he needed help in order to find her, to bring her to safety by whatever means it took. He would have to somehow track down his brother without being seen, else he put Zhang in jeopardy as well…although, anyone attacking Zhang would find themselves in even more peril than Kate was in now.

  Bangmang.

  JD felt his need for help as surely as the crab he watched the octopus seize then inject with its paralyzing saliva before tearing it into small pieces with its beak.

  Bangmang.

  He felt as helpless as the crab being consumed, and it was a terrible feeling he was not at all comfortable with, hardly acquainted with even. He’d always been the predator, not the prey. His entire physiology was out of control; the air he was typically capable of holding beyond most human limits was running out too fast while his heart sped up despite his inner commands to slow down. His body was not heeding his mind, and his mind was not heeding the years of training that, before Kate, had allowed him to avoid urgent, impulsive, and wrong decisions.

  He should be springing up for air, but instead he watched the octopus as a shark slowly circled. Watching, focusing. He could stay down just a little longer, couldn’t he? He could even intervene and drive the shark away, or kill it with the sling spear. But…

  That was not The Way. The way was to watch the way of the world and learn. These were teachers. These were helpers.

  Bangmang, came the whisper between his ears. Help me. The water was so clear he could see the unblinking blackness of the eye of the shark. It exuded power and threat. One of the lords of the sea. The shark’s tail whipped through the water, moving it instantly and smoothly into killing mode.

  And then magic happened. The octopus disappeared. It had seemingly shape-shifted and color-shifted into invisibility on a rocky shelf. It had changed itself into something indistinguishable from coral and stone.

  The shark veered away and then back. Where was the octopus? It was right there. And yet invisible to the shark’s highly trained eye.

  JD allowed himself a small, satisfied smile as he shot to the surface of the South China Sea and plowed water to reach the shore of a small island off the coast of Nha Trang where both purpose and peril awaited.

  The octopus was a great teacher, pointing The Way.

  JD would find Zhang. Invisible in plain sight.

  Bangmang was coming.

  Another Kind of Teacher

  JD wasted no time booking himself into his favorite suite at the old Rex Hotel in downtown Saigon. It was still a fine hotel but had certainly been a better hotel when the French had been here. The American kind of exploitation was rather crude compared to the French, at least when it came to food, service, ambiance, and architecture. But still the Americans had brought their own unique cultural refinements—including
his beloved 1957 Chevy Bel Air convertible.

  The classic Chevy, a sweet sexy number wrapped in turquoise and chrome and a white rag top was a real head-turner, perfect for drawing attention when he needed to make a show. Now being one of those times, he made a complete spectacle of himself as he drove over to the Continental Palace, sat at a perfectly dressed table in the corner of the exquisite restaurant, and made sure he was very quietly noticed by everyone while he ate lunch alone. Even without the Chevy it was hard to miss his New York Yankees baseball cap—a prized gift from his friend Izzy—the pair of Ray Bans he continued to wear inside, and an Aloha shirt with bright yellow flowers.

  After a long, leisurely lunch that didn’t sit well with the anxiety roiling in the pit of his usually cast iron stomach, JD made his equally noticeable exit. Then, like the octopus, he disappeared. The local actor who had worked for him before was ready to step in. About the same height and build, JD had already outfitted the actor with a suitcase of his most American-looking clothes, including fake Ray Bans and a New York Yankee’s knock-off baseball cap—he knew the guy would say he lost them—gave him the spare keys to his Chevy, and told him to quietly go out to dinner daily, make sure he was seen, but avoid any contact or conversation. If anyone approached, he was to convincingly begin to cough, say he had a terrible flu, and leave. What JD left out was what his substitute should do or say if accosted in a non-public place because should that happen it would not matter; the actor would almost certainly be killed and the bait-and-switch discovered. But, by then, he would have the head-start he needed to track down Zhang.

  JD left Saigon disguised as a crippled ex-soldier who was clearly no longer of use to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the ARVN. Dressed in a ragged uniform and hobbling along with an ill-fitting crutch, he caught a fast barge heading north on the Mekong River to Phnom Penh. From there, he was able to hitch a long truck ride up to the mountainous Highlands. With time of the essence he made only a slight detour to ensure he hadn’t been followed, then joined up with a Hmong trading party returning to their village in the upper Highlands near Laos.

  The road they were on quickly diminished to a Jeep trail, which then turned to a path to the village, and JD saw that as his cue to bid them chúc may man và chào tam biêt—good luck and goodbye.

  He ditched the crutch and changed into a simple black Hmong tribal tunic with wide-legged trousers. Wearing sandals and carrying only a walking stick, a knife, and a small container of fresh pig blood purchased earlier at the river market, he followed a game trail that took him deeper and deeper into the Highlands jungle. JD felt like he was swimming again, only in a green sea of plants and trees. The seasonal rains had been heavy, and the jungle was a riot of growth. For most people this would be a Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness kind of hell. Hot, humid. Grasping vines with thorns and spiders and snakes. Biting ants and insects.

  For JD, it felt like home. He loved it, loved this entire greater Mekong region and its jungle inhabitants. Southeast Asian tigers were not necessarily rare here, but it was certainly rare to ever come across one unless it had decided you were going to meet it. There were stories told by the best tribal hunters that when you entered the hunting ground of one of these great animals it knew the moment you crossed the boundary of its prescribed territory. Like the echolocation senses of a dolphin or whale allowing them to see and know at a great distance the whereabouts of all prey, of each and every enemy, tigers seemed to have an extrasensory ability that made them the super-predators they were.

  Zhang was like the tiger. Zhang had that same kind of knowing, and JD truly believed that somehow his brother would sense the whereabouts that he was heading for, an old plantation not too far ahead.

  At least that had been his destination. A prickling sensation at the base of his neck stopped him in mid-step. The instinctive warning spread like fire put to dry timber up his nape and into his scalp.

  He was being tracked.

  Maybe it was a tiger. He could hope. He had been letting the pig blood drip out now and again on the trail in very small amounts; not enough to be that noticeable but like a dinner bell ringing for an animal that may be of use to him should there be trackers of the two-legged kind.

  JD walked another slow click, a kilometer, a little over half a mile. Whoever or whatever was following was getting closer. Whether their intention was to track him to his brother or just to see where he was going, he did not know. But the prize was too great to naively believe his best efforts would ensure he went undetected on this hunt for Zhang. After all, a fabled overlord of the finest opium poppy region on earth would be worth unimaginable sums. An irresistible kind of El Dorado; they didn’t make Poppy Kings every day.

  It was in the deep shade of a massive cashew tree that JD stopped. The forest giant was perhaps from a seed of the originals brought to Southeast Asia by the Portuguese, but now it sheltered and fed the whole ecology around it. This very area had been a plantation once, during French Indochina times. His earliest years had actually been spent on just such a place, a rubber plantation not far away. As for this one, what had once belonged to a neighbor had crumbled to a skeletal layout, most of the remains buried beneath an already thick layer of growth. Although the forest had only overtaken it perhaps a decade or two ago, it would very soon completely disappear.

  As will you if you don’t clear your head and calm down. Now breathe.

  Slow and deep…in…out. The breaths he had been trained to take in what was reputedly the most secretive, severe, and demanding school in Asia—where killing was as much of an art as calligraphy and meditative practices—helped steady his mind, his heartbeat.

  He could not be like Joaquin, a man he had once tracked in Peru. Joaquin, elusive and creative. Very difficult. Joaquin had somehow eluded him near Cusco in the Andes. How could he find him again? He knew Joaquin had been away from home a long, long time. Perhaps homesick? Homesick was a kind of real hunger and craving. The anxiety of knowing you are being tracked down to be killed certainly could elicit a craving for the kind of comfort that only comes from a taste of home. So, following his hunch, JD simply went back to Cusco.

  Joaquin died coming out of the only Brazilian restaurant there—and all because he had been anxious and made the mistake of returning home.

  Which was exactly what JD was doing now.

  He could feel his anxiety tick back up as he made the connection. He could feel a slight quiver in his breathing. His sensing of all things surrounding him was off; his highly tuned ability to focus, upset.

  Carefully, very carefully, JD crossed to the other side of the trail and made what would appear to a seasoned observer a quick exit off the path to the left. Just a couple of broken leaves, a bent branch. But it would be easily visible to another professional eagerly tracking prey. Not overdone, just enough to attract attention. Exactly what he needed, if indeed his tracker was human, not animal. All his pursuer had to do was pause and think about it and that would be all the time JD needed.

  Creeper vines ran rampant nearby, and that was where he completely buried himself, beneath the big leaves of the creeper. There, he disappeared. Like the octopus. Yes, there were insects crawling all over him, including on his face and across his eyelids, but it was not too much to bear; he had endured much worse. There was a loud scratching noise outside his right ear, but fortunately he had plugged his ear holes with leaves since an insect crawling down his ear would be unbearable—

  Wait. There it was. The vibration of footsteps approaching, he could feel them. Coming closer…closer…closer. Only the footsteps kept going, didn’t stop or even pause to examine the planted distraction.

  Still, JD did not move. He waited. Waited some more. Once he was certain the tracker—most definitely human, not tiger—was well out of range, JD moved up and out of the leaves. Now it would be him doing the following. Who was this guy?

  As JD walked ahead slowly, quietly, on cat feet as he had been trained, he was aware that his breathing was
still off and so was his focus. He felt not right, not like himself at all with the part of his brain that should be detached succumbing to worry instead. Worry was poison. Worry imagined reality instead of actually being in reality—

  And that’s when he felt the dart enter his neck.

  He jerked his arm up and pulled the dart out, but even his refined reflexes were too late to the party. A man dressed in camo, short and bullnecked and built like a battering ram, came at JD with a knife, expertly held.

  JD no sooner managed to kick it out of his hand and hear the crack of bone as the knife went sailing than another voice came from behind him.

  “Idiot! We were instructed not to get close to him, he’s dangerous!”

  But who was the idiot really, JD dizzily wondered, as he weakly withdrew the hidden knife from his Hmong peasant trousers. There were two of them here, not one. How had he missed that? And why was his grip so weak? Why was he unable to do more than command his wobbly wrist to wave the knife he should be planting into the nearest heart?

  Another dart speared him. JD felt the ground connect with his knees.

  He thought he saw three men in camo surrounding him now, waiting for whatever kind of tranquilizer the darts had delivered to take full effect. A bird sounded overhead.

  His vision swam, and he wondered if he was imagining the body of yet another man in tribal hunter garb drop from the tree branches, his face obscured by a tiger mask.

  JD thought he saw two knives impale the throats of two trackers. No longer surrounding him, they flopped beside his own supine position and gurgled what remained of their lives onto the jungle floor.