Slash and Burn

18

They’d washed off the dust of the day and were changing for dinner. Dtui noticed that her husband had been even more subdued than usual since their return to the Friendship. He’d told her about the events of their field trip but with no real enthusiasm.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“Not really.”

“Phosy?”

“I … he said you were strong-willed.”

“Who?”

“Your security commander fellow.”

“He did? When?”

“When Daeng explained you were working with the Americans today.”

“Well, that’s a compliment, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. If you don’t take it to mean stubborn, as in, ‘If she hadn’t been so stubborn she could have had me instead.’”

Dtui smiled to herself.

“Oh. But he didn’t actually utter those words?”

“It was unstated.”

Dtui nopped a thank you to the heavens.

“Inspector Phosy, you’re jealous.”

“I am not … of him? Huh. Just….”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me it was him?”

“What was him?”

“That he was the one you met in Vieng Xai.”

“It didn’t occur to me. Didn’t seem that important.”

Phosy was doing a bold job of keeping his emotions in check. He smiled till cracks appeared in his cheeks.

“Not important? He asked you to marry him.”

“Oh, comrade policeman,” she giggled. “If I had to point out every man who’s ever proposed to me we’d never make it through a day. Now, shall we go?”

She stood, opened the door and sniffed his flushed cheek as he passed her.

The dinners which had begun four days earlier as such jolly affairs had taken on the air of refueling stops. Although still available, the Johnny Red was not flowing nearly as freely and the diners were more concerned about the quality of the air than that of the food. Officially, Civilai was still not in the inner circle of those who attended the autopsy but of course, like Madame Daeng, he had been told all about it. Siri was waiting for an opportunity to introduce them into the group without betraying the trust of the Americans. So it was decided that this evening Civilai, with Peach as his interpreter, would do what he did best. Hard as it may have been to believe, especially for those who only knew him outside the Politburo, the old man was a diplomat of the first order. He could schmooze with the best of them; dally with dictators and tango with tyrants. He could make despots in the most constricting ideological girdles take a breath. He had been granted an audience with Senator Vogal. As the senator had hardly left his room since what he was liberally calling “the assassination attempt,” it was no surprise that Ethel Chin had ordered room service. Civilai would be joining them for an after-meal tete-a-tete.

For the others the meal experience was accomplished barely half an hour after it began. Siri and Bpoo, Dtui and Phosy accompanied Dr. Yamaguchi to the room of Secretary Gordon. Ugly took up a guard position outside the door. Inside they upended the bed to lean against the wall and used all the available floor space to spread out their paperwork. Mr. Geung was given the very special role of lookout. He stood between the curtain and the window pane and if anyone came near he would cough loudly. Originally they had told him to whistle but that and nuclear physics were two skills he hadn’t yet mastered. Auntie Bpoo went into the bathroom and didn’t come out for a very long time.

“All right, what do we have?” Siri asked. His voice had developed an embedded growl like that of a street dog attempting to speak human.

The main points had already been listed during the long day of research. All Dtui needed to do was read from her notes then check with the Americans to see if they had reactions to the Lao comments. Meanwhile, Yamaguchi and Gordon continued to work their ways through the unread files.

“First,” Dtui said, “were the documents that had been sent to the US embassy in Bangkok. They explained the rationale for the initial MIA joint action. Not surprisingly, the letter from the senate committee said that the approval of the rice budget would be totally dependent on the Lao agreeing to this mission. No MIA, no rice. But, as you’ve since discovered, at that stage they hadn’t finalized the name of a flier to go after. They acknowledged that most of the missing airmen had been lost in Vietnam but saw Laos as a back door for getting permission for similar actions with the Socialist Party of Vietnam. When Boyd’s name came up there was obviously talk of a conflict of interest given the relationship with the senator, but I get the feeling they didn’t have that many downed pilots to choose from. Certainly none with empirical evidence like a photo. They needed success so they selected Boyd. We’ve got his CV. He was a smart lad. Clean service record with the marines. Selected for ‘special missions’ by Air America.”

“Any idea what that means?” Siri asked.

“The classified stuff didn’t make it into the reports. But there was some evidence. Gordon and Yamaguchi noticed discrepancies in Boyd’s flight records. The pilots were paid by the mission. They got ten dollars an hour, which is about what I get a month, so most pilots kept very detailed logs. But not Boyd. His first year was normal, every hour accounted for. But by the second year these empty blocks started to appear. Whole weeks where he didn’t claim any flying time at all.”

“Could he have been on vacation?” Phosy asked.

“Nope. His vacation time was clearly marked on his time sheets. Plus there was no record of him traveling out of the region. People on vacation don’t hang around in a war zone. This was all unexplained dead time. So we assumed ‘special missions’ meant he was doing something secret for the CIA. That’s why Gordon would like to ask your permission to bring in Sergeant Johnson. He thinks we need some inside military information and he believes the sergeant can be trusted.”

Siri had his window. He agreed to Johnson in exchange for Civilai, and, with a little push, Madame Daeng was included in the package.

“All we have left is the background report from Air America,” Dtui continued. “That mostly talks about the loss of the helicopter. The mystery of how it could just vanish completely. There were comments about Boyd’s state of mind from other pilots back in the base at Udon in Thailand. They all seemed to like him. Said he was a good flier. For the first year he was one of the boys, joined in, friendly. But some commented that for the last three months he’d started to act strangely. Some said he’d become paranoid. He used to be a two-drink-a-night man. Said he didn’t like booze that much. But toward the end he was matching them drink for drink and all these odd rants started. He’d say how they shouldn’t be surprised if he found a deadly cobra in his bunk. Or if he was shot down by friendly fire some day. He said ‘they’ were after him.”

“Did he say who ‘they’ were?” Siri asked.

“No. The other pilots assumed it was … us, the enemy.”

“All right,” said Phosy. “What’s-”

He was interrupted by heavy coughing from behind the curtain. The conspirators lowered their voices.

“What is it, hon?” Dtui asked.

“I … I swallowed a bug,” said Mr. Geung. “Sorry.”

When she’d stopped laughing, Dtui continued with her notes.

“That brings us to the interviews,” she said. “We have incomplete transcripts for the interviews with Nino Sebastian, the Filipino flight mechanic, and David Leon, the senior flight person at Spook City. They were the last two to see Boyd alive, unless you count the bear. There were two interviews with Sebastian; one by the AA investigator shortly after the crash, and another sponsored by Congressman Bowry and conducted by a private detective in the Philippines. That interview ran out to forty sheets. The congressman released only twelve of those to the MIA committee. Six of those twelve are marked on the file as ‘On loan to Major Potter.’ As you might imagine, the six we’re left with don’t say very much. We learn that Boyd and Sebastian had flown together on around forty occasions. That afternoon they’d flown the chopper directly up from Udon in Thailand with cargo that was labeled ‘Refugee Supplies’ due for Ban Song. Then we cut sixteen pages to Sebastian stoned and drunk in a bear cage wondering where his pilot’s gone.”

“But what that does tell us is that both the pilot and the mechanic were out of control,” said Phosy. “Hence the crash. Doesn’t sound like foul play to me.”

“According to the regulations, AA flight crews weren’t allowed to drink or mess with intoxicants up-country,” Dtui told him. “Somebody there got our boy stoned. That could be construed as foul play.”

“What about the AA interview?” Siri asked.

“Six pages in total. All but one signed out to Major Potter. That one page suggests that Sebastian was cut up about not having done enough to save his young friend’s life. He didn’t say who supplied the LSD. He blamed himself for getting dragged into the drink session and for not saying no to the drugs. Plus the fact he’d left open the bear cage and next morning the hungover beast attacked four locals before they could subdue it.”

“Nothing worse than a bear with a sore head,” Siri nodded.

“AA agreed with Sebastian’s appraisal of himself and fired him. He scratched around Thailand doing odd mechanic work before heading back to the Philippines with his savings. He and his family opened a service station and cafe. He stayed there till his death.”

“When did he die?” Phosy asked.

“Three weeks ago,” said Dtui. “There was a sticker attached to the front of the interview sheet.”

“Cause?”

“He drowned. There was a storm drain at the bottom of his property. They found him face down in the water.”

“You said there was another interview?” Siri asked.

“David Leon. Senior flight mechanic at Long Cheng. He was one of the witnesses who heard the explosion. Talked about Mike Wolff, the pilot who’d been drinking with Boyd and Sebastian that night. Explained that Wolff was shot down a couple of weeks later. They’d recovered his body. Ten page interview. Four pages released to Major Potter. Leon had been a fighter pilot in Vietnam but lost his licence, and the reason for that isn’t anywhere in the files.”

“But there was no interview organized by the congressman for this man?” Siri asked.

“No. Leon had been hired directly by the embassy in Vientiane to work with the Ravens-the forward air command. The embassy conducted the interview. There was just the one. Why?”

“I don’t know. Boyd’s father hires a private detective in the Philippines to interview one mechanic-forty pages worth-but isn’t interested enough to interview the only other witness there that night. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“Perhaps he died before they could interview him,” Dtui suggested.

“He’s dead too?” Siri asked.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“About the same time as Sebastian. In fact there was a couple of days between the two deaths.”

“He didn’t fall into a storm drain, by any chance?”

“No. He had a heart attack in a go-go bar in Thailand.”

“Oh.” Siri gasped and coughed. “This is far too much of a coincidence for my liking. No wonder Major Potter found something smelly here.”

“I think the fact that we didn’t find any of those released papers in the major’s belongings is relevant,” said Phosy. “Whoever killed him helped himself to those.”

“It also makes you wonder whether Judge Haeng was looking for them too,” said Siri.

“You think Justice might be involved in all this?” Daeng asked.

“I don’t know. Haeng was looking for something he didn’t find. He’d been in Potter’s room earlier. And he’s been acting like the Americans’ own private little Pekinese all week. He’s up to something.”

“You think he’s being nice to them so he can have them killed one by one without being suspected?” Daeng asked.

“No. I believe the killer of Major Potter was a completely different animal to whoever took a potshot at the senator.”

Phosy agreed.

“You think we have two different assassins?” Daeng asked.

“Maybe three if you include the post office tower explosion.”

It was time to bring Dr. Yamaguchi and Gordon into the discussion.

Meanwhile, deep in the west wing, Civilai had chuckled and hmm’d and ahah’d through thirty minutes of Senator Vogal eulogizing himself to heaven and back. Ethel Chin was always at the senator’s side. From this close proximity it was clear why she had joined the senator in isolation. The stress of events at the Friendship, or perhaps just the unpleasantness of being in such a nasty place, had brought her lower face out in hives. She’d pasted a layer of make-up over it but the damage to her skin was plain to see. She sat at the desk purportedly reading a book but with such lack of commitment as to look up with a laugh at all the senator’s jokes. Not a minute into the meeting, Civilai had become the American’s best friend. The senator had already shared two tearful “not even my family knows this” moments.

On the rare occasion that Civilai was allowed a few seconds to respond to a question, he did so with a respect and humility that made Peach’s nostrils flare. After exactly twenty-eight minutes, there came a knock on the door and Rhyme entered with his flash unit attached to a cumbersome hunk of equipment and he took several photos of the elder statesmen in conversation. Ironically, in the photos, the senator appeared to be listening intently to Civilai’s thoughts. Rhyme’s departure was clearly designed to be the end of the dialogue. Vogal stood at the door bidding farewell and nodding at Civilai who remained seated. Peach stood then sat down again. Ethel Chin rolled her eyes. Reluctantly, the senator closed the door, locked it, and returned to his perch on the end of the bed, making a pointed study of his wristwatch. It wasn’t as if he had somewhere to go. Civilai decided it was time to probe.

“Peach,” he smiled, “ask the senator what type of family it takes to produce such a noble and intelligent son.”

“Do I have to?”

“Please.”

The senator beamed when he heard the question and settled happily into the role of interviewee.

“All my people are in tea,” he said. “Importing originally from Ceylon. My family are the business brains. My Uncle Edwin and I were the black sheep. We had our hearts set on public service. Money just didn’t seem too important to me. My focus was on removing evil from the world and replacing it-and I know this sounds corny-but replacing it with a little love and humility. I believe we owe it to the world, not just to take, but….”

This drivel went on for another two minutes before the subject eventually found its way home.

“It was my Uncle Edwin who introduced me to the foreign service and for that I shall be eternally indebted to him. God rest his soul. He was a great man.”

“So you were in the foreign service?” Civilai asked. “I knew it. I just knew it.”

“How?”

“Your confidence. Your way with words. The way that the common people just naturally relate to you.”

Peach’s eyes had rolled so many times they should technically have been on the other side of the room by now. But Civilai urged her onward.

“It’s true,” said the senator. “I do feel a great deal of love from the little people. I guess that’s what spurred me forward when times were hard.”

“We could have used skills like yours in this region.”

“Oh, I was here, of course.”

“You were?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“Goodness me, yes. I was in Vietnam during the war. If I hadn’t been so valuable at the embassy I would have enlisted. As it turned out I took over the role of my Uncle Edwin. I was in Saigon for two years. Just a small administrative position.”

“He was in Saigon for two years,” said Dtui, reading her notes about Major Potter. “He was the military attache there. It seems he did a lot of the hiring and firing of advisors. Pretty powerful. But it appears his drinking habit started over there too. Looks like he couldn’t handle the pressure.”

“Wasn’t Sergeant Johnson in Saigon?” Daeng asked.

Dtui went back over her notes on the original CVs.

“He was there from sixty-five to sixty-eight.”

“And Major Potter?”

“Sixty-six to sixty-eight.”

“If they knew each other they didn’t say,” said Daeng.

“I imagine the place was overcrowded with men in uniform,” said Siri. “It’s possible they didn’t run into each other.”

“Another coincidence, though,” said Phosy.

“And if Potter was doing all the hiring and firing, and Johnson was applying for a pilot position, you’d think they’d at least have heard of each other,” Siri added.

Auntie Bpoo emerged from the bathroom at last and Siri noticed Dr. Yamaguchi squeeze her hand as she passed. No accounting for taste.

“That’s it for Potter,” said Dtui. “We just have a few words about Senator Bowry. It seems the war was good to him, too. He’d been struggling with a little family import business, teak furniture from Asia mostly. A lot from Thailand. Then in the late sixties I guess the teak business took off. Made a lot of money. He invested his profits in real estate and the next thing you know he’s stinking rich. He used his money to get into politics.”

“That was certainly a meteoric rise from embassy clerk to senator in the space of ten years,” said Civilai. “How did you achieve that?”

“Not a clerk, exactly-senior administrator, more like. I admit I had some pull. And those were war years. Crazy times.”

“He means all the good guys were dead,” Peach added outside the confines of her translation. She’d learned a thing or two from Auntie Bpoo. Civilai didn’t react.

“A man of a certain … stature could rise through the ranks back then,” Vogal continued. “It’s not so easy now. I had an excellent track record, clearly defined political goals and a respected family name.”

“And shit loads of money and a pretty wife,” Peach contributed. She was losing control. It was time for Civilai to go on the offensive.

“So, you were a senior administrator at the embassy…?”

“I was dealing mostly with the movement of personnel.” The senator remembered his watch. It was barely eight.

“Of course, Saigon.” Civilai nodded knowingly. “I imagine everything was open and above board there. No shady dealings whatsoever.”

“We did our best to maintain a certain transparency, it’s true.”

“Not like in Laos then.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid you Americans weren’t quite as transparent over here. In fact, I’m tempted to say your money was responsible for buying and selling several coalition governments that didn’t suit your fancy.”

A US Republican senator in a locked room. Civilai felt a warm glow. The senator’s smile was as fake as a Giaconda with blonde highlights. He took up a tone of syrupy condescension.

“Oh, Mr. Civilai,” he said. “You have to remember that you were in an information cocoon here in the wilds of Laos. You couldn’t possibly know just how much good the US was doing for your country. It’s common knowledge to anyone outside of Red Indochina that the vast majority of our budget for Laos was spent on aid.”

Civilai laughed, which caused the senator’s brow to rise and his wispy comb-over to flop across his field of vision.

“The vast majority of your budget went on B-52s and ordnance,” said Civilai.

“A common misapprehension,” said Vogal without missing a beat. “But with all due respect, Mr. Civilai, you can’t honestly believe your own propaganda machine.”

“Then let’s look at the statistics. Perhaps we can believe the US embassy budget release for the fiscal year 1970, just as an example. I have a copy in my room if you’d care to see it.”

“How could…?”

“Your total expenditure in Laos for that year was $284 million….”

“It-”

“… $162 million of which was tagged as military assistance. Only $50 million-which a cursory calculation tells me is around eighteen per cent of your total budget-was assigned to aid.”

The senator cast a desultory gaze at Ethel Chin who returned to her novel.

“That’s still a considerable humanitarian effort in anybody’s book, sir,” he said.

“Except in your book,” Civilai continued. “Humanitarian aid included feeding the Royal Lao Army and several thousand irregulars. What little remained was pumped into a refugee program that wouldn’t have been necessary if you hadn’t bombed a third of the population out of their homes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The refugees in Laos were fleeing communism. They were escaping the atrocities that you people inflicted upon them.”

“There are members of the US senate who’d disagree with that view.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In 1969, the findings of a US subcommittee headed by Senator Edward Kennedy were that some four-hundred-thousand refugees in Laos were dispossessed as a direct result of US bombing.”

“Sir, Kennedy is a Democrat with undisguised communist leanings. He couldn’t … and besides….” The senator had found himself backed into a broom closet of an argument but he didn’t get where he was today by conceding defeat. “Look, my wound is causing me some concern here,” he said with a wince. “I need to take my medication and get some sleep. I do honestly hope we have an opportunity to continue this fascinating discussion at some future date. It’s been a delight, sir, an absolute delight.”

“You were amazing,” said Peach.

“Yes, I get that a lot,” Civilai replied. They were walking along the corridor in the direction of the dining room. One of the new guards from in front of Vogal’s door was marching along behind them.

“How do you remember all those facts and figures?”

“I don’t.”

“But you … you made them up?”

“I think I hit the general ballpark, as you folks say. But the nice thing about facts is that you can toss them in here and there merely to win arguments. It doesn’t matter if they’re accurate. Just look confident and hope your opponent doesn’t have a photographic memory for figures. I didn’t lie exactly. The Kennedy thing was true.”

“See why I want to be on your side?”

“Even in our information cocoon?”

“Sure. It feels a lot warmer in here.”