Thai Horse

‘Uh-huh, and just what does that mean, Hatcher, “a while”? A week, a month, ten years?’ She asked it lightheartedly.

He smiled and reached over and laid the palm of his hand softly on her cheek. ‘Longer than a week, hopefully less than a month,’ he answered.

‘Can I do anything for you?’

‘Call John Rogers at the bank and tell him I had to leave in a hurry. I’ve prepared a power of attorney for you so you can handle my market and bank accounts. If I should need money for any reason, shift funds at the bank into my drawing account.’

‘You trust me that much?’ she asked, surprised.

He smiled at her. ‘Implicitly,’ he answered.

‘When are you leaving?’

‘In the morning.’

She smiled at him, but she was already beginning to feel the longing that went with his absences. ‘Then let’s not waste time,’ she said. ‘You can sleep on the plane.’

He took her hand as she stood up and drew her close to him. He slowly unbuttoned her white button-down shirt, let it fall open, slipped his hands around her hips and drew her closer, kissing her hard stomach. Then loosening her belt and zipping down the fly, he slid her jeans off. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, his hands slipping under her buttocks, lifting her up slightly so that his thumbs slid under the edge of her panties, and began caressing her lightly with both thumbs, felt her tighten, felt her wetness as he gently probed while he moved his head lower, felt the hair under her panties, began to nibble very lightly while his hot breath caressed her. He spread his fingers up and drew down her panties and buried his face in her hair, smelling her sex, tasting her, felt her hands pressing his head harder into her. She stood on her toes, her head fell back and she sat on the edge of the table and put one leg over his shoulder. Her breath came faster, her muscles tightened, she began to move in tight little circles.

She had this wonderfully erotic habit that drove Hatcher crazy. As she neared her climax she began to count, low, almost under her breath, gasping between the numbers:

‘One . . . two . . . three . . . f-fo-ur . . uh, oh-oh, m’God. . . five, six, seven. . . uh-huh. . . uh-huh.

eight-nine-t-ten . . . my God, oh!’

Her back arched and she jammed herself against his mouth and held herself taut for ten o r twelve seconds and then, gasping, she relaxed, collapsed forward and, wrapping both hands around his head, drew him up to her, searching for his mouth and, finding it, began kissing him ravenously.

He picked her up and carried her back to the king-size bed in the sleeping cabin, laid her gently on the bed and stripped while he kissed her. Then he slid into bed beside her, drawing her tightly to him, and she felt him hard against her. She slipped one leg over his hip and pulled him to her, moving up until he entered her smoothly and without effort.

‘Oh God,’ he whispered as she surrounded him, tightening her muscles, sucking him in deeper and deeper and deeper.

Still out of breath, she whispered, ‘A month, huh?’ and he whispered back, equally out of breath, ‘Maybe .

just . . . a couple of weeks . .

She lay on her side, dozing. Hatcher moved easily off the bed, pulled a down quilt over her and began to pack. There had been a time when Hatcher’s Gurkha bag was always packed and ready to go — two suits, a casual jacket and slacks, half a dozen shirts, a couple of ties, an extra pair of shoes and his underwear and toilet articles. Basics. No frills. And he quickly fell back into the routine of preparing for the trip.

The mental checklist was still in his head: Check out his credentials, review his finances, select the right equipment, and pack everything into two pieces of luggage, his suit bag and an aluminum case, which he always hand-carried,

While Ginia slept he slid back a panel in the bulkhead over the head of the bed, opened a safe built into the wall and took out a small strongbox. He carried it back to the main cabin and checked the contents. He took out a $50,000 letter of credit from his bank, $20,000 in traveler’s checks and $10,000 in cash. He never used credit cards, too easy to trace. He also took out two passports, one his valid U.S. passport, the other a forged French passport. Both identified him as a free-lance television journalist and cameraman. Then he returned the box to its hiding place.

On the way back to the main salon, he got a medium- size aluminum Halliburton case from the closet and carried it forward. Then he got down on his hands and knees and crawled through a hatch under the stairs leading to the cockpit and into a tight compartment below the afterdeck. A waterproof chest was built into the hull. When Hatcher opened it, a light turned on automatically. Inside was a small arsenal: two .357 pistols, an H&K 9 mm. pistol, an M-16, a 9 mm. Uzi submachine gun. There were several loaded magazines for each weapon. There were also four ten-foot reels of extension cord, which was actually C-4 plastique. One weapon was wrapped in a green Hefty bag. Hatcher took the bag, two reels of C-4, closed and locked the compartment, and went back to the main cabin.

He spread a blanket on the dining room table, took the weapon out of the Hefty bag and laid it on the blanket. It was an Aug, an Austrian automatic assault rifle that broke down into three simple components: the barrel, which was sixteen inches long; the tubular sight, which was capable of instant target acquisition; and the stock and trigger mechanism, which were high-impact plastic and rustproof. The weapon was totally waterproof. All other weapons, with which Hatcher was familiar — the M-16, Uzi and Mac 10 — were vulnerable to moisture in the barrel and would explode if water got in them. But not the Aug. It literally could be fired while coming out of the water.

His memory began to stir again, a common ailment since Los Boxes. He called it an ailment because he had learned early from Sloan that memory had value for one thing only — reference. But now, staring down at the Aug, he remembered the first time he ever used the gun.

Sloan had sent a slick upriver to the Boston drop, a hook in the Chu River near a small village. The chopper picked up Hatcher and flew him back to a forward base in the Mekong Delta. Sloan was waiting for him in a hooch he had commandeered for the night.

‘I’ve got a problem,’ Sloan said over a glass of gin. ‘We have a Southern papa-san working for us, name of Di Tran. He’s a good slope. Charlie killed his wife, mother, two small kids. So he’s got plenty to get even far. He’s been working behind the lines for us, six, seven months. Very reliable information.’

He paused for a moment, flattening his hands on the desk. ‘He knew the odds, it wasn’t like he didn’t know the odds,’ Sloan said, his fingers splayed out. He stared at them for several seconds before he went n. ‘He contacted the Swing Man about a week ago and asked for a drop. We met him and he passed us this tape.’

He put the tape in the cassette deck and pushed the play button. The man’s voice was high and tinny, laced with fear: ‘I have just this yesterday receive information that an American is sell information to the A.RV. He has given up the names of three Vietnamese agents working in the North for Shadow Brigade. One of the names is mine. I am feared it will take them very shortly to break through my real name. I must warn my two friends of their danger before I run. Please arrange meeting for us at the Boston drop in two days. Wednesday. Sunset. If two hours passed, you may think we have been taken. This American was paid ten thousand dollars for each name. He promise to sell them more. His name is Norgling. Joi gin, my friends.’

Hatcher looked up sharply where he heard the name Norgling. ‘Do you know who this Norgling is?’

Sloan nodded. ‘He’s talking about Chick Norgling!’ Sloan said. ‘He’s in the brigade, like you. Working with crossovers.’

‘So he’d have access to that information?’

‘Also codes, maps, general info bulletins — and the basic information on the brigade itself,’ said Sloan. ‘Now you know why we maintain individual integrity in this outfit. Norgling’s just like the rest of you, he only knows his direct contacts.’

‘Which means you,’ Hatcher said.

Sloan nodded slowly.

‘Get him off the street before he sells them anything else,’ Hatcher said.

‘I can’t bust him on the basis of that,’ said Sloan, nodding toward the cassette deck. ‘It’s his word against the voice on the tape. Without corroboration the provost marshal’ll laugh at me.’

‘How about this Di Tran?’

‘We sent a slick in for him but he didn’t show at the drop. We have to assume he’s dead.’

‘Then this Norgling’s gonna blow your whole show.’

Sloan stared back at his hands for a few more seconds, then nodded to himself and looked up at Hatcher.

‘We’ll set him up. I’ll arrange for him to meet you someplace. Tell him it’s an operation requiring two men. When he shows up, drop him. Upriver maybe.’

‘No. Too many ears on the river. We’ll do it in Saigon. The Princess Hotel. I’ll dust him, you dump him.’

‘Fair enough.’

Seven P.M. Fourth floor of the Princess. If Norgling was paranoid, if he suspected anything, he’d show up early to throw Hatcher off-balance. Hatcher knew the game well.

Norgling arrived at a quarter to seven to find Hatcher’s door open just a crack. He loosened his coat, reached under his arm and felt his pistol grip, then stepped cautiously inside.

The bedroom was empty. He heard music coming from the bathroom.

‘Hello?’ he called out.

‘In here,’ he heard Hatcher’s voice answer. ‘Close the door, will you?’

Norgling closed the door and approached the bathroom slowly. Hatcher was in the tub, his had resting against the back of it, taking a bubble bath. There was a bottle of red wine on the floor beside the tub and a half-empty glass. There was another glass on the sink.

Hatcher looked up and smiled. ‘Norg1ing?’

‘Right.’

‘Jesse Caruthers,’ Hatcher said. ‘Pardon me for not standing. Grab a glass and pull up a chair.’

He could see Norgling’s face relax. The muscles around his mouth loosened, his smile came .easily, his whole body was at ease.

A real amateur, thought Hatcher.

As Norgling was pouring a glass of wine, Hatcher said, ‘What the hell kind of man sells cut three buddies for thirty thousand dollars?’

Norgling reacted immediately. He dropped the bottle and glass and reached for his gun . As he did, Hatcher swung his right arm out of the tub. The Aug was in his hand, firing as it came out of the water, soap suds twirling off the barrel as bullets stitched a line from Norgling’s belly to his chest and then made a tight little spiral. Nine shots in less than a second — nine hits, four in the heart. Norgling’s body slapped against the tile wall and the air wheezed out of his lungs. His knees collapsed. He fell straight down, landing in a squat and the shattered wine bottle, and toppled to his side.

Hatcher was out of the tub before Norgling was all the way down. He opened the towel closet and pulled out the green body bag he had stashed there earlier, grabbed Norgling by the hair, lifted his b.ody back to a sitting position and slid the bag over his head. He then let him fall backward, pulled the bag down the rest of the way and zipped it up. He slid it to the corner of the bathroom, put on his slippers, cleaned up the broken glass and mopped up the wine with a towel, which he washed off in the tub. Then he went to the phone and punched out a number.

When the voice on the other end answered, Hatcher said, ‘Come get him!’ and hung up.

That was one of the few times Hatcher knew who his victim was and why he was executing him. Usually it was blind obedience. ‘Do it,’ Sloan would say and Hatcher did it. Not only did it, accepted it, believed in it. But now, looking back, Hatcher realized he could have been used. Perhaps Norgling was just a fugazi, a screw-up, and they needed to get rid of him, and they could have dummied up the tape, and

And perhaps it was 126, whispering in his ear, stirring thoughts that Hatcher had never stirred, never wanted to stir, before.

He flipped the dials of the combination lock on the Halliburton case and opened it. Inside was a thick sheet of Styrofoam cut to fit snugly into the case. Fitted into that were a half-inch video camera, two battery packs, a 400 mm. and a 200 mm. telephoto lens, a shoulder mount for the camera, four blank VHS tapes and several extension cords, carefully coiled and tied with plastic ties.

All were dummies.

Hatcher cleaned the gun thoroughly, then quickly broke it down into its three sections. He slid the barrel into the specially designed tubular hinge of the case and twisted a small screw cap on the end of the hinge. He popped open the dummy video camera, placed the trigger housing inside it and snapped it shut. Then he unscrewed the lens from the 400 mm. telephoto and slid the gun inside it. The two plastic magazines, each capable of holding thirty rounds, fit inside the two hollow batteries for the dummy video camera. He also had a short barrel, four inches long, which converted the weapon into a pistol. He secreted the short barrel in the 200 mm. lens. All the equipment fit easily into the case, which weighed less than twenty pounds.

The case also had a fake lining with a pocket, attached with Velcro to the inside of the lid. He peeled it back and put his money, letters and the fake passport into the waterproof pocket. Hatcher replaced the phony lining and dropped several file folders in the pocket, then closed the case and spun the dials on the five-digit combination lock.

Broken down into its three parts and secreted in the attaché case, the Aug defied any detection device. Assembled, it was one of the most lethal and versatile weapons in existence, a killing machine without recoil or noise. The loudest sound the gun made was the trigger clicking. It was accurate to 450 yards. It was the only weapon Hatcher carried. The ammunition was available anywhere in the world, no problem.

He went back in the bedroom, swiftly packed the Gurkha bag, zipped it up and took it back to the living room. Then he returned to the bedroom.

Ginia was still sleeping. He stared down at her.

The past was tapping his shoulder. What the Chinese called the ch’uang tzu-chi, the window to oneself, was open.

What ghosts were waiting back there to wring his soul?

Hatcher had thought Hong Kong and Bangkok were history. Upriver and the lair of the Ts’e K’am Men Ti.

The White Palm Gang and the Chiu Chaos. Tollie Fong, Sam-Sam Sam and White Powder Mama. Fat Lady Lau’s,

Cohen.

Bangkok.

And Daphne.

Names he had tried to forget and couldn’t.

He had tried to put them away, but they were all his yesterdays, the sum of his life.

Sloan had returned like the devil crawling up out of Hades, extending a long, bony finger to him, beckoning him back to the dark places that even 126 did not talk about, places seeded with hatred and death.

Going back really didn’t have much to do with Sloan, or with the names he’d dredged up — Buffalo Bill or Murph

Cody. It was time to go back, time to close out some unfinished chapters in his life. Time to pay the fiddler.

He sat down on the bed and began to rub Ginia’s back. She stirred and rolled over on her stomach. He got some moisturizer and began to massage her. For a moment the thought occurred to him that he was going to miss her, and the thought annoyed him because missing was like remembering. Hatcher had never missed anyone before in his life. It didn’t fit the pattern. It could be distracting, and that could be dangerous, screw up the old clicks, pull you out of the shadows into sunlight, where he knew he didn’t belong.

‘Attachments can be fatal,’ Sloan had said once. ‘They put your mind in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

Funny how often 126 and Sloan disagreed. What was it old 126 used to say? A man who has forgotten how to cry is dead inside.

He dismissed the thought, kneading his fingers into her shoulders and then up to her neck, moving along her arms to her finger-tips and stretching each one, massaging it with cream, then back to her sides and down to her hips. She groaned very faintly and spread her legs slightly. He put one leg between hers, pulled her down against it and, leaning forward into her, started to massage her neck again.

‘Hurry home,’ she whispered.

CIRILLO

Hatcher waited near the marina parking lot, listening to the night birds courting one another in the darkness, their melodies echoing across the broad, flat marsh. It was past midnight and the causeway leading to the mainland was almost deserted. Five miles away on the other side of the marsh, the lights of Brunswick twinkled like fireflies. He had one more task to finish before he left on his journey. He had said his good-bye to Ginia and now he waited in the dark, the briefcase sitting beside his leg.

A pair of headlights appeared far down the causeway and gradually grew larger as a car approached the docks. It turned off the narrow two-lane blacktop that connected the island with the rest of the world. The tan-and-brown police car, its tires crunching on the oyster-shell drive, stopped beside Hatcher. The door swung open.

Hatcher peered in at the beefy police officer in the brown uniform, a gold lieutenant’s bar twinkling on the open collar of his starched shirt. Jim Cirillo was a muscular man, deeply tanned, his black hair salted gray by time and sun. Powerful hands rested casually on top of the steering wheel.

‘You lookin’ to get busted for loitering?’ his deep voice drawled.

‘Yeah,’ Hatcher answered with a grin. He got in beside the cop. Cirillo dropped the stick into drive and wheeled out of the lot, turning back across the drawbridge and onto the island. Tall oak trees with Spanish moss hanging from their limbs like gray icicles arched the narrow roads. This was Cirillo’s time. He was a night person who preferred to sleep and fish in the daytime. They drove in silence for a few minutes.

‘Sloan found me,’ Hatcher finally croaked.

‘So? You don’t owe him,’ Cirillo answered with a shrug.

‘That’s right,’ Hatcher answered.

‘If anything, he owes you.’

‘Yeah.’

And Hatcher thought to himself, I owe you a lot, Jimmy. Cirillo had been surrogate father, friend, teacher and confidant, had even arranged his appointment to Annapolis.

A small mule deer hardly any bigger than a Great Dane darted across the road in front of them and dashed off into the woods.

‘Sloan wants me to do a job for him,’ Hatcher said.

‘No kidding,’ Cirillo snorted, slowing the car and shining his spotlight in the window of a tiny bait shack. Satisfied that the place was secure, Cirillo drove on.

‘I’m going to have to do it, Jimmy,’ Hatcher whispered in his strange cracked voice.

Cirillo drove for a few moments, then said, ‘Okay.’

‘It hasn’t got anything to do with Sloan,’ Hatcher went on.

‘Okay.’

‘A classmate of mine at Annapolis was supposedly killed in Nam in 1973. Apparently he’s turned up alive in Bangkok. It’s a touchy situation.’

‘And you’re the only one that can find him?’

‘I’m the only one who knows the subject — and who Sloan trusts.’

‘And do you trust him?’

‘Never again.’

‘You believe this story?’

‘Enough to find out.’

‘Lot of devils over there waiting to be dredged up,’ Cirillo said quietly.

‘Yeah,’ Hatcher answered.

‘Is that part of it, Hatch?’

They drove quietly. Hatcher thought about the question and said, ‘That’s part of it. Been off the wire too long, too.’

‘A real seductive lady, danger is.’

‘Yeah. Well you’re the one who introduced me to her.’

Driving through the overhanging moss, Cirillo was remembering that day on the mountain. ‘You looked pretty good that day,’ he said. ‘To tell you the truth, I never thought you’d do it. That was the day I decided you might turn into something.’

From Cirillo, Hatcher had learned a sense of obligation and duty, a simple code of honour, but a code easily exploited by a man like Sloan. The irony was that Cirillo had joined the Boston SWAT Squad at almost the same time Sloan had proselytized Hatcher. Like flies, both men were drawn into a web of violence that would shape their lives for years to come. Now both had come to this island to break the patterns.

Hatcher broke into both men’s silent reverie. ‘I need to check out the Aug, make sure it’s A-1.’

‘You need an Aug to look for a guy in Bangkok?’ Cirillo said, obviously surprised.

‘I’ve got a lot of enemies between here and Bangkok.’

‘So make your peace with them.’

‘It’s a nice thought,’ Hatcher said. ‘There’s only one way to make peace with some of these people.’

‘Then I guess you’ll have to do that, too,’ said Cirillo.

‘I hope not,’ Hatcher said. ‘You’ll keep an eye on the boat?’

‘I got the key. Any way I can reach you?’

Hatcher thought for a moment. “The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok. Just leave a message for me.’

‘Right.’ Cirillo paused and added, ‘You’re not a little too rusty for this kind of stuff, are you, kid?’

Hatcher thought for a few moments and shook his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

BUFFALO BILL

It was raining in Washington, a steady spattering downpour from a cold leaden sky that etched teardrops down the black polished face of the memorial. The rain collected in the shallow letters chiseled into the stone, overflowed and dribbled erratically down to the floor of the chevron scar in Constitution Gardens. There, memories of the fallen had been placed: a purple heart, a vase of daisies, the tattered photograph of a perfectly restored ‘56 Chevy, a now soggy worn teddy bear.

The rotten weather had not discouraged visitors. There were dozens, standing like statues. staring at the vast granite slab, searching, discovering, reaching out, and touching the names of daughters, sons, lovers, fathers, husbands, best friends or college pal s, saying good-bye as the sky wept with them.

Hatcher knew a lot of names on that solemn roster. He had fought but not served in Vietnam; a civilian, he had done jobs so dirty even the military would not sanction or talk about them. There were no medals or commendations, not even any records kept, for the kind of work he had done, but he had been there, done his work, and watched friends and enemies die in every inhumane, ugly, loathsome, unspeakable way human beings can leave this earth.

Hatcher had never seen the monument before, had never wanted to see it. But now, looking down through the rain, he was awed by its simple eloquence. It stirred in him, for the first time, the thought that he might have returned to the World with the same scars, the same guilt and confusion, as everybody else who fought in Nam. In that particular operation he had been labeled a mercenary, and mercenaries do not share glory, do not march in parades or have holidays named after them. For them there is only winning or losing — or more simply defined — living or dying.

But here there was no politics, no arguing the endless, unresolved yeas and nays of that faraway war; there was simply an open grave and the good-bye list of a conflict that probably would be nothing more than a footnote in history books a hundred years hence — a paragraph without resolution. History deals fleetingly with events it cannot explain.

He would never have recognized the old warrior had it not been for the four stars on his shoulder. Buffalo Bill Cody was still ramrod-straight, but ten years and the worms gnawing at his insides had devoured his body, leaving behind a craggy, hollow-eyed sliver of a man with pain written in every crevice of his face. The tailored trench coat that accentuated his bony frame was a further reminder that even legends are mortal.

But a legend he was. While other military big shots were destroyed by the scandal of Nam, Cody had emerged with his reputation unscathed. A hero and a soldier’s general who somehow maintained a sense of dignity in the middle of chaos, Cody had become the acceptable military figure of the Vietnam war. Shy, almost self-deprecating, he avoided the spotlight and was admired by left, right and center, an ordinary man who had sacrificed a son to the conflict and who seemed to bring a sense of sanity t an otherwise totally insane endeavor. He was like the nation’s favorite uncle, over there watching out for the kids. Now he stood, between a hunched-over man in combat fatigues and a woman with a teenage boy, looking at the list. Nobody paid any attention to him. The place was like that. It made commoners of everyone.

‘He looks a hundred and ten,’ Hatcher croaked.

‘He might as well be,’ Sloan answered. ‘He’ll be lucky if he lasts six months.’

‘Do we have to stand out here in the rain?’ Hatcher asked.

‘He’ll be through in a minute. The ritual never changes.’

Hatcher huddled down deeper in his raincoat, watched the general, and inwardly marveled at Sloan’s remarkable ability at the big con. Yesterday Hatcher had considered killing him. Today Hatcher was standing in the rain, seven hundred miles from home, actually considering doing a job he didn’t need, didn’t want and didn’t believe in. A hundred years ago, thought Hatcher, Sloan would have been hawking elixirs from the back of a wagon or selling shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. Now he sold dirty tricks with fictions of adventure and patriotism, seducing wide-eyed young men and women into the shadow wars, to become assassins, saboteurs, gunrunners, second-story men, safe crackers, even mercenaries, all for the glory of flag and country. Hatcher had met Sloan in the time of his innocence and had bought the lie.

The general finished his ritual and started back toward the street. Hatcher and Sloan watched Buffalo Bill slowly mount the steps, leaning heavily on a cane but avoiding the help of his assistant, a young major who had West Point inscribed in every move.

‘He doesn’t know anything about the money,’ Sloan said, half under his breath. ‘That’s between you and me.’

‘Does he know anything about me?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Yes.’

‘And he approves?’

‘He trusts my judgement.’

Hatcher chuckled. ‘How long has he known you?’

The general’s arrival ended the exchange. Up close, he looked even sicker than from a distance. His color was gray, and his eyes were watery and lifeless and had lost the fire that had once touched even his photographs with electricity. But he still stood erect, and if he was in pain, he didn’t show it.

‘Glad you made it, Harry,’ he said and then turned to Hatcher. ‘You must be Christian Hatcher. It’s a pleasure meeting you.’ He switched his cane to his left hand and offered Hatcher a bony but hearty handshake.

‘My pleasure, General,’ Hatcher said.

‘You served well in the Far East,’ Cody said. ‘Sloan kept me up on you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

The old warrior seemed shocked when he heard Hatcher’s ruined voice. ‘Let’s get out of the rain shall we?’ he said, quickly covering his surprise. His aide held the rear door open and they got in the limousine. Hatcher sat in the jump seat, facing Sloan and Cody. The old man shuddered from the effects of the cold and rain, and the aide wrapped a blanket around his legs.

‘Thanks, Jerry,’ Cody said, and the aide closed the door, leaving the three men alone in the backseat.

‘Don’t have enough meat left on these old bones to stave off the cold,’ Cody said with embarrassment, then hurried on: ‘Well, sir, Colonel Sloan tells me he’s filled you in on our problem.’

Hatcher nodded.

‘What do you think?’

Hatcher said, ‘Our best bet is the Thai, Wol Pot. If he’s telling the truth and Murph is alive, I can find him.’

‘You sound pretty positive,’ said Cody.

‘I qualified it — if your son’s alive.’

The general nodded. ‘And what do your instincts tell you about that?’

Hatcher shook his head. ‘Nothing yet. The files are pretty bleak.’

‘Yes, not much to go on. Sorry.’

‘There may be a few leads in there, Hatcher said. ‘You understand the need for discretion,’ Cody said, and it was a statement rather than a question. Hatcher nodded again. ‘Also,’ he went on, ‘there is some urgency in the matter.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Hatcher said.

‘You two were pretty close at the academy, as I recall.’ Hatcher nodded again. ‘We were on the boxing team together. He graduated a year ahead of me.’ He paused for a moment, and added, ‘He was okay, General. A stand-up guy.’

‘Good. I feel a little more comfortable knowing you knew him — and liked him.’

‘You and I met once before,’ Hatcher whispered suddenly, ‘at Murph’s wedding.’

The general peered hard at Hatcher, but there was no recognition in his bleak stare. ‘That was a long time ago. I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it used to be.’

‘Hell, mine isn’t anything to write home about, either.’ The general looked at Sloan for a moment, then back at Hatcher. ‘May I ask you a personal question?’

‘Sure,’ Hatcher said.

‘Why did you accept this mission?’

Hatcher wasn’t sure how to answer. He thought for a moment, then said, ‘A friend of mine once asked me if I was a patriot. At the time I said I wasn’t sure. Now maybe I can find out.’

‘There’s nothing patriotic about this job,’ the general said forlornly.

‘I’d like to think there is,’ Hatcher said.

Cody smiled — a fey, faraway memory of a smile tinged with sadness. ‘That’s a kind thing to say, Mr. Hatcher. Thank you.’

The old general focused his watery eyes on Hatcher and stared hard at the tall man for several seconds to make sure he phrased his next question properly. ‘I understand you left the brigade and returned to the private sector,’ the general said.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Too bad,’ he said. ‘You were a good soldier, Hatcher.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Mind telling me why you quit?’

Sloan cast a sideways glance at Hatcher, but the tall man ignored it.

‘I was losing my edge, General,’ Hatcher lied.

Cody stared at him for several seconds.

‘Well, let’s hope you have it back,’ Cody finally said with a wry smile.

‘Yes, sir.’

Cody turned to Sloan. ‘Looks like you found us a good man, Harry — as usual.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Sloan said, obviously pleased. ‘Then we’re on?’

Buffalo Bill Cody looked at Hatcher and repeated the question, ‘Well, sir, are we on?’

Hatcher nodded. ‘We’re on,’ his tortured voice answered.

FRAGMENTS

The place was like no other museum in the world. It was called MARS, an acronym for the Museum and Archaeological Regional Storage Facility, and it was in a plain one-story building forty miles south of Washington in a small village in Maryland. It took Hatcher an hour and a half to drive down there in his rented Chevy.

The curator was a young man, perhaps forty, although it was hard to tell, and he was jacketed in blue, like an intern. Sandy-haired, bearded and soft-spoken, he was a man whose task was reflected in an obvious sadness of spirit, for there was about the place a sense of longing and hurt and disquietude. He handed Hatcher a pair of white cotton gloves.

‘We wear these to prevent any further deterioration of the articles,’ he told Hatcher, pointing vaguely in the direction of a plastic bag that held two small identical seashells attached to a simple note: ‘I love you, Charley.’

‘They’re cataloged by position, the panel nearest where they were left,’ he said, leading Hatcher down a long row of gray metal floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Many of those who came to the Vietnam wall seemed compelled by heart or conscience to put something down, to leave a piece of themselves behind. These oddities of the heart, like relics of a history yet t be written, were gathered up each day and carried by rangers of the Park Service to the warehouse, where they were sorted, cataloged and stored. Like the fragments of the shattered lives it recorded, the collection was disparate: heartbreaking, humorous, touching, and determined entirely by emotion

— by the love of a child for the father she never knew, the anguish of a lonely parent, by a lover left alone at night, and the guilt of the buddy who survived. Frustration, sorrow, pride, anger, all were here, in a plain storage room on uniform shelves of gray metal. Here was the pain of the living.

The pieces lay encased in plastic bags, and unexplained. Baseballs. Maps. Flags. Many, many flags, the most inspiring — and abused — symbol of the war. Hatcher passed one and saw the note scribbled across a white stripe: ‘From Kenny, the son-in-law you never met.’

Notes (‘My friends, I pray that our children will never have to go to war but if they do, I pray they will go with all the courage and dignity that you did’). Letters, some still sealed. Poems (‘To my father, killed two months before I was born’).

Toy airplane models, helmets, military patches, medals, high school dance programs and college yearbooks, C rations, combat boots, a roll of GI toilet paper, a six-pack of Miller’s, a copper POW-MIA bracelet dated 1973, photographs of automobiles and homes, children never seen, fathers never known. Fragments.

‘Were you in Nam?’ Hatcher asked, following the ranger down the rows of memorabilia.

‘Yep,’ came the answer with a finality that precluded further questions.

It was easy to find specific articles because of the simple code they had devised to catalog these small treasures left behind by relatives, lovers and friends. The man stopped, leaned forward and checked a code number.

‘This is his row. It would be in here, if there’s anything,’ he said and moved away to leave Hatcher to his investigation. On the shelf was a worn and dirty teddy bear and beside it a Louisville Slugger with a crack in it and a photograph of a cocky-looking teenage couple standing beside a bright-red vintage Thunderbird. There was a withered stem of a corsage with a white ribbon still attached and a wedding ring sewn to the ribbon of a Purple Heart.

Then he found two notes.

The first one was addressed to: Our father, Lt. Murphy Cody, U.S.N. From your loving children, Keith and Sharon.’ It was attached to a photo of two teenagers who looked sad beyond their years.

Beside it was a second note. It read simply: ‘Thanks for everything, Polo. And thank God for Thai Horse. Jaimie.’ It was attached to a green beret. There was nothing else.

Polo.

That’s what this Jaimie called him, Polo. So the nickname had stayed with Cody. Funny, thought Hatcher, I never thought he liked it. But it proved one thing to him. The note was left for Murphy Cody. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

Was it a good-bye note from someone who knew he was dead?

Or was it a thank-you note from someone who knew Murphy Cody was alive?

And there was the reference to the Thai Horse. To Hatcher that meant only one thing — Thailand heroin. China White.

Did Cody provide heroin to his men? Were he and this Jaimie in some kind of smuggling ring together? Was this some kind of coded message? Hatcher unconsciously shook his head. He didn’t want to believe that. And yet, what else could it mean? Could there be some other answer?

The side trip had raised more questions than it answered.

‘No way to track back on this Jaimie, right?’ Hatcher’s hoarse voice asked.

The caretaker shook his head. ‘That’s none of our business,’ he said simply.

Hatcher checked the beret. Inside the lining were the initials ‘J.S.’ Nothing more. Hatcher took out a small notebook and wrote down all the information, such as it was. There was one more piece of data. The beret and note had been recorded fourteen months earlier, on July fourth.

There was nothing else. Whatever the legacy of Murphy Cody, it seemed to end here, with this brief epitaph.

‘Okay,’ he said to the caretaker. ‘Thanks.’

‘Yep.’

Hatcher looked around the room one more time, at the baseball mitts and tattered kites and flowers.

He thought of something Conrad had written: ‘ . . . an unselfish belief in an idea — something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . .

And he thought of all the restless heroes represented here, butchered and buried or lost in an alien place in a war most did not understand but did not question either, deprived of their hopes and dreams in that awesome sacrifice that crown and country seem determined to demand of every generation. Ordinary men who became extraordinary in death. The cold breath of ghosts chilled the back of Hatcher’s neck and he could not get out of there fast enough.

MONTANA

Hatcher disappeared that night with his briefcase full of twenties and the Murphy file, leaving Sloan waiting alone for him in the Occidental Restaurant. Sloan was on his third scotch when the bells went off in his head: The son of a bitch isn’t gonna show up. A quick call confirmed his fears. Hatcher had checked out of his hotel two hours before. Just like him! And it angered Sloan because he should have known Hatcher would duck out on him. The first way Hatcher’s anger at Sloan would manifest would be for Hatcher to cut loose, flaunt his free-lance status, and show Sloan who was boss.

Well, thought Sloan, we’ll see about that.

‘Will you be ordering soon, Colonel?’ the maître d’ asked after he hung up.

‘Cancel,’ Sloan snapped. He slipped him a five and headed out into the rainy night. Knowing Hatcher, Sloan knew it could be weeks before he heard from him again. He went back to his office and tracked down Zabriski. Zabriski could find anybody. Besides, he was sure Hatcher was traveling under his own name. Hell, he hadn’t changed it so far. Besides, Hatcher wasn’t dodging Sloan, he was ignoring him. Sloan would get a line on him, just to show the son of a bitch.

The next morning he had his report.

‘He flew into Billings, Montana, on an Eastern flight last night, stayed at the Palace Hotel, checked out early this morning and caught a local feeder to Shelby,’ Zabriski reported.

‘Montana! What the hell could he be doing in Montana?’

‘I dunno, sir. But that’s where he went.’

‘Where the hell’s Shelby?’

‘About two giant steps south of the Canadian border,’ the agent answered. ‘There’s nothing there, Colonel, it’s been snowed under for three months. It’s where God lost his snowshoes.’

Montana? Sloan pulled out the Murphy file and went back over it, reading every line, looking for some reference to Shelby, Montana. But he found nothing. Well, hell, Sloan thought, where can he go from Shelby? He assigned Zabriski to take the next flight to Billings, wait for Hatcher to show up and follow him.

‘And, Zabriski, this guy’s slippery, got it? He’s got tricks you haven’t heard of yet.’

‘Do we bust him?’ Zabriski asked.

‘Hell, no, he hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Sloan said. ‘I just want to know what the hell he’s up to.’

Maybe, thought Sloan, he’s doing a double-back. Maybe he’s checking me out. The risk in hiring Hatcher was that he was too clever. If Hatcher turned into a loose cannon, he could be very dangerous.. After Los Boxes, it was much too early in the game to trust Hatcher.

The twin-engine De Havilland snaked its way through the narrow lane the blowers had trenched through the snow. On either side of the plane, high-piled snow banks loomed above the fuselage, snow that had been collecting for months. The airport terminal was a small one-story building almost hidden in the white drifts. There was a hangar nearby, barely peeking over the snow, with a tattered windsock flapping straight out from its warped pole in the subfreezing wind. That was all there was to the airport. Hatcher’s boots squeaked and his breath left trails of steam in his wake as he hurried across the snow-packed tarmac toward the warmth of the tiny terminal, which was barely the size of a large living room.

On one side of the room was an airline counter operated by a skinny young man who looked half asleep; facing it on the other side of the room was a food -dispensing machine and a combination taxi and rental car service, both operated by the same person, a grizzled man in need of a shave, wearing a fur cap and three layers of wool shirts. The arrival of the flight hardly stirred much activity in the terminal. There were only two other passengers on the small feeder line.

Hatcher drew a cup of coffee from the machine and waited until one of the passengers had gone through the drill of renting a car. When he left, Hatcher approached the fur-capped old man, who was leaning over the rental form, completing it with a stub of a pencil.

‘How long’s it take to get to Cut Bank?’ Hatcher’s frazzled voice asked.

The old man kept working on his form. ‘Depends.’

‘On what?’

‘Time a year. Summertime, takes about forty-five minutes.’

‘Well, how about in the winter, like right now, for instance?’

‘Two hours, if you know the road.’

‘Know how far it is up to the government hay station?’ Hatcher growled.

The old fellow kept writing and said, still without looking up, ‘Thirty-seven miles, more or less, most of it uphill. You ain’t used to driving in snow, forget it. They won’t even find you until spring.’

‘You the cabdriver, too?’

‘Yep.’

‘How much to run me up there?’

‘Son, you make it sound like a bike ride in the park,’ he said, still concentrating on the form.

Hatcher slid a hundred-dollar bill under his nose. ‘There’s another one just like that when we get back,’ he said in his chafing whisper. ‘I shouldn’t be up there more than an hour.’

The old fellow stared down at Ben Franklin’s cryptic grin for a few moments, then looked up. ‘You must be a government fella,’ he said.

‘You want a biography, it’ll cost you that Ben Franklin,’ Hatcher’s frazzled voice answered as he nodded toward the hundred.

‘Nuff said,’ the old man said, folding the bill and tucking it in one of his shirt pockets. ‘Last plane back to Billings is at four.’ He looked at his ‘watch. ‘Gives us six hours.’

‘How about Spokane?’

‘One flight a day. Two-thirty.’

‘Let’s aim for that,’ Hatcher said in his grating voice.

‘Uh-huh,’ the old fellow said and stuck out his hand. ‘Name’s Rufus Eskew.’

‘Chris,’ Hatcher said, shaking a hand tormented with calluses.

‘Better do something about that cold,’ Rufus said, reaching under the counter for his keys.

The chopper swept in low over the meadow, scrambling the deer that had already sniffed out the first batch of hay it had dropped. Simmons stood in the open hatch layered in heavy clothing, his face protected by a scarf against the frigid wind that blasted down on him and his partner from the chopper blades overhead. His eyes peered out from behind sunglasses between the scarf and the wool hat that was pulled down hard over his ears. His thick black eyebrows were caked with frost. He held on to the heavy lifeline over the side hatch and waited until the pilot whipped the chopper around.

Below them, the herd bounded about erratically, except for one magnificent stag who stood his ground, testing the air with his quivering nostrils, watching as the helicopter lowered over the frosted meadow that was trapped between two mountain peaks.

‘Lookit that arrogant son-bitch,’ Simmons yelled to his partner in the waist of the chopper. ‘That’s one gorgeous buck.’

They were twenty feet above the drifted lea when Simmons put both feet against the two-hundred-pound bale and kicked and pushed it out the door. He watched it tumble down, end over end, smack the ground and burst in a shower of snow and hay.

‘Come and get it, little darlin’s,’ he yelled down at the herd, which had been trapped by a sudden snowstorm and was facing starvation. On the other side, Eddie, his kick-boss, launched the last of the bales. He turned to Simmons and shot a thumb toward the roof of the plane. Simmons heard his voice over the intercom: ‘Okay, bombs away. Let’s go get some hot coffee.’

‘I hear that and that’s a roger and good-damn-news,’ the pilot answered.

Simmons and Eddie closed the hatch doors and sat in front of the feeble heaters. The air that blew out of the two vents was warm air only by comparison with the outside wind. Simmons took out a pint of Canadian Club, pulled down his scarf and took a long swig from the bottle. He wiped the mouth off with his gloved hand and gave the bottle to Eddie, then shook all over as if he’d been struck by lightning. ‘Who-eeee! That’ll get us home,’ he cried out, then pulled the scarf back up over his face, put away the bottle when Eddie had taken his turn, and wrapped his arms around himself. He would sleep for the twenty minutes it took to get to the station.

The pilot’s voice came over the intercom: ‘I just got a call from base. There’s a guy waitin’ there to see you, Harley.’

Simmons perked up. Now, who in hell would come out to the base to see him in this weather? he wondered.

‘What’s his name?’ Simmons asked the pilot.

‘Didn’t ask.’

Simmons worried about it all the way back. He had problems with paranoia anyway. If Lee back at the base didn’t know who it was, then who the hell was it? He was out of the chopper and running toward the office while the chopper blades were still spinning. Who was this guy, anyway?

Simmons knew Rufus Eskew, so it had to be the other guy. He was standing over the floor heater, drinking coffee from a cup he held with both hands — six, six one, dark hair streaked with gray, built like a boxer. Lookit that tan, Simmons thought. That guy’s from someplace south. L.A. or Florida. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, tan corduroy pants tucked into fleece-lined boots and a heavy fleece jacket. And sunglasses. L.A., Simmons decided. Then he took off the glasses and Simmons was staring into the coldest gray eyes he’d ever seen.

Washington, Simmons said to himself.

‘Mr. Simmons, my name’s Hatcher,’ his grinding whisper said.

Jesus, Simmons thought, listen to that. The guy whispers.

‘Let’s go someplace and talk for a minute. This is kind of personal,’ Hatcher suggested.

Personal? Personal? What the hell could be personal. He didn’t owe a dollar. His alimony ‘was paid up. Even his jeep was paid for.

‘You got twenty minutes to warm your asses,’ the pilot said as the rest of the crew piled into the shack behind him. ‘They’re loading us up again.’

‘We can go in the director’s office,’ Simmons said. ‘He’s down in Helena for a couple days.’

He led Hatcher into a small room with a desk that was barren except for the phone. The room contained the desk, an old-fashioned glass-front bookcase with several government publications scattered in it, and a hat tree. The calendar on the wall was from the Haygood Seed and Feed Company in Shelby. Hatcher looked around the office and thought, The director is either incredibly well organized or incredibly underworked. He sat down on the corner of the desk.

‘Grab a chair,’ he said.

Simmons sat. He looked scared to ‘death.

‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asked.

‘I’m with the MIA Commission. “We’re wrapping up the Cody case,’ Hatcher said.

‘Oh Jesus, I knew it. I knew it was that. Damn it, how many times I got to go through that thing? I been outa the fuckin’ Army for almost fifteen years and they been wrappin’ up the Cody case ever since.’

Hatcher was shocked at Simmons’s reaction. But it was also revealing. It was as if Simmons’s worst fear had risen up and grabbed him by the throat. Hatcher knew the signs and at that moment knew his hunch was correct. All he had to do was keep pressing. Simmons was looking to crack.

‘It’s just a routine thing,’ Hatcher said. ‘No reason to get crazy on me.’

‘I been out here for ten years,’ Simmons said. ‘Trying to forget all that. I don’t need . . .‘ He didn’t finish the sentence.

‘Just a few loose ends,’ said Hatcher. ‘Won’t take but a minute.’

‘Anyway, I heard Cody was officially dead.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘Then what the hell. .

‘What it is, there are one or two things we need to clarify.’

‘I can’t remember that far back, man,’ Simmons said. ‘That’s fifteen years ago. I saw a lot of people die in Nam. They all just kind of run together.’

‘This was the wing leader, Cody. His father was commanding general of the whole theater. I’m sure you remember that one, Simmons.’

Simmons started to get angry, but it was a defensive kind of anger. ‘Look, Mr. whatever-your-name-is,’ Simmons snapped. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I’ve spent fifteen years trying to forget all that.’

‘All what?’

‘Everything that happened over there. Twelve months in my life that I want to . . . try to make believe never happened. It’s hard enough. . . . Anyway, they all looked alike that far away.’

‘Who?’

‘The flyboys that went down.’

‘How far away?’

‘Across the river. You know, we were flying Hueys in Sea-Air Rescue. When you’re doin’ SAR, you’re never just . . . right on top of them.’

‘Yeah, that’s one of the things I wanted to run by you,’ Hatcher said, taking a file folder oat of his briefcase and flipping through it. He let the comment hang, watching Simmons get edgier. A lot of guilt here, he thought, this guy is fragile, he’s broken and the pieces haven’t fallen yet. He waited a little longer, then whispered, ‘What it is, we got a little discrepancy in the reports.’

‘Discrepancy?’

‘Yeah, just a little thing. In your debriefing just after the incident you said that the plane hit the trees and blew up immediately. Wait a minute, here it is. “We were about half a mile away and he went in upside down and the whole forest seemed to explode. I don’t see how anybody could have survived.”

Simmons nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

‘But in this transcription of the review-board tape in 1981 you say you were close enough to feel the heat when it blew and you could see that nobody got out. Then you started taking heavy ground fire and had to abandon the rescue attempt.’

‘Happened all the time. So?’

‘So which is right? Were you do se enough to feel the heat or half a mile away when he augured in?’

He turned away from Hatcher arid started toward the door. ‘I gotta get going. Deer to feed_’

‘You’ve still got fifteen minutes,.’ Hatcher whispered softly. He decided to fire long shot. Look, Simmons,’ his voice rasped, ‘I don’t give a damn whether you lied to the review board. I just want to know the truth now. You tell me, it stops right here.’

Simmons turned abruptly, his face reddening with anger. ‘What the hell would I have t lie about?’

‘The debriefing officer noted in his report back in ‘72 that you were scared. In fact, he wrote that you were stuttering. It was all over and you were back on the ground, but you were still that scared.’

‘I was three weeks in-country, man,’ Simmons said brusquely. ‘That was only my third trip out. Sure, I was scared. I was scared the last day I was over there, too. I was nineteen. I was scared all the time.’

‘Being scared isn’t being a coward,’ Hatcher said softly.

‘Coward? That what you think?’

Hatcher shook his head. ‘That’s not what I think. But maybe it’s what you think.’

Simmons kneaded his wool cap in his hands and shook his head. ‘You just never get away from it. Damn Vietnam, God damn Vietnam,’ he cried out with such passion that it surprised Hatcher. He felt sorry for Simmons but not sorry enough to stop.

‘You swear to me you didn’t see anyone coming away from that plane, and I’m gone,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘But if you lie, I’ll know it.’

‘Such a long time ago . .

‘You weren’t under oath, Simmons. So maybe you made a mistake . .

‘I’m not under oath now.’

‘Simmons, is it possible that Cody escaped from that plane?’

‘Anything’s possible.’

‘What do you think?’

A voice from outside yelled, ‘Five minutes, Simmons.’

‘Right away,’ Simmons yelled back. He looked back at Hatcher. ‘Why are they checking into this again, anyhow. It’s all over?’

‘There’s a chance Cody could be in an MIA camp in Cambodia,’ Hatcher lied. ‘Before we make a stink about it, I’ve got to be sure he didn’t die that day.’

‘It’s all in the reports. I told them all of it. They were always going down. It was a suicide outfit, everybody knew that.’

‘You mean Cody’s outfit?’

‘He was crazy, man. First thing I heard when I joined the SAR, “You’re Cody’s backup,” they’d say, “you’re gonna stay busy. Better keep your head down. . .

The vision began flashing in Simmons’s head. He rubbed his eyes, but it persisted, as it always did. The figure limping frantically toward the river’s edge, waving futilely at him, then the explosion, the great awning of fire spreading out over the treetops. And still the pilot kept coming, waving, a specter silhouetted against fire until the image burned out in Simmons’s head.

‘Maybe . . .‘ Simmons said.

‘Maybe what, Simmons? Maybe Cody didn’t die, that what you’re saying?’ Hatcher knew he had Simmons going, could almost feel his pain. That was part of it, knowing when they were going to break, keeping the squeeze on.

‘I never said he died,’ Simmons cried, ‘I never said that at all. He could of got outa there without me seeing him. They were shooting at us, there was a lot of fire. . .

‘Bullets come close, did they?’

‘They were chewing the Huey up three feet from my face.’

‘So it was time to split, right?’

Simmons turned away from him. Outside, the familiar whine of the chopper could be heard as the pilot cranked it up.

‘I gotta go.’

‘Then I’ll wait until you get back.’

‘Jesus, what the hell do you want me to tell you?’

‘The truth.’

Simmons slammed the heel of his hand against the doorjamb.

‘Damn it! Damn it all. Damn you.

‘Been eating at you, has it?’

Simmons didn’t answer.

‘Look at it this way, if you did see somebody running away from the plane that day, maybe we can still find him.’

Simmons moaned, ‘I still get nightmares. Nothing’s worked for me. My wife left me. . . . It all turned to pig shit.’

‘Maybe this’ll help clear up these dreams,’ Hatcher suggested, but Simmons shook his head.

‘So you came up here to forget it?’

Simmons nodded mutely.

‘And it didn’t work.’

Tears suddenly flooded Simmons’s eyes. He tried to blink them back, but they slowly drew streaks down his face.

‘I keep thinking, maybe we coulda got him outa there, but they were shooting us to pieces, so I told them “Let’s get outa here, I don’t see anybody” and God damn it . . . started tearing me up before we even got back to the base and it never stops and I can’t stand to . . . can’t talk about it, see people I knew over there, I was just scared, man, that’s all.’

‘So Cody got out of the plane,’ Hatcher said bluntly. Simmons was weeping softly arid he was trying not to show it. He leaned against the window, watching the chopper stir snow clouds as it warmed up. Simmons took a deep breath and sighed.

‘One of ‘em did,’ he said finally.

‘They think they found some of the gunner’s remains at the site,’ Hatcher said, ‘But they never found Cody.’

Simmons faced Hatcher, his face twisted with grief. ‘What the hell happened to him?’ he asked, his voice quivering with guilt.

Hatcher shrugged and shook his head.

‘If you ever find out —, Simmons started, and the voice from the plane yelled again, ‘Simmons, what the hell’re you doin’? We got work to do.’

‘I’ll let you know,’ Hatcher said, ‘There’s one other thing. Does Thai Horse mean anything to you?’

‘You mean heroin?’

‘That’s all it means?’

‘That’s all it means to me.’

‘Thanks. You better get going,’ Hatcher said.

As Simmons walked toward the office door Hatcher stood up and touched his arm. ‘Listen to me for a minute,’ he said. ‘What happened in-country, that doesn’t count over here. You forget that. That was another life. What you did? That could happen to anybody. And if you did cost Cody his life, you probably saved the lives of the pilot, copilot and you. Three for one, that’s a fair enough trade.’

‘I’ve thought of that,’ Simmons said. ‘It doesn’t help.’

‘Conscience can be a terrible companion,’ Hatcher whispered.

‘That doesn’t help either,’ Simmons said bitterly. He pulled his cap down tight over his head and left the room. Hatcher watched through the window as Simmons ran through the snow toward the chopper. He thought to himself, Okay, so Cody could have gotten out. And if he could’ve gotten out, he could still be alive and that means he’s not dead for sure.

So where’s he been for fifteen years?

‘You lost him? You lost him,’ Sloan said softly but firmly. ‘How can you lose anybody in — What was the name of that place again?’

‘Shelby,’ Zabriski answered. ‘He didn’t come back to Billings, Colonel. He took a feeder into Spokane and from there to Seattle, then he caught a flight into L.A.’

‘Where are you now?’

‘L.A. International. He’s going out in the morning.’

‘Where?’

‘San Diego.’

‘San Diego! What the —, Sloan hesitated for a moment, then: ‘Wait a minute. I’m putting you on hold, just hang on.,

Sloan punched the hold button, and turned to one of four computer operators who worked in his tiny headquarters.

‘Holloway, I need a current location on two Navy men.

Lieutenant Commander Ralph Schwartz and Commander

Hugh Fraser. And I got a man holding on long distance’

Sloan spelled the two names.

‘Gimme a minute, sir,’ Holloway said. Sloan drummed his desk nervously and leafed through the copy of the Murphy file while Holloway typed questions into his computer. Sloan’s operational headquarters was three rooms in. a small office building four blocks from the White House. There was a small waiting room manned by his secretary, the main terminal room, which had four computer terminals connected to a network of phones and satellites, and Sloan’s private office, which did not contain a single personal item of any kind.

It took less than two minutes for the sergeant to get the answers.

‘Coming up now, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘Fraser retired eighteen months ago, Colonel. He’s VP of a small charter airline in Seattle. No current civilian address on tap. On the other one . . . uh, here we go Ralph Schwartz: he’s full commander now, sir, director of flight instruction at NAS San Diego.’

‘That’ll do it, Sergeant, thanks,’ Sloan said and switched back to Zabriski in L.A. ‘Okay, I got it worked out. Cancel the surveillance and come back in.’

‘Cancel the surveillance?’ the agent asked, surprised.

‘Cancel it,’ Sloan said and hung up. He started to laugh. That son of a bitch, he thought, he’s playing games with me, showing me he still has the stuff. The whisper man had made no attempt to cover his tracks, he just wanted to see how long it would take to catch up with him. Sloan looked at his watch. It was 7 P.M., 4 P.M. on the coast. Hatcher had covered a lot of ground in twenty-four hours.

Another computer operator interrupted his thoughts.

‘We have a computer call coming in, Colonel.’

‘Who from?’

‘M base.’

The caller was using a computer modem to make the call. It was a method for securing the telephone line on risk calls. The computer screen in front of the operator scrolled out several questions requiring responses.

Code number:

Daily code:

Operation code:

Level clearance:

Call target code name:

Your code name:

Your clearance number:

Voice check:

An incorrect response anywhere along the line would result in an instant disconnect and a freeze on the calling number so it could be traced. Numbers and names appeared across the screen as the caller answered the questions.

‘He’s cleared the voice check,’ the operator said.

‘Put the call on the green box,’ Sloan ordered and went into his office. He closed the door and unlocked a drawer in his desk. It contained a phone with a device that scrambled transmission both ways and then unscrambled them on a one-to-one line. There were two small lights on top of the box. A green light assured Sloan that the line remained clear. If the other light, which was red, lit up, the call was immediately terminated.

Sloan answered the phone.

‘This is Moon Racer,’ he said.

‘This is Hound Dog, sir. We’re having problems.’

‘It’s all right, Hedritch, we’ve got a virgin line.’

‘Our boy is giving us fits, Colonel.’

‘Same old problem?’

‘Yes, sir. It’s okay as long as we keep him on the lake, security’s a breeze. But he’s determined to hit the night spots. I told him it was impossible and I won’t repeat what he told me.’

Sloan chuckled. ‘I can imagine, I brought the man out, remember. Those tropical types are all alike. Hot blood and all that.’

‘His hot blood is going to be all over the floor if he’s not careful. Do I have the authority to stop him?’

‘Negative. He’s a guest of the United States, not a prisoner. Our job is to protect him, tough as that may be.’

‘He wants to go to a disco called split Personality, to a costume party. We couldn’t secure the place if we had the whole Israeli Army helping us.’

‘When?’

‘Day after tomorrow.’

Sloan thought for a moment.

‘All right, we’ll just have to take our chances. Don’t let anybody know you’re coming. Get there about eleven o’clock, tell the manager who you are. Locate in a spot that’s inconspicuous. That’s the best you can do.’

‘It’s gonna be hairy, sir.’

‘It always is, Hedritch.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sloan hung up. He took a long Havana cigar from his desk drawer, took it out of its protective tube and drew it back and forth under his nose several times, smelling its rich tobacco. Then he lit it and picked up the green phone again. He punched out a number.

‘Yes?’ a voice answered after the first ring.

‘This is Moon Racer. Is the man available?’

‘Yes, sir.’

A moment later a voice asked, ‘Moon Racer?’

‘Yes,’ Sloan replied.

‘Are you smoking, Moon Racer?’

‘Yes. Do you know what I’m smoking?’

‘La Fiera.’

‘Good. I’ve got the mark for you.’

‘Is it the troublesome one we have discussed?’

‘Yes. Campon will be at a place called the Split Personality in Atlanta, Georgia, eleven P.M. day after tomorrow.’

‘That would be Wednesday.’

‘Right. Is there a problem?’

‘No problem. Enjoy your smoke.’

‘I intend to.’

Sloan hung up, closed the drawer and locked it. Then he picked up his regular phone.

‘Get mc on the next flight to San Diego,’ he said.

WATER BABIES

Windy Porter sat at his customary table in the corner of Queen’s Pub watching a dozen Thais trying to launch a chula. The enormous kite was at least six feet long and the team was having a problem getting it aloft. On the other end of Sanam Luang Park, several pakpao kite fighters already had their small one-man kites in the air and were yelling good-natured insults at the team.

When the big dragon kite finally caught the wind and spiraled up into the air, one of the pakpao charged, zigzagging toward the big kite, trying to pass it and get to the chula’s end of the field and win the match. The chula was difficult to maneuver, but its team was expert and they cut across the path of the pakpao, snared its string with their line, and brought the smaller kite auguring to the ground. There was a great deal of cheering and now it was the chula’s turn for insults, and the young man with the pakpao gathered up his wounded flyer and went back to his end of the field in humiliation. Another pakpao, whose kite was purple with a blazing red tail, reeled his bird in tight and got ready for the run.

‘A red on the pakpao,’ Porter said to Gus, the bartender, and slapped a red hundred-baht note on the table.

‘Yer covered,’ the Cockney bartender replied, accepting the five-dollar bet.

The new fellow, who was short and muscular, started running toward the chula team, then let the kite run its string, up, up, almost a hundred feet, and began his drive toward the imaginary goal, moving like a good quarterback breaking field, pulling the purple diamond down, maneuvering it away from the long chula string, then letting it out as he dodged under the threatening dragon kite. He was very good, outsmarting the team players and dipping his kite under the big dragon just as they were about to collide, hauling it in for a second and then letting it glide back up so that it brushed the larger kite for a moment before he ran on to win the match.

‘Way to go, sport,’ Porter yelled gleefully. He turned to the bartender and added, with smug satisfaction, ‘Just take it off my tab, Gus.’

Porter loved the kite fights. He left his post every day at four-thirty, walking a mile across Bangkok’s crowded streets rather than fight the noisy traffic jams, to Queen’s, where he sat in the same corner table with a clear view of Sanam Luang Park and the gleaming spire of the Golden Mount atop Wat Sakhet. Porter had been stationed in Bangkok since the end of the Vietnam war, and he loved the ancient beauty of the city and particularly the Thai people, whose prevailing attitude was Mai pen rai, ‘Never mind.’ He had been a close friend of Buffalo Bill Cody’s for many years, a once proper Bostonian who had, on a summer day in 1968, suddenly chucked his executive job in one of the city’s larger banks, accepted Cody’s offer of a commission and a spot on Buffalo Bill’s Nam staff and gone off to find a purpose for his life in a place most men feared and wanted to avoid.

It was an amazing turnabout, for Porter not only quit but burned his bridges, telling the president of the bank what to do with his job and where to take it once he did it, and giving his wife who was equally appalled by his sudden decision, a variation of the same message. After ten years in the stultifying atmosphere of Back Bay and his debasing daily bank chores, which consisted mostly of disapproving loans and foreclosing on unfortunates, Saigon had been a breath of spring air to Porter. The general had even arranged an assignment for him as intelligence adviser in the embassy at Bangkok when the war fizzled out. Porter’s last visit to the States bad been ten years ago.

Although he was pushing fifty, Porter kept trim on the squash courts, had grown a monumental mustache, which he waxed every day, and had learned the language and customs of Thailand. He had become, for all practical purposes, a native. He also adored the Old Man and considered his assignment — to keep a loose tag on Wol Pot — a privileged responsibility.

Porter was not trained in intelligence work and surveillance, but he had managed to keep up with the Thai informant, although he was getting nervous. Wol Pot had moved twice since he had first discussed the Murphy Cody affair with him. He was obviously jumpy and afraid of something. Could the Thai be stinging them? If so, how did he know about Murph Cody? Why pick him? And why had Wol Pot refused Porter’s offer of protective custody in the embassy? It was obvious the man trusted no one.

He watched the fights until the shimmering fireball of the sun sank slowly behind the Golden Mount, first silhouetting the gleaming gold spire, then etching it against the scarlet sky, and finally surrendering the bell- shaped landmark to darkness. Night began to settle over Bangkok, the lights blazed on, the tourists trekked out of their hotels in pursuit of evening joys, and Windy Porter left Queen’s and hurried another few blocks across town to a park called Bho Fhat across from the Sakhet temple, there to begin his nightly vigil on his customary bench, a bench well hidden by jasmine bushes.

There was no question in Porter’s mind that Wol Pot was terrified of something. After the initial contact, he had turned rabbit. At first, he had followed a loose routine. Porter had followed him once to a junk on the river, to his nightly forays along the klongs, and the strip joints on Patpong Road and particularly to Yawaraj, the Chinese section. The little bastard was addicted to hot Chinese food. Then two days earlier Pot left his rooms and disappeared. Porter had panicked. The little weasel was the only person he knew who might lead them to Murph Cody, if Cody was alive. He had put out the word — all over Thailand — to his informants, his contacts, his friends, and had run down a few leads, which had fizzled out.

Then Porter had lucked out. A priest, a friend of Porter’s for many years, heard that Porter was looking for this man, Wol Pot.

‘It is probably nothing,’ he said, but a man, no longer a youth, has joined the Wat Sakhet, and has been seen to leave the grounds every night.’

Strange behavior, since the discipline at the monastery was quite rigid though purely voluntary.

‘When did he enter the monastery?’ Porter asked.

‘Only two days ago. That is why his conduct seems strange,’ the priest answered.

‘Khob khun krap,’ Porter said, thanking the priest. ‘May I ask you not to discipline him until I check him out?’

The priest agreed. It was a long shot, Porter thought, but certainly a clever deception if it was Wol Pot. Porter was familiar with the demands made upon neophyte monks of Theravada Buddhism. One of the most familiar sights in Thailand was the hundreds of saffron-robed Naen with their shaven heads wandering the streets and meditating in the city’s hundreds of wats, the monasteries or temples that were the most common structures in the country. When he first came to Bangkok, Porter had found the monks an annoyance; they reminded him of the Hare Krishnas who had turned most of the airports in the United States into a bizarre distortion of the wats. But while he did not pretend to understand the mysteries of Eastern religion, he had gradually come to accept and respect these dedicated men.

During the rainy season of late summer and early fall, the ranks of these monasteries were swelled by thousands of young men. It was a tradition for them to enter the wats, sometimes for two weeks, sometimes for six months, and learn the virtues of an ascetic life free of material possessions. While there, they were obligated to adhere to 227 strict rules, abstaining from lying, idle talk, and indulgence in sex, intoxicants, luxuries and frivolous amusements. Their only possessions were the familiar saffron robe and a brass alms bowl, with which they b egged the two meals a day allowed by the order. Their stay was a matter of personal dedication, nothing prevented them from leaving whenever they wished. But while they were pledged to the order, they had to adhere to its demands. At night they prayed in the wat and went to bed with the sunset, arising before dawn to go on the Street with their brass bowls to seek their first meal of the day.

Since the wats were open to everyone and monks were free to travel from one to another, it was an ingenious place to hide, particularly now when so many were in the order.

That night Porter had stationed himself across from the temple with its great golden dome and waited. Sure enough, just after sunset he saw the yellow-robed monk slip out of the temple. Porter followed the little man, who trotted about a mile to Hua Lamphong, the main train station, where he kept clothes in a locker. He changed in the rest room. When he emerged, dressed in a Western suit, Porter recognized him immediately as Wol Pot. The Thai took a cab and doubled back to Yawaraj, Chinese Town, where he ate dinner in a small nondescript restaurant in the old section. Having satisfied his hunger, he strolled down to Klong Phadung, one of the many canals that branch off the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, the main river that defines the western edge of the city, and there Pot negotiated a price with a tiny teenage prostitute, one of many ‘water babies’ who sold their wares from hang yao, long tail boats discreetly covered by bamboo sheds. Pot spent an hour with the young woman, then returned to the train station, switched back to his robe, and was back at the monastery by midnight.

It was a ritual with Pot, one that bored Porter, although he followed Pot every night, leaving only when the Thai was safely back in his hiding place.

Porter was a little irritated on this night, for he had hoped to turn over his nightly vigil to the new man, Hatcher. He wasn’t sure he could trust Hatcher. He was Sloan’s man, and Porter never liked Sloan, never liked the shadow wars he fought, breaking all the rules and operating outside what Porter felt were proper military parameters. But it was Sloan’s game now, and since Hatcher had not shown yet, Porter had to continue the loose surveillance himself, making sure Pot didn’t slip away into the night and vanish again, this time for good.

If Pot was coming out, he would leave the Buddhist monastery soon after the sun died. Porter lit a British 555 cigarette and waited.

The street was quiet. There was very little traffic, and the din of the city was a like a murder in Porter’s ears. An elderly woman scurried up to the spirit house adjacent to the Wat Sakhet, placed a wreath of jasmine in front of the prayer station, stuck several sticks of incense in the ground and lit them. Then she clasped her hands together and swayed back and forth for several minutes, invoking the generosity of the spirits. Porter wondered what she was asking for. A healthy new grandchild? A good crop of poppies? A winning lottery ticket?

His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Wol Pot. A door in the side of the temple opened just wide enough for Pot to slip through. Porter killed his cigarette and watched the little man as he huddled in the shadows, looking around nervously, then started off toward the station. Porter fell in behind him, keeping far enough back so Pot would not be suspicious. He was concentrating so hard on Pot, he did not notice the other two men who fell in behind the Thai.

They were Chinese, small and wiry, dressed in the stark black shirt and pants that many Chinese affect. They followed Pot to the train station, where he changed into civilian clothes, and from there to the edge of the Yawaraj. Pot got out of the cab and strolled down cluttered Worachak Road, one of Chinese Town’s main thoroughfares. As he turned and headed down into the noisy, cramped alleys of Chinese Town, the two Chinese split up, each taking one side of the street. Pot strolled down through the twisting, neon-lit alleys while the two worked both sides of the street behind him. It wasn’t until Pot entered a tiny restaurant in an alley off Bowrong Street that the pair realized that Porter also was tailing Wol Pot.

One of the Chinese was in his early twenties with long blow-dried hair and a trace of a mustache. The other was older, his face scarred and angry. A sharp cut separated his right eyebrow, and the eye below it was partially closed by the same old wound. He was the leader, and it was he who spotted Porter. He had seen the husky American in front of the train station and now he saw- him again, getting out of the cab just behind Pot. He nudged his partner and nodded toward the other side of the street, where Porter was checking the restaurant while mock window- shopping. When Pot was seated, Porter entered a small noodle shop across the street from the restaurant, found a seat near the front window, and ordered something to eat while he kept an eye on the Thai.

The two Chinese became as interested in Porter as they were in Pot. They decided to split up again, the younger one following the American while Split-eye stayed with the Thai. They had just begun following Wol Pot that day and were not familiar with his nightly habits. But Split-eye had little respect for him. Pot had successfully eluded them and found a perfect hiding place, then blown it all by going into Chinatown to eat, the most likely place in the city for him to be recognized. Now it looked as if the American had also blown Pot’s cover. The Thai was smart, but he also appeared to be stupidly reckless.

He took out a red hundred-baht note and held it over his head. She saw him, squinted her eyes as she focused on the bill, then shook her head. Pot was surprised, having thought his offer was a generous one. He took out a five-hundred-baht purple and held it up. The girl pondered, then held her hands apart, palms facing, and slowly closed them. Pot thought for a moment, then held up both the purple and the red. She nodded. The deal was struck.

Windy Porter watched Wol Pot cross the two boats to the hang yao of his newly acquired ‘water baby’. They stood on the deck for a moment, talking back and forth, until finally the girl took the two bills and led Pot into the thatched cabin in the rear of the boat.

If he was true to form, Pot would be in there for about half an hour. At first Porter paid little attention to the hang yao that slid through the water and bumped gently against one of the other two boats. The oarsman walked swiftly down the length of his boat and tied it to the first. He went aboard the hang yao he was tied to started talking to the prostitute who operated it. Some money changed hands. Porter became suspicious. The oarsman was nodding toward Pot’s floating brothel. Porter sensed something was wrong. He brushed rudely past a young Chinese who was walking toward him, clambered down onto the boat, and started after the oarsman. The young Chinese, startled by how quickly he had moved, stared for a moment before following him.

Inside the small thatched covering on the boat, the young prostitute had begun her seduction. She had taken off Pot’s shirt and pants and then tripped off her own blouse. Her almond breasts brushed his chest, teasing him, then she reached down and began to stroke him, to bring him to life. She placed a hand his chest and gently forced him to lie down on a straw mattress on the deck. Pot was lost in ecstasy, unaware of the drama being played out twenty feet away. He did not feel the hang yao rock slightly as Split-eye cautiously started to come aboard.

Porter jogged across the first boat as Split-eye began to board Pot’s hang yao.

‘Hey!’ Porter yelled, rushing up behind him. The man turned. His ruined eye dodged crazily in its socket. His hand flashed under his sleeve and Porter saw the gleam of a dagger in his hand as the Chinese lunged toward him.

‘Jesus!’ Porter yelled. As the Chinese made his thrust Porter sidestepped and felt the blade nick his shirt; he grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it outward. Split-eye was thrown off-balance. The knife pun out of his hand and, as he turned sideways, he tripped over the gunwale and lunged backward into the river.

An instant later Porter felt a stabbing pain as a cold sliver of steel invaded him, slicing deep into the small of his back. He turned and was face to face with the young Chinese. The youth’s arm arced again, but Porter spun away and the knife slashed his side. Behind him, Split-eye rose out of the river. His hands wrapped around the gunwale of the hang yao and he pulled himself out of the water with one lunge, stepped into the boat and grabbed his stiletto off the deck.

Porter was too busy to feel o1 hear anything. He slammed an enormous fist into the young Chinese’s face, felt his nose shatter, heard his muffled cry of pain. He brought his knee up sharply into the man’s groin, and the assailant jackknifed and fell on his knees. Behind him, Split-eye very deliberately and with no particular haste stuck the point of his dagger in the base of Porter’s neck, severed the nerve to his brain and paralyzed him.

Porter turned, stricken, and stared blankly at Split-eye, his arms dropped to his sides and dangled uselessly there. Split-eye struck again, bringing the dagger up in a short, hard arc, and burying it to the hilt Porter’s side. The big man felt very little. He was aware that something was inside him, aware that it was coursing upward deep into his chest. Then his heart collapsed his eyes rolled up. Split-eye pulled the knife out and slammed into the big American, knocking him sideways 1-to the river.

Pot heard the commotion, felt the hang yao begin to rock, heard a woman scream, then another. He was struck suddenly with fear, like an electric .bock flashing through every nerve. He jumped up, scrambled for his pants, then heard a tremendous splash. He crawled on his hands and knees and peered out of the thatched room in time to see the young Chinese stab Porter, watched in horror as Split-eye rose out of the river, attacked the big man and knocked him over the side. Sp1itee turned toward Wol Pot, his good eye glittering with evil

Pot was struck with terror. He twisted, rolled over the side of the hang yao in his shorts, and dropped into the black water.

Onshore, the shock of the brief, violent drama was wearing off, but there was still a great deal of shouting. Split-eye knew the Thai had escaped him again. He grabbed his young partner by the shirt front, shoved him into the hang yao he had commandeered, and turned back to the young whore. He shoved her into the seclusion of the thatched cabin and held the point of the blade to her throat.

‘Where does he live?’ his voice hissed.

She shook her head but was too frightened to speak.

‘Where do I find Thai Horse?’ he demanded.

‘Who?’ she stammered.

The assassin could tell she knew nothing.

‘Speak to the police and I will come back and carve your face until you look like a grandmother,’ he said and, jumping into the hang yao, raced off into the darkness.

HOOCHGIRL

Hatcher was watching from the observation room as the Navy fighters streaked like silver dragonflies over the Pacific Ocean and landed at the MAS. An F-16 banked sharply into its final approach, caught the morning sun on its gleaming surface for an instant, then leveled off, its wheels dropping and locking in place a few seconds before the big fighter’s tires screeched on the runway.

The bullet-shaped plane glided smoothly to its hard- stand and stopped, and the pilot emerged from the cockpit. He was a diminutive man, tiny in every way — short, skinny and small-boned — who seemed dwarfed by the helmet, the parachute harness, the Mae West, even his crew chief, who loomed over him like a giant. The pilot came down the ladder and spoke with the chief for a few minutes, then walked around the perimeter of the fighter, pointing here and there. Quite a difference from Cody’s other wingman, Hugh Fraser, whom Hatcher had interviewed the night before in Seattle. The pilot seemed to make up for his size with kinetic bursts of energy while the chief strolled along behind him, taking half as many steps, looking bored and nodding constant agreement with whatever the pilot was telling him.

Hatcher knew it would be another ten or fifteen minutes before the flier was through with the post-flight check. He left a message with the officer in charge of the flight line and walked a block down the neatly mowed and trimmed Street to the Officers’ Club. Inside, he stood at the doorway to the club room. He had been in this room once before, eighteen years ago. As far as he could remember, it had not changed a bit. Even the tables appeared to be in the same place. The oak-paneled room gleamed and smelled of lemon polish and floor wax. The walls were lined with photographs of men who had served there and gone on to other places: fresh, clean-cut, neatly trimmed, eager young men in dress whites, smiling innocently for eternity. The Navy never changed. Part of the allure of the service was a sense of security in knowing that even the furniture polish was a tradition. For Hatcher there was sadness in this room, which in a few hours would come alive with the ring of raised glasses .and toasts and songs to the glory of the corps.

He walked around the empty dance floor, his shoes making hollow clacking sounds on the hardwood floors. It was ironic that the ghost of Murph Cody had brought him back to this place, to this very room where a friendship that had endured hardship and mockery, good times and bad, and had been bonded by promises of loyalty and respect had ended so rudely. In this very room Cody had terminated that comradeship as finally as a bullet to the heart terminates life.

Hatcher had come to the party filled with anticipation and excitement. He had not seen Murph since his friend’s marriage almost a year earlier. He arrived expecting a rowdy reunion.

Instead, he was humiliated and disgraced by the unpredictable Cody in a manner that in other times would have called for a gloved slap across the face and satisfaction with a choice of weapons at dawn. Hatcher would never forget the cold sneer, the harshness of the words, spoken loud enough to stop every conversation in the room. Cody had handed Hatcher a glass of champagne, and holding it up in what was to become a mock toast, he said, ‘Here’s to a maggot who is still a maggot. Here’s to a maggot who was fed and clothed and housed by the service and taught by her and who now has turned his back on her. Here’s to a maggot I once called friend who’s running out because there’s a war on. Here’s to a coward .‘ And had poured his glass of wine on the bar and turned and walked away. Pledged to the secrecy of the Shadow Brigade, Hatcher had no response. Every eye in the room had followed Cody out the door.

A harsh memory for a room where heroes normally frolicked.

‘I’m Commander Schwartz, you looking — for me?’

Hatcher turned to face the pilot. In person, Schwartz seemed even smaller than he had from a distance. He spoke very quickly and with a peculiar kind of staccato rhythm, pausing in the wrong places and accenting his words on the wrong syllables, like a man avoiding a chronic stutter. His helmet and goggles had left ridges under his eyes and his short-cropped hair was matted like an ink-blot to his skull. He did not look like the head of flight training at one of the Navy’s major bases. He looked more like a college whiz kid.

‘Commander Hatcher,’ Hatcher lied, offering his hand, ‘Navy Review Board.’

‘What did — I do now?’ Schwartz asked with a relaxed grin. He struck Hatcher as just the opposite of Simmons. Other than being an apparent case of permanent hypertension, Schwartz didn’t seem to have a care in the world.

‘We’re just wrapping up some hangnails,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘You know how the Navy is.’

‘After eighteen years I ought to, Schwartz answered. ‘Can we do this over a sandwich? I’m starving.’

After they had ordered hamburgers and beer, Schwartz asked ‘This about An Khe, Hanoi or Cody?’

‘That’s quite a selection,’ Hatcher growled.

‘I was shot down near An Khe,’ Schwartz said, ‘I was a prisoner for almost four years in Hanoi, and I was one of Cody’s wingmen. I’ve been asked a lot about all three.’

‘This is about Cody,’ Hatcher whispered.

‘Look,’ the little man said, ‘I know you’re not with the board. Hugh Fraser called me last night. He checked Washington right after you talked to him. Far as the Navy’s concerned, the Cody affair is closed. They never heard of you.’

Before Hatcher could say anything, Schwartz held up his hand. ‘I don’t see there’s any security involved here,’ he said. ‘Anything I could tell you is in the record anyway. What’s this all about?’

Hatcher decided to tell Schwartz just enough to keep him interested and talking.

‘I’d like you to keep part of this confidential,’ Hatcher said, stalling a little to get his thoughts regrouped.

‘That depends,’ Schwartz said warily.

‘You know his father was General Cody?’

‘Of course.’

‘Cody’s dying of cancer. It’s not public knowledge at this point and he’d like to keep it that way until it leaks to the media.’

‘How much time does he have?’ Schwartz asked, obviously stunned and genuinely sorry at hearing the news.

‘Maybe six months.’

‘Shit!’

‘The thing is, the old man’s never been satisfied that Cody was killed,’ Hatcher croaked. ‘So they asked me to do one last check, just for the old man. I worked intelligence for him in Nam.’

‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked.

‘I’m kind of interested in the man. Did you like Cody?’ Hatcher asked.

Whereas Harley Simmons and Hugh Fraser had been reluctant to talk, Hatcher couldn’t stop Schwartz. The little man babbled away as though Hatcher had pushed his talk button.

‘Sure, I like him okay,’ Schwartz started, then he paused a moment, rethinking the question. ‘Well, look, it wasn’t a question of did you like him, Murph wasn’t the buddy-buddy type, y’know. He was uh . .

‘Standoffish?’ Hatcher offered.

‘Standoffish. That’s good,’ Schwartz said.

‘When I talked to Hugh Fraser,. he gave me the idea Cody was some kind of suicidal war lover leading his men to certain death.’

‘See, Fraser was always a pretty bitter guy,’ said Schwartz. ‘His accident didn’t help any.’

‘What happened, exactly?’ Hatcher asked.

‘He was making his approach to the Forrestal, flamed out on his final, had to ditch. Broke his back. That’s a real irony, y’know, all he ever wanted was carrier duty. Glamour city.’

‘Yeah, but the Cody thing was bug before that.’

‘Y’see, Fraser was a jet jockey, lie dreamed the carrier dream,’ said Schwartz. ‘The Brown Water Navy definitely wasn’t his idea of big-time war duty.

‘Brown Water Navy?’ Hatcher asked. It was a term with which he was not familiar.

‘That’s what they called our outfit,’ Schwartz explained. ‘We were the only inland squadron in the Navy. We were there mostly to support the Riverine Patrol Forces, covering river convoys, that kind of diddy-bopping shit, but what we really did was support ground movements. It was rotten duty. I suppose there’s an element of truth in what Fraser says. We had big losses. But suicidal? Never. That’s bullshit.’ Schwartz thought for a minute then went on, ‘I’ll tell you, it was like he didn’t want to get too close to anybody, Cody I mean. No favorites. What we were doing, that was the worst, and Cody’s outfit had — a reputation for doing the meanest jobs and working the longest hours. Nobody wanted to go to his outfit.’

‘Did you fear going there?’

‘Yeah, sure. But it was, uh, because of the unexpected, so much talk, y’know. Apprehension.’

‘Okay.’

‘Anyway, Murph really pushed hard, man, like seven days a week, day, night, around the clock, bad weather, night stuff, you name it. He was like, uh, crazy to get the war over with. Don’t get me wrong, he went out there just like everybody else. I’d guess Murph flew more individual sorties than any other man in the outfit..’

Hatcher’s mind wandered back to the night before and his meeting in Seattle with Hugh Fraser, Cody’s other wingman, who had quite a different impression of Cody. At first, Fraser had refused to talk to Hatcher. His crash had left him a pitiful cripple. He walked in a crouch, like an old man, and breath spray could not hide the sickening, end-of-the-day smell of vodka, nor could Visine wash away the broken blood vessels in his eyes. Because Fraser had refused to take Hatcher’s calls, Hatcher had waited for him in the parking lot of one of the small satellite buildings clustered around Seattle-Tacoma International where Fraser was vice president of a small charter airline. Hatcher felt sorry for the man. He had obviously aged considerably since his accident. He was vitriolic, like a grouchy old man, and in the conversation that was occasionally interrupted by one of the big commercial jets taking off, he lashed out with each question.

‘Would you like to hear what Fraser had to say?’ Hatcher asked Schwartz. He took a s nal1 recorder from his pocket and pressed the play button.

Fraser: I’m a busy man. You have five minutes.

Hatcher: I just want to talk a little about Murph —

Fraser: Who’d you say you were with?

Hatcher: Navy Review Board. We —

Fraser: God damn Navy.

Hatcher: — just want to close this thing out once and for all.

Fraser: So what can I tell you that you don’t know already?

Hatcher: You saw Cody go down, isn’t that—?

Fraser: I told you boys all this before.

Hatcher: One more time for the wrap-up.

Fraser: (Sighing) I was flying off his port side, half a mile behind him. I heard his Mayday and saw him barrel-roll in.

Hatcher: Any chance he got out?

Fraser: (Skeptically) C’mon. He set half the Mekong Delta on fire.

Hatcher: I got one report says he may — (there was a pause while a jet roared over) have got out of the plane and made a run for —

Fraser: Whoever told you that’s crazy.

Hatcher: How would you rate him? As an officer, I mean.

Fraser: First-class asshole trying to impress his old man. He loved war, a typical career officer. He ate it up with a spoon. He didn’t give a damn what happened to his men.

Hatcher: Oh . . . (the rest of the comment was obscured by another jet)

Fraser: (partially inaudible) . . . Army brat. Annapolis man, big-shot father. Never drank with the guys, never hung out. He had this hoochgirl, a real beauty. You know, perfect skin, perfect teeth, those limpid eyes you could take a swim in. She waited on him like a slave. When he wasn’t flying, he was laid up with this hoochgirl balling all day.

Hatcher: Well, hoochgirls were a dime a —

Fraser: This one was a real piece, I’ll tell you that. Couldn’t have been more than fifteen, sixteen. Eyes for him, nobody else. He treated that stinking slope like she was his wife, like family for Chrissake. God damn Nam hoochgirl.

Hatcher: What happened to her?

Fraser: When he bought it, everybody in the outfit moved on her — but she wasn’t having any. Next day, she was gone. Vanished. Like Puff the fucking Magic Dragon. (Pause) Listen, the son of a bitch got more men killed than the Vietcong.

Hatcher: You mean doing his job?

Fraser: There’s doing it and there’s doing it. He was a maniac, you ask me. ‘Get it in the gutter, get it in the gutter!’ he’d scream. Christ, we were . . . (Another pause while a jet took off) flying down tunnels as it was. Lost half our planes to ground fire. Shit, we blitzed some Charlie, burned some boats, whacked out some villages. Next day they were right back. Like stepping in a puddle, you take your foot out and never know it was there. All those guys gone for that.’

Hatcher: C’mon, nobody goes into combat expecting room service and the Holiday Inn.

Fraser: He was like all those military academy grunts. All they care about is looking good on the record so they’ll be sure to make admiral before they retire. Listen, do you think you’d be here now if Cody wasn’t a general’s son.

Hatcher: (Pause) No.

Hatcher snapped the machine off.

‘Well, hell, we were all crazy as loons after a few weeks on the line with him,’ Schwartz said. ‘I mean, we were dragging the gutter every time out. I used to come back with tree limbs stuck in my wings. But Cody didn’t like it, Hugh’s wrong, Murph wasn’t any war lover, quite the opposite. It ate him up, sending all those guys out there day after day. He knew most of us were jet pilots who hated fighting a ground war in those old De Havillands. They were just . . . twin-engine crates loaded down with hardware — Gatlings, a twenty mike-mike in the nose, four fifty-caliber machine guns, cluster bombs. But we flat tore up the fucking Mekong Delta. Trouble was, everybody had a bullet with his name on it. We were flying so much, sooner or later it had to be your turn. Our losses were running sixty, sixty-five percent, about — a third of them MIA or POW. You can understand why Cody’s outfit wasn’t considered Shangri-la by the flyboys.’

A steward brought their lunch and Schwartz attacked his hamburger with animal fervor.

‘God was good to me in one respect,’ he said, his mouth half full, ‘I don’t grow any taller when I eat a lot, but I don’t get any fatter either.’ He took another bite. ‘What happened to Fraser, it gets to me a little. I’ll tell you something, I may have done four years’ hard time but I’m lucky.’

‘That’s a generous attitude,’ Hatcher whispered hoarsely.

‘Reality,’ Schwartz said.

‘What happened the day Cody bought the farm?’ Hatcher’s grinding voice asked.

Schwartz didn’t have to think about it, the scene was still fresh in his mind after all the years. It had been raining that morning and Cody was jumpy. There were reports of Charlie activity upriver and the infantry was asking for help. As soon as the weather lifted, Cody called a scramble. They went off so fast, Cody had to give them the coordinates of the ground action after they were airborne. They had made two passes, dropping cluster bombs along the river’s edge, then suddenly he heard Cody’s ‘Mayday!’

At first Cody didn’t seem to be in trouble. His De H. was a half mile in front of Schwartz. Then Schwartz saw the plane begin to weave. Its one wing dipped and began to crumble. He’s taken an RPG or some kind of rocket, Schwartz thought, and then: My God, he’s going in, as he watched the cumbersome plane begin to dive toward the green blanket below. Schwartz clipped his nose and began raking the woods in front of Cody’s plane, blasting a path with twenty millimeters and fifty calibers. Jesus, Schwartz thought, all he needs is about five hundred yards and he’s got the river and, on the other side, friendly country. Come on, come on, Schwartz repeated to himself as he continued to riddle the forest in front of the stricken plane. Then the scratchy voice over the radio, ‘ . . . I’m going in . . .‘ and suddenly the plane rolled over like a large animal dying, and almost flopped into the trees. The green carpet streaked beneath Schwartz, and as he pulled over the shattered wreck of the De Havilland and swept out over the river, he saw an SAR Huey below him heading toward the crash site, then the jungle seemed to erupt. A geyser of fire shot up from the wreckage and he felt the wave of the explosion wash over him. He banked sharply trying to circle back, then heard the voice of the Huey pilot, ‘Corkscrew, this is Rescue one . . . We lost him. . .

Anyway, I overflew him and started to peel around and I saw this SAR Huey coning up the river and then the plane blew,’ Schwartz said, finishing his story.

‘How long after he crashed?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Long enough for me to maybe do a one eighty.’

‘Long enough for him to maybe get out?’ Hatcher whispered.

‘Murph?’

‘Yeah.’

Schwartz shrugged. ‘Sure, I guess so. I disagree with Fraser — the notion Cody may have gotten out of the plane isn’t crazy.’

Hatcher nibbled at his soup, then asked, ‘How did his girlfriend take it?’ he whispered.

‘Inscrutably, the way hoochgirls always did. Hugh’s a little off-base there, too. The bottom line is, Cody didn’t like Fraser. Or maybe he sensed Fraser didn’t like him. Whatever, Fraser was never invited to join Cody.’

‘And the rest of you were?’

Schwartz nodded. ‘Hell, I’d go over there every once in a while, she’d cook up dinner for a couple of us. Viet shit, it was great.’

‘Does the expression “Thai Horse’’ mean anything to you?’ Hatcher asked.

‘You mean heroin?’

‘Does it mean anything else to you?’

‘Nope. What’s that got to—’

‘Did Cody have a drug problem?’

Schwartz looked shocked. ‘You gotta be kidding. Murph Cody? Cody didn’t even smoke. Where are you going with this?’

‘No place, just touching all the bases.’

The question about Thai Horse and dope had upset Schwartz, made him suddenly wary.

Hatcher quickly changed the subject. ‘Tell me more about the girl.’

Schwartz hesitated, still suspicious, but his obvious respect for Cody won over. He began to relax again. ‘Y’know, in a funny kind of way I think maybe Murph was in love with Pai.’

‘Pai?’

‘Yeah. I think what it was, he was kinda proud of her, was showing her off.’

He sat strangely quiet for a minute or two, sipping his beer, then he said, ‘You know, I went down three weeks later. Just — north of Binh Thuy. The first four, five months I was a prisoner, we were in transit camps. They just, like, y’know, moved us around a lot. Then finally they took us to Hanoi. Anyway, I heard rumors about this camp over in Laos. It was like a mobile unit, y’know, and they supposedly had a big shot over there.’

What kind of big shot?’

‘That’s it, a big shot. I heard everything from Westmoreland to Bob Hope. You know how rumors are. Anyway, until they took us north, I heard about this camp all the time. They called it, uh, Huie-kui, the spirit camp, I guess because it — seemed to disappear all the time.’

‘It wasn’t uncommon for them to move their camps around.’

‘I know. It never occurred to me before, I always assumed he was dead, but maybe the celebrity was Murph.’

‘Do me a favor, will you, Commander? Keep this under your hat. If Cody is alive, give me a chance to find him.’

Schwartz stared hard at Hatcher and then slowly nodded. ‘He deserves that.’

Hatcher’s thoughts went back to the hoochgirl. ‘Did you like his girl?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Are you kidding? She made Natalie Wood look like Porky Pig.’ Schwartz paused for a minute and then said, ‘Would you like to see her? I got a picture of her in my scrapbook.’

On the way to the airport, Hatcher’s pulse began racing, his nerves humming. Forty-eight hours before, the whole notion that Murph Cody was still alive had seemed like a big joke to Hatcher. Now there was a question in his mind. When Hatcher was studying criminal detection, Sloan, his mentor, had once said, ‘Don’t ever trust written reports. When it’s in writing, people tend to make themselves look good.’

It had cost him forty-eight hours to run that theory, but he was glad he had. He thought about the three men he had interviewed, each with a different view of Cody, each affected in a different way by his own role in the events of that fateful day when Murphy Cody had disappeared.

To Schwartz, Cody was a hero doing a dirty job; to Fraser, a war-loving madman; to Simmons, a haunting ghost whose cold fist squeezed Simmons’s heart. To Fraser, escape from the flaming wreckage of Cody’s plane was impossible; to Schwartz, it was a toss-up; to Simmons, it was a reality.

And, too, there was Schwartz’s report of this ghost camp, Huie-kui. Could that be the reason Cody had never turned up? Had he been a prisoner for all those years? And if so, how did he get out?

There was one other thing that gnawed at Hatcher’s brain. If Murphy Cody had died, where had Wol Pot, the Thai, come up with his name? Wol Pot had a lot of questions to answer.

There was only one thing on which Fraser and Schwartz seemed to agree — that Pai, Cody’s hoochgirl, was special. Looking at the photograph Schwartz had given him, Hatcher had to agree. It was a colour photograph, dog-eared and faded. In the picture, Cody was standing in front of his thatched hooch, his arm around a small, almond-colored beauty, her chin down, staring mystically up at the camera. She looked almost childlike. But while her body was the body of a young girl, her eyes seemed to reflect some inner knowledge that was far beyond her years. Hatcher stared at those eyes, felt them connect, could almost see them blink. He put the photograph back in his wallet.

He looked at his watch. In twelve hours he would be in Bangkok. He hoped Windy Porter would have a lot of answers for him. He had no way of knowing that at almost that same moment Windy Porter was dying in the dark waters of the Phadung Klong, four thousand miles away.