Thai Horse

She had hardly been able to contain her anger at this impudent mei gwok lawyer as he led her out of the crowded ballroom of the Chinese Palace and onto the terrace. And she was just as angry that Cohen had introduced them. Then he stopped and smiled at her. ‘My name’s not London, its Hatcher,’ he said in perfect French. ‘And I think what you did to those Americans was lovely and I can get you Indian cotton, top grade, delivered wherever you want it, for half of what you’re paying now, which should be worth as much as — at least a ten percent markup for you.’ He paused for a moment, then added, ‘Not only that, bud can make you laugh a lot.’

She had stared at him for several seconds, amazed at his audacity, and drawn to his gray eyes. But she quickly recovered.

‘How much?’ she asked.

‘How much what?’

‘How much cotton can you deliver, how fast and at what cost?’

‘I’ll have to figure that up. I don’t do that kind of thing in my head.’

‘Neither do I,’ she heard herself say.

‘Lunch tomorrow. Strictly business. I’ll have the figures, you bring the check. No managers, no accountants, no lawyers, just you and me.’

‘I warn you, I don’t compromise.’

‘Neither do I,’ he said. ‘Everybody, loses in a compromise. I negotiate. When you negotiate, everybody wins.’

‘Oh? How so?’

‘You decide up front what you don’t really care about. Narrow it down to what’s important. That’s your line. I’ll do the same. Trust me, we’ll deal fast a7zd have time to do a lot of laughing before the meal is over.’

‘How come laughter is so important to you?’ she asked.

He smiled. ‘Laughter is the key to heaven,’ he said.

And to her surprise, she had agreed to lunch.

There had never been any cotton deal between them.

But he had made her laugh — a lot. And he was right, it was the key to heaven.

‘I’m going back to my room,’ Cohen said from the living room. ‘My side is beginning to act up a little.’

They ignored him. He shrugged and went off toward the rear of the house.

There was an awkward minute or two when neither Daphne nor Hatcher knew exactly what to say. She broke the ice.

‘What happened to your throat?’ she asked, staring at the scar on his neck.

‘I was in a very bad prison. I spoke when I shouldn’t have. A guard decided to discourage me from ever speaking again.’

‘Is it painful?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘I am glad,’ she said, then raised an eyebrow. ‘Your voice is very sexy.’

‘Merci. Wasn’t it always?’

‘Not like now,’ she said. Then after a pause, ‘What happened to you? You just vanished. Everyone thought you were dead.’

‘I went back to America to do a job and got in trouble. Three years’ worth of trouble. In a prison where everything was forbidden.’

‘And what of the other three years?’

He shrugged. ‘I figured I was history by then, Daffy.’ She threw back her head and laughed, a throaty laugh that set off bells in his memory.

‘Daffy,’ she said. ‘I have not heard Daffy for so many years. No one else would ever call me Daffy.’ She let the laugh die and then said quietly, her green eyes flashing, ‘No, Hatcher, you were never history. Not for me.’

He let it pass.

‘Is Cohen serious?’ Hatcher asked her. ‘Can you really help me?’

‘Straight to business,’ she said. ‘So it’s going to be like that, eh?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I feel a little awkward. I know I owe you —‘

She put her fingers against his lips. ‘You owe me nothing. We made no promises. I shared my bed with you . . . with anticipation. Sometimes even . . . impatience.’

He remembered, the words conjuring moments of delirious joy, but he pushed the thoughts away again.

‘I owed you at least a proper good-bye,’ he said.

‘Is that why you came back? To say good-bye to the friends who thought you were dead?’

‘Perhaps,’ he whispered huskily. Then, trying again to avoid the inevitable, he said jokingly, ‘Besides, I could use a sauna treatment at the Estoril. And the Thai massage there —,

She turned and walked to the bedroom door. ‘You don’t have to go to the Estoril Hotel to get a massage, Hatcher,’ she said. ‘And you must say jo sahn properly before you say joi gin again.’

He followed her into the room.

‘How can you help me, Daffy?’ be asked.

She walked to the other side of the bed. ‘I told China I would help — but only on my terms.’

Hatcher looked at her suspiciously. ‘Uh-huh, and what are they?’ his frayed voice asked.

‘You must stay out of Macao.’

‘I have no reason to go over there now.’

‘And we must do this thing exactly as I say.’

Hatcher smiled. ‘You haven’t changed a bit,’ he said.

‘Agreed?’

‘I’ll think about it.’

‘What is this about a prison camp, anyway?’ she asked. ‘I’m trying to find someone,’ he said. ‘We were comrades in the Navy together. 1-fis father is a hero in America. He may have been in a prison camp in Laos. It was called Huie-kui. The commandant’s name was Taisung, or something like that. I figure somebody must have done business up there during the war. Maybe they’ll remember something.’

She turned her back to him and stared out at the bay, shaking her head. ‘You’re looking for one man?’ she said.

‘It’s why I came back,’ he said. ‘All the rest of it — you, China — that’s all a bonus.’

‘Perhaps we can sneak upriver and avoid Sam-Sam, maybe I can set that up. There is only one man I think who might help you. You remember Samuel Anstadt, the one they call the Dutchman?’

‘I never met the Dutchman.’

‘That’s because he operated in Laos and North Vietnam. I buy material from him new. But ten years ago he sold drugs, guns, clothing, everything, to the Vietcong.’

‘Can we get him down here?’ Hatcher asked.

She shook her head.

‘He is wanted by the Hong Kong police. They would recognize him in a moment. But there is a place called Leatherneck John’s in Tsang, forty miles upstream.’

‘An American joint?’ Hatcher interrupted.

She nodded. ‘A lot of dealing and drinking is done there,’ she said. ‘Drug deals are made and so is the exchange. It is a kind of — free spot. We can meet the Dutchman there, but only if we’re sure Sam-Sam Sam is out of the area.’

‘You’re not going,’ Hatcher said.

‘Of course I’m going. They will only talk to you because I ask them to. I will have to make the deal.’

A forgotten shard of mirror glittered in the corner, reminding him of the night before. He had put China’s life at risk. Now he was about to do the same to her. Once again, he was taking, not giving, like the old times.

‘Maybe—’ he started.

She whirled and glared at him with flashing green eyes.

‘No maybe. Yes.’

They were almost nose to nose, her eyes demanding agreement. They stared at each other.

‘There is one other thing. . . .‘ He stared down at her, the brash smile she remembered playing at his lips.

‘Yeah?’

He reached out cautiously with one hand, stopped an inch from her mouth, then slowly moved his fingers to her mouth, touching her lower lip with his fingertips, exploring it with his forefinger, squeezing it with his thumb and middle finger until it pointed toward him. Her tongue glistened an eighth of an inch from his finger, flirted with it and finally swept across it, and his finger, moistened, slipped more easily across her lips.

‘Hai . . .‘ she said.

Her eyes closed and she tilted her head back and he leaned to her, gently squeezing her mouth as his touched hers. Her breath came out in a rush and she bit his lips, explored them with her tongue until finally the tease was no longer a tease but a passion.

She reached up and slipped her jacket off, let it fall to the floor as they kissed.

He reached up with his other hand and untied the slender string on one shoulder, then the other, but she pressed against him, keeping the dress from falling. She slid her hand between them, pressed the flat of it on his stomach. Her fingers nimbly unbuttoned his shirt. She slipped her hand inside, sliding it across the hard muscles, her thumb encircling his navel. She slid her fingers under his belt, turned her hand toward the floor, slid it down until she felt him rising to meet her hand.

Then she leaned back. And the dress slipped slowly down, dangled for a moment on her hard nipples, then slipped over her breasts and down to her hips. They kept kissing, their eyes closed as their hands explored each other, gave each other clues.

With her free hand she undid his belt buckle, unsnapped his pants, slipped her hand around his buttocks until they dropped off, then did the same with his shorts; he reciprocated, loosening her dress until it too fell away. She was naked under the dress.

Their lips were still locked together as she took his hand and moved it slowly to her stomach and then down, until it was between her legs and then she pressed it hard against her and began moving it up and down, then moved her hand, pressed the back of her hand against the back of his until they were stroking each other in perfect rhythm, their lips moving in the same rhythm.

‘My God,’ he whispered into her mouth, ‘slow down.’

He felt her twitch, press more tightly against his hand.

‘Cheng. . . nei, now, cheng nei. . .‘ she said as her breath became shorter, more urgent. ‘Please .

please . . .‘ And she began to grind against his hand, began stroking him faster and he began to move with her hand. She was trembling now, she sucked in her breath and rose on her toes and he could feel her getting harder under his fingers and then as she cried out she thrust him into her.

She ground her head into his shoulder, her muscles taut, trembling as he continued to massage her, faster and faster, lowering her slowly onto the bed until her arms fell away and he was over her, his eyes closed, his biceps twitching, and then suddenly he took in a breath and held it as he, too, exploded. She reached up with both arms, wrapped them around his neck and pulled him down on top of her, still grinding against him and he could feel her tightening again.

‘Cheng nei, Hatcher .

yen dui yen

It did not surprise Cohen when Tollie Fong called him. It was customary — a requirement of honor by anyone who belonged to the triad societies, whether it was the traditional society, the Sun Lee On, or its underworld offshoot, the Chiu Chao. As was the tradition, Fong suggested a meeting that afternoon in an offbeat restaurant deep in Wanchai. They agreed on the basics. The meeting was set for four o’clock. Each would have three representatives of his own triad with him; each would select a judge from the Society in general to monitor the meeting; there would be no weapons. The attack on Cohen’s house was not specifically mentioned.

Cohen selected his most conservative cheongsam for the meeting. He left in the Rolls at three-forty-five, taking with him Sing, who was already out of the hospital, and two other members of his ‘family.’ Hatcher and Daphne were still behind closed doors in the bedroom. No need to tell them about the meeting yet.

The Rolls swept quietly down the mountain, past the governor’s mansion and the U.S. consulate and down Connaught Street to noisy, rowdy Wanchai and then crept through teeming streets, threading its way between rickshaws and pedestrians, to Lan Fung Alley, a dismal and deserted connector. A small sign in hand-painted calligraphy halfway down the narrow alley announced the presence of Lon Song, a tiny, nondescript restaurant favored by locals. The driver parked the Rolls as close to the entrance as he could get, and Cohen entered behind Sing and his two other aides.

Lon Song was a narrow, feebly lit place, barely big enough to accommodate its ten tables. The smell of garlic hung heavily in the air. It was four-ten and it was deserted except for the owner, an elderly but very erect man with a wisp of gray chin whiskers. He stared at Cohen through bifocals, smiled and bowed.

‘It is an honor, Tsu Fi,’ he said.

‘Are the others here yet?’

‘Hai. Also the judges.’

‘Ho,’ Cohen said. He and his three men followed the old man back through the dingy corridor to a door at the rear. The owner opened it for him. There was a small landing and a staircase that led down to a cellar room, a room that was dusty and poorly lit and obviously rarely used. In the center was a small table with two chairs facing each other on opposite sides. A tea service sat in the middle of the table. There were two cups.

Following tradition, Tollie Fong, who had committed the insult, had arrived first. He sat on the side of the table facing the stairwell. Behind him stood his three aides, their arms crossed over their chests.

There were two other men in the room. One was Sam Chin, an elder in the Chinese community and a respected banker, who was the san wong of one of the most honored triads in the Sun Lee On. The other was Lon Tung, san wong of the House of Seven Drums, one of the most dangerous of the Chiu Chao triads. They were there to monitor the meeting, to make sure there was no violence and that whatever the problem was it would be resolved satisfactorily, either with accepted apologies, or with a formal declaration of war between the two houses. Among the triads, a sudden and undeclared attack from one on another was considered dishonorable. Members of the offending family were ostracized. Fong’s alacrity in asking for the meeting was obligatory.

Fong stood as Cohen came down the stairs. He smiled a barely discernible smile. His reputation as the most ruthless assassin in the Chiu Chaos was undisputed.

He and Cohen sat down facing each other. Fong poured each a cup of tea. Nobody else spoke. Not even a throat was cleared. Fong took a sip of tea before starting. Cohen leaned back, sipped his tea and stared across the table at Fong, yen dui yen, eye on eye. The stare could not be broken until the problem was resolved, one way or another — either with forgiveness or with war.

According to tradition, the two men spoke through their judges, a ritual designed to prevent direct confrontations. Thus sarcasm and tonal inflections were removed from the negotiation. Fong held up one hand and Tung leaned over as Fong whispered in his ear.

‘I returned from Bangkok as soon as I heard about the unfortunate incident at your home last night,’ Tung said, repeating Fong’s whispered remarks.

Sam Chin leaned over Cohen, who whispered his response.

‘Mm goi,’ Chin repeated what Cohen had said. ‘I am pleased you have acted so promptly.’

‘You understand that this attack was not done at my command? I did not order such an insult to your home.’

‘I do now, since you say so,’ was Cohen’s response.

‘I have come to offer an apology,’ Fong said through Lon Tung.

The conversation continued in this vein — Fong whispering his comments to Tung, who repeated them, and Cohen replying through Chin.

‘You have violated my house,’ Cohen’s judge replied. ‘A dishonor to the oath of the triads.’

Fong quickly whispered a lengthy answer, his eyes beginning to glitter in the feeble light.

‘It was not me. But it was my Number One, and Lung has paid dearly for his sins. I come to apologize for his stupidity, and to ask that the Tsu Fi forgive me.’ He paused while Tung repeated his comments, then before Cohen could answer, whispered something further. Tung said, ‘And to offer compensation for this insult.’

Cohen leaned forward, playing the game to the hilt and whispering hurriedly to Chin. ‘I am sorry, I did not hear the last,’ he said.

Tung said, ‘Tollie Fong has offered to make compensation for the insult to the Tsu Fi.’

Cohen finally nodded. He took another sip of tea before whispering his retort to Chin.

‘Then I accept your apology,’ Chin repeated.

‘Mm goi,’ Tung said with a nod of his head. ‘And what compensation does the Tsu Fi feel is proper?’

Cohen took a sip of tea, his eyes still locked with Fong’s. Then he whispered slowly to Chin. Chin looked surprised, but only for a moment. He stood tip and said, ‘As tribute, you must set aside this feud with the mei gwok Hatcher.’

The men on both sides of the room were startled by the demand. The judges, Chin and Tung, stared at each other. The demand, they knew, would cause trouble. Anger boiled up in Fong. Hate dilated the pupils in his eyes. By the san wong’s orders, he must grant the demand, but he had to protest to save face.

He shook his head but still remained yen dui yen with Cohen. ‘I cannot do that,’ he whispered to Tung in a voice thick with hatred and loud enough for Cohen to hear. ‘The mei gwok yahn murdered my father.’

‘It is my understanding that the mei gwok killed in self-defense,’ Cohen whispered in a voice just as loud, not waiting for Tung’s translation.

‘He dishonored the House of Fong, just as Lung dishonored your house,’ Fong answered crisply, still yen dui yen, but now speaking directly to Cohen.

‘Then it is an even trade,’ Cohen quickly answered.

The response disarmed Fong for a moment. Fong was a killer, not a negotiator. ‘No! Not until Hatcher joins Lung in hell is it an even trade. What you ask is unreasonable.’

Cohen held his hands out in a gesture of futility. ‘Nevertheless it is the price you must pay for Lung’s dishonor.’

Fong slowly shook his head, his eyes still locked with Cohen’s, growing more angry with each word.

‘I made a blood promise, the oath of ch’u-tiao,’ Fong said slowly.

‘Honor is honor,’ said Cohen. ‘I say the feud is over.’

‘And I say this thing between Hatcher and me is not your business,’ Fong said, leaning toward Cohen.

‘Then I cannot accept your apology,’ Cohen said with brittle authority.

Sam Chin stepped forward and cleared his throat. ‘Deui mju,’ he said, bowing, ‘it occurs to me that perhaps the Tsu Fi might offer a tribute more acceptable to the Tsu Fong so that this dispute may be resolved peacefully.’

Cohen was adamant. By tradition, Fong was virtually obligated to accept any demand within, reason.

‘No,’ he said. ‘My home has been compromised. I have a right to this request. It is particularly fitting because Lung made this attack for the purpose of killing the mei gwok, who was my guest.’

‘And I, too, say no,’ Fong quickly answered.

‘Then I’ll let it be known everywhere that Tollie Fong has violated his oath to the Sun Lee On.’

‘I am not of the Sun Lee On, I am Chiu Chao,’ he said.

‘We are all cousins in the oath,’ said Cohen. ‘If you betray the house of Tsu Fi, you betray the Chiu Chaos and all triads.’

‘So it shall be,’ Fong said, with a sneer in his voice, forcing the issue. He picked up his teacup and smashed it on the table. Cohen leaned back, startled by his outburst. Fong slashed the knife edge of his hand into the broken bits of china.

‘You are declaring zhanzheng on the Tsu Fi,’ Tung said, obviously surprised that Fong was taking this confrontation to the limit. ‘The Tsu Fi is right. You will face the wrath of both the Chiu Chaos and the Sun Lee On.’

‘Then I, too, must declare war — on the Tsu Fong,’ said Cohen. He stood up and, with disdain, swept the broken cup on the floor. ‘You have one hour to get out of Hong Kong,’ China said.

Fong stared up at him and his lips curled slightly.

‘You may still reconsider,’ Chin said slowly.

‘You have guts, Cohen, to threaten the new san wong of the White Palms.’

‘This island belongs to me,’ Cohen said with finality. ‘If you have any doubts about that, you’re dumber than I think you are.’

Fong stood up slowly. ‘You are a fool, Yankee,’ he said, ‘to make blood over this mei gwok spy. He is a liar. He cheats his friends. He kills those who trust him.’

‘My kind of guy,’ Cohen answered. ‘Your hour is running out.’

Fong stared at him for a few moments more.

‘All right,’ he said finally. ‘I will not dishonor the san wong of the White Palms. But you humiliate me, mei gwok,’ he said to Cohen.

‘It’ll pass,’ Cohen said, and Fong bristled again. He turned to each of the judges, bowing to them in turn, and stormed up the stairway followed by his men. Lon Tung followed quickly behind him. Cohen’s shoulders slumped. He had won. His heart was rapping against his ribs, but he had succeeded and avoided a blood feud between himself and the White Palms.

Sam Chin touched Cohen’s shoulder. ‘I have never known you to be so difficult in such a negotiation,’ he said.

Cohen looked over at the elderly man.

‘I agree,’ he said wearily. ‘Unfortunately, San Wong, nothing else was appropriate.’

Tollie Fong stood outside the restaurant waiting for the car to be brought to him. There would be no war between the Tsu Fi and the Tsu Fong. The compromise with Cohen still stung, but it had been necessary. For now he would have to put aside his ch’u-tiao to kill Hatcher, but that was acceptable, in fact, it fit perfectly with his plans.

He had waited eight years to get Hatcher, he could wait a few more weeks. But in Tollie Fong’s mind, Hatcher was a dead man. It was just a matter of time.

The shadows outside were growing longer. Daphne lay beside Hatcher, turned and pressed against him, moving slowly until almost every inch of her touched his side.

‘I hope you do not cause all kinds of hell up there,’ she said. ‘Bad for my business,’

‘Good for your business. Maybe ‘we’ll get rid of Sam- Sam for you,’ Hatcher growled, turning toward her, pressing her tighter.

‘I may hold you to that promise of Indian cotton you made — how many years ago?’

‘A long time,’ he said. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘When are you leaving?’

‘As soon as we finish upriver.’

‘And you won’t be back.’

He started to say something, but she put her hand over his mouth. ‘China told me everything. I know it is dangerous for you in Hong Kong. I just want to know this time. I would like to say joi gin properly.’

‘You have already,’ his voice growled.

She put a long leg over his hip and pulled him even closer with it.

‘I’m not through yet,’ she said huskily.

SMOKE

A pale, dyspeptic, extremely nervous young under-under- under-secretary named Lamar Pellingham, Jr., greeted Sloan at the entrance to the embassy and immediately confided that this was his first experience with death on a foreign shore.

‘It’s impossible, absolutely impossible. Forms, forms, forms,’ the pasty-faced man groaned. ‘I’ve never seen such red tape.’

‘Yes, I know what a problem these things are,’ Sloan agreed solicitously. ‘You’d think they’d be glad to get rid of the remains instead of making it so difficult.’

‘Yes. Right. Of course,’ the diplomat answered, somewhat startled by Sloan’s nonchalance. ‘Uh, the maids packed up everything — that is, everything but what was in his desk. We sealed that room, left — the desk, I mean — alone. You know, in the event there was, uh. . . classified material there.’

He spoke every word as though it were a hot coal he was spitting out of his mouth. It was obvious he found the entire matter repellent.

‘Excellent decision,’ said Sloan. I’ll check it out.’

‘Have you seen the police?’

‘Not yet. I came straight here after checking into the hotel. Do you have the police reports?’

‘No, the investigator, a major, Ngy, wouldn’t give anything up. A real mean one, he needs it for the investigation,’ Pellingham stammered quickly. ‘But I have the other things. Come with me, please.’

The nervous junior diplomat led Sloan back through the ornate passages of the Thai embassy to his office, a cheery but small cubicle near the back of the building. He riffled through a stack of folders in his ‘Hold’ box and handed Sloan an envelope marked, ‘Porter . Final Papers. Confidential.’

‘Everything’s in there,’ Pellingham said. ‘All the forms, his insurance papers, even his last expense report.’

‘Interesting. I’ll just take these along,’ Sloan said. ‘Perhaps I should, uh, make a copy?’ Pellingham stammered, rubbing his cheek with the palm of a sweaty hand and turning what started as a statement into a question.

Sloan smiled his reassuring smile. ‘If it would make you more comfortable,’ he said, ‘a copy will be fine.’

‘They say it’s, uh, a case of innocent bystander, killed more or less by accident, if ‘ possible for someone to be murdered by accident.’ He hesitate and, when Sloan made no response, added, ‘Not exactly a hero’s death. But I suppose it’s best for our purposes. I mean acceptable under the circumstances.’

‘Acceptable,’ Sloan said. ‘An excellent way of putting it. I can see why you picked the diplomatic service.’

‘Well, thank you, sir,’ Pellingham responded. ‘I meant for the family and all.’

‘Of course. I know exactly what you mean, and I agree,’ Sloan said, trying to put the young man at ease. ‘Look here,’ he went on, ‘no need to worry about this any further. I’m here now. It’s in my hands.’

‘But...’

Smiling, Sloan handed the envelope back to Pellingham. ‘Why don’t you make your copy while I check out Porter’s things.’

‘Yes, yes, good idea. You, uh, know where to ship the remains and his effects?’

‘It’s all arranged.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ the neophyte diplomat said with relief.

‘Just show me Porter’s suite while you’re copying the report, hmm?’

‘Right, right.’

The young man watched as Sloan entered Porter’s suite, wondering whether he should accompany him. But Sloan closed the door and he stared at it for a full minute before scurrying off to the copy machine.

An hour’s search produced nothing .of value to Sloan but a five-by-seven leather-bound, three-ring notebook. Porter’s diary, a veritable autobiography f the man beginning in January of that year. Sloan stuffed it in his briefcase. He checked over everything else and found nothing else related to the Cody-Wol Pot case. After getting the copy of the Porter documents, he headed back to his hotel.

He peeled off a soggy shirt, pulled a table under the ceiling fan and spent the rest of the afternoon going through the diary. Porter had certainly been keeping a wary eye on the little Thai. The notebook was complete up to the day Porter died. The expense account meticulously included fifty cents for a Coke at a place called the American Deli in Patpong ‘while performing surveillance.’ Porter had turned into the ultimate bureaucrat.

Then the need began gnawing at Sloan. He became distracted and finally closed the file folder and the notebook. As the sun began to set he stared out the window at the city of golden spires and domes, shimmering in the dying rays of the sun, watched as they got dimmer and dimmer until finally they winked out like dying candles. The need was in him and the night lured him out of the room, down to the crowded main street.

A two-seater with a wiry, energetic little driver waited near the entrance of the hotel, ‘Sir, sir,’ the little fellow said, trotting beside Sloan as he walked toward the row of taxis at the door. ‘Got good tuk-tuk, best price in town. Very fast.’

Why not, thought Sloan. There were hundreds of the noisy machines in the city. It would be impossible to trace his movements.

‘All right, lead on,’ Sloan said.

‘My name is very complicated,’ he said. ‘You can call me Sy, my American friends call me Sy.’

‘Right,’ Sloan said, settling back in the somewhat uncomfortable seat, and gave him an address in the waterfront district.

The trip across town took only fifteen minutes, but Sloan’s heart was already a thundering drum in his chest by the time they got there.

The place had not changed, would never change. The tart smell of the river gave way to a much sweeter odor. It attacked his brain and intoxicated his spirit as he went down the narrow stairs, which creaked and groaned underfoot. As he descended the odor got stronger, headier.

The master waited as usual at a desk near the door. This one was new, but they all looked alike. Wrinkled, bowed old men with faded eyes and sunken faces, they were the dream masters, the killers of nightmares and assassins of pain, and the guides to the Elysian Fields. As he followed the old man back through a narrow passageway, Sloan began to feel a little light-headed. They entered a long narrow room lined with drab canvas cots. Silk screens stained by age and misuse separated the beds. A gray veil of smoke clung to the ceiling. It was like walking through hell.

Sloan followed the dream master to the third cubicle. He lay on his side on the bed, got comfortable, watched as the old Thai tamped the black cube into the bowl of the long pipe, lit it with a taper, and sucked fire into the cube until it glowed. Then he held the thick stem against Sloan’s lips. The colonel took a deep breath, felt the oily smoke as it surged into his lungs, invaded his bloodstream, streaked up to his brain.

As the opium took effect, Sloan felt electrified. His body hummed, then became numb. Old bruises and wounds were healed. Pain vanished, stress evaporated. The doom diminished. The old Thai shrank before his eyes and slowly vanished in a golden mist.

Sloan groaned and rolled over on his back.

He let the haze envelop him, embraced it, walked through to the other side.

To a place of green fields and flowers -

A deep blue sky was overhead and the sun warmed him.

Somewhere nearby, the sea crashed on rocks.

He lay down in cool grass.

His anxieties were washed away by the caressing breeze that wafted over him.

Here there was no death. No cries of pain, nor enemies nor dirty jobs to be assigned. No nightmares.

There was only tranquility.

It was the only place left where Sloan could find peace.

THE TS’E K’AM MEN TI

Hatcher and company left two hours before dawn, sneaking past the harbor patrols and customs boats in the Bujia Ngkou, the bay at the mouth of the Beijiang River that becomes Hong Kong harbor, and then heading west into south China along one of the many tributaries of the jungle-choked Xijiang River. By the gray wash of dawn they were thirty miles upstream.

They came in two boats. The first was a long, narrow snakeboat, heavily powered, with a thatched cabin near the rear. Behind it was a thirty-foot 600 hp Cigarette boat, capable of skimming the water at sixty miles an hour. Hatcher, Daphne, Cohen and Sing, who doubled as helmsman, and another gunman, Joey, were in the first. There were four Chinese gunmen in the second, on ‘loan’ to Cohen from a friendly Chiu Chao triad known as the Narrow Blade Gang, as backup in the event the Tsu Fi got in trouble. They all felt comfortable, since Daphne’s intelligence had reported that Sam-Sam was farther upriver and was not expected back to the Ts’e K’am Men Ti stronghold until the next day.

Early in the trip, before they got to the river, everyone had been tense and wary, on the lookout for harbor patrols and customs boats. Now they relaxed as the long wooden boat cruised quietly along the river, hugging the bank to avoid being too obtrusive and followed by the impressive Cigarette.

Cohen was a strange sight, dressed in a cheongsam with a pistol belt around his waist, sitting like a crown prince on his canvas lawn chair, staring ahead into the darkness, muttering a continuing monologue questioning his sanity, Hatcher’s, Daphne’s — in fact, the whole damn trip. He had insisted upon arranging for the boats and the gunmen.

Finally Hatcher growled, ‘Listen, China, nobody stuck a gun in your ear and ordered you to come. It was your idea to round up the guns, get your beach chair there and come along for the ride.’

‘Well, I couldn’t talk you out of it,’ Cohen answered.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘You know what I mean,’ Cohen said. ‘What the hell’s so special about this guy Cody anyway?’

‘I told you, we went to school together.’

‘That doesn’t float,’ Cohen said with disgust.

‘Hell,’ Hatcher said, ‘maybe I wanted to do one last job that had . . . some sense of. . . humanity . . . honor maybe.’

“War, he sung, his toil and trouble; honour but an empty bubble,” Cohen intoned.

‘Dryden,’ Hatcher replied. ‘How about “Mine honour is my life; both grow in one; Take honour from me, and my life is done.”

‘Richard the Second,’ Cohen answered, and after a moment’s meditation added, ‘I hope to hell all this poetry’s worth the trip.’

‘Don’t we all,’ answered Hatcher.

‘Let me tell you something maybe you don’t know about Sam-Sam,’ Cohen said, starting a rambling monologue that eventually had a point. ‘First time I ever met him was when I saw you, when the Tsu Fi sent me up here to Chin Chin land the first time. Sam- Sam was kind of the new kid on the block, okay? He came down from Peking because he was an ardent capitalist at heart, which didn’t go over well in Peking. This was about six months before that time I met him. I don’t know what he did in Peking, but whatever it was, he had developed the most blasé attitude about killing I’ve ever seen. I mean he would just as soon put a bullet in your brain as step on a bug.

‘I was dealing mainly with Joe Cockroach, he was like the agent for everything. You made a deal with Joe and he got it all together — one price, one guy to pay. It was a comfortable way to do business. Also I trusted Joe. I knew him before in Hong Kong when he was in the import business. So maybe the third time I go up there, Sam-Sam comes up to me and says from now on its him and me doing business. He’ll make a better offer, he says. And I tell him, “Sam-Sam, I can’t do that because I’ve been dealing with Joe for too many years and, besides, things don’t work like that up here at the Ts’e K’am Men Ti.”

‘So Sam-Sam walks out on the deck — we were in this barge and I was in Joe’s office, Joe is outside doing something — and Sam-Sam walks out the door and next thing I know I hear two shots, pumf, pumf, just like that, and I dash to the door and look out in time to see Sam-Sam with the gun still smoking and he grabs a handful of Joe’s shirt and lifts him up with one arm and throws him in the river. And he looks over at me and he smiles and he says, and this is a quote, he says, “Now it is not a problem anymore.” And he laughs. Six months later he controlled the whole damn river.’

‘I know all that stuff, China,’ Hatcher said with a sigh.

‘Yeah, but here’s what you don’t know,’ Cohen said rather elegantly. ‘Joe Cockroach came to Hong Kong from China. He did this and that, nothing very successful, then he went up to Chin Chin land and got in the smuggling business. Then he sent for his brother to come down. His brother was Sam-Sam Sam.’

‘Sam-Sam isn’t going to be around,’ Hatcher said gruffly.

‘Yeah, right, that’s what we’re all hoping,’ Cohen intoned. ‘That Sam-Sam won’t be around.’

They fell silent again and Cohen began to doze, his head bobbing, then woke up suddenly, but drifted off again. In the eerie twilight before dawn he looked like some ancient Chinese philosopher.

Daphne and Hatcher sat beside him on the hardback benches provided in the snakeboat. Hatcher was leaning back, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Daphne reached out and slipped her hand in his. He squeezed it gently and held on to it as they peered straight ahead into the waning darkness.

She leaned over him and said softly in his ear, ‘You like this, don’t you, Hatch? Living with your heart in your mouth.’

‘It can become addictive.’

‘Did you ever marry, Hatcher?’ Daphne asked.

‘Nope.’

‘Is that the reason?’

He thought for a moment, and said, ‘Maybe.’

‘Ever thought about it?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said immediately, and was surprised at his answer. ‘The thought never occurred to me.’

‘Why not?’

Hatcher did not answer immediately. He thought of all the stereotyped reasons.

‘I live day to day,’ he said finally. ‘Marriage is also yesterdays and tomorrows.’

He turned and looked back at her. ‘Or maybe I’ve just been too damn selfish all my life to think about anyone else. Why? Is this a proposal?’

They both laughed softly in the darkness.

She shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not the marrying kind either.’ She paused for a moment and then asked, ‘Do you ever worry about dying?’

‘Nah,’ he said quickly, ‘I gave that up a long time ago.’

The river broke up into a dozen twisting streams and creeks that coursed through the thick jungle. This was the northern rim of the Southeast Asian rain forest. A few miles to the north, trees gave way to foothills and then mountains, but here the jungle was still fresh and verdant. Chinese patrol boats, limited in number, ignored the area, which was like pirate Jean Lafitte’s stronghold in the early 1800s, a drifting, lush green empire of assassins and privateers who could vanish in an instant up one of its many creeks and rivers or disappear into jungle hideouts defended by mines and booby traps. It was a sprawling black market, its barges and boats of contraband protected by nature and by the brigands who called themselves the Ts’e K’am Men Ti, the Secret Gate Keepers, and dominated with vicious authority by the ruthless Sam-Sam Sam, and his henchmen, the SAVAK killer Batal and the Tonton assassin Billy Death.

With the sun, the jungle creatures in this marginal rain forest began to awaken and the underbrush came alive with morning sounds. Adjutant storks squawked, gliding frogs bellowed and leaped from tree to tree, hornbills pushed through the foliage with their powerful beaks vying for food with fruit-eating bats. High above them all, eagles drifted leisurely through the blood-red sky seeking breakfast.

By noon they were near the small villages of Jiangmen and Shunde. They slipped past them. By mid afternoon they were deep in the jungle.

‘We’re coming to the Ts’e K’am Men Ti cutoff,’ Daphne said.

Hatcher studied the map she had sketched before they left. It showed a narrow cutoff snaking away from the main river to the south. Four miles up the cutoff was another branch that twisted off to the east through the jungle, then cut sharply west forming a narrow peninsula, an elbow in the stream, like the trap in a sink, and easy to block in the event someone tried a hurried retreat back toward the main river. Leatherneck John’s was on the far side of the elbow.

Hatcher pointed to the tight little peninsula and traced his finger straight across its base, away from Leatherneck John’s.

‘This where we are?’ he whispered.

‘About there.’ Daphne nodded.

‘So if we got in trouble at the bar, we could forget the boat and come overland, straight back here, right?’

She nodded.

‘How far is it?’ he asked.

‘A mile or less,’ she said.

‘Okay,’ Hatcher’s voice rasped, ‘that’s our fall-back position. We’ll have the Cigarette boat wait here and we’ll go around the bend in the snakeboat. If we get in trouble, we run overland, like rabbits, back here, forget the small boat.’

Cohen said, ‘How many men do re take with us?’

‘Sing goes in the bar with u, covers our ass,’ said Hatcher. ‘Maybe one other shooter to stay with the snakeboat and keep his eyes open in case Sam-Sam should show up. The other three stay with the Cigarette. If we have to run for it they can cover our retreat. If it goes smoothly, they’ll just follow us back.’

‘Sam-Sam will not be back until tomorrow,’ Daphne reiterated.

‘Uh-huh. Well, there’s always the unexpected,’ Hatcher said, half aloud. ‘I’ll stop worrying about Sam-Sam when we get back to Hong Kong.’

‘You are very cautious,’ Daphne said with a smile.

‘And still alive,’ Hatcher answered. ‘Let’s put it together and get on up there.’

As they entered the domain of the Ts’e K’am Men Ti the jungle sounds merged with other sounds. Human sounds. While the sun began to sink behind the trees a strange chant drifted through the trees from in front of them.

‘What’s that?’ Cohen asked.

Daphne said, ‘The women are singing a hanchi, some kind of good-luck song.’

‘I’ve never heard that before,’ Cohen said.

‘It’s Cambodian, I think,’ Daphne said.

‘Are they Khmer Rouge?’ Hatcher asked.

She shrugged. ‘Khmer Rouge, free Laotian guerrillas, river tramps. Who knows. Remember, the women are just as mean as the men, and maybe a little quicker.’

The stream was no more than a hundred feet wide. As they rounded the elbow they saw the first signs of the Ts’e K’am Men Ti. There were three barges lashed to trees hard on the bank to their right, jutting out into the small river. Sing had to swing out to get around them. On the first, there were two hooches, side by side on the back of the barge, like guard stations.

A dozen women, all bare-breasted and wearing red bandannas tied tightly around stringy black hair, chanted as they cleaned the deck. On one corner of the barge two large woks were smoking as another woman stirred vegetables for dinner into them. A man sat on another corner fishing.

‘Quite a domestic little scene,’ Hatcher growled.

‘Sweet,’ Cohen said, ‘like a Fourth of July picnic.’

There were five or six crates of electronic equipment stacked in the center of the deck of the second barge, sloppily covered by a tarp. Beside it, the third barge held only ten or fifteen cases of ammunition. Hatcher checked the ammo through binoculars: 9 mm., .30 caliber, .38 caliber, a crate of .45s.

‘A lot of bullets and very little inventory,’ said Hatcher.

‘Sam-Sam’s probably got his heavy stuff stashed a little farther upriver. He’s not expecting customers,’ Cohen offered.

‘Good,’ said Hatcher.

Beyond the barges, another hundred yards up the creek, was Leatherneck John’s, a large, ugly square with thatched sides and a corrugated roof. It jutted out over the creek on stilts and was surrounded on both sides by makeshift piers, like a shoddy mud-flat marina. Several boats of various descriptions were tied up at the pier. One of them was a scruffy-looking Chris Craft, at least twenty years old, a tattered German flag dangling from its radio antenna.

Daphne said, ‘The old white fishing boat is the Dutchman’s.’

‘Good,’ Cohen whispered. ‘Maybe we can get out of here in a hurry.’ He swept the binoculars farther upstream. A heavily laden barge, well covered with waterproof tarpaulins, hugged the bank a hundred yards past the bar.

‘Jesus,’ Cohen breathed.

‘What?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Check the barge farther upstream,’ Cohen said and Hatcher lifted his glasses.

‘Fat city,’ said Cohen. ‘That’s the store.’

As they watched, a man came out on the front of the barge and stretched, then began t urinate into the river. He was a tall, very thin black man with greasy hair kneaded into pigtails held in place by a red headband. His blue shirt was open to the waist anti he had an AK-47 over his shoulder and a H&K 9 mm. pistol in his belt. He was wearing gold-rimmed Porsche sunglasses.

‘Uh-oh, that’s the Haitian, the one they call Billy Death,’ Cohen said. ‘He’s the one likes to cut off people’s feet. Look down at the bow.’

Hatcher swung the binoculars down and searched the front of the barge. There, hanging by a cord, appeared to be a pair of shoes. Hatcher flipped the switch on the glasses and increased the focal length, zooming in tightly on the shoes. He could see the rotten gray skin of an ankle sagging over the top of one of the shoes. Flies buzzed furiously around it.

‘My God,’ Hatcher gasped.

‘It should be all right,’ Daphne said. ‘He doesn’t know you. He probably won’t pay any attention to us.’

‘Yeah,’ said Cohen. ‘Just business as usual.’

Sam-Sam’s barge was a sprawling floating flatbed, stacked with contraband and ammunition. He had a dozen of his best men with him and seven women, some of them concubines, some tougher than the men. Batal was along but Billy Death was not. The Haitian didn’t like the river.

‘What is the problem with Billy Death?’ Sam-Sam asked Batal.

‘He cannot swim,’ the Iranian answered.

Sam-Sam thought that was funny.

‘He is afraid to ride the barge because he cannot swim?’ Sam-Sam said with a laugh.

The Iranian nodded.

‘Hell, I cannot swim,’ Sam-Sam said, smacking his chest with an open hand.

‘Neither can I,’ Batal said, and he started laughing too.

A racket from the rear of the barge broke up their merriment. The helmsman came running forward.

‘What was all that about?’ Sam-Sam demanded.

The helmsman pointed toward the rear of the barge.

‘Generator blow up,’ he stammered.

‘Well, change it. Throw that one overboard and hook up another one.’

The helmsman shook his head.

‘Do not have,’ he said.

‘We do not have a spare generator?’

The helmsman shook his head. He stared down at the deck.

‘Only one generator?’ Sam-Sam stormed. ‘We got every fucking other thing on this damn barge. We got TVs, stereos, we got Thai silk and cotton from India. We got cigarettes from America, France, England, Turkey, Egypt. So why do we only have one generator? So? Anybody got an answer to that?’

He raged around the deck kicking at things and cursing to himself, his snake eyes darting from one person to another. Suddenly he drew his pistol. The men and women on deck moved back as a group. Sam-Sam stalked the deck like an insane man, twirling on the balls of his feet, glaring from one face to the next.

‘Who takes responsibility?’ he screamed.

His clan stared at him, afraid to speak.

‘Who wants to eat a bullet?’ he yelled. His voice carried into the jungle and echoed back. ‘Anybody?’

He waited for a few moments more, enjoying the fear etched on the faces of his band. Then suddenly he wheeled and emptied the gun into the forest. Birds scattered, shrieking their complaints.

Sam-Sam turned back to his crew and laughed. His crew relaxed. There was a wave of nervous laughter.

‘So — we go back,’ Sam-Sam said with a shrug. ‘What is the big rush to go anywhere?’

LEATHERNECK JOHN’S

Sing guided the snakeboat into the dock beside Leatherneck John’s and they tied it down.

‘Everybody stay loose unless there’s trouble, okay?’ Hatcher said.

Sing and Joey, the other gunman, nodded. Sing followed them down the makeshift dock to the bar. A large slab of ebony over the door had ‘Leatherneck John’s Last Chance Saloon’ carved into it, and a line below it, ‘Founded 1977.’

Hatcher was surprised when they entered the place. He had expected the bar to be a tawdry, ramshackle oasis in the midst of the Ts’e K’am Men Ti’s contraband market. But the big room was clean and neat. On one side there were twenty or so tables and a pool table that had seen better days. A black man with thick hair tied in a tight ponytail was sleeping on his side on the pool table. He was wearing olive drab combat pants and Hawaiian shirt, and was using his bush jacket as a pillow. On the other side was the bar, a long, fancy oak bar with a slate top.

‘The last time I saw a bar that fancy was in Paris,’ Hatcher said.

‘Came from a joint in Mong Kok,’ Cohen said. ‘The way the story goes, Leatherneck John won the whole place in a crap game and shipped it up by barge. But — up here you can hear anything.’

The place was deserted except for three men, including the one sleeping on the pool table.

One was a big man sitting on a barstool sipping a glass of beer. He had less hair than the billiard balls, and was dressed in khaki, his ample stomach folded over a military web belt. This would be the Dutchman, Hatcher thought. His bald head was sunburned and peeling. Years of hard living on the river had ravaged his face, leaving behind a puffy, ruddy orb laced with broken blood vessels. His nose was swollen and warty, and his eyes were buried under thick lids, giving him a sleepy look.

And then there was Leatherneck John himself. He was an enormous man, towering at least six foot three, and easily weighing 220 pounds, his red hair trimmed close to the scalp, a thick, neatly trimmed beard concealing the bottom half of his face, the sleeves of his camouflage shirt rolled up almost to the shoulders, revealing biceps the size of a truck tire. Leatherneck John looked like an old topkick. Burly was a perfect word to describe his size and bulk. Not fat, but big and solid. Formidable. His hair was shaggy and turning white. His eyes glittered with gaiety, as though he had just heard a joke and had not started laughing yet. A retired topkick, thought Hatcher, has to be. He looked past the big man and saw the six stripes, pinned to the wall with a Marine K-Bar knife.

‘No hardware permitted inside the room, cowboys,’ Leatherneck John said in a voice that was friendly but left no room for argument. Hatcher and Cohen gave Sing their weapons. The Chinese bodyguard stuck the short-barreled Aug and Cohen’s .357 in his belt and stepped just outside the door, where he leaned against the wall. The other Chinese gunman in the snakeboat had moved to the back, near the tiller, where he sat with his Uzi tucked against one leg.

Hatcher strolled over to the bar. The wall behind the bar was a collage of Marine paraphernalia. Medals hung haphazardly: a Purple Heart, a Navy Cross — Hatcher lost interest after those two — along with an M-60, two M-16s, an 870 riot shotgun and a .45 Army-issue automatic, and photographs, belts, a canteen. The counter below was a shambles of ammo belts, boxes of ammo and several loaded clips.

Hatcher made a fist, his thumb above the knuckles lying flat and pointing straight out. This was a dap, among ‘in-country’ vets a sign that they had been in Vietnam. The ritual could be carried further with a series of slaps and knuckle knocks to indicate the unit they served with. John stared down at the first, looked back up at Hatcher and a sort of smile crossed his lips. He made a similar fist, slid open an old-fashioned ice chest and took out two beers. He stared at Hatcher with his twinkling eyes as he popped the tops. He smacked one down on the bar in front of Hatcher.

‘I never forget a face,’ he said.

‘A noble attribute,’ Hatcher whispered.

‘I saw you once in Nang. This was, uh, let’s see — maybe ‘73, around that time.’

Hatcher smiled but did not say anything.

‘You’re Hatcher,’ Leatherneck John went on. ‘I recognized you when you walked in the door. I was with a guy in the Seals, knew who you were.’

‘If you say so,’ Hatcher whispered.

‘A lot of talk about you up here,’ John said with a slow nod, his mouth curling into a grin.

‘Is that a fact?’ Hatcher replied.

John nodded. ‘I hear all sorts of things,’ he went on. ‘I don’t know whether you’re a good guy or a bad guy. The jury’s still out on that.’

The man on the pool table stirred, turned slightly and peered sleepily over his shoulder at Hatcher and Leatherneck John.

‘Don’t believe everything you hear,’ Hatcher said. He held the wet can up in a short salute and took a deep swallow of the cold beer. He decided to take a chance on Leatherneck John.

‘I’m looking for a guy,’ Hatcher said. ‘Navy pilot named Cody, went down in the Delta in ‘72.’

‘Never heard of him,’ John said, making work to end the conversation.

‘He may have been in a Cong prison camp up around Muang.’

‘Never heard of him,’ John repeated. He leaned over the bar toward Hatcher. ‘See, what you got here is a very volatile situation. I mean, there’s no reason whatsoever for any of these creeps up here to even say hello to each other, let alone get along, okay? But in here this is like the Free State of Danzig, y’know. You don’t ask questions. You don’t answer questions. You get along.’ He made a circle in the air, waving it around the room. ‘In here, it’s my rules. Nobody argues with me. You get outa line, you deal with me. And that’s just the way it is.’

‘Thanks,’ Hatcher said.

The black man on the pool table had turned and was facing the group now, still feigning sleep, although he was watching the action through half-closed eyes.

‘Howdy, Miss Chien,’ John called from the bar as Hatcher returned to the table, ‘welcome back to the Last Chance. What’ll it be? Dinner, booze or barter?’

‘Got any brandy?’ Cohen asked.

‘The best. Armagnac ‘78.’

‘Dey are my guests,’ the man at the bar said in a heavy Dutch accent as he walked toward them. ‘Put it on my bill.’

The man took Daphne’s hand in a large, hairy paw and pumped it while appraising Cohen and Hatcher.

‘Goot to see yuh,’ he said.

‘And you, Dutchman,’ she answered. ‘This is the Tsu Fi.’ She nodded towards Hatcher. ‘And this is our friend, Tom.’

‘Tom, huh,’ he said skeptically. ‘I hear you come to fish.’

Hatcher grinned a quick, passing grin as he stared the Dutchman down. ‘Just looking for an old friend,’ he growled.

‘I see you met John,’ the Dutchman said, making conversation.

‘We exchanged amenities.’

‘Ja, sure. Veil, let’s sit and talk, den, I got to move on.’ He motioned to a table and they sat down. Hatcher stared hard at him, sizing up the heavyset trader. His swollen eyes were bloodshot and his mouth curled in what seemed like a perpetual sneer.

The Dutchman leaned over the table and said in a whisper to Hatcher. ‘Look, I know who you are, okay? No problem. I ain’t interested in your beef vit Sam-Sam.’

‘What do you know about my beef with Sam-Sam?’ Hatcher croaked casually.

‘Veil, you know how talk goes.’

‘No,’ Hatcher said, still staring at the trader, ‘how does it go?’

The Dutchman looked at Daphne with a question: Why was the Yankee being difficult? She looked away. It was Hatcher’s game and she decided to stay out of it.

‘I ain’t looking for trouble,’ the Dutchman said. ‘I come because Miss Daphne ask me to, okay? I know all about you, Ying bing. I just vant to keep it clean, see? Don’t do me no goot, they know I’m talkin’ to you.’

Ying bing. Shadow warrior. Nobody had ever called him that to his face before. Hatcher let it pass.

‘Just curious,’ Hatcher said. ‘I hear there’s a misunderstanding between us.’

The Dutchman raised his eyebrows and laughed.

‘Misunderstanding? Ja, dat’s goot. Some misunderstanding. He says you owe him fifty thousand dollars. And proper interest.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Hatcher whispered, shaking his head and chuckling, ‘A roll of the dice to Sam-Sam.’

‘I don’t tink it’s da money, although it is a consideration, I’m sure,’ the Dutchman said. ‘He says you disgraced him.’

‘What the hell,’ said Hatcher, ‘hijackers got the guns. Cost me a penny or two, too.’

‘Dat’s not da vay he says it happened,’ said the Dutchman, taking a sip of beer and wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

‘You can hear anything you want to hear,’ Hatcher whispered, dismissing the comment with a wave of his hand.

The Dutchman looked furtively around the empty bar and said, ‘Sam-Sam says you vere Company.’

Hatcher chuckled and leaned back, feigning shock. He shook his head. ‘Come on.’

‘He says you set him up. Dat you used his money, bought da guns, and sold dem to the Chem guerrillas and da Chems used dem against the people he vas going to sell dem to.’

‘I’m not that devious,’ Hatcher said casually, at which Daphne, Cohen and the Dutchman all stared at the floor rather than disagree. The Dutchman fitted a cigarette into an ivory holder and lit it with a gold lighter. He leaned back, blowing irregular smoke rings toward the ceiling, watching them dissipate.

Leatherneck John brought the drinks to the table.

‘Anything else you need, just yell,’ he said and drifted back to the bar.

‘What else does Sam-Sam say?’ Hatcher asked.

‘He says you sleep vit da Devil,’ the Dutchman said. ‘He says you haff an instinct for da throat and are not betrayed by conscience. He says you lie vittout moving a muscle and kill vittout a taste for blood. And he says you could negotiate vit God and get da best share.’

‘He knows you well,’ Cohen said with a grin.

‘Sounds like he’s describing himself,’ Hatcher said.

The Dutchman laughed too, and raised his beer in a half-hearted salute.

‘So — vat is it?’ the Dutchman asked.

‘I’m trying to find out if the Vietcong had a floating prison camp called Huie-kui in northeast Laos. They may have called it the spirit camp. This would be late 1971, early ‘72.’

The Dutchman looked at Daphne and then back at Hatcher.

Daphne took out an envelope and laid it on the corner of the table. She kept her hand over it. ‘Five hundred dollars Hong Kong, as agreed — if the information is reliable,’ she said.

It was the first time Hatcher had heard about paying the Dutchman, but he did not intercede. He would settle up with Daphne later. This was not the time to discuss it.

‘Dey had several camps over dere,’ said the Dutchman.

‘This would be on the other side of the mountains, near Muang.’

‘Muang, ja,’ the Dutchman said with a nod. ‘Across country, utter side of da Annimitique.’

‘That would be it,’ said Hatcher, his eyes glowing. His pulse picked up a few beats. ‘Did they move it around?’

‘Ja, to keep from choppers.’ He pointed toward the ceiling.

‘You did business with them?’

The Dutchman shrugged. ‘So?’

Hatcher took out the photograph of Cody and Pai that Schwartz had given him. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I don’t give a damn about the camp itself or what the Cong did. The war’s over. I’m looking for a friend of mine.’

‘All you Yankees tink your friends are still alive over dere,’ said the Dutchman.

Hatcher handed him the photograph.

‘This guy here,’ he said, pointing to Cody.

The Dutchman held the photograph a few inches from his face and squinted at it. He shifted positions a little, turning the photo to catch the light and looked hard at the picture for almost a minute. As he was perusing it Daphne looked at the rear door and stiffened. Hatcher casually followed her gaze.

Billy Death stood in the doorway, his AK-47 cradled in his arm. Leatherneck John stared hard at him.

‘Hey, Billy,’ he said, ‘park the piece. You know the rules.’

The black man stared across the room at Hatcher’s table.

Leatherneck John took down the shotgun and, holding it by the slide, jerked his wrist. The carriage slid up and back, charging the weapon.

‘You deaf?’ Leatherneck said, laying the shotgun on the bar aimed in Billy Death’s general direction. ‘My house, my rules. The gun stays outside.’

Billy Death sucked a tooth, then stepped back out the door and leaned his machine gun against the wall.

‘The peashooter, too,’ Leatherneck yelled.

Death took the pistol out of his belt and laid it beside the AK-47. He strode to the bar, walking on the balls of his feet, his hands hanging loose in front of him, like a boxer.

‘Japanese beer, cold,’ he said, in the singsong accent of Haiti.

Leatherneck John popped the top off a bottle of beer and put it in front of the Haitian.

‘Who are the Yankees with the Dutchman?’ Billy Death asked.

Leatherneck John stared at him for several seconds, then he said, ‘Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt.’

The Haitian’s brows knit together.

‘You know better’n to ask questions in here, Billy,’ Leatherneck John said. ‘Repeat after me: “It’s none of my business.”’

At the table the Dutchman paid no attention to Billy Death. He looked up at Hatcher.

‘Maybe,’ he said finally, in answer to Hatcher’s question.

‘Maybe?’

‘Ja. Skinnier. Very tired-looking. Und a beard, so I couldn’t bet on dis.’

‘Was he sick?’

The Dutchman pursed his lips and then shook his head. ‘Nee, not sick. Maybe . . . drugs.’

‘He was on drugs?’

‘I vould say dat.’

‘What drugs?’

‘Well, I vould say a little smoke. Maybe powder.’

‘Skag and grass?’

‘Is possible.’

‘You sold shit to the Vietcong there?’

‘Drugs vasn’t vat I was selling, but . . .‘ He let the sentence dangle. At the bar, Billy Death lowered his sunglasses over his nose and stared over the top of them at the table. Hatcher glared back. Their eyes locked for a moment or two, then Death turned away.

‘When was this?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Vas long time ago. I would say, let me see, I vas moving Thai silk to Saigon vit Henrickson, the Finn, and he vas kilt vintertime, ‘75. Vas dat summer. Ja. Last time vas about June, 1974.’

“74,’ Hatcher said half aloud. ‘And he was a prisoner?’

‘Ja.’

‘You said the last time. How many times did you see him?’

‘If it is him, Bing yahn, maybe three, four times. But I vill not swear to it. I’m sure it vas da girl but—’

‘The girl?’ Hatcher interrupted him.

‘Ja. Da girl I’m sure of.’

‘You saw this girl with this man? Hatcher repeated, pointing at Cody and Pai in the photograph.

‘I saw da girl. I tink it vas dis guy. Like I said—’

‘You mean the Cong let her stay with him?’

‘I just saw dem talking.’

‘Maybe he was, uh — what we call a trustee. You understand “trustee”?’

‘Ja, sure. Dey trust him. He does tinks for dem, dey let him outside the vire a little bit each day, watch da utter prisoners. She bought some tinks.’

‘Christ,’ Hatcher muttered under his breath. ‘What did she buy?’

‘Quinine pills. Smoke. Penicillin. China Vite, and also to buy some shoes and shirts. Clothing.’

‘How did she pay?’

‘Like da Arvies.’

‘North Vietnamese dollars?’

The Dutchman nodded.

Hatcher looked at Cohen, who whistled low and shook his head.

‘Let me get this straight. You think you saw this man in June 1974, about twelve clicks south of Muang on the Laotian side of the Annimitique mountains in a moving Vietcong camp with this girl and she got quinine, China White, clothing and penicillin and paid for it with Arvie money.’

‘Ja, is correct.’

‘How big was this camp?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Small,’ said the Dutchman. ‘Maybe twenty, twenty- five prisoners, half a dozen guards and da varden.’

‘What was the warden called?’

The Dutchman thought for a moment and said, ‘Taisung.’

‘And this prisoner was outside the compound, right?’

‘Ja. Dere vere six, seven outside.’

‘Cleaning up?’

The Dutchman nodded.

‘You recognized all these guys?’

‘From da clothes. Dey vere vearing clothes bought from me.’

‘What were the other prisoners vearing?’

‘Vork clothes. Mostly gray. Dey kept the Yankees away from the Vietnams.’

‘Vietnams? What do you mean, Vietnams?’

‘Dese udder prisoners, dey vas all Vietnamese. Political prisoners, Yankee sympathizers, like dat.’

‘You mean this was a prison mostly for Vietnamese political prisoners?’ Hatcher said with surprise.

‘Ja, till dey could move ‘em north to Hanoi.’

‘I’ll be a son of a bitch,’ Hatcher said.

‘Vhy don’t you ask John. Dere’ a rumor he vas once in prison camp.’

‘Where?’

The Dutchman shrugged. ‘Ask him,’ he answered. He raised a hand, and Leatherneck John popped open another beer and brought it to the table. Hatcher handed him the photograph.

‘Know any of these people?’ he asked.

John took the photograph and looked at it. ‘Why, should I?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Hatcher said. ‘He was a POW. I heard you were too. I thought maybe—’

‘The slope ain’t born could catch me and hold me,’ John said without animosity.

‘I’m just asking.’

‘I’ll tell you the same thing I told Billy, cowboy. Around here there ain’t no yesterday. When I get outa bed in the morning, life starts over. I forgot more’n I remember.’

‘He’s a friend of mine,’ Hatcher said. ‘I’m trying to help him.’

‘No shit. Supposin’ he doesn’t want help.’

‘That’s possible. If I find him and that’s the way it is, I’m long gone.’

‘Good for you.’ John looked at the photo again and laid it back on the table. ‘Nice-lookin’ woman,’ he said and started back to the bar.

‘Semper Fi, pal,’ Hatcher growled.

John stopped and turned back toward him.

‘How’s that?’

‘Semper Fi. You were a marine, you know what that’s all about. This guy and I were mates. Maybe he’s in trouble. Maybe he needs something. I want to make the offer, that’s all.’

‘So find him and make it.’

‘Yeah, right.’

Leatherneck John smiled pleasantly and returned to the bar, but Hatcher decided to try once more. He followed Leatherneck John back to the bar. Billy Death stared down the length of oak at him and said, ‘You here to buy or sell?’

‘Neither one. I’m a tourist,’ Hatcher whispered. Billy Death sneered at him, threw a handful of coins on the bar and left. Hatcher turned back to Leatherneck John and leaned toward him.

‘How about the girl?’ Hatcher asked. ‘Have you ever seen the girl?’

‘I told you, I got amnesia, cowboy,’ Leatherneck John said. ‘Hell, I don’t even remember my last name.’

Hatcher laid an American hundred-dollar bill on the bar.

‘That’s nice,’ Leatherneck John said. ‘I ain’t seen a yard in a long time. Mostly Hong Kong dollars hereabouts.’ He stared at the bill for a moment, picked it up and rang up the sale on the cash register. Turning back to Hatcher, he said, ‘I sell booze, food and silence. You want a little jolt, a little toot, a smoke, I can maybe help you out.’ He counted out ninety-five dollars, H. K., and laid it on the bar. ‘And that’s all I got to sell, cowboy.’

‘Mm goi,’ Hatcher said.

‘You’re welcome,’ John said, still smiling.

Hatcher gathered up the change and returned to the table.

‘I don’t like the way this is shaping up,’ Cohen said quietly. ‘You got your information. If there’s nothing else

‘I guess you’re right,’ said Hatcher. He held the chair for Daphne and they all stood up. The Dutchman laid his fat hand on the envelope and looked at Daphne with raised eyebrows.

‘It’s yours,’ Hatcher said.

‘Bedankt,’ the Dutchman said, stuffing the envelope in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Haff a safe trip back.’ He walked across the room to the man on the pool table and shook him.

‘Let’s go, Jawnee,’ he said.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ the black man with the ponytail answered sleepily. ‘Pick me up around back.

‘You come now,’ the Dutchman said gruffly and left.

‘That Tonton’s got me worried,’ said Cohen. ‘He was a little too interested in us.’

‘Curiosity,’ said Hatcher. ‘Hell, it isn’t—’

He stopped and looked out the window at the Dutchman, who had reached the Chris Craft and was getting ready to leave.

‘I just thought of something else,’ he said. ‘You all go to the snakeboat. I’ve got to ask the Dutchman one more question.’

‘Hurry it up. The sooner we’re out of here, the better,’ Cohen answered nervously.

The man with the ponytail sat up on the edge of the pool table, his legs dangling above the floor and watched Hatcher leave. He jumped to the floor and walked casually toward the door.

Outside, heat seeped down over the jungle like warm syrup. The Dutchman was checking his fuel supply. He looked up as Hatcher approached the boat.

‘Ja?’ he asked.

‘One more thing. This Taisung, the warden of the camp, you know what happened to him?’

‘He ran for it,’ the Dutchman answered without stopping his work.

‘Ja. I don’t tink he vas too vell thought of in Hanoi.’

‘Why?’

‘Drugs, booze. Dey vere all corrupt, y’know.’

‘How about the prisoners?’

‘I don’t know ‘bout dem,’ the Dutchman said with a shrug.

‘Where did Taisung run to?’

The Dutchman capped the fuel tanks and purged the fuel lines as he thought about the question. He stepped over the gunwale and stood close to Hatcher. As they spoke Hatcher became aware of movement downriver, at the bend in the elbow. It was a barge, moving slowly around the sharp curve in the narrow river.

‘Bangkok,’ he said.

‘Bangkok?’

‘Ja, Bangkok.’

‘One more thing,’ said Hatcher. ‘Does Thai Horse mean anything to you?’

Cohen was surprised at the mention of his statue. The Dutchman too looked surprised.

‘Vere did you hear about Thai Horse?’

Hatcher’s heart jumped. Cohen seemed even more bemused.

‘Around. Does it mean anything?’ Hatcher urged.

‘Rumors.’

‘What are they?’ Hatcher asked eagerly.

‘Only dat dere is a heroin-smuggling outfit in Bangkok called Thai Horse. Very dangerous bunch, not to mess vit dem. Dat’s all. Booze talk, I tink.’

Cohen tried to hide his obvious surprise. Hatcher hesitated. The more he dug, the worse it looked for Cody. How much did the Dutchman know?

‘You don’t believe it, then?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice from showing any emotion.

‘I believe only vat I can see and touch,’ said the Dutchman.

‘But it’s possible?’ Hatcher pressed on.

‘Veil, as you know, in Bangkok everyting is possible,’ the Dutchman said with a wave of his hand.

The Dutchman was looking downriver, toward the barge. Hatcher ignored it. He needed one more answer. But before he could ask it, the Dutchman’s face drained of color. His eyes bulged.

‘Mijn God!’ the Dutchman said.

Hatcher turned and looked. The barge was halfway around the bend. Standing on the front of the boat was Sam-Sam Sam. Hatcher felt a momentary jolt, a combination of fear and surprise — he had expected them to come the other way. Now Sam-Sam was between them and the Cigarette boat. They were cut off, and there were at least twenty men and women on the barge.

In the bar, Leatherneck John said, ‘Jesus, the shit just hit the fan.’

‘It’s Sam-Sam,’ the Dutchman whispered to Hatcher with awe. ‘Get out uf here, man! I don’t even know you.’

Hatcher grabbed his jacket in a tight fist. His tormented voice left little room for argument.

‘Have you seen him there? The warden?’

‘He has been seen,’ the Dutchman quickly stammered. ‘He does some business over dere now. He is passing himself off as a Thai.’

‘A Thai? You know what he calls himself?’

‘Vol Pot,’ cried the Dutchman, squirming out of Hatcher’s grasp. ‘He calls himself Vol Pot.’

THE BEST DEFENSE

With the information that Wol Pot had once been the warden of the Huie-kui camp, Hatcher’s heart was racing as he rushed down the pier to the snakeboat. Cohen was watching Sam-Sam’s barge through binoculars.

‘I don’t think he knows we’re here yet,’ Cohen said. He lowered the glasses and looked at Hatcher. ‘Maybe we ought to run for it, back to the Cigarette boat.’

Hatcher took the glasses and studied the barge. ‘He’ll cut us off once he recognizes me. “Why don’t you people take the snakeboat and I’ll go overland, back to the cutoff and meet you there.’

‘No!’ said Daphne. ‘We came together, we’ll leave together.’

‘This is no time for heroics,’ Hatcher whispered, still watching the barge.

‘She’s right,’ Cohen said.

‘Look, I’m the only one he wants. The ch’u-tiao is between us, not you people.’

As they watched through their binocu1ars, Sam-Sam Sam strolled the deck and stretched. One of the women came out of the cabin. She was still getting dressed and was as ugly as Sam-Sam.

‘See him?’ Cohen asked, without lowering his binoculars.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Had himself a little matinee,’ said Cohen. ‘Phew, look at that woman, she’d gag a maggot.’

‘This isn’t the Miss Universe contest,’ said Hatcher.

‘More like Miss Mud Fence of 1912,’ Cohen said, swinging his glasses around and checking out the rest of the barge.

As Hatcher watched, another man joined Sam-Sam, a swarthy olive-hued man wearing a white cotton shirt open to the waist. Two gun belts crisscrossed his chest from shoulder to waist and an M-16 rested casually across his shoulders. There was a pistol in his belt and a machete. The three men stood on the foredeck of the barge, looking at the water and chatting.

‘You’re right, they look like they expect an invasion,’ Cohen said.

‘That must be the Iranian,’ said Hatcher.

‘Yeah. Batal.’ Cohen lowered his glasses. ‘So, now what do we do?’

‘I’ll hit the woods, go overland back to the Cigarette boat,’ Hatcher said.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Daphne, pointing behind them.

Far out at the end of the pier, Billy’ Death was talking into a walkie-talkie.

‘Think he made me?’ Hatcher asked. He focused his glasses on the Haitian, who was pointing toward them as he spoke. ‘Yeah, he made me,’ he added.

He swung his glasses back to the barge and was staring straight into Sam-Sam Sam’s binoculars. The pirate lowered his glasses. His mouth curved into a grin, then a leer, then formed the word ‘Hatcher.’ lie raised his AK-47 and charged it.

‘Love at first sight,’ said Cohen.

‘Behind us,’ Daphne said.

Billy Death and another brigand were coming down the pier toward them.

‘Sing, you and Joey take care of those two,’ Hatcher snapped.

The Chinese gangster nodded curtly and he and Joey took their Uzis, climbed up on the pier and walked slowly toward Billy Death.

Watching from the doorway of the saloon, Leatherneck John said, ‘Christ, it’s beginning to look like High Noon.’

At the snakeboat, Hatcher made an instant decision. They were outnumbered twenty or thirty to one. Hatcher grabbed Cohen by the elbow and shoved him into the snakeboat. ‘Daphne,’ he yelled as loud as he could, ‘get inside the saloon, out of range.’

He turned the key and cranked the snakeboat’s engine to life.

‘Take the tiller,’ Hatcher ordered Cohen, and grabbing his briefcase, he ran to the front of the long, narrow boat and lay down flat on the bottom. He opened the case and took out a small square of gray C-4 plastique. He molded it quickly into a thick rope about two feet long and two inches thick.

‘Where the hell are we going?’ Chen demanded.

‘Head for the barge,’ Hatcher yelled back.

‘What?’

‘Trust me!’

‘You’re nuts, Hatcher, you’re just plain fucking nuts,’ Cohen yelled as he steered the skinny boat toward Sam- Sam’s barge.

Daphne backed slowly toward Leatherneck John’s saloon, watching the snakeboat and the face-off between Cohen’s men, Sing and Joey, and Billy Death and his man. Leatherneck John reached out and, grabbing Daphne by the arm, pulled her inside the door of the saloon.

‘You’re gonna get yourself killed out there,’ he snapped.

‘Can’t you help, please?’ Daphne pleaded.

‘Not my fight, ma’am,’ Leatherneck John said emphatically. ‘I gotta live up here.’

‘Then give me a gun!’ she hissed at him, her eyes afire with anger and fear.

The black man with the ponytail stared out the door.

The snakeboat was zigzagging its way toward the barge. Half a dozen gunmen were firing at it. Bullets tore through the thatched hooch at the rear of the boat and erupted in the water around it. Cohen was guiding the boat’s dodging course toward the barge while Hatcher lay in the front firing intermittent bursts at it while he wrapped the coil of C-4 around the prow of the boat.

‘Keep dodging them,’ he growled.

Onshore, Sing and Joey reached the pier. They were half the length of a football field from Billy Death and his man. The two Chinese stopped.

‘No farther,’ Sing ordered. As he held up his hand another of Sam-Sam’s river rats jumped from behind the corner of the saloon and jammed a knife into Joey’s back, just above the waist. Joey turned with a roar of anger and grabbed his attacker, but the wound was lethal. His arms went limp and he fell off the pier into the river.

Sing grabbed the man around the neck and snapped it with one hard twist. The man dropped. Sing turned toward Billy Death and his sidekick and fired a burst down the pier. It hit the sidekick shin-high, and he toppled to the dock with a scream. As Sing fired a second burst into the fallen thief, Billy Death got off a double burst. The bullets ripped into Sing. He fell to his knees but tried to get up, still firing. Death shot him again. Sing fell facedown, dead.

‘Pretty tough Chink,’ Leatherneck John said.

‘I make that about twenty to two now, not exactly what I’d call fair odds,’ said the man with the ponytail.

‘Odds don’t mean shit up here,’ leatherneck John said.

The man with the ponytail walked resolutely to the bar and took down the M-60 hanging behind it. Curled below it on a shelf was a fully loaded ammo belt. He threw the ammo belt over one shoulder and headed for the door.

‘Hold it!’ Leatherneck John demanded.

‘Don’t worry,’ said the ponytailed man, ‘I’m going outside.’

‘Not with my piece.’

The man swung the muzzle of the M-60 toward Leatherneck John.

‘I’m borrowing it,’ he said flatly as he walked out the door.

Leatherneck John said nothing. He stood watching with his mouth hanging open and his hands on his hips.

Billy Death ran past the door of the saloon and started down the riverbank, running with his back to the pony- tailed man.

On the boat, Hatcher had the C-4 plastique wrapped around the prow. He armed a small black contact fuse and, reaching over the front of the boat with his head down, twisted it into the soft p1astic explosive. Bullets stitched a line down the rail of the snakeboat, inches from Hatcher’s ear. The barge was coming up fast.

Hatcher turned and crawled back to the thatched cabin.

‘Let’s go!’ he said to Cohen.

‘Go where?’

‘We got to get out of here. This thing’s going to blow sky-high any second!’

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do something like this?’ Cohen yelled. Bullets tome into the rail near him. Cohen went berserk. He stood up let go of the tiller, and holding his gun hand straight out in front of him, started firing his .357 at Sam-Sam.

‘We’ve got to go now!’ Hatcher yelled and dived into Cohen’s stomach, driving the little man backward into the side of the thatched shed. The side collapsed. Hatcher and Cohen plunged through the flimsy cabin, out of the speeding boat and into the river. The snakeboat, driver- less, etched its crazy course toward the barge.

Hatcher and Cohen hit the water with such force that it momentarily knocked Hatcher’s wind out of him. He felt Cohen’s body wrench and then slip away from him. Hatcher tumbled once in the water, spread-eagled and stopped his motion. He lunged to the surface, took a deep breath and dived hard, his arms and hands sweeping the water around him.

Nothing.

He surfaced, took another deep gulp of air and dived again, taking powerful strokes and searching the dark water with his hands. Still nothing. Then as he surfaced he saw Cohen’s head bob up a few yards away. Cohen was half conscious, disoriented.

Hatcher took three hard strokes, reached out and grabbed Cohen’s arm by the sleeve. ‘I gotcha, pal, relax.’

Behind them, the snakeboat drove straight toward the barge. Batal looked at it and saw the gray cord of plastique around the bow. He screamed and dived overboard as the boat charged into the barge. Sam-Sam leaped to one side as the snakeboat hit and rose up out of the water, its prow several inches above the side of the barge. The hull of the snakeboat shattered and the prow tore into a stack of TV sets, smashing through tubes, scattering them like blocks. Tubes burst like firecrackers. The contact fuse smacked against the casing of one of the TV sets and the plastique exploded.

Sam-Sam was ten feet away when the barge erupted. He felt the sudden burst of hot air just before the concussion tossed him into the air like a broken twig. The force of the explosion ruptured his vitals and ripped his body apart. A moment later the explosion set off the gas tanks; the rear of the barge burst like a balloon. Fire and debris showered the air. Men and women on the barge were scattered like confetti.

The explosion lifted Batal out f the water, and blood spurted from ears, nose and mouth. He plopped back down into the river unconscious and sank slowly to the bottom as bits and pieces of the barge splashed into the water and sank with him.

‘Beautiful,’ said the ponytailed man with a smile.

‘Holy shit!’ was all Leatherneck John could muster.

A hundred yards away, the concussion of the explosion knocked both Hatcher and Cohen underwater. Hatcher lost his grip on the stunned Tsu Fi again. Cohen came up gasping, heard the chatter of submachine gun fire. Geysers of water sprouted from the river around him, shocked him into full consciousness. He splashed around like a hooked marlin, gulping air. The river erupted a few inches from Hatcher’s face as another burst ripped into the water. This time Hatcher saw where it was coming from. Billy Death stood near the river’s edge, fifty yards away, firing his AK-47.

Hatcher turned and zigzagged away from shore, yelling to Cohen to follow him. Another burst showered past him, bip, bip, bip, bip, bip.

A half-mile downstream, behind the barge, the Cigarette boat hugged the shore. The men in the boat had seen Sam-Sam return and had followed the barge upstream, hugging the shore to keep out of sight. Now all hell was breaking loose in front of them.

‘We go see,’ the leader of the three Chinese backup men said, pointing toward the barge.

The barge was tilting rapidly and the Ts’e K’ams aboard were too busy scrambling for safety and hauling their wounded to the shore to worry about Hatcher. Another explosion rent the barge, a gorge of flame roared out of the stacks of ammo boxes, followed by a wrenching explosion as the boxes exploded.

The explosion distracted Billy Death, who lowered his gun and walked uncertainly toward the barge.

Then the pop-pop of 9 mm. shells began as the heat cooked them off and they began ricocheting off the barge, ripping into the trees, and plopping harmlessly in the water. The barge was now fully ablaze.

Billy Death hesitated, then turned his attention back to Hatcher and Cohen. He raised the AK-47 to his shoulder and aimed at the two figures struggling in the river.

Behind him, seventy-five yards away, the ponytailed man stepped outside, and standing under the porch, he swung the heavy M-60 up, smacked the cartridge belt into the receiver and charged the first round into the chamber. He threw the rest of the belt over his shoulder and walked toward Billy Death.

‘Hey!’ he yelled. ‘You, the one they call Billy Death.’

The Haitian turned toward him. The man stood with legs spread Out at the edge of the river with the M-60 aimed squarely at the ex-Tonton assassin.

‘Drop the gun,’ the man ordered.

Billy Death stared uncertainly at him, then back out at Hatcher. He hesitated a moment to long before he swung the AK-47 around at the man with the M-60.

The heavy machine gun roared kicked, rippled the muscles of the ponytailed man. Half a dozen shots ripped into Billy Death’s chest. His own gun went off harmlessly into the air as he was spun around by the burst. His knees buckled. He floundered, staggered to the edge of the river and fell to his knees in the water. His arms went limp, the AK-47 fell into the water and his chin dropped to his chest. Billy Death fell sideways and rolled over on his face in the water.

The man walked back into Leatherneck John’s, unloading the heavy machine gun a s he strolled across to the bar. He put the M-60 back on the rack and dropped the ammo belt on the shelf below it.

‘You better be long gone when they get this mess under control,’ Leatherneck John said.

‘I was thinking the same thing,’ the ponytailed man said.

‘Why the hell’d you do such a crazy thing?’ the barman said.

‘I told you, I didn’t like the odds’

‘That’s it, you didn’t like the odds?’

‘You know what a HALO drop is?’ the ponytailed man asked.

‘Sure, high altitude, low open parachute jump,’ Leatherneck answered.

‘I did a HALO drop in the Delta back in ‘74. It was dark and the wind changed and I missed my zone by half a mile and came down in a bamboo thicket behind Gook lines. A bamboo shoot went right through my foot and came out my shin, right here.’

He pulled up his pants leg and pointed to an ugly scar near the middle of his shinbone.

‘I was pinned to the ground by this ten-foot shoot of bamboo and Charlie was all over the place. Then all of a sudden this guy appears from out of nowhere, breaks the shoot off and piggybacks me a half a mile back to the drop zone. Then he’s gone again, just like that. Never said a do-mommy word to me the whole time. Later on, somebody told me it was this guy Hatcher everybody calls Occhi di Sassi — Stone Eyes. Now, do you understand?’ He turned to Daphne. ‘Tell Hatcher Jonee Ansa says thanks — we’re even now. You might also tell him to check out a section called Tombstone in Patpong. Place called the Longhorn. A lot of the ex-GIs in Bangkok hang out there.’

The ponytailed man turned and vanished out the rear exit of the saloon.

On the river, the Cigarette boat suddenly burst through the smoke pouring off the barge. The pilot saw Hatcher and Cohen in the river. He steered the sleek speedboat toward them and slowed as he pulled beside them. One of the gunmen reached over the side and grabbed Hatcher’s wrist. They locked hand to wrist and he pulled him up.

Another of the henchmen reached over the side and pulled the still-groggy Cohen aboard.

The slender boat cut an arc in the river, swung into the dock and picked up Daphne and then roared back through the broiling smoke of the ruined barge, which tilted crazily as if struggling to stay afloat and then slid hissing and groaning to the bottom of the river.

‘Well, I’ll say one thing for you, Christian,’ Daphne said, ‘you sure know how to burn your bridges.’

jo sahn

As they headed back downriver, darkness settled over the boat like a shroud. Cohen and Hatcher had stripped off their wet clothes. Now they were huddled in the cabin of the big boat to keep warm. Daphne had remained on deck.

‘I can’t believe you do this kind of thing for a living,’ Cohen said.

‘Did,’ Hatcher corrected.

‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re still doing it,’ Cohen said. ‘In the last twenty-four hours I’ve had all the excitement I’ll ever need.’

‘If it’s any consolation, so have I,’ Hatcher said with a smile. ‘Got any brandy on this tub?’

‘All I’ve got is some Amaretto.’

‘Not on an empty stomach.’

Cohen huddled deeper into the blanket. He stared at Hatcher for a moment and then said, ‘Give it up, Hatch.’

‘Give what up?’

‘Don’t be thick.’

‘I told you, before, China, I can’t do that.’

‘Yeah, I know. Honor, integrity, old school tie. Isn’t it a little late for that?’

‘It’s not a little late for Murph if he’s in trouble.’

‘You heard what the Dutchman said. He was a junkie!’

‘He said he thought he was doing a little pot, for God’s sake.’

‘And collaborating.’

‘All guesswork.’

‘God, you really are giving him the benefit of the doubt. You know enough already to —,

‘Look, here’s all I know,’ Hatcher said, cutting him off. ‘I know that Cody could have gotten out that plane fifteen years ago. I have reason to believe that he was in the Huie-kui camp and that Taisung was his warden and the girl was with him there. I know a man named Wol Pot claims to have seen Cody in Bangkok and now Taisung is in Bangkok calling himself Wol Pot. I also know that Windy Porter was tailing him and got killed for his trouble, probably by a Chiu Chao killer. And I have reason to believe that Wol Pot may have ‘worked for Tollie Fong and got in trouble and that’s why he came to us. You put that all together, China, and that’s good enough reason for me to go to Bangkok.’

‘You also know that Tollie Fong’ll kill you on sight.’

‘He made a promise, yen dui yen, to lay off both of us.’

‘And you trust his word? His ch’uang tzu-chi ends only when one of you dies. A blood oath, Christian. If necessary he’ll create an excuse to break the yen dui yen. C’mon, don’t act naive.’

‘China, when I set out on this job, I didn’t believe for a minute that Murphy was alive. Then I had doubts. Now the equation is swinging the other way. Now I think he is alive. And if he is, I’ll find him. And fuck Tollie Fong.’

‘Be sure to kill him first.’

Hatcher reached over and ruffled Cohen’s hair. ‘I love you too, buddy,’ he said. ‘I always seem to be taking something away from my friends, never giving anything back.’

‘It’s always worked both ways.’

‘That’s a kind thing to say.’

‘Kind my ass, don’t get maudlin,’ Cohen said. ‘We lost you once. Then we found you. Now we’re going to lose you again, this time for good. I know that, so does Daffy.’ He waved his hand toward the deck. ‘Why don’t you go say good-bye to her.’

He lowered his head, staring at the floor, and shrugged the blanket up around his ears.

‘Thanks, China.’

‘Yep.’

Hatcher started out the door. Cohen did not look up. He said, ‘I’d like to know you’re safe and sound on that island of yours. How about a call when it’s over, if you can still whisper.’

These were people who loved him enough to risk dying for him, and there was no proper way to say goodbye. Each clue took him closer to the past and then led him further away from it. But Hatcher had no choice. His mission was to find Murph Cody, and -there were no more answers in Hong Kong, the answer had to be in Bangkok. And the closer Hatcher got to solution, the more he feared what it would be.

She was sitting in the bow, watching the wake boiling behind the boat in the moonlight. He sat down beside her and, holding the blanket, wrapped it around her shoulder and pulled her to him.

‘Was it worth it, Hatcher?’ she asked

‘I think so,’ he said. ‘It confirmed a lot of questions.’

‘Such a price!’

‘Yes, isn’t that always the way it is.’

They sat quietly for a while and then she asked, ‘Do you have a woman?’

Hatcher hesitated for a moment. Was Ginia his woman? She certainly would object to the term. But in his heart, Hatcher now realized he had made an unspoken commitment to her. He had never expressed it, but she was his woman. He felt for her, wanted to care for her, to make her happy. He wanted some semblance of permanence in his life. Ginia meant all these things and more.

‘Yes,’ he said finally.

‘You had to think a long time.’

‘I’ve never really thought about it before,’ he said. ‘I’ve assumed a lot.’

‘What is her name?’

‘Ginia.’

‘Ginia,’ she repeated, as if testing the name. ‘And what is she like?’

‘Very independent. Very smart.’

‘Beautiful?’

‘Yes. But not in the same way you are.’

‘I do not understand that.’

Hatcher tried to think of a way to describe the difference between the exotically alluring Daphne and the naturally beautiful Ginia. Finally he said, ‘She does not take a man’s breath away as you do.’ Not exactly true, but a permissible white lie.

‘You are diplomatic with time,’ she said with a smile. ‘Does she understand you as I did?’

‘She doesn’t know anything about my past.’

‘Or your friends?’

‘Or my friends.’

‘And will you ever tell her?’

‘I suppose someday, if it seems proper.’

‘Do you love her, Hatcher?’

That stopped him. These were questions he had never asked himself; now Daphne was forcing him to deal with them.

‘That would be something new for me, eh, Daffy?’ he answered, avoiding a specific response. ‘The kind of love you’re talking about has been missing from my life for a very long time, if it was ever there at all.’

‘It was there, Hatcher. You never let anyone see that side of the coin, but I got a peek a few times. And China says you are two people. The man we all see and the man nobody sees. Does Ginia see that other man?’

‘I think that’s the only one she does see.’

‘Then she is very lucky.’

‘I still seem to be doing the same old things.’

‘There is a difference. There was a time when you seemed to . . .‘ She hesitated, trying to find the right word.

‘Enjoy it?’ He finished the sentence for her.

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Enjoy it.’

‘Perhaps. But nothing is accomplished by looking back. What’s done is done.’

He took her cheek in the palm of one hand and turned her to him.

‘I love you, Daphne. You have never escaped my thoughts. But I never thought of us in any settled-down kind of way. That kind of sharing? Hell, neither one of us ever seemed to want that.’

She looked away. Speak for yourself, she thought, but she said nothing, and Hatcher realized that in trying to be honest he had hurt her. To him, the relationship with Daphne had been like a long one-night stand for both of them, a wartime romance with no future and no permanent commitment. Now it was too late. He had made another world for himself, a world so different from hers that there could be no place in it for her, no hope of a permanent relationship between them. Life on his island would bore her to death. Besides, he had once cut his ties with this dark and dangerous world, the world of Daphne, China Cohen, Harry Sloan and the Ts’e K’am Men Ti, a world that was her whole existence. Now he had to cut those same ties again.

‘You are right, we were never interested in that kind of sharing,’ she said, and saved him the pain of hurting her even more.

As they cruised silently through the mouth of the Macao Runs the lights of Hong Kong twinkled to their left. He stared at them as they grew closer and the skyscrapers took shape in the darkness.

‘I will get off first,’ she said. ‘They know where to stop.’

‘Daphne

She put her fingers to his lips.

‘We have said and done it all, Hatcher,’ she whispered. ‘You will not be back this time. But I know in my heart that it is as painful for you as it is for us. Choi qui see yong qup haipon.’

The Chinese said it well: ‘Killing the past scars the soul.’

339