The Asian Mantrap

Fifteen

A hard-toned, staccato voice sang out, piercing the air around me like the crackling of hot lightning. Phan Wan was speaking in her native tongue with crisp, lashing phrases that were electric in their effect on the two approaching men. They braked to a halt, bumping into one another. Both snatched off their hats and bowed, keeping their heads lowered in subservience. I lowered my head, too, hiding behind the visor of the cloth cap I wore. The manservant on the raised level above me was unable to see my face.

I remained in that respectful attitude until I heard the click of the Webley’s hammer being eased down. Phan Wan lowered her voice. I glanced up. The armed man was withdrawing into the house. Another bark from the slim girl dismissed the pair of gardeners formerly immobilized by her sharp words.

She leaned over the balustrade. “What do you know of Keith Martin?” She spoke in English, her tone remaining sharp. “Your voice — you sound like—”

“Like an American,” I finished for her. “That’s because I am, and I’m here because of Keith Martin. He is here, too, and wants to see you.”

She ran to the end of the veranda where stone steps led down to the lawn. I moved sideways to join her on the steps. “Don’t!” she cautioned. She looked over her shoulder again, then faced me. “You must stay there where you are. None of the peasant class are permitted to enter this part of the house.”

“Thanks,” I said appreciatively. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Of course,” she concurred. “I have many questions for you. You are in great danger. You must not be discovered, and we must not be overheard. There is a shed in the back attached to a greenhouse. Go there and wait.”

“I am not alone,” I said. Phan Wan’s expectant, near-giddy look faded when I went on to disappoint her. “No, not Martin. But two others, a Vietnamese man and a Chinese girl. They speak the language.”

“The girl — is she young?” A strange question.

“Yes. And beautiful,” I added.

“Excellent. Bring both of them to the rear of the house. I will tell those who watch over me that you have a procurer who is bringing your sister to the house of Nho Phu Thone to sell her into prostitution. It is not uncommon for me to deal for Nho Phu Thone in these matters. Hurry. We must talk about Keith.”

While a catastrophe had been averted, what I hoped would become a miraculous opportunity faded quickly. Under the guise of haggling over the value of Willow who stood with bowed head beside Bu Chen, Phan Wan confessed that she could be of little help. She had only limited freedom, being a house-bound prisoner behind the villa’s formidable walls. A trio of live-in guards kept her under observation day and night while watching over Phu Thone’s person and property. Phan Wan considered herself property although she played the role of mistress of the house as well as being a mistress in the more classical sense.

In a hurried exchange, Phan Wan said that no attempt had been made by Keith Martin to contact her. She shed tears when I told her how Martin had interrupted his strange, bloodletting crusade to seek her out in Madame Peacock’s establishment in Bangkok.

“What can I do... to help?” she sobbed. “He must be found before — he must be stopped,” she added. “Nho Phu Thone has spoken of some mysterious deaths recently... he didn’t say murders. There was another last night. A general died in his sleep, I was told.”

“General Linpak Tung,” I said. His was the only name on Martin’s death list of a still active duty general.

Phan Wan nodded. “Phu Thone was friendly with him during and since the war. They have mutual business interests here and in Haiphong. General Linpak Tung was a powerful man and a member of the government Central Committee. You are positive that Keith is here and. responsible for this?” she asked with wonder... even a little pride.

“He pictures himself as bearing the righteous sword of vengeance and is justified in executing those who were connected with the mistreatment and torture of hundreds of American prisoners during the war.”

“General Tung had nothing to do with that. That’s what we were told. He was a respected, honorable man.”

I was sure Tung’s name was on the assassination list. There had to be a connection. “He must have had some dealings with POWs,” I insisted.

“Oh, but that’s been since the war,” explained Phan Wan. “He was persistent in the view that the Central Committee hold back the information that the Americans seek on their dead and captured soldiers. He says it is the only way the powerful United States can be made to pay restitution for damages their war caused.”

“That figures,” I said under my breath. “Chalk up another one for Martin. The man is as incredible as he is crazy. All by himself, getting away with it and surviving in a totally hostile environment. If you aren’t helping, Phan Wan, is there anyone at all who might be?”

“Impossible. You don’t know the national feeling toward the western races if you’d even think that. I can’t imagine a single soul who wouldn’t expose him instantly because we are always warned about the presence of provocateurs. He cannot avoid being found. And I fear, if he has learned as you have where I am, he may risk coming here. If he does, he will surely be killed. If there was only some way—” She fell silent.

I reached out to lay a comforting hand on her arm. Phan Wan drew back. “We tarry too long,” she said. “We are watched, I am sure. In a moment I will shake my head to reject the price asked for Willow, then you must go.”

“No,” countered Willow. “Pay Bu Chen something. I will stay. If nothing else, I might be able to prevent a tragedy.”

Her idea had merit. Willow would have a temporary safe haven. She could gain more information of use from Phan Wan. I concurred.

Phan Wan refused. “You must not. Girls that come here are used before they are sent on. A pretty one like you, Willow, will serve the pleasure of the three guards that live here, but only after Phu Thone himself has satiated his lust with you. I refuse to subject you to that. Come back tomorrow as if you have decided to sell yourself for a more reasonable price.”

I looked beyond Phan Wan. A broad-shouldered, bareheaded man was lounging against the far corner of the house eyeing our group. I peered out from under the pulled-down peak of my cap in the opposite direction. A husky twin of the first man was standing beside the glass wall of the greenhouse some twenty feet away. I grew fidgety. “We’d better leave,” I said in muted tones.

Bu Chen began making active gestures. His hand movements were in no way related to his conversation. “Where can we go to be safe for the night?” he asked.

Phan Wan’s face looked blank, then brightened. “Of course, there is a place. Phu Thone has a large, five-story building under construction. No one is working there just now because of a shortage of materials. Go there. You will find a workshed to shelter you. It also has a telephone. If I can, I will call you tonight. Now go!” Her pompous gesture and straight-pointed finger made her intentionally loud command in Vietnamese understandable even to me.

The three of us shuffled down the gravel driveway trying to look like rejected peasants. I could hardly contain my elation. While Martin was still far from my grasp, and had certainly upped the ante on his head by dispatching another public figure in Hanoi, we had accomplished a great deal.

Our successful infiltration into the city of Hanoi was a major achievement by itself. Making contact with Phan Wan was a plus that could be exploited. It was obvious that she had a smoldering hate for Nho Phu Thone. It was also understandable that she would tolerate his physical excesses and her common chatel status in exchange for an existence better than any other she could hope to have. Because she was intelligent, she had made the best of it, having grown wise and more sophisticated. Her intimate knowledge of Phu Thone’s business affairs might be put to good use. Phan Wan had planted seeds of an idea which warranted cultivation.

My feelings of well-being lasted only as long as it took to pedal down the tree-lined residential street to the next major intersection. It was a bustling thoroughfare crowded with carts, lorries, and thickly-bunched bicycles. I viewed it as a problem area. The movement of the traffic, outwardly orderly, could easily become my nemesis. One misturn, one minor collision, and I could be the center of an unpredictable, argumentative confrontation. Police would be drawn into it. My disguise would be penetrated. I would fail in my mission just when I began to think there was a chance for success.

When I pushed the nose of my bicycle out into the moving log-jam of vehicles in the wake of Bu Chen and Willow, I equated the action to playing Russian roulette with a revolver having five loaded chambers.

The situation reminded me how vulnerable and how desperate Keith Martin must be. What was it — three days or four since he had entered Hanoi with the help of Colonel Jeleff? That would have been the easy part. But to have blown away top government officials in one, two, three, four order and gotten away clean was a record closely approaching my own.

Martin’s death list was shrinking. So were his chances. If he wanted to make sure of Nho Phu Thone, he would have to strike against him very, very soon.

I almost ran into the back wheel of Bu Chen’s bike when he came to a stop along the curb. He put Willow in charge of his bike while he went inside a noodle shop. “He’s going to get directions to the Street of Seven Flowers,” she explained.

He took an ungodly long time. When he came out he was wiping his mouth with his sleeve and grinning like a Cheshire cat. Anger welled up in me. He had left us waiting while he gobbled down some hot food. Willow and I had had none since the in-flight meal furnished by Air India on the way to Bangkok.

The building site on Seven Flowers Street was hidden behind a head-high wooden fence. The crossbar of one bicycle provided the boost needed to get over it. While topping the fence I scanned the surrounding area. To the north, across a narrow, pockmarked street was what appeared to be a former military compound. A number of barracks-type wooden buildings, some with windows boarded up, occupied the open, treeless area. It was evident that the camp was once surrounded by a pair of concentric, chain-link fences topped with strands of barbed wire. Now only steel posts and a few sections of the barrier fence remained. There was no activity to be seen, although evidence of recent demolition work was all about.

Work on Phu Thone’s building had progressed to where a matrix of girders, five stories high, had been erected. The first three levels of the steel-beam skeleton framework were in a cage of lashed bamboo. The outer scaffolding provided platform from which workmen would add cinder block and brick. Adjacent to the foreman’s shack were idle pieces of earthmoving equipment. I recognized a curved-blade bulldozer and a backhoe for digging trenches parked next to a lime-encrusted cement mixer.

The workshed Phan Wan had told us to look for was little more than a single door, single window lean-to erected next to the fence. The heavy, impressive-looking padlock on the door yielded with a minimum of persuasion. The interior was typical of a construction foreman’s site office. It contained a work table with a bin of blueprints beside it. Some tools were stacked in one corner. Two chairs and a folded-up tarpaulin gave us places to sit. The air inside was unbearably warm and had a wet cement smell.

We were bone-weary and untalkative. Each of us made ourselves more comfortable by removing our backpacks. Willow repacked the items in hers. Bu Chen dropped off to sleep and snored fitfully.

At dusk, I went to the door and made a visual reconnaissance. All was quiet. Willow came out to stretch her legs. She found a water spigot with a hose attached to it behind a shoulder-high pile of cinder blocks. She called me over. “It’s dark, okay to take a shower?”

I lay flat on top of the stacked cinder blocks, holding the hose over Willow’s head. She balanced on a platform of two cinder blocks, gasping and splashing under the cold water. What a lovely creature she was.

We traded places. When I finished, Willow leaned down and kissed me on the cheek. “What’s that for?” I asked. She’d just had a cold shower. It should have dampened her sexual urges for a little longer than three minutes.

“I was just testing to see how your false face is holding up.”

I patted my eyelids. “I’ve been afraid it would start flaking off, but it’s holding. I don’t know how much longer. I’ve been sweating a lot.”

“I’ve noticed. You’re worried about Bu Chen, I can tell.”

“Shouldn’t I be? From his viewpoint, he’s gained what he was after: a quick trip away from a murder rap in Bangkok. There’s no point in him sticking with us anymore. In fact, it’s downright dangerous. He knows that. If I were him, I’d consider breaking off and fading into the woodwork. He knows too much about what we’re up to now for me not to worry. He always will—” I stopped short of admitting to Willow that there would come a time when I’d have to consider how to deal with Bu Chen to guarantee his permanent silence.

“He isn’t going to run out on us, Nick,” Willow said. “He’ll hang in there until we make a final settlement. Bu Chen loves money more than life. He knows we aren’t going to cart this load of gold coins back home with us... I’ve already told Bu Chen there’s more in it for him than what he’s carrying around his middle. He’ll wait us out like a hound dog baying at a treed possum.”

Bu Chen was missing from the foreman’s shack. The sinking feeling I had curled up like a fishhook lodged in my stomach. Then the phone rang.

I stared at it.

It rang a second time.

“Answer it,” I told Willow. “Lower your voice to a man’s register.”

“It’s Phan Wan,” she said, holding the instrument out to me.

I snatched it from her hand. The abrupt action was unlike me. I was getting edgy which is a bad sign. “Yes?” I answered, prepared for the worst.

Phan Wan wanted to make sure we had found the construction site and were safe, nothing more. I was more relieved than she was. And I was glad she had called. I had some important questions to put to her. The right answers would tell me if a plan I had in mind was workable.

In the past few days I had begun to feel I knew Keith Martin in some detail. I had acquired an insight as to how he thought and how he reacted under certain circumstances. In many ways, Martin was not much different than me. I couldn’t help but admire his daring and perserverance.

I hoped he had a flaw in his personality that could be turned to my advantage. Time was running short for both of us, and Martin had little flexibility left. Knowing that, and hearing from Phan Wan that Phu Thone made occasional trips to Haiphong, gave me bait which might lure Martin into the open. It depended upon my belief that Martin had some way of keeping posted on the whereabouts of his victims. He seemed to have some means of learning when and where to strike.

Phan Wan assured me that she would have no difficulty in getting word out in the right places about Phu Thone’s imminent departure for Haiphong. It would be a believable hoax. Phu Thone’s connection with General Linpak Tung’s business ventures in Haiphong could easily result in Phu Thone rushing off to guard his interests. The deception would work if Phu Thone took no steps to deny it.

“Is Phu Thone there now?”

“No. Otherwise I would not dare use the phone. Is it important to know?”

“Yes. When will he return?”

“Of that I cannot be sure. Usually quite late... not for some time. There is no way for me to let you know.”

“Perhaps there is. Where is his bedroom located in the house?”

“On the second floor, in the rear... the southwest corner.”

“Can it be seen over the wall from the street?”

“I do not know. I am there now, but with the lights on, I cannot tell. Wait a moment.”

I waited, framing more questions.

“I am sorry. I cannot tell. The wall and street are dark and some distance away, but there are no trees in the way if you come to look.”

“What alarm systems are installed in the house?”

“None, I think. We have men instead who stay in the house. You saw two of them. There is another. All are strong and have weapons, handguns. Only one remains awake after the master is home. The other two sleep in a room off the kitchen on the ground floor.”

“I didn’t see any dogs.”

“Phu Thone dislikes all animals. Any found on the grounds are killed instantly.”

I issued hasty instructions to which Phan Wan agreed. Her immediate chore was to spread the word that Phu Thone was leaving for Haiphong shortly, ostensibly for health reasons. The onset of a sudden illness which would preclude Phu Thone from attending the upcoming funeral of his old and dear friend, General Tung, would raise eyebrows. The news would create speculation throughout the capital as to what the two connivers had going in the port city that required Phu Thone’s personal and immediate attention.

Only one aspect of the plan bothered me.

It wasn’t that Martin wouldn’t get the word.

My concern centered on Phu Thone’s waking in the morning and learning Phan Wan was the undisputable and reliable source of the false story.

Phan Wan was clearly risking her life and would certainly lose it if the rest of my plan failed.

She understood the consequences. She was willing to take the risk. She loved Keith Martin as much as she hated Phu Thone. She was ready to sacrifice her life to save the life of Keith Martin.

I was about to put mine on the line so she wouldn’t have to.