Many Americans had died. She had cost American corporations millions of dollars. It was not enough. A man with that kind of record would be welcomed as a hero in some parts of the Middle East, but not a woman. If she hoped to gain the kind of power, the following she felt she deserved, she would have to come up with something much bigger.
She took another sip. It would happen. Nasrin was destined for greater things.
SCORPION WINE
A Gil DiMauro Story by Gordon Hopkins
Ten Western tourists view the Vietnamese countryside in a broken-down bus. But not everyone is what they seems.
Gil DiMauro isn’t a tourist. He is there (very much against his will) to uncover an international insurance fraud ring. He instead finds a different sort of crime when the bus is hijacked and DiMauro and his fellow travelers run afoul of kidnappers.
DiMauro then finds himself face to face with an old enemy.
PART ONE
The bottle was filled with what looked like the dark urine of a man with severe dehydration. Floating within was a black scorpion, about three inches long, with a white stripe on its back. Though dead, its pincers seemed to claw at its glass shroud, as if trying to escape.
“What is this horrifying stuff?” I asked, playing the clueless tourist, which I was. “Some sort of medicine?”
“It’s scorpion wine.” The Aussie explained, like a good tour guide, which was his job. “Ya wanna buy some?”
“Good God, no. Why would I want to buy that horrible stuff?”
“Have ya ever tried scorpion wine?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Then howdya know it’s horrible?”
That was a fair point. “Have you ever tried it?”
“Of course I have.”
“Did you like it?”
“Lord, no. It’s horrible.”
There were rows of bottles, about fifty or so, lining the shelves. Most had some sort of nightmarish creature inside. Next to the bottles of scorpion wine were several bottles with snakes inside. Not just snakes but cobras. Each cobra had its head raised and the infamous hood spread wide, as if about to strike. I wondered how the people who made this stuff managed to get the cobras into that pose.
“The problem with scorpion wine is that hard shell.” The Aussie continued. “The wine doesn’t permeate the shell so you don’t really taste the scorpion. Snake wine is a bit better but for my money, the best wine out there is tarantula wine.”
“Ew. They actually make wine out of tarantulas?” I cringed at the thought.
“Sure. It’s easy to make. All you do is take a live tarantula and stick it in a water bottle. Has to be live. That’s very important. Then you fill the bottle with rice wine and drown the bugger. After two or three days, the stomach swells and bursts open. That’s why it’s so good. You really get that tarantula flavor. Say, you okay, Gil-Man? You look a bit green. Green around the gills.” He laughed at his own joke and jabbed me in the side with an elbow.
I swallowed hard. “Yes. It’s just the heat getting to me.” That wasn’t a lie. It was a hundred and four degrees at that moment and the heavy, oppressive humidity made it hard to breathe if I exerted myself even a little bit. My clothes were sopping wet with sweat. It was like walking around under a wet, wool blanket.
A bottle different from the others caught my eye. It had both a cobra and a scorpion. I picked it up to examine it more closely. A tiny cobra held the tail of a huge scorpion in its mouth. It was like a ship in a bottle. The scorpion was far too big to fit through the neck of the bottle. How did it get in there?
A tiny Vietnamese woman wearing a huge straw hat and a big smile had been following me around since we arrived. I assumed she ran this particular stall and saw me as a possible mark. When I set the bottle down, she stuck out her lower lip in a pout and then started groaning as if in pain.
I raised a questioning eyebrow at the Australian tour guide, who explained, “She only just opened her stall. Many merchants in Vietnam believe the first transaction of the day sets the tone for the rest of the day’s business. If you pick something up and put it back without buying, she thinks she won’t make any money all day.”
I started to say that was ridiculous but I reminded myself I was in her country. I didn’t want the poor woman miserable all day so I the picked up the bottle again. “How much?”
She smiled again and held up four fingers.
“Four hundred dong?” I asked. That was a good price.
She shook her head, vigorously and held up her thumbs and forefingers in the shapes of circles. I realized they were supposed to be zeroes. “Four hundred thousand?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Are you serious? Four hundred thousand Vietnamese dong for this?”
She nodded again.
“Oh, come on you.”
Her smile got bigger and she said, in English, “Your welcome.”
“What?”
The Aussie leaned in to explain. “’Come on you” sounds like Vietnamese for ‘thank you very much’, Gil-Man.”
I really wished he’d stop calling me Gil-Man. “Oh. Well, I’m not paying that. It’s far too much.”
“You do realize, don’t you, that four hundred thousand dong is less that twenty dollars?”
Actually, I didn’t. I took out my wallet and handed over four hundred thousand dong. She wrapped up my bottle of wine in an old newspaper, placed the bottle in a bag and handed it to me.
“Now you’ve got a souvenir.” He said.
Some souvenir. How was I even going to get this thing through customs? Did I declare it as alcohol or livestock?
“How much longer are we going to be here?” I asked.
“Good question. Lemme go check on the bus.” I watched him walked towards the bus, where I could see two pairs of feet sticking out from under it.
We were somewhere between Ho Chi Minh City and Dalat. The drive was supposed to take six hours. So far, it had taken nine and we were even close to Dalat, yet. The bus had broken down twice so far but that wasn’t the only reason for the delay. You couldn’t travel five miles without running into construction. Shouldn’t our tour guide have known this? That was his job, after all.
The Aussie preferred to be called Gunner. His real name was, bizarrely, the extremely un-Australian Gunther. He explained, “My dad once spent a summer in Sweden and never quite got over it.” He was probably in his forties but looked older. He was short and stocky and his sunburned skin was dark and heavily cracked. Basically, he looked like an old, oak barrel. He’d lived in Vietnam for fifteen years, where he made a living as a tour guide and married a gorgeous Vietnamese woman who was probably forty but looked twenty-five. He never returned to Australia. Apparently he had several jeremiads against his father, of which the name that probably got his beat up in school as a child was only one.
I took out a rag, wiped sweat from my face and, for the hundredth time, curse my boss for sending me half way around the world on this fool’s errand.
I saw the Aussie talking animatedly in Vietnamese to a grease covered man by the bus, which was parked under the fuel station’s canopy. It was he only available shade. The man, named Binh, was our driver, the only Vietnamese in our group. Supposedly, he didn’t speak any English but I half-suspected he just said that to avoid talking to the tourists.
There were ten of us, altogether, riding around Vietnam in this crumbling chariot. Six of our group were from one family, the Prestons. A father, a mother, and four children in their mid-twenties but still quite happy to have dad pay their way. Dad was some sort of businessman. Don’t ask me what business. I never did figure it out, which is odd, considering he never stopped talking about it. Dad never stopped talking, Mom never stopped drinking and the kids never stopped whining. I felt like an interloper on someone else’s family vacation which, I supposed, I was.
The only other member of our group who wasn’t part of the Preston clan was a surly, twenty year old girl from Germany wit
h spiky hair who, apparently, hated to travel almost as much as I did. So why was she there? I wanted to ask her but she also hated Americans, so conversation with her tended towards discussions about the “evil, imperialist patriarchy of American xenophobes.” The only time I ever saw her smile was in during the tour of the Cu Chi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh City, once used by the Viet Cong guerrillas during the war. We were forced to watch an ancient propaganda film that told us how “Americans rained down death like mad, white devils before being driven back by the superior will of Vietnamese heroes.” She got a kick out of that.
There were a few makeshift shops nearby, offering tourist staples like t-shirts and bangles and, of course, scorpion wine, but not enough to keep us entertained for the hour and a half we had been stuck there. We were relieved when the Aussie clapped his hands together loudly and announced, “Okay, folks. The bus is fixed. Time to hit the road.”
Yay. The group began piling on board but the Aussie tapped my shoulder and pulled me aside. “Listen, Gil-Man. We should be in Dalat in a couple of hours. I called a mate of mine who has a car. He can drive you back to Ho Chi Minh City. There’s a flight back to San Francisco with space available. You can be on your way home tomorrow morning.”
Damn. I’d been found out. “What? You’re throwing me off the tour?”
“No, of course not. I’m just saying, if you want to quit, this is your chance.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
He smiled, not unsympathetically. “Look, I’ve been running these tours for a long time and you’ve got to be the worst traveler I’ve ever seen. You’ve been miserable since the moment you arrived in Vietnam.”
“No I’m not.”
“You’re not?”
“Of course not.” I said, not as convincingly as I’d hoped. “I’m, uh…having a wonderful time.”
He laughed and punched me in the shoulder. “Okay, mate. Whatever you say. If you change your mind, just let me know.”
Once we were all on board, the bus pulled out into traffic and rattled down the road, dodging massive trucks and hundreds of tiny scooters, weaving back and forth and ignoring the entire concept of lanes. Some of the scooters carried as many as five people at a time. Others were loaded with precariously piled cargo. Some even carried livestock. One lime-green Vespa had a massive, claw-foot bathtub strapped to the back. Inside the tub was a live pig.
I leaned back in my seat, with by bag sitting next to me, trying to ignore the bouncing that had already made my ass numb, and watched the countryside speed by. Most of the landscape was taken up by rice paddies. Square, water-filled fields formed a green quilt divided by narrow strips of solid ground barely wide enough of a single par of feet. Crouching down in the high grass were farmers, only the tradition conical hats visible. The sky above was empty save for a few clouds. No birds. I hadn’t seen a single bird flying since my arrival in Vietnam. No birds and very little wildlife. The explanation for this was in the old Vietnamese joke: What do you call a Vietnamese walking a dog? A vegetarian. The Vietnamese really do eat everything.
Occasionally, the rice fields were interrupted by unfinished buildings; some missing roofs, some missing walls, some that were just skeletons. I had seen quite a few and couldn’t decide if they were old buildings falling apart or new construction that hadn’t been completed.
I asked the Aussie and he explained, “Most are hotels that were started but then ran out of money. Vietnam is seeing a big uptick in tourism and there’s a mad dash to take advantage of it.”
The Aussie stood up in the front of the bus. “Okay, folks. We should be in Dalat in about two hours. How is everyone feeling?”
There were a few unenthusiastic grunts. While no one had gotten properly sick, the constant heat and unfamiliar food had given several of my fellow travelers unhappy tummies.
He continued. “Well, I have a good mate in Dalat named Duong, who just happens to be a doctor. He can give you something that will fix you right up. In fact, I recommend everyone paying him a visit, even if you feel fine. Just as a precaution, you understand. The good news is he should be covered by your travel insurance. I hope everyone got travel insurance like they were supposed to.”
Yes. This was it. I kept my face passive but, inside, I was cheering. Duong was the name of the doctor on all of those bogus travel insurance claims my company had received. Maybe I would be heading home soon, after all.
The bus pulled onto an unpaved side road and the bouncing became worse. For the first time, there was no traffic. The road was rough but we were finally making good time.
After traveling what I estimated to be about five miles, I finally saw another vehicle. It was a motorcycle. Not one of those little scooters I’d seen put-putting all over the countryside. This was a serious motorbike, a powerhouse that would make any Hell’s Angel proud. Two men rode the bike. Both white men. Their faces were cover by helmets but their hands were visible. The driver gunned the engine and, with a roar, pulled ahead of the bus.
I looked over to the other side of the bus and saw another motorbike ridden by two helmeted white men. The engine was gunned with a roar and pulled ahead of the bus.
The bikes crisscrossed in front of the bus. Binh slammed on the brakes and the bus squealed to a halt. The bikes’ passengers dismounted and rushed the bus. One man threw his body against the bus' door and smashed it opened. He stuck a pistol against Binh’s temple.
The second man boarded the bus, pointing his gun at the passengers. A couple of the girls screamed and the man shouted, “Shut up.”
I had to hand it to the Aussie. He was the tour guide and he tried to take charge. “Okay. Just relax, mate. If you want money we have…”
“Oy, I said shut up.” The interloper shouted and struck the Aussie on the side of the head with the butt of his gun. “We’ll tell you what to do and you’ll do it.” He spoke with British accent.
“Watch it.” The man with gun at our driver’s heard shouted. “She said don’t hurt anyone.” This man had an Eastern European accent, possible Russian.. To Binh, “Drive.” When Binh didn’t answer right away, the Russian shoved his head with the barrel. “I said drive. Now.”
“Okay, okay.” Binh said. “Drive where?”
I knew he spoke English.
The Russian waved his gun at the windshield. “Follow them.”
The bikers drove down the road and we followed. After about ten minutes, the bikers pulled onto a grassless patch of dirt that was probably intended to be the driveway to a hotel. The building had no roof and no glass in the windows. We drove around the perimeter of the building until we were at the back. The back had only part of a wall. The bikes and bus drove right inside the building into a big, empty room that I suspected was intended to be a dining room. Trees obscured the view from the back. Now we couldn’t be seen from the road.
The Russian backed out the door and commanded, “Everyone off the bus. Now.”
Terrified, we obeyed. The other two bikers dismounted and were now also pointing guns at us. The room was dark. My eyes adjusted to the dim light and I could see a figure standing in one corner, watching us. She was in the shadows but I could see she wore a traditional Vietnamese Ao Dai, a long, body-hugging garment, and white trousers. It was a style that could only be worn by a slender woman. She was slim enough but slightly too busty to be comfortable in it. She topped off the outfit with the traditional conical hat, which obscured her face. She raised her head to look at us and I saw that, despite her manner of dress, she was not Vietnamese. She was Middle Eastern in origin. Her skin was a deep brown, her eyes wide and dark. She had the sharp cheek bones of a Disney villainess.
The woman saw me and approached. She put both her hands on my shoulder, leaned in and kissed me on the left check, as if we were old friends. “Hello, Gil.”
“Hello, Nasrin.”
PART TWO
I asked, “Are you going to kill me?”
She put a finger against her chin, as if seriously con
sidering the question. “Oh, I doubt it will be necessary.”
I could hear my voice tremble as I said, “I was just doing my job.”
“Of course you were.” I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or not. “You don’t think I’m cross with you, do you? Just for costing me ten million dollars.”
“You aren’t?”
“Of course not.”
“The why am I here?”
“It’s nothing personal. Just business. After all, I’m just a business woman.”
In spite of how afraid I was, I snapped, “You’re a terrorist.”
“Terrorism is business. Big business.” she said, matter-of-factly. “Terrorism is the world’s last remaining growth industry. I’m simply raising capital for my next investment.”
“But I don’t understand. This insurance fraud is penny ante stuff. Why would you even bother?”
“Insurance fraud?” She looked puzzled for a moment. “Is that why you’re here? I should have realized. I was surprised to see your name on the list. Vietnam doesn’t strike me as the sort of place you would choose for a vacation.”
“What list?” She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. I understood what she was doing. “You got my name from the travel agency, didn’t you? You have a contact at the agency and they sent you the names of potential kidnapping victims traveling overseas. That's it, isn't it?”
“I almost forgot how clever you are, Gil. Yes, that’s right. Kidnapping for ransom is a well-known method of funding terrorists.”
“In the Middle East.” I objected. “Not Vietnam.”
“Call it expanding the territory.”
“But I don’t have any money.”
“Your employer does. Bremler Mutual is a Fortune Five Hundred company. I think they’ll pay, oh, let’s say ten million dollars for your safe return. That should square things between us, don’t you think?”
Broken: A Leopold Blake Thriller Page 19
