UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2)

by Rivers, Hart;

  Phillip glanced away. She knew he never forgave himself for the damage he had done. But she wasn’t blameless either and had never tried to blackmail him, emotionally or otherwise. Sometimes she wondered if his little “assignments” were his way of expressing his gratitude for that. Now she was getting a big assignment. BIG. As in actual training, coaching, an inside track to the top secret maneuverings behind the scenes. The CIA and the USA were aligning with new allies in the war to control the heroin trade in order to slow it down and eventually completely stop production. But first, they had to get Zhang on board in order to eventually take it over from him, and Phillip wanted to bring her in as a key player.

  Gratitude and regret were not enough to justify Phillip’s gamble. He actually thought she had what it took to become a clandestine operative. Like JD. She wasn’t sure what had brought Phillip to that conclusion. This would be the time to ask.

  So, she did.

  “I have a confession to make.” Phillip abruptly got up and slipped on a midnight-blue silk robe. He busied himself at the wet bar in the room so different from where she had spent—how many days she still wasn’t sure—recovering. There was little she remembered beyond disjointed flashes since she had last seen JD. Even since Phillip had come to her rescue, there were gaps of memory that still didn’t fit together.

  He motioned her to the adjoining sitting area next to a lotus pond. It was beautiful and simple yet extravagant, like everything else she was becoming accustomed to here. Including the exquisitely embroidered Chinese silk robe she wore, which was apparently another guilt gift from The Pale Man.

  Kate sank into the couch and accepted the flute of champagne Phillip handed her, before he distanced himself across a carved teak table and settled into an opposing chair. Of course, not just any chair. It was covered in some rare type of lotus-fiber fabric once used for the ceremonial gowns of Burmese monks. Clearly Paulu didn’t do his shopping from a Sears & Roebuck catalog, or even have much interest in Eames.

  “Why aren’t you sitting beside me?” she asked, wondering how bad this confession could be. Phillip didn’t like keeping secrets from her. Sometimes she wished he did. The fluttering in her chest suggested this could be one of those times.

  “Because if you decide to throw your drink at me you will have a clear shot.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  He ran a hand through the thick, silver hair he didn’t like touched, except by his personal barber, apparently, since it always remained perfectly trimmed around the perfectly shaped ears that hugged his handsome head.

  “That depends how you see things once I tell you what I would rather not. But the truth has a way of coming out despite any number of measures to conceal it—just ask JD—and you should hear this from me. If you wish to decline the assignment and the career I expect it to lead to as a result, I will completely understand and nothing will change between us, unless you decide you could do without me as well.”

  “And if I do?”

  “Then I will forever blame myself for being an opportunistic idiot who put personal feelings aside to have you tested while you were, shall we say, compromised. You gave your consent, but were clearly in no shape to make the decision.”

  He quickly drank most of the champagne in his flute, which was not like Phillip at all, and then set what remained in the crystal on the table. No coasters. Why didn’t the filthy rich—at least, those who inherited generations of wealth—not use coasters? Were coasters considered too tacky, or did their furniture come with some guarantee that glass rings would never form? No, they had servants to clean up after them and repair any damage to the wood. It was one of the differences she had noticed between her and Phillip. He was privileged, she was raised by a single career mom…And why was she thinking about something so inconsequential when Phillip had subjected her to some kind of testing? And clearly it wasn’t for her IQ.

  “Go on.”

  “It’s CIA confidential, so even if you hate me you must keep this to yourself—just as with the other information I’ve shared regarding Project White Tiger. Can I have your word, Katherine?”

  Kate braced herself and gave a single nod.

  “The CIA began experimenting with a program called Project MKUltra—my God, the names they come up with for these things! Nevertheless, this one began nearly twenty years ago. It’s being phased out due to pressure from the uppermost ranks and not without cause. In fact, I helmed the committee recommending we cease the project for humanitarian reasons, despite the advantages it has provided with critical interrogations. The results have been impressive but straddle a very gray line when it comes to the manipulation of minds and experimenting with mind control. Frankly, even as I have advocated for the cessation of the program, part of me keeps thinking we could really use your very talented friends, Drs. Kelly and Moskowitz.”

  Kate held up a hand. “Stay away from them, Phillip. It’s one thing for you to come to me because we have a history and understand each other, but stay away from them. They’re good men and they do not belong in this mess of a war, or in any kind of CIA business you may have going. Leave. Them. Alone.”

  “I have.” Phillip signed the cross. He was deeply Catholic; a major reason he had not left his wife despite living mostly separate lives in private while providing smiles on the public stage. “Unfortunately, JD has not. They are with him even as we speak—”

  “They? What do you mean they? Izzy has maybe another two months of duty, but Gregg just recently accepted a position at UCLA. Please don’t tell me he’s back here because of me.”

  “I regret to report that is the case. One call from JD and he was on the flight JD had arranged with all the necessary papers. What can I say, Katherine? When a man loves a woman…” Phillip swept a hand her way. “We are lost, even to ourselves. And so it is with Dr. Kelly. God’s truth I had nothing to do with bringing him here and, for what it is worth, I do know at this point that he, and your friend Izzy, are safe. They continue to go from post to post doing some type of drug group therapy while JD uses it as a ruse to find you and do everything possible to gain leverage for his brother in the process. JD does have a gift for multi-tasking, amongst his many other talents.”

  “Dammit,” Kate whispered and damned JD all the more. “You’re sure they’re okay?”

  “As of today, yes. Knowing what they mean to you, I’ve had them trailed with daily reports on their status, which is more frequently than JD has deemed to report to me himself. They’ve been moving slowly, and somewhat erratically, through the Delta region, with JD charting their course, so if anything goes wrong, it will be JD’s doing, not mine.”

  “Then the sooner I’m found, the sooner JD can cut them loose. Correct?”

  “Correct. But before intervening, I anticipate at least another week before we have all the details of Project White Tiger set up while getting you ready to take on the assignment. That is, if you still choose to.”

  “I’m doing it. No matter what you did to me, it will have nothing on what I’ll do to JD if Gregg or Izzy get hurt on this wild goose chase of his. I don’t care if it’s because of me, or because of whatever JD’s trying to do for Zhang, but him pulling them into this is inexcusable. What can he be thinking, dragging a couple of shrinks without combat skills through a full-out war? As you know, Phillip, I can and have forgiven just about everything when it comes to you and me. But I will NOT forgive anyone responsible for harming so much as a fingernail on those two men who have no business whatsoever being over here in the first place.”

  Kate calmly finished off her own champagne then deposited the empty crystal on the table. No coaster.

  “Noted and done. But are you sure you don’t want to know more about what happened, and what I accept responsibility for in determining your own suitability for this work?”

  Did she? If what Phillip had to reveal was too ugly it would only intrude on her resolve to make things as right as she could for Izzy and Gregg. What was right for herse
lf, as well.

  Kate glanced at the scab on her arm. It was almost gone. So was the vague craving for whatever drugs had been pumped into her system. Phillip would tell her everything, and yet…

  She was a smart girl. Smart enough to be practical when it came to exchanges. There were always exchanges; life was a sequence of trade-offs, and the trade-off of information now versus how she might respond to it simply was not worth it. At least, not yet. Later she could revisit the subject and in the interim remember that she had not walked away empty handed. Even if she couldn’t be an astronaut, she was going be a CIA clandestine operations agent. The best. She’d show them all.

  Especially J. D. Mikel.

  Chapter 20

  While Kate indulged in a Gauloises as she prowled about the suite, Phillip freshened their drinks. He had to wonder what lucky star he had been born under for Kate not to press for the ugly details he had been ready to dispense. He would have dressed it up where he could, taking responsibility while still allowing Paulu to shoulder a good part of the burden, which he deserved. Had Kate not been in such a heroin-altered state of mind when he first arrived, he wouldn’t have considered getting her off the heroin only to utilize one of their own doctors, with hypnosis expertise and access to the CIA’s MKUltra pharmacy, to determine the strength of her mind and the ability of others to control it.

  With some help from the CIA’s favorite experimental pharmaceutical, a designer LSD, the doctor had hypnotically tweaked her awakening and sleeping, which greatly assisted in the little twisting of her recent memories and emotions. Memories could be manipulated. Brainwashing and mind control was the ultimate goal of MKUltra, but Kate was not easily controlled. Of course, he knew that much already; now he knew more. Kate’s resistance to manipulation was extraordinarily strong.

  So strong, in fact, the negative subliminal suggestions fed to her about JD, including a bi-sexual orientation, had minimal impact, though there was a cascading level of suspicion he was happy to see. This was not something he was willing to divulge.

  Phillip laughed a little at himself. He had given her more top-secret intel than the head of the CIA was privy to—after all, they were not the only players in this game—and yet he didn’t want her to know he was actually jealous of JD.

  JD was still young. He was old enough to be JD’s father. A young father, but a father nonetheless. There had even been a moment when he wondered…

  But that was a very long time ago and the answer had been “no.” Although he had been strangely disappointed at the time, and even from time to time since, it had been for the best. Not only for reasons of reputation then, but for personal and professional reasons now. Not the least of which was the possibility that JD would not survive the strategies of the other players in The Game: The Pale Man, so wanting to be a truly world-class player, the Corsicans, the American Mafia, Zhang, the Air America gang, the corrupt South Vietnamese generals and politicians, the Burmese and Laotian players, the shadowy arm of the CIA creating their secret, dark-operations fund, far from any Congressional oversight or direction. And now Kate. All with their own ambitions, desires, hopes and dreams that could be manipulated and put at cross purposes. And therein lay the most compelling aspect of The Game, escalating the odds for a player as accomplished as himself.

  It involved people he actually cared about. Particularly Kate, who he cared enough about to want to marry someday, even knowing what rubbish lay behind such societal conventions. For thirty years he had kept up the farce with a wife who didn’t care for sex, at least not with him, and with whom he shared nothing in common, beyond putting up the expected front within the circles into which they were both born.

  Kate did not come from those circles, and he cherished that, and much more, about her. He had taken something priceless from her and yet she had never held him hostage for it. Almost as remarkable was how she still made him feel young and vital and titillated his imagination, while challenging his descent into jadedness with that All-American, apple-pie idealism through which she still viewed the world.

  He did not want to take that innocence away. Even more, he did not want to lose what that innocence offered him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all about him. Or Kate. Or JD. It was about…Sometimes he didn’t know anymore. He just knew that hard, unsentimental decisions had to be made, and that Kate was a potentially tremendous asset. He had a lot of practice at putting his personal longings aside for interests more far reaching than his own.

  She finished her cigarette and Phillip took it as a good sign when she gestured him to rejoin her in bed. He brought the drinks, fluffed the pillows, made sure she was comfortable and got right to it.

  “I want to tell you a story, Katherine. It’s about one of my early diplomatic assignments, when I was more like you are now. Actually, I was the attaché to the senior man conducting the meeting with a certain Vietnamese patriot and intellectual. Oh, this goes back to 1945, and the OSS was involved. Now this patriot had come to ask, almost beg, for help against the invaders that had taken his country by force and basically enslaved most of the populace. He knew the USA had once risen up against colonial bondage and he, being idealistic and naive, thought we Americans would see their plight, sympathize and help them because we believed in the same thing. When he left, the senior man turned to me and asked what I thought. I said, ‘He is right, we should help them. It is the good and decent thing to do.’ To which my superior said, ‘Is it? Let me now give you the first and only lesson you need about statecraft, about the way of the world and how it all really works, has always worked, and always will work.’”

  Phillip allowed himself a smile at the memory and shook his head. “It was so simple. I had expected a lesson in global politics and economics, which in a way it was.” He paused before bestowing one of the most insightful lessons he had ever received in his long and illustrious career. “Pirates and Whores, Kate.”

  “What?”

  “That is what he said to me: ‘Pirates and Whores. It is simple, ugly, coarse and dirty. The big players in the world are Pirates; the little ones are Whores, who have to give everything to the Pirates whenever they ask. And the big players, the Pirates, only ask when they are being polite and want the world to believe they play nice, because if you ever refuse or try to refuse, they will slap you around and hurt you and then they will take what they want anyway. We, the USA,’ he said, ‘we are, since World War Two, The Big Pirate. Some of the other Pirates were once The Big Pirate. Like Britain or France; even Spain a long time ago. But now we are the biggest and you always want to keep it that way. Some other Pirates we are mostly friendly with—again Britain, France and others when it suits us—but the little countries are Whores that we all take from and use as coarsely as we want. The man who begged for help, he is a Whore belonging to France. They are our friend right now and so we, of course, would not help their Whore.’ While that is not verbatim, it is the essence of what my very wise superior said to me and I have never forgotten it.”

  “That’s terrible,” Kate whispered. “Do you know what happened to the man who asked for the help you didn’t give?”

  “Why yes, I do. His name was Ho Chi Minh. He wrote to Truman to plead for help the next year—that would be ’46—and when that got him nowhere, he went to the Communist Pirates—that would be China—and they armed him and he went to war with France, rose up and took back half his country. Now he wants the rest. Or did, more accurately, since he died last year. But that does not change the fact that he antagonized the Big Pirate and his country will have to pay, and in this case be destroyed completely. It is that dirty, Kate.”

  Slowly, she nodded. “Very Darwinian.”

  “Exactly. Inside our own country, of course, we can afford to be civilized, entertain ideas of fairness, right and wrong. But everywhere outside, it is…”

  “Pirates and Whores,” she filled in.

  “You are a smart girl, Kate. And better, way better to be…?”

  “A Pirate, especi
ally Big Pirate.”

  “Excellent. And as of tomorrow we will start your training before I set up some introductions to a few other players on the Big Pirate’s side of the door.”

  Chapter 21

  Mouse really wasn’t sure how he felt about this. On the one hand it was really exciting to be invited to meet The Man, with a BIG opportunity to leapfrog in the ranks. Uncle Louie would be so proud. And he wouldn’t give two shits about his main man on the ground going AWOL, or even staging a more permanent kind of bye-bye that would be easy to fake; with so many guys getting blown to pieces, what was one more missing body? It would be so much easier not having to keep up the hup-two-three-four act so he could completely focus on business. It was just a matter of getting somebody dependable in place to handle the runs and deal making that went on in plain sight around the Camp McDermott base.

  Something told Mouse that between The Man and Uncle Louie, that could be arranged.

  Now. On the other hand…

  It was hard not to keep glancing at Vo’s stubby bandage. His face didn’t look so good either. His skin was really pale, like he’d lost a lot of blood, and he looked grim, like he was staring down the barrel of a 45 instead of sitting across a table in the old Quonset where they’d last met with music and some good old Willie Pete. Mouse felt like they were on pretty good terms, so he’d asked about the injury, to which the colonel had said there should be another medal coming for losing part of his left hand in combat. Mouse didn’t buy it, not for a second. Made him wonder if the RVN colonel should’ve followed some of his own advice: against strong positions, play safely.

  Missy had taught Mouse the Go game. Or tried to. Hell, he wasn’t that great at checkers, so what were these 360 fuckin’ stones about? One look at the empty board she set up and he told her to forget about it.