UNKNOWABLE (Murder on the Mekong, Book 2)

by Rivers, Hart;

  He frowned at her, hard, darted a glance at Phillip, and then shook his head. “No.”

  “That’s quite gracious of you to admit. And you two.” She pointed at the RVN air marshal and another general. “I presume you are going to gather together all the knowledge and the delicate interpersonal and political alliances and have a nice little bloodbath, slaughter everyone and then—well, clearly, the two of you will be responsible, and I do mean personally responsible, for the execution and running of this vast enterprise. Are you ready to do that? Please answer carefully, with our earlier ‘instructional demonstrations’ in mind, as I’m sure you will be held directly accountable for your success, or failure, by our hosts.”

  The two RVN generals glanced from Phillip to The Pale Man’s glittering eyes.

  Theirs fell away. “No,” one of them muttered, the other one echoing, “No, not ready yet.”

  Phillip had told her exactly what she could expect from the meeting, and as she looked from face to face to face, with no one dismissing her now, she blessed him for all that he had taught her. Smart Pirates recognized the difference between optimizing the use of their Whores and appealing to their reason, rather than destroying the very object they wanted to own.

  “In all of the discussions this morning, I heard one single statement that made sense.” Kate pointed at the map of the Golden Triangle, with a big circle around Laos, Burma and Thailand. “This is a brilliant organization. This operation, exactly as it is, is priceless. It’s a cash machine in every currency in the world, untraceable by any government. We simply need to convince the one who conceived it, built it, and operates it, that it is in his interest to move from a majority share to a generous minority share and still continue to operate it with our direction.” Immediately realizing there was a particular Whore in the room who didn’t yet know that’s what he was, Kate nodded at Paulu. “Of course, when I say ‘our direction’ we will be relying heavily on our most esteemed colleague to provide much of that direction on our behalf. Once the appropriate internal support systems are established, the balance of power can be discreetly shifted and renegotiations initiated to further enhance The Pale Man’s status until The Poppy King is whittled down to little more than a figurehead. Should he eventually balk at the arrangement, we will be safely ensconced within the internal hierarchy at that point and any concerns regarding the existing talent and operational efficiencies we presently need to protect will have already been addressed.”

  A round of collective murmuring commenced, until Robards spoke up.

  “Sounds impressive. It might even actually work—except for one thing. Just how are we to convince this Poppy King to give us his majority share to begin with?”

  “Now that is a question worth asking. And the answer is quite simple. We won’t have to.” Kate sent her best smile to Phillip. “His only family member will do it for us.”

  That play of black upon white, white upon black, has the intent and takes the form of creative art. It has in it a flow of the spirit and a harmony of music. Everything is lost when suddenly a false note is struck, or one party in a duet suddenly launches forth on an eccentric flight of his own. A masterpiece of a game can be ruined by insensitivity to the feelings of an adversary.

  The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata, 1951

  Seeing The Way

  Letters to a Boy in the Jungle

  I’ve often wondered how differently my life might have been had Maman not died. And I have wondered about that, too. Did she really kill herself and in such a terrible way? Was there a chance my father did more than just drive her to it? These are things someone that kills for a living might naturally wonder about belatedly, and increasingly I do wonder about that, amongst other things.

  I still have the letters I wrote to myself when I was a boy. Every now and then I will read them as a reminder of where I came from and why I am here, and it is especially then that I wonder what that boy could have grown up to become if…

  Probably everyone has that if…If only.

  My mother seemed happy enough to me, at least when we were together. She would laugh and dance and sing when we played, but then she would suddenly stop whenever my father appeared. I still recall the cold look he would give her, usually before he looked past me as if I did not exist. But not existing was better than his quiet rages or, worse, when I could hear him make Maman cry, somehow even make her be the one to say she was sorry. I have since come to wonder about that, too.

  I was between seven and eight when The Event happened. To be exact, I was seven years, two months and two days old. (Paying close attention to details I learned early on is very important.) We lived in a villa near the jungle on a French colonial rubber plantation. My mother and I always had breakfast together, unless she was vacationing again at “the French Riviera.” This was a delicate way of saying she needed to go away after a breakdown, which typically occurred after an intense shouting match, with my father doing most of the shouting and all of the belittling. I remember begging her to run away together, and I’m certain she wanted to but was too fragile and apprehensive to try. She must have realized Father would stop at nothing to track us down as a matter of pride and principle, and having the hammer of God come down on us would not be worth the risk. Fortunately, he did a lot of traveling, so there were periods when all was well and peaceful at home, and my fondest memories are of breakfast then with Maman.

  Sometimes we would speak French and sometimes English or Mandarin. If the weather permitted, we liked to breakfast on the veranda next to the garden. She loved flowers and created a beautiful garden where she often would read me poems. Because she loved poetry even more than flowers she tried to interest me in Emily Dickinson, Antonio Machado, Robinson Jeffers, but always I would ask her for more of my favorites from Mr. Kipling.

  After our meal, and as she drank her French coffee, she would pick up that day’s book and remind me that hearing was very important. The poems were not only words but songs that had deep meanings and could even guide one’s life. That day she was very particular about my listening carefully to the poem, and then she told me that if she had to go away again I was to take special care of the book and keep it in a safe place so I could read the same poem to my own little boy or girl one day. Then she placed the linen handkerchief she was holding into the book as a place mark.

  At first I was afraid she might be going away again to “the French Riviera” but she didn’t seem at all sad. She smiled and she kissed me and I remember exactly her last words to me, spoken in French. I love you, my darling. Be safe. Now go play!

  I’ve tried to remember if she hugged me longer than usual, if there was a catch in her voice, or anything not quite of the ordinary—again and again I’ve replayed that moment and, although I was a child, I was a sensitive child, far too sensitive according to my father, but…no. Nothing seemed remiss. I think I would have clung to her if it had, or if I really thought she was leaving.

  So, I did as she bade me and ducked through my secret place in the tall hedge, and then ran down to the river to watch for animals. I thought of most animals as my friends since I did not have any siblings. We lived in a remote place, and my father did not approve of my playing with the servants’ children (which I did anyway when he wasn’t looking). The rainy season was just beginning in our region of Vietnam and the rain came quick and hard that morning, so I did not play for long. Before I knew it I was soaked through and I ran home as fast as the wind, and completely forgot to take off my shoes before racing up to her room, where I burst through the door.

  She hung from the white ceiling beam, where a purple silk sash was tied around her neck. A chair was kicked over beneath her dangling bare feet. I stood there in the doorway, stupidly, stunned of course, staring at the glistening red polish on her toenails. Then, somehow, I was standing under her, trying so hard to help her down, trying to lift her legs. They were still warm and I can still feel them, and though she was surely dead, to this day that little
boy still believes if he had been able to lift her, he could have saved her, and for that, the guilt I have lived with ever since is as much a part of me as the flesh covering my bones.

  My screams brought the servants and I fought them taking me away, until I broke free and ran back. By then they had cut her down and she was lying broken in a little crumpled, white pile, her tongue unnaturally dark and protruding, her eyes fixed on some faraway place where I would never find her and from which she would never return, no matter how hard I prayed or what I bargained with God.

  This day I remember well, though the days after I do not.

  I can still hear her voice in every line of the poem she read to me before she kissed me and told me to go play. I am quite sure it says all the things she wanted to tell the boy in the jungle about the ways of the world—and the favour he might have found there, if only she had stayed.

  Chapter 28

  For once, JD had followed almost all the rules, including keeping Gregg and Izzy following their leader, despite Phillip advising him to send them back to Nha Trang. As much as he wished he could remove them from all this, the stakes were too high, and if there was a golden rule of Go that applied to him now it was this: When in danger, sacrifice.

  Kate being in danger had been his driving force from the start. There was no telling what could have been planted in her head, done to her physically, or any number of warped things she could have been exposed to, but he had to know there was at least one woman he loved who hadn’t ended up dead because he couldn’t save her.

  And so here he was, continuing to jump through The Pale Man’s hoops, right down to taking an arranged river patrol boat, a specially modified Alpha, with only a pilot and his two “followers.” As for the phone on board that looked like something from NASA, he was not to touch it and so he had not.

  Now he was about to find out if his obedience would net him the treasure he had been promised. There was an exchange involved, but Kate had to show up to make the exchange, so he was fairly certain that much would prove true.

  Phillip knew about the trade-off for Kate. Despite that disturbing, intuitive prickle at the base of his neck when they spoke, he needed Phillip to make sure she got back to the mission safely. His other resources, which remained protected, were not his go-tos for such a job. That included the contact that had tipped him off to the guy named Mouse at The Drunken Dragon. Such contacts were of the catch-as-catch-can variety, especially under these circumstances. But the last he heard, the “Mouse” guy, aka Mike Gallini, had been set up to ditch his transport responsibilities to do the bidding of The Pale Man.

  JD could relate.

  He slid a glance from behind his aviator shades at Izzy and Gregg playing a game of cards and tipping back a couple of Pepsis on deck. He had told them at least some of the truth: all the drug groups where he had followed the food chain had finally pointed them to where he was ninety-nine percent certain Kate would be found. She was to appear on the shore at exactly 1400 hours at a distinctive bend of the river, which was only about two klicks away.

  What he had not mentioned was that in exchange for her safety, he had agreed to take her place as a hostage, to be bartered for a healthy slice of the poppy fields overseen by his brother Zhang.

  At least, that was the deal he had been fed, which could take off in a completely different direction considering The Pale Man’s love of mind games. Depending on the outcome, he and Zhang would have to play their roles and say or do whatever was necessary to take care of themselves as best they could against a formidable foe who had already made strikingly astute moves. He could feel the tension building in his body. The risks involved had squeezed nearly dry the options for two brothers who were at a distinct disadvantage in trying to collaborate but had at least managed a fleeting communication.

  JD felt his ears twitch, alerting him to a distant, rumbling thunder. It was not weather. Not now, he thought, not now. If a bombing mission was rolling in this direction everything would be up for grabs.

  JD checked his watch. Tick-tock-tick.

  They were nearing the coordinates. The timing had to be precise. After all, this was The Pale Man’s game. Or so The Pale Man thought, and mostly it was. However, one should always have insurance, even if he was willing to sacrifice himself for those he believed, hoped, he could trust. But hoping and believing offered no guarantees when it came to life, or to love. He had learned so at an early age when he lost Maman, and that hard truth had been reinforced when the one other woman, besides Kate, he had truly loved had been savagely tortured then killed, all because of him. He would never forgive himself for being the reason she was murdered—“she” was the only way he could think of her because even saying her name was too painful—and should Kate die because of him too…

  He couldn’t let himself think it. He had to separate his emotions from his mind. He had to be at the top of his game and be prepared for any number of scenarios, even the possibility that Kate would not be the same Kate he last saw on the sampan with the equivalent of a pre-engagement ring: the white Go stone he had placed, with his heart, into the palm of her hand.

  Sweeping his gaze in the direction of the rumbling, JD could only hope the absence of sound was an omen that no bombs would be dropped, whether from the sky, or from what awaited him on land.

  Gregg laid down another card on the deck where he and Izzy sat, leaning against the port side of the Alpha boat. He was sulking and he knew why, and it wasn’t because Izzy had beat him at the last three hands of gin rummy. Nope. The cause for his discontent was standing about twenty feet away, Mr. Cool in his aviator shades, at least appearing to stare out at the banks of the Mekong where Kate was supposed to magically appear at exactly 1400 hours, which would be…

  He glanced at his watch. In about five minutes.

  “Do you think she’ll actually be there, the way JD said?” Izzy asked.

  “Knowing the way things typically work with JD, if he’s convinced she will be, somehow it will happen—just not as easy as he always makes things sound.”

  “And how are you feeling about that?”

  Gregg snorted; he could be as unreasonable as he wanted with Izzy and, like a family member, Izzy would still stick around. “Anyone ever tell you, you sound like a shrink?”

  “Sorry,” Izzy muttered. “Occupational hazard.” Still, that didn’t stop him from pressing. “So? What are you thinking right now, since it’s obviously not about this game?” He laid down his cards and won for the fourth time in a row.

  Gregg wondered if JD could feel the back of his head burning, if he could feel the force of his competitor’s resentment—and anxiety. Because if Kate didn’t show up after all, that would be a thousand times, no, a million times worse than what he expected to happen once she did: Kate would fall all over JD as if he was her knight in shining armor after being the very one responsible for whatever she had been subjected to in the first place. He and Izzy would then each get a peck on the cheek and be dispensed to go their own merry ways, while she and JD sailed off into the sunset, picking up exactly where they left off as if nothing horrible had happened. What a glorious metaphor for the good old US of A and the guys like him and Izzy who had been thrust into a war they didn’t ask for and nobody back home wanted—including all the messed up kids that would be sent back if they didn’t return first in body bags.

  He had never thought of himself as a cynical person, or even able to relate very well to those who were, but Gregg Kelly was not the hang-loose, easy-in-his-skin guy he had once been, and there were a lot of times lately he didn’t like who he was becoming.

  Now was one of those times. Instead of turning cartwheels, the way he should be, at the mere prospect of getting a glimpse of Kate, he was grinding his teeth and already feeling as discarded as the empty Pepsi bottle he threw over the side of the boat so it could sail away into the mighty Mekong and maybe land into some poor Vietnamese kid’s version of a toy chest.

  “I’m mad at myself,�
� he confessed to Izzy, probably the only person in the world he could confess anything to and not regret it later.

  “How about Kate? Maybe you’re a little mad at her, too?”

  It wasn’t the response Gregg expected. “Oh, like she got herself kidnapped? C’mon.”

  Izzy was quiet for a moment. A flock of brightly colored birds flew overhead. Gregg noticed JD leaning slightly more forward at the prow, his jet-black hair blowing in the breeze.

  “Sometimes, Gregg, I wonder if you even really see Kate for the person she is.”

  “What the hell? Of course I see her for who she is. I’ve known her most of my life!” Even to his own ears his protest sounded hollow.

  “However you see her,” Izzy continued more quietly, “I’m afraid your vision is distorted by the past, and the Kate I know and JD knows, and pretty much everyone else but you knows, is a very different version of the girl you want to think she still is. I realize the truth can hurt, Gregg, but there are some truths about Kate I think you need to acknowledge so you can move past this grudge you have with JD and a childhood crush that should have been over a long time ago. Kate got on that boat with JD of her own volition and she chose having an affair with him over going back home with you. You’ve always wanted to save Kate from herself, and while that may be admirable, the problem is she doesn’t want you to save her. She likes living on the edge, taking risks most of us would not, at least not given a choice, and the simple fact of the matter is, she is well suited to JD in that way. Possibly, actually almost certainly, they are well suited to each other in many other ways that you and Kate are not.”

  Gregg tried to glower at Izzy, but it was hard to summon more than a defeated frown, especially when Izzy was only saying what he already knew deep down but had worked very hard to ignore. Nobody liked to work that hard at believing in something only to finally admit to themselves they had spent way too much time and energy invested in a self-lie.