Alpha Kat

by William H. Lovejoy

  In the past three days, he had lost seven very expensive fighter aircraft, in addition to transports and helicopters. Lon Pot might well bill him for the losses. He would not put it above the Prince to do such a thing.

  Additionally, he felt betrayals closing in from all sides. Kun Mauk was definitely a concern. He sometimes wondered about Jake Switzer. Over time, he had learned that Americans could never be fully trusted.

  It was a problem that he had with his entire pilot cadre. While a number of his pilots were of Southeast Asian heritage, the very experienced men came from America, France, Germany, China, and Russia. There were none that he could rely on totally.

  This Crider, for instance. While the aircraft purchase had been sweet for all of them, he was not certain that Crider would carry out the final part of the deal: emplacing the doctored transponders in the Alpha Kat aircraft.

  The outcome was in doubt. And yet most outcomes were in doubt, and he had survived. All he could do, he decided, was to move ahead with what he had.

  He had six relatively new Mirages. He saw them on the ground at Fragrant Flower as he topped the ridge. He eased off the collective and allowed the helicopter to settle to a soft landing just off the runway.

  The dust swirled around him, and he waited until the rotors had almost stopped turning and the dust had settled before stepping out.

  Jake Switzer approached him.

  “The airplanes?” he asked.

  “They’re fine, Henry. As advertised.”

  “Have you talked to Kao?”

  “He’s fine, too, but not very damned happy. He said he was lucky to have gotten away last night. He was nearly clipped by a missile. No one, and I mean no one, ever saw one of the attacking planes.”

  Loh told him what he had learned from Crider about the stealth aircraft.

  “No shit! How in the hell are we going to fight that, Henry?”

  Without mentioning Crider’s name, Loh told him about Crider’s plans for the transponders.

  “Well. That might be all right. Yeah, I can deal with that.”

  “What is the state of repair at Shan Base?”

  Switzer looked at his watch. “In another hour or so, we should be able to take the planes in there and get missiles loaded. Jean promised me a runway by then anyway.”

  “And Chung is at Muang?”

  “Right. He’s sending tankers with JP-4 for us.”

  “Very well, Jake. You call Burov and have him meet you with all of his aircraft at Shan Base. Then, tell Chung to move his squadron here, to Fragrant Flower. He is to get two of the new aircraft.”

  “We’re abandoning Muang?”

  “For the time being. I suspect that this American Kimball knows the location of Muang, just as he did Shan and Chiang. We will give him an empty present, and we will stage from here and from Shan to wrap it for him.”

  Switzer grinned. “Good by me.”

  “Now, I must go talk to the Prince.”

  “Good luck. I went up there for a drink, and he wasn’t in the best of moods, Henry.”

  Loh nodded, then climbed in a pickup truck, turned it around and drove up the twin ruts to the compound. A guard at the main gate peeked out at him, then opened the doors so he could drive inside. He parked the truck in a garage, then walked the gravelled path through Lon Pot’s forest to the front door of the main house.

  Dao Van Luong opened the door for him. His face said he had had a long afternoon.

  Without speaking, Dao led him to the living room.

  It was maybe ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit outside, but Pot had the air-conditioning at full race and a fire going in the fireplace. He was seated in front of it, reading from one of his leather-bound books.

  “Good afternoon, Prince. You saw the new airplanes?”

  “The Finance Chief went down to look at them. He assures me that we received excellent value.”

  “I think that is so,” Loh agreed.

  Lon Pot dog-eared a page and closed the book. “Henry, this is not going well. I am dissatisfied.”

  “It is going to get much better, Prince.” Loh detailed his plans once again.

  “And then we will be rid of this … this Kimball?”

  “That is true.”

  “And what of Mauk?”

  “To be truthful, Prince, I am still uncertain of him. However, when he was unable to commandeer the American airplanes, it was a tremendous setback for him. I think that now he has no choice but to proceed with his promise to us.”

  “And then he will die,” Lon Pot said.

  “Yes. We will make it so.”

  Pot smiled.

  And Henry Loh smiled back. He was much happier when Lon Pot was happy.

  *

  Ben Wilcox made six calls to the United States. He talked to people at Commerce and the FAA who owed him favors. Then he called the Assistant Secretary of State for Asia.

  “Ben? How’s the spook business?”

  “Very slow, Adrian.”

  “You watching what’s happening in Burma?”

  “We’re watching that very closely, of course. The results are still up in the air, but as a matter of fact, that’s why I’m calling.”

  “About Burma?”

  “Actually, about a problem in Thailand. I think you could help me defuse a situation there with one phone call.”

  “I’d be glad to try, Ben.”

  *

  Kimball didn’t breathe well until the second Starlifter got in from Rangoon. When it did, and was parked with the rest of the Kimball Aero craft, he relaxed a bit.

  Except for two guards, the whole KAT personnel complement moved into nearby Airport Hotel, which was a practical hotel and not very exotic. Andrea Deacon had chosen it for its moderate room rates, which, for the thirty of them, was still running $1500 a night.

  They had an extra day in Bangkok now, and Kimball gave everyone who wasn’t scheduled for a stint on guard duty permission to explore the city. He figured most of them would ignore the truly grand sights of the temples, the National Museum, the National Art Gallery, and the Temple of the Reclining Buddha and head right for Patpong Road.

  He and Sam Eddy McEntire moved their duffle bags into their room.

  “Your turn to call Susan,” McEntire said.

  “I called last time.”

  “Yeah, but only after I offered.”

  Shaking his head, Kimball reached for the phone. It tingled in his hand, and he picked it up.

  “Kimball.”

  “Kim, this is Ito.”

  “Problem?”

  “There seems to be. I think you should come over here right away.”

  “What is it?”

  “They don’t want me to talk on the telephone. Come now, please.”

  He related the conversation to Sam Eddy as they took the carpeted stairs two-at-a-time from their room on the second floor.

  There was a taxi waiting at the entrance, and Kimball went quickly through the required negotiations before getting into the back.

  When they arrived at their ramp space next to the domestic terminal, they found a half-dozen military vehicles parked among the aircraft.

  Uniformed Thais were moving among the planes, placing yellow seals on the access doors and the hatches. It wasn’t quite a repeat of the events in Rangoon, but it was more unnerving.

  Kimball hopped out of the cab and ran across the tarmac toward a short man in an officer’s uniform.

  “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  The officer turned to him and smiled. “You are Mr. Kimball?”

  “That’s right. What in hell are you doing?”

  “Your aircraft have been grounded, Mr. Kimball.”

  “What the hell? What for?”

  “The Thai government is impounding the airplanes at the request of the United States Department of State. Beyond that, sir, I know nothing.”

  Twenty

  The United States Embassy was located at 95 Wireless Road. There was a ne
w expressway running north and south, parallel to and east of Wireless Road, but that didn’t help Kimball any. His cab driver took nearly two hours to navigate the Rama 6 Road south into the city and to wind his way through traffic-congested streets entertaining Kimball and McEntire by pointing out the entertaining and historical sights along the way, detailing their relative importance in nearly unintelligible Pidgin English.

  Without warning, he snapped quick detours to point out Jim Thompson’s House, the home of the American architect who came out of the OSS after World War II and revitalized the Thai silk industry; the National Stadium; and the Wat Traimitr, the Temple of the Golden Buddha where a chapel contained a nine-hundred-year-old solid gold Buddha weighing five-and-a-half tons.

  Kimball yelled at the driver a number of times, attempting to get him back on track, but he was quite obviously unable to hear with his mouth open.

  McEntire slumped back in his corner of the seat and seemed to accept his fate.

  Buses, trucks, motor scooters, and tuk-tuks, threewheeled minibuses which sounded like their names, surrounded them. Kimball thought of Kevin Costner, caught in the middle of a thundering herd of buffalo.

  These buffalo didn’t move, however.

  They were almost to the Embassy, inching along in near gridlock, gagging on exhaust fumes, when McEntire said, “Wilcox.”

  “Wilcox?”

  “Right, Wilcox.”

  Kimball sagged back in the seat and thought about it, but not for long.

  “You’re probably right. Why?”

  “I think if Bennie had his own way, we wouldn’t have a problem,” McEntire said. “I’m betting the higher-ups got nervous about our antics. Whatever. Wilcox is the one with enough clout to get us grounded.”

  The horn of an old Anglia in the next lane began to bleat. A distinguished-looking, gray-haired old Englishman in a tweed cap was behind the wheel, and he kept bleating the horn even though it had absolutely no effect on the traffic ahead, beside, or behind him.

  Kimball reached through his window and banged his fist on the Anglia’s fender.

  The Brit looked at him.

  Kimball shook his hand at the man.

  He smiled and quit bleating.

  “Jesus, you’re tough,” Sam Eddy said.

  “This whole damned thing is giving me a headache. Why would they want the operation shut down now? We’ve got Lon Pot on the run. He keeps backing off on his deadlines.”

  “I can think of a couple reasons. If you cool down some, Kim, you’ll think of them, too.”

  “Okay. One, and this is a real contradiction, the stealth planes are too obvious.”

  “Right on. Anyone who’s watching close, and we can be sure a number of very concerned intelligence agencies are, sees Lon Pot getting hit a couple times, but the hostile force is invisible. The KAT people just happen to be demonstrating invisible aircraft in the area. Hell, Kim, even I can put one and one together.”

  “We’re obviously American, and we’re obviously bought. Washington doesn’t care to have the connection made,” Kimball said.

  “It might have been different if Pot wasn’t making a play for his own country, with everybody watching him. We zip through, Pot loses a bunch of planes and product, and no one gives a damn. But with Pot on the political move, too many paid-up members of the UN are keeping an eye on him. They wouldn’t cotton to a unilateral move by the U.S. in this new world order.”

  “The timing’s wrong.”

  “Just like poor drama or bad comedy.”

  “Or wishful antiterrorism,” Kimball said.

  The taxi driver stomped the pedal, and they shot into a hole in the next lane, dashing ahead of the Anglia.

  “I read it that way. If we were after the druggie …”

  “Which we thought we were,” Kimball said.

  “Not to be playing Monday morning quarterback,” McEntire said, “but I didn’t quite buy Wilcox’s drug theory back in Colorado. No, wait. I bought the money end. We needed money, and that’s all my vote depended on. You were thinking about Randy, weren’t you?”

  Kimball sighed, the image of his brother, the impish grin stretching his mouth, rose in his mind. “I was thinking about Randy,” he admitted.

  “It’s okay with me,” Sam Eddy said. “I thought about him, too, but I figured Wilcox was using him for the hook.”

  “I knew he was doing it,” Kimball said, “and I didn’t give a damn.”

  “But we both got snookered. Pot turns out to be a bigger prize than we planned on. He’s got an international presence now, so we get shut down before we embarrass the people on the mall.”

  The driver swung hard into a gap on Rama 4 Road and accelerated.

  “All right,” Kimball said. “That’s where we’re at, shut down.”

  “Plus,” added McEntire, “we didn’t play Wilcox’s game. The ball didn’t go where it was supposed to go, and the ‘tilt’ sign came on.”

  Kimball grinned. “Neither of us have ever been good with orders.”

  “We going to play his game, now? Or maybe it’s not his any more. We going to play the CIA’s game?”

  “If we shut up, Sam Eddy, and ask please, and promise to not stray from the righteous path, we can have those planes free in a couple hours.”

  “The problem with you, Kim, is you never make a promise you don’t intend to keep.”

  “Same with you.”

  “I’ve slipped from time to time,” McEntire said. “A couple times too many. Anyway, are you going to promise Wilcox that we’ll forego another joyride over Burma?”

  “If I do, we finish the tour and maybe sell some airplanes. That’s got to be the first priority, Sam Eddy. People depend on us.”

  “We’ve still got this other little problem,” Sam Eddy said. “The one where our airplanes blow up on someone else’s schedule. Wilcox hasn’t been very helpful with that one.”

  “He hasn’t been very forthcoming, has he?” Kimball agreed. “I suppose it’s a case of ‘he has his problems, and we have ours.’”

  Both of them were shoved to the right as the cab made a hard left turn onto Wireless Road.

  “I’ll tell you what, Kim. You make a promise to Wilcox for everyone except me. I’ll take one loaded Alpha Kat and make one run.”

  Kimball just looked at him.

  “I mean it. For you and me and Randy and your folks.”

  “Shit!” Kimball said. He wouldn’t let Sam Eddy assume his own, for lack of a better word, vengeance.

  “Then don’t make any goddamned promises at all. Not for you, not for me, and not for any one of the people back at Don Muang. We all came for the same reasons, Kim. And there’s more than one priority.”

  Kimball stared hard at Sam Eddy. He could sometimes be extremely moody, but he rarely expressed his moods. This one was heated.

  The cab bounced and squeaked to a stop in front of the Embassy. Kimball got out in relief, dug into his pocket, and came up with two red 100 baht notes, the amount he had negotiated before the ride began. He shoved them into the tour guide’s hand.

  The two of them marched past a couple Thai policemen, entered the Embassy, and showed their passports to the Marine on duty. He aimed them toward an information desk.

  The pretty blonde at the desk asked, “How may we help you, gentlemen?”

  “By hauling the ambassador out here right now,” Kimball said.

  Sam Eddy grabbed his arm. “Or better, Miss, by finding the political officer, or whatever the cover is for the CIA man. We’d certainly like to speak with him. And we need to talk to the Deputy Director for Intelligence. He’s at the American Embassy in New Delhi right now.”

  “What?” Alarm in her eyes.

  “Ben Wilcox is his name,” McEntire said and smiled. His smiles always achieved female cooperation. “Please.”

  “Excuse me for just one minute,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

  They didn’t get the ambassador, of course. He was at some very imp
ortant function.

  They got a roly-poly, smiley little man who insisted he was the commerce attaché, and maybe he was. He listened sympathetically to the problem, didn’t suggest any solutions that might get him in trouble, and got them on a supposedly secure phone with Wilcox.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kimball demanded.

  The DDI’s voice was irritatingly controlled and only raised the level of Kimball’s anger. “It seems that the FAA is double-checking your airworthiness certificates, after that accident in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Kimball. I’m sure it’ll all be straightened out soon.”

  “Wilcox, goddamn it! I want those planes cleared for flight, and I want it taken care of now.”

  “These things take time, Mr. Kimball. Certainly, you understand that.”

  “I understand that I’ve got a damned good story for the Washington Post.”

  McEntire, on the other side of the table, shook his head. Kimball knew the threat was empty. They didn’t have a shred of paper that pointed toward the CIA.

  Wilcox knew it, too. “I’d bet, Mr. Kimball, that your aircraft will be released in a week or ten days. Why don’t you just enjoy the city? You’ve earned a vacation.”

  Kimball slammed the phone down, but that didn’t help either.

  Derek Crider, Alan Adage, and Del Gart left their rental car in the parking lot of the domestic terminal and carried their canvas carry-alls across the lot. They skirted the building to the south, walking along the chainlink fence toward an employee entrance.

  “First time I ever did a job armed only with a power screwdriver,” Adage said.

  “The way things are going,” Gart said, “my battery will be dead when I need it most.”

  Crider didn’t say anything. They passed the corner of a building and the Kimball Aero airplanes came into view.

  Crider slid to a stop. “Goddamn.”

  The aircraft were there, as expected.

  But they were surrounded by a single stripe of yellow tape, draped in sagging intervals from one portable stanchion to another. Small yellow tags dotted the fighters and the command aircraft.

  “What the hell?” Gart said.

  One Thai in a police uniform sauntered among the aircraft, obviously bored.

  The two C-141 transports were not within the cordoned-off zone. They were parked side-by-side sixty feet from the Alpha Kats and appeared to be all buttoned up. Crider couldn’t see any Americans hanging around.