Slash and Burn

by Colin Cotterill

  There was something about the sophistication of the crime that suggested this wasn’t some local killer with a grudge against Americans. Sinister groundwork had been laid and they agreed that motives beyond the political should be investigated. In order to do so, they needed to fill in some of the gaps that existed in their information about the mission. There were still questions as to what possessed the missing pilot to go to pieces on the night he disappeared, and then the matter of Potter’s comment to Civilai that this MIA venture wasn’t as clear-cut as it seemed. Secretary Gordon took one of the ponies back into Phonsavan. He had a close friend at the embassy who could copy the documentation they had concerning the mission. He promised they’d find a way of getting the information up-country if it was humanly possible.

  The depleted MIA teams had already left for the crash site. General Suvan slept in his room and was hopefully not dead. Senator Vogal was going through papers on the veranda with Ethel Chin. The hotel staff members were attending to their duties. Dtui decided it would be a useful ploy for her to stroll into the kitchen and engage them in idle girl talk. There was a lot to be learned from gossip. Her departure and the mysterious absence of Auntie Bpoo left Siri and Yamaguchi with no means of communication other than the experience that comes from a joint hundred years of medicine. Bpoo never seemed to be around when there was physical labour to be done. Geung helped them carry the body to the rear of the complex where they laid it in a huge cluster-bomb casing lined with straw and natural tobacco leaves. The other half of the casing completed the sarcophagus. They cleaned up their impromptu morgue and shook hands.

  Siri, Ugly and Mr. Geung took advantage of Auntie Bpoo’s disappearance and walked unchaperoned to Phonsavan. The sooty air had become even more solid. The exercise didn’t help Siri’s breathing but there was no available transportation. Geung wasn’t suited to the cold. His nose and eyes had been running from the moment he’d arrived. They were a sorry-looking pair. They passed the airfield, currently the second largest in Laos. Until two days before it had been home to a large fleet of Russian Antonovs and Migs. The logic of this placement was brought into question for three months every year when the fires began and the site was cleared.

  The new town of Phonsavan was a ramshackle place of hurriedly erected wooden shops and slow-moving building sites where more permanent structures were being assembled, it seemed, one brick a day. Once the decision was made to abandon the old ruined town of Xiang Khouang and move the capital to the village of Phonsavan, a wait-and-see attitude had pervaded. Would people come to live here or would they, through nostalgia, return to what had once been a beautiful town? The reconstruction had begun in 1973 and was progressing apparently without planning. It was as if anyone turning up with a wheelbarrow of wood and roof tiles could erect himself a hut anywhere he fancied. There was variety but not colour. Like Vientiane, the dust had turned everything into a sepia photograph. It coated the walls and the strays who slept on the unpaved streets and powdered what humble plants grew in the gardens. Even the ramshackle market lacked the gay colours of blood and fruit and vegetables that should have been the art and craft of a village center. A modest collection of rare animals hung by their necks like criminals.

  Siri and Geung were on the main street just approaching the little post office when it exploded. To be more accurate, there was a loud bang and the communication tower toppled onto the building, bringing down half the roof. Second Secretary Gordon had just walked into the car park and had been about to climb back onto the pony when it shied away and galloped off into the street. Gordon looked around in astonishment and immediately ran back through the door. Siri and Geung rushed in past the front gate, climbed the steps and hurried in after him. The side of the roof that had collapsed was opposite the counter where just the one postal worker stood looking dazed but unhurt.

  “Anybody else in here?” Siri asked.

  “Just me,” said the official.

  Gordon stood staring at the telephone booth from which he’d just emerged. Another thirty seconds and he would now be as crumpled as the tall stool upon which he’d sat to make his calls. He looked up at Siri.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Some words just didn’t need translating.

  Siri and Geung were walking back to the Friendship after helping with the cleanup at the post office. It was a miracle that nobody had been killed. There was usually a long queue for the single telephone line but the MIA team had been monopolizing the place so the locals kept away. Second Secretary Gordon had been counting his blessings as he rode the pony back.

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to talk to your friend,” said Siri to Mr. Geung.

  “Lucky I don’t wwwwalk so fast,” Geung smiled.

  “Your legs saved our lives, Mr. Geung.”

  Geung found that incredibly funny and laughed all the way to the intersection. Their shoes were gray-red from the dust and Siri wheezed as he spoke. The smoky horizon seemed to be closing in on them from all sides. Siri weighed up this latest attack in relation to everything else that had happened. He’d been using Geung as his sounding board.

  “Do you suppose it’s all tied together?” Siri asked.

  “I—”

  “I mean the explosion yesterday and the one today?”

  “I—”

  “And Potter’s murder. Do you suppose it’s a deliberate attack on the Americans? If it isn’t coordinated it’s one hell of a coincidence.”

  “I saw—”

  “And what would the point of it be? To cause friction between us? To protest against the MIA mission? Did you want to say something?”

  “I saw it.”

  “Saw what, friend?”

  “S … s … somebody climb in the window.”

  He still had the giggles.

  “The major’s window?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  Siri stopped and turned to Geung.

  “Llllast night,” Geung chuckled.

  “Who? Who did you see?”

  “Stop it. You’re making me laugh.”

  “Geung. Tell me who you saw.”

  “You.”

  15

  A CRASH COURSE IN CRASHES

  The trek to the new helicopter crash site had been uneventful for the MIA teams. Nothing exploded. No adders dropped. No time was wasted. They’d passed briefly through the Ban Hoong village then headed directly for the dead man’s field. Of the villagers, only headman Ar’s son Bok bothered to go with them. He followed from a safe distance with four or five jars and bottles in his arms. Two tethered beetles flew from his cap like the antenna of a nervous ant.

  The teams reached the edge of a clearing that stretched before them like a lake of dark rust. It was true that very little had grown there. Plants had tried but they now poked brown and lifeless from the ground. Trees once tall and proud were now cigar butts. If the spirits of the land had really chosen this as their garden, they were truly awful gardeners. The teams crunched to the far edge of the clearing where they found the pond. It wasn’t the type of natural spring you’d dip into on a hot day. It looked polluted. There was something eerie about the whole place.

  “This isn’t just a crash site,” Peach told them. She’d been talking to Sergeant Johnson. “He’s seen numerous crash sites. A lot of forest gets burned but the jungle’s a hungry place. Three months later and it’s reclaimed the burned land and hidden the evidence of the crash. By then you’d only find wreckage by accident. It’s been ten years since Boyd went down and still nothing’s been able to grow. He thinks there was something on that helicopter with the power to destroy nature completely. Not even Agent Orange would have this effect.”

  The sergeant walked to the edge of the pond and spoke as if to the spirits.

  “In all my years of active duty, I’ve never seen anything like it. There’s only one thing for certain. If the chopper really did come down here, whoever was flying it is in pieces so small we’ll need someone wi
th a microscope.”

  Everyone shared these feelings and nobody had a theory as to why the crater was at the edge rather than the center of the site. But there was still a strong urge to begin the search. There was a belief that they’d be able to find something to identify the helicopter. They laid out a plastic groundsheet beside the pond and by ten it was piled with shrapnel, shreds of PVC, petrol caps and wire from the surrounding jungle. There were no identifying marks but they were sure there was a workshop somewhere that would be able to recognize the materials and pinpoint the type of machine they’d come from. Technology had advanced to the stage that a single bolt might yield the make of a helicopter. They hoped. All they were missing was a pilot.

  One unavoidable reality was that someone would have to get wet. The crater was the hub of the explosion and it was likely that debris had been blasted into the ground there. The pond was repulsive but, even so, Sergeant Johnson was the first to volunteer to go in. Commander Lit’s hand then shot up almost immediately. He wasn’t about to be out-volunteered by an American. And Inspector Phosy became the third member of the pond detail if only because he was bored with picking up screws. He was in a hurry to find something substantial so they could all go home. Something was niggling him about the major’s death and he wanted to take another look around at the hotel. A quick resolution to the pilot hunt would make that possible. A skull would be nice, preferably wearing a helmet with H32 written on it.

  At its deepest, the pond went down four meters and was thirty across. Diving to its depths was like swimming through hair oil. The three brave divers, stripped down to their underwear, would take a breath, grovel through the mud below until their lungs hurt, then return to the surface with their spoils. Lit was by far the most competent. He could remain underwater so long, one of his dives equalled two of Phosy’s. At one point the two were resting on the bank together wrapped in blankets against the cold.

  “You swim very well,” Phosy told him.

  “Grew up on a river. I was the one they always sent out to catch lunch.”

  “You’re from Huaphan?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m surprised we didn’t run into each other up there.”

  “I spent most of my army life in Vietnam. I just returned to Xam Neua a year ago.”

  “Why do you suppose Dr. Siri included your name on his list?”

  “Hard to say. We’d worked together on a case up in Vieng Xai. I suppose something about me impressed him.”

  “I dare say.”

  They sat for a while and admired the fog bank rolling over the far ridge.

  “My wife was in Vieng Xai with Dr. Siri,” Phosy said.

  “I know. That’s where I met her.”

  “Right. You know, I was just wondering…. She mentioned a security officer she’d met up there. Someone who’d made advances toward her.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes. You wouldn’t happen to know him?”

  “Well, that depends.”

  “It does? On what?”

  “On your definition of “making advances.” If that includes a proposal of marriage, then the security officer in question would be me.”

  “A proposal. Yes.”

  “Then it was definitely me.”

  “Good. Just wondered.”

  “Right.”

  Sergeant Johnson noticed a new enthusiasm in the diving after that point. Inspector Phosy seemed to have found a new lease on life and a new pair of lungs. He was spending far more time underwater and returning with much heavier chunks of wreckage. The sergeant was a good swimmer but he couldn’t match these two Lao. But at one point, neither returned to the surface. The water was far too murky to see the bottom of the pond so Johnson trod water and waited … and waited. He looked up at Rhyme who’d been taking photos of the dive. He too was concerned about the missing men. Not even river dolphins could stay under that length of time. Johnson duck-dived down to the mud. At first he found nobody but after a long frenzied search he bumped onto first one, then the other diver. They were hunched over and pulling at something large buried in the mud. He joined them. His hands found the edge of some sort of machinery, but not even his added strength was able to budge it. The three men burst to the surface gasping for air.

  After a prolonged discussion over who had first laid hands on the object, the divers agreed that they should attach a rope to it and get everyone to join forces to pull it to the surface. Rhyme from Time loved it—the ultimate iconic peace photo. An Iwo Jima flag-raising for the seventies. Lao and Americans pulling together. Men and women, soldiers and laymen, young and old. Judge Haeng, inspired by the camera, was at the front of the rope with his shirt off. Rhyme snapped about sixty frames. This was his bread and butter. Sweat, mud and camaraderie in the jungles of Indochina. He already had his tie picked out for the Pulitzer dinner.

  Centimeter by centimeter they heaved and their catch edged its way up the slimy embankment. At last it surfaced, a lump of machinery with no obvious markings. It soon became clear why it had been so hard to dislodge. It was held back by some sort of anchor. A steel cable was attached to the machine and seemed to pull from the other direction. The team won the first round. They had their catch on the ground in front of them but the cable still stretched back into the water. They abandoned the rope and pulled directly on the steel line which seemed to have no end. It curled around their feet as the pulling grew easier, and they issued a disappointed groan when all they found at the cable’s end was the cable’s end.

  “I was rather hoping for a fish,” said Civilai.

  Sergeant Johnson knelt beside the machine and explained what they’d found. He was obviously the helicopter expert in the American team.

  “It’s a winch,” he told them. “It’s certainly from a helicopter. It’s normally attached just above the side hatch. It’s controlled by the flight mechanic. Originally, its main purpose was for sea rescues. They’d lower the cable with a harness on the end and pick up shipwreck survivors. But they found it worked pretty good on rescue missions in the jungle too. Picking up downed pilots in spots where there was too much vegetation to land.”

  The depression of the early morning had been eased just a fraction. They had a significant souvenir, confirmation that a helicopter had come down here and, as a bonus, a registration stamp inside the equipment that could be tied to a specific craft. They decided that they needed no more wreckage and would spend the remainder of the day looking for human remains.

  While the others were unwrapping their packed lunches, Phosy noticed Madame Daeng kneeling beside the winch. He put on his shirt as he walked over to her.

  “See something?” he asked.

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Come on, get it off your chest.”

  “I was just wondering how easily these things come unraveled.” She noticed his smile. “You were wondering the same thing, weren’t you?”

  “And you weren’t alone,” came Peach’s voice from behind them.

  The interpreter was standing with John Johnson.

  “The sergeant was just telling me his thoughts on that same subject,” she said.

  “If the whole thing was blown to smithereens,” Johnson said, “the cable might have been dislodged from the winch. But apart from a bit of charring, the unit looks in pretty good shape. The winch is hardly touched.”

  “So does that mean what I think it means?” Daeng asked.

  “The cable was down when the chopper exploded,” said Johnson.

  “And how common is it for a helicopter to fly with its cable down?” Phosy asked.

  “It doesn’t happen,” Peach translated. “It’s against regulations and just plain dangerous.”

  They all exchanged knowing looks.

  “Peach, do you think the sergeant might be persuaded to give us all a crash course in … well, crashes?” Daeng asked.

  “I think he’d be delighted.”

  They invited Civilai to join them and
sat together eating their space lunches. Judge Haeng and his cousin slept under a tree. Sergeant Johnson was a very knowledgeable man. They’d covered the most obvious reason for a helicopter crashing in war time—being shot down. But because very few missions were flown at night, anti-aircraft batteries weren’t manned after dark. On the night Boyd crashed there was reportedly a full moon. It was possible an infantryman with insomnia might have shot him down with a lucky bullet but very unlikely.

  If the pilot was drunk and stoned as reported, he could easily have passed out and lost control of his ship. Most of the professional advice garnered for the report pointed to this as the most likely cause. The only problem here was that the team was certain they’d found the crash site yet they hadn’t turned up so much as a toenail in evidence. It was obvious that the craft had exploded above the ground, probably at the tree line. This fact was dubiously corroborated by the sorceress eyewitness who claimed to have seen the explosion. There was one hell of a bang sending helicopter parts far and wide, but something other than a mere engine fire had destroyed the surrounding jungle. This brought them to the cable.

  “Could he have been so out of his mind he let down the cable just for the hell of it?” Madame Daeng asked.

  Johnson explained that the controls for the cable were in the cabin beside the hatch. The pilot would have to leave the cockpit and climb down to the body of the helicopter to operate the winch from there.

  “Helicopters aren’t exactly gliders,” he said. “They’re very temperamental. You can’t just take your hands off the controls and float. You abandon the joy stick and the craft will likely toss you all over the place. You wouldn’t make it to the hatch.”

  The Lao considered this news.

  “OK, my turn,” said Civilai. He hadn’t spoken for a while and he would probably have asked a question just for the pleasure of hearing his own voice. But he had a serious query. “Let us imagine for a second that our young pilot had neither been shot nor overcome by drugs. Let’s imagine he was merely on a joy ride, enjoying the moonlight and the beautiful mountains of Xiang Khouang province. What un-extraordinary disasters might befall him?”