Assignment - Bangkok

by Edward S. Aarons

  “When will they leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Then we’re on time to stop them,” Durell said.

  “Against three hundred men? Not very possible.”

  Benjie came out of the bungalow, dressed in her denims, boots, and man’s shirt. Her hair was brushed out and tied back with another bit of ribbon. She walked lightly, smiling.

  Kem said, “So the lady boss is a woman, after all.”

  “Yes. I told her you were perceptive.”

  “I remember my school days in the States. They were good times. But I do not regret devoting my life to Buddha.”

  “First, pay your debt to us,” Durell said. “Are you sure Mike wasn’t in contact with the Muc Tong?”

  “I was told he was alone.” Ken turned his shaven head and studied the ruins of the village. “The people of Xo Dong fled into the hills. Some of them helped Mike. Others are working practically as slaves for the Muc Tong. Those who helped Mike did so out of loyalty, from when they worked on the tea plantation. They may be with him on the mountain.”

  Benjie joined them, and Durell told her about Mike and the smuggling caravan, and turned back to the monk. “Are the Muc Tong well armed?”

  “They get paid in arms, they use the black market in weapons in Bangkok, Saigon, Vientiane—everywhere— and pay the insurgents with part of their weapons, too. Only the caravan masters and the bosses get paid in gold. The others are merely mercenaries.”

  “And the Thai Third Army?”

  “They never come here. They are suppose to check the border, but they never do so in this area. However, some of the villagers have seen General Uva Savag. They hate him. He has been cruel to the mountain people, and because of this, they almost prefer the Muc Tong and the Communist rebels.”

  “How do we get to Mike?” Benjie interrupted.

  Kem stood up. “We must walk.”

  The trail led downriver for a mile, then crossed the stream on a sandy ford. The valley bottom was now hot and breathless, although a few puffy clouds had appeared to the south. Durell held them back until he had scanned as much of both banks of the muddy river as he could see. The foliage was dense, green, impenetrable. Nothing moved on the ground. Birds flashed in the trees, and once he thought he saw a monkey. There was no sound except the splashing of the river.

  “Let’s go,” Benjie said impatiently.

  “Wait.”

  “But Mike needs help.”

  “Keep your voice down. When you cross the ford, move fast. Don’t look back. Get on the other side and sit down. You and Kem go first. I’ll cover you. I think we’re being watched.”

  Benjie looked at the silent forests around them, squinted at the sun, wiped sweat from her forehead, then waded into the water. Kem tucked his robe up between his legs and followed. Durell stood in the shadows of the bamboo trees, his gun in hand.

  He was finished with Kem. He did not need the monk any more. The best course would be to send him back to Bangkok, to go under cover again, before something exposed him as a sleeper agent. He might be useful again, in the future. K Section would be pleased, if he did this. But he did not think Kem would quit now. Kem was enjoying himself.

  Benjie and the monk reached the other side. He looked at them, half hidden under the foliage, and then waded out into the river himself. The sky, the forests, the mountains watched him. He moved quickly, but the bottom was soft underfoot, and he carried the weight of the dynamite on his back.

  The rifle shot made a thin crack, like the breaking of a tree branch.

  Water spurted and wet his right knee and thigh. A little higher, Durell thought, and the slug would have gone through the explosives on his back.

  He heard Benjie call out and surged forward, halfway across the river. He slid sidewise, favoring his left knee, which gave him twinges even now as he fought the river current. The rifle popped again. The bullet made a hot wind past his cheek. A marksman. Not too far away. Upriver, toward the gorge, which was not visible here because of a bend in the stream. Benjie called out again. Durell felt the bottom give way under his feet, his left knee twinged again, and he went down up to his hips in the water. The third bullet whined over his head.

  He reached the opposite bank. Kem reached out a strong hand and pulled him up. The monk’s green eyes were grave.

  “Who was it? Did you see?”

  “Stay here.”

  “He has a rifle. Your gun is too small, too—”

  “Stay here. Watch Benjie.”

  He left them, moving fast upstream toward the area where he thought he had spotted the glint off the rifle. He couldn’t see it from here now, but he had the place marked in his mind. He tried to think what the man would do. Retreat, maybe. Or stalk him, confident of his superior weapon. Durell slipped the dynamite pack from his shoulders and paused in leafy shadows above the river bank. He heard the soft sound of a boot on the forest floor. A bird squawked, made a flash of orange and red overhead. Shadows moved with the movement of the wind. Durell halted in the shadow of a tree trunk.

  The man came carefully, lifting each foot with exaggerated caution, his Russian-made AK-47 held in both hands. He wore a Thai Army uniform, with a forage cap carrying the emblem of the Third Security Force. His eyes shifted, searching the glittery surface of the river through the foliage. When he was one step past Durell, he halted, sensing another presence, suddenly aware of danger.

  He was too late.

  Durell hit the back of his neck with the edge of his left hand, used his right foot for a blow to the kidneys, and as the breath went out of the man with a rush, Durell caught at the swinging gun, closed his right hand on the barrel, pulled it free, then swung the stock into the other’s frightened face. Blood smashed from the round nose, obscured the white, staring eyes. The man fell back, seated, his hands behind him breaking the fall. The eyes glazed. Durell hit him again, not sparing anything, and the body rolled down the slope, breaking a few shrubs before it sprawled in the mud of the river bank.

  Durell did not think there had been too much noise.

  He straightened, breathed lightly, and put away his own gun and took up the welcome weight of the AK-47. He did not know if the man was dead or not. He did not think there were any others nearby. This one had just happened to wander down the river, maybe looking for a refugee woman, maybe hoping for something to steal.

  He turned away, and went to Benjie and Kem.

  “Here, take the rifle,” he told Kem.

  “No, thank you.”

  “I ought to send you home, you know.”

  “But I will not go. Did you think I would go now?” Benjie said, “Are you all right, Sam? I’ll take the gun. I don’t have Flivver’s religious compunctions.”

  “You Westerners are all bloodthirsty,” Kem said.

  “So were Savag’s Mongol ancestors,” Durell replied. He added, “I think it was one of Savag’s men. Unless he was a Muc Tong, wearing a stolen uniform.” He picked up the dynamite pack and adjusted it on his shoulders again. “Let’s go on.”

  21

  The place was like an animal burrow, a broken-down peasant’s hut halfway up the limestone scarp to the top of the valley’s rim, a half mile from the village at the mouth of the pass where the caravan was gathered. The roof of the hut had fallen down at one end, making a triangular shelter that held a pallet of reeds, a small charcoal stove, a worn knapsack, a field transmitter, and several empty bottles of whiskey. Two tribesmen from Xo Dong, sturdy men with bandy legs and green headbands around their coarse black hair, led the way. They carried no weapons. The camp site was deep in the woods, but not far from a terraced slope where opium poppies had recently been grown.

  “Benjie. Hi, Sam. You took your time getting here. Almost too late. Didn’t you get the May Day?” Mike said.

  “We did the best we could,” Durell said.

  “Did you bring the blasting stuff?”

  “It’s here.”

  “My damned ankle. Stupid
thing. You try to reckon every possibility, but you can’t foresee a pebble in your way.”

  Benjie stared at her brother as if unable to believe it. Mike was filthy, his hair looked as if it hadn’t been combed for days, and his clothes were tom and ragged. He had lost or thrown away one of his boots, and his right ankle was crudely bandaged in dirty rags. He used a stick to climb to his feet and shake hands with Durell. He did not offer any further greeting to his sister, and Durell sensed an immediate hostility between them. But somehow the irrepressible nature of the man came through in his broad, freckled face, his tight grin, his quick manner of speech. Mike Slocum looked at Kem.

  “Who’s the bhikkhu?"

  “A guide,” Durell said.

  “We don’t need him. Too many moral compunctions. You can’t tell which way the Sangha may jump, these days. Against the government today, against the rebels tomorrow. Send him away.”

  “Flivver is an old friend. He went to Williams College. Your old alma mater.”

  “Hell. No kidding?” Mike grinned again. “Me, I flunked out. Benjie really burned my ass, that time. Always yelling when I got into a little trouble. We’ve got trouble here, too.”

  “Much worse than you think,” Benjie said tightly.

  “How is that?”

  She swung her arm toward the valley and the distant Muc Tong caravan. “Durell thinks you’ve been having fun and games, for a profit, with those people down there.” “That’s a laugh.”

  “Is it true, Mike?” she asked.

  “Listen, Benjie, don’t ride me now. I was having some sport up here, until you came along.”

  “You look it. Always playing games, always leaving the dirty work to me, making me pick up after you.” She drew a deep breath. “All right. I don’t want any part of it. Not any more. Not you, not Sam. Just ignore me.”

  “That will be a pleasure,” Mike snapped. His eyes gleamed with old angers, then he looked at Kem and said, “Williams, huh?”

  “True.”

  “But you’re really a bhikkhu now?”

  “My life is dedicated to the good work of the Sangha.” “You look like a son of a bitch, to me. But never mind, as long as you helped Sam bring the dynamite here.”

  Durell said, “You didn’t answer Benjie, Mike.”

  “About the Muc Tong? Me and them?”

  “You and them, yes.”

  “Shit,” Mike Slocum said.

  “They never approached you to use Thai Star transport facilities for their opium smuggling?”

  “What are we talking about? Of course they did. A couple of times. Even tried to use the old badger game on me, when I had a cute trick upstairs over the Arrow Cafe. Blackmail, threats, attempts at extortion. A certain Mr. Chuk was the heavy. Know him?”

  “We’ve met.”

  “But nothing. Why are you here, if you think I’m in cahoots with those creeps down there?”

  “Just playing the odds,” Durell said.

  “Yeah. Well. You sent me in here, Cajun. True, I asked for the job. Thought it would be fun. It would be, too, if I hadn’t cracked the stupid ankle. Got a lot of data for you, and for that creep, James D. James. How do you ever pick Controls like that character?” “Washington does it,” Durell said.

  “Well, I think he’s in it, up to his sweet neck. You and me, we’re the fall guys for him. He never wants us to come home, you can count on it. The trouble is, it’s that Miss Ku that he keeps around, the little bitch. She’s General Uva Savag’s girl, did you know that?”

  “I thought she might be.”

  “And Savag is getting paid off to leave the caravans alone in this security area. What the hell, everybody’s out to snatch a piece of the action.”

  “Not you?” Durell asked.

  “You bastard.” Mike lunged forward, swinging his stick at Durell’s head. He was a stocky, powerful man, with massive shoulders and a tough, muscular torso. His bloodshot eyes were suddenly filled with murderous rage. The blow could have been fatal. But Durell easily sidestepped, hearing a murmur from the village refugees who watched in confusion. As the stick whistled downward, Durell caught it and Mike’s ankle gave way. He grunted with pain, fell on his hands and knees, cursing angrily, and crawled to one side of the hut.

  Benjie said contemptuously, “Mike, you’re a fool.”

  His face shone with sweat. “What’s with you? You look different. Did Cajun get to you?”

  “Shut up. You’re lucky if he doesn’t kill you.”

  “Why should he? We’re on the same team.”

  “He’s not too sure of that.”

  “Ah.” Mike made a sound of disgust, looked up at Durell, and with his mercurial change of temperament, grinned engagingly. “You’re not sore at me, are you, Cajun?”

  “No.”

  “You bring anything to drink?”

  “A little Mekong.”

  “Great.”

  Durell got the bottle of whiskey from the haversack and handed it to the seated man. The villagers looked disappointed. The wind that blew up from the valley felt hot and dry, but there were more clouds in the sky to the

  south, and Durell heard a distant rumble of thunder. It was too early for the monsoons, unless the rains came exceptionally soon. Probably a mango shower in the hills, he thought. He hoped it wouldn’t interfere with what he had in mini He watched Mike gulp the liquor. Mekong was powerful stuff. Mike drank it as if it were water.

  “That’s enough,” Durell said.

  “You bet. Friends?”

  “We’ll see. Tell me what you’ve been up to, here.”

  Mike belched and put his weight on his elbows and shoulders as he leaned back. He smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in a week, which he probably hadn’t, and there were deep lines of exhaustion on his normally cheerful face. He pushed his hair away from his eyes.

  “Yeah. You want to be briefed. You sent me in to check out the insurgent movement in this area.” Mike laughed. “Then Jimmy James gave me the real job, under the first cover apparatus. The Muc Tong, no less. The drug smugglers and the refineries they’ve established in all these little villages. None of these people love Bangkok, you know. They’re easily subverted. Especially when Bangkok sends a sadistic bastard like General Savag to run things up here. So the people cooperate with the caravans, sell them the poppies, set up home manufactories to do the refining. It’s bigger than you can imagine. And tightly organized. What you see down there is the main caravan for this season. Usually they send the stuff down the Mekong River to Saigon or Vientiane, or down the Ping to Bangkok in smaller lots. But it’s been a bumper year, a great crop. And until they paid off Savag, he kept bothering them. Now they’ve got the green light, and there must be twenty million dollars’ worth of the stuff, at Western prices, down there on those donkeys and trucks. But there are also three hundred armed hoodlums, too, Sam. So I was stymied.”

  “Tell me about Savag. Was he in the area?”

  Mike shifted his ankle painfully. “The villagers say they see him now and then, down there with the Muc Tong.”

  “And a Major Luk?”

  “Never heard of him. But the locals are sure of Savag. They’re not apt to forget the man who burns their houses, kills their men, and rapes the wives, huh?”

  Durell nodded and got up and walked out of the hut and crossed to a ledge of granite that overlooked the river valley. They were less than a mile from the caravan camp, but several thousand feet above in elevation. The road was a dusty ribbon that began at the narrow pass with its vine-covered cliffs and dark holes of caves. He used the binoculars to study what was going on down there. Behind him, Kem talked quietly to the tribesmen, and Benjie’s voice was harsh and uncompromising as she spoke to her brother.

  There were twenty-two jeeps and eighteen trucks and one armored vehicle. Each jeep carried .50-caliber ma-chineguns. The men were not uniformed, but they looked hardened and tough, living in tents and some of the riverside houses. Durell searched through the glasses for what mi
ght be the headquarters. He counted over fifty donkeys, then gave up. The men were hard at work in the noon heat, loading the vehicles. He turned the binoculars back to the riverside houses. Banners were strung between some of the houses, and he could make out Chinese calligraphy, white on red, and a portrait of Mao and an unfamiliar Chinese face. A little apart from the caravaneers were some tents that had a military formation to them, and by watching steadily, he finally defined a bunker set deep in a grove of bamboo at one end of the village. He kept the glasses fixed steadily on that spot.

  “Sam?”

  It was Benjie. He didn’t turn to look at her.

  “Sam, Mike wants to explain what he wants to do with the dynamite.”

  “I know what he wants to do with it.”

  Two uniformed men came out of the bunker, carrying automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. They were the first uniforms Durell had spotted, and even from this distance, he could see they were Third Army outfits, similar to the one worn by the rifleman at the river ford. He kept watching.

  “Sam? I’m worried about Mike,” Benjie said.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Well, I don’t,” she said tightly. “I don’t trust him. Even as a kid, he was up to some sly scheme of his own, all the time. He has a lot of money with him.”

  “Money?”

  “Burmese, Thai bahts, American dollars.”

  “How much?”

  “Over thirty thousand, I think.”

  James D. James would not have provided Mike Slocum with anything near that sum. Durell lowered the glasses and looked at Benjie. Her face was sober and strained, questioning him. From somewhere in the little camp, he heard Kem ringing his little silver bell. He hoped the sound would not carry too far over the wooded mountainside, but he didn’t think he ought to stop the monk from going about his religious rites.

  “Where do you think Mike got it?” Durell asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe he stole it from me, from our joint bank accounts in Bangkok.”