Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

by Dorothy Gilman

  She found Mornajay no longer lying on his mat but standing up and taking a few experimental steps. He glanced up at her arrival, his face damp with sweat, and managed a weak smile; she could only imagine what this effort was costing him.

  "Have to get my strength back," he said and headed for his mat where he sank down and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, no longer the immaculate Mornajay but as dusty and wrinkled as she and Bonchoo.

  "I hope you'll keep in mind that you've been very ill," she told him. "We really didn't think you'd pull through, you know. You need rest."

  He nodded and glanced toward the door, a sadness falling across his face so that she wondered what he was seeing; whatever it was, it had to be in his mind's eye because there was no one in the corridor. Aware of her again he said curtly, "I've no time for rest."

  "I came to tell you that we're leaving."

  He heard this with indifference. "That husband of yours, I suppose." He added politely, "I thank you for your help."

  "You're entirely welcome," she said with equal politeness, and left him.

  Bonchoo and Prasert were waiting for her at the base of the staircase to the garden, chatting amiably together in Thai. She smiled at the picture they made, Prasert in his dull orange gown, head shaven, Bonchoo wearing his absurd English-gentleman's hat that appeared even more of an anachronism in this remote jungle monastery. Prasert flashed a bright smile at her. "We go?"

  "We go," she said, and turned to look up at the parapet where she had first glimpsed the Acharya. "The holy man is not to be thanked?"

  "He is in meditation, please." Leading them through the stubble of the garden, he suddenly stopped and made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "But he go with us, you understand? His spirit, I think, it travels everywhere, like a nohk!" With a vivacious laugh he turned and led them around the well and past a storage bin and toward the forest.

  "Like a bird," translated Bonchoo behind her.

  She did not feel the Acharya's presence at all, either as a bird or a holy one, and Prasert's allusion made her rather cross. The inscription in the Acharya's book still haunted her at one level but ever since he'd announced they would be guided to the Shan camp, after all, she had been experiencing a mixture of high anticipation and high anxiety that overrode everything else, and which felt as prickly and uncomfortable as a hair shirt; she suspected that she was having an anxiety attack. She was wondering how she had ever come to believe that Cyrus would be taken to this particular Shan camp; she was remembering now that this was based on a supposition of Nouvak's in the Akha village, but there could be other camps in other places, or he could have been taken over the mountains into Burma, and they would be too late. She had never liked the words too late, and today they were frightening. Her mood was not lightened when Bonchoo asked Prasert how far the camp was, and Prasert said it was only forty minutes away from them. That they had been so close all this time!

  Obviously the camp was not accessible, however, for as they entered the forest again it was to encounter a labyrinth of paths. Prasert almost went out of his way to pull aside the limb of a tree or a shrub and to reveal the thread of a path going off at a tangent, and then he would turn and guide them up a different trail and down another. Only once did they encounter a real trail such as they had traveled to and from the Akha village, a trail wide enough for mules or donkeys. Crossing it, she heard Bonchoo muttering in a low voice behind her.

  She turned. "What?"

  He gave her a wry smile. "I think Prasert has been told to take us in circles."

  "That's what I think, too."

  "It will be hard to find the way back, Koon Emily."

  "Very," she said tartly, certain suspicions mounting. She wondered if, like Hansel and Gretel, she might find some means of marking their route but she soon gave up this idea; unlike Cyrus she did not possess any scraps of paper, not even one with the eye of a sardine on it; she had given away her lipstick, her square of Thai silk was wrapped around her healing foot and all that remained were the coins in her purse, and the votive. Of stones there were none, for these paths were soft with decayed wood and almost springy to the step. They were also walking uphill again now and she could only hope that it was not a mountain that lay ahead because her current diet of rice was not particularly fortifying. She thought wistfully of baked potatoes filled with melting butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper; to this she added slices of hot roast beef swimming in juices, and fresh asparagus, and she was about to consider a dessert—strawberry shortcake, perhaps—when she halted her fantasy, accusing herself of being just another spoiled American. She could admire Prasert, for instance, whose very leanness spoke of wiry, coiled-up energy, and Bonchoo, who was broad and muscular, and she reminded herself that their energy was extracted from the very rice that left her unsatisfied, and therefore...

  Prasert had stopped, and so abruptly that she ran into him. She looked up from her fantasizing and her scoldings and saw that he stood at the crest of a hill. He pointed and she looked down at a long strip of cleared land lying below them in the sun, a glade in which stood a cluster of dusty palm-and-bamboo sheds and huts in an empty compound.

  "Shan camp," he said.

  "Yes," she said, blinking.

  At that moment a man in khaki uniform walked out of a hut and crossed the compound and she felt a stab of fear; she'd forgotten this was a military camp. She watched the man disappear into a hut on the right, and now she saw that a man with a rifle was seated on a bench in the shade, and that another soldier sat beside the door of the farthest hut, almost obscured by the deep shadow of its roof.

  Turning to Prasert, she said, "Tell us how to get back to the monastery."

  He said firmly, "You do not go back."

  "Not go back?" she said indignantly. "Where do we go, then, and why not the monastery?"

  He led them back a few steps and pointed to a tree that had been bleached and smoothed by weather until it gleamed white, its dead branches lifted as if in supplication, a tree that should long since have fallen but had been held upright by the dense growth around it. He said, "There is a trail here, do you see? It will take you south to the river where there is a boat."

  "River?" she echoed.

  Surprised, Bonchoo said, "You mean the Mae Kok River? We're that near to Tha Ton, then?" To Mrs. Pollifax he said, "I have been there!"

  "But what's Tha Ton?"

  "A small village on the Mae Kok, it's on the Thai-Burma border, and it is true, a boat can be hired there. How far?" he asked Prasert.

  She wanted to ask again why they were being barred from a return to the monastery but it had already become obvious that the Acharya did not wish to see her there again, or perhaps, she thought, it was Cyrus whom he wished to avoid seeing if she was fortunate enough to have Cyrus with her. From mama.. .on my birthday... .She shook herself free of this thought and concentrated on what Prasert was saying.

  "Two hours' walk, and the boat will take you—" Prasert made wild, expressive motions with one hand and smiled. 'To Chiang Rai!" Turning toward the glade, he added, "You must not go beyond last hut down there or you will not be in Thailand, you understand? They do not like spies here so I wish you chohk dee—good luck!"

  With that ominous announcement he pressed his fingertips together and made a wai, walked down the trail and disappeared from sight.

  She and Bonchoo looked at each other. "Well, Bonchoo," she said.

  "Yes, Koon Emily," he sighed.

  They edged gingerly toward the rim of the hill and crouched behind a screen of tall grass to study what lay below them. There were five buildings: a long one facing them, an open shed on their right with a small hut beside it, and two below them, the five arranged in horseshoe fashion, open to the south where a circle of bare earth suggested a landing pad.

  Mrs. Pollifax, pointing, said, "For helicopters?"

  Bonchoo nodded. "I think yes. For big shots from Chiang Mai, maybe."

  She nodded and resumed her observations
and saw— not without a sigh—that the time had come for her to repay her considerable debt to Bonchoo. If she were alone, she thought, she would have chosen to reconnoiter, to approach the camp by stealth, perhaps from the other side where she could hide behind the longest building and listen and watch for signs of a prisoner. If Cyrus was there she would have found a way to free him so that they could vanish into the forest before he was missed and she was seen. Or so she reflected, knowing the risks but knowing, too, how often inspiration arrived under pressure. Unfortunately this was impossible because of Bonchoo, who needed to explain and to vindicate himself to the Shans here, needed to describe how Jacoby had lied about him so that he would have a future again. And so since she was heavily indebted to Bonchoo, she concentrated instead on what they must do instead, which was to openly walk down the hill to the camp and trust that they wouldn't be shot by a guard before they reached it.

  "I count six men now," she said to Bonchoo.

  "But no Red Shirt?" he said uneasily.

  "No red or yellow shirts—mercifully," she told him, but also, she was thinking, no sign of Cyrus.

  Five of the men crossed the compound to the small hut on their right, leaving one on guard by the door. She said doubtfully, "I suppose we should go now, don't you? Before the other men come outside again?"

  Bonchoo said gloomily, "They will come outside anyway."

  'True... Is there a cold wind blowing down your spine, Bonchoo?"

  "Very cold. I am most scared, and you?"

  "Scared—very," she admitted, and thought that she had never before felt so far from home, so far from everything familiar to her.

  Bonchoo said, "We have a proverb, "The mane is proof of a real lion.' We must be very dtoh—very big just now." He stood and held out his hand to her. "Come," he said, "we must be real lions."

  CHAPTER

  15

  In Langley, Virginia, Bishop had begun to feel that some progress was being made: a woman answering to Mrs. Pollifax's description had been seen Thursday morning at a development called Hot Springs, about an hour's drive out of Chiang Mai, and to the north of it. She'd been seen in the company of a man who was either Thai or Chinese, and who wore an odd hat. They appeared to have done some arguing but they had shared boiled eggs—this was baffling—and had then driven away in a truck.

  Both the eggs and the odd hat—especially the hat—intrigued Bishop but he'd not dared to interrupt the phone call that had brought them their first news of Mrs. Pollifax. What was almost as surprising was that it was McAndrews who had unearthed this information, and entirely on his own. Carstairs had said with satisfaction, "He's shaping up."

  Following this, however, the news was not as good. McAndrews had continued driving northward, and about an hour south of Chiang Rai he'd noticed a blue van abandoned at the side of the road and had stopped to inspect it. There was no way of knowing if it was the blue van into which Cyrus had been crammed, but in any case it was empty. At the police blockade outside of Chiang Rai no one had seen a truck, a man in an odd hat, Mrs. Pollifax, or for that matter a blue van.

  Apparently Carstairs had been impressed enough by McAndrews's enterprise to give him a fresh assignment. "Since you're already in Chiang Rai," he'd said, "I want you to drive on to Chiang Saen now—it's not far—and look up a man named Jacoby. So far you've shared your discoveries with the Thai police but this errand is strictly hush-hush, McAndrews, you understand? Chiang Saen's a small village and it shouldn't be difficult to locate him."

  "Jacoby," McAndrews repeated solemnly. "Yes, sir."

  "You recall the dead man you found in the hut yesterday?"

  In a burst of candor McAndrews confessed that it was the first dead person he'd ever seen and that he was not likely to forget.

  "Well, the dead man's name was Ruamsak," Carstairs told him, "and he's reported to have had dealings with Jacoby. That's R-U-A-M-S-A-K," he said, spelling it for him. "There could be a clue here as to where Mr. Reed's being taken, or where his wife's heading. Find out from Jacoby who Ruamsak's enemies were, and what the hell he may know or guess about this. Jacoby's done some work for us in the past so you can mention the Department, and considering his circumstances"—Carstairs did not elaborate—"you can offer him a reasonable sum of money for any information. Fifty dollars American should do it. Got that?"

  McAndrews said eagerly, "Yes, sir."

  "And report back to me as soon as humanly possible."

  Now they waited for that return call, but because it had been eleven at night when they'd heard from McAndrews they were faced with any number of annoying obstacles: the difficulties of his finding Jacoby in the middle of the night in a sleeping village, and even of his finding a telephone from which to call them during the night if he should find Jacoby.

  In the meantime an imperturbable Carstairs was setting fresh inquiries in motion: he had called Holloway in Bangkok again, in an attempt to learn with whom Mornajay had been drinking his margarita at the Indiana 500 on Wednesday night. Holloway had promised to make inquiries but the man's back was all that he himself had seen of him, and he reminded Carstairs that forty-eight hours had passed and it was not likely that any of his employees would remember two men sharing a brief drink that long ago.

  'Try anyway, will you?" Carstairs asked casually. "Could be a breakthrough for us."

  "Sure thing."

  Bishop, handling two messages from Bashir Ilariyo in the Sudan, returned to Carstairs's office to find him staring thoughtfully at their detail map of Thailand on the wall. He said, "There's got to be more that we can do, damn it, there should even be some way to stop Mornajay if he's planning to disappear... If Thomson feels he's heading north into the mountains—in which case he'd be somewhere in this area—" His hand swept across the northern corner of Thailand and he scowled, his voice trailing away doubtfully. With a shake of his head he returned to his desk and picked up his cup of coffee, still frowning. "Inspiration badly needed, Bishop!"

  "Well, at least there's news about the coup," Bishop told him. "It seems to be stalemated. Apparently this General Lueng is hoping or expecting the rest of the main army to join with him, but so far it's not happening."

  Carstairs nodded absently, his thoughts elsewhere. He said abruptly, "See if you can reach Thomson again at the DEA, will you? An idea arrives, and I'd rather talk to a man I know than try contacting the DEA in Chiang Mai."

  Bishop put through the call, waited for Thomson to be found, handed the phone to Carstairs and listened with interest. After an exchange of pleasantries Carstairs said, "You've notified whoever's in charge in Chiang Mai, Thomson, but I'm wondering if more could be done. They're making inquiries on the ground, so to speak?" He halted, listening, and nodded. "Following through on your guess that Mornajay's headed into the mountains, and into Burma, how about sending a couple of men in a helicopter to patrol the borders? I realize it's a small and feeble hope at best, but—what?"

  He listened and made a face. "Doesn't anyone know when he'll be back? How about borrowing a helicopter?" He sighed. "Frustrating. Yes, I know you're terribly understaffed—too many budget cuts again... Keep me posted, will you?"

  He hung up. "Damn," he said. "You heard that? Thomson had already hoped for reconnaissance but their best man, a pilot by the name of Callahan, flew off yesterday to the north on an inspection tour and they can't make radio contact with him."

  "But he'd surely tune in sometime," Bishop protested.

  Carstairs gave him a reproachful glance. "Not if he's on the ground and not in the air."

  "Oh," said Bishop meekly.

  Carstairs sighed and glanced at his watch. "Let's hope we hear soon from—" He broke off at sight of a red light flashing on the telephone and picked up the receiver. His face brightened. "It's McAndrews," he said in an aside to Bishop. "Get this on tape!"

  Bishop flicked on the machine and picked up the other phone to listen. Almost at once he winced: McAndrews's voice came through absurdly loud, and he was upset again.r />
  "Slow down," Carstairs told him sharply, "you're incoherent, I can't understand you. Have you found Jacoby?

  The voice choked. "Yes, sir—that is, no, sir."

  Carstairs snapped, "Well, which, for heaven's sake?"

  "Both," cried McAndrews, and blurted out, "He's dead, Mr. Carstairs, I found him dead. Somebody shot him, he must have been dead at least two days. It was awful, I mean the place reeked—"

  "Steady," said Carstairs gently. "Bad luck, two bodies inside of two days... take your time."

  "Yes, sir." McAndrews drew a deep breath and said more calmly, "It was especially awful because he couldn't have weighed more than ninety pounds and his skin was a terrible shade of green. Did you know he was an opium addict? All the equipment was there."

  "Yes," Carstairs said quietly. "For nearly fifteen years, I believe. We knew."

  "I see... well, sir—" and here a touch of pride entered McAndrews's voice. "This time, sir—this time I remembered to make inquiries right away. I asked around and I've a description for you of the last man seen going into his guesthouse. I mean, he was seen. Two days ago, in broad daylight."

  "Good work, McAndrews, let's have it."

  "First of all he was American, sir."

  "American?"

  "Yes, a well-built man, six feet tall with broad shoulders, a large pale face, long jaw, well dressed, with a head of curly gray hair. A mop of curly gray hair someone called it."

  Across the desk Carstairs and Bishop exchanged glances. "I see," Carstairs told him smoothly. "And a very good job you've done, McAndrews. Now I want you to forget everything you've told me and go back to your computers in Bangkok. We'll take over from here."

  When Carstairs hung up Bishop said grimly, "Mornajay seems to be cutting quite a swath, doesn't he!"

  Carstairs scarcely heard him. "Get Thomson on the phone again and tell him our man was sighted in the north two days ago, we've a description of him from Chiang Saen."