“Why are you in the water at all?”
“Just helping the fellas with their boat. It sprung a bit of a leak.”
“You a boat repairman?”
“Nah. I’m just a bloke with access to marine epoxy and fiberglass matting.”
“If you say so. Why am I here?”
“Breakfast, mate. Let me wash off.”
Lucas stripped off the wetsuit and then rinsed himself down with a hose. He was wearing board shorts, and pulled a T-shirt over his head without bothering to towel off at all. He led Lenny underneath a green plastic awning, and they sat at a wooden picnic table where a woman served green tea and deep-fried omelets on a bed of steamed rice. Lenny spoke between bites of omelet.
“So yesterday you said something about seeing a man with a dog. What did that mean?”
“Had to call a bloke about a thing.”
“That doesn’t really make it any clearer.”
“And that’d be half the point. So what do you reckon about this camp of General Tan’s?”
“I don’t know what he’s up to, but I know those people are being worked to death to do it.”
“It’s been like that for years now.”
Lenny shook his head. “I wasn’t here to see it years ago. You telling me you’re okay with it?”
“I didn’t say that. But your government doesn’t want you there, and mine sure as hell doesn’t want me there. So why not help some folks here in Bangkok and be done with it?”
“It’s the hole. The swimming pool, or the grave. Whatever it is, I can’t get it out of my mind.”
“I know.”
“Nothing on the ground ever looks like those intel photos.”
“Not in my experience,” said Lucas, sipping green tea.
“I want to go back and have a look, but I can’t get a chopper without the guy I’m reporting to knowing—and he won’t allow it.” Lenny ate some more omelet and thought about it. “We could get a vehicle and drive.”
“Long hard road. I got a better idea.”
“What?”
“Let’s go see that man about the dog.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lucas changed his clothes, and they headed out of Bangkok in a small red car that sounded like a motorcycle, had no backseats, and no air-conditioning. Lucas drove for about two hours, in a direction that was vaguely northeast. As it had when Lenny had driven the minibus to Kanchanaburi, the city thinned to low-built structures that lined the road until these gave way to fields that battled the surrounding landscape to remain fields, often losing. Dramatic mountains punctured the horizon in a way that reminded Lenny of the movie Apocalypse Now, which he had seen a few years earlier in San Diego.
By the time Lucas pulled off the main road and they had spent thirty minutes bouncing along a track that seemed more pothole than road, the landscape had closed in and turned jungle-like. Trees grew like vines and spread overhead, closing the road off from the sky and the sun, and dropping the temperature down to bearable. A couple of times Lucas slowed as if he would make a turn into one of the even smaller tracks that led into the dense jungle, but then he invariably continued on. Lenny didn’t ask if he knew where he was going.
Then the car broke from the tangle of foliage into a cleared field and puttered along a track that cut through the grass like a gash. Lenny caught sight of a building at the top of a slight rise. As they neared, he saw it was a house—or least it had been, once upon a time.
The house was a mix of lumber and cinderblock and corrugated iron, patched over the years with whatever was available. Grass grew long at the foundations and the front porch appeared ready to collapse into sawdust. It looked as abandoned as a house could look.
Until Lucas stopped the car out front and a cadaverous man stepped onto the porch. He wore a loose shirt and baggy pants and reminded Lenny of an old photograph of the Kansas Dust Bowl.
“He’s an acquired taste,” Lucas said before unfurling himself from the car.
Lenny followed him up the rickety steps of the porch. The boards creaked under his weight but seemed solid enough. The two men shook hands and greeted each other with thick Australian accents that for a moment seemed to be a different language and Lenny didn’t understand at all. Then Lucas turned to him.
“This is Lenny Cox, United States Marines.”
The other man frowned. “A Yank?”
“A good one,” said Lucas.
The man didn’t drop the frown but he did extend his hand and Lenny shook it while taking him in. The man’s skin was the color and texture of golden raisins, and his hand felt like tanned leather. He was older than both Lenny and Lucas by at least ten years, but it could have been thirty—it was hard to tell. He was missing a tooth and his hair was thinning but grown long and pulled into a ponytail. He was rail thin and the smell of hard liquor seemed to emanate from his pores.
“This is the Pilot,” said Lucas.
Lenny waited for more, like a name.
“Good to meet you,” he said, finally.
“You too, mate. Come on in. Youse must be parched.”
The Pilot led them inside the house. The corrugated iron roof rose like a cathedral above them. The furniture was a mix of bamboo and rattan. The Pilot wafted like a reed toward a refrigerator that Lenny had last seen in Mayberry. Nevertheless, the beer cans he offered were cold. He then led them back out to the front porch, where slats of wood had been laid across upturned terra-cotta pots to create seating.
The Pilot raised his beer and said, “Upya.”
Lenny had no idea what that meant but he saluted and drank his beer before dragging the cool can across his forehead. They were at a slightly higher elevation here, and the breeze made the humidity less suffocating. Lenny looked at Lucas as if to ask why the hell he had brought them here.
“You still got Mabel?” asked Lucas.
The Pilot nodded. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “She’s like me. Not all she was, but still hangin’ on.”
Lucas sipped his beer. “We might need her.”
“Yeah?”
“If you think she’s up to it.”
“That depends on how hard you’re gonna thrash her.”
Lenny leaned forward. “Sorry to butt in, but who are we talking about?”
“Mabel,” said the Pilot.
“He doesn’t know Mabel,” said Lucas.
The Pilot blinked hard, like this was stunning news.
“He doesn’t know Mabel? Well, you best come and meet her, mate.”
The Pilot levered himself up and led the two men down off the porch and around the side of the house. They passed a water tank and the remains of a burned-out car, and they ambled up the hill behind the house. Once at the top, the open grass fell away toward more barely contained jungle, and a large barn-like structure.
The barn’s condition matched the house. It looked like it had been blown over in a hurricane and someone had picked up the walls and leaned them back against each other. In front of the barn was a large concrete pad. The Pilot finished his beer, crushed the can, and handed it to Lucas. Then he pulled open one of the large barn doors. Lenny saw nothing but darkness inside. The Pilot opened the other door and stepped through.
Lenny followed Lucas inside. Something large loomed before them, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Then he discovered what he was looking at. He knew it very well. He glanced at Lucas, who nodded, and then at the Pilot, who beamed.
It was a helicopter. More precisely it was a Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as a Huey. The Hueys were ubiquitous in Southeast Asia, having been the primary method of moving US and allied troops around the jungled territories since the early days of the Vietnam War. Lenny knew Hueys better than most cars. He had spent plenty of time being shuttled around in one. This one, though, looked like the Frankenstein’s monster of choppers. It was mostly green, but there were also panels of gray and blue. The interior was sparse and utilitarian, fold down seating and mesh on the si
des, with plenty of space for cargo or whatever it was that the Pilot used the bird for. The helicopter looked like a twenty-year-old, beat-up, flying car, but Lenny knew that all Hueys were like that. They were built to army specification—to keep on flying and flying—with little regard for aesthetics or comfort.
Lenny walked around the Huey and ran his hand over the fuselage, like a jockey might do to a new horse he had been tasked to ride. The Pilot and Lucas waited at the front of the barn until Lenny made his way around.
“This could work,” Lenny said.
On the front porch, the Pilot offered them another beer as the sun sent spears of pink and purple over the darkening jungle. The scents of curry and star anise wafted from the house.
“That smells amazing,” said Lenny.
“Yeah,” said the Pilot.
“Where is it coming from?”
“Inside,” replied the Pilot, as if it were obvious.
“I mean how? Who?”
“The missus, who else?”
Lenny shrugged at Lucas.
“His wife, so to speak.”
“Wife? Where did she come from?”
“Vietnam.”
“No, I mean, today. Where was she hiding?” Lenny looked back at the Pilot.
“She’s small—and quiet.”
Twenty minutes later a petite Vietnamese woman appeared in the front door. She was probably in her mid-thirties, as thin as the Pilot but without the malnourished look. She carried bowls of green curry and rice.
“This is Binh,” said the Pilot, as the woman placed the bowls before them with a soft nod.
“Thank you,” said Lenny.
“Ta,” said Lucas.
Binh left them to eat. Lenny took a forkful of chicken and rice. It was sensational, as good as anything he had eaten in Bangkok, maybe better.
“How did you meet Binh?” asked Lenny.
“In Vietnam.”
“You served—in the war?”
The Pilot nodded.
“How did you come to end up here?”
The Pilot sipped his beer but made no move to eat. “Just happened, I guess. The way these things do.” He drank again. “My first tour was up at Khe Sanh. That was a bunch of fun. I flew all over that godforsaken place.” He shrugged. “But I had nothing better to do.”
He took another shot of his beer. “We pulled out in ’73. By that time I was with an embassy detachment. I was back home in Melbourne by July. Then I went back in ’75.”
“Why did you go back?”
“Saigon fell. We had to get the diplomats out.”
“But after two years? You were sent back?”
“I was still in the army, mate.” The Pilot looked out over the darkened field. “The thing is, I went home, but home wasn’t home anymore, you know? Nothing felt right. I mean, I don’t give a stuff what people think, but everything was different. I had a woman spit in my face when I got off the train at Spencer Street wearing my uniform.” He took a long pull on his drink. “So when they asked for fellas to go back, I went back.”
“How did you end up in Thailand?”
The Pilot shrugged. “I’d met Binh on my last tour in Saigon. She was a translator for the Australian government. I ran into her again when I went back. We knew Saigon was done at that point, and she wasn’t gonna fare well once the NVA rolled into town.”
“So you got her out?”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
“Like I say, it just happened. The Americans were bugging out in a real hurry, and they weren’t keen on leaving any goodies behind for the NVA to keep. They were burning stuff, blowing it up. Hueys were shuttling people out onto aircraft carriers—they were dumping planes and kit into the water to make room for them. So I fly some groups out, and then I find myself sitting in the cockpit back at the compound, and some American officer runs up and says either I need to get the hell out to a carrier—where I know there’s no room, so really fly out and take my chances—or blow it the hell up. He gave me the explosives and then ran off. So I put the charges in me pocket, and I took off. I landed in the street outside Binh’s office, and took her out. I’d flown a few times in and out of Bangkok, so that’s where I went.”
“And you never went home?” asked Lenny.
“This is home.” He sipped his beer as if that explained it all, and Lenny let it go and ate his curry. The pilot didn’t touch his food, preferring liquid sustenance.
“So, what do you think about flying into Kampuchea?” asked Lucas.
The Pilot shrugged. “Easy enough.”
“You ever get involved with the Khmer Rouge?” asked Lenny.
The Pilot shook his head. “Nah. I did my time before all that. But they were dirty buggers, I know that much. What are you planning to do?”
“Just take a look. At first, anyway.”
“Fair enough.”
“When do think you’ll be ready?” asked Lenny.
“I’m ready now,” he said, finishing his beer.
For a moment Lenny thought the Pilot was going to head out to the chopper and fire it up, but instead he leaned over to the cooler beside him and pulled out another beer.
“So, tomorrow, then?” asked Lucas.
The Pilot nodded.
“Sounds like a plan.”
Chapter Seventeen
Lenny woke with sweat across his chest and a dryness in his mouth. He sat up and took a moment to place himself. He was in a room in the old house, and his parched throat told the tale of too many beers and a few more shots of scotch, courtesy of the Pilot.
Lucas’s cot was empty. Lenny padded out into the main room of the house. It smelled of coffee and fried rice. Binh was in the kitchen, and she turned at the creaking of the floor.
“Good morning,” she said without a smile.
“Good morning,” said Lenny.
She handed him a chipped mug of coffee. It was hot and black and bitter, and it suited Lenny’s mood. He drank some and then Binh put a plate of rice and eggs on the table.
“You eat.”
“Where are the others?”
“They outside. You eat.”
Lenny nodded. It didn’t sound like Binh would take no for an answer, so he sat and used a fork to break the yolks so they ran down into the rice, and then he shoveled steaming forkfuls into his mouth. It was delicious, and he told Binh so. She nodded curtly, as if this were obvious.
When he was done he took more coffee and wandered toward the barn. The sun was up but not above the tree line, so the air was warm but not baking. He found Lucas and the Pilot outside the barn. They had pulled the helicopter on runners onto the concrete pad, and they appeared to be checking it over and loading equipment and spare fuel.
“Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” said Lucas.
“Morning,” replied Lenny. Lucas looked fresh and well, not hungover in the slightest. The rice and eggs and coffee were starting to do the trick for Lenny. The Pilot sat in the cockpit. He looked exactly the same, sallow and serious, with no sign of the scotch he had kept swilling long after Lenny had stopped.
“You got an LZ?” asked the Pilot.
Lenny nodded and reached for his pack in the rear of the chopper. He pulled out a folded map and showed it to the Pilot.
“Here,” he said. “That’s where I landed before. Look okay?”
“Sure,” said the Pilot. “As long as the river hasn’t filled with water.”
“Is that likely? It hasn’t rained a lot here, has it?”
“Nah, but those mountains tend to trap the clouds, so anything could happen. Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out.”
They finished their preflight checks and loaded the gear, and then Lenny and Lucas climbed in the back of the Huey and buckled in.
“Ready?” asked the Pilot.
“Let’s do it,” said Lucas.
Lenny leaned across to Lucas.
“Weapons?”
“Sorted.”
“Did you tell him what we’
re doing out there?”
Lucas shook his head. “He doesn’t care.”
“What about payment?”
“Petrol money and a case of scotch. I know a bloke who knows a bloke.”
The Pilot started the bird up, and as the rotors got up to speed the fuselage shook hard. Lenny glanced forward as music started blaring from the Huey’s speakers—the opening guitar riff to “Get It On” by T-Rex. As the drums kicked in, the rotors hit full velocity, and by the time Marc Bolan was singing, the Huey had lifted from the ground. Lenny glanced at Lucas, who was nodding in time with the music.
The jungle landscape fell away below them and the chopper banked hard and tore off over the green carpet below. The Pilot had clearly made a mix tape of his favorite ’70s bands, heavy on guitars and drums, and they listened without speaking for about an hour. Then the Pilot turned down the volume and yelled back at them from the cockpit.
“Phnom Malai,” he said, pointing down to the distant patchwork of fields. “Pol Pot is down there somewhere.” The Pilot kicked up the volume again and they listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” as Lenny watched the land speed by, looking for signs of the evil that hid below.
Another half hour passed, and then the Pilot killed the tunes, as if the loud music were more intrusive than the whomp-whomp of the rotors. He pointed again, and Lenny saw the familiar curve of the riverbed.
The Pilot dropped fast, as if expecting incoming fire, but there were no enemy soldiers anywhere in the area. The CIA knew that for a fact. Otherwise, Ventura wouldn’t have taken the risk. For a moment, the Pilot hovered just above the ground, and then he placed the Huey onto the rocky riverbed with a gentle thud.
Lenny and Lucas were out of the chopper before the rotors stopped. Lenny looked around for signs of enemy movement and found none. Once the sound of the engine died, the day fell silent. He had a slight ringing in his ears, but the only other sound was the water that ran in a small stream between the rocks. The Pilot had been right, Lenny thought. There was more water than last time, but not much more.
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