Final Answers (21 page)

“I didn’t realize they were lost up there.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You sure about the number?”

“I’m the unofficial expert, remember? Why?”

“Sounds like a lot. I mean, out of five hundred forty-seven that’s more than twenty percent. Twenty-three point seven six six to be precise.”

“I’m positive. I’ve always cross-referenced who was lost when and where on my mailing lists so I could connect families who wanted to share information. You know, stuff from letters home, stories from buddies, anything that might help them cope.”

“This list on a computer?”

“Uh-huh, at home.”

“I can think of a few calculations I wouldn’t mind running.”

“Why?”

“My guy was in the drug business—might be some kind of a connection.”

“Then you better get that thing booted up,” she challenges, taking a thin plastic case from her handbag. It contains a high-density 3½” computer diskette. “I always have a backup with me. God forbid the house burns to the ground, twenty years of work won’t go up in smoke along with it.”

“I know the feeling.”

“What kind of software you use?”

“All of ’em. Great bridge program too. You play?”

“No. Sorry. It’s WordPerfect, by the way.”

“Good. I’ll hang on to this, if you don’t mind.”

“We’ve more than ten hours to go. Why wait?”

I let out a long breath, then leaning close to her, I cover my mouth and explain about the Beretta.

Kate’s eyes widen in surprise. All of a sudden she’s not sure what to make of me. She’s about to say something when a flight attendant approaches, handing out blankets and pillows in preparation for the long haul to Bangkok. My itch to get at the data is about to be satisfied. I drape the blanket over my chest and legs, then slip the computer from the carrying case and pull it onto my lap.

“What’re you doing?” Kate whispers.

“Changing the battery.”

She rolls her eyes and looks away.

My fingers find the access panel and open it. I remove the pistol and slip it into my pocket, then dispense with the blanket, retrieve the battery from the carrying case, and insert it.

Minutes later, I’ve got the probability analysis program working with Kate’s diskette in the “A” drive. I extract the MIA losses by province—547 men spread over 16 provinces—and graph them. In 14 out of 16 the deviations are within the range of statistical acceptability, even in southern provinces along the Ho Chi Minh Trail where the greatest number of losses occurred. But Luang Prabang and Houa Phan approach the top of the graph. I break the losses down into the subtotals—136 for Houa Phan and Luang Prabang combined, and 411 for the remaining 14, then calculate the per province ratio—137:2 × 410:14—which works out to 68.5 to 29.285.

“Hmm . . . ,” I say, making another calculation.

“Hmm?”

“We’re looking at a deviation of two point three three nine between the two opium-producing provinces and all the others.”

“That’s important?”

“Could be. In my business anything varying from the norm that much sends up a flag. But I need more data to determine the significance.”

“Like what?”

“Number of ground forces deployed; number of missions flown—”

“Don’t look at me.”

“The number of MIAs repatriated to date from each province would be a start.”

“From each? Would you believe less then forty from all of Laos?”

“I had no idea. I’m afraid it’s not much help.”

She nods, then cocks her head thoughtfully. “You know, now that you mention it, there’s something that’s always bothered me.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, these guys were lost in the so-called secret war, right?”

“Right.”

“The way I understand it, when it comes to secret wars, or secret missions, we always make a special effort to get our dead and wounded out.”

“Yes, so they can’t be used to prove we’ve been there. We had a
hard and fast rule in Special Ops: Never, never leave any evidence behind.”

“That’s my point. Information on men who were lost in Laos was easy to come by because it was used in enemy propaganda campaigns.”

“But nothing on the guys lost in Luang Prabang and Houa Phan,” I say, sensing where she’s headed.

“Nothing much. Especially in Houa Phan.”

“Like they never existed.”

“I know one did,” she says wistfully.

I notice her eyes starting to glisten, and direct her attention to the screen to take her mind off it. “What’s with these names?”

“They’re next of kin.”

“I know. I meant the asterisk.”

“Oh, it means deceased.”

“Sorry I asked.”

“Hey, it’s okay. Really. Parents, wives, even children sometimes, pass away. I have to keep track of it. I lost a good friend about five years ago.”

“MIA wife?”

“Wrote the book. Made me look like I was standing still. I mean, always pressing, always at the CIL, always digging for information. Off to Thailand every chance she got. A real gadfly.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was up north somewhere. Probably trying to get into Laos. Went off the road in a monsoon.”

“She was killed in an automobile accident?” Kate nods matter-of-factly.

“Where was her husband lost?”

“Houa Phan. Same as John. One of the reasons we became close.” A moment passes before it dawns on her, before she turns to me with a spooky look in her eyes. “I’ve got this weird feeling all of a sudden.”

“I know.”

“Maybe ifs the connection you’re looking for.”

I shrug, trying to keep it in perspective. “Then again it might be we’re seeing conspiracies everywhere. Remember, my guy wasn’t anywhere near those areas.”

“True,” she says wearily.

“It’s been a long day. Let’s get some rest.”

She sighs, then pulls the blanket up around her shoulders and turns her head into the pillow. “Good night,” she says softly.

“Good night, Kate.” I shut down the laptop, and settle in for the night. The cabin lights dim. Air hisses quietly past the fuselage. A half hour later, I’m still awake, staring at the ceiling. The numbers are inconclusive, and the loss scenarios don’t match, but I can’t help thinking that maybe Kate’s right. Maybe I’m not the first.

I
’m on my second cup of coffee, watching the mist rising like incense from the dense jungle below. I was awake most of the night planning what I’m going to do when I finally catch up with Surigao. This trip came out of nowhere and this is the first chance I’ve had to really think it through. I can never sleep on planes anyway. Evidently, Kate didn’t get much sleep either. She’s uncharacteristically quiet and has a steaming courtesy towel pressed to her forehead.

According to the captain, we’re on final approach to Don Muang International Airport, which is about sixteen miles north of Bangkok. We’ve covered 6,700 miles in just under thirteen hours, crossing the international date line before making stops in Seoul and Taipei, then continuing west across the South China Sea, along the coast of Vietnam, finally turning north into the Gulf of Thailand toward Bangkok.

I’ve journeyed to this part of the world before. Nearly twenty-five years ago. The accommodations were military-class, not first. My destination was Vietnam, not Thailand. And my weapon was an M-16 semiautomatic rifle, not a .25-caliber toy hidden in a computer. My mission was search and destroy—that hasn’t changed.

The local time is 9:35
A.M.
when we touch down and taxi up to the ultramodern terminal. The boarding ramp swings into position and several hundred travel-weary tourists straggle into the lounge.

I’ve put the Beretta back inside the laptop as a precaution, but passport control turns out to be a tourist-friendly, if slow-moving,
formality. The pistol could’ve easily stayed in my pocket. I make a quick stop in the men’s room to remove it, then join Kate in the line at the currency exchange. The rate is twenty-five bahts to the dollar. Once properly funded, we claim our bags and head outside, making our way through a blast of ninety-degree heat and humidity to a taxi stand. The smiling dispatcher loads us and the bags into a cramped death-trap-on-wheels made in Korea.

I notice a vital piece of equipment is missing from the dash. “There’s no meter,” I whisper to Kate suspiciously.

“We negotiate the price,” she replies as horns sound behind us. “Oriental Hotel, please?”

“Hundred fifty baht,” the driver barks, pulling away with a screech of tires before Kate can counter.

That’s six dollars, I calculate. I can’t get home from LAX for less than forty. Dulles to D.C. is over thirty. I’m thinking it’s a pretty good deal when Kate laces into the driver in fluent Thai and proceeds to bargain the price. He finally throws up a hand and settles.

“So what’s the deal?” I prompt.

“He opened at a hundred fifty. I countered with seventy-five. We closed at a hundred.”

“Fixed or variable rate mortgage?”

“Come on. I saved us fifty bahts.”

“That’s two bucks.”

“Thirty-three point three three percent,” she says pointedly with a grin.

“Must be a buyer’s market.”

The driver skillfully works his way out of the airport. We’re soon hurtling at dangerously high speed down Mittaphap Road, an elevated superhighway that splits jungle, farmlands, and villages with arrow-straight indifference.

I wouldn’t hire this guy as my permanent chauffeur, but he’s just what I need now. I’m thinking about that vacated condo at the Theater Arts Complex and having visions of finding an empty hotel room here too. Assuming we get to the Oriental in one piece, I plan to drop Kate and our bags at the curb and make a beeline for the Dusit Thani to look up Surigao.

About a half hour later, up ahead where the lanes of the expressway appear to converge, the silhouettes of modern skyscrapers frame the graceful gold-plated spires of centuries-old Buddhist tempies.
More than four hundred in Bangkok alone, according to my travel guide.

We’re approaching a series of highway exit signs in English and Thai when the driver makes an abrupt lane change, cuts off several vehicles, and darts toward an exit labeled Din Daeng Road. The off-ramp deposits us smack in the middle of a massive traffic jam.

It makes Waikiki’s gridlocked streets look empty. There are no lanes, no sense of order, no traffic cops, just a mass of creeping vehicles: cars, vans, trucks, taxis, three-wheeled
tuk-tuks
, and buses with passengers hanging on the steps and out the doors. All appear to be headed in different directions, as do the bikes, scooters, and fearless pedestrians, who weave between them ignoring the traffic signals. Total chaos would be a gross understatement.

The taxi inches forward. I’m squirming with impatience, looking at my watch. Twenty minutes pass, thirty, forty. We haven’t gone a mile. “This normal?”

“I’ve seen it a lot worse.”

“Okay. Change of plans. We go to the Dusit Thani first. You drop me off and continue on with the bags.”

“What’s the rush? I thought you said the Surigaos were going to be there for a while?”

“That’s what the clerk said. The way things have been going, they’re probably checking out today.”

“Like hours ago.”

“Maybe. I’ve just got this thing about coming all this way and getting there minutes after they’ve gone.”

“The old if-game.”

“Right. If the flight had gotten in five minutes earlier, if we hadn’t checked our bags, if the taxi had gone a little faster, if we’d—”

“Don’t tempt him,” Kate jokes before informing the driver of the change, which leads to another negotiation. “It’s not a buyer’s market any more. He says, two stops cost twice as much.”

“So do two houses. Makes perfect sense. Tell him triple, if he gets us there before eleven.”

“Triple?”

“It’s only twelve dollars, Kate. I think I can handle it.”

“Dai leou mai! Dai leou mai!”
the driver singsongs excitedly when she informs him of the challenge. He leans on his horn, maneuvering
between the densely packed vehicles finally turning into an unpaved alley.

Suddenly we are racing headlong down the narrow
soi
, as Kate calls it, into a maze of streets behind the theater district, from which, I’m becoming more and more convinced, we may never emerge. But the frenetic zigzagging eventually pays off, leading to a relatively unclogged road just beyond the Siam Intercontinental Hotel. Huge movie posters, two and three stories high, cover some of the buildings. Their bold graphics and bright colors seem to pop up in every section of the city. We continue past a racetrack, finally turning left at a large public park. But, despite the driver’s heroic efforts, it’s well after eleven by the time we arrive at the Dusit Thani, where lush tropical gardens and splashing fountains greet us.

The hotel is a white, modern, twenty-five-story pagoda topped by a golden spire and overlooks a canal—just like the woman said. The cab is still rolling to a stop when I pop the door.

“Meet you in the bar of the Oriental about three?” Kate calls after me as I get out, feeling my jacket for the pistol.

“Do my damnedest.”

“Take care.”

The lobby’s opulent decor goes past in a glittery blur as I hurry to the front desk, where the smartly uniformed staff appears to have surprisingly broad ethnic diversity.

“May I help you, sir?” an attractive blond desk clerk asks in a sharp Australian twang.

“Yes, I have a business meeting with one of your guests,” I reply in an authoritative tone. “A Mr. Surigao? I seem to have misplaced the room number.”

“I’ll check it for you, sir.” She smiles and steps to her computer.

My heart’s pounding like crazy now. The thought of their being gone, of my having come all this way only to come up empty, is more than I can bear.

“Here we are, sir,” she says brightly. “Fourteen twenty-three.”

“Fourteen twenty-three,” I repeat coolly, though I really want to shout,
“Yeah, they’re still here!” Okay Morgan
, I say to myself as I move off.
Slow it down and think.
I reckon that what I do next will depend on whether or not they’re in the room, and if so, who’s in the room: both of them, him, her? I cross the lobby toward a bank of house phones, working out what I’m going to say should someone
answer, then I dial 1423. It rings and rings. Five, six, seven times. I’m about to hang up.

“Yes?” a woman finally says. She sounds rushed, a little out of breath.

“Mr. Surigao please?”

“He’s not here right now. Who’s calling?”

I recognize the Filipino accent. It’s Carla Surigao. No mistake this time. “This is the concierge, madam,” I reply, trying to sound officious. “We have a package for him. Would it be convenient to have someone bring it up now?”

“Of course. Thank you.”

I hang up and head for the elevator. It’s mirrored, ornately detailed, and painfully slow. I get off on 14 and walk down a long corridor, observing that the doors to the guest rooms lack security peepholes. I reach for the Beretta, flicking off the safety and cocking the hammer without removing it from my pocket, then I knock on 1423.

A few seconds later, I hear the rustle of someone approaching. The deadbolt retracts, and the knob turns. Carla’s made the obvious assumption. As the door starts to open, I catch a glimpse of her in a mirror on the entry wall. She’s wearing a black silk robe and looks like she’s just gotten out of the shower. I’m poised to confront her with the gun and force my way into the room, but, as the door swings fully open, she turns her back to me, preoccupied with a comb she’s pulling through her wet hair, and leads the way inside.

“You can put it over there on the . . .” She pauses on hearing the door close and lock behind her, then turns curiously, recoiling when she sees me. A rapist? A burglar? She’s wiry and quick, and before I have a chance to assure her she isn’t in any danger, she pushes a room service cart in my path and heads for a door on the far side of the room. I sidestep the cart and pursue her into the bathroom before she can close the door. She lunges for a phone on the makeup table. I pull the Beretta and level it at her.

“Hang it up,” I order sharply. “Do it. Now.”

She freezes at the sight of the pistol, her perfect Asian eyes widening with fear.

I grab the phone cord and yank it from the wall.

She shudders and backs into a corner, terrified.

“Take it easy, Carla. I’m not here to hurt you. I just want to talk.”

She flinches when she hears her name.

“Yes, I know who you are. Believe me, you’re not in any danger. There’s no need to be frightened. You understand?”

She nods, unconvinced.

“Okay, let’s go back inside.”

Her eyes are riveted to the pistol as we return to the room and I direct her to an armchair. She backs her way into it, clutching at the robe to prevent it from opening.

I keep the gun trained on her and look around. It’s an elegant room with a small sitting alcove, views of the city, and oriental-style furniture. I notice her handbag on an antique writing desk. I go through it, making sure it doesn’t contain a weapon, then turn over the bed pillows, and look inside the nightstand drawer with the same result.

“I think I liked your condo in Hawaii better,” I say, purposely baiting her.

Carla’s eyes narrow with curiosity. “Who are you?” she asks in a trembling voice.

“My name’s Morgan. A. Calvert Morgan.”

Now they flicker in recognition.

“I thought it might ring a bell.”

“What do you want?”

“Revenge.”

She looks puzzled.

“Your husband killed my wife.”

“Sean?”

“Yes, Sean,” I reply indignantly. “Come on, you know what happened. He screwed up. He thought he was killing me.”

She shakes her head as if mystified.

“Where is he?”

“He went out.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Try again.”

“I don’t. He didn’t tell me.”

“When’s he coming back? She shrugs.

I slide a chair off to one side of the room and sit down with the
pistol in my fist. This is a strategic position that puts me between Carla and the door. More important, someone entering the room can’t see me, but I can see them in the mirror opposite the entry. “Okay, I’ll wait.”

Carla fidgets nervously, then starts to shiver and pulls her knees up under her chin, arms wrapped around her legs, wet hair hanging straight to her shoulders, looking a lot like the Vietnamese rufugees who lined the roadsides during monsoon season.

“Cold?”

She nods.

“You can get dressed if you like.”

Her eyes narrow warily.

I have the feeling she thinks I’m being lewd and suggesting she disrobe in front of me. “Change in the bathroom. Just leave the door open.”

At this, she unknots her tiny frame, springs from the chair, and takes several quick steps to a dresser. I’m on my feet and right next to her as she pulls articles of clothing from the drawers. Then she scoops up her purse and heads for the bathroom.

A short while later she emerges in an exercise suit, settles on a sofa, and lights a cigarette.

Several minutes pass in silence.

“As long as we’re sitting here, staring at each other,” I finally say, “would you mind telling me why your husband was so interested in me?”

“I have no idea.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

She shrugs and drags on the cigarette, appearing to have regained some of her composure. “Believe what you like, Mr. Morgan. Whatever my husband did, it was his business. He kept it to himself.”

“Come on, Carla, you were involved up to your ass, and you know it.”

She stands and turns her back to me, staring out the window. I grasp her arm and spin her around. Our faces are inches apart. Her breath smells of tobacco. Her eyes burn with disdain.

“Look, I’m trying to be a gentleman about this. But I’m running out of patience. Now, why me?”

“I said I don’t know. Whatever it was, it’s over.”

“What do you mean?”

“His work is finished.”

“What work? What’s finished?”

“I don’t know. All I can tell you is we came to Bangkok to get paid and start a new life.”

“Not if I can help it.”

She glares at me with hatred now. “Why did you have to come here? Why couldn’t you just leave us alone?!”