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《Message From Hell（战争动作）》

作者: [美] A·J·Quinnell【完结】

Prologue

The man was old, and the fingers of his right hand were thin and bony. More of a talon than a

hand. The metal glinted as it nestled in his palm.

"It's a dogtag."

"I know what it is."

"It's a US Army dogtag."

"I know that. Let me see it."

The talon closed around the metal as though protecting a precious jewel.

"It's my son's dogtag."

"Your son is dead. I saw him gunned down."

"Did you see him die?"

"No, it was a fire-fight. We'd been ambushed and were getting the hell out; but I saw Jake get

hit. He was cut down by machine-gun fire. He was about a hundred metres away and there was

no chance to get back to him. I got hit myself and was lucky to get out."

"I know. But did you see him actually die?"

Creasy shook his head.

"No, Mr Bentsen. If anyone did, it was the guys who shot him."

They were sitting at a corner table in a bar inBrussels . Creasy had dropped in to have a drink

with the bartender, who was an old friend. Before he had a chance to take the first sip, the old

man had appeared at his shoulder and asked to speak to him. It was a bar much frequented by

mercenaries, ex-mercenaries, pretend mercenaries and would-be mercenaries.

The old man had a stiff urgency. He had said: "Can I talk to you Mr Creasy; privately?"

Creasy had studied his face. He had a memory for faces, but this one stirred no memory. There

was something in the old man's eyes which made Creasy cross the room and sit down at the

table. The old man sat opposite, and said: "I'm Jake Bentsen's father."

With that he had reached into his pocket and pulled out the dogtag.

"How did you find me?" Creasy asked.

The old man sighed. "It was not easy. But my neighbour has a cousin who's an analyst with the

CIA atLangley . He did some research and told me that if you were still operative you could be

located via this bar. I've been here a week, Mr Creasy, and I've been in this bar every day. Of

course I asked the bartender, but he told me nothing. I was going home toSan Diego on

Monday."

"Well, I'm not operative," Creasy said. "I happen to be in town visiting an old friend. I'm

leaving tomorrow. How did you recognise me?"

"From the description in one of Jake's letters. He described every scar on your face."

Creasy looked at the old man thoughtfully, and then said: "Show me the dogtag, Mr Bentsen."

Slowly the fingers uncurled and turned, and the small metal disc dropped onto the table. Creasy

reached forward, pulled it towards him and looked at the name and the number embossed on it.

He looked at it for a long time, then took another sip of his drink and asked: "Where did you

get it, Mr Bentsen?"

"It was delivered to me two weeks ago at my home inSan Diego ."

"Who by?"

"I don't know, Mr Creasy. At least I don't know his name or where he came from. My doorbell

rang. My wife answered it. There was a short man, an Oriental. He handed her a small package

and went away."

"And this was in the package?"

"Yes."

"Was there anything else?"

Again the bony fingers reached into the jacket pocket, and came out with a crumpled piece of

brown wrapping paper. He pushed it across the table. Creasy smoothed it out and read the

scrawled words. There were just three of them, spelled out vertically.

CREASY

NAM

BODIA

It was a very small scrap of paper, and the words had obviously been written in haste. Creasy

looked up into the old man's worn face. He said gently, "Mr Bentsen, this is probably a dirty

kind of joke. It's happened before. Jake was killed on the Vietnam-Cambodian border twenty-six

years ago."

The old man's eyes were fixed on the dogtag and the scrap of paper. Without looking up he

said, "I took it to the MIA inWashington . They told me that as far as they could tell it's

authentic. Jake's body was never found; or the dogtag. It's not possible to tell if the writing on

the paper is Jake's. I took it to a handwriting specialist who compared it with some of Jake's

letters home. He said he thought it might be."

Now he looked up, but could not see into Creasy's eyes. Creasy had leaned forward and was

looking down intently at the metal disc and the scrap of paper.

The old man said: "He used to write about you. Jake never really had heroes. In a way he was his

own hero. He lived in his own image. But he looked up to you like no other man. He was

twenty-one years old on that day, Mr Creasy, when he was cut down. They never found the body.

Nobody went back to look for him, Mr Creasy."

Slowly, Creasy lifted his scarred face. He reached out and touched the dogtag and then picked it

up. His fist closed around it. He said: "And you think that now somebody should?"

Chapter 01

"You feel guilty!"

Creasy sighed, and answered: "It's not guilt."

"Then what is it?"

Creasy looked at his friend across the table. He had known Maxie for more years than he liked

to remember. As mercenaries, they had fought together at different times over a score of years

until Maxie had married and bought his bistro inBrussels and settled down in a sporadic sort of

way.

They were sitting in that bistro now, together with a Dane called Jens Jensen and a small,

round-faced, bespectacled Frenchman known always by his nickname 'The Owl'.

Jensen was the ex-head of the Copenhagen Police's missing persons department. The Owl was

an ex-gangster and bodyguard from the Marseille underworld. Some years ago, in a surrealistic

series of events, Creasy had matched them together and they now formed an unlikely partnership

as a private detective agency which specialized in looking for anything that was missing, be it a

husband or wife, a lost dog or a diamond. The Dane was in his late thirties, slightly overweight

with thinning blond hair and a schoolteacher wife and a young daughter. Apart from his family

and The Owl, his only other attachment was a portable IBM computer which never strayed more

than a few metres from his side. In an era when people were talking about the Information

Superhighway and the Internet, Jens Jensen was already locked into them.

The Frenchman was in his mid-forties, and hid his character behind the thick round spectacles

which gave him his nickname. The four people who mattered in his life were Creasy and the

Jensen family. He had two other attachments. One was the Sony Walkman which was

permanently fixed to his belt and which gave him the only relaxation he ever needed: the sounds

of the great classical composers. He was a walking encyclopedia of their works and their lives,

and for him God was called Mozart. His other attachment was a MAB PA 15 pistol with the

rotating barrel. It nestled in a soft leather holster under his left armpit and, when necessary, he

used it with a speed and accuracy that would have turned Wyatt Earp green with envy.

It was a good partnership. Jens Jensen had a gift for getting into trouble; and The Owl had a gift

for getting him out of it. Jens was the brain and The Owl was the gun.

Jensen and The Owl had been inBrussels looking for the runaway wife of a Danish industrialist.

They had located her the previous night, in the bed of a black saxophonist. Since she was clearly

content to be there, Jens had merely retrieved the five-carat engagement ring and the heavy gold

wedding ring for his client, and phoned through the news that he may as well begin divorce

proceedings. He and The Owl had worked with both Maxie and Creasy on previous jobs some

years earlier and so they had naturally gravitated to Maxie's bistro for their last supper inBrussels

. They had been surprised and pleased to find Creasy in attendance, and together with Maxie had

listened to the story of the supposedly dead GI and the mysterious return of the dogtag with the

scrap of paper.

Maxie repeated his statement. "You feel guilty!"

Creasy shook his head. "Maxie, you know how it is. You've been there dozens of times. You see

a guy get hit and you have an instinct which tells you whether the hit was fatal or not. Nine times

out of ten your instinct is right. I was running for cover but I saw the kid get hit. He went down

like a spinning top. I was also hit, but not badly. I managed to get away."

"So what are you feeling guilty about?"

Creasy sighed again with irritation. "I'm not feeling guilty. It's just that, maybe, we should have

gone back to make sure. I wasn't hurt bad. I just needed a few stitches and a day at the MASH.

Of course we couldn't go back right away, but we could have returned a couple of days later, in

force."

The Dane sipped at his wine and asked: "Were you in command of the unit?"

Creasy shook his head. "No. It was a US Special Forces patrol. I was attached to it as a very

unofficial 'irregular'."

"So it wasn't your responsibility?"

"No, but the guy in command was an asshole. Maybe I could have got a few of the other

irregulars together and gone back to take a look."

Maxie was looking at his friend with curiosity. He said: "For God's sake, Creasy. In a situation

like that, you don't go back looking for a guy you're almost sure is dead." He gestured at the

dogtag lying on the centre of the table. "Twenty-six years later, that turns up with a piece of

paper with your name on it. Probably some bent mind, or maybe the guy who delivered them

was setting up the kid's father for a con. It's happened before."

"Maybe."

Maxie picked up the disc and rolled it through his fingers, and asked: "What was the kid like?"

Creasy thought about that, and then said: "He was a good kid. A bit different. He was always

frightened."

Maxie laughed in surprise. "Frightened. He'd graduated to the US Special Forces and had been

in 'Namfor over a year; and he was always frightened?"

"Yes. He thought he never showed it. He was the macho type on the outside. I guess he was

born frightened, and had spent the twenty-one years of his life trying to prove to himself that he

was a hero. He used to follow me around, a bit like a puppy. Always talking tough, but always

just a frightened kid underneath. I sort of came to like him. I guess, in a way, like you get

attached to a puppy. When things got rough, I tried to keep him a little close, but on that day the

asshole platoon commander had put him out on point. He was the first one to get cut down."

Maxie studied his friend's scarred face. He had been present when some of those scars were

inflicted.

Quietly he said: "Creasy, there's no way you should feel responsible. You were not even

in the fucking US Army. You were a hired irregular whom nobody was even supposed to talk

about. You were not in command. You had no responsibility. So they paid you good, but not

good enough to risk going back to look for a guy you assumed was dead. Now why don't you

go home to Gozo: soak up the sun and put it out of your mind."

Creasy reached out and picked up the scrap of paper. He said: "Thanks for the advice, Maxie.

But 'Namhas opened up again and so hasCambodia ." He smiled wryly. "I guess I'll go and look

for the puppy."

In astonishment, Maxie glanced at Jens and The Owl. It was as though he had just heard the

Pope announce that he was off to get married.

The Dane said: "It sounds like a wild goose looking for a needle in a thousand hectares of

wheat. Where will you start to look?"

Creasy was holding his wine glass and slowly swirling the contents. He looked up at the Dane

and then at The Owl and asked: "Are you guys busy at the moment?"

"Not very," Jens answered. "We just wrapped up a job. We figured to take some time off."

Creasy put down his glass and said: "How would you feel about working with me on this?"

The Dane and the Frenchman glanced at each other. Then The Owl asked: "Does this kid's

father have plenty of money?"

"I doubt it. He's a retired clerk. I guess he has his pension and no more. If you joined me, I

would be the client."

Again, glances of surprise passed around the table, and Maxie asked: "You'll do this for

nothing?"

Creasy shrugged. "You talked about guilt. The fact is, I'm not feeling guilty, but I am curious. I

want to know where that dogtag came from, and why." He looked at the Dane. "I want to hire

you and The Owl for at least a couple of weeks. How much do you guys charge per diem?"

Suddenly, there was a strange noise. It emanated from The Owl. The other three looked at him

with concern; then they realized that he was laughing. He controlled himself and said: "Creasy, I

never expected to hear such a question from you. Three years ago you came into what I thought

was a life and turned it upside down...Gave it a purpose."

He gestured at the Dane.

"You matched me up with Jens and, in a sense, gave me a family for the first time. Now you have the

balls to sit there and ask how much I charge you for what is nothing more than a favour."

The Dane was nodding thoughtfully. He said: "If it wasn't for you, Creasy, I'd still be sitting in a

small office at Copenhagen Police Headquarters pushing papers around. So shut up about

money and just tell us what you want done."

Creasy looked at Maxie, who stated: "It's not a good thing to insult old friends."

There was a brief flash of anger in Creasy's eyes. Then he relaxed and sat back in his seat. He

said to Jens: "You have my thanks. Of course, I'll cover your expenses. And who knows, maybe

some money will come out of all this. It often does. If so, we split it three ways."