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He was with my friend when he went missing in action near the Cambodian border back in

nineteen sixty-eight."

The colonel was still looking at the dogtag in the palm of his hand. He said: "That was a bad

year. Was Jake his given name or a nickname?"

"His given name."

The colonel was looking at his computer console. He shrugged, smiled wanly and said: "Of

course I could press the little buttons on this thing and the file should come up on the screen.

But likeBismarck 's boys, I'm kinda old-fashioned."

He reached forward, pressed a button on his desk console and said: "Susanna, I want the file on

SFC Jake Bentsen missing in 'Nam...sixty-eight."

During the ten minutes' wait for the file to arrive, the colonel poured three mugs of coffee from

a machine in the corner of his office; then, with a wink, he opened the desk drawer and pulled

out a bottle of Martell brandy.

"It improves the taste," he said. "Believe me, army coffee needs all the help it can get."

He poured a generous slug into each mug, pushed one across the desk to the Dane and passed

another to The Owl, sitting silently to the side. "Skal!"

"Skal!" said Jens. "Have you been in my country?"

"Yes, back in the seventies I spent a lot of time inSweden . We had quite a few guys who

deserted during the 'Namwar, and others who ducked the draft. Many of them ended up

inCanada and quite a few inSweden , especially the black ones. There were several cases where

they pretended to go MIA and then found their way toSweden . My job then was to liaise with

the Swedish government." He shrugged. "I have to say that I foundStockholm and the Swedish

pretty boring. So on weekends I used to catch the ferry and take a little R and R inCopenhagen .

Danes have a better sense of humour, the booze was cheaper and the girls were great."

Jens asked, "Where did you hang out?"

"Kakadu...Is it still going?"

"Yes, it is. The girls are still there but these days the customers are mostly Japanese."

There was a tap on the door. A woman wearing a captain's uniform brought in a thick file. She

glanced at the Dane and then at The Owl before she quietly left the room.

The file had a red cover closed with black elastic. On the top right-hand corner were stamped

the letters MIA (EXL). The colonel pushed the file across the desk, saying: "This is against

regulations. But since I had some good times in your city, you can look through it. I am not

allowed to give you copies of any parts except by written permission from the Secretary of

Defence."

The Dane nodded his thanks, then tapped the letters on the file and asked: "What do these

signify?"

"It's part of a grading we use. The letters EXL signify that it's low grade. We have very little

expectations either that your man is alive or that his remains will ever be found." He looked

again at the dogtag on his desk. "But maybe, since this was hand-delivered to his parents' home,

we should upgrade the file."

Jens had opened the file and was reading through the papers. They consisted of dozens of

reports, starting with the action report of the lieutenant in command of the unit. It was followed

by a report from the Divisional Combat Intelligence Office and then reports concerning

prisoner interrogations, returned POW debriefings, Red Cross reports and finally analyses of

information given by the unified Vietnamese government after they began cooperating with

theUS government in an effort to get sanctions lifted. Every single report was totally negative.

It took the Dane half an hour to speed-read it. Meanwhile, the colonel recharged the mugs from

the bottle of Martell until Jens realized he was drinking almost pureCognac .

He closed the file and said, "I can understand why you gave it a low grading. But still, the work

that went into this file was very extensive. I congratulate you."

The colonel's face had turned sombre. He was looking at a framed photograph on his desk. He

said: "I lost my own son inVietnam in sixty-seven. They shipped his body back and he's buried

inArlington . Sometimes it's difficult to understand what it means to a parent to know that his

child is at rest, even if it is below the earth. A lot of the officers working in this department, men

and women, are in similar situations. We take our work seriously. We see a lot of prolonged

grief. That grief is our motivation." He was now looking out of the window, across thePotomac

River . His tone was reflective.

"As I look back over the past few years, I notice the changes here

inAmerica . Up until the sixties the family units were very strong, and of course our soldiers

went to fight in Europe andKorea knowing they had a mission. They understood what they were

risking their lives for. I guess 'Namchanged all that, and the sixties changed the family ties too.

But the parents of the ones who went missing did not change. They still like to think that their

loss had a meaning. They still hope that the sacrifices were not in vain." He turned back to the

file. "The parents of Jake Bentsen must be in their seventies now. Suddenly getting that dogtag

after all those years must have been a combination of hell and hope."

Abruptly, he changed the subject. "This friend of yours. Was he regular army?"

The Dane shook his head. "He was a Marine. But that was before he was a French Foreign

Legionnaire and a mercenary. He was inVietnam in the latter capacity."

The colonel nodded thoughtfully and said, "Yeah, we had quite a few of those. But I have to

admit they weren't the kind of guys who would go on a wild-goose chase twenty-six years later

looking for a soldier who is almost certainly dead. They must have been very good friends."

Jens Jensen shook his head and stood up, saying, "They were not close friends, Colonel. The

truth is I don't really understand why my friend is going back...Then again, he is not like the

others, who just fought for money over there."

He picked up his briefcase and from his top pocket pulled out a card and placed it on the desk.

"A thousand thanks. If you ever find yourself inCopenhagen again, please call me and we'll go

and have a Schnapps together."

As he reached the door the colonel's voice stopped him.

"If your friend travels under aUS passport, he might have trouble getting intoVietnam . And if

he does get in, he'll have more trouble if he starts asking unofficial questions about US MIA's."

Jens answered: "You might be right, Colonel. But then I'm just a detective. When it comes to

trouble, my friend has a history of taking care of himself. Again, a thousand thanks! Or as you

may have heard the expression on one of your nights inCopenhagen and the Kakadu, 'Tusind

tak'."

Chapter 05

"It's a set-up. That's the only answer."

They were in a hotel room in downtownSan Diego . Creasy was standing at the window looking

out on sheets of heavy rain. The Dane was sitting on the bed with the open briefcase beside him

and the computer on his lap. The Owl was sitting on a chair in the corner.

"Set up for whom?" Creasy asked over his shoulder.

"For you, of course," Jens answered. "First the dogtag and the scrap of paper with your name

on it. Then you find out that it was delivered here to the Bentsens' by a man you know but who

you thought was dead."

Creasy turned and said: "Of course it's not certain that I know the man. All I saw was a sketch of

his face, added to the description that he limped on his left leg."

The Owl entered the conversation. "I don't believe in coincidence. Who is the man you thought

was dead?"

"It was a guy who worked for the South Vietnamese police. His name was Van Luk Wan. He

was a senior officer in the Intelligence Department, which meant that he tortured a lot of people.

One of them happened to be a friend of mine. She was just a girl who worked in a bar inSaigon .

Van had the idea, without any basis, that she might be a VC informer. I don't think he cared one

way or the other. He was that kind of man. She died slowly and badly."

"So you killed him?" Jens asked.

"I thought I did. It was at night and the light was not great but he was only five metres away. I

don't usually miss at that range."

"You didn't double-check?" The Owl asked.

"There was no time. It was that kind of situation. One shot, and I was gone."

Jens leaned forward and asked: "You heard nothing about it later?"

"No. That night I flew out from Than Son Nut airport for Bangkok. I never returned to

Vietnam. By that time I was sick of it. Sick of the whole damned charade!"

The Dane was pecking away at his computer console. He glanced up and asked: "This

policeman, Van, did he know you well?"

"Yes, very well. A week earlier he had picked me up for interrogation. There was no rough

stuff. They didn't do that to Americans: only to their own benighted people."

The Owl intervened again. "So why did he pick you up?"

Creasy had turned back and looked down again at the rain as he said: "You have to understand

the time and the place. The war was at its apex. There were all sorts of people running around

Saigon. It seemed like every crook and conman had made it their home. I worked for the

American military as what they called an 'irregular'. They had their Green Berets and their

Rangers and other special forces. But when there was a very high-risk job to be done, they hired

guys like me. In their jargon we were called 'expendables'. We had no mothers or fathers to cry

over the body bags when they were shipped home. Sometimes they used us to beef up their

regular forces.

The money was good and so it attracted all kinds of assholes. A sort of refuse

that came out of the Congo and Biafra. There were some good guys among them, even a couple

of ex-legionnaires. But most of them were the worst kind of dogs. And when they weren't out in

the field, they were into every racket you can think of, from drugs to prostitution, gun-running

to extortion. This guy, Van, was supposed to be in charge of the Saigon police department

which was set up to combat those rackets." Creasy laughed without mirth. "But he, and most of

his team, were part of those rackets. The corruption in that city was incredible. Of course he had

to make a show to his superiors, so every once in a while he would pull one of us 'irregulars' in

for questioning."

Jens asked: "Did he know it was you who shot him?"

"Yes. I didn't shoot him in the back. Before I pulled the trigger I said: 'This is for Ming'. He

knew she was a friend of mine. He knew why he got the bullet."

The Dane was again tapping at his computer. He said: "Can you remember the date that you

shot him?"

"Is that relevant?"

"Yes. It's possible I can find a way to check the hospital records and find out if he died or

lived." He looked up with a smile that was almost smug. "That's what detectives do. Common

soldiers like you wouldn't know about things like that."

Creasy glanced at The Owl and remarked: "Sometimes this prick forgets that I'm paying his

expenses."

The Owl replied: "You're quite right. But the problem is that his brains are bigger than his

balls."

"Enough levity," Jens said. "Try to remember the date, or at least the week."

Creasy dropped his chin onto his chest and thought. After half a minute he said: "It was

sixty-eight, the week before Christmas. It was a Thursday evening."

The Dane's fingers tapped the keys of the computer. "I'll get a calendar and check the dates for

sixty-eight."

The Owl did something surprising. He stood up and started pacing the floor. He was normally

a sedentary man. He began to talk to Jens as though Creasy were not in the room.

"If this guy, Van, did survive, and had a motive of revenge against Creasy, why would he wait all

those years? If that dogtag was the bait on a hook, he would know that Jake Bentsen's father

would find Creasy. Which means that he would know where to find Creasy himself; in which case

he could have gone to Brussels and bushwhacked him."

"That's true," Jens answered. "He obviously wants to lure Creasy back to South East Asia. My

guess is that Jake Bentsen is dead long ago. The dogtag and the scrap of paper are just bait.

There's got to be somebody else behind Van Luk Wan."

Creasy pushed himself back into the conversation. "And how do the brilliant detectives deduce

that?"

The Dane lifted the computer from his lap, closed it, and laid it reverently on the bed. He stood

up and stretched his portly frame, then gave one of his ultra-intelligent looks to Creasy and said:

"Sometimes even geniuses rely on intuition. To use an Americanism: some big shot in South

East Asia wants your ass. How many big-shot enemies have you got over there?"

Creasy thought about that for a moment, then looked at his watch and said: "Let's go get

something to eat and I'll think about it. Then I'll write you a list."

Chapter 06

She had a curved face and at first glance it appeared beautiful. A second glance changed that

perception. The cheekbones were just a bit too high and the nose slightly too hooked: but it was

the eyes that dispelled any thoughts of real beauty. Behind her back she was known as 'the

Cobra', and it was the latent venom in the eyes that gave her that name. Nobody would be so

foolish as to say it to her face.

Her real name was Connie Lon Crum, and she combined cruelty with sophistication; designer

jeans with a black heart. The well-dressed Thai businessman seated opposite her knew something

of her history. Her father was the notorious Bill Crum, a half-Chinese, half-American rogue.