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During the Vietnam war he had amassed a fortune selling whisky and other merchandise to the

US Army PX's.

In order to do so, he had bribed scores of American soldiers, from two-star generals down to

supply staff. He had met his death in 1977 in a mysterious fire in the New Territories of Hong

Kong.

Her mother had been a Cambodian prostitute. Connie Lon Crum had contrasted a French

education with marriage to a senior Khmer Rouge officer, whom she had later killed in a fit of

jealous rage. She had inherited her father's gift for shady business and her mother's wiles for

manipulating men.

As he looked at her, the Thai businessman felt a surge of sexuality, tainted by the tinge of fear.

Standing behind her to each side were two short, wide, young Cambodian women. They were

dressed in black tunics and trousers and had holstered pistols strapped to their waists. Their

faces were flat and expressionless but their eyes never wavered from the man.

He was incongruously dressed in an Italian suit, a silk cream shirt and a silk striped tie. His

shoes were by Gucci. It was not the normal attire for a meeting in a hot jungle on the

Thai-Cambodian border; but then, it was not a normal business meeting.

She pushed the flat wooden box across the table towards him and said: "I'm in a hurry. You

have fifteen minutes to make an offer. Payment will be in US dollars, Swiss francs or gold."

He opened the box and looked down at the gemstones. They were sapphires and pieces of

uncut jade. He picked up a piece of jade weighing about fifty grams. A tiny 'window' had been

sliced open on one side. The colour was pale green, almost translucent.

He looked up and saw the mirthless smile on her lips. She said: "Of course, under normal

circumstances, you would like to take it back to Bangkok and have an even greater expert than

yourself look at it: but you have no time, Mr Ponnosan. In this place, life is always a gamble."

The hut was not air-conditioned. He could feel the sweat running down his chest under his shirt.

He had an urge to loosen his tie, but he resisted it. It was the first time that he had done business

with the woman. Others from Bangkok had traded with her for many months. Some had made a

lot of money and others had not. He realized that he was in a sort of jungle casino. She glanced

at her gold Rolex and he concentrated on the stones. There were about two dozen. He separated

them within the box.

She watched and said: "You take all or nothing."

He knew the procedure. He said: "Fifty thousand US dollars."

She gave him a cynical smile. "Calm down, Mr Ponnosan. You are buying jewels, not glass."

The trading lasted for less than five minutes, after which they agreed to $85,000. She reached

forward, closed the box and pulled it back to her side of the table, saying: "Hold out your left

hand, palm upwards."

He complied, knowing what was coming. One of the two young women behind her came round

the table, took his hand in hers and studied the palm intensely. She then turned to Connie Crum

and nodded. Connie pushed the box into the centre of the table. He had passed the test. He

stood up, unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and pulled out the canvas money belt from around his

waist. He first extracted a single thousand-dollar bill and passed it to her. She held it up to the

light, examined it closely and then nodded. He counted out eighty-four more bills, and then

departed with the box.

As his Mercedes drove off down the dirt track towards Thailand, a battered Willys jeep pulled

up at the hut. A middle-aged man jumped down. He wore thick spectacles and faded denims. As

he walked into the hut the two Cambodian women looked at him alertly, then they relaxed.

Connie Crum was putting a thick elastic band around the dollar bills. She gave him a genuine

smile.

"Welcome back!"

He sat down, glancing at the big wad of money. He spoke in French: "A good trade?"

Her smiled widened. "No, Van. A very bad one. He paid eighty-five thousand dollars for

stones worth twice that much."

"Have you become a philanthropist?"

"Not at all. He was a virgin. It was his first time. When he gets back to Bangkok he will make a

big profit and believe that I'm not as clever as he had heard. He'll come back for more, and

again he'll make a very good profit. That will happen three or four times, and then he will be

both confident and very greedy. That's when I'll castrate him."

The Vietnamese grinned at her with affection.

She asked: "What news do you bring from America?"

"It moves along," he answered. "I delivered the dogtag and the piece of paper on the third of

last month. The old man left for Europe two days later and returned to San Diego after a week.

Our people saw Creasy entering his house on the evening of the thirteenth. He stayed for one

hour. As instructed, our people did not try to follow him."

She had sat back in the rough wooden chair. Her eyes were fixed at a spot on the wall above

and behind Van's head. "Can you trust those people?" she asked.

He shrugged. "They are American and they love money. The detective agency has a good

reputation. They did not know Creasy's name; they only had his description. They described the

man who entered the Bentsens' house exactly. There is no doubt it was Creasy."

She reached for the dollars, stood up and stretched her lithe body. She did not look feline. It

was the body of a racing snake: but her smile was as contented as that of any cat that had just

spied a sleepy mouse.

Chapter 07

It has been said that if you want to make contact with any individual in any city anywhere in the

world, it should not take more than three phone calls.

Jens Jensen believed in that saying. In this case, he needed a reliable Danish contact in Ho Chi

Minh city. During his years as a policeman he had done a few favours for journalists but never

asked for anything in return. But now he was no longer a policeman. He picked up the phone

and called the foreign editor of the Morgenavisen Jyllandsposten. After an exchange of

pleasantries and the promise to meet for a drink or a lunch next time he was in Arhus, he raised

the subject.

"Do you have a correspondent in South East Asia?"

"We have two. One in Hong Kong and one in Bangkok. They cover the whole area, so they

travel quite a lot. What do you need...?"

"I need to make contact with somebody in Ho Chi Min city...That's the new name for the old

Saigon."

He heard the snort of disgust down the phone. "I happen to know that. I happen to be the

foreign editor of the Danish newspaper that has the most foreign correspondents around the

world."

Jens laughed. "OK, relax. I know you're a genius...Can you help?"

"Are you at home?"

"Yes."

"I'll call you back."

Jens' wife Birgitte had prepared lunch of skipperlabskovs, which translates as 'the ship's captain's

favourite dish'. It was a sort of stew with potatoes, meat and vegetables with a topping of ham. It

was also Jens' favourite dish, and he had just sat down to a piping hot plate of it when the phone

rang. Birgitte answered it, then held it out, saying: "It's Henrik from Arhus."

Jens cursed, but went to the phone. He said: "You always did pick the worst time to return a

call."

Henrik laughed. "Were you having sex with your lovely wife?"

"No. Something better than that. I just sat down to a plate of skipperlabskovs."

"My sympathy. But when you ask a favour you can't stipulate the time...Do you have a pen and

paper?"

"Yes. Go ahead."

"I talked to my guy in Bangkok. He's got a drinking friend who has just been transferred from

A. P. Moller's office there to their new liaison office in Ho Chi Minh city; which by the way used

to be called Saigon."

"Good. So forget the sarcasm and give me the details."

After his meal and lavish compliments to Birgitte, he roughly calculated the time difference

between Copenhagen and South East Asia. It would be late evening in Ho Chi Minh city. He

looked up the international code and then dialled the number.

His contact was at home, and obviously very happy to hear a Danish voice. After establishing

his credentials, Jens made his request. He gave the name of the Vietnamese policeman and the

date when he was shot. Then he hung up, put on his overcoat and went to watch the football

match between Brandby and OH, reflecting that it was nice to have other people doing the

legwork for a change.

Chapter 08

"He lived."

"Who did?"

"Your friend Van Luk Wan. He entered the hospital on December 19 1968 with a severe

gunshot wound. They operated immediately and he survived. He was discharged on January 27

1969."

Creasy was in Guido's penzione in Naples, with the phone in one hand and a glass of wine in the

other. He was impressed.

"How did you find out?"

In Copenhagen, Jens chuckled down the line. "For a man like me it was very simple. I chartered

a plane to Saigon, managed an introduction to the head nurse, took her to dinner at the

Continental Hotel and plied her with champagne; seduced her and persuaded her to break into

the records of the hospital that night and, using the Minox camera I supplied, she photographed

all the records during that period...I can tell you, Creasy, my expenses bill is going to be

spectacular."

Creasy chuckled. "I don't mind as long as it's less than ten bucks." He thought for a moment,

and then said: "The next thing is to find out whether he's still in the city; and if so, what

happened to him after the communists took over."

"You want me to get on with that and sniff around?"

Again Creasy paused for thought, then said: "Give me a couple of days. I know he was in San

Diego recently. Maybe he got to the US as a refugee. I can probably check that out. I'll get back

to you...Thanks, Jens. It was good work."

He put down the phone and walked out of the kitchen onto the broad terrace. It was one of his

favourite spots on earth, high on the hills above the city with the wide sweep of the bay below.

Sitting at the solitary table was his closest friend. He and Guido Arrellio had first met in the

French Foreign Legion during the Algerian war of independence in the early sixties. They were

in the second R.E.P., and had been kicked out after their battalion had joined the Generals'

Putsch. Fighting was all they knew, so they had teamed up as mercenaries and fought in a series

of wars in Africa and the Far East. Finally Guido had met a Maltese girl, married her and

bought the Pensione Splendide in Naples. He and Creasy had gone their separate ways until

Guido's wife died in a car crash. In his turn Creasy had married her younger sister, who had also

died tragically. That shared bond drew them even closer.

Neither of them made friends easily, and the casual observer would have found it impossible to

see their closeness. They were not men who showed affection or emotion; but they had served

together for many years, and Creasy had come to Naples to discuss the mysterious dogtag and

the man who had delivered it in San Diego.

He sat down, saying: "That was Jens from Copenhagen. He discovered that the man, Van Luk

Wan, survived the shooting."

"What was the range?" Guido asked.

"About five metres."

Guido glanced at his friend and raised an eyebrow. "You missed him at five metres?"

"I didn't miss. He went down like he was poleaxed. I had no time to make sure."

Guido looked out across the bay. An American frigate was swinging slowly at anchor. That

night the sailors would be drunk and brawling in Naples' red light district. Some would be

robbed and some would take home a communicable disease. He turned back to Creasy.

"I agree with Jens and The Owl. You're being set up. This guy Van is just the bait. Why don't

you go home to Gozo and enjoy your retirement?"

Creasy took a sip of wine and answered: "That's the sensible thing to do...But then, I was never

famous for doing sensible things. This is nagging away at my head. It won't go away whether I'm

sitting here or in Gozo."

"So you'll go to 'Nam?"

"Yes; but first I'll phone Jim Grainger in the States. He has the connections to find out through

immigration whether Van Luk Wan entered the US as a tourist or a refugee. If he was given

refugee status they'll have his address. In that case I'll go and pay him a visit."

Guido poured more wine. "The season is over here and I'm getting a little bored. If you go to

Saigon I'll go with you." He smiled briefly. "It'll be like old times."

"I hope not," Creasy answered. "In the old times a lot of guys were trying to shoot our asses

off."

Chapter 09

The Dutchman lost his temper. Piet de Witt had fought in many wars and many places and on

the whole had been well-paid; but he decided that if God ever wanted to give planet Earth an

enema, he would put the tube into Cambodia. It was not the countryside, which was beautiful, or

even the average Cambodian who, on the whole, were gentle people. It was just that his present

employers had sunk below even de Witt's bottom line.

He turned to the small, brown-clad figure of the Khmer Rouge officer beside him. "Fuck you!

It's impossible to clear that minefield before sunset. Not without risking the lives of my men."

"They risk their lives every day," the officer replied. "So do all our men. That's what war is all

about."

The Dutchman laughed hollowly. He looked down the green, lush valley and said: "Most wars

are stupid. This one is simply crazy." He had a map in his left hand. He jabbed a finger at it. "It

was you people, the Khmer Rouge, who planted those mines six years ago. Two thousand of