第 5 页

them right in that valley. You didn't even keep proper grid references or mark down the clear

lanes. Now all these years later you want to send a convoy of troops through the same valley.

Why don't you send them by another route?"

The Cambodian looked up at the giant Caucasian beside him. "Because in those days we mined

every valley in this area. Of course sometimes maps and grid references got lost. That's why we

pay you ten thousand dollars a month to train our men to clear them when we have to." He

glanced at his watch. "It's six hours to sunset, by which time the trucks will be ready to roll. We

need a clear way through that valley by then. Those are our orders."

The Dutchman swore under his breath. "Maybe you'd better tell her it's impossible. I've only

been here two months and I'm the only expert you've got. I've trained twelve of your people but

they're still amateurs. You tell her that."

The Khmer Rouge officer replied: "You can tell her yourself. She'll be here two hours before

sunset and will expect to ride with that convoy through the valley. I suggest you and your squad

get started."

The Dutchman worked for his money, and he worked from the front in the classic V-shaped

mine-clearing procedure. The mines were mostly the Chinese K3000 antipersonnel variety,

interspersed with the occasional Russian DOM K2 anti-tank mines.

They worked at a total width of fifty metres. Two of his squad came behind at the peripheries,

planting small red flags to delineate the cleared path. After two hours one of the squad made a

mistake and had his right leg blown off. An hour later there was another mistake, this time fatal.

Two hours before sunset they were just halfway through the minefield. The Cambodian officer

who was walking a cautious fifty metres behind shouted out: "You have to go faster! The field

has to be cleared by darkness."

The Dutchman turned on his knees and was about to shout back an obscenity when he saw the

line of trucks approaching behind the officer. The lead truck halted and the tall, slim figure of

the woman jumped down from the passenger seat. She was wearing camouflaged combat gear

and carrying an AK47 rifle.

She spoke a few words to the officer and then walked forwards as though taking an evening

stroll down the Champs Elysees. The Dutchman had heard all about her but never met her. In

spite of his anger he was intrigued.

She gave him a smile, held out her hand and introduced herself.

"I am Connie Lon Crum and I'm pleased to meet you at last. I hear very good reports about

your work. We're grateful."

The Dutchman was susceptible to women, especially tough, beautiful women. He took her small

hand in his big paw. His anger was forgotten, but he found himself tongue-tied.

She continued: "Is there any way you can clear a track through before darkness?" With that

technical question his military mind clicked back into place and he found his tongue.

"The only way would be to mount an intense artillery bombardment which would set off most

of the mines. My squad could then clear the remainder. The only problem is we don't have the

artillery to mount such a bombardment. Miss Crum, there's no other way."

For the first time he saw the steel in her eyes; and then, a different kind of smile on her face.

"There is always another way." She turned and shouted an order. From the front of three trucks

men began to jump down or be pushed down. Most of them had their hands tied behind their

backs, the others were Khmer Rouge guards holding bayoneted rifles.

"Government soldiers," she said. "We captured them two weeks ago near Sem Reap. They will

dance a path clear for us."

The Dutchman watched speechlessly as the prisoners were organised into three lines, each

prisoner about a yard from the next, and then roped together. The guards pushed them forward

to the edge of the mine field.

Then it began. First the guards had to jab them with their bayonets and then fire at their feet.

They did literally dance as they moved forwards. The air was filled with the noise of their

screams and then the roars of the explosions as, one after another, the mines exploded.

The Dutchman had thought he had become immune to atrocities.

He had seen them in the Congo, Biafra, Angola and Mozambique; but he had never seen

anything like this. The woman took his arm and urged him along behind the dying prisoners. She

turned to the officer behind her and said: "Be sure our friend here has a woman to sleep with

tonight." She smiled up at the Dutchman. "We have a saying here in Cambodia: 'a soft woman is

like a soothing ointment for both body and mind'."

Chapter 10

"So you are from Holland?"

"No."

"Then why do they call you the Dutchman?"

Piet de Witt sighed, and said as though repeating a litany: "I'm from South Africa. An

Afrikaaner of Dutch descent. For some reason, everybody calls Afrikaaners Dutchmen."

He was lying on his back looking up at the white mosquito net.

She lay in the crook of his arm with her long black hair across his chest.

Connie Crum had been right. This girl had soothed both his body and his mind. It amused him

slightly to think that his mind needed such treatment. He prided himself on being a hard man in

every sense. During his life and his work he had committed many acts of violence, some of them

mindless. He had learned that early, from his rugby coach at school who had told him 'always

get your retaliation in first'. That had become his doctrine in life.

If he was in a bar and someone threatened him with a fight, he always struck first; and he kept

striking until the fight was over. Under such conditions he had the ability to flick a mental switch

and go on to auto-pilot. That ability created fear among his peers.

But during the events of the evening he had not been able to flick that switch. Somewhere deep

down he did have a bottom line. He had never tortured anybody or deliberately killed an

innocent. He had seen it done many times. And although he had not intervened, he had never

felt the repulsion that a normal human being should have. He reflected that he might be getting

old; might even be getting soft. He felt a strange tenderness for the slim girl lying by his side. It

was an alien feeling. He had used women in much the same way as he had used weapons or eaten

a plate of food. He had not even loved his mother.

"What's your name?" he asked the girl.

"Tan Sotho," she answered.

"You're Vietnamese?"

"Yes."

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Her voice was wistful. "My family had lived here for generations. We had our own land. When

the Khmer Rouge came they killed all the men and the old women and the male children. They

kept the young women and girls alive, mostly to use as forced labour. But some of us were put

in this brothel." She turned her head and looked up at him. "We're more or less slaves."

"You never tried to escape?"

"No. A friend of mine tried and they caught her. I won't tell you what they did to her, but it was

enough that the rest of us never tried."

There was a long silence while he looked out of the mosquito netting around the almost bare

room. She said: "I hear you clear the mines."

"That's my job."

"It's very dangerous."

"They pay me well."

She lifted her head in surprise. "They pay you?"

He laughed. "Of course they pay me. Otherwise, why would I risk my life?" He looked at her

face and saw the disbelief in her eyes. "Is that so strange?" he asked.

"Yes...they never paid the others."

"The others?"

"Yes. The Americans."

Now the surprise was in his eyes. "They had Americans here?"

"Yes. There were three of them. I suppose like me they were slaves."

"Where the hell did they come from?"

"They came from the war, of course. They were captured by the Vietnamese. In those early days

they co-operated with the Khmer Rouge. I think they were sold to the Khmer Rouge."

Full of curiosity, he pushed himself onto his elbow and looked down on her oval face. "What

happened to them?"

"They died," she said. "One by one, in the minefields. The last one died two years ago, on the

seventeenth of November."

"You knew them?"

"Yes. The only pleasure they had in their lives was to be allowed to come here once a month. I

liked them all. I suppose it was because we were trapped in the same hell."

He lay back against the pillow and abruptly a noise intruded into his thoughts. It was a child

crying. The girl said: "Please excuse me." She slipped out of the bed and under the mosquito net.

He watched as she padded across the floor towards a wooden door. She went through and

switched on the light, leaving the door open. He could see the child lying in a cot. She bent over

it, whispered some words and stroked the child's face. The crying stopped. Ten minutes later she

returned to the bed with a warm wet towel. Slowly and carefully she wiped all of his body,

kneeling beside him.

"The child is yours?" he asked.

"Yes. He's my son."

"How old?"

"He'll be three next month. They were angry when they found out I was five months pregnant. I

was able to conceal it until then. But they let me keep him. He is the only thing I possess."

She was wiping his face with the towel, gently probing into the sockets of his eyes. She asked:

"How long have you been a mercenary?"

"Too long. I guess about twenty-five years. This is going to be my last job. Then I'll buy a farm

in the Transvaal and raise cattle."

"Did you fight in many places?"

"Too many."

"Did you ever meet a man called Creasy?"

She felt his whole body stiffen and the towel was pulled from her hand. His head lifted from the

pillow and she winced as he gripped her arm.

"What did you say?!"

"I just asked if you knew a man called Creasy. He was a mercenary like you."

His voice was like sandpaper. "Do you know him?"

"No. It's just that I heard about him from one of the Americans."

He relaxed. His head dropped back onto the pillow and he released her arm. She looked down

at his face, curiously. His eyes were far away. She asked: "Did you know him?"

"I knew him."

"Is he still alive?"

"I don't know."

She was slowly stroking his chest in a way that was almost maternal. She asked: "What kind of a

man is he?"

He lifted a hand and put it over hers to stop her movements, and answered: "He is death."

Chapter 11

She hated Vietnam; the more so, because it fascinated her. It was a land of both sadness and

poignancy. It was like an axe that cut a cleft between her heart and her mind; and it constantly

drew her like a moth to a flame.

The Thai Airways plane from Bangkok dipped its nose and banked for its final descent into Ton

San Nut airport. She closed the lid of her IBM Notebook and reached for her briefcase under

the seat. Her mind was on the report she had just read on the small screen. She had read it

several times since it had been loaded into her computer two days ago.

It was the FBI report on the Danish detective Jens Jensen. It had linked him with a mercenary

called Creasy. That in itself did not ring any alarm bells for either herself or her boss Elliot

Friedman. What did ring a shrill alarm was a suffix at the end of the report. It stated that any

inquiries made to the FBI which involved a mercenary called Creasy would be automatically

referred to Senator James Grainger, the senior Senator from Nevada and the chairman of the

House Ways and Means Committee, a very powerful individual. She happened to be in

Friedman's office the next morning when the expected call came through. Friedman had glanced

at her and then flicked the phone onto the conference speaker.

The conversation was fairly typical of that between a very powerful politician and a moderately

senior army officer. The politician was at first polite in the extreme. He complimented the

colonel on the fine work he was doing under such difficult circumstances. For two or three

minutes they chatted about the missing-in-action problem; and then Senator Grainger said: "It's

come to my attention that yesterday you requested a report on a Dane called Jens Jensen."

"Yes, sir."

"I assume you have received it."

"Yes. It's on my desk at this moment."

"Why your request, Colonel?"

"It's routine, sir. He came to see me the day before yesterday together with his associate. He's a

private eye who specializes in missing persons. A very pleasant guy, I guess we have something in

common in our work."

"What did he want, Colonel?"

"He had the dogtag of a MIA. It had been delivered to the MIA's parents' house in San Diego.

We extracted the relevant file and I have to say, Senator, I broke the rules a mite and let him read

it."

Susanna heard the Senator's chuckle through the speaker. "I guess some rules are just there to be

broken, Colonel. Were you able to help Jensen?"

"No, sir. Not beyond showing him the file. I asked him to keep me informed and to come back

to me if he needed any further assistance."

There was a silence. Even the phone's speaker seemed to be thinking; then the Senator's voice

came through it. "What was the code on the FBI's report?"

Colonel Friedman pulled the papers towards him and read out loud: "CN/D/404082A."

Another silence. Susanna thought she could actually hear the shuffle of papers through the

phone. Then the senator said: "That report refers to a man called Creasy."

"Yes, sir."