During the rainy season of late summer and early fall, the ranks of these monasteries were swelled by thousands of young men. It was a tradition for them to enter the wats, sometimes for two weeks, sometimes for six months, and learn the virtues of an ascetic life free of material possessions. While there, they were obligated to adhere to 227 strict rules, abstaining from lying, idle talk, and indulgence in sex, intoxicants, luxuries and frivolous amusements. Their only possessions were the familiar saffron robe and a brass alms bowl, with which they b egged the two meals a day allowed by the order. Their stay was a matter of personal dedication, nothing prevented them from leaving whenever they wished. But while they were pledged to the order, they had to adhere to its demands. At night they prayed in the wat and went to bed with the sunset, arising before dawn to go on the Street with their brass bowls to seek their first meal of the day.
Since the wats were open to everyone and monks were free to travel from one to another, it was an ingenious place to hide, particularly now when so many were in the order.
That night Porter had stationed himself across from the temple with its great golden dome and waited. Sure enough, just after sunset he saw the yellow-robed monk slip out of the temple. Porter followed the little man, who trotted about a mile to Hua Lamphong, the main train station, where he kept clothes in a locker. He changed in the rest room. When he emerged, dressed in a Western suit, Porter recognized him immediately as Wol Pot. The Thai took a cab and doubled back to Yawaraj, Chinese Town, where he ate dinner in a small nondescript restaurant in the old section. Having satisfied his hunger, he strolled down to Klong Phadung, one of the many canals that branch off the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, the main river that defines the western edge of the city, and there Pot negotiated a price with a tiny teenage prostitute, one of many ‘water babies’ who sold their wares from hang yao, long tail boats discreetly covered by bamboo sheds. Pot spent an hour with the young woman, then returned to the train station, switched back to his robe, and was back at the monastery by midnight.
It was a ritual with Pot, one that bored Porter, although he followed Pot every night, leaving only when the Thai was safely back in his hiding place.
Porter was a little irritated on this night, for he had hoped to turn over his nightly vigil to the new man, Hatcher. He wasn’t sure he could trust Hatcher. He was Sloan’s man, and Porter never liked Sloan, never liked the shadow wars he fought, breaking all the rules and operating outside what Porter felt were proper military parameters. But it was Sloan’s game now, and since Hatcher had not shown yet, Porter had to continue the loose surveillance himself, making sure Pot didn’t slip away into the night and vanish again, this time for good.
If Pot was coming out, he would leave the Buddhist monastery soon after the sun died. Porter lit a British 555 cigarette and waited.
The street was quiet. There was very little traffic, and the din of the city was a like a murder in Porter’s ears. An elderly woman scurried up to the spirit house adjacent to the Wat Sakhet, placed a wreath of jasmine in front of the prayer station, stuck several sticks of incense in the ground and lit them. Then she clasped her hands together and swayed back and forth for several minutes, invoking the generosity of the spirits. Porter wondered what she was asking for. A healthy new grandchild? A good crop of poppies? A winning lottery ticket?
His thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Wol Pot. A door in the side of the temple opened just wide enough for Pot to slip through. Porter killed his cigarette and watched the little man as he huddled in the shadows, looking around nervously, then started off toward the station. Porter fell in behind him, keeping far enough back so Pot would not be suspicious. He was concentrating so hard on Pot, he did not notice the other two men who fell in behind the Thai.
They were Chinese, small and wiry, dressed in the stark black shirt and pants that many Chinese affect. They followed Pot to the train station, where he changed into civilian clothes, and from there to the edge of the Yawaraj. Pot got out of the cab and strolled down cluttered Worachak Road, one of Chinese Town’s main thoroughfares. As he turned and headed down into the noisy, cramped alleys of Chinese Town, the two Chinese split up, each taking one side of the street. Pot strolled down through the twisting, neon-lit alleys while the two worked both sides of the street behind him. It wasn’t until Pot entered a tiny restaurant in an alley off Bowrong Street that the pair realized that Porter also was tailing Wol Pot.
One of the Chinese was in his early twenties with long blow-dried hair and a trace of a mustache. The other was older, his face scarred and angry. A sharp cut separated his right eyebrow, and the eye below it was partially closed by the same old wound. He was the leader, and it was he who spotted Porter. He had seen the husky American in front of the train station and now he saw- him again, getting out of the cab just behind Pot. He nudged his partner and nodded toward the other side of the street, where Porter was checking the restaurant while mock window- shopping. When Pot was seated, Porter entered a small noodle shop across the street from the restaurant, found a seat near the front window, and ordered something to eat while he kept an eye on the Thai.
The two Chinese became as interested in Porter as they were in Pot. They decided to split up again, the younger one following the American while Split-eye stayed with the Thai. They had just begun following Wol Pot that day and were not familiar with his nightly habits. But Split-eye had little respect for him. Pot had successfully eluded them and found a perfect hiding place, then blown it all by going into Chinatown to eat, the most likely place in the city for him to be recognized. Now it looked as if the American had also blown Pot’s cover. The Thai was smart, but he also appeared to be stupidly reckless.
He took out a red hundred-baht note and held it over his head. She saw him, squinted her eyes as she focused on the bill, then shook her head. Pot was surprised, having thought his offer was a generous one. He took out a five-hundred-baht purple and held it up. The girl pondered, then held her hands apart, palms facing, and slowly closed them. Pot thought for a moment, then held up both the purple and the red. She nodded. The deal was struck.
Windy Porter watched Wol Pot cross the two boats to the hang yao of his newly acquired ‘water baby’. They stood on the deck for a moment, talking back and forth, until finally the girl took the two bills and led Pot into the thatched cabin in the rear of the boat.
If he was true to form, Pot would be in there for about half an hour. At first Porter paid little attention to the hang yao that slid through the water and bumped gently against one of the other two boats. The oarsman walked swiftly down the length of his boat and tied it to the first. He went aboard the hang yao he was tied to started talking to the prostitute who operated it. Some money changed hands. Porter became suspicious. The oarsman was nodding toward Pot’s floating brothel. Porter sensed something was wrong. He brushed rudely past a young Chinese who was walking toward him, clambered down onto the boat, and started after the oarsman. The young Chinese, startled by how quickly he had moved, stared for a moment before following him.
Inside the small thatched covering on the boat, the young prostitute had begun her seduction. She had taken off Pot’s shirt and pants and then tripped off her own blouse. Her almond breasts brushed his chest, teasing him, then she reached down and began to stroke him, to bring him to life. She placed a hand his chest and gently forced him to lie down on a straw mattress on the deck. Pot was lost in ecstasy, unaware of the drama being played out twenty feet away. He did not feel the hang yao rock slightly as Split-eye cautiously started to come aboard.
Porter jogged across the first boat as Split-eye began to board Pot’s hang yao.
‘Hey!’ Porter yelled, rushing up behind him. The man turned. His ruined eye dodged crazily in its socket. His hand flashed under his sleeve and Porter saw the gleam of a dagger in his hand as the Chinese lunged toward him.
‘Jesus!’ Porter yelled. As the Chinese made his thrust Porter sidestepped and felt the blade nick his shirt; he g
rabbed the man’s wrist and twisted it outward. Split-eye was thrown off-balance. The knife pun out of his hand and, as he turned sideways, he tripped over the gunwale and lunged backward into the river.
An instant later Porter felt a stabbing pain as a cold sliver of steel invaded him, slicing deep into the small of his back. He turned and was face to face with the young Chinese. The youth’s arm arced again, but Porter spun away and the knife slashed his side. Behind him, Split-eye rose out of the river. His hands wrapped around the gunwale of the hang yao and he pulled himself out of the water with one lunge, stepped into the boat and grabbed his stiletto off the deck.
Porter was too busy to feel o1 hear anything. He slammed an enormous fist into the young Chinese’s face, felt his nose shatter, heard his muffled cry of pain. He brought his knee up sharply into the man’s groin, and the assailant jackknifed and fell on his knees. Behind him, Split-eye very deliberately and with no particular haste stuck the point of his dagger in the base of Porter’s neck, severed the nerve to his brain and paralyzed him.
Porter turned, stricken, and stared blankly at Split-eye, his arms dropped to his sides and dangled uselessly there. Split-eye struck again, bringing the dagger up in a short, hard arc, and burying it to the hilt Porter’s side. The big man felt very little. He was aware that something was inside him, aware that it was coursing upward deep into his chest. Then his heart collapsed his eyes rolled up. Split-eye pulled the knife out and slammed into the big American, knocking him sideways 1-to the river.
Pot heard the commotion, felt the hang yao begin to rock, heard a woman scream, then another. He was struck suddenly with fear, like an electric .bock flashing through every nerve. He jumped up, scrambled for his pants, then heard a tremendous splash. He crawled on his hands and knees and peered out of the thatched room in time to see the young Chinese stab Porter, watched in horror as Split-eye rose out of the river, attacked the big man and knocked him over the side. Sp1itee turned toward Wol Pot, his good eye glittering with evil
Pot was struck with terror. He twisted, rolled over the side of the hang yao in his shorts, and dropped into the black water.
Onshore, the shock of the brief, violent drama was wearing off, but there was still a great deal of shouting. Split-eye knew the Thai had escaped him again. He grabbed his young partner by the shirt front, shoved him into the hang yao he had commandeered, and turned back to the young whore. He shoved her into the seclusion of the thatched cabin and held the point of the blade to her throat.
‘Where does he live?’ his voice hissed.
She shook her head but was too frightened to speak.
‘Where do I find Thai Horse?’ he demanded.
‘Who?’ she stammered.
The assassin could tell she knew nothing.
‘Speak to the police and I will come back and carve your face until you look like a grandmother,’ he said and, jumping into the hang yao, raced off into the darkness.
HOOCHGIRL
Hatcher was watching from the observation room as the Navy fighters streaked like silver dragonflies over the Pacific Ocean and landed at the MAS. An F-16 banked sharply into its final approach, caught the morning sun on its gleaming surface for an instant, then leveled off, its wheels dropping and locking in place a few seconds before the big fighter’s tires screeched on the runway.
The bullet-shaped plane glided smoothly to its hard- stand and stopped, and the pilot emerged from the cockpit. He was a diminutive man, tiny in every way — short, skinny and small-boned — who seemed dwarfed by the helmet, the parachute harness, the Mae West, even his crew chief, who loomed over him like a giant. The pilot came down the ladder and spoke with the chief for a few minutes, then walked around the perimeter of the fighter, pointing here and there. Quite a difference from Cody’s other wingman, Hugh Fraser, whom Hatcher had interviewed the night before in Seattle. The pilot seemed to make up for his size with kinetic bursts of energy while the chief strolled along behind him, taking half as many steps, looking bored and nodding constant agreement with whatever the pilot was telling him.
Hatcher knew it would be another ten or fifteen minutes before the flier was through with the post-flight check. He left a message with the officer in charge of the flight line and walked a block down the neatly mowed and trimmed Street to the Officers’ Club. Inside, he stood at the doorway to the club room. He had been in this room once before, eighteen years ago. As far as he could remember, it had not changed a bit. Even the tables appeared to be in the same place. The oak-paneled room gleamed and smelled of lemon polish and floor wax. The walls were lined with photographs of men who had served there and gone on to other places: fresh, clean-cut, neatly trimmed, eager young men in dress whites, smiling innocently for eternity. The Navy never changed. Part of the allure of the service was a sense of security in knowing that even the furniture polish was a tradition. For Hatcher there was sadness in this room, which in a few hours would come alive with the ring of raised glasses .and toasts and songs to the glory of the corps.
He walked around the empty dance floor, his shoes making hollow clacking sounds on the hardwood floors. It was ironic that the ghost of Murph Cody had brought him back to this place, to this very room where a friendship that had endured hardship and mockery, good times and bad, and had been bonded by promises of loyalty and respect had ended so rudely. In this very room Cody had terminated that comradeship as finally as a bullet to the heart terminates life.
Hatcher had come to the party filled with anticipation and excitement. He had not seen Murph since his friend’s marriage almost a year earlier. He arrived expecting a rowdy reunion.
Instead, he was humiliated and disgraced by the unpredictable Cody in a manner that in other times would have called for a gloved slap across the face and satisfaction with a choice of weapons at dawn. Hatcher would never forget the cold sneer, the harshness of the words, spoken loud enough to stop every conversation in the room. Cody had handed Hatcher a glass of champagne, and holding it up in what was to become a mock toast, he said, ‘Here’s to a maggot who is still a maggot. Here’s to a maggot who was fed and clothed and housed by the service and taught by her and who now has turned his back on her. Here’s to a maggot I once called friend who’s running out because there’s a war on. Here’s to a coward .‘ And had poured his glass of wine on the bar and turned and walked away. Pledged to the secrecy of the Shadow Brigade, Hatcher had no response. Every eye in the room had followed Cody out the door.
A harsh memory for a room where heroes normally frolicked.
‘I’m Commander Schwartz, you looking — for me?’
Hatcher turned to face the pilot. In person, Schwartz seemed even smaller than he had from a distance. He spoke very quickly and with a peculiar kind of staccato rhythm, pausing in the wrong places and accenting his words on the wrong syllables, like a man avoiding a chronic stutter. His helmet and goggles had left ridges under his eyes and his short-cropped hair was matted like an ink-blot to his skull. He did not look like the head of flight training at one of the Navy’s major bases. He looked more like a college whiz kid.
‘Commander Hatcher,’ Hatcher lied, offering his hand, ‘Navy Review Board.’
‘What did — I do now?’ Schwartz asked with a relaxed grin. He struck Hatcher as just the opposite of Simmons. Other than being an apparent case of permanent hypertension, Schwartz didn’t seem to have a care in the world.
‘We’re just wrapping up some hangnails,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘You know how the Navy is.’
‘After eighteen years I ought to, Schwartz answered. ‘Can we do this over a sandwich? I’m starving.’
After they had ordered hamburgers and beer, Schwartz asked ‘This about An Khe, Hanoi or Cody?’
‘That’s quite a selection,’ Hatcher growled.
‘I was shot down near An Khe,’ Schwartz said, ‘I was a prisoner for almost four years in Hanoi, and I was one of Cody’s wingmen. I’ve been asked a lot about all three.’
‘This is abou
t Cody,’ Hatcher whispered.
‘Look,’ the little man said, ‘I know you’re not with the board. Hugh Fraser called me last night. He checked Washington right after you talked to him. Far as the Navy’s concerned, the Cody affair is closed. They never heard of you.’
Before Hatcher could say anything, Schwartz held up his hand. ‘I don’t see there’s any security involved here,’ he said. ‘Anything I could tell you is in the record anyway. What’s this all about?’
Hatcher decided to tell Schwartz just enough to keep him interested and talking.
‘I’d like you to keep part of this confidential,’ Hatcher said, stalling a little to get his thoughts regrouped.
‘That depends,’ Schwartz said warily.
‘You know his father was General Cody?’
‘Of course.’
‘Cody’s dying of cancer. It’s not public knowledge at this point and he’d like to keep it that way until it leaks to the media.’
‘How much time does he have?’ Schwartz asked, obviously stunned and genuinely sorry at hearing the news.
‘Maybe six months.’
‘Shit!’
‘The thing is, the old man’s never been satisfied that Cody was killed,’ Hatcher croaked. ‘So they asked me to do one last check, just for the old man. I worked intelligence for him in Nam.’
‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked.
‘I’m kind of interested in the man. Did you like Cody?’ Hatcher asked.
Whereas Harley Simmons and Hugh Fraser had been reluctant to talk, Hatcher couldn’t stop Schwartz. The little man babbled away as though Hatcher had pushed his talk button.
‘Sure, I like him okay,’ Schwartz started, then he paused a moment, rethinking the question. ‘Well, look, it wasn’t a question of did you like him, Murph wasn’t the buddy-buddy type, y’know. He was uh . .