Despite the bat-wing swish of the fan suspended on a brass stalk from the ceiling high overhead, which at least kept the lethal Saigon afternoon air circulating, a trickle of sweat ran down one side of the Michoacan clay mask which served the Thai ambassador for a face. He was not used to being addressed in that tone of voice by a mere woman. Not to mention one whose dress and behavior were nothing less than scandalous.
On the other hand Royal Thai Army intelligence had it on good authority that she could rip the colonel's arm off as casually as he might pull the wings from a fly. That she was an ace stacked insult atop injury. Still, the situation called for circumspection.
"Madame President," the ambassador said, bowing his head. His English was excellent. He had received training at Fort Bliss. "Muang Thai requires much water to supply the rice-growing lands of the Khorat Plateau. We must feed our people. Surely the Mekong belongs to all the peoples along its banks."
The President's audience hall had once been the great room of the grand French colonial villa in the heart of Saigon - the unwieldy name "Ho Chi Minh City" was scarcely a memory anymore - which had been co-opted as the seat of government for Free Vietnam. It was as unorthodox as its occupant, being hung to either side of the chair of state with parachutes tie-dyed into ludicrous fireworks-bursts of color. Both were hard for the Colonel to take seriously.
Moonchild wagged a finger at him. "And by both treaty and custom the people downstream from your country are entitled to a share."
"That is a very difficult question," the colonel murmured. "There is great drought in my country."
"Which you brought on your own damned selves," said the person who stood at the President's shoulder. A meter and three quarters tall, with the white-feathered and fiercely beaked head of a bird of prey, and claws to match emerging from the sleeves of his tiger-pattern camouflage battle dress, he twisted the colonel's sensibilities. Southeast Asians, by and large, had a loathing for human deformity, and thus for jokers. "You cut down all the trees in your country, for Chrissakes. Fucked up your watershed something fierce. Not our fault."
Sucharayan's thin lips drew tighter, giving the impression his face might be about to implode. "The internal affairs of my country are no concern of yours," he hissed.
"When you interfere with the flow of water to the farmers of the Mekong Delta, you make it our affair," Moonchild said. She raised her legs and spun on her butt until she faced forward, then placed her black-slippered feet primly on the floor. The colonel's eyes started out of his head.
The joker thrust his yellow break forward so that its hooked tip was inches from Sucharayan's nose. "Keep trying to steal our water," he said, "and you're engraving yourself an invitation to an entire world of hurt."
The colonel puffed up like a frog. "If you are making threats, permit me to assure you that the Royal Thai Army - "
"Can't find its butt with both hands." The joker raised his head and emitted horrid cawing laughter. "Remember those Thai Ranger teams you infiltrated through Cambodia, back when Bush was President? The ones with the Green Beanie advisors? How they like us now, baby?"
The colonel put his finger inside his collar, where pressure from his necktie was chafing him. He did not look happy. It had been necessary to liquidate several of the survivors of the missions the Thai Rangers had undertaken in cooperation with the American DEA and Special Forces, to prevent them telling demoralizing tales.
"That's right," the joker said. "You keep messing with the Mekong, shit's gonna happen. You dig? Your officials are going to start acting weird. River monsters will run off your workers. Your heavy equipment's gonna burn. There will be problems."
Moonchild held up a hand and gave a little Queen Elizabeth wave. "Peace, Colonel Inmon." She smiled sweetly. "I'm sure he wants to get along just as much as we do."
She giggled. The colonel stared at her. Sweat streamed down his face.
A woman - a girl really, no more than eighteen - came bouncing into the audience hall. Not just any girl, but a tall glorious Occidental girl with hair like spun gold, wearing a floppy sun hat, a red halter top, and cut-off jeans that showed how impossibly long her legs were. In one hand she held a string bag full of oranges. The other cradled a pink teddy bear to her breasts. She was every tinpot Third World dark-sunglasses-wearing fascist brickhead colonel's ideal vision of what a Western woman ought to be.
A pair of jokers so hideous the colonel couldn't bear to look at them followed her in. They spread out to either side, flanking the door with AKM assault rifles held ready. Trying to ignore the scrutiny of five unfriendly eyes, the colonel watched the girl skip to the President, lean forward and plant a kiss on her unmasked cheek.
"Hi, Isis," she sang in a little-girl voice. "I'm ba-ack!"
"So glad to see you, Sprout, dear," the President said. "Run along now, please. I've important business to tend to."
"Sure." The girl turned, flashed a smile dazzling enough for a beer commercial at the colonel, who was making no effort to hide an expression of sheer disgust. Then she went bopping out of the room, all unconcern.
Sprout," the President said, eyes lingering on the door she'd left by. "My - that is, my chancellor's daughter."
"A most charming creature," Sucharayan said in a voice starched with irony.
"Yes she is, isn't she?" The President grinned at him. "Now, then, Colonel, I'm sure the Kingdom of Thailand is as eager as we are to see relationships between our two countries remain friendly. We can work this out."
"No doubt we can," the Colonel said.
"So," the President said, crossing her legs and rubbing her hands together, "now that we've got business out of the way - you wouldn't happen to have a daughter, would you, Colonel?"
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Jay Ackroyd shook two aspirin out of the jumbo bottle he kept in his desk drawer and washed them down with a swallow of cold coffee from yesterday's pot. Then he made a face. The stuff tasted like Rondo Hatten's socks.
He wondered how his junior partner was doing. They should have heard something by now.
Peter Pann was asleep on the long leather couch in the corner of Jay's office, snoring a sweet little eleven-year-old snore. His tie was loosened and his shoes were off. "Wake me up when the tink gets back," he'd told Jay before nodding off, hours ago.
"What the hell is taking so damn long?" Jay said irritably.
Across his desk, Melissa Blackwood looked up from her little bitty computer. It was the latest experimental prototype, she'd explained to him, a NEC Neuromancer powerdeck with bubble memory and holographic display, wouldn't be on the market for another two years, minimum. "We don't even know if he's been arrested yet," she said. Readout flickered in the air in front of her eyes, phantom letters that Jay found vaguely disconcerting. "And they will probably want to interrogate him before they take him to wherever the others are being held."
"God, I hope not," Jay said. "I don't know how long he can carry this off."
"You worry about him too much," Melissa said. "He'll do okay. You should get some sleep." Her hair was an unruly cascade of red curls spilling out from beneath her hat, her body hard and small. Very small. Beyond petite, maybe five feet on a tall day. If she wore boots. This morning she wore a jogging suit, a pair of old Reeboks, and a shiny, black silk top hat.
The top hat was her trademark. Aces magazine had named her Topper back when she was still a teenybopper protegee of Cyclone out in San Francisco. During the years she'd spent with the Justice Department, Melissa had played the part to the hilt, dressing in a distinctive uniform of white shirt, bow tie, long-tailed black tuxedo jacket, black satin short-shorts, black fishnet stockings, and high-heeled black fuck-me pumps.