When his best friend vanished, Christian Hatcher, the Shadow Warrior, had no choice. He had to follow the heroin pipeline . . . from Hong Kong to Bangkok, to the deepest darkness of Vietnam. The sensational new national bestseller by the author of Chameleon and Sharkey's Machine.
THAI HORSE
‘William Diehl has turned all the tools of the adventure-writing trade loose in his newest novel. Hot stuff, this Thai Horse. It’s got a hero who’s a mixture of Ollie North, James Bond, Lee Marvin, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, with a plot that takes us from Central America to Southeast Asia, Hong Kong, New York and, briefly, to an island off Georgia, and combines elements of The Maltese Falcon, The Dirty Dozen, Sax Rohmer’s Fu Man Chu books and The Wizard of Oz. . . I was barely able to put this number down’
The Washington Post Book World
‘Mr Diehl knows how to tell a story, arid his novel moves along at a good pace’
New York Times Book Review
‘Accurate background detail and vivid .characterization lend authenticity to a scenario of nonstop chills and thrills’
Publishers Weekly
‘A superior adventure novel from the author of Sharky’s Machine. . . A taut plot, interesting sub-plots and good characterization are the hallmarks of the story. It’s exciting, plausibly horrific and light on the gung-ho excesses which usually stalk the genre’
Knave
‘Everything a summer beach read should be’
Time Out
William Diehl lives on St. Simon’s Island, Georgia, with his wife, four dogs, two cats, a goat, twenty birds, and a lot of tropical fish. He is the author of three previous international best sellers, Sharky’s Machine, Chameleon and Hooligans, and is currently at work on his fifth novel.
THAI HORSE
William Diehl
CORGI BOOKS.
THAI HORSE
A CORGI BOOK 0 552 13355 8
Originally published in Great Britain by Bantam Press, a division of Transworld Publishers Ltd.
PRINTING HISTORY
Bantam Press edition published 1988
Corgi edition published 1988
Corgi edition reissued 1989
Copyright © Hooligans Inc. 1987
Conditions of sale
1. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
2. This book is sold subject to the Standard Conditions of Sale of Net Books and may not be re-sold in the U.K. below the net price fixed by the publishers for the book.
This book is set in 10/11 Plantin
Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers
Ltd., 61—63 Uxbridge Road, Ealing, London W5 5SA, in
Australia by Transworld Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.,
15—23 Helles Avenue, Moorebank, NSW 2170, and in New
Zealand by Transworld Publishers (N.2.) Ltd., Cnr. Moselle
and Waipareira Avenues, Henderson, Auckland.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Cox & Wyman Ltd., Reading, Berks.
To four treasured friends: my agent, Owen Laster, my editor, Peter Gerhers, my adviser, Buddy Harris, and, as always, to the love of my life, Virginia
Some men go skimming over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror.
—JOSEPH CONRAD
VIETNAM
1972
BLACK PONY DOWN
He hardly felt the hit, but he heard it. The muffled roar shook the stick slightly, and he looked out to see the end of his right wing shatter and flake away. A moment later the familiar and frightening sound of .50 caliber shells rattled the fuselage behind him as the bullets ripped the twin- engine OV-1O. Suddenly the plane began to yaw, then it made a wrenching slip in the opposite direction. The plane dipped slightly toward the good wing and dropped a hundred feet. Cody was fighting the aircraft, trying to get it stable. He pressed the radio button: ‘Mayday’..
Mayday. . . this is Chilidog one to Corkscrew. I’m hit and out of control. . .
The voice was remarkably calm, almost resigned. The only hint of trouble was in the timbre of his voice. It was shaking from the violent action of the plane, like a stereo with too much bass.
They were too low to bail out. Cod y always played it like that, treetop-level stuff. ‘Get down .where you can see the whites of their eyes,’ he would tell his men. From under the umbrella of green foliage, deadly ground fire chewed at the twin-engine assault plane. Fifty-calibers rattled the fuselage.
‘Brace yourself,’ he told his gunner. There was no response. Cody turned in the cockpit and looked back. Rossiter was slumped in the seat, his canopy riddled, his face shot away. But Cody lad no time to feel sorry for the youngster, he was losing the plane. The jungle catapulted toward him. Two hundred yards in front of him was the river an d on the other side of the river was freedom. He knew he’d never make
Before HQ could answer, the pilot was back on.
‘This is Chilidog one . . . half mile north of checkpoint Charlie . . . I’m down to five hundred feet . .
The radio operator answered immediately.
‘Chilidog one, can you make it across the river?’
‘. - . trying . .
The radio operator switched bands and called Rescue. ‘Rescue, this is Corkscrew. I have a Black Pony going in half mile north of checkpoint Charlie, a couple of hundred yards into Indian country . . . Do you read?’
The answer came immediately. ‘Corkscrew, this is Rescue . . . we hear him . . . Got a Huey on the way . .
‘Chilidog one, we have a Huey in the area. Can you stay aloft to the river?’
‘Negative . . . I’m going in . .
The transmission ended suddenly.
‘Shit, we’re losing him,’ the radio operator muttered. He turned to his assistant. ‘Get the Skipper over here fast, Wicker.’
‘On it,’ the assistant, a ruddy-faced seaman first, snapped back and snatched up the phone.
The plane suddenly jerked again - The stick was useless. Cody was trying to get it under control with the rudder pedals, but that, too, was futile. The ship went up on its good wing and then slowly began to roll. The green jungle rushed toward him as he rolled upside down. Cody slammed the stick forward in a last attempt to get control and the plane’s nose rose sharply. Its tail raked the treetops and disintegrated, and the black craft was snapped down into the green tapestry below. Cody shoved the stick forward, away from his chest, and braced himself against the instrument panel, his forearms shielding his face. He heard the plane crumpling around him, the metal screaming as the trees tore it apart. Then it all stopped — the noise, the forward thrust — everything seemed suspended in time.
Cody, hanging upside down, looked over his head and stared straight down at the ground, about twenty feet below hint. The plane was a twisted wreck around him. He looked back at Rossiter, his gunner. The kid’s arms hung down toward the ground.
The canopy was half off, dangling from its tracks. Cody slammed the flat of his hand into it and it toppled away into the trees. He smelled smoke.