The POW commandant shook his head, and water dribbled down his bald pate into his eyes.
‘Where is Cody?’ Hatcher demanded.
‘I do not know.’
‘Don’t lie to me, you little squid, I’ll—’
‘I do not know, I swear to you. He has vanished. Why would you want him anyway?’
‘Maybe he’s a friend of mine, too,
‘He is scum!’
‘You’re a hell of a one to talk.’
‘Cody is a heroin smuggler. He is a thief and a murderer. And worse, he is a child killer.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘He murders children and stuffs their bodies with China White. That is why he calls himself Thai Horse.’
‘Cody is Thai Horse?’
‘Yes, that is what he calls himself.’
The information shook Hatcher. He stepped back a moment, staring at the ex-prison warden.
It was the last thing Wol Pot/Taisung ever said.
Hatcher did not hear the silenced shot until it hit Wol Pot in the chest. It went thunt and the chunky man grunted and rose up, as if standing on his toes, then fell back against the wall. Two more shots followed in quick order. Thunt, thunt.
Hatcher wheeled around and fell to one knee in time to see the ancient Chinese, aswirl in the steam, aim the gun at him. He stared at Hatcher, the gun held in front of him in both hands. Hatcher jogged to the left, then shifted back sharply to the right. But the stooped old man didn’t follow his moves. He raised the gun abruptly and backed slowly toward Thi Phatt Road, the neon-stained red mist swirling around his stooped figure until he vanished into the crowded road.
Wol Pot sighed pitifully and slid down the wall into a sitting position. His mouth was open and gasping for air. A red stain began to spread around the three holes in his shirt front. His eyes rolled back and his head fell to one side, and he slumped on his side.
Hatcher jammed fingertips into his throat, feeling for a pulse, looking up and down the alley at the same time. The man was dead. Steam rose around him from the hot, wet sidewalk. Thunder rumbled on the other side of town as the storm went on its way down the coast.
Hatcher decided to get out of there. He turned and followed the old man into Thi Phatt Road. Hatcher flagged a cab and went back to the hotel. Tuk-tuks whipped in and out of the sidewalk-to-sidewalk traffic as the taxi crept across town toward the waterfront. That was all right with Hatcher. He needed the time to sort out the last fifteen minutes.
Obviously the old Chinese had been following Wol Pot.
Or following him.
He thought about the old Chinese in the swirling steam of the alley, aiming the gun at him, ready to kill until something changed his mind. What happened? Who was the old man and why did he murder Wol Pot? Not that the bastard didn’t deserve to be killed, or that there weren’t plenty of people around eager to do the job.
But what concerned him most was Wol Pot’s contention that Murph Cody and Thai Horse were one and the same, and that he was a heroin smuggler. Did he work for Tollie Fong and the Chiu Chaos? Did the Longhorn regulars know Murph Cody? The questions were still buzzing in his head when he got to the hotel.
‘I’ve got some information for you, sir,’ Flitcraft’s crisp voice said.
‘Let’s hear it, Sergeant,’ said Hatcher.
‘The bad news is that I struck out on the nicknames, Wonderboy and Corkscrew. Wilkie was First Cav, a line sergeant. Got a chestful of medals. No current address since his discharge. Earp was a full colonel in CRIP. Did four tours in Nam, retired in 1976. No current address.’
‘Uh-huh. How about the others?’
‘That’s when it gets interesting,’
‘What do you mean, “interesting”?’ asked Hatcher.
‘Riker, Gallagher, Potter and Early are all listed as missing in action and presumed dead.’
‘All four of them?’
‘Yes, sir. They all went missing in 1972. Here’s something else: the journalist, Paget? He disappeared the same day and in roughly the same place as Gallagher.’
‘Anything else?’
‘One more thing. Both Gallagher and Riker were in trouble when they disappeared.’
‘What kind of trouble?’
‘Riker for striking a fellow officer and Gallagher for grand theft. He ran a service club in S-town and was skimming off booze and cigarettes, then selling them on the black market.’
‘Flitcraft, you ought to get a medal.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’m still checking on Wonderboy and Corkscrew.’
‘Forget it. This is all I need.’
‘I might still turn up something on them.’
‘Don’t need it,’ whispered Hatcher.
‘Thank you, sir.’
Hatcher lay back down on the floor with his hands folded over his chest. His heart was racing. Suddenly the pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to fall in place. A picture was beginning to form in Hatcher’s head, but two major questions still plagued him.
How exactly did Murph Cody and Thai Horse fit into the puzzle?
And he still wasn’t sure whether Cody was dead or alive.
Perhaps the answer to those two questions lay at the end of the plane ride to Surat Thani
FONG
Daphne Chien lived in one of the high-rise apartments at the foot of Victoria Peak, its split-level, two-story living room looking across the harbor toward Kowloon. Its balcony was a jungle, dripping with plants and ferns.
She usually worked late in her office two blocks away on the top floor of one of the glass banking towers, leaving for home at about 7 P.M. On this day she was even later. The sun had already dropped behind the western mountains and the streetlights were burning when she took the elevator to the street, where her limousine was waiting. She was dressed as she usually dressed for work, in a man’s gray silk double-breasted suit, a dark blue shirt open at the collar with a red scarf tied around her throat.
As she got in the limo she was watched from a Ford car half a block away. It was equipped with a cellular phone. Before the limo left the curb, the man watching Daphne dialed her home phone number.
The phone in her apartment rang twice and stopped, one ring before the answering machine intercepted it. A moment later it rang again, this time only once.
Tollie Fong stood in the shadows of the apartment. He smiled. She was on her way. He went back up to the bedroom and checked it out. There were four long strips of silk tied to each corner of the bed. He drew a stiletto from his sleeve and placed it on the dresser next to a pair of pantyhose. He put the tape recorder on the nightstand beside the bed.
Then Tollie Fong went back down and stood behind the front door of the apartment and waited.
When Daphne came in, Fong moved so fast she was still reaching for the light switch when his powerful hands wrapped around her neck and his fingers pressed deep, felt the nerve, felt her stiffen and then go limp. He caught her before she hit the floor, lifted her, and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed spread-eagled and tied her feet and hands with the silk cords. He turned on the tape recorder and picked up the stiletto and waited for her to regain consciousness.
THE HUNTERS
Old Scar was napping in a bog at the foot of a tall banyan tree when he heard the trucks coming. Earlier he heard the elephants, grunting and snorting and blowing dirt on themselves, but he ignored them. But then when the vans came and there was the sound of many voices, he sat up suddenly, grimacing and opening the ducts in his cheeks, lifting his nose and smelling the wind, but it came from behind him and he couldn’t get a whiff of the group that was perhaps two hundred yards away.
Old Scar knew he was up against dangerous enemies. No young buck tiger, this. This was a whole army. His yellow-green eyes flashed ferociously and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a fanged snarl as he strolled slowly and arrogantly through the trees, away from the vans and people and toward the stand of bamboo and tall grass west of the lake, a mile or so away’, where his fiery orange and black stripes would blend in with the tall, dry grass.