The cool air that greeted Chase as he stepped through was a huge relief. He had been right about it being a suite, and with the extra space also came the luxury of air-conditioning. He automatically surveyed the room as he entered: two other exits, plus French windows to a balcony overlooking the port. Five men waiting for them. No visible weapons, but he could tell immediately from the equally calculating looks he was getting in return that four of them had been in the military.
One of them he recognised, having met him very briefly several years earlier: Hal Sullivan, a former colonel in the New Zealand Special Air Service. In his early sixties, Sullivan nevertheless remained an imposing, dangerous figure. He was six feet tall with the solid build of someone who trained every day, and completely bald — which made his greying handlebar moustache all the more distinctive. His tanned skin had the colour and texture of a walnut. ‘Hugo, mate,’ he drawled. ‘Good to see you. Come on in.’ He shook Castille’s hand, then turned to his companion. ‘And you must be Eddie Chase.’
‘I must,’ Chase replied, extending his own hand. Sullivan’s grip was strong, and he could tell that it could easily have been crushing if he so chose.
‘Mac spoke very highly of you, which as far as I’m concerned is as good as a royal seal of approval. Glad to have you aboard.’ He released Chase’s hand, then indicated the other men. ‘These are the rest of the team. John Lomax,’ a close-cropped, bearded Caucasian man, ‘Fernando Rios,’ thick black eyebrows and swigging from a can of Coca-Cola, ‘and Carl Hoyt.’
Hoyt was the tallest man in the room, wiry rather than muscular and with bony, deeply sunken cheeks. A hand-rolled cigarette hung from his clenched lips. ‘Join the gang,’ he said, his accent American.
Chase and Castille greeted the group, then Sullivan waved for them to sit as he stood beside the last man. ‘This is our client: Ivor Lock. Mr Lock, if you’d like to explain the situation?’
Lock had a neat goatee beard and was wearing a tailored suit and shirt, his sole concession to the climate being an open top button. Chase guessed him to be around forty, and from his smooth skin and slicked-back brown hair took him to be a lawyer or business executive. Like Lomax and Hoyt, his accent revealed him as American. ‘Gentlemen, good afternoon,’ he began. ‘Some background first: there is a charitable organisation, Aide Sans Limites, that travels around Third World countries providing free medical care for the poor. One of their groups has been working in Vietnam. Two days ago,’ he leaned forward, expression becoming more intense, ‘the team was taken hostage by a group of bandits operating in the jungle near the Laotian border, fifty or so miles west of here. The local authorities have been… unhelpful. Which is why I approached Mr Sullivan to expedite their rescue.’
‘I know suggestin’ this is kind of against my own economic interests, since it’d mean we weren’t needed,’ said Lomax, ‘but couldn’t you go to the US embassy and get them to put pressure on the Vietnamese government?’
‘None of the group are Americans,’ Lock replied. ‘They’re mostly European, but different nationalities, so it would mean going through multiple embassies, multiple bureaucracies. And the Vietnamese will try to hush the whole affair up. Tourism’s becoming big business for them; the last thing they want is to scare people away with news stories about bandits and kidnappings.’
Rios, a Spaniard, spoke. ‘But the story will get out eventually.’
‘Not soon enough to help the people who’ve been kidnapped.’
‘What’s your connection to them?’ asked Chase.
Lock took a breath. ‘My daughter is one of the volunteers.’
‘Thought you said there weren’t any Americans?’
‘She’s a German national.’ Lock’s flinty eyes narrowed; he did not appreciate being questioned. ‘Natalia Pöltl, my daughter from my first marriage.’ He took out his wallet, opening it to reveal a small photograph of a young blonde woman. ‘Now you see why I’m involved, Mr Chase — and why I want this situation dealt with as quickly as possible. I want my daughter rescued from these… animals. Before anything happens to her.’
‘We’ve got information about the bandits’ area of operations,’ said Sullivan, ‘and narrowed their location down to a few square kilometres.’ He crossed to a large map taped to one wall, and pointed out a particular section. ‘It’s about eighty klicks west of Da Nang, so we’ll take Highway 49 to a point north of the target area, then head south. We’ll have to search, but it seems these jokers have been operating with free rein for some time. If they’re not worried about being tracked down, they shouldn’t be too hard to find.’
‘So what do we do when we find them?’ asked Castille.
Hoyt grinned coldly. ‘I’ve got a few things in mind.’
Sullivan raised a warning finger. ‘We use lethal force only as a last resort, understood? Our number one priority is to recover the prisoners safely. Considering Vietnam’s past, they really don’t like having groups of Westerners marching through the jungle shooting people, even if they are bandits. If they decide to crack down, they could make it hell for us to get out of the country. Trust me, I did it the hard way back in ’73, and it was not fun.’
Chase took a closer look at the map. The area Sullivan had indicated was hilly, judging from the contour lines, and there were few signs of civilisation nearby. ‘Is it just jungle out there?’
Sullivan nodded. ‘There are some small villages along the main river valleys, but past them it’s pretty much solid all the way to the border, and beyond. We’re not far south of the old DMZ, so this whole part of the country got ripped apart during the war. It’s been left to recover ever since.’
‘A good place to hide,’ said Castille dolefully.
‘We’ll find them,’ Sullivan assured him. ‘So, here’s the drill. A local friend of mine, Thuc, will take us in and out. From the drop point, we start a search. Once we find the hostages, we rescue them — minimum force unless absolutely necessary, remember — and take them to an extraction point on this river,’ he pointed at a thin blue line on the map, ‘where Thuc will be waiting with a boat. That should be the quickest way to get them back to the highway. From there, we return to Da Nang. Job done.’
‘What about gear?’ asked Lomax.
‘I’ve got a good man with access to weapons and equipment. He’s on his way over right now. In the meantime,’ he handed out larger-scale maps of the target area, already marked with the drop and extraction points, ‘familiarise yourself with the terrain. Mr Lock, you don’t need to stay around if you don’t want to.’
‘Thanks,’ said Lock, ‘but I’d like to see. My daughter’s out there, remember.’
Sullivan nodded, then began a more detailed briefing. Chase paid close attention; having served in Vietnam during the war as a young NZSAS officer, the Antipodean’s first-hand knowledge of the jungle would be invaluable. Hoyt, meanwhile, was more occupied with rolling a new cigarette.
After twenty minutes, they were interrupted by a knock on the door. Sullivan opened it. To Chase’s surprise, the man who entered was another familiar face. ‘Jesus, if it isn’t Eddie Chase!’ he said after greeting Sullivan. ‘And Hugo Castille too. Christ, we’re only a couple short of a full Afghanistan reunion.’
‘Bluey!’ cried Chase. ‘Fucking hell, you were the last person I expected to see. What’re you doing here, you farty old bastard?’
‘Supplying this sheep-shagger and the rest of you drongos with guns and gear,’ said Bob ‘Bluey’ Jackson, giving Sullivan a cheery nod. ‘So, Sully, you roped Eddie and Hugo into this? Well, they’ll get the job done, even if they are a right pair of wankers.’
‘As Edward would say, “Fuck off, you wombat-shagging twat,”’ Castille grinningly told him in a very poor imitation of Chase’s Yorkshire accent. The Australian waggled his bushy eyebrows in amusement. ‘Are you coming with us?’