Lethal Redemption Page 5

  “This is a friend of mine,” Porter said. “Nguyen Thi Xam.” He introduced Kiera but the woman ignored her and put her hands on Porter’s arm. When she smiled, her eyes flamed bright as she said, “Chao ong.” When she finally turned to Kiera the flame died out, replaced by cool appraisal.

  Porter said, “Kiera, show her the photo of the elephant.”

  She retrieved the photo from her backpack and handed it to a skeptical looking Thi Xam.

  Thi Xam looked at it, glanced at Porter then led them into the back room. The room felt cramped and smelled of silver polish, turpentine and paint. Three work tables held vices, lamps, boxes of jewelry, silver plates, teapots and statues, and pieces of broken pottery.

  Porter and Thi Xam spoke in Vietnamese. The woman turned on a small powerful light on a large magnifying glass, adjusted a tray below it, and placed the picture in the center of the tray. Porter made himself comfortable on a cushioned chair and poured two small cups of what appeared to be some kind of wine.

  “Try it, see what you think,” he said, offering Kiera a cup.

  She smelled it first, sweet and pungent. Then she took a sip, swirled it around in her mouth and decided it was probably one of those acquired tastes she wouldn’t have time for.

  “How’s the wine?” Porter asked.

  “Different,” Kiera said.

  “It’s a blend of rice wine and sparrow blood,” Porter said. “Very popular in Vietnam.”

  “Maybe not for me,” Kiera said, putting the cup down on one of the tables.

  They watched as Xam studied the picture.

  Porter said, “To Vietnamese Buddhists in some sects that statue is like the jewel of the Muroji to the Buddhists in Japan.”

  “I don’t know about any jewel of Muroji,” Kiera said.

  “A Buddhist temple in Japan named Muroji after Mount Muro. It’s the Shingon sect that allowed women to access the inner circle during the pre-Meiji period. The legend says that the founder of the temple, Kukai, buried a jewel there. It’s supposedly buried in the exact center of Japan. And as long as that jewel is there, Buddhism will continue to exist in Japan. Icons are important in Buddhist cultures.”

  He got up and leaned over Xam’s shoulder for a moment, then came back to Kiera and said, “You ever hear of the Mother of Madhu? That’s another example of the significance of icons important to some Buddhists sects.”

  “No.”

  “It’s a Christian icon actually. The Virgin in Sri Lanka. That is also about five hundred years old. It’s an important icon to Hindus, Buddhists and the small percentage of Christians there. After a twenty-five year war between the Sinhalese Buddhist government forces and Hindu Tamil Tigers, violence and clashes simmered down when that statue was returned to its jungle shrine. It’s thought to have great protective powers, among other things. Believing is the ultimate placebo, is it not?”

  “If the golden elephant in the picture is real—”

  “If it is, and is recovered and returned to its proper place, many would take that as a powerful symbol of the ultimate survival of Buddhism in Indochina. The very existence of the statue is considered by many to be a myth, as it was commissioned by a radical sect believed to have been all women. But myths are often more powerful than reality.”

  Xam transferred the picture to another table, another lamp, and another magnifying glass. This one had a bluish light. She uttered quietly, “Choi oi!”

  Kiera moved over and looked closer at the magnified picture. She hadn’t noticed the inscription on the bottom platform of the statue until now. “What does that say?”

  “That inscription fifteenth century poem,” Thi Xam replied tersely. “All the male heroes bowed their heads in submission; only the two sisters proudly stood up to avenge the country.”

  Thi Xam then turned to Porter and said something in Vietnamese as she handed him the photo.

  But they were then interrupted by somebody who came into the shop calling for Xam.

  She left them and went up front where there was a quick, intense discussion.

  Kiera recognized the voice. It was Miloon.

  “It’s been fun but time to go,” Porter said.

  She quickly returned the photo to her backpack while Porter went up front, and then came back.

  “Let’s go,” Porter said, ushering Kiera out a back door. “You have anything at a hotel, it’s not coming with you.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You ever been up the Mekong River?”

  “No.”

  “We’re going to see a friend of mine if we can get out of here. An old Special Forces soldier who once called the Ho Chi Minh Trail his backyard.”

  “I take it Xam thinks the statue may be the real thing.”

  He stopped and looked around at the shop aisles, then they moved on. “She leans that way,” he said.

  “You thinking of handing me off to some old vet living out his days in his own mental Apocalypse, are you?”

  “Be a good idea, but I wouldn’t inflict you on him without a buffer.”

  In spite of his attitude, she smiled inwardly. She had her man and he was growing on her by the minute.

  11

  Porter stopped and pulled her back into a cramped recess between vendors as two Cambodian policeman walked past. The space was tight and she realized they were both holding their breath, though she definitely felt his heart thudding as his chest pressed against hers. When they were gone they headed off, cutting through shops, Porter nodding to the owners. He seemed to know everyone.

  “I haven’t committed any crime,” Kiera protested mildly. “Why would the police be looking for me?”

  “You’re in Cambodia and you’re with me,” Porter said. “That’s crime enough and the police are very responsive to power. You got somebody with pull all worked up.”

  They retraced their steps through the market, up two blocks to the dark recess where Porter’s Land Rover was parked.

  Porter turned on the engine as he glanced back to see what might be coming.

  But just as he put the Land Rover in gear and pulled out on the main street, a car pulled up in front of them turning sideways to try and block the road. Another raced up behind them, lights flashing.

  “Didn’t take them long,” Porter said. “Unusual for around here.”

  Kiera felt a jolt in the pit of her stomach as Porter swung out into the oncoming traffic, forcing a taxi to crash into a parked car.

  “Fasten your seatbelt,” Porter said with a tight but controlled voice. “I got a feeling—” He didn’t finish. Two more cars, these unmarked, pulled into the road along with a police car and blockaded the street.

  Porter slowed, and for a moment she thought he was going to stop. He drew close and hit his bright lights.

  Then he floored the gas pedal. They swerved crazily from side-to-side at first, then he fixed on the narrow separation between the cars. Two men with guns got out, but seeing him coming at them at high speed, they dodged in opposite directions. Porter hit the tiny space between the two cars and shoved them out of the way.

  The rear panel of one car flew up over the windshield, that car spinning around behind them as they shot up the boulevard with two other cars in hot pursuit.

  Porter said as he tracked his pursuers in the rearview mirror. “If you’d waited one lousy day I’d be in Bangkok right now with, as Old Blue Eyes would have put it, a cuff link on each arm.”

  “You wear long sleeve shirts?” she managed to say through clenched teeth.

  “When I’m partying in Bangkok.”

  A police car appeared ahead of them, its bar lights dancing and headlights flashing.

  Porter headed straight for the car, high beams on, in a high-speed game of chicken.

  Kiera grabbed the door and the dash and braced herself for what looked like a horrible end.

  The police car stuttered to a stop at an angle, a cop leaning out the window of the passenger side with a gun.

  Porter swerved
violently back and forth and slammed into a car, metal screeching and grinding and suddenly they were free and speeding down the street.

  She was back up and looking through the back window but they’d turned and she couldn’t see a pursuer. Porter took another tight corner and she had to brace herself as the Land Rover went up on two wheels, then bounced down violently.

  “The joys of four-wheel-drive,” Porter said as he turned out his lights, took a hard left and nearly wiped out a cyclo. As he swerved to avoid it they sideswiped a tree, shot up over a large lawn in front of a magnificent old French house, then back through a row of flowers and into an alleyway, then crossed another street.

  “There’s a Glock and an extra clip and satellite phone in a pouch in the glove box. Grab them. We’ll be on foot very soon.”

  She fumbled for the pouch. It occurred to her that Porter Vale was maybe a little more nuts than she’d sensed. But then again, maybe it went with the territory.

  As he cut down another wide boulevard a few blocks away from the quay they came to a traffic circle.

  She saw a sign flash by: Charles de Gaulle Boulevard. Then they were airborne, bouncing between a truck and Pedi cabs, with pedestrians jumping out of the way.

  He turned down a side street, jumped over a curb and raced through a park.

  They shot past a stadium, and then pulled off the street and through a low arch and into what looked like a village area. He finally stopped behind some hedges and a thatched house.

  “You look in pretty good shape,” Porter said. “You can run?”

  “I can,” Kiera assured him.

  He reached for the pouch and took out a satellite phone and a handgun. “Get your backpack on, we’re going to be on foot.”

  She put on her backpack and followed him as he tucked the handgun behind him in his belt under his shirt and the SAT phone in one of his cargo pants pockets.

  They took off in a fast jog, cutting through a group of thatched houses, back across a footbridge and then into a courtyard, around a statue and into an alley.

  He slowed to a fast walk, then stopped and peered down one street, then led her across.

  “You saved me from a night of goodbyes and debauchery,” Porter said. “That’s something to be grateful for, I guess.”

  “I do my best,” she said, hoping his attempt at levity was a good sign.

  They went over a low wall. “I hope wherever you’re staying,” Porter said, “you don’t have anything there you don’t mind losing.”

  “What wasn’t stolen is on my back, along with a few replacements.”

  A gray cat leaped back over a low wall, startling her for a second. It vanished.

  To keep up she had to break into an all-out sprint through the dark of a narrow confine of buildings. They darted down another narrow street and slowed, then stopped at a white wall with an iron gate.

  Porter opened the gate and she followed him into a recessed little courtyard of what looked like a small of pagoda.

  “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Before she could say anything he left her there, hidden among a cluster of small, elegant trees. It was strangely quiet, an oasis of tranquility after the craziness of the chase.

  She stood in the quiet night, the pagoda-like structure dark, and the buildings around it also dark. Well, she thought, this is either the beginning or the end of my mission.

  Kiera felt like she’d fallen through the rabbit hole into a very bad place. And she’d pulled Porter Vale right in with her.

  He came back moments later, followed by a monk clutching his saffron robe across his chest.

  They stopped and talked for a moment, the monk nodding and glancing from time to time at her.

  Then the monk retreated and Porter came over and said, “Soon as the night rains come, we go.”

  “Up river?”

  “There’ll be a boat to take us out of here.”

  “He’s taking a big risk helping us, isn’t he?”

  “He’s used to risk.” He turned away from her and studied the night sky. “About ten minutes. It comes a little later every night. You can smell it just before the deluge arrives. The monsoons are about the most punctual thing in this town.”

  He led her around the side of the pagoda and into an alley. There they waited a few minutes in another small plot of banyan trees.

  “This vet we’re going to see. You’ve worked with him?”

  “Yes. He knows the part of Laos you want to go to as well as anyone who wasn’t born there.”

  “Special Forces soldier?”

  “Yeah. Charles McKean. He’s about the only person who would take this on. He was leader of a team that got inserted a bunch of times into Laos. Choppers dropped them off, extracted them. Charles was what they called back then a One-Zero. First in, last out. They did things like set up observation posts, sabotage, hunt lost men, call in air strikes on the Ho Chi Minh trail.”

  “Special Forces was the precursor to Special Ops, right?”

  “Yeah. They had the highest rate of casualties of any unit in any of our wars. He was the only survivor of his team. He hid from the massive NVA searches for nine days. Finally one of the searchlight operations—they’re rescue operations—found him. He didn’t want to come out. He thought one of his guys had survived and was a prisoner. They had to physically pull him out of there and had a hell of a time trying to keep him from going back. He never got over losing his team. He’s stuck back in time. But in Laos, he’s the man. He’s been up there many times. Still looking.”

  “That’s sad that he’s still looking for his men.”

  “Yeah, we’ll he’s got some issues with that, for sure.”

  Just as predicted, the rain came and it came fast and hard.

  “That’s our cue and our curtain. Stay close.”

  They hustled through streets, the torrent booming on the roofs and car tops. She couldn’t see two feet in front of her.

  Nothing much else seemed to be moving. Just a few people with umbrellas, some traffic creeping along. Otherwise the downpour seemed to have momentarily shut the city down.

  He kept off the main streets, making their way up and down narrow sidewalks until they reached the quay at the far end of town.

  He took her hand as they went down the slippery bank. She felt a strength in him that surged into her like a drug, thankful.

  When they reached the flat area where the boats were moored, a Khmer appeared like a ghost in the rain. He had one leg, the other a crutch.

  Porter, talking loud against the roar of the rain on the river, said, “The police will be stopping everything on the river soon and we need to get out fast.”

  She followed him into the longboat’s open-ended cabin.

  “He might have to pay off river police if we run into any. You have any cash?”

  The boat was already moving out into the rain.

  “Yes. Five hundred.”

  “American?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Give me three twenties. Bills that aren’t torn. They don’t like torn bills. Bad luck.”

  “I know.”

  She took a small pen light from her pack and the bills, then counted out three twenties as Porter held an umbrella the boatman gave him. She checked to see the bills had no tears in them.

  Their ride was a little different than most of the other long-tail boats. This one looked more powerful, the roof low and the wheel in front. A hybrid speed boat of some kind.

  Porter motioned for her to go under the boat’s low slung roof into the man’s living quarters, as he went forward to the bow.

  She looked for room to settle. The engine kicked over and the boat began to move faster. The river was so thick with fog and rain she didn’t see how the boatman could see much of anything.

  Inside the cramped quarters, the boat was so narrow she had to squeeze between two bags of rice, her back against one wall, and her feet against the other.

  She put her hea
d back and listened to the rumble of the engine and the pounding of the rain. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to use the time to rest. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

  Like it or not, Porter Vale was her guide. She figured there was no chance he’d hand her over to some old vet. Not now that he knew the golden elephant was probably the original. She had him. That made her relax a little.

  ***

  Porter studied the river ahead. He had the boatman cross closer to the far bank in case they had to make a run to shore.

  At one point he glanced back at the narrow, open boat cabin. The mystery female. She was smart, a war correspondent brought up by a master of Intel operations. So she wasn’t naive by any stretch.

  Yet she’d taken this on right from the start with a kind of naiveté that had to be a result of the shock of Neil Hunter’s death. This was a woman who’d lost both parents when she was a little girl. That made her a woman who’d maybe seen way too many bad things in this world already, as he had.

  But here she was and here he was, like it or not. He shook his head. What the hell was he doing? Still, he couldn’t ignore the excitement of finding that damn plane if they could actually get up there without getting killed en route. He and his father had done some searches in western Laos, but the particular place where that plane went down was nothing but jagged mountains, steep valleys and bad things. No roads, no waterways.

  The one thing he knew was that he needed McKean. No way he was going up there without that old soldier. He took out his SAT phone to give the old soldier another call. Things had tightened up. They weren’t going to have much time to reminisce.

  PART TWO

  THE SWEET SERPENT

  12

  When Porter came inside the boat’s cabin he settled into the cramped space next to Kiera, both of them soaking wet.

  “Everything look okay?” she asked him.

  “So far, so good.”

  “You have any idea who’s chasing us?”

  “I’ve got an idea. Right now McKean’s checking on things. He’ll know a lot more when we get there. Man lives out in the middle of nowhere, but he’s got contacts everywhere.”