‘His last name is Loh,’ said the captain. ‘But if he were being formally introduced, it would be Loh Han Tranh.’
Breathing deeply through his nose, Mac tried to process the information. Tranh was a Loh Han? The most powerful tong in Cholon? At what level had this gig been compromised?
‘Loh Han?’ said Mac, very carefully. ‘As in Vincent Loh Han — the gangster?’
‘Tranh is Vincent’s nephew,’ said the captain, in a tone that had lost its hardness. ‘I want him back.’
‘You?’
‘I took the Vietnamese version of my name when I went to university in Melbourne,’ she said. ‘I was born Loh Han.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Mac, his heart rate hitting one-seventy.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I know who you are, Mr Richard, but I don’t want you in the cells and I don’t want you claiming consular protections. I will help you find Geraldine McHugh, but —’
‘But what?’
‘Mr Richard,’ she said, eyes full of fear and violence, ‘Tranh is my brother.’
Chapter 40
Mac stayed quiet in the back seat of the Cong An car as they pulled up outside the Mekong Saloon. Mac and the driver followed Captain Loan into the nightclub where a few patrons nursed their drinks while a young girl writhed around a pole.
A heavyset manager appeared and walked towards Loan, but backed off when she raised her badge. Ascending the stairs that Mac had climbed just a few nights ago, they reached the mezzanine, the manager chirping beside Loan like a bird.
Mac couldn’t understand what they were saying — he didn’t need to. It was obvious the manager was nervous and not used to the police being allowed in this building.
Stopping beside the door that led to the sealed computer room, Mac pointed. ‘I heard someone yelling, like they were being attacked,’ he said, trying for a truthful feel. ‘I wandered up the stairs and saw a man — an Anglo man — being dragged through this door.’
‘Who was dragging him?’
‘There were three men — they looked Eastern European, maybe Middle Eastern. Swarthy and tanned,’ said Mac.
‘And then?’ said Loan.
‘I said something like, “Hey — cut that out,” and one of them turned and came at me.’
‘He attacked you?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then?’
‘I attacked him back and followed the kidnap victim.’
‘Into here?’ said Loan, pushing at the door and then clicking her fingers at the manager to unlock it.
‘Yep,’ said Mac.
At the end of the corridor they pushed through another door and Loan’s colleague hit the lights. In front of them was the internal glass office, with the exit door on the far side.
No computer.
‘The man was screaming, so I kicked through the door and stood right here,’ said Mac. ‘The man — Jim Quirk — was sitting at a computer terminal.’
‘In there?’ said Loan.
‘Right in front of us. The terminal was the kind where the keyboard is built into the screen and hard drive part of it.’
Putting her hands on her hips, Loan surveyed the room. ‘Where did Quirk die?’
‘Right here,’ said Mac, as they walked to where the computer had been. ‘The leader, the Middle Eastern bloke, smiled at me and shot Quirk.’
Mac’s throat had dried up; he needed a glass of water.
‘Shot him?’
‘In the head,’ said Mac, still haunted by that night. ‘Then he ducked out that door.’
‘And?’
‘And I left the club, got Tranh to get me as far away as possible.’
Crossing her arms, Captain Loan breathed out and looked at the ceiling and the walls, observing her environment like an interior decorator asked to quote on a job. Turning to her colleague, she rattled off a series of commands in Vietnamese.
Grabbing the car keys from the other cop and drawing Mac out by the arm, Loan walked swiftly down the corridor and then out of the club.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said as she started the car and made a fast phone call. ‘Now I have something to show you.’
Eight minutes later, Mac got out of the car in a rear parking compound and followed Loan in the back door of the criminal investigation centre for the Saigon Cong An — the first precinct building.
Inputting a code at a security door, she pushed through and then hesitated. ‘You armed, Mr Richard?’
‘No,’ he said, and they walked into the police station, took a left and went down two flights of stairs. Yells and demands echoed around the concrete-clad basement as they fronted a desk that looked like a nurses’ station and Loan snapped a few words at the young Cong An attendant who wore full greens.
Writing in the day book, the woman in greens stood and led them down to a grey steel door with a small window and the number 8 painted below it in white.
The attendant opened the door with a key from her retractable chain and Mac followed Loan inside. From behind a bolted-down desk, cuffed to a loop on the table, a thin Vietnamese man with bad teeth and big cheekbones looked at them wide-eyed. His left eye puffed closed and below it the prominent cheekbone split horizontally over a shiny skin-egg. Both nostrils were encrusted with blood.
‘Have a seat,’ said Loan, and Mac took one of the interviewer’s chairs, clocking the detainee’s blood-covered white shirt, which seemed to have a corporate decal on it.
‘His English is okay,’ said Loan. ‘Want coffee?’
‘Sure,’ said Mac. ‘Name’s Richard,’ he said to the man across the desk, giving him a wink.
‘I am Luc,’ he said, nodding.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Mac.
‘I was attacked, and now I arrested,’ said Luc. ‘I told her this all. Many time, for all morning.’
‘Tell me,’ said Mac. ‘Tell me the whole story.’
‘Okay.’ Luc indicated the embroidered decal on his shirt. ‘So I fly the plane for North Star airline.’
Mac nodded. ‘At Tan Son Nhat?’
‘Yes,’ said Luc.
‘KingAir, Dash-8? Something like that?’ said Mac.
‘Yes!’ said Luc, good eye opening. ‘KingAir 200 — also Fokker 27.’
‘Not the Friendship?’ said Mac. ‘I love the F-27. Grew up with those planes in Queensland.’
‘Yes,’ said Luc. ‘North Star flying two F-27. They from TAA!’
‘Get outta here,’ said Mac. ‘Those TAA Friendships flew more outback miles than any other plane. Unbelievable.’
‘It true,’ said Luc, growing animated. ‘I tell Captain this, and she not know.’
‘Well, I know that those planes were easy to land and impossible to clean,’ said Mac. ‘So tell me.’
The coffee was delivered and Mac offered his cup to Luc. Taking it, the man — who Mac estimated was in his late thirties — pushed his arms onto the table and eyed Loan before turning back to Mac with a conspiratorial look.
‘You must carry some strange passengers,’ said Mac.
‘Yes, and when I fly Mr Smith and his friends, it start normal.’
‘Who is Mr Smith?’
‘He the man who hire us two month ’go. We flew him Saigon to Stung Treng province and north from Banlung,’ said Luc. These were the wild northern provinces of Cambodia — the final outposts of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge and all the child slavery and heroin production that was part of the communist utopia.
‘What does Mr Smith look like, Luc?’
‘He not skinny, but not big neither,’ said Luc, looking at the table like he was appraising a wine. ‘He got tan, and he the bald.’
‘Strong eyes?’ said Mac.
‘Yes,’ said Luc, sitting to attention. ‘Very strong eye, very dark eye.’
‘You own North Star?’ said Mac.