‘I may need a favor,’ Hatcher said finally.
‘Must be something going on for you to come back to Hong Kong,’ Cohen said. ‘You know Tollie Fong is the new san wong of the White Palms?’
Hatcher nodded.
‘They all think you’re dead. The minute Fong knows you’re here, he’ll try to kill you. If he misses, Joe Lung’ll have the whole damn White Palm Triad on your ass. They’ll follow you to the North Pole if they have to. We’re talking about family honor, blood oaths, saving face, the whole ticket. It would be better if you were left dead.’
‘I know the score.’
‘Well, you act like you forgot,’ Cohen said. ‘This is their turf, Christian. As long as you’re in this house, you’re safe, but I wouldn’t give a Confederate dollar for your chances out in the colony. I love you pal, and I hate to see you leave, but you can’t stay in Hong Kong. Somebody’s already got a tail on you, old pal.
‘Yeah. I think it’s the Hong Kong police. A sergeant named Varney with the Triad Squad paid me a visit this morning. He claims my name popped up in their computer when I went through customs.’
‘You don’t believe him?’
‘I believe the computer part of it, that could happen. But this Varney seems a little too interested in me. They followed me from the hotel.’
‘Humph,’ Cohen said pensively. ‘This Varney just showed up at your room?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t trust anybody, particularly where you’re concerned,’ said Cohen. ‘I’d forget whatever brought you here. Go home, Hatch.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why? What’s so special about this trick?’
Hatcher told Cohen the whole Murph Cody story, ending with the death of Windy Porter and the disappearance of Wol Pot.
‘Right now, I don’t have a lead except this ghost camp in Laos. If it existed, somebody upriver knows about it. Maybe I can get a name, some lead before I go to Bangkok.’
‘Bangkok! Shit, it’s worse in Bangkok,’ China said, his voice going up an octave. ‘Fong spends half his time wasting dissidents up in the Golden Triangle and the other half getting laid at the Royal Orchid Hotel. Why don’t you just go over to Macao and hatch an egg in his front yard.’
‘There’s five million people in Bangkok. I can keep away from Fong and his bunch.’
‘Hell, a damn cop already knows you’re here. You think you can just slip in and out of Bangkok without stirring up something? And you have no other leads?’
‘A picture of Cody and his hoochgirl. Does the phrase “Thai Horse” mean anything to you?’
Cohen looked at him and smiled for the first time since Sing discovered the house was being watched.
‘Thai Horse? Why?’
‘It popped up somewhere.’
‘Come here,’ Cohen said, leading Hatcher back into the bedroom. He pointed to the ivory statue of the horse by the bed.
‘That is a Thai Horse,’ he said.
‘The statue?’ Hatcher said with surprise.
‘That’s right. It’s a real treasure. Authentic Thai Horse, about third century B.C. Been kicking around for a long time.’
‘What is a Thai Horse?’ Hatcher asked. My God, could the reference to the Thai Horse at the Wall have meant a statue, a simple gift? he wondered.
‘The mythical ghost horse,’ Cohen said. ‘Supposedly stolen from the King of Siam, According to legend, it carried Thai heroes to heaven after the great wars. Legend has it that a Chinese brigand stole the horse and brought it here to the first emperor of China in exchange for a pardon. They renamed it the Celestial Horse, the Tian Ma. It was the Tian Ma that delivered the first seven emperors of China to the mountaintops around the colony when they died, then the gods turned them into dragons. When the rule of the Han Dynasty ended, the horse disappeared and was never seen again’
Hatcher whispered, ‘Where’d you get it?’
‘From an artifacts museum in Peking,’ he said with a wink. ‘Don’t ask me how much I paid to get this little darling lifted.’
Hatcher stroked the smooth sides 0± the handsome ivory horse. Could there be any significance to the reference other than as a statue? he wondered. Finally he said, ‘Well, that doesn’t add anything to what I know, which is damn little.’
‘Have you got anything else on the fire?’ Cohen asked.
‘I’ve got a man doing some checking for me in Washington,’ Hatcher said. He looked at his watch. ‘I can call him now. If he comes up with anything, I’m going to play out the hand.’
‘Or—’
‘I’ll trash the job and go home.’
‘Then I hope the son of a bitch doesn’t even turn up your name,’ Cohen said. ‘I’d sure as hell rather have you gone than dead.’
FLITCRAFT
Sergeant Flitcraft was waiting in the reception room of computer operations in the Pentagon when Sergeant Betz arrived at work. Betz was a tall, paunchy man in his late forties, a short-sticker with a cushy job and less than two years to go before retirement, The broken blood vessels in his nose attested to his penchant for scotch, particularly Dewar’s. He and Flitcraft went back a long way. Bragg. Korea. Nam. Betz scowled at Flitcraft, the smiling, tough black sergeant, who had somehow managed to stay in the service although he walked with a limp, supported by a cane. Flitcraft, too, was close to retirement. Betz knew Flitcraft wasn’t there on a social visit.
‘Got some confidential entries for you this morning, Sergeant,’ Flitcraft said, standing as Betz entered.
‘Yeah, right,’ Betz said. ‘C’mn down.’ He turned to the receptionist. ‘Give Sergeant Flitcraft a class-three permit,’ he said.
She reached in a drawer and pulled out a blue name tag, filed its number on a registry and handed it to Flitcraft. She knew him and assumed he was there to give Betz classified information for the general computer. The blue pass permitted him to go only as far as the general offices, a bank of small windowless boxes, through a door to the left of reception. The door to the right opened into the general computer system and was guarded by a marine.
Flitcraft followed Betz into his office, a small cheerless cubicle with just enough space for a desk, a file cabinet, a computer terminal and one other chair.
‘You got some entries for me there, Sergeant?’ Betz asked, easing open a desk drawer.
He knew Flitcraft, knew he worked for a special unit known only as Shadow Section, and that he was trustworthy. Since Flitcraft did not have a C-1 classification, he did not have access to secret computer files. Flitcraft took a quart of Dewar’s White Label from his briefcase and slipped it in the drawer, which Betz eased shut with his knee. Because the office was under constant surveillance by a roving video camera, they played this game of charades.
‘We’ve got some low-grade classified reports here for general entry,’ said Flitcraft, sliding a sheaf of immaterial reports across the desk to Betz. Betz looked at them, casually lifted the cover sheet and read on a slip of paper on page two: ‘Classified POW files.’ Betz looked at Flitcraft as if to say, ‘Who cares?’
Flitcraft raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if to answer, ‘Who knows? You know how the brass are.’ Silent looks exchanged between noncoms ‘who had been in the system a long time and knew that a lot of information was classified simply to prevent the news media from gaining access to it through the Freedom of Information Act.
Betz slid open the tray on his desk and checked a list of code names and numbers. He wrote several down on a slip of paper and attached the slip to the top of the file. He set it aside in plain view of Flitcraft ‘while he filled out a receipt, which he signed.
Flitcraft memorized the list immediately:
52-767-52116
Sidewinder
9696
Cherry
Monte
Cristo