Cambodian Hellhole (4 page)

Stone rose to hands and knees, about to find his footing, when a boot drove hard into his ribs, lifted him, and dumped him over on his back. Another boot, and something seemed to snap inside him, lightning bolts of pain rushing along his spine, detonating at the base of his skull in multicolored streamers.

They could kill him if he did not find his feet. If he stayed down . . .

The soldier twisted, brought himself into a fetal curl, and was waiting when the boot slashed in for thirds. He caught it, cushioning the impact with his arms and hands, and twisted, pushing off, forcing the stomper to spin like a whirling dervish, fighting for balance.

The guy lost it, vaulting backward into darkness, landing hard across the coffee table, crushing it beneath his weight. Stone did not wait around for someone else to find him where he lay; he staggered to his feet and put some ground behind him, stopping finally when he reached the cover of a wall.

His final adversary made his rush, and was screaming as he came, a hurtling juggernaut intent on crushing Stone against the plaster wall. Stone felt the first disturbance of the air as his assailant launched a flying kick, and he was gone when it impacted, but felt the wall absorb the shock, the plaster cracking, showering dust.

Before the startled slugger could react or get his balance back, Stone had him by the ankle, twisting, bringing that leg up and over at an angle it was never meant to hold. The guy was airborne in an instant, shoulders touching down before the rest of him received the message.

And Stone was straddling his chest, both hands locked tight around the straining throat. No need to see the face above the windpipe, just as long as he could gouge his thumbs a little deeper, cutting off the vital flow of oxygen. Another second now, no longer, and . . .

The lights blazed on, the artificial glare momentarily blinding Stone. He hunched his shoulders, bracing for the blow he knew was sure to come, but he did not release his grip upon the purpling throat.

By God, he would take this one with him when he went, and they would have to pry him off, the sons of bitches. Just a heartbeat longer.

And then he recognized the sound of the revolver being cocked.

A glance in the direction of the open doorway told him all he had to know about the ambush and his adversaries.

The C.I.A. man, Carruthers, was framed in the doorway, his pistol leveled at Stone's face almost casually.

"I recommend that you release that man," the agent said, his tone disinterested. "Please believe me when I say that I have no desire to shoot you. But I will, if you insist."

Stone believed him. He released the thug and left him sputtering for air as he rolled away, rising nimbly to his feet.

"That's good," Carruthers said. "I hoped we could reach some kind of deal."

"Like hell."

The agent's smile was frosty.

"But we have, old son. Already. And I must insist that you accompany me downstairs. Right now."

I
n front of the hotel, a black sedan was waiting for them, with another C.I.A. man at the wheel. He did not even glance back as the two of them climbed into the rear seat, Carruthers sitting opposite Stone, his short revolver never wavering.

Before they had driven a block, Stone knew that he could take them if he wanted to—at least he thought he could—but he decided to complete the ride and find out what the hell Carruthers and the Company desired from him so urgently if they were willing to risk touching off a minor riot in a public place to bag him, then it just might be worth listening to.

And it occurred to him, of course, that this might be a one-way ride, with nothing at its end except his sudden death, but Stone dismissed the idea out of hand. If the Company had wanted him dead, he would be dead by now. They could have sniped him on the street or wired explosives in his room—whatever. They would not have wasted time with that pathetic scene at the hotel, and they would not have led him through the crowded lobby on his way to execution, where an errant witness might remember seeing him with Carruthers.

No, they did not mean to kill him, or at least it did not seem to be the primary objective of the evening. And with that decided, Stone determined that he could afford to wait and hear them out.

There would be time enough for getting in his own licks when he knew exactly what they wanted, where they were taking him, and why.

And Stone would not forget the debt he owed to Carruthers. Not if he had to wait a lifetime.

Their track took them out of the downtown sprawl and into winding, darkened streets where people moved in twos and threes or kept themselves inside with darkness, out of sight and danger. Bangkok was a city of extremes, and within several moments they were at the far end of the poverty scale, cruising almost regally through slums that would have made a stateside ghetto look like the wealthy end of Beverly Hills. There were no houses here, at least no structures truly deserving of the name. Such dwellings as he could readily identify were thrown-together tin and cardboard, with some oilcloth added for the more affluent models. Trash was everywhere, great mounds of it, and little, wizened women scrounged among the refuse, seeking this night's dinner.

Stone had seen it all before, and yet it sickened him. Bangkok and Thailand had become a dumping ground for refugees from Indochina, all the smaller nations that had fallen one by one to Communism, seeing dictatorial regimes installed and people driven from their homes and land.

The domino effect had proven more precise than any armchair analyst had dared to speculate back in the sixties or the early seventies. And "peace with honor" did not mean a damned thing to the thousands who were starving daily in the Bangkok streets. Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, all of them were pressed together in what had to be the vilest slums on earth.

If revolution came in Thailand, it would start right here, Stone knew—but red-tinged hands would stretch out from Hanoi to light the fuse.

At last they left the reeking slums behind, and reached a neighborhood that passed for middle class. It was a residential area devoid of shops and roadside businesses, its narrow streets and sidewalks almost barren of pedestrians at this hour.

The safe house was set back away from the street, a fenced-in garden providing some security from prying eyes at curbside. The silent driver turned in at a narrow driveway, killing lights and engine simultaneously and coasting back until they came to rest beneath a little carport at the side of the house.

"This is it," Carruthers told him. "Get out."

Stone exited on his side, and the driver was a step ahead of him, moving to cut off the best avenue of retreat in case he tried to make a break. Stone grinned at him and turned his back, following the silent hand signals from Carruthers, moving up a little flight of concrete stairs to reach the side door of the house.

Carruthers knocked, a simple sequence of taps and pauses, then waited while a man inside opened a series of locks.

The door opened on soft lighting, and Stone saw a third man standing well back from the doorway, with an automatic pistol leveled at the open portal. Except for being blond and somewhat younger, the man and his suit might have been a carbon copy of Carruthers and the driver.

Stone wondered where they found these guys, and if they came prepackaged, or their individuality was simply stripped away by some sophisticated laundry process. Instant secret agent: put him in a cheap suit, wind him up . . . and watch him butt his head against the wall for hours on end.

Stone passed inside, Carruthers and the driver crowding close behind him, and saw a fourth man standing on the opposite side of what appeared to be a kitchen.

Make that two pairs of matching bookends.

This one had taken off his jacket, and the holster he wore beneath his right arm held a standard army-issue .45 Colt autoloader.

Mark Stone registered the fact that this one was left-handed, filing it away for future reference. You could never tell what might come in handy in a life-or-death combat situation.

When the outer door was closed again and double-locked against the hostile night, Carruthers spoke again.

"We've got someone you'll want to meet. He wouldn't talk to anyone but you."

"I guess he's choosy."

"Smart guy," the driver commented. It was the first time Stone had heard him speak.

"Relax," Carruthers told his sidekick. It was both a warning and an order, and his tone told Stone that this one was in charge, at least the nominal superior of the other three.

That knowledge, too, might come in handy. Later.

"So, where's the mystery guest?" he asked of no one in particular.

"This way."

Carruthers brushed on past him, leading him along a narrow, dingy hallway, past a bathroom and what may have been a tiny den. The bedrooms were in back, along the north end of the house, and one of them was plainly their final destination.

It was the first time Carruthers had moved out ahead of Stone, and he was no longer holding his revolver. Stone could have taken him, but he was very much aware of the other three agents filling the corridor behind him, and he had to assume that one or all of them would waste him if push came to shove.

He would have to bide his time, find a way to shave the odds a little, get them on his side.

In any case, they had him interested now, in spite of himself. He put his anger on hold and let a cautious curiosity take over as they reached the bedroom doors and Carruthers opened the one on the left.

It was a bedroom in name only, barely functional. All furnishings except for a card table and a narrow folding cot of military make had been removed; the windows had been boarded over, either when the house was originally abandoned or later, as a slipshod security precaution. The net effect was to make the room even darker than it would normally have been. A single low-wattage bulb dangling from a ruined ceiling fixture cast surrealistic shadows in the corner, climbing halfway up the faded, grimy walls.

The cot was the central feature of the tiny room, and Stone observed that it was occupied. A gaunt, emaciated figure lay stretched out upon the framework of aluminum and canvas, covered with an OD blanket, shaven head reclining on a pillow that had seen much better days. The face—a man's—was turned in Stone's direction, but there was no recognition, and damned little life, in the hooded eyes.

"Peter Ramsay," Carruthers told him. "That's Corporal Ramsay, USMC. Some friendlies picked him up a few kilometers from the border, on the Cambodian side, three nights back."

The full reality of what the agent had been saying struck Stone like a blow across the chest. This skeleton upon the cot was an American marine, for Christ's sake, and a P.O.W. at that. Somehow, against the odds, he had escaped from his captivity and made his way to the Cambodian border. Made his way to this.

"You fucking bastards."

"Hey, now—"

"Easy, Stone," Carruthers cautioned. "We were all for sending this bird stateside when we got him, but the word came down to check him out, debrief him. You know how it is."

Stone knew exactly how it was, all right. And he was mad enough to kill somebody now, without discriminating on the grounds of nationality.

"The problem is, he's got a hangup," Carruthers continued. "Like I said, he won't spill to anyone but you. So, in the interests of time and all that . . . here you are."

"You're here for our convenience, Stone," the driver told him ominously, finally finding voice and nerve to use it. "Just don't fuck it up."

Stone pinned him with a glance that sent the agent back a pace or two, and then he turned away, his face softening as he neared the cot and knelt down by the ravaged form of what had been a U.S. fighting man.

"Corporal Ramsay?"

Something stirred behind the eyes.

"I told you mothers . . . nothing till you bring Mark Stone in here."

"I'm Stone."

The face was changing, hope replacing misery and anger somehow.

"No shit?"

"I wouldn't shit you, soldier."

"I'm a marine," the corporal corrected him, grinning.

"Damn straight." Stone answered that weak smile with a strong one of his own.

His reputation had preceded him, somehow, against the odds and across the many miles. He knew about the jungle grapevine, how a message or a name could travel from Cambodia or Laos into the Mekong Delta within weeks, sometimes within the span of days. And he had been at this job long enough to know that guards, perhaps some P.O.W.'s themselves, would know about his efforts, and be talking quietly among themselves.

A legend in his own time? Hardly.

Just a soldier, trying his goddamnedest to release some others from the living hell they had been cast into ten years ago, while fighting bravely for their country.

Let the opposition know his name. And let them come for him, if they thought they could handle it. And fuck them if they couldn't.

It was good enough, for now, that some of their captives knew his name as well, that they kept hope alive until the time when he—or someone else—could find them, come for them, and take them home to families that had been waiting for what seemed a lifetime.