Council of Kings (13 page)

The child raced off. His friends were excited more corpses were coming down. Bolan heard another thump.

The first corpse came closer to shore as it drifted under the bridge.

Bolan waded in. The corpse passed from sunlight to shadow and its color emerged better: greenish-gray skin, purple on the underside where the blood had settled. Red hair — that would be important. Bolan pulled it into an eddy under the bridge. The face was unrecognizable.

The second corpse drifted headfirst. Bolan had to chase a buzzard off the face before it would give up its meal. Another head shot. Chestnut hair.

The third corpse was Vietnamese — shot in the chest, but the face had been hit and was swollen and distorted.

Naiman didn't come down the river. Bolan waited as the day grew hotter.

The corpses swirled in the slow eddy, around and around like a kindergarten game. The sun was advancing across the eddy, and they would be well on their way to rotting in a few more hours. Bolan watched them go around and around, bobbing in the heat.

An hour later the boy returned with a Vietnamese man dressed in a white suit. Bolan gave the boy his money and sent him off.

"Vu Quoc Thanh. Thanks for coming."

"What do you want from me, Sergeant Bolan? I cannot help you in your position."

"What position is that?"

"You murdered Jim Naiman last night. They know you work for the VC. Every police force and intelligence force is looking for you."

"Do you really believe that I killed him, Thanh, after the work we have done together?"

"In this war I can believe anything."

Bolan motioned to the corpses turning in the eddy.

"Do you know any of them?"

The Vietnamese walked over and watched them go around.

"The Vietnamese I don't know. I think he is a tribesman. Meo, or Laotian."

"And the others?"

"We have seen them before. They are the foreigners." Thanh looked back at Bolan, his sunglasses reflecting the river and the sampans. It was a long look. Someone was going to have to kill Thanh very soon.

Bolan was pushing the bodies out into the current, when he heard Thanh's voice come from the bridge above.

"You want a reason, Sergeant? History repeats itself. The Council of Kings."

Bolan looked at tiny room through the slatted vent of the locker. The coroners worked at an enamel table in the center of the white-tiled room. He breathed slowly, calmly, so that he remained perfectly still and could not be heard. The place was cool, even in his hiding place. Indeed, it was chilling.

They unzipped the bag and turned their heads away as the odor escaped.

Bolan saw a young man's face. The kid was maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, the tendons tightened into a grimace. They pulled the bag off him and began stripping away his tattered fatigues.

"Jesus Christ," said one of the coroners. "Here I was looking for a bullet wound and he doesn't have any."

"Bled to death," said Morgan.

They stripped him naked and dead.

"I've seen this before," Morgan told the other coroner. "Every time they do one of these pacification programs we get the weirdest sights. This guy was reckoning on slipping it to a slope, okay? But she's the enemy. She gets a tube, or a toilet roll or whatever, and lines it with razor blades. Bob from Nebraska here gives her one in the hut and bang. The way blood pumps into erectile tissue, I'd say he was dead in fifteen seconds."

The other man was slitting the body open down the belly and letting the guts drop through the well in the table into a sealed bin below. Bolan heard the slick plop as the intestinal matter hit bottom.

"What are they going to tell this kid's mother?"

"Maybe they'll give him the Purple Heart."

They worked, cleaning the cavity and stuffing it with the cotton and formaldehyde. The man across from Morgan broke the silence.

"Shouldn't we lay low for a while?" he said softly.

"No problem," Morgan replied. "They're going to put that crazy young sergeant in the slammer for good."

The odor from the corpse drifted over to Bolan.

It invaded the locker, filling his nostrils with the stench of putrefaction.

The coroner brought over a cardboard box and began placing bags of white powder among the cotton in the GI's gut space. Dr. Morgan walked over to his desk and unlocked a drawer. He took out some papers and a pencil.

"What's the serial number on this one?"

The other man read the number and Morgan copied it down.

"What does Putnam say about all this?" asked Morgan's partner.

"Don't mention his name again. Especially to any of the others. We're all better off if Putnam's name is kept out of it."

"I see he's really keeping his nose clean."

"You could say that. You going to sew that one up"

"Soon as I finish packing him. Jesus, this guy has enough dope in him to supply New York for a month."

Morgan finished writing and put the papers back in the drawer and locked it. Then he took off his coat and walked toward the locker. Bolan watched as his face grew nearer.

"That's not my concern, Mike, my boy," said Morgan, his voice suddenly very near, filling the locker. "Not my concern."

Bolan's adrenaline started its pounding effect.

The gun felt good in his hands. Morgan pulled open the locker door and then dropped his coat in horror. The big bastard stepped from the locker, unwrapping his big frame even as he pressed the Colt M16 into Morgan's genital area. Morgan stopped breathing. He stared up into a pair of crazy blue eyes.

Mike was stitching, unaware of Bolan's presence.

"You got a lot of balls, running an operation like this, Morgan," Mike said. He pulled a long stitch through the kid's corpse.

Bolan cut the air with the voice of the guillotine. "Not much longer he hasn't. Drop the knife and get against the wall."

Mike turned, still holding the thread. Seeing Bolan, he obeyed. Morgan was wide-eyed, sweating and trembling. He tried to edge his genitals away from the gun barrel, but Bolan kept it jammed tight.

"Who is Putnam?"

Neither spoke.

Bolan pulled the hammer back with a resounding click.

"Tell me who Putnam is."

Morgan's voice shook. "Putnam is a guy, just a guy who tells me what to do. I don't know who he is."

"You lie to me again and I fire this thing."

Morgan stole a glance at Mike, then looked back at the big bastard holding the gun. His lips trembled.

A knock on the door. Bolan told Morgan to answer.

"It's me, Jones," said a voice through the door. "You finished yet?" The door swung open. A guard walked in, rifle slung over his shoulder.

He saw Bolan and cocked it, bringing it up to fire.

"Don't!" yelled Morgan.

Bolan pushed Morgan away and swung the Colt up to the guard. Bolan waited for a split second to see if the guard would fire.

The guard brought the gun up until it pointed at Bolan's face.

Bolan blew away the guard's face.

Mike whimpered in fear. He shook.

Bolan kicked each man in the head, swiftly and surely. He pulled the keys from Morgan's pocket, as the man slumped and groaned. A whistle blew shrilly somewhere in the building.

Bolan tore open the drawer and stuffed the papers into his shirt. Blood from the guard's head flowed between his boots in a crimson rivulet. Then came the sound of rushing feet.

Bolan slid out the workroom door. Two guards rounded the corner, SMG's at the ready. They pulled up to fire. Bolan sent the first spinning back with a roaring blast from the Colt. The second gunner tore the wall open with slugs. Bolan closed his eyes against the spray of hot plaster and crouched, then fired at the muzzle-flash. The room fell silent.

Sirens screamed across the tarmac. A troop carrier pulled up, guards spilling from the back. Bolan sprang, making for the other door.

In the bright heat outside, Bolan put on his mirror sunglasses and holstered his gun. The truck was idling, its driver ready.

Bolan walked up and shrugged. "I can't find that asshole anywhere," he said.

The driver looked down at him. "What the hell is going on, anyway?"

"I don't know," Bolan said, opening the door of the truck and yanking the driver out. The driver sprawled on the tarmac as Bolan shifted into gear and roared off.

There was a soft crack of billiard balls. Carpet spread beneath his feet.

There were women here.

Colonel Harlan Winters, known as "Howlin' Harlan" in the officer corps, looked up from his whiskey at the officers' club and nearly choked.

"Bolan," he managed to get out, "how the hell did you get in here?" Winters looked furtively around the room.

Bolan turned his back to the rest of the room and stood at ease beside Winters. From inside his shirt he withdrew a sheaf of papers. He lay them on the polished wood of the bar in front of Winters.

"You shouldn't have risked coming here."

"I'm safer here," replied Bolan.

"Jesus Christ," muttered Winters as he scanned the papers. "You were the one who blew open this heroin thing?"

"They accused me of killing Jim Naiman in order to shut me up," Bolan said.

Winters read on compulsively. Bolan stole a glance behind at the officers' club. They might have been in Nevada someplace, from the looks of it — carpeting, lamps, pool table. In the next room a movie was showing.

Sentimental music sounded through the wall. Bolan listened to the dialogue. A woman was trying to dissuade her soldier from going to war.

Bolan ordered a drink. Who was the actor?

Henry Fonda? No, Ronald Reagan.

The voices were distorted as they came through the wall.

"You're a special man, Bill. You have courage. More than I do, I guess. Please stay."

"I'm not so special. I just fight for what I believe. As long as there's a bully to fight, I'll be there..." The music swelled; they were probably kissing on an airstrip or a ship.

Winters whistled and looked up. Bolan caught the faint breath of whiskey.

"This is a dirty business, isn't it?"

"As dirty as it gets."

"Look, my advice is don't get too hot about it. I've been hearing rumors about the CIA transporting raw heroin for the Laotians in return for raids on VC camps inside the Laotian border. Maybe we need that."

"We don't need what we're getting now. The VC in the Mekong get anything they want — weapons, supplies, anything. The so-called intelligence we've been going on is useless. Our boys are getting slaughtered. Buddy knew it on that mission."

Winters took a thoughtful sip of his drink.

"You're right about the intelligence. I could do better with a Ouija board. But we can't let the VC keep Laos as their supply depot. Anyway, it's too late now. The whole thing is under official investigation."

"Who's doing the investigating?"

"The CIA. Top level, here in Saigon. Putnam himself is heading the investigation."

"Putnam?"

"What's the matter?" Winters had seen Bolan's face freeze.

Bolan felt a sense of desolation sweep through him, of justice torn and shredded, scattered to the winds.

"Putnam is the one running the operation." Winters threw up his arms. "Listen, Colonel," Bolan said urgently. "You have to stash those papers away until I find a way to get around Putnam. I'm dropping out of sight. I'm going back to the Mekong."

Winters leaned forward and looked piercingly at Bolan. "Don't go back to the Mekong now, Mack. Anywhere but there. We're getting casualties way beyond anyone's predictions. It's a mess, a bloodbath."

Through the wall came heroic music. Must be near the end of the movie, Bolan thought.

Winters continued uneasily. "You've been too much at the front line, Mack. You're starting to get that look in your eye."

"You know how it is as well as I do," said Bolan. "There is no front line. The front line is everywhere."

Winters stopped Bolan before he walked through the door. "Mack, be careful you don't go over the edge. Nam does that to people."

Bolan knew now, standing in that officers' bar, just how Buddy felt when he was shaving his head. "I'm already over the edge," he said.

Mosquito netting hung diaphanous in the moonlight. Bolan felt the fatigue working on his mind as he stood over the bed. He must be careful now. For a moment Buddy appeared in hallucination, squatting on the floor with his knife at Bolan's feet.

Bolan pulled back the netting. Vu Quoc Thanh lay sleeping. The moon mumped him with a corpselike pallor.

Bolan sat on the edge of the bed. Thanh shot upright, feeling for his gun.

Bolan grabbed him by the wrist until he gained his senses. Thanh wiped the sweat from his neck and torso, finally his face.

"What is the Council of Kings?" whispered Bolan.

Thanh faced him, the moon behind him glowing on his shoulders. His face was in darkness.

"The Council of Kings is the name given to those who run your war."

"The Pentagon?"

"No. Intelligence. The people who sell the war to the generals and the money-makers. The people who give your country a reason to send its youth to their deaths."

"What do they have to do with the heroin?"

Thanh waved the question away with a bony white hand.

"The heroin is a minor thing, useful to the Council for making deals, making money. But you and your people are being lied to. Many times I tried to warn the American intelligence people that the VC were strong — stronger than they could imagine. But they would not listen."

"Why not?"

"They wanted to tell their people that they could win the war. Now they are finding out that I was right, but they cannot admit it. For years I told them, but they ignored me."

"We can win it. If we can only cut off the VC supply routes..."

"You don't understand. This country has been invaded and occupied by foreign armies for thousands of years. The people here have always driven them out, sooner or later. Don't you understand? The only way to win this war is to kill every man, woman and child."