Lethal Redemption (3 page)

He opened the back door and shot the man closest to him in the head. The other tried to get out but never got the door opened. The colonel shot him in the back of the neck. Then he got into the passenger seat and told the driver where to go.

There was a field not all that far away that was a preferred spot to dump bodies. The colonel had visited it on more than one occasion. He was in a hurry. He knew if he didn’t find this Hunter woman and keep her in sight, he might well be joining those he was putting in what he liked to call the field of errors.

5

When Miloon pulled his Vespa in front of the American Embassy gates, Kiera hopped off saying, “I’ll be right back.”

Her wet clothes stuck to her in the heat like hot wax and she couldn’t wait to get out of them, but first things first.

Kiera walked through the Embassy courtyard where half a dozen small kids were playing soccer. Most of them Caucasian, one Black and the others Asian. In her dark mood she feared what kind of world these kids were going to inherit.

Inside the Embassy she was directed to the Public Affairs office occupied by a bored, phlegmatic embassy officer.

As she registered under his watchful eye, the whole time he inundated her with an unsolicited list of security updates on Cambodia, and, for no reason she could discern, went into his analysis of the conflicts in Burma between Buddhists and Islamists.

“I’m not going to Burma,” she said with a bit of an edge. “Can you tell me if there is a new address for Vale Expeditions?”

He studied her a moment. “Sorry, I don’t think I can be of much help there.”

“Why is that?”

“There no longer is a Vale Expeditions.” He paused, and then said, “You look banged up. An accident?”

Observant, aren’t you, she thought, saying, “No. I tripped and fell in the storm. Is Michael Vale still in Phnom Penh?”

“No. He’s gone. His son, Porter Vale, is still around cleaning up his father’s mess. If you want to have medical personnel take a look—”

“No thanks. What do you mean by mess?”

“Are you a friend or relative?”

“No.”

When he didn’t volunteer what ‘mess’ meant, she said, “You have any idea where he might be?”

The man had an annoying habit of staring and his eyes didn’t seem to have a normal blink ratio. He said, with pointed sarcasm, “If Porter Vale’s not in jail you will probably find him at a bar. You might try the usual watering holes like The Red Fox, Jungle Bar and Grill, or the Heart of Darkness Bar on fifty-one street. And if I can be of any assistance, I’d be happy to show you a few places.”

Not in this, or any, lifetime, she thought. “No, thanks.” She gave him a tight smirk. “Are there ATMs in this fair city?”

“Yes. The Canadia Bank. That’s the tallest new building in town. Phnom Penh’s version of a skyscraper. Some mobile ATMs. But if you’re thinking of getting local currency, the riel is becoming more or less worthless. The dollar is the currency of choice. At least until it goes the way of the riel.”

“Where’s the best place to shop for outdoor clothes and gear?”

“Central Market, Sorya shops, Night Market. Any driver will take you around. Or, if you want to wait a bit—”

“I appreciate your help,” Kiera said curtly. “I’d like to use your restroom.”

“Down the hall on the left. You look familiar, by the way.”

“I don’t think so.”

In the bathroom she looked into the metal framed mirror and was slightly amused and slightly horrified at the swollen lips, red eyes, scrape on her neck, paddy mud in her hair. Christ, I’m a wreck, she thought. She made an attempt to wash up.

Her clothes hadn’t dried at all. Kiera needed to go shopping and that was her intention when she walked back out to the street.

But before she could say anything, Miloon announced triumphantly, “I find Porter Vale. My friend tell me.”

“Finally, some good news! Where is he?”

“Thunder Range.”

Somehow that sounded appropriate. She hopped on the back of the scooter, forgetting all about new clothes. “Let’s go find Mister Porter Vale.”

She held onto Miloon’s skinny frame for dear life as he did his tricky dance through the teeming streets, negotiating with harrowing mastery the visually impaired traffic he encountered at every intersection on the way out of Phnom Penh.

They raced down a narrow road out of the city, dodging occasional traffic, water holes, animals and the ever present bicycles before hitting some open stretches. She knew far more congested Third World cities, but Phnom Penh appeared to be catching up.

When they reached Thunder Range ten minutes later she thought it aptly named with the sound of weapons blasting away all over the place.

Most of the shooters appeared to be Westerners. Men with guns. No females that she could see. The silhouette targets in use were getting shredded by high-powered instruments of destruction.

Miloon parked and told her to wait while he went to pay his respects to the range boss who was idling away the day in a hammock, smoking a cigarette and fiddling with a handgun.

The Cambodian officer glanced over at her once, nodded, and Miloon left him and returned just as three young Caucasian men passed by, each carrying an automatic weapon.

“Israeli,” Miloon informed her. Then he pointed to a couple men downrange. “Tall man, Porter Vale.”

Porter Vale had his back to them. He looked well over six feet, wore a black ball cap, a short-sleeved, faded tan shirt and green khaki shorts. Above the ankle-high sneakers his muscled calves suggested a man who did a lot of hiking and climbing. She guessed he was somewhere in his mid-thirties.

Kiera told Miloon to wait for her. At least she’d finally found a Vale, even if the wrong one.

The guy Porter Vale was chatting with, a short, stout man sporting a bush hat, caught her approach. She heard him say in a heavy accent, “Incoming, mate.”

Porter Vale turned. He had this expression that said you had entered his space without asking, so you’d better have a damn good reason. He had a face that was attractive in a pugilistic sort of way. Apparently it hadn’t avoided every punch.

She noticed he didn’t give her body a visual sweep, as his friend, and most men, did, and she appreciated that. Instead he locked on her eyes, not friendly, but with skepticism, like he knew she couldn’t be good news.

She had a sneaking suspicion this wasn’t going to be an easy interview, but if that proved true at least it would be consistent with the day so far.

6

“You’re Porter Vale?”

“Yes, and you, madam, are all wet.”

Kiera allowed a faint smile, but she pulled it back quickly when he didn’t reciprocate, feeling a little disappointed. Under different circumstances she might have even openly flirted with the guy.

She said, trying not to sound apologetic, “I took an unanticipated swim in a rice paddy on my way in from the airport.”

“It’s the season for unanticipated swims,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s a private matter,” she said, giving the Aussie a glance. He opened his hands in a gesture of benign compliance, smiled and bowed out, giving Porter Vale a wry glance before he wandered over to join other Westerners farther down range, young men enthusiastically ridding the world of imaginary enemies with multiple bursts of automatic weapons.

“I came to Phnom Penh looking to hire your father.” Kiera paused as the Israelis near them opened up with their ubiquitous UZIs. “Apparently he’s no longer in business.”

“Pop’s off to Tahiti.”

“Vacation?”

“Retired. Following in the footsteps of Gauguin.”

“A painter?”

He gave a little shrug. “Sunsets, beautiful beaches, half-naked young ladies and vast quantities of whatever’s on tap.”

“He any good as a painter?”

“He’s a man in perpetual search of the illusion of paradise, as are many of us. Painting is cover. What can I do for you?”

“You took over the business?”

“Just long enough to relinquish all its assets.”

He didn’t ask who she was so she offered. “I’m Kiera Hunter. I emailed your father several times over the past couple weeks. I didn’t get a reply.”

“He was busy closing down, packing, and under a lot of different pressures. He sent out notices. Apparently you were overlooked.”

Kiera nodded. “My laptop was stolen. That’s probably the reason. My grandfather, Neil Hunter, knew your father. I think they worked together once a long time ago.”

“Could be.”

His gaze hadn’t budged a bit, still holding hers steady. Kiera waited, giving him room to elaborate. When he didn’t she figured it would be best to get right to the point, which was quickly becoming her only hope. “Would you be interested in one more job before you go off to do whatever you’re doing next?”

“What sort of job?”

“Hunting for a lost plane flown by my grandfather.”

He tipped his head a little and gave her a sardonic smile. “It’s the ‘one more’ that I’m afraid of. One last bank job. One last diamond heist. I never believed in the ‘one last’ concept that film people are so fascinated with. It’s my philosophy that if you’ve reached the ‘one last’ stage you’ve already gone too far. But there are plenty of guides—”

“No. There aren’t,” she said. “I’m not asking you to commit a crime.”

“I’m sorry you came all this way looking for my father. But he’s gone and the business is no more.” He crossed his arms and she watched a jaw muscle tighten like he was clenching his teeth.

“I need a guide to take me into the mountains of Laos north of a town called Attapeu near the Vietnamese border. It’ll take just a day or two and you’ll be very well paid.”

He studied her for a moment, as if maybe trying to assess whether she was asking the impossible. “You’re kidding, right? That
is
a crime…against sanity.” He shook his head.

“I have reasons why I need to do this now, whatever the risks. I can’t wait. Your father was about the only one my grandfather would trust with finding the plane he crashed nearly forty years ago. It was the last fixed wing CIA plane to leave Saigon before the fall.”

Porter Vale glanced off as if looking for a quick escape, then turned back to her. “What reasons are so compelling that you chose monsoon season to trek into the most remote and dangerous jungle in Southeast Asia?”

“They’re personal. It’s important and I want to do it now.” She took in a deep breath. Part of her wanted to tell him about the robberies, to trust him—he had that look about him, one that she hadn’t seen more than a few times in her life, a look that told her volumes. And she felt an unmistakable, visceral pull to the man that she couldn’t explain…or deny. She wanted to say that she didn’t think she was alone in this, but the smart, wary part of her sensed Porter Vale was looking for a way out and knowing that just might be the push he needed.

“To look for a phantom plane…that nobody can,” he said, “or ever will, find because it either never existed, or if it did, it’s been found and stripped a long time ago.”

She shook her head. Could she convince him? Time to share some facts. “I know the plane exists and I know where the plane is. And the location is not where anyone is likely to stumble on it by accident. It’s on top of a mountain in a totally uninhabited area. That’s triple-canopy jungle and very difficult to reach. And, just in case you’re wondering, I’m used to being in rough places in bad weather.” She tipped her chin up, wishing she was a few inches taller.

He studied her intently before saying, “Once you leave Attapeu and head into the high mountains you enter a place like no other on this planet.”

“I understand it’s a rough—”

“No. Believe me. You don’t. You have no clue. No roads or waterways. It’s the most bombed piece of real estate in history. All the bombs dropped on Germany and Japan combined during World War Two can’t compete with the carpet bombing in that region, and a hell of a lot of ordinance never exploded and is still live. Those mountains and valleys are at the major confluence of the Ho Chi Minh trails. The only folks who know that area are the kind you don’t want to run into. Poachers, drug runners, bandits. It’s no place to go running around looking for lost planes.”

“It’s where I’m going,” she stated adamantly and maybe a little defensively. “And I’ve covered stories in the most dangerous places on earth and they aren’t in Cambodia or Laos at the moment.”

He said, “My father and his colleagues hunted for remains for families. I worked with them. We gave a lot of families closure. Now it’s over.” His eyes narrowed and he continued, “I know who your grandfather was and that he made some sort of miraculous escape. Lost his memory. And I know the myths and rumors about that damn plane. My advice, and it’s the best you’re going to get, take a bath, get some dry clothes, have a nice meal, go home. Go back to being a journalist or whatever you are and let this go.”

Kiera now realized he knew a lot more than he’d let on. He wasn’t fighting fair and now he was really irritating the hell out of her with his facetious attitude, but she was determined to keep her cool, do whatever it took. “I thought they marked the spots where the bombs were located.”

“Not up there.”

“I know the exact location—”

“I really doubt that.”

She took a calming breath, determined to fight with logic. “I have the coordinates and I’ve put them on my Garmin GPS. My grandfather—” Nearby bursts of automatic gunfire forced her to wait.

Before she could finish, Porter Vale said, “If your grandfather really had the location he’d have come back a long time ago himself instead of sending his granddaughter. Sometimes older people, especially those with post-traumatic stress, slip away a bit from reality and they start remembering things that aren’t. And sometimes things that never were. This is no place to be chasing fantasies.”

Screw you, she thought angrily, but said, as evenly as she could, “He was very coherent. As for not coming back, he had his reasons. I have his diary and the original map he made. I didn’t know they existed until he was very ill and I came home to take care of him. He wanted me to contact your father and give everything to him. Your father’s gone. That leaves you.”