Message From -Creasy 5 (11 page)

"And he's not working for the authorities. So he's working for whoever set the
bait."

They were sitting in a pavement cafe on Hoa Dai Street. It was a scene of the days
even before the Americans; the days when Vietnam was a French colony, and
Saigon was regarded as the Paris of the East. They had breakfasted on good
coffee and croissants and admired the skill of the man who had been following
them for the past two days.

"He's a pro," Creasy said. "And he works alone. His disguises are minimal
but effective. And he even changes the way he walks. Yesterday he had a limp.
Today he walks normally. He never looks directly at us. He varies his distance
and sometimes he just vanishes, but always turns up again. He's a pro."
There was genuine admiration in Creasy's voice.

"So what do we do about him?" Guido asked.

Creasy took a thoughtful sip of coffee and glanced again at the reflection in the
plate glass window of the cafe. The man was sitting at a foodstore on the other
side of the busy road, eating from a bowl of noodles. He wore baggy black
trousers, a white T-shirt and a black, flat cap. He wore the old-style sandals
made from car tyres. He melted into his milieu.

"We pick him up tonight," Creasy said. "We'll find out who sent him. We
need to hire a car this afternoon." He was glancing up and down the
street. "It's a strange thing," he said. "I never liked Saigon.
It was a whore of a city in every sense. The locals sucked the blood from the
Americans like a million vampires, and the Americans enjoyed it. They thought
they were the masters in a sea of slaves, but it was the other way around. Deep
down, nobody likes to be a whore, no matter what the rewards. There is nothing
without pride. The mood is different now. Of course the Vietnamese love to
trade and they are damned good at it. Of course there are still whores, and
there will be more as capitalism takes over, but it's different. There is no
coercion. It's a strange kind of feeling."

Guido
looked at his friend quizzically. It was not often that Creasy waxed
philosophical. At least not openly. He decided to take advantage of the moment.
He asked: "What are we doing here, Creasy?"

His
friend glanced at him in surprise. "You know damn well what we're doing
here. We're looking for a guy who's almost surely dead."

Guido
shook his head. "I mean, what are we really doing here? This Jake Bentsen
thing is hardly serious. At least not serious enough for you to go charging
around the world, spending all that money...Your own money."

Creasy
lifted a hand and a waiter loomed up. Creasy gestured at the empty coffee pot
and the waiter took it away. Creasy continued to gaze at the street scene until
the waiter returned with a full pot. Creasy filled up both their cups and then
added two lumps of sugar to his own coffee. He stirred it for a long time, and
then said: "It's a strange thing, Guido. Up until a couple of years ago I
never took sugar in my coffee. I hated the taste of it. Then one night in a
restaurant in Gozo the waiter gave me the wrong cup. It had sugar in it. I
tasted it...and liked it."

"So?"

"So things change." He gestured. "Saigon has changed. People change.
Maybe I've changed."

Guido grinned at him. "You mean, you've become sweeter?"

Creasy did not smile. He said: "Maybe I do things for different reasons these
days. It's possible that I've become more curious. I'm here because I want to know
who's after me and why. I guess I got a little tired of sitting in the sun in
Gozo. It's why I was in Brussels in the first place. Subconsciously I was
looking for some action but the options didn't appeal very much. There was a
job in Bosnia. It paid well but I decided the hell with it. First of all, I
have a big enough stake to last the rest of my life, and second, I felt no
great desire to shoot up Serbs, Croatians or Muslims. I figure they ought to
let those savages work it out by themselves. They've been doing it for a couple
of thousand years. Then there were some Portuguese idiots who were trying to
hire a group to go down to Angola and help Savimbe have one last crack at the
government." He snorted in derision. "Angola, for Christ's sake! We
fought there twenty years ago. It seems like it was the last century." He
took a sip of his coffee and then added another lump of sugar and gave Guido a
rare smile. "So I'm really here out of curiosity...Why are you really
here, Guido?"

The Italian shrugged. "I guess I was bored. I got tired of serving the same
customers in the restaurant and watching the same football on TV and the same
corrupt politicians with innocent faces and fat pockets." He paused for a
moment, then looked up at Creasy and said: "Maybe I was a bit lonely. When
you told me you were coming out to Asia on a mission, I thought of the old
times. There were good and there were bad, but they weren't boring." He
leaned forward and almost imperceptibly jerked his head in the direction of the
follower. "So how do we take this pro tonight?"

Creasy also leaned forward. He said: "You ask him very politely to take a car
ride with you."

Guido grinned. "I'm always polite."

They both looked up and then stood as they saw Susanna approach across the street,
with Jens and The Owl in her wake. Creasy pulled out a chair for her. She sat
down with a sigh and fanned her face with her hand.

"The
heat gets to me," she said. "Will this place have an iced
drink?"

She was
wearing a lime-green, short-sleeved dress cut square across her chest. Fine
beads of perspiration glinted on her shoulders and arms. Creasy beckoned for a
waiter and ordered her a large, fresh orange juice on the rocks. The others
ordered beer. Creasy turned to the Dane and said: "Jens, perhaps you would
look after Susanna tonight. I need to borrow The Owl."

"It'll
be a pleasure," Jens replied. "What's happening?"

"We're
going to pick up the follower and ask him who he's working for. I know from
Dang Hoang Long that he's not working for the authorities. So whoever sent him
is almost certainly the person who lured us here in the first place. It's
better if you and Susanna eat in the hotel tonight and stay there until we
return."

"You
think he'll talk?" Susanna asked.

Creasy
glanced at Guido and then answered: "We shall persuade him to do so."

"You'll
torture him?"

Guido
leaned forward. He said: "It's not likely that we will need to. We use
psychology in such things."

"And
if psychology doesn't work?"

Creasy
said: "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. One thing is sure:
we'll need to know who sent him. Otherwise we're at a dead end."

Jens
had been deep in thought. He lifted his head and said: "Creasy, maybe he's
a plant who may have disinformation."

Creasy
thought about that for just a moment and then shook his head. "It's
faintly possible, but not probable. If they wanted to plant disinformation,
they would not have sent such a professional. They picked a man whom they did
not expect to be noticed or caught. I think he's genuine. Anyway, we'll find
out tonight."

The
drinks arrived. Susanna picked up the tall, frosted glass and rolled it across
her forehead before draining half of the contents. Then she looked at Creasy
and said: "What if he doesn't speak English? After all, he's only in his
thirties and it's been more than twenty years since the Americans left. Not
many of the youngsters here speak English unless they work in specialist
positions with the government. Since he's not working for the government, he
might not speak English. How is your Vietnamese, Creasy?"

Creasy
was slowly shaking his head as though in disgust with himself. He said:
"My Vietnamese is minimal. I should have thought of that. Maybe Billy
Nguyen at the Mai Man Bar can find me a reliable and discreet translator. He
can find most things, for a fee."

Guido
was looking sceptical. Susanna said: "That's a risk you don't need. I had
better go with you."

There
was a long silence. Then Jens remarked: "There could be violence, and you
work for the US government in a very sensitive area."

She
shrugged and answered: "My instructions were to give you assistance. They
were not specific." She glanced at Creasy. "What chances are there of
violence?"

"Very
little. Guido and I are experienced with these things. We're dealing with one
man who will suspect nothing. Even if he's carrying a gun or a knife, he will
have very little chance to use either."

Guido
said: "Maybe we pick him up first and if he doesn't speak English, we'll
call in Susanna."

Creasy
shook his head. "It's too complicated. I haven't worked out the exact plan
yet, but we'll have to take him out of town to a quiet spot. We have to play
that part by ear. If Susanna is going to be in on it, she has to be in from the
start." He glanced again at the reflection of the figure in the window and
made a decision.

"We'll
go with Susanna."

Connie
Crum lay naked on the vast bed, groaning in pleasure and pain. The girl
straddling her was small enough to be blown away in a gale, but she had fingers
of steel and they dipped and probed into Connie's neck muscles and shoulders.

It was
the start to an evening that had been planned in almost every detail. She had
arrived at the hotel half an hour earlier.

Chilled
pink champagne and a huge bowl of fruit were waiting in her suite. She had
opened the champagne and after taking a few sips had picked up the phone and
ordered a masseuse. The girl had arrived dressed in a white coat and carrying a
small bag. While Connie undressed, the girl had slipped off the coat, revealing
a tight, trim body covered only by brief white panties. She had taken several
bottles of different oils from her bag.

Connie
had given her a glass of champagne before lying face down on the bed. She had
booked the girl for an hour. For the first forty-five minutes the girl had
massaged her body with skill and strength until through the pain Connie had
felt the muscles relax.

She
turned her head and murmured in Thai: "Softer now. Imagine I'm a cat."

The
girl chuckled, and her fingers changed from instruments of power to gentle,
teasing strands. They glided in a continuous caress over the oiled skin.

Connie
Crum's mind and body relaxed. She thought of her dead husband. He had been a
hard, ruthless man, almost as ruthless as herself. Whenever she wanted
something from him, she would give him a massage. The same kind of massage that
she was receiving: hard at first but then soft. His mind would go numb and then
she would eventually have him under her fingers and under control. In many ways
he had been the perfect man for her. If only he could have kept his hands off
other women, he would be alive today. Even so, she had regretted her jealous
rage and, looking down at him with the knife in his heart, she had decided
never to get deeply involved with any man again. In future, she would take her
pleasures when she wanted them under her own conditions.

The
girl's fingers had reached her buttocks. Connie moved on the bed, savouring the
feeling. In her mind she reviewed her situation.

She was
allied to the Khmer Rouge only for profit. She was a born trader; in the chaos
of war she had amassed a fortune. She had made good investments mostly in
property in Japan, Europe and North America. She owned her own house at
Montparnasse in Paris and had a condo on Fifth Avenue in New York. The Khmer
Rouge was now beginning to disintegrate. Perhaps they would last another year
or two in increasingly isolated areas.

When
she had finished her business with Creasy, she would pull out and make her base
in Paris. She would find her way into French society, perhaps even take a
nominal French husband, somebody in a position of power either in the
government or in business. With her wealth and beauty she was well poised to do
so. She had studied languages, philosophy and art at the Sorbonne, and she
could hold her own in a conversation with any intellectual. She would be an
asset to any man of power, but she would set the terms. She would allow him to
have lovers and she would have her own. They would both be discreet. She would
spend time in New York on her own. That would be her secret life.

The
girl's fingers had moved down to her upper thighs. She leaned forward and
whispered a question.

Connie
shook her head. She did not want anything 'special'.

She
would have that later, and it would be very special and very heterosexual. She
rolled over and slid off the bed. The girl packed her bottles away, slipped on
her white coat and received a large tip.

Connie
picked up her glass and the ice bucket with the champagne and went into the
marbled bathroom. She ran a bath so hot that few humans would have attempted to
enter. She sank into it with a groan and then pressed the button to set the
water foaming. She laid her head back and thought again about Creasy.

She had
waited a long time, waited until she had the power and organization to trap
him. His death would be the culmination of her past life. Her father's soul
would sleep easy, the more so for knowing the extent of Creasy's suffering
before he died. She sipped the champagne and sighed contentedly. Her mind came
back to the present. Within an hour she would be a hunter of a different kind.

"I
don't want another blow job in a massage parlour."

He
turned to his brother, Massimo. "We have been here four days and three
nights and that's all that's happened. I'm not some fat German sex-tourist who
spilt out of a jumbo jet with one thing on his mind. I'm thirty-five years old,
good looking, and rich. I want a little passion in my sex life!"

Massimo
grinned. He was the elder by four years, and familiar with the cities of the
Far East. It was Bruno's first trip. They were buying silks for the family's
garment business in Milan. Both of them were married to women from the same
upper level of Milan society; marriages made for position rather than love.
Such trips to exotic places brought adventure into their lives in every sense.