Message From -Creasy 5 (15 page)

Susanna
stepped forward, introduced herself and stated: "Creasy asked me to pick
you up and take you to the place."

She was
under immediate scrutiny; cold eyes evaluating. Then the Belgian held out his
hand.

"I
am Rene Callard. This is my colleague Maxie."

Callard
sat in the front passenger seat, Maxie in the back. As they drove towards
Cholon, it was the Rhodesian who asked the questions.

"You
have the machinery?"

"Yes...In
the bag on the seat next to you."

"What
is it?"

Susanna
drew a breath, never having realized that she would ever be uttering such words.
"Two Chinese-made Tokarev pistols with six spare mags. And six hundred
rounds. A Nokia mobile phone and also the twenty square metres of fishing net
you requested."

"Supplies?"

"Enough
food and bottled water for a week."

"The
family?"

"They
are stocked up with enough food for a month. They have their
instructions."

She got
a grunt of approval from behind. Rene asked: "The others?"

"Jens
and The Owl left for Phnom Penh yesterday. Creasy is acting as a tourist. Guido
has vanished."

"Vanished?"

"Yes,
I don't know where he is. Creasy didn't tell me."

She had
noticed in the mirror that Maxie was constantly glancing through the rear
window, but the Belgian never turned his head. He was watching the road ahead.
They were not tense, but they were totally alert. Maxie said to her: "When
we get to within five hundred metres of this guy Tran's house, pull over and
stop. Keep the engine running."

For the
first time, Rene glanced over his shoulder. He asked: "What do you think
Guido is up to?"

Maxie
chuckled. "He's roaming. He does it well. You and I will be inside that
house. Guido will be outside. Miss Moore, does Guido have a mobile phone?"

"Yes.
He will be in touch...And, under the circumstances, you can call me
Susanna."

She felt
a light tap on the shoulder as he said: "Thank you. So far so good. I
assume that the family has been fully briefed and will not do anything
stupid."

"Yes,
Maxie. They are in great fear of their lives."

"OK.
This is the procedure: first we park five hundred metres away for a few
minutes, so Rene and I can check that we're not being followed. Then you drive
to within ten metres of the house so we can recce the vicinity. After that we
move in. You follow ten minutes later...I gather the Trans don't speak
English?"

"Very
little."

"Then
you must brief them for us, and emphasize that they must follow the procedures
exactly. Let them know that if they do something stupid or outside the
procedures, Rene and I will stop protecting them and start protecting
ourselves. We won't shed a tear at their funeral."

She
found herself talking in the same staccato manner. "Understood. They will
get a full situation report."

She
drove across the bridge, and five minutes later eased the car to a stop at the side
of the road. Maxie reached from behind and adjusted the rear-view mirror so
that he could survey the road behind. It was a busy road. Cars, buses,
tri-shaws and bicycles, together with a lot of pedestrians. Rene was looking
forward and to both sides. They sat absolutely still. Susanna managed to stifle
a sneeze.

Finally
Maxie said: "OK. Move closer."

She
engaged first gear and, as they moved forward, listened to their conversation.

Maxie
said: "Lot of movement, Rene. It's a bag of worms."

"Yeah.
It's going to be inside work. Seal the place off. It's a reaction job. There's
no place to stand off or cover forward."

Again
Susanna pulled the car to the curb. She pointed. "The house is down that
side street. Exactly fifty-five metres on the left-hand side. The front door is
painted black. Mrs Tran and the children are waiting."

A
minute passed and then Maxie muttered: "Let's go."

She
watched them amble down to the side street and then turn into it, carrying
their two bags and the bag of machinery. The busy hubbub continued around her,
and she felt it a little strange that life should be so normal after she had
just injected two such men into the community.

Ten
minutes later she locked the car and followed them. The door was opened by Rene.
He had already changed from his slacks and sports jacket into black jeans, a
black polo-neck shirt and black sneakers.

Mrs
Tran and her two daughters were sitting apprehensively on the sofa, watching
Maxie go about his work. He had also changed into black clothing. Susanna
pulled up a chair next to the sofa and watched with interest.

Maxie
was cutting up sections of fishing net and then fixing them across the windows.
Rene had a roll of white marker tape in
one hand. The other hand was held up in front of his eyes as he moved around
the room looking through each window. In his turn, he started unrolling the
tape and sticking it into lines on the wooden floor. Susanna asked: "Can
you tell me what you're doing, so I can explain to Mrs Tran?"

Maxie
turned and said: "The netting over the windows is anti-grenade. Its mesh
is fine enough not to be noticed from the outside. If someone lobs a grenade
through the window, it will bounce back outside." He gestured at Rene.
"But obviously, it won't stop a bullet. So Rene is checking lines of
fire." He pointed at one of the windows. "For example if there should
be a sniper in a building across the street, he will have a limited view into
the room. We have to make sure that the angles are right. Also the lighting.
When we're finished, I'll explain everything."

She
glanced at Mrs Tran and gave her a little background. The Vietnamese woman
listened intently, as did the two young girls.

They
were like little dolls with round faces and black, bobbed hair. She thought
they were adorable. Abruptly, she was conscious of her own condition and the
need to make a decision. She forced it out of her mind and turned back to watch
the two men.

Rene
had finished laying his lines of tape and was unscrewing the light bulb from a
red, ornate lampshade hanging from the ceiling. Maxie was testing the tension
of the netting. Satisfied, he said to Susanna: "We'll do the other rooms
in a minute." He pointed at the lines of tape. "These are passage
lines. When Mrs Tran and the girls move around this room and the others, they
must always follow those lines. Then they're not exposed to sniper fire through
the windows. We'll take out the bulbs from any lights that illuminate the wrong
areas. We'll build a safe area in the bathroom." He reached down into his
canvas bag and pulled out several small black boxes attached to long, thin
wires.

"After
dark we'll rig these outside. They make up an infrared alarm system. If anyone
approaches the doors or windows, a buzzer will go off in all the rooms.
Immediately Mrs Tran and the girls will go to the bathroom and stay on the
floor until Rene or I tell them to flush the toilet." He grinned.
"That's the password for them. All clear 'flush the toilet'."

She
translated that, expecting the woman to be amused. But she simply nodded
silently and then asked: "Will I be safe with these two men?"

Susanna
glanced at them and then answered: "They will do their very best to
protect you and your daughters."

The
woman shook her head. "I didn't mean that. We're going to be sort of
locked up together for many days and nights. What if they get drunk and try to
rape me?"

Susanna
started an answer, but then stopped and put the question to the two men.

They
showed no offence. Maxie said: "First of all, while in this house, we will
drink no alcohol." He glanced at Rene. "And secondly, if it will
reassure her, you can tell her that we are both gay"

She
looked at them both and then translated to the woman.

For the
first time, Mrs Tran smiled. Then she laughed and said: "Of course they
are not gay. But now I trust them. Please tell them thank you, and welcome to
my house."

She had
seen the scars on his face, but not those on his body. And her eyes were drawn
to them in morbid fascination. It seemed almost impossible to be able to place
even a fingertip on his torso without covering a scar.

She had
tapped on the door of his room a few minutes earlier.

He had
only been wearing shorts; the air-conditioning in the hotel had broken down yet
again, and on a windless evening the room was as hot as an oven.

He
poured them both a glass of cold water from a flask and listened intently as
she briefed him about the arrival of Maxie and Rene, and their preparations at
Tran's house.

"It
was reassuring," she said. "They seem to be very competent."

He gave
her one of his rare, brief smiles. "The fact that they're alive is proof
of their competence. It all comes from experience. You can take a
twenty-year-old athlete and turn him into a bodyguard by training him in the
martial arts and the use of a variety of weapons. He can become a total expert
physically, and to some extent, mentally. But the only time he gets actual
experience is when someone tries to kidnap or kill his charge. And then you
have a situation of a highly trained man or woman having to do a job at which
they've had no experience. It's like training a company of soldiers and then
sending them into battle without experienced officers or sergeants. The minute
the fire-fight starts, their training goes out the window. It's ironic. Rene
and Maxie both passed fifty years old. There's no protective organization I
know of who would think of hiring fifty-year-old bodyguards. And yet those two
are the best in the business."

She was
looking at the scars again. She gestured at his body and asked: "Do they
have as many scars as you?"

"They
have enough," he said. "To my knowledge, Rene was wounded several
times in Algeria when he was in the Legion. And again in the Congo. Maxie was
once left for dead on the Zambian border during the Rhodesian war. He dragged
himself ten miles back into Rhodesia. He was in hospital for over three months.
The point is, Susanna, that they've been through it all many times."

"Why
do you do it?"

He
shrugged. "It's all we know. I joined the Marines when I was seventeen to
get away from a lousy life at home. I've never known anything else except being
a soldier of one kind or another. The same applies to Maxie and Rene, and of
course to Guido. There's nothing romantic about it. We've been called the dogs
of war and the orphans of society. Maybe the truth lies somewhere in between.
Mercenaries have a bad reputation and usually it's deserved. By its nature the
profession attracts very low-life types, but they're not all bad. The best time
of my life was in the Legion. It was like the family that I'd never had before.
The same applied to Rene and Guido. We were brothers in that family."

"You
had to retire?" she asked.

"No.
No soldier ever has to retire from the Foreign Legion. If he wants to stay on
after his fighting age, then they give him other duties or he goes to their
vineyards in France. Under normal circumstances, he's never forced out of the
family."

"So
why did the three of you leave?"

"It
was at the end of the Algerian war, when de Gaulle decided to give the
Algerians their independence. Some of the generals and other officers rebelled,
including those commanding our own parachute regiment. Legionnaires always
follow their officers. When the rebellion failed, our regiment was disbanded.
De Gaulle was very vengeful, and perhaps with good reason. At one point we were
within forty-eight hours of parachuting onto Paris." He shook his head at
the memory. "It was madness, but it was a mad time."

Abruptly,
he stood up, walked to the window and tried to force it even wider to let in a
shred more air. He looked down at the buzzing street below and said over his
shoulder: "So they kicked us out."

He
turned. She could see the discomfort on his face. He was a taciturn man not
given to long monologues and definitely averse to showing his own feelings.

"End
of speech," he said, "and change of subject. Tomorrow I'm heading to
Phnom Penh. I don't think we'll make any more progress here. Guido will stay on
for a couple more days to keep an outside eye on Tran's house and on Tran
himself."

"Is
that what he's doing now?"

He
nodded. "I think we can trust Tran, but you can never be sure. In this
country there are many wheels within wheels. And there may be more than one
puppeteer pulling the strings." He moved back to his chair and sat down
and said: "I'm grateful for your help. Your introduction to Dang Hoang
Long was very useful. I'm sorry you had to go through that unpleasantness at
the river."

She
hardly heard his last words because her mind was forced back to a decision she
had put off for the last two days. The speed of events and their emotional
impact had allowed her to push her own personal problem to the back of her
mind. But she would soon have to face it. She must have been lost in her
thoughts for a long time because she suddenly heard his voice.

"Are
you all right, Susanna?"

Her
head jerked up. "Yes, I'm fine. I was just thinking about something."

"It
must have been something sad."

"Why
do you say that?"

"It
shows on your face. It's been that way now for the past couple of days. You're
not the same person. Has something happened?"

Abruptly,
she realized that his tone of voice had changed. The hardness had left it. For
a moment she felt an urge to tell him everything. Maybe it was because he was
twenty years older than her and so much more experienced. But then her eyes
looked at the scarred body and face, and her mind asked the question: What
would such a man know of the emotions of a woman who realizes that a child is
about to grow inside her? What would he know about the disappointments of a man
she thought she might love and who might love her? What would he know about
anything, apart from weapons and killing? His world was as far from hers as a
planet a million light years away.