Message From -Creasy 5 (16 page)

She
stood up and smoothed her skirt, saying: "I'm fine, Creasy. I'll probably
stay on a couple more days and then head back to Washington. I hope everything
goes well for you in Cambodia...for all of you. I'm glad I was a little
help."

She
went back to her room and took a cold shower, wrapped herself in a towel and
lay on the bed. She could not seem to focus her thoughts in any clear
direction. Slowly, it became apparent that she had reached a crossroads in her
life. She was of an age and in a condition that required one of life's
decisions. She felt lonely and even abandoned. She pushed herself up against
the headboard. She made a decision. It was an easy one. She would decide tomorrow.
She would have dinner in the hotel and drink a good bottle of wine, sleep late
and then decide.

The
phone rang. It was Creasy. His deep voice said: "I just had a fax from
Jens. He has made good progress and I will definitely be leaving in the morning.
Now let me tell you something: when I was here all those years ago, a Frenchman
called Jean Godard ran a restaurant on Co Ban Street. He served the best French
food in Indo-China. Of course he was forced out when the communists took over
and he went back to France. But I heard today that he's back and has been
allowed to rent his own premises. I'm going there for dinner tonight. If you
have no plans, why not be my guest and give me a chance to thank you properly
for your help?"

She
thought for only a moment before she answered: "You don't have to thank
me. I was only doing my duty...But I'll be very happy to join you for
dinner."

Mr
Ponnosan lifted the lid of the box and, in spite of himself, felt and heard the
slight gasp he let out. There were no opals this time, nor any other gemstones.
Only the six large pieces of jade.

They
were of a size he had never seen before. He composed himself and then looked up
at the smiling face of Connie Crum across the table. It was the same setting as
the previous few occasions. The wooden house in the jungle, a bare room and the
two black-clad young women standing at her shoulders with their holstered
pistols.

He had
done well on the last three trades, earning a profit of more than fifty per cent.
This was the big one. He studied the tiny 'windows' cut into the stones. They
revealed the creamy white of Imperial jade, and he knew they must have come
from the northern mountains of Burma. He was not a great expert in jade, but he
could recognize what he was now turning in his fingers.

He
tried to keep his face expressionless as he asked: "What do you want for
them?"

She
leaned forwards. Her voice was cold and crisp.

"Four
hundred thousand dollars. And I'm not going to bargain. If you're not
interested, I'll take them to Bangkok myself."

He
looked again at the grey lumps of stone.

"It's
a great deal of money," he muttered.

"No,"
she answered. "Not for that jade. You would not be here if you had not
made a good profit on the previous occasions. You know the rarity of such jade.
And you know that it normally goes straight from Rangoon to Hong Kong for
auction. I will take nothing less than four hundred thousand...not a cent. You
know very well that you can double your money."

The two
young women were watching his eyes. They could see the greed in them. Abruptly
he closed the box and nodded his head, then reached for his money belt.

As he
walked out the door in his Italian silk suit, clutching the box, Connie Crum
looked up at one of the girls and grinned like a cat that has just had a
lobster put before it. Then she went back to counting the money.

Van Luk
Wan came in and raised his eyebrows at the small mountains of thousand-dollar
bills. "You made a good trade?" he asked.

She
gave him her cat smile.

"I
sure did! Mr Ponnosan won't be coming back. When he arrives in Bangkok and
shows those stones to a real expert, he'll discover that he paid four hundred
thousand dollars for Alaskan jadeite worth no more than fifty bucks!" She
stretched and yawned. "I don't know what gives me more pleasure: an
orgasm, or ripping off a complaisant Thai business man."

Van
grinned, but his eyes never left the pile of money. He asked: "Did you
have a good time in Bangkok?"

She
almost purred at the memory. "A very good time! It has been an excellent
week."

"It's
going to be better," Van said. "I just had the news that the Dane and
the Frenchman arrived in Phnom Penh. They checked into the Cambodiana Hotel an
hour ago."

Slowly,
she sat back in her chair. The money was forgotten.

She
said: "So he caught the follower?"

"Obviously.
But that Creasy is clever or rich. The follower is still sending in reports. So
he was turned. Creasy is still in Saigon. And his friend, Guido Arrellio, has
disappeared."

She was
nodding her head thoughtfully.

"Yes,
he's clever. He sends in an advance guard to dig around for information while
he keeps up a facade. He will go to Phnom Penh soon and then we begin the next
stage." Her eyes narrowed. "You threatened the follower with the
death of his family if he talked?"

"Yes.
It made our deception more authentic."

"Good.
As soon as Creasy has left Saigon, arrange for the follower's family to be
killed."

"Is
it necessary?"

"Of
course. We must be seen to keep our threats. It will become known. It will
strike fear."

They
were never shown a menu.

The old
patron of the bistro had greeted Creasy with a kiss on both cheeks and a bear
hug, and Susanna with a kiss on her hand. Then he had waved them to a corner
table.

They
could have been in the neighbourhood bistro in a Paris suburb; check
tablecloths, old mirrors and pictures on the walls. Simple home-cooked food.
They ate a thick fish soup followed by a rack of baby lamb and then French
cheeses and local fruit.

There
was one difference: there were lighted candles on the tables, a thing one does
not often see in Paris. The wine was good and Susanna drank too much of it.

Apart
from a little small talk, there had been no conversation.

The
bistro was busy but not noisy. The music coming out of the loudspeakers was
French and muted; Yves Montand and then Edith Piaf singing 'Je ne regrette
rien' As the song started, she noticed something strange. Creasy turned
his head towards the bar, behind which the patron sat on a high stool. She saw
the old man raise his right hand in a brief salute. She saw Creasy return it.

"What
was that about?" she asked.

He
hesitated for a moment, and then explained. "It's a footprint of history.
Jean is an ex-Legionnaire. He fought at Dien Bien Phu and then stayed on. He
knows the Legion's history and my part in it. In Algeria, when the rebellion
failed, my regiment, the second REP, blew up our barracks and marched out to
oblivion. As we marched we sang...we sang 'Je ne regrette rien'. That song was
stamped into our minds. When Edith Piaf died, the Legion sent an honour guard
to her funeral. Every year on the anniversary of her death, flowers are laid on
her grave in Paris with a card that simply states 'La Legion'."

There
was a catch in his voice, and Susanna felt strangely moved. It was a
contradiction that such men could have such emotions; but then she realized the
connection. The life of Edith Piaf and the life of a Legionnaire were somehow
similar. The 'sparrow' had been as much an orphan as all of them.

She
knew from the Interpol file she had read back in Washington that Creasy had
been married twice. His first wife and only child had died on Pan Am 103 over
Lockerbie; his second wife had been blown to bits in a car bomb in London.

She
realized that just being close to him constituted an act of danger. Maybe it
was the wine, or that fact, which sent a surge through her. She looked at his
battered, candlelit face with its eyelids which seemed to droop against
cigarette smoke, although he did not smoke; his grey, closely cropped hair and
his inbuilt air of menace. With a shock, she realized that he affected her
sexually.

Into
her confusion, he said: "I can't remember ever having dinner in such
romantic circumstances with a captain of the US Army."

She
laughed and said: "Maybe I should have come in uniform."

Solemnly,
he shook his head. "I would never like to see you in uniform. That dress
suits you perfectly. You have a strange beauty, Susanna. At first glance, you
are quite severe, but as time goes by, it softens and develops."

She
felt absurdly pleased at the compliment. It had been a long time since she had
received one.

"Is
there a woman in your life now?" she asked.

"No.
I seem to be a liability to women."

"Creasy,
that's understandable. You don't exactly work nine to five in an office."

He
leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the table. His voice dropped a decibel.

"Let's
talk about you, Susanna. To stay alive, I have to be alert and observant. I've
watched you these last few days and something has happened. You may not believe
it, but I care for you. At
first I thought it was the business with the follower at the river. Now I think
it's something different."

Maybe it was the ambience of the room, but she just blurted it out.

"Three days ago, I discovered I was pregnant."

He did
not react, except to pick up his glass and take a sip of wine. Then he said:
"You may as well tell me all about it. I'm not your father or your boss or
your lover. I'm just a friend."

So she
talked. After listening in silence for fifteen minutes, Creasy said: "In
this case, having an abortion is like running away."

"It's
my choice, Creasy."

"Of
course it is. But it would be a tragedy."

"How can you say that?"

"Because you need a baby."

"A baby without a father?"

"A father can be useful, but isn't essential. If a child has the love of the
mother, it can be enough." He sighed reflectively.

"Yes, I'm old fashioned and unrepentant about it. I agree with abortion under some
circumstances, but you admit that when you conceived that child you were, in a
way, in love with that guy in Washington. The fact that he doesn't want to know
any more does not make that concept ugly or wrong. The fact that you phoned him
when you knew you were pregnant and the fact that you still haven't made the
decision of what to do about it, means only one thing: there is a part of you
that wants that baby. What we have to find out is how big that part is. In
essence, we have to find out how strong your maternal instinct is."

She sat back and laughed. Then she asked: "Creasy, you keep saying 'we'. How can
you find out how strong my maternal instincts are?"

"I have a way," he answered. "After we leave here, I'll find out."

She was both curious and a little piqued.

"What are you going to do? Take me down to the river, half drown
me and then ask me how strong my maternal instincts are?"

He shrugged. "In a different way, that is what I'm going to do."

It was a big room. It gave an impression of a white mist. The impression came from
rows of mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling and covering the cots and beds.
The young nun walked between them as they crossed the room, explaining to
Susanna about the workings of the orphanage. Near them were the sounds of
crying. The nun moved to the cot and lifted the net and picked up a baby and
crooned gently to it. It was a girl, only a few months old, but her features
were already formed. She looked like an oriental doll, with narrow eyes and the
beginnings of jet-black hair.

Another
baby started to cry. The nun turned to Susanna and said: "Please hold this
one for a moment."

Susanna
took the tiny bundle and cradled it in her arms. She looked down at the little
face and murmured silly words. The baby stopped crying. Susanna lifted her head
to Creasy and said: "You bastard!"

It was
hard for Jens to realize that he was in a country which only a decade earlier
had witnessed one of history's greatest acts of inhumanity.

He sat
with The Owl on the patio of a bungalow in the gardens of the Cambodiana Inn.
It could have been a scene from Eden. It was just after midnight and a full
moon hung like a lantern above them and illuminated the bougainvillaea which
tumbled down the walls of the bungalow. There was the low, throbbing sound of
thousands of insects, and the air was heavy with the scent of a tropical night.

The
Dane was satisfied. They had eaten a delicious local meal at a small open-air
restaurant by the river. Together they had drunk an excellent bottle of claret
selected by The Owl, and on returning to the bungalow, The Owl had produced a
bottle of duty-free Hennessy XO. In the meantime, Jens had phoned his wife
Birgitte and spoken at expensive length to her and his daughter. That alone
would have put him in a good mood, but his night was made perfect by the fact
that during the afternoon he had worked well at his profession.

They
had arrived from Saigon in the late morning. And by early afternoon, they had
discovered the source of the fax number to which Tran Quock Cong had sent his
reports. The Owl had been very impressed, which made Jens even more satisfied.
They had gone from the airport straight to the offices of the Khmer
Telecommunications Corporation. Jens produced one of his bogus business cards
and presented it to the receptionist, gave her a charming smile and asked for
an appointment with the technical executive. He was slightly astonished to be
ushered into the office of a tall, sunburnt Australian who, after shaking
hands, asked: "What's the problem, mate?"