Message From -Creasy 5 (26 page)

"Yes,
sir."

"You'll
also assume responsibility for the protection of Susanna."

"Yes,
sir."

"Is
that necessary?" Susanna asked.

"It
is," Creasy answered. "We know that Connie Crum has her people here
in this city. When I make my strike, they may try to get at you." He
turned back to the table and looked down at the photograph of the temple. Then
he glanced up at Guido. "I'm going to need a parachute," he said.

Guido
was nodding. He said: "We're going to need two."

"No,"
Creasy answered. "I go in alone. You bring up the cavalry when it's
needed."

"You
want something special?" the girl asked coyly.

"Like
what?" Jens asked.

She
giggled and said: "I can make you happy in many ways, but it costs one
hundred dollars extra."

The
Dane sighed and concentrated his mind on the small apartment in Copenhagen and
his loving wife and daughter. For the last hour he had been lying on the huge
double bed in his room at the Dusit Thani Hotel in Bangkok. And for the last
hour a young, nubile girl in a brief white tunic had been massaging his body
and relieving the tension of the flight from Hong Kong. The Owl was in the next
room getting similar treatment.

"Thanks,
but I'm a married man," he answered.

The
girl dug her thumbs into the muscles of his shoulders and said: "So?"

"So
I love my wife. And I don't fool around."

"You're
a very strange man," she said, and smacked his bottom lightly to indicate
that the massage was over.

When
she had left, he went into the bathroom and took a very cold shower.

The Owl
knocked on his door twenty minutes later. He seemed very relaxed.

"I
like this town," he stated.

"I'll
bet you do," Jens answered. "Now we have work to do. I've contacted a
Danish friend who works in this city and we meet him in half an hour. He's
going to teach me how to bribe a senior Thai policeman."

The Owl
looked dubious. Jens explained: "My friend is not exactly my friend. He's
the friend of a friend. In foreign places we Danes stick together and help each
other out. The guy here is called Soren Musholm and he's the manager of a large
Danish trading company. He's been in Bangkok for the last twelve years and he
knows how things work. The police here have files on any foreigner who lives or
works in this country, and so for sure they have a file on Connie Crum. The
only way I'm going to get to see that file is by paying a hefty bribe...Let's
go!"

The
meeting took place in a murky bar on Pat Pong Road. The Owl understood nothing
of what was going on because naturally, the Danes spoke Danish as if they
hadn't had a chance to speak the language for the past ten years. Of course
they also drank Schnapps with hearty toasts of "Skal!" Then Soren
Musholm switched to English for the benefit of The Owl and explained the
bribery procedure.

Passing
Jens a business card he said: "You call this man and make an appointment
in his office. Once there, you tell him that you're a private detective and
that you're checking up on the co-respondent in a divorce case."

"Sounds
familiar," Jens remarked.

"I'm
sure you're very good at it. You give him the woman's name and ask him if he
has a file on her. Since he's the head of the department of overseas residents,
he will immediately check on his computer, and tell you that of course he has a
file, but of course he cannot show it to you. You then contrive to drop your
wallet on the floor and say: 'Oh dear! I dropped my wallet with two
thousand dollars in it'."

"Two
thousand!"

"Yes,
that's the going rate. It's not like the old days, when five bucks would buy an
audience with the king. This city is booming. There's a lot of money around.
Police officers are notoriously underpaid. About eighty per cent of their
income comes from dropped wallets. Don't try to do it for less. A couple of
weeks ago, I went to see a minister to get a difficult import permit. I dropped
my wallet and said: 'Oh dear! I dropped my wallet with ten thousand
dollars in it.' The minister smiled and said: 'No, Mr Musholm, you
dropped your wallet with twenty thousand dollars in it!' I had to make a
return visit with a fatter wallet! If you want to see that file, the going rate
would be two thousand dollars. Of course you'll not mention my name, and you'll
go alone. It's simple courtesy. There are no observers to such
transactions." He picked up the bottle, poured three more shots and asked:
"What the hell has gone wrong with our football team?!"

Creasy
and Guido sat under a sunshade by the pool. They were wearing swimsuits,
drinking beer and arguing.

Susanna
had gone off to the embassy with Jennings to make sure that his fax to Interpol
was legible. Guido was being forceful.

"Be
logical," he said. "Connie Crum must know a hell of a lot about you
and your capabilities. She knew you would follow the trail to Saigon. She knew
that you would detect the follower. She knew you would pick him up and extract
the information that had been planted in his head. She knew that you would
locate the fax machine where he sent his messages and follow the receiver to
his office. She knew that you would break in and find that file with the
photographs. She knew that you would contact an expert and find out where that
temple is. Let's assume that she also knows you were a paratrooper in the
Legion. She might well know the story about how you once parachuted at night
into a well-guarded Mafia Capo's compound on Sicily and killed him and his
henchmen. She has structured your entire journey. In a strange way she has
managed to look into your head, and that worries me." He leaned forward
and said intently: "She did not have that minefield laid to keep you out
of the temple. She had it laid to keep you in, because she expects you to drop
in one night soon. She will be waiting for you."

Creasy
did not answer. He finished his beer and dived into the swimming pool. Home in
Gozo, he always swam a hundred lengths every day and he had missed the
exercise.

Guido
waited patiently. He knew that while his friend was swimming, he was also
thinking. He also knew that he would not let Creasy parachute into that temple
compound; at least, not alone.

After
half an hour, Creasy pulled himself out of the pool and padded back to the
table. As he picked up his towel, he said: "Maybe you're right. That woman
bothers me. I guess I'll just pack my bag and go home."

The
Italian smiled. "Don't joke with me. We have to find a strategy to get in
and an escape route to get out. That's your department. But I'm telling you
here and now that you're not going to parachute into that temple. Maxie and
Rene will arrive in Bangkok tonight and wait there for a call. Jens and The Owl
are already there."

"We
can't use Jens," Creasy said. "He's a mind man, not a soldier. But we
can use The Owl. Anyone who can survive the backstreets of Marseille can look
after himself in the battlefield. So our army will be five. Anyway, we can't
make plans until we hear from Jens and until tomorrow afternoon, when Susanna
should be receiving her mysterious message."

"That
one is quite a woman," Guido said. "She really stamped her
personality on that Jennings guy. She's got him in a condition where he'd walk
through fire for her."

"She's
a good one," Creasy agreed. Then he turned at the sound of approaching
footsteps and called out: "Are your ears burning?"

Susanna
sat down and the waiter materialized at her shoulder.

"I'll
have a Coke and half of your normal fruit salad," she said. Then she asked
Creasy: "What the hell are you talking about?"

"We
were just talking about you," Creasy answered. "We decided that
you're not entirely useless."

She
bowed in mock appreciation. "I'm glad to hear it. As it happens, you're
right. I bring interesting information." She reached into her voluminous
bag, pulled out a roll of fax paper and passed it over to Creasy. "It came
within an hour," she said.

"My
toyboy Jennings pulled out all the stops."

After
reading for two minutes, he looked up at Guido and said: "Piet de Witt! He
was among the four mercenaries known to have been recruited a year ago by a
company in Bangkok which is thought to be a front for the Khmer Rouge."

"De Witt..." Guido muttered. "A total bastard! And an expert on
mine-clearing and laying. Who were the other three?"

Creasy
looked at the papers and read out the names. "Dender-field, Brad Shore and
Gagnier."

"Do
you know them all?" Susanna asked.

"Yes.
The first two are Brits who served with Mike Hoare in the Congo. And the other
is a Frenchman who worked with Denard. All four of them are the pits of our
trade. Piet de Witt is probably the worst. He's an Afrikaaner who did five
years in the dirty tricks department of the South African army until even they
could no longer stomach him. He was kicked out and then promptly hired by BOSS,
which was the South African Security Service. He carried out several
assassinations for them, both in South Africa and in Mozambique." He
laughed at the memory.

"Then
he got caught fiddling his expenses, which went against the grain of the same
bosses who had sanctioned the assassinations in the first place. They fired him
and he ended up as a mercenary working in West Africa, and later moved to
Europe. It's rumoured that he did some external jobs for the IRA. I once had a
run-in with him. I almost beat him to death. I regret that I didn't. He's an
Afrikaaner so he has to be our Dutchman. And in all probability he laid that
minefield around the temple."

"Do
we know where he is now?" Guido asked.

Creasy
shook his head. "According to this Interpol report, he vanished from
Bangkok eleven months ago. There were no records of him leaving the country. I
guess that right now he's in Tuk Luy. But I can tell you one thing: if he is
there, he doesn't know I'm coming."

"How
can you know that?" Susanna asked.

"Because
after I gave him that beating, I told him that if I ever saw him again, I'd
kill him. And he believes that. He knows it as certainly as the sun rises in
the east."

The
waiter arrived with Susanna's drink and fruit salad. "So what do we
do?" she asked.

Creasy
answered: "We wait to hear from Jens and to see what kind of message you
get tomorrow afternoon, if any."

"If
any? You think there might not be one?"

"It's
very possible. I think we arrived ahead of schedule. I think that Connie Crum
was not quite ready for me. But still, we have to wait; and while we wait we
have to do some serious thinking about how we get to Tuk Luy and what we do
when we get there."

"Do
you know how to operate an IBM with WordPerfect software?"

"Of
course," Jens answered, and lifted the briefcase which contained his own
IBM Notebook. "I use the same software."

The
policeman stood up from behind the desk and said: "Well, I have to go to
the toilet, Mr Jensen. And then I'll probably take a coffee in the canteen.
I'll be away for at least fifteen minutes. You will not be disturbed." As
he walked around his desk towards the door he said: "The file name is
CRUM/KHMER Number twenty-five. I take it that you have a spare disk in your
briefcase? Just leave your wallet on the floor." At the door he repeated:
"Fifteen minutes. I'm sure you can find your way out. If you need anything
else, don't hesitate to call me. I'm always available."

"I'll
keep it in mind," the Dane said.

It had
gone exactly as predicted by Soren Musholm. The cheap, plastic wallet he had
purchased on leaving the bar now lay at his feet. It contained twenty crisp
hundred-dollar notes. He stood up and moved around the desk to the computer
console. It was a new model with a large colour screen. Within seconds he had
located the file. On the top right-hand corner it indicated that the file ran
for 122 pages. He glanced at his watch and then for the next ten minutes read
the first fifteen pages. He then opened his briefcase, took out a blank disk,
inserted it into the slot and downloaded the entire file. He left the office
exactly four minutes later. At the door he turned and looked at the shiny black
wallet by the chair.

It had
been worth every cent of the two thousand dollars.

Back at
the hotel, a message was waiting for him at the reception. It was from The Owl,
telling him to come to his room as soon as he arrived.

The Owl
answered the door with his headphones on. He quickly switched off the Walkman
and pushed the earphones down around his neck. "How did it go?" he
asked.

"Very
well. I dropped the wallet and got to play with his computer." He tapped
his briefcase. "I've got a hundred and twenty-two pages on disk which
cover everything the Thai police knows about Connie Crum...She is one very
dangerous lady, and I have to get the information to Creasy soonest."

The Owl
had moved to the minibar and taken out two bottles of Tiger beer. "Sorry,
no Carlsberg," he said as he opened the bottles. "Creasy phoned.
Maxie and Rene are arriving this afternoon. I booked Maxie into the Erewan
Hotel and Rene into the Sheraton. I think it's better that we remain dispersed.
I've also left messages accordingly for them at the airport. Creasy also said
that they had information on the target and it's very complicated. We are to
stay in Bangkok until contacted. He also asked how you were getting on, and I
told him you'd be in touch as soon as possible. He gave me the name and phone
number of a man at the American embassy in Phnom Penh who can relay messages
securely."

"That's
good," Jens answered. "Try to get the guy on the phone."