Thai Horse (46 page)

Was it Wol Pot? If so, why 1id Porter mix it up with the two men who were obviously after the ex-Vietnam prison commander? Perhaps it was simply chivalry. More likely, Porter knew that
if
they lost Wol Pot they would also lose Cody. So he’d tried to help out.

Hatcher pored over every slip of paper, writing down anything that seemed significant. There were more than a dozen locations mentioned in the daily diaries, although it appeared that Porter practiced a very simple surveillance and did not ask any questions about Wol Pot or Taisung or whatever the hell his name was.

He added to his list every location that was mentioned more than once, including the American Deli. Porter had been there three times, once with a notation:

‘Ate lunch while observing subject from across the street.’ He also had attended several sporting events, including the horse races and boxing matches.

Hatcher also added to the list ‘Tombstone’ and ‘The Longhorn,’ the two locations
m
entioned to Daphne by the ex-GI at the Ts’e K’am Men Ti battle. When he was finished he had a list of fifteen or twenty locations. Then be started checking them more carefully, trying to form some kind of
profile
of this Wol Pot in his mind.

As soon as Hatcher was gone, Sloan left the hotel and took an air-conditioned limo to the embassy. He signed the necessary papers and made the :necessary arrangements to ship Major Porter’s earthly remains to San Francisco on an Army transport lea
v
ing the next day. In all, the Porter business took a couple of hours. He lunched with Harvey Kendall, a diplomat familiar with DEA and NSA operations in the area, and made small talk for an hour.

Then he took a
tuk-tuk
to Yawaraj. Driving into Chinese Town was like entering t
h
e wide end of a funnel. They went down one twisting, tortuous street to another and then to an alley suffocated by row shops and then another alley, even more claustrophobic, and from there to its dead end at the river.

The old man who ushered Sloan through the innocuous-looking door was as old and wasted as the doorman the previous night. His eyes were unfocused burned-out coals, his face was caved in and as wrinkled as a pitted prune, and he was skeletal.

The timbers and slats were webbed by spiders. The old place creaked and groaned with age. Below him, Sloan could see the desk and, behind it, cubicle after cubicle. Faintly, he could hear an occasional cough, and softly, far back in the room, a vague tenor voice was crooning an Irish lullaby. The old
m
an led Sloan down the rickety wooden stairwell into the den, into smoke that swirled in wispy whirlpools under a broad ceiling fan that hung on the end of a long, 1ender pole, which vanished up into darkness. The sweet mown-grass odor of opium drifted up the stairway, and Sloan’s mouth went dry with anticipation.

He paid for his pipe and followed the old prune-faced man to a cubicle with two narrow cots. He lay down. It was hot in the room, and he peeled off his tie and opened his shirt to the waist. He was already dizzy from the fog of opium smoke that settled like morning mist on the floor of the large room. His eyes kindled with excitement as he watched the old man roll a
goli
of thick, brown-black opium between his fingers and stuff it in the bowl of the pipe
a
nd stoke it up.

While Sloan waited, his m
ind
. drifted to Hatcher and his growing rejection of the brigade.
Damn you Hatcher, damn your soul,
Sloan thought to himself. You can’t reject all the good guys we had in the brigade. God, look what’s happened
to
them. Eddie Conlan dead in Libya. Ike Greenbau
m
burned to a crisp in a crack-up in Chile. Dick Mazetti running some halfassed security outfit in Florida and drinking himself to death in a wheelchair. Jac
k
Burbank blinded by terrorists in the Lebanon embassy explosion. Molly McGuire, one leg short, serving out his time in the Immigration Service. The
Immigration
Service, for God’s sake. How many times had he saved Hatcher’s ass? And mine? They had all put their asses on the line, Hatcher as well. Were any of them less heroic because they didn’t wear a uniform? Who could say they weren’t heroes?

The old man took a deep draw and passed the pipe to Sloan, who drew deeply on the pipe, felt the hot smoke burn down his throat and fill his lungs. He quickly forgot Hatcher and t1e brigade. He turned away from thoughts of the past and almost immediately he was euphoric, his mind in another time and place, his cares and worries dismissed from his mind. He closed his eyes and saw green fields drifting with the wind. He did not hear the person enter the cubicle or the squeaking of the other cot.

‘Did you see Hatcher?’ a voice asked.

Sloan answered without
opening
his eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘He’s getting closer. I told you he could find him. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘Has he spotted Wol Pot?’

‘No.’

‘Does he know who Wol Pot really is?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘And Thai Horse?’

Sloan was tired of talking, tired
o
f thinking about questions and framing answers. He was at the doorway of the Land of Nod and then as he entered he said dreamily, ‘Didn’t mention Thai Horse. Didn’t mention Wol Pot. Didn’t mention bangles, baubles or beads or moonlight and roses. Nightingales in Berkeley Square. Pigeons on statues and bright yellow ribbons. Didn’t mention any of it. Look, Hatcher will find Cody. He’s onto something, I can tell. I know him as well as I know myself. He’s the best there is.’

AN APPOINTMENT IN PARIS

Ismala Hadif, who had been code-named the Hyena by Interpol and the CIA, was possibly the most wanted terrorist in the world. CIA had positively identified him as the instigator of the bombing of airport terminals in Vienna and Rome in which a total of sixty-seven people, mostly women and children, had died, eighteen of them American kids on a summer tour, all under sixteen. He was also the prime suspect in a Berlin nightclub bombing in which thirteen had died, nine of them women, and was believed to have killed an American ambassador’s wife in Tunisia during a failed attempt to assassinate the ambassador himself. His acts of terrorism and assassination had been documented for four years, and yet he moved through the free world as freely as a breath of air, a master of disguise and audacity.

Among experts in terrorism, Hyena was the most hated man on a long list. An ingenious and dedicated fanatic, Hyena was trained in Libya and lived in Tehran. He had left his ho
m
e a week earlier, and intelligence sources had spotted him and followed him to Cairo, where they had lost him.

Another pursuer had not.

Hyena had been quietly tracked on a circuitous route that had ended in Paris, where he was now travelling with a forged Turkish passport, credit cards and papers identifying him as a salesman for a cigarette company in Ankara. Hyena, who was fluent in several languages, including Turkish, and shaved his beard and dyed his hair gray, adding twenty years to his appearance. Contacts had changed his eyes from dark brown to blue. Lifts in his boots added two inches to his normal height of five eight. He was staying in a large and costly chain hotel near the center of the city, a departure from hi
s
usual procedure.

His target was General Karl Shustig, the American military genius who was also an expert in security. Shustig had been chiefly responsible for some recent masterly security measures,
m
easures that had foiled Hyena’s plans on two previous occasions. But Shustig was guilty of violating his
own
safety rules. A man addicted to habit, he followed the same routine every day; he was picked up at the same hour, driven down the same streets to his office arid returned in the same way. A car went ahead of and behind his vehicle, but this was hardly adequate security. Shustig had become complacent after four months in Paris. He had dismissed the possibility of a terrorist attack on himself.

To Hyena he was a perfect target. A personal friend of the American president and a man rumored to be the next member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he was also an easy hit. A bomb capable of destroying an entire city block would be planted in a sewer main on the route to Shustig’s office. Hyena would activate it from two blocks away by radio control as Shustig’s car went over the man-hole. The explosion would destroy most of the block and certainly atomize the general’s car.

Two days before, Hyena had scouted out the sewer line, picked the location, and foun
d
among the loose bricks and slime on the sides of the narrow tunnel a perfect place to hide the bomb. Even a last-minute inspection of the sewer lines would not reveal the presence of the explosive.

Hyena was content with his preparations. He would plant the bomb tonight and do the job the following morning. A tape claiming responsibility for the assassination had already been prepared and would be delivered to radio stations ten minutes after the deed was done. He walked back through the wide tunnel with the sounds of the Paris sewer roaring in his ears. Hate motivated Hyena, murder satisfied him. If he died, his two sons would follow soon after him. The way to heaven was a river of Western blood.

He did not see the bearded man in the shadowy tunnels behind him. As clever and cautious as Hyena was, his tail was better than he.

Earlier in the day this same bearded man had entered the West German embassy wearing overalls, carrying an electrician’s tool chest and using false credentials identifying him as an electrician. The gu.ard had asked him to open the case and he had lifted the drawer straight up, high enough for the guard to see under it. He waved the bearded man on. Once inside, the bearded man knew every inch of the building. He had been studying its floor plans for days. He had gone straight to the utility closet on the lower floor, found a folding aluminum ladder stored there, and carried it to the storage closet adjacent to the reception roo
m
on the first floor. He stepped into the reception room and looked it over. It was a towering room with a thirty-foot ceiling. An enormous glass chandelier with hundreds of small teardrop ornaments dangling from its mirrored sockets cast a bright orb over the entire room. The room was
filled
with people preparing a reception that night. In the confusion the bearded man went unnoticed. He studied the room for several minutes, paying particular attention to the chandelier, then left.

Now the bearded man was watching from the restaurant on the mezzanine of the hotel when Hyena returned. He got up and walked quickly to the elevator, got off on the fourth floor, walked up one floor and waited until he heard the elevator doors open. He cracked open the door slightly, watched as Hyena went by, waited until he got out his key, then slipped through the door and walked to-ward Hyena.

The terrorist turned with a start, then relaxed. The man was stooped and looked about sixty. He had a gray beard and white hair. The bearded man smiled and Hyena nodded curtly before opening the door. The bearded man took three steps and chopped him viciously at the base of the skull. Hyena dropped straight to his knees. He was unconscious before they hit the floor. The bearded man grabbed the back of his collar to keep him from falling, shoved him into the room and closed the door. He threw Hyena on the bed, put on a pair of thin plastic gloves, stripped Hyena, gagged him, and tied him naked to a chair. He put a
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door, turned on the TV loud, pulled over another chair and sat down facing Hyena. There was a leather band tied around Hyena’s wrist with a key attached to it. The bearded man reached into his sleeve and drew out a stiletto. He sliced the leather band and took the key.

He slapped Hyena’s face several times. The Arab’s eyes fluttered open, and when they managed to focus, Hyena looked at the bearded man with terror. He tried to talk, but the gag was so tight it was cutting the corners of his mouth. The bearded man held a finger to his lips. ‘Shh,’ he hissed very softly.

Then he reached out suddenly and grabbed Hyena’s face in one hand. His grip was like a vise. Hyena could not move his head; the bearded mans fingers stretched almost from one ear to the other_ His other hand appeared before Hyena’s face holdin
g
the narrow dirk, honed to a gleaming edge. The blade was seven or eight inches long. He held the point of it
j
ust under Hyena’s left eye, its point drawing a pearl of blood. Hyena’s eyes fluttered. The bearded man could smell his fear.

‘Where is the bomb?’ the bearded man whispered in perfect Arabic. He let go of Hyena’s face and held the key in front of his eyes. ‘Where is the case that goes with this?’

Hyena shook his head furiously. The bearded man grabbed his face again, held it tightly.

‘I ask one more time, then you will lose this eye. In the end I will find it anyway. Save yourself pain and me time.’

Hyena shook his head again.

The bearded man jammed the
knife
point in, twisted it, and very deftly popped out Hyena’s left eye.

Hyena’s scream was stif
l
ed by the gag. The bearded man held a mirror before Hyena’s p
a
in-glazed right eye and the Arab killer stared in horror t the bleeding hole in his face.

Hyena’s head was throbbing.
H
e felt sick to his stomach and the room was rocking in and out of focus. The bearded man screwed off the t
o
p of the hilt of the knife and removed a small round honing dowel. He began to sharpen the knife. The blade rang in the air like a bell as he swept it back and forth acr
o
ss the stone.

Is he going to cut my throat? Hyena wondered. Good God, who is he? Will I die without knowing who killed me?

The bearded man stared at him, still half smiling, and said softly, ‘You will never sire another child killer.’

He shoved his knees between Hyena’s knees and spread Hyena’s legs with his own. He placed the knife flat against Hyena’s crotch. The razor edge rested against Hyena’s penis.

‘The bomb?’ the bearded man whispered in Hyena’s ear. He twisted the knife slightly so it bit the flesh. Hyena’s good eye closed with pain.

‘Quickly,’ the bearded man whispered. ‘I am running out of time and patience. Tell
m
e, and I will cut your throat and you will hardly feel it and you will be dead very quickly. Otherwise, you die with humiliation. The Hyena will go to heaven as a eunuch.’

Hyena swallowed. Sweat poured down his face and chest in rivers. His eye throbbed with pain. He could feel the blade of the knife slicing into the side of his manhood. He opened his remaining eye and looked toward the bed.

The bearded man pulled back the mattress. A small black briefcase lay between mattress and springs. He took the key that had been fastened to Hyena’s wrist and unlocked the case.

The bomb was impressive and formidable. Plastique and a lot of it, enough to take out the Eiffel Tower. The case contained both a radio control unit and a timer. The bearded man turned back
to
Hyena and smiled.

‘I am a man of my word,’ he said quietly. He grabbed a handful of Hyena’s hair
and
pulled his head back. Hyena’s Adam’s apple bobbed like a fishing cork in his throat. The bearded man slit Hyena’s throat to the jugular.

He closed the case, threw the mattress back in place, untied Hyena and let him fall in a pile on the floor. He removed the bomb carefully from the case and left the radio device in it. Then he laid the floor plans of the West German embassy on the bed, crossed to the door and looked cautiously into the hall. Empty.