Thai Horse (53 page)

Hatcher wheeled around and fell to one knee in time to see the ancient Chinese, aswirl in the steam, aim the gun at him. He stared at Hatcher, the gun held in front of him in both hands. Ha
t
cher jogged to the left, then shifted back sharply to th
e
right. But the stooped old man didn’t follow his mo
v
es. He raised the gun abruptly and backed slowly toward Thi Phatt Road,
the neon-stained red mist swirling around his stooped figure until he vanished into the crow
d
ed road.

Wol Pot sighed pitifully and slid down the wall into a sitting position. His mouth was open and gasping for air. A red stain began to spread around the three holes in his shirt front. His eyes rolled back and his head fell to one side, and he slumped on his side.

Hatcher jammed fingertips into his throat, feeling for a pulse, looking up and down the alley at the same time. The man was dead. Steam rose around him from the hot, wet sidewalk. Thunder rumbled o
n
the other side of town as the storm went on its way down the coast.

Hatcher decided to get out of there. He turned and followed the old man into Thi Phatt Road. Hatcher flagged a cab and went back to the hotel.
Tuk-tuks
whipped in and out of the sidewalk-to-sidewalk traffic as the taxi crept across town toward the waterfront. That was all right with Hatcher. He needed the time to sort out the last fifteen minutes.

Obviously the old Chinese had been following Wol Pot.

Or following him.

He thought about the old Chi
n
ese in the swirling steam of the alley, aiming the gun at him, ready to kill until something changed his mind. What happened? Who was the old man and why did he murder Wol Pot? Not that the bastard didn’t deserve to be killed, or that there weren’t plenty of people around eager to do the job.

But what concerned him most was Wol Pot’s contention that Murph Cody and Thai Horse were one and the same, and that he was a heroin sm
u
ggler. Did he work for Tollie Fong and the Chiu Chaos? Did the Longhorn regulars know Murph Cody? The questions were still buzzing in his head when he got to the hotel.

‘I’ve got some information for you, sir,’ Flitcraft’s crisp voice said.

‘Let’s hear it, Sergeant,’ said Hatcher.

‘The bad news is that I struck out on the nicknames, Wonderboy and Corkscrew. Wilkie was First Ca
v
, a line sergeant. Got a chestful of medals. No current address since his discharge.
Earp
was a full colonel in CRIP. Did four tours in Na
m
, retired in 1976. No current address.’

‘Uh-huh. How about the othe
r
s?’

‘That’s when it gets interesting,’

‘What do you mean, “interesting”?’ asked Hatcher.

‘Riker, Gallagher, Potter and Early are all listed as missing in action and presumed
d
ead.’

‘All four
of them?’

‘Yes, sir. They all went missing in 1972. Here’s something else: the journalist, Paget? He disappeared the same day and in roughly the same place as Gallagher.’

‘Anything else?’

‘One more thing. Both Gallagher and Riker were in trouble when they disappeared.’

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Riker for striking a fellow officer and Gallagher for grand theft. He ran a service club in S-town and was skimming off booze and cigarettes, then selling them on the black market.’

‘Flitcraft, you ought to get a
m
edal.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’m still checking on Wonderboy and Corkscrew.’

‘Forget it. This is all I need.’

‘I might still turn up somethi
n
g on them.’

‘Don’t need it,’ whispered Hatcher.

‘Thank you, sir.’

Hatcher lay back down on the floor with his hands folded over his chest. His heart was racing. Suddenly the pieces of the jigsaw were beginning to fall in place. A picture was beginning to for
m
in Hatcher’s head, but two major questions still plagued him.

How exactly did Murph Cody and Thai Horse fit into the puzzle?

And he still wasn’t sure whether Cody was dead or alive.

Perhaps the answer to those two questions lay at the end of the plane ride to Surat Than
i

FONG

Daphne Chien lived in one of the high-rise apartments at the foot of Victoria Peak, its split-level, two-story living room looking across the harbor toward Kowloon. Its balcony was a jungle, dripping with plants and ferns.

She usually worked late in her office two blocks away on the top floor of one of the glass banking towers, leaving for home at about 7
P.M.
On this day she was even later. The sun had already dropped behind the western mountains and the streetlights were burning when she took the elevator to the street, where her limousine was waiting. She was dressed as she usually dressed for work, in a man’s gray silk double-breasted suit, a dark blue shirt open at the collar with a red scarf tied around her throat.

As she got in the limo she was watched from a Ford car half a block away. It was equipped with a cellular phone. Before the limo left the curb, the man watching Daphne dialed her home phone number.

The phone in her apartment rang twice and stopped, one ring before the answering machine intercepted it. A moment later it rang again, this time only once.

Tollie Fong stood in the shadows of the apartment. He smiled. She was on her way. He went back up to the bedroom and checked it out. There were four long strips of silk tied to each corner of the bed. He drew a stiletto from his sleeve and placed it on the dresser next to a pair of pantyhose. He put the tape recorder on the nightstand beside the bed.

Then Tollie Fong went back down and stood behind the front door of the apartment and waited.

When Daphne came in, Fong moved so fast she was still reaching for the light switch when his powerful hands wrapped around her neck and his fingers pressed deep, felt the nerve, felt her stiffen and then go limp. He caught her before she hit the floor, lifted her, and carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed spread-eagled and tied her feet
a
nd hands with the silk cords. He turned on the tape rec
o
rder and picked up the stiletto and waited for her to regain consciousness.

THE HUNTERS

Old Scar was napping in a bog at the foot of a tall banyan tree when he heard the trucks coming. Earlier he heard the elephants, grunting and snorting and blowing dirt on themselves, but he ignored them. But then when the vans came and there was the sound of many voices, he sat up suddenly, grimacing and opening the ducts in his cheeks, lifting his nose and smelling the wind, but it came from behind him and he couldn’t get a whiff of the group that was perhaps two hundred yards away.

Old Scar knew he was up against dangerous enemies. No young buck tiger, this. This was a whole army. His yellow-green eyes flashed
ferociously
and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a fanged snarl as he strolled slowly and arrogantly through the trees, away from the vans and people and toward the stand of bamboo and tall grass west of the lake, a mile or so away’, where his fiery orange and black stripes would blend in
w
ith the
ta
ll
, dry grass.

He wasn’t in a hurry. His shoulders and legs hurt. The arthritis was worse than usual t
h
is morning and he was hungry. And he was too old and tough to be scared of anything.

Fresh pugs led toward the lake_ The Thai guide, Quat, had found them an hour or so earlier. He laid his hand in one of the paw marks. The perimeters of the print were a good inch or two greater than the hand.

‘Cat’s on the prowl,’ Early told the hunters. ‘I sent a man on down to the village. The townsfolk will stay inside until this is over.’

‘What do you think?’ Earp asked.

‘Wind’s shifting,’ Early said, sniffing at the air like an animal. ‘If he gets downwind of us he could make a real chase out of this.’

Max Early stared from under the sagging brim of a khaki safari hat. He was a little under six feet tall with thick brown hair and a full beard. His khaki tank top clung tightly to a hard, muscular body, and he had thick, hard legs that strained his tennis shorts. His body was tanned and his beard bleached out by the relentless tropical sun.

He squatted down and, with a stick, sketched out a crude map in the dirt. The group gathered around, drinking beer and smoking and staring over his shoulder at the
scribbling
in the sand. Re explained the area to the hunters.

At the top of the map was their encampment, and at the bottom left, south and east of the camp was the lake and the village. Between the camp and the lake were two miles of jungle, which stretched east and west for about a mile. Toward the bottom of the map and west of the lake was a broad plain perhaps half a mile square. It was the danger spot, Early explained. At its edge was a bamboo thicket about fifty to seventy-five yards wide that twisted from the lake to the fields. The bamboo was fifteen to twenty feet high and very dense. Between it and the jungle there was a stretch of short buffalo grass followed by two h
u
ndred yards of tall elephant grass, which Early said was eight to ten feet high. The short buffalo grass and the elephant grass and bamboo were all handy hiding places for the big cat. Beyond the village and west of the thickets were cultivated fields.

‘We’re looking at roughly four square miles of brush and tree bays,’ Early said. ‘Just remember, he can climb a tree, burrow into a stump, lie absolutely motionless for hours in the tall grass
—,

‘Is he likely to attack a man?’ interrupted a nervous Wonderboy.

‘He’s already eaten three
—
size isn’t going to stop him.’

‘How big we talking about here?’ Gallagher asked.

‘Upwards of five hundred pounds from the look of him and his pug size,’ Early answered. ‘Also he’s blind in his right eye and maybe little arthritic, which means he’s got a nasty temper in addition to being pissed off and on the run.’

‘Great,’ groaned Riker, peeli
n
g off his shirt. He was powerfully built, a hairy man with several scars streaking his belly and lower ribs. He slipped on a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses.

‘Just what the hell does all that add up to?’ he asked.

‘Five hundred pounds of bad cat,’ said Earp with a big grin. ‘He gets a leg up on you, Riker, this picnic could turn into a funeral.’

As Early had explained the plan of attack, two of the hunters would ride each of the three elephants. They would be spaced about a hun
d
red yards apart. What Early called his ‘noise boys’ w
o
uld walk between the
chaangs,
yelling, beating on pans, shaking up the old cat and keeping him on the run. Hopefully Old Scar would run toward the hunters on th
e
ground who were to shoot only if they had a clear target with nobody in the field of fire. The elephant riders would shoot only in an emergency.

‘When you get to the south perimeter, spread out about three hundred yards apart but close enough to keep each other in sight,’ Early had advised them. ‘When we start the drive south toward the village, move toward us. Get on the inside of the bamboo but stay in the short buffalo grass. Don’t get in that
chaang
grass, you get lost in those thickets, y
o
u’re lunch for the cat. Or one of us could accidentally pop you off. When you get a shot, go for his body. He’ll be moving, so go for the mass.’

‘Won’t the elephants run the c
a
t off?’ Riker had asked.

‘Elephants don’t scare tigers,’ said Early. ‘In the wild, they tolerate each other. But I saw a cat jump a twelve-foot bull elephant once and tear off half his ear.’

‘Does anything scare a tiger?’ asked Corkscrew.

Early thought for a moment, then said, quite seriously, ‘Not that I can think of. This guy’s old. He appears to be blind in one eye and he’s hungry and he’s slowed down some, that’s why’ he’s turned man- eater. But he’s smart, don’t kid yourself, and spookier than a pregnant cobra.’

‘In other words, unpredictable.’

‘Totally.’

They had drawn cards to see who would ride elephants and who would be the shooters on the ground. Melinda and Johnny Prophett were on one beast with a driver, W. T. and Early shared a second, and Gallagher and Riker rode
the
third. Potter, Wonderboy, Corkscrew and Hatch
w
ould be on foot.

As they piled in the van, Earp tossed Hatcher a half-smile.

‘Good luck, soldier,’ he said.

‘Same to you.’

The old van rattled across the lush and fertile South Thailand landscape. Breathtaking green fields bloomed on both sides of the road and fruit trees speckled the uneven countryside. There was a sense of endeavor and hard work about the area, probably because of the powerful beasts that worked the land. Domestic elephants were almost as prevalent as water buffalo. There was also a lot of places for the tiger to hide.

Hatcher checked the 375 H&H Early had loaned him, saying, ‘Kicks like a mule, but it’ll drop an elephant straight on his ass from two hundred yards.’

They drove the two miles across non-roads. In the midmorning sun, the village lay deserted. The doors of the hooches and thatched huts
w
ere closed. Wonderboy huddled up against the side of the van, clutching his rifle as though he were afraid it was going to fly away. Sweat streaked the strange black and white paint on his face. Hatcher could see the twisted burn-scarred skin beneath the makeup. He could almost smell Wonderboy’s fear.

‘Don’t worry, kid,’ Hatcher said. ‘I’ll keep an eye on you.’

‘I’m okay,’ the musician mumbled.

The four men spread out along the back end of the broad grassy area west of the l
a
ke but close enough to keep one another in view. Corkscrew and Potter were at one end of the stretch, Wonderboy and Hatcher at the other. They were in the open and the sun blazed down on them. Hatcher broke out in a sweat when he got out of the van.

Ahead of Hatcher was the thick wide stand of fifteen-foot-high bamboo. Thr
o
ugh the cramped stalks, Hatcher could barely make out the short grass that stood waist-high on the other side of the bamboo stand.

The only sound was the buzzing of flies and insects. Not a bird twittered and the wind was barely more than a sigh, occasionally stirring the grass. Hatcher put on his sunglasses and walked cautiously along the edge of the bamboo, stopping every few feet to listen and look.

He was not far into the field
w
hen he heard the noise boys start their serenade. It was far away. Occasionally one of the elephants would add its voice to the chorus.