Message from Hell (A Creasy novel Book 5) Read online

  ‘It’s a deal,’ Jens said. ‘Now what do you need?’

  Creasy thought for half a minute and then said: ‘The US Army has a permanent Missing-in-Action section based in Washington. It’s a big section. The American people are highly sensitive about their Armed Forces personnel who go missing in foreign wars. It’s a very emotive issue, so the politicians make a lot of noise about it. They’re still trying to find GIs, or their remains, who went missing in Korea forty-five years ago. They still refuse to recognize Vietnam until they’ve used up every effort to locate their missing persons.’ He glanced at the Dane. ‘In a way, Jens, it’s the same thing that you and The Owl specialize in, which is why I can use your help. I’d like you to go to Washington and talk to the people at the Missing-in-Action section. Of course Bentsen has been in contact with them about that dogtag, and they think it’s authentic. I want you to get as much background as possible. Ask questions; snoop around. Try to get a general impression of the case. Those guys must get all kinds of information, a lot of it purely speculative. The kind of information they cannot pass on to the families of the missing because it may raise false hopes. But that information could be useful to me. Meanwhile I’ll head for San Diego. We take it one step at a time. I made some inquiries. The guy who heads up the US Army Missing-in-Action section is a Colonel called Elliot Friedman. Please go talk to him.’

  The Dane did something that he always did at such moments. He reached down to his feet and pulled up the small case containing his computer. He laid it reverently on the table and a few seconds later was tapping in a file entitled, ‘Puppy’.

  Chapter 2

  Of course it was logical: first find the messenger, and through him find the sender.

  Where to start looking? Obviously, at the place where the message was delivered.

  Creasy sat in the overfurnished living room in the house in San Diego, sipping a Budweiser. The old couple sat opposite drinking coffee, their faces showing anxiety and a little embarrassment.

  The woman said: ‘We have our savings, Mr Creasy . . . and we both have pensions. We can afford to pay you something.’

  Creasy was deliberately blunt. ‘Mrs Bentsen, for a job like this I’d normally ask for a hundred thousand up front . . . and a whole lot more for expenses. But this is not normal. I’m going to spend a couple of weeks to satisfy my own curiosity. Right now I’m flush with money from the last couple of jobs. What I need is not money but your memory. Think carefully, and describe the man who delivered the dogtag.’

  Marina Bentsen was old, with a pinched, narrow face, but her eyes were bright and sparkled with intelligence. Those eyes narrowed in concentration as she spoke.

  ‘He was definitely Asiatic. We have quite a big Asian community here in San Diego. Japanese, Chinese, Korean and of course Vietnamese. For us, it’s always hard to distinguish. Not only their nationalities, but their ages. He was not young, I would guess between fifty and sixty . . . His face was unlined. His hair, of course, was black and quite short . . . parted in the middle. His eyes were small and very dark. His nose was slightly hooked and his chin was uncommonly narrow. He was wearing dark blue trousers, and a light blue windbreaker. Also, sneakers. When he walked away I noticed that he had a slight limp.’

  ‘Which side?’

  ‘He favoured his left leg.’

  ‘You’re very observant, Mrs Bentsen.’

  For the first time, the thin lips on the narrow face smiled. She said: ‘I guess it comes from being an artist.’

  ‘You’re an artist?’

  She gestured at the walls of the room. Creasy silently studied the half-dozen paintings. They were all landscapes apart from one portrait of a young man. Creasy recognized the face of Jake Bentsen. With sincerity he said: ‘They’re very good; and the likeness of your son is excellent.’

  Her query was wistful. ‘So you recognized him, Mr Creasy?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m going to need several photographs, which I’ll get enlarged.’

  The old man pushed himself to his feet, saying: ‘We have plenty. We had them enlarged and printed for the MIA.’ He walked over to a bureau, opened a drawer, and took out a large envelope.

  Creasy studied the score or so eight-by-ten prints and nodded with satisfaction, then looked up at the old woman and asked: ‘Can you make a drawing from your memory, of the messenger?’

  She leaned forward. ‘I did that the same night that he came here.’

  Her husband had not sat down. He went again to the bureau and came back with a tube of paper bound by an elastic band.

  Creasy slipped off the band and unrolled the thick paper. The portrait was drawn with broad strokes of charcoal. The face seemed to be alive, especially the small black eyes between the high cheekbones. For a long time the old couple watched him study the drawing. Then he turned back to the woman and asked in a very quiet voice: ‘Are you satisfied that this is a good likeness?’

  She was emphatic. ‘Yes. The face was stamped into my mind. I worked on the drawing late into the night. Mr Creasy, that’s the face of the messenger.’

  Creasy turned the portrait around and looked at it again. The old man asked: ‘Will it help?’ Creasy looked at him and said: ‘Mr Bentsen, I knew this man.’ Silence hung in the air, finally broken by the excited voice of Marina Bentsen. ‘So it does help!’

  Creasy was looking at the charcoal face. He said: ‘Yes and no.’ ‘What does that mean?’

  Creasy tapped the portrait. ‘Like your son, this guy should be dead.’

  The old man was the first to find his voice. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Yes . . . I killed him.’

  Chapter 3

  After he had left, the old couple sat silently for several minutes. Then the woman stood up and went to the bureau in the corner. She returned with a shoebox, laid it on the table and took from it a bunch of envelopes tied with a yellow ribbon. She knew exactly which letter she wanted. She flicked through the bundle and pulled it out. The pages crackled in her hands. Her husband watched patiently as she looked for the paragraphs. Then she started to read out loud.

  ‘My outfit is doing long-range patrols (LRPs) into VC territory. We go in for days, and sometimes weeks, at a time. Not like the units who go on a forty-eight-hour hike and have their hot breakfasts flown in by the choppers. Sure it’s dangerous work; but don’t worry overmuch. Ours is an elite unit. We know what we’re doing. It’s mainly recce work but occasionally we make contact. The fire-fight is always short and sharp. Over the weeks we’ve come out on top, although we’ve suffered some wounded. We have a few “unofficials” with us. I’m not allowed to tell you where they’re from. Let’s just say these guys have been around in a lot of wars and compared to them we’re kinda green; but we learn fast.

  ‘One of those guys is sort of a friend. Well, maybe not a friend. I don’t think he has any friends. He doesn’t talk much. Fact is he hardly talks at all. There are all kinds of rumours about the guy, that he was in the French Foreign Legion and fought all over the place. He’s got scars just about everywhere. They say he also fought in the Congo and Biafra. Thing is, when you ask him, he just shrugs and says he can’t remember.

  ‘I’m the youngest in the outfit and some of the guys kinda trash me. But not this guy. He takes me seriously. Sometimes he gives me pointers on weapons and things. For sure, he knows a hell of a lot more than the NCOs and the lieutenant. When he occasionally says something you’d better believe they listen.

  ‘When there’s a fire-fight I always look for him. I guess it’s natural. Also I get the feeling that maybe he keeps an eye on me. Nothing obvious but just a feeling. I can’t explain, but I want to be his friend. His name is Creasy.’

  She folded the sheets of paper and slid them back into the envelope. She pulled out another letter from the bundle and read: ‘We just got back from another LRP way up north. I never thought a man could get so tired as I did. I guess I only kept going because the others did. Maybe that’s the way it works. Everybody watches the others, wait
ing for the first one to crack, waiting for an excuse to give up yourself. We made no contact with “Charlie” but something interesting happened. Our orders were to check out a valley and a small Vietnamese village in it. We entered the place at dawn and picked up the headman and took him away for questioning. This is a dirty war and you won’t be shocked to know that the questioning can get rough. Of course, we good guys don’t get involved like that. We always have a couple of NVA guys along to do the translating and the dirty work if necessary. But it turned out that the headman was educated and spoke French. Our lieutenant is supposed to speak French but I guess it was third-grade stuff because the guy couldn’t understand more than a word or two. The lieutenant got mad and told the NVA guys to work him over. But Creasy told them to wait. Then he had a long conversation with the headman in French. I guess he must have been in the Legion. They seemed to get on fine, the headman was smiling and laughing. Creasy told the lieutenant that he had learned all they needed to know. Then he spoke a few more words with the headman and then he beat the guy up. Beat him up bad. He didn’t break any bones but the old guy was bleeding all over. None of us could figure it out. Not even the lieutenant. I mean, the headman had co-operated. Most of the guys figured that Creasy was just a sadist getting his kicks. I didn’t believe it. Over chow that night I went over and asked him about it. He just told me to use my brains and think it out. A couple of days passed. Then I worked it out. We had been deep into VC territory. For sure the next time the VC visited that village, they would find out that we had been there and questioned the headman. If he was unmarked, he would face their suspicions. If he was only roughed up, the suspicions would be deeper.

  ‘The point is that Creasy never bothered to explain this to me or the other guys. He’s different. He just lives inside himself.’

  She folded that letter too, and slid it back into the envelope. Then she read the final letter, which was full of enthusiasm. He had just completed an intense final six weeks’ course in mine laying and clearance. Together with his qualifications from earlier courses, this meant he was now promoted ‘specialist first class’. She remembered their pride when they had received the letter; it was as though their son had graduated with honours from Harvard University.

  And then, three weeks later, the letter from the Pentagon. Missing in action. The weeks and months of waiting and praying and hoping to hear that he had been taken prisoner. The twenty-six years of waiting to hear anything at all.

  Her husband stood up, gently took the box from her hand, and locked it away in the bureau.

  Chapter 4

  ‘Fucking computers!’

  Colonel Elliot Friedman looked around the spacious office, and then said to the Dane: ‘I’ve been working in this department for thirty years now. I remember when the whizz-kids first came in with the computers. They told us all the paperwork was going to be eliminated. Bullshit! We generate more paper now, in spite of the fancy machines. Do you know why?’

  Jens Jensen shook his head. ‘I don’t know why, but I guess it comes down to bureaucracy. I used to work in the Missing Persons Department in the Danish Police. Of course we had computers, and of course we had giant printers that spewed out paper all day long. It reminds me of a story back in the last century, when Bismarck discovered that the German bureaucracy had two great warehouses full of documents that were completely useless. He gave an order to burn all that useless paper. Two years later he remembered the order and asked his chief of staff to check whether it had been carried out. The chief of staff returned and reported that after two years only ten per cent of it was burned. “Why?” asked Bismarck. The chief of staff replied: “Because the bureaucrats told me that it would take many more years to make copies of the documents before they were burned.”’

  For the first time the Colonel smiled. It changed his tired, lined face. His was not a job to envy. The building contained tens of thousands of files which held the details of American servicemen missing in action, going all the way back to World War I. Of course by now it was only those missing since the Korean War in the early fifties, and through the Vietnam War, which caused the heartache of so many thousands of relatives and loved ones. No other country in world history had spent so much time and money trying to trace their missing servicemen. It was emotive and it was political. And it was why in the modern age American presidents were so reluctant to commit their servicemen to wars; and why they so often used a hammer to crack a walnut.

  Jens knew all about that. He had been in Washington only one week, but had burrowed like a beaver, and he now knew a great deal about the Missing-in-Action department. He knew that the colonel was efficient and conscientious. He knew that in spite of his rank he had never fired a gun in anger. He had a staff of over three hundred which included experts at identifying human remains.

  The Dane passed across the dogtag, saying: ‘I know your people have seen this before. As far as they know, it’s authentic.’

  The colonel studied the dogtag and nodded his grey-haired head.

  ‘It looks authentic,’ he said. ‘Vietnam era. What’s your interest?’

  ‘Concerns a friend of mine. A very close friend. That dogtag belonged to a special forces GI. He was with my friend when he went missing in action near the Cambodian border back in nineteen sixty-eight.’

  The colonel was still looking at the dogtag in the palm of his hand. He said: ‘That was a bad year. Was Jake his given name or a nickname?’

  ‘His given name.’

  The colonel was looking at his computer console. He shrugged, smiled wanly and said: ‘Of course I could press the little buttons on this thing and the file should come up on the screen. But like Bismarck’s boys, I’m kinda old-fashioned.’

  He reached forward, pressed a button on his desk console and said: ‘Susanna, I want the file on SFC Jake Bentsen missing in ‘Nam . . . sixty-eight.’

  During the ten minutes’ wait for the file to arrive, the colonel poured three mugs of coffee from a machine in the corner of his office; then, with a wink, he opened the desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of Martell brandy.

  ‘It improves the taste,’ he said. ‘Believe me, army coffee needs all the help it can get.’

  He poured a generous slug into each mug, pushed one across the desk to the Dane and passed another to The Owl, sitting silently to the side. ‘Skål!’

  ‘Skål!’ said Jens. ‘Have you been in my country?’

  ‘Yes, back in the seventies I spent a lot of time in Sweden. We had quite a few guys who deserted during the ‘Nam war, and others who ducked the draft. Many of them ended up in Canada and quite a few in Sweden, especially the black ones. There were several cases where they pretended to go MIA and then found their way to Sweden. My job then was to liaise with the Swedish government.’ He shrugged. ‘I have to say that I found Stockholm and the Swedish pretty boring. So on weekends I used to catch the ferry and take a little R and R in Copenhagen. Danes have a better sense of humour, the booze was cheaper and the girls were great.’

  Jens asked, ‘Where did you hang out?’

  ‘Kakadu . . . Is it still going?’

  ‘Yes, it is. The girls are still there but these days the customers are mostly Japanese.’

  There was a tap on the door. A woman wearing a captain’s uniform brought in a thick file. She glanced at the Dane and then at The Owl before she quietly left the room.

  The file had a red cover closed with black elastic. On the top right-hand corner were stamped the letters MIA (EXL). The colonel pushed the file across the desk, saying: ‘This is against regulations. But since I had some good times in your city, you can look through it. I am not allowed to give you copies of any parts except by written permission from the Secretary of Defence.’

  The Dane nodded his thanks, then tapped the letters on the file and asked: ‘What do these signify?’

  ‘It’s part of a grading we use. The letters EXL signify that it’s low grade. We have very little expectations either that your m
an is alive or that his remains will ever be found.’ He looked again at the dogtag on his desk. ‘But maybe, since this was hand-delivered to his parents’ home, we should upgrade the file.’

  Jens had opened the file and was reading through the papers. They consisted of dozens of reports, starting with the action report of the lieutenant in command of the unit. It was followed by a report from the Divisional Combat Intelligence Office and then reports concerning prisoner interrogations, returned POW debriefings, Red Cross reports and finally analyses of information given by the unified Vietnamese government after they began co-operating with the US government in an effort to get sanctions lifted. Every single report was totally negative.

  It took the Dane half an hour to speed-read it. Meanwhile, the colonel recharged the mugs from the bottle of Martell until Jens realized he was drinking almost pure Cognac.

  He closed the file and said, ‘I can understand why you gave it a low grading. But still, the work that went into this file was very extensive. I congratulate you.’

  The colonel’s face had turned sombre. He was looking at a framed photograph on his desk. He said: ‘I lost my own son in Vietnam in sixty-seven. They shipped his body back and he’s buried in Arlington. Sometimes it’s difficult to understand what it means to a parent to know that his child is at rest, even if it is below the earth. A lot of the officers working in this department, men and women, are in similar situations. We take our work seriously. We see a lot of prolonged grief. That grief is our motivation.’ He was now looking out of the window, across the Potomac River. His tone was reflective. ‘As I look back over the past few years, I notice the changes here in America. Up until the sixties the family units were very strong, and of course our soldiers went to fight in Europe and Korea knowing they had a mission. They understood what they were risking their lives for. I guess ‘Nam changed all that, and the sixties changed the family ties too. But the parents of the ones who went missing did not change. They still like to think that their loss had a meaning. They still hope that the sacrifices were not in vain.’ He turned back to the file. ‘The parents of Jake Bentsen must be in their seventies now. Suddenly getting that dogtag after all those years must have been a combination of hell and hope.’