Message from Hell (A Creasy novel Book 5) Page 8

  Creasy patted him on the shoulder. ‘Of course, Guido. Just like you teach amateurs to play stud poker and backgammon. You missed your vocation. You should have been a schoolmaster.’

  Guido did not answer. He was staring over Creasy’s shoulder at the other side of the room. He said: ‘I think we’re being followed.’

  Creasy did not look around. He nodded slightly and said: ‘I spotted him at the last two bars.’ Suddenly he hissed to Susanna, who was turning her head. ‘Don’t look. Just act normally.’

  Jens said: ‘He’s probably local security. After all, this is a communist country and they’re bound to keep an eye on independent travellers.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Creasy said. ‘But if somebody has lured us to this country, then he could be working for them.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Susanna asked.

  ‘We do nothing. Just act normal.’ He gave her an appraising look. ‘This friend of yours, Dang Hoang Long. Do you think you could arrange for me to meet him?’

  She thought about it and then answered: ‘I don’t see why not. I’ll call him in the morning.’

  Creasy glanced at his watch and said: ’It’s been a long night. Let’s head back to the hotel.’

  Susanna had brought a light cardigan with her. As they stood up Creasy lifted it from the back of her chair and helped her on with it. She felt that it was an uncommon courtesy in this modern world. By now she had decided that he was an uncommon man.

  Chapter 18

  Creasy was a cautious man, especially when it came to forming an opinion on people: he was wary of instinct. But he could not help liking Dang Hoang Long. He had been shown into the old man’s office five minutes earlier. The meeting had followed traditional Vietnamese courtesies; first a handshake, followed by cups of tea and sweet, sticky cakes. He expressed his appreciation for being allowed the interview.

  Dang stated: ‘I consider Susanna Moore to be a friend. Of course I had to grant her request. However, before doing so I asked her to give me a description of your background. I have to be honest and tell you, Mr Creasy, that you’re not the kind of man I admire. You kill for money. The vast majority of Americans who came to kill Vietnamese had no choice. They were young men, almost boys. They came to our country by order of their government. They came frightened, and those who went home carried physical and mental scars that will stay with them all their lives. You, on the other hand, came by choice. You came for money.’

  Creasy looked him in the eye and answered: ‘I am what I am, but I came this time for a different reason. I came to look for one of those boys whose government sent them here. No one is paying me.’

  The old man took a sip of his tea and asked: ‘Are you telling me that you have a conscience?’

  Creasy shrugged. ‘That’s not a word I ever thought about. Do you have a conscience, Mr Dang?’

  ‘I like to think so.’

  Creasy leaned forward and said flatly: ‘Are the boat people on your conscience? Are the tens of thousands of your people who were tortured and brutalized in your so-called “re-education camps” on your conscience?’

  The old man nodded. ‘Yes, they are. Even though I’m a very high ranking official in my government, I had no power to stop the abuses . . . But they are on my conscience, Mr Creasy.’

  Creasy sat back in his chair and stated: ‘I believe you, and I will ask you in turn to believe that if I knew what a conscience really was, then I hope I have one too.’

  Dang Hoang Long finally smiled. Even though the smile added more lines to his face, it made it look much younger. They had found a rapport.

  ‘Are you having me followed?’ Creasy asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Is he a young man with a broken nose and a scar on his forehead?’

  Dang shook his head. ‘No. The two people I have been using are women.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t you think it’s strange, Mr Creasy, that when a man thinks he’s being followed or watched, he always assumes that it must be another man? I always use women. Did you spot them?’

  ‘I spotted one. Long hair, riding a new Honda moped, a blue shirt and jeans, Nike trainers. Good body.’

  The old man was nodding. He said: ‘She will be reprimanded. Now what can I do for you, Mr Creasy?’

  ‘I would just like your opinion,’ Creasy answered. ‘You know from Miss Moore that I’m interested in a man called Van Luk Wan. Is it possible that he’s in Vietnam and if not, is it possible that he has a network of people here?’

  The old man answered immediately: ‘As to the first, it’s doubtful, and as to the second, it’s probable. Since I spoke to Susanna yesterday, I’ve been making more inquiries about Van Luk Wan. It’s rumoured that he’s in Cambodia and linked to the Khmer Rouge. He handles some of their business affairs. I do not think he’ll risk coming back into Vietnam himself, but he certainly has contacts here. Perhaps your man with the broken nose and the scar belongs to him.’

  Creasy stood up and held out his hand, saying: ‘I’m grateful for your advice. In return for your help, I give you my word that I’ll keep you informed of what I do and learn, either directly or through your friend, Susanna.’

  Dang also stood up. They shook hands formally, and the Vietnamese said: ‘I believe you. I’ll call off my surveillance people. If you spot anyone following you, they’ll not belong to me . . . Meanwhile, in some ways this is still a dangerous country, and Cambodia is even more so. I want you to watch over Susanna. She’s a fine woman.’ ‘I’ll take care of her.’

  Chapter 19

  It was the first time and it made Susanna Moore very nervous. With all the travelling and the excitement of meeting a different breed of men, it was not surprising that she had not noticed. It was only that morning when she went to take her shower and opened her toilet bag that she saw the large box of Tampax. She had packed it in Washington knowing that her period was due. Ever since puberty, she had been as regular as a Rolex.

  She immediately went back into the bedroom and checked her diary. She was four days late. She sat on the bed and tried to think back, and realized that it was just possible. It had been three weeks since she last made love to her professor. For the last couple of years they had never bothered to take precautions during their rare love-making. Pregnancy had seemed so remote. She tried to reassure herself: maybe it was the travelling and change of climate and diet that had delayed her period. Then she felt an urgency verging on panic. She knew there was a modern drugstore on Thu Do Street. She was there in ten minutes buying a pregnancy test, and, fifteen minutes later, back in her hotel room, was studying the little stick with its two panels.

  The top panel was blue, and she knew that if the bottom panel also turned blue, she was in an interesting condition. Very slowly the colour changed and she let out a deep breath: it was blue. She sat there for several minutes, then phoned down to room service and ordered a pot of coffee. She felt very strange. It was as though her body had been invaded.

  She had always pushed the thought of children out of her mind. She was old-fashioned in that way: for her, children came with a happy, settled marriage. Of course she realized that at the age of thirty-four she only had a few more years to find herself in a happily married state, and as she sat on that bed in her Saigon hotel room, the prospects did not look encouraging. In the first place she was not sure about spending the rest of her life with her professor. She had never even considered him as a lifelong partner. It had somehow just drifted on. Since leaving Washington he had hardly entered her thoughts. Too much was happening, too many impressions, and she had to admit it; too much attraction to the man called Creasy.

  She put down the tell-tale stick, stood up and started pacing the room. Her options were stark: either fly home and have an abortion, or become a mother. She tried to perceive herself as a mother. The picture was very blurred.

  She spent half an hour trying to clarify those options and give them an element of human consideration. Then she decided that the putative father sh
ould also consider the options. She looked at her watch and calculated that it would be just after eight o’clock in the evening in Washington. Jason would be home. He always ate his evening meal at seven o’clock precisely. About now he would be lighting his pipe and putting up his feet to watch the news on TV. She gave him fifteen minutes to digest his dinner and the world’s events, and then picked up the phone.

  His voice was warm. She could picture him in the leather chair in the book-lined room, the telephone in one hand and his pipe in the other. Probably his cat, Thomas, was lying asleep on his lap. She felt a sudden surge of affection combined with a longing for the simple uncomplicated things in life.

  After a few minutes of chatter, she simply stated: ‘Jason, I’ve just discovered that I’m pregnant.’

  The silence went on for so long that she began to think she had lost the connection. Then his low voice came, as though discussing a conspiracy: ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’ve seen a doctor?’

  ‘No, I bought a testing kit from a drugstore here. It proved positive.’

  His voice went lower. ‘You can buy those things in Vietnam?’

  ‘Of course. I’m not in the middle of a jungle. This is a modern city.’

  Another long silence and then, with anxiety in his voice, he asked: ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘It’s why I called you,’ she said. ‘We have two choices.’ Unconsciously, she had emphasized the word ‘we’. ‘I either fly back and have an immediate abortion, or we keep the baby.’

  She could hear his breathing down the line. Then he asked: ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only found out an hour ago. That’s why I’m calling you. I wanted to get your reaction.’

  Suddenly his voice became brusque. ‘Susanna, we have to think about this in a logical way. I’m sorry that it happened. Obviously, two mature people like us, we should have taken precautions. A child at this time of life would be disruptive to say the least. You must think about your career. You’re approaching the age when promotion to major is a very strong possibility. You must consider how much a child would tie you down. I know that it’s a modern thing these days for a career woman to be a single parent, but I’m personally against the idea.’

  She felt the anger wash over her, but she controlled her voice. ‘Jason, you would be the father of that child. Of course I have the right to make my choice; but since it’s your seed that is inside me, I thought it was only civilized to inform you before I made that choice.’

  Another silence. Then he said: ‘It’s very important not to get emotional. Of course I understand that you’re in a foreign city and not among friends. You did the right thing to call me. My advice is you fly back to Washington. I’ll arrange a private clinic.’

  The anger was like a cold stone in her stomach. She said: ‘I’ll think about it for a couple of weeks.’

  She hung up and lost control. The tears poured unattended down her face and her shoulders shook uncontrollably. She had wanted warm words, whatever the advice. She had wanted understanding and compassion. Instead she got the cold logic of a man terrified of losing his status quo. She felt unbearably lonely.

  Chapter 20

  ‘He’s good,’ Guido said. ‘Very good.’

  Creasy nodded in agreement.

  ‘And he’s not working for the authorities. So he’s working for whoever set the bait.’

  They were sitting in a pavement café on Hoa Dai Street. It was a scene of the days even before the Americans; the days when Vietnam was a French colony, and Saigon was regarded as the Paris of the East. They had breakfasted on good coffee and croissants and admired the skill of the man who had been following them for the past two days.

  ‘He’s a pro,’ Creasy said. ‘And he works alone. His disguises are minimal but effective. And he even changes the way he walks. Yesterday he had a limp. Today he walks normally. He never looks directly at us. He varies his distance and sometimes he just vanishes, but always turns up again. He’s a pro.’ There was genuine admiration in Creasy’s voice.

  ‘So what do we do about him?’ Guido asked.

  Creasy took a thoughtful sip of coffee and glanced again at the reflection in the plate glass window of the café. The man was sitting at a foodstore on the other side of the busy road, eating from a bowl of noodles. He wore baggy black trousers, a white T-shirt and a black, flat cap. He wore the old-style sandals made from car tyres. He melted into his milieu.

  ‘We pick him up tonight,’ Creasy said. ‘We’ll find out who sent him. We need to hire a car this afternoon.’ He was glancing up and down the street. ‘It’s a strange thing,’ he said. ‘I never liked Saigon. It was a whore of a city in every sense. The locals sucked the blood from the Americans like a million vampires, and the Americans enjoyed it. They thought they were the masters in a sea of slaves, but it was the other way around. Deep down, nobody likes to be a whore, no matter what the rewards. There is nothing without pride. The mood is different now. Of course the Vietnamese love to trade and they are damned good at it. Of course there are still whores, and there will be more as capitalism takes over, but it’s different. There is no coercion. It’s a strange kind of feeling.’

  Guido looked at his friend quizzically. It was not often that Creasy waxed philosophical. At least not openly. He decided to take advantage of the moment. He asked: ‘What are we doing here, Creasy?’

  His friend glanced at him in surprise. ‘You know damn well what we’re doing here. We’re looking for a guy who’s almost surely dead.’

  Guido shook his head. ‘I mean, what are we really doing here? This Jake Bentsen thing is hardly serious. At least not serious enough for you to go charging around the world, spending all that money . . . Your own money.’

  Creasy lifted a hand and a waiter loomed up. Creasy gestured at the empty coffee pot and the waiter took it away. Creasy continued to gaze at the street scene until the waiter returned with a full pot. Creasy filled up both their cups and then added two lumps of sugar to his own coffee. He stirred it for a long time, and then said: ‘It’s a strange thing, Guido. Up until a couple of years ago I never took sugar in my coffee. I hated the taste of it. Then one night in a restaurant in Gozo the waiter gave me the wrong cup. It had sugar in it. I tasted it . . . and liked it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So things change.’ He gestured. ‘Saigon has changed. People change. Maybe I’ve changed.’

  Guido grinned at him. ‘You mean, you’ve become sweeter?’

  Creasy did not smile. He said: ‘Maybe I do things for different reasons these days. It’s possible that I’ve become more curious. I’m here because I want to know who’s after me and why. I guess I got a little tired of sitting in the sun in Gozo. It’s why I was in Brussels in the first place. Subconsciously I was looking for some action but the options didn’t appeal very much. There was a job in Bosnia. It paid well but I decided the hell with it. First of all, I have a big enough stake to last the rest of my life, and second, I felt no great desire to shoot up Serbs, Croatians or Muslims. I figure they ought to let those savages work it out by themselves. They’ve been doing it for a couple of thousand years. Then there were some Portuguese idiots who were trying to hire a group to go down to Angola and help Savimbe have one last crack at the government.’ He snorted in derision. ‘Angola, for Christ’s sake! We fought there twenty years ago. It seems like it was the last century.’ He took a sip of his coffee and then added another lump of sugar and gave Guido a rare smile. ‘So I’m really here out of curiosity . . . Why are you really here, Guido?’

  The Italian shrugged. ‘I guess I was bored. I got tired of serving the same customers in the restaurant and watching the same football on TV and the same corrupt politicians with innocent faces and fat pockets.’ He paused for a moment, then looked up at Creasy and said: ‘Maybe I was a bit lonely. When you told me you were coming out to Asia on a mission, I thought of the old times. There were good and there
were bad, but they weren’t boring.’ He leaned forward and almost imperceptibly jerked his head in the direction of the follower. ‘So how do we take this pro tonight?’

  Creasy also leaned forward. He said: ‘You ask him very politely to take a car ride with you.’

  Guido grinned. ‘I’m always polite.’

  They both looked up and then stood as they saw Susanna approach across the street, with Jens and The Owl in her wake. Creasy pulled out a chair for her. She sat down with a sigh and fanned her face with her hand.

  ‘The heat gets to me,’ she said. ‘Will this place have an iced drink?’

  She was wearing a lime-green, short-sleeved dress cut square across her chest. Fine beads of perspiration glinted on her shoulders and arms. Creasy beckoned for a waiter and ordered her a large, fresh orange juice on the rocks. The others ordered beer. Creasy turned to the Dane and said: ‘Jens, perhaps you would look after Susanna tonight. I need to borrow The Owl.’

  ‘It’ll be a pleasure,’ Jens replied. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘We’re going to pick up the follower and ask him who he’s working for. I know from Dang Hoang Long that he’s not working for the authorities. So whoever sent him is almost certainly the person who lured us here in the first place. It’s better if you and Susanna eat in the hotel tonight and stay there until we return.’

  ‘You think he’ll talk?’ Susanna asked.

  Creasy glanced at Guido and then answered: ‘We shall persuade him to do so.’

  ‘You’ll torture him?’

  Guido leaned forward. He said: ‘It’s not likely that we will need to. We use psychology in such things.’

  ‘And if psychology doesn’t work?’

  Creasy said: ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. One thing is sure: we’ll need to know who sent him. Otherwise we’re at a dead end.’