“I have heard them called that,” the judge lied. “I won’t bore you with their Latin names or the names attributed by local botanists, but, yes, I believe these are
“Then it’s just as well we aren’t in the south,” said Daeng, who had just plucked the tree’s name from the air. “Because down in Champasak the
“The what, comrade?”
“The drop adder, Judge. The trees are full of them. They’re deadly venomous snakes camouflaged the colour of branches.” The local porters began to look up at the overhanging foliage with trepidation. “There is no known antidote to their venom. One bite from a drop adder and it’s all over, a long, slow, excruciatingly painful death.”
She had her belt rolled in her hand and was taking aim at Civilai four bodies ahead of her.
“They wait for their prey to walk beneath the tree,” she continued, “and they focus on a vulnerable spot, a neck, a wrist … a bald head. They are remarkably accurate. You step beneath their branch and … hiss!”
She launched her belt into the air where it began to uncurl and came down square on Civilai’s left shoulder- writhing. He shouted his surprise and beat off the fake drop adder, but the porter directly behind him screamed the heavens down. He ran in a blind panic away from the trees and rid himself of the cumbersome packs by tossing them to one side.
The sound of the explosion was amplified in the gully and the force of it blew the escaping porter clean off his feet and into the rocks. Several of those nearest to the blast were knocked backward. Siri and Daeng felt a whoosh of air and, like the others, hung there in a void of shocked silence. Everyone looked around wondering what had happened. All they could see was a charred nest of a crater gouged out of the grass where one pack had hit the ground. The porter, bleeding from the forehead, rolled on to his back and coughed. Dr. Yamaguchi and Dtui went to attend to him. Siri turned to his wife.
“Well done, old girl,” he said.
“It’s never quite had that effect before,” she admitted.
“Will somebody tell me what the hell just happened?” Major Potter called out. Peach’s translation arrived a few seconds later.
“Any idea whose pack that was?” Siri asked.
The porters had merely grabbed all the heavier bags from the trucks to justify a wage so nobody had an immediate answer. The team members looked around for their own bags in order to eliminate whose was missing. It was the major himself who came up empty. He stood with his hands on his head.
“It looks like it was Potter’s bag,” Peach told them.
There was a crowd gathered now around the smoldering hole in the ground. Not a trace remained of whatever had exploded there.
“Does the major remember what was in his pack?” Phosy asked Peach.
The old soldier was standing in the shade of one of the drop-adder trees looking crestfallen. Peach walked over to join him. Civilai returned Daeng’s belt with an ironic smile.
“Victory to me, I’d say,” he told her.
Daeng wasn’t inclined to disagree, especially with Judge Haeng marching angrily in their direction, once more forgetting his limp.
“Do you see? Do you see?” he said. “More evidence that age does not necessarily equal maturity. Have I not told you on numerous occasions that these childish practical jokes will ultimately lead to disaster?”
“On this occasion it might just have saved a life,” Phosy interrupted. “If the porter hadn’t thrown off the pack he’d be headless by now. There was something in it that could have blown at any minute.”
Peach stood beside Potter who was unconsciously running his hand through his short white hair. There was an unmistakably guilty look on his face.
“Major,” she said. “What was that?”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “There’s no way. I made sure like I always do. Double checked.”
“Was there something explosive in your pack?”
“Technically, no.”
“But in reality?”
“It couldn’t have been the dynamite.”
“Major Potter. There was dynamite in your backpack?”
“Well, yeah. But it was completely harmless.”
12
It was morning break and the smoky air felt more unsociable with every hour that passed. They’d set up a tarpaulin shelter between the trees, more from habit than necessity. They hadn’t yet seen the sun that day. Patches of smog wafted past like wispy black hearses. In the distance the morning mist was trapped beneath one endless bank of clouds. The team felt like the filling in a dirty souffle. The Lao contingent, minus Judge Haeng and Cousin Vinai, sat in a circle drinking coffee from a thermos and eating some version of NASA space rations wrapped in plastic. They were sure that whatever the snack lacked in taste would be more than made up for if they ever needed to re-enter the earth’s atmosphere in a hurry.
“So,” Civilai asked. “Have I got this straight? The major had five sticks of dynamite in his pack and was surprised that they blew up?”
“He swears they weren’t wearing their detonation caps,” Auntie Bpoo told him. “Says they were as safe as celery sticks.”
“Except celery doesn’t blow people’s heads off,” said Dtui.
“He was in the ordnance corps for the first five years of his career,” Phosy told her. “You’d think he’d know how to make a stick of dynamite safe.”
“He’s a drunk,” Daeng reminded him. “He knocks back half a bottle of whiskey at dinner then goes back to his room and swigs the other half. Then he sits on his bed and disarms explosives for half an hour before collapsing on the bed. Does that scenario make anyone else here feel nervous?”
“I don’t know.” Siri shook his head. “He’s a professional. Wouldn’t he have double-checked everything when he woke up this morning?”
“He’s a professional who was drummed out of the service before retirement age,” said Commander Lit.
“What?”
“It’s true,” Lit nodded. “We did a background check on him. He’s only fifty-seven. He had several years ahead of him. The Americans don’t exactly fire their ranking officers. They urge them to step away from the career. It appears his superiors were a little upset about his alcohol and sex addictions. He had the choice of leaving for undisclosed health reasons or facing a dishonorable discharge.”
“He’s only fifty-seven?” Dtui was shocked. “I was sure he was older than you, Dr. Siri.”
“Ah, but I’m not a slave to sex and alcohol,” Siri told her.
“That’s right,” Madame Daeng agreed. “The doctor could give up alcohol any time he wanted.” She noticed everyone staring at her. “What? He could.”
“Meanwhile, back to the major,” said Civilai with a timely intervention. “If the man’s such a liability, what’s he doing handling explosives?”
“And what’s he doing heading this mission?” Dtui added.
“Probably they have the same system as us,” Phosy suggested.
“A reward for thirty years’ faithful service. An all-expenses-paid trip. The name of a senior officer on the list of personnel?”
“Plus he’s had experience in the region,” Lit added. “He spent six years in Vietnam. They knew him at the US consulate here. I believe he’d worked with the charge in Ho Chi Minh City.”
“Perhaps they didn’t expect him to be this hands-on,” Civilai suggested. “They imagined him and General
