most of the missing airmen had been lost in Vietnam but saw Laos as a back door for getting permission for similar actions with the Socialist Party of Vietnam. When Boyd’s name came up there was obviously talk of a conflict of interest given the relationship with the senator, but I get the feeling they didn’t have that many downed pilots to choose from. Certainly none with empirical evidence like a photo. They needed success so they selected Boyd. We’ve got his CV. He was a smart lad. Clean service record with the marines. Selected for ‘special missions’ by Air America.”
“Any idea what that means?” Siri asked.
“The classified stuff didn’t make it into the reports. But there was some evidence. Gordon and Yamaguchi noticed discrepancies in Boyd’s flight records. The pilots were paid by the mission. They got ten dollars an hour, which is about what I get a month, so most pilots kept very detailed logs. But not Boyd. His first year was normal, every hour accounted for. But by the second year these empty blocks started to appear. Whole weeks where he didn’t claim any flying time at all.”
“Could he have been on vacation?” Phosy asked.
“Nope. His vacation time was clearly marked on his time sheets. Plus there was no record of him traveling out of the region. People on vacation don’t hang around in a war zone. This was all unexplained dead time. So we assumed ‘special missions’ meant he was doing something secret for the CIA. That’s why Gordon would like to ask your permission to bring in Sergeant Johnson. He thinks we need some inside military information and he believes the sergeant can be trusted.”
Siri had his window. He agreed to Johnson in exchange for Civilai, and, with a little push, Madame Daeng was included in the package.
“All we have left is the background report from Air America,” Dtui continued. “That mostly talks about the loss of the helicopter. The mystery of how it could just vanish completely. There were comments about Boyd’s state of mind from other pilots back in the base at Udon in Thailand. They all seemed to like him. Said he was a good flier. For the first year he was one of the boys, joined in, friendly. But some commented that for the last three months he’d started to act strangely. Some said he’d become paranoid. He used to be a two-drink-a-night man. Said he didn’t like booze that much. But toward the end he was matching them drink for drink and all these odd rants started. He’d say how they shouldn’t be surprised if he found a deadly cobra in his bunk. Or if he was shot down by friendly fire some day. He said ‘they’ were after him.”
“Did he say who ‘they’ were?” Siri asked.
“No. The other pilots assumed it was … us, the enemy.”
“All right,” said Phosy. “What’s-”
He was interrupted by heavy coughing from behind the curtain. The conspirators lowered their voices.
“What is it, hon?” Dtui asked.
“I … I swallowed a bug,” said Mr. Geung. “Sorry.”
When she’d stopped laughing, Dtui continued with her notes.
“That brings us to the interviews,” she said. “We have incomplete transcripts for the interviews with Nino Sebastian, the Filipino flight mechanic, and David Leon, the senior flight person at Spook City. They were the last two to see Boyd alive, unless you count the bear. There were two interviews with Sebastian; one by the AA investigator shortly after the crash, and another sponsored by Congressman Bowry and conducted by a private detective in the Philippines. That interview ran out to forty sheets. The congressman released only twelve of those to the MIA committee. Six of those twelve are marked on the file as ‘On loan to Major Potter.’ As you might imagine, the six we’re left with don’t say very much. We learn that Boyd and Sebastian had flown together on around forty occasions. That afternoon they’d flown the chopper directly up from Udon in Thailand with cargo that was labeled ‘Refugee Supplies’ due for Ban Song. Then we cut sixteen pages to Sebastian stoned and drunk in a bear cage wondering where his pilot’s gone.”
“But what that
“According to the regulations, AA flight crews weren’t allowed to drink or mess with intoxicants up-country,” Dtui told him. “Somebody there got our boy stoned. That could be construed as foul play.”
“What about the AA interview?” Siri asked.
“Six pages in total. All but one signed out to Major Potter. That one page suggests that Sebastian was cut up about not having done enough to save his young friend’s life. He didn’t say who supplied the LSD. He blamed himself for getting dragged into the drink session and for not saying no to the drugs. Plus the fact he’d left open the bear cage and next morning the hungover beast attacked four locals before they could subdue it.”
“Nothing worse than a bear with a sore head,” Siri nodded.
“AA agreed with Sebastian’s appraisal of himself and fired him. He scratched around Thailand doing odd mechanic work before heading back to the Philippines with his savings. He and his family opened a service station and cafe. He stayed there till his death.”
“When did he die?” Phosy asked.
“Three weeks ago,” said Dtui. “There was a sticker attached to the front of the interview sheet.”
“Cause?”
“He drowned. There was a storm drain at the bottom of his property. They found him face down in the water.”
“You said there was another interview?” Siri asked.
“David Leon. Senior flight mechanic at Long Cheng. He was one of the witnesses who heard the explosion. Talked about Mike Wolff, the pilot who’d been drinking with Boyd and Sebastian that night. Explained that Wolff was shot down a couple of weeks later. They’d recovered his body. Ten page interview. Four pages released to Major Potter. Leon had been a fighter pilot in Vietnam but lost his licence, and the reason for that isn’t anywhere in the files.”
“But there was no interview organized by the congressman for this man?” Siri asked.
“No. Leon had been hired directly by the embassy in Vientiane to work with the Ravens-the forward air command. The embassy conducted the interview. There was just the one. Why?”
“I don’t know. Boyd’s father hires a private detective in the Philippines to interview one mechanic-forty pages worth-but isn’t interested enough to interview the only other witness there that night. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“Perhaps he died before they could interview him,” Dtui suggested.
“He’s dead too?” Siri asked.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“About the same time as Sebastian. In fact there was a couple of days between the two deaths.”
“He didn’t fall into a storm drain, by any chance?”
“No. He had a heart attack in a go-go bar in Thailand.”
“Oh.” Siri gasped and coughed. “This is far too much of a coincidence for my liking. No wonder Major Potter found something smelly here.”
“I think the fact that we didn’t find any of those released papers in the major’s belongings is relevant,” said Phosy. “Whoever killed him helped himself to those.”
“It also makes you wonder whether Judge Haeng was looking for them too,” said Siri.
“You think Justice might be involved in all this?” Daeng asked.
“I don’t know. Haeng was looking for something he didn’t find. He’d been in Potter’s room earlier. And he’s been acting like the Americans’ own private little Pekinese all week. He’s up to something.”
“You think he’s being nice to them so he can have them killed one by one without being suspected?” Daeng asked.
“No. I believe the killer of Major Potter was a completely different animal to whoever took a potshot at the senator.”
Phosy agreed.
“You think we have two different assassins?” Daeng asked.
“Maybe three if you include the post office tower explosion.”
It was time to bring Dr. Yamaguchi and Gordon into the discussion.
