‘You know him?’
‘Too bloody right I do! I once had a fight with the bastard. Accused me of being arseholed after a crash — I’d raised the undercarriage before take-off. He was right. I had been drinking a bit — but it wasn’t my fault. The contraption folded up because of hydraulic failure. Could happen to the soberest of us.’
‘And where was Maxwell Conquest?’ Murray asked, wondering how much of the pigskin flask had been drunk this time since take-off.
‘Conquest was on the plane. It was a two-seater job and I was supposed to fly the sod up on one of these hush-hush missions to one of the U.S. forward bases near the Ho Chi Minh trail — where officially the only Yanks are seed-experts trying to diversify the local agriculture, or some such cock-rot. Some bloody seed-expert is Maxwell Bloody Conquest — unless you count what he does to that lovely lady we have in the back!’ He broke off with his wild cackle. ‘Anyway, we went down on the runway with rather a bump and Maxwell hurt his arse somewhat — bruised his coccyx, I think it was. But that didn’t stop him telling me I was a crazy alcoholic, or words to that effect, which didn’t really disturb me too much — I’ve been called lots worse than that in my time. But then, when I’m helping the bastard out, he says he’s going to report me and see I lose my pilot’s licence. And that’s the kind of talk that Samuel Ryderbeit has to take rather seriously. So I hit the little shit a kind o’ mild slap across the chops, and he has the impertinence — even with his bruised bum — to hit me back. It appears he knows some rather nasty tricks in the unarmed combat line. Anyway, I lost two teeth and he broke my cheekbone, which was just as well, because I was able to lodge a complaint against him with the American Embassy — G.B.H. with an offensive weapon, namely karate — and I even got a personal apology from the Ambassador. I also kept my licence.’
‘Conquest should be delighted you’re taking his wife up on your flight.’
‘Yeah, it worries me a bit too. If I’d known I wouldn’t’ve let her on the plane. I just hope nothin’ happens on this ride.’
‘You’ll be all right, he’s going back to Saigon next week — and taking his wife with him.’
Ryderbeit gave his crafty leer: ‘I might try looking her up some time — when her husband’s not around.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’m going down to Saigon myself next month.’
‘You mean you operate out of there too?’ said Murray, as a number of thoughts began flashing through his mind — and none of them to do with Jacqueline Conquest.
‘Sure I do — part of my contract with Air U.S.A. We’re a busy international airline, Mr Wilde. As the ads might say, we provide safe and reliable service to the latest three States of the Union — Laos, Thailand and South Vietnam.’
‘It doesn’t worry them, you’re not being an American citizen?’
‘It doesn’t worry ’em in the least. None of the hush-hush flights carry any markings on their planes, and if I go down and fall into unfriendly hands, no one knows anything about me. That’s the one advantage of holding a Rhodesian passport. What do the Reds do? Kick up one hell of a fuss at the UN, parade me through the streets of Hanoi? And what do the Yanks do? Shrug their shoulders and say I’m just another poor white African outcast, shot down on some smuggling run over South-East Asia. And there are enough of us doing it, I can tell you — boys out o’ the Congo, Algeria, the Yemen, Biafra. Now Vietnam. All the fun-spots of the world!’
‘And you do it just for the money — four hundred dollars a week?’
Ryderbeit looked up, frowning: ‘You seem to be very well informed?’
‘It’s the going rate, isn’t it?’
‘More or less. Sometimes more, for the hush-hush ones — the spotter-flights over the Ho Chi Minh trail where No-Entry here got it up the rear passage.’
The co-pilot, his grizzled head encased in earphones, did not hear. Ryderbeit’s voice had suddenly lost its matiness: ‘You’re anglin’ for somethin’ out here, aren’t you, Mr Wilde? Now come on, quit stallin’. I’ve been talkin’ eagerly enough — too bloody eagerly to a journalist, for that matter. But since I’ve got a pretty keen idea you’re not goin’ to write any of this, I’m prepared to oblige. Now how about you returnin’ the compliment?’
Before attempting to reply, Murray did some rapid thinking. Unless Ryderbeit had a sixth sense, or was pathologically suspicious, it seemed almost inconceivable that he would have been talking like this, had he not been tipped off. There was also the matter of Air U.S.A. The activities of this airline were ambiguous, to put it mildly. It was a registered commercial company, operating largely on a charter basis; but it was no secret that most of its custom, as well as backing, came from the CIA. And if Murray were to quote even half of what Ryderbeit had just been saying, the Rhodesian’s job would be worth about as much as a post-dated cheque after a poker game with strangers on a train. And Ryderbeit — unless he were mentally deficient, or slightly mad — must be well aware of this.
There could be only one disturbing explanation: Sammy Ryderbeit knew what Murray was doing in Laos. He had been told. And the only two people who could have told him were George Finlayson and Charles Pol. Murray was just wondering why either of them would have done so, when the plane began a violent shuddering. No-Entry was easing back the stick as high
