‘Negative, Tom. It was an Arvin post.’
‘Was Dak Fook wiped out?’ Jo cried.
‘It was not wiped out. It was overrun for two hours when Army gunships, assisted by Skyhawks, relieved the position using rockets and napalm.’
‘Can you give us any run-down on the casualties, Chuck?’ another voice called. ‘How many KIA?’
The colonel rifled through some pages, sounding cautious. ‘As of this time, we have fifteen Regulars, twelve Irregulars, and two local Militia.’
‘All killed?’
‘Correct.’
Pause. ‘Colonel.’ It was a slow weary voice belonging to a senior Washington columnist: ‘What was the original strength of the post at Dak Phuoc?’
The colonel wrinkled his brow. ‘It was a platoon, sir.’
‘And what is the strength of a South Vietnamese Army platoon?’
The colonel peered up over his bifocals. ‘The garrison was at U.S. platoon strength, sir.’ And Jo’s adenoids whined gleefully: ‘What’s the full strength of a U.S. platoon, Chuck?’
‘Thirty men, Jo.’ The laughter had begun again. The Washington columnist sounded almost sorry for the older man.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong, Colonel. But as I have it here, you stated that the KIA at Dak Phuoc was fifteen Regulars?’ — the colonel nodded gravely — ‘twelve Irregulars, and two Militia?’ The colonel stood on the stage and stared at his audience vacantly, resigned.
‘According to my arithmetic that makes twenty-nine men killed,’ the Washington columnist went on. ‘And you still say the camp was not wiped out? So what happened to the one man, Colonel?’
As the laughter died down, and the colonel promised to check the matter out with his MACV superiors, a voice at Murray’s elbow said softly: ‘Mr Wilde sir.’ He was a big freckled young man in a uniform the colour of dried mud. ‘Would you please mind stepping outside for a moment, sir?’
Murray followed him out of the hall, down one of the hardboard passages to a door marked Leroy — Joint Liaison Officer MACV. The American knocked and opened it in almost the same gesture, then stood back to let Murray through. Inside, on an olive-green swivel chair, was Maxwell Conquest.
‘Afternoon, Mr Wilde. Will you sit down. This is Mr Sy Leroy, my associate.’
The second man sat dangling his legs from a desk — a dark man with crimped charcoal-grey hair and a rubbery, slightly simian jaw. When he smiled, the crinkles round his eyes showed white against his tan. ‘Glad to meet you, Mr Wilde. I’ve read some of your stuff. I liked it.’
Murray sat down in another swivel chair. ‘What’s all this about?’
Maxwell Conquest paused, getting out a buff folder from a pile beside him. ‘You stopped over in Bangkok on your way in here, I understand. Have a good time there?’
‘I wasn’t there long enough.’
Conquest nodded. Sy Leroy was still smiling. ‘You meet a man called Charles Pol while you were in Bangkok, Mr Wilde?’ Conquest’s voice was lowkey, very casual. ‘Big Frenchman with a beard?’
‘Yes, I met him.’
‘Why did you meet him?’
‘Why are you asking me?’
Conquest looked at him deadpan. ‘You were booked out of Bangkok on the same plane with this man Pol two days ago. Right?’ Murray nodded. ‘Notice anything funny at the airport?’
‘What sort of funny?’
‘I’m asking you, Mr Wilde.’
‘The plane left on time, if that’s what you mean.’ And Sy Leroy’s smile widened. Conquest opened the folder, took out a big glossy photograph and handed it to Murray. It was full-face of a chubby bald man. ‘Recognise him?’
‘Should I?’
Conquest took the picture back and looked at Leroy, who sat forward on the desk, his palms pressed to his knees.
‘Mr Wilde,’ Leroy began, ‘that man there was killed at Bangkok Airport at about the precise time you and this Frenchman were boarding your plane. Now you still say you saw nothing odd?’ He had a gentle Southern voice, a touch of the Virginian gentleman about him, all velvet-gloved and still smiling. Murray looked back at him, at the tight black hair and rounded jaw and wondered if sometime, generations back, great grandad might have split black oak down there on the ole plantation.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘there was some kind of disturbance. Someone taken ill, I think. At the bar. I didn’t see too clearly, because we were just leaving.’
Leroy leant back and nodded. ‘And what was this man Pol doing at the time?’
‘He was leaving too.’
‘Had he gone to the bar first?’
‘He had a drink, yes. But what is all this? Who was this man who’s been killed?’
‘He was a USOM officer working up in North-East Thailand,’ said Conquest. ‘Name of Amos Shelton. He was killed with a prick of amethine-cyanide, a highly sophisticated poison that can be administered with just a scratch anywhere on the skin and produces almost instantaneously the symptoms of a heart-attack or seizure. And we have reason to believe that Shelton was killed in just such a way by this Frenchman, Charles Pol. We also believe that you can help us, Mr Wilde.’
‘Oh? And just how?’
‘By telling us what your business was with Pol. Telling us about your meeting with him in Bangkok. How and why.’
Murray sat back. ‘I’m doing a story on Cambodia. Pol works in Cambodia, where I first met him, and he’s promised to get me an introduction to Prince Sihanouk. O.K.?’
‘Not O.K. at all, Mr Wilde.’ Conquest was watching Murray with icy calculation. ‘You ever meet someone called George Finlayson?’
‘Yes.’
‘A Britisher living in Vientiane. Murdered four days ago.’
‘I read the papers too.’
‘We think he was also killed by Charles Pol — or on
