‘Don’t be damned stupid,’ Murray growled: ‘We’re not going to leave them lying around Vientiane Airport with their hands tied behind their backs!’
They waited for another stick of thunder to roll off into the hills. ‘Murray.’ Pol’s voice reached him now from what seemed a great distance: ‘I wonder sometimes if you are really interested in this money?’
The pipe came round to him again and he said slowly: ‘I don’t want them to find the plane — either plane. The plane or the pilots. They must be kept hidden.’
The earth heaved with a great roar. The lamp went out again and Murray’s head was soft on the cushions, watching the darkness which was full of coloured circles swirling within triangles. There was silence now in the little hut. The air was hot and sweet with the opium, and M. Banaji’s white silk arm was close to his head as he asked, in his low impassive voice: ‘The girl, Monsieur Wilde. The French girl. Is she to be trusted?’
‘She will do as I ask her.’ He heard Pol chuckle in the dark. ‘She will tell me exactly where the plane will be, and when it is scheduled to leave. Then she will send the alert. Sammy and his navigator will pretend to be my photographers. We will be doing a feature story on Tân Sơn Nhất airport. This young friend of mine in the Military Police has agreed to help me out — lend me a jeep and uniforms and take us all on an unofficial conducted tour of the airfield perimeter. All straight and above board. He’s a nice simple boy who doesn’t ask too many questions. Besides, like all Americans in Vietnam, he has orders to offer maximum co-operation to the world Press. And that’s just what he’s going to be doing on the night of the flush-out.’ He yawned.
‘It is very simple and very clever,’ said Banaji. ‘It must not go wrong.’
Murray lay on his back and smiled at the roof. The bombing was over now. The giant planes would be wheeling back down the margin of airspace just outside the Cambodian border, probably heading for an undisclosed base in Thailand.
The night was full of peace and quiet.
CHAPTER 2
Banaji was gone, as they sat on the verandah in the clammy grey dawn and sipped strong sweet tea. Murray’s head felt soft as a sponge, with a dull incipient ache behind his eyes and at the back of his skull. He and Ryderbeit took a nip from Pol’s Scotch, but it made them feel no better. Pol watched them, red-eyed and grinning. ‘You look sick, mes enfants!’ Ryderbeit cursed him and spat on the wooden floor.
‘This thirty million,’ said Murray: ‘Do we really let them take it on this secret airfield? Collect it and count it there, then let them disappear with the whole load into the jungle, without even an I.O.U.?’
‘There will be an I.O.U.,’ Pol said smiling.
‘Oh yes?’ Ryderbeit sneered.
‘I am the I.O.U.,’ said Pol. ‘I am your guarantor, your laissez-passer after we reach the airfield in Laos. I am one of the Cao Đài. It is an honourable sect. We do not betray each other, or betray our friends. We have rules — morals.’
‘Morals!’ Murray began to laugh, wincing with nausea. ‘Morals of the Mafia, Charles. At least let’s not be frivolous.’
Pol simpered through his beard. ‘I am very serious, my dear Murray, I promise you. One does not joke about fifteen hundred million American dollars.’
‘Less thirty million for you Cao Đài,’ Murray put in.
‘So what is thirty million? A pourboire, no more!’
‘You yourself said we weren’t to mention the total sum — because Monsieur Banaji and his boys might get greedy. Why did you say that, Charles?’
Pol belched luxuriantly. ‘Mon ami, Banaji is an old man now. He has great experience, he has seen two whole generations of Indo-China pass in violence, without hope. He is no longer interested in money. For him money is merely the pieces of a game — symbols of whether one wins or loses. He has no interest in a fortune.’
Ryderbeit was eyeing Pol with a nasty leer. Murray watched him carefully too, wondering for a moment whether he were in fact talking more of himself than of his compatriot. ‘No interest in money — be screwed!’ Ryderbeit snarled under his breath. ‘That bastard’s as interested as the rest of us. Why don’t we tell him?’
‘Because he will feel obliged to tell others — those who are perhaps greedier than he is, Sammy. One must allow for some small sensibilities, after all.’
‘It doesn’t sound sensible to me!’ Ryderbeit cried, misunderstanding Pol’s French. ‘Looks as though I risked my neck on this trip for a bloody con! You think those boys — those porters, as he called them — are goin’ to ride off with one and a half billion U.S. in sacks, and not even take a little peep inside? You think they’re goin’ to count out their nice little thirty million and leave it at that? Don’t make me wet my pants laughin’! I’m not a bloody infant in arms!’
Pol glanced at Murray for enlightenment; Ryderbeit had spoken in English, which Pol understood poorly. Murray said: ‘Sammy’s right, Charles. It’s all very fine after half a dozen pipes, but in the light of dawn it doesn’t look nearly so rosy. What happens to the porters — and to the money?’
Pol heaved a great sigh, his fat little fingers digging deep in his thighs. ‘So you want to forget the whole story? Is that what you really want?’
‘Come on, you know what we’re trying to say,’ said Murray. ‘There’s no security in this deal, Charles — no security, no guarantee, nothing. Just a host of crooks waiting for us to take all
