The Treasury Caribou came down low over the great shallow lake of Cambodia’s Tonlé Sap, which is really no more than a swollen river, flooding on either side more than twenty miles of some of the richest rice and fish country in the world.
No-Entry Jones was at the controls now, holding their speed down to a hundred knots, at a height of only fifty feet above the water, while Murray and Ryderbeit unfolded the inflatable life-raft and Jackie began snipping the wire bindings round the dollar packages with a pair of clippers from the cabin locker.
‘Leave the hundreds, darling!’ Ryderbeit called: ‘Just the small stuff.’
‘We’re putting in the hundreds too,’ said Murray. ‘There’s going to be no penny-pinching now. We can flush the Washingtons and a few fives down the toilet — but the raft has to have the big stuff. They may not be convinced, but we’ve got to get them suspicious at least — otherwise what’s the point of coming down this far in the first place? We’re going to be cutting it pretty fine as it is, if we want to make it by dawn.’
Ryderbeit stared at him bleakly. ‘Oh you bloody thinking bastard!’ Then he saw Jackie bringing out three of the neatly wrapped packs of notes from La Banque de L’Indo-Chine. ‘These are twenties,’ she said; and Ryderbeit cursed her softly in Afrikaans. ‘I need a drink.’ He caught Murray’s eye and scowled. ‘And don’t start tellin’ me that drink blunts the reactions! The only thing that ever blunted mine was knowin’ I couldn’t get one.’
He pulled out his pigskin flask and took a moderate swig, handing it to Murray. ‘I can’t watch the price of a big lovely country house in England go right out o’ that bloody door without shedding a small alcoholic tear.’
Murray lifted the flask and tasted good French cognac. ‘I didn’t know you were sentimental about English country houses, Sammy?’
‘I’m sentimental about anythin’ that costs money.’
Murray nodded. ‘Now let’s get going.’ He put the flask back in his own pocket, and they began tying the wired waterproof packages to the rubber straps of the still deflated raft. ‘And we need a corpse,’ said Ryderbeit. ‘Sanderson’ll do.’
‘Sanderson, with a wad of Centuries buttoned up tight inside his pocket,’ said Murray. ‘Because that’s one person you can be sure they are going to suspect, besides us — the Treasury official in charge of the operation who disappears with the plane and all the loot.’
‘But why does he have to have hundreds on him?’ Ryderbeit moaned.
‘Because that’s just the kind of thing they’re not going to expect from a load of villains like us. Dump a life-raft and a few slicks of oil to throw the scent — O.K. They might even expect us to toss down a few bundles of small change. But throw in a corpse carrying several grand in Centuries — that’s something that may make them bite. And we need them biting, Sammy. We need the time. We need them combing this lake in Cambodia before they start up on that dam in Laos.’
Ryderbeit spread his hands. ‘Why not make it fifties, soldier? Just for me.’
‘There’s over one hundred million Sterling for you. Isn’t it enough?’ He clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Just think of this as part of the percentage commission — along with that thirty million we’ve got to pay to the Cao Đài.’
‘Those bastards. They’d better turn up trumps. And that fat Frenchman too.’
‘Coming down over the fishing beds!’ Jones called from the cabin.
Murray lifted one of the heavy two-foot-square packages containing mixed bundles of ones and fives from near the bottom of the stack, and started squeezing himself between the piles of money to the back of the aircraft where they had already stowed a couple of five-litre cans of oil next to a heap of emergency spare parts, tool and first-aid kits, life-jackets, the two dead pilots’ helmets and papers, the Caribou’s logbook and charts for its flight programme to the Philippines.
‘The oil and greenbacks go away first,’ he said to Ryderbeit, who stood almost weeping, watching him rip open the package, carrying the money loose in his arms over to the open latrine just behind the drop-door under the tail. Jackie, who had followed them back, sat down on the edge of one of the dollar piles, lit a cigarette and watched impassively.
‘This is criminal, soldier. Bloody criminal!’ Ryderbeit pleaded.
‘Bring over one of the cans,’ said Murray. Ryderbeit lifted the first oil can and stood peering down the open-ended tube below the toilet seat, the draught coming up cool and fresh off the water. ‘Let it go,’ said Murray.
Ryderbeit poured the can empty. Then Murray put the first wad of twenty-dollar bills down, watching them swirl round like water going out of a bath, and Ryderbeit said: ‘Do you want me to crap after them?’
‘Just the other can, Sammy.’ While Ryderbeit was going back for it Murray let loose another stack of George Washingtons, beginning to feel the idle fantasy of it all now — the fragility of the monetary system, the waste, the sheer masochistic delight of defecating this money down an open toilet into an alien lake in a far-away country. ‘There’s still plenty more where it came from,’ he grinned at Ryderbeit, whose eyes looked tortured as he brought over the second can, pouring it sadly down the chute, while Murray stood with the last bundles ready. Enough to buy a couple of Rolls-Royces, he reckoned — holidays in the sun, jewels, girls, cars, clothes… It was all quite unreal. Ryderbeit had emptied the second can and Murray lobbed the whole stack down, thinking for a moment that Ryderbeit was going to be sick.
‘Now the raft,’ he said. ‘We’ll inflate it by the door.’
They
