The whole operation took just three minutes. The light was coming up fast now, the reservoir covered in mist like steam off a saucepan, the jungle above rising in cobwebs of cloud.
The scuttle was coming round again, as they put their weight against the next stack of dollars, heaving the plywood raft over the edge, standing back and watching once more. Another three minutes — at about a million dollars a second.
Ryderbeit sighed. ‘Beautiful work, eh?’
‘The best I ever did,’ said Jones.
Ryderbeit looked at the tall slant-eyed Ribinovitz. ‘Where are you from, Jo?’ he asked suddenly.
The man smiled. ‘Brooklyn.’
‘A good Polish Jew, eh?’
The man stared at him, poker-faced. ‘Yes, I’m a Polish Jew.’
‘I’m a White African Jew,’ said Ryderbeit. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ They shook hands for a second time. ‘What sort o’ plane are we flying?’
‘C 46. All cleared for take-off and weather.’
Ryderbeit nodded. ‘You know where we’re landing?’
‘Small place just outside the Burmese border. It’s as secure as anywhere. We’ll hole up there for a couple of days, then arrangements’ll be made to move to a secret rendezvous. Only Pol knows the exact plans.’
The skuttle was swinging back again and they started on the next load. For most of the time they worked in silence, watching the sky grow light and grey and empty. Pol appeared only once, moving none too steadily as he called up to them, ‘The Cambodians have ordered an air search of Tonle Sap lake! They’ve found the dead American.’
My God, thought Murray, they’re working fast. And in less than four hours. They must have an agent down there on the fishing-beds. Which meant the Cambodians were getting greedy too. He wondered what the international rules were in a game like this. Findings keepings? ‘Where did you hear it from?’ he called back.
‘Phnom Penh. You forget, my dear Murray, that I speak Cambodian.’
‘Anything out of Wattay?’
‘Only that all air reconnaissance have been alerted. You’re nearly finished?’
‘We’re nearly finished,’ Ryderbeit snarled, heaving the last sledge of money into the scuttle. ‘And a lot of bloody help you’ve been!’ he muttered in English. ‘Gettin’ soused with Mrs Conquest, I s’pose?’
The last packages rolled out of the Caribou’s tail. Ribinovitz jumped down and ran over to the tip-truck. The yellow scuttle swivelled round for the last time and dropped its load into the back. Ribinovitz started the engine and climbed aboard, driving forward this time, fast down the dam wall to the shelter of the high trees beyond Donovan’s hut. Taylor followed more slowly in the earth-moving machine.
Murray, Ryderbeit and No-Entry did not wait to watch. They had turned back into the Caribou. All loose objects not already dumped in Tonle Sap were to be secured; tail-vent up, front and rear doors closed. Ryderbeit was the last to leave, having turned the undercarriage at a hard right-wing angle, all brakes off.
The bulldozer was now grinding along the wall towards them — pug-faced Taylor again at the wheel. Ryderbeit looked grave, almost glum. He had a love of aircraft as other men do of certain animals. He did not like to see a good plane destroyed. Taylor brought the bulldozer up very gently until its broad mud-polished shear was jammed up against the raised tail-door, pausing for a moment while he changed gears, the bulldozer shifting on its massive caterpillars, heaving now against the body of the plane, tilting it, then shaking it forward with its undercarriage churning mud, sliding it sideways towards the edge. The water level had risen perhaps thirty feet since Murray had last seen it, but it was still a long way down. Another bump and the right-hand wheel was within a foot of the drop. Essential that it should go down intact — nothing torn off, nothing that could float up and betray them.
The bulldozer drew back a couple of feet, grunted with a belch of smoke, then rammed the tail head-on, driving both wheels over the edge, following through as the belly of the plane crunched down on the slimy edge-lifting it up like a broken toy, one wing heaving itself into the air with a splintering crack of alloy, holding still for perhaps two seconds. Then the huge pyramid tail-fin with the Treasury markings swung up; there was another slow crunch of metal, the whole machine wobbled on the edge and suddenly cartwheeled down the wall, hitting the surface with a long splash. They could just see its roof rocking in the darkness below, settling very slowly, its nose the last to go — a blunt black-painted nose bobbing up like everyone’s favourite dog — then sinking back under the deep lapping water, into silence.
‘How long till the oil comes up?’ asked Murray.
‘With nothin’ broken,’ said Ryderbeit, ‘it might be a day — perhaps two or three. There’s always a little, but nothin’ to see from the sky.’ He glanced up at the grey ceiling of sky, then back at Taylor, who was already reversing the bulldozer back down the dam. ‘He knows his job, that boy. You have to hand it to old Pol — he can sure pick ’em!’ (Sure, thought Murray: perhaps too well.) ‘I just hope the bastards can fly,’ Ryderbeit added. ‘But whatever else you may say o’ the outfit, Air U.S.A. doesn’t hire duds.’
Murray made no comment as they walked back down the now deserted dam to the hut. Jackie came out to meet them, standing stiffly with cheeks flushed, eyes turning slowly towards Murray. ‘Did it go all right?’
‘Fine. How’s Pol?’
Pol came out beaming, the second bottle of Johnny Walker half
