“No. It’s just that he didn’t mention he was based in the north.”
“You don’t get much information out of that one. Hardly talks to anyone. Secretive bastard, if you don’t mind me saying.”
“No. Er, thanks anyway.”
“Welcome.”
Siri slowly put down the phone. Geung had arrived and was standing beside the door, rocking slightly. Siri looked up at him but forgot for a second why he was there.
“Mr Geung? Ah, yes. I want you to take this note,” he wrote as he spoke, “and give it to Comrade Civilai at the Assembly office. You’ve been there before.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t give it to anyone else. Not even if they rip out your toenails. You understand?”
“Yes.” He snorted and loped out of the room, laughing.
“Based in Viengsai? How could he be?”
It was early afternoon when Civilai arrived with a well-preserved old man in a crumpled suit. They both looked drained, as if they’d been up all night.
“Siri. How you feeling?”
“Did you get my note?”
“Your morgue Igor almost got himself shot delivering it. They didn’t let him through the gate, so he stood outside the fence and yelled my name till I came to the window.”
“He gets the job done.” Siri fell into a coughing fit. If anything, he was feeling worse than the previous day.
“Siri, this is Dong Van, the commander general of the Security Section. He wanted to meet you before you choke to death.”
“Looks like you’re just in time. How are you, Commander?”
“I’m a little frazzled, Dr Siri. This has been a very difficult time for me. Major Ngakum has been one of my most trusted colleagues for many years.”
“We got him?” Siri punched his fist into the air. Civilai put up his thumb. Dong Van obviously wasn’t viewing it as a victory yet.
“When your friend Comrade Civilai first came to see me about this, I didn’t believe a word of it. It didn’t help that he wouldn’t divulge his sources. Even when he started to come up with evidence, I was very defensive; I didn’t want to believe it. But he’s a very thorough man. He spent the whole night cross-checking the files, getting people out of their beds to give statements.”
“Good for you, Ai.”
Civilai couldn’t wait to explain. “It was all too much of a coincidence. The major was assigned to the Operations Headquarters when Hok was there. He knew the details of the Vietnamese covert mission. His unit was responsible for security arrangements when the Trans and Hok came over. He had access to all the communiques.
“And as if that weren’t enough to circumstantiate him into jail and throw the key away, guess who was doing a survey of traffic to the islands at Nam Ngum? I bet we could get a positive ID from the district chief.”
“And now,” the commander added, “we have evidence that he had your call from Vietnam diverted to his office. What we don’t know is what that conversation was all about.”
“So we need you to call Hanoi.” Civilai picked up the phone.
“I expect the girl has the number for the morgue already, but I think I know what Nguyen Hong will have to tell me.”
The call took an age to be put through. Siri spoke to several confused Vietnamese before locating his colleague.
“Hello, Nguyen Hong.”
“Dr Nguyen Hong? It’s Siri.” There was a pause. “Nguyen Hong?”
“I was told you were dead!”
“I’m not. Did you call me yesterday evening?”
“Goodness, you’ve given me a start. Yes, but the call was transferred to your, what do you call it? Your Security Section.”
“Who to?”
“Ah. He did say his name; your Lao names all sound the same to me. But he said he was the commander.”
“I bet he did, and he told you I was killed in an explosion.”
“Yes. Then he took down all the details I wanted to give you and told me they’d be very useful. He gave me his direct line if I had anything else for him.”
“Perfect. That should be the last nail in his coffin. The man you spoke to was the one Hok was coming here to identify.”
“No!”
“I’ll write you all about it. But before we get cut off, give me everything you’ve got.”
Ten minutes later, Siri hung up. He looked at the two men at his bedside and smiled.
“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. They should have got away with it. It was just their misfortune to come up against me and Nguyen Hong.”
“Come on, little brother. Out with it.”
“Here’s the way I see it. Major Ngakum received the secret communique from Hanoi telling him Hok and his team would be coming to identify the traitor Hok had seen at the massacre. Ngakum couldn’t let them get as far as Vientiane, so he got his Black Boar gang to waylay the jeep. He knew the route and the guard postings, so it shouldn’t have been difficult.
“They found themselves with three Vietnamese. They could have just killed them and dumped the bodies. But someone had an idea.”
He was talking too fast without rest, getting too excited, running out of breath. He took some gulps of oxygen and kept the mask handy.
“It was an ideal opportunity to create a diplomatic stir. If they could convince the Vietnamese that their men had been arrested and tortured, it wouldn’t take a great leap in logic to assume that Laos had been responsible for the earlier massacre as well.
“So the Black Boars killed the three in a way that wouldn’t be easy to recognise and then set it up to look like they’d been tortured to death. They flew the bodies to Nam Ngum near the correctional facility and dropped them into the reservoir. They anchored them to old shell casings, and used cheap string on two of them so they’d eventually bob up to the surface. The second Tran they tied with flex so someone would have to go down and discover the Chinese shells. They knew that would upset the Vietnamese.
“Ngakum ‘just happened’ to be at the reservoir doing some fictitious survey when the first two bodies were found, and
“No?”
“Not a one. His wife knew nothing about them. They tattooed the poor fellow after he was dead.”
Civilai shook his head. “How did they actually kill them?”
“Nguyen Hong believes two of them had air pumped into their veins. It causes an air embolism that blocks the flow of blood through the heart. After a few weeks in the water, there wouldn’t be much to show what had happened. It was very professionally done, except for one small error.”
“Which was?”
“Tran, the driver, appears to have died from a massive tear in the artery in his chest. There’s only one way that could make any sense, but it’s too horrible to imagine. Tran didn’t die with his countrymen. He was a little fatter than the other two. What if they missed his vein when they injected the air?”
“Then he would have been alive when they electrocuted the bodies?”
“I pray he was unconscious and not just playing dead. But apparently not even the torture killed him. Civilai, when he arrived at the morgue, we all noticed the expression of horror frozen on his face. There was only one thing
