masturbate.
'An' after about a year of this, one of the girls climbs up and kind of lowers herself down on top of you, see, real nice and easy? And while the rest of them keep with the licking and sucking she…'
Howard looked away, feeling his face burn with embarrassment…
embarrassed all the more by the fact that he was embarrassed. He had seen exactly one liberty port during Jefferson's deployment ? Yokosuka, 'Yokuska' as the others insisted on calling it ? for the two weeks the carrier had anchored there after Wonsan. During that time, he'd managed two trips into Tokyo.
He'd seen the Imperial Palace from the jogging path outside the private grounds, the Outer Garden with its giant fountain, and a hodgepodge collection of shrines, government buildings, and department stores that were now completely jumbled in his mind. He'd not been sure that he'd seen Tokyo at all, and the stories traded by his shipmates when they'd left port increased his doubts.
'How 'bout it, Howie?'
'Huh?' Howard blinked, feeling foolish. 'Sorry. What'd you say?'
'Reveille, son!' Paterowski said. 'Wake up! Your betters are trying to instruct you in the finer points of life here, but you ain't tuned in!'
'You know what Howie needs?' Rodriguez said. 'We oughta treat him to a night in the Patpong!'
'Yeah, man! He can dip his dong in the ol' Patpong!'
'Whatcha say, cherry?' Bentley demanded. 'Wanna lose your cherry?'
'I… I don't know, guys. I mean, I'll have to think about-'
'Hey, why think, man, when you could be getting' your clock cleaned?'
Rodriguez laughed. 'Holy shit, man! Bang-fuckin'-cock! What a break!'
Howard felt a small, secret thrill. It would be okay, wouldn't it? If the other guys made him go along? He didn't want them to think he didn't like them or anything, or that he thought he was better than them.
He didn't know if he was looking forward to liberty in Bangkok or not.
He was already feeling both embarrassed and guilty… but this might be the chance to find out what there was to feel guilty about. A kind of initiation into the mysterious inner circle of the Experienced Sailor. Bangkok might be the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Just so long as Charlene, his girlfriend back home in Colorado, never found out.
CHAPTER 5
The convoy of black government limousines had been waiting for them when Jefferson's launch pulled up to Sattahip's docks. The drive up the coast to Bangkok took almost ninety minutes, most of it in the express lane of the four-lane highway designated Route 3.
Several army trucks and armed jeeps accompanied the convoy, but the escort was more for show than for defense. They'd passed a small demonstration gathered outside Sattahip's north gate, twenty or thirty unhappy- looking locals holding up banners and placards and chanting something in That. One sign in English declared 'Yankee Imperialists out of Asia,' while another rather enigmatically read 'Blood Atrocity on Wonsan.' A number of Thais who seemed not to be part of the demonstration simply stood by and watched, most smiling, some waving at the convoy as it raced past.
Rear Admiral Thomas J. Magruder, immaculate in his dress whites, turned in the limo's seat as the convoy accelerated onto Route 3, looking through the back window. The commanding officer of Carrier Battle Group 14 assured himself that the limos following with several of his staff personnel and aides were still with the convoy. There had been time only for a brief reception with the That military officers at Sattahip. The real business of the day was scheduled for later, in Bangkok, and he didn't want to lose half his staff in the traffic.
'Well, CAG,' he said, settling back in his seat. 'We're past the demonstrators.'
Commander Marusko looked up from the briefing papers he was reading.
'Yes, sir. Not that it amounted to much. That was a pretty laid-back group of radicals back there.'
'Someone probably paid them to walk around with those signs.' Magruder grinned. 'A dirty job, but someone has to do it.'
'Yeah. You know, Admiral, somehow Thailand seems an unlikely place for a communist revolution.'
Magruder had to agree. Bangkok was one of those strange Oriental blends of East and West, a city like Tokyo, Singapore, or Hong Kong. Everywhere, the strangely canted, peaked roofs and golden spires of wats ? the local Buddhist temple ? rose and mingled with the glass-and-concrete monoliths of modern architecture. In many ways, it had more in common with the West. A communist insurrection had sputtered on in the more remote parts of the country since the 1970s. Only in the past few months had the situation become unstable.
That was why Jefferson had been ordered into these waters.
Chaos was the word that came to Magruder's mind as they left the main highway and followed the Sukhumvit Road past upper-class residential side streets, then plunged into the city's heart. The city streets were a teeming, endless jam of cars, trucks, buses, carts, pedestrians, and the curious three-wheeled passenger-carrying scooters called tuk-tuks. Everywhere, signs advertising 'Rolex' and 'Pepsi' coexisted with signs covered with the buttonhook loops of That writing and the blocky ideographs of Chinese. A gigantic billboard featuring a dark-eyed That movie actress, her bare breasts almost modestly covered by a stripe of advertising copy, towered across the street from the gleaming and tranquil spires of a wat, a green Buddha, standing three stories tall, looming in a niche between two glass skyscrapers.
People clogged the sidewalks and streets with complete disregard for the traffic. Thais and foreigners alike in Western dress mingled with shaven-headed monks in yellow robes; with farmers selling food from egg-crate stalls; with merchants hawking souvenir Buddhas, gemstones, watches, and grasshoppers from rickety stalls; with white- helmeted police and That soldiers in khaki uniforms; with tourists from a dozen countries all carrying Japanese cameras. Within the space of seconds, Magruder saw Western business suits, Philippine sarongs, Indian saris, Japanese kimonos, Indonesian sarongs, Sikh beards and turbans, traditional Chinese robes, miniskirts, cutoffs, T- shirts, and everywhere, everywhere, American blue jeans. The limousine was air-conditioned and the windows rolled up, but the bawling cacophony of the streets still filtered through; shouted pleas, screamed invectives, shrill sales pitches and greetings in a dozen languages; braying horns; clashing gears and thundering vehicle engines in earsplitting need of mufflers.
The convoy was slowed to a crawl by the traffic, but with horns blaring it continued to make headway against the tide. Several blocks past the landscaped magnificence of the That Intercontinental Hotel and the sprawl of a four-story shopping mall, the limo turned right and began making its way along the colorful turbulence of one of the dirty, crowded klongs, or canals, which had given Bangkok its reputation as the Venice of the Orient.
The seat of Thailand's government was located on the north bank of the Kiong Phadung. Magruder had expected a colorful and ornate palace of some kind and was surprised to learn that the government carried out its business in a complex of modern, air-conditioned skyscrapers several blocks from the old National Assembly building, the King's palace, and the zoo. The convoy plunged into the cool semidarkness of an underground garage. That naval officers in dress whites and army officers in ribbon-heavy khakis led them through fluorescent-lit, air- conditioned passageways that seemed light years removed from the steamy, crowded streets outside.
In a comfortable conference room, a navy captain bowed formally to the Americans, his hands pressed together as though in prayer in the salutation known as a wai. 'Sirs, may I present Major General Duong Rangsit of the Royal That senior staff,' he said formally as the door at the far end of the room opened and a squat, ponderously overweight That officer walked in.
'Savahtdi!' the general said warmly. He gave a perfunctory wai, then extended his hand to Magruder for a cordial Western handshake. 'I have been instructed personally by His Majesty the King to welcome you to our City of Angels!'
'The pleasure is mine, General Duong.'
A second officer, a lean, dark-eyed man, followed the general into the room. 'This is my chief aide, Colonel Kriangsak Vajiravudh,' Duong said. 'He has been assigned as liaison officer between your command and mine while
