Jake Fonko M.I.A. (17 page)

“You think that’s less risky than going overland?”

“Every alternative is risky. Just sitting here is risky. Yesterday our lookouts detected jungle fighters in the area, apparently scouting us out. They’ve never bothered us before, but the Khmer Rouge no longer needs our services, and they want all foreigners out of here. We really can’t delay. I think the Westerner is your best possibility out of a bad set of choices, and you’re Soh Soon’s best bet for getting to America. My men can drive you up there tomorrow, if you’re ready to go. The rest of us will be setting out the day after.”

“Have you talked about this to Soh Soon?”

“Of course. She’s packing for the trip right now. To her it’s just another great adventure.” He shook his head. “Her adventures will be the death of me yet,” he lamented.

Me too? It was a pig in a poke, but I could see his arguments against my going with them overland. Sure, why not a chopper? I’ve always been fond of choppers. They’d pulled me out of a lot of tight spots.

Poon opened a drawer in the desk beside him and reached into it. He came up with a small red silk purse, which he offered to me. “Here is payment,” he said solemnly. “For bringing her here, and for taking her to the States.”

“Not necessary,” I protested. “I owe you and Soh Soon so much already.”

“It’s a pittance,” he assured me. “A mere token. Consider it a gift, my family to yours. Please, open it.”

I did so and shook the contents into my hand—16 pieces of glassy-looking gravel. “Uncut diamonds, investment grade,” he explained, “and double eights for luck. We overseas Chinese put great stock in portable wealth. When you get back to the States, convert them into dollars. But let me give you some advice. Forget what you’ve heard about how much diamonds are worth—you’ll be selling, not buying. Dealers are scoundrels, with no exceptions. Blink your eyes and they’ll switch stones on you. They’ll begrudge you wholesale value for these, and then only if you haggle like a constipated miser. I hope this humble gift will not be considered an insult, in light of the priceless service you are rendering to the Poon family.”

“I thank the Poon family deeply for generosity far exceeding the value of my humble efforts.”

“We have a deal, then?” he asked.

“Deal,” I affirmed. “What time do we leave?” 

We set out
the next morning in high style. My black pajamas, Chinese cap, silk kramar, Ho Chi Minh sandals and red ballpoint pen were stuffed deep down in my duffel. Great souvenirs of my Top Secret Mission. I wore one of the outfits Poon’s maidservant had turned out for me, made of a soft and cooling cotton fabric. Soh Soon had had one of the ladies cut bangs for her, and in her cotton sheath dress she looked quite fetching as she climbed into the Land Rover that was to transport us over those rutted mountain tracks. She brought along two large canvas duffel bags, light luggage indeed, considering that she was on her way to a whole new life. I’d asked Poon about all the stuff they’d have to leave behind, departing on such short notice. “Compared to the profits we sent back to Hong Kong, it’s tea money,” he snorted. “Our friends here are welcome to enjoy it.”

The seventy miles took us not quite five hours, during which time we saw nary a soul. Considering that we were entering more or less wilderness, the trip went smoothly, over mostly clay or dirt country tracks that wound up into increasingly rugged hills. The area we passed through hadn’t been bombed, as far as I could tell—the road surfaces were good and no moonscapes in sight. As we climbed higher into the hills the air grew cooler. The skies threatened rain; the monsoon (which in Indochina meant rain harder than usual, more often than usual, not torrential deluges such as hit India) was arriving. Notwithstanding the lack of visible people, the feeling that we were being watched had reawakened once we left Poon’s grounds, and I couldn’t shake it.

We turned off the main track onto a side road and, after climbing for about a half mile, came to a checkpoint manned by four grinning guards, darker than the people I’d seen around Phnom Penh. Hill people, similar to those we’d come across during our jaunts in Nam. They wore deep blue uniforms of rough cloth decorated with elaborate embroidery, and three of them had Heckler and Koch G3 assault rifles. The exception sported a Stoner M63A1 light machine gun with a 150-round drum on it. He was the biggest of the group, but even so that weapon dwarfed him. What army did they plan to fight off? I wondered. I looked at Soh Soon, and she whispered: “Don’t know who they are—not Khmer Rouge.” At least they were smiling, not that smiles meant a lot in those parts. Our driver got out and conferred with them, whereupon the one in charge got on his walkie-talkie. He said something to the driver, who then returned to the car and relayed the message to Soh Soon. “He say we wait, escort come,” she told me. OK. We waited. 

After twenty minutes
I saw through the trees a shiny black Lincoln Continental coming along the track. It pulled up to us, and a trim-looking American climbed out. He had military moves, but seemed a little distracted. Hardness blended with spaciness—a look I’d seen on troops in Nam who’d fallen to drugs. “Please raise your hands,” he requested politely. One of the smiling little guards moved in beside him, his piece at the ready. He proceeded to deftly and thoroughly pat-search us. “Sorry about that,” he remarked apologetically when he finished, “but we take our security seriously. Don’t want people coming in here with weapons and causing trouble.” He indicated to a guard to transfer our stuff from the Land Rover to the Lincoln’s trunk. Another one swung open a back door and with a 30-tooth smile beckoned us enter. We did so, and settled onto the wide leather rear seat. The interior of the car smelled factory fresh.

The track went through several miles of thick jungle, then crossed over a low saddle between two hills, and ran down into broken woods alongside a clear, rocky stream. Coming out of the hollow we entered a small, flat valley rimmed by steep, wooded hillsides. Presently we turned into a dense woods and came upon a village of long huts nestled among the trees. The ground had been cleared of undergrowth: everything seemed neat and orderly, a tropical Club Med. The huts perched on low log piles, and were of wood, bamboo and attap, with heavily thatched, overhanging roofs. A bungalow-style hut with plank walls and a thatched roof stood up on piles in the center of the village, with two similar but smaller bungalow-huts nearby. The leafy treetops intermingled overhead, bathing the ground in nearly total shade. Like Poon’s compound, the settlement would be undetectable from above.

The driver pulled up by the large hut in the center. A casually dressed white man stood at the base of the steps, obviously awaiting our arrival, flanked by two of those grinning little guys in those embroidered uniforms. Like the ones stationed at the gate, they carried weapons that virtually matched their own sizes, inch for inch. The white man looked like a Nebraska farm boy just arrived in town with money in his jeans from a bumper corn crop. He was tall and lean, on the gaunt side even, with a shock of light brown hair and a grin as wide as the broad side of a barn. He was the last person I’d ever have imagined was a traitor, an international trafficker in drugs and arms, and a cold-blooded killer; but he was all that and more.

Those smiling little guards simultaneously swung open the car’s back doors, and as Soh Soon and I climbed out on our respective sides, the man strode up to me with right hand thrust forward in earnest welcome. “Howdy, friend,” he beamed. “I’m Clyde Driffter. Who do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

8

Mission accomplished? I
felt like the dog that chased cars until he finally caught one and then didn’t know what to do with it. I’d been assigned to locate DRAGONFLY, and I’d done it. Now what?

“I’m Jake Fonko, U.S. Army. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Driffter.” My neck hairs rose up when our hands touched. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut, an inner voice warned me.

“Fonko… Fonko,” he muttered. “Name sounds familiar… hmmm.” He let my hand go and scrutinized me warily. I must have passed inspection. “Well, hell, buddy, what are you doin’ way out here in the boonies?” he exclaimed, brightening up. “I thought U.S. military was long gone out of these parts.”

“I was passing through Phnom Penh, got mixed up in that Khmer Rouge mess, missed the evac, and wound up escorting Ms. Poon here back to her father’s place. Soh Soon, this is Mr. Clyde Driffter.” She smiled shyly with downcast eyes and hands clasped demurely in front of her, an attitude I’d never seen her take before.

“Old man Poon’s daughter?” Driffter appraised her carefully. His interest seemed intense, but I sensed no sexual electricity.

“He said you’d offered to fly us out of here?” I ventured.

“Sure, no problem,” he replied heartily. “I was planning a flight out in a day or two, always room for a couple of passengers. Worked it out with Poon, everything’s all arranged. Where is it you’re heading?”

“Any friendly country. Thailand is the closest. Bangkok, if possible.”

“No problem,” he assured me. “Been to Bangkok many a time. Great town for a feller to have a little fun in. Hey, come on in and sit a spell. Or maybe you’d like to stretch your legs? Been cooped up in that old car all day. Lemme tell Peggy Sue to set out some chow, then I’ll show you around the place.”

He went up the steps and disappeared into the bungalow for a moment, then returned and led us along a dirt path through the village. The three bungalows sat in the middle of things, and I counted eight bamboo-and-thatch long houses ranged around them, spaced widely apart in clearings among the trees. Possibly there were more further back, but the dense, dark woods shut down visibility at fifty yards.

At first glance, Driffter’s spread looked like something out of National Geographic. The ground had been neatly cleared and smoothed among the buildings. A stream rippled through the tree-shaded village, flowing full and clear. Naked native children played running, chasing and jumping games. Plump chickens dodged the children, scouting for stray edibles. They found slim pickings—the grounds were well-policed, no garbage lying around. Clutches of women here and there futzed with foods and cloth items. Some groups wore white skirts and fancy jackets, their hair in large buns. Others had homespun sarong-type dresses. Back away from the dwellings, shirtless little brown men worked in long, low, open shelters that appeared to be blacksmith shops or handicraft factories among the trees. The people looked healthy, by and large. All flashed gleaming smiles at Driffter as we passed. “Hill folks,” he explained. “Some Jarai, some Hmong. Not natural for ‘em to live together so close by, but we all get along.” One feature of the scene wouldn’t have made National Geographic, though—the dark, grinning guards with embroidered uniforms and automatic weapons who squatted here and there in pairs, like big blue toadstools. Making sure the hill folks all got along, I guessed.

The pathway left the tree line about a hundred yards beyond the furthest hut. The valley funneled down between high, abrupt cliffs covered by tangled undergrowth and dense, double canopy forest, to a steep-sided ravine maybe twenty yards wide. The stream sparkled in the sunlight as it left the trees and snaked toward the ravine. Sturdy planks bridged it at intervals. Between the tree line and the ravine, the valley was about 600 yards long and maybe a quarter mile across at its widest. It was fairway-flat and grass-covered, with odd patches scraped down to bare dirt, and irregular splotches of darker colors scattered over the surface. From the air you’d see it as rough terrain, but on the ground you’d find a good, clear field of fire. Provided they had the guns, from the tree cover Driffter’s guards could stop a division from crossing that ground. I didn’t doubt that they had the guns.

Looking to my left, I noted that on the south side of the valley, planted fields extended back along the woods, where groups of coolie-hatted men worked at tending crops and animals. I thought I could make out some elephants in the shade of the overhanging cliffs at the far front corner.

The path we followed took us along the cliffs at the north edge of the little valley. We came around a stand of bamboo. Soh Soon nudged me gently and motioned to the right. I was abruptly jerked back to the 20th century. In a little bay in the hillside, parked close to the overhanging cliff, sat four helicopters—three Huey Iroquois and a Sea Sprite. Camouflage netting on a vast, intricate lattice of bamboo poles woven into the forest canopy reached over them, high enough above that they had room to get airborne before they moved out into view. They’d be impossible to spot from the air, or from beyond the mouth of the valley.

Shot down twice, then disappeared without a trace, I recalled. That could explain the Hueys, but where did the Sea Sprite come from? “Our transportation?” I asked.

“Best wheels going,” Driffter said proudly. “Only way to cover ground in this kind of terrain. Say, are you folks hungry yet? 
I
 sure am!” he exclaimed. Apparently he decided we’d seen enough. “Let’s go see what Peggy Sue’s been up to.” He led us back to the central bungalow. It was simply but comfortably furnished with colorfully cushioned rattan chairs and couches arranged on bare, polished wood floors. A long hardwood table had been set with lacquerware dishes and bowls, and silver forks and spoons. A pert, brown, barefooted little girl wrapped in a dazzling bolt of Thai silk came out of the kitchen with a carved teakwood tray, from which she laid out steaming dishes of food. I estimated she was all of twelve years old. She gave us a glowing smile and indicated we should sit. We did, and she joined us. “Peggy Sue?” Driffter said to get her attention. “These folks are our guests.” She aimed her smile, which had never left her face, in our direction for an instant, then fell back to attacking her food. I don’t think she understood a word of it, except maybe “Peggy Sue.” Driffter launched into an explanation of how the Jarai and the Hmongs lived, what they did there in the valley, their normal habits and habitat—a long, canned-sounding speech that answered none of the questions troubling my mind just then. Like, what the hell 
is
 this setup?

“My munchkins stowed your stuff over yonder,” he said, pointing through the window at an adjacent bungalow. “That’s where you’ll be putting up, until it’s time for us to leave.”

“Your what?” I asked. I thought I’d heard him say “munchkins.”

I did. “Munchkins,” he repeated. “Like them little guys in that movie, Wizard of Oz. That’s what I think of my hill folks as… munchkins. Little people, always happy and smiling. Couldn’t ask for nicer. You’ll see. Stick around long enough, you really grow to love ‘em. You two have any plans for the rest of the day?”

“Not really,” I told him. “It sure is a pleasant spot you’ve got here. It okay if we just walk around and see what’s what?”

“No problem,” he said, “but if you’re going to be out wandering around, I’ve got something here for you. Just a sec.” He went into an adjoining room and came back holding two bright yellow, long-billed caps with adjustable plastic headbands, the kind truckers and tractor drivers wear. “Keep these on, that way my boys can tell you belong here. Hate for you to have any accidents. There’s guards posted, and they can be mighty unfriendly to strangers.” From what I’d seen of them, I believed it.

Driffter excused himself and went off somewhere outside. Peggy Sue brought us a fresh pot of tea and cups. We sat in the shade on his front porch, sipping it. “This place creepy,” Soh Soon whispered to me when everyone was out of earshot.

“What’s the problem?” I asked softly.

“Wrong kind of hill people, and anyhow, hill people move around, live in huts. No have little cities like this. Can tell people angry here.”

“Let’s take a look-see,” I suggested. We donned our yellow trucker’s caps. Without Driffter escorting us, the place had a different feeling. Like Soh Soon said, creepy. People’s mouths smiled as resolutely as ever, but their eyes shifted and dodged furtively. I caught the American who’d driven us into the village peering at us from the doorway of the other smaller bungalow. I thought I could make out somebody standing behind him. I smiled up at him and cocked my hand in greeting. He backed out of sight into the shadows.

We passed the bungalow Driffter had indicated would be ours and decided to inspect our new digs. It was sparsely furnished but neatly kept. The kitchen was bereft of equipment: if that meant we’d be eating Peggy Sue’s cooking, fine by me. They’d stowed our gear in separate rooms. We’d sleep on cot-like racks with bamboo frames and thin pads spread atop woven rattan matting. Mosquito netting draped around the beds. The simple life.

Outside again, we ambled along the pathway toward the valley mouth. I wanted to get a closer look at those choppers, but when I strayed off the main path in their direction one of Driffter’s munchkins, armed with a sniper-model Heckler and Koch G3 assault rifle (Silenced? It sure looked like it.), materialized out of the shadows. Weapon at port arms and a grin showing every tooth in his head, he gently moved out to intercept us. We returned to the path, and the guard drifted back to his station. I didn’t learn much about the helicopters except that they seemed well-maintained. Several stone-lined caves, probably for storage, had been dug into the hillside behind them. Storage for what, I couldn’t tell.

As we walked on we discovered that out-of-bounds, while not clearly marked, was strictly enforced. Guards popped up like practice-range targets everywhere that looked interesting, sporting firepower like I hadn’t seen since my LRRP tour. I learned to love my yellow trucker’s hat, which saved my life many times that afternoon, I’m sure.

Nobody bothered us as we followed the stream out to the ravine at the mouth of the valley. The ravine cut straight through the ridge at the valley mouth for fifty or so yards, full of brush, high grass, bamboos and scrubby trees. It opened out onto a wide, grassy apron that gently sloped down, then fell off to a steep craggy wall stretching far in both directions. The green hills rolling off into the distance below looked like a gigantic bin of broccoli. The stream danced out of the ravine in a cut about ten feet across and two feet at its deepest. The water ran down over the edge of the cliff, burbling among large rocks that concealed the flow. We were standing on the edge of a plateau, hundreds of feet above heavily forested foothills and rolling countryside, with no distinctive landmark that passing aircraft would spot. No Rhineland Robber Baron ever had a more secure mountain fortress than Clyde Driffter’s.

We backtracked through the ravine, returned to the valley and walked over to inspect the elephants. A score of them were tethered to stakes over in the southwest corner where the valley walls curved toward the ravine. They placidly lay in the shade, or stood around munching on grass. Well-beaten pathways led toward the fields and over to a wide section of the stream. We strolled by the fields where the men worked. Neatly laid out and lush with vegetation, they extended up the valley alongside the woods that concealed the village. Irrigation ditches had been cut to bring water from the stream. Among the stuff growing there, I recognized corn, manioc, sweet potatoes, bananas, mangoes, papaya and mountain rice. There was a pig wallow, a bunch of fat porkers contentedly submerged in the mud. Not far away some oxen stood stoically, hitched to saplings by rings in their noses. A thatched bungalow-hut stood off to the side of the fields, over against the hillside. I caught a glimpse of a white face watching us from a window. The same guy I’d seen back in the trees a few minutes ago?

We whiled away the rest of the afternoon back at our bungalow—not much else to do. Toward sundown Driffter came down his steps with Peggy Sue. He climbed into the driver’s seat of the Continental, then Peggy Sue got in and perched on his lap. A gaggle of little children came crowding up. Those whose feet showed clean scrambled into the back seat. Some of the others mounted the rear bumper. The car pulled away slowly, Peggy Sue gleefully steering it, and Driffter working the pedals. The rest of the children ran alongside, a raucous escort. The whole parade circled through the trees around the village several times. Every now and then Peggy Sue tooted the horn, setting off squeals of delight from the entourage. When they pulled up in front of his bungalow and got out, Driffter noticed us watching from our doorway. “Hey, great old car here,” he enthused. “Peggy Sue gets a kick out of driving it. Her big treat of the day.” He came up the steps and joined us on our little porch.

“You see, I grew up poor,” he explained. “Always did envy folks with cars like this. Then I heard old man Poon had delivered a Cadillac to one of my generals down to Phnom Penh, so I figured maybe he could get me a nice car too. Had my munchkins widen the roadway enough to drive it in here.”

“What about servicing it?” I asked.

“No problem, it’s still about brand new. I’ll be long gone before it needs any work. Just something to make life up here a little nicer. The munchkins keep it clean and shiny. They get a kick out of touching and rubbing it. Who wouldn’t?”

Peggy Sue laid out another great spread of food, some native and some western. There were electric lights in the place. I could hear a generator faintly humming, deep in the trees back of the long houses. After dinner Driffter said, “Fonko, let’s you and me take a little walk, talk some man talk.” Fine by me. Maybe I’d find out what was going on up here. Driffter put on one of those yellow trucker’s hats and told me to get mine. “Never go outside at night without it,” he cautioned me. “The munchkins on night watch use sniper scopes, infrared detectors. Them yellow caps have an infrared signature that tells ‘em you’re a friendly.”