Opium (11 page)

“Not yet. But to make the approach you have to fly over Kong Le's soldiers and they have anti-aircraft guns.”

“D
it dons!
'

“Six hundred kilos is a lot of opium. My father wants it very badly.”

“What kind of idiot do you think I am?'

“He'd do anything for the man that got his opium for him. He would probably let him marry his daughter.”

“It's suicide.”

“I'll come with you, Baptiste! If anything happens to you, I don't want to live anyway.”

“Your father knows about this? He would let me fly one of his Beechcraft?'

“He would rather put a snake down his trousers than let you near one of his airplanes. Besides, he thinks it is too dangerous also. He has lost one Beechcraft, he does not want to lose another.”

He threw away his cigarette and walked away. Then he came back. “Have you ever been shot at in an aeroplane?'
Non, absolument, non! C'est fou!
'

“Then walk away, forget about me.”

“Jean-Marie warned me about you!'

“And look at Jean-Marie. He takes all the risks every day while another man gets rich. And you think he's the smart one? What do you want, Baptiste, you want to drift around Asia the rest of your life? Do you have any capital?'

“I have my life.”

“And what have you done with that so far?'

For a moment she thought he was going to hit her. Then he smiled. “I have had a pretty good time.”

“Well, don't let me stop you. Go on, leave. Let my father win. He always does, anyway. No one's ever beaten him at his own game, ever.”

“You have no idea what you're asking.”

“I want you, Baptiste. I am prepared to risk everything. Are you?' When he did not answer, she went on: “You want to keep working for other men all your life or is it time you got to be the boss?'

“How will I get to Phong Savan. On a bicycle?'

“What about Jean-Marie?'

Baptiste shook his head.

“Then you'll have to fly Air Laos.”

“You just said your father would not let me near his aeroplanes.”

“They are not guarded at night.”

“You mean - steal one?'

“Borrow it.”

Baptiste threw back his head and laughed. The Laos worshipping at the feet of a Buddha turned their heads to stare. “You would really risk so much? Just to have me?'

“I have done more for you already than I ever thought I could. You said that night in the temple you would turn my life into a raging sea. I want to keep you to that promise.”

He was tempted. Why not? If you did not gamble a little in life all you got back at the end was the stake you started with. He could die or he could be rich.
Eh, bien
. Danger and women; they were the only things that made life worth living anyway.

“It's madness,” he said to her. “You'll get us both killed. I won't do it. Goodbye Noelle.”

Noelle was too stunned to go after him, and within moments he was lost in crowds. She had never suspected for a moment that he might refuse her. A Buddha watched her, inscrutable, through the blue-grey coils of joss smoke. He offered no solace.

Chapter 17

T
HE sun had not yet risen and the airfield was blanketed in mist, the rice and tapioca fields still shrouded in the monochrome colours of dawn. Gilbert Gondet arrived at Wattay aerodrome in an ancient jitney. He clambered out with his canvas flight bag over one shoulder, a survey map of Cambodia in the other. A squadron of ducks took flight suddenly out of the haze, startling him.

He was scheduled to fly to Pnom Penh to pick up some American geologists. Legal work for a change. Better than flying to Phong Savan. He had made three trips in the last two days and each time he thought he was not coming back. It had taken Paul Sarti's death to persuade Bonaventure to call a halt to the madness.

As he walked towards the sheds he stopped and gaped as a Beechcraft appeared out of the haze. It roared along the airstrip and took off, banking almost directly over his head. The plane had the familiar tiger decal of Air Laos painted on the fuselage. He read the identification sign on the tailplane.

“That's my fucking plane,” he said.

Then it was gone, lost in the low blanket of cloud.

Gondet jumped back in the jittney and shouted to the driver to get him back to Vientiane
now
. Monsieur Bonaventure was not going to like this.

***

Noelle heard the buzz of the engines as the Beechcraft passed very low over the house. She jumped out of bed and threw open the shutters. The navigation lights winked in the chill dawn, the plane's silhouette hung for a moment in the mist over the coconut palms before disappearing.

Baptiste!

Her hands balled into fists. He had gone without her! Perhaps that was what he had always meant to do. He loved her enough to do this, after all.

But he could be killed, and if that was the way it came out she had wanted to die with him. The sweat dried on her skin, making her shiver. She stood there until she could no longer hear the drone of the Beechcraft's engines.

She knew she might just have sent the only man she had ever wanted to his death.

***

Baptiste flew north east over the Mekong plain. Through the smudges of cloud and mist he made out a jigsaw of green rice paddies below, small black earth dams dividing one field from another. Occasionally he would glimpse jagged towers of limestone striking out through the clouds from the mountains in the north.

It grew lighter, and a golden glow suffused the cabin as a milky sun rose through the mist.

He kept climbing. The journey would take a little less than an hour, but there was no easy flying. He was navigating time and distance. He had calculated he would have to climb to ten thousand feet to clear the mountains, on a bearing that would take him over the ancient capital of Xieng Khouang. Taking the city as his landmark he would then start his approach to Phong Savan on the rim of the Plain of Jars. He had no idea where Kong Le had deployed his anti-aircraft batteries; so after that it was all a matter of luck. He was also counting on the airstrip still being in Royalist hands.

This was going to be the longest day of his life.

Chapter 18

T
HE mountains were covered in thick, verdant jungle. Go down in there and you would simply disappear. no one would ever find you. He made out a village perched high on a mountain slope, just a cluster of thatched huts raised on stilts as protection from the monsoon rains.

Sweat glistened on his forehead from the pain in his ribs. It was this pain that inspired him. It reminded him of Rocco Bonaventure and how he wanted to spit in his face when he delivered his opium.

***

Baptiste checked his watch. By dead reckoning he should be almost directly over Xieng Khouang. He eased back on the throttle and the Beechcraft fell another five hundred feet, dropping through the cloud ceiling.
Putain de merde,
the city was over there, to the north east. He altered course and followed the brown pencil line of Highway 4 through the drab green of the jungle.

The plain of Jars was below him now, a vast plateau in the shape of a heart. It took its name from the giant earthenware jars that had been found buried on the plain, a legacy of an earlier Chinese civilization.

There was a lot of traffic on the road, convoys of trucks carrying Loyalist soldiers heading south, fleeing from Kong Le. He did not attempt a closer look. Those bastards were likely to fire at him with their rifles, just for the hell of it.

Over Lat Houang he banked to the north and started his descent towards Phong Savan. Perhaps Kong Le had taken the garrison with its American advisers already. They could be waiting at the end of the airstrip to blow him out of the sky.

He looked down, made out the thatched roofs of Phong Savan, glimpsed the red Lao flag hanging limp over the garrison headquarters. A good sign, but to be certain he decided to circle the airfield first. There was no movement down there but he spotted an American DC-3 parked at the end of the dirt strip, near a cluster of Quonset huts. If the Americans were still there, it should be okay ...

He heard a sudden
pap-pap-pap
, a noise like an electric sewing machine. He looked down and saw a stitching of bullet holes in the floor of the Beechcraft. He threw the rudder of the plane hard to port and the Beechcraft lurched sickeningly in the sky.

Tracers flashed past the cockpit windshield in a green arc. Twelve-seven millimetre, he thought.
Ah, putain!

Altitude, altitude. They had taught him in pilot training it was the only thing that could save you from ground fire. No matter how cleverly you weaved and turned they would track you eventually.

Altitude.

He boosted the engines to full power, pulled back on the stick and climbed hard to port.

“Merde!' he gasped, felt a sharp pain in his left leg. He looked down. There was dark blood all over the floor.

Altitude!

The pitch of the motors rose to a agonised whine, and he fought the nose to keep from going into a stall.

He looked over his shoulder. The green tracers were arcing through the sky now, falling short, bending away as they spent their force.

Check the gauges. Oil pressure was good, the rudder and stick still responding okay, fuel gauges steady. No damage to the plane.

But for him, everything was an agony. His broken ribs, his leg. Where was the blood coming from? Well, there was nothing he could do about it now.

He levelled out, banked steeply over the airfield, lining up the dirt runway. There was still time to abort, and return to Vientiane. And then? Bonaventure would be waiting at the aerodrome with his thugs. No, Baptiste, you go back with that bastard's opium or you don't go back at all.

The anti-aircraft fire had come from the north east. This time his approach would be from the opposite direction, landing with the wind. What was it Noelle had said to him: Do you want to chase clouds forever?

He lowered the flaps and began the descent.

***

The pain started. Baptiste fought a wave of nausea. He felt light-headed. Whenever he moved his left foot he heard the blood squelching in his boot and felt a shrill stab of pain.

He looked at the altimeter. One thousand feet AGL.

He eased back on the throttle, concentrated on keeping the wings straight and level. He waited for the ground batteries to find him again, but this time there was nothing.

A few feet from the ground he cut power and lifted the nose. The Beechcraft's bounced down the strip towards the jungle. He was down.

Fuck you, Rocco. I did it.

There was sweat all over him, like cold grease. He almost fainted, willed himself to stay conscious. He taxied the Beechcraft around. He looked out of the cockpit, there were three wooden stakes driven into the ground at the very edge of the strip, close to the jungle. A human head was impaled on each one of them.

“Welcome to Phong Savan,” he said. “We hope you enjoy your stay.”

***

Gerry Gates was one of two Americans who watched in amazement as the Beechcraft touched down. Who the hell was this idiot? Kong Le's troops were on the very outskirts of the town. Gerry was planning his own departure within hours.

The aircraft taxied over to the ramshackle collection of huts at the edge of the strip and the pilot shut off the engines. But no one stepped out of the cockpit. When Gates and his partner reached the aircraft, the pilot was unconscious, slumped over the controls.

Chapter 19

G
ÉRARD Petrovski had the seamed face of a street fighter, lank grey hair and a beard like the sable of a silver fox. He had been in Asia all his life; and the sun had aged him. His skin was the colour of Mekong whisky, and the flesh hung in pouches under his eyes and his chin. He wore a dirty red bandana and combat fatigues.

He bent down to examine the pilot. He shook his head. The man looked as if he had come straight from a bar-room brawl.
Merde alors
.

“I don't know this one,” he said to Gates.

“It's one of Bonaventure's planes.”