The Point Team (20 page)

Andre smiled after she had gone. “At least we’re old enough to see the humor in the situation.”

“
You
may be,” Mike said.

Bar girls accosted them in the street, many in cutaway camouflage fatigues. Others were clad in tight silk dresses that rippled
tautly as they moved. Tourist buses disgorged scores of Japanese businessmen who all plunged into a single bar at the same
time, grabbing whatever was there while the place next door was empty.

“Remember how a lot of Americans would come down here to fight?” Verdoux asked. “I often wondered if some of them ever got
laid.”

“Frenchie, you got a lot of things on your mind.”

Verdoux did not like Campbell to call him by this name, although he accepted it from the others. He realized his mistake had
been in criticizing Americans in any form to Campbell. Campbell himself said what he wanted about Americans, and he never
objected when other Americans, such as Nolan or Waller, said negative things—but when anyone not an American, even an old
friend like Andre, said something the least uncomplimentary about America or Americans, they got to know real fast that Campbell’s
ear was not sympathetic.

They hit a few places along the way. Mike secretly wished he were back in the trailer camp looking forward to seeing Tina.
But he was in Bangkok, not Arizona. And he had to admit that some of the sensual creatures here in their slinky outfits were
enough to distract the mind of any man.

Though Mike looked over all the slick city girls, he found himself selecting a cute girl who obviously had been a peasant
working in the fields until recently. She had an earthy quality that appealed. Like all the other women, she was small, she
had black hair and large brown eyes, her skin was smooth and hairless and her clothes revealed almost as much as they hid.
She had two important differences from the city girls—her hands were strong,
sure and capable—not useless fluttering appendages—and when she spoke her smattering of English she looked Mike in the eye
and expected some response. The other bar girls said what they were expected to say and looked anyplace about the bar except
at the man they were with.

Andre Verdoux had got the most sophisticated-looking woman in the bar to talk French to, so he was happy. Mike thought to
himself that if Americans liked to fight in places like this, Frenchmen seem to enjoy talking French more than having sex.
He wished he had thought of this earlier. He and the peasant girl, whose name, surprisingly, was Veronique, slipped away.
Mike assumed her real name was some Thai word of seven syllables. They went to a cheap hotel with rooms by the hour not far
away. Mike paid for six hours and told her that any hours he did not use up, she could use the room. He had spread old man
Vanderhoven’s money generously around the crew so they could have a good time. Now he might as well spend some on himself.

The room was fairly crummy, but clean. Some people were partying in the room next door to Western rock music on a tape deck.
Farther away, a flute was playing a melancholy air. As usual, the din of traffic and horn-blowing in the street rose and fell
like waves on a beach.

“Sukhothai girls give the best blow jobs,” Veronique said.

Mike remembered hearing that joke before about the town north of Bangkok. She probably made it to English-speaking customers
half a dozen times a day. He was wondering if she also had jokes in Japanese when he felt her warm, soft lips enclose the
head of his cock. He had no idea if girls from Sukhothai really were the best, but at least this one was right up there.

Next morning the police came to the hotel. Mike showed them everyone’s passport and there was much talking among the police
in Thai, which they assumed reasonably enough none of these foreigners understood.

Andre took Mike off to one side and said quietly, “It seems we weren’t supposed to have been allowed off our plane, except
someone at the passport control goofed. They’re trying to make up their minds whether they have the authority to arrest us.”

Mike approached the police officer who seemed to be in charge. “Is something out of order?”

“No, sir. This is just a routine check. Do not worry.”

There was more rapid talk among them in Thai, along with some less than friendly glances. Mike began to feel a little desperate.
The embarrassment would be hard to face down if his team were arrested in a Bangkok hotel and deported before the mission
even got under way.

“We’ll be leaving Thailand the day after tomorrow,” Mike said to the cop.

This had an immediate cheering effect. “What? You go?” Then suspiciously, “Where to?”

“Singapore.”

“Day after tomorrow to Singapore. Very good. Let me see your plane tickets.”

“We plan to go overland.”

“Not so good,” the police officer said, not so believing now.

Mike pretended to misunderstand. “Why not? I know there are troubled areas, but we’ll be traveling by day.”

The police officer waved a hand to silence him. He collected their six passports from the other officers.

Mike asked Andre surreptitiously, “Does he expect a bribe?”

“I don’t think so. Don’t try unless he at least hints at it.”

The officer handed the passports to Mike. “Forty-eight hours.”

“We’ll be gone,” Mike answered him.

After they left, Campbell switched on the radio to loud, atonal Thai music. He told the others, “You’ve got to assume our
rooms are bugged. From now on, if you have
to talk on confidential mission matters, go outside, or if you must do it indoors, keep that radio loud. Better not to talk
about such things at all. Washington is going to be pissed they didn’t make fools of us. Stay away from all Americans today.
Have yourselves a good time, but report in here to me before eleven tonight. We’ve got to keep tabs on each other from now
on.”

Campbell motioned for Verdoux to stay as the others left his hotel room. He turned off the radio and they went down into the
noisy crowded street.

“We go early tomorrow?” Andre asked.

“Yes. You think the others guessed it was tomorrow, not the day after?”

“If they are using their minds, they did. But they’re so busy fucking their brains out, perhaps they did not register what
they didn’t want to hear.”

“I’m sure all of us are under some sort of surveillance,” Campbell said as they threaded their way through the crowds. “It
must be child’s play around here. If the cops believed we’re not leaving till the day after tomorrow and if Washington is
relying on local forces to do their bidding, maybe we can get clean away tomorrow morning.”

“A big maybe,” Andre said pessimistically.

“I agree. I think the CIA will try to hit us when we move out.”

“Sounds logical,” Andre agreed. “Or at the weapons drop. Where do we pick them up?”

“Just this side of the Laos border. We go by road. I didn’t mean to originally because it’s a journey of more than three hundred
miles from here to the border with Laos. I had a plane chartered for tomorrow morning under an assumed name. Obviously we’re
not going to show up for that. If they’re anywhere, they’ll be at the airport waiting for us.”

“Do you have a driver?”

“We’re on our way to see him now,” Campbell said. “I
want you along to speak Thai and maybe to cause a diversion in case we’re followed.”

They caught a taxi on one of the less-congested thoroughfares. “Klong Toey,” Campbell told the driver, who looked at them
oddly in his rearview mirror.

“I don’t go in,” the driver said when he came to the edge of the shantytown.

Mike paid him off, and he and Andre walked down one of the refuse-strewn lanes that wound through the one-room huts. These
shacks, constructed of every conceivable material from palm fronds to plastic sheets, were built next to each other. Through
the open doorways, they caught glimpses of the crowded life within—women cooking, children playing. Others carried containers
of water—there seemed to be no plumbing.

On one lane they came upon eight or nine men with the emaciated bodies and glazed eyes of opium or heroin addicts. The men
confronted them and spoke angrily in Thai.

Verdoux translated for Mike. “They say they want money or they will kill us.”

Mike said, “Tell them we’ve come to meet Nart Yodmani.”

When Verdoux mentioned this name, they fell back. None of them were threatening anymore.

Mike held up a U.S. ten-dollar bill. “Andre, get that one to take us to Nart.”

As they followed the addict through the extensive slum, both men continued to check behind them for a tail, although they
recognized it was hopeless. Anyone who wanted to know where they were going had only to ask the addicts.

“Who is this Nart Yodmani?” Andre asked.

“An associate of Cuthbert Colquitt. Cuthbert said to contact him if we needed local help in a hurry while in Bangkok. For
some reason he lives in the middle of this slum himself, while he has six or seven sons who own big houses in the suburbs.”

Sweat ran down their faces and inside their shirts as they followed the addict over the uneven, dusty lanes through the never-ending
vista of hovels. The addict held up his hand and said something.

“He says to wait here,” Andre translated.

After a last anxious look at the ten-dollar bill still in Mike’s hand, the Thai loped off around a turn. He was gone for about
ten minutes. Then they saw him walk back with a huge Thai, muscular and grossly overweight as a Sumo wrestler, and a small
nervous man with a thin face, a mustache, and a machine pistol in his right hand. The addict snatched the ten dollars from
Mike and seemed in a hurry to depart.

“I am Nart Poonsiriwongse, the third son,” the blubbery giant announced in American-accented English.

Mike told him who he was and that he wanted to see his father. The son did not respond much one way or the other. In a little
while Mike saw why. A tall, thin man with a nervous tic in his left eye came up to them and introduced himself in English
as Nart Yodmani. Campbell saw he was not going to come any closer than this to Nart’s hideaway, so he got down to business.

“I want you to hire three vans as nearly identical in appearance as possible. You must hire them legally—I can’t afford police
trouble on some minor issue. That’s for eight tomorrow morning.”

Nart nodded.

Mike continued, “The day after tomorrow I need you to collect our belongings at our hotel, pay the bill and hold our baggage
for us. We go tomorrow without taking anything with us, since we will be watched.”

Nart nodded again.

Mike went on, “We’re being watched by the Bangkok police, probably Thai government intelligence and definitely the CIA. Though
I have to admit I haven’t been able to spot any tails.”

Nart glanced at his son, who said, “Their taxi had no tail when it arrived in Klong Toey.”

Nart turned to Campbell. “We have been following you.”

Mike paused a moment to consider this. “The CIA hired you?”

Nart evaded the question. “I do much work for the United States. But they pay bad. You pay more?”

“Sure.”

“Where you go tomorrow? Laos? Cambodia?”

Mike hesitated a fraction of a second. “Laos.”

“Ten thousand U.S. dollars, we take care of everything.”

“Surveillance, hotel, three vans and drivers?”

“Everything.”

“OK,” Mike agreed. It was daylight robbery, but it was Vanderhoven’s money, so all it amounted to was one rogue thieving from
another.

Nart pointed at his mountainous son. “Poonsiriwongse will drive you back to the city center. He will collect all the money
in advance.”

Hard looks were exchanged as the team ate breakfast in Campbell’s hotel room at seven the next morning.

“You mean we’re going in on an hour’s notice?” Richards complained above the sound of the loud radio.

“We have to leave all our things behind?” Nolan bitched.

“You’ll be wearing camouflage fatigues and the boots you broke in last week in South Carolina,” Mike said. “You can bring
cigarettes, whatever, but no transistor radios or tapes or dope or booze. You can bring ID if you want. If they take you alive,
they won’t believe it anyway.”

“Who’s
they
, Mike?” Bob Murphy inquired.

“We cross Laos into Vietnam—so there’s going to be a lot of ‘they.’ Take your pick.”

“We after MIAs?” Waller asked.

“More or less,” Mike said, deliberately vague.

Richards got to his feet. “Are we on some crazy job to assassinate Viet leaders?”

“No,” Mike said evenly.

Richards subsided into his chair. “I’m relieved to hear that.”

“Let’s get moving,” Campbell said. “No phone calls. No talking to anyone outside the team. Remember the rooms are probably
bugged. Take what you can get in your pockets. No bags. Got it? Dismiss.”

The men wore looks of mixed feelings on their faces as they left the room. The way Campbell talked, he was the colonel and
they were soldiers again. That was what they had come for, but all of them were a bit angry at having the mission dropped
on them like this with less than an hour’s notice.

Poonsiriwongse was on time. At eight exactly he arrived outside the hotel in a brown Volkswagen van with heavily tinted windows.
Campbell and his team of five climbed in and the van pulled out into the heavy traffic.

“Everything set?” Mike inquired.

“All OK,” the Thai said with a big smile.

After driving for ten minutes, they pulled into a gas station and into the big garage at the back of it. An identical brown
van was waiting inside it with a heavy-set driver and four or five Thais inside. Mike waved for them to go, and the brown
van pulled out of the garage.

“Anyone following us won’t have time in this traffic to figure out what the hell’s going on. They’re headed down the peninsula
toward Malaysia, right?”

“They’ll go south as far as Ban Na Kha and spend the night there before turning back,” Poonsiriwongse said. “It’s two hundred
and fifty miles or more there—they will be lucky to make it in one day on that road.”