Call to Duty (9 page)

“How old are you?” Heather asked.

“I forty-two. Not pretty now.” She pointed at the Americans, pain in her voice. “You, me, same now.” She hurried across the floor when DC started to throw up, a greenish bile puddling on the oriental carpet. “You clean up,” she told Nikki.

“Get lost,” Nikki snapped.

Samkit walked over to the bed, grabbed Nikki’s dark hair and dragged her off the bed. Nikki tried to resist but Samkit slapped her. Nikki pulled back and Samkit slapped her three more times. She dropped the girl beside DC, walked into the bathroom, returned with a towel and dropped it on her. “You clean when I say,” she ordered. Nikki did as she was told.

“You get ready now,” Samkit told Heather. “No waste time.” She pointed to her watch and helped DC into the bathroom to care for her. “Hurry,” she called.

Nikki cleaned up the mess as best she could while Heather sat back down at the dressing table. She poked at her hair briefly, applied mascara, a green eyeliner, and a subdued lipstick, before selecting a set of diamond stud earrings. She stood, dropped her towel, and slipped into the bright green cheongsam. She appraised her image in a full-length mirror. The dress fitted like a glove and only the split up the side allowed her to walk normally. She turned to examine just how high the split reached. “Damn,” she moaned when she saw her exposed panties. She slipped them off and kicked them into a corner. She smoothed the dress with her hands and studied herself in the mirror. “Flashy,” she said, half-aloud to herself.

“But definitely not cheap,” a clipped British voice said from the doorway. Heather turned, wondering how long Chiang had been standing there, watching her. He was leaning against the door jamb holding a martini, one hand was in the pocket of his white dinner jacket and his left foot crossed the right at the ankles. He frowned at Nikki and gestured her out of the room.

What sort of games are we playing here? Heather thought. “Are you Cary Grant or Noël Coward?” she asked.

“Neither.” He smiled at her. “Would you care to join me for cocktails before dinner?” He stepped aside and motioned with his martini glass down the hall. Heather followed him, fully aware how right DC had been when she called the situation bizarre.

“This is like a bad movie from the thirties,” Heather mumbled under her breath.

“Not really, Miss Courtland. I just happen to be an admirer of things English.” He moved with a confident grace that matched the tone of his voice. “I find it gives a sense of permanence to a rapidly changing world, don’t you.”

“I had never thought of it that way,” she answered.

“But then that isn’t the American way, is it? Seeking permanence.” He held a door open for her and they walked into a large and comfortably furnished room that could have been lifted directly from an English country home. “Please.” He motioned her to the couches in front of a large fire.

In the background, Heather could hear the soft whir of an air conditioner keeping the room cool. She gazed at her strange host and estimated that he was in his early fifties and about five feet ten inches tall, but couldn’t decide if his angular features could be considered handsome. She sat down and crossed her legs, letting the dress fall away and showing off her well-shaped legs. “I don’t believe this,” she said, taking in the surroundings.

“Ah,” the man said, “but you must, for it is very real.”

Heather rose and prowled around the room, inspecting its contents. She paused in front of a bookshelf filled with video cassettes, surprised to find everything that Humphrey Bogart had played in and an entire shelf filled with nothing but old English movies. The only modern film was
White Mischief
, a movie about English planters in Kenya in the late 1930s. This guy thinks he’s an English gentleman or colonial planter, Heather decided.

“Miss Courtland,” he said. She turned to face him and he motioned her into a dining room where four servants were waiting. The meal proved to be exquisite and she found herself captivated by the man’s witty conversation and charming manner. It wasn’t what she had expected.

“I love French cuisine,” she said over coffee. “You have an excellent chef.”

“I am most fortunate in that regard.” He smiled. “He’s one of the foremost chefs in the world. Of course, he is at your disposal while you are here. Perhaps there is something else I can provide?”

Heather’s mind raced through the various requests that might lead to something else. “I would like to know what to call you. General sounds so…well, so…old.” She was careful to smile helplessly.

Chiang looked into his cup as if he was trying to read some hidden meaning. Then he raised his dark eyes and smiled at her, his white even teeth and smile charming. “I did have an English nanny who took to calling me ‘Bertie.’”

“Bertie!” Heather was surprised at the genuine amusement in her voice and warned herself to keep up her guard, not be drawn in by this strange man.

“Yes, it seems the British upper class had the habit of giving their children an interminably long list of names and then insisted on using a nickname that had nothing to do with any of their other names. She called me Bertie and always insisted that I was a Bertie.”

He rose and led her back into the lounge where she noticed that a set of French doors leading into a bedroom were open. She could see a large bed with the covers pulled back revealing satin sheets. She remembered Samkit’s words about her being a “working girl.” “Do you still see your English nanny?” Heather asked, unconsciously seeking a way to postpone the inevitable.

“She was killed in a bombing raid during the Vietnam War.” His voice was still smooth but Heather was certain she heard a different tone. His face had gone rigid and hard.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quickly, too automatically. It sounded false to her. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It’s quite all right.” He poured them each a snifter of cognac. “She was the only person who cared for me in my childhood. It’s a debt I’ll repay someday.” She heard resolve in his voice. “My mother was French and my father half-Chinese and Japanese…a product of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. Neither of them had any time for me. You have no idea what it means to be of mixed blood in Asia.”
Beneath the British accent and cool exterior, Heather could hear the agony of a lonely childhood. “Fortunately, my father was quite rich…a planter in Laos…the Plaine des Jarres.” Now his voice hardened. “Quite rich, that is, until the CIA came with their Air America. My home was destroyed in the monstrosity of the Vietnam War.”

“But wasn’t the Plaine des Jarres one of the world’s richest opium poppy growing regions in the world?” Heather asked.

“Yes, it was. But that had nothing to do with your war in Vietnam. For some reason, your CIA turned its attention to us. I can still remember the night the planes came…the bombs.” He stared into his glass. “My nanny, the only woman who ever loved me, died that night.” He looked at her, the pain still evident. “She was quite old, and of course no longer my nanny, but I swore that I would avenge her death. Like I said, it’s a personal debt still outstanding.”

Understanding flashed through Heather and a feeling of compassion for the man fluttered deep inside. So much made sense and she wanted to tell him, shout at him, that none of them had anything to do with his nanny’s death. Then another thought froze her emotions. Her father had been one of the foremost “hawks” in the United States Senate and had pushed hard for a vigorous military solution to the Vietnam War. Instinctively, she knew that she had to change the subject and break the spell of the past that bound him. It was a question of survival.

Heather set her drink down and came gracefully to her feet. She turned, gave him a lingering look and walked to the French doors that opened into the bedroom. She held out her hand to him and he came across the room, joining her. “Unzip me,” she whispered, turning her back to him. She felt his fingers work the zipper and then gently caress her waist before pulling away. She pulled the dress over her head and let it fall to the floor before turning back to him. Slowly, Heather extended her hand to the man who called himself Bertie and led him into the bedroom.

Samkit was waiting in the one-room bungalow built on stilts when the monk entered. His saffron-orange robe’ was slightly dirty and stained. She rose and gave a deep bow, saying nothing as she gave him a clean robe and motioned to a
basin of water in the corner. She withdrew while the monk bathed and changed robes. Even though there was food on the table, he did not eat since Theravada Buddhist monks never ate after eleven-thirty in the morning. When he was ready, he sat on the floor and composed himself. Samkit reappeared and sat to one side, not looking directly at him.

“Have you been well, mother?” he asked.

“Most well,” Samkit answered.

“And what has happened in the demon’s household?”

Samkit recounted all the events that had transpired in Chiang’s villa since they had last met. She finished her report with “It is rumored that Chiang is returning to his Burma stronghold.”

“It is becoming very dangerous for you,” the monk said. “I do not think you should go to Burma. Plead ill health. Chiang will leave you here.”

Samkit did not contradict him. That would have been disrespectful and contrary to the great deference accorded to monks. “Our Lord Buddha will not release me from this moral dilemma,” she said. “I must do what I can to defeat this demon who poisons the world with his drugs and our lives with his influence.”

“Mother,” the monk said in exasperation, “we have been over this before. It is not a simple moral issue, but also an economic and political problem.”

“And it continues to corrupt all life,” Samkit reminded him. “Are you going to turn away from this evil?”

“No, of course not.” The monk had dedicated his life to destroying the drug culture that would consume his religion.

“Then neither can I.”

The monk knew that he could not dissuade, his mother and pulled what looked like a Walkman radio from a bag. “Then I will go to Burma and become a village monk,” he said. “But it will be too dangerous for us to meet. Use this instead.” He punched at the radio’s buttons, showing her its hidden features.

The Executive Office Building, Washington, D.C.

The elevator doors swooshed open and the unlikely, mismatched pair stepped into the wide black-and-white marble
corridor of the third floor of the Executive Office Building across the street from the White House. “Who’s your friend?” one of the bureaucrats who inhabited the staff offices of the President of the United States asked. Mazie Kamigami ignored the question and glanced up at the tall army officer. He was not what she had expected and the file folder on Lieutenant Colonel John Author Mackay had not prepared her for the sheer physical presence of the man. It wasn’t often that she felt intimidated, but Mackay seemed to be doing it and he had barely said five words to her.

“You have an unusual middle name,” she said, making a try at small talk and perhaps gaining some insight into the personality of the man.

Mackay looked down at her, aware that they were drawing stares. The men and women who worked in the executive offices of the President had never seen a warrior before. They were used to dealing with the smooth and businesslike staff officers from across the river in the Pentagon, not someone who looked like his business was killing and was very good at it. His massive bulk towered over the short and dumpy Mazie and he walked with an easy, confident gait. His uniform fit his muscular body perfectly and his tailor had wisely not used shoulder pads. The carefully knotted tie looked like it would rupture if he flexed his neck muscles. “My mother mispelled ‘Arthur’ on my birth certificate,” he told her.

“And you didn’t change it?” she asked.

Mackay didn’t answer her. He had no intention of explaining that his mother was almost illiterate and that he would never hurt her by changing the name she had given him.

“Here we are,” Mazie said uncomfortably as she pushed through the door into her cluttered office. Mackay looked around, the messy office grating on his sense of order. “Find a seat and make yourself comfortable. You can hang your coat over there.” She gestured at a coat stand. “Coffee or tea?”

“Tea would be fine,” Mackay answered.

When he took off his coat, Mazie realized there was not an ounce of fat on the man. She buzzed her secretary to bring tea in. “Well, we’ve got some work to do,” she told him.

“Miss Kamigami, I assume that the reason for my being
here and talking to you has to do with the five Americans that were kidnapped.” She nodded an answer. “And because I was involved in nailing a few of the bastards that did it.” Again, she nodded. “And you think I can help appease Senator Courtland and keep him off your back.”

“You’ve read the newspapers,” she said, quickly reevaluating the man. Although he was dog-tired and suffering from jet lag, he had correctly analyzed the situation and why he had been summoned. A few of her fellow staffers on the National Security Council were going to make a serious mistake in underestimating him.

One of Mazie’s strengths was her ability to size up a person in short order, and every instinct she possessed told her that Mackay could be trusted. It was an intuition that had never failed her. She made a decision; she would bring him in. “I’ve got people around here fooled into thinking I’m the local expert on the Far East so I get involved anytime there’s a flap.” She stopped, appalled at the look spreading across Mackay’s face.

“Miss Kamigami, when someone belittles themselves, I go into a deep defensive crouch and immediately cover my wallet.” His voice was warm and friendly.

Mazie stared at him, struck by the look on his face that was at odds with the friendliness in his words. “Is that a smile?” she asked. He nodded an answer. “Please call me Mazie. Okay, you’re here because this kidnapping has the potential to be a political time bomb for President Pontowski and we need all the information we can get.”

“Your specific role in all this?” he asked.

“I’m the National Security Council’s special assistant on the Far East and working on the NSC’s Crisis Action Team that Mr. Cagliari, he’s the national security adviser—”