More Deaths Than One (23 page)

He jumped to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

“Yesterday a man and a woman came into the
restaurant asking about someone who matched your description, and
they used your name.”

He felt as if his heart had skipped a beat.
It was one thing to realize how close they were to finding him. It
was another thing to realize how close they were to connecting him
to Kerry.

“We have to leave,” he said. “I’ll never
forgive myself if something happened to you on my account.”

She gave a shaky laugh. “I’m pretty sure I’ll
be okay. If they find me, I’ll tell them where you are, then I’ll
go back to Pete’s Porches.”

He laughed because she wanted him to, but he
scrabbled around in his mind for a way to keep her safe. “You’ll
have to come with me.”

“Anywhere.” After a moment she said, “Where
are we going?”

“Thailand.”

A joyful light appeared in her eyes, then
slowly faded. “I can’t.”

“Why not? Isn’t this what you’ve been living
for—a chance to travel? And besides, if you don’t come, who’s going
to check out the hotel room for me?”

She set her jaw. “I don’t have the
money.”

“But I do.”

“I can’t take your money. I made a promise to
myself when I left Pete’s Porches that I’d never give myself away
again. Don’t you see? If I won’t give, I can’t take.”

“I understand,” he said gently, “truly I do.
But having ISI operatives appear at your place of business changes
everything. We’re in this together. I can no longer assume you’ll
be okay, and I can only protect you if you’re with me.”

He took a step closer. She stopped him with a
hand on his chest.

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

He put a hand over hers. “Maybe I need you to
protect me.”

She gave him an uncertain look.

He lifted her hand and kissed it. It felt
cold against his lips. “You must be sorry I came into your
life.”

A smile lit her face, and laughter was in her
eyes. “You didn’t come into my life. I dragged you in,
remember?”

“Then it’s settled. First we need to go
shopping and cash the rest of my traveler’s checks, then we need to
buy IDs from your friend.”

***

“I don’t even know what kind of clothes to
get,” Kerry said as she drove them to a new mall southwest of
Denver. “What’s the weather going to be like?”

“This is still monsoon season. By noon, dark
thunderclouds will appear on the horizon, and the air will become
thick with humidity. Later, torrents of rain will fall. Lots of
rain. Sometimes the streets of Bangkok get flooded, creating
massive traffic jams, but the rain also washes away the smog, and
each day dawns bright and cool. Of course, by noon thunderclouds
appear again.”

“So I guess we need raincoats. What
else?”

“Mesh socks if we can find them, otherwise
cotton will do, and canvas shoes or sandals. Also whatever cotton
touristy clothes we can find.”

“The stores will be stocked with late fall
and winter things.”

“We need the bare minimum, whatever fits into
carry-on bags. We can buy everything else in Thailand. Since you
like to shop so much, you should have fun. In addition to small
shops and street markets, there are some very modern department
stores and shopping centers.”

Kerry bounced in her seat. “I can’t believe
I’m actually going to Bangkok. Did I ever tell you I saw The King
and I at least four times?”

Bob put a finger to his lips. “Don’t mention
that movie while we’re in Thailand. It’s so full of misconceptions
it offends the Thais, and it’s disrespectful to the king.”

“You never said what you’re going to do once
we get there.”

“Talk to a pilot named Donald McCray. I need
to find out more about the hospital in the Philippines. And I’ll
probably stop in to see Hamburger Dan.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to call?”

“I have to convince McCray to tell me what he
told Harrison, and for that we have to be face-to-face. And
obviously Hamburger Dan’s phone is tapped, so I can’t call him,
either.”

“Are you talking about the Hamburger Dan? The
hero of Harrison’s book A Separate War?”

“Yes.”

“Wow!”

After a mile of silence, she said in a more
subdued tone, “I’ve been so excited about the trip, I forgot to ask
you about talking to your other self.”

Bob recounted his conversation with Robert
and, after a brief hesitation, told her about the ISI operatives
who’d stormed the library.

She drew in a sharp breath that sounded like
a sob. “They do want you, don’t they?”

“Whatever their original objective, it’s
become personal for Sam and Ted. I’m afraid they’re never going to
give up.”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “You were
right about needing me to protect you.” She accelerated, shot
through a yellow light, then eased up on the gas. “Why do you think
they’re after you?”

“I still don’t know.”

“You’ve talked to a lot of people and done a
lot of thinking. Haven’t you begun to connect the dots?”

“Of course, but I could be connecting dots
that don’t exist.”

“So what’s your theory?”

He felt a sudden need to be moving, but only
had room to shift in his seat. “I think Robert got snagged for the
Cerberus experiments, and they gave him a new identity. Mine.”

“Why would they do such a thing?”

“Maybe for no other reason than to see if
they could.”

She chewed on her bottom lip. “But why are
they after you?”

“I think they wanted to keep me away from
their ringer, but things got out of hand.”

A slow nod. “It must have been a shock when
they discovered you were coming home after all these years.”

Seeing a look of sadness in her eyes and
something akin to pity, he turned his head and stared out the
window at the distant mountains.

Snow already dusted the peaks.

Chapter 20

“I thought this would be fun,” Kerry said,
turning away from the airplane window. “But there’s nothing to see.
Just night.”

Bob opened his eyes. “Go to sleep. It helps
pass the time.”

“I can’t. My brain won’t shut off.” She gave
him a crafty look. “Maybe if you tell me a story . . .”

He laughed. “I’ve never known anyone with
such an insatiable appetite for stories. Harrison’s going to love
you.”

He felt a jolt as it dawned on him, once
again, that Harrison was dead. Maybe murdered.

Kerry reached out and touched Bob’s hand. Her
voice was as soft as her caress. “What was he like? In Dark Side of
Heroes he described the journalist John Tyler as a big man with big
appetites.”

“Sounds like him. He drank big, ate big,
laughed big. He was extravagantly generous but so offhand nobody
resented him for it. When Kalia and Dave Marconi were ready for
college, he made sure they got into Columbia University, invited
them to live in his New York brownstone, and helped them get
acclimated to the United States.”

Kerry leaned her head against his shoulder.
“Did he ever fall in love? Marry?”

“Not that I know of. I heard a rumor that his
housekeeper in Bangkok, a woman from Chiang Mai, did more than take
care of his residence, but he never confirmed it.”

“What about his early life? The biography at
the end of his books doesn’t say anything except that he divided
his time between New York City and Bangkok.”

“That’s about all I know. He talked
constantly while we were together, but he never mentioned his past.
It seemed as if he sprang forth fully grown from the soil of
Vietnam where we met.”

“Another conspiracy of silence,” Kerry said.
“You men!”

Bob tilted his head to look at her. “What are
you talking about?”

“I read somewhere there are two ways of
saying nothing, to be silent or to hide your silence behind words.
You and Hsiang-li shared one kind of silence, you and Harrison
shared the second.”

“You could be right.”

“I know I am. Who are Kalia and Dave
Marconi?”

Bob waited a beat until his less nimble mind
caught up with hers. “They’re Hamburger Dan’s children. Since
Hamburger Dan can never return to the United States, Harrison acted
as surrogate father to Kalia and Dave.”

“How come he couldn’t return?”

“Did you read Harrison’s novel A Separate
War?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know the answer as well as I do. I
read the book, and it’s all there.”

“But I want to hear the real story about
Hamburger Dan and O’Riley’s Bar. I think it’s romantic—a typical
New York neighborhood bar set in the middle of Bangkok.”

“Harrison loved the place. When he arrived
back in Bangkok after a stay in New York, he stopped at O’Riley’s
first thing. He told me it helped him bridge the gap between east
and west.

“Hamburger Dan’s real name was David Marconi.
He’s Italian, but he grew up in an Irish neighborhood in Brooklyn
where a bar sat on every corner, or so he said. In the summer, when
he opened his bedroom window to catch the breeze, David could hear
snatches of song coming from O’Riley’s, the nearest bar, and he
could smell its strange and wonderful odor.

“Before he grew old enough to legally
patronize the bar, he enlisted in the army. He took and passed
every advanced training course possible, and eventually became one
of the elite—a Green Beret. They sent him to Vietnam to organize a
remote tribe of Montagnards into a combat unit. The Yards, as the
Green Berets called them, were anxious to fight the North
Vietnamese, but they always had more important things to do than
attend training sessions.

“In desperation, David went to one of the
tribal elders and explained his predicament. The old man told him
the people didn’t trust him because he wasn’t one of them, but he
promised to help.”

Kerry lifted her head. “I like this part. The
old man brought a shy young girl to Dan—David, I mean—and said,
‘You marry.’ David didn’t want to get married, but the old man
insisted it was the way to get everyone to trust him. So David got
married and later fell in love with her. Was she as beautiful as
Harrison wrote?”

Bob nodded. “Very beautiful. Creamy skin with
a bloom of roses on her high cheekbones, sparkling dark eyes set at
an exotic slant, long lustrous black hair, surprisingly full
breasts for such a delicate body.”

Kerry poked him in the side. “A simple yes
would have been sufficient.”

Bob grinned at her. “I can’t help it. I like
black-haired women with sparkling dark eyes.”

“Oh.” She laid her head back on his shoulder.
“After the wedding ceremony, David had no more trouble organizing
and training his combat troops.”

“Do you want to tell the story?” Bob
asked.

“No. You go ahead. You’re doing fine.”

Smiling, he said, “The respect the troops had
for David was often tinged with ribald humor, but David accepted
the teasing good-naturedly.

“The longer he lived among those indigenous
mountain peoples of Vietnam, the more he identified with their
plight. At one time the vast section of South Vietnam known as the
Central Highlands belonged to the Montagnards, but they had been
pushed further and further back into the hills by the Vietnamese,
who considered them to be little more than animals. In fact, after
a bombing raid in North Vietnam, the South Vietnamese often
expended any unused ordnance on the mountain villages.”

“The South Vietnamese did that to the
villagers even though they were both on the same side? And the
government allowed it?” Kerry asked.

“Ancient hatreds are stronger than modern
political alliances.” He paused, but she had no more questions.
“When David’s tour of duty ended, he refused to leave. His
commanding officer flew in to order David’s return.

“David Marconi was a towering, muscular man
with curly black hair, a classic Roman nose, and flashing brown
eyes. He stood his ground and glared defiantly at the officer. In
the end, it was not David’s intimidating stance that induced the
officer to leave, but the menacing arc of Montagnard soldiers with
their M-16’s at the ready.

“David gave little thought to the
consequences of his actions. He and his troops were too busy
fighting their war. Even after the American military pulled out of
Vietnam, even after Saigon fell, the mountain tribes continued to
fight. The South Vietnamese may have surrendered, but they had
not.

“One day word reached the little village that
the NVA was capturing any Montagnards who had not turned in their
weapons and were taking them away to be shot by firing squads.
Hundreds were being slaught-ered.

“No coward, David would have remained, but he
worried about the safety of his wife and their two young children.
He prepared for departure. Although he begged his beloved Yards to
go with them, they refused. The village was their whole life, and
they would live and die with it.

“David and his small family slipped away in
the night. On foot, they crossed the border into Cambodia and then
into Thailand, following trails known only to the mountain tribes,
who used them to move freely from one country to another,
disregarding national boundaries.

“Once David had safely settled his family in
Bangkok, he fell into a state of deep despair. He felt he had
betrayed his Yards who had been betrayed too many times before. And
he had no job. Unless he wanted to become a mercenary, his military
days were gone forever. Even worse, he could never return to the
United States. Refusing to obey a direct order from a superior
officer in time of war is a serious offense, and if the military
caught him, the best he could hope for would be to spend the rest
of his life doing hard time at Leavenworth.

“I was tending bar in The Lotus Room one
evening when David came in and tried to find the answers to his
problems in a bottle of whiskey.