See You in Saigon (6 page)

“Cao had agreed to
go into partnership with us,” said Jonathan. “We understand a gentleman known
as Scorpion is now running your ex-boss’ organization. What I expect you to do
is to tell Scorpion we would like to meet with him to discuss our business
relationship going forward. We simply want to make sure he intends to respect
the agreements we had made with Cao. Otherwise, his presence is interfering
with our plans and that is simply not acceptable. We wish to meet with him to
clarify the situation.”

“I-I do not know
this Scorpion you speak of,” Tuan stammered, though the fear in his eyes said
otherwise, “So I’m afraid we cannot help you.”

Jonathan shrugged.
“Suit yourself, my friend. I know you’re lying. All I’m asking you to do is to
give Scorpion a simple message. If you can’t help me by doing that, you should
indeed be afraid. You should also keep in mind that Scorpion will learn we’re
here one way or another. He might not be too pleased to learn you knew we were
here but never told him about it.”

Reaching into a
side pocket of his jacket, he pulled out a business-sized card which was blank
save for a hand written telephone number.

“Tell Scorpion to
call me,” he said as he tossed the card into Tuan’s lap, “And tell him if I
don’t hear back from him by tomorrow afternoon, we’ll be happy to demonstrate
we mean business.”

He gazed from one
brother to the other for a moment then called out, “Okay, we’re done with these
guys for now.”

Immediately, the
minibus rolled to a stop and the door was heard hissing open as Leslie slid the
front curtain back open.

“This is your
stop,” said Jonathan. “Good night, gentlemen.”

The two brothers
slowly rose to their feet as Jonathan stepped back in between two seats to
clear the aisle. They hastened their way toward the exit, still unsure if they
were actually being released. Once at the door, Tuan hurried out but Hung
paused and looked back into the minibus.

“What about our
weapons?” he demanded, feeling braver now with the sidewalk and freedom a mere
step away.

“Get out of here,
you idiot,” replied Leslie, moving into the aisle, a step above from him.

“Fuck you, bitch,”
Hung snarled as he glared at her.

Without warning,
Leslie’s foot lashed up and out, kicking Hung squarely in the chest and
catapulting him onto the sidewalk below.

“Fuck you,
ít
con khỉ
,” she muttered as the door slid shut and the minibus pulled
away.

“Nice kick,” said
American operative, Brian Kelly, their driver for the night. “What did you call
him?”

Leslie smiled.
“Little monkey.”

“Quite fitting,”
said Kelly.

“Indeed, and lucky
for me,” Leslie replied, “Since it’s the only Vietnamese I know. It was the
identification code when I met General Quang this morning.”

Sa Pa, Vietnam,
mid-morning

“What the hell are
you talking about?” Scorpion demanded, drawing questioning glances from the
handful of other guests enjoying breakfast in the cozy dining room atop the Sa
Pa Eden Hotel. “Wait. Let me go somewhere more private.”

He left the table
and moved out onto the small fourth storey terrace overlooking the breathtaking
view of the valley, though he cared little for the view at the moment.

To date, his week
in Sa Pa had been even better than expected. He had been impressed with the
multitude of poppy plantations dotting the valleys and mountainsides where less
than a year ago rice and corn had been the crop of choice. His meetings in the
various villages had gone well, their leaders all demonstrating an appropriate
amount of respect and appreciation for the business he had brought to their
communities. Everything had been going according to plan until now.

Raising his mobile
back to his ear, he said, “Okay, I’m back. Now, what are you talking about?
What agreements did Cao have with who? What the hell is going on?”

From the opposite
end of the country, Pham Tuan recounted the events which had taken place barely
six hours earlier, sparing no detail of what had transpired or what had been
said.

“Who the hell are
these guys?” said Scorpion, thinking aloud once Tuan was done.

“I don’t know,”
Tuan replied. “I had never seen anyone of them. They looked like American
tourists.”

“And you know
nothing about Cao working on any deals with anyone?” Scorpion asked, wondering
if some other American crime syndicate
had
been getting involved in the
area after all.

“Nothing at all,”
Tuan confirmed. “If he was, I am not aware and neither is Hung.”

“Could these
people have been hired by some rival gang?” suggested Scorpion. “Someone trying
to step in now that Cao is gone?”

“There actually
are no rival gangs,” Tuan disagreed. “They all worked for Cao in the end and
none would be organized enough or rich enough to hire help from North America.
Also, the ones worth anything are already connected with you.”

“It must be some
North American organization finally trying to copy what I’ve been doing,” Scorpion
decided. “I’ll get some people back home to start looking into it. Did you get
a license plate on this minibus?”

“Yes,” Tuan
confirmed. “I will see to have it traced but this will take a few days.”

“Give it to Thao,”
said Scorpion, referring to his main man based in Saigon. “He can have it
traced by this afternoon. In fact, repeat everything you’ve told me to Thao and
tell him I want him to get busy on this. He’ll know what to do.”

“I will do so
immediately,” Tuan replied. “I’m sorry about this, sir.”

“I don’t see how
this is your fault,” Scorpion said truthfully though he had determined early on
that the Pham brothers weren’t bright enough to be worth keeping in his
organization for any length of time. “I’m simply disappointed that despite all
the time you spent with Cao, you and your brother had no clue this was going
on.  I also wonder how these people tracked you down in the first place.”

“Perhaps the same
way you found us.” Tuan suggested. “Through careful research and dedicated
effort.”

“Good point,” said
Scorpion, hiding his sarcasm. His team had easily found the Pham brothers and
many others thanks to their lack of discretion and much drunken boasting of
their self-accorded importance. “Call Thao and tell him I’ll contact him later
today. Then you and your brother relax and get some rest. You’ve had a rough
night.”

* * * *

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon),
Vietnam, mid-morning

“Sorry for the
interruption,” said Jonathan as he rejoined the others for breakfast at the
hotel’s
Opera
restaurant. “That was Jerry Washington with an update. Do
you mind if we do a little shop talk?”

“Of course not,
sweetheart,” Josée replied, winking at Sandy and Cathy. “You all aren’t here on
vacation like we are.”

“Is this
classified?” asked Sandy. “We can move to another table.”

“It’s probably
best you ladies hear what Jon has to say,” Leslie suggested with a grin. “You
never know when I might need my ‘A Team’ to get these guys out of trouble.”

“That hurts,” Dave
muttered as he shook his head. “I take umbrage at such comments.”

“Deal with it, big
boy,” said Cathy before pecking him on the cheek.

Jonathan shrugged
and resumed eating. “You clowns let me know when you’re ready. Anyhow, my
food’s getting cold.”

“That will teach
you to answer the phone at the table,” said Chris. “Seriously, what’s up?”

“It seems the
efforts of our American friends are already paying off.” Jon replied.

While they had
been dealing with Tuan and Hung the previous night, the two remaining American
operatives, Chuck Whittaker and Steve Chen, had been busy installing monitoring
devices in the brothers’ apartments.

Dave laughed.
“That’s a lot quicker than I’m used to.”

“Results sometimes
come faster without all the pesky rules,” Jonathan agreed. “A couple of hours
ago, Tuan made a call and though no names were mentioned, Jerry’s sure it was
to Scorpion. You’ll see why in a minute. The call went to a mobile number and
was traced to Sa Pa in the mountains in North Vietnam.”

Chris nodded in
approval. “You’ve got to love modern technology.”

“Indeed,” said Jonathan.
“So we now have a number though it may be a throwaway phone which the man
replaces regularly. Time will tell. On Scorpion’s orders, Tuan then called
someone by the name of Thao, repeated last night’s events then said, ‘Mr.
Scorpion wishes you to investigate this immediately.’ The call was traced to
somewhere here, in District 1 in fact, which means right in this neighbourhood
but unfortunately not right to this Thao’s address. Jerry has some people at
the consulate digging into this further and they’re monitoring those numbers
for further calls so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

“If Scorpion’s in
Sa Pa, shouldn’t some of us be heading there?” asked Dave. “If we can pinpoint
where he is, we could nab him when he’s not expecting it.”

Jonathan shook his
head. “We don’t have enough information to make that worthwhile. You could be
flying out of here to Hanoi while he’s hopping on a train leaving Sa Pa.
Anyhow, we know Tuan transmitted my message so I could be getting a call from
our friend at any moment. We apparently already have his attention and if we
don’t, we will after tonight in Tây Ninh.”

“Do we need
anything particular for tonight?” asked Chris.

“I asked Jerry the
same question,” Jonathan replied, “And he told me we should find pretty much
everything we need onsite.”

* * * *

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon),
Vietnam, late morning

In keeping with
their cover as tourists, Jonathan and company were visiting the War Remnants
Museum when the mobile reserved for Scorpion’s call began to vibrate.

“Yes?” was all he
answered as he made his way out of one of the exhibit halls with Chris
following close behind.

“Who the hell are
you?” Scorpion demanded.

“You called me so
shouldn’t I be asking that?” Jonathan replied, “Although I know who you are so
the question would be redundant.”

“I don’t know who
you are,” said Scorpion, “But if you really
do
know who I am, you should
also know you’re messing with the wrong crowd.”

“You might be
thinking the same if you knew who I was,” said Jonathan, “But, enough with the
pleasantries. We need to meet to discuss how we are going to work together
going forward.”

“I have no clue
what you’re talking about, my friend,” Scorpion replied, lightening his tone.
“Fill me in, if you will.”

“I’d be happy to,”
Jonathan agreed. “I had a deal with Cao. You killed him and took over his
business so I now expect you to respect our deal.”

“I still don’t
know what you’re talking about,” said Scorpion, “But what kind of deal are we
talking about, just for fun?”

“It’s rather
simple,” Jonathan replied. “Cao sold us his opiate business and was hired on to
continue running it for us locally. For him, it meant considerably more money
than he ever made on his own with little risk, particularly since we invested
the capital required to increase poppy cultivation and subsequent production.”

A moment of
silence passed before Scorpion responded. “I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t give a
damn what you believe,” said Jonathan. “That’s the situation and I’m not happy
with it. Since you caused the problem, I expect you to fix it. It isn’t that
complicated.”

“Okay, enough of
this,” Scorpion snapped. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re up to but I’m
going to find out and you’re going to regret having tried to mess with me.”

“Does this mean
we’re not going to work at solving this problem today?” asked Jonathan.

“Here’s what I
suggest you do today,” Scorpion replied. “Gather your band of sidekicks and get
on the first plane that can get you out of here and back to where you came
from.”

“I don’t think
that’s going to happen,” said Jonathan. “What I do think, however, is you’ll
soon regret not even trying to resolve our differences in a friendly manner.
Last chance. What do you say?”

“You’re a dead
man,” said Scorpion.

“Suit yourself,”
Jonathan replied. “We’ll be talking.”

He cut the
connection and waited for Chris who stood close by, a mobile still to his ear.

“Nothing useful,”
Chris announced after ending his call with Jerry Washington. “He’s still in Sa
Pa and he called from a different phone. That’s all we have.”

* * * *

Tây Ninh, Vietnam,
evening

By weight, the
yield of heroin from raw opium is approximately six percent. Stated another
way, almost seventeen pounds of raw opium are required to produce one pound of
heroin. On this basis, it makes perfect sense to refine the opium near where it
is harvested, particularly since the process is relatively simple and does not
require a sophisticated laboratory by any means.

Cao Van Minh had
understood this logic and accordingly, had established a number of refining
facilities in areas where sufficient opium harvesting warranted them. These
primitive labs were generally housed in a shack or barn and minimal investment
was required to acquire the basic reusable equipment such as steel drums,
plastic tubs, pots and portable stoves.

One such lab,
which had been in operation for a number of years, was located in a fair-sized
old barn amidst the fields of Tây Ninh. This particular facility was one of the
organization’s bigger producers for several reasons. For one, much of the land
surrounding the city was farmland, a fair portion of which was used for poppy
cultivation. In addition, location was a factor as Tây Ninh was only ninety
kilometres, or slightly over fifty miles, from Ho Chi Minh City where chemicals
required in the refining process could be readily acquired and distribution of
finished product facilitated. Even closer to Tây Ninh was the border with
Cambodia from where raw opium was also brought in for processing.

Earlier in the
day, Kelly, Whittaker and Chen of the American team had gone sightseeing in the
Tây Ninh area, their trip made relatively simple thanks to information which
General Quang had supplied on the memory card. They had easily located the
heroin lab on a dirt road in farm country, well away from the city. A few hours
of surveillance, first from a distance and then closer up, had left them
confident the lab would be a fairly easy target. Smoke rising from a stone
chimney had confirmed current production activities but only three people, two
men and one woman, had been seen at the barn. Security, if any, had been deemed
minimal at best.

It was now past
ten in the evening as Leslie, accompanied by Steve Chen, walked along the road
toward the barn. The young Vietnamese guard they had seen during an earlier
drive by was still seated on an old wooden bench by the open door, his shotgun
leaning against the wall beside him. The only light in the area came from an
oil lantern hanging from a hook by the door which bathed the immediate area
around him in a dim, yellow glow.

“It’s time,
folks,” Leslie murmured. “Let’s hope he doesn’t jump for the gun.”

“He’ll be dead
before he can point it at you,” came Washington’s reply who was in position in
the cornfield across the road from the barn.

As they moved
closer, the guard did not notice them, more intent on lighting whatever he had
in his long pipe and taking a hit than minding the surroundings.