The Tunnel Rats (34 page)

'No doubt about it', said Bamber. 'That's what I told my bosses. So what progress have you made?'

'O'Leary's one of four Americans who play together at a club called Cowboy Nights.'

'Near Lang Suan. I know.'

'Yeah, there's Dennis O'Leary, a guy called Doc Marshall who's sort of the group leadjer, Bernie Hammack and Sergio Ramirez. And the victims both played with the band. Not together, Eckhardt left before Horvitz arrived, but they all knew each other in Vietnam, twenty-five years ago. They were all Tunnel Rats, fighting the Viet Cong underground.'

Bamber raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. 'You've found out a lot in a short time,' he said.

'I was lucky,' said Wright. 'I saw a photograph of Eckhardt with the band in Cowboy Nights, and I managed to get O'Leary to talk to me a little. We've both had woman troubles. And he'd been drinking. What about you? What have you found out?'

Bamber adjusted the cuffs of his jacket. 'I'd pinned down the Tunnel Rats connection. Our Washington office checked up on the service records of both men and discovered they'd served together for a time towards the end of the war. I haven't approached the four surviving members in case one of them is the killer.'

'What?' said Wright, stunned.

Bamber frowned. 'Hadn't you considered that? It seemed obvious to me. Either Marshall, Hammack or Ramirez could be behind the murders. O'Leary we can rule out because of the chair, but the others are definite suspects. Immigration is doing a check for me to see if any of them were out of the country at the time Eckhardt was killed.'

Wright sat down on the edge of the bed. 'But whatever it was that happened twenty-five years ago, they've all kept the secret. Why start killing now?'

'I don't know, Nick. But I did find out something else. They're all going back to Vietnam. Back down the tunnels. All except O'Leary, of course.'

'Why?'

'I'm not sure. All I know is that they've already applied for their visas and have booked tickets on Wednesday's Thai flight to Saigon.'

'How the hell did you find that out?'

'We've had them under surveillance,' said Bamber.

Wright rubbed his eyes. 'This is crazy, Jim. If one of them is the killer, why would he want to go back down the tunnels?'

'Maybe he wants to finish the job.'

'So why would the other two go? Why put themselves in harm's way?'

Bamber opened the minibar. 'Okay if I have a soda?' he asked. Wright nodded. Bamber took out a can of Sprite and popped the tab. He sipped it. 'Nick, you're asking questions that I don't have the answers to. But I know for sure that the solution lies down in the tunnels. We have to go, Nick. It's the only way we're going to solve this case.'

Wright's jaw dropped. 'You have got to be joking!' he exclaimed.

Bamber drank from his can. 'It's the only way,' he said.

Wright shook his head emphatically. 'O'Leary said there were hundreds of miles of tunnels, all the way from Saigon to Cambodia. How are you going to find out where they're going?'

Bamber grinned, crushed his empty can and tossed it into a wastepaper bin. 'I'm getting, a map sent over. The Defense Department mapped a big chunk of the tunnel network, and the mission that Horvitz, Eckhardt and the rest went on was recorded. I'm getting the file pulled from the Pentagon, and it and the map are being sent over to our office here.'

'And you're going down the tunnels?'

'Not just me. We. It's going to take two, Nick. I need you down there with me.'

Wright swallowed. His mouth had gone completely dry. 'I'm not sure if I'm up to it,' he said.

Bamber looked at him levelly. 'You want to solve this, don't you? That's presumably why you came.'

'Yes, but . . .'

'There are no buts. The answer lies down in the tunnels. That's where they're going and that's where we have to go. Okay?'

'Okay,' said Wright, reluctantly.

Bamber walked over to stand in front of Wright. The detective looked up at him. For a wild moment he thought that the FBI agent was going to strike him. The feeling was so strong that he THE TUNNEL RATS 243 0 had to force himself not to flinch. 'I mean it, Nick. I need you on this. I need you to be one hundred per cent committed.'

'I am,' said Wright, more sure this time.

'Good man. I'll arrange the tickets. I've already got my visa for Vietnam, I can pull a few strings to get yours done quickly. I'll need your passport.'

Wright got his passport from his dressing table and handed it to Bamber.

'One more thing,' said the FBI agent. 'Keep a low profile for the rest of the time you're in Bangkok. Don't go back to Cowboy Nights, don't speak with The Jazz Club, or the police. And don't mention me to anybody. I don't want anyone to know that the FBI's involved.'

Wright nodded. 'I understand.'

'Be ready to leave on Wednesday.'

Wright nodded again. His stomach began to churn.

Bamber went over to the door. He made a gun with the fingers of his hand and pointed it at Wright. He made a clicking noise, then let himself out.

Gerry Hunter sat down at his desk and drank from a can of 7Up.

'Anything good in the canteen?' asked Steve Denning, a middle-aged DS with a thickening waistline and a tendency to snack on Mars bars during periods of stress.

'If there was, I missed it,' said Hunter, massaging his stomach.

'What did you have?'

'Sausage and chips, but I'm regretting it. Anyone call for me?'

Denning shook his head but pointed at a wire basket on the desk next to Hunter's. 'Fax came for you, though.' r Hunter reached over and retrieved the stack of pages. There were almost two dozen in all. Miss Blackstone had done him proud. There were photocopies of articles from several 244 STEPHEN LEATHER encyclopedias and selected pages from military history books and biographies.

He read through the pages and from time to time he made notes in the margins and underlined words and phrases that he thought might be significant. Hunter himself hadn't even been ten years old when South Vietnam fell, and for him the conflict was as distant an event as the First and Second World Wars. Mfny of the references to people and events meant nothing to him.

Gradually Hunter began to build up a picture of Operation Phoenix and its significance. It came towards the end of the war, when it was clear to most commentators that the United States wasn't capable of winning by conventional means. The army thought that a change of tactics might produce results, and in 1968 Operation Phoenix was born. The aim was to identify and target specific members of the Viet Cong infrastructure: its fighters, its political cadres and its rank and file members. It was initially set up as a means of pooling intelligence information, which up until then had rarely been shared. The Americans didn't trust the South Vietnamese, and vice versa, and both sides guarded their intelligence jealously. Operation Phoenix set up official guidelines on how information was to be shared, and once targets had been identified they were arrested and interrogated. Some eighty Operation Phoenix offices were set up around South Vietnam, collating information with the aid of computers.

If proven to be Viet Cong sympathisers, targets would be either imprisoned or persuaded to change sides. It was, Hunter realised, the same,technique that the British had used against the Provisional IRA in the 'seventies. In Northern Ireland the technique had paid dividends, with a number of notable successes, but in Vietnam, Operation Phoenix was regarded as a failure. There were allegations of torture and assassination, and time and time again Operation Phoenix was described as a front for government-sponsored assassination. Included among the photocopies were articles from American newspapers alleging that Operation Phoenix was primarily an assassination plot and that the CIA was targeting individual members of the Viet Cong and murdering them. All such allegations were denied by Defense Department spokesmen. The official view THE TUNNEL RATS 245 was that any deaths were the result of military action, not assassination.

According to some of the articles Miss Blackstone had photocopied from encyclopedias, Operation Phoenix wasn't � regarded as a success because of all the negative publicity it generated, but it did come close to achieving its objectives. In 1968, almost 16,000 Viet Cong cadres and fighters were either captured, killed or switched sides. In 1970 the number was 21,000,

and US intelligence experts estimated that over the four years that Operation Phoenix was underway, the Viet Cong infrastructure ,, was reduced by a total of almost 75,000 men.

S Nowhere in the information Miss Blackstone had sent was there any mention of the ace of spades death card. Wally Matthau had said that Special Forces had used the card, but there was no mention of Special Forces involvement in Operation Phoenix.

By the end of June 1972 all American advisers had been pulled out of South Vietnam, and a few months later the Saigon government ended Operation Phoenix.

Hunter sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling. What I did he have so far? He had a dead middle-aged American, tortured and killed in London with a card impaled in his chest which had been used as a death card in the Vietnam War, and another in Bangkok which Wright was following up. Eckhardt had served in the Vietnam War. Had he come into contact with the soldiers using the death cards? Had Max Eckhardt himself been involved in Special Forces operations in Vietnam? Jim Bamber would probably be able to find out, but until Hunter could get in touch with the FBI agent he'd have to pursue his own line of enquiry, and the dead man's widow seemed the best bet. He picked up his coat.

'I'm going to see Eckhardt's widow,' he told Denning.

'You want company?' asked the detective sergeant.

'Nah. If Jim Bamber calls for me, tell him he can get me on my mobile.'

Denning gave him a thumbs-up without taking his eyes off his computer screen.

Hunter drove to the Eckhardts' flat in Maida Vale and parked in front of it. He walked down the path and peered at the doorbells. None bore the name Eckhardt. He took his notebook out of his 246 STEPHEN LEATHER raincoat pocket and checked the address. It was the right building. One of the bells didn't have a name attached to it and he pressed it hopefully. There was no response and he didn't bother pressing it again. Hunter heard a noise behind him and he turned to see a postman walking down the path pushing a mail cart. He showed the postman his warrant card and asked about May Eckhardt.

'Haven't had anything for them in a few days,' said the postman. 'I think they've moved.'

'Did they leave a forwarding address?'

The postman shook his head and began slotting letters through the communal letterbox. 'You could try asking old man Jenkins, Flat Two. He's the local busybody.'

The postman pushed his trolley back down the path and Hunter pressed the bell for Flat 2.

'Who is it?' asked a disembodied voice.

'Police,' said Hunter.

'Your name, please,' said the voice.

'Gerry Hunter. Inspector Gerry Hunter.'

'Hold your warrant card up to the camera behind you, please,' said the voice.

Hunter did as asked, suppressing a smile.

'Thank you,' said the voice. The door lock buzzed. 'You can come up.'

Hunter pushed open the door and went upstairs. He knocked on the door to Flat 2 and it was opened by a man in his seventies.

'Are you Mr Jenkins?'

'Yes,' said the old, man, scrutinising Hunter through narrowed eyes. A security chain prevented the door from being opened more than a few inches. A dog yapped from somewhere behind him. 'Hush, Katie,' said Jenkins. 'It's only the police.' The dog continued to bark.

'Can I have a word with you about one of your neighbours?' said Hunter.

Jenkins undid the security chain and opened the door for Hunter. The flat stank of vomit and disinfectant and the detective wrinkled his nose at the smell.

'First on your right,' said Jenkins. 'It's about the Eckhardts, I assume,' he said as he followed Hunter into the sitting room. It THE TUNNEL RATS 247 was akin to stepping into a time warp. The wallpaper, carpets and furniture all seemed to be relics of the 1950s, clean but shabby. A gas fire surrounded by a green-tiled fireplace hissed like a deflating balloon and in the corner a six-foot-tall grandfather clock ticked off the passing seconds. 'Sit down, please,' said Jenkins, indicating a green velvet sofa that had worn bare in places.

Hunter sat down. Jenkins was wearing a blue dressing gown and tartan slippers, one of which had a hole in the toe through which poked a gnarled, yellowed toenail.

'I spoke to a Sergeant Wright some time ago,' said Jenkins. 'Of course, he wasn't a real policeman. Transport Police, he was.'

'That's right,' said Hunter.

'He was a rum sort,' said Jenkins. 'I couldn't understand why a transport policeman was involved in a murder investigation.' He drew out the word 'murder' as if reluctant to finish saying it.

'The body was found in a railway tunnel,' explained Hunter.

'Oh, I know that,' said Jenkins. 'But murder requires real police work, doesn't it?' Again he drew out the word 'murder' as if relishing the sound.

A bell tinkled and Jenkins flinched as if he'd been slapped. 'My wife,' he explained. 'She needs her medicine.'

Hunter felt suddenly sorry for the old man, living out his final years with a yappy dog and an invalid wife. It had been more than six months since Hunter had seen his own father, the detective realised. Six months was way too long. He sat and listened to the hissing gas fire and the ticking clock until Jenkins returned carrying a Yorkshire terrier. He perched on the edge of an armchair at the side of the fire, his back ramrod straight.

'So do you happen to know where Mrs Eckhardt is?' asked Hunter.

'Haven't seen her for a few weeks. Her car's not outside so I presume she's moved. Is she a suspect?'

'We just want to ask her a few questions,' said Hunter. 'Did she leave a forwarding address?'

'Not with me. As I told Sergeant Wright, the landlord or the managing agent might know. The agent's name and address is on the noticeboard by the front door.'