Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“Have you run all this by UNESCO?”

“Oh, they know. Trust me, they know.”

They paid another short homage to the silence but keeping quiet was always a challenge to a man like Civilai.

“I didn’t notice Judge Pimples and Cousin Monolingual come back,” he said.

“Me neither. They’re probably sampling the nightlife of Phonsavan.”

“That should keep them occupied for a good fifteen minutes.”

“You never can tell. Sin is all around.”

“That’s one of the topics the major and I were talking about tonight. It looks like we arrived in Vientiane a few years too late. We missed the Gomorrah period.”

“I thought the point was to engage a retired US army major in a debate about the breakdown of American culture. To explain to him your theories of why they lost in Vietnam and go into great detail about how most of the millions of dollars they pumped into Laos went straight into the pockets of the fat royalists.”

“I did all that.”

“And?”

“He agreed.”

“With everything?”

“Pretty well.”

“What a spoilsport.”

“Exactly. So we had nothing left to talk about other than booze and sex.”

“Was that the moment that you called over Auntie Bpoo and dismissed Peach?”

“She’s only seventeen, Siri. There’s probably a law against two old men talking dirty in front of a minor. Auntie Bpoo was certainly a safer choice, and knowledgeable. Honestly, little brother. I had no idea. Potter used to fly into Vientiane from Saigon to witness perversions unknown in the western world. Freak shows that-were there a section for it-would have made their way into the Guinness Book of Records . Honestly, I doubt I could smoke twenty cigarettes at the same time … in my mouth.”

“All this time together and I had no idea you were interested in sex.”

“It’s contagious, Siri. Major Potter is obsessed. He went into great detail. I even caught Bpoo blushing once or twice.”

“I don’t recall seeing either of you walk away in disgust.”

“It was an education, Siri. Seventy-four and I’m still learning. I can’t wait to go home and tell Madame Noy.”

Siri laughed.

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted. What does Potter’s wife say about all this?”

“Currently between wives. He’s had three at last count.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“And he puts away the drink, my word he does. He had his own personal bottle. He has a few swigs of whiskey then a cup of coffee to keep himself coherent. Never seen anything like it. I thought you and I could knock it back, little brother, but he makes us look like amateurs.”

“Practice, Civilai. That’s all it takes.”

Siri refilled their glasses.

“So, apart from the hotspots of Vientiane, you didn’t learn anything from him?” Siri asked.

“I almost got a secret or two out of him. He hinted he’d found out some dirt about this mission. Said it wasn’t all as clear cut as it seemed. Said we Lao should keep our eyes open for a traitor. By then Johnny was doing most of the talking. But the manager came in and told us we had ten minutes before the generator went off and that shut the major up. I plan to have another go at him tomorrow. There’s nothing I like better than a dollop of scandal. I’ve found there are very few people on the planet who don’t have skeletons in their closet.”

“I certainly do.”

“Goes with the job, I supp-”

The distant sound of chopper blades churned through the silence of the night. It seemed to bounce off the darkness all around, disorienting them. They didn’t know where to look.

“Sounds like Judge Haeng and the boys coming home after a night of raging at the post office,” Civilai said.

“It’s a dangerous night to be flying,” Siri decided. “Surely they could have parked the helicopter behind the bar and taken a donkey home. They could even have walked it in half an hour.”

The sound became deafening and the chopper loomed over the roof behind them, kicking off concrete slates and sending a shower of rubble onto the two drinkers. They covered their glasses with their hands. The pilot had obviously not seen the building until the last second. The craft’s spotlight was angled down at the ground and as it rocked it splashed white light clumsily all around like water from a bucket. At one stage, Siri and Civilai were highlighted cabaret performers. They waved. The chopper angled in to the dirt yard, kicking up dust and landing on one wheel. For a second they thought it might crash onto its side but instead it flipped onto the other wheel, rocked, then settled. The engine growled, the rotors began to slow, and the dust churned in the air in the bright light until the beam was extinguished. The only light now was from the lamp on the rattan table which had miraculously stayed lit.

“Do you suppose it’s friendly?” Civilai shouted.

One, then two, then three flashlight beams came to life inside the chopper. Heads appeared as the hatch slid open and the metal steps were unfolded to the dirt. Two figures stepped down, lit occasionally as they moved in front of the beams. Siri recognized the shapes of Sergeant Johnson and Second Secretary Gordon bowed against the downdraft. They reached their hands toward the hatch and an arm appeared. They both took hold of it and guided a man in white down the steps. All of the flashlights were now directed upon this character, the star of the spectacle. He was a physically irrelevant man in his late fifties with long but thinning blond hair combed over a round pate. He wore white shoes to complement the crisp white double-breasted suit, buttoned to hold back a rampant red tie. The trousers were flared. When he reached the ground, his long wispy hair rose and danced in the draft like deepsea anemones. With Johnson and Gordon propping him up on either side he was rushed toward the hotel entrance. Seeing Siri and Civilai seated there on the veranda, the new guest shrugged off his escorts, approached the two old men and said something with feeling. He then grabbed for their hands which he shook enthusiastically, turning slightly toward a short Chinese-looking woman. In the dim light all they could see of her was crimson lips inside a black pageboy frame. She had no eyes or nose that they could make out but she did possess a splendid-looking camera. There was a flash and before the dots had cleared from their eyes, the stranger had vanished inside the building. In his wake they saw Judge Haeng, Vinai, and Rhyme from Time . It was a colorful but very brief carnival which left Siri and Civilai breathless.

The helicopter engine huffed a last breath. Then all was calm again save the ticking of a tired old Mi8 and the slowing whirr of its blades.

“Who was that white-suited stranger?” Civilai asked.

“ L’Empereur est arrive ,” Siri told him.

They walked over to the helicopter where the two young pilots were doing what had to be done to put the beast to bed. They held small penlights between their teeth as they fiddled with the engine.

“What happened here?” Siri asked.

The youngest one answered. To Siri he looked barely old enough to ride a two-wheeled bicycle.

“The senator was supposed to stay overnight in Vientiane, Comrade,” he said. “They were going to fly him up tomorrow. But the flight control people said, given the conditions, it might be better if he flew directly up here. The military met his flight at Wattai and transferred him up to the landing strip in Phonsavan. We picked him up there.”

“What conditions?” Civilai asked.

“The smoke, Comrade. There’s a blanket of smoke all across the Special Zone.”

“Slash and burn?”

“We lose two or three months a year of flying time to it up here. The smoke just hangs around the mountains. Combined with the mist it’s like flying through soup. You can’t even make out the landmarks and, to tell the truth, none of us are that good at instrument flying. Tonight you’ve got the smoke and the mist and no moon. All we had to do was hop over from town, a couple of minutes. Even so, we almost ran into the hotel. We didn’t want to take off at all but the judge insisted. It was hairy, I don’t mind telling you, Comrade. And they’ve only just started burning. In a day or two you won’t see a hand in front of your face. I doubt we’ll be flying anywhere else for a while.”