Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“You were trying to be too clever there,” Siri told her. “I don’t know what type of relationship you have with the senator-”

“He’s a respected United States rep-”

“And I don’t really want to know. But I get a creeping feeling at the back of my neck when I imagine you two in the major’s room late that night. It’s as if you took delight in it. Your victim is unconscious. You strip him. You both drag him to the door and tie him up. I wonder how it is your boss knows so much about tying a noose with an escape knot. It isn’t something you learn in the boy scouts. And then the two of you go about the degradation; the underwear, the lipstick, and, as the piece de resistance, the beauty spot. One detail too many. If a man has a late night hobby of making himself look like a woman, he’s going to know better than to use indelible ink.”

“It’s true,” said Bpoo.

“I took the liberty of stealing one of the pens you and the senator have been using on your flow charts. The one we found in the room was the same make and the fingerprints on it were identical.”

As he hadn’t sampled his wife’s tea, it was impossible for Siri to know exactly what was happening in Ethel Chin’s mind during all this. But it appeared her logical self was vying for equity. She laughed haughtily and rudely into the face of Bpoo.

“I’m a law graduate, you know?” she said. ‘Top five percentile at Yale. That’s pretty shit-hot lawyering, don’t you think? And you know what? Not one single thing you’ve told me would get you past a preliminary hearing in a court of law. You tell your coroner here he’s got nothing. He can go take a hike.”

Both Siri and Bpoo smiled as she passed on this regrettable news.

“I’m a medical graduate, you know?” said Siri. “Bottom ten percentile at Hotel de Ville hospital in Paris. Not particularly hot, not even lukewarm, I admit. But I do know where to insert a common sewing needle in the spinal cord to cause permanent paralysis.”

Bpoo positively squealed with delight before translating.

“Which should serve to remind you of where you are. It’s irrelevant whether our evidence will make it through a court of law because we only have the one judge and he’s an idiot. And we don’t have any laws. And you’re in the deep deep wilds of Indochina with no friends, surrounded by hostiles. And you could scream injustice till your lungs popped out and nobody would hear you.”

Once she’d passed all this on, Bpoo sighed like a nail puncture in a tractor tyre. She took Siri by the hand.

“If you weren’t married….”

But Siri retrieved his hand. He hadn’t finished yet.

“I don’t know what this is all about,” he said. “Not yet. I haven’t worked out why you’re really here or what your boss’s real relationship with Bowrys senior and junior is, but I do know that Potter was on to him back in Ho Chi Minh. I’ve seen Potter’s notes about Vogal abusing his position at the embassy. I’ve also seen evidence that it was Vogal who got Potter kicked out of the war. There’s a copy of a letter from Vogal to the State Department citing Potter’s excesses. It recommends he be asked to step down. I don’t doubt Potter was a drunk or that he had issues. But the very fact that he was here heading this mission tells me how driven he was. And he’d have to have friends in high places who shared his convictions or he wouldn’t have been offered the position.

“So, the question is, what’s everybody doing here? According to the missing pages of Sebastian’s interview, there was a briefcase. Captain Boyd kept it with him in the cockpit at all times. He told his mechanic it was his insurance policy. He claimed it contained evidence enough to incriminate all the bad guys. If that briefcase survived the crash I’m sure there are a lot of people who’d like to get their hands on it. Well worth funding an MIA mission for. Well worth the senator flying in to prevent its contents being leaked. Well worth killing a few people for. I bet Potter was delighted to see the senator’s name on the shortlist, but it looks like he underestimated just how evil your employer is.”

Ethel Chin was crying now because she deserved to be. She was undone. Siri looked across at the wispy-haired senator, still high on his marijuana tea, still entertaining, still oblivious. In no fit state to fight or resist a citizen’s arrest. The villains were outnumbered. Inspector Siri saves the day. Solves another one. Hooray for Dr. Siri. And, not for the first time, while he was busy patting himself on the back, basking in his overconfidence, he failed to notice fate creeping up with its teeth bared to bite him on the backside.

They’d been walking for an hour through the type of jungle that Hollywood did so well in papier mache and polystyrene. The group was low on oxygen and conversation. The mission had begun with Phosy and Lit as reluctant comrades on a trek to Phu Kum mountain. But they’d needed to show the photographs to John Johnson for a third opinion. It would have been a long walk to visit some swidden farm project in the hills. In order to talk to Johnson, they’d had to bring in Dtui. Johnson was fascinated by the photos and pointed out that slash and burn and napalm left tree stumps, sometimes entire charred trees that nobody had the equipment to remove. The area in the photographs showed a bald landscape that no known defoliant could have created. In Johnson’s modest opinion, this area had been cleared by the same unknown juice that had cremated the dead man’s field. Naturally, he’d insisted on going along. There was no denying him. And this created a further annoyance for Phosy in that Dtui would have to accompany them. The journey would take twice as long if they walked at her pace.

With the Phonsavan driver asleep in a hammock, they’d boarded his truck, released the handbrake, and sailed silently down the incline and through the front gate. The old musketeers saluted as they passed. They were a hundred meters away before they engaged the motor and set off in search of the nearest point to Phu Kum.

“Are you quite sure this is the way?” Phosy asked, not for the first time. They’d parked the truck beside the dirt track and headed off into a dense jungle. Lit chose not to answer. The smoke seemed to be clearing a little and he had a vague outline of the sun to guide him. He had his map and his nose and no Vientiane policeman would distract him from his task. He did, however, allow himself to compliment Nurse Dtui on her stamina, her sense of humor in times of adversity, and her skill in a foreign language. All Phosy could offer to counter this was, “Are you quite sure this is the way?”

When they arrived at the clearing, Phosy’s question was answered tenfold. It was as if a celestial hoe had been dragged across the jungle and removed all but a washed-out yellow topsoil. Thirty meters away on the far side the vegetation continued but to the north and the south of them was a barren scar where nothing grew. Dtui confessed that the hairs on the back of her neck were tingling. The men had the same feeling but none of them admitted it.

“Why the hell…?” said Johnson.

“The mountain’s off to the left,” said Lit. “Assuming it’s still there.”

And so they headed north, their boots crunching on the dead undergrowth. Their hearts heavy in their chests. Here and there Phosy pointed out tire tracks in the dirt. They came across plastic bags and empty petrol containers. This dead channel through the jungle had been used. After twenty or thirty minutes a fuzzy dark shape appeared ahead of them.

“That’s Phu Kum,” said Lit.

Dtui patted him on the back and complimented him on his orientation skills. Phosy slapped him a little harder than necessary.