Tess Gerritsen: Never say die

It was a reasonable assumption that Flight 5078 had been shot down.

Grim acceptance settled on the faces of the men gathered around the table. Their brightest hope had just perished aboard a doomed plane. They looked at Kistner and awaited his decision.

"Resume the search at daybreak," he said.

"That'd be throwing away live men after dead," said the CIA officer. "Come on, gentlemen. We all know that crew's gone."

Cold-blooded bastard, thought Kistner. But as always, he was right. The colonel gathered together his papers and rose to his feet. "It's not the men we're searching for," he said. "It's the wreckage. I want it located."

"And then what?"

Kistner snapped his briefcase shut. "We melt it."

The CIA officer nodded in agreement. No one argued the point. The operation had met with disaster. There was nothing more to be done.

Except destroy the evidence.

Present

Bangkok, Thailand

General Joe Kistner did not sweat, a fact that utterly amazed Willy Jane Maitland, since she herself seemed to be sweating through her sensible cotton underwear, through her sleeveless chambray blouse, all the way through her wrinkled twill skirt. Kistner looked like the sort of man who ought to be sweating rivers in this heat. He had a fiercely ruddy complexion, bulldog jowls, a nose marbled with spidery red veins, and a neck so thick, it strained to burst free of his crisp military collar. Every inch the blunt, straight-talking, tough old soldier, she thought. Except for the eyes. They're uneasy. Evasive.

Those eyes, a pale, chilling blue, were now gazing across the veranda. In the distance the lush Thai hills seemed to steam in the afternoon heat. "You're on a fool's errand, Miss Maitland," he said. "It's been twenty years. Surely you agree your father is dead."

"My mother's never accepted it. She needs a body to bury, General."

Kistner sighed. "Of course. The wives. It's always the wives. There were so many widows, one tends to forget-"

" She hasn't forgotten."

"I'm not sure what I can tell you. What I ought to tell you." He turned to her, his pale eyes targeting her face.

"And really, Miss Maitland, what purpose does this serve? Except to satisfy your curiosity?"

That irritated her. It made her mission seem trivial, and there were few things Willy resented more than being made to feel insignificant. Especially by a puffed up, flat-topped warmonger. Rank didn't impress her, certainly not after all the military stuffed shirts she'd met in the past few months. They'd all expressed their sympathy, told her they couldn't help her and proceeded to brush off her questions. But Willy wasn't a woman to be stonewalled. She'd chip away at their silence until they'd either answer her or kick her out.

Lately, it seemed, she'd been kicked out of quite a few offices.

"This matter is for the Casualty Resolution Committee," said Kistner. "They're the proper channel to go-"

"They say they can't help me."

"Neither can I."

"We both know you can."

There was a pause. Softly, he asked, "Do we?"

She leaned forward, intent on claiming the advantage. "I've done my homework, General. I've written letters, talked to dozens of people-everyone who had anything to do with that last mission. And whenever I mention Laos or Air America or Flight 5078, your name keeps popping up."

He gave her a faint smile. "How nice to be remembered."

"I heard you were the military attaché in Vientiane. That your office commissioned my father's last flight. And that you personally ordered that final mission."

"Where did you hear that rumor?"

"My contacts at Air America. Dad's old buddies. I'd call them a reliable source."

Kistner didn't respond at first. He was studying her as carefully as he would a battle plan. "I may have issued such an order," he conceded.

"Meaning you don't remember?"

"Meaning it's something I'm not at liberty to discuss. This is classified information. What happened in Laos is an extremely sensitive topic."

"We're not discussing military secrets here. The war's been over for fifteen years!"

Kistner fell silent, surprised by her vehemence. Given her unassuming size, it was especially startling. Obviously Willy Maitland, who stood five-two, tops, in her bare feet, could be as scrappy as any six-foot marine, and she wasn't afraid to fight. From the minute she'd walked onto his veranda, her shoulders squared, her jaw angled stubbornly, he'd known this was not a woman to be ignored. She reminded him of that old Eisenhower chestnut, "It's not the size of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the dog." Three wars, fought in Japan, Korea and Nam, had taught Kistner never to underestimate the enemy.

He wasn't about to underestimate Wild Bill Maitland's daughter, either.

He shifted his gaze across the wide veranda to the brilliant green mountains. In a wrought-iron birdcage, a macaw screeched out a defiant protest.

At last Kistner began to speak. "Flight 5078 took off from Vientiane with a crew of three-your father, a cargo kicker and a copilot. Sometime during the flight, they diverted across North Vietnamese territory, where we assume they were shot down by enemy fire. Only the cargo kicker, Luis Valdez, managed to bail out. He was immediately captured by the North Vietnamese. Your father was never found."

"That doesn't mean he's dead. Valdez survived-"

"I'd hardly call the man's outcome 'survival.'"

They paused, a momentary silence for the man who'd endured five years as a POW, only to be shattered by his return to civilization. Luis Valdez had returned home on a Saturday and shot himself on Sunday.

"You left something out, General," said Willy. "I've heard there was a passenger… "

"Oh. Yes," said Kistner, not missing a beat. "I'd forgotten."

"Who was he?"

Kistner shrugged. "A Lao. His name's not important."

"Was he with Intelligence?"

"That information, Miss Maitland, is classified." He looked away, a gesture that told her the subject of the Lao was definitely off-limits. "After the plane went down," he continued, "we mounted a search. But the ground fire was hot. And it became clear that if anyone had survived, they'd be in enemy hands."

"So you left them there."

"We don't believe in throwing lives away, Miss Maitland. That's what a rescue operation would've been. Throwing live men after dead."

Yes, she could see his reasoning. He was a military tactician, not given to sentimentality. Even now, he sat ramrod straight in his chair, his eyes calmly surveying the verdant hills surrounding his villa, as though eternally in search of some enemy.

"We never found the crash site," he continued. "But that jungle could swallow up anything. All that mist and smoke hanging over the valleys. The trees so thick, the ground never sees the light of day. But you'll get a feeling for it yourself soon enough. When are you leaving for Saigon?"

"Tomorrow morning."

"And the Vietnamese have agreed to discuss this matter?"

"I didn't tell them my reason for coming. I was afraid I might not get the visa."

"A wise move. They aren't fond of controversy. What did you tell them?"

"That I'm a plain old tourist." She shook her head and laughed. "I'm on the deluxe private tour. Six cities in two weeks."

"That's what one has to do in Asia. You don't confront the issues. You dance around them." He looked at his watch, a clear signal that the interview had come to an end.

They rose to their feet. As they shook hands, she felt him give her one last, appraising look. His grip was brisk and matter-of-fact, exactly what she expected from an old war dog.

"Good luck, Miss Maitland," he said with a nod of dismissal. "I hope you find what you're looking for."