Message From -Creasy 5 (20 page)

Creasy
was finishing off a late breakfast of croissants, ham and cheese. He looked
refreshed. Jens and The Owl were at the other end of the table, leaning over
the photographs. From somewhere, Jens had managed to find a large magnifying
glass.

Creasy
gestured at the photographs and said: "Take a look, Susanna."

The two
men made room for her and she looked down at the large-grain prints. Three of
them were photographs of photographs.

Jens
pointed at one of them and she leaned closer. It was black and white. It showed
three men. One was tall and fair-haired, wearing only khaki shorts. He was
holding a dark, round object in his hands. The other two men were short and
Oriental. They wore Khmer Rouge uniforms and they had rifles slung over their
shoulders. They stood on each side of the taller man. They were smiling at the
camera. She had studied Jake Bentsen's file back in Washington. She too
recognized the face. It was not smiling.

The
other two photographs were of similar Caucasians, each bracketed by two Khmer
soldiers. Jens handed her the magnifying glass and she studied them. Bentsen
had been clean-shaven, but these two
men wore heavy beards. She studied the faces for a long time and they told her
nothing. But she knew instinctively that they were Americans.

She
looked again at the photograph of Bentsen. Directly behind him in the distant
background was a low hill with a building on its crest. She brought the
photograph closer under the magnifying glass and saw that the building was a
temple, typical of the many thousands scattered around Cambodia. She looked at
the other photographs. There were six of them, all depicting lines of
handwritten Vietnamese.

Creasy
pushed away his empty plate and said: "Can you read that, Susanna?"

She
picked up one of the photographs and held it under the magnifying glass. After
studying it for a minute, she looked up and said: "I can decipher most of
it."

"Good,"
Creasy said. "Then that's a first step. Jens, please find Susanna a pad of
paper, and as she finishes each page, put the information into your
computer."

Jens
lifted his briefcase onto the table, opened it up and produced a yellow legal
pad and a felt-tip pen. She asked him: "How on earth did you get that film
developed so quickly?"

He
shrugged modestly. "I'm a detective, Susanna. And to be a good detective,
one needs to be a bit of a psychologist. I knew that the manager of this hotel
is French and of course the French always love a good intrigue, especially when
it's a matter of the heart. And particularly if it involves a scandal, no
matter how small. So I arranged for a meeting with the manager, Monsieur Marcel
Duprey, who has been here three years and of course has many contacts in the
city. And I simply explained my problem."

"Your
problem?"

"Yes,
of course. A clandestine love affair between a Danish female army officer on
assignment here with the UNTAC which is United Nations Transitional Authority
in Cambodia and an Australian major attached to the same mission. Obviously,
someone in that mission dislikes the Australian to the extent that he or she
sent an anonymous letter to the woman's husband in Copenhagen, who happens to
be a wealthy businessman, much older than his wife. At that point I gave Marcel
Duprey my business card which identifies me as a private detective, and
explained that her husband hired me and my colleague to come to Phnom Penh and
check the details contained in that anonymous letter. That was what my
colleague was doing last night. He managed to get compromising photographs of
the couple concerned. Naturally, before flying back to Denmark, I needed to get
the film discreetly developed and enlarged to be sure that the photos are clear
enough." He gave her a conspiratorial wink. "Marcel Duprey was
suitably intrigued. And since he knows many officers in Phnom Penh attached to
UNTAC, he asked me who the lovers might be. Naturally, I gave him a polite
little lecture on client confidentiality inasmuch as it applies to both hotel
managers and private detectives. He kindly phoned a close friend at the French
embassy, where they happen to have their own dark room. The rest, as they say,
was plain sailing."

Susanna
looked up at Creasy, who said: "As well as having to be psychologists,
private detectives also have to be damned good liars!"

At that
moment they were interrupted by a tap on the door.

While
The Owl went to answer it, Jens quickly shuffled the photographs together and
slipped them into his briefcase. The Owl returned with an envelope and handed
it to Jens. Inside was a slip of fax paper. The Dane read the two lines and
then passed it on to Creasy who in turn read it and passed it on to Susanna.

It
read: "The deal was concluded satisfactorily very early this morning. Our
traders are returning home and I will join you shortly." It was signed
Henry.

She
looked up. "I assume that Henry is Guido and that the traders are Maxie
and Rene?"

"Yes.
Guido should be here by tonight or tomorrow."

Jens
had put the photographs back on the table. Creasy reached out and picked up the
photograph of Bentsen, studied it and said quietly: "The clue lies in the
temple. We have to find out where it is. And for that, we need an expert to
identify it." He looked up. "In
the meantime, Susanna, we need that translation."

It took her an hour to translate the writing on the photographs.

As she was finishing the last page, Guido arrived, and again she noticed the strange
ritual. As Creasy greeted him, he kissed him hard on the side of his face,
close to the mouth. She had asked Jens about that, and he had explained that it
was the custom between mercenaries of that era. A sort of symbolism. Guido
greeted Jens and The Owl warmly, but not in the same way. He gave her a kiss on
both cheeks and an envelope, saying: "Messages for you which came to the
hotel after you left."

There were three messages, all from Jason Woodward. The first one read: "Please
call me." The second read: "Please call me urgently." The third
read: "Please call me very urgently. I love you."

She looked at that last message for a long time, and then crushed the papers up in
her hand and dropped them into the waste-basket beside her chair.

Guido's
face was as drawn and exhausted as Creasy's had been the night before. She
listened as he briefed the three men on the events in Saigon. He himself had
managed to get an early connecting flight via Bangkok. Rene and Maxie would
stay holed up in the safe house for a few days, and then either head home or
come on to Phnom Penh if they were needed.

Creasy
brought him up to date on what had happened in Phnom Penh, and showed him the
photographs. While Guido studied them, Susanna finished off the translation,
handed the lastsheet to Jens, and said to Creasy: "It was a correspondence
between the leader of a group of irregular Vietnamese militia and an officer of
the Khmer Rouge who, at the time, was based in Battambang." She could not
keep the catch from her voice as she said: "It involved the sale of three
American prisoners of war who were held by the Vietnamese. The price for one of
them was two taels of gold. The price for the other two was three taels. The
difference in value was because the two were experts in mine-laying and
clearance." She sat down and they could all see the sadness permeating her
face.

Quietly, Creasy asked: "Were they identified?"

"Not by name. Only by dogtag numbers."

Jens was transcribing the last page into his computer. He looked up and said:
"The buyer and seller were not identified by name either. Only by code
words. The Vietnamese was known as a Commander Tanon and the Cambodian by the
name of Commander Indravarnam."

Susanna laughed without humour and said: "It's the name of a famous Khmer emperor
who reigned in the ninth century." She turned to Creasy. "I have no
choice now, since I have dogtag numbers."

Creasy was nodding thoughtfully. He said: "Yes, but I want you to give me time.
Just forty-eight hours. I want to try to identify the place where those
photographs were taken."

She started to argue, but Creasy held up his hand. "Susanna, be fair. I let
you come on to Phnom Penh with us. Right now you could be on your way back to
the States knowing nothing. Give me the forty-eight hours. If these men are
still alive, those hours could be crucial to them."

Jens had finished on his computer. He closed the lid and joined the debate.

"Susanna, in the last few days we've made great progress. The danger is that if you
inform your boss, you'll involve the Phnom Penh government, which is a web of
corruption. The Khmer Rouge have their own agents in very high places. If they
find out that the American government suspects there may be American MIAs in
the country, then the evidence could be quickly obliterated...which means six
feet under the ground."

All their eyes were watching her. Irrationally, she thought to herself that the
past two days had all been about making decisions.
She sighed and said: "It means that as an officer, I'm breaking my code of
duty...But OK, forty-eight hours."

Guido
stood up and asked: "Where do I sleep?"

Jens
gave him a key and said: "That's for the bungalow next door."

He
picked up his canvas bag with a curt nod and walked out.

The
Toyota Landcruiser pulled into the compound in a cloud of dust. It was followed
by two covered trucks. Piet de Witt watched as Connie Crum jumped out of the
jeep and strode towards him. She was carrying a leather folder and an air of
urgency, but she greeted him warmly and said: "I hear you've been doing
good work. But now I need you to go into top gear."

With
the scent of her perfume in his nostrils, he followed her into the building, as
she shouted out for cold drinks and something to eat. Her clothes and face were
covered with dust. As they sat down side by side at a long table, she asked:
"Piet, how many mines do you think you and your team have cleared in the
last six months?"

By
chance, he had been calculating that the night before.

"About
twelve and a half thousand."

She
turned and gave him her most engaging smile. "That's wonderful. But now I
want you to lay a few thousand."

At
first he was struck speechless. Then he asked with incredulity: "You want me to put them back in the
ground?"

"No,
no. Not those old ones." She gestured behind her at the door. "In
those two trucks out there I've got two thousand Czech PP-Mi-SR bounding
fragmentation pressure mines and fifteen hundred PMN2 Soviet blast anti-tank
mines. I want you to lay the most concentrated anti-personnel minefield in the
history of warfare. And Piet, I want you and your team to lay that minefield
within the next four days."

He drew
a breath to protest, but before he could say anything, she had reached into her
pocket and laid a small ebony inlaid box in front of him. It was a work of art and obviously centuries old.

"It's
a bonus for you," she said. "Open it."

With
huge but gentle fingers, he prised open the lid. Inside were three perfect
sapphires, one white, one yellow and one jet black.

Piet de
Witt knew about gemstones and he knew that these were the very best from the
Cardamom mountains. He knew that each one would fetch at least twenty thousand
dollars. He picked them up and rolled them in his fingers, and then in a rough
voice asked: "Where do you want your minefield?"

She
opened the leather folder and took out a detailed map of an area east of Tuk
Luy. It was in the upper foothills of the Cardamom mountains and not far from
the mines which had given up the sapphires in his hand. She put her finger on
the map.

"This
is a walled temple. I want that minefield to surround it with only one very
narrow access path. The density should be one mine every two square metres on
the outer perimeter, increasing to two mines every two square metres on the
inner perimeter."

"Jesus,"
he muttered. "You don't want anyone getting into that temple."

Her
voice turned grim as she said: "I don't want anyone getting in or getting
out."

A
soldier brought a tray of food consisting of rice, fish and pork, together with
bottles of chilled mineral water and Coca Cola. They ate while the Dutchman
studied the map and calculated.

Finally
he said: "The minefield will have a radius of four hundred metres from the
centre of the temple. I'll intersperse the PP-Mi-SRs with the PMN2S. If you
want it ready in four days, we may have to work under lights. Which means we'll
need a generator up there."

"You'll
get everything you need," she said.

His
curiosity finally broke through. "Why that temple?" he asked.

She sat
back in her chair, dabbing at her lips with a lace handkerchief. "It's not
just a temple," she said. "It's a shrine. And that's all you need to
know. I have twenty of my best men up there guarding it. Neither you nor any of
your men will pass through the walls at any time, on pain of death. You
understand that, Piet de Witt?"

He
picked up the ebony box and slipped it into his pocket. "I always follow
orders," he said.

The
manager's office was plush, full of leather chairs and rosewood furniture.
Across one wall was a huge aquarium brightly coloured by darting tropical fish.

"It
soothes me," the manager explained to Jens. "Managing a big hotel in
this country, at this time, can be very stressful. You can't imagine the
problems of getting supplies and trained staff. Did you know that when the
Khmer Rouge took over, every single man or woman who had worked in a hotel was
automatically executed? As were most of the intelligentsia and bureaucracy. I
had to start from scratch. Every time I want to tear my head off, I sit back in
my chair and watch my fish."