The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (3 page)

He pushed the cyclic to the left and pressed the left foot pedal, swinging the Huey round and losing height because he didn’t increase power, until the helicopter was pointing in the opposite direction, due west. He hovered for a moment, steadying his breathing, concentrating on the block of ice in his mind, feeling the helicopter react to the small, almost imperceptible, movements of his hands and feet, absorbing the data from the instruments. He sighed, a deep mournful emptying of his lungs, then pulled on the collective and pushed the cyclic forward. The turbine roared and the Huey jumped forward as if eager to go. Within minutes the pilot had the Huey up to its maximum speed of 138 mph, flying low and level, just above the treetops, as the ice block slowly melted to cool, clear water.

The rain had caught Paris by surprise and many of those walking down the Champs-Elysées on pre-Christmas shopping trips were shivering damply as they looked in the store windows. The weather forecast had been for a mild day, sunny even, and the Parisians were accustomed to taking the forecasters at their word. Anthony Chung trusted no one’s judgment other than his own, however, and he’d worn his black mohair coat after scrutinising the steely grey morning sky from the window of his penthouse flat in Rue de Sèvres. He wore a slightly smug expression as he walked out of the Charles de Gaulle Etoile Métro station and into the fierce rain-spotted wind that blew up the thoroughfare from Place de la Concorde.

He walked by shops packed with some of the best names in European fashion: Guy Laroche, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Nina Ricci; but above them, atop the centuries-old buildings, were the signs of the new economic masters of the world: Toshiba, NEC, and Ricoh. Even in France, one of the most chauvinistic of countries, the Japanese displayed their dominance. Chung looked around for evidence of America’s encroachment on to the Parisian scene. To his left he saw a McDonald’s outlet and less than a hundred yards further down a Burger King and garish posters promoting Le Whopper, Les Frites, and Le Milk Shake. There was a message there somewhere, thought Chung as he walked down towards Fouquet’s, on the corner where Avenue George V met the Champs-Elysées. He looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty. The watch, a gold Cartier, had been a present from his father almost ten years earlier on the day he’d graduated from the Sorbonne. Thoughts of his father crowded into his mind and he pushed them away, concentrating instead on the American he was to meet. Colonel Joel Tyler. An ex-colonel, if the truth be told, but Tyler was a man who insisted on using the title and, bearing in mind the business he was in, it was understandable.

Chung crossed the busy Champs-Elysées looking left and right because he knew that the Parisians paid little heed to the colour of the traffic lights or the location of pedestrians. The traffic was heavier than normal as shoppers poured in from the suburbs to buy last-minute Christmas presents for their families and friends. It would be even busier at night, Chung knew, when the millions of tiny white lights would come alive in the leaf-bare chestnut trees of the avenue and the sidewalks would be packed with sightseers and lovers. He pushed open the doors to the café, nodded at a white-coated waiter and went over to a table. He shrugged off his coat and draped it over one of the wicker and cane chairs, looking at his watch again. Five minutes to go. He placed a copy of the
International Herald Tribune
on the table and then sat down, smoothing the creases on the trousers of his 2,000 dollar suit. He ordered a hot chocolate from a grey-haired waiter and smiled at the man’s look of professional disdain. Chung never failed to be amused by the cultured arrogance of French waiters, or by the raised eyebrows when they heard his fluency in their language. The bottom half of the windows were obscured with thick red velvet curtains on brass rods so he couldn’t see out into the street. Fouquet’s was not the sort of place where you went to rubber-neck like a tourist; everyone knew that the power was inside, not outside on the pavements looking in. Each time the door opened Chung would look up, but he cursed himself for doing so, for appearing to be over-eager. He looked at his watch again. The American was five minutes late and Chung tut-tutted under his breath. Punctuality was not a gift or an ability inherited from one’s parents, it was something that had to be worked at. Chung always made it a point to be on time for appointments; to do otherwise, his father had always said, was to be discourteous to the person you were to meet. Chung picked up the paper and idly read the headlines, but there was nothing in its American-orientated news that interested him and he threw it back down on the table. When he looked up again it was into a pair of cold blue eyes that rapidly crinkled into a smile. The face that looked down on Chung was thin, almost skeletal, and with its prominent hooked nose it reminded him of a leathery-skinned bird. A hawk maybe. Yes, Chung decided, there was a lot of the hawk about Colonel Joel Tyler. Chung had the man’s photograph in the inside pocket of his coat, but there was no need to check it against the original, there could be no mistaking the short-cropped steel grey hair, the beak-like nose or the small white scar over the right eyebrow. He pushed back the chair and got to his feet. Chung was tall for a Chinese, a fraction under six feet, but he had to look up to meet Tyler’s gaze as they shook hands. He felt Tyler’s eyes move quickly over his body, taking in the suit, the watch, the shoes, putting together a snap mental assessment, and the grip tightened as if he was checking his strength. Chung held Tyler’s gaze and his grip, matching them like for like until the American grinned, relaxed his handshake and then withdrew his hand.

“Mr Chung,” he said quietly.

“Colonel Tyler, thank you for coming,” said Chung, and waved him to a chair. A waiter appeared at his side while Tyler wound his wiry frame into the chair opposite Chung. Tyler ordered a black coffee, in English.

“Your room is comfortable?” Chung asked.

“It’s fine. I always like the George V,” Tyler replied. “Though, on balance, I think I prefer the Hotel Crillon or the Lancaster.”

Chung smiled and sipped at his chocolate. The waiter returned with Tyler’s coffee. The American dropped in two lumps of sugar and slowly stirred it. A steel Rolex Submariner appeared from under the cuff of his shirt. Tyler was wearing a brown checked sports jacket, a dark brown wool shirt and black slacks, not too expensive, not too flashy, and Chung realised it was camouflage, as much of a way of keeping out of sight in the city as the green fatigues the soldier had worn in the jungles of South-East Asia. Tyler watched Chung as he stirred, through eyes which rarely blinked. Chung knew he had the American’s undivided attention. “Everything is on schedule?” Chung asked.

Tyler nodded. “I leave for the States tomorrow, and I should be in Thailand in early April to assemble the team.”

“You have the men picked out already?”

“Some. Not all. But there won’t be any problems. I’ll do the final selection myself in Vietnam. My immediate concern is the helicopter and the armaments.”

“I thought you already had the helicopter?”

“The helicopter, yes. But I’ve spoken to a technical expert who tells me that it’s going to need more work than I’d anticipated.”

Chung frowned. “How much work?”

Tyler lifted his coffee cup. “A new engine and gearbox. Minimum.” He drank two deep mouthfuls while Chung took in the news.

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Chung.

“Actually it’s not a problem. I’ve a contact in the Philippines who can put me in touch with a supplier. The Philippine military has more than eighty Bell 205A–1s and UH-1Hs and the corruption there has to be seen to be believed. I’ll have no problem buying the parts.”

Chung didn’t bother asking how much it would cost. He had paid half a million dollars into a Swiss bank account to cover all expenses. He took a thin, white envelope from his jacket and handed it to the American.

“Here is the name and address of a man in Bangkok who will arrange to have the helicopter shipped to Hong Kong. All you have to do is tell him where it is. He’ll do the rest. He’ll have it put in a container and shipped over. It’ll take two weeks at most. He’ll arrange payments to the Customs officials at both ends.” Tyler smiled at the way Chung said “payments”. Both men knew that they were talking about bribes. He put the envelope, unopened, into his jacket pocket. “Also in there are the details of a contact in Hong Kong, the man who will arrange for your weapons,” Chung continued. “His name is Michael Wong and he’s the leader of one of Hong Kong’s smaller triads. Get in touch with him once you’ve arrived.” He took out a leather-bound notebook and a slim gold pen and slid them over the table to Tyler. “It would save time if you gave me a list of your main requirements now. It is possible to buy anything in Hong Kong, but some things take longer than others.”

Chung drank the rest of his chocolate while Tyler wrote with firm, clear strokes. When Tyler finished he snapped the notebook shut and handed it back. “I think that just about covers it,” said Chung. “Does anything else come to mind? I will be uncontactable for the next five months.”

“I realise that,” said Tyler. “No, I think everything is under control.” He unwound himself out of the chair and waited for Chung to get to his feet. They shook hands firmly. “So, the next time we meet will be in Hong Kong,” said Tyler.

“And we’ll both be considerably richer,” said Chung. The two men laughed and then Chung watched as the American left. He sat down and automatically smoothed the creases from his trousers again. The waiter hovered at his shoulder and Chung ordered another hot chocolate, in French. While he waited for it to arrive he opened the notebook and studied the American’s list.

Barton Lewis drove his car on autopilot as he headed south on Interstate 95, towards Washington. He stayed in the inside lane and barely noticed the traffic which streamed by him. His hands tightened on the steering wheel as some of the doctor’s words played over and over in his head. They were words which he could barely pronounce, but they spelled out a death sentence. Words like fiberoptic gastroscopy, endoscopic biopsies, gastric carcinoma. Words that meant cancer. Two tumours, the doctor had said, one in the stomach, one in the pancreas. It wasn’t what Lewis had expected when he’d gone to the clinic to complain about stomach pains and an uncharacteristic loss of appetite. At worst he’d expected to be told it was an ulcer. Cancer meant rapid weight loss, half-dead skeletons in hospital beds plugged into drip feeds, children with bald heads and sunken eyes. Cancer didn’t apply to an overweight black man who used to tuck away three Big Macs at one sitting and still went back for apple pie. Hell, he’d been putting weight on, not losing it.

A blue Pontiac came rushing at him from a slip road and Lewis slowed to let it in front. He was in no rush. The pancreatic tumour was inoperable, the doctor had said. No chemotherapy. No radiation therapy. Just increasing pain and eventual death.

Lewis wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. God, he wanted his wife so much. He still thought of her as his wife, even though the divorce had been finalised over a year ago and she was now living in Boston with a computer programmer in his four-bedroom town house. He wanted her with him, wanted to put his head on her shoulder and have her caress the back of his neck and have her tell him that everything was going to be okay.

That was one of the reasons the marriage had gone sour, she’d told him. She said that he depended on her too much, that at times it was as if she were mother to two children. She said she couldn’t cope with the restless nights, his bad dreams, the temper tantrums, the flashbacks. She’d said she’d met somebody else and that was the end of it. The court gave her half the apartment, half the car, and all of Victor. Now he was alone. Alone and dying. A horn sounded behind him and he looked in his rearview mirror. A truck was sitting on his tail, and he saw that his speed had dropped to forty mph. He accelerated away from it.

Lewis had been having irregular stomach pains for more than a year but had been putting it down to too much junk food after his wife had left him. He hadn’t bothered cooking for himself – hell, he hadn’t known how to, he’d just snacked at McDonald’s or Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken – and when his stomach had felt bad he’d taken a slug of Pepto-Bismol. He should have gone to the clinic earlier, even though the doctor had said it would have made little difference.

Lewis had asked how long he had left and the doctor hadn’t pulled his punches. Probably six months. Possibly a year. Eighteen months absolute maximum. The doctor had prescribed painkillers for the intermittent pain but warned that they wouldn’t be effective for long. Eventually he’d have to be hospitalised. The doctor had suggested he get his affairs in order, spend time with his family and friends, make his peace. Treat the death sentence as an opportunity to put his life in order.

He reached the Capitol and managed to find a parking space on Constitution Avenue between a shiny black Cadillac and a white Dodge. Lewis had visited the Vietnam War Memorial once before, in June of 1991, when he’d been in Washington for the Desert Storm celebrations. He’d visited it but hadn’t managed to get close to the wall because it was obliterated by tourists in T-shirts and shorts clicking away with cameras and chattering inanely.

Spend time with your family and friends, the doctor had said. The only family he had now was Victor, and that was only on one weekend in four. And the best friends he had were dead. That’s why he’d driven from Baltimore to Washington. To spend time with them. Just like the doctor ordered. As he locked the door to his Saab two men and a girl jogged by, talking and laughing as they ran. They were followed by a middle-aged man, balding and with unsteady, flabby legs, whose training shoes slapped on the ground with an irregular rhythm. His running vest was wet with sweat and his shorts were too tight around the tops of his legs and his breath was coming hard and fast. He was wearing a Sony Walkman with bright yellow headphones and his eyes had the glazed look of a tortured animal. Lewis stopped to watch the man wobble past. They were probably about the same age, he thought. What the hell was he keeping fit for? Why was he bothering? It didn’t matter how many press-ups you did or how much you ran. When you died, you died. The cancer grows and kills you, the heart goes into spasm, the blood vessels burst, the body dies. Lewis wanted to call after the man, to tell him that he was wasting his time, that he should take it easy and enjoy what little life he had left.