The Corsican (16 page)

The time will come, he told himself. Years from now. But it will come. And with it everything I want.
Everything
.

The door to the study swung open and two of the Mua pushed a trembling guard into the room. Francesco returned the knife to his pocket and sneered at the cowering little man, who stood now with a rope tied around his neck, the end of it held firmly by one of the Mua.

They were like bugs on the ground, all of these people. Slowly he lit a cigarette, keeping his eyes on the guard. He was dressed in the uniform of the prince's household, a bright, brocaded jacket that went to mid-thigh, plain baggy black trousers and brocaded slippers. He looked like some ethnic doll sold in the shops of Vientiane. The only difference was that he was trembling with fear.

Francesco exhaled a shaft of smoke toward the small, middle-aged man. “You will take a message from us to Lo Faydang. Do you know where his village is?” he asked in formal but broken Lao.

The guard nodded, afraid even to speak. The fear made Francesco smile.

“If you do not do as I say, you will be killed,” he added, watching the trembling intensify. He stood, allowing his greater size to tower over the guard. “I'll know if you fail to do this,” he added, waiting to let the threat settle in the mind of this bug. “I want you to tell him what happened here. And I want you to tell him that he is next, unless he follows your brave prince and runs like a frightened dog. Also tell him be can never return. Do you understand?”

The small guard nodded his head, still afraid to speak.

Francesco turned to one of the Mua, the one holding the rope. “Take him outside and after he sees us set the house on fire, put him on the road that leads to the hill country,” he said. He beckoned the other Mua to him, as the first jerked the rope harshly and pulled the guard from the room.

He smiled at the remaining Mua, bowing his head slightly as a gesture of respect for their part in the victory. “You will follow this guard,” he said. “Be sure he does as he was told. If he tries to run, you take him to the edge of Faydang's village. Later, after he delivers the message, find him alone and kill him. Then join your people at Lyfoung's village.”

The Mua bowed and left the room. Francesco returned to his chair. The first part of the instructions to the Mua warrior had been Sartene's. The second had been his own. He wanted to be sure that in years to come this guard would not be able to identify him as the one who had led the raid on the prince's home. He smiled to himself. You're a clever man, Buonaparte. But so am I, he told himself.

He looked about the study one last time. It was too bad they would burn the house to the ground. It was a house worthy of an important man, like Carbone's house in Saigon, only bigger still. He walked to the window and looked out. The grounds were beautiful too, sculptured and cared for in a way that emphasized the importance of the man who owned them. He had not understood the Japanese garden that Sartene had included in his new house, but now he thought he did. Things should emphasize the power and the importance of a man. It was necessary.

He turned, his back to the window, and looked about the room again. A long road from the hard seacoast village where he was born. Longer still from the docks and narrow back streets of the Corsican ghetto of Marseille and the filthy French prisons. He drew a deep breath. In a way he missed those streets and the teeming docks. He thought of the massive Cathédrale de la Major that looked out into the Joliette Ship Basin, only four hundred yards from that place on the Rue de la République where, at eighteen, he had killed his first man. The whores on the Rue Colbert, and the ones who worked the Boul' Charles Livon on the Quai de Rive Neuve, across the old port where the City Hall watched them without concern. His mother had been one of those whores, forced into that life by the French. Frenchmen like that first man he had killed, one of his mother's customers. He would go back one day, he told himself. But not for many years. Not until he had what he wanted. Not until he had all of it.

Chapter 9

The unmarked, hulking, gray C-47 transport slowly circled the Plain of Jars as it prepared to land at the primitive airstrip at Phong Savan. Below, the grassy plain jutted out of the surrounding mountain jungle like a natural fortress, the massive clay jars that held the remains of the dead clearly visible, giving the plain more the look of some marketplace for unseen giants than of the cemetery that it was.

The door of the transport swung open as the plane lumbered to a halt at the end of the dirt runway and Matt Bently got his first look at Touby Lyfoung, standing at the head of a Meo reception committee. The Meo standing behind Touby were dressed in the typical dark pajama-type clothing worn throughout Southeast Asia. Some wore traditional bamboo hats, some skullcaps, a few wide-brimmed western hats. Like their heads, their feet were covered with everything from homemade sandals to French military boots, and each carried a ragtag assortment of weapons; the only thing each man had in common was the traditional long Meo knife that hung in a sheath from his belt.

In contrast, Touby was resplendent. He was dressed in the uniform of a French army officer, minus any indication of rank, complete with necktie and brass buttons; his trousers were stuffed carelessly into a pair of non-uniform Wellington boots, and atop his head he wore a pith helmet that made his short, round body seem more squat than it was.

Bently, who had worn his own uniform for the occasion, glanced back at Jean, who had on the purloined uniform of a French army colonel.

“This thing is turning into a fucking masquerade,” Bently said.

Jean grunted an attempt at laughter. “Let's hope there are no surprises when the masks come off.”

He's tight, Bently thought. Has been throughout the trip. He wants it to go well, needs it to, so he can show his old man he has what it takes. He wondered if Sartene realized the kind of pressure he had placed his son under. The kind that makes people screw up. He would have to try to help him, he decided. During the trip he had found he liked this big, hulking Corsican.

They deplaned, followed by thirty-nine Mua warriors, all armed with automatic weapons, all dressed identically, a sharp contrast to the bobtailed assortment of the “superior” Ly clan. Standing before Touby, Bently and Sartene offered a sharp military salute in unison. Touby fought back the glee that quickly spread across his oversized mouth, pressing his lips shut, but unable to keep it from his eyes. He returned the salute, then stepped forward and greeted them in perfect French, his eyes passing over the Mua with a trace of nervousness.

He looks like an oriental chipmunk, Bently thought, forcing himself to remember the man was important to his country's interests. He controlled one of Indochina's most productive opium-growing areas, twenty tons a year, with a potential of ten to twenty more if property managed.

While greetings were exchanged, another Mua warrior stepped from behind the gathered Meo and walked toward his fellow tribesmen. Jean's eyes caught the movement, and he looked hard at the dark-clad figure. The Mua nodded almost imperceptibly, indicating he had completed his task. The prince's servant had delivered the message to Faydang. What Jean did not know, and would not, was that the servant's throat had been cut within hours after the message had been received.

“We are greatly honored to have you here,” Touby said, his eyes moving back and forth between Bently and Sartene. “Our life here is humble, but I think you will find it interesting.”

“I'm sure we shall,” Bently said. “I'm already very impressed with your command of French.”

Touby smiled enthusiastically. “I was very fortunate,” he said. “My father understood how much the French valued a good colonial education. I was graduated from the Vinh
lycée
in 1939, the first Meo ever to attend high school.”

“Your father was a wise man,” Bently offered.

“Indeed,” Touby said, nodding his head.

“It will make matters easier for us,” Bently added. He gestured toward Jean. “Colonel Sartene has much to discuss with you. Matters of great importance to his government, to mine and, of course, to your people as well.”

The transition had been made, as planned. It was clear now that Jean was in charge of the negotiations and that Bently was there in support of his position.

Touby picked up on it immediately, turning his attention to the younger Sartene. “If you will come with me to my village we can talk in comfort,” Touby said. “I have a vehicle for us. My men will follow on foot. Unfortunately the number of vehicles we have is limited to one.”

“Is the route secure?” Jean asked. His eyes were hard, his manner very military.

Touby waved his hand in a broad, expansive gesture. “It is not far and I have men all along the route. We have no fear of Faydang's people here.” He spoke the last sentence louder than necessary, for the benefit of his own men and the Mua.

Sartene nodded, then turned and motioned to the Mua behind him. Two stepped forward. “These men will come with me,” he said. His voice had a command to it, and the gesture was intended both to let Lyfoung know these were his men, who followed his orders, and also to instill pride in the Mua as well. His father had cautioned him to make sure his men knew they were valued more than the Ly clansmen.

The gesture was not wasted on Touby, and Bently noted a slight discomfort enter and then leave his eyes. Touby forced a smile and gestured toward a battered Japanese staff car fifty yards from the runway. Where the hell did they get parts to keep it running? Bently wondered, as he fell in three paces behind Sartene and Lyfoung. The proper distance to trail royalty, he told himself. The new kings of opium. No, only princes. The king was back in Vientiane, probably playing with his grandson.

The route from Phong Savan to the Ly village of Lat Houang was an indirect route of nearly ten miles, traversing two of the worst rock-strewn roads Bently had ever seen. Parts for the Jap car obviously weren't available, he told himself. Certainly not where the suspension system was concerned. He smiled to himself, suddenly wishing Malcolm Baker were with them.

The terrain was lush and beautiful in a primitive yet threatening way. Virtually impassable without a machete, Bently mused. And the opposite of any norm. Traveling
down
from a plain into mountains. Incredible. But everything about Laos was different; the people were as variegated as the terrain was chaotic. No one even knew where the term “Laos” came from, he recalled. Local legend held that it evolved from “Lwa” or “La-Wa,” the name of the tribes who supposedly held the land prior to the fourteenth century when Thai warlords staged a series of successful invasions. But there was another legend also, one that claimed the entire Lao people came out of two large gourds, or
lawus
. He thought of Touby seated behind him now in the car, and of the way he had waddled slightly when he walked, the way most fat men did. They would have to be damned sizable gourds if his ancestors were anything like him, he told himself.

The road, twisting and turning, continued to drop to the mountaintop. Geographically, Laos had five distinct types of regions, he recalled. The rice-growing lowlands through which all rivers flowed, the Mekong; the two plateaus, the Plain of Jars here, and in the south the Bolovens Plateau; the massive Annam Cordillera mountain range to the east, its continuous line of eight-thousand-foot peaks separating Laos from Viet Nam for over five hundred miles, yet passable only at three points in the south; and finally, the wavelike ridges in the far north, which seemed to flow down from China's Yunnan Province. Bently shook his head. And each of its five tribal groups had chosen a different terrain in which to live. Virtually one atop the other. You could literally travel upward through tiers of different peoples. The Lao majority in the lowlands, then up to the next belt in elevation to the villages of the Kha Mou, which then gave way to the White or Black Tais. And higher still, the Lolo Kha Kho, until finally, at the mountaintops, the settlements of the Meo, perched precariously on the edges of cliffs and limestone walls. The place where the poppies grow, Bently reminded himself. Along with just enough corn to sustain the inhabitants.

When the car rumbled and creaked into Lat Houang a few minutes later, Bently found the village identical to others he had read about. It was little more than a shantytown of hootches, gathered together on a sheer cliff that looked dizzyingly down into the steaming forest below. Touby's hootch, larger and covered with a layer of plaster, sat nearest the edge.

Inside, the hootch was primitive but comfortable; scattered about the center of the lone room were heavy pillows serving as chairs. There was a low table, laden with delicacies, each succeeding one spicier than the last, clearly reminiscent of the tribe's former life in Yunnan and Szechwan. Bently quickly gave up on the food and gulped tea to ease the burning in his mouth. Settling back, he studied the photographs that covered all four walls. Touby with generals. Touby with diplomats. Touby seated at a long table, as the only Meo on the Opium Purchasing Board. And, of course, Touby's high school diploma. Sartene had been right, the man was egomaniacal. And soon he would carry the rank of colonel in the colonial army. He'll piss in his pants, Bently thought, again marveling at the insight of the older Sartene.

They chatted socially for the first half hour, Jean following the oriental custom of never rudely rushing straight into business matters. The conversation covered Jean's family, Touby's and Bently's bachelorhood, policies of the French government in Vientiane, and the subtle but gradually deepening American involvement in the region.

“The communists are much worse than the Japanese,” Touby intoned. “The Japanese at least were foreign slavemasters. The Pathet Lao would enslave their own people. We are grateful to have strong nations here to help us drive them out.”