Shadows of War by Larry Bond

Author:Larry Bond
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-04-03T16:00:00+00:00

6

Bangkok

Peter Lucas had met Jimmy Choi only once, and then for only a few minutes in an airport lounge, but the meeting had burned an indelible image of the South Korean mercenary into his brain. He saw him now as Jimmy spoke over the phone, his voice a sharp rasp, his English clipped and slangy. In Lucas’s mind’s eye, Jimmy had a gold buzz cut, a day-old beard, a gold chain dangling over the dragon’s claw tattoo at the apex of his breastbone. He was dressed in a precisely tailored black suit, with an open white shirt, tails out. He was slouching and grinning.

Jimmy was chewing something—probably a cigar, given his affection for Habanos. He was drinking something too—Lucas had finally tracked him down in a bar in Mandalay, Myanmar.

“Pete—what can I do to the CIA today?” asked Jimmy.

“I need help in Vietnam.”

“Bad place to be right now,” said Jimmy.

“What are you drinking, Jimmy?”

“Shirley Temple. Yes?” The mercenary laughed.

“I have somebody I need to get out. They’re far north, near the border.”

“Ho-ho—very expensive proposition.”

“Can you do it?”

“Where we go?”

“Up near the Chinese border. Somewhere near Lao Cai. I don’t know exactly where yet. I’ll have the information in the next twenty-four hours.”

Jimmy didn’t answer for a second. Lucas heard the ice in his glass clinking.

“Lao Cai very interesting place,” said Jimmy, exhaling as he smoked his cigar. “Too much interest for me.”

“The person I need to get is not in Lao Cai. He’s in the area near there.”

“Even more interesting. Ho-ho, Uncle Pete, you have one very expensive problem on your hand.”

Lucas decided to try a different tack. You couldn’t threaten a man like Jimmy Choi directly; he would surely stand up to anyone who seemed to bully him. But you could hint that his future would become, as Jimmy liked to put it, “interesting” if he didn’t do what you wanted.

“What are you doing, Jimmy? Working for that drug dealer again?”

“Ho-ho, I am on vacation.”

“Yeah, right. Mandalay is quite the vacation spot. Who were you hired to assassinate?”

“Ha-ha, Uncle Pete, you are so funny. You should come here and keep me company. The tables are hot.”

“Since when do you gamble?”

“I gamble every day. Not with money.” Jimmy laughed at his joke and took another draw on his cigar, a long one. Lucas saw him smiling.

“I can get a plane to meet you in Laos,” offered Lucas.

“Ho-ho, no thank you. I do my own transportation. I own two planes now.”

“Business is that good, huh?”

“Oh, you pay for it. Always pay.”

He might have added, through the nose. When they got to the point, it turned out Jimmy wanted five million dollars.

Park had authorized five hundred thousand.

“I might be able to swing one million,” said Lucas. “But I don’t know.”

“One million—ha! I cannot find Vietnam on a map for one million dollar. Let alone Lao Cai.”

“What if we paid it to one of your Chinese bank accounts?” said Lucas. “Denoted in Chinese currency?”

“China money not very good. Much inflation. Maybe we try

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