Slash and Burn

across the table top to disguise the joins. At this table sat the American delegation to one side, and the Lao to the other. There were two perfectly good table ends but it appeared nobody was allowed to sit there. Instead, they faced off like American football teams. There were seven Americans, not including the interpreter, and eight Lao.
    Siri wasn’t terribly surprised to learn that the Lao simultaneous interpreter, Judge Haeng’s cousin Vinai, was in bed with laryngitis. To the vice-minister’s displeasure, the meeting was conducted through the competent but unverifiable translation of Peach, the missionary’s daughter. But so confident was she in her interpretation that both sides soon settled into a seamless row of pleasantries and introductions. Like all very good translators she quickly became invisible; invisible that is to all except for Judge Haeng who ogled and grinned at her from across the table.
    Like all the leaders, Minister of Justice Bounchu was a military man. For some, the transition from camouflage to charcoal gray had been an uneasy one. He’d been fighting for most of his life and living in the caves of Sam Neua throughout the revolution. It was obvious he’d be more comfortable with mortar fire exploding around him than he was in diplomatic circles. Despite his bulk and his ferocious countenance, there was something timid about him, like a polar bear shaved and put in an ill-fitting suit. This ministry was his sweet fish reward at the end of a heroic life, more a position than a role. He smiled and nodded and left all the details to his minions. He sat opposite the Sumo-in-sundress head of the American delegation, Representative Elizabeth Scribner, Democrat, Rhode Island. Selected for this mission presumably because of her bulk, Mrs. Scribner was not a smiling, all-friendly politician. In fact, one would have to assume she was elected to congress as a result of intimidation.
    Siri, still with no idea why he’d been called for, listened to the minister’s address with its pompous language, then to the reading of the early communications between the Chief of Mission of the United States consulate in Vientiane and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Pathet Lao Government. Saigon had fallen to the Vietminh in April of 1975, and the Pathet Lao claimed the prize of Vientiane eight months later during a well-orchestrated handover. Being good sports, they invited the US consulate to remain in operation, insisting only on the removal of CIA personnel. That left a grand total of six, all confined to Vientiane with the odd trip across the Mekhong for shopping in Nong Kai or other pleasures in Bangkok. The US State Department had attempted to sneak in one or two spooks as cleaning staff or bookkeepers but the PL had a comprehensive list of the names and backgrounds of CIA operatives provided by the very resourceful Soviets. Apart from a little housekeeping, the remaining consulate staff were an ornamental lot. They had nothing much else to do but send memos to the PL. No consulate personnel had been allowed to travel around Laos. The US aid agency—USAID—compound had been closed and its employees hustled onto flights out of the country. So only a few dozen US citizens officially remained. Some were teaching, or married to Lao citizens, or working for the Quakers or Mennonites.
    According to the communications, it appeared that a year earlier the consulate had made a request that they be allowed to investigate claims of US citizens held in captivity in Lao prisoner-of-war camps. The Lao had pointed out that following a unilateral program referred to as Homecoming, all known military and political prisoners in Laos and Vietnam had been handed back to their delegations. They added that the war was over and there was absolutely no point in hanging on to them anyway. But the Missing In Action—MIA—lobby in the US was strong and evidence was constantly mat erializing to indicate that there were indeed American ex-servicemen on Lao soil. In a number of memos, the PL had reminded the consulate that, according to US policy following the Treaty of Geneva in 1962, there were no American military on Lao soil to begin with. As there were officially no ground troops or US air force personnel active in Laos, with tongues in cheeks the PL had asked how these MIAs had been clumsy enough to find their ways into prisoner-of-war camps in the middle of a neutral country. The notes back and forth appeared to