Slash and Burn

asks you to lead a team—”
    “Technically, General Suvan’s the team leader.”
    “Right. But he drools a lot and forgets where he is. He’s obviously only on the team as a charitable political appointee. His name was next in line for a junket.”
    “A fair appraisal.”
    “And, with no pressure whatsoever from you, no coercion or bribery, the minister accepts the list of names you put together for a task force to head off into the jungle with the Americans. And your list just happens to include your wife, your nurse and her husband, your morgue assistant and your best friend.”
    “And Commander Lit from Vieng Xai.”
    “Who you befriended on a case.”
    “He’s a good man.”
    “And Minister Bounchu said, “Good one, Siri. Nice choices.”
    “Something not unlike that, yes.”
    “Siri?”
    “Yes?”
    “Did you blackmail the Minister of Justice?”
    “How could you even suggest such a thing?”
    “Threaten to expose something from his past? Things only a doctor would know?”
    “I told you about that?”
    “Siri?”
    “Absolutely not.”
    “You know I’ll find out eventually.”
    “Yes, but I enjoy your interrogation methods. Come on, Daeng. We’ll have a grand old time.”
    “Which brings me to the purpose of this mission; what you’ve been calling our group vacation to the northeast. We are to team up with a bunch of American professionals and head off into the jungle to look for the remains of a downed aircraft.”
    “And its pilot.”
    “And you believe this trip won’t be stressful? You do remember you’re convalescing?”
    “A stroll in the cool forests. A little scoop here and there with a trowel. Lunch and a little rice whiskey with friendly local hill tribesmen. What better than a week in the cool fresh mountain air of Xiang Khouang? In Europe they pay huge sums of money for alpine spa retreats and here we are getting paid to attend one. Explain to me how that could be a bad thing, Madame Daeng. Nothing to worry about at all.”
    “I’d like to believe so. Because it might have escaped your memory but not two months ago you were knocking on death’s door … from the inside. And trouble finds you, Siri Paiboun.”
    “Trust me. Nothing can go wrong this time.”

5
    CUEBALL DAVE
    Cueball Dave still insisted on the ponytail. He got comments about it all the time. They called him pathetic. Guys over fifty don’t put their hair in a ponytail, they said. It’s an act of desperation, they said, especially when the top of your head’s as white and shiny as a cue ball, hence the nickname. But Cueball Dave didn’t care what they thought. He didn’t want to look like all those other old fogies. It gave him a style. Told them all he wasn’t a bank manager. Told them he had a wild background. And the girls in Pattaya loved tugging on that little tail of his.
    He had a comfortable life. He’d lived in Thailand for ten years and couldn’t speak a word of Thai. Waste of time. Stupid tones he couldn’t get his tongue round, and besides, all the night people spoke some kind of English. He had a condominium room he’d bought and paid for, had shares in a restaurant he ate at, a regular bar he drank at, and a dozen or so regular serious night-time relationships. He had a wife and kids somewhere back in Boston, and a pilot’s licence, canceled, in some bureaucrat’s drawer in DC. Life had become very simple for Cueball Dave. There were those who could only dream of such a life. But Dave was always looking for more. Always had his eye open for something better. And then, in a moment of brilliance, he made it happen. Things were about to change.
    He was out on the town celebrating his good fortune. He was in a Johnny Walker atmosphere vacuum where everything outside the bubble wasn’t really happening. He might not have been in that bar at all. In front of his nose were the ankles and too-large stiletto heels of a girl in a bikini, dancing—kind of. Some sixties rock was bellowing out of the speakers and there was a sweaty stale strawberry-tinted smell in the air. A dozen cheap air-fresheners hung behind the bar like decorations. A well-groomed homo was making eyes at him from across the stage. There was a gibbon on a chain begging drinks. Someone had rung the free-shots-for-everyone bell by accident earlier and the bar stewards had beaten him up when he refused to pay. Dave was on his third beer mat. The first two were his fretwork initials now. The drunk he’d been talking