Slash and Burn

announce that the head of the mission was so drunk he couldn’t unlace his own boots. That he’d thrown up all over the floor.”
    “You cleaned him up?”
    “And took his boots off.”
    “How did you get in the room?” Siri asked.
    “The door wasn’t locked. I knocked and tried the handle.”
    “Are you sure he was drunk and not ill?”
    “Come on, Siri. I know what drunk looks like. He smelled like a whiskey distillery. He looked a lot like you the night Madame Daeng accepted your proposal of marriage.”
    “That bad?”
    “He was slurring so much his tongue kept flopping out of his mouth.”
    “But it was only, what, seven o’clock when you went to his room,” Daeng reminded him. “Seven thirty at the latest. How does a man with Potter’s drinking track record manage to get that sloshed in such a hurry?”
    “I’ve never tried it myself,” Civilai told her, “but I imagine knocking back a bottle of eighty-proof Scotch whiskey in an hour might just do it. The empty bottle was in his hand.”
    Siri nodded. “What exactly did you do when you found him?”
    Civilai broke the end off a baguette and dipped it in a very cold and runny egg yolk before filling his mouth with it. Siri and Daeng waited patiently until Civilai had washed the mouthful down with coffee.
    “He was on the bed on his front, face to his left,” Civilai began. “He had the empty bottle in one hand and was reaching for his boot laces with the other. I went over to help him take the boots off and I noticed he had whiskey and sick all down his shirt. Once I’d pulled off his boots I took off his shirt. No mean feat, I can tell you. He’d very obligingly thrown up on the bedside rug rather than the bed cover so I took the rug and the shirt and threw them in the shower, added a little disinfectant from under the sink, and let the water run on them. I may be a kind Samaritan to drunks but I stop short at scrubbing their clothes.”
    “And you left him there on the bed?” Siri asked.
    “It was cold in the room. Both the windows were wide open. So I pulled the quilt over him. He was already snoring by then. I turned out the light, flicked the lock catch on the inside and shut the door. As I say, I can’t imagine him coming out of a session like that and feeling amorous.”
    “Me neither,” Siri agreed. “Unless he took some stimulant when he came round. Something got him excited. He was sexually aroused when we found him.”
    “Perhaps Americans recover faster than us,” Civilai suggested. “Out of it one minute. Into it the next.”
    “It’s all wrong somehow, my brother. None of it makes sense.”
    The senator had been consulting with Dr. Yamaguchi and Rhyme the journalist, and Secretary Gordon. Their thoughts were being passed on by Peach to General Suvan. Suddenly the group separated and Vogal banged a spoon on the table top to get everyone’s attention. Silence took a while.
    “My colleagues, brothers and sisters,” he began. Peach stood and took great delight in providing a simultaneous translation. It obviously threw the senator out of sync to have someone speaking at the same time as him but, to his credit, he persevered.
    “I would like, personally, to express my regrets over the events of last night,” he said. “This is an embarrassment for my fellow countrymen which I sincerely hope you will not take as an insult. Major Harold Potter was a great soldier and patriot. Like many of us who suffer personal traumas in the field of battle, he carried around his own personal devils. The major’s devils defeated him. As soon as we can, we will return the body to his loved ones. But I’m certain that Major Potter would have wanted this mission to succeed. He was a fighter who never gave up in the face of adversity. I know his spirit is looking down at us now and urging us to honor his memory by returning, not empty-handed, but with news of the downed pilot. On behalf of the United States senate I urge you to continue the search. Forge ahead, my Lao friends.”
    He acknowledged some unheard applause, performed another silly-looking nop , sat down and started eating. The Lao picked at their food.
    “Another one who’s accountable to Wall Street,” said Civilai. “The sponsors of today’s event are on his back to come up with results. A little thing like the death of a great soldier and patriot won’t stop him. I bet he’s got a speech worked out for each of us, just in case.”
    “B … but we still get