Slash and Burn

gardens. Even the ramshackle market lacked the gay colours of blood and fruit and vegetables that should have been the art and craft of a village center. A modest collection of rare animals hung by their necks like criminals.
    Siri and Geung were on the main street just approaching the little post office when it exploded. To be more accurate, there was a loud bang and the communication tower toppled onto the building, bringing down half the roof. Second Secretary Gordon had just walked into the car park and had been about to climb back onto the pony when it shied away and galloped off into the street. Gordon looked around in astonishment and immediately ran back through the door. Siri and Geung rushed in past the front gate, climbed the steps and hurried in after him. The side of the roof that had collapsed was opposite the counter where just the one postal worker stood looking dazed but unhurt.
    “Anybody else in here?” Siri asked.
    “Just me,” said the official.
    Gordon stood staring at the telephone booth from which he’d just emerged. Another thirty seconds and he would now be as crumpled as the tall stool upon which he’d sat to make his calls. He looked up at Siri.
    “Shit,” he said.
    Some words just didn’t need translating.
    Siri and Geung were walking back to the Friendship after helping with the cleanup at the post office. It was a miracle that nobody had been killed. There was usually a long queue for the single telephone line but the MIA team had been monopolizing the place so the locals kept away. Second Secretary Gordon had been counting his blessings as he rode the pony back.
    “I’m sorry you didn’t get a chance to talk to your friend,” said Siri to Mr. Geung.
    “Lucky I don’t wwwwalk so fast,” Geung smiled.
    “Your legs saved our lives, Mr. Geung.”
    Geung found that incredibly funny and laughed all the way to the intersection. Their shoes were gray-red from the dust and Siri wheezed as he spoke. The smoky horizon seemed to be closing in on them from all sides. Siri weighed up this latest attack in relation to everything else that had happened. He’d been using Geung as his sounding board.
    “Do you suppose it’s all tied together?” Siri asked.
    “I—”
    “I mean the explosion yesterday and the one today?”
    “I—”
    “And Potter’s murder. Do you suppose it’s a deliberate attack on the Americans? If it isn’t coordinated it’s one hell of a coincidence.”
    “I saw—”
    “And what would the point of it be? To cause friction between us? To protest against the MIA mission? Did you want to say something?”
    “I saw it.”
    “Saw what, friend?”
    “S … s … somebody climb in the window.”
    He still had the giggles.
    “The major’s window?”
    “Yes.”
    “When?”
    Siri stopped and turned to Geung.
    “Llllast night,” Geung chuckled.
    “Who? Who did you see?”
    “Stop it. You’re making me laugh.”
    “Geung. Tell me who you saw.”
    “You.”

15
    A CRASH COURSE IN CRASHES
    The trek to the new helicopter crash site had been uneventful for the MIA teams. Nothing exploded. No adders dropped. No time was wasted. They’d passed briefly through the Ban Hoong village then headed directly for the dead man’s field. Of the villagers, only headman Ar’s son Bok bothered to go with them. He followed from a safe distance with four or five jars and bottles in his arms. Two tethered beetles flew from his cap like the antenna of a nervous ant.
    The teams reached the edge of a clearing that stretched before them like a lake of dark rust. It was true that very little had grown there. Plants had tried but they now poked brown and lifeless from the ground. Trees once tall and proud were now cigar butts. If the spirits of the land had really chosen this as their garden, they were truly awful gardeners. The teams crunched to the far edge of the clearing where they found the pond. It wasn’t the type of natural spring you’d dip into on a hot day. It looked polluted. There was something eerie about the whole place.
    “This isn’t just a crash site,” Peach told them. She’d been talking to Sergeant Johnson. “He’s seen numerous crash sites. A lot of forest gets burned but the jungle’s a hungry place. Three months later and it’s reclaimed the burned land and hidden the evidence of the crash. By then you’d only find wreckage by accident. It’s been ten years since Boyd went down and still nothing’s been able to grow. He thinks there was