Slash and Burn

of course, like Madame Daeng, he had been told all about it. Siri was waiting for an opportunity to introduce them into the group without betraying the trust of the Americans. So it was decided that this evening Civilai, with Peach as his interpreter, would do what he did best. Hard as it may have been to believe, especially for those who only knew him outside the Politburo, the old man was a diplomat of the first order. He could schmooze with the best of them; dally with dictators and tango with tyrants. He could make despots in the most constricting ideological girdles take a breath. He had been granted an audience with Senator Vogal. As the senator had hardly left his room since what he was liberally calling “the assassination attempt,” it was no surprise that Ethel Chin had ordered room service. Civilai would be joining them for an after-meal tête-à-tête.
    For the others the meal experience was accomplished barely half an hour after it began. Siri and Bpoo, Dtui and Phosy accompanied Dr. Yamaguchi to the room of Secretary Gordon. Ugly took up a guard position outside the door. Inside they upended the bed to lean against the wall and used all the available floor space to spread out their paperwork. Mr. Geung was given the very special role of lookout. He stood between the curtain and the window pane and if anyone came near he would cough loudly. Originally they had told him to whistle but that and nuclear physics were two skills he hadn’t yet mastered. Auntie Bpoo went into the bathroom and didn’t come out for a very long time.
    “All right, what do we have?” Siri asked. His voice had developed an embedded growl like that of a street dog attempting to speak human.
    The main points had already been listed during the long day of research. All Dtui needed to do was read from her notes then check with the Americans to see if they had reactions to the Lao comments. Meanwhile, Yamaguchi and Gordon continued to work their ways through the unread files.
    “First,” Dtui said, “were the documents that had been sent to the US embassy in Bangkok. They explained the rationale for the initial MIA joint action. Not surprisingly, the letter from the senate committee said that the approval of the rice budget would be totally dependent on the Lao agreeing to this mission. No MIA, no rice. But, as you’ve since discovered, at that stage they hadn’t finalized the name of a flier to go after. They acknowledged that most of the missing airmen had been lost in Vietnam but saw Laos as a back door for getting permission for similar actions with the Socialist Party of Vietnam. When Boyd’s name came up there was obviously talk of a conflict of interest given the relationship with the senator, but I get the feeling they didn’t have that many downed pilots to choose from. Certainly none with empirical evidence like a photo. They needed success so they selected Boyd. We’ve got his CV. He was a smart lad. Clean service record with the marines. Selected for ‘special missions’ by Air America.”
    “Any idea what that means?” Siri asked.
    “The classified stuff didn’t make it into the reports. But there was some evidence. Gordon and Yamaguchi noticed discrepancies in Boyd’s flight records. The pilots were paid by the mission. They got ten dollars an hour, which is about what I get a month, so most pilots kept very detailed logs. But not Boyd. His first year was normal, every hour accounted for. But by the second year these empty blocks started to appear. Whole weeks where he didn’t claim any flying time at all.”
    “Could he have been on vacation?” Phosy asked.
    “Nope. His vacation time was clearly marked on his time sheets. Plus there was no record of him traveling out of the region. People on vacation don’t hang around in a war zone. This was all unexplained dead time. So we assumed ‘special missions’ meant he was doing something secret for the CIA. That’s why Gordon would like to ask your permission to bring in Sergeant Johnson. He thinks we need some inside military information and he believes the sergeant can be trusted.”
    Siri had his window. He agreed to Johnson in exchange for Civilai, and, with a little push, Madame Daeng was included in the package.
    “All we have left is the background report from Air America,” Dtui continued. “That mostly talks about the loss of the helicopter. The mystery of how it could just vanish completely. There were comments about Boyd’s state of