Slash and Burn

dead.”
    “Do you think they found out he was orchestrating the blackmail?” Phosy asked.
    “No, if they did they wouldn’t have gone through with the MIA mission. I think they were getting jumpy. It was time to clean up. They eliminated the last two mechanics who knew what had happened. That left Captain Boyd and Potter. Through the blackmail note, the young captain had taken on a life all his own. Leon had re animated him and we at the embassy decided to ride his luck. The major wanted to catch Vogal in the act of sabotaging the mission. But we underestimated him. By coming up here and shutting down all communications, Vogal was able to see off the major and make an alibi for himself. If things didn’t work out he could wipe out the lot of us and blame some renegade bandit gang. He had it all covered.”
    “Actually, it’s brilliant,” said Civilai. “Splendid efficiency without a hint of conscience. No wonder they’re the leaders of the free world.”
    “Vogal,” said Dr. Yamaguchi.
    “That’s right,” said Gordon.
    “No, I mean, Vogal’s gone.”
    They looked to the fence to see that the evening mist had rolled in fast from the plane. The foggy figures of three of the guards sat featureless at the perimeter, but beside them two fence posts lay on the ground. Vogal and Emiliano were gone. The two musketeers started to give chase. One of them reached the fence line before Commander Lit called them back.
    “Wait!” he shouted. “I think this recapture might take care of itself.”
    Everyone stood silent, waiting for the inevitable explosions. Field mice weighing less than a hiccup had been known to detonate the temperamental ordnance on the plain. Even without clothes weighing them down, the runners would have to call on some ill-deserved karma to make it across. Everyone waited. Listened. Expectant … Nothing.
    “Do you think we should call out, ‘Be careful,’ or something?” Daeng asked.
    “I think they knew the dangers when they took off,” said Siri. “They think their chances out there are better than the alternative.”
    The silence continued. Siri wanted to capture the moment somehow. The tension. The expectation. It would have made a remarkable cinematic image. He wondered whether it might be seen as inappropriate to discuss his screenplay concept with Civilai at such an occasion. He could see Kurosawa milking this scene. Two desperate men in their underwear lost in the mist on a landscape sown with explosives. Black and white. The only way to go. He looked around. Men and women holding their smoky breaths. Doubts fluttering. What if the endless blitz stories were all a myth composed by the propagandists? What if there were no—
    It was less a bang, more a … a thunk. Like a punch. Loud, it was, and final. But not the boom you’d expect. There was no scream because bombies were renowned for their suddenness. By the time the shock had washed over you, screaming was the last thing on your mind. If your mind was still attached to your skull. Everyone wondered which of the escapees had been taken, but the thought was fleeting, because the second thunk seemed to leave a whistle in the air like a high-pitched ricochet.

24
    A FAMILIAR HAUNT
    Everyone agreed that being black had not distracted John Johnson from being a very fine helicopter pilot. He’d ignored the ban on flying during heavy smoke cover, hotwired one of the helicopters in the yard, and had so far made two trips to Muang Kham beyond the smoke zone. Siri and Auntie Bpoo sat on the broken steps of the Friendship Hotel waiting for the third shuttle.
    “So. Mission accomplished,” Siri said.
    “I’d been hoping for something more exciting,” Bpoo confessed, rethreading a necklace that had been broken during the troubles. “Thought I might have to drag you from beneath the wheels of a rapid locomotive.”
    “In a country without a railway?”
    “It was a fantasy, old man. In a fantasy you can construct whatever damned engineering infrastructure you please.”
    “Ear-fingering was no less dramatic. And for that I thank you.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “Now, is there any way I can return the favor?”
    “No.”
    “Not even if you told me what’s wrong with your health?”
    She glared at the doctor with eyes wide as melon slices.
    “What makes you think there’s something wrong with my health?”
    “I can see the future.”
    “Don’t make me laugh. You can barely see the present.”
    “Conceded. But I am