Thai Horse Read online

  The first one was addressed to: Our father, Lt. Murphy Cody, U.S.N. From your loving children, Keith and Sharon.’ It was attached to a photo of two teenagers who looked sad beyond their years.

  Beside it was a second note. It read simply: ‘Thanks for everything, Polo. And thank God for Thai Horse. Jaimie.’ It was attached to a green beret. There was nothing else.

  Polo.

  That’s what this Jaimie called him, Polo. So the nickname had stayed with Cody. Funny, thought Hatcher, I never thought he liked it. But it proved one thing to him. The note was left for Murphy Cody. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Was it a good-bye note from someone who knew he was dead?

  Or was it a thank-you note from someone who knew Murphy Cody was alive?

  And there was the reference to the Thai Horse. To Hatcher that meant only one thing — Thailand heroin. China White.

  Did Cody provide heroin to his men? Were he and this Jaimie in some kind of smuggling ring together? Was this some kind of coded message? Hatcher unconsciously shook his head. He didn’t want to believe that. And yet, what else could it mean? Could there be some other answer?

  The side trip had raised more questions than it answered.

  ‘No way to track back on this Jaimie, right?’ Hatcher’s hoarse voice asked.

  The caretaker shook his head. ‘That’s none of our business,’ he said simply.

  Hatcher checked the beret. Inside the lining were the initials ‘J.S.’ Nothing more. Hatcher took out a small notebook and wrote down all the information, such as it was. There was one more piece of data. The beret and note had been recorded fourteen months earlier, on July fourth.

  There was nothing else. Whatever the legacy of Murphy Cody, it seemed to end here, with this brief epitaph.

  ‘Okay,’ he said to the caretaker. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Yep.’

  Hatcher looked around the room one more time, at the baseball mitts and tattered kites and flowers.

  He thought of something Conrad had written: ‘ . . . an unselfish belief in an idea — something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . .

  And he thought of all the restless heroes represented here, butchered and buried or lost in an alien place in a war most did not understand but did not question either, deprived of their hopes and dreams in that awesome sacrifice that crown and country seem determined to demand of every generation. Ordinary men who became extraordinary in death. The cold breath of ghosts chilled the back of Hatcher’s neck and he could not get out of there fast enough.

  MONTANA

  Hatcher disappeared that night with his briefcase full of twenties and the Murphy file, leaving Sloan waiting alone for him in the Occidental Restaurant. Sloan was on his third scotch when the bells went off in his head: The son of a bitch isn’t gonna show up. A quick call confirmed his fears. Hatcher had checked out of his hotel two hours before. Just like him! And it angered Sloan because he should have known Hatcher would duck out on him. The first way Hatcher’s anger at Sloan would manifest would be for Hatcher to cut loose, flaunt his free-lance status, and show Sloan who was boss.

  Well, thought Sloan, we’ll see about that.

  ‘Will you be ordering soon, Colonel?’ the maître d’ asked after he hung up.

  ‘Cancel,’ Sloan snapped. He slipped him a five and headed out into the rainy night. Knowing Hatcher, Sloan knew it could be weeks before he heard from him again. He went back to his office and tracked down Zabriski. Zabriski could find anybody. Besides, he was sure Hatcher was traveling under his own name. Hell, he hadn’t changed it so far. Besides, Hatcher wasn’t dodging Sloan, he was ignoring him. Sloan would get a line on him, just to show the son of a bitch.

  The next morning he had his report.

  ‘He flew into Billings, Montana, on an Eastern flight last night, stayed at the Palace Hotel, checked out early this morning and caught a local feeder to Shelby,’ Zabriski reported.

  ‘Montana! What the hell could he be doing in Montana?’

  ‘I dunno, sir. But that’s where he went.’

  ‘Where the hell’s Shelby?’

  ‘About two giant steps south of the Canadian border,’ the agent answered. ‘There’s nothing there, Colonel, it’s been snowed under for three months. It’s where God lost his snowshoes.’

  Montana? Sloan pulled out the Murphy file and went back over it, reading every line, looking for some reference to Shelby, Montana. But he found nothing. Well, hell, Sloan thought, where can he go from Shelby? He assigned Zabriski to take the next flight to Billings, wait for Hatcher to show up and follow him.

  ‘And, Zabriski, this guy’s slippery, got it? He’s got tricks you haven’t heard of yet.’

  ‘Do we bust him?’ Zabriski asked.

  ‘Hell, no, he hasn’t done anything wrong,’ Sloan said. ‘I just want to know what the hell he’s up to.’

  Maybe, thought Sloan, he’s doing a double-back. Maybe he’s checking me out. The risk in hiring Hatcher was that he was too clever. If Hatcher turned into a loose cannon, he could be very dangerous.. After Los Boxes, it was much too early in the game to trust Hatcher.

  The twin-engine De Havilland snaked its way through the narrow lane the blowers had trenched through the snow. On either side of the plane, high-piled snow banks loomed above the fuselage, snow that had been collecting for months. The airport terminal was a small one-story building almost hidden in the white drifts. There was a hangar nearby, barely peeking over the snow, with a tattered windsock flapping straight out from its warped pole in the subfreezing wind. That was all there was to the airport. Hatcher’s boots squeaked and his breath left trails of steam in his wake as he hurried across the snow-packed tarmac toward the warmth of the tiny terminal, which was barely the size of a large living room.

  On one side of the room was an airline counter operated by a skinny young man who looked half asleep; facing it on the other side of the room was a food -dispensing machine and a combination taxi and rental car service, both operated by the same person, a grizzled man in need of a shave, wearing a fur cap and three layers of wool shirts. The arrival of the flight hardly stirred much activity in the terminal. There were only two other passengers on the small feeder line.

  Hatcher drew a cup of coffee from the machine and waited until one of the passengers had gone through the drill of renting a car. When he left, Hatcher approached the fur-capped old man, who was leaning over the rental form, completing it with a stub of a pencil.

  ‘How long’s it take to get to Cut Bank?’ Hatcher’s frazzled voice asked.

  The old man kept working on his form. ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Time a year. Summertime, takes about forty-five minutes.’

  ‘Well, how about in the winter, like right now, for instance?’

  ‘Two hours, if you know the road.’

  ‘Know how far it is up to the government hay station?’ Hatcher growled.

  The old fellow kept writing and said, still without looking up, ‘Thirty-seven miles, more or less, most of it uphill. You ain’t used to driving in snow, forget it. They won’t even find you until spring.’

  ‘You the cabdriver, too?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How much to run me up there?’

  ‘Son, you make it sound like a bike ride in the park,’ he said, still concentrating on the form.

  Hatcher slid a hundred-dollar bill under his nose. ‘There’s another one just like that when we get back,’ he said in his chafing whisper. ‘I shouldn’t be up there more than an hour.’

  The old fellow stared down at Ben Franklin’s cryptic grin for a few moments, then looked up. ‘You must be a government fella,’ he said.

  ‘You want a biography, it’ll cost you that Ben Franklin,’ Hatcher’s frazzled voice answered as he nodded toward the hundred.

  ‘Nuff said,’ the old man said, folding the bill and tucking it in one of his shirt pockets. ‘Last plane back to Billings is at four
.’ He looked at his ‘watch. ‘Gives us six hours.’

  ‘How about Spokane?’

  ‘One flight a day. Two-thirty.’

  ‘Let’s aim for that,’ Hatcher said in his grating voice.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ the old fellow said and stuck out his hand. ‘Name’s Rufus Eskew.’

  ‘Chris,’ Hatcher said, shaking a hand tormented with calluses.

  ‘Better do something about that cold,’ Rufus said, reaching under the counter for his keys.

  The chopper swept in low over the meadow, scrambling the deer that had already sniffed out the first batch of hay it had dropped. Simmons stood in the open hatch layered in heavy clothing, his face protected by a scarf against the frigid wind that blasted down on him and his partner from the chopper blades overhead. His eyes peered out from behind sunglasses between the scarf and the wool hat that was pulled down hard over his ears. His thick black eyebrows were caked with frost. He held on to the heavy lifeline over the side hatch and waited until the pilot whipped the chopper around.

  Below them, the herd bounded about erratically, except for one magnificent stag who stood his ground, testing the air with his quivering nostrils, watching as the helicopter lowered over the frosted meadow that was trapped between two mountain peaks.

  ‘Lookit that arrogant son-bitch,’ Simmons yelled to his partner in the waist of the chopper. ‘That’s one gorgeous buck.’

  They were twenty feet above the drifted lea when Simmons put both feet against the two-hundred-pound bale and kicked and pushed it out the door. He watched it tumble down, end over end, smack the ground and burst in a shower of snow and hay.

  ‘Come and get it, little darlin’s,’ he yelled down at the herd, which had been trapped by a sudden snowstorm and was facing starvation. On the other side, Eddie, his kick-boss, launched the last of the bales. He turned to Simmons and shot a thumb toward the roof of the plane. Simmons heard his voice over the intercom: ‘Okay, bombs away. Let’s go get some hot coffee.’

  ‘I hear that and that’s a roger and good-damn-news,’ the pilot answered.

  Simmons and Eddie closed the hatch doors and sat in front of the feeble heaters. The air that blew out of the two vents was warm air only by comparison with the outside wind. Simmons took out a pint of Canadian Club, pulled down his scarf and took a long swig from the bottle. He wiped the mouth off with his gloved hand and gave the bottle to Eddie, then shook all over as if he’d been struck by lightning. ‘Who-eeee! That’ll get us home,’ he cried out, then pulled the scarf back up over his face, put away the bottle when Eddie had taken his turn, and wrapped his arms around himself. He would sleep for the twenty minutes it took to get to the station.

  The pilot’s voice came over the intercom: ‘I just got a call from base. There’s a guy waitin’ there to see you, Harley.’

  Simmons perked up. Now, who in hell would come out to the base to see him in this weather? he wondered.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Simmons asked the pilot.

  ‘Didn’t ask.’

  Simmons worried about it all the way back. He had problems with paranoia anyway. If Lee back at the base didn’t know who it was, then who the hell was it? He was out of the chopper and running toward the office while the chopper blades were still spinning. Who was this guy, anyway?

  Simmons knew Rufus Eskew, so it had to be the other guy. He was standing over the floor heater, drinking coffee from a cup he held with both hands — six, six one, dark hair streaked with gray, built like a boxer. Lookit that tan, Simmons thought. That guy’s from someplace south. L.A. or Florida. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater, tan corduroy pants tucked into fleece-lined boots and a heavy fleece jacket. And sunglasses. L.A., Simmons decided. Then he took off the glasses and Simmons was staring into the coldest gray eyes he’d ever seen.

  Washington, Simmons said to himself.

  ‘Mr. Simmons, my name’s Hatcher,’ his grinding whisper said.

  Jesus, Simmons thought, listen to that. The guy whispers.

  ‘Let’s go someplace and talk for a minute. This is kind of personal,’ Hatcher suggested.

  Personal? Personal? What the hell could be personal. He didn’t owe a dollar. His alimony ‘was paid up. Even his jeep was paid for.

  ‘You got twenty minutes to warm your asses,’ the pilot said as the rest of the crew piled into the shack behind him. ‘They’re loading us up again.’

  ‘We can go in the director’s office,’ Simmons said. ‘He’s down in Helena for a couple days.’

  He led Hatcher into a small room with a desk that was barren except for the phone. The room contained the desk, an old-fashioned glass-front bookcase with several government publications scattered in it, and a hat tree. The calendar on the wall was from the Haygood Seed and Feed Company in Shelby. Hatcher looked around the office and thought, The director is either incredibly well organized or incredibly underworked. He sat down on the corner of the desk.

  ‘Grab a chair,’ he said.

  Simmons sat. He looked scared to ‘death.

  ‘What’s goin’ on?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m with the MIA Commission. “We’re wrapping up the Cody case,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘Oh Jesus, I knew it. I knew it was that. Damn it, how many times I got to go through that thing? I been outa the fuckin’ Army for almost fifteen years and they been wrappin’ up the Cody case ever since.’

  Hatcher was shocked at Simmons’s reaction. But it was also revealing. It was as if Simmons’s worst fear had risen up and grabbed him by the throat. Hatcher knew the signs and at that moment knew his hunch was correct. All he had to do was keep pressing. Simmons was looking to crack.

  ‘It’s just a routine thing,’ Hatcher said. ‘No reason to get crazy on me.’

  ‘I been out here for ten years,’ Simmons said. ‘Trying to forget all that. I don’t need . . .‘ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Just a few loose ends,’ said Hatcher. ‘Won’t take but a minute.’

  ‘Anyway, I heard Cody was officially dead.’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Then what the hell. .

  ‘What it is, there are one or two things we need to clarify.’

  ‘I can’t remember that far back, man,’ Simmons said. ‘That’s fifteen years ago. I saw a lot of people die in Nam. They all just kind of run together.’

  ‘This was the wing leader, Cody. His father was commanding general of the whole theater. I’m sure you remember that one, Simmons.’

  Simmons started to get angry, but it was a defensive kind of anger. ‘Look, Mr. whatever-your-name-is,’ Simmons snapped. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t want to remember. I’ve spent fifteen years trying to forget all that.’

  ‘All what?’

  ‘Everything that happened over there. Twelve months in my life that I want to . . . try to make believe never happened. It’s hard enough. . . . Anyway, they all looked alike that far away.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The flyboys that went down.’

  ‘How far away?’

  ‘Across the river. You know, we were flying Hueys in Sea-Air Rescue. When you’re doin’ SAR, you’re never just . . . right on top of them.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s one of the things I wanted to run by you,’ Hatcher said, taking a file folder oat of his briefcase and flipping through it. He let the comment hang, watching Simmons get edgier. A lot of guilt here, he thought, this guy is fragile, he’s broken and the pieces haven’t fallen yet. He waited a little longer, then whispered, ‘What it is, we got a little discrepancy in the reports.’

  ‘Discrepancy?’

  ‘Yeah, just a little thing. In your debriefing just after the incident you said that the plane hit the trees and blew up immediately. Wait a minute, here it is. “We were about half a mile away and he went in upside down and the whole forest seemed to explode. I don’t see how anybody could have survived.”

  Simmons nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said.

  ‘But in this transcription o
f the review-board tape in 1981 you say you were close enough to feel the heat when it blew and you could see that nobody got out. Then you started taking heavy ground fire and had to abandon the rescue attempt.’

  ‘Happened all the time. So?’

  ‘So which is right? Were you do se enough to feel the heat or half a mile away when he augured in?’

  He turned away from Hatcher arid started toward the door. ‘I gotta get going. Deer to feed_’

  ‘You’ve still got fifteen minutes,.’ Hatcher whispered softly. He decided to fire long shot. Look, Simmons,’ his voice rasped, ‘I don’t give a damn whether you lied to the review board. I just want to know the truth now. You tell me, it stops right here.’

  Simmons turned abruptly, his face reddening with anger. ‘What the hell would I have t lie about?’

  ‘The debriefing officer noted in his report back in ‘72 that you were scared. In fact, he wrote that you were stuttering. It was all over and you were back on the ground, but you were still that scared.’

  ‘I was three weeks in-country, man,’ Simmons said brusquely. ‘That was only my third trip out. Sure, I was scared. I was scared the last day I was over there, too. I was nineteen. I was scared all the time.’

  ‘Being scared isn’t being a coward,’ Hatcher said softly.

  ‘Coward? That what you think?’

  Hatcher shook his head. ‘That’s not what I think. But maybe it’s what you think.’

  Simmons kneaded his wool cap in his hands and shook his head. ‘You just never get away from it. Damn Vietnam, God damn Vietnam,’ he cried out with such passion that it surprised Hatcher. He felt sorry for Simmons but not sorry enough to stop.

  ‘You swear to me you didn’t see anyone coming away from that plane, and I’m gone,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘But if you lie, I’ll know it.’

  ‘Such a long time ago . .

  ‘You weren’t under oath, Simmons. So maybe you made a mistake . .

  ‘I’m not under oath now.’

  ‘Simmons, is it possible that Cody escaped from that plane?’

  ‘Anything’s possible.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  A voice from outside yelled, ‘Five minutes, Simmons.’