Chapter Four.

The drive down into Vientiane took a little over ten minutes. The city was everything that Stacey had imagined Colonial French Indochina would be. Vientiane was characterised by broad tree-lined, dusty-dry boulevards, run-down colonial mansions and villas, complete with shutters and red-tiled roofs; and rustic "Wats"… monastery temples surrounded by coconut palms. Almost all the cars on the streets were French… with the exception of a scattering of Mercedes-Benze and the ever-present ubiquitous Willys jeeps; but the majority of traffic comprised all manner of bicycles, scooters; mopeds, and the strange, motor cycle-based "tuk-tuks"… three-wheeled taxis; and suicidal "cyclo" riders… youths riding a type of tricycle designed to carry passengers.

The Settha Palace Hotel on the corner of Rue Khoun Boulom and Rue Pang Kam was really not what Stacey had expected. Built in the French-Indonese colonial style, the two-storey hotel was painted beige with mahogany brown windows and roof. It had sweeping verandas with wrought iron railings and decorations. Instead of windows, the rooms were surrounded with louvered French doors leading to individual verandas. Surrounded by a four-feet-high, pierced, and pillared wall, it was set in lush tropical gardens and approached by small, semi-circular drive. At the front of the hotel, a large porch supported by beige-painted pilasters led into the reception.

As McCauley pulled up to the entrance, a doorman clad in white stepped up to open the door for Stacey and escort her to the lobby. McCauley left the Citroën where it was, and followed her. Inside, classical music wafted through the air as she studied the scene.... the glass chandeliers and the gleaming bar made of Laotian rosewood. The lobby was painted in a subtle beige/cream with a grand chandelier suspended from the ceiling, a pale-brown marble floor with two large pilasters supporting the roof towards the end in front of the staircase. Wooden chairs upholstered with orange pattern cloth were positioned on either side of the lobby. The banisters of the staircase, like most of the timber fittings in the hotel, were dark rosewood.

A second, white-clad man appeared, crossing the floor of polished Malaysian marble with a silver tray holding two glasses of chilled mineral water. Bowing slightly, he offered the water, saying:

'Bienvenue au Settha Palace'… 'Welcome to the Settha Palace.'

As they sat in the lobby and drank their water, an elegantly attired man in his mid-fifties approached and spoke.

'Bonjour, Thomas. Ça va? Welcome! This Lady is our latest guest?'

McCauley nodded and introduced him to Stacey.

'This is Monsieur Michel Theodas; Proprietor of the Settha Palace. Michel, may I introduce Mademoiselle Stacey Mckenna. Is her accommodation prepared?'

Michel Theodas nodded, took Stacey's hand, and kissed it.

'Enchanté Mademoiselle. Your suite is prepared. It is on the first floor; Number sixteen, with a balcony overlooking the gardens.'

A white-coated boy appeared. Michel Theodas snapped his fingers.

'Prenez la valise de la demoiselle au la chambre seize.'

The boy nodded.

'Oui, Patron.'

Michel Theodas turned back to McCauley.

'The usual arrangements, Mon Ami?'

McCauley nodded.

'Yes, Michel. Make certain Mademoiselle Mckenna does not receive any unwanted visitors.'

Theodas grinned.

'D'accord, Thomas; Les espions Chinois?'

McCauley nodded.

'Exactement.'

Theodas nodded. He turned, and beckoned to two more substantially-built, white-coated men who had been hovering in the background. As they approached, he stood; excused himself, and walked over to them. He spoke rapidly to them in French:

'Je veux une surveillance étroite des salles de la délégation chinoise. La salle seize est interdite à tous les Chinois. '

The two men nodded deferentially.

'Oui, Patron. Il sera fait.'

McCauley spoke quietly to Stacey.

'Those are two of the Lao contracted guards I spoke about. Michel has instructed them to keep the Chinese away from your room…'

He paused, and gave her a sheepish grin.

'Sorry, I forgot you know the language. I'm not used to having pilots who are multi-lingual in my command.'

His face became serious.

'Those Lao contractors are mean sons of bitches. If anything happens, stay in your room. They're packing Russian Makarov nine-millimetre pistols, and have a reputation for being trigger-happy.'

Stacey nodded, and, accompanied by the two guards, left McCauley and Theodas to talk "business" whilst she went to her room.

As the two Lao guards escorted Stacey up to her room, McCauley was negotiating the latest Air America contractual requirements with Michel Theodas. There were now five Air America Pilots staying at the Settha Palace. Washington had indicated that they were concerned about the proximity of the resident Chinese Delegation. Funding had been augmented to allow for extra security. Theodas needed to increase the number of his contracted Lao guards.

Right up to the beginning of the 1960s, the leading posts in Chinese intelligence had been held by Soviet KGB intelligence officers from the Lubyanka. Relations cooled, and the Soviets went home. But the same people who were trained by the Soviets still held power in China to this day. The Chinese Delegation resident at the Settha Hotel almost certainly included Chinese Intelligence officers from their Central Investigation Department. The problem was that nobody really knew for certain. China seriously believed that, unlike the CIA or KGB, a secret agency should remain secret. Consequently, substantial published literature on Chinese intelligence services did not exist, and all the western agency officers around Vientiane... and McCauley in particular; treated all official-looking Chinese nationals in Vientiane with the utmost suspicion.

The corridor on the first floor extended the whole length of the building. Elegant pendant glass light fittings were suspended at intervals along the ceiling; the walls were painted in the same, subdued beige colour, and were enhanced by a low dado rail above discreet panelling which extended to the highly polished rosewood floor. The guards paused outside the door of room sixteen. The larger of the two pointed to the second and third doors farther along on the opposite side of the corridor.

'Ceux-là sont les salles des espions Chinois, Mademoiselle. Soyez prudents s'il vous plaît. Nous ne serons pas lointains'… Those are the rooms of the Chinese spies, Mademoiselle. Please be careful. We will not be far away.'

Stacey smiled and opened the door.

'Merci, Messieurs. Je suis sûr que tout sera dans l'order'… 'Thank you, Gentlemen. I am sure everything will be in order.'

Room sixteen faced south, overlooking the lush tropical gardens. It was spacious, with French colonial decor and a high ceiling, and was elegantly furnished with antiques, Venetian marble and dark Rosewood furniture. A large cooling fan suspended from the ceiling turned languorously; wafting the soft breezes that sighed though the louvered doors. A mosquito net was draped above the bed. The upholstered chairs and the ceramic knobs on all the doors and drawers added a distinctly French touch. It could easily have been a provincial Hotel anywhere in France.

The adjoining bathroom was finished in black-and-white Venetian marble, and was equipped with hot and cold running water. In its heyday, the Settha Palace Hotel had obviously been a mainstay of colonial Vientiane. In the tranquil calm of her room, Stacey unbuckled her holster belt and tossed it on the large bed. She sat, and unlaced her boots; stepping out of them and pushing them aside. She then unzipped her one-piece flight suit and let it fall to the floor, luxuriating in the soft caress of the breeze from the open Louvre doors.

From her valise, she removed a Lao silk, Chong Kraben… a sort of cross between pants and a floor-length skirt; and a sleeveless silk blouse, and laid them on the bed. She then went to the bathroom to freshen up.

Feeling much more human, she carefully dressed in the cool silk garments, applied the merest touch of make-up, and opened the door to go back down to the lobby. The corridor was deserted… except for a figure kneeling at the far end, tying his shoelace. There was no sign of the Lao guards. She began walking along the corridor towards the figure who continued to fiddle with his shoelaces. As she approached, he glanced up. He was Chinese; about fifty, and a little taller than most Chinese men. He wore thick-lensed spectacles, an expensive silk shirt and tie, and dark trousers.

She smiled, and made to squeeze past him.

'Zao Shang Hao! Ging Yuan Liang'… 'Good Morning! Excuse me…'

The man glanced up at her again and stood up.

'Dui Bu Qi.'

Then, he smiled… a typically toothy, Oriental smile, and spoke in English. His voice was soft, and the tone was pleasant.

'You speak Mandarin very well for a Westerner. Where did you learn?'

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She paused, and thought to herself… Be very careful of what you say, girl. She gave him a shy smile.

'My mother taught me as a child… in Hong Kong.'

Colonel Ming Tsai gave a sage smile and peered myopically at the girl… but hidden behind his bland demeanour, his steel trap of a mind was collating the gathering snippets of information. The girl spoke Mandarin with a distinct Guangdong Province accent. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originated mainly from this area of Mainland China. He detected vague American overtones in her natural accent… but Hong Kong was a British Crown Colony with little or no American presence or influence. Therefore it would be unlikely that she was with any of the American agencies that infested Vientiane these days.

The American CIA only recruited American Nationals since the McCarthyism paranoia of the fifties... If there was any American connection at all, it would probably be USAID… the United States Agency for International Development, whose purpose was to provide Foreign aid.

He decided to press his benevolent interrogation a little further.

'So, how do you like this beautiful country?'

Stacey smiled.

'I'm afraid I haven’t seen much of it yet. I only flew into Wattay airport last night.'

Colonel Ming nodded. That tied in with the intelligences that had crossed his desk this morning. Only one commercial flight had landed the previous night… a Douglas DC3 belonging to Lao Air Lines. All the other movements for the previous day had been either Air America or Royal Air Lao, with a couple of China Airlines C47 Freighters. The Lao Air Lines flight had arrived from Saigon, and USAID maintained a mission in that city. He smiled again. This girl gave no outward appearance of being military, with her long, blonde hair and totally feminine aspect. He decided to dig a little deeper.

'Are you here on a vacation?... Or perhaps, to study the culture?'

She shook her head.

'No; I work for the United Nations International Law Commission. My duties include translation of Lao government documents, collation and research on the origin and personal histories of refugees from northeast Laos to the Vientiane Plain; and research in Lao government archives to create a chronology of political and military events in northern Laos.'

Colonel Ming Tsai nodded. His expression was benign and impassive. Just as he had originally suspected… this girl might well be connected with the CIA. What she was doing here was irrelevant. She was almost certainly just one more Capitalist spy. He smiled.

'That is a very honourable vocation for one so young in these uncertain times. I am Ming Tsai; Businessman. I am honoured to make your acquaintance, Miss…?

She smiled again.

'Thank you, Mr. Ming. I am Staysha Sharansky.'

Colonel Ming Tsai's expression changed, almost imperceptibly. He had heard that surname somewhere in the past. His gaze remained impassive, but his mind was racing. It was a Russian name. Where had he heard it before?

Stacey had been briefed back in the Joint Technical Advisory Group facility at Atsugi, Japan, before she embarked upon this mission, that her father had infiltrated North Korea during that war, using the legend that he was Colonel Konstantin Sharansky of the Soviet Military Intelligence Service. Her mother had told her that she had been christened Staysha… after her father's mother. Now, she chose to use this "nom de guerre" to possibly unnerve this Chinese spook and prevent him from digging any further... because, in spite of the benign veneer to their conversation; that was exactly what he was doing. She noticed his sudden change of attitude.

Colonel Ming Tsai had remembered where he had heard this name before… P'yǒngyang… at the Number 2 Korean People's Army Officer's School in the summer of 1950. Sharansky had been a Colonel… a Soviet Military Attaché; which was actually a smoke-screen used by members of the Soviet Military Intelligence Service. Ming Tsai had been a lowly First Lieutenant advisor to the People's Liberation Army. Yes, he remembered that bastard Russian with the green-and-red-banded visor cap. Was this girl related?... Or even his daughter? If so, was she also KGB?

Ming Tsai knew that he now needed to be very careful as to what he said and did. Suddenly the tables might just have turned against him. Russian influence still surpassed Chinese in Laos. There was little love lost between the two powers. The People's Liberation Army was militarily inferior to the Soviet Army, and the Sino-Soviet ideological split between political parties had decayed into open warfare between states, to the extent that, by January 1967, Red Guards had actually attacked the Soviet Embassy in Beijing. Despite unbroken formal diplomatic ties, the People's Republic of China and Soviet relations had become progressively worse in the ensuing period.

With this in mind, it was imperative that Ming Tsai now swiftly extracted himself from this conversation without losing face, or revealing anything to the detriment of his covert presence in the city. He peered through his thick pebble lenses and smiled benevolently. The toothy, yellow smile reminded Stacey of an ancient seaside donkey. He glanced at his expensive Patek Philippe, square, gold wristwatch.

'Please excuse me, Miss Sharansky, but I have an important meeting to attend, as much as I would like to continue our conversation. I wish you success in your endeavour on behalf of the United Nations.'

He bowed slightly and hurried away along the corridor towards the rooms occupied by the Chinese Delegation.

Down in the lobby of the Settha Palace Hotel, McCauley was waiting. As she approached, he rose from the wicker-cane easy chair where he had been idly reading a newspaper. He studied her appreciatively.

'Wow! Now that's what I call a transformation!'

She smiled briefly and sat in the chair opposite. He noticed her attitude was cautious.

'What's the matter? You seem a little on edge.'

She told him of her encounter with Ming Tsai; his subtle interrogation, and his reaction when she had used the surname: Sharansky.

McCauley grinned.

'So you know of your antecedent history? Damn me! I bet his pucker factor went off the scale when you dropped that one on him! OK; it looks like you've sterilised yourself without any help from me.'

Stacey stared at him.

'Sterilised?'

McCauley nodded.

'Yeah; it's a term we use out here for making an agent's pseudonym non-traceable back to the source agency. Ming Tsai will have automatically assumed that you are with the KGB... It's the only possible reason that there would be any Russian presence in Vientiane. He's probably sending panicky signals back to Peking right now.'

His grin faded.

'Ming Tsai is a colonel in the Chinese Central Investigation Department... their secret Intelligence service. He's an inscrutable little bastard, and sharp as a razor blade. When he left you, did you return his bow?'

Stacey shook her head. McCauley grinned again.

'Good! That will have impressed upon him your implied superiority. The Russian Intelligence operatives in Laos treat the Chinese as though they are unruly children. That will have convinced him that you are indeed, KGB, and they will now do their utmost to try to keep you at arm's length.

Even so, at some point... simply because they are who they are, they will probably turn your room over, so make sure there is nothing there to give any indication that you are anything other than what Ming Tsai believes you to be. You'll need to lose that point-forty-four Magnum and the flying jacket for starters. I'll see if I can get you a Makarov PM pistol... it's the nine-millimetre, double action, automatic that the Russians use. It doesn't have the stopping power of the Magnum, but it'll be more in keeping with who the little yellow creeps think you are. Let's have a coffee, then go and get your gun and jacket, and we'll keep them in your crew locker out at the field.'

As they were drinking their coffee, Michel Theodas appeared. He smiled.

'Your room is satisfactory, Mademoiselle?'

Stacey nodded.

'Oui, Monsieur. It is a beautiful room.'

Michel Theodas beamed contentedly.

'I am so pleased that you are comfortable. My staff have been instructed to ensure that you will remain that way.'

McCauley put down his coffee cup.

'Michel, could you arrange for Mademoiselle's valise to be brought down to my Citroën?'

'Certainment, Monsieur.'

He turned to leave. Stacey called him back.

'Monsieur Theodas; I need to remove one or two items before the valise is collected. Could you wait for ten minutes before you arrange for it to be brought down?'

Michel Theodas nodded.

'Avec plaisir, Mademoiselle. I shall instruct the maid Solange to attend you directly.'

Back in her room, Stacey removed the remaining clothing from the valise, and folded her old flying jacket and her flight suit into its roomy interior. The holster belt, jungle boots and Magnum followed. She zipped up the valise and laid it on the bed, whilst she hung her civilian clothes in the large rosewood wardrobe.

She glanced around the room. Nothing to suggest that she was anything other than a United Nations civilian employee was evident. OK; time for the burglar alarms.

She pulled out one of her blonde hairs and carefully wedged it into the middle drawer of the dressing table. Anyone opening the drawer would cause the hair to fall out. She repeated this with the chest of drawers and the writing desk.

Next, she dusted a faint trace of talcum powder on the inner surfaces of the porcelain knobs of the wardrobe. Anyone opening the doors would disturb the film of talc as their fingers closed around the knobs. She went into the bathroom and lifted the cover of the lavatory cistern. With her nail file, she scored a tiny scratch on the copper ball-cock, level with the surface of the water. Anyone flushing the lavatory to check the cistern for hidden items would obviously empty the cistern... and the odds of the water level reaching exactly the same level as it previously had been, was, to say the least... remote.

There were many other tricks she might have employed, but these few subtle tell-tales would be enough. Ming Tsai's men, although meticulous, would not be too concerned with traces of talcum powder or the odd few stray hairs, even if they were alert for clues that would reveal their search of her room. Besides which; the corridors of the Settha Palace Hotel were patrolled by the Lao contracted guards, and any search would need to be rudimentary, and swiftly executed.

As she closed to door to the bathroom, there was a soft knock on the door. Opening it, she was confronted by an attractive Eurasian girl dressed in a crisp maid's uniform; who bowed slightly and introduced herself as Solange; instructed by Le Patron to collect Mademoiselle's valise. Stacey motioned towards the bed where the valise lay. Solange picked it up and returned to the door; bowed again, and stepped out into the corridor, quietly closing the door behind her.

Stacey waited for ten minutes after Solange had left, then opened the door. The corridor was empty. Closing and locking the door to her room, she went down to rejoin McCauley.

As McCauley drove Stacey down through the central district of Vientiane, his eyes continually flickered from road to rear-view mirror. He swore quietly.

'Damn! We're being tailed. I'll bet they're that little bastard Ming Tsai's goons.'

Stacey pulled down the sun visor and surveyed the road behind in the vanity mirror. Sure enough, a nondescript little puke-green Citroën 2cv fourgonnette…one of the diminutive Deux-chevaux vans was following them; weaving through the traffic about three hundred yards to the rear. McCauley grinned.

'Don't worry. As soon as I get out of the traffic I'll open her up. They'll never stand a chance of keeping up in that goddamned corrugated chicken shed!'

The buildings were thinning out as they drove through the western outskirts of Vientiane. The traffic was becoming less dense. McCauley suddenly floored the accelerator pedal and, with a deep boom from the six-cylinder engine, Stacey was shoved back into the burgundy leather seat as the Citroën cabriolet leapt forward, and the little Citroën Deux-chevaux van began to recede from view.

On the outskirts of Ban Sithan Nua, at the junction where the Rue San Sem Thai and the Rue Sata Setthathirath joined Highway Thirteen, McCauley swung onto the long, straight asphalt ribbon and accelerated hard. In the vanity mirror, Stacey saw the little Citroen van lurching and swaying on its soft suspension as the driver fought to control the pitching, bucking vehicle. He appeared to be pushing the little vehicle far beyond its road-holding capabilities in order to keep pace with McCauley's powerful cabriolet. As she watched, the driver finally lost control; one rear wheel reared up, completely out of contact with the asphalt as the opposite leading arm front suspension compressed to the full length of its travel and began to collapse.

As the rubber was flayed from the front nearside wheel and the rim tore up the tarmac, the nearside suspension cylinder in the chassis below the driver's door shattered as its internal spring punched out across the road. Now, the fate of the little van's occupants was sealed. Without any resistance on its nearside; the dampers failed; spraying out hydraulic fluid and the little van whirled across the road in a tearing dry skid, slammed into a lamp post, and rebounded into the road, facing back up the road in the direction from which it had come. Seemingly in slow motion, it reared up onto the remains of its nearside wheels and seemed to hang there for a split second before it slowly toppled over sideways and fell with a splintering crash of metal and glass that could be plainly heard above the deep boom of McCauley's Citroën's cabriolet six-cylinder motor. As the onlookers crowded around the simmering wreck, Stacey saw no one emerge from the collapsed cab of the little van.

McCauley grinned.

'Well, that's fubared them! We'll head on up to NongNiaw market; follow Highway Thirteen as far as the Sithong road, then come in through the north crash gate, in case that little Chinese jerk Ming Tsai has posted any more goons on the route to check you out.'