now?"
"Although I control over eighty percent of the opium trade here, it suits me to permit a few small dealers to continue their operations in the region. It confuses the authorities."
"Clever. You take all the profits, and they take all the blame." His smug narrative was starting to grate on my nerves.
"I see you tire of my talk, so I will come directly to the point," he replied sharply. "I learned two basic lessons from that disaster in 1965. First, deal only with Chinese buyers. Among Chinese, certain understandings and civilized principles always prevail when doing business, even among enemies. A Chinese buyer, for example, would have let Hsu and me fight to the finish, then deal properly with the winner, rather than try to kill us both and steal the entire shipment.
"The second lesson I learned is that moving such bulky and precious cargo overland, especially in this terrain, is an open invitation to trouble. Caravans are highly vulnerable to attack, even by small gangs of bandits. But hiring armies to escort and protect large caravans is so costly that it drives the price of opium beyond reason, which is not good for business. So I have taken inspiration from the old days, when we flew the Hump between India and China. From now on, I will move my opium by air! "
"Smart move."
"Yes, very. And that, Captain Jack, is precisely why you are here. You will be my pilot!" He threw his head back and cackled at the irony of my position, but his pleasure was cut short by a sharp stab of pain from the shrapnel in his liver. "What you had me court-martialed for in Chungking thirty years ago, you will now do for me here," he hissed through clenched teeth, finally revealing the audacity of his scheme.
"I have followed your movements very carefully since you moved to Saigon from Taipei to take over Air America operations there. However, military security at airports in Saigon, Bangkok, and other cities along your routes prevented me from taking action earlier. So I waited and I watched. When you started making those runs to northern Laos to pick up opium for your Company, you suddenly became available to me. You see, Jack, all this time your Company has been buying its opium from me!"
Ching Wei smirked at my surprise. Though we'd been buying and selling opium out here for years to finance covert operations that Congress refused to acknowledge, we'd always assumed the stuff came directly from the Shan, Karen, Hmong, and other mountain tribes that grow it as a cash crop. We had no idea we were dealing with the kingpin himself. As it turned out, all of our orders were channeled through Ching Wei's agents, who had it delivered anonymously to our pickup point near Luang Prabang. We never inspected the cargo, never kept ledgers, and never asked any questions. And to make sure that word of this did not leak to the outside, only I and two other senior pilots flew those opium runs, with no copilots as witnesses. It had been a simple ploy for Ching Wei to stash a goon with a gun in one of the opium lugs to nab me. I'd been a sitting duck.
"Ironic, isn't it?" he gloated. "Thirty years ago, you had me arrested and court-martialed for smuggling opium into China. Today you have been trapped at the same game, smuggling opium to Saigon for your CIA. And from now on, your duty will be to smuggle opium for me!"
"I had you busted because your little opium business deprived dying men of food and medicine!" I shouted, beginning to lose my cool. "I'm not in this for the money-to me it's just another cargo, like ammo or bananas or people. It's just part of my job."
"Fool! The problem with your CIA is that they wrongly assume that whatever they do is right. You know as well as I do that they engage in the opium trade to finance illegal political activities in Southeast Asia, activities so distasteful that even your own government refuses to acknowledge them. As usual, you Americans hide behind your flag and plead patriotism whenever someone accuses you of wrongdoing in the world. In fact, however, you are no better than us—and much less honest!" He paused to calm his voice, twisting the tips of his mustache. "Besides," he crooned, "you lie when you deny personal profit as a motive. What about the three hundred eighty thousand dollars you have accumulated over the years in the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank in Hong Kong? Does the CIA really pay such handsome salaries?"
I was astounded that he knew so much about my private affairs. I felt stark naked. ''All right, all right, so I turned a little profit on the side. Everyone out here does it. It's one of the fringe benefits of putting up with all this shit. A man's got to think about his retirement." But he'd caught me off guard, and my argument sounded weak. At least he did not seem to be aware of the network of fledgling agents I'd been secretly organizing in the Triangle through our contacts in the opium business. His interest in me was purely personal, not professional.
"Forget it, Ching Wei! I'm not flying dope around for you or any other tinhorn warlord. Thanks for the dinner and drinks, but no thanks!" I rose to leave, but had no place to go.
"Sit down and have another brandy, Jack. It may be a long time before you taste brandy again. Here at Dragon Mountain, one must prove himself worthy of such luxuries." I sat down, lit another cigarette, and accepted another brandy.
"That's better. Now listen carefully. It will be at least one more month before my next shipment of opium is collected, prepared, and properly packed for transport. That will give you time to adjust to your new life here." He spoke as if I were a new kid on my first day at summer camp. "You are not my only foreign guest here. Others enjoy my hospitality as well, and you will meet them soon enough.
"Like everyone else, you shall live as an honored guest in the home of a good family in one of my villages. The family will feed you and care for all your needs, and the head of the household will be held responsible for your welfare as well as your behavior. Believe me, he and his family will watch you night and day. Because if any of my guests tries to escape, his host and his entire family are killed, one by one, in the village square." He paused to let that sink in while he drained his brandy.
"On the other hand," he added, "guests who voluntarily decide to settle down here enjoy many benefits. Foreign guests remain in the homes of their assigned hosts only until they choose to marry local women and start families of their own. That is the Chinese way. You may select any girl from any village within my domain. When you marry and have children, you may build your own house in or near the village responsible for you. I will provide all materials and furnishings. In addition, permanent settlers receive monthly rations of foreign luxuries from the shop I keep in the main village. Razor blades, soap, whiskey, magazines-everything is available there. If you wish, you will also receive free opium, the very best. Guests who refuse to marry and settle down remain permanent burdens to their hosts."
Before I could say another word, he clapped his hands impatiently, and the girl who'd shown me in appeared from the shadows. "She will take you out to the gate. Huang is waiting outside to take you back to the village and introduce you to the family I have selected for you. In one month I will summon you again. At that time, I will give you good reason to work for me without the slightest hesitation or thought of escape."
He pointed at the stairs. "Now go!"
V
Ching Wei was right. It was good that I had another brandy while I had the chance. For the next six weeks I ate nothing but rice and barley with fiery curries that burned twice—once going down, and once again coming out. The natives were all devout Buddhists or hopeless opium addicts, or both, so they didn't touch booze. Some of Ching Wei's white hostages distilled their own arack from millet or palm, but that stuff burned even worse than the curries.
There seemed to be lots of white men around, but I rarely saw more than two or three together in the same place. Each went about his own business as if he were walking down Main Street, USA. Some had gone native, with local wives and children, and lived in their
