Bamboo Terror Read online

  As if to convince him, a mosquito drilled into Hazzard's neck. He slapped at it and wiped the small smudge of his own blood on his shirt. A night in the jungle with your hands tied would be a nightmare of mosquitoes coming to the shackled feast.

  "All right, but just for tonight," decided Hazzard. "Tomorrow's a different story."

  "Of course, Mr. Hazzard, just for tonight," and Chang motioned to the two watching guards.

  Hazzard watched with interest as the two men stood up and walked away to disappear in the darkness of the trees.

  "Aren't you taking chances?" said Hazzard, nodding after the guards, "Sending your boys away like that?"

  Chang stood up. "You gave me your word, Mr. Hazzard, remember? And if a man's word of honor is not to be trusted," he smiled slightly, "he might as well be dead."

  Hazzard looked up, but Chang was gone. He was alone by the fire with his thoughts. Chang was right. He could never get through the jungle by himself. Without even knowing where he was, to sneak away would be fatal. They probably would not even bother to look for him. About the only thing Hazzard did know was that he was in North Vietnam—communist territory. This caused his thoughts to run in a new direction. Who were the guns destined for? Which side was Chang on? Or maybe he was one of those that played both ends against the middle.

  Hazzard picked up a smelly rag that one of the men had dropped, and lying back, he draped it over his face. Nothing to do now but rest and wait. Tomorrow held the answer to many questions.

  The following morning they continued down stream. Three hours later Hazzard began to hear the distant roar of a heavy surf, and realized that they were once more approaching the sea.

  The canoes were beached in a much-used and guarded clearing by the river, then the men shouldered their loads and the party started down a well-traveled path toward the ever increasing sound of pounding waves.

  They came out at the mouth of the river where it cut through the towering cliffs to the sea. Turning south they picked their way along through massive rocks at the base of the sheer rock cliffs, the salt spray from the waves drenching their already sweat-soaked bodies.

  The rocky path cut quickly inland, and Hazzard saw that they were entering a deep, quiet natural lagoon that nature had formed in the cliffs. The lagoon widened, and Hazzard saw that they were walking along an ancient stone wharf that fishermen of some forgotten era had painstakingly constructed. Small boats of various shapes and sizes were moored in the quiet waters, all of them equipped with engines as well as sails. Five armed, motorized sampans were drawn up to the wharf and were undergoing overhauls and repairs. As Hazzard walked past them he noticed that the inner sides of the gunwales were lined with armor plates. These boats, properly manned, could be very deadly in small hit and run raids along the coast.

  The men were now climbing a wide sloping trail that ran up from the edge of the wharf to the top of the cliffs. At the top, Hazzard turned around and saw that the lagoon would be impossible to detect from the sea. Reluctantly, he found himself approving the selection of the site for a base of operations.

  From the edge of the cliff the ground sloped away across a large cleared space and stopped abruptly where the jungle formed a green wall of vegetation. He did not really know what he had expected to find at the end of the journey, but a rough, rum-drinking band of brawling men in a cave would not have surprised him. Now, as he gazed on the scene unfolding before him, he was filled with awe. Stretching out across the flat cleared area was a well-kept and disciplined community. Children playing, dogs barking, women making flour, washing, weaving, men marching in orderly ranks, clean houses set in orderly rows. Any place else in the world and he would not have looked twice, but after his experiences of the last two days, and now being out in the middle of nowhere—it was astonishing.

  Hazzard's impression of Chang and his organization was changing. You could not help but admire a man who could build a well-run fighting force from nothing, and keep his base of operations as orderly as any military headquarters in the world. Hazzard now wanted to know more about this group of men who lived in the jungle, smuggled guns, acted like guerrillas, and operated like an efficient military unit. If it were not for the delivery of the beads—but this was impossible. He had to escape and reach Saigon. It could not be much of a run down the coast, especially in one of those motorized sampans. If he could handle one of them by himself—and if he could manage to elude his guards long enough to get his hands on one. For reassurance he pressed his hand against his waist and felt the comforting bulge of the tiny circle of beads that still remained in the money belt.

  Then, as the column passed close to the edge of the village, Hazzard was struck by a pathetic scene. In contrast to the orderliness and cleanliness he had first observed were a group of people encamped in the open ground bordering the jungle. Families living in makeshift shelters, their clothes ragged and filthy, children with skin diseases, the emaciated forms of sick oldsters, women with drawn faces and sunken chests, all of them visibly crawling with lice. Hazzard felt the pit of his stomach lurch and crawl at the sight. They looked up at him through blank eyes. The expression of people who have lost all hope, and now waited and wished for death.

  Tearing his eyes away from the gruesome scene, he forced himself to stare straight ahead. He noticed then that the other men in the column paid no attention to these hapless forms of life that lay clustered by the path. Hazzard cursed himself for having had admiration for Chang. He could see now that the tall Chinese was no better than the ancient, bloodthirsty war lords of China. Build an efficient fighting force, keep the soldiers happy—and crush all else that stands in the way. The code of the demented, power-mad dictator.

  They had reached the compound in the center of the village, and as Hazzard brought his angry thoughts back to reality, he found that only Chang, the two guards, and himself remained. The others had disappeared among the various buildings.

  "Mr. Hazzard, will you please come with me?" said Chang's voice as it broke through Hazzard's thoughts. "And if you will give me your word not to try and escape, we will not need the guards."

  "Look, Chang," Hazzard almost shouted. "I can't go on giving my word about not escaping forever. . . ."

  "I quite agree with you," broke in Chang. "All I ask is that you give me one hour of your time. After that, if you wish to leave, I will be happy to have you escorted to any place you desire, where you can secure transportation to resume your journey."

  If Chang had nothing else, he certainly had gall.

  "Well, Mr. Hazzard," said Chang. "Will you give me one hour?"

  One hour? Hazzard forced himself to relax and regain control of his emotions. Slapped with a rifle, kidnapped, trussed up like a carcass of beef, almost drowned, forced to walk through the jungle like a prisoner on a chain gang, and now—was it to be a social tete-a-tete, or the Chinese boot? One hour? What the hell. . . .

  "Okay, one hour," Hazzard said belligerently.

  Chang motioned to the two guards, and then they were alone.

  "Follow me," said Chang, and he turned and walked rapidly away through the village.

  Hazzard let out a deep breath, resigning himself to his not-always-present guardian angel, he followed.

  6 To Catch a Spy

  THEY CAME OUT of the village and walked toward the edge of the high coastal cliffs about a half of a mile north of the lagoon. Ahead of them was a large, well built, rich looking Chinese-style villa. As they approached, Hazzard saw that it was heavily guarded by fixed and walking sentries, all of them armed to the teeth.

  The guards recognized Chang and let them pass unchallenged. Two men at the entrance opened the door and stood stiffly at attention as they went inside. Turning right, they went down a long hallway to a large hand-carved door. A tall Chinese, who had been standing with his back to the door, snapped his rifle up across his chest and stepped aside. Chang nodded at the man, opened the door and motioned Hazzard to enter.

  The room was lavis
hly furnished with Chinese items usually found only in museums. To Hazzard it was overly furnished. Four large tables stood about the room, and everywhere you looked were hand-carved chests, cabinets, and chairs. Porcelain vases, jade figurines, ivory statues, and many silver and gold knickknacks seemed to inhabit every nook and shelf. Hand-sewn tapestries covered the walls, and in one corner stood a massive, seven foot high, inlaid folding screen made of hand-carved teakwood. The side of the room that faced south toward the village and the lagoon was completely enclosed with sliding glass doors. To Hazzard it looked like all the treasures of the Ming dynasty had been crammed into one room, even though he could not tell a souvenir cookie jar from a Ming vase.

  Chang brought a bottle of sherry and two crystal wine glasses to a small teak wood table and motioned to Hazzard.

  "Sit down, Mr. Hazzard, and relax," he said. "I am afraid that we have treated you rather badly, and now it is time to give you an explanation."

  "Now look, Chang, or whatever your name is," said the still angry Hazzard. "I don't want to sit down. I don't want explanations. I don't want anything from you. All I want is to get out of here. I've got an important business engagement in Saigon."

  "Ah, yes," said Chang as he poured the sherry into the two glasses. "Delivering the string of beads."

  Hazzard could not hide his surprise, and Chang smiled broadly as he continued.

  "You were hired by Mr. Brown to take a little string of Buddhist prayer beads to Saigon and give them to Ling Ling Yung. In return for which you would receive ten thousand dollars, half of which you accepted in Japanese yen, the other half to be paid to you when—and if—you return to Tokyo.

  There it was again—the 'if.'

  "All right, Charlie Chan," retorted Hazzard. "So besides pirates, you also have an efficient spy system. So what's it got to do with you and me?"

  "I am the one who decided that Mr. Michael Hazzard would be chosen for this assignment. It was I who had you assaulted near your office, and because you were so efficient in dispatching my two unskilled men, I found it necessary to render you unconscious. I apologize for the rough treatment."

  "You chose me?" Hazzard said in disbelief. "And you had me worked over? You're not making much sense today."

  "Shall we say," Chang explained. "That I had you—what was it? Oh, yes, 'worked over' first, and then chose you afterwards. You see, I needed a man who was capable of taking care of himself in surprise situations. I had heard of your impressive record and found it quite hard to believe that any one man would have accomplished so much in such a short span of life. I am sorry that I doubted your ability, but I must say you have more than passed the test."

  Hazzard slumped into the chair and shook his head. "You had me checked out? By who? And for what? Not to deliver a stupid string of beads. . . ."

  "No, the beads were but a ruse. We had to arrange for you to travel willingly. You needed money, and, as suspicious as you might become, delivering a string of beads for ten thousand dollars was something we knew you would most likely accept. Then by planning your trip and insisting on your exact itinerary, we placed you on board the same vessel that was carrying a shipment of our arms. You could be taken off the ship at the same time we unloaded the weapons, and brought here. We had planned to do it peacefully, but you created a problem. Explaining the situation to you at the time would have delayed us, and possibly compromised the reason you were being brought here."

  "I'm confused," said Hazzard, and he took a mouthful of sherry. "You mean I never was supposed to go to Saigon in the first place? The whole deal was just a frame-up to get me here under false pretenses, without me, or anyone else knowing about it?"

  "Bluntly speaking, yes."

  "And I suppose it was you who had my apartment torn apart," commented Hazzard, as he remembered the complete mess it had been in. "There wasn't a thing left that could be used again."

  "Yes," smiled Chang. "But the ten thousand dollar fee should be enough to compensate for a few pieces of cheap furniture and some old pillows."

  Hazzard leaned forward. "All right, so I can buy new furniture, but why did you search my place? What kind of whacky reason have you got for that one?

  "You use some very interesting words, Mr. Hazzard," Chang replied. "But we had two so-called whacky reasons. First, to make sure you were carrying out instructions by keeping the beads constantly with you. If we had found them in your apartment, we would have canceled the arrangement and forgotten about the initial payment of five thousand dollars. Secondly, it was necessary to put you on your guard. A crude attempt to warn you of the seriousness of delivering the beads."

  "And what about the beads?" asked Hazzard.

  "They mean nothing."

  "So, they mean nothing," said Hazzard, and he shook his head wearily. It was only getting more confusing. "Now, let's go back to the boat. If they were your guns, why'd you have to hold up the ship like a gang of pirates?"

  "To divert suspicion," replied Chang. "There is no other possible way to ship arms here without the enemy discovering our plans in advance."

  Hazzard thought about this for a moment. It was like quicksand; the more the man talked, the deeper you went into confusion.

  "Just exactly who is your enemy? And what do you want from me?" Hazzard asked.

  Chang's attitude changed, and he became very serious. "To explain this I must start at the beginning of a long story. It is not a pretty story, and I hope you will have the patience to listen."

  Hazzard finished the sherry and set the glass on the table. "I'll listen," he said.

  Chang took a deep breath and sighed as he arranged his thoughts. Then he began.

  "My country was once under French rule as part of a vast area known as Indochina. This particular area was known as Tonkin. In 1949 we became an Associated State of the French Union, but we were not prepared for what was to come. Strong pressure came from the north. Political maneuvering, propaganda, and finally actual infiltration by armed bands. Some of the more gullible among us passed these things off as the growing pains of a new country, and minor misunderstandings between nations. The bands of armed men who roamed the jungle were talked of as bandits, not to be taken too seriously."

  Chang paused and a bitter look passed across his face as the memory of those times came flooding back to haunt him.

  "But all of this," he continued, "was a very cleverly organized plan to take control of my country. First by fomenting internal unrest, and finally by armed intervention by the so-called People's Volunteer Army.

  "Soon, it was too late, we were suddenly embroiled in war. The outcome was a division of my country in 1954. One year later we established a republic of what was left of our country. Now, they are at us again, like the jackal at the throat of the wounded gazelle. There was nothing left to do but strike back, or all was lost."

  Chang stopped again and looked at Hazzard. "Am I boring you?" he smiled.

  "No," said Hazzard, "please continue."

  "We organized ourselves into various groups," Chang went on. "Some of us, being trained in politics and diplomacy, would fight with words in Geneva and the United Nations, seeking help from whatever source presented itself. Others, like myself, who were trained in the arts of war, would disappear into the jungle to recruit and train men to fight as guerrillas.

  "Today, our main objective is harassment. To worry the enemy in his own back yard. Our fighting strength is not very powerful, but our very existence is a deadly threat to the communist propaganda machine and helps prove their filthy Red doctrine a he.

  "We are also the end station for an underground escape route for refugees. From here they are sent south by small boats. You passed some of the newly arrived ones as we entered the village today. We are sadly lacking in facilities, and there is not much we can do for them here. But the refugee is also one of our weapons. When they reach the Free World, they spread the word of our desperate struggle, and tell firsthand of the despotism and brutality brought to our country by
this Red scourge."

  As Chang paused for a moment, Hazzard asked a question, "And this country you speak of, it is. . ."

  "Vietnam," Chang said quickly. "Right now you are in the part known as North Vietnam. This village is called Tu-Hao-Tuc."

  "The story of your country is very interesting, Chang," said Hazzard. "But I still do not see what it has to do with me."

  "Patience, Mr. Hazzard," said Chang. "You have but heard the background. Now I will bring you up to date. It became necessary for us to recruit men from many other countries. Competent men, skilled in the arts of war, who would come here to help train our young men and lead them in battle. During the past few years we have had no less than ten of these men here. Strong, fearless men. Today, only three of them are left. In the past four months, seven have died."

  "And you want me to join you?" asked Hazzard. "Help train these men, is that it?"

  "No, Mr. Hazzard, we do not," replied Chang. "Strange as it may seem, we need a detective—or to put it into military terms, we need a counterintelligence man."

  "A detective!" said the surprised Hazzard.

  "Yes," said Chang as he rose and walked to the sliding glass doors at the side of the room. "Come here, Mr. Hazzard."

  As Hazzard came up to him, Chang gestured toward the village. "Somewhere out there is a spy. In the last four months we have sent out nine harassing raids. Each one was a death trap for the men involved. The Reds knew we were coming, and were waiting. It was at these times that we lost the seven men I told you about." Chang turned to face Hazzard. "I am asking you to find that spy. Our former efficient organization is fraught with suspicion, and morale is at a dangerously low level."

  Hazzard shook his head. "Chang, as much as I would like to help you, I don't know if I can or not. First, you'll have to tell me about the activities of this spy of yours. Who you suspect. How he gets the information out. How many people had access to the information. In other words, everything you know."