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“You mean no one has told you about the bounty?”
“Bounty for what?”
“For the arrest of Friar Tuck.”
She fell instantly still. An image took shape in her mind: words typed on a file folder. Operation Friar Tuck. Declassified. She turned to Guy. “You know what he’s talking about, don’t you. Who’s Friar Tuck?”
Guy’s expression was unreadable, as if a mask had fallen over his face. “It’s nothing but a story.”
“But you had his file in your room.”
“It’s just a nickname for a renegade pilot. A legend—”
“Not just a legend,” insisted Gerard. “He was a real man, a traitor. Intelligence does not offer two-million-dollar bounties for mere legends.”
Willy’s gaze shot back to Guy. She wondered how he had the nerve—the gall—to meet her eyes. You knew, she thought. You bastard. All the time, you knew. Rage had tightened her throat almost beyond speech.
She barely managed to force out her next question, which she directed at Alain Gerard. “You think this—this renegade pilot is my father?”
“Intelligence thought so.”
“Based on what evidence? That he could fly planes? The fact that he’s not here to defend himself?”
“Based on the timing, the circumstances. In July 1970, William Maitland vanished from the face of the earth. In August of the same year, we heard the first reports of a foreign pilot flying for the enemy. Running weapons and gold.”
“But there were hundreds of foreign pilots in Laos! Friar Tuck could have been a Frenchman, a Russian, a—”
“This much we did know—he was American.”
She raised her chin. “You’re saying my father was a traitor.”
“I am telling you this only because it’s something you should know. If he’s alive, this is the reason he may not want to be found. You think you are on some sort of rescue mission, Miss Maitland, but you may be sadly mistaken. Your father could go home to a jail cell.”
In the silence that followed, she turned her gaze to Guy. He still hadn’t said a word; that alone proved his guilt. Who do you work for? she wondered. The CIA? The Ariel Group? Or your lying, miserable self?
She couldn’t stand the sight of him. Even being in the same room with him made her recoil in disgust.
She rose. “Thank you, Mr. Gerard. You’ve told me things I needed to hear. Things I didn’t expect.”
“Then you agree it’s best you drop the matter?”
“I don’t agree. You think my father’s a traitor. Obviously you’re not the only one who thinks so. But you’re all wrong.”
“And how will you prove it?” Gerard snorted. “Tell me, Miss Maitland, how will you perform this grand miracle after twenty years?”
She didn’t have an answer. The truth was, she didn’t know what her next move would be. All she knew was that she would have to do it alone.
Her spine was ramrod straight as she followed Gerard back down the hall. The whole time, she was intensely aware of Guy moving right behind her. I knew I couldn’t trust him, she thought. From the very beginning I knew it.
No one said a word until they reached the front door. There Gerard paused. Quietly he said, “Mr. Barnard? You will relay a message to Toby Wolff?”
Guy nodded. “Certainly. What’s the message?”
“Tell him he has just called in his last chip.” Gerard opened the front door. Outside, the sunshine was blinding. “There will be no more from me.”
SHE MADE IT SCARCELY FIVE steps before her rage burst through.
“You lied to me. You scum, you were using me!”
The look on his face was the only answer Willy needed. It was written there clearly; the acknowledgment, the guilt.
“You knew about Friar Tuck. About the bounty. You weren’t after just any ‘live one,’ were you? You were after a particular man—my father!”
Guy gave a shrug as though, now that the truth was out, it hardly mattered.
“How was this ‘deal’ with me supposed to work?” she pressed on. “Tell me, I’m curious. Were you going to turn him in the instant we found him—and my part of the deal be damned? Or were you going to humor me awhile, give me a chance to get my father home, let him step off the plane and onto American soil before you had him arrested? What was the plan, Guy? What was it?”
“There was no plan.”
“Come on. A man like you always has a plan.”
He looked tired. Defeated. “There was no plan.”
She stared straight up at him, her fists clenching, unclenching. “I bet you had plans for that two million dollars. I bet you knew exactly how you were going to spend it. Every penny. And all you had to do was put my father away. You bastard.” She should have slugged him right then and there. Instead, she walked away.
“Sure, I could use two million bucks!” he yelled. “I could use a lot of things! But I didn’t want to use you!”
She kept walking. It took him only a few quick strides to catch up to her.
“Willy. Dammit, will you listen?”
“To what? More of your lies?”
“No. The truth.”
“The truth?” She laughed. “Since when have you bothered with the truth?”
He grabbed her arm and pulled her around to face him. “Since right now.”
“Let me go.”
“Not until you hear me out.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“Look, I admit it. I knew about Friar Tuck. About the reward. And—”
“And you knew my father was on their list.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I would have. I was going to.”
“It was all worked out from the beginning, wasn’t it? Use me to track down my father.”
“I thought about it. At first.”
“Oh, you’re low, Guy. You’re really scraping bottom. Does money mean so much to you?”
“I wasn’t doing it for the money. I didn’t have a choice. They backed me into it.”
“Who?”
“The Ariel Group. I told you—two weeks ago they showed up in my office. They knew I was headed back to Nam. What I didn’t tell you was the real reason they wanted me to work for them. They weren’t tracking MIAs. They were tracking an old war criminal.”
“Friar Tuck.”
He nodded. “I told them I wasn’t interested. They offered me money. A lot of it. I got a little interested. Then they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Ah,” she said with disdain.
“Not money…” he protested.
“Then what’s the payoff?”
He ran his hand through his hair and let out a tired breath. “Silence.”
She frowned, not understanding. He didn’t say a thing, but she could see in his eyes some deep, dark agony. “Then that’s it,” she finally whispered. “Blackmail. What do they have on you, Guy? What are you hiding?”
“It’s not—” he swallowed “—something I can talk about.”
“I see. It must be pretty damn shocking. Which is no big surprise, I guess. But it still doesn’t justify what you tried to do to me.” She turned and walked away in disgust.
The road shimmered in the midmorning heat. Guy was right on her heels, like a stray dog that refused to be left behind. And he wasn’t the only stray following her. The slap of bare feet announced the reappearance of Oliver, who skipped along beside her, chirping, “You want cyclo ride? It is very hot day! A thousand dong—I get you ride!”
She heard the squeak of wheels, the wheeze of an out-of-breath driver. Now Oliver’s uncles had joined the procession.
“Go away,” she said. “I don’t want a ride.”
“Sun very hot, very strong today. Maybe you faint. Once I see Russian lady faint.” Oliver shook his head at the memory. “It was very bad sight.”
“Go away!”
Undaunted, Oliver turned to Guy. “How about you, Daddy?”
Guy slapped a few bills into Oliver’s grubby hand. “There’s a thousand. Now scram.”
Oliver vanished. Unfortunately, Guy wasn’t so easily brushed off. He followed Willy into the town marketplace, past stands piled high with melons and mangoes, past counters where freshly butchered meat gathered flies.
“I was going to tell you about your father,” Guy said. “I just wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”
“I’m not afraid of the truth.”
“Sure you are! You’re trying to protect him. That’s why you keep ignoring the evidence.”
“He wasn’t a traitor!”
“You still love him, don’t you?”
She turned sharply and walked away. Guy was right beside her. “What’s wrong?” he said. “Did I hit a nerve?”
“Why should I care about him? He walked out on us.”
“And you still feel guilty about it.”
“Guilty?” She stopped. “Me?”
“That’s right. Somewhere in that little-girl head of yours, you still blame yourself for his leaving. Maybe you had a fight, the way kids and dads always do, and you said something you shouldn’t have. But before you had the chance to make up, he took off. And his plane went down. And here you are, twenty years later, still trying to make it up to him.”
“Practicing psychiatry without a license now?”
“It doesn’t take a shrink to know what goes on in a kid’s head. I was fourteen when my old man walked out. I never got over being abandoned, either. Now I worry about my own kid. And it hurts.”
She stared at him, astonished. “You have a child?”
“In a manner of speaking.” He looked down. “The boy’s mother and I, we weren’t married. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
You walked out on them, she thought. Your father left you. You left your son. The world never changes.
“He wasn’t a traitor,” she insisted, returning to the matter at hand. “He was a lot of things—irresponsible, careless, insensitive. But he wouldn’t turn against his own country.”
“But he’s on that list of suspects. If he’s not Friar Tuck himself, he’s probably connected somehow. And it’s got to be a dangerous link. That’s why someone’s trying to stop you. That’s why you’re hitting brick walls wherever you turn. That’s why, with every step you take, you’re being followed.”
“What!” In reflex, she turned to scan the crowd.
“Don’t be so obvious.” Guy grabbed her arm and dragged her to a pharmacy window. “Man at two o’clock,” he murmured, nodding at a reflection in the glass. “Blue shirt, black trousers.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. I just don’t know who he’s working for.”
“He looks Vietnamese.”
