Restless Soul - Alex Archer [105]
“It was a small operation at first. We’d carry a few bits of holy treasure into China and make a tidy profit, reinvest it. Eventually, we set up a corporation of sorts in Saigon. We spread enough money around to get some police to look the other way, appeared to support the communist government, stuck to the shadows. Never sent too much across the border at any one time.”
He shook his head sadly, the gesture making his mist-like hair appear to float around his face. “Times have changed. The government is cracking down on smuggling. It seems some people want to keep the relics here. But we never sent too much at any one time, tried not to be noticed.”
Annja remembered the article about the men arrested in China transporting Vietnamese artifacts.
“It looked like a significant haul stashed in the mountains,” she said. “I’d say that was ‘too much.’ And I noticed.”
He gave another shrug. “Things have been complicated recently. More Western influence, more people concerned about the national relics and history, more guards watching the borders. If they only knew how much is gone, scattered across the globe. Most of it’s gone when you think about it—beyond the considerable inventory in that warehouse and the pittance in a few…antiques stores.”
Annja shuddered at the loss of history.
“Yes, Lanh and I saw to it that there’s really not all that much left. Pity, I suppose. But it couldn’t be helped—it was the best way to earn a fortune that I could think of.”
One of the men she’d knocked out groaned and tried to rise, but he fell flat again and stopped moving.
“How did you get involved with him? Lanh Vuong?”
He smiled fondly, the first trace of emotion he’d shown. “During the war, actually. That was the first time I met him. We ran afoul of a dink base he was in charge of, and he had the audacity to capture us. I expected to spend the rest of the war in some slimy slope-head prison. But I made friends with some of them. I’d learned enough of the language at that point to get by. I bargained my freedom with Lanh for the location of a temple stash. He always did like gold.”
Annja felt the bile rise in her stomach. This man was making her physically sick recounting what he’d done.
“The short version is that Lanh released me and two of my friends. There were four others, but he wanted some souls to take back with him. As we were running away, his camp was taken by American Marines—we managed to avoid the Marines, not wanting to end up in some U.S. prison for desertion. Neither did we want to end up dead. There were a lot of bullets flying that day. I learned later that Lanh had been grabbed by the Marines and tossed into a cell in the south. Many, many years, he was stuck there. Later our paths crossed again.”
Annja felt dizzy, from lack of sleep, loss of blood and from listening to the sordid doings of a former U.S. soldier. The Sandman had successfully turned her stomach.
“It was an accident, really, our meeting again. Lanh had found my smuggling network, and he had far more contacts than I did. He was running a few operations of his own from behind bars. When he finally got back up north, we combined our resources. Became friends, I suppose, or as close to friends as our kind can be.”
She hissed and stepped close, dismissing the sword as she brought her right hand up and grabbed his throat, feeling a few gold chains hanging there and dangling down beneath his shirt. There was another chain, with a familiar feel to it, and this she yanked free.
“And you come clean to me,” she said, feeling his dog tags in her fingers. “Why? Why spill your guts about this?”
He looked surprised. “Why? Because you asked. Because you’ve won this war.” He swallowed hard and she eased up and gave him a little breathing room. “And because I’ll be joining Lanh soon. Something’s rotten inside.