Free Dead and Kicking by Geoffrey McGeachin Page A

Imodium or something?’
    ‘Nope, but what I do need is some time on your computer.’
    ‘It’s in my bedroom – don’t look in any of the files marked “Don’t look in this file”.’
    I tracked down several news reports on the crash in English and pulled up Google Maps to get an idea of the location. The helicopter had just taken off from the small airport at Dien Bien Phu when it was seen to crash and burn on a heavily wooded and difficult-to-access hillside. An aerial reconnaissance had shown no sign of survivors, and strong downdrafts and an impending storm had ruled out any attempt at a landing near the site. A ground party would be sent in to recover the bodies but it was likely to take up to a week.
    Henk was in the living room when I finished.
    ‘What I need now is that little package you’ve been keeping for me.’
    Henk went into his office and came out with a sealed buff envelope. There were similar envelopes collecting dust with friends all over the world. I ripped it open and dumped the contents on the table: a couple of thousand US dollars in used notes, a passport, a dozen passport-size photos, a driver’s licence and a credit card. The passport was issued in Fiji, as was the driver’s licence. Both documents were current and had my photograph on them. The licence and passport were in the same name as the credit card – Barry Jones.
    ‘What does Mr Jones need in the way of visas if he wants to get to Luang Prabang?’ I asked. ‘And then cross over the border into Vietnam near Dien Bien Phu?’
    Luang Prabang was the old royal capital of Laos and the closest city with an airport to the Vietnamese border. I could get a direct flight to LP from Chiang Mai, in the next province.
    Henk scowled. ‘Mr Jones is a real pain in the arse. But what else is new? You can get a visa for Laos at the port of entry easily enough, but Vietnam is trickier. They’re not keen on visitors showing up unannounced.’
    ‘Tell me about it. I’m starting to get a bit that way myself. What about a green visa?’
    A green visa was a fifty or hundred US dollar bill folded inside a passport.
    Henk shook his head. ‘Personally, Alby, I wouldn’t risk it. You might get the visa but you also might get some serious jail time or a bullet in the head for the rest of what’s in your wallet.’ He picked up the passport, a couple of the small photographs and several hundred dollars. ‘I might know a bloke who knows a bloke. Let me see what I can do.’
    I made a fresh pot of coffee and went out onto the balcony to think things over. There was a beautiful view of the lake, but right now all I could see was that patch of smoking hillside in Vietnam. VT was a hell of a pilot, and he knew the UH1H Huey inside out, but sometimes even a great pilot might find himself with more grief than he could handle. But it was the sequence of events – me being on a hit list, Brett Tozer turning up as a floater, and now Jack and VT going down in a chopper – that was really disturbing.
    Jack and VT and I had become good friends over the eight weeks of the film shoot, but our connection went much further back. I wasn’t sure if they remembered our previous meeting, and I hadn’t brought it up. It was on my first overseas assignment, when I was posing as a press photographer while working undercover for D.E.D.
    I was young, impetuous and pissed as a cricket when I went to the aid of a female Swedish reporter in a Bangkok bar full of bored, boozed-up Aussie newspaper correspondents covering the latest half-arsed military coup. Maybe it was a language problem, but it really hadn’t been a good idea for her to walk into a joint like that wearing a tight T-shirt with the word ‘PRESS’ stretched invitingly across her chest.
    The last-minute intervention by an Aussie ex-special forces type who was drinking in the bar with a Vietnamese bloke was the only thing that stopped me from being beaten to a pulp. The two of them had jumped in boots and