Opium by Colin Falconer

Rocco. I'll get your opium.
    And then it will be your turn to bleed.
    Do you want to chase clouds forever ?
     
     
    Vientiane
     
    The airport at Wattay had no Immigration or Customs controls, was no more than a cleared pasture. There was a handful of sheds at the eastern end of the strip, that Air Laos used for hangars and warehouses. In the monsoon it was a cloying swamp, in the dry season the airfield was a dust bowl.
    Bonaventure had his driver park his Mercedes in the shade of a pipal tree next at the edge of the field. It was hot inside the car, and Bonaventure sat with his legs stretched out of the open door. Noelle sat beside him, fanning herself gently with the morning's copy of Lao Presse .
    Neither of them spoke for a very long time. Out on the airfield a flock of vultures were picking over the carcass of a buffalo.
    It was Bonaventure who broke the silence first. “I cannot believe you did this,” he hissed.
    “Don't preach to me, papa. Not after what you and your gangsters did to him.”
    “He deserved it. So did you. You behaved like a whore. I should have had him dumped in the Saigon river.”
    “If you did, I would have killed myself.” She fanned herself even more furiously. “Or perhaps I would have killed you.”
    You see, Bonaventure thought to himself. It was the peasant blood again. His mother's fault. In the name of the holy Virgin, why was he ever cursed with such a daughter?
    “He's getting your opium for you. I thought you would be pleased.”
    “He hasn't got it yet,” Bonaventure said. Perhaps Kong Le's men had already taken care of him. But six hundred kilos of opium! That was a lot to lose.
     
    ***
     
    Baptiste taxied the Beechcraft to the end of the runway. Another mortar round landed less than fifty yards away and he felt the aircraft tremble from the aftershock. That was the fourth round to hit the airfield. The airstrip was still serviceable but it wouldn't be for much longer.
    Behind him the Dakota rumbled away from the Quonset huts with the last Americans in Phong Savan on board. Petrovski was with them.
    Baptiste swung around onto the strip, the three captured Pathet Lao heads grinning at him, rotting black in the sun. He pushed the engines to full throttle and bounced along the runway. Get up, get up you son of a whore he cursed at the plane. The jungle rushed closer. He had no choice but the take off with the wind with so much opium on board. But this would take him close to the communist guns. He eased back on the controls and felt the wheels lift clear of the ground.
    He did not hear the rattle of the machine gun fire over the roar of the engines. The Perspex canopy split with holes, and the Beechcraft seemed to lurch in the air. For a moment he was blind, and when he put a hand to his face it was wet with blood.
     
     
     

Chapter 20
     
    I T WAS almost noon when Rocco Bonaventure heard the distant whine of an aircraft coming from the north. He had all but given up hope. He murmured a quick prayer of thanks; he could not afford to lose another plane.
    The Beechcraft was a grey speck in a milky sky. As it swooped towards the coconut palms, he got out of the Mercedes and ran to meet it.
    Noelle waited by the car. There was something very wrong, could tell by the beat of the engines even before she saw the trail of oil spewing from the port engine. She crossed herself.
    “For the love of God,” Bonaventure shouted. Then Noelle saw it too. There were jagged holes all along the fuselage and the tailplane. Only God and Baptiste Crocé knew what was holding the frame together.
    “Please God,” Noelle whispered. I will never do anything bad again. I will not fornicate with him or smoke opium or disobey my father. I'll be a good wife and make babies and keep the rosary from this day on. Just get him down safely.
    Baptiste cut the port engine, the remaining engine laboured to keep the plane airborne. The port wing dipped suddenly.
    He was not going to make it.
    “My plane!'