Dragon Mountain. Daniel Reid

      "You must admit that you never thought you'd see me again. Correct?" Ching Wei swirled his brandy in a hand-cut crystal snifter, savoring the fumes like a cat sniffing the wind. We sat near the latticed windows on lacquered teakwood chairs cushioned with silk. A warm breeze blew the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine trees into the room.

      "That's right," I admitted.

      "But in recent years I have followed your career with great interest from—as we Chinese say—'behind the curtain.' Obviously, it is your fate to fall into my hands, for Heaven put you directly in my path." He cleared his throat and lit a fresh cigarette. "For your convenience, I will speak in English. I have an excellent English tutor here—a real Englishman—and my command of your language has improved considerably since our last conversation in Chungking.

      "As you know, after America defeated Japan, Chiang Kaishek and the entire Nationalist Chinese government moved their capital back to Nanking. Chungking looked like a ghost town after they left. I like the term 'ghost town'; the image is very Chinese. In any case, I moved back to the provincial capital of Szechuan in Chengdu, where I planned to settle down and go into business.

      "But when the Communists took Manchuria and wiped out the Nationalist army at Huai-Hai, all of us in the south knew that they would soon come to claim all of China. Our lines of communication and transportation with the last Nationalist strongholds in Nanking and Shanghai were completely cut off, so we could not join them in their final escape to Taiwan. By 1949, the only Nationalist generals still fighting our cause on the mainland were Lee and Duan, who held a small corner of free territory deep in the southwest. As the Communists advanced south, Lee and Duan made preparations to evacuate their men and materials to Burma. As a trained pilot, I was recruited to assist in the evacuation."

      "Despite your court-martial?"

      Ching Wei laughed. "Come now, Jack, by that time even convicted criminals were dragged from jail and put into uniform. In fact, I was fully reinstated as a captain. By the end of the year, Lee and Duan had established a secure base in the mountains of northern Burma. They were convinced that Chiang Kai-shek would soon launch a counterattack from Taiwan, so they committed their men and arms to daring raids across the border, harassing the Communists at their weakest points. We had eight thousand men when we arrived in Burma, and for years we continued to fight the Communists. In those days, we were still patriots. You may also be interested to hear that our old teacher, Master Lee, joined our march into Burma, and he remained here with us for eight years." That was the first mention of Old Lee I'd heard since the war.

      "At first, the Nationalist government in Taiwan supported our campaigns against the Communists in China. For years we received regular deliveries of arms and other supplies from Taiwan. Most of this material was dropped to us by air."

      "I know. One of my first assignments for Air America when I arrived in Taipei was to drop supplies into Burma for Lee and Duan. They were big heroes in Taiwan then." Prior to my transfer to Saigon in 1962, I was senior pilot in Taipei for nearly ten years, and I remember very well how popular the Chinese freedom fighters in Burma were in Taiwan in those days.

      "How interesting that you were involved in those supply drops! You see, Jack, our fates are indeed entwined. But in 1958, all assistance from Taiwan was suddenly terminated, without explanation. By 1960, our troops in Burma looked like beggars—dressed in filthy rags, underweight from lack of food, no medicine for the wounded and sick." I resisted the urge to remind him that he had left our men in Chungking in precisely the same state by dumping food and medical supplies in India and substituting opium. "We all felt tired and homesick for our families and friends in Taiwan. Even Lee and Duan were refused permission to return. Why? They let us fight their cause for so many years here in Burma, then suddenly terminate all support and leave us to rot like dead dogs in the jungle. Never will I understand—nor forgive—this betrayal!"

      "I don't understand it either, Ching Wei. When orders came down to halt our supply drops over Burma, it surprised the hell out of us too. No doubt it was some dirty political deal with China. Maybe Taipei made an agreement with the Reds to stop supplying you in Burma in exchange for a truce in the Taiwan Straits. They were shelling Matsu pretty heavily that year, as I recall. Anyway, we've never been able to crack Chinese intelligence in Peking or Taipei, so whatever's been going on between the two for the past twenty years remains a mystery to us. Chinese can't seem to keep a secret from each other for more than a few minutes, but they have no trouble keeping foreigners in the dark forever."

      Ching Wei took that as a compliment and smiled. "Anyway, it does not matter anymore," he said. "What happened next is common knowledge. We had to survive. At first, we earned a small income by providing armed escorts to protect local opium caravans moving from the highlands of Burma down into Thailand and Laos. Although many of our senior officers found the opium business distasteful, it was—and still remains—the only viable source of income in this region, which you Americans call the 'Golden Triangle.' Our choice was quite simple: trade opium or starve to death.

      "For several years we managed to survive in this manner without sacrificing discipline and unity. But greed and corruption follow the opium business like wolves follow the scent of blood. Junior and middle officers became addicted to opium smoking, and this soon gave them new ideas. First one, then another, then half a dozen different groups disappeared into the mountains and went into business on their own. Some extorted money from the villages that grow opium; others joined bandit gangs. Many died of disease and addiction, and even more were killed in bitter fighting among rival bands. I myself selected sixty good men from my outfit and established a small camp in the mountains. We had sufficient ammunition and supplies to last us about three months."

      So far, Ching Wei wasn't letting me in on any big secrets with his postwar history—most of it was already common knowledge. What he was really doing was gloating about his own personal success. He certainly knew that I worked for the Company, and that Air America was only a front, but since he never intended for me to leave Dragon Mountain alive, he wasn't worried about telling me all the details of his criminal activities