"We settled near a village protected by a gang of local bandits. They were camped comfortably by a river in the valley, while we fortified ourselves high up in the mountains. They suspected neither our presence nor our intentions. One night, as their entire camp got drunk celebrating a local festival, we attacked them by surprise, killing more than half their men. The rest joined my forces. I now had a secure camp, a small but well-equipped army, and a prosperous village to supply all of our needs—my first kingdom!" He beamed with pride at the recollection.
"Of course, my operation was small in the beginning. We had to avoid contact with big, well-protected dealers at all cost. I moved my opium overland to Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, using a long and difficult route through the mountains, where we would not be noticed. There I sold it directly to my own Chinese contacts, without meddlesome local middlemen.
"Then in 1965, I made my first-and only-mistake." The memory clouded his face, causing his lips to twitch in silent rage. "I received an order for fifteen tons of raw opium, the biggest deal I'd ever made. Previously, I had never sold more than five tons in one transaction, but by then I had over two thousand men under arms and felt confident that I could handle it. My own villagers produced less than ten tons that year, so I raided neighboring villages to obtain the rest.
"I had never dealt with anyone but my own people before, but this time the buyer was General Rammakone, supreme commander of the Laotian Army—if you care to call those lazy, opium-smoking peasants an army. If I'm not mistaken, General Rammakone was also on your 'Company' payroll at that time, supposedly to fight the Communist Pathet Lao." He snorted with laughter at the irony. "The general's real business, however, was refining opium into heroin in an old Pepsi-Cola factory right outside of Vientiane! Much of it he sold directly to the Communists in North Vietnam, who turned around and fed it to American troops fighting in South Vietnam. Nasty business, isn't it?
"The deal was organized by my contacts in Chiang Mai. The general bargained hard for a lower price, but since he offered to pay entirely in gold bullion, we struck a bargain. It was a golden opportunity for all of us. We were instructed to deliver the opium to a remote camp in northern Laos. But I was dealing with strangers who were not Chinese, and therefore secrecy was impossible. The transaction soon came to the attention of Colonel Hsu, who at the time commanded the largest regular battalion of Nationalist troops remaining in the region. If Hsu permitted fifteen tons of opium to leave Burma without taking a share, not only would his dominant position in the trade be threatened, he would also lose face before his own troops."
"Heaven forbid that anyone should lose face!" I couldn't resist that remark, but he ignored it.
"You can imagine what happened next. Though I took a very difficult route, Colonel Hsu knew exactly when our caravan left camp and exactly where we were going. The moment we crossed the Mekong River into Laos, he attacked us in full force." Ching Wei trembled as he recalled the event, and his voice curled into a snarl. "They ambushed us from two sides as we crossed the river. They killed two hundred fifty of my men. They shot our pack horses in midstream, and much of the opium was washed downriver.
"We might have all been killed that day if General Rammakone himself had not intervened. When his scouts reported what was happening, the general took immediate action-not to save us, but to save his opium. He called in fighters and helicopter gunships and attacked both sides with rockets, napalm, and cluster bombs. Our men panicked, and both Hsu and I retreated back across the border into Burma. Meanwhile, the general's troops swept onto the battlefield and combed the river to collect the remaining opium. The general kept his gold as well. But that was not the end of the matter.
"As soon as we had crossed back into Burma, Hsu regrouped his forces and attacked us again, killing or capturing half my remaining troops. I returned to camp with less than five hundred men, convinced my days were over. I also carried back a souvenir from the battle to remind me forever of that black daya piece of shrapnel that still remains buried in my liver." That explained his habit of favoring his left side whenever he sat down: any pressure on his right side caused the shrapnel in his liver to shift position, a sensation as painful as a knife in the gut.
"After that battle, Hsu thought I was finished, perhaps even dead, and that his monopoly on opium trafficking in the region was secure. But, as you can see for yourself," he swept an arm around his lavish throne room, "I am neither finished nor dead. I thrive!"
"Congratulations."
"Thank you. But my recovery was not easy. It required three years to reorganize my forces. First I raided small caravans and villages like a common bandit, avoiding all serious conflicts until I had rebuilt an even bigger army of three thousand men." He pounded the arm of his chair. "Then I came here and took Dragon Mountain away from Colonel Hsu! He had grown soft and fat, and his men had lost all discipline. We found his sentries sound asleep as we penetrated his camp one morning at dawn, and by noon this mountain was mine! Hsu and some of his men escaped north into the Kachen Hills, where he still conducts a petty opium operation. One day I will hunt him down and kill him off like the crazy dog he is!"
"Now that you're king of the mountain, why not just go in and kill him now?"
"Although I control over eighty percent of the opium trade here, it suits me to permit a few small dealers to continue their operations in the region. It confuses the authorities."
"Clever. You take all the profits, and they take all the blame." His smug narrative was starting to grate on my nerves.
"I see you tire of my talk, so I will come directly to the point," he replied sharply. "I learned two basic lessons from that disaster in 1965. First, deal only with Chinese buyers. Among Chinese, certain understandings and civilized principles always prevail when doing business, even among enemies. A Chinese buyer, for example, would have let Hsu and me fight to the finish, then deal properly with the winner, rather than try to kill us both and steal the entire shipment.
"The second lesson I learned is that moving such bulky and precious cargo overland, especially in this terrain, is an open invitation to trouble. Caravans are highly vulnerable to attack, even by small gangs of bandits. But hiring armies to escort and protect large caravans is so costly that it drives the price of opium beyond reason, which is not good for business. So I have taken inspiration from the old days, when we flew the Hump between India and China. From now on, I will move my opium by air! "
"Smart move."
"Yes, very. And that, Captain Jack, is precisely why you are here. You will be my pilot!" He threw his head back and cackled at the irony of my position, but his pleasure was cut short by a sharp stab of pain from the shrapnel in his liver. "What you had me court-martialed for in Chungking thirty years ago, you will now do for me here," he hissed through clenched teeth, finally revealing the audacity of his scheme.
"I have followed your movements very carefully since you moved to Saigon from Taipei to take over Air America operations there. However, military security at airports in Saigon, Bangkok, and other cities along your routes prevented me from taking action earlier. So I waited and I watched. When you started making those runs to northern Laos to pick up opium for your Company, you suddenly became available to me. You see, Jack, all this time your Company has been buying its opium from me!"
Ching Wei smirked at my surprise. Though we'd been buying and selling opium out here for years to finance covert operations that Congress refused to acknowledge, we'd always assumed the stuff came directly from the Shan, Karen, Hmong, and other mountain tribes that grow it as a cash crop. We had no idea we were dealing with the kingpin himself. As it turned out, all of our orders were channeled through Ching Wei's agents, who had it delivered anonymously to our pickup point near Luang Prabang. We never inspected the cargo, never kept ledgers, and never asked any questions. And to make sure that word of this did not leak to the outside, only I and two other senior pilots flew those opium runs, with no copilots as witnesses. It had been a simple ploy for Ching Wei to stash a goon with a gun in one of the opium lugs to nab me. I'd been a sitting duck.
"Ironic, isn't it?" he gloated. "Thirty years ago, you had me arrested and court-martialed for smuggling opium into China. Today you have been trapped at the same game, smuggling opium to Saigon for your CIA. And from now on, your duty will