Air Thermae

   “Dear John,

    Hello from the Cape! How are you doing these days, my friend? I’m basically sitting on my old man’s ass enjoying the life I can now have because of what happened to us last month in Laos. Even as I sit here scribbling this postcard off to you, I can’t believe what we did and got away with doing over there.

   Matter of fact, The Cape Cod Times barely made any mention of the attack on Gen. Xiang’s camp; most Americans can’t even find Laos on the damn map, anyways! Of course, I’ve kept real quiet about it and nobody here knows much about my part in it--the only giveaway I show is the brand new Jaguar convertible I bought last week! Well, John, I’m running out of room so I’ll sign off but I hope everything is going well for you now in Thailand. Cheers! Glenn”

    John Harwich smiled as he  put the postcard down on his bureau that also worked as a desk for him in his apartment at Viraporn Court. The front of the postcard had given him a good laugh to start the day off with: a color picture of a dog romping through a cranberry bog on Cape Cod. Cape Cod, the arm-shaped peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic, was part of Massachusetts, southeast of Boston. It was also where Harwich had been born, raised and lived most of his life until his friend Glenn Lucas had been instrumental in getting him to return to Southeast Asia.

   Glenn’s message on the other side had made Harwich even happier. It stated why Harwich was where he was now without saying a damned thing at all; Asian-style at its best.

   Harwich smiled at himself in the mirror attached to the bureau. He was bordering fifty but did not one bit look it in the mirror--a little over 5’ 7”, brown hair that continued to resist going gray, teeth that were original and in good shape, no wrinkles, blue eyes that the Thai bargirls enjoyed and no fat on him whatsoever. His body was in excellent shape in spite of his age and his recent misadventures in Laos had proved that all the way.

   In his youth, in the early ‘70s, Harwich had first been in this part of the world doing a tour of duty in Vietnam with the US Army’s Special Forces, 5th Group.

   It had been shaky and dangerous in the beginning but he’d survived and taken to the area so well that he’d ended up working for the CIA in Special Operations Group doing tours in Laos and Cambodia as the United States pulled out of Indochina. “Vietnamization”, as Nixon called it, was underway at the same time as Harwich’s tours.

   He’d been attached to the 46th  Group based out of Camp Narai in Lopburi, Thailand and had done enough time there teaching Royal Thai Army Special Forces and other military/police outfits how to perform covert ops. More than one mission took him back into Laos and Cambodia. While in Thailand, he got over all the insanity he’d seen and participated in on duty in Indochina.

   He learned to speak Thai even better than his Lao, Khmer, Vietnamese and H’mong. He spent time off-duty studying Buddhism at local wats. He learned to love Singha beer and Mekhong whiskey. The spicy tastes of Thai food pleased his stomach. Like most single, young servicemen in the kingdom, he had great sex and fell in love with more than one Thai girl.

   After the fall of Saigon in ‘75, Harwich was finished with combat work in Southeast Asia