* * * * *
While Lt. Van Dinh made arrangements for the police raid, Anjiro Watanabe explained to his nephew what he was doing in Saigon.
"The Company recently learned from Mossad that the KGB has been funding terrorist groups, like the Japanese Red Army and Black September (the outfit responsible for the Munich Olympic Massacre), through drug money. Since then, our own investigations have revealed a heroin pipeline in the eastern Mediterranean region. Red Chinese Ilyushins are flying raw opium from Yunnan Province to Albania, via Sinkiang.* From Albania, Italian fishing boats from Taranto relay it to Marseilles, for trans-shipment by train, to Paris. And, from there, it gets smuggled to Cayenne, French Guiana, as 'spare parts' for a certain oil refinery in Venezuela!"
It was at this refinery that the opium was turned into heroin, which the Suarez drug cartel in Colombia would then smuggle into the U.S., via Mexico. Prompting Chet to ask why nothing was being done.
"I mean, if you know all that..."
"Rest assured, my nephew, steps are being taken as we speak. For example; I've been working in the nightclub's kitchen as a busboy from Phrom Pong. Trying to obtain evidence that Chou Sen Yi is involved in that pipeline as a money launderer. His brother-in-law would abhor that, as Chang Ah Fu is a vehemently _anti-communist_ refugee from Tsamkong! While Don Suarez, in Colombia, is a Korean War veteran. The former will send word to the latter, once Lt. Van Dinh has similarly informed Chang."
Chet smiled: "Divide and conquer, huh?"
"Precisely! Unfortunately, some of the local police are in Chou Sen Yi's pocket. And, they told him of the information Lt. Van Dinh was receiving. That is why he was targeted by those KGB assassins. They wanted to learn the source of the leak."
"And, hence, their targeting of me and Chet," deduced Little Buck: "They knew I was a mutual friend of both him and Throckmorton. So, they tried to kill two birds with one shrunken reporter...and almost succeeded!"
Watanabe nodded.
"So, what happens now?" asked Chet: "I mean; even if Chou and those two Commies are dum enough to still be at that nightclub when it's raided, how does that help Buck? Does the CIA have for a cure for his shrinkage?"
Chet's uncle frowned: "I'm afraid that the Company's resident eggheads are still working on that, even after eleven years. We might have to fake your death, Buck."
"Fake my death?" echoed Buck: "What about Enid and Ned?"
For the first time that evening, Watanabe was stumped for an answer.
tbc
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
TWENTY-FOUR HOURS EARLIER