The Ill Wind Contract
by Phillip Atlee
Joe Gall is a former CIA agent and current rich a-hole who does contract work for the agency. A scientist is working on puromycin, which causes memory loss in mice. Gall hangs around Japan for half the novel in Japan waiting for orders. He runs into a half-Black, half-Japanese sumo wrestler a couple times in a subplot that goes nowhere, a running theme here.
The puromycin is forgotten about, Gall's real mission is to smuggle 10,000 pounds of precious metal out of Indonesia. Gall loads it in the back of his sedan (about 10 times the average carrying capacity, guess they build different in Indonesia) and drives it a couple miles, where someone else unloads, arranges transportation, moves it to Japan, and unloads. Not sure where Gall comes in, another running theme.
The smuggling portion is dealt with quickly to make room for the real plot - Gall is pulled in to the 30 September Movement's coup attempt and tasked to saving generals targeted for assassination. Which he fails at. He does assist in reclaiming a communication building in an unlikely sequence in which he sneaks in and doses the enemy's food with the puromycin, which makes them forget how to shoot their guns.
A communist paper claims responsibility. Gall stops the army from suppressing the paper and has them force the press to print more, in order to whip up a backlash that in real life resulted in around a million deaths. Yay.
Quickly back to the smuggling, which Gall is just along for the ride. There's a "love" interest, but the sex scene involves him calling her a whore for a couple pages and a quick two sentence sex scene:
"She was in her natural position, on her back, when I took her first. Then I flipped her over expertly, because a lot of those lonely journeys of mine had been to seaport towns." Which I'm assuming is butt stuff. I'm not sure why he's being coy - this is right after he tells her he can tell she sleeps around a lot by the smell of her vaginal musk.
Gall is a miserable prick without the charm of a Bond or a Hammer, and is a passive character in what's basically a combination travelogue and historical novel.
The name Phillip Atlee sounded familiar - he's the brother of CIA officer David Atlee Phillips, who's been accused of involvement in various political assassinations.
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