Return to Tomorrow (20 page)

“Who's there?” she asked in Thai. She moved out of the square of light from the doorway. For a heartbeat he lost her in the darkness, then found her again, moving gracefully forward, her face a pale oval in the fading moonlight.

“It's Billy, Ahnle.” He came to the edge of the dusty street and a moment later she was in his arms. He couldn't stop himself. He pulled her close, wrapped her in his arms and savored the scent and shape and feel of her against him. When he held her like this, nothing else mattered, not the difference in their ages, their cultures, their race. He was in love with a girl young enough to be his daughter and he didn't give a damn who knew about it.

“Billy, I miss you so.” She lifted her face for his kiss. She was a very passionate woman beneath the passive exterior she showed to the world. She learned quickly and the taste of her small, pointed tongue as it darted into his mouth with butterfly quickness made his head reel with desire.

“God, sweetheart, I've missed you, too. How's Domha?”

“He grows like a Big Boy tomato plant. Rachel's brother, Micah, the one who is as big as a water buffalo, calls him that. Big Boy. I like it.” She giggled and
wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing close. He let her talk. He loved the sound of her voice, the funny little ways she fractured English sentences and rearranged them to suit herself. “He has a small son, also. Not many seasons older than Domha. Rachel says they will play together when we go to America.”

She fell silent as his arms tightened convulsively around her. “You're going to America?”

“When Rachel arranges with the head men of the States, yes.” She didn't meet his eyes. He couldn't read her expression in the fitful light of the waning moon, but he could feel her resistance. “I…I do not want to go,” she said finally, hesitantly.

“I don't want you to go.” He could no more have stopped himself from saying the words than he could have stopped the moon from slipping away over the hills.

“I will stay with you.” Ahnle wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for another kiss. Billy gave in to the bittersweet temptation to feel her mouth on his again, but when the kiss ended, he took her by the shoulders and held her at arm's length.

“If Rachel wants to take you to America you'll agree to go. Do you understand?” He hardened his heart to the pain that blossomed in her face.

“You do not want me? You do not want my son?”

“I may not be around to take care of you.”

“We have learned to take care of ourselves,” she said with pride.

“I know that.” He touched her hair, let his hand slide along the silken fall of it. “What I mean is, I may not be able to take care of you.” He might as well say it. Ahnle
wasn't some sheltered little Georgia peach of a girl. She was a woman in the eyes of her people, a people hardened to the tragedies of living—and dying. “We go to Khen Sa's camp very soon. If we don't succeed there, I won't come back. Ever.”

“Oh, no. Don't go.” She wiggled free of his restraining grip on her shoulders and threw herself into his arms. “You will be killed there, sure. They are bad men. I know. I have seen such others in my village.” She clasped her hands so tightly around his waist, he grunted in surprise.

“Ahnle…” Inside the hut the baby began to cry. Billy didn't finish what he had started to say. He saw Rachel get up from the table and stoop to take Domha into her arms. She stood up, looked around and walked to the door.

“Ahnle?” she called softly into the darkness. Ahnle put her fingers over his mouth. He knew if he faded into the deeper shadows among the huts across the street, she would say nothing of his being there. But that wasn't the purpose of his visit. It was Rachel Phillips he'd come to see.

He gave Ahnle a nudge. She looked at him, puzzled. “Answer her,” he said in a rough whisper only she could hear.

“Over here, Rachel. I…I am with Billy Todd.”

He stepped into the oblong of light that spilled across the ground outside the hut, keeping Ahnle close to his side. Rachel looked at them both for a long moment, then opened the door.

“You'd better come inside. The mosquitoes are bad tonight and we don't want anyone coming down with malaria. We've been so fortunate in that respect.” She
stopped talking abruptly as the door closed with a snick of the latch behind him. Out of habit, he moved to a corner of the room where he couldn't be seen from outside. Rachel noticed the maneuver but said nothing. She handed the baby to Ahnle, who took the little boy with a smile and moved back to stand beside him.

“What do you want, Billy?” Rachel asked, flicking the ash from a burning coil of mosquito repellent that was sitting on the table where she'd been working. She straightened a pile of papers before turning back to look at him.

She was wearing a
phassin,
too. It was cotton, in a pattern of jungle flowers in pastel shades. Over it, she was wearing a simple white cotton blouse, open down the front. Her feet were bare, her hair pushed carelessly behind her ears. She was a good-looking woman, and if Brett was half as much in love with her as he was with Ahnle, they were both too far gone to save themselves.

“I came to give you a message from Tiger.”

Her dark, arched brows drew together as she frowned. “I don't think this visit is a good idea. You know my brothers are here.”

“That's what he wants to talk to you about.” As far as he was concerned, it was okay if Rachel Phillips knew everything there was to tell about the deal with Khen Sa. If he was going back up into the hills to get killed, he'd like to have someone know the real reason why, but Brett was adamant that the knowledge was too dangerous to share with anyone else. And maybe he was right. “I'll be at the main gate at dawn tomorrow. Can you meet me there? I'll take you to him.”

She shook her head. “I can't leave again.” She drew her finger through a smudge of ash on the tabletop.

“It's important, Rachel.” He could see she was waging a battle within herself. Brett should have come and talked to her himself. She'd probably have listened to him, but he couldn't leave the temple. They were waiting for word from Khen Sa. It could come any day, but Simon McKendrick was getting too close for comfort.

He didn't like being this far out on the edge. He'd wanted Alf Singleton at the embassy to warn Simon McKendrick off, but Tiger didn't want anyone else to know about the plan and the ambassador had agreed with him. Not even the local DEA agents were aware of what was going on. The slightest hint of a double cross, the smallest leak, would send Khen Sa so deep into hiding they'd never find him. They needed Rachel's assurance that she'd do nothing to jeopardize the operation. And how the hell Tiger intended to get her to agree to that, when she thought they were a pack of thieves and drug runners, was beyond him.

The baby started to fuss. Ahnle held him close to her breast and shushed him. Billy reached out and touched him, feeling the softness of his black hair, the fragility of the bones beneath the skin. He'd like to hold him, cuddle him, but there wasn't time and he wasn't a goddamned masochist. It hurt to have Ahnle and the little guy so close and to know in a few minutes he'd have to leave them, maybe never see them again.

He looked up. Rachel was watching him and her eyes were wide with fear. Billy felt a superstitious chill race up and down his spine. She felt it too, that the deal was going wrong, that death was waiting for them out there in the jungle. He pushed the thought away.

A door opened and closed somewhere down the street.
Men's voices, faint and far away, carried on the night breeze. Rachel heard them, too. He saw her stiffen, tilt her head toward the sounds.

“The game must have broken up early,” she said, still frowning, but the fear in her eyes was gone; maybe he'd just imagined it. Instead, her expression was shadowed by indecision and regret.

“Sounds like it. I need your answer, Rachel.”

“I can't leave,” she repeated stubbornly, and maybe a little desperately. “I won't tell Micah you were here.”

“Don't make no difference if you do. I come and go as I please. Anyway, it ain't Micah I'm worried about.” Billy put his hand on the door latch. He looked as dark and menacing as a storm cloud. “It's the other one, Simon. He's been stickin' his nose in every nook and cranny from here to Bangkok an' back.”

“It's his job.” Rachel hated the defensive note in her voice. Simon was working for right and justice and truth and the American way and all the things she'd been taught to revere, all the things she'd sacrificed fifteen years of her life for.

“He's stirrin' things up,” Billy said. His voice was cold and grating. “Brett was going to try and convince you to call him off.”

“And if I don't—if I can't do that?”

“Then he's goin' to end up gettin' us all killed.”

 

“W
HO THE HELL WAS THAT
man I saw leaving this place?”

As Simon watched, Rachel squared her shoulders and set her jaw in a stubborn line he was coming to know all too well. He'd made a mistake jumping her this way,
the minute he stepped inside the door, but it was too late now to take back the words.

“Your poker game broke up early, didn't it?”

“Rachel. Answer me.”

She raised a delicately arched brow. “A man? I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Rachel.” This time it was Micah who spoke, reasonably and low enough not to wake the baby, sleeping just beyond the flimsy wall. It was a subtle warning Simon decided to heed.

“Yes, a man,” Simon said patiently. “The tall black man I saw come out of this door not two minutes ago. Was it Billy Todd?”

“Yes.” Rachel raised her chin proudly, prepared to do battle. She'd sent Ahnle to bed with the baby, Simon noticed. That meant she intended to face his questions on her own. If he just had a chance to get to the girl, he'd bet he could learn what he needed to know in ten minutes' time. But in the two weeks they'd all been living in Rachel's cramped hut, he'd barely had a chance to talk with her alone. His sister had protected her as fiercely as a mother tiger with her cubs, as fiercely as she guarded what knowledge she possessed of Tiger Jackson and his whereabouts.

If she was in love with the man, as Micah surmised, it explained a lot. A few short months ago, she wouldn't have hesitated to tell him. Simon didn't like being cut off from Rachel's confidences, but he didn't see much hope for changing things until they were back in the States.

He might as well tell her the truth, or what he believed to be the truth. “Look, Rachel. This deal is going sour.
There are leaks in Bangkok, in Chiang Mai. That's why we're back here early tonight. I just got a call from a source in Chiang Rai. Khen Sa's moving back and forth across the border at will. The guy I talked to thinks it means something big is coming down. He mentioned lots of ponies. Large numbers of men. Gold. Huge amounts of heroin changing hands. For God's sake, Rachel, tell me what you know about what's going on.”

“Nothing. I don't know anything,” she repeated so forcefully Simon knew she was lying.

“You were in Khen Sa's camp while you were out in the hills, weren't you?” She did look at him then. “Yes.”

“What did you see there?”

“Very little.” Her tone was clipped, emotionless. “Women, especially uninvited
farang
women, aren't exactly given the royal tour.”

“All right. All right.” Simon ran his hand through his hair. If and when they all got home safely, he was going to go ahead and take a desk job somewhere. He was getting too old for this kind of work. “Can you take me back there? Guide me in?”

“No. I'd have no idea of how to get there…from here.” This time, too, she seemed to be telling the truth.

“Okay.” Simon tried a different tack. Behind him, he could feel Micah's disapproval of his bullying tactics but he remained silent. Simon had never been so at odds with his siblings. He didn't like the feeling, despite the fact that he knew he was doing his job. “What did Billy Todd have to say?”

Rachel sat down on one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs. She straightened an already neat pile of papers
on the table in front of her. Her hands were shaking. “He told me he knew you were hooked up with the DEA. He said they knew you'd been sticking your nose into… Brett's business…all the way from here to Bangkok and back.”

Simon gave a grudging snort of laughter. “His sources are probably better than mine.”

“I think they are.” Suddenly Rachel looked scared and tired and uncertain. “Simon, please, don't make me tell you anything else. I don't know anything else.”

“Rachel.” He dropped to a crouch beside her chair, bringing his face on a level with her own. “I can't let the amount of heroin I'm beginning to believe Khen Sa is peddling up here, heroin Brett Jackson is dealing for, get out of this country without doing my best to stop it.”

“I know.” She stood up and he rose also, stepping back out of her way. He hadn't seen her look so defeated, so unsure of herself since her return from Vietnam. “You're doing a good job. That's what Billy came to tell me. He said if I couldn't persuade you to back off, you'd end up getting them all killed.”

R
ACHEL SAT WITH HER ARMS
folded over the steering wheel for a long minute, trying to ease the fatigue in the muscles of her arms and shoulders. It had been a long time since she'd driven a stick shift and Father Dolph's battered old Chevy pickup didn't have power steering, either.

She glanced at her watch. It was almost 11 a.m. She'd been on the road since dawn. She wondered how long it would take Simon and Micah to figure out where she'd gone and talk Ahnle into showing them how to reach the temple themselves. She only hoped her friend could resist their bullying until she had a chance to warn Brett and the others to get out of there and call off their deal with Khen Sa.

Rachel got out of the pickup and started walking. The jungle closed around her before she'd gone more than a few feet off the road. Rachel pushed the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and felt absurdly comforted by the weight of the machete she carried hidden within its folds. It was the only protection she had. She took a deep breath and kept walking, waiting for the old fear to settle on her. It didn't. Her heart was beating fast, both from the exertion of the steep trail and the knowledge that she was once more in an untamed and potentially dangerous place. But within herself, she now also carried the
certainty that she could survive here, and the knowledge gave her strength.

Jungle greens and browns surrounded her; the only sounds were bird calls and the echo of her footfalls, very faint, against the spongy loam of the forest floor. A red and green parrot flew across her path, startling her. Ahead, a half dozen rooks took wing from the branches of a huge teak tree, as though as startled as she by the parrot's flight.

But it wasn't another bird or animal that had alarmed the rooks. It was a man wearing military-style fatigues. He stepped out of a dense stand of rattan and bamboo and planted himself directly in her path.

“Come,” he ordered in Thai. He was carrying a rifle and looked as if he wouldn't hesitate to use it. He jerked his head in the direction of the temple. “This way.”

Rachel resumed walking. If this wasn't one of Brett's men, she was in very bad trouble. But only a minute or two later she glimpsed the
chedi
of the temple through a break in the trees. Her heartbeat slowed its headlong gallop in her chest and she breathed a little easier. She entered the clearing ahead of her escort and found herself approaching the avenue of Buddha statues. She walked past them into their shadows and remembered how they had looked in the moonlight when she stood on the temple wall with Brett.

Tonight there would be no moon.

Rachel tried not to think about Brett and what they had shared and might never share again.

A small truck was backed up to a gap in the temple wall and Rachel realized there was at least one more route through the jungle to this place, and probably several
others, as well. Escape routes for men who operated on the far side of the law—like Brett and Billy—were a necessity. More men in paramilitary outfits were loading the truck with the same wrapped oblong bundles, seeming far too heavy for their size, that she had seen taken off the ponies' backs in Khen Sa's camp.
Gold bars.
And in this part of the world, gold bought two things more often than anything else. Guns and opium.

“I came to see the Tiger,” she said in Thai, when her guard seemed uncertain of what next to do with her.

He grunted and motioned her into the cool shade of the temple proper with the barrel of his gun. “
Farang.
Inside.”

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of the main room. The niches for the Buddha statues in the walls were empty, their sacred images long hidden away and forgotten by the faithful, or carried off and desecrated by the profane. In the middle of the huge, high-ceilinged room stood a central pillar. At its base was a large gaping hole in the floor. It was being refilled with dirt from buckets being carried inside by more armed men. Standing off to one side, Lonnie Smalley directed the replacement of the flat paving stones that covered the temple floor.

He looked up and saw her standing, silhouetted by the bright morning sunlight outside. “Jeez, Rachel.” He lifted his hand and ran it through his hair in agitation. “How in hell did you get here?”

“I…I stole Father Dolph's pickup,” she admitted with a nervous chuckle. “I'm getting pretty good at it, actually.”

“Well, I'll be damned. First my poor old Bug and now
a padre's truck. You need to think about getting a set of wheels of your own.” He looked at her for a long time, then rubbed his hand along the back of his neck. “Why are you here, Rachel?” he asked at last.

“I…I've come to talk to Brett.” Her mouth and throat were suddenly very dry. “Could I have a drink of water, please?” She was carrying a plastic container of water in her bag but she asked, anyway. She needed time to order her thoughts.

What was she doing here?
Did she think Brett would give up this dangerous, illegal and immoral scheme just because she asked him to? She thought of all the bars of gold that must have come out of the hole in the temple floor and were now being loaded onto the truck. How much were they worth? How many times that much opium could the gold buy? Fifty? Eighty? One hundred times?

Lonnie handed her the canteen clipped to the wide canvas belt of his jungle-patterned fatigues. “Here. It's not very cold but it's wet.”

“Thanks.” She took a sip. “Lonnie, where's Brett?”

With tired eyes, he was watching the men replace the floor stones and sweep away the spilled dirt. He was silent a moment. “He'll be along soon,” he said finally. “You know something?”

Rachel shook her head as she replaced the cap on the canteen and handed it back to him.

“Billy owes me a buck.” He gave her a sad, weary smile. She noticed, suddenly, that there was a lot more gray in his red hair than there had been when she first met him. He looked old and diminished, although he couldn't have been much more than thirty-five or thirty-
six. “I bet him you'd show up sooner or later, no matter what you told him last night.”

“I only came to warn you that my brother knows about the deal with Khen Sa.”

“We know that, too. The colonel has better sources of information than the DEA will ever have.” It was the first time she'd heard him refer to Brett by his military title. It made the man she loved seem more of a stranger to her than ever.

“I figured that, too.” Rachel lifted her chin. “I don't want anything to happen to my brothers.”

Lonnie nodded. “Come on over here and sit down.” The laborers had finished filling the hole and replacing the floor stones. They trooped out of the temple ahead of Rachel and Lonnie, carrying their rifles and buckets and thatch brooms with them. They sat down, side by side, on the wide, shallow steps and watched the activity in the courtyard.

“Are you going with Brett to make the deal with Khen Sa?”

“Yeah.” He rested his elbow on his upraised knee and dropped his chin onto his fist. “I'm straight, Rachel. I have been since we talked that day, by the well. Do you remember?”

She pictured the cool, tree-shaded inner courtyard in her mind's eye. It was peaceful and beautiful, even in its ruined state. She longed to be sitting there now, instead of in the hot noonday sun. “I remember.”

“I've tried before to kick the habit. It never worked. Maybe it won't work this time. I found a monastery where they try to cure addicts. It was a hell of a treat
ment, the worst two weeks of my life, but so far, it's worked.”

“Maybe this time it's because you want it to.”

“Maybe. I want to be with Brett and Billy. I don't want to be a hindrance to them, maybe get them hurt or killed. I have to make it this time, Rachel.”

“You can do it.” She laid her hand on his arm. His skin was tight and dry, the bones too prominent. There were dark shadows under his green eyes and deep lines of pain and stress bracketing his mouth. “I know it can't be easy for you.”

“I'm trying my damnedest to stay clean this time but it's hard. Jesus, it's hard.” His hands were shaking. He shoved them into the pockets of his pants. “There's no place to go but inside my own head. I've spent fifteen years trying not to remember what's locked up inside me. Now I haven't got anyplace to get away from the memories.”

“I know, Lonnie. I don't have any place to hide from myself anymore, either.” They didn't look at each other, but he reached out and folded his hands over hers.

“I miss my dreams. I don't know how long I can last without trying to get them back.”

“Lonnie…” A jeep appeared out of the forest and drove up alongside the truck. Rachel had been so absorbed in the conversation, she hadn't been aware of its approach.

“It's the colonel and Billy.”

Rachel shaded her eyes. It was Brett and Billy in the jeep, both armed and dressed in the same camouflage-patterned fatigues and soft-brimmed hats as the others.

Lonnie stood up, then reached out a hand to help her do the same. “We might as well let him know you're here, right off. The turnoff for the road they're drivin' is about three hundred yards ahead of where you came in. I doubt they saw your truck.”

“I wish I'd known about that road. It would have saved me a long, hot hike.”

“If the colonel don't want you to find somethin' around here, you won't, and neither will your brothers.”

 

B
RETT PICKED UP
the M16 from the front seat of the jeep and slung the strap over his shoulder, as he watched his men loading the last of the gold bars into the truck.

Billy gave a long, low whistle. “Well, if that don't beat all.” Brett swung around to see Rachel walking across the clearing toward them. “Guess I owe Lonnie a buck.” She was wearing brown slacks and a long-sleeved white shirt. Her hair was shoved up under a Tigers' baseball cap. She smiled at Billy but wouldn't meet Brett's gaze, focusing instead on a point somewhere near his left shoulder.

“You shouldn't be here.” He didn't think it would be this hard to see her and not touch her, reach out and take her in his arms.

“Last night Billy said…” She did look at him then and their eyes locked and held.

“Everything's changed since last night. Something's spooked Khen Sa.”

“I know.” Rachel lifted her hand and laid it on his arm, briefly, a fleeting caress that shook him to the foundation of his soul. “I came to warn you. Get out of here, go someplace where they can't find you. The
authorities know about you and Khen Sa. They're looking for you.”

“How do you know that, Rachel?” He could see in her eyes how hard it was for her to say the words, to warn him, when she believed what he was doing was wrong in the eyes of man and God.

“My brother told me.” She closed her eyes, as though fighting back tears, but when she opened them again, the blue-gray depths were clear, though shadowed by sorrow. “I took Father Dolph's truck and came here to warn you.”

“Billy.” He didn't look away from her.

“Right here, Colonel.”

“Better take the jeep and check out the padre's truck. If Simon McKendrick is anywhere near as thorough as I suspect he is, it might be carrying a homing device.”

“That's impossible.” Rachel came to her brother's defense in the space of a heartbeat. “How would he know I'd steal Father Dolph's truck and come to warn you?”

“Because he thinks like I do. How many vehicles are there at the camp, not counting bikes and scooters?”

Rachel looked puzzled. “Three or four, I don't know. Four, I guess. The pickup. A jeep and two flatbed trucks. I couldn't drive the trucks. And there was Simon's rental car. I…I didn't think I could get the keys out of his pants pocket without waking him up.” She raised her chin defiantly. “I didn't have any trouble getting the keys to Father Dolph's pickup out of his office, though.”

“I bet you didn't.” He didn't smile at her but he wanted to. She looked pleased and contrite all at the same time and it was an engaging combination. “Your brother wouldn't have any trouble figuring that out, either. He
probably planted homing devices on the pickup and jeep, just on principle.”

Her face paled. “Then I've only made it easier for him to find you by coming here.”

“Maybe, maybe not. It makes no difference, Rachel. We're pulling out in an hour, anyway.”

“Brett.” She clutched his arm with frantic fingers. “Don't do this, please. Keep the gold. There must be hundreds of thousands of dollars here. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to deal in death and misery, as well?”

“You don't know what you're saying.”

Rachel's gaze swung in Lonnie's direction. “Do you want others to live through the same hell heroin has put you through?”

“No. That's why…”

“Can it, Lonnie. We don't have time for long-winded speeches.” Brett clenched his jaw so tight, he could feel a muscle jump in his cheek. He didn't have time for this, time for her, for them, now. This deal was too important to let anything interfere, no matter what it cost him personally. There were too many lives at stake.

“I'll go with you, Brett. Anywhere you want, if you'll only walk away from this.” His heart slammed against his chest. If he had ever harbored any doubts about how much she loved him, they burned to ashes at the sound of her words. She was offering herself, freely, completely, and she was turning her back on everything she thought was right and honorable in the world.

“Rachel…” He'd kept his own counsel for so long, he didn't know where to start.

“Tell her, Tiger,” Billy said gruffly, “so she can tell
Ahnle. If something goes wrong, I don't want the woman I love to think I was nothin' but a filthy, rotten drug dealer.” Brett twisted his head. His eyes locked and held with his friend's. “It ain't much to ask, man.”