Black Tiger (48 page)

Mechanically, I started to pull on my shirt. A blast of arctic air from the humming vent on the wall above the bed reminded me that you could catch a chill as quickly from air conditioning as from winter soakings on that wet coast of my childhood, which at the present moment seemed unimaginably remote. I found it hard to believe I was doing these absurd James Bond things again, strapping a knife to my calf, placing an automatic in a shoulder holster, patting it into place before putting on my jacket. I had been used to performing such actions once, long ago, in another life, and my hands carried out the tasks automatically. Yet for too long my existence had been comfortably humdrum.

By the time my report reached London and wheels were set in motion, it would be too late to wait for authorisation. Sya Dam had to be stopped, and I knew only one way to achieve that end.

I closed the door softly behind me and left the air conditioner running, reflecting that I would need a cool refuge when I returned.

If I returned.

Carrying a small silver tray upon which reposed a glass and a bottle, Chee Laan emerged into the corridor of the penthouse floor and noted with relief that it appeared deserted. Purple silk curtains were drawn across the glass walls from the floor to the high ceiling. The sun blazed against them with an amethyst glow. She hesitated for a moment outside the door of the penthouse suite to adjust the weight of the tray. The trembling of her hand caused the bottle and glass to chink against one another. She told herself sternly that it was because she was unused to carrying trays, not because she was afraid. All the same she took a deep breath to steady herself. There was no going back now.

She knocked twice, the soft, discreet knock of a servant. From the other side of the door she heard a growl, close to her ear.

‘Leave the stuff outside and go!’ The rough voice was slurred, as if the speaker were drunk, or afflicted with a cleft palate. She set the tray down outside the door and hurried to the corner of the corridor. There she made a fortunate discovery. She could see the door clearly in the wall mirror, but anyone standing in the doorway of the suite would be unable to see her, because the view was obscured by a full-length, gold-painted statue of a
dephanon
angel.

The door opened cautiously. A shaggy dark head peered out. Huge hands gripped the tray and lifted it out of sight. The door was kicked shut from inside. Chee Laan strained to catch any sounds from the suite, but all she could hear was the hum of the air conditioning. She closed her eyes, trying to turn her thoughts inward, breathing deeply. So deep was her moment of meditation that she did not hear the lock slip back or soft, quick footsteps approaching over the thick carpet. Then Salikaa was at her side, stroking her arm. She wore nothing but one of the hotel’s peach-coloured bath towels, folded like a sarong over her bosom. It took Chee Laan a mere second to secure the door from the outside with the master key.

‘Only another master key can unlock it; turning the knob on the inside will not release it,’ she whispered. ‘But it’s not safe up here; we could be trapped. Quick!’

Salikaa reached for her hand. Together they ran through the violet light of the purple corridor and into the waiting lift. Chee Laan pressed the button for the ground floor, keeping her finger pressed down hard so the descent could not be interrupted.

When the lift stopped, they alighted and sauntered casually through the lobby, negotiating their way through the designer seating and the potted palms among the brightly dressed tourists and their mounds of luggage. Chee Laan led the way into her old office and locked the door behind them. They sank to the carpet, staring at each other. Then Salikaa threw head back and began to weep, her tears falling between gulps of hysterical laughter.

Salikaa

If you want to know the truth, things started going wrong with that man Fleischer, back in Normandy. I didn’t trust that mother from the outset, from the moment he rolled up at the convent gate in that shit-can of a jeep to drag the three of us off for our holiday from hell on his so-called training course. Some training course—mud, blood, bad food, bad hair, a real bad scene. He was a smartass, Fleischer, who seemed to know way too much for my liking. Vichai always said that. ‘Never trust a guy who knows too much.’

Fleischer knew all about Vichai, or thought he did. He certainly knew about Chee Laan’s grandmother, and that Pim was not just a princess but a committee member of SWORD.

During that first jeep ride, I put my hand on Fleischer’s thigh, and he was mad as a hornet. I laughed in his face. Not so clever after all—one of those wankers who pretend to be immune! And then, that other time, when we stood together in the downpour, the night the boot nails had carved up Chee Laan’s foot, and Fleischer groaned and hauled me against him, then I knew for sure, and I laughed again. He hit me then, burst my lip, and I laughed even harder. But I had allowed him to get too close and learn too much. I had exposed my flank, you might say—you might indeed. He thought he had something on me then, the bastard!

Then, later, after I won Miss Thailand, got myself engaged to Pim’s brother, Toom, and was about to become Princess Salikaa, Fleischer resurfaced. He crawled out of the sewer like a rat and started to send cryptic little messages about what he knew, and who he was planning on telling. It just had to be stopped. There was nothing else for it. So I told Tamsin. That was enough.

Tamsin had lots of friends—people like Tamsin always do, though friends become enemies overnight or even over a single drink. Through his chums, Tamsin discovered the plan to blast a hole in the Lee Bangkok Bank during the Asian Rally, and that one of the men involved was an explosives expert called Fleischer who had come to Bangkok, officially to work at the American Embassy.

Tamsin brought me a Polaroid he’d taken outside the Mandarin Hotel and, though the man was dressed like a sober citizen and not in filthy combats, I recognised him at once. The great thing about Tamsin was that he did his own logistical thinking. I merely had to identify Fleischer as the target, and indicate that his existence had become irksome to me. Then Tamsin said, ‘I’ll take care of it, Salikaa, sweetie,’ and went off quietly to do just that. I liked that about Tamsin.

Tamsin was the best minder you could ever have. He was wildly attractive—I never could endure being around ugly people, any more than Tamsin could. We knew we were both gorgeous. Tamsin was an amusing and reliable little darling, and we got on like a mortar and pestle. It was too bad he never came back. I really missed him.

I suspected Sya Dam, that black Akha devil, engineered Tamsin’s disappearance, and just before I was packed off to marry that depraved animal, Vasit, I was proved right.

After Sya found me cosying up to young King Vajah, he locked me up, guarded by a couple of strapping peasant nurses. They pumped me so full of drugs I didn’t know what day it was. Then Sya arrived, grinning like a split melon, carrying a big bunch of flowers. ‘Welcome to the family,’ he said. ‘You’re going to marry my cousin. Congratulations!’

‘I’m not marrying any stinking tribesman!’ I spat at him, full in the face, and while he wiped my spittle off his chin, I said I’d rather be dead than marry any black Akha. ‘I am not without friends!’ I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

‘It’s married or dead. Dead can be arranged too, little lady,’ he gloated, ‘And you are mistaken. You have no friends left.’

‘My guardian is Vichai the Bandit,’ I said. ‘Vichai, who has the heart of a leopard, who eats little police colonels for breakfast!’

He threw back his head and brayed like a donkey. ‘Your bandit with the iron stomach just got indigestion!’ He handed me a newspaper clipping. One glance told me everything. Vichai was dead. The enormity of it stunned me. I could not understand. But one look at Sya’s savage face was enough; my resolve to survive and seek vengeance was born in the moment of his triumph.

‘You cowardly bastards! You lured him, ambushed him! You must have tricked him! Nobody was smart enough to take Vichai!’

He shook with mirth. I wanted to kill him. ‘Maybe someone told Vichai that Miss Thailand, the future princess, wanted to meet with him.’

When I understood what he’d done, I was dizzy with rage. They had tricked him, cut him down in cold blood. I can’t forget the pictures, or those ridiculous headlines:
Notorious Communist Terrorists Eliminated!

‘What total bollocks!’ I shouted. ‘Vichai was just an ordinary bandit! He wouldn’t mess with filthy politics! He was no more a communist than a water buffalo!’

Sya just shrugged. ‘What’s the difference? He’s dust. Here’s another late friend of yours,’ he said. ‘They certainly seem accident-prone.’ He showed me a picture of Tamsin then, and as I stared at it, he studied my face and laughed.

Tamsin was stiff by the time the picture had been taken, but Sya offered to show me others from when he wasn’t quite dead. You could see what Sya’s people had done to him. It made me furious, the thought of the agony Tamsin must have endured, the disgusting, obscene things they had done to him because of his sort.

Sya saw I was appalled, and he grinned. ‘So now you know what to expect!’

I clawed at his face; he seized my hands and forced them down. He was so strong I thought my wrists would snap.

‘Calm down, wild cat!’ he mocked. ‘Now, instead of a prince, you will bed an Akha. Never fear—you still enjoy some measure of the royal patronage, and you will have a more splendid wedding than you deserve!’ I was to take that half-witted whore Pawn as my ‘lady’s maid’—living among the Akha, I was to be attended by a ‘lady’s maid’!

And a dreary pathetic object she was, too, snivelling about her baby, quivering with terror, squeaking and wetting her pants like she was a mouse caught in a trap. Since she’d been inflicted on me, I insisted on making her useful. After that first experience with my brute ‘husband,’ which even now I can’t recall without retching, I made sure there would be no repetition. Every night I pressed the poppy-sleep on Vasit, and he was not reluctant to accept. He gulped it down in mouthfuls, like a landed fish drowning on air. When he was too drugged to tell the difference, I sent Pawn to his bed in my place. When she protested, I showed her my nails and demonstrated how easily I could scratch her eyes out. She never doubted I meant it. She knew I would have done it and nobody in that village would have cared. Most of the women endured worse.

I’d always been in a hurry. Maybe it comes from being brought up among people who don’t live long. There’s a lot of living to cram into a short span, and you become obsessed out how little time is left. The life of the average bandit is about thirty-five years. In consequence, I’d only ever concerned myself with things that were profitable or made me feel good. You can say that’s bandit’s philosophy, too, but I would bet the rest of the world’s not that different. I learned French because there was some point to it. Folks take you for an educated lady when you spout French. Even those snobs at court were knocked sideways by my French. Nobody would respect me for learning Akha, so I didn’t bother. But Pawn had the whore’s aptitude. She’d already learned a few stock phrases in English: ‘Lovely GI, you numbah one, you like party!’—that sort of rubbish. A woman like Pawn will always find a weak spot and gnaw her way into someone’s life, like a rat. She started chatting with those dour, downtrodden Akha women, all about babies and menstruation and girlie stuff, and soon she was jabbering away like a mynah bird. Then she started looking at me in a nasty way, as if she knew some great secret I didn’t. Of course, low women can never really keep a confidence of any kind. Sharing privileged information gives them a momentary illusion of power and importance.

I’d had enough of her hints and glances, so one day when we were alone I twisted her arm behind her back and pushed her wrist upward, toward her neck. I could hear the sinews crack and she began to shriek.

‘Shut up,’ I said. ‘Tell me why you’ve gone all secretive.’

‘I don’t know what you…ow!’ Her lie ended in another squeal as I cranked the angle up a little. I braced myself against her, placing my knee in the small of her back. She tried to claw me with her other hand but failed.

‘The truth, now,’ I said. I can be very patient, although most people will claim the opposite.

‘All right!’ she gasped. I relaxed my grip a little, to encourage her. ‘They’re going to break out.’

‘Who are?’

‘The Akha. All the tribes.’

‘A pack of nomads!’ I snorted dismissively. ‘Clueless, befuddled savages!’

‘But they have a leader! Sya Dam will lead them!’ I dropped her arm then and stared.

‘You can’t mean it.’

She took on that cunning expression I detested. ‘Do you think the men cheer him because he spouts government propaganda? He’s planning a rebellion. They’ll massacre the Thais, and you’ll be the first! They hate you—even the people here think you are a witch!’

‘I’m so pleased,’ I drawled. ‘I could never respect myself if I thought I enjoyed the affection of this lot! But you’re Thai, too, Pawn, or had you forgotten?’

‘Oh,’ she smirked infuriatingly, with a superior little chuckle, ‘they won’t murder me. They like me!’

I gave her a black eye for that piece of cheek, but it was far insufficient as retribution for her impudence. When Sya told me what the tribe intended to do to me, after I rid the world of the insect Vasit, I looked him in the eye and I told him I knew all about his tribal revolution. I made sure to tell him where I got the information from.

If he was going to kill me, I thought Pawn might as well join me.

Sya thought I was unconscious when he ordered his ape Archin to pull me out of the grave, but I wasn’t; I just kept my eyes shut and made no sound. They don’t know I’m aware that they killed Pawn and laid her in Vasit’s grave in my place. By this time nobody will be able to tell the difference, anyway. Or care, either way. I certainly don’t.

When Sya kidnapped me out of the pit, I lay in the back of that jeep listening to Archin grunting and snorting like a pig. I knew what Sya was up to. He was going to pretend he’d saved me from the tribe’s vengeance in order to bring me before a Thai court to be tried for murder. He would take me to King Vajah, to discover whether I still enjoyed the king’s affection. If I had fallen out of favour, I would be thrown in jail to await trial for killing Vasit. I could never be brought to trial, of course—I’d be left to rot forever, like other inconvenient individuals. Thai prisons were crammed with people like that.