Death Trip (23 page)

From less than a mile away, on the side of a hill, Saw heard the explosion and he watched the cloud of dust rise. His knife flashed in the sun. He smiled to himself. Alak must be getting careless, he thought, to have fallen for the old tricks that they both knew so well.

Toad came alongside him and stood with him to watch the plume of grey smoke rise.

‘Alak is soft now,’ said Toad, laughing.

‘Yes,’ replied Saw. ‘When the time comes he will be easy to kill.’

‘When is that time? When will this journey be at end?’

‘Soon. Tonight we camp near the border. We wait for someone.’

The stumps of felled teak trees lay all around them, like a tree graveyard. On the side of the far hill, a light blinked as a farmer cooked his dinner. Jake looked up at the stars and wondered which one was Daniel. He looked away quickly and swallowed, his dry throat cracking. He looked at the sky again and didn’t fight the tears this time. He wondered if Magda looked for
him amongst the stars. Did she think he was dead like Daniel? Had everyone given up on them? Was there anyone out there in that world that he was staring at, in the massive universe, was there anyone out there who knew they were sat on a hill, between the huge stumps of fallen trees, waiting, waiting for someone to come?

Saw looked at Jake and the others and then back at his men. He watched his men skulking nervously. He knew there were plots against him. They thought he had led them badly. There would come a time when Kanda would challenge him. Saw shook his head and kicked out at a scorpion that had come to investigate his rum. The men needed him to have answers now and he had none. They had run out of places to go. Boon Nam was coming for them. The forest rang with whispers. Saw felt alone. But…he lifted his nose to the air, smelling the wind…the smell of woman was in the air—a woman with a fire in her heart like his own. She would come and counsel him, in all her wisdom. She had been at the heart of this; without her none of this would have happened. She was as clever as she was beautiful. Saw stood as the whistles ran out around the forest. And then he saw her striding towards him.

‘Saw, my darling…it could have been over by now, but it wasn’t your fault…politics got in our way. I am here now.’

‘What is to be done now?’ asked Saw.

‘Now people are scared. Things have become more complicated. But you mustn’t worry. We will still make
you the new Opium King…we will get there, just believe in me. There is a new deal on the table.’

‘Will you get me back what was promised?’

‘That and more,’ she answered.

‘But Alak is here. He is tracking me.’

‘I know. He is with Johnny Mann. But you mustn’t let your hatred cloud your judgement. Don’t let old grudges get in the way now, Saw. You will have your revenge when you are richer than all of them.’

Saw howled to the starry sky; her words made him happy again.

‘We will have it all, but only if you keep your head now and do as you’re told.’ She rose and stood close to him and touched her palm to his naked chest and held it there as she smiled up at him from seductive eyes. His heartbeat quickened beneath her hand. He went to hold her but she pulled away playfully. ‘Now, my beautiful Saw.’ She stood a few feet away from him and began unbuttoning her trousers. She wriggled her trousers down to her ankles, she pulled down her panties. ‘Take them to Mae Sot, hide them in the market under the bridge until I come.’ She turned and bent over. ‘Now come and fuck your bitch.’

Alak picked up his pack. ‘We will head towards Gee’s village just as we planned. As soon we stop again, I will radio Captain Rangsan. We need to meet up with my men quickly. We are too vulnerable now.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Gee agreed, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Just as we planned. My village isn’t far now.’

Run Run brought a bucket of water up from the lake for Mann to wash his hands, which were still covered with Riley’s blood. Mann splashed his face and emptied the bucket of water over his arms and legs.

‘Come,’ said Alak, ‘we have seen enough here. There is nothing left for us now. We must move as fast and as carefully as we can.’

Mann was ready. They were no longer the ones doing the hunting. They had become the prey. He looked back at the building. The wild she-dog was waiting by the barn entrance, her shoulders hunched, her body poised to scuttle back into the barn.

They headed deep into the forest and upwards into the mountains and made good ground before nightfall.
They took paths where they did as little as they could to disturb the undergrowth and leave a trail.

At dusk Alak signalled for them to stop.

Mann took out his own hammock and found a suitable place to hang it. It was not a night to light a fire. The evening air was full of trepidation as each of them busied themselves in their own way. Gee had put his hammock up and was now settled down for a smoke, cupping the cheroot to hide the glow. He rocked gently and stared at the stars, just visible in patches between the tops of the teak trees.

‘The next stop will be at your village, Gee,’ said Mann.

‘Yes.’ Gee crushed the burning cheroot tip with his fingers and threw the stub out into the darkness. ‘It will take one more day—that is, if we make it.’ Gee swung down from his hammock. ‘Coming to the river, my friend? We will need to use tablets for the water; we cannot light a fire to boil it.’

They walked down in the direction of the small tributary of the river they had been following all day. ‘We will take it in turns to wash. I know how you must be waiting for it—I smell death on you. Come, I will keep first watch while you bathe.’

Mann picked up his pack. He would need fresh clothes. He had smelt Riley’s blood on his body, in his nose, in his hair all day. He emptied his pockets, laying the contents on the bank, and stripped naked. He felt the huge relief of clean water pass over his body. He waded further into the water. Now he submerged his head and allowed the cool water to fill his ears. When
he lifted his head from the water, Gee was standing close to him.

‘I thought you had drowned, my friend,’ he said.

‘I’m not that easy to kill.’ Mann smiled.

‘Not like our poor friend today, Riley,’ said Gee as he moved back to his seat on a rock on the bank.

‘Riley’ll make it, he’s a tough guy.’ Gee nodded. ‘How well do you know Riley?’ asked Mann.

‘I have relatives in the refugee camp. Everyone knows him. He has been in Mae Sot many years. He is a good man.’

‘What do you think we will find in your village?’

‘I fear that we will find much that is bad. Dok and Keetau said that I must prepare myself—I will be very sad to see how many people lost their lives. So many elephants dead and now the main route to the village is mined to stop the KNLA coming and helping. But I will be glad to begin my new life. My humanitarian life.’

Mann resisted the urge to smile. The thought of Gee becoming a charity worker didn’t really sit.

‘But two days is a long time and many things can happen. I came with you thinking that we would be of mutual help to each other along the way. Now I find I have a good chance of getting killed before I get anywhere near my home, and I can’t see how that will benefit my village. My ex-wives will divide up my money and my village will name a seat after me, like you do in the UK, and that will be it.’ He sighed and shrugged. ‘But we cannot expect to live forever on this earth…and, anyway, who would want to?’

On their way back to the camp, Mann stopped to look for a signal from his satellite phone while Gee went on ahead. Mann looked up at the starry sky—so many stars. Somewhere up there, the satellites were waiting, listening for his call. He watched a symbol that meant he had a signal flash up on his phone. He looked at the battery icon on the screen. It was low; he had just two bars of life left. Someone, not just Riley, had been using the phone. The battery was precious and it would have to last him. It would be days before he could get near a recharging point.

‘How’s it going, Genghis?’

Just hearing Ng’s voice was a tonic. Mann could picture the scene in Headquarters. It seemed a very long way away at that moment—a different world, aircon, fresh coffee, and the smell of Pam’s perfume, the rookie detective, and the feel of a cool crisp shirt on his back. A world away from the heat and sweat he was in now.

‘Could be better. We walked into a trap today.’

‘Anyone killed?’

‘No, but someone had to be stretchered out. We have lost two medics and two porters. That means we are down to four. One of the kids, Silke, is dead.’ Mann heard the sharp intake of breath from Ng. ‘Things are going bad here. Saw knows where we are and the Burmese army are after us.’

‘Alfie told me Katrien is in your neck of the woods.’

‘Yes. It seems so. I don’t know what she’s up to. She can’t get the ransom unless she makes contact. Unless she has an insider here in the camp.’

There was a pause.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ng.

‘Carry on. We don’t have any choice. We are in here till the end.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’ Ng asked helplessly.

‘There is something—I want you to look up a company name for me.’ Mann pulled the piece of sacking out of his pocket. ‘It’s an old company named the Golden Orchid. I am looking at it now. It has Chinese script in the background and the outline of an orchid blossom over the top. It was shipping out heroin from here.’

‘No problem.’

‘What about Shrimp?’

‘He said someone’s been using strong-arm tactics down in Patong Beach. People have been forced to sign over their businesses.’

‘Tell him to be careful. I don’t want him getting killed.’

When Mann returned to the camp, Alak was setting up his radio and trying to get a signal. It was a long process in the cover of the trees. He had had to move, up towards higher ground, and it was already very dark. After a while, Mann could hear him talking to Captain Rangsan.

Run Run had prepared their evening meal. She stood and handed Mann a bowl. He thanked her. She hesitated as she passed it to him.

‘You are a good person, Johnny Mann. I see hurt in your eyes but I feel hope in my heart.’ She smiled.

Mann was touched. ‘Some day, I hope you and Alak find happiness.’

She smiled and shook her head sadly. ‘There is no happiness in this life for us.’ She turned away.

Alak was in a dark mood when he returned. He packed the radio away and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, saying nothing. Run Run busied herself around the camp, but her eyes flicked constantly back to Alak. After he had finished eating, Mann went to sit next to him.

Alak looked up at him as he approached and shook his head sadly as he sighed, ‘I should not have gone there.’ Frustration and anger flashed across his face. ‘The risks were too great. Now there are only four of us and he knows where we are. Instead of tracking him, we have become the hunted…We must rejoin my men. I have talked to Captain Rangsan. We liaise tomorrow outside Gee’s village. Saw is here—he is all around, watching. We are the only real enemy he has. There is no one else to stop him but us. He will kill us because he can, and Boon Nam will help.’

‘Then all we can do is think faster, walk quicker, hide better,’ said Mann. ‘All we can do is what we set out to do, Alak. We are their only hope but I think we are still a good one.’

Alak nodded, his resolve returning. Mann took the piece of cloth with the golden orchid logo out of his pocket.

‘What do you know about this company?’ He passed it to him. Alak took it from him and looked at it with an air of reverence as he turned it in his hands and stared at it for a few minutes.

‘I first saw it many years ago. The Chinese master
of the refinery talked about the significance of the orchid, the golden triangle, that symbolised the wealth of his company back home.’

‘What do you remember about that time?’

‘Khun Sa, Lord of the Golden Triangle, took us all as young boys to train as soldiers to fight the Burmese army and regain our homeland…Many people believed Khun Sa when he said that the opium was the only way to fund our freedom. But it turned out that the opium was more important to him than the war. He chose some of us to help him run it. Saw and I helped to run the old refinery. We did many things then that I regret. We smoked the opium and we lived our lives in the shadow of it.’ Alak looked over at Run Run. She looked back, not accusing, not judging. ‘The refinery changed hands several times. At one time we thought we would own it, Saw and I, we were promised a share. We had a lot of dreams then, but they all came to nothing and Saw and I returned to our villages. His village had been destroyed by the Burmese army, his family gone.’ Alak looked at Run Run. She held his gaze for a few seconds. Alak looked away and she stared down at her lap. ‘Things happened there that I will not speak about. But from that day on Saw and I became enemies. He deserted from the army and I did not know what happened to him. I joined the new KNLA and went back to fighting. I had heard that he made his money from looting and raiding the small drug operations around northern Thailand and Burma, and that he belonged to no cause but his own. He has joined the Shwit.’

‘Did the boss of the refinery speak of his home much? Did you know exactly where he came from in China?’

‘He said it was an island where buildings were made of gold and where men could lose their entire fortune on one roll of a dice. Hong Kong, I think.’

Mann frowned. ‘That is not Hong Kong. But, I know where that place is. It’s a place where triads rule.’

He made another call to Ng.

‘Go to Macau.’

It was a bright sunny morning when Ng stood outside the seventeenth-century church of St Dominic in central Macau. The former Portuguese colony was a small piece of Europe in the middle of Asia. The sun was shining on the front of the beautiful, canary yellow, wedding cake of a church with its bright green shutters and its neoclassical arches. All around Ng in the busy cobbled square, tourists and locals were going about their business in shops, schools and offices. Half of Macau’s income came from tourism, the other half from gambling. Casinos were what Macau was most famous for and casinos brought triads in their droves. And where there were losers, there would be loan sharks.

Ng was waiting for a man that he knew well. His name was Split-lip Lok. He recognised him now as the fat old man walking slowly across the cobbled square towards him. He had once been a notorious triad and had served ten years at her majesty’s pleasure in Hong Kong, courtesy of Ng and Mann. He had put on a lot of weight since those days. He walked slowly, his frame crumpling under the weight of years and porous bones.
He had risen in the slums of Macau; it hadn’t been easy to survive with a hare lip. He’d done it by being funny and cruel. But the years in prison had been too much for his old bones. He now looked like a puffer fish.

‘Walk with me,’ Split-lip said when he got within range of Ng. He led the way across the busy square and down the steps of the Café Mozart, past the display of beautifully decorated gateaux.

Split-lip chose a booth at the side, from where he could see the steps to the street. Ng sat opposite him.

‘Thank you for agreeing to meet me.’

Split-lip shrugged and signalled to the waitress. ‘What else do I have to do? Besides, you are like an old friend.’ He chuckled. ‘More! You have accompanied me on my life’s journey. Sometimes you have even forced me down certain paths.’ He chuckled again. ‘And where is your young detective—the one who looks like a gweilo?’

‘Mann? He is busy.’

Ng sat back as the waitress brought the menu, opened it and placed it in front of him. Split-lip held up his hand to indicate there was no need for a menu for him.

‘The usual,’ he said. ‘Extra cream on the strudel.’ He gave Ng a wry smile. ‘It is good to maintain one’s sense of pleasure.’

‘Chocolate gateau and tea,’ Ng ordered and gave the menu back to the sullen-faced waitress.

‘You are looking well, Split-lip. How are you finding retirement now?’

‘I survive. Many people are very kind to me.’

‘There would be many of them serving time if you hadn’t served it for them. They owe you.’

‘Debt is not a thing to quantify when it comes to favours; one simply knows when it is paid off. I belong to a large family.’

‘The proper word is triad society.’

‘It is illegal to belong to such an organisation.’

‘It’s all right, Split-lip. I did not come here to trick you. I came for information.’

‘I do not know how anything I say could be of interest to you. I know very little these days.’

‘I need information on the past.’ They paused as the waitress brought their order. Split-lip looked at him curiously. ‘You were a share holder in a consortium that went under the name of the Golden Orchid.’ Split-lip looked startled for a moment.

‘It has been a long time since I heard that name.’

‘You remember it?’

‘Of course. It was one of my first business ventures, a trading company. We brought goods from Thailand and Burma, we repackaged them and sent them over to sell in Europe. Why do you ask now? This company is long dead.’

Ng sipped his tea and hacked away at his gateau. ‘But you didn’t just sell toys, necklaces, did you? It was a front for processing heroin. You had a refinery on the Thai border with Burma.’

Split-lip stopped spooning the cream into his mouth and looked at Ng incredulously. ‘How do you know that?’

‘Because Johnny Mann was at the refinery and he found the evidence.’

‘All right.’ Split-lip sighed and shook his head. ‘Yes…it was during the days when Khun Sa leased the refineries to us. I did not know at the time, of course.’ He paused. ‘I did not know that opium was being refined there. I thought we were importing toys, not heroin.’

‘Of course. What happened to the heroin?’

‘It went the way of all goods, through Amsterdam and on to Europe, or to America via courier.’

‘How many of you were in it? Who were they?’

‘There were four of us. We all had different roles in the company. Mine was the accountant.’

Ng chuckled. ‘They must have been mad to leave you in charge of the books.’

Split-lip smiled. ‘I was not well known to them at the time.’

‘And the others?’

‘Jobs crossed over but basically someone was in charge of the running of the refinery and the others handled the sales and the Amsterdam distribution.’

Split-lip concentrated on dissecting his strudel into sections. Ng had spread his gateau across his plate and, soon, over the table. Ng called for the waitress to take his plate. He hated seeing the crumbs sat there as a reminder that he shouldn’t have eaten it.

‘The business collapsed when Khun Sa surrendered. That’s when I lost my money.’

‘I looked it up—it’s still trading.’

Split-lip leaned over his strudel and Ng caught the whiff of cidered apple from his breath. He could see the cream caught in the crevice of his hare lip.

‘Let me just put you straight on that. Your records
are incorrect. The company might be, but in name only.’

‘What happened?’

‘We fell out.’

‘How?’

‘I should never have trusted like I did, but I was young. I lost a lot of money. I grew up after that.’

‘What about the others?’

‘Some lost more than money: some lost their lives.’

‘I want the names of those others in the consortium.’

‘They are dead now.’

‘No…someone is still trading. Names, Split-lip.’

Split-lip picked up his paper napkin and wiped the cream from his mouth. ‘You really don’t know?’