Spy Games (35 page)

He came and went over interminable hours. He heard Rocky talking, shouting at him, once felt Rocky’s hand on his shoulder, understood nothing over the engine roar. The boat lurched upward, crashed down onto the water relentlessly, over and over and over, hurling the two of them about the sodden compartment. Mangan writhed in the filth, sometimes present, sometimes deep inside himself, in chaotic whorls of thought and memory, teetering on the edge of hallucination, entangled in semi-conscious dreams of punishment, of a beating he’d had as a child looping in his mind, the voice of the master as he bent,
I’m going to give you twelve and I don’t want to do it but I will
, and the thwack of the shoe echoing away into his mother’s voice, scolding him for something intangible, something forgotten in everything but her tone of voice, his awareness of it, standing in the kitchen, the back door open, the smell of mown grass from the garden.
I am present at the hatching of my doubt. I am present as it lives in me and grows old with me.

Sometimes he was just gone, oblivious.

Once, he was aware of the engines cutting out, orders shouted through a megaphone. The boat wobbled and tipped as they were
boarded. And then the grumble as the outboards restarted, and it began again.

Then, hours, weeks later, a slowing, a calming. The engines idled, the movement lessened. He heard the boatman’s feet, the creaking and straining of the wooden panels.

The sunlight was blinding. He felt the boatman pull him from the compartment, lay him down, pull a canvas tarpaulin over him.

“Thailand water now. You can lie here.” He imagined Rocky was there beside him but he couldn’t tell. He slept.

Cliff pulled the vehicle off the road just to the south of the jetty, shielded from the road. He and Patterson clambered down to the water’s edge. The river was brown and sullen. They sat in silence amid thorn bushes. They took it in turns watching through binoculars, swigging water from a bottle. She had one of the sidearms under her shirt. Cliff had another. The MP7s were with Mac in the car.

At around nine thirty in the morning, a fishing boat, its orange paint flaking, pulled onto the jetty, and a dark, spindly man in shorts tied it up and stepped out, but it was too early, she thought.

Later, a launch, peopled by portly men with clutch bags and sunglasses who struggled to clamber ashore, fussing and offering each other a hand, their purposes on the river entirely unclear.

Water birds skimmed the river. Midges floated around her. They sat in silence watching the water.

And then, at nearly midday, hugging the Thai side of the river, there crawled toward them a flat bottomed boat of the sort used to transport desirable items from place to place along this stretch of the Mekong. A single boatman aboard, but as Patterson refocused, she could see a green tarpaulin in the bottom of the boat, covering something.

Bodies?

The boat was moving slowly, cautiously, toward the jetty, the boatman craning his neck, searching the shoreline.

“That’s him. Agreed?” she said.

“Agreed,” said Cliff.

“We do it quickly. Get them to the car and go.”

“After he touches the jetty, should be two minutes, tops,” said Cliff. His voice was calm, supportive. For a moment, she felt reassured.

“So we go.”

She stood, exposing herself to view, and started to walk along the bank. Cliff was right behind her. The boat was a hundred meters away. She climbed onto the jetty. Cliff stayed down on the bank, watching her back. She could see Mac getting out of the car, scanning the road. The boatman saw her, and the engines came alive and the boat sped up its approach, the prow lifting, flecking the brown water white. The boatman brought it up to the jetty, turning it deftly at the last second, so it glided in side on, the engines cutting out.

And there he lay, covered by a tarpaulin, filthy, pale, hollow-eyed, accusing her with his look.

And next to him, kneeling,
HYPNOTIST
, the look anticipatory, a gesture, something of a wave, or the offering of a hand.

They were moving fast now, Cliff bounding up onto the jetty, into the boat, lifting Mangan to his feet, helping him onto the dock, where he stood, sodden and shaky, silent. Then
HYPNOTIST
, Cliff handing him out of the boat. The Chinese man was in better shape, went immediately to Patterson and began to speak.

“I am Colonel Shi Hang of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army—”

Patterson cut him off, spoke fast, in military.

“We know who you are, Colonel—”

“And I wish to defect.”

“We must move now, talk later.” Cliff was behind him taking an arm. Mac was waiting, the car doors open. Mangan just stood like a drowned dog. Cliff began marching
HYPNOTIST
up the jetty to the car.

She went to Mangan.

“Let’s go, Philip. Let’s get you out of here.”

He looked at her, that level look, and then down at his feet.

“Come on, Philip, everything’s all right. Let’s move.”

He began to walk shakily up the jetty. She took him by the elbow. He felt clammy and she could smell something fetid coming off him.

“Quick as you like, then you can rest.” She urged him forward.

Ahead of her, she could see Cliff, his hand still clamped on Rocky’s arm, standing a short distance from the car, looking toward the road, in the direction of the town.

She followed his eyeline. Some distance away, two vehicles were moving at speed towards them. She shouted.

“Get him in the car.” She was dragging Mangan now. He was shaking his head, his face crumpling.

Rocky was gesturing towards the SUV, looking expectant.
Time for me to get in?
Cliff was nodding, smiling, seemed to be telling him to relax. Patterson propelled Mangan forward. Mac jogged toward them to help. He had one of the MP7s on a strap, snug against his chest. Together they maneuvered Mangan into the back seat of the SUV. Patterson climbed in next to him. Mac was quickly around the car to the driver’s seat.

The two vehicles were closing fast, no more than a quarter of a mile away now.

“Cliff,” Patterson shouted. “Now.”

“Coming, boss.” But still he just stood there.

Rocky was starting to get frantic. He turned his body, tried to break for the car, but the New Zealander held him.

The first of the two cars was slowing, coming to a halt about thirty meters away. The driver and another man got out. Both of them appeared to be Chinese. Both wore sunglasses. They just stood by the car, left the doors open. The second car pulled in behind.

Cliff walked Rocky a few yards toward them, then let him go, gave him a shove that sent him a few steps toward the men in sunglasses, the cars. Rocky stumbled slightly, then stopped, looked back at Cliff, realization dawning.

Cliff turned and started walking quickly toward the SUV. Rocky was running after him, shouting something. The New Zealander turned back to him and held a hand palm out.

“No,” he barked. “Not you.”

Patterson was out of the SUV quickly.

“What the fuck!” she shouted. But Mac was in front of her, shaking his head. She pushed past him. He made to take her arm but she rounded on him with a snarled “Don’t.” He backed away, half-smiling. The men in sunglasses were still standing by their cars, waiting patiently.

Mangan had dragged himself from the SUV and was leaning against the driver’s side. Rocky shouted to him, his voice quavering.

“Philip. Tell them. I have very much. I am request to defect. I have treasure, Philip. Tell them.”

Mangan mouthed something, but Patterson couldn’t hear what it was. She was approaching Cliff, stood in front of him, hands on hips.

“Why?” she said.

He just shook his head.

“Orders.”

She could hear Rocky shouting about defecting, information.

“Why was I not told?”

He shrugged.

“Don’t shrug at me. Who gave you these orders? Why?”

He leaned down and put his face close to hers, whispering.

“I don’t know why. Do the calculation. Someone doesn’t want him. And they couldn’t depend on you.” He straightened, turned back to Rocky, made an
off-you-go
gesture, dismissive, offhand. Rocky just stood there, and Patterson saw him put one arm across his front in a protective gesture and then dig his fingernails into the other forearm. He looked as if he were about to cry. The men in sunglasses waited.

Mangan leaned on the bonnet of the SUV. The metal was warm beneath his hands. Rocky, his
joe
, stood alone in a no man’s land between the two cars. The men in sunglasses stood very still,
watching. Cliff was barring Rocky’s way. Patterson stood behind him, hands on hips, raging.

His mouth was sticky and dry. He tried to raise his voice.

“They’ll shoot him. If you do this.”

But no one seemed to be listening.

Rocky was appealing to him.
Philip, I have treasure! I wish to defect!
He raised a hand and pointed first at Mangan and then at himself.
You and me, Philip!
Mangan pictured him in the Paddington safe house, grinning his elastic grin, leaping from affect to affect—
See my wry humor! And now my gravitas! And here is intimate, confiding me!—
spilling secrets as the smoke from his cigarette curled in the afternoon light.

Cliff had turned and was walking back to the SUV. Time to go, he was saying. Patterson was rigid. He had never noticed her height before, how tall she was, how physically powerful. In her fury, all her physicality leaped out, her powerful arms, the cords in her neck, the way she held her space. But in her eyes, shock, vulnerability.

Rocky was shouting at him.

“Okay, Philip, okay. I come with you now, yes?”

And then he was rushing for the SUV, darting past Cliff, toward Mangan. But Mac was on him hard, wrestling him backward, then with a short, fissile punch to the side of the neck. Rocky staggered, his face dissolving into pain, but kept his eyes on Mangan. The two men with sunglasses took a step forward. Mac, grunting, once again forced the colonel away from the SUV, back toward them. Rocky looked behind him, saw the two men advancing on him, looked back.

And then Philip Mangan made the move, the move that, much later, would validate all Hopko’s faith in him, the move which would always shock Patterson in its operational clarity of mind, its calculation.

Mangan took several steps towards Rocky. He spoke in Mandarin.

“You can still hurt them,” he said, quietly.

Rocky was looking at him

“You can still hurt them. Give it to me,” said Mangan.

Rocky turned and looked once more at the two men in sunglasses, and when he turned back his expression was one of pure malice.

“Give it to me, Rocky. Give me the thread. The thread that will lead me to the networks.”

Rocky spoke, his Mandarin a furious, urgent rasp.

“I give you this. You use it. Suriname. Paramaribo. 76 Prins Hendrikstraat. Lawyer, surname Teng. Find him, Philip.”

“If I find him what will I find?”

Mac was shoving him away. Mangan shouted at him.

“What will I find?”

Rocky stood there in the heat, the insects, hair awry, dripping sweat, forsaken.

“You’ll find the thread. Use it, Philip.”

The two men in sunglasses were still biding their time. But Mac and Cliff had Mangan by the elbows and he was suddenly face down on the back seat. Doors slammed. The engine started. Cliff put the window down, shouted at Patterson.

“Coming?” he said.

She looked at her feet for a moment, then went to the SUV, got in the back without saying anything.

“Right decision, boss,” said Cliff. And he jammed the stick into reverse and hurled the vehicle backward and into a turn. Mac rounded on Mangan.

“What did he say, at the end, there?”

“I don’t know.”

“What did he fucking say?”

Mangan looked away from him, back to where the colonel stood in the road.

The two men were on Rocky now, and as the SUV sped away, Mangan saw them taking him, forcing his arms behind him, his head down. His mouth was open and he seemed to be tensing up, resisting them, and then Mangan saw him go hard to his knees in the dust.

They drove hell for leather for Chiang Mai, did it in just over four hours, Mac wrestling the vehicle through sheets of rain, riding the shoulder at one point to get past traffic jams, Cliff watching the mirrors. Patterson signaled “Clear” from her secure handheld, sat back, closed her eyes. No one spoke. Mangan slept. They stopped just once, next to a river. Cliff took Mangan’s pistol and threw it into the water.

At the Banyan guest house, Patterson took the street, while Mac kept the vehicle running. Cliff walked Mangan quickly up the stairs. In the room, Mangan washed and changed quickly, took his luggage, retrieved the passport and money from behind the cistern, and the two of them were back in the vehicle in eight minutes. They ducked and dived through Chiang Mai, watched their back, headed for the airport.

Mac pulled in at Departures, let them out, stayed behind the wheel, wordless. Cliff got out, helped them with their bags, stood there, tall, his easy posture, running a hand through his long hair.

“It’s been a pleasure,” he said.

“Wish I could say the same,” Patterson replied, turning away, the disappointment eating at her.

“It’s just work,” he said, to her back.

She rounded on him, but Mangan put a hand on her arm, turned to Cliff.

“You’ve killed him. You know that,” he said.

Cliff shrugged.

“I haven’t. They will. Anyway, he wasn’t ours. He had his own agenda.”

Mangan nodded.

“And we had our own agenda, it seems.”

Mac was knocking on the window, gesturing to Cliff to get back in the car. Cliff nodded, held up a hand for him to wait a minute. He looked at the two of them.

“You two,” he said, pointing first at her, then Mangan, then back at her. “You’re doubters. You infect each other. Make each other weak.” He nodded, then turned abruptly and got in the car, put the window down as Mac started the engine, gave them a last look.

“Doubters,” he said, and he patted the outside of the car door. Mac pulled away, headed, Patterson assumed, to some safe house in a darkened Thai town somewhere, some tourist place where they’d blend in, the house squatting behind high walls, with its cheap furniture and window blinds, mattresses with plastic covers, its empty fridge and mismatched crockery, the weapons cache beneath the floorboards, the comms equipment in black flight cases. And there they’d sit, cleaning and oiling the MP7s in the lamplight, stowing the body armor, watching the football on satellite television, before flitting away to their next mission. She watched the car disappear in the afternoon light.

She booked herself onto a flight for Bangkok due to leave in an hour. She’d just make the overnight to London. Mangan wandered away, and she found him in the restaurant, sitting at the bar, drinking a beer. He seemed exhausted, a gaunt, collapsed look to his face.

“They want you back in London,” she said. “They want you to come in.”

“Not yet,” he said.

“Soon, though.”

He just nodded. She sat on a stool next to him.

“What did you mean?” she said.

“When?”

“When you said to Cliff, we had our own agenda.”

He shifted on his seat.

“I’m so naive, you know.”

“Why?”

“I was laboring under the impression that I was doing a job, performing a function. But I wasn’t, was I?”

He took a pull on his beer. Patterson waited.

“They knew it was a lure: Hopko, all of them. They just needed a warm body to go out and bite on Rocky’s hook. A deniable warm body.”

Patterson shook her head.

“She intended you to run him. And she worked very, very hard to get you out.”

“Rocky got me out.”

They sat in silence for a few seconds.

“Who benefits?” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“From all this. Who benefits?
Cui bono?
”

She felt a wave of exhaustion.

“I don’t know, Philip. You, me, the money men, Western civilization. I don’t know. Signal when you’re coming in. And make it soon.”

She reached for her bag, made to go, but he took her arm, spoke quietly.

“He gave us a lead.”

“What lead?”

“Right at the end, just before we left him there. A lead into a network.”

“What fucking lead?”

He was gazing at her, the level look, the one that saw you and didn’t miss things, the one that was curious and generous, that waited for a response in kind. She felt a pricking in her throat, behind her eyes.

“Philip, don’t,” she said.

“I won’t,” he said.

“Don’t do anything.”

“I won’t.”

“And don’t be long.”

“I won’t,” he said.

She reached out to him and he took her hand. She felt the pressure of his fingers, his skin, the intimacy of it.

“Doubters,” he said, “the two of us.”

And then it was her turn to walk away, into the airport concourse, towards the gate.

Who benefits?