The Burma Legacy (31 page)

‘You’re not coming with me?’

‘I stay with car. In case someone steal it.’

Sam smiled cynically. They hadn’t seen another human for miles. He opened the door and got out.

‘Don’t go away,’ he cautioned.

Over to his left the sun was nearing the horizon. He reached onto the back seat of the Suzuki and undid the side flap of his rucksack. There was a torch in it which he stuffed into a trouser pocket.

He set off into the trees, lured by the sound of water splashing. The waterfall, when he came to it, was a thin rope of silver, dropping thirty metres onto a slope of polished rock. A tranquil place. Perfect for the seduction Perry Harrison planned all those years ago. He looked up. The face of the escarpment behind was almost vertical. Wherever the couple had made their climb, it couldn’t have been from this spot.

There was the semblance of a path heading off to the right. He followed it and soon reached the edge of the trees. The cliff stretched ahead of him, still impossible to scale. He looked for some break in its profile which might indicate the start of a steep track to the top. But there was nothing visible.

From now on there’d be no more cover. He peered up at the ridge for signs of being watched, conscious
of his vulnerability – if anyone
was
up there. Seeing nothing untoward, he stepped into the open and continued across the stony ground.

A few moments later he stopped abruptly. In front of him were tyre tracks, faint marks in the dust revealing some other vehicle had come here, which must have skirted the trees at the waterfall to strike out across the rough terrain. Suddenly this was for real. Anxiety racking up, he followed them until they turned sharply left, passing through a fissure in the rock face. Beyond it was a steep incline.

Full of trepidation he began to climb. In places the tyre tracks were smudged where the wheels had fought for a grip. Every so often he paused to listen, but heard nothing other than the thudding of his own heart.

Soon the tops of trees appeared over the escarpment edge. Somewhere amongst them birds were shrieking. The slope began to level out. A stationary car came into view and he stopped, crouching down while he tried to see if there was any movement in or around it. He listened again. Still nothing. The vehicle was a large Mazda jeep and seemed to be empty. Beyond it was dense bush, the reason, he presumed, why it had gone no further. He took a chance and ran across to it, crouching by the rear wheel arch. Then he raised himself to look inside. On the back seat was a piece of apparatus like an oversize notebook computer. A satellite telephone.

Suddenly there
were
voices. From deep in that scrub which began a few metres away. Or rather a single voice – speaking in some local tongue but with an
accent that was unmistakably English. And it was getting nearer.

He ducked behind the rear door of the Mazda. Footsteps crunched towards him. With nowhere else to hide and no means of defending himself, he slid beneath the car, his head scraping the hump of the rear differential.

From beneath the chassis he watched the feet approach. Dark green jungle boots with black trousers tucked into them. The man dumped a rifle onto the ground, leaning its barrel against the bodywork. Then he opened the rear passenger door and took out something heavy, which Sam assumed to be the satphone. The feet moved to the front and the equipment was lifted onto the bonnet.

Sam heard expletives as the man fiddled with the antenna. The voice – it sounded disturbingly familiar.

He eyed the rifle. If his suspicions were confirmed he was going to need it. As he eased himself closer to the vital weapon, he heard the beeps of the satphone’s dialler.

The man cleared his throat to speak.

When he did so Sam knew that the search for Harrison had just taken a most extraordinary turn.

‘Jan. It’s Jimmy. I’m in one fuck of a mess here. This bloke Harrison’s gone off his rocker.’

Jimmy Squires.

Sam’s brain corkscrewed. Why? What possible connection could that man have with Perry Harrison?

Then it dawned on him. Of
course
Squires was ‘Rip’. The clues had been there and he hadn’t seen them – the background file saying the former SAS sergeant was obsessed with World War Two – Harrison’s email talking of meeting Rip at a Chindit reunion. And even the name. Squires had been brought up in
Rip
ley. Midge had told him. Ripley, Yorkshire.

The ex-soldier was talking again. More urgently this time.

‘Listen, Jan, I need a lift across the border. Tomorrow. And a stamp in my passport. Talk to them, eh? You can fix it.’

Jan
. The woman Squires had been with on the boat at Phuket. Linked to Yang Lai’s heroin gang. Squires was still plugged into the system, just as Midge had said.

Sam’s brain went into overdrive. His missions had fused, suddenly. He faced the incredible possibility of
saving Kamata’s life
and
delivering Squires to Midge in one fell swoop.
If
he could get control.

The rifle was within touching distance now.

He listened, waiting for his moment. Squires was speaking again, agitatedly.

‘I know your friends don’t fucking like me anymore. But you can fix it, Jan. And you’ve got to. No. It’ll be me on my own. I’m going to leave the old men here.’

Men
. Sam’s hopes rose. It sounded like confirmation that Kamata was still alive.

‘Soon as I’m well clear, in a couple of hours say, I’ll get word to the Tatmadaw telling them where to find ’em.’

Squires cleared his throat again, with annoyance. Sam had the impression the woman was questioning him more closely than he wanted.

‘I’ll tell you what’s changed, darlin’. Harrison asked me to negotiate a deal with the SPDC, that’s what – saying they can have Kamata back if they release his son from prison. The daft old bugger wants a swap. I’ve told him there’s no way I’m going to stick my head in a noose on that score.’

Stifling his incredulity that Harrison could have had such an ambitious scheme, Sam concentrated on the timing of his emergence from beneath the car. It was critical. Too soon and Squires could use his phone call to rally help. Too late and the former soldier would have repossessed the gun. In readiness, he eased his body from under the sill of the car, checking that Squires’ view of him was blocked by the
broad spread of the bonnet. The rifle butt was inches from his head.

‘Anyway, just fix me a way out of Myanmar, okay?’ Squires ordered. ‘I’ll call again in a couple of hours.’ The phone clicked back on its rest.

The time had come. Sam rolled clear, grabbed the gun and levelled it at the former SAS man.

Squires gaped in astonishment. ‘What the fuck …?’

For several seconds they stared at one another. Then Sam got to his feet.

‘Move away from the jeep. Over there.’ He gestured with the rifle. ‘I want you down on the ground facing the trees.’

For a couple of moments Sam thought Squires would rush him. Then, very slowly, the man complied. When he was sitting on the stony earth he twisted his head round.

‘What the fuck are
you
doing here, shitface?’

‘Harrison,’ Sam growled.

‘
What?
’ He looked utterly confused. ‘Who the hell
are
you?’

‘I work for the government.’

‘Whose?’

‘Yours …’ Sam kept an eye on the tree line beyond Squires, fearing the sudden intervention of the two ‘dacoits’. ‘Where are your men?’

‘No idea.’

There was a thwacking noise from deep in the thicket. Like someone knocking in tent pegs.

‘What’s happening here?’

Squires ignored his question. ‘That blonde tart with you? Beth?’

‘Maybe.’

Squires eyed him coldly. ‘I said I’d kill you if I ever saw you again.’

‘So you did.’

Sam knew his hold on this situation was perilously weak. At any moment one of Squires’ gunmen could take a shot at him. The rifle aimed at the small of their master’s back might or might not deter them.

‘What’s Harrison done to Kamata?’

‘Let’s see. What’s the best way to put it?’ Squires ruminated for a moment. ‘I’d say he’s been making him understand how he feels about life.’

‘How?’

‘Oh, knocking him about a bit. And helping him get a suntan.’

Staking prisoners out in the midday heat until sunburn and dehydration drove them mad – it’s what the Japs had done to their POWs.

‘And before you ask, this wasn’t my idea,’ Squires added quickly. ‘Anyway, what are you – SIS?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And why do you care about Harrison?’

‘Because if Kamata dies, so does a whole load of Anglo-Japanese trade.’

‘Yeah, but in Phuket you weren’t …’

‘That was different. I was helping the Aussies out. Now, where’s Harrison?’

Squires fell silent. He seemed to be digesting the situation. Calculating his next move. Quietly racking up the pressure on Sam.

‘On your feet again,’ Sam snapped. ‘Hands on head.’

He faced an almost impossible task. Even if he managed to resolve the immediate situation, he knew it’d be a marathon undertaking to get Harrison and Kamata back to civilisation.
And
to persuade the Jap to tell the Myanmar authorities his abduction had been a misunderstanding. And
then
, to get Squires into Midge’s little hands in Thailand. Simply handing the man over to the Tatmadaw wouldn’t work. The chances were they’d give him safe passage out of the country. No. By one means or another he was going to have to hand Squires over to Midge in person, and at this point he hadn’t a clue how.

The thwacking in the trees intensified. With a surge of horror he realised the object being hit was a human being.

‘Move.’ He prodded Squires with the barrel.

‘Perry won’t be pleased to see you.’

‘Too bad. Where are your men?’

‘Around.’

‘I want them disarmed. Any farting about and you get a bullet in your back.’

‘You wouldn’t dare. Fucking boy scout …’

‘Don’t tempt me.’

They elbowed their way through the bush. Then Squires stopped and turned.

‘Tell me something,
Steve
, or whatever your name is. Just curious. How the fuck did you find us?’

The man was far too composed for Sam’s liking. As if knowing damned well it’d be him holding the gun again before long.

‘Harrison told me about this place,’ said Sam cryptically.

Squires scowled. ‘Do me a favour.’

‘It was in his book. Ever read it?’

‘Course I have.’ He began parting the foliage again, swiping at branches with his arms. ‘That book’s what made me a fan of his. Blokes like Perry – they’re the forgotten heroes of World War Two.’ He said it with a bitter edge to his voice, as if Sam were part of the establishment that had turned its back on the veterans. He stopped one more time, glaring at Sam with narrowed eyes. ‘Look Mr SIS man. Let’s get one thing straight. It’s like I said – all this that’s going on here is Harrison’s idea. He asked for muscle, so I provided it. That’s all. But I didn’t know he was terminally ill. Nor that he’d lost his marbles. So this is not exactly what I was expecting. Okay? I was just trying to give a good friend a helping hand.’

‘Such a good friend that you’re now running out on him.’

Squires looked pained, as if unjustly accused. ‘Only because he’s lost it.’ Then the ruthlessness returned. ‘Anyway, he’ll be dead in a few weeks.’

‘Just keep moving.’ Sam disliked the man more intensely than ever.

A few seconds later they reached a clearing. Something dreadful was happening on the far side of it, but Sam’s eyes were locked on the two bandit-like figures squatting on the ground a few paces away, drinking from beer bottles.

‘Fuckers,’ Squires hissed. ‘Turn your back for five minutes …’

The men looked very young. They had brown faces with wary Chinese eyes and hair that was long, black and straight. Assault rifles were slung across their backs, which they swung onto their laps as soon as they saw Sam.

‘Tell them,’ he hissed, his forefinger slipping through the trigger guard. ‘It would give me real pleasure to blow your guts out.’

Squires muttered something in the men’s language and they laid the guns on the ground, their faces expressionless. One of them had a cowboy hat jammed on his head. Both had spare magazines stuffed into webbing belts. Sam guessed they were Wa fighters from the tribal militia Yang Lai used to guard his drug empire.

‘Tell them to chuck their guns and spare rounds over there.’ Sam pointed to the open ground to their right. ‘Then to stand up with their hands on their heads.’

Squires spoke to them again. Reluctantly the men did as they were bid. Only then did Sam lift his gaze to take in the scene at the far side of the clearing.

‘Jesus!’

Silhouetted against the glow of the sunset was the ruin of a small Buddhist temple. To one side of the half-collapsed
zedi
was a banyan tree. Hanging by a rope from its branches was the naked body of an elderly man, his hands bound above his head and his feet just inches from the ground. His shins and ribs were red and black from the beatings he’d been given.

Sam jabbed the gun into Squires’ back again.
‘Move! And your boys.’ He pushed them closer to the tree.

Peregrine Harrison, dressed in a sweat-stained bush shirt and khaki shorts, stood staring up at his victim, looking for some sign that his one-time torturer had at last been broken. He’d heard nothing of what was happening on the other side of the clearing, his mind locked in a private nightmare.

His legs were akimbo and he was resting on the log he’d been using as a club. Adrenalin had kept him on his feet long after his condition would normally have permitted. But now the very act of breathing was causing him pain. It was Kamata’s silence that was fazing him. Apart from initial protests when they’d seized him at the memorial, he’d not spoken once. Yelped with pain when Rip’s men had hoisted him up to the branch, shed tears as the bruises had spread up his legs and torso, but hadn’t spoken. His refusal to answer Harrison’s anguished questions had been a potent weapon.