The Burma Legacy (35 page)

‘They tell us get out,’ Tun Kyaw translated. His fear was infectious. Sam began to sweat profusely. The rock in his stomach told him things were about to go badly wrong.

Hands grabbed as they stepped onto the tarmac, spinning them round and pushing them against the vehicle. Intrusive fingers probed their bodies for weapons. All the while Tun was bombarded with questions. His answers were curt. Little more than grunts. Then two of the soldiers took him away, round the back of the guardhouse. Sam heard slaps and voices rising to a pitch of anger.

‘Look, he’s just my driver,’ he protested. The boys in uniform stared sullenly at him, keeping their rifles aimed at his stomach.

He could hear Tun Kyaw talking now. A torrent of words. Humble, cringing sounds, which suffused him with guilt at having bullied the man into this. When, after a few minutes, they brought him back to the car, Tun Kyaw’s nose streamed blood.

The soldiers pointed at the ground, indicating they should sit. Their hands were wrenched behind their backs and tied with plastic cable ties.

A soldier who looked senior to the others retired to the guardhouse. Through the open window they could see him pick up a phone.

‘You all right?’ Sam whispered, turning to Tun Kyaw. A sentry kicked him in the back to silence him.

It was several more minutes before the senior soldier re-emerged. When he did, they were jerked from the ground and pushed into the back of the Suzuki. Two soldiers occupied the front and one of them began to drive.

‘You speak any English?’ Sam asked. The men in front ignored him.

He turned to Tun Kyaw and asked if he knew where they were going, trying to sound calm. The Burman was trembling and ignored him too, his face taut with fear.

The road twisted its way steadily upwards. Sam had visions of being taken to a ravine and pushed over the edge, a bullet in the brain. He told himself they were probably driving to a headquarters, however. Somewhere where there might be an English-speaker.

The road surface improved as they headed further east. Paved with drug money, Sam guessed. Orchards had been planted along it, as if to convince visiting UN inspectors that the switch from opium into other crops was actually happening.

Soon there were signs of a town ahead, a modern place of flat roofs and satellite dishes. On the outskirts they passed a small industrial zone, two large sheds which matched the description Midge had given him
in Bangkok. He imagined
ya-ba
pills being churned out in their millions inside.

Then they passed a large barracks, as neat and tidy as that of a regular army. Tucked away on a parade ground, artillery pieces were lined up. The fiefdom of the UWSA was a state within a state.

One of the soldiers kept turning to stare at him, as if wanting to make the most of the opportunity to eye up a foreigner. Sam felt like some rare but doomed species, soon to be examined in more detail on a pathologist’s slab.

They entered a downtown area of shops and markets. The people on the streets were mostly young, many of the males in uniform. The Suzuki swung left and stopped at a striped pole guarding the entrance to another military base. Words were spoken with the guard, a report filed on a walkie-talkie and the pole lifted. Inside, neat roadways were interspersed by swards of well-watered lawns. They stopped outside a white, two-storey building guarded by sentries.

‘You come,’ the driver snapped. He got out and opened the rear door, grabbing Sam by the arm as he stepped onto the road. Then he frogmarched him inside. The air-conditioning beyond the doors was icy.

Sam was propelled along a corridor whose floor was impossibly shiny. Through open doorways he saw desks and banks of phones and all the quiet activity of a military HQ. At the end of the corridor they stopped in front of a portico of polished teak. The
soldier knocked. When it opened, he saluted and took a pace back.

On the far side of the room was a desk, towards which Sam was pushed. The man behind it wore a plain green uniform with no insignia of rank. He looked up, his face square and Chinese-looking, with slicked-back hair.

Sam had seen it before. In the marina in Phuket.

Hu Sin.

He felt the blood drain from his face. Sensed rather than saw the small wooden chair he was being guided towards. Was aware of others in the room, all watching as unseen hands pushed him down onto the seat. His eyes focused on the middle of the desk. An automatic pistol lay there, with a silencer attached.

The ties round his wrists seemed to tighten, along with the muscles in his throat.

‘What is your real name, Mister Steve?’ Hu Sin’s accent was light, his voice softly threatening.

‘Stephen Maxwell.’

He heard footsteps, then his belongings were dumped on the floor beside him. The holdall for his clothes and the small rucksack. Hu Sin went for the backpack first.

He found the passport. Saw that the name was the one Sam had just given, then dropped it on the floor. He went through the wallet – credit card and driving licence in the same name. A handful of dollar bills and some grubby kyat notes. Then he upended the bag, dropping books, torch, water bottle, medical pack and a few odds and ends on the ground.

Sam willed him to move on to the holdall, to get
stuck into his dirty underwear and not discover the one thing that mattered. But the willing didn’t work. Hu Sin fingered the rucksack flap, opened the small zipped pocket and extracted the tracer Midge had given him.

‘Who you work for?’ Hu Sin demanded, holding it up.

‘Guess.’

Hu Sin put down the tracer and picked up the pistol, pulling back the hammer with his thumb.

‘You want I kill you?’

‘No. But you’re probably going to anyway.’

The Wa commander glared at him as if he were a piece of meat that had gone off.

‘You answer question – then maybe I don’t kill. Who you work for?’

‘I’m a police officer. I’m looking for your murdering friend Jimmy Squires.’

‘England?’

Sam shrugged. ‘You’ve seen my passport.’

‘
A valueless document
…’

It was a different voice this time. From behind him. A voice that was both plummy and oriental, which for some reason made Sam think of Calcutta.

He turned his head to see who’d spoken. Seated in an armchair behind him and to his left was a soldier in a different uniform. Pips and swirly bits on the shoulders. The insignia of a senior officer in the Tatmadaw. A Brigadier, Sam guessed.

But why here in a command headquarters of the Wa state army?

‘You are a man for all seasons, Mister Stephen
Maxwell …’ the officer brayed. ‘Also calling yourself
Geoff
, I believe.’

Sam swallowed uncomfortably. Melissa was the only person he’d used that name with.

‘Miss Dennis contacted us yesterday,’ the officer explained smugly, smoothing his neatly trimmed moustache. ‘In Yangon. She was worried about Mr Harrison – or Wetherby as he called himself.’ He clicked his tongue mockingly. ‘You English. So many identities. Unfortunately the young lady contacted us too late to stop this savage tragedy from taking place.’

The officer stood up and glared down at him. Sam felt like a condemned man about to be sentenced. Hu Sin watched with the pistol still in his grip.

‘There is only one word that can be used to describe you, Mr whatever-your-real-name-is,’ the Tatmadaw officer declared. ‘You are a
spy
.’

‘Rubbish. I came here to try to save a man’s life.’

‘You are in a part of Myanmar which is forbidden to foreigners. You will be charged with spying.’

‘I came here in pursuit of the man who killed Harrison and Kamata.’

‘Spies are executed in Myanmar,’ the officer continued, as if it was the only thing he could think of saying. He fingered his moustache again, then stepped forward, placing himself between Sam and Hu Sin. ‘What do you have to say for yourself?’

‘That I’m not a spy,’ Sam repeated. He was thinking fast, a desperate plan developing in his head. ‘And that Myanmar and Britain have a common interest here.’

‘The only thing your country and mine have ever
shared is an unhappy history,’ the army officer sneered.

‘Think about it. The death of Tetsuo Kamata is a terrible setback to your country as well as to mine.’

The Brigadier pursed his lips and stepped to one side, walking away with his hands behind his back. Behind his desk Hu Sin seethed with annoyance at being upstaged in his own headquarters by a strutting officer of the Myanmar army.

‘Setback?’ The Brigadier spun round to give thrust to his question. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because we both stand to lose out in a big way if Matsubara cancel their plans for factories in our countries,’ Sam explained, a little breathlessly.

The Brigadier studied him with what looked like renewed interest. ‘You have something to propose?’

‘First thing is to limit the damage from this tragedy.’ He was thinking as he went along.

‘Absolutely. And punish the perpetrator …’

‘Of course.’

‘
You
, Mr Maxwell.’

Sam’s heart missed a beat as he read their miserable minds. They intended charging
him
with Kamata’s murder. Concocting some mad motive which might smooth things with the Japanese. And if he ‘confessed’, he’d be rewarded with a jail sentence instead of being shot.

‘They were killed by Jimmy Squires,’ Sam growled, ‘the man your soldiers gave chase to last night.’

‘Your word against his, Mr Maxwell.’ The Brigadier turned away again.

Sam digested what he was saying. They’d got Squires. And the bastard had blamed him.

Hu Sin laid the gun down on the desk and began fingering the tracer device, as if by so doing he might confirm his suspicions about the recipient of its signals. His impatience seemed to be growing. Sam guessed the Wa gangster had his own simple answer to the problem. Kill them both.

‘How about if the deaths of Kamata and Harrison could be shown in a different light?’ Sam suggested, suddenly remembering what Melissa had said. ‘Then maybe both of the motor projects could be saved.’

‘What sort of different light?’ The Brigadier kept his back to him.

‘If we pretend Harrison came to Myanmar to effect a reconciliation with his former enemy instead of taking his revenge on him.’

‘I am not following you.’ The Brigadier walked back to where Sam was seated. He leaned over him with his hands clasped behind his back.

‘We could say the two old gentlemen met at the Japanese war memorial in Mong Lai with the intention of turning their backs on the past,’ Sam explained. ‘They shook hands there, shed a few tears and agreed to let bygones be bygones. But then, in a dreadful twist of fate, they were snatched by dacoits – this region is famous for them, after all. The bandits took them to a remote place, stole everything of value they had, then beat Kamata halfway to death, before finally shooting the two of them.’

‘And how would that help our mutually problematical situation?’

‘The British and Myanmar governments could then propose to the Matsubara board that they continue with Kamata’s two pet projects as a memorial to him and to Mr Harrison, and to the great act of reconciliation they’d brought about.’

The Brigadier perched on the edge of Hu Sin’s desk and folded his arms.

‘Ingenious,’ he said. ‘But there is always a problem when rewriting history.’

From his icy glare, Sam guessed where the problem lay.

‘In this case
two
problems. You are one. And the other is Mr Squires. You both know the real truth about how Mr Kamata met his end.’

A vein in Sam’s neck began to twitch.

‘One solution would be to kill you both, and burn your bodies,’ the Brigadier added nonchalantly.

‘That won’t help,’ said Sam. ‘To convince the Matsubara board you’ll need a witness. Me. I saw the reconciliation, the handshakes, the tears. Even saw the two men being seized by the dacoits. And Jimmy Squires? I agree he’s a problem. Yes, a bullet in his brain might be appropriate, but I’ve a better idea. You give him to me. Then you take us to the Thai border with a couple of soldiers as escort and we cross into Thailand. The suitcase of heroin which he’s carrying as personal baggage will be enough to get him locked away in a Thai jail for the rest of his life. And by doing that, Brigadier, you’ll have shown the world that the government of Myanmar really is ready to do its bit to stop the drug trade.’

Sam glowed with the ingenuity of what he’d come
up with. The Brigadier swung round to look at Hu Sin. Then the two men got up and walked to the window, talking in low voices. Hu Sin still had the tracer in his hands, fiddling with it as if it was a cigarette lighter.

It was a couple of minutes before they turned back towards Sam.

‘You would make your testimony to Matsubara jointly with Miss Dennis?’ the Tatamadaw officer asked. ‘She would be an important witness as to Mr Harrison’s intentions.’

The idea of doing
anything
with Melissa filled him with horror, but Sam agreed. ‘One other thing. Jimmy Squires won’t go willingly with me.’

‘On the contrary, he won’t give you any trouble. One of my soldiers put a bullet in his leg yesterday. The femur is shattered. The UWSA have an excellent hospital here, but they don’t have the experience for such a fracture. They have made him comfortable, but he should be treated by a specialist as soon as possible. In Bangkok they have such people.’

Sam felt euphoric. A chance to salvage something from the catastrophe of yesterday and make Midge happy too. Now all he had to do was cut her in on it. He stared longingly at the tracer which Hu Sin was playing with. When the drug baron saw his interest, he closed his hand round it.

‘Everything can be ready very quickly,’ said the Brigadier briskly. ‘A car will take you twenty kilometres towards the border, then it will be by mule over the mountains. The main crossing is closed, you see. There has been some fighting.’

‘How long will it take?’

‘By nightfall you will be in a village in Thailand.’

‘What about Tun Kyaw, the man who drove me here?’

‘He will be looked after. They will fill his car with petrol and give him an escort out of Mong Yawn district.’