The Solitary Man (18 page)

'Everyone wins but the decoy?'

Carver nodded. 'That's the way it goes. Sometimes a 747 to Hong Kong can have as many as a dozen couriers on board.'

'And you think Hastings was setup?'

'Like I said, I haven't seen the file, but it sounds like it.'

Jennifer made notes in her pad as she smoked. Her hair fell over her eyes and she flicked it away. 'How do they recruit these couriers?'

'The farangs they usually pick up at cheap guest houses or hostels. Word spreads on the backpacker grapevine. There's always someone who's run out of money and who thinks it's worth taking the risk. The Thai and Chinese couriers are a different breed - they're well organised, they travel on false papers and usually make several trips a month. The going rate is about two thousand bucks a kilo. And if they get caught their families are taken care of. It's like a pension scheme.'

'But they execute the ones they catch, don't they?'

Carver shook his head. 'They get a death sentence for large amounts, but the King invariably commutes it to a life sentence.'

'And they risk that for a couple of thousand bucks?'

Carver shrugged and tapped the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray. 'They know that the odds are on their side. The chances are that they won't get caught. There are about a thousand foreigners in Thai prisons for drug offences, but for every one in jail, there's probably twenty that get away with it.'

'Other than the decoys being thrown to the wolves, how else do they get caught? Do they use dogs or X-ray machines or what?'

'Intelligence, mainly,' said Carver. 'The Thai police keep known suppliers under surveillance and they have a network of informers. At the airport it's usually a matter of searching those travellers who fit the profile of a typical courier.'

'Which is?'

'Usually male, usually in their twenties or thirties, often travelling alone with hand luggage and a stack of visas in their passport. From what I saw of the Press conference on television, your guy seems to fit the profile. That might be why they pulled him in.'

Jennifer made notes in her scratchy shorthand, then looked up at the DEA agent. 'There is one thing that worries me,' she said. 'At the Press conference, he didn't say a word.'

'A lot of them don't. The amateurs are usually in shock, the professionals are paid to keep their mouths shut. Besides, there's nothing they can say that'll have any effect on the Thais.'

'Sure, but they usually protest their innocence, don't they? Even the guilty ones.'

Carver shrugged. 'It didn't strike me as unusual.'

'And he didn't have a lawyer.'

'Early days.'

'What, they can put him on show like that, with the drugs and everything, and he doesn't have the right to legal representation? It prejudices the trial, doesn't it? Everyone who saw him on TV is going to assume he's guilty.'

Carver smiled thinly. 'This is Thailand. The Thais have their own way of doing things, and you just have to go with the flow. You can't fight it. Thailand is the one country in South-east Asia that's never been colonised, did you know that?'

'Which says what about the place?'

'That it can't be changed by Western ways or attitudes. They invite you to their country, they want you to spend your money here, they'll even allow McDonald's and Pizza Hut to set up shop here, but at the end of the day, this will always be Thailand and they'll carry on doing things their own sweet way. Hastings will get a lawyer, and a trial. And probably a fifty-year prison sentence, unless he co-operates. Then you and the rest of the media will forget all about him.'

'Maybe,' said Jennifer. 'But I still think there's a good story to be done on this guy. I'm going to try to get an interview with him.' She leaned forward showing another inch of cleavage. 'Can you do me a favour? Can you find out for me how he was caught?'

'No problem.' He tried to keep his eyes from wandering down to her cleavage and concentrated on the bridge of her nose.

Jennifer scrawled the telephone number of her hotel on a blank page of her notebook, ripped it out and handed it to him.

'Good hotel,' said Carver, recognising the number.

'It's a freebie,' said Jennifer. 'You should come over and check it out.'

Jennifer extinguished her cigarette. 'The heroin that Hastings had, where would it have come from?'

'Probably the Golden Triangle. That's the major source. It produces something-like two and a half thousand tonnes of raw opium each year, equivalent to about one hundred and ninety tonnes of heroin.'

'Which would be worth how much?'

Carver leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling.

He pursed his lips and sighed. 'Hell of a question, Jennifer. It depends at what stage you're looking at it.'

'I don't follow you.' She lit another cigarette with his Zippo then offered him the packet. He took a cigarette which she lit for him.

'The hilltribe people who grow the poppies get about a hundred dollars for every kilo of opium,' he said. 'So the total crop would be worth somewhere in the region of two hundred and fifty million US dollars. It's then processed into heroin and by the tirne it's reached Bangkok it's worth about eight thousand dollars a kilo.' He reached for a calculator on his desk and tapped on the keys. 'That would make the whole crop worth about one and a half billion dollars.'

Jennifer scribbled the numbers into her notebook.

'That's only the start of it,' he said. 'The dealers here buy it for eight thousand dollars a kilo, they spend a couple of thousand bucks on the courier, and by the time it gets on to the streets of New York or London or Amsterdam or wherever, it's worth almost half a million bucks, and when it's been cut with whatever additives they've got access to, then that same kilo is worth three million dollars. Total street value of the heroin coming out of the Golden Triangle . . .' He tapped a few more keys. 'Five hundred and seventy billion dollars.'

Jennifer's pen stopped dead. 'That's impossible,' she said.

'No. That's a fact. But not all of it gets to the West. There's wastage, there's the drugs we seize, and a lot is used in the region. Thailand has six hundred thousand addicts, and we reckon there's two million in China. But about twenty tonnes of heroin gets to America each year from the Triangle. Street value, sixty billion dollars. So you can see why I don't get excited about your guy and his kilo of smack.'

'You're not going to win, are you?'

'The war against drugs? So long as people want drugs, there'll be people making and selling them. There's just too much money at stake. We can shut down areas of supply, we can hit distributors, we can lock up the users, but you're right. Off the record, of course. Totally off the record.' He took a sip of water and licked his lips.

'What would you do, if you were calling the shots?'

Carver thought about her question for several seconds. 'I don't know,' he said eventually. 'We have to do something, but it's a question of supply and demand. We have to change hearts and minds, we have to convince people that drugs are a bad thing.'

'Tough job.'

Carver shrugged. 'What drugs have you taken?' he asked.

Jennifer smiled. 'That presupposes that I have taken drugs, of course,' she said. Carver didn't say anything. Jennifer nodded slowly. 'Marijuana, obviously,' she said. *

'Obviously?'

'Sure. Everyone tries it, right? I did coke, a few times. Never heroin, I'd never touch heroin. I tried ecstasy once, but it didn't do anything for me.'

'But you don't have any moral convictions about drugs?' he asked.

'I didn't say that,' said Jennifer. 'But I can handle them, there was never any question of me becoming addicted.'

'You might be right. But if you take the view that drugs are okay, and a lot of people do, then we're wasting our time.'

'Like prohibition was doomed to failure, you mean?'

'Maybe.'

'So maybe the best way to get it under control would be to treat heroin and cocaine in the same way as we treat tobacco and alcohol. Legalise it, tax it, and point out the risks. Then let people make their own choices.'

'It'll never happen,' said Carver. He held up his half-smoked cigarette. 'If anything, it'll go the other way. Maybe these'll become illegal eventually.'

'Yeah? And if they do outlaw cigarettes, you think that'll stop people smoking? I don't think so.'

The neither,' said Carver. 'But I'm just a foot soldier. I don't get to make decisions, I just . . .'

'. . . follow orders,'Jennifer finished for him. She smiled. There was a smear of lipstick on her right canine, Carver noticed. It glistened like fresh blood. 'I've just realised that I've confessed to a DEA agent that I've taken drugs.'

'That's okay, I won't bust you.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Jennifer. 'It might be fun.' She put her notebook into her handbag and stood up. 'Thanks for the info. I won't take up any more of your time. Give me a call if you turn up anything on Warren Hastings.' She leaned forward and stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray, giving him another lingering look at her cleavage. 'Or even if you don't.'

Carver picked up the piece of notepaper and ran it through his fingers as he watched her walk out of his office.

HUTCH WAS DOING SIT-UPS on his sleeping mat when one of the Nigerians was put into the cell. Hutch stopped exercising and nodded a greeting.

The Nigerian looked around the cell despondently. 'Where do I sleep?' he asked.

'The new guy sleeps by the bucket,' said Matt. He grinned at Hutch.

The Nigerian walked over to the metal bucket. He peered down and wrinkled his nose in disgust. 'Shit,' he said.

'Sure is,' said Matt.

'You can sleep here,' said Hutch, shuffling to the side to make room.

The Nigerian walked over and stuck out his hand. 'Joshua,' he said.

'Warren,' said Hutch. They shook. Hutch's hand was dwarfed by the Nigerian's.

Joshua looked at the other occupants of the cell. 'Does anyone else speak English?' he asked Hutch.

Hutch shook his head. 'Just you, me and Matt,' he said. 'Matt's the one with the sense of humour. There was a Dutchman here, but he went to court.'

Joshua sat down with his back against the wall. He wrapped his arms around his stomach.

'Are you okay?' Hutch asked.

'They gave me something to make me shit,' said Joshua. 'To get the drugs out. Julian is managing to keep it all in, but it went 142 STEPHEN LEATHER straight through me.' He eyed the bucket. 'How often do they empty it?' he asked.

'Once a day. If we're lucky.'

A deep rumbling noise emanated from Joshua's stomach. 'Do you think they'll let me see a doctor?' he asked.

'I doubt it,' said Hutch. 'How much did you have inside you?'

'A kilo.'

'And you swallowed it all?'

The Nigerian grinned. 'Not at once,' he said. 'It was packed into condoms. About eighty. It took all day to get them down.' He held up his right hand, his thumb and first finger a couple of inches apart. 'Each condom was about this big. They gave me some green stuff to swallow while I was doing it. It numbs the throat and makes them slide down. Like oysters. Have you ever eaten oysters?'

'Yeah, but not eighty at one go. What did it feel like?'

'Like I'd eaten eighty oysters.' Joshua rubbed his stomach. 'Whatever the Thais gave me to flush them out, some of it's still in there. I've got to use the bucket.' He stood up and went over to the bucket. 'This isn't going to be pleasant,' he warned, and dropped his trousers. The Thais shuffled away, muttering to each other. Hutch averted his eyes. If there was one thing worse than using the bucket, it was watching someone else use it.

THE WOMAN CLUTCHED THE baby to her chest and made soft shushing sounds even though the baby showed no signs of waking. The stewardess smiled. 'Such a good baby,' said the stewardess. 'Is it a boy or a girl?'

The woman didn't know. 'A boy,' she said. 'He didn't cry once. Is he always this well behaved?' 'Always,' said the woman. She stepped out of the plane and walked down the stairs to the waiting bus. A Chinese businessman gave up his seat for her and she smiled her thanks. She held the baby close to her chest. On one arm she carried a bag filled with THE SOLITARY MAN 143 things a baby might need on a long flight: disposable nappies, a bottle of milk, tissues. The bottle was untouched.

The bus drove quickly to the terminal. It would soon be over, but the woman couldn't relax because the most crucial stage was still to come. The bus parked and the doors hissed open. The passengers rushed out, eager to be first to reach immigration control. The woman walked slowly, a benign smile on her face.

She joined a queue and waited patiently. When it was her turn to show her passport she whispered into the baby's ear.

The immigration officer was a Chinese woman with purple lipstick. She examined the woman's passport, then frowned. 'The baby's passport,' she said.

For a moment the woman was flustered. Then she realised it was still in her bag. 'I'm sorry,' she told the immigration officer. She fumbled in her bag and found the passport.

The immigration officer checked the photograph in the brand new passport and then nodded at the baby. 'Can I see the baby's face, please?'

The woman smiled. She turned the baby around and pulled the shawl away from its face. The immigration officer smiled for the first time, showing chipped and uneven teeth. 'He's a very quiet baby,' she said. She was in her late forties and there was no wedding ring on her finger.

'He's always very well behaved,' said the woman. 'I think he likes flying.'

The immigration officer looked at the baby for a few seconds, and then stamped both passports and gave them back to the woman.

The woman waited at the luggage carousel. Her suitcase was small with a yellow strap around it. As she reached for it an American teenager stepped forward and lifted it off the carousel. 'Let me help,' he said.

'Thank you,' said the woman in hesitant English. She took the case from him, holding the bag and the baby with her other hand.

'Can you manage?' he said.