The Solitary Man (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Dunne took a long pull at his Guinness. ‘What makes it worse is that we can’t even go and visit him.’

  ‘It has to be that way, Paddy. You can see that, surely.’

  ‘Aye, but that doesn’t make it any easier.’ Dunne slammed his glass down on the table. Several heads turned to look at the source of the noise, but they quickly looked away. Thomas McCormack was well known around Dublin and there weren’t many people prepared to openly stare at a member of the IRA Army Executive.

  ‘Easy, Paddy. He’ll be back here before you know it.’

  Dunne slumped down in his chair. ‘I’m sorry, Mr McCormack. I’m sorry. But you don’t know what it’s been like. It’s all that Brit bastard’s fault.’

  ‘That’s going to be taken care of, too, Paddy.’

  ‘It’s all his fault and yet he’s still swanning around the city in his flash cars as if he owns the place. Something should be done about him.’

  ‘Something will be done, Paddy, but we have to get Ray out first.’ McCormack took off his spectacles and polished them with a large, red handkerchief. ‘Tell your sister not to worry. We’re sending money in so that he can buy himself a few luxuries. But tell her one thing more, Paddy.’ McCormack waited until Dunne looked up before continuing. ‘She’s starting to talk, Paddy, and we can’t have that. It’s local at the moment and I can keep a lid on it, so far. But if the Press gets to hear of it, if anyone makes the connection, the Organisation will have to embark on a damage limitation exercise. And that could get messy, Paddy. Very messy. Best we don’t let it get to that stage.’ McCormack looked at Dunne steadily. He looked a lot less like a man of the cloth without his hornrimmed spectacles.

  ‘Aye, Mr McCormack. I’ll talk to her,’ said Dunne.

  McCormack held his look for several seconds, then replaced his glasses. The hardness slipped away from his eyes and he smiled avuncularly. ‘And don’t worry about the Brit. You’ll have your revenge, Paddy. We all will. But first things first.’

  CABBAGES AND KINGS. THE phrase rattled around in Tim Carver’s head as he watched the photographers click away at the Thai farmer and his field of poppies. It came from a poem or something, something he’d studied at school, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember anything else, just the one phrase. One of the photographers, a balding Australian with a huge beer gut, growled at the female interpreter to tell the farmer to hold out his hands and to smile. The interpreter translated and the farmer did as he was asked, standing as if crucified among the flowers, grinning like a demented scarecrow. The cameras clicked like crickets on a hot night.

  A lanky young man with a notebook appeared at Carver’s shoulder. ‘What do you think, Tim? Think this’ll make a difference?’ The accent was British, the tone sarcastic. His name was Richard Kay, a reporter from London, and he’d sat next to Carver on the helicopter that had taken them from Chiang Rai.

  Carver smiled wearily. ‘Cabbages and kings,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just thinking out loud, Richard. Of course it’ll make a difference. These people just want to make a living, they don’t care what happens to the poppies. They don’t even know that the opium harvested here ends up on the streets of American cities. All they want to do is to earn enough to feed their families.’

  Another journalist walked up and stood listening to them. ‘Lester Middlehurst, New York Times,’ he said, holding up a small tape recorder. ‘How many acres are we talking about here, Tim?’

  ‘Just over fifty.’

  ‘And the DEA is buying the land, is that how it works?’

  ‘Not exactly, no. For a start, this is a United Nations programme, not a DEA initiative. And secondly, the UN is paying the farmer not to grow poppies, and we teach him how to grow alternative crops.’

  ‘Cabbages, right?’

  Carver nodded. ‘Cabbages. And potatoes.’

  ‘But effectively you’re buying the poppies, aren’t you?’ Middlehurst asked.

  Carver looked across at a battered army truck where two Thai soldiers were being fitted with cumbersome flamethrowers. Carver’s sandy fringe fell over his eyes and he flicked it away with a jerk of his neck. ‘I’m with the DEA guys; you should be talking to the UN people,’ he said. ‘They’re the ones persuading them to change crops. It’s just a form of farming subsidy, but one that keeps drugs from getting to the United States.’

  ‘Yeah, but at the end of the day, the United States is buying opium, isn’t it? They’re putting up the bulk of the cash for this programme, right?’

  Carver held up his hands in surrender. ‘Come on, Lester, stop putting words into my mouth. And remember, everything you get from me is totally off the record. If you want a quote, talk to Janis over there.’ He nodded at the pretty blonde Press officer from the United Nations office in Bangkok who was fielding questions from a trio of Australian journalists.

  Kay slapped a mosquito on his neck and examined the splattered remains of the insect on his palm. ‘Okay, Tim, but off the record, we all know this is a complete and utter waste of time, don’t we?’

  Middlehurst put his tape recorder close to Carver’s face to better record his answer to the British journalist’s question.

  The flamethrowers burst into life and the two soldiers tested them gingerly. The photographers turned their attention away from the Thai farmer and concentrated on the soldiers and their equipment.

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Carver.

  ‘For a start, most of the heroin comes from over the border, from the Golden Triangle,’ Kay pressed. ‘And how much heroin does fifty acres produce? A few kilos?’

  ‘More.’

  ‘Yeah? I was told it takes a third of an acre to produce a kilo of raw opium. Does that sound right to you?’

  ‘Ballpark, I guess.’

  ‘So fifty acres is a drop in the ocean.’

  Carver grinned ruefully. ‘You know damn well that I’m not going to say that. On the record or off.’

  Kay grinned back. ‘Wouldn’t expect you to, Tim.’ He nodded towards the field and its mass of red and white poppies. ‘The farmer says he’s been growing poppies here for three years. But the land is only good for four years, total. After that all the nutrients have been sucked out of the soil and it’s useless.’

  Carver raised an eyebrow, impressed by the British journalist’s knowledge. ‘Fertiliser,’ he said.

  Kay’s grin widened. ‘Is that another way of saying bullshit, Tim? Come on, you know I’m right. These farmers don’t know the first thing about land management. They slash and burn, grow what they can and then move on. That’s why this country’s jungle is disappearing at such an alarming rate. This guy was probably going to give up this land next year anyway. He can’t believe his luck.’

  ‘We’re making a start, Richard. We’re giving them a chance to grow other cash crops. Tea, coffee, cabbages, potatoes. We’re showing them how to use the land in other ways, to stop them being reliant on opium.’

  The British journalist nodded sympathetically. ‘I’m sure you are, but that’s not what’s going on here. This is a public relations exercise, a photo opportunity. And that’s all it is.’

  Carver nodded over at the pack of photographers who were clicking away at the soldiers and their flamethrowers. ‘Got you guys out here, didn’t it?’

  ‘Sure, we’ll play the game, the Press always does. They’ll use the picture and they’ll use a few sentences from me as a caption, but this is all shit, Tim. The bulk of the stuff is coming from across the border, and the heroin kingpins there aren’t going to stop growing poppies just because you throw a few hundred dollars at them. The market’s worth billions and they’re not going to give it up to grow cabbages.’

  The two soldiers began to walk across the poppy field, away from the photographers. Janis shouted for the journalists to keep back. Middlehurst’s recorder clicked off as it came to the end of his tape. He took it away from Carver’s face and went over to join the photographers.


  Carver and Kay watched the pack jostle for position to get the best shot. A sheet of fire exploded from the barrel of one of the flamethrowers. The soldier raked the flame across the field and the poppy plants burst into flames. The motor drives went crazy, whirring like angry bees. The second flamethrower burst into life.

  ‘What’s the drugs problem like back in Britain?’ asked Carver.

  ‘It’s getting pretty bad,’ said Kay. ‘It’s like cable TV, fast food, and American humour: eventually we get everything you get.’

  Carver nodded. ‘Yeah, well, I hope this time it’s different,’ he said. He took a packet of Marlboro from his shirt pocket and offered one to the journalist. Kay took one and Carver lit it for him.

  The two men stood in silence and watched the poppies crackle and burn under the onslaught of the flamethrowers. Kay exhaled deeply, blowing plumes of smoke through his nostrils. “‘The Walrus and the Carpenter,’” he said.

  ‘Huh?’ said Carver, confused.

  ‘Cabbages and kings. That’s where the phrase comes from. Lewis Carroll, I think. It’s time to talk of many things, of something, something, something something, and cabbages and kings. It’s a bit of nonsense.’

  Carver stared out across the burning field. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘You’re right. It is.’

  THE SMALL HELICOPTER BUZZED overhead, then hovered like a hawk preparing to sweep on its prey. The mourners standing around the grave tried to ignore the intrusion and to concentrate on the elderly priest and his words of comfort for a family stricken with grief. There were two dozen men and women and a scattering of children, all dressed in black, all with their heads bowed. Some distance away, parked on a ribbon of tarmac, was a line of black limousines, their engines running.

  One of the mourners, a tall, thin man in a cashmere overcoat, lifted his head and glared at the helicopter. ‘Vultures,’ John Mallen muttered under his breath. Under normal circumstances Mallen was good looking, handsome even, with a squarish face and blond hair that was greying only slightly over his temples, but there were deep lines etched around his eyes and either side of his mouth, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot as if it had been some time since he’d had a good night’s sleep.

  His wife, her blonde hair tucked under a wide-brimmed black hat and her face hidden by a veil, squeezed his arm gently and he grimaced.

  ‘Sorry,’ he whispered. She smiled and slipped her hand into his.

  Between the parked limousines and the funeral party stood two men, broad shouldered, with impassive faces. They wore dark suits but despite the cold they had no overcoats or gloves. One of the men put his hand up to his ear and lightly fingered an earpiece. He nodded as he listened and looked up at the helicopter. A few seconds later the helicopter banked and flew away, a man with a television camera on his shoulder leaning out of its open doorway, his feet on the skids.

  The funeral service came to an end and the mourners began to drift over to the limousines. A pretty young brunette with tear-stained eyes walked hesitantly over to Mallen. She carried a small black handbag which she clutched to her stomach like a field dressing. He saw her coming and put his arm around his wife’s shoulders, steering her away from the brunette and towards the limousine parked on the road that wound through the cemetery. The driver already had the door open.

  ‘You should have spoken to her, John,’ Mallen’s wife said, her voice little more than a whisper.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mallen, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I can’t. Not yet.’

  ‘It wasn’t her fault.’

  ‘I know that. I don’t blame her.’

  The woman nodded slowly. ‘Yes, you do, John. You think you don’t, but you do.’ She stood up on tiptoe, raised her veil and kissed him softly on the cheek, close to his lips. ‘She loved him, too, you know.’

  ‘She had a strange way of showing it,’ said Mallen bitterly.

  ‘They’d have worked things out, if . . .’ She left the sentence unfinished.

  ‘Yes,’ said her husband. ‘If.’

  The two men in dark suits came up behind Mallen, their eyes watchful. One got into the front passenger seat, the other stood slightly behind the couple.

  ‘Aren’t you coming?’ she asked.

  Mallen shook his head. ‘Duty calls.’

  ‘Today of all days?’

  Mallen shrugged. His wife shook her head sadly and climbed into the back of the limousine. Mallen turned and walked away as the limousine drove off.

  Further down the road a short, stocky man in an overcoat a size too small for his massive shoulders stood waiting by another limousine.

  ‘Thanks for coming, Jake,’ said Mallen. They shook hands. Both men had firm grips but the handshake was no trial of strength; they knew each other too well to play games.

  ‘He was a good boy. He’ll be missed.’

  ‘There’s no need to patronise me, Jake. He was an arsehole,’ said Mallen, as he slid into the back of the limousine.

  Jake Gregory followed him into the car and pulled the door shut. The soundproofed panel separating the passengers from the driver was closed and they were cocooned in silence. The car pulled smoothly away from the kerb. A dark blue saloon with three men in suits followed them.

  Mallen looked around. ‘How come you don’t have babysitters?’ he asked. ‘I’d have thought the number two man in the Drug Enforcement Administration would be guarded like Fort Knox.’

  Gregory shrugged his wrestler’s shoulders. ‘Low profile. When was the last time you saw me on the cover of Time magazine?’

  Mallen smiled tightly as he settled back in his seat and unbuttoned his overcoat. ‘So, I’m listening.’

  ‘The heroin that killed Mark was part of a batch that came from an area of the Golden Triangle close to the border between Burma and Thailand under the control of a Chinese warlord called Zhou Yuanyi. He’s relatively new, up and coming you might say. He’s moved into the areas that Khun Sa used to control, and he’s trying to grab a bigger share of the market. He’s brought in a team of chemists from Russia and has started purifying his own opium before shipping it across the border into Thailand. As a result there’s been something of a price war, both out in the Far East and here at home. We’ve been aware of this for some time; on the streets heroin is now almost sixty-six per cent pure compared with six per cent in 1979. But as the quality has improved, the price has dropped, to about a third of its cost in the late seventies. In real terms, heroin is now about one-thirtieth of the cost it used to be, which is why it’s starting to become the drug of choice again.’

  Mallen folded his arms across his chest and studied Gregory with unblinking eyes.

  ‘Your son isn’t the only one to have died,’ Gregory continued. ‘The stuff’s getting so pure now that it’s practically lethal. The pusher has to really know what he’s doing. If he doesn’t tell his customers what the purity is . . .’

  ‘I get the point, Jake,’ said Mallen. ‘Tell me about Zhou.’

  ‘Zhou was one of the warlords in the Golden Triangle we targeted in Operation Tiger Trap, but so far we’ve had no notable success,’ Gregory continued. ‘In fact we lost two Hong Kong Chinese agents just last month.’

  ‘Lost?’ Mallen repeated disdainfully. ‘Lost in what way, Jake?’

  ‘They were tortured and killed. Impaled on stakes at the entrance to Zhou’s camp as a warning to others. It’s a jungle out there. Literally and figuratively.’

  Mallen tutted impatiently. ‘We spend fifteen billion dollars a year on the war against drugs and the best we can do is to send in two Chinese?’ he said.

  ‘The undercover operations are a small part of Operation Tiger Trap. The bulk goes on satellite and plane surveillance, intelligence gathering, Customs inspections, border controls.’

  ‘Maybe it’s about time we tried something else.’

  ‘These things take time,’ said Gregory. ‘We need the co-operation of the Thai and Burmese authorities, and they’re not the easiest people to
deal with. It’s not just the politics involved, either. The big problem is that we have no way of knowing who we can trust and who’s on the take. For instance, it’s practically impossible for Zhou to be getting his stuff across the border without the assistance of the Thai army, so we know he has contacts there. That means mounting any sort of military operation is next to impossible. Sure, they’ve raided a few of his camps, closed down a refinery or two, but Zhou has always been long gone. He invariably knows exactly when and where we’re going to strike.’

  ‘So ignore the Thais.’

  ‘Difficult,’ said Gregory. ‘We pretty much do that already as regards intelligence gathering. We share with the Brits and the Australians, and a dozen or so other agencies through the Foreign Anti-Narcotic Community, meetings which take place in Bangkok every month, and the Thais are excluded from that, but we don’t have the authority to make arrests. For that we have to go through the Thai police.’

  Mallen took a quick look at his slim gold wristwatch. He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly intense. ‘I’m not talking about arrests, Jake.’ Mallen’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I want him dead. I want the head of the man who killed my son. It doesn’t have to be on a plate, I don’t have to see the body, I just have to know that the bastard’s dead.’

  Gregory swallowed. He wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers. ‘You know I can’t—-’

  Mallen didn’t even give him time to finish the sentence. ‘Look, I can’t very well ask the CIA, can I? They’re trying to be whiter than white after the Guatemala fiasco and they’ll just throw Executive Order 11905 in my face. Thou shalt not kill.’

  ‘That applies to my agency, too,’ said Gregory. ‘We’re not in the business of executing—-’