by Roland Perry
‘What about meals?’
‘Tell the stewards to leave my breakfast outside the door. I won’t be venturing out for lunch either. Food is not my kind.’
‘A special meal can be produced …’
Cavalier waved a hand. ‘No thank you, ma’am,’ he said, ‘I’m not feeling so good.’ He chuckled and added: ‘Old bodies like mine need a complete rest, inside and out.’
‘You may feel differently when we arrive at Kanchanaburi in the morning,’ Jacinta said, now satisfied that he had settled. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Don’t forget my scotch,’ Cavalier called after her. ‘I need it for medicinal purposes. It opens up the arteries.’
*
He was woken the next morning at 6.30 a.m. by a tap on the door. He hauled on pants, his cap and glasses, and balancing on crutches opened the door.
‘Your breakfast, sir,’ a Thai steward said, ‘handing him his breakfast tray.’
‘I told you to leave it outside the door, goddammit!’ Cavalier said, feigning ‘grumpy old man’ anger.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the Thai in a tricolour uniform said, with a deep wai, ‘I did not receive that instruction.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Cavalier said, juggling the tray while keeping upright with the crutches. He placed it on the table and said in a more moderate tone, ‘Nice uniform.’
Cavalier handed him a fifty-baht note and reminded him to leave the tray outside the next day. He locked the door and savoured the food—fresh fruits, croissants, and strong Columbian coffee. Having foregone the evening meal, he enjoyed the offerings more than normal, especially the rose apple and a fleshy, succulent mango, his favourite fruit.
He was just finishing the breakfast when the train began to move from outside Kanchanaburi and across the three-hundred-metre-long trestle bridge with its iron arch that clung to limestone cliffs. Cavalier had not joined the other passengers in the observation lounge and car as the train crawled over the thick wooden cross-slats.
He placed the tray outside the door.
‘Not wanting to see the Bridge over River Kwai?’ the steward asked.
‘No!’ Cavalier snapped. ‘It’s a goddamned tourist con!’
He stayed in the suite and watched a crowd that had gathered to view the train’s arrival. He studied the faces of local villagers, hawkers, tourists, police and others. A couple caused him to do a double take. Doug and Irina, he thought, the two Indonesians from Thai language class. They were dressed in identical jeans, vests, and blue caps, both depicting the insignias for the New York Yankees.
‘What the fuck are they doing here?’ he mumbled to himself.
26
THE ASSASSIN PREPARES
Cavalier took a black backpack from his suitcase and placed the cylinders containing his rifle and a few other items in it. He prepared his wig and moustache for his identity as Claude Garriaud. Cavalier had trouble sticking on the small goatee beard. It kept slipping. In the end he discarded it, despite it being on his passport photo.
He practised about a hundred words of French, which he used with a Gallic flourish that was well practised. Cavalier felt most comfortable in French shoes. His accent and his command of the language were good. He had always worked hard on his Thai, French and Mandarin, as if it were an almost daily habit, similar to his physical exercise and gym workouts.
Cavalier had tested this with French native speakers, who were convinced of his authenticity as one of them. They only time he caused a minor frown or two was in his constructed biography of being born the son of a diplomat in Paris, then brought up for a decade in Australia and travelled throughout the world. He never gave details, realising that he would probably dig himself into a deeper hole of deception if he attempted to explain his fabricated background fully. He usually finished any doubts by saying that he was one of nine million French living outside their country. He was not sure if the figure was correct, but it sounded authentic.
Cavalier, wearing a flamboyant unstructured navy jacket, white shirt, light trousers and sneakers, waited until he believed almost all people were off the train, before jamming a navy-blue beret on his head and putting on expensive sunglasses, dark enough to hide his eyes. He pushed his wheelchair against the main suite door, making it impossible for anyone to enter short of breaking in, and then eased aside the partition and entered the adjoining state cabin. He poked his head out of its door and, seeing no one in the corridor, stepped from the train and headed off in the direction of the 25 April Anzac ceremony. Then he doubled back around behind the train to the office where new passengers were joining the Express at Kanchanaburi.
There were just six people. Huloton and Jacinta were seated behind a desk. Cavalier would be the last person to be interviewed. He sat next to the others outside on a bench and waiting to be called in. Those in front of him included four Mexicans, easily recognisable in their Stetsons, high-sided boots and leather vests. Cavalier glanced at the two other people waiting. Then he froze. They were Doug and Irina. Cavalier turned away so he was not facing them. Typically, they had not even looked at him, behaving as if he wasn’t even there.
When the Indonesians were called in, Huloton asked about their work, and they claimed this time to be employed at a primary school. The woman, still calling herself Irina, said she was the head of the school. Her partner, now ‘Nani’ rather than ‘Doug’, was claimed to be her deputy.
‘You must be paid very well to make this trip,’ Jacinta said in English.
Nani didn’t seem to understand. But Irina bristled.
‘We have saved for two years for this,’ she said indignantly, locking eyes with Jacinta, who outstared her.
‘You are Muslim?’ Jacinta asked.
‘Is something wrong?’ Nani asked as if he had learnt the phrase from a how-to-speak English booklet.
‘No Monsieur,’ Huloton broke in, ‘we have a hundred and thirty-four passengers on board and must ask questions of every traveller. It is the law.’
Irina put a hand on her partner’s forearm. ‘We must comply,’ she mumbled in Indonesian.
‘You are both Yankees fans,’ Jacinta said with a more relaxed look. ‘Pity about their form. But they do have Mitchell Jones, best pitcher in the league, don’t you think?’
Nani looked blank again. Irina gave a firm nod of agreement. Huloton gave them permission to board. Jacinta watched them as they made their way out of the room and headed for the train. Cavalier sat facing the other direction as a security guard guided them to their cabin.
‘They are doing their best to look like Americans,’ Huloton said.
‘Not doing a very good job either,’ Jacinta said. ‘I know nothing about baseball. I made up the pitcher’s name.’
Huloton glanced at Jacinta. ‘We need to keep an eye on them?’
‘Wise, I would think.’
They greeted the next two new travellers, a Mexican couple—Marco and Maria Rodriguez. Two hefty Mexicans, who looked like nightclub bouncers, stood at the back of the room, hands clasped in front of them as if they were part of a soccer wall defending against a penalty kick.
Marco was short, of medium height, sallow-faced and with outsized ears. Despite this, he was trim and handsome. He wore an immaculate Savile Row suit. His form said he was a ‘merchant banker’ and twenty-eight years of age. He claimed to be a senior vice president of Golden Eagle Acquisitions. Not on his form was the fact that his company had taken over Golden Eagle Constructions, and others with the illegal drug cartel’s insignia. In the last two years, he had steered the organisation towards legal drug production, while never admitting that the illegal activity was still generating much of the group’s revenue.
Dark-haired wife Maria, thirty-one, was taller and bigger than him. She had a sensual face featuring black saucer eyes and full lips. Her expression oozed boredom as she examined her nails and sat down, her sizeable derriere spilling over the sides of the seat. She fiddled with her bra, so that her ample breasts and cleavage distracted Huloton. Jac
inta concentrated on her husband.
‘Vacation?’ Jacinta said, glancing at both of them.
‘Sort of,’ Rodriguez replied, ‘I have been doing business in Bangkok, and will in Singapore.’
His accent was educated American; his manner superior.
‘You are a banker?’
‘I am. Here I am looking at property and other investments also.’
‘And in Singapore?’
‘The same.’
‘You sound American, sir,’ Huloton said. His interjection seemed superfluous, as if he were trying to assert himself, given Jacinta’s control of the conversation.
‘I did law at Harvard,’ Rodriguez said, his chest going out, ‘I was fifth in my final year.’
‘Most commendable,’ Jacinta said, her suspicions verified. ‘You are related to another Harvard alumnus who didn’t make it through law school?’
Rodriguez blinked and feigned confusion.
‘Did you have an uncle at Law School, Mr Rodriguez?’ Jacinta asked more pointedly.
‘What has that to do with anything?’
Maria was suddenly alert. She stopped playing with her hair. ‘You don’t have to take this kind of interrogation,’ she said to him.
‘Yes he does,’ Jacinta said. She turned to Rodriguez. ‘Your uncle was Leonardo Mendez? Yes?’ Rodriguez swallowed, trying to recover his pompous bearing. ‘You’re here protecting your investment, are you not?’
‘Everything I do is legitimate,’ he blurted, his face reddening. ‘I had nothing whatever to do with my uncle’s operations.’
‘You are on this train to protect your investment, correct?’ Jacinta repeated.
‘We don’t have to answer—’ he began, before Jacinta interrupted him.
‘You don’t have to worry, Mr Rodriguez,’ she said agreeably, ‘I have been hired to protect Señor Cortez and his … er … associates. Not to forget their bullion.’
Rodriguez’s look waxed between self-importance and uncertainty, as Jacinta added with equanimity, ‘This means I will be protecting you too.’
He glanced at his two men, standing rigidly.
‘Oh, and your bodyguards also,’ she said.
After a few more questions for the couple and their protection, the four wandered off towards the train. Huloton waved to Cavalier and he entered the room. Huloton engaged him in French, asking him about his work.
‘I am a teacher,’ he said, ‘specialising in languages—Thai, English, Chinese and, of course, our own.’
Jacinta studied the information sheet.
‘You have written here that you also teach cinema?’
‘I use movies to instruct in languages. I use the visuals and subtitles. It makes the students learn much faster.’
Huloton, as ever, was impatient and wished to move on.
Jacinta intervened only to ask in Thai: ‘Have you taught outside France?’
‘Of course,’ Cavalier said with a friendly gesture with both hands, ‘that is what I do here.’
‘Where? Bangkok?’
‘Oui. There is a school for French people.’
‘Chiang Rai?’
‘No.’
‘Your address is down as being in Chiang Rai.’
‘Yes, well I expect soon to take up a post at a college there.’
Jacinta’s expression did not change. She held Cavalier’s gaze. In a split second he realised she had seen through his disguise. Huloton, unaware of the interaction, moved to wrap up the interview session. He welcomed Cavalier to the train and called for a steward to direct him to his cabin.
‘If you hurry you will catch the Anzac ceremony,’ Huloton said.
‘I was hoping to see the Bridge over the River Kwai,’ Cavalier said with his best French pout. ‘I have always been fascinated to experience it after seeing the English movie about the “death railway” that the Japanese built. I use that movie often in my lectures.’
‘You can still join the boat tour down the river,’ Huloton informed him, ‘where an expert gives a lecture on the subject. It will sail under the bridge.’
‘Will the expert discuss the fact that after the movie appeared in 1957 tourists flocked here to see the bridge, which did not exist?’ Huloton looked blank. ‘Will he say that there was only a bridge over the Mae Klong river? They renamed the river at the point of the bridge the Kwai Yai, or “Big River”. This was of course for tourist purposes.’
‘The Thais are a shrewd lot,’ Huloton acknowledged with a respectful glance at Jacinta. ‘This mythology has satisfied the tourists for six decades, including our trainload today.’
Cavalier walked off with a steward.
He was shown into his state cabin’, next door to the presidential suite in carriage 29. Once the steward had left, Cavalier locked the main door and slid across the partition between the two compartments. He was relieved to see the wheelchair was still jammed against the door to the corridor, just in case an attendant tried to enter.
He sent Jacinta a message, using an app which didn’t allow the source to be registered.
‘The two new Indonesians passengers are almost certainly dangerous. Watch them.’
Jacinta was stunned by the message, to which she could not reply. Yet she felt instinctively that it had come from Cavalier. It was confirmation that he was the Frenchman.
*
Cavalier had not planned on the river trip, but he changed his mind when he saw the Mexicans filing down the platform. He stared when he saw Pon straggling along and looking forlorn. She wore dark glasses to hide the marks around her eyes. Then he noticed the earrings she was wearing. They were green jade, a pair he had given her on her eighteenth birthday. Cavalier looked away, took some deep breaths, slipped on his backpack, and hustled off the train. He bumped into Azelaporn, Jacinta and Huloton. Cavalier and Jacinta made eye contact and acknowledged each other perfunctorily as he walked briskly ahead of them.
‘Who is that?’ Azelaporn asked.
‘A Frenchman who has the joined the train here,’ Huloton replied.
‘He doesn’t look like a farang retiree.’
‘He’s a language teacher,’ Huloton said.
‘Then he’s hardly in the money class of his fellow travellers, is he? Have you looked at his passport?’
‘Jacinta and I have reviewed them all.’
‘I’d like to see it.’
‘You can when we collect them for passing into Malaysia tomorrow.’
‘You know what to look for?’ Azelaporn asked, almost patronisingly. ‘The blurred writing, the perfection or otherwise in the rubber stamps, the traces of old gum around the edges of the photograph, the alteration of a letter or number where the paper has been tampered with …’
‘Yes, yes,’ Huloton interjected impatiently, ‘I have been making this type of inspection for two decades.’
‘With respect, Chief,’ Jacinta added with a tone that did not match her words, ‘we are both aware of this applying to older passports. Newer ones from many countries use modern technology that makes it much tougher to pick forgeries. The creator has to be a software expert and an outstanding hacker.’
‘Like you, my dear?’ Azelaporn sneered.
Jacinta held his gaze for a moment before saying emphatically: ‘Actually, yes.’
‘Keep your eye on them all,’ Azelaporn said, diverting the conversation from his ignorance.
‘The Indonesians may be a problem.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Their behaviour was suspect during the interviews,’ Jacinta said.
‘They are Muslim,’ Azelaporn observed with a sceptical shrug.
‘They are teachers too.’
‘Oh, really?’ Azelaporn said with sarcastic tone, ‘teaching what, Rebellion? Terrorism? Again like the unemployed Frenchman, how could a couple of Asian teachers afford such a trip? They paid upward of sixty thousand dollars for the trip. That’s still a fortune for most Asians.’
‘They are not imams. They cla
im that they teach at a Muslim primary school.’
‘So they say,’ Azelaporn said. ‘I want you to raid their cabin in case there are bombs or weapons.’
‘That would be highly irregular, Monsieur,’ Huloton butted in. ‘They are guests on our train, not terror suspects.’
‘Let me be the judge. You run the train; I run the security.’
‘Correction, Monsieur,’ Huloton said, ‘I run the train and its overall security. You are looking after the Mexicans.’
27
STALKER
Cavalier turned stalker, keeping his eyes on the Mexican contingent and, in particular, Cortez and Pon. They entered the Kanchanaburi Cemetery, where Cavalier had lingered in the boiling heat nearly a year earlier to kneel at the grave of his uncle, who had died in this town after being in a slave gang on the Japanese-built Thai–Burma railway.
He stayed a discreet forty metres away from the Mexicans, watching.
Pon, carrying a bunch of flowers, wriggled away from the guards, who moved after her. One held her by the arm.
‘You can’t stop me looking for my great uncle!’ she yelled, causing several others in a group between her and Cavalier to turn their heads. Pon punched and kicked at her guards, broke free and hurried along between the long rows of memorial stones. She was pursued by four Mexicans. They scuffled near the Australian grazier, Ben Dempster. He stepped between Pon and the Mexicans, and struggled with them. Pon kept moving and squinting at the graves.
Cavalier took a few steps forward. His instincts were to help Dempster and his daughter, but he was restrained by Jacinta, who moved past, saying, ‘Don’t do anything.’ She trotted to intervene in the scuffle.
The Mexicans pushed and shoved Dempster. One hit him with an elbow blow across the chest. The Australian threw a straight punch, hitting the Mexican on the nose and bringing him to his knees. Another pulled out a gun from a holster under a vest, just as Jacinta arrived.
‘Give me that!’ she demanded, pointing at the gun. The Mexican lowered it. Jacinta stood square on and repeated ‘Give it to me!’
