by Greg Dinallo
In the center, where the bands of light converge, Timothy Roark’s tiny, bald head seems to float like an illuminated globe. He stands behind a felt-covered table, surrounded by racks of rifles, machine guns, pistols, knives, and crates of ammunition. His posture stiffens. His eyes dart from Kate’s to mine and back.
“How are you, Kate?” he finally asks. There is more embarrassment than enthusiasm in his voice.
“I’m doing okay, what about you?”
“Don’t look so worried. I’m fine. Mr. Morgan.” He reaches across the table and shakes my hand. “Oh, in case you’re wondering, this is my shrine. The one up top is Sakri’s. Sweet lady. All she wants out of life is a bunch of kids. Unfortunately, I had a little fling with a Bouncing Betty before I met her. I keep trying to explain, but she won’t hear it. Insists it’s her fault.”
Kate’s clearly moved.
I’m not. I had a fling with one. A lot of guys in-country did. Some lost limbs. Some are scarred. Some are sterile or impotent. Too many are dead. “You have a lot of shrines, Mr. Roark,” I say, sharply. “We saw another one last night.”
“The library?”
I nod.
“Books are my passion.”
“I was referring to the opium.”
“Ah. You ought to try some. Maybe you wouldn’t be so angry.”
“I have good reason to be.”
“Well, don’t take it out on me. Everyone has their opiate. Some people watch TV, others down six-packs, I smoke a pipe.”
“The guy who killed my wife wasn’t working for a network or a brewery, believe me.”
He studies me, adjusting his attitude. “That’s a tough one. But for what it’s worth, I’ve always thought revenge was a lousy motive. Clouds your thinking. Dangerous.”
“Not what I’m looking for.”
“Then what?”
“Answers.”
“Same as Kate?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“And you need guns to find them.”
“To even the odds.”
“Well, if you’re looking for an equalizer . . .” He turns and takes a weapon from a rack behind him.
It’s a black sheet-metal box about 10 × 1 × 2 inches. A rectangular pistol grip, through which the magazine is inserted, extends straight down from the bottom. A stubby, cylindrical barrel protrudes from the fascia.
“Ingram Model 11. Fully automatic submachine gun,” Timothy announces as he begins field-stripping it. “Nine-millimeter shorts. Box-type mag. Thirty rounds. Weight, loaded—eight-and-one-quarter pounds. Lands and grooves are right-hand twist, one turn in six inches. Maximum velocity nine-hundred-eighteen feet per second. Rate of fire, eleven-hundred-forty-five rounds per minute. Simple. Deadly. Very easily concealed. My favorite.”
Vann Nath was right.
Timothy Roark does have weapons. Lots of them. And he can rattle off their nomenclature in his sleep, or, I would imagine, in an opium-induced trance if he had to. But this morning, his eyes are clear and alert, his handshake strong, his slight physique obviously still finely honed.
“All yours, Morgan,” he says, gesturing to the parts neatly arrayed on the table.
I start reassembling the weapon.
Timothy fetches a pistol.
“Fabrique Nationale DA 140. Box-type mag. Eight rounds. Very little kick. Highly accurate. I like the Beretta 92 myself, but this is more compact and uses nine shorts like the Ingram.” He takes Kate’s hand and wraps it around the molded plastic grip. “How’s that feel?”
“Kind of scary.”
“No. Respect it. Don’t be afraid of it.”
Kate nods, balancing it in her hand.
“You get a line on John? That what this is all about?”
“On his remains,” Kate replies evenly, with a little look to me. “He was killed and taken to a Pepsi-Cola plant in Vientiane. I know that sounds weird but we found out if’s a—”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve heard about that place. Nasty business. Nasty man.”
“I prefer heinous, repulsive, and disgusting,” Kate says bitterly.
“You get us there?” I ask.
“No.”
“Kate said that was your thing.”
“It used to be. I don’t do it anymore.”
“How much do you want to come out of retirement?”
“Not a chance.”
“That may change when you hear the offer.”
He sets his jaw and shakes his head no. “Don’t want to hear it.”
“Why not?” Kate asks, concerned. “What’s the problem, Tim? Something bad happen?”
“No. I just got tired of watching people live in hope and die in despair, that’s all.”
“Who’re you talking about?” she wonders.
“You.”
“Me?”
“Next of kin. You know what I mean. All these wives, parents, brothers, sisters. They kept coming and coming, begging me to take them to these places. We’d finally get there. It’d turn out to be a bust. And they’d look at me empty and forlorn, like I was the one who didn’t deliver. I couldn’t handle it.”
Kate nods with understanding and puts the pistol on the table.
I finish reassembling the Ingram and offer it to Timothy for inspection.
He jacks the cocking lever and checks the action. “That’s good.”
“I used to be real good: I Corps, Special Forces, G Company Rangers.”
“Hundred Seventy-third Airborne, Lurps,” he replies smartly, using the nickname given those who served in Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol units. They were loners, skilled in fieldcraft and survival techniques, and operated in very small groups many miles from base camp for long periods of time.
“I knew guys like you when I was in-country. I admired them.”
“Unfortunately, we were the exception not the rule.”
“We were.”
He studies me, then nods and breaks into a funny smile. “What we lacked in brawn we made up for in intelligence and guts.”
“So what happened?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It looks to me like you’re wasting one and ran out of the other.”
“You’re out of line, Morgan.”
“Why? Because it pisses me off to see someone nodding his life away in the jungle?”
“I did four tours. Four. I lived off the land for weeks, sometimes months at a time. I liked it. I liked being responsible to no one. Dependent on no one. And that’s what I’m doing now.” He tosses the weapon at me, hard, challengingly. “Let’s see if you remember what to do with that.”
He turns on a heel and strides out of the bunker. Kate and I follow at a distance with our weapons. I can feel her disapproval as we walk.
“I guess I got a little out of control there, didn’t I?”
“A little.”
“Sorry. But lately, I’ve got this thing for people who do drugs.”
“I understand.”
“You didn’t say anything about him being so weird.”
“He wasn’t. He used to live in an apartment in Bangkok. What I don’t understand is how he could have been so out of it last night and so sharp today.”
“Well, for what it’s worth, a client and his wife invited me out to dinner once. He got very drunk. Insisted on driving me back to my hotel. I needed the work. Didn’t want to insult him. We ended up going the wrong way on the Jersey Turnpike. His wife is screaming. He’s cursing out the other drivers like they’re wrong. I’m trying to get him to turn around.”
“Sounds like something out of Cuckoo’s Nest.”
“Worse. But the next morning? Like it never happened. He was sharp, articulate, and kicked my ass in a meeting.”
We arrive in a clearing where a shooting range has been set up. The Ingram is everything it’s cracked up to be. Deadly accurate on single fire. Devastating on auto, taking barely a few bursts to snap a good-sized sapling in half. It takes me a few minutes
to feel the rhythm of the fire and recoil, but finally the weapon is almost floating in my hands. It’s more difficult to deal with the vibrations it sends coursing through my body—a long-forgotten sensation that conjures up disturbing memories.
Kate has a tough time with the pistol. It’s a difficult weapon to master. Seven of nine rounds completely miss the target. She does a little better with the second clip and a two-handed stance.
“I’m hopeless,” she laments.
“Don’t worry,” Timothy counsels smugly. “The enemy’s usually a lot closer than that. Just stick it in his face and blast away.”
Kate forces a smile, hands me the weapon, and walks off staring at the ground.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“Come on, I know you well enough by now.”
“Well, this is probably going to sound silly, but I don’t think I could ever kill anyone.”
“Is this the same Kate Ackerman who was asking to borrow my pistol the other day?”
She shrugs. “It was just a way to get you to come with me. I mean it. I couldn’t. I know it.”
“Sure you could,” Timothy chimes in. “And I’ll tell you how. I did a lot of sniper work when I was in-country. I’d be sitting there watching some guy through my night-scope. Maybe he was eating or writing a letter home. I knew I was going to kill him. Knew at that moment he was alive. And knew, in the next, a little signal would go from my brain to my finger, and he’d be dead. I could see their faces when the bullet hit. Every time. I still see some of them.”
“Are you saying you hesitated?” Kate asks.
“Sometimes. Whenever I did, I’d think about one of my buddies who had his face blown off or his guts shot out. And blam—” He makes a shooting motion with his hand. “No problem. Just like that.”
“That’s different,” Kate protests. “You were a soldier, in a war, struggling to stay alive.”
“No other reason for using this,” Timothy says, taking the pistol from me and putting it in her hand.
“He’s right, Kate. You get in a jam and you get one of these guys in your sights, you just keep thinking about what they did to John.”
“Knowing me, I’ll probably be worried he’s got a wife and kids.”
“Fine. Take it from me. He beats them. Daily. Mercilessly.”
She smiles and shakes her head in mock dismay.
A short time later, the three of us are back in the bunker cleaning and oiling the weapons. Timothy sets out boxes of ammunition, spare magazines and carrying cases, then he tosses a couple of Kevlar vests on the table. “Might want to take these along too.”
“I’d feel a lot better taking you along.”
Timothy shakes his head no, emphatically.
I’m about to press the issue.
Kate notices and signals me to back off. “How many trips did we make, Tim?” she prompts casually.
“You mean back then?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Half dozen or so.”
“Came up empty every time, didn’t we?”
Timothy lets out a long breath and nods glumly.
“Did I ever make you feel it was your fault?”
He shakes no.
“Did I ever look at you like you didn’t deliver?”
“No, Kate. You never did.”
“And I never will. I promise.”
He hesitates while thinking it over.
“Don’t pressure him, Kate. He’ll be more trouble than he’s worth if he doesn’t want to be there.”
“I don’t,” Timothy says with finality.
“Fair enough.”
“But I’ll get you dose. I mean right to the border, right to the Mekong. Chances are, I can even set up some transportation on the other side.”
“And all we have to do is get across.”
“That’s the trick. Despite what Kate may have told you, walking on water never was one of my specialties. That’s why I picked this up.”
He pulls a black fiberboard trunk from a shelf behind him and swings it onto the table with a jarring thump—a boxy industrial case with metal-reinforced corners. He unfastens the snap latches and raises the top.
USN APV-2 ZODIAC is stenciled on the inside.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Morgan, you been giving any thought to what you’re going to do in Vientiane once you get there?”
“Yes. Like twenty-four hours a day.”
“And?”
“We’re going to look up that nasty man.”
“Chen Dai?”
“Yes, and ask him some nasty questions.”
“If he doesn’t kill you first.”
34
Two days have passed.
Forty-eight tense, restless hours. Kate and I spent them in seclusion at Timothy’s while he went into Bangkok and made the arrangements to go north.
It’s just before sunrise when we load the gym bags and trunk into the runabout and set off downriver. Our spirits are high, our sense of security bolstered by the Belgian-made pistol tucked in Kate’s handbag and the compact, American submachine gun in a shoulder holster beneath my windbreaker.
We’re going with the current this time. The journey is swift and uneventful. It’s late afternoon when we arrive in Bangkok. After returning the boat, we meet Timothy at Hua Lamphong Station, the massive main railway terminal on Krung Kasem Road. Just being here gives me a nagging uneasiness: Are the bearded gunman and his sidekick waiting for us? Have they been watching the train, bus, and air terminals?
This is rush hour.
Travelers are scurrying in every direction.
I’m anxiously scanning their faces, my hand poised to go for the Ingram, as Timothy ushers us aboard an express to Nong Khai, an agricultural and mining city on the Mekong River, which forms the border between Thailand and Laos, 385 miles from Bangkok.
We’ve taken three interconnecting compartments in the first-class sleeper. In the style of the classic European pullmans, each has two entrances: one from the corridor, the other for direct access from the platform when the train is pulled into the station. I’m in the middle compartment. Timothy forward of me. Kate aft. This will be the first night, since our arrival in Bangkok, she’ll have some privacy and peace of mind.
It’s just after 5 P.M. when the shriek of a steam whistle announces our departure and the train suddenly lurches forward, a mechanical dinosaur sending its hot breath billowing past the windows. It snakes through the yard, emitting long, chilling screeches that soon give way to a rhythmic clacking as it hits the main spur on the outskirts of the city and begins picking up speed for the long climb into the mountains.
After settling in, the three of us gather in my compartment to review the plan to get into Laos. This only heightens the tension. It’s as if we’ve suddenly realized just what we’re doing. My gut is in a knot. Kate’s fists are clenched. Timothy’s talking rapid-fire like a hyperactive child.
“Nong Khai,” he says, using a felt-tipped pen to circle our destination on a map that he’s spread over the foldout table. “Scheduled arrival’s zero-three-thirty. Chances are we’ll run at least a half hour late. There’ll also be a short shunting layover, before we—”
“Shunting layover? Sounds like a sex show on Patpong Road,” I joke, trying to lighten the mood.
“So that’s your vice,” Timothy cracks.
“He’s also guilty of living in Malibu,” Kate chimes in with a grin.
“The man’s beyond salvation.”
Kate chuckles. So do I, deciding not to snatch defeat from victory by coming back at him.
“Okay,” Timothy resumes. “It means the train’s going to be broken down. This car will be shunted off to a local that makes stops along the river. We stay on through Hong Song, and Muang Kuk, and get off here . . .” He pauses and circles a bend where the Mekong turns sharply north, “at Tha Bo.”
“Black box time,” I declare, referring to the fiberboard trunk.
“Black box time and where we part company. You’ll be less than ten miles south of Vientiane, which is here.” He circles a city on the opposite bank, then suggests we tackle the problem of gaining access to the Pepsi-Cola plant and getting our hands on Chen Dai.
I’ve been thinking about it for days, and it doesn’t take us long to come up with a basic two-part strategy: arrive early morning when the plant is shut down, break in, and camp out in Chen Dai’s office. Then get the drop on him, get some answers, and get out of there. Simple, direct, uncomplicated. It would give us the element of surprise. Put him on the defensive. And provide the perfect hostage if things get ugly. Unfortunately, we have no knowledge of the terrain or physical layout, and won’t be able to finalize the details until we get there.
When we’re finished, Timothy settles back and produces a small pipe and pouch of opium. “I’ve more than enough for three,” he offers slyly, thumbing the oily brown powder into the bowl.
Kate holds up a hand, declining.
“I’d prefer you didn’t do that,” I say sharply.
“Sorry, it’s the only way I can get any sleep.”
“Like to try a right cross to the jaw?”
Timothy forces a smile, lights the pipe, and heads into his compartment, leaving a sweet-smelling cloud in the air. “Good night, Kate,” he calls back as he closes the door.
Kate angrily waves the smoke away. “I can’t believe it. Sometimes he acts like a two-year-old.”
“Well, maybe since he can’t have kids he’s decided to become one.”
“That’s very good.”
“Thank you. You know, it just dawned on me, you’ve never said anything about that.”
“About what?”
“A family. You have any kids?”
She smiles wistfully and shakes her head no. “I always thought it would’ve been nice. You know, to have a part of him, a part of John to . . .” Her chin starts to quiver and she leaves it unfinished.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you I—”
“It’s okay. I’m fine. I just need some rest.”
