The river terrace blazed with refracted sunlight. She detected Matthew French within seconds. French was every inch the sort of man Oliver Krane would deem appropriate to the occasion: silver-haired, superbly suited despite the promised heat, with a grave line between his eyebrows. His gaze seemed fixed on the churning river water; a copy of the Bangkok Post lay disregarded on the table before him. A black leather briefcase was propped correctly at the foot of his chair.
“Mr. French?” she inquired, and was gratified to see his eyes narrow with interest as he turned toward her.
“Ms. Fogg?”
She extended her hand. “I hope Oliver didn’t ruin your sleep last night. I’m very grateful that you were able to meet on such short notice.”
“Not at all.” He rose and grasped her palm firmly.
She slid into the opposite chair. “Were you waiting long?”
“A matter of three minutes.”
“Oliver will be proud of me. May I have coffee, please, and a fruit plate, croissants and some oatmeal?” she asked of the waiter who hovered at her shoulder. “I believe in a solid breakfast, Mr. French. So often it’s the only meal I’m sure of getting.”
“Just coffee, for me. Ms. Fogg—”
She considered inviting him to call her Stefani; she decided against it. She needed the formality of the gray suit far more than she needed a friend.
“Oliver Krane was brief in his instructions when we spoke last night,” French began, “but he faxed me copies of several documents this morning—and I’ve spent the better part of two hours examining them, in anticipation of this meeting.”
No chitchat, no disarming preamble; just a cold dive into the facts. Oliver got what he paid for.
“You’ve seen the will?”
“All the wills,” French corrected. “The 1960 document, the second one dated February 1967, which Krane assures me has been declared legitimate by your counsel in the United States; and Max Roderick’s final testament, in which he left everything to you.”
Stefani’s insouciance faded. “You have a copy of Max’s will?”
“Would you like to see it?” The decision was made for her; French was already extracting a sheaf of paper from his briefcase. She waited, numbly.
“Most of this is irrelevant. The crux of the bequest is right here.” He slid a single sheet in front of her.
… To my friend, Jeffrey Knetsch, I leave my Olympic medals and trophies won on the World Cup Circuit. To Jacques Renaudie, the sum of 100,000 francs, with the intent that he should spend several months in Paris with his estranged wife. To Sabine Renaudie I leave my drafting equipment and the contents of my studio, in recognition of her gift for drawing and the hope that she will pursue a career in design as ardently as she once pursued the Austrian Ski Team. To Yvette Margolan, I leave my copper pots, my wine cellar and my viola, with the condition that she throw a party in Courchevel in my memory after I am gone
Stefani felt her throat constrict; but the sound that emerged was a laugh, not a sob.
… and to Stefani Fogg, citizen of the world, I leave the remainder of my estate: to include my house in Courchevel and the entire legacy that has haunted the Roderick family, not excepting the group of assets belonging to my grandfather, John Pierpont Roderick, at present illegally held by the government of Thailand and enumerated under the Last Will and Testament of John Pierpont Roderick dated February 27, 1967. Any resolution of the case involving John Pierpont Roderick’s estate should be awarded to Stefani Fogg as my direct heir.
She looked up from the document, and met French’s assessing eyes. “Interesting reading.”
“Quite. In this town, one might call it explosive. But there is a problem, Ms. Fogg.”
“Only one?”
Coffee materialized at Stefani’s right hand. Matthew French stirred some cream into his.
“Jack Roderick has always been more than just another legend,” he said thoughtfully. “Roderick’s a symbol of an entire era in Thai history—a figure that has entered the public domain, if you will. And practically everything that belonged to the man is regarded as sacred.”
“Oh, crap.” Stefani settled back against her chair, one hand on the crown of her hat and the other wrapped around her coffee cup. “I’m not terribly interested in sacred cows, Mr. French.”
“No. I didn’t think you were.” His gaze swept the length of her saronged figure. “What do you intend to do with the house, anyway?”
“Live in it. That’s what houses are for.”
“It might help,” he suggested delicately, “if you could guarantee that the art collection would remain available to the public. Such an assurance might smooth your path considerably.”
“In the courts? Or among the networks that really run Thailand?”
“Any Thai court worth its salt would throw out this suit on the grounds that Max Roderick never possessed his grandfather’s legacy before he died,” French retorted, not bothering to conceal his impatience. “Max’s attempt to pass his vague inheritance on to you is—in a word-invalid. Your best hope is to strike some sort of bargain. Accept an out-of-court settlement.”
“That’s one interpretation.”
“It’s the interpretation that will probably govern.” French spoke sharply. “Consider the facts, Ms. Fogg. Jack Roderick’s estate—the house, the art—has been ably administered by the Thai Heritage Board established for that purpose. The assets have never passed out of the Board’s hands since Jack Roderick was declared legally dead in 1974. Max Roderick’s claim to his grandfather’s estate was unproved at his death. The weight of convention—the status quo, if you will—dictates that the courts do nothing.”
Stefani stabbed a piece of mango with her fork. “But what about the penumbra, Mr. French?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The penumbra. That gray area surrounding the facts. Jack Roderick made a will awarding his estate to his heirs. The Thai government systematically violated that will. If the man remains a legend in Thailand—a source of national pride, a sacred cow—this heist of his legacy should be a major embarrassment. How will my claim play in the realm of public opinion?”
Matthew French regarded her steadily. “Do you anticipate engaging the realm of public opinion?”
“Naturally. A PR campaign is all I’ve got. Mere law, as you’ve pointed out, isn’t enough. I need to take this case to the streets.”
French thrust his cup aside. “You run the risk, Ms. Fogg, of alienating exactly those people whose support you’d most need to win. You’re farang—a foreigner—and you’re a woman. You would appear … insensitive.”
“And too ballsy by half.” Stefani smiled dazzlingly. “But that’s where you come in, Mr. French. You can advise me. I’m sure you’ll know just how I should proceed. How long have you lived in Bangkok?”
“Nearly twenty-two years.”
“Then the informal networks that govern this place must be child’s play for you. Tell me something.” She leaned toward him. “Sompong Suwannathat. Head of the Thai Heritage Board—”
“And the Minister of Culture. Not a man to cross. Sompong owns half of Bangkok.”
“I’m so tired of hearing how many people Sompong owns. Nobody ever talks about the people he’s sold. The bastard must have enemies.”
“Indeed he does.”
“In the course of your long residence in Thailand, Mr. French, have you perhaps formed acquaintance with any of them?”
Matthew French sipped judiciously at his coffee.
“—Enemies of Sompong’s,” she went on, “who work in the broadcast media … or at the Bangkok Post?“
Rush Halliwell was accustomed to getting too little sleep. No matter how late the previous evening, he awoke at five o’clock precisely, coming out of his dreams as though doused with icy water. He meditated for half an hour in the semidarkness, then ran three miles around the waking city, before the pollution and the strident noise of tuk-tuk engines were too thick for com
fort. By six he was drinking orange juice in the shower, and by six-thirty on the dot he was crossing Wireless Road, where the U.S. embassy dominated an entire block.
This morning, however, he winced at the crack of light filtering through the shade, felt the dull pounding at the base of his skull and fell back upon the pillows, cursing. His pride hurt as fiercely as his head. He had never seen the man or weapon that bludgeoned him in Chinatown; but he awoke a few minutes after one A.M. to find a light glaring in his eyes and a Bangkok policeman prodding his rib cage with his boot. He was probably lucky to be alive.
The essence of tradecraft, Rush believed, was strict attention to detail. He followed his internal schedules religiously except when he varied them on purpose, so that what was predictable did not get him killed. The death toll for espionage was lower than for UN peacekeeping work, and indistinguishable from its cousin, diplomacy. But some neighborhoods of the world carried peculiar threats. Rush liked threat—or rather, if asked, he might have said that he relished outwitting the dangerous of the world. He was one of the CIA case officers who worked the hard targets for Bangkok station: armed insurgents, drug runners, the men (and women) who bartered illegal arms. And he was extremely good at what he did. Headquarters had left him in Thailand for nearly five years—an unusual period in a world of two-year tours. They admired his language skills and his effortless networks; they asked few questions about his personal life; and they awarded him medals as proof of national esteem.
This morning, he decided, he would avoid all mention of last night’s stupidity.
By nine o’clock Rush was sitting at a government-issue desk with coffee cooling at his elbow and a pair of headphones over his ears, listening to tapes of conversations held in the Ministry of Culture—an annoying collection of chitchat and innuendo punctuated by the sporadic gold nugget. Sixteen months before, the chairman of a joint U.S.-Thai delegation on antiquities had presented Sompong Suwannathat with a rare Khmer statue carved from limestone. Four feet high and three across, the statue now rested on a credenza in the minister’s office. Sompong loved antiquities; he coveted them as another man might long for precious gems. Embedded in the statue’s limestone, and masterfully disguised with an application of gold leaf, was a voice-activated microphone. Sound was relayed remotely to the station’s recorder.
The statue might be moved eventually or donated to a museum; and at that point, the bug would be deactivated. But right now, every word Sompong Suwannathat spoke in the confines of his office was overheard by Bangkok station. U.S. Intelligence could gauge the pulse of Thai governmental power from the depth of silence in a room; track the bloodless succession of Sompong’s varied mistresses; anticipate coups within the ministry and practically download the minister’s personal calendar.
It was the last that mattered most. Sompong performed the bare minimum of his official duties. But he used the power of his office—the public domain of Culture—to delve into an astonishing array of activities beyond his portfolio. He was jockeying, now, for the Ministry of Defense in the next government; from the agency’s perspective, his appointment could be disastrous.
Rush’s headphones were on his ears, his expression impassive. The conversation was in Thai—and the tape too delicate for Foreign Service nationals to translate. So complete was his concentration that he never looked up when Marty Robbins walked into the vault.
“Anything interesting?” Marty leaned over and thrust his face into his case officer’s. The exalted Chief of Station, Bangkok. Another early riser. Marty was a veteran of Vientiane, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and most recently, Phnom Penh. Pugnacious and sartorially challenged; grotesquely flamboyant of tie, balding of pate. The second generation of CIA operators in the post-Vietnam War era, canny and tough and unscrupulous and kind-hearted in surprising ways. Competitive with Rush, his junior by a hairsbreadth, in this blood sport of nations.
Marty thrust out a broad finger and stopped the tape.
“He quit early last night.” Rush eased the headphones to the desk and rubbed tentatively at the back of his head. “He’s booked solid today. Public appearances. Tomorrow he’s planning to fly to Chiang Rai.”
“Of course, Chiang Rai,” Marty muttered in disgust. “Sompong’s personal kingdom in the fabled north. Is he entertaining clients, or flying up alone?”
“Alone. In the ministry plane.”
“Shit.” Marty spun around, a vein in his forehead pulsing. “Another delivery to the boys in the bush. What I wouldn’t give to recruit somebody on Sompong’s staff. A mechanic who services the plane. Anyone who could give us a clue as to what the bastard’s swapping.”
“What we need is one of the troops on the ground,” Rush added pensively. “Find out why they’re training.”
Marty did not reply. They had already lost one recruit— a developmental asset among the farmer population of Sok Ruap, found with his throat slit one balmy morning—and the CIA staff at the base in neighboring Chiang Mai was growing restive. The Chiang Mai base had too much on its plate already to bother with Bangkok’s conspiracy theories. There had always been roving bands of armed men in the borderlands of the far north, and there always would be.
But Rush and Marty had been tracking Sompong Suwannathat’s flights to the Golden Triangle for the past seven months. They had overhead reconnaissance and infrared photography that suggested a sizable population of men living and training in the jungle area Sompong liked to visit, but even the CIA had trouble making the case that the Minister of Culture was plotting to march on the capital and seize power. Sompong was not the official liaison for a secret government security force. So why the army?
“Personal protection,” Marty had suggested during one late-night survey of intelligence. “He’s got a sideline. Something high-risk. These guys are insurance.”
“They’re pretty far away from Bangkok,” Rush had replied doubtfully.
“So’s the sideline. Drugs?”
The Minister of Culture might be cultivating heroin with the aid of his troops—opium poppies, after all, had been the major crop of the Golden Triangle for time out of mind—but Bangkok station could find absolutely no evidence that Sompong was brokering drug sales back home. When in Bangkok, he led a venal but hardly criminal life in the company of his peers. His customary routine was beyond legal reproach. The impenetrability of the minister’s motives—and the frustrating loyalty of his personal staff, which had thus far proved impervious to bribery, threats or seduction—had Marty Robbins foaming at the mouth.
Rush considered telling his boss that he had seen Suwannathat the previous night, in a warehouse near the Thieves Market, examining what appeared to be antique pottery—but Marty’s questions would lead inevitably to the admission that he had spent the better part of the evening insensible in a Bangkok gutter. Rush kept silent.
“What about this Fogg chick?” Marty’s interests roved; as a case officer, his skill lay in connecting parallel lines of investigation. He valued coincidence far more than established patterns. “Is she one of the world’s nasties?”
“I don’t know. She’s not what she says she is. I watched her fabricate one story last night while she told me another. I’m still figuring out which pieces were true.”
“Probably none of ’em. You heard the tape.” Marty stabbed at the recorder once more. “Sompong Shithead Suwannathat ordered a background file on Fogg yesterday, from his private investigative hack. He’s got Jo-Jo staked out at the Oriental. Something’s going down, Rush. What’s the broad doing in Bangkok?”
“Pleasure trip.”
“My ass. No affiliation?”
“None but a series of bank accounts.”
“This has black market written all over it. She’s financing. Or receiving.”
“She was last seen in Vietnam. And Laos.”
“What, no interest in Burma?”
“There, too,” Rush admitted ruefully.
“And you bought it? Jesus H. Christ, Halliwell—this woman sel
ls you a crock of shit and you’re lappin’ it up. She must be pretty hot.”
“She inherited Jack Roderick’s place. The museum on the khlong.”
Marty stared at him. “That name just won’t die, will it?”
Rush shrugged. “I’m invited to meet her there this afternoon. She says she wants the embassy’s help with the Thai Heritage Board.”
“Meaning, Sompong Suwannathat. This is too fucking good. Fogg pretends to be hostile to the minister and all his works, and co-opts you into the bargain. The lady’s got cojones. Think she knew you were Agency?”
“Absolutely.”
“Make that meeting at Roderick’s,” Marty ordered, “and stay on Fogg—in a purely friendly capacity, of course. I want Avril to run her name. See if that story about the house is true.”
Avril Blair was the embassy’s legal attaché—the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s representative in Bangkok. It was illegal for a CIA officer to run background checks on a U.S. citizen. But the FBI was encouraged to do it.
Rush watched Marty pour himself a cup of coffee. Then he picked up the phone and held it two inches from his aching skull.
“Avril,” he said softly into the receiver, “I need to find out who’s storing ceramics in a warehouse off Khlong Ong Ang. Here’s the address.”
13
Bangkok,
March 1949
The morning after he received the news of Boonreung’s death, Jack Roderick appeared at the central police station in the Dusit quarter of Bangkok and demanded the release of the boy’s body. He bore an official document from the United States embassy and one from the Thai Ministry of the Interior, stamped with seals, and he was prepared to wait while the papers were examined. He spoke few words of Thai but understood many more; and as he waited, shrouded in a false air of calm, he listened to the phrases tossed among the men.
The Secret Agent Page 22
