Death Trip

by Lee Weeks

  ‘Of course. What happened to the heroin?’

  ‘It went the way of all goods, through Amsterdam and on to Europe, or to America via courier.’

  ‘How many of you were in it? Who were they?’

  ‘There were four of us. We all had different roles in the company. Mine was the accountant.’

  Ng chuckled. ‘They must have been mad to leave you in charge of the books.’

  Split-lip smiled. ‘I was not well known to them at the time.’

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘Jobs crossed over but basically someone was in charge of the running of the refinery and the others handled the sales and the Amsterdam distribution.’

  Split-lip concentrated on dissecting his strudel into sections. Ng had spread his gateau across his plate and, soon, over the table. Ng called for the waitress to take his plate. He hated seeing the crumbs sat there as a reminder that he shouldn’t have eaten it.

  ‘The business collapsed when Khun Sa surrendered. That’s when I lost my money.’

  ‘I looked it up—it’s still trading.’

  Split-lip leaned over his strudel and Ng caught the whiff of cidered apple from his breath. He could see the cream caught in the crevice of his hare lip.

  ‘Let me just put you straight on that. Your records are incorrect. The company might be, but in name only.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We fell out.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I should never have trusted like I did, but I was young. I lost a lot of money. I grew up after that.’

  ‘What about the others?’

  ‘Some lost more than money: some lost their lives.’

  ‘I want the names of those others in the consortium.’

  ‘They are dead now.’

  ‘No…someone is still trading. Names, Split-lip.’

  Split-lip picked up his paper napkin and wiped the cream from his mouth. ‘You really don’t know?’

  78

  Saw eventually called a stop for the night at a collection of half a dozen dwellings where a rice farmer and his extended family lived. Jake got Lucas down from the mule and washed his face and gave him drink. Anna helped Jake carry him inside and Thomas followed mutely. The four of them sat inside the hut. There was no furniture inside, just bare matting. Toad came in to tie their wrists. They sat in the corner of the hut and watched Saw raging outside as he stormed back and forth past the hut. He looked about to kill the opium farmer and his family. There was no food to be had in the place, just rice and a few prawns the farmer had caught that day. The farmer held up the prawns to Saw, who knocked them out of his hands. His wife offered him opium. Saw took the package, wrapped in banana leaf, and opened it. Inside was a sticky brown square of opium. For a few minutes he studied it, smelt it and then he threw it in her face. Saw was incensed. Jake watched him pace. There was no liquor and there was no food. As much as he beat the woman and her husband, they could not produce the pig that he accused them of hiding.

  Handsome began tormenting the woman. The farmer stepped in to defend her and Weasel hit him across the head with a piece of wood. The farmer fell unconscious, blood pouring from his head. The woman cried. Weasel mimicked her and pulled at her sarong until it came off and he wrapped himself in it. He started dancing. He touched his own breasts and teased the men as they reached out to touch him and he danced between them seductively. Saw began laughing. Thomas started crying louder. Anna and Jake tried to comfort him, make him hush, but Thomas wouldn’t stop. Weasel looked at them and danced his way into the hut with cheers from the men. He started tormenting Thomas by trying to touch him. Thomas curled into a ball. He tried kicking out at Weasel but Weasel just danced around him. Anna screamed at him and Jake lashed out with his feet but they could do nothing to stop Weasel from dragging Thomas outside by his hair, still sobbing. Anna turned away and sobbed into Jake’s chest as outside Thomas was made to crawl around whilst Weasel raped him, to the grunting and howling of the men.

  When Weasel finished and momentarily lost his grip, Thomas managed to get away and crawled as fast as he could back towards Jake and Anna.

  ‘Come on, Thomas, quick…’ Anna held out her bound hands to him.

  Jake wriggled forward to try and block Weasel from coming back into the hut, but it wasn’t Weasel that entered, it was Saw.

  He stamped his foot on Thomas’s back and held him pinned down whilst he leant down and squeezed Thomas’s bare rump with his gnarled, brown hands. Thomas’s fear shook his whole body as he wriggled on the floor and whimpered and then began squealing in terror as Saw pressed him into the floor and he couldn’t breathe. For a moment, Jake thought Saw would rape Thomas too but instead Saw wheeled around to his men and said something, gesturing in Thomas’s direction. One by one they started to howl.

  ‘The woman say her pig is gone…’ Saw turned to Jake. ‘Run away to the hills and we cannot eat it. I say, her pig has just returned and here he is…!’

  He slapped Thomas on the rump. Thomas looked at Jake, horror following confusion. Saw started snorting like a pig and soon all his men joined in.

  ‘I say we will have pig to eat tonight.’

  79

  Ng and Split-lip moved on from the coffee shop into the casinos. The Golden Beach casino was a giant, luxurious, noisy aircraft hangar. From its central gaming floor it climbed four more balconied floors up to the private rooms at the top, where mass orgies were going on between triads and prostitutes, fuelled with methamphetamine from refineries in the Golden Triangle.

  ‘You always bet on number two?’ asked Ng, as they sat down at the Fan Tan table. On the stage behind them, two girls took off their clothes to the strains of Britney Spears. Fan Tan was a simple game traditional in Asia. On the table in front of them was a square, its sides marked one to four. Players placed their bets on any of the four numbers, after which the banker emptied a double handful of small golden beads onto the table and covered them with a metal bowl. Ng slipped a hundred-dollar chip to the croupier to place next to the number four, opposite Split-lip’s bet.

  ‘Four is a bad number. Death is something I don’t want to take bets on and three always loses,’ said Split-lip. The croupier segregated about half with a smaller cup, then removed the remaining beads with a small bamboo stick, four at a time, until four or fewer were left. The number of beads left was the winner.

  ‘Number three wins.’ The croupier smiled at Ng and Split-lip, as if her smile would somehow compensate for the loss of their money.

  ‘I prefer horses,’ said Ng. ‘At least your money lasts a bit longer before you lose it.’

  Split-lip didn’t answer. He got off his stool and Ng followed.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ he said as he led the way up the escalator and into a self-service restaurant on the first floor. It was a semi-circular group of ten concessions each serving Oriental fast food. Ng and Split-lip took their card from the cashier and chose the Japanese hotplate.

  ‘Well?’ They sipped miso soup as they waited for the lobster to be cooked in front of them.

  Split-lip looked all of his seventy years as he sat and sucked on a toothpick, an old habit of his. He tutted and sighed.

  ‘I was double-crossed; I told you, we all were. Someone sold his share on, gave it away, I don’t know…but all I know is, I don’t see a penny of the money it makes any more. He was the one with the controlling share of the company.’

  ‘Who was that someone?’

  ‘Forgive me if I seem reticent, but some things I fear more than prison.’

  ‘Okay, let me give you a hand. Does the name Deming mean anything to you?’

  Split-lip stared coldly back at Ng.

  ‘I was hoping never to hear that name again. He was the greediest of us all.’

  80

  As they prepared to set off the next morning, Mann knew he was getting ill. He shook and shivered as they walked on through the day in what felt like torturous heat and humidity. Every step became difficult f
or him as his body temperature soared and his energy level plummeted. He walked as if in a dream, not seeing anything through his fog of delirium. His face was red and blotchy. Gee turned to look at him and said simply:

  ‘You have malaria, my friend.’

  That night they stopped to camp early. Mann heard his sat phone ring in his bag.

  ‘Inspector Mann?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s Katrien. You and you alone must deliver the money and you will get your brother.’

  ‘Where is he? Is he with you now?’

  ‘No. But I know where he is. I will bring him to Mae Sot. Hurry or you will be too late.’ She hung up.

  Mann looked at his phone. The battery was down to one bar. He called Ng.

  ‘What is it, Genghis, you sound rough?’

  ‘I have malaria. Tell Alfie that Katrien has made contact.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She says to go back to Mae Sot. She doesn’t have Jake yet, but she will get him. We need to try and find him first, but I am not sure how I am going to do that right now. I feel sicker than I’ve ever done in my life. Listen, Ng, If I don’t make it out of here, keep an eye on my mother for me.’

  There was silence.

  ‘Yes. I promise.’

  ‘Tell me, Ng, did you find out anything about my father? What did you find out about Deming?’

  ‘Not now, Genghis.’

  ‘Yes, now more than ever.’

  Mann’s sat phone beeped for the last time and then it went dead.

  Mann lay back against a rock and stared up at the sky, watching the stars, and he felt the last ounce of energy drain away.

  The next two hours saw him deteriorate. He thrashed so much he could not stay in his hammock. Run Run made him a bed on the ground.

  ‘How is he?’ asked Alak. Mann heard their voices as if from some faraway place.

  ‘There is little hope for him.’ Gee shook his head. ‘It will kill him,’ he said, matter of factly.

  Mann saw Helen. He saw her smiling at him. Her face freckled, her blonde hair streaked from the sun. She was laughing. They were on a beach somewhere. The sun was hot on his face.

  ‘His fever grows worse. It will kill him.’

  ‘He needs medicine,’ answered Run Run, as she lifted Mann’s head and rested it on her lap. She dripped water into his mouth.

  Helen’s arm was around his neck. She was kissing him, her mouth on his.

  In the distance they heard gunfire. In the darkness they looked at one another.

  ‘We need to make progress,’ said Alak. ‘There is no sign of Rangsan and his men. But we are some way off the agreed rendezvous point—we are south of Gee’s village.’ He took out his radio and tried to find a signal. ‘We will make a new rendezvous point with Captain Rangsan. He will find us there.’

  ‘Contact my mother. She has a small amount of quinine,’ said Run Run. ‘She will bring it.’

  Alak shook his head. ‘It will take her two days to get here. That will be too late. The next forty-eight hours will see us all dead if we stay here—sitting targets for Saw and Boon Nam.’

  Alak picked up the radio and moved to higher ground. As he tried to get a signal, Run Run went back to tending Mann. He was shouting in his delirium.

  Helen was suspended by her arms, she was twisting with pain. Mann couldn’t make her hear him. He couldn’t make the man stop whipping her. Helen was screaming in agony.

  ‘No one is answering and the signal is weak,’ Alak said, returning after another attempt to find a signal. ‘We need to know what is happening. We must get to Gee’s village and find out where Saw is and what he intends. We cannot be here in the break of day. That gunfire was no more than a mile away.’

  ‘We are a few hours’ walk from my village now,’ said Gee. ‘I will go and try and find some help for Mann. I will find out where Saw is.’

  Run Run shook her head. Alak knew what she was thinking because he was thinking the same; that Gee might not come back. That they would still not know what was happening and that Mann would die anyway.

  ‘No,’ said Alak. ‘They know you, Gee. If something is not right they will give you away. I will go.’

  ‘No.’ Run Run stood. ‘It is better if I go. They will not be suspicious of a woman on her own and you need to keep in contact with Captain Rangsan.’

  ‘What if Saw is there and he sees you?’ Fear was in Alak’s voice. He was torn.

  ‘He won’t see me. I will look and come back, that is all.’

  Alak tried to argue back but he knew she was right. Their survival depended on stealth now. Run Run prepared to leave. She bent over Mann. He was quiet now; he was slipping away into a world of darkness and coma. ‘Come back to us, Johnny Mann,’ she whispered. Mann’s eyes flicked open, focused on her, then they rolled away. Run Run stood.

  ‘Head straight for the dip between those hills,’ said Gee. ‘Then skirt around and come in at the far side of the village. The whole of the approach is mined.’

  ‘Do not worry, Gee. I have lived all my life amongst mines. I will avoid all the paths and stick to the woods.’

  Alak embraced Run Run. He whispered in her ear.

  ‘So wise, and so beautiful, my Run Run.’

  She held him closer and replied: ‘I will be, and have always been, your Run Run, Alak.’ She looked at him in the darkness and reached up to kiss him softly on the mouth before she turned and disappeared into the jungle.

  Alak spent the next few hours trying to reach either Captain Rangsan or Mo on the radio whilst Gee took over looking after Mann. After trying for three hours, Alak finally got through to Mo.

  ‘Alak, you must turn back,’ she said. ‘There are not enough of you now. Too many things are against you—Boon Nam is closing in on you on one side, Saw the other. We will fight together. Turn back, Alak.’

  ‘We cannot move from here. Mann is ill with malaria. Run Run has gone to Gee’s village to try and find some help and to scout for us. We are due to liaise with Rangsan very soon. We must carry on.’

  ‘You have sent my daughter to Gee’s village?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’

  ‘Then you are a fool. Saw is on his way to attack Gee’s village.’

  81

  Alak loaded up his weapons. He carried his machete on one hip, his gun belt around his chest. Around his head he twisted a scarf that Run Run had given him. He turned to Gee as he left.

  ‘Stay here. I will return by tomorrow, sunset. If I don’t, and Mann dies, give his body to the river; you will have done all you can.’

  With that, Alak disappeared.

  Gee sat next to Mann and looked back and forth from him to the jungle. He looked up at the moon overhead. It was just gone midnight. It would be a long night of waiting. When daybreak came, they would be at their most vulnerable and Gee could not keep Mann still or stop him from shouting. He felt an enormous anxiety. His whole being was telling him he should get out fast. He was stuck in a forest full of murderers with a dying man who was shouting their whereabouts. Because Mann didn’t just have a fever—he had malaria—cerebral malaria. And that meant that Mann had been carrying the virus for a while without realising it. Now it was too late and he was likely to die. Gee knew it—he had seen it many times. He knew that Mann’s temperature would rise so high that soon he would slip into a coma that he would never come out of. He must leave, he told himself —and yet he could not leave. Gee sighed and fretted, washing Mann’s head and talking to him when his eyes opened wide. Gee could see his heart and lungs racing, fighting the fever, fast and stressed. Gee soothed him as he would a baby. Gee had many of those; from his four wives, he had twenty children. Gee wondered sadly whether they would miss him when he was gone. When the Burmese came to cut his throat and Mann’s, then what would Gee’s life have added up to? Mann convulsed and Gee gave him water and searched in vain through the backpack for any quinine he might have missed. In the haste and confusion at the old refinery, the medics had take
n the only medicine they had when they took Riley. Now there was nothing to give Mann. He sweated as Gee held him down.

  Mann saw Gee’s image swimming in front of his eyes and from a distant planet he heard him speak.

  ‘They say there is nothing to be done—you must sweat it out, dear friend, or you will die.’

  Man looked into Helen’s face; her eyes stared back at him, through the plastic, lightless. She smiled and beckoned to him.

  82

  It was the middle of the night when Run Run approached the outskirts of the village slowly and with great caution. As she neared the village she had heard the commotion and she knew exactly what it meant. She heard the crying women and the screaming children and she heard the howling. It was the same sound that she had heard at Mae Klaw—Saw and his men. She crouched low in the undergrowth until the first peek of the sun illuminated her way, then she crept forward just enough to be able to see the track that led to the start of the village. Run Run gasped silently and backed away. Guarding the entrance to the village were frightened villagers, standing beneath poles. On top of the poles were the heads of Captain Rangsan and his men.

  She retraced her steps and crept back through the forest, making her way in a wide arc to come around to the rear of the village. There, at the edge of the paddy fields, amongst the dead and dying mown down as they tried to escape, she watched what was happening. The village had been destroyed. Fires were still burning. Slaughtered men, women and children lay where they had been chased down and murdered. The air was filled with the sound of wrenching grief and fear; small children whimpered for their mothers, mothers wept for their dead children.

  Run Run moved closer until she could see Saw’s men. They looked as if they were preparing to move out. They had rounded up six of the women who were standing huddled together amidst the screams and chaos as their children tried to get near to them. They were killing any child that still clung to its mother. Run Run crouched low, crawled on her belly and moved in again, hiding herself amongst the dead. Now she came to the first of the houses and she could see the young volunteers. She recognised them from Mae Klaw. They were bound, tied at the wrists. She could see the blonde girl, Anna, and she saw Jake. At first she could not see the others. Then she saw another of the boys—Lucas. He was sitting on the mule. He was lashed to its back. His head lolled as the animal pawed the ground with its hoof. She edged closer to look for the other. She hid behind a tree. She held her breath as she saw Saw Wah Say. She recognised him straightaway, even though it had been many years since she had seen him. Not since the day she refused to become his bride and he had tried to rape her. Not since he fought with Alak and her brother died. That day he had run from their village, limping and bleeding from Alak’s beating. Now, seeing him again, his body wet and streaked with the blood of others, seeing his once handsome face turned into something so savage and evil that there was nothing left of hope of humanity in him, Run Run wished Alak had killed him on that day. Her mind caught in memories, long buried, Run Run failed to hear the stealthy approach of Handsome creeping up behind her until she felt a rifle butt dig into her back.