by Sam Powers
The villages fronted dense jungle, its foliage a dark green from the humidity and monsoon season, fed by rich volcanic soil, the trees and branches so tightly bunched it seemed all light died within a few feet of entering.
The jungle was interrupted by occasional clear-cuts for coffee and rice plantations, ancient Buddhist temples, some small-footprint eco-tourism businesses owned by westerners. Most of the local residents were farmers or military, staff at a small nearby base. There were also aid workers for the United Nations, there to counsel the local indigenous Akha people.
At least, that was the story Brennan got from his seat-mate on the twin-prop, an Australian photojournalist for Agence France Presse named Larry Nguyen. He was an enthusiastic young guy, a freelancer who’d uprooted from Perth, fascinated by his family’s unexplored Vietnamese heritage. He looked like a local, but sounded like an extra from the Crocodile Hunter, Brennan thought. The real locals must have found him hilarious. Then again, to him, I probably sound like a bit-part from ‘Everybody Loves Raymond.’
He watched the jungle flit by out of the side window as the plane descended toward the tiny airport at Chiang Rai City.
Nguyen tapped him on the shoulder, then pointed out of the window. “You see that long pass, there running over the top of Doi Chang Mountain? That road was once the most profitable opium smuggling route in all of southeast Asia. But they began to crack down on the poppy farmers about twenty years ago. Everyone knows there’s still lots of it going on, because plenty of people in the region still smoke it. Every so often, they send out a token military unit to round up and destroy some fields, try to remind the worst offenders of official policy with some quick arrests and convictions.”
“If they can’t grow opium anymore, then…?”
“Officially? Coffee. Lots of coffee. The soil here is some of the best in the world for it, you see. But the money in it is not so good. So even with the harsher sentences, there’s still lots of opium poppies, marijuana, illegal boozers with big stills. For the most part, though, the fact that they can grow or make it all themselves means the only value to criminals is shipping it elsewhere. As a result, the local authorities don’t give too much of a toss.”
“What do they make of you up here, Larry? You must freak them right the heck out when you start talking.”
“They usually have a good chuckle. They always think it’s a put-on, at first. Then when they realize I’m actually Australian they want to know how I wound up there. The notion that I was born there? Pew!” He did a ‘charades’ take on his mind blowing.’
Nguyen had tried a stint in the French Foreign Legion, but had failed out of the boot camp. Still, he said, he promised himself he’d have as many extraordinary experiences as he could while he was young, so it was “going in the book”, failure or not. The book wasn’t actually a book, the photojournalist explained, but a concept for one, a career retrospective on not taking the straight-and-narrow.
When asked in return why Brennan was flying north, he figured Nguyen might know enough about the place to come in handy. So he told him. “I met a girl. Then she left. And then a guy told me she came up here.”
“Ah, yeah…” Larry consoled with a knowing nod. “She’s pulling at your heart strings, mate. Bloody death of all of us, the fairer sex. Mind you… can’t live without ‘em. So what’s she doing all the way up here? You know they’ve got Pythons in the jungle up here longer than the Shark in Jaws, right? Not much of a place for a city girl.”
“I think she buys coffee up here for her family’s company.”
“Yeah… surprising number of firms send people up here looking for crafts, medicinal ingredients, bug collections…”
“Bug collections?” Brennan asked.
“No word of a lie, mate. All sorts of poisonous little blighters in the bush. There’s a water beetle up here that’ll bite you so hard, your cousins will feel it. She’s not tromping off into the bush, is she? ‘Cause I reckon it’s not for the faint of heart. Plus, you still find the odd undetonated land mine up here from the war. Even though Thailand’s been a ‘constitutional’ monarchy for a long-time…” he made sarcastic ‘air quotes’ around constitutional, ‘…the Viet Cong treated the Mekong like their own personal supply line.”
“I don’t know what she’s planning, just that business seems most likely, and it was something important, because she changed her plans in Pattaya at the last second.”
“And you were the plans. She must be one heck of Sheila, mate, going to all this trouble.”
“Yeah… yeah, she is. Beautiful, you know? But beyond that, supremely self-confident. At ease with herself.”
“And does she have a name, this superwoman of yours?”
“Amanda. Mandy.”
“I’d be delighted to make some inquiries with the locals, mate, if you’d like. I could try to get some sense of whether they’ve seen her, at least. You’re thinking she’s gone looking for new suppliers? There’s a local coffee consortium that is pretty fair up on what’s going on in these parts. I’ll make an intro, if you’d like.”
‘That could help,” Brennan said as the plane levelled off to land. “It’s a place to start.”
The coffee plantation was an hour outside Chiang Rai, south of the village of Ban Doi. An American company, Vantage Wholesale, had negotiated leases with most of the local growers. They, in turn farmed communal patches of land within walking distance of the village, broad swaths of dark-green plants in perfectly hoed rows. Like most in Thailand, it was nestled along the twisty highway running through the district, routes that civil engineers knew were less likely to flood.
Brennan rented a hatchback in the city then followed the map Nguyen had marked for him. The photojournalist already had assignments scheduled that day, so he wasn’t able to go out there himself; instead, he phoned ahead to the plantation’s manager, a fellow Aussie named Gwendolyn Kelly he’d met during a photoshoot of the place.
“Gwen’s a nice lady, she’ll do you right, I reckon,” Nguyen said as Brennan waited for the rental’s keys at a desk near the tiny terminal’s doors. “I don’t know her real well, but they put on a hell of a spread for us last time we went up there: big buffet, barbecue at night.”
After Baghdad, Brennan learned not to take charm at face value. In fact, as he’d gotten older, he’d learned that in trying circumstances, the man smiling and holding out his hand to shake most likely had a knife in the other hand, behind his back. Nguyen didn’t have the same reservations, although from their conversation while flying up there, it was apparent most of the Australian’s work was tourism related. There were almost as many resorts, hotels and country spas in the north as the south, mostly westerners awed by the thousand-year-old Buddhist or animist temples, statues and relics that dotted the countryside. When someone was bringing in customers, as Larry’s articles would do, they tended to get the royal treatment.
But he told him he’d keep it in mind and promised to buy the Aussie a beer when he got back into town.
The road cut through the hills, at times disappearing into miniature valleys, then rising up onto berms that passed rice paddies and mangrove swamps, the products of the mountain runoff and torrential rainy season. The sides of the road were mostly snarled with overgrown mangroves and palms, occasionally clear-cut away to allow access to a field or trail. In the distance in both directions, craggy high-country mountain peaks rose up from the foothills, jagged teeth in slate grey, all else swathed in shades of green vegetation, from emerald shrubs to the darkest hue of the jungle canopy.
After fifty minutes he turned right, down a gravel road. Another mile in, a driveway exited to his right, a long, straight stretch of new asphalt that ran up to the main building. It was oversized, probably three thousand square feet, and styled like Seventies ski chalet, all dark wood and open balconies.
He pulled the car up to the building, the rental’s tires slurring slightly in the pebbled parking lot. A middle-aged woman in a short-sleeved
navy dress shirt and long shorts approached the car immediately, then waited for him to climb out.
“Mr. Brennan! I’m Gwendolyn Kelly,’ she held out a hand and Brennan shook it. She was broad-shouldered and had a strong grip.
“Thank you for letting me visit,” Brennan said. “I hope I’m not putting you out?”
“Not at all, not at all. Come on inside and we can chat.”
The interior wasn’t fancy, with plain hardwood floors, a few glass doors to separate a few offices from the expansive reception room, and what looked like a pair of galley doors Brennan thought might lead to a kitchen or staff quarters. Just inside the main lobby was an artful display of coffee products, and a chart describing how the beans got from seed to market.
She led him into her office. It had double doors leading to the building’s front porch, a modern-if-perfunctory desk with a computer monitor in one corner. On the wall was the kind of local art just tasteful enough and accessible enough to have been chosen by a designer, not the office’s occupant.
Kelly went immediately to the small breakfast bar under her bookshelf, along the side wall. “Have a seat, Mr. Brennan. Coffee?”
Brennan would normally have turned it down, to avoid the stimulant response. But he didn’t want to offend his host, and she had the eager look on her face of someone who has given product demonstrations before, and somehow enjoyed it.
“It’s our premium dark roast,” she said. “Stone-milled and pressed at the perfect temperature!”
He took a sip. It tasted like every other dark roast he’d ever tried, which was to say burned nearly to a crisp. He tipped the cup her way slightly and gave her a nod. “Good stuff.”
“Now,” she said, perching herself on the edge of the desk like a coach giving a senior jock a pep talk, “what seems to be the problem with this friend of yours? Larry said she might be a customer?”
“Yes, Amanda Sạkdi̒s̄ithṭhi̒; she runs an import-export from Pattaya.”
“Specializing in coffee? I suppose so, or you probably wouldn’t be asking, now would you?” She smiled broadly at her own point.
Brennan followed suit, although it occurred that he hadn’t ever asked her what they imported and exported. It could have been hand grenades or croquet sets for all he knew. “I was supposed to meet with her on Monday morning,” he said, stretching the truth. “But she left town without word. An employee said she was up here and mentioned Ban Doi specifically…”
She stared at him throughout, as if drinking in what he was saying, leaning in on one hip. Then she nodded, her eyes flitting away as she thought it all through. “Yes, well… that is strange, isn’t it? Quite the pickle. We definitely haven’t had her here though. I’m quite sure I’d know.”
“So there hasn’t been…”
“Quite sure,” she repeated. “We’re largely administrative here, with the business done in Bangkok. We do get inspectors, and company ag specialists sizing up the crops from time to time, but nothing like… nothing like your friend’s job, no.” She shook her head gently, then crossed her arms in front of her.
Brennan noticed she was rocking slightly in place on the desk corner, as if anxious. It could’ve just been meeting someone new, a company face eager to put a good PR front out into the neighborhood. But it made her interesting, worth checking out some more, just in case. What was it the Chief always used to say? “If it’s on your radar, it’s for a reason.”
He caught himself, disappointed at having thought about Terry Corcoran in any kind of flattering light. His former SEALs colleague was rumored to be doing mercenary work, which wasn’t surprising at all.
“If I needed to find someone in the area here – not Chiang Rai, right out here in the country – who would be the person to talk to?”
She stood up, arms still crossed, leaning slightly on the desk, trying to look relaxed. “Brrhh… good question there, Mr. Brennan, good question. I… would have to say that’s a tiny bit outside my area of expertise. Nope, can’t say I… can’t say I can think of anyone.” She licked her lower lip and then chewed on the end of her tongue, like a kid who’s just been asked if she stole a cookie.
Brennan kept his expression pleasant, smiling. He’d taken enough training in remaining stoic and played enough poker against Corcoran and his cronies not to let his discovery be known until he needed it. But her tells could’ve been seen from space. And as pleasant as she was trying to seem, Gwendolyn Kelly was lying through her teeth.
“How about someone local, someone who works for you and is from here. Perhaps I could borrow someone…”
“I doubt any of them would be much help. They’re pretty simple folk. Farmers, peasants. They don’t venture too far from the village really. And I’m not sure they’d be too comfortable with an outsider. You know… cameras capturing their spirits, that kind of malarkey.”
“Really? That’s charming,” Brennan said, keeping his tone impressed and as sincere as possible. For such backward, frightened peasants, there were a whole lot of satellite dishes on those houses. ‘Perhaps instead of helping me look for my friend, one of them could take me on a tour of the plantation. It would be great to see how you do things…”
“Yeahhh… Unfortunately, not possible right now. They’re in the middle of a round of pesticide treatment, you see. But I’ll tell you what, Mr. Brennan: if I were you, I’d focus on the city. Your friend is much more likely to be in Chiang Rai City or even down in Bangkok.”
She’d brought a script and was sticking to it. “You’re probably right. Like you say: it’s not my neck of the woods,” Brennan said. “Still, it’s kind of a shame to drive all the way out here and not get any leads. But Larry spoke very highly.”
Kelly seemed to like that. It gave her an opening to take a step forward and motion with her arm toward the door. “Perhaps I can make it a little bit more worth your while by offering you some of our beans to take back with you…
A few minutes later, Brennan was watching her wave goodbye in the rented hatchbacks’ rearview mirror, pulling out onto the road back to Chiang Rai. He didn’t technically know anything new – except that someone didn’t want him looking for Mandy.
Maybe her. What are you doing, here, Joe? Maybe you were just a two-night stand. Maybe she just didn’t want to let you down; she chickened out.
He’d had a few occasions over the course of his naval career to question his own wisdom. But then Brennan considered the lengths Gwendolyn Kelly had gone to get him away from the Ban Doi area. If he was imagining things, that was a hell of coincidence.
In the rearview mirror, he noticed a car briefly flit into his view, then disappear, obscured by a curve.
The notion that a coffee company site manager couldn’t find a local tour guide was just as absurd. She didn’t want anyone poking around the grounds, either.
The car appeared again, just briefly enough to spot its hood for a split second. Brennan considered the trip out there, trying to remember as much of the route as possible, and where any turns or possible diversions might lie. The car following him was trying too hard, keeping the exact same distance even though Brennan was driving the eighty kilometer per hour speed limit.
He knew he could force a confrontation, slow the hatchback on a blind corner, block the road in a spot where they’d have a tough time avoiding it and be forced to hit the brakes. But that presented two problems: first, he didn’t speak Thai, and doubted greatly that Gwendolyn Kelly was behind the wheel; second, any incident that close to the plantation would prompt an immediate response, whether it was more interference or something more violent.
The veteran SEAL frowned; he’d let himself consider the possibility that something had already happened to her. Worrying was counterproductive, and he pushed it down, got his head back into the matter at hand. Chiang Rai was a long hour away; small villages on route were a possibility in terms of finding out what his tail knew, but the language problem persisted, and he didn’t know who the villagers would support.
For all Brennan could say, Vantage paid a lot of local salaries. The police in Chiang Rai seemed a better option if he had to depend on local backup.
A series of ‘s’ curves dominated the road, each tighter than the next, its direction attempting to follow the contours of the nearby river. The sun was going down, twilight casting dusty sunbeams across the route. A few miles away, he could just make out a small convoy of boats heading west.
The pursuing car’s day running lights were cast brighter by the dissipating day, and Brennan caught a glimpse of them just in time. Its driver had pushed its limits through the curvy stretch, and it roared up behind the little hatchback. He had to step on the gas to prevent the car from rear-ending his rental. Brennan glanced at the opposite wing mirror, in time to see the passenger leaning out his window, taking aim with a pistol.
Someone had decided he’d asked too many questions and dissuading him hadn’t been enough. There were still twenty-six miles due east to Chiang Rai City, but Brennan knew his chances of getting there in one piece were quickly heading south.
CHAPTER 4
Brennan kept his foot down on the gas, playing the wheel gently, just enough to shift the car’s mass from side to side without risking sliding out or rolling. The man shooting at him had a pistol, and he wanted to give him as little steady reference as possible.
He heard the crack of each shot, but after four attempts, none had struck his vehicle. Despite being directly behind him, the motion of the two cars kept the gunman from keeping on target.
Instead, his driver friend satisfied himself by running into the hatchback’s bumper again, the car jolted forward at speed, tires skidding lightly. A few more hits like that could take out the rear axle, Brennan knew. Ahead just a few dozen feet were the remnants of an old turnoff, only obvious because it was slightly less overgrown that the roadside around it. It slanted downwards quickly, out of view, and Brennan prayed as he threw the wheel over that there were no trees on the slope.
