by Sam Powers
Walter Lang provided the official blueprint registered with the city. The house was large but not complicated, three upper rooms overlooking an open-air central courtyard, a rectangular lower level of open-plan rooms.
He would go over the east wall after midnight, covering the wire with potato sacks, when the guards switched. He’d staked the place out for a couple of nights, ensuring the pattern was the same. The guard would pull up in his personal vehicle and park at the curb. Then he’d be buzzed in. The two men would briefly go inside the house, then one would walk out to his car while the other took his place. The switch was his first window of opportunity.
From there, he’d cross the dozen yards to the side window and attempt to determine security. The city’s insect population usually ruled out motion sensors in most rooms, and heat sensitivity was definitely out. Given how little he’d spent on personnel, he either had a phenomenal interior security grid or he hadn’t paid much attention at all.
Walter Lang’s hastily conjured profile suggested the man was a corporate sociopath of the highest order, and that he was arrogant about the ease with which he pulled the wool over the collective eyes of his colleagues. If he was arrogant about that, Brennan suspected…
He was right. The side window was alarmed, but only with reflective contacts, easily defeated with a small strip of reflective tape.
Inside, he’d crept out of the half bathroom and along a marble-floored hallway, the walls devoid of art. It opened to a broad, long room with ceiling-high glass windows looking out at Chiang Mai. At one end, Somchai stood before a fireplace, sipping from a glass of brandy.
By day, the dossier said, he was the chief financial officer of a large-market manufacturer of electronic components. By night, he ran a network of more than forty wholesale distributors of opium byproducts, including heroin.
He was a physically small man, short and without a hint of extra fat on his body, his thick black hair almost taken over by gray. His colleagues at his day job considered him somewhat shy and awkward, but brilliant with numbers and market strategy.
That was the man they knew.
Somchai, on the other hand, knew himself to be ruthless, cold and calculating, and he reveled in it. And there was so much that wasn’t in Lang’s report. He reveled in playing the character of the hapless nerd, the bookkeeper. He’d even worn glasses to work repaired by tape for more than three months once to reinforce his stature as the most anonymous senior officer a firm ever employed.
In fact, he’d never had any sentiment for others, any real feelings other than greed, desire, anger and self-satisfaction. Not when he’d strangled his first puppy, amused by the way its eyes bulged as it struggled; not when he’d pushed his baby sister into a swimming pool, then held her under while “heroically trying to save her.” Not when he’d burned down his grandmother’s nursing home, angered that she no longer gave him a gift when he visited. He hadn’t even thought about the other thirty-six seniors who had died. Ever.
And then The Apsonsi had recruited him, and life had been good. He found the notion of this meek man enriching himself off the backs of addicts an amusing one, another point in life’s game scored in his own favor, another sign that when it came to life’s binary choices, it was better to appear weak and be strong.
“Næ̀nxn ẁā mī reụ̄̀xng k̄hxng phm̀ā læa khảk̄hx k̄hxng phwk k̄heā s̄ảh̄rạb kār bæ̀ngpạn.”
He was talking to someone else in Thai, Brennan realized, someone he couldn’t see, probably to the left of the entrance.
Another man. “Meīy nmār̒! Reā pĕn h̄nī̂ phwk k̄heāmị̀ kein rākhā thī̀ tklng kạn,” the other man exclaimed.
The smaller man turned back to the room to face his guest. “Phwk k̄heā xāc t̂xngkār bạngkhạb chı̂ cud d̂wy pụ̄n.”
A third voice entered the fray, a woman. “Cāk nận reā ca cạdkār kạb phwk k̄heā.”
The aging executive nodded and sipped his brandy again. Brennan’s Thai was nowhere near sufficient to figure out what…
The woman’s voice. He’d heard it but couldn’t place it. She walked into view, also carrying a glass. It looked like scotch.
Mandy. Brennan was stunned, a sense of utter relief from his growing despair, quickly replaced by confusion. He strode into the room, pistol raised before either of them could react. “Okay, this shit ends right here.”
She turned, shocked. “Joe!”
“That’s right, Joe. And before I lose my temper, I want answers.”
“Of course!” she said, unable to mask her surprise.
“You can start by…”
He felt a short, sharp pain in the back of his skull, and everything faded to black.
***
“Wake him up.”
The bucket of ice-cold water hit him square, the sudden sting a terrifying sojourn from a dream.
He lost his memory of it instantly.
Brennan’s head pounded. He wanted to assess the goose egg that had formed on the back of his head, but his arms were tied to the chair. Overhead, a single bulb hung from the grey cement ceiling. He looked around. The cell was small, functional, big enough for one man, perhaps two if needed. Another sat in the opposite corner of the basement, empty.
Mandy was ever stylish in the form-fitting cocktail dress, a square bandage across the bullet wound to her shoulder. The diminutive executive was next to her holding the bucket. The man outside the cell standing guard was huge, European.
“Hello, Joe,” she said. “It’s funny: you know that’s something the Japanese used to say to their ‘liberators’ after the war, when the U.S. occupation put a soldier on every other street corner. Not much changes over time, does it? Asia is still being policed by Americans.”
He resisted the urge to respond. If he had to kill time, he knew, he might need to keep talking. It didn’t pay to jump the gun without knowing the situation. “You tell me,” he offered instead. “Is that what’s going on?”
“Clearly. Or am I supposed to believe us meeting in Pattaya was just a coincidence? And now… here you are.”
“Yeah… I hate to disappoint you, Amanda…,” he used the form she disliked deliberately; anything to throw her off, “…but I came up here looking for a woman I’d fallen for, who I thought was in trouble.”
“Yet we found significant weaponry in your kit bag, some expensive toys…”
“Borrowed from a cop friend of your little sidekick there.”
The Thai man clearly understood English reasonably well. He drew back his hand, then slapped the bigger man.
“Pl̀xy k̄heā! (Leave him!)” she yelled at the smaller man.
It was a tactical mistake. “Well now, that’s interesting,” Joe offered. “I was assuming you work for The Apsonsi…”
She peered at him suspiciously. “You followed me here, yet you know that name? And you had an earpiece with a bone mic, suggesting someone on the other end somewhere. Either you’re the most efficient investigator in history or someone is helping you. And we’re back to where we started, with you lying to me.”
“You know who he is, don’t you?”
“He?” She took on a sympathetic, pitying expression. ‘Oh, Joe. I know it wasn’t your mind that got me all hot and bothered, but…wow.”
It hit him between the eyes, and as shattering as the notion was, he knew right away he’d been seeing what he wanted to see.
“It’s you. You’re the new king of the opium trade…”
‘Queen, I suppose.”
“Your family’s import-export business. Your father being this terrifying figure to everyone…”
“There’s that famous American educational system at work again. It’s not so much that we’re all better at math… it’s that you’re just a little slower.”
“And when I saw you brought into the warehouse…”
“Brought in?”
Brennan thought back. He’d just assumed the two men standing behind her were her captors. “You we
re meeting him.”
“We were ambushing him. Tonight, however, we will sign a deal to unite our two organizations under the banner of The Apsonsi, with the Colonel – due to his fearsome reputation – as its titular head.”
“But he’s old and doesn’t have long,” Brennan replied. “And you’re at least that patient.”
“Correct.”
“And to think I came up here to save you. Talk about not knowing what side you’re on.”
“That’s only the start of it. I take it from the information you already have that you’ve been given some help. My guess would be law enforcement of some type, perhaps DEA or the CIA. And they’ve probably asked you to take me out.”
“Of course. I’ve seen what your product does to people on the street…”
“Spare me the hearts and flowers! Your government kills more people in a week that heroin does in a year. And we do not force anyone in Europe to buy our product; but it does keep many of the villages around here employed.”
“Ah… so you’re a philanthropist.”
“No, I take advantage of them, like any exporter would. But at least with my protection they continue to operate, and the government stays nervous about what shutting them down might entail. The Colonel, on the other hand, regularly gives up his own people to keep authorities off his back. He murders people with the same kind of ease with which you and I order lunch.”
“So… you figured striking a deal with him….”
“Was my only option to prevent a war! We are not the aggressors in this, he is! And he has more firepower, more resources. We didn’t ask your people to take an interest. And when they did, do you think they chose to support the organization that is helping the rural farmers… or the Colonel, and his rep?”
He knew what she was saying wasn’t out of the question. Wondering about the value of a mission had become rote by the time he left Team Six, given the broader natures of the two wars, and the stifling political bureaucracy of leadership, which so often focused on the immediate need, not the long term. It didn’t excuse what she did for a living.
“Your reputation is particularly cruel…” he suggested.
“My reputation is mostly the product of a particularly good PR firm in Bangkok.”
“Sure… you hired public relations people to establish your criminal rep. I’m supposed to believe that.”
“That’s not even uncommon anymore. Business, after all, is business. If you think the Colonel would be any better…”
“I don’t.”
“And yet he’s been protected from assassination by your people for years, because he snitches on his own. Charming friends you’ve made, Joe.”
“You know, you have a story for everything, and it always seems to conveniently justify some nasty stuff.”
“And your friends? In the CIA?”
“You can keep this ‘aggrieved guardian angel’ routine up all night, but I’m not giving you shit. I don’t have a rank, I don’t have a serial number, and you’ve already got my name.”
The pint-sized executive said something enthusiastic to her in Thai.
She frowned and crossed her arms. “Somchai here is a successful businessman by day and complete psychopath by night. He’s a very useful guy to have around. A wiz with numbers, an insatiable desire to make more money, and an urge to hurt other people that makes him sexually excited.”
“She is not lying,” her friend said in perfect English.
Brennan sneered at him. “You look like the before picture for platform shoes.” Then he turned his attention back to Amanda. “Really? You think this guy’s going to make my life any more difficult than it already is? You haven’t met too many SEALs.”
“SEALs? You said Navy but I didn’t think ‘fight people’ navy; I thought you meant the type in the Village People song. You know, with the blue shirts and the little white hats. You are full of surprises, Joe. No, I’m afraid Somchai worked for the Colonel once upon a time. He learned everything about torture that a man could know from hardened Viet Cong interrogators.”
“The dudes that John McCain made look like little pussy bitches for three years?”
The businessman’s smiled evaporated. He jabbered something in his own language, then repeated it to her and pointed at Joe like he’d just spotted a pickpocket.
“He wants permission to cut your heart out and eat it. I’m inclined to let him, given that you obviously have no use for it.”
“Oh, the blinding hypocrisy…”
She stopped talking and studied him. “You’re looking for an escape route, aren’t you? This whole time, I’m thinking that you want to know what happened between us, and you’re just working the game.” She shook her head. “I really can pick them, can’t I?”
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Brennan replied. “You’re so deeply hurt by all of this, and yet I’m the one tied to a chair, and you’re the one meeting the Colonel.”
“He insisted on tonight. He’s taking a flight to Hong Kong for a vacation. We’re going to huddle up on his private jet and make friends. Joe…”
“Yes, Amanda?”
“Wouldn’t you want a private jet, if you could have one? I know I like it.”
“I never had much problem with coach, and it’s a lot cheaper.”
“Sure… but when money’s no object…”
“When money’s no object, you’re probably a pretty rotten person. People who place that much value in it over everything – and everyone – don’t tend to be nice guys as well. Or gals, for that matter.”
She looked like she was getting tired of listening to his comebacks. “Yes… well, the CIA has no moral high ground.”
“What does the CIA have to do with any of this?”
She looked genuinely annoyed for the first time. “Let it go, Joe. We already had a nice chat with your handler…”
Walter. They got to Walter.
“…and Mr. Nguyen was most insistent as well.”
Larry Nguyen? They thought he was with me.
“But DEA wouldn’t be undercover; they’d have to follow protocol, work with local police. And we have eyes and ears with the police, so we know that hasn’t happened.”
“Larry’s not a spook. He’s a photojournalist.”
“And I’m a bubbleheaded socialite,” she sneered. “His interest in our operations and continued presence…”
‘In an area chock-full of tourist traps? Stunning.”
“That’s what he said. He didn’t say much else, unfortunately, and Somchai worked on him for quite some time, at the Colonel’s express request. Quite resilient, but he still died screaming, horribly…’
“Or telling the truth, and you tortured and innocent man.”
“No, a nonexistent one.” She sighed deeply. “We could do this all night, but I have a plane to meet, and my associate is itching to get under that skin of yours. It was fun while it lasted, Joe…”
She turned to leave. The big guard opened the cell door and let her out, then closed it behind her. She walked out of the room and up the basement stairs without looking back.
The tiny Thai man walked over to the guard and whispered something. The guard, in turn, walked over to a bench by the front door and picked up a small black kit bag. He passed it through the cell bars, and Somchai Mercedes took it with a smile, before turning back to his captive. The guard walked out of the room and closed the door behind him, then stood in front of it, the back of his head blocking the small window.
Somchai Mercedes reached into his trouser pocket with his other hand and took out an asthma inhaler, taking two big blasts.
“These… tools… were given to me… by Hue Phan. Do you… know… who that is… American?” He began to unzip the bag.
“Thailand’s answer to Hugh Grant?”
“Most… amusing.” He reached into the little case and took out a scalpel. “She was… a great… warrior, an… interrogator. The Americans…they feared her… so much… they nickname h
er “Apache Woman”.”
The name was familiar.
“I can see you have heard of her,” he said. “Good! The pain she inflicted upon your countrymen is far less than the agony you will suffer tonight…”
Brennan wanted him annoyed, thinking rashly. “Yeah? Well anything’s less painful than listening to you murder the English language. How did a guy like you get a corporate gig, anyhow? Don’t they laugh you out of the boardroom?”
The aging predator smiled, his eyes crinkling, and cheekbones wizened. “If you stay anywhere for a long time, good things can happen. I shall apply this theory to the length of time I question you! Now, where shall we begin? Perhaps, in honor of Hue Phan, I shall begin by removing your eyelids…”
CHAPTER 8
Something was wrong.
Walter Lang sat in the rented car just down the block from Somchai Mercedes’ home, chewing on a matchstick to curb his urge to smoke, watching as three vehicles left in a miniature convoy, the electric gate whirring closed behind them.
He held the camera steady on the wheel, using it as a makeshift tripod, the speed winder spinning as it clicked six frames-per-second of large-negative print film, designed to be blown up and enhanced if necessary. The headshots were blurry, but there were parts of faces, perhaps some features that could be identified. He saw the glint of something – a hoop earring? So there may have been a woman present.
Damn it.
He put the camera on the seat beside him as they pulled out and headed down the street.
If this were official, we could tag those vehicles, get eyes on them, keep tabs on where they’re headed. Instead, I have to watch them leave and hope to Hell he’s okay in there.
He checked the time on his battered old Seiko wristwatch, a gift from his parents when he’d joined the Marines at age nineteen. It was nearly nine. He’d been inside for nearly an hour without replying to hails, and now people were leaving. It wasn’t a good sign. Lang frowned.
