Assignment - Bangkok Read online

  The huge beast, maddened by its wounds, was only fifty feet away. Benjie called out something from the back of the jeep as the elephant thundered down on them.

  Durell got his foot on the brake, caught the wheel again, and turned the jeep into the brush. It was almost stopped when Nam, shrieking, ran ahead with arms outstretched, directly in the elephant’s path. The ground shook with the beast’s charge.

  There were only moments to spare when Durell grabbed at Benjie and rolled out of the jeep with her into the underbrush beside the trail. At the same moment, the elephant reached Nam. The foreman was still shrieking the animal’s name when the broken foot-chain swung at him from the ponderous front feet. The chain literally tore Nam’s head from his body.

  The elephant thundered by. One leg caught the jeep and there was a crash of metal and a shattering of glass and the jeep rocked and turned over, tumbling down the slope of the mountainside through the trees.

  “Nam . . .” Benjie moaned.

  “Don’t look at him,” Durell snapped.

  The animal was safely past when he regained the jeep and grabbed one of the rifles. If the beast reached the village, with those murderous foot-chains, there would be little left of either houses or women. Fortunately, the elephant paused. Blood poured from the wounds in its side. The trunk swung this way and that, the small ears of its Asian ancestry flapped forward. It was aware of Benjie and Durell now, and it turned, small eyes glaring at them. The jeep had crashed into a tree and halted. Slowly, the elephant completed its turn and began to move toward them.

  “Wait, he’s too valuable—” Benjie began.

  “So was Nam.”

  He fired, twice, three times. The animal kept coming. He fired a fourth time and the beast stumbled, went to its front knees, and suddenly tumbled over with a thud that shook the ground again.

  There was a long silence, interlaced by the sigh of the evening wind in the tall teak trees.

  Benjie swore softly.

  “Come along,” Durell said.

  He carried the rifle in the crook of his arm and started up the trail, not looking back to see if Benjie followed. He passed the bloody mess that remained of the Thai foreman without looking at it twice. Up ahead, he heard the sounds of men and a truck engine, but there were no more shots.

  Presently, Benjie caught up with him.

  “Sam, wait. I’m sorry about Nam and the elephant.”

  “Enter it in red ink in your ledgers,” he snapped.

  A truck filled with men came down the trail. Some wore bloody rags to bandage their wounds. Another truck, a flat-bed, carried their logging tools. Behind them, in a long line, came five work elephants, their massive gray bodies swaying as they walked. The mahouts treated them very gingerly.

  The whole procession halted when they saw Durell and Benjie in their way.

  15

  The raid by the Muc Tong was one of several in the past month, the new headman explained. He was a tall, bony tribesman with grizzled gray hair and a frightened grin. “We drove them off, Miss Benjie. We kill two, we think.”

  “And our people?” she asked thinly.

  “We lose five. And poor Nam.”

  “And the equipment?”

  “They took saws. We must get more, from the supply at Chiengmai.”

  It took some time to remove the elephant’s carcass from the road, using logging winches on the trucks. Some of the men gathered Nam’s remains in a blanket and put the corpse in the second truck. They were silent and dispirited. Benjie tried to raise their morale, then gave up. The women in the village wailed as the little procession came into camp.

  “When the government hears of it,” she said tightly, “they’ll put it down as a terrorist raid, from the insurgents. But it was the Muc Tong, all right. The opium smugglers. So far I’ve held out against them, refused my facilities, but I think I’m finished here. The logging won’t go on for another month. I’ll lose Rafts Five and Six, this way. There won’t be enough material for the Bangkok mill, next year.”

  The village was silent as the sun went down, but the women did the cooking. Durell and Benjie ate Thai noodles and Chinese fried rice and some pork. He drank a bottle of icy beer from Benjie’s refrigerator in the bungalow. Benjie offered him some whiskey, but he shook his head.

  “We have to go on,” he said.

  “But I hate to leave the camp now, in such a mess.”

  “Do you have any dynamite here?”

  “What do you want dynamite for?”

  “Mike asked for it. I don’t know why.”

  “He didn’t radio. He can’t be alive now.”

  The girl’s straight shoulders were slumped, and she scarcely touched their makeshift meal. He wondered how much of her low spirits came from her financial loss, and how much was sorrow for the trials of the people she employed here. The sound of mourning bells came from the little temple down the village street. A woman’s voice keened through the evening mist. The heavy thud of a restless elephant echoed from the big sheds at the other end of the camp.

  Durell said quietly, “Benjie, I think Mike can hold out until we get to him. I don’t know if he’s using Thai Star transport systems to help the Muc Tong smugglers. Maybe he’s been blackmailed into it. Or maybe the whole thing is a trap set to get me to the Xo Dong area, where I can be taken—a price Mike might have agreed to pay. In this business, you can’t count on anything or anyone. My job is to hamper, damage, or stop the big syndicate that’s been formed to transport, refine and distribute drugs. Turkey, as a source of opium, is being dried up. The Golden Triangle here is taking shape as the next biggest supplier to American troops and our youngsters at home. Somebody is at the head of it. I think of it as a dragon, and my job is to cut off the dragon’s head.”

  “Mike isn’t capable of running anything as big as that,” the girl said quietly.

  A rolling white mist filled the valley over the river, covering the distant mountains with a milky light. The wind made the temple bells sound louder. A baby wailed somewhere in the village. Dogs barked. The dull thud of the diesel generator made a rhythmic sound that wove through the camp in a steady, monotonous pattern.

  Benjie’s green eyes were as shrouded as the foggy mountain valley. “But you think I have the ability to be the dragon head, right? I’m a smart businesswoman, I’ve been driven all my life to take care of Mike, to succeed, to do what my parents never managed to do. Do you know what our childhood was like, Sam? Mike and I never had a real home. We never stayed in one place long enough to really learn anything, in school, or to make childhood friends. What we know now, we got from reading, from studying together, whenever we could. Our father was a drunk and our mother was just as irresponsible. They could barely take care of themselves, much less two kids. Can you imagine? When they were both killed in a car crash, I had to take care of Mike, even though I’m only two years older than he. And Mike is like my father.

  Reckless, charming, and totally irresponsible. So I worked. I educated him. I made a home for him. And when the chance came to build up something solid and decent and profitable in Thailand, so we’d never, never have to worry about money again, I took it. I worked hard. I’ve done what I set out to do. Maybe I’ve passed up a lot in life that I could have had, instead. But do you honestly think I’d risk everything I’ve won, by committing some stupid, criminal act? Not blackmail, not the worst sort of pressure from Chuk and the people behind him, could make me do it.”

  “But suppose it was to save Mike?” Durell asked.

  “I’ve thought about that. Everything I did was for him, and I just don’t know what I’d do, in that case. But I still don’t think I’d throw away Thai Star. Not even for Mike, now.” She made a rueful mouth. “That’s how far I’ve come from being a normal woman,” she said sadly. “Why did you kiss me, Sam?”

  “You simply looked right for it.”

  “Ha. I’m not all that attractive. I know what I usually look like, sloppy in slacks and junk. I’m a
lways too busy to go shopping. I’ve never learned to have fun buying dresses and cosmetics and things like that. There never was enough time, you see. There were always more important things to do. So why did you kiss me?”

  “Did it bother you?”

  Her green eyes slid aside. “I—I liked it.”

  “.Good. Don’t make an issue out of it.”

  “But I liked it, Sam. You—you’re different.”

  “How many men have kissed you, Benjamina?”

  She flushed. “That’s not fair.”

  “How many?”

  “Very few.” She shivered, then stood up to gather the dinner dishes and took them into the kitchen, and she was gone for several minutes. She looked as if she had been crying when she came back, and she had washed her face and pulled back her hair more neatly. She had a tall, proud body.

  Assignment—Bangkok 93 “All right, Sam. What do you want me to do?”

  “We need the dynamite for Mike, assuming he’s still alive, and assuming it’s not a trap. We’ll need other supplies, bottled water, some food, maybe, and your plane, of course. How long does it take to get to Chiengmai? We can’t fly there. General Savag’s people would pick us up in no time. We’d have to go by mountain road.”

  “Make it two hours,” she said.

  “Then let’s get Kem, and go. You say you have a supply place in Chiengmai?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Smiling, he pulled her to him and kissed her again. She reacted differently, this time. Her hand came up and she slapped him hard, her arm strong, the blow stinging. Her eyes flashed with resentment.

  “You—” she paused, breathing angrily, “don’t play games with me, Cajun. Remember that.”

  16

  The girls of Chiengmai were small and pert, with slim bodies and dark eyes, and they looked jaunty in their bright, Western clothes as they walked together down Tu Duong Road. Benjie stopped the jeep in front of a long hotel with a bright yellow exterior, not far from a bridge over the shallow Ping River. Two sloe-eyed Indian ladies in saris led their paunchy businessmen husbands into the lobby ahead of them. An old clock over the desk, half-hidden by potted palms, read ten o’clock. The night was hot.

  With Kem bouncing in the rear of the jeep, they had covered the mountain road from the logging camp in less than three hours.

  “I always stay here,” Benjie said. “We need a place to wash up and rest for a few hours, until I get the dynamite and other things. The Third Army runs air patrols toward Xo Dong, and it would be helpful if I can learn their schedule. And we can’t very well hang about on the streets, can we?”

  “I wish,” said Kem mildly, “to go to the Wat Kala Prem, to see an old friend.”

  “Can you get the dynamite alone, Benjie?” Durell asked.

  “No problem. I have keys to our warehouse.”

  Durell turned to the monk. “I’ll go with you, Flivver.” The monk looked slantwise at him. “It is purely a religious matter, Sam. But perhaps we can help you, too. In this city there are many Westerners, but in the Xo Dong area you would be too obvious. One glimpse of you by a hostile villager, and the alarm would go to the Muc Tong as well as to General Savag. But perhaps I can make you less conspicuous. It will not take long. Also, I may be able to learn something from the bhikkhus about the opium smuggling. You would be surprised at what the Sangha knows. Xo Dong was settled mostly by North Vietnamese, you know. They fled here, many centuries ago, from the Chinese emperors. I believe they are still loyal to Hanoi, so it is dangerous country for you. These yuan—the emigre Vietnamese—go easily across the border into Laos and across to North Vietnam. As easily as the Muc Tong.” There were few U.S. military men on Chiengmai’s streets, although the city had been designated as a strategic military base. Here and there in the crowded lanes were distinctively dressed hill people of the Miao, Lissu and Yao tribes. Bicycle traffic whirled among the autos and buses, and the Thai spoken here was faintly touched with Lao dialect. Many of the shops were still open at this hour of the night. The streets were brightly lighted near the hotel, but then became narrow alleys of the old city, the former capital of ancient empires. Bells tinkled, noodle stalls gave off their tantalizing aromas, and there was a steady underbeat of clip-clopping wooden sandals. Kem walked with a long stride, leading the way with familiarity. There were neon-lighted cinemas and cafes, discotheques, avant-garde art galleries side by side with old dusty shops exhibiting Sukhothai art and topaz and zircon gems.

  “Wait,” said Durell.

  Kem stopped. “What is it?”

  They were near the great Chiengmai monastery of Wat Phra Sihing. The chanting of monks, the chattering of women passing by, and the rattle of motorcycles did not make Durell stir. He watched a long military limousine sweep by under the light of the street lamps.

  “What is it?” the bhikkhu asked again.

  Durell watched the big car vanish in the traffic. “Miss Ku Tu Thiet, with General Savag. That’s twice I’ve seen him near me, in a car. Cozy as can be, with the girl.”

  “What does it mean?”

  “You go on,” Durell decided. “Wait for me on the other side of the wat.”

  “There is danger?”

  “Plenty of it. Go on.”

  Durell dodged a flood of bicycles released by the traffic light as he crossed the street. Kem vanished in the nighttime throngs near the monastery. A pair of giggling Thai girls in pink pasabais approached and said something. He ignored them. He saw no one suspicious in the street. But instinct made him wary. He walked faster, then paused hi front of the jewelry shop again. A dog inside the shop barked at him. He saw two men risk their lives, as he had done, crossing the heavy traffic. They wore Western clothes and straw hats. They could have been twins. Durell turned the comer into a side street. The towering prangs and chedis of the Wat Phra Sihing kept him oriented in the twisting alleys. The two men followed him into the narrow lanes, hurrying past dim shops that sold ornaments and religious articles. An ice cream vendor shouted his wares at him. A man with a Cambodian gibbon on his shoulder offered it for sale. Durell halted near some women with habs on their shoulders, the sticks weighted down with two balanced baskets loaded with vegetables.

  “Sir? Durell?”

  One of the men in the straw hats shouted at him over the heads of the two women. Durell dodged aside from a bullock cart that all but blocked the narrow street and walked fast, back toward the wat. He did not know if the men were Savag’s or from the Muc Tong. Maybe it was all one and the same. Mike Slocum had the answers, somewhere in the mountains to the north. Maybe coming into Chiengmai was a mistake; maybe the dynamite wasn’t important. Maybe Benjie had spent the time sending the two goons after him.

  He shook the questions from his mind. The straw hats were as persistent as flies. He could see the throngs of worshipers near the wat again, the crowd accented by the saffron robes of several hundred monks. Some sort of religious festival was being celebrated.

  The straw hats had closed the gap. Their brown faces were ugly. One had his hand inside his jacket.

  “This way, mister.”

  A teen-aged Thai boy in the robe of a dek wat tugged at his sleeve. Durell roughly shrugged him off. The boy persisted. “No worry. Holy Kem sends me. Bad men be lost.” A small swirl of worshipers intervened between Durell and his pursuers for a moment. The boy said, “In here, sir.”

  It was a musty apothecary shop, devoted to Chinese herbs, pickled snakes, strange jars filled with muddy-colored powders. The proprietor bobbed his head and ducked out of the way. The boy led Durell to the rear. The two men in straw hats were on the sidewalk outside, and the lighted street cast their shadows against the cluttered, fly-specked window.

  “All right,” said Durell. “Lead on.”

  They ducked behind a fringed curtain in the rear. The Chinese apothecary chattered something in Cantonese, but Durell did not look back. The rear door gave on an alley, hard by the monastery. He heard the deep-throated clang of bronze bells, t
he tinkle of silver ones, the heavy chanting of priests; he smelled incense, the odor of food offerings. The alley was backed on the other side by two and three-story wooden houses, decked with verandas, poles with paper lanterns agleam, and a teeming huddle of tenement dwellers. Durell felt tall and conspicuous among them as he went up rickety wooden steps, through a bedroom where a startled woman sat upright with a sigh of surprise. The dek wat grinned and said, “My mama.”

  From the alley came angry shouting. The woman did not get up from the bed. There was a single, tin-shaded electric light in the room, casting deep shadows.

  “Come. My papa.”

  The man in the other room was thin and brown, wearing a striped lavender shirt, khaki slacks, and sneakers. He sat at a porcelain-topped table next to a large cooking stove. The overhead light cast deep shadows on his face. He did not smile. He was busy laying out pots and jars and bits of theatrical hair on a newspaper spread on the table, and something bubbled on the stove.

  “Where is Kem?” Durell asked.

  “He comes. My papa helps in the wat—he helps the priests in ceremonies. He also works for Chin Lee theater on Hapagongwe Road. He is genius,” said the boy.

  The father looked dour. Durell listened for more sounds from the alley, but the shouting had ended. The Thai looked at him with grave eyes. “Sit,” he said. “I make you look like Northern man. Part Chinese, maybe. I study your face.”

  “I haven’t much time.”

  “I do not take long. Twenty minutes.”

  Durell looked around the small, hot room. The boy hovered near the door, grinning happily. The father kept working with his pots of pigments and creams and wads of coarse black hair. Durell wondered if he’d been mistaken in the single glimpse he’d had of Miss Ku in General Savag’s car. Then, amid the primitive clutter of the tenement kitchen, his eye caught on an anachronism. A black telephone stood among the painted, peasant pots on the kitchen shelf.

  He stood up quietly. The father lifted thick brows and pointed with a silky paint brush. “You sit. I am ready.” “Where did you get the telephone?”