The Solitary Man (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘You’re the best. You escaped from Parkhurst, you got clean away.’ He paused, then smiled slyly. ‘Almost clean away.’ He put his brandy glass down on a hardwood side table, then took a large cigar from his jacket pocket and lit it.

  ‘I can’t help you. I’ve too much to lose.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Winter. The two men locked eyes. Minnie growled, sensing the hostility in the room. ‘Don’t make me force you, Hutch.’

  ‘I can’t help you.’

  ‘You don’t have any choice.’

  ‘We were friends, Billy.’

  Winter shook his head. ‘This is nothing to do with friendship. You’re coming with me to Bangkok tomorrow.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘You can’t refuse. I make one phone call to Plod and you go back to finish your life sentence, plus whatever they add on top for your escape.’

  ‘You’d grass on me?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll have to. But a threat isn’t a threat unless I have the balls to go through with it. And believe me, Hutch, I’ve got the balls.’

  Hutch glared at Winter. ‘You bastard,’ he said.

  Winter shrugged. ‘Sticks and stones, old lad. Sticks and stones.’ He took a long drag on the cigar and stood up. The two Dobermanns watched him intently. Winter stared back at them. He took the cigar out of his mouth and snarled at the dogs.

  ‘Don’t tease them,’ warned Hutch.

  ‘I killed a dog once. When I was a kid. Did I ever tell you about that?’

  ‘No. No, you didn’t.’

  ‘With a cricket bat. Thwack. Never forgotten the sound.’ Minnie bared her teeth and growled.

  ‘You’d better go,’ said Hutch.

  Winter got to his feet. Ash from his cigar spilled on to the floor. ‘I’ll pick you up at noon tomorrow. We’ll only be away for a couple of days.’ He turned and walked out of the room without a backward look.

  The two Dobermanns stood looking at Hutch, sensing his anxiety. Mickey growled softly and Hutch stroked his head. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Just an old friend, that’s all.’ He went over to the console, pressing the button that opened the main gates. He watched Winter drive out of the compound on a black and white monitor set into the wall. Winter waved out of the window of his Mercedes as if he knew he was being watched.

  TIM CARVER LOOKED AT his wristwatch for the hundredth time. His driver was tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and the noise was driving Carver crazy, but if he told him to stop the man would probably sulk for a week. If there was one thing that Carver had learned since he had been assigned to Thailand, it was that Thais did not react well to criticism.

  The traffic ahead appeared to be locked solid, par for the course on the roads leading out of Bangkok at rush hour. In fact, the city’s streets were jammed pretty much around the clock, and Carver had long become accustomed to sitting in his car waiting for interminable periods before crawling forward a few yards and stopping again. Carver usually played through his Thai language tapes during traffic jams, brushing up on his vocabulary, but today he decided to use the time to get his thoughts in order. The regular monthly meeting of the Foreign Anti-Narcotic Community had gone on longer than usual: two Thai undercover agents had been found floating in a canal close to the city’s Chinatown, their bodies mutilated, and the overseas agents were worried about the ramifications for the safety of their own people.

  It had been Carver’s turn to host the lunch, and over beer and sandwiches at the DEA’s offices the FANC members had pored over the police report on the deaths. It was a foregone conclusion that the Thai agents had been betrayed by one of their own; what worried Carver and his colleagues was at what level the betrayal had occurred. The primary reason for the formation of the FANC had been the rampant corruption within the Thai police force which had led to countless undercover operations being blown long before arrests could be made. The members of the FANC, primarily representing American, European and Australian drug agencies, shared information and consolidated their efforts to fight the drug trade, and only contacted Thai police and intelligence officials at the end-phase of any operation. Carver and his counterparts would have preferred to have excluded the Thais completely, but they didn’t have the power to make arrests, or even to carry weapons in the country. The trick was to call in the Thais at the last minute, minimising the opportunity for the targets to be tipped off.

  The British Customs official at the FANC meeting had announced that his bosses had decided to pull out one of their agents, a Taiwanese who’d been trying to infiltrate a team responsible for smuggling heroin into Manila. He’d been working in a Chinese restaurant near where the bodies were discovered and the Brits were worried that it might have been a warning. Carver had pointed out that generally the drug gangs didn’t bother with warnings, but the Brits were getting jumpy. Hell, everyone was jumpy, thought Carver, and with good cause.

  The traffic began to move again. Ahead Carver could see a brown uniformed motorcycle cop standing at the roadside wearing a cotton mask strapped across the bottom of his face. He’d flagged down a green Mercedes and was talking to the driver. Carver smiled wryly as they drove slowly by. Whatever the infraction, it clearly wasn’t speeding. A motorcycle taxi scraped by the car, the rider nodding to Carver’s driver, the driver nodding back. Simple everyday Thai politeness, thought Carver, even at rush hour. The rider’s skin was dark and leathery and he had his helmet tipped back as far as it would go on his head. His passenger was a middle-aged woman in a bright pink suit, sitting side saddle with her legs pressed together, a handbag in her lap. She held her bag with one hand and her long hair with the other, preventing it from blowing in the wind. She smiled at Carver and he smiled back.

  Carver wondered why Jake Gregory was making an unplanned visit to Thailand and why the DEA executive had insisted that Carver meet him at the airport. Gregory had visited the organisation’s Bangkok offices at least half a dozen times during Carver’s stint in Thailand and he’d always made his own way in from the airport, usually spurning an office car in favour of a taxi. Gregory had worked his way from a front-line agent to the number two man in the agency but had never forgotten his roots, and was the last person Carver would have expected to use an agent as a porter. Not that Carver minded, it never paid to turn down an offer to earn Brownie points from a superior.

  Carver got to the airport about fifteen minutes after Gregory’s flight was scheduled to touch down, but he didn’t rush to the arrivals area. It took an average of thirty minutes to clear immigration, with an hour-long wait not uncommon.

  Carver bought a cup of black coffee and sipped it as he waited. A group of European tourists streamed out of the immigration hall, pasty faced and sweating, and lined up at the taxi counter with their suitcases. Carver wondered if they realised they faced a two-hour wait in the heavy traffic. So much time was now spent in traffic jams, the city’s filling stations all now stocked small portable urinals which drivers could use while stuck behind the wheel. Carver had one under his seat, though thankfully he’d never had to use it. He could imagine the amused looks he’d get: a farang taking a piss in his car.

  Two stunning Thai girls with waist-length hair walked hand in hand, each pulling a wheeled suitcase behind her. They had bright gold chains around their necks, glittering bracelets on their wrists, and lipstick as red as fresh blood. They were almost certainly exotic dancers back from working in Hong Kong or Japan, Carver decided. Or high-class hookers. One of them smiled at him as she went by and he smiled back. Everyone smiled in Thailand, it was practically a national pastime, but Carver got the impression that the girl meant it. He turned to watch her go, but she didn’t look back and as she reached the exit a large Thai with bulging forearms emphasised by a too-tight short-sleeved shirt, stepped forward and took her suitcase.

  ‘Hell of a butt, huh?’ said a gruff voice behind Carver. He whirled around and found himself looking into the amused eyes of Jake Gregory. He was wearing a green polo shir
t and grey slacks and was carrying a black leather holdall.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Carver, momentarily flustered. He recovered quickly and stuck out his hand. Gregory gripped it and they shook hands firmly. Carver looked at the holdall. ‘Is that all the luggage you’ve got?’

  ‘Flying visit, son,’ said Gregory, running his hand through his crew cut. ‘Hit and run.’

  Carver reached for Gregory’s bag, but Gregory swung it out of his reach. ‘That’s all right, son, I can carry my own bag.’

  Carver nodded and turned towards the exit. Gregory put a restraining hand on his shoulder. ‘Not so fast,’ said Gregory, good naturedly.

  ‘The car’s outside . . .’ Carver began, but Gregory shook his head.

  ‘I’m just passing through,’ said Gregory. Gregory glanced at his watch, a scratched driving model that looked as if it had been on his wrist for decades. ‘My flight’s in two hours. Is there somewhere we can talk?’

  ‘There’s a restaurant upstairs.’ Carver led the DEA executive to the stairs, dropping his cup of coffee into a rubbish bin on the way.

  Gregory looked surprisingly refreshed for a man who’d just spent almost twenty hours in the air, and he took the stairs two at a time so that Carver had to hurry after him. Gregory was thickset, almost heavy, but it was clearly all muscle, and he had the build of a Marine drill sergeant.

  The restaurant was self-service. Gregory helped himself to a salad, a wholemeal bread roll and a Diet Coke while Carver chose a plate of pad thai – thin rice noddles fried with bean curd, egg, vegetables and peanuts. Gregory wrinkled his nose at Carver’s choice but didn’t say anything. He went over to an empty corner table and left Carver to pay. When Carver joined him, Gregory was breaking the bread roll apart with his hands.

  ‘Rabbit food,’ said Gregory, nodding at his salad. ‘Had a bit of a heart scare a few months back. Doc told me to cut out red meat, Southern Comfort and cigars. I compromised and kept the cigars.’ He popped a piece of bread between his thin lips and chewed without relish.

  ‘You should try Thai food,’ said Carver, digging his fork into the noodles. ‘It’s almost zero fat. The Thais have got the lowest incidence of heart disease in the world.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe you’re right,’ said the DEA executive unenthusiastically. ‘But as soon as my cholesterol drops to normal I’m having a fucking huge steak.’ He grinned wolfishly and took a gulp of cola. ‘Okay, let’s get down to business,’ he said. ‘What do you know about Zhou Yuanyi?’ He studied Carver with unblinking blue eyes.

  Carver’s fork stopped on the way to his mouth, suspended in mid-air. ‘Zhou Yuanyi?’ he repeated. Carver put his fork down. ‘He’s a Chinese warlord, based in the Golden Triangle. Strictly speaking he’s in Burma, but the region is constantly being fought over by private armies who control the opium fields. They’re unreachable. Unreachable and untouchable. And Zhou Yuanyi is the toughest of them all. The last time Zhou’s people caught someone trying to infiltrate his network, they impaled the intruder alive at the entrance to their compound.’

  Gregory nodded slowly. He popped another chunk of bread roll into his mouth. ‘Not one of ours?’ he said.

  Carver shook his head. ‘A Thai. Working for the Australians.’

  ‘Impaled, huh?’

  ‘A stake up the arse. Took him two days to die.’

  Gregory frowned. ‘How do you know that?’ he asked.

  ‘The Australians received a video. Just to ram home the point.’ He smiled grimly at the unintended pun.

  Gregory took another look at his wristwatch. ‘You know we’ve no pictures of Zhou on file?’

  ‘He’s never been photographed. He’s not political like some of the warlords, he doesn’t give interviews. He’s in it solely for the money.’

  ‘What are the chances of getting a picture?’

  ‘Zero. We can’t get near the guy. He has a private army of more than five hundred soldiers, he moves from camp to camp within the area he controls and he’s got an intelligence network that puts the CIA to shame. He’s better protected than the President.’

  Gregory nodded slowly. He speared a slice of cucumber and waved it in front of Carver’s face. ‘That might be so, son, but we’re going to change all that.’ Carver sat back in his plastic chair, intrigued, and Gregory leaned forward as if reluctant to allow the agent to put more distance between them. ‘We’re gonna get this Zhou. His chickens are coming home to roost.’

  Carver raised his eyebrows. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘It’s about time we did something.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve read your reports,’ said Gregory. ‘You’re getting pretty frustrated with the way things are going here.’

  ‘We’re just not making any progress,’ Carver said. ‘Sure, the Thais make arrests, but it’s usually mules at the airports. They don’t go near the really big guys, the ones that run the drug-smuggling operations. And the guys like Zhou – hell, in the Golden Triangle they reckon Zhou’s a hero. Half the border guards, Thai and Burmese, are on his payroll and every undercover operation we’ve ever put together has been blown.’

  Gregory put down his fork and clasped his hands together. ‘This time it’s gonna be different. I’m putting together an operation that positively, absolutely is not going to be blown. And I’m going to need your help.’

  Carver’s eyes widened. ‘Whatever it takes,’ he said.

  THE TWO THAI TECHNICIANS grunted as they manhandled the metal drum off the fire, using pieces of wet sacking to protect their hands. They eased it on to the soil and stood back to allow it to cool.

  The boiling mixture contained raw opium, water and lime fertiliser. The fertiliser had been brought across the border from Thailand, driven across in trucks and then loaded on the backs of donkeys for the thirty-mile treck through the jungle to Zhou’s camp.

  The Thais worked outside, downwind from the main part of the camp because the fumes were unpleasant. Not as dangerous as the later stages of the process, but the technicians weren’t trusted to do that. The technicians were paid to turn Zhou Yuanyi’s raw opium into morphine, nothing more. He used an industrial chemist to transform the morphine into heroin. It was a loss of face for the technicians, but secretly they were glad not to have to be involved. They’d heard stories of technicians being blown up when the process went wrong. Blown up or burned alive. Better to work with the drum and the open fire, better to be outdoors so that if anything happened they could run like the wind.

  One of the technicians, a twenty-three-year-old former soldier in the Burmese army called Em, nodded at two boys who were sitting in the shade of a spreading tree and fanning themselves with banana leaves. They scampered to their feet and ran over to help. The four of them carried the drum over to a nearby stream. The boys picked up the filter, a metre-wide strip of flannel cloth which had been stretched across a wooden frame, and held it a foot above the flowing stream while Em and the other technician lifted the drum of opium suspension and carefully drained off the water.

  The technicians took the container over to another drum, one the boys had scrubbed clean earlier, and emptied the opium solution into it. The technicians left the dirty drum by the side of the stream for the boys to clean later.

  When the solution was boiling again the technicians took half a dozen plastic bottles of concentrated ammonia from a hut and poured them in one by one after tying strips of cloth across the lower half of their faces to protect themselves from the fumes.

  The morphine began to settle out, sinking to the bottom like a snowfall. Em nodded at his older colleague Ah-Jan and they lifted the drum off the fire. He shouted over at the boys to get the filter ready again.

  Em and Ah-Jan took the drum over to the stream and as the boys held out the flannel filter, they drained off the water. Left behind were globules of morphine, glistening wetly on the filter. Em would leave the boys to press the morphine into blocks and then wrap them with banana leaves. He and Ah-Jan had more opium and fertiliser to prepare. They would face Zhou’s wrat
h if they didn’t meet their daily quota. And Zhou’s anger was a fearful thing to behold; the body of an informer was still decomposing on a stake at the entrance to the camp, his flesh eaten by ants, his eyes pecked out by birds.

  MICKEY AND MINNIE MADE soft growling noises as if they realised that it was the last time they’d see Hutch. He knelt down and the two Dobermanns licked his face eagerly.

  ‘How long will you be gone?’ asked Chau-ling, his head kennel maid. She’d worked with him for almost five years and had been invaluable in building up the business. Her father was a shipping tycoon and he’d wanted her to join the family firm, but Chau-ling loved dogs and she’d pouted and sulked until he’d let her have her way. Despite having a multi-million-dollar trust fund and the sort of looks that had suitors queuing up to take her out, she worked long and hard and was one of Hutch’s most loyal employees. He hated having to lie to her, but there was no way he could tell her what was wrong.

  ‘A week. Maybe longer. You don’t mind holding the fort?’

  Chau-ling smiled broadly. Hutch knew she relished being left in charge and she’d regularly demonstrated how capable she was. As well as having killer cheekbones and the longest, straightest hair he’d seen outside of a shampoo advertisement, Chau-ling had a business studies degree from Exeter University in the UK and an MBA from Harvard. Hutch had already decided that once he’d left Hong Kong, he’d write and let her know that the kennels were hers.

  ‘And I can’t reach you?’

  ‘I’ll call you.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her oval brown eyes, as trusting as any of his dogs. He felt a sudden rush of guilt, so overwhelming that he caught his breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘What? Sorry for what, Warren?’

  Hutch forced a smile. ‘For leaving you in the lurch like this.’ He faked a slow punch to her chin and she grinned. ‘I’m going to have to give you a raise.’ He picked up his black nylon holdall and patted his jacket pocket to check that his passport and ticket were there.