Evil in the Land Without

by Colin Cotterill

  "I doubt you'll let me come with you?"

  "You can come so far. There’s a lot of folks who want to meet you."

  "Me?"

  "Your old man had a lot of friends inside. They'd like to meet 'son of Jim.' They didn't have a chance to say good-bye to the original."

  "You've already talked to them?"

  "Soon as I heard. Trip's all planned. We leave tomorrow."

  "Wow! What does your wife have to say about all this?"

  "Well, there were two ways I could of handled it. I could tell her I'm going back inside, that I have a fifty-fifty chance of being blown away, that she and her three bambinos won't ever see sweet Norbert again."

  "Whereas, what you actually told her was. . . ."

  "I'm taking you on a tour of Thailand's historical north."

  "And she believed you?"

  "I ain't ever lied to her before, boy. So we better be back here with a suitcase full of Buddha images and a camera full of temples in a week or I'm screwed."

  "Norbert." John looked into the grinning face of his father's friend. "I appreciate what you're doing. Really."

  Norbert folded his arms and swung back on his chair.

  "Yeah. I know."

  26

  They left early the next morning for the border. It took a little longer to get there than usual because they stopped at a dozen temples, took three rolls of film, and bought a few kilos of assorted artifacts. "Just in case we're riddled with bullets and can't do it on the way back," was Norbert's justification for it.

  "How do we explain the bullet holes to Kruamart?" John slurped at a Coke, his feet on the dashboard.

  "We'll tell her they're mosquito bites."

  The scenery became greener and hillier, and John thought about where they were heading. "Give me a brief history of these . . . what do you call them? SLOCK. The Burmese junta."

  "SLORC. . . . What do you know about Burma?"

  "Not a great deal. They got drafted into the Empire late nineteenth century. There was some mix up with the Japanese invasion in the war, wasn't there?"

  "Only a mix-up about whose side who was on. These smart young Burmese revolutionaries went over to Japan to train how to kick your British asses out of Burma. When the Nips invaded, these thirty kids came back as heroes and fought with them. The Karen stuck with you, but the Japs were hot stuff and they beat your sorry butts.

  “The Imperial Army put the kids in charge of army units all over the place. Aung San—Suu Kyi's old papa—he was the top kid, and he soon figured out being a lacky of the Nips wasn't a lot better than being a lacky of the Brits."

  "At least we cook our fish."

  "You payin’ attention?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Right. So, Aung San swaps sides and fights with you guys against the Nips. This time you beat the crap out of them. But now the Burmans are back where they started. So they take advantage of the fact that you guys are flat broke after the war, and put in for independence. In 1948, they get it. But the minority groups don't like the way the Burmese have divided up the country and given themselves everything. The Karen are most pissed of all, and they start a full-on war. That was 1948 and the war ain't over.

  "The Burmese Army—the Tatmadaw—pretended to be servants of the government for a while, but they couldn't stand watchin’ politicians robbin’ the place, so in ’62 they just took over. Since then they been robbin’ it for themselves. Any uprisings, they squash 'em. Any strong political opposition, they squash that, too. And the Karen? They didn't squash so easy, but bit by bit the Burmese, they been eatin’ away at ’em. Fifty years of war can make you pretty damn tired."

  "That's the truth."

  "And the Burmese, they figure if they do somethin’ shitty, all they got to do is change their name and the world will think someone else did it. In ’88 they were the SLORC, State Law and Order something. Then they shot a few thousand people after they lost the election in ’90 and violated a few human rights, so now they're the SPDC . . . some Peace and Daisy shit. It's like decorating. But most people still call them SLORC. It kinda suits 'em better."

  "You don't like them much do you?"

  "Not much." He smiled and drove his jeep on over the mountains to Mae Sariang and the Burmese border.

  27

  Aunt Maud sat in his favourite chair, reading a novel he'd read many times before. It was one of the pleasures of retirement in the country, to have time to re-read old friends and see characteristics in them you hadn't had time to notice before. His fine bones that had once supported an athlete were now virtually all that remained of him. Age had reclaimed his looks, his hair, and his teeth, but he still had the energy to work all day in his beloved garden.

  He dozed often and re-awoke to the same silence and the same lawn stretched out beyond his conservatory. He thought, just for a second, he had seen some movement in the bushes. But he knew that by the time he’d removed his reading glasses and replaced them with his outdoor spectacles, whatever fox, or squirrel, or migrating goose had been trespassing, would be long gone.

  It was such a curse, replacing all the worn down parts: glasses for eyes that didn't see, aids for ears that didn't hear, catheters for organs that didn't piss when you expected them to. If he didn't die soon, he thought, there’d be very little of the original left. Any more excitement like Susan's, and sooner or later they'd have to replace his heart.

  He laughed at the thought, but there was that damn movement again. It was nearer the garden shed now, and too large to be a bird. He wondered if the neighbour's dog had got into his yard. He fumbled for his other glasses and eased himself painfully out of the chair. He walked to the glass doors that let in the rare spring sunshine but kept out the gales that blew down from the moors.

  For a while he stood there looking into his neat garden, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary. It was a shame there was no aid, no artificial pump to replace a policeman's instincts that no longer sensed danger.

  Just for a split second he saw the man, segmented by the arm of his spectacles. He had been concealed in the ivy. The scythe he didn't see at all. The intruder's aim was precise and deadly. The sharp point of the tool smashed through the glass pane directly in front of Maud's heart, passed through the centre of the organ, and exited just below his shoulder blade.

  There he stood, pinned to the door, dead.

  Bohmu Din stood back and admired his work before pulling open the french door and its carcass, and stepping inside the conservatory. He lowered himself into Aunt Maud's favourite chair and tossed the novel onto the floor. He had an excellent view of the garden and the corpse.

  Ex-DSI Maudling's blood flowed down his body and in between the cracks of the crazy-paving. The effect was rather artistic. He'd seen worse at the National Gallery in his student days. He watched until the flow turned to a gooey drip and the body was as pale as bread.

  It was a pleasure to see him dead. He had caused the Burman so much inconvenience. Bohmu Din had wasted far too much time searching the files for a real aunt. In the police car park they'd heard the fat boy telling his sister she'd be going to Aunt Maud's. It would have been easy to trace a relative. But they had been unlucky. Months had passed before the real connection was made; months that should have seen the end of his task. By now he should have been freed.

  His people had been through the family trees, hospital records, old letters they'd stolen from Susan's, but finally Aunt Maud turned up by accident in the police gazette archive: “Aunt Maud Hangs Up His Cuffs.”

  The grinning fool, holding his plaque, shaking hands with his successor in the photograph. Grinning at Bohmu Din for his stupidity.

  "Not grinning now, Aunt Maud. Not grinning. Not breathing. A real retirement. So, now my dead aunt, it is time for you to tell me where you are keeping my angel."

  28

  Very few letters from outside Burma make it to addresses inside the country unopened. Packages are particularly tempting for the officers at the Communications
Centre off Merchant Street. The parcels are checked against a list of people who are allowed to receive their mail untampered. This list includes selected diplomats, all in-favour senior army personnel, advisors, big investors, and influential underground figures. Mail to anyone else may be opened and confiscated at the discretion of the screening department. Edibles and re-saleables sent by relatives overseas stand no chance of making it past their strict surveillance.

  Packages of hand-written notes such as that which arrived this morning from Thailand went straight upstairs. There were people upstairs who did nothing but read. Often a paragraph would be enough to decide whether it was a threat to national security or a love letter. Both made particularly interesting reading. But the confessions and allegations of Dr. Shirley kept the army sergeant enthralled for the greater part of the morning. He enjoyed the chance to practice his English, and found something oddly erotic in its brazen style. He wrote a brief summary of the contents, as was his directive, and sent it further upstairs to Director U Thay Winn.

  Major Winn was one of the old guard. He had served a long apprenticeship at the Karen and Shan fronts before they were secured. Yet he lacked the ambition to join colleagues of equal seniority in parliament. He was however unquestionably loyal. The name he read in the summary—that of Bohmu Din—was well known to him. He had been a living legend to SLORC troops at the front, even a cult figure. He had quickly become a favourite of the Council. Winn knew that the information contained in these notes, if it were true, could be damaging to his career. There were no contact details for Bohmu Din, and telephone inquiries all came to very abrupt dead-ends. So, he had no choice.

  He dispatched the memo, the original hand-written notes, and his official cover letter to the Security Council Office, to the man responsible for matters of ethnic insurgents. The letter spent a week there while research was done, and the following confidential memo was wired to Bohmu Din:

  To the Honorable Bohmu Din,

  The Office of Ethnic Control has intercepted a parcel addressed to a woman in Tamwe who passed away last year. It was apparently written by a Karen doctor who is active on the border and has connections with the KNU. Her name now is Shirley Heigh, although she was originally known as Sherri Ya Hei.

  The document makes certain allegations about you personally, which I shall not enter into in this correspondence. More importantly, the writer appears to have had access to data that we had considered secret. The fact that she has returned to the region and is in contact with the enemy, makes this a very serious matter, as I'm sure you would agree.

  Would you kindly confirm that this female was actually in your employ during the above period, and whether it is possible she had access to military installations or sensitive documentation.

  We have amassed all security data collected from the Thai border over the past two months, and are presently analyzing it. We will await your response before launching a full investigation.

  In confidence.

  Lt. Major Mhin Thein

  When it arrived encoded on Bohmu Din's desk, it wasn’t read because he wasn’t there. In fact, nobody at the office knew exactly where he was. He had been taking a lot of time off recently and not even his aides had been included in his plans. They weren't even sure he was in the country.

  29

  Bohmu Din had searched and trashed every room in Aunt Maud's house. There was nothing. There was no indication in any of the old detective's paperwork as to where they may have hidden the daughter. He could have tortured Maud, should have. But it wasn't to his taste anymore. He had people to do that. He sat back in the comfortable chair. There was a wind stirring outside and it flagged Maud back and forth on his door.

  "Where did you send them, sir?" Bohmu Din asked.

  There was a box of toys in the corner, so he was sure they had spent some time there with the little Eddo brat. He went across, sat cross-legged in front of the box, and upended it. The toys were all plastic rubbish: animals, cars, guns. At the base of the box were the boy’s paintings. There were people and houses. And there was one with a sun, and what could have been tents. And copied at the bottom were the words “let's go to Les Sables.”

  He remembered a name-card on the pile on Maud's desk. It was the name of a campsite in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. He sat where he was and considered this coincidence. The picture combined with the card had told him where to look for them. It was a momentous clue . . . and a false one.

  "So, Maud. You were expecting me, I see. Such a suspicious mind you have." Taking a small wooden train engine, he stepped out into the yard to confront Maud's swaying body. He steadied it, and stared into his open eyes through the glass. "But you obviously spent most of your career dealing with a very low class of criminal. Did you really believe I’d be so gullible? You insult me.

  "Are you saying that these toys were important enough to bring from their house, but not important enough to carry with them to their next hideout? I wonder whose they are. And if, after all the trouble you’ve gone to to hide them thus far, why would you leave me two such clumsy clues?

  "But you see, Auntie, in drawing me on to the false trail, you have inadvertently given me an idea. You see this. . . ?" He held up the train to where Maud could have seen it if he hadn't been dead. "Can you read it? Oh. No. I see you aren't wearing your glasses. Here. Allow me. It says, 'With love from mummy and daddy.' Isn't that sweet? ‘From mummy.’” He smiled. “‘And daddy.’"

  30

  Refusing alcohol was difficult and could have been taken as an insult. But John and Norbert had conjured up a credible liver disease as a result of hepatitis. Most of the jungle-based fighters around them could relate to that. They'd all had their share of tropical diseases. How John had managed to pick it up in New Malden was another question, fortunately one they didn't ask.

  So he sipped tea while the five old soldiers threw back shots of cloudy rice whisky and grew slowly rowdier. He sat cross-legged and stiff on the grass mat and listened enthralled to their tales. These were senior Karen who had spent their adult lives fighting the Burmese. They weren't the saloon-bar soldiers from back home who made up battles to entertain the boozers. They were crusty warriors who had done it all and survived.

  That's why the tea-sipper delighted so much in the stories they proudly told about Jim Jessel. He doubted the officials at IIC would have appreciated them as much. It appeared that much of what his father did was unofficial, non-commissioned, and illegal. As far as MI6 was concerned, he was there, on the Thai side, as an observer, a gatherer of intelligence. There were obviously some guilty consciences in the British government that regretted their predecessors' sell-out of their old Karen allies. In order to tidy up their mess and get on the boat home as quickly as they could, the Brits had struck a deal on a hastily-patched-together Union of Burma.

  If joining a union meant giving up all they'd fought to defend, they could live without it. So began the war that the old Karen around John had watched gradually slip away from them, together with their hope.

  If the truth were to be told, there was little nostalgia in Whitehall's decision to assist the minorities. Nobody could ever accuse British governments of sentimentality, particularly in Thatcher's seventies and eighties. There were business opportunities in Burma that Britain couldn't exploit as long as the junta was in power. The only way they could see to weaken, and ultimately break it, was to keep it at war. Thus had Jim Jessel been assigned as Karen liaison officer, and taken it upon himself to right history. From the stories he heard that evening, John came away believing his father had achieved more on his own in a few years than his entire government in a century.

  Although officially based in Chiang Mai, Jessel had loved his missions inside. He had felt a purpose in his work by eating and sleeping beside these proud people. He would never have received permission to accompany the fighters on raids, or to the front, so he hadn't asked. If they'd known that he'd actually planned and led missions, he would have been on a plane
and working behind a tea urn faster than you could say 'Iron Maiden.'

  That night, a million miles away from belching car exhausts and blaring TVs, John lay under the mesh net and listened to the sounds of the jungle. But his head was full of his father. He felt more like an heir than a son. He felt that he should have inherited this greatness, but hadn't discovered it inside himself. Jim Jessel would have known how to cope with Te Pao, how to protect his own family.

  How John would have liked, how he would have benefited from long talks with dad while he was growing up. There was something from his youth, from his father's later visits home, that churned around in his subconscious like a current beneath the surface of a lake. He had been there with his father but could remember nothing from their time together. Why was that, when so much else of his childhood was clear in his mind?

  If he had been able to feel this pride when he was young, he was sure it would have made up for anything else that was missing. He took hold of his father's courage and wrapped it around himself. The night was blacker than any he had known, but the knowledge of his father's courage protected him from it. He was no longer afraid of the dark.

  *

  At 6:00 a.m., all the sounds of a busy new day reminded John that life began obscenely early in the jungle. He had slept like a felled tree. Norbert was long gone. His bed was rolled into a corner, and was probably cold already.

  John bounced across the springy bamboo platform to the steps. He sat on the top one and looked around. Few Karen bases were permanent, particularly in those days. The SLORC had overrun most of their headquarters and turned the Karen army into the new gypsies of the epoch. In the dry season they split into small units so as not to give the Burmese time to set up an offensive. But now, in the long rainy season, SLORC could do nothing but sit in their Chinese nylon tents and plot the next season's indignities. The Karen could group and live briefly normal lives.