The Burma Legacy

by Geoffrey Archer

  They stopped. He heard voices. Fierce, aggressive tones, followed by mollifying noises from his driver. Sam held his breath. Tun Kyaw sounded genuinely scared. Whatever this man’s relationship with the military, it wasn’t universally smooth.

  The engine revved and they were off again.

  Before long they slowed once more. This time Sam heard the tooting of other cars. A town. He wanted to lift his head and look, but decided to wait for Tun Kyaw’s reassurance. The Suzuki slowed to a stop, then turned round. After a few seconds they stopped again.

  Another roadblock? No voices this time, just the creak of the driver’s seat as Tun Kyaw leaned into the back.

  ‘Boss. You must look here.’

  Sam raised his head. They were in the barely lit street of a small town. Buildings down each side, two or three floors high. A Chinese feel to the place. Nasal voices. A smell of wood smoke and cooking which reminded him he hadn’t eaten all day.

  ‘There is jeep,’ said Tun tensely. ‘Two men, one European. They filling with petrol. Maybe is the man you look for.’

  Hopes racking up, Sam struggled onto the seat squab. Tun Kyaw pointed to the opposite side of the road, but he saw no sign of a petrol station.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘On the left. Fifty metres.’

  There was a jeep, but no pumps. Instead a line of jerry cans stood in the dirt. One was being emptied into the vehicle through a large, orange funnel.

  ‘Black market,’ Tun Kyaw explained. ‘For government petrol you need paper.’

  ‘Drive past them so I can see.’

  Sam sank lower as they approached the Mazda, his eyes panning. In the back sat Jimmy Squires. Just visible. Doing the same as him. Keeping down.

  ‘Yes boss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sam’s mind raced. He wished to God he still had the rifle. Somehow he was going to have to stick with Squires until he was across the Thai border. Which wouldn’t be easy, because the closer they got to it the less influence Tun Kyaw was going to have.

  They drove on a little further, then stopped.

  ‘What we do, boss?’

  ‘Good question.’ Sam racked his brains, frowning. There was something here that didn’t make sense to him.

  ‘How’d he get through the army checkpoint, Tun?’

  ‘Don’t know, boss. Maybe same as me. Know people in Tatmadaw.’

  ‘But that guy with him, he’s Wa.’

  Tun didn’t answer immediately. ‘Maybe this Wa and this Tatmadaw do business together, boss.’

  ‘So if he’s got army friends and Wa friends, he could get to the Thai border with ease?’

  ‘Don’t know boss. That depend on what friends. Maybe he know military commander here, but not other soldier down the road.’

  ‘What about you? How many commanders do you know?’

  This time Tun didn’t answer. ‘What you want me do, boss?’

  There was only one thing they could do.

  ‘Follow them. Keep a distance, but for God’s sake don’t lose them.’

  Tun Kyaw looked hesitant. He held out his arm and pointed to the watch on his wrist. ‘I think we stay here tonight, boss.’

  Sam stared disbelievingly at him.

  ‘It vahry dangerous to drive more down this road in the night. Dacoits, boss. They kill us and take everything.’

  Sam pointed back at the Mazda jeep.

  ‘They also will stay here,’ Tun Kyaw predicted. ‘Big, big danger.’

  On the opposite side of the road from where they’d stopped sparks flew in a small forge. An ancient motorbike was being taken to pieces in a garage next to it and in front of the two premises watermelons were stacked for sale.

  The Mazda began to move.

  Tun restarted the engine and swung round to follow it.

  ‘How are we for fuel?’ Sam checked.

  ‘Plenty, boss. Plenty. I make sure this morning.’

  A little way down the road the jeep pulled up outside a restaurant, dominated by a large neon sign for Myanmar Beer. Tun Kyaw swerved into the kerb, stopped abruptly and doused the Suzuki’s lights. From thirty paces away they watched as the Wa fighter went inside.

  ‘Ask if they have room for sleeping,’ Tun Kyaw suggested.

  Sam doubted it. Squires wouldn’t want to hang around.

  After half a minute the Wa fighter came back out and spoke through the open window of the car. There was an argument, then Squires himself got out. They locked the jeep and went into the restaurant together.

  ‘What we do, boss?’

  ‘You go inside and see what they’re up to. Ask to use the phone or something. Give your wife a call.’

  Tun Kyaw’s jaw muscles flexed. ‘Yes, boss.’

  He loped along the road, moving with the wariness of a wild dog. Sam stayed in the back of the Suzuki, keeping low. He thought of Midge, visualising her sitting in a hotel room with her laptop, watching a dot move across a map of Myanmar and wondering what the hell he was up to.

  Now would be a perfect time to stick the tracker on the Mazda, he realised. Then he decided against it. It was Squires they needed to follow, not the car.

  One way or another though, he had to let Midge know what was going on. And talk to his own masters too. Break the bad news about Kamata.

  He glanced up and down the main street of this small town. For all its third-world roughness, there were new buildings amongst the old. And maybe one of them had a phone with an international connection.

  It was ten minutes before Tun Kyaw returned.

  ‘He make telephone call,’ he announced, climbing in behind the wheel.

  ‘The Englishman?’

  ‘No, boss. The Wa man.’

  ‘You overhear anything?’

  ‘No. I think he waiting them call him back.’

  ‘How d’you know that?’

  ‘Because when I ask to make call they tell me be quick.’

  The Wa fighter would be reporting the death of his buddy, Sam guessed. And Squires would be finalising arrangements for his exit from the country across some remote part of the border.

  ‘So what were they doing?’

  ‘Eating.’

  Sam felt intensely hungry all of a sudden.

  ‘I bring some food this morning. You like to have?’

  ‘Yes, but first I too need to make a call. Anywhere in this town with an international phone connection?’

  Tun pondered for a moment. ‘There is hotel.’ He pointed further up the road, then started the engine. ‘We have plenty time,’ he added reassuringly. ‘I think they stay there tonight.’

  Thirty seconds later they reached the hotel. It was modern and Chinese run. The woman behind the counter found the number of the Empress Hotel in Chiang-Mai and dialled the call for him.

  When Sam asked for Ms Adams room, he was told there wasn’t a guest of that name. Of course there bloody wasn’t. And the silly bitch had forgotten to tell him what cover she was using.

  ‘There’s a conference at the hotel?’

  ‘Yes sir. Narcotics Suppression Bureau.’

  ‘Then take this message and address it to Inspector M. Adams of the Australian Federal Police. Got that?’

  ‘Yes sir. What the message?’

  ‘“Keep an eye on me, Beth. I’m bringing our friend out.” Sign it – “Steve”. Hand it to whoever’s running the conference.’

  ‘Okay, sir.’

  Midge would kill him for breaking her cover, but she’d forgive him if he delivered.

  Outside the hotel again, he found that Tun Kyaw had unpacked some of his food boxes and set up a picnic table beside the Suzuki.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing? We need to be back down the road watching the Mazda.’

  ‘Plenty time, boss,’ Tun insisted, making it plain he had no intention of moving. ‘If I not eat I not drive.’

  Sam stared down the road. In the gloom he could just make out the neon beer sign, but nothing to say the jeep was still there.
/>   ‘We see if they come past,’ Tun Kyaw assured him. He pointed to the plates of rice and vegetables which he’d rustled up from the containers taken from his house that morning.

  Sam sat on a camp stool, conscious of the ridiculousness of the situation. A short distance away a murderer had paused in his flight for a bite to eat. Now he, his pursuer, was doing exactly the same.

  They ate hungrily and in silence. But Sam’s uneasiness grew. He sensed Tun was waiting for something. Moments later he discovered what it was.

  From down the road came a squeal of tyres. Then shots rang out. As Tun Kyaw ran for cover inside the hotel, Sam crouched by the Suzuki. The Mazda howled towards him, with Jimmy Squires leaning from a window, blasting away with a rifle at the army jeep that was following.

  Within seconds the circus had passed. The shooting continued, its volume receding into the distance.

  ‘Tun Kyaw!’

  Sam ran into the hotel. His driver was standing by the desk trying to calm the woman behind it.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Sam snapped.

  ‘No, boss. We stay here.’

  ‘We have to follow,’ Sam insisted.

  ‘No boss. Vahry dangerous. Shooting. Maybe you want die, boss, but not me.’

  No, he didn’t want to die. Just wanted to keep that damned murderer in his sights.

  ‘It wasn’t your wife you rang, was it?’

  Tun Kyaw’s eyes hardened. Sam took it as an admission. The Burman turned to talk to the woman behind the desk, stuffing his car keys firmly into his trouser pocket.

  Sam toyed with the idea of pounding Tun Kyaw’s head until he yielded them up, but knew that if he turned up at any sort of a roadblock on his own he’d be as good as dead.

  A few moments later the Burman swung back towards Sam.

  ‘She have rooms for us, boss. We stay here tonight. No more drive tonight.’

  10.35 p.m.

  The room was rudimentarily furnished – a table, a chair and a cupboard, a thin layer of dust covering every surface. Sam lay on the narrow bed staring up at the ceiling. A small beetle was making a slow, meandering transit of it, as if trying to work out what the hell it should be doing next. He found himself identifying with it.

  Tun Kyaw had fixed him. Firmly in control now. When he’d tried calling Chiang Mai again, the hotel receptionist had claimed the international line had failed and wouldn’t be repaired for days. Servant turned master, as Philomena had predicted. At dawn the man would want to drive him back to Heho and put him on the first plane to Yangon.

  Sam had one final weapon which he intended to deploy in a last-ditch effort to prevent that happening.

  One thousand dollars in new notes which Philomena had given him, concealed in the false bottom of his rucksack.

  Twenty-seven

  Shan State, Myanmar

  Saturday, 15 January, 6.10 a.m.

  The daylight woke him, although he’d hardly slept. Throughout the night the fear that Jimmy Squires was slipping away to freedom had smouldered within him like a fire in the tundra.

  He swung his legs to the floor, pulled on shirt and trousers, then hammered on the door of the room along the corridor. After a few moments Tun Kyaw opened it, bleary-eyed.

  ‘Time to move,’ Sam said, walking in uninvited.

  Tun Kyaw’s breathing was thick and wheezy. He flopped back onto the edge of the bed with his head in his hands.

  Sam stood over him.

  ‘We’re going after that Englishman.’

  The Burman let out a weary sigh.

  ‘Ring your army friends, Tun Kyaw. Ask what happened last night.’

  ‘Boss … not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They not tell me.’

  Sam believed him. Informers were people the military took stuff from. A one-way traffic.

  ‘Then we’ll bloody drive and you can ask at the roadblocks.’

  ‘We go to Heho, boss,’ the Burman insisted.

  ‘No. I’ve paid you a lot of money,’ Sam reminded him.

  ‘I earn it yesterday.’ The eyes were rock steady.

  Sam couldn’t deny it.

  ‘There could be more, if you do what I ask.’

  He saw what looked like a wince of pain as the man was tempted to do something against his better judgement.

  ‘How much you pay me?’

  ‘Another five hundred.’

  Tun Kyaw gave an appraising look, trying to judge the depth of his purse. ‘We go to Heho, boss.’

  ‘Six hundred, then.’

  ‘Boss, these Wa peoples vahry dangerous.’ A long pause. ‘One thousand.’

  ‘All right. But you take me all the way to the border.’

  The Burman grimaced. ‘I try boss.’

  Trying was better than nothing.

  Ten minutes later they were on the road, with the British Embassy’s banknotes stuffed into a concealed safe beneath the driver’s seat. Sam lay on the floor in the back again.

  The first roadblock came after a few miles. He heard a short burst of uneasy conversation, then the sound of Tun Kyaw reaching into his pocket. Money changing hands.

  They drove on. After a short while, Sam risked raising his head to look. The landscape was more rugged. Thickly forested hills rose up on either side. The road was pitted. Here and there gangs of workers filled holes with stones broken by hammers – men and women, with armed guards watching over them. Prison labour.

  It was getting unpleasantly hot in the car and the air-conditioning was on the blink. Tun Kyaw kept turning it on and off to try to make it work. Sam stayed upright. Lying down was making him nauseous.

  After half an hour the road dipped towards a rusting girder bridge across a deep river gorge. As they bumped onto its planked surface Tun Kyaw slowed down. The water far below was thick and green, swirling strongly with the force of the current.

  A little further on, poppy fields appeared on the lower slopes to their right, the first of the winter’s flowers dotting the cabbage-green plants with white.

  ‘Soon there will be Wa checkpoint, boss,’ said Tun, his voice reedy with anxiety. He pointed ahead where pitched roofs and a gilded temple erupted from the hillside. They were approaching another town.

  ‘Ask them about the Mazda that came through here last night.’

  Tun Kyaw ignored the suggestion. ‘Stay on seat, boss,’ he said, as Sam prepared to squeeze onto the floor again. ‘They always search car. Not good to hide.’

  They rounded a bend and saw a pole across the road. The uniforms of the soldiers guarding it were a darker green than the Tatmadaw and the men wore Chinese forage-caps. They stared at the approaching car with malevolent interest. As if they were expecting it.

  ‘This not good, boss,’ Tun warned through clenched teeth, hunching his shoulders.

  They stopped at the guard post. Soldiers took up positions each side of the car, opened the doors and barked instructions. Their faces were absurdly young and totally uncompromising.

  ‘They tell us get out,’ Tun Kyaw translated. His fear was infectious. Sam began to sweat profusely. The rock in his stomach told him things were about to go badly wrong.

  Hands grabbed as they stepped onto the tarmac, spinning them round and pushing them against the vehicle. Intrusive fingers probed their bodies for weapons. All the while Tun was bombarded with questions. His answers were curt. Little more than grunts. Then two of the soldiers took him away, round the back of the guardhouse. Sam heard slaps and voices rising to a pitch of anger.

  ‘Look, he’s just my driver,’ he protested. The boys in uniform stared sullenly at him, keeping their rifles aimed at his stomach.

  He could hear Tun Kyaw talking now. A torrent of words. Humble, cringing sounds, which suffused him with guilt at having bullied the man into this. When, after a few minutes, they brought him back to the car, Tun Kyaw’s nose streamed blood.

  The soldiers pointed at the ground, indicating they should sit. Their hands were wrenched behind their backs
and tied with plastic cable ties.

  A soldier who looked senior to the others retired to the guardhouse. Through the open window they could see him pick up a phone.

  ‘You all right?’ Sam whispered, turning to Tun Kyaw. A sentry kicked him in the back to silence him.

  It was several more minutes before the senior soldier re-emerged. When he did, they were jerked from the ground and pushed into the back of the Suzuki. Two soldiers occupied the front and one of them began to drive.

  ‘You speak any English?’ Sam asked. The men in front ignored him.

  He turned to Tun Kyaw and asked if he knew where they were going, trying to sound calm. The Burman was trembling and ignored him too, his face taut with fear.

  The road twisted its way steadily upwards. Sam had visions of being taken to a ravine and pushed over the edge, a bullet in the brain. He told himself they were probably driving to a headquarters, however. Somewhere where there might be an English-speaker.

  The road surface improved as they headed further east. Paved with drug money, Sam guessed. Orchards had been planted along it, as if to convince visiting UN inspectors that the switch from opium into other crops was actually happening.

  Soon there were signs of a town ahead, a modern place of flat roofs and satellite dishes. On the outskirts they passed a small industrial zone, two large sheds which matched the description Midge had given him in Bangkok. He imagined ya-ba pills being churned out in their millions inside.

  Then they passed a large barracks, as neat and tidy as that of a regular army. Tucked away on a parade ground, artillery pieces were lined up. The fiefdom of the UWSA was a state within a state.

  One of the soldiers kept turning to stare at him, as if wanting to make the most of the opportunity to eye up a foreigner. Sam felt like some rare but doomed species, soon to be examined in more detail on a pathologist’s slab.

  They entered a downtown area of shops and markets. The people on the streets were mostly young, many of the males in uniform. The Suzuki swung left and stopped at a striped pole guarding the entrance to another military base. Words were spoken with the guard, a report filed on a walkie-talkie and the pole lifted. Inside, neat roadways were interspersed by swards of well-watered lawns. They stopped outside a white, two-storey building guarded by sentries.