The other two men brandished machetes and waited on a signal from the alpha male, while the second woman backed away from the scene. By the time Connie could find a useful position, Danko had already disarmed the two machete-wielding young men, and held the alpha-male by the throat, practically lifting him off his feet. Connie reached over the shoulder of the first woman to yank the pistol high – it went off into the upper branches of an acacia tree.
“I’ll take that,” she said, as she wrenched the pistol away. A few feet away, Danko grunted and cursed, and dropped the alpha.
“What the… dammit, Connie.” He pulled a red-tailed dart out of his arm, and took two angry steps toward the second woman, who dropped what looked like a plastic gun and sought shelter behind the truck.
“What the hell did you shoot him with?”
Of course, the woman was useless, and Connie saw why once she brought her into full view, quaking in fear, little more than a teenager.
“Sleepy drug,” the older woman said, and gestured to the bear cub.
“That’s just great,” Danko said. “Let’s just take the truck and get out of here. I’m gonna have a helluva headache in the morning.” He shoved the remaining cages off the back, and kicked open the ones holding the bear and the big cat.
Connie herded the poachers off to one side, while Danko found a seat on the wooden planks of the flatbed.
“Not you,” Connie barked, waving the pistol at the teenager. “You’re coming with us. Tell her, Danko. You speak Thai, don’t you?”
“No, do you?” He barked a few phrases at the girl in the slangy Cantonese-Dai patois he’d learned after a couple of decades living with the Shan.
When the girl didn’t move, still frozen in fear, Connie shoved her in the passenger seat. “Tell her we’re not gonna hurt her.”
“She probably speaks enough English. Look at her.”
Connie did look, once the emotional intensity of their initial encounter had tapered off, and she saw the girl nod. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just show us the way back to the main road.”
“Don’t try to follow,” Danko said to the rest of the poachers. “We’ll leave her and the truck in Ranong, by the marina.”
Connie handed the pistol to Danko, who had pushed the girl to the center to make room for himself. Once everyone was settled, and the keys located, Connie slipped the truck into gear and headed off in the general direction indicated by the girl.
Phetkasem Road meandered through one nature preserve after another, punctuated occasionally by tiny villages. Mainly dirt or gravel, with intermittent stretches of pavement, they were able to make good time, by Thai standards, which meant nearly seven hours to cover a little more than two hundred miles. Danko tossed the pistol out the window once they were a few miles along, and then promptly fell asleep.
“I can’t believe you shot him.”
“I’m sorry, miss. You came on us so suddenly. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Fair enough,” Connie said. “What’s your name?”
“Sessy.”
“Just Sessy?”
“Siriporn.”
“Well, Sessy Siriporn, was that your family back there?”
“My brother and his friends.”
“Are they going to report us to the Police?”
“I don’t think so, Miss. My brother, Somchai…”
“Was he the bossy one?”
“Yes. He promised our mother to keep me safe… and this is our uncle’s truck.”
“Is poaching the family business?”
“Absolutely not, Miss.” Connie was surprised the girl could find the wherewithal to be offended by her suggestion, since she’d practically been abducted by two strangers in the dark in the middle of nowhere, with a party of poachers no less. “Somchai wants to raise money to buy a motorcycle.”
“… and you just came along for the ride?”
“School starts in a week, and I’ve been doing chores all summer.”
“I get it,” Connie said. “If all goes well, we should be out of your hair by morning. Then you can tell you mother and your uncle whatever story you like.”
The sun had just cleared the trees lining the bay east of Ranong when they pulled up outside a shopping plaza near the airport, and food stalls had begun to stir in the downtown area. Danko was still quite groggy, and with his overnight stubble, he resembled a bear more than a man at that moment.
“Can you drive your uncle’s truck?”
“Yes, Miss.”
While Danko tried to shake the cobwebs out on the side of the road, Connie rummaged in her pack and fished out a wad of cash. She counted out fifty thousand baht, which amounted to roughly fourteen hundred dollars, and handed it to the girl. “Here, Sessy Siriporn, you can help your brother buy his motorcycle… or maybe buy one of your own.”
The girl thanked her, a bit more wide-eyed perhaps than Connie had expected, turned the truck around on Route 4, and ground the gears for a moment before heading back down south.
“Oh, my aching head. How long was I out?”
“Long enough, my hirsute friend. I think we need to find you a cup of coffee, and a bathroom where you can shave. We won’t make it far if you can’t pass for some sort of tourist.”
A short van ride later deposited them at the train station in Chumpon in time to book two seats to Bangkok. The sleeper train to Chiang Mai wouldn’t leave Bangkok until later that evening, so they’d have a day’s sightseeing in the capital city – or a day spent cringing and lying low, depending on how Danko felt when they arrived.
“Then it’s a bus to Chiang Rai,” Connie said. “You’ve got connections there, I hope.”
“You get us to Chiang Rai and I can take care of the rest. Of course, we may have to leg it here and there, and maybe even take a few more buses, before we find the right camp.”
“It’s too bad we can’t just fly into Chiang Mai. All this train and bus crap is adding a lot of complexity to what could be a relatively simple trip.”
“Too many ID checks in air travel. Let’s just stick to the surface of the earth. Remember, we’re not in a hurry.”
“Don’t worry. I get the picture. I just hope there’s a shower in the next train station, because you have definitely exceeded your sell-by date, big guy.”
6
An Apartment Search
“Someone really dropped you in the soup, Lieutenant.” Army Colonel Clarence Jepsen slapped a dossier on his desk. “You must really have some juice to jump the line like this, not to mention a helluva lot of nerve… and whoever it was you talked into pulling the paperwork seems to have no clue what we do here. An O-2 does me no good. If it only offends our counterparts in the PLA to have to deal with a junior, we’ll get off easy. The more likely scenario is you screw up, and set us back ten years.”
Emily stared straight ahead throughout this address, ramrod straight, cover clamped tightly under one arm… and said nothing. What could she say, after all? She didn’t have any confession to make that would satisfy the Beijing Embassy Defense Attaché. Besides, everything he’d said was true, more or less. Her presence was bound to cause tensions on his staff, and make his job harder.
“Don’t you have anything to say, Marine?”
“I wasn’t aware you’d asked a question, sir.”
“Sassing me is probably not your best play.”
“I got the letter in the mail only last week, sir. That was the first I’d heard of it. I didn’t apply for this billet, didn’t call in any favors to get it, and truth be told, I’d rather be back on the Bonhomme Richard, or stateside training pilots at Pendleton.”
“Does it look like I give a rat’s ass what posting you’d prefer, Lieutenant? All I care about is keeping this unit sharp. That means coordinating with the Diplomatic Security Service and the Marine Security Guard, and responding to every special meeting or event arranged by the Ambassador or SECDEF. I don’t know how long ‘the powers that be’ mean to keep you here,
or what they expect me to do with you, but if you gum up anything, or make this unit look bad, you will surely live to regret it. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ve got no housing allowance for you, and the Embassy Housing Committee has no apartments available in Shunyi or Sanlitun. Maybe you can find a rack in the Marine House inside the compound. Jarheads like to stick together, don’t they?”
Jepsen got too much satisfaction from the thought of her crashing on someone’s couch and living out of a duffel for however long she was stuck here. “Fair enough,” Emily thought. “Why shouldn’t he be pissed?” Of course, Michael had other ideas about her housing – did that count as ‘pulling strings’?
“Don’t worry about me, sir. I’ve already made arrangements.”
“You’ve made arrangements? Just how did… well, whatever. You’ll need to register your address with Diplomatic Security, and with my Operations Coordinator. He should be back by now.” Jepsen ushered her into the anteroom where a tall man in a gray suit was perched on the edge of a desk, clutching a clipboard and a few folders. “Gunny, Lieutenant Tenno here already has an apartment. Emily recited the address in Dongcheng she’d memorized that morning. Jepsen and the OPSCON exchanged significant looks on hearing it. “Well, fine… introduce yourself in the office downstairs. That’s where you’ll probably find the other members of the Attaché staff, including the outgoing Marine Attaché. Good luck with that.”
The staff occupied a large room in a sub-basement of the NEC building – no windows, just concrete walls and steel doors, and a dozen or so desks arranged in rows. It only lacked the dividers to complete the effect of full-blown, corporate cubicles. A handful of officers milled about, some in uniform, others in civilian attire, sipping coffee and chatting idly, and a few non-comms worked desktop computers at the far end.
From the street, the embassy didn’t look like a fortress. It had more the appearance of an art museum, but the underground compound had a rather different air. Electronic communications were managed from a special room two doors down, manned by guys in suits or shirtsleeves, probably NSA, while a pair of uniformed guards stood outside in the corridor. Security cameras sprouted every few yards from ceilings and corners.
Of course, the attaché’s deputies gave her the cold shoulder, or at least tried to, but Emily possessed a good deal more sang-froid than any of them. Finally, a new commotion broke the ice, when a stout man in a Marine uniform entered the room.
“You must be Tenno.”
The Marine Attaché, or MARA, was a few years older, though not much taller than her, and he had that harried-hopeful look of a family man – shaved in a hurry, graying hair showing just above the collar. And, yes, Jepsen was right, Marines do stick together. At least, Captain Javier Madeira had no interest in punishing her for the manner of her insertion into their midst. “I figure, if they put you here, they’ve got a reason. It may not be a good reason, but only time will tell about that.”
“What’s next for you, Captain?”
“Annapolis. I’ll do a rotation at the Academy, teaching East Asian Lit.”
“Impressive. You must have really thrown yourself into this posting… I mean for the languages.”
“Not really. This turns out to be a pretty sleepy billet, mainly ceremonial and goodwill events. You get to know a few mid-level officers in the PLA, but the conversation is always about the same old subjects. You won’t expand your vocabulary with those guys. The rest of the time, it’s briefings with the diplomatic staff, who usually don’t speak the language.”
“I gather there’s lots of dinner parties?”
“Yeah, and Beijing is not famous for its cuisine. The place for food is down south, Chengdu, or pretty much anywhere in Sichuan, and Hong Kong, of course. Really, though, the best parties are thrown by the Marine Security Guard most Fridays in their house. They call it Happy Hour, and the diplomatic staff from the other embassies are always trying to wangle invites. But where was I? Oh, yeah… no, this isn’t really the billet to learn Putonghua. I studied East Asian at UCLA, and my Cantonese isn’t half-bad. What about you?
“Just what I studied at the Academy, but I grew up speaking Japanese, which gave me a leg up on Mandarin.” Emily couldn’t help being reminded of the rebuke she’d given Yuki and Andie just a few days earlier. Yes, Japanese and Chinese share a common system of writing, at least in part, which made learning the one easier if you knew the other.
“That’s the weak point for most of these guys, their language skills,” Madeira said, slipping into a whisper. “So, maybe, try not to rub it in. Things will go smoother that way. Where were you posted before this?”
“Quantico, in Public Affairs.”
“No wonder they’re up in arms. Posts like this usually require experience in a more active billet… not to mention a bit more seniority. The Chinese are very conscious of little slights, and being fobbed off on a green Lieutenant may set ’em off.”
“Well, I was in Operation Seabreeze before Quantico, flying CH-46’s off the BHR.”
“Now, that makes more sense. Operation Seabreeze, huh? That was a real shit-show at the end. Did you see any action?”
“Yeah, a little.” Of course, diving out of a burning helicopter taking RPG fire probably counts as action, not to mention a full-on firefight with a company of Chinese Special Forces – but Emily was in no mood to offer any details.
“I know the drill… takes a while before you feel comfortable talking about it. Where are you living? Jepsen was joking yesterday about making you bunk in the Marine House.”
“I found a place in Dongcheng.”
“What the hell are you doing all the way over there? Didn’t they have anything in the compound at Shunyi?”
“I didn’t want to live like a tai tai.”
Madeira laughed. “Don’t let my wife hear that kind of talk. She’s been complaining about feeling like a tai tai for three years. But they have places for singles in Sanlitun, and there’s actual nightlife over there.”
“I looked at Sanlitun, but it felt too much like America-town. Dongcheng just feels more normal.”
A few of the other attachés snickered at this last bit, now that they’d condescended to notice her, and started gravitating closer to listening distance. Madeira made a few introductions – deputy attachés for the Navy, the Air Force and the Army, but they all answered to Jepsen. All O-3s or better, they looked at her as if they were amused by the prospect of the difficulties she’d have living on an O-2 salary, though she hardly cared. What they didn’t seem to realize was how much cheaper everything was outside of America-town and the bubble of the embassies.
“Tian Huang,” the old lady had said, one syllable at a time, sounding out the Japanese kanji Emily had used to sign the lease as if they were Chinese hanzi, and pausing to lengthen a stroke on the first one. The character syllabary being mostly shared between the two languages, one could almost see one hiding inside the other. “Dao Zi,” she said, sounding out the second pair.
Of course, Chinese of her generation knew exactly whom the first two characters named in Japanese. “天 皇, Tianhuang,” she said, now forming a single word from them and probably thinking of the “heavenly ruler,” the Emperor of Japan, in whose name so much pain and grief had been brought to the China of her childhood. But the second pair of characters evoked a different sentiment. “道 子, Daozi, the child of the way… your name is beautiful, child, so elegant, so complex. Your parents must have dreamt of the sky when you were born.”
Settling on the appropriate form of respectful address for her landlady, Mrs. Gao, had bedeviled Emily all morning, since Chinese speech patterns differed from the Japanese practice. Gao furen first occurred to her, but would it be suitable for an elderly widow? Or Gao nü shi, even though she didn’t know what her maiden name had been? Gao tai tai seemed entirely too stiff, especially after what Capt Madeira had told her about his wife, and implied a household she no longer ran. Final
ly, she settled on ayi, which felt to her like the Japanese obaa-san, or Auntie, with similar overtones of filial respect and affection.
“I suppose they did, Gao ayi. I wouldn’t disappoint them for all the world.”
Mrs. Gao laughed and reached up to touch Emily’s cheek. “I’m sure you won’t, xiao jie. My nephew will stop by later to arrange the furniture to your taste.” Emily savored the term of endearment the old woman had used, “young lady” in Beijing, though she realized it could also mean “prostitute” further south. Surely, coming from this sweet old lady, the term was harmless enough… though she could have referred to her as a “young maiden,” or guniang, instead. Had she already formed an opinion of her?
“Please, do not put him to the trouble. The apartment is fine the way it is.”
Four rooms, including a large bedroom and a tiny kitchen, Emily was just happy to have found something in this part of town with a washer-dryer. Mrs. Gao had offered to do the laundry for her, but Emily could hardly imagine taking her up on the offer. Mr. Gao had been an accountant for a large factory, and they’d managed to save enough money to purchase their apartment when the company housing complexes were privatized twenty years ago, with enough left over to buy their neighbor’s apartment as well. Now the rent from the second unit provided the widow a modest living.
“Will you stay for dinner?”
Emily tried to size up the old lady, thinking about her mincing steps and slightly stooped shoulders, wrinkled hands with long, thin fingers, and sharp eyes gleaming over high cheekbones. In her heyday, she must have been a beauty, quite a catch for Mr. Gao. Michael found her with the help of Jiang Xi, a friend of the family, and a very strange bedfellow, so to speak.
A high ranking officer in the Guoanbu, years earlier Jiang had been assigned to hunt Emily down, and abduct or kill her. That first encounter didn’t go as planned. But a few months later, his family having suffered the catastrophic consequences of failing to capture her, he came to her again, this time with hat in hand, begging her to help him rescue his young niece, the last bit of family remaining to him on the face of the earth.
Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7) Page 6