by Ben Mezrich
Mulder and Scully never had a chance to digest the eclectic images; Van Epps squired them to the crowded train station, a fairly modern complex lodged near the center of the city. He had pointed them toward the right set of iron rails, then waved them on their way. Mulder had not minded the hands-off treatment; he did not trust men like Van Epps, nor did he enjoy having the military watching over his shoulder. He and Scully were now free to conduct their investigation on their own terms and timetable.
Soon the swollen city of Bangkok had given way to a lush green countryside of dense forests and unending rice fields, as the train had briefly wound its way into the interior of the country on its journey toward the southeastern coast. Mulder had spent much of the trip conversing—in a mixture of English and inadequate French—with a Thai farmer on his way back home after a three-week trip to the great capital. When Mulder had told the rugged-looking man their destination, he had reacted strangely, backing away while grabbing at something near the collar of his shirt. Mulder had seen it was an amulet of some kind—a common Thai accoutrement. The Thai were one of the most superstitious and spiritual people on Earth, and most Thai men wore at least one Buddhist charm. Still, Mulder wondered why the mere mention of Alkut had caused such a reaction.
When Mulder had pressed the farmer on the issue, the man mumbled something about mai dee phis—literally, “bad spirits,” as Mulder’s English-Thai dictionary informed him. For the rest of the trip, he had stared out the window, avoiding conversation.
The train had taken the two agents as far as Rayong, a gulf town surrounded by white-sand beaches and sprawling European-style resorts. A fishing village famous for its nam plaa—“fish sauce,” the most popular condiment in Thailand—Rayong bristled with coffee shops and souvenir markets catering to the large number of tourists visiting the nearby newly finished resorts.
Mulder and Scully had rented the Jeep just outside the town limits and begun the long drive away from the tourist centers, trekking deeper into the untouched southern regions of the country. The roads had quickly gone from asphalt to dirt, the scenery from controlled, sandy beauty spotted by palm trees and waterfront hotels to uninhabited tracts of dense forest and rocky cliffs. The closer they got to Alkut, the worse the conditions; in some instances, it seemed as if they had driven right off the edge of civilization.
“The town shouldn’t be much farther,” Scully commented as she unfolded a corner of the map and gestured at a break in the trees just beyond Mulder’s shoulder. “I think the Gulf of Thailand is directly down that slope. And that outcropping to the right—that leads straight up into the mountains. See Dum Kao—‘the Black Hills.’ A twelve-thousand-foot ascension to its highest peak, dropping off right into the border with Kampuchea. According to the map, the See Dum range encompasses an area of nearly two hundred square miles. Mostly unlivable and uncharted—rife with mud slides, avalanches, predators, and disease-carrying insects.”
“Recluse heaven,” Mulder said. “Hide out in a cave somewhere, eat a few indigenous animals for supper, have your recluse buddies over on the weekends to watch the mud slides—”
“Mulder!”
The Jeep tipped perilously forward as the dirt road suddenly disappeared in a descending tangle of thick vegetation and loose rocks. Mulder yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, fighting to keep the headlights facing forward as the Jeep tumbled down the steep embankment. Tree branches lashed at the side windows as rocks the size of basketballs shot up around the churning tires. There was a brief second of dead silence as the Jeep lurched over some sort of rotted trunk—then the tires crashed down against packed dirt.
Mulder slammed his foot against the brake. The Jeep fishtailed to the left, then skidded to a complete stop. Eyes wild, Mulder looked up—and saw that they were parked at the edge of a cobblestone road, facing a long, flat valley bordered on three sides by the rising forest. The Gulf of Thailand was no more than three hundred yards to the left, separated from the road by huge granite boulders and gnarled trees that looked like a cross between a palm and a birch. Mulder was momentarily stunned by the sight; the clear blue water stretched on forever beneath the sky, flat and glistening like a plane of opaque glass. Mulder could make out a long wooden dock fifty yards away, surrounded by brightly colored Chinese-style junks and smaller, motorized fishing boats. The rain did not seem to deter the fishermen—tiny shapes garbed in dark green, hooded smocks moved on the boat’s decks and along the dock. Mulder watched for a full minute as four fishermen struggled with a tangled net hanging off the back of one of the junks. Then he turned his attention back to the road ahead as he carefully restarted the Jeep’s engine.
“I think we’ve found Alkut,” Scully commented, breathing hard. She lifted her hands off the dashboard and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Mulder followed her gaze, letting the Jeep idle as he surveyed the scenery.
The cobblestone road ran parallel to the Gulf, leading toward the center of the quiet fishing village. Beginning twenty yards ahead, low wooden buildings were spaced every few hundred feet along both sides of the road, with shuttered windows and colorful vinyl overhangs covered in huge Thai letters. Most of the buildings seemed to be commercial shops, but Mulder recognized a few traditional Thai houses, with thatched roofs and slanted outer walls. Most of the buildings stood on short wooden stilts, and Mulder had a feeling the town spent many weeks of the rainy season under a few feet of water.
Farther down the road, the commercial buildings and traditional houses seemed to cling closer together, spreading backward from the main road in dense pockets, some rising as high as two or three stories. People of various ages, shapes, and sizes moved between the buildings, and Mulder counted at least a dozen other cars in the vicinity—most even older and more dilapidated than the mud-spattered rented Jeep. The cars shared the road with brightly colored wooden rickshaws, attached to rusty bicycles with wide umbrellas sticking up from their handlebars. Like the fishermen out by the dock, nobody seemed to notice the rain. The rickshaws careened between the cars, the drivers shouting at one another in singsongy Thai syllables. A small group of children ran along the edge of the road ten feet ahead, a pair of barking dogs following behind. To their right, two old women haggled loudly over a line of dried fish spread across a huge blanket beneath one of the vinyl overhangs.
“It’s certainly quaint,” Scully said, as the Jeep rolled toward the center of town. “And quite different from Bangkok. It’s hard to believe they’re both part of the same country.”
Mulder nodded. “It’s a nation in transition. Bangkok is a microcosm of the whole—a totally modern, commercialized city with a preindustrial feel. Alkut, on the other hand, seems lodged much further in the country’s past. Less than five thousand residents, probably no tourist industry to speak of. Just fishermen and their families. And maybe a couple of Westerners left over from the war.”
As he spoke, his gaze settled on an elderly man standing by the edge of the road, a wide, toothless smile on his lips. The man wore three necklaces around his thin, bare chest, each supporting a tiny rectangular block of jade. Amulets, like the one worn by the farmer on the train, Mulder reminded himself: The country had more spirits per capita than anywhere else in the world. Men wore as many as a dozen amulets to guard against everything from disease to fishing accidents. Still, something about the old man unnerved Mulder. Not merely his relative indifference at seeing two farangs rolling into town—but something deeper, something in his smile and his dark eyes. It was almost as though he had been expecting the two agents.
Mulder shook his head, telling himself it was just the rain, the unending sheets of gray screwing with his perspective. The old man was simply friendly—like most Thais. The next few villagers they passed offered up the same genuine smile, and Mulder’s suspicions trickled away. As the Jeep moved deeper into Alkut, he glanced at the map in Scully’s hands. “See anything that resembles a hotel?”
Scully shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll find something near th
e center of town. Nothing fancy—but we just need a place to dump our stuff. Then we can start tracking down Andrew Paladin.”
Mulder tossed a quick glance at the forest that rose up above the town, leading into the foothills of the See Dum mountain range. He thought about the two hundred square miles of uncharted land surrounding Alkut. He wondered which was easier, tracking a recluse in all that expanse of wilderness—or trailing a man who had supposedly died fifteen years ago. He had a feeling that both searches would lead to the same goal—the truth behind what had happened to Perry Stanton.
“This looks like the spot,” Scully said, huddled next to Mulder beneath the skimpy overhang of a tired-looking palm tree. “According to the army’s records, this clinic was built over the original location of Emile Paladin’s MASH unit.”
Mulder kicked water out of his right shoe, then pushed back a wet palm leaf to get a better look at the building before them. The clinic was low and rectangular, stretching along the muddy road for about twenty yards. The walls were made of aging yellow cinder blocks, and the roof was sloped and encircled by a patchwork of iron rain gutters, overflowing at the corners into huge wooden barrels lodged in the thick mud. There were a half dozen crude windows cut into the cinder-block facade, covered in thick sheets of transparent plastic. Above the nondescript main entrance was a carved, grinning Buddha sunk directly into the wall, beneath two rows of Thai lettering. The Buddha was plated in gold, seated with crossed legs, palms facing upward in what Mulder recognized as the southern, meditative style. According to the white-haired old man who ran the small hotel where Mulder and Scully had deposited their things, Buddhist monks had been running the clinic for nearly ten years.
“Mulder, check out the building across the street. Isn’t that a church?”
Mulder turned to look at the small two-story structure that faced the clinic. The building was painted white, with a single conic steeple rising almost twenty feet above the slanted roof. The top of the steeple housed a small bell tower, but the bell was missing, along with a fair-sized chunk of plaster where the steeple met the church’s slanted roof. The place looked as though it had been shut down a long time ago, and the front doors were covered in the same transparent plastic as the clinic’s windows. “It doesn’t look as if they’re doing a very brisk business.”
“Thailand is the only country in Southeast Asia never to have been a European colony,” Scully commented. “Christianity never gained a foothold here.”
Mulder turned away from the church and gestured toward an object just in front of the clinic. It was a small wooden dollhouse set on top of a cylindrical post. The miniature house was three feet long and half as high, and had obviously been constructed with great care. The walls were painted in bright colors, and the roof was tiled in strips of what looked to be pure gold. The tiny windows had polished glass panes, and even the doorknobs had been molded out of brass. Someone had recently placed mounds of fresh garlands around the base of the house, and two long sticks of incense leaked smoke past the tiny glass windows. “Christianity never had a chance. The indigenous religion is too strong.”
Mulder started forward toward the little house and the entrance to the clinic. His shoulders involuntarily arched forward against the warm rain. “It’s a spirit house, Scully. They’re a common sight in any town in Thailand—even in Bangkok, the most sophisticated city in the country. They serve as the homes of the resident phis—spirits—of the particular building nearby.”
Scully raised her eyebrows as they passed close to the spirit house. She leaned over the beautiful pressed flowers that peeked from the tiny windows. “You seem to know a lot about the Thai religion, Mulder.”
Mulder smiled as they reached the door to the clinic. “I have an enormous respect for the Thai—always have. Their spirituality is extremely individualistic. In fact, the word Thai means ‘free.’ Their beliefs aren’t a matter of doctrine—but of day-to-day observation. If they choose to placate a certain spirit, it’s because they’ve witnessed the results of having that spirit become angry. Not because someone has told them it’s the right thing to do.”
Scully glanced at Mulder. He knew that she was trying to gauge whether or not he was serious. His face gave her no clues as he reached for the door to the clinic. “There’s something to be said for a culture that’s remained independent—without even a single civil war—for over eight hundred years.”
The door came open, and Mulder felt cool air touch his wet cheeks. He ushered Scully out of the rain and shut the door behind them. They were standing at the edge of a wide rectangular hall with plaster walls and a cement floor. The place was well lit by a pair of fluorescent tubes hanging from the high tiled ceiling, and a crisp, antiseptic scent filled the air. More than a dozen litters were set up along the two sidewalls, complete with IV racks, medical carts, and the odd EKG machine. The litters were modern, with chrome frames, steel wheels, and thick hospital bedding. At least half the litters were occupied.
Buddhist monks in orange robes moved among the patients, followed by nurses in white Red Cross uniforms. Mulder noticed that the monks were wearing latex gloves and many had stethoscopes around their necks. All things considered, the place was sparser than a Western clinic, but seemed modern and efficient. Compared to the rest of the sleepy fishing village, the clinic was almost cosmopolitan.
Scully touched Mulder’s shoulder, pointing toward one of the litters. Two monks hovered over the chrome rail, watching as a tall, blond Caucasian woman leaned close to the patient’s chest. Mulder noticed that her jacket was different from the ones worn by the Red Cross nurses, longer in the back with an open front. Beneath the jacket, the woman was wearing light blue surgical scrubs.
“Looks like she’s in charge,” Scully said. “That’s an MD’s jacket. And the way she’s wearing her stethoscope—she’s trained in the U.S. At least through her internship.”
As Mulder and Scully approached the litter, the woman stepped back, letting the two monks have a better look at what she had just done. Mulder’s eyes shifted to the patient. The man was mid-forties, conscious, with his shirt tied down around his waist. A thin line of fresh sutures ran from his upper abdomen to just below his collarbone. Mulder could see the approval in Scully’s eyes; the woman had done a good job closing the wound.
“We’ll put him on antibiotics for three weeks,” the woman said to the monks. “He should be as good as new. Unless he gets in the way of another swordfish hook.”
The monks nodded vigorously, and the woman turned, noticing the two agents for the first time. “You two look like you’re from out of town. I’m Dr. Lianna Fielding. Is there something I can help you with?”
Mulder slid his ID out of his pants pocket, watching Fielding’s expression as she studied the FBI seal. She was tall—almost Mulder’s height, with sharp features and narrow blue eyes. “I’m Fox Mulder, this is my partner, Dana Scully. We’re U.S. federal agents, and we were hoping you could spare a moment of your time. Are you a full-time resident of Alkut, Dr. Fielding?”
Fielding pulled off her latex gloves and tossed them toward a plastic waste bin. “Actually, I’m attached to the local division of the Red Cross. I make a tour of all of the towns and villages in the area, teaching and assisting as much as I can. U.S. federal agents? You’re rather far from home, aren’t you?”
Scully had stepped next to the litter and was surveying the stitches. The two monks were next to her, conversing in quiet Thai. Mulder noticed that Scully was being careful to keep a respectable distance between herself and the monks, as Buddhist law dictated. “From your cross-stitching, Dr. Fielding, my guess is you trained in the States. Is that right?”
“Chicago. Are you a doctor?”
Scully nodded. “Forensic pathology. But I’m not here in that capacity.”
“We’re investigating a case that goes back fifteen years,” Mulder interrupted. “We’re interested in finding two men connected to the MASH unit that used to be located on this spot. Emi
le and Andrew Paladin—”
Fielding coughed, then glanced at the two monks, who had both looked up at the mention of the names. “If you’re federal agents, I’m sure you must know that Emile Paladin died a long time ago.”
Mulder’s instincts kicked in as he watched the two monks whispering to one another. Something about Emile Paladin’s name had struck a nerve—fifteen years after the fact. Lianna Fielding noticed the change in Mulder’s eyes and made an attempt at explanation. “Emile Paladin is a part of this town’s history, Agent Mulder. His MASH unit was many of the townspeople’s first real contact with the outside world. And as you probably know, the Thai have an extremely—creative—way of thinking. Things that are different inspire stories, legends—and fear. And from what I understand, Emile Paladin was indeed different.”
Mulder felt his muscles tense. “How do you mean?”
Fielding started to answer when a commotion broke out near the doorway to the clinic. Mulder turned and saw an old man being half-carried toward a litter by two younger men in fishing gear. The old man was moaning in obvious, excruciating pain, clutching wildly at his leg. Without a word, Fielding quickly grabbed a fresh pair of gloves from a nearby cart and rushed past the two agents. She shouted something in Thai to one of the young men, and received a high-pitched response.
Fielding reached the litter a few steps ahead of Scully. Mulder saw that the old man’s pants had been torn away below the knee. His right leg had turned a strange purple color and was speckled with circular blisters. Fielding spoke quietly to the man, trying to calm him, as a monk handed her a vial of clear liquid. She poured the liquid over the purple area, and Mulder caught the distinct scent of vinegar.
“Jellyfish,” Scully commented, watching Fielding work. “Maybe a man-of-war. Incredibly painful, sometimes even fatally so. The vinegar fixes the nematocysts—stinging cells—onto the skin, to prevent further encroachment.”