The Bangkok Asset: A novel

by John Burdett

  “For my genes?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe something else. Maybe for who you are. You see, I saw it tonight with Krom, and I’m sure I’m right about this. They have a problem with their product. Those creatures can switch their programming at the drop of a hat. It’s impossible for them to have any lasting allegiance to anything. That’s the weakness in the program. They’re too smart and accomplished to take ordinary humans seriously, including the ones who created them. And after a certain tipping point they evolve much quicker than us.” She shuddered again. “I know they’re taking over, I can sense it.”

  “So how can I help them?”

  “They think that with your genetic and emotional connection to your father, and since you’re a mature man…”

  “They want to enhance me?”

  “I don’t know. That was my first reaction. Krom can be subtle, she dropped little hints and left me to put it all together. After tonight and what you witnessed before on the river, we know that there exists a technology arising out of the LSD experiments fifty years ago that actually works.”

  “So it seems.”

  “Think about it for a moment. You insert such people into key positions, just like secret services use moles. But these people rise to the top in everything they do, whether commercial, industrial, military—they have to, because they really do leave the rest of us behind by a very long stretch, which gets longer with every breakthrough.”

  “So you end up with a whole world controlled by talented psychos—where’s the change in that?”

  “The talent—it’s just monumental. Wasn’t that the point of the fight tonight? A world-class Muay Thai fighter swatted like a fly?” She lets a few beats pass. “She said something else, I’m half-afraid to tell you because you just won’t believe it.”

  “That’s one hell of a tease, Chanya. What did she say?”

  “That certain world leaders were already enhanced—not like the Asset, but in minor ways, using spin-offs from the new technology.”

  “And?”

  “Well, one of them lives very north and very west of here in a country that has a history of similar experimentation.”

  “Why so coy about it?”

  “That’s how she put it. She wanted you to know that, I’m sure.”

  “So we’re talking north?”

  “Northwest. Very far.”

  “Russia?”

  “She wouldn’t specify.”

  I’m watching the night go by out of the cab window, trying to take it all in. “You think Krom is a product of the Chinese version of the experiment?”

  “Maybe in a mild way, yes, that’s my guess. While I was with her she had to answer a call. She speaks fluent Mandarin, Sonchai—she was just pretending to be at intermediate level that evening with Chu, so as not to make you suspicious. Why would a Thai cop be fluent in Chinese?”

  “So she finally admitted outright that the Chinese have foisted her on Vikorn—muscled him to take her on, a spy in his camp?”

  “Sort of. Like I said, she used deniable hints, avoided specifics.”

  “But why is Goldman so keen to sell his product to the Chinese? Shouldn’t he be all secret about it, like in a nice old-fashioned arms race?”

  “Not race. Think arms sale. When my enemy needs to buy my technology to fight a third party, he becomes my friend—but don’t tell anyone. Think maybe the Chinese already have a product of their own, but perhaps not so advanced. So the U.S. has a super-smooth version that can just about go to cocktail parties and run multinationals and attend Republican conventions without eating people’s livers for hors d’oeuvres. Better they sell that to the Chinese than have the Chinese continue with their own R&D—or buy from someone else.”

  “The Russians?”

  She shrugs. “Krom made it clear the PRC is in a hurry. It has to do with the U.S. dollar. It’s a mathematical certainty that it will collapse within the decade—the inevitable consequence of a planet-wide Indian rope trick called quantitative easing: those are her words. There will be riots and chaos worldwide. And China controls a quarter of the world’s population. In the West the tightening has already started, even today there’s a greater sense of personal freedom in a third-world shantytown than a modern first-world state—sooner or later people will start to notice. The captured elephant doesn’t freak until it feels the chain.”

  “But still…”

  She inhales deeply. “It’s like I said, something big is about to go down. I have no idea what, except it will include a lockdown on individual freedom. She hinted that oligarchs and world bankers are on the committees that run these programs.” She paused. “You know, there must be something extra they do to their assets, some form of higher consciousness, like they’ve learned how to steal a measure of enlightenment.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Krom. When I made it clear I couldn’t do sex with her, I thought she was going to explode. I actually feared for my life. I suppose she thought that by going back to her flat I was consenting.”

  “What flat? Where?”

  “That’s another mystery. She owns a one-bedroom apartment on Sukhumvit at On Nut, but it was clear she doesn’t live there. Probably just uses it for pickups.”

  “So where does she really live?”

  “She didn’t say. Pretended not to hear the question. Anyway, as I was saying, she had to make a huge effort to control herself. I really thought I was finished. Instead she went into a kind of trance and started to talk.” Chanya smirked. “Know what? She started to sound like you.”

  “How?”

  “This is what she said. She said the human being is the only creature aware of death, which is another way of saying our consciousness in its true form is a product of the tension between the two, life and death. If you can’t go down to the wire with your own annihilation, then you’re never fully human. That used to be what religions were for. The hidden purpose of modernism is to offer a cop-out that turns us into manipulable dolls. No one grows up anymore. Everyone is immortal. When the entire species is stuck at the mental age of thirteen and a half with heads full of noise and football, that’s when they take over. Not long to go. Pretty much there already. That’s what she said.”

  “What else?”

  She shrugs again. “She kept referring to that batch—she used that word. They have fierce, childish emotions. According to her, it wasn’t Goldman but the Asset himself who ordered the bombing of those old men. The Asset doesn’t like it that your mutual father left the camp. To him it’s like a violation of some sentimental value, some idealized childhood that probably never happened—they just programmed him that way, not realizing what the consequences might be. To him your father has to be some old tough jungle guy from out of a Stallone movie, not a small-time dope hustler. The Asset chose a moment when he thought those old men would be out at the market to have those kids plant the bomb. He wants the oldies back in the camp.”

  The cab was turning into our street, and I leaned forward to tell the driver to stop outside our hovel. I was reaching for my wallet to pay him when Chanya came out with her last bombshell.

  “Do you know the name Roberto da Silva? She said you’d mentioned him in a text message. She said it’s not true that he died. She said he’s here in Bangkok, owns a bar on Pat Pong.”

  I freeze for a moment. It’s not the information that has thrown me so much as the incongruity. “Why did she suddenly start talking about that?”

  “I don’t know. She went into yet another personality. She became very serious and confidential—maybe a last attempt to get me into bed. Or another ploy to reach you. As I said—these creatures, they’re shape changers like you wouldn’t believe.”

  —

  If Chanya’s ploy was to share confidences as a way of reestablishing intimacy, it worked. By the time we reached home both of us were experiencing the same sense of relief: we belonged together, we would protect each other faithfully from the big scary new
out there; it was very childish and almost thrilling. Then, just when we were in a deep forgiving embrace that would certainly evolve into the kind of wholesome, tender, unselfish, fantasy-free, loving coupling that, if it exists, rarely survives prolonged cohabitation despite being monotonously recommended by marriage counselors of the old school (I can’t recall our ever trying it ourselves), my phone rang.

  29

  It is Nurse Silapin, using a conciliatory tone.

  “Detective, your Inspector Krom explained everything to me. I think I owe you an apology regarding the other night. We all thought you were trying to collect evidence for a criminal investigation. Now I know the real reason you wanted to take a DNA sample.”

  “Yes?”

  “Detective, something extraordinary has happened to the man you think may be your father. In view of the fact that you may be the next of kin, I think you should come immediately.”

  “Okay.”

  “Detective, I’m sorry, but the administration has requested me to insist. There can be no swabs, not even for the most intimate of reasons.”

  “Right. I learned my lesson.”

  I pull my clothes back on and run down the soi to Sukhumvit to find a cab. I tell the driver to take me to the hospital, and as we flash down a black and empty street, I think about that word: extraordinary. Not negative, exactly; not necessarily positive either. Do I really need ambiguity right now?

  At the hospital I knock on the door of the special room and Nurse Silapin lets me in. Willie J. Schwartz and Larry Krank are standing together at the far end, next to their beds. I think I understand the problem when I look at Harry Berg, aka Jack, who is in the nearest bed, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling, a beatific expression on his face. No matter how long I wait, he does not blink, but that does not faze me. I am in a state of intense excitement, for they have changed his bandages and removed those that covered most of his face. There is no longer any doubt, this is the Rainbow Man who stalked me on Soi Cowboy, Lalita’s favorite customer of the month.

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “About five hours.”

  “He can’t talk?”

  “Can’t or won’t,” Nurse Silapin says. “I thought at first of catatonia, but it’s definitely not that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We did a CAT scan.” She frowns.

  “And?”

  “Basically with a CAT you’re looking for parts of the brain which normally show neural activity but are unresponsive due to trauma.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, his brain is all lit up in dozens of places. It’s not that he isn’t conscious, it’s as if he’s suddenly super conscious. I’ve done some research, but there are only a few anecdotes, no real precedents for something like this. The doctors are scratching their heads. They want to leave him alone for the moment. All his vital signs are excellent.”

  I look from the nurse to the two old vets at the other end of the room. Willie is staring at the floor, while Larry Krank is fixated by a speck on the wall. I ask the nurse if she would mind stepping out for a moment while I talk to these old men. She seems confused but complies.

  I walk up to the two of them, hands on hips, leaning forward, outraged. “You gave him acid?”

  Both old men avoid my eyes.

  “He wanted us to, Sonchai. We could feel it.”

  So they know my name. How?

  “If he comes down, he’ll explain himself. We’ve all been together so long, we kind of know what the other is feeling.”

  I splutter. “Doc Bride gave it to you?”

  “He sent some.”

  “After the damage that drug did you?”

  “Wasn’t the acid, it was the way they used it. See, we had to go back past that, and the only way there was more acid. We made friends with LSD, you might say.”

  “The Spirit. It’s what we call it.”

  “That’s how we knew Jack needed it.”

  I take a step back and assess them coldly. I shake my head. There is no way to read these guys.

  Willie, though, seems to understand there is a gulf between our respective grasps of reality. He tries to remember how normal people behave and talk, so he can adapt his argument.

  “We became experts,” he says. “Not on the level of the Doc himself, but pretty good.”

  “The Doc’s something else. He’s a real scientist, a genius.”

  “A mad genius, but a genius.”

  “He has a scale of levels. Jack is on level seven right now, the highest.”

  “That’s why we’re not worried. Nothing bad can happen to anyone on that level.”

  “The whole cosmos is open to him right now. Just look at his face if you don’t believe me.”

  “The Spirit rules,” Willie says.

  “Amen,” Larry says.

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “It’s what we say when someone is on level seven: they have ascended, they are not the same person at all.”

  “It’s like with the Doc. When he’s on seven, well, watch out, that’s not a human anymore, that’s something from a higher realm.”

  I have to admit Harry Berg, aka Jack, looks pretty happy right now. Considering how stressed and confused I feel, I guess you could say he’s better off.

  “You’re really Sonchai the detective?” Larry asks, smiling warmly. “That’s great. That’s just wonderful.” I stare at him; clearly there is more. He looks at the floor shyly. “You could say you’re the reason we’re in Bangkok. We could have made a lot more money in Pattaya or Phuket, but Jack insisted we stay here in the city, so he could be near you.”

  “Really?”

  “He worships the earth you walk on, Sonchai. To him you’re some kind of miracle. He expected you to be in jail or dead from an overdose long ago. You’re a Buddha to him. He keeps telling us how beautiful you are. He took pictures of you on some cheap cell phone he bought for a thousand baht. Sometimes he visited the street five, ten times in a week, just to see you, just to watch you walk past him. One time when he was falling around drunk in the street you helped him up and asked where he lived and helped him to a cab. You remember that?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “Look,” Larry says, “we’re real sorry about how we reacted last time. We were sure you were going to bust us.”

  “So we figured out a way of making it up to you,” Willie says.

  I wait while Larry goes to his bed to pick up something from under his pillow. It is an envelope of the kind hospitals use, with plastic lining. He has me look into it: two cotton swabs, like Q-tips. He grins at me. Willie nods at Jack on his back, still beaming. I look furtively around the room.

  “I’ll do it for you if you like,” Larry says. He goes over to Jack with the swabs, pulls open his jaw with one hand, swabs around inside his mouth with one Q-tip then the other, pops them in the envelope, and hands it to me. “There’s no doubt who you are, of course. But everybody likes to be sure about stuff like this.”

  I leave the hospital with dark misgivings. I just don’t know how I feel about Jack permanently high on “level seven.” It would be the ultimate irony if, as a good Buddhist boy, I have to go into trafficking to take care of my elderly father who is incapacitated due to enlightenment. Never mind, I have the swabs now, I’ll send them off to Know the Father in the morning.

  30

  It does not take a great feat of detection. I used to know the names of all the bars in Pat Pong because Mama Nong still worked there from time to time while I was growing up. When I tick them off in my mind, one name in particular hits me like a truck. I take a cab to Pat Pong.

  It’s a discreet little pub, less than half the size of the great sex palaces that line the street. It looks as if it caters to a regular clientele and has no need to advertise: the sort of bar that remains a favorite with oldies, Vietnam vets in particular. And of course, bars like this where everyone pays cash are second only to casinos as facili
ties for laundering money.

  Exactly as I remembered, the legend in italics above the entrance reads simply Silver’s. It is late afternoon and the cleaning staff are at work making it all shipshape for the evening’s festivities: aroma of pine cleaning fluid; women with bamboo brooms sweeping; a supervisor in her late forties checking the register. There is a platform for girls to dance in bikinis, or in their birthday suits; it’s small, though, with hardly room for more than three girls. All in all the bar is a little money box that would not cost much in terms of bribes to keep it operating.

  None of the cleaning staff want to bother with me, which allows me to walk up to the woman at the cash register and ask, in the most casual of voices, “Is Khun da Silva around?”

  She does not look up. “No.”

  “Can you tell me how I can contact him?”

  Now she looks up. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She pauses in her work to assess me. “Look, if you’re law enforcement, we already paid this month. You need to check with Colonel Wanakan.”

  When she tries to go back to unpacking paper tubes of ten-baht coins, I place an arm across the till. She stares at me, more in contempt than fear. “You don’t have to tell me where he is. You only have to call him, then pass me the phone.” At the same time I am flashing my cop ID.

  She shrugs. “Who shall I say wants to speak to him?”

  “Tell him Son of Jack.”

  “Son of Jack?”

  “Yes. Son of Jack and Nong.”

  I watch while she picks up her own phone and presses an autodial number. She repeats my message into the phone, then hands it to me. Silence, then: “Yes?”

  “I need to see you.”

  “Impossible. Why?”