Black Buddha

by Richard Waters

  ‘I’m doing this for all of us, I don’t expect you to understand that now, but when I come back next month things will be different.’

  Penny rested her head against the windowpane, out on the river the houseboats had switched on their lights. She refused to look at him, ‘Jacques, you promised, you said it was all behind us. Have you forgotten that already?’

  He moved across the room toward her, laid his hands on her shoulders, ‘Look at me. Penny, look at me.’

  She turned around to face him, her eyes wet.

  ‘I’m not making things work here, am I?’ he said stroking her hair. ‘I have to do this. It’s the last job, I promise. After this-’

  ‘Yes? Go on, say it again, “After this I promise I’ll never go back.” Jacques, I’ve heard it before, remember? When we were in Paris you said the same, then in Bangkok.’

  ‘This is different, I don’t want to go back.’

  ‘Then why go, what’s the job?’

  He looked impotently at the threadbare carpet, ‘It’s a…’ he couldn’t bring himself to say termination. Instead he started a fresh tack, ‘I feel like a failure in this country.’ Jacques looked at Alain’s closed bedroom door, ‘And that’s a feeling I don’t want to pass on to my son, so I’m going to do the Devil’s work and then we’re going to get on with our lives, alright?’

  Penny steeled herself and tried to smile. ‘You can’t even tell me what the job is can you?’ she said resting her head on his shoulder.

  He pulled up outside the Embassy compound, a jumpy soldier with a rifle in his hand checked his passport and called the central building. ‘Mr Knowles will see you now Colonel Deschamps, he’ll meet you at the entrance.’

  The government ghoul was leaning on a stucco pillar. He looked older now, immured to his life in Bangkok, late night visits to whorehouses written all over him. And there were lines around his face where before there’d been a flush of enthusiasm and sunburn.

  ‘Jacques, it’s been a while, I’m very glad you came back for me.’

  ‘Lou. Let’s get to it, shall we?’ he said shaking hands.

  He followed Knowles to a room at the back of the embassy, many of the desks en-route were empty, the staff downsized to a skeleton crew. ‘As you can see, we’re not what we were, there’s no need for many of us now.’

  ‘So you’ll be leaving soon.’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Where’s your next posting, somewhere away from Asia?’

  Knowles looked at him slyly, ‘Phnom Penh. But you didn’t hear that right?’ He stopped and pulled a key out of his pocket, opening a door.

  ‘It had to happen eventually, I’m surprised the war has kept on as long as it has.’ said Jacques,

  ‘Well, we don’t like losing, it’s not something we’re used to. Dick Nixon’s pulled the plug on most of our operations, operation ‘get the fuck out of here’, I guess. Come in, take a seat.’

  There were no maps on the wall, no pitchers of water, in fact nothing to suggest this was a meeting of any official purpose.

  ‘Is this an assignment people know about?’ asked Jacques.

  Knowles shook his head, opening a jiffy bag and withdrawing a magazine of slides. ‘No, it’s a black op, but this one’s even more sensitive than usual. Only people who know you’re going back in are me, yourself and a few guys in Washington signing the cheque. Anything goes wrong, no-one will be there to provide backup; you’re on your own. By the way, I located Maybury for you.’

  ‘Good. What shape is he in?’

  ‘He’s been living here in Bangkok… we could have found you someone better if you’d wanted. I think he’s bitten the dragon’s tail.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘He’s a fucking junkie.’

  ‘Maybe, but he knows the jungle better than me. Did you trace his bank account?’

  Knowles nodded professionally. ‘You’ve made a will?’

  Jacques scratched his chin, ‘Yes. There are conditions you have to meet before I cross the border.’

  The other opened his hands expansively, ‘Ofcourse… we’ll get to that. Let’s just run through the intelligence first shall we?’

  Jacques looked at him warily. ‘How fresh is it?’

  ‘As a bunch of flowers. Some of the intel goes back over the last year or so, but the new pictures are just in. Carabas has been spotted again, this time near central Laos.’

  ‘Nong Khiaw?’

  ‘Yeah. How did you know?’

  ‘Just a hunch.’

  The sooner he was into Laos, the sooner his business would be over and he’d be touching down in the grey-blue of Heathrow.

  Knowles was already sweating despite the rumble of the overhead fan. He took off his jacket and scurried to the other side of the room to a projector, ‘I’m going to kill the lights a second, show you some images… then we’ll talk about that.’

  As the projector warmed up the two of them sat in darkness,

  ‘Here we go, I think it’s ready.’ The first slide slotted in to place, initially the image was blurred then Knowles twiddled with a knob and adjusted the resolution. It looked like a grey cabbage on the end of a prong, behind it the green of a vegetable patch. Slowly the outline of a head on a post resolved itself, the khaki browns and greens of the jungle behind; the face rotted, nose cavity exposed, a few teeth hanging in the mouth.

  ‘Who was he?’ asked Jacques.

  ‘A clean-up merchant called Simms… Englishman, ex SAS, very good.’

  ‘But not that good.’ parried Jacques.

  The ghoul shifted uneasily in his seat, ‘I guess not. Carabas’s men intercepted him. His last transmission was close to the camp, he described the heads on stakes… place was littered with them.

  ‘Simms watched Carabas’s stronghold for three days, never once saw Him but he said his men were covered in what looked like caked blood, and plenty of children, hundreds of the little devils. At night they were cooking up with the Devil; that was the way he described it.’

  Jacques focused on the remains of the dead man’s face. ‘Cannibalism?’

  Knowles wiped his forehead, ‘Yeah, you could say that.’

  ‘Carabas… how do you know he’s still alive?’

  ‘On his third day in the jungle, Simms saw him. It was evening, he was about ready to turn back and head for Six Clicks City when they had another one of their damned ceremonies in the woods; burning torches, Hmong warriors with their faces painted. Simms said they were bringing a black man toward a bamboo hut on a hill.’ Jacques pictured Tyrone Jones concealing his poker flush in the Mixay, the gap between his teeth wide enough to admit a toothpick, his boxer’s build and soft brown eyes; just a man who loved life and local girls,

  ‘Jones?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so. He watched him carried up the hill in some kind of procession, said he was still moving a little, must have been beaten or tanked with opium. Then Simms saw him come out of the tent, he was sure it was Carabas, the bald head, the height… unmistakable.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Jacques, biting a fingernail.

  ‘He had a knife, they held Jones, and the Lizard opened him up in front of the horde… poor bastard.’

  Hard to tell whether Knowles meant Carabas or Jones. Knowles turned to him as if he was about to cry with disappointment. ‘I was never in the field Jacques, I wasn’t made for it, but tell me… what makes a man change like that? I mean like Carabas?’

  Jacques stared at the wall as another picture flashed in place of the severed head. It was a close-up of a man’s chest, hairless and tattooed with the design of a snake with two heads curling about a mountain. The mountain.

  ‘I don’t know, maybe the darkness was always there waiting to get out. What’s this?’

&n
bsp; Knowles adjusted the focus; the black snakes seemed to dance about one another as if they had a life of their own. ‘One of our operative’s photos - another cleaner - he fragged one of the Colonel’s followers and photographed him. Not that he got far after that; Carabas got to him before he was out of the jungle.’

  ‘So how did you get the shot?’ asked Jacques suspiciously.

  Knowles chuckled in disbelief, ‘He sent them to us. He must’ve had them developed and sent on… you know how he liked to send me his little packages.’

  ‘Wasn’t aware there were photo developers in the jungle?’ said Jacques testily.

  Knowles shook his head in disbelief. ‘Carabas has people all over now, not just savages in loincloths. He’s developed… how can I say this? Into a kind of messiah figure?’ He switched to another slide, this time a dead marine lying on a pile of wood with his ears removed.

  ‘That’s what happened to the photographer, a lesson to future trespassers if you will. Like I said, the Colonel has a strange way of going about things.’

  ‘A messiah? What do you mean?’

  ‘This is going to sound strange, but there’s talk in Laos of a man, a white man who brings darkness. They’re describing him just like our black-eyed boy. And they’re calling him Jai-Dam.’

  Jacques’ gut froze. For a moment he was back in the royal palace sceptically dismissing the king’s claims of an antichrist… he’s developed. Jesus, what had Carabas developed into? All the time Jacques was learning to shed his skin of war back in England - learning that being softer was a much harder and satisfying thing to do - Carabas had been growing, immersed in jungle and darkness. And that shit spilling from his mouth- he was afraid to even mention it to Knowles in case the other thought him unfit for purpose. He felt his softened midriff, his slackened muscles. He was a father now, not a soldier; unfit for purpose. What in god’s name was he doing here?

  Jacques told him to return to the previous shot of the tattoo. ‘This sign, it means something doesn’t it?’

  ‘I think so, possibly the mark of his organization. I had a cryptographer take a look at it; it’s a generic sign of an ancient cult around the time of the birth of Buddhism, it’s called Jai-Dam.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I suggest you head to the place mentioned in the dossier - there’s an old Khmer temple near a distinctively shaped mountain a few clicks northeast of Nong Khiaw. That’s all we have for you to start with.’

  Jacques tried to smile, a film of sweat had collected on his forehead. ‘It can’t be that easy to hide an entire army.’

  Knowles seemed to relish his discomfort, as if there was something personal in it. Jacques lit a cigarette, Knowles looked away. ‘You know what I think? The reason you want him dead is not just because of the chinks, it’s opium. Carabas and the Hmong control the highlands and you need that patch to keep a hold on the Golden Triangle. I’m not stupid.’

  Knowles slumped back in his chair. ‘So, maybe you’re right. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter really; he’s a murdering son of a bitch who wants to put your own head on a spike and make sure your son never has a father. So the way I see it we’re doing you a favour, right? And you’re making sure that the chinks never find out he was still alive.’

  He got up and switched the light on, cleared his throat. Jacques looked at the weak lines of his back.

  ‘Maybury… as agreed you’ll pay him to take me into the hills. Ten thousand before he goes. I want that in writing. As for me, I want the full amount now.’

  Knowles looked back at him coldly, the geniality had there ever been any, was gone from his face. ‘You drive a hard bargain, Frenchman. Weren’t we supposed to pay you on delivery; half before, half after?’

  ‘I’m risking my life for you people… again. Before I go into that fucking jungle I want to know that my wife has the money to raise my son without me.’

  ‘I don’t know if that quantity can be arranged so quickly.’

  Jacques got up to leave. ‘Make sure the money’s transferred by noon tomorrow. Then we talk again. Otherwise you can go fuck yourself.’

  He flew over the Thai heartland in an old Dakota, Maybury beside him looking older, much older than he could have imagined. His face was famished; the wired blue of his eyes had lost their charge, just as the tan was spent from his cheeks. He might as well have been living in Berlin these past five years. The sun had fallen on the left side of the plane, the rice fields and foothills began to gain in height as they drew toward the mountains. Jacques smoked a Gitanes and looked out of the window.

  ‘I’m spooked Scarecrow, I’ve got a strange feeling about going in there.’ Deschamps ignored him, offered him a cigarette, ‘You’re an addict?’

  The Australian looked sadly back at him. ‘Never did make it back to Oz like I said I would… I just couldn’t leave Asia, Jacques.’

  ‘You don’t have to explain. Gerry King told me in a letter… he said he found you in a flophouse.’

  Maybury couldn’t look him in the eye. There was no one in the plane save the two of them and an oriental pilot. ‘Why do you want me for this mission? I’m deadbeat… look at me.’ The Tunnel Rat regarded his emaciated arms and stared emptily at the floor. ‘After I left the Nam it started going wrong, I couldn’t hold it together, just kept hearing the screaming bodies down there. I have this nightmare, I never know when it’s coming so I take the dream road, shoot up a little… soften the pain.’

  Jacques drew on his cigarette. ‘Tell me about the dream, Lucan.’ he said softly.

  Maybury shivered. ‘I’m back in the tunnels, there’s a smell down there, not the mothballs, you know… their usual smell? It’s different, a rotting smell like we had at the base sometimes when they brought the dead gooks in… I wind myself down the tunnel, it’s dark but there’s a light at the end, it gets stronger and stronger. As I get near it the smell’s so bad I have to turn back, but I can’t… tunnel’s too small.

  ‘Then I turn the bend and see its source… it’s Him. He’s on fire eating a child, but his body doesn’t burn. He smiles at me the same every time and carries on eating him. And there’s that stuff coming from his mouth.’ Maybury covered his face with his hands as if to cry.

  Jacques sighed and stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Carabas.’

  ‘That’s my dream, Frenchman. I don’t need to go into the jungle and find him… he’s already found me…’ His eyes turned demonstratively in his skull, ‘in here.’

  The sky was turning navy, the moon above them tinged in pink; it seemed they were flying almost next to it. ‘Look at it Jacques. Folks in Bangkok are going crazy about it saying it’s a bad thing. Maybe we should wait.’

  Deschamps rubbed the jet lag from his eyes and smiled the goofy grin he reserved for his friends, ‘You don’t have to Lucan.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re not going anywhere near the jungle.’ From his pocket he withdrew a bank statement and handed it to Maybury. ‘Every Cockroach deserves a second chance.’

  Maybury stared incredulously at the slip of paper then back at his friend, ‘I don’t get it?’

  ‘When we land in Vientiane you and I are going in different directions… You said you wanted to go back to Australia and start a beach bar? Remember that road trip, Kerouac? Well now you can do them.’

  ‘But… ten grand?’ Maybury’s mouth was hanging open.

  ‘It’s in your name, it was transferred yesterday. In another month, if their man’s to be trusted, there’ll be another ten thousand. They’ll never know you didn’t go in.’ Jacques wagged an admonitory finger. ‘You have only one mission Lucan - leave Asia very quietly. If they know I did this for you, you’ve failed me, do you understand?’

  Maybury nodded emphatically, there were tears in his eyes.

  Jacques laughed, ‘
You really think I was going to drag you in there? Jesus, what kind of a sadist do you take me for!’

  The pilot called to them over his shoulder, ‘Strap yourselves in for descent gentlemen.’

  The Australian looked different now; there was hope in his face, fresh blood in his veinless arms.

  Amazing how money can affect you so quickly, thought Jacques.

  He gripped Lucan’s shoulders, ‘No time for goodbyes old friend, when we get there I’ll take a cab and drop you by the Morning Market; you’re going to have to get out of there pretty quickly, the Agency still has its spies out… as does Carabas. How will you do it?’

  Maybury’s eyes flickered with purpose, ‘Um… I’ll cross to Udon Thani, then India through Burma.’

  ‘Good. No more opium?’

  The Tunnel Rat hugged him in his spindly arms, ‘Thank you, I won’t ever forget this, not ever. I love you, mate.’

  Maybury hung behind in the bustle of the evening market as Deschamps made his way to the exit without looking round. Jacques hoped he had enough savvy to keep to his word. At the end of aisle he turned round to check he was moving; the diminutive Australian hadn’t moved an inch, he stood there watching him like a child left in a strange place. Jacques grimaced at him, cocked a thumb and Maybury moved reluctantly away.

  That night he purchased a cheap longtail boat strong enough to take him upriver; he’d be leaving the next morning.

  - 38 -

  The dog was licking my face and wagging its tail, not so savage after all. I yawned, sat up and patted its head. In the cold light of day I could see it had cataracts across its eyes, they looked like milky orbs. It must have smelt its way up the stairs to find me. Yin was nowhere to be seen but the monk was down below, sat just as he had the night before in still meditation after we’d finished, or rather, he’d finished his grand exposition. It was still a lot to process.