by Roland Perry
‘Tonight.’
Rose didn’t respond and continued massaging. After an hour, she asked him to test his back. He walked around the room, gingerly at first and then with more confidence. When he stretched, there was now only a marginal twinge. Rose then worked on his back for another twenty minutes.
‘Would you like a complete massage?’ she asked.
‘Thank you,’ Cavalier said. Rose proceeded to work on him, demonstrating surprising strength in her hands. He had to ask her to ease back when she worked on his Achilles.
‘Bit weak there,’ he explained.
‘You have had injuries,’ she observed. ‘Snapped?’
‘One, partially,’ he said.
‘How did it happen?’
‘Er . . . army exercises.’
‘You are in the Australian army?’
‘Air force, briefly.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘About thirty-five years ago. But there have been many recurrences.’
‘In war?’
Cavalier twisted to look at her again. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I think you have foreign bodies there. Bomb fragments, perhaps?’
‘Christ! Have I?!’ He sat up and ran his hand over his right Achilles. He couldn’t make out anything except what he had always thought of as hardened scar tissue on the tendon.
‘A surgeon could remove them,’ Rose said.
‘No,’ he said adamantly and, thinking of his recent prostate biopsy, added, ‘I’ve had enough of surgeons.’
‘I do not mean to restring the tendon. Just to clean it up.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ he said, resuming his prone position.
After Rose had finished, he bounced off the bed and reached for his wallet. ‘I feel terrific,’ he said, ‘you’re a genius! How much?’
‘For two hours, a thousand baht.’
He handed her the money and took out another two thousand baht.
‘If you can get me across the border tonight . . .’ he said in a half-whisper, nodding to the notes.
Rose shook her head. ‘Too dangerous,’ she whispered.
‘Why?’
‘Border guards are trigger happy.’ She stared at him, assessing his reaction. ‘Why do you wish to go?’
‘Just having a look. I’m told the hill area is really beautiful.’
‘You don’t have a visa?’
‘Not even Thais can cross, because of the coup. Foreigners have no chance.’
Rose was still hesitant.
‘How do you go home?’ he asked.
She turned her head away. He pushed the money into her hand.
‘Tonight? Now?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
Rose sat on the bed and made a phone call in Burmese. Cavalier couldn’t comprehend everything, but it was clear that she was making an arrangement. He began to prepare his backpack. The conversation went on so long that he was packed and ready to go when she ended the call. He asked her to move quietly past Natt’s room. ‘I don’t want her to know what I’m doing,’ he whispered.
Rose looked at him but said nothing. He followed her to the front of the hotel and her motorbike. He hopped on the back and she drove a few kilometres to the riverbank, where she hid the bike in foliage. The sky was cloudy but the moon poked through and lit up the area.
‘I do this every night,’ she said, seeing his concerned look. She pointed up to a rickety wooden bridge. ‘Crouch low and follow me.’
Cavalier felt vulnerable as they climbed a ladder to the elevated structure. He froze when a searchlight flowed over the bridge and the water five metres below. It took four minutes to creep the couple of hundred metres to the other side.
‘Welcome to Myanmar,’ Rose said with a smile.
Cavalier remained watchful. He stopped when he saw movement about fifty metres away on the bank they had just reached. He tapped Rose on the shoulder and pointed. She squinted into the blackness. People were placing boxes and bags on a row boat.
‘Drug runners,’ she said with a shrug, ‘happens all along the border at night.’
‘What drugs?’
‘Methamphetamines and heroin.’
‘Don’t the border guards do anything?’
‘No,’ she scoffed, ‘the Myanmar government officials are all bought off by the producers. If you are on any of the roads tomorrow, you’ll see them in their big, expensive cars. They, in turn, buy off the guards.’
‘Don’t the Thais do anything?’
‘In some places, but not here, or at the Golden Triangle.’
They moved along a path.
‘Don’t talk about the Thais,’ she said firmly as they reached a wider dirt road. ‘They are up to their necks in it, especially the hospitals.’
‘How?’
‘They sell millions of cold and flu tablets made from pseudoephedrine to the Myanmar gangs. They use the tablets to produce methamphetamine. They then smuggle it back into Thailand, where people have more money. China is becoming a big buyer too.’
‘Christ! What a merry-go-round! Where’s it produced?’ Cavalier asked. He wanted to take notes but was worried she might clam up.
‘There are factories. One is near here.’
‘How do you know this?’
‘I do remedial work in the hospitals. I see it happening every time I’m in one.’
‘It’s so blatant!’
‘If everyone is involved and bought off, there is no one to stop it.’ After a pause, Rose surprised him by saying, ‘I know you are a journalist.’
‘Oh?’
‘Nattanun told me. She said I had to report on what you said to me. I did not like that. Sometimes the Thais can be arrogant towards us.’
‘Did she say what I was researching?’
‘She said you were writing something about history. She didn’t sound convinced.’
‘It is history.’
‘I looked you up on the net. You do not write history.’
‘No, but this is a story about—’
‘I see more and more young Thais in the hospitals,’ she said, interrupting him, ‘drug addicts. They have more money than my people, but we are seeing addiction on the rise too. It needs to be cleared up. You should write something to expose what’s happening.’
Cavalier wanted to tell her that was part of his mission, but thought better of it. ‘Where exactly is this drug-making factory?’ he asked.
‘The only way to reach it is by a track on the mountain that goes up about two kilometres and then down again on the other side.’ Cavalier pulled out a notepad and she scribbled a crude map. ‘Just follow this track up to a fork and go right. But be very careful. Trucks are coming from the bunker and there is no room on the path for anything but them.’
‘Bunker?’
‘We call it that. The factory is underground. It was constructed to be out of sight of aerial reconnaissance. Everyone is paranoid about drones that sweep over the area.’
Cavalier thought of the aerial photos of Mendez’s Chiang Mai compound. ‘What will you do now?’ he asked, looking at his watch. ‘It’s 10 p.m.’
‘My brother will be here soon. He’ll drive me to our parents’ house, which is about twenty kilometres away. And you?’
‘I’d like to take some photos.’
‘I thought you would wait until the morning. Rest your back.’
‘My back is okay, thanks to you.’
‘You can stay at our home.’
‘Thank you, but I’d like to do this tonight.’
‘But how will you return to the hotel?’
‘I’ll find a way.’
‘You can’t return over the bridge. You’ll have to go another route.’ She came close, looking at him intently. ‘We came across at a certain hour. After midnight there are more guards. Sometimes they shoot to kill. It’s too much of a gamble. Especially now, with curfews and closed borders.’
Cavalier hesitated. He trusted this woman because of her diligen
ce as a therapist and her concern about the drug problem. ‘When do you return across the border?’ he said.
‘The safest time is just before dawn. The guards are drunk, or drugged or asleep.’
They heard the rumble of a vehicle.
‘That’s my brother. If you won’t come home with us, it’s better he doesn’t see you.’
‘Okay. I’ll meet you here at 5.30 a.m. Got it?’
Rose nodded.
‘I need your phone number,’ Cavalier said. After punching it into his phone, he walked briskly down the track and was out of sight only seconds before the car arrived.
INCIDENT AT THREE PAGODAS PASS
Cavalier followed the track up the mountain until he came to the fork, then headed right and down again. After another twenty minutes, the path levelled out and came to a clearing, with a high wall and gate. Making out human shapes, he eased off the road and crept closer.
Guards were sitting on the ground next to the gate, smoking and talking, their rifles a few feet away. Cavalier stopped about fifty metres from them. Pictures of a compound wall would communicate nothing. For effective enhancement of any story with visuals, he would have to enter the bunker somehow, or, at least, climb onto the wall and take a shot from there. He would be an easy target.
A searchlight swept from a tower inside the compound. It lingered along the wall. The risks were too high, he thought, and reluctantly decided to back off and return to the clearing where he had left Rose. He moved off stealthily and, when well clear of the gate, began to retrace his steps along the track. He was almost at the fork that would take him down the mountain when he heard the hacking gear changes of a truck.
‘Shit!’ he whispered, breaking into a jog, then a run, down the track, lifting his knees in a headlong sprint. He looked back to see the truck roaring up behind him. Its lights went on high beam, catching Cavalier in a pool of jerking light. The truck occupants began shouting. He glanced left and right at the jungle. If he tried negotiating it, he would slow up and be caught.
The truck was gaining ground on the downward plunge. Cavalier rounded a sharp corner and flung himself into the jungle. It was so thick that he could only crash a few metres in, and was forced to duck down and lie flat, just as the vehicle bumped around the bend. It thundered along the track past him, skidded to a stop and then reversed, turning so that its headlights ranged over the jungle. Cavalier was trapped.
One of the excited occupants called to him in Burmese: ‘Get up! Get up or I’ll shoot you!’
Cavalier stood, raising his hands as he did so. ‘Please don’t shoot,’ he said in Thai, keeping his voice as calm as possible.
The driver alighted and approached him. ‘Farang!’ he called to his companion, who remained in the truck, ‘a fucking Thai-speaking farang!’
‘Get his wallet; his phone—everything!’ the other man shouted.
Cavalier took his wallet and phone from his pockets and placed them on the track.
The truck driver, a squat Burmese wearing a conical hat, pointed a rifle at him. ‘Your backpack!’
Cavalier removed it and placed it on the track.
‘What will I do with him?’ the truck driver yelled. The other man, who was fatter and bigger, muttered swearwords and climbed wearily from the cabin. He took a moment to put some gum in his mouth, then said casually, ‘Aw, get his stuff and shoot him.’ The truck driver laughed but with a nervous, uncertain edge.
‘Go on, put a bullet in his head,’ the fat man urged as he sauntered towards them, ‘I mean it!’
‘What, what . . . what will we do with the body?’ the driver asked, wiping his outsized nose, which was dripping sweat.
‘Dump it in the river,’ the fat man snapped. ‘There are more and more these days.’
‘I’ve got credit cards with big money,’ Cavalier said in Thai, ‘don’t kill me, please!’
‘Got an ATM for us too?’ the fat man asked. This brought another guffaw from the driver, who took his eyes off Cavalier to look at his approaching companion. In that split second, Cavalier lunged at the man, his right forearm swinging. He collected him across the bridge of his prominent nose, breaking it. Blood gushed from the split. The man, in acute pain, fell back, discharging his rifle. Cavalier wrenched it from him and kicked him hard in the genitals.
The sound of his companion in agony caused the fat man to freeze for several seconds before he turned his lumbering frame and hurried, as fast as his bulk would take him, to the truck. Cavalier crashed the rifle over the truck driver’s skull, knocking him out. He rushed to the truck, hauling the fat man onto the track before he could climb into the cabin. He groaned as he hit the ground with a thud. Cavalier stood near, aiming the rifle at him.
‘You told him to shoot me,’ he said in Thai, his voice steady; his words matter-of-fact.
‘No, no, no!’ the fat man replied in Thai, squirming. ‘I was only joking—not serious!’
Cavalier hovered closer, as if deciding the fat man’s fate. ‘Do you have a family?’ he asked.
‘Yes, wife, three kids!’
‘Any pictures?’
The man’s expression waxed between fear and puzzlement. He rolled onto his side and had some trouble extracting his wallet from a trouser back pocket, the movement exposing a puddle of urine. His hands were shaking so much that he could not pull the photos out of his wallet.
‘Have you a phone?’ Cavalier asked, his words sharper.
The fat man managed a nod.
‘You have one call to your wife, to say goodbye. Make it now!’
The fat man began blubbering. ‘No, please! For the love of Buddha . . . please, no . . .!!’
Cavalier walked twenty paces, picked up his own wallet and phone, and slung his backpack on. Keeping an eye on the fat man, he checked the truck driver. Blood had congealed around the break in his nose. The bash on his skull had created a gash about ten centimetres long but there hadn’t been much bleeding. He was breathing. His pulse was normal. Cavalier sauntered back to the fat man, who was lying on his back, holding his face and emitting a high-pitched torrent of pleas to Buddha.
‘The Buddha has not heard you,’ Cavalier said, poking him with the rifle, ‘get to your feet.’
The fat man obeyed, unsteadily.
‘Now, listen,’ Cavalier said, standing back and flicking on his phone’s recorder. ‘You answer my questions honestly and I’ll think about not killing you. Understand?’
The fat man nodded.
‘What have you got in the truck?’ Cavalier asked in Thai and in English. Before the fat man responded, he added, ‘If I think you are lying, I shall kill you.’
The man swallowed and farted involuntarily.
‘Again, what have you got in the truck?’
‘Pum . . . pum . . . pum . . . pumpkins . . .’
‘Open it!’
The man waddled to the truck’s rear, unlocked the roller door and pushed it up. A pile of pumpkins was evident. Cavalier took stills and video pictures.
‘What else is in there?’ he asked, coming within a metre of the fat man and eyeballing him.
‘P . . . p . . . p . . . pills,’ the fat man said.
‘What sort of pills? Show me!’
The man removed about twenty pumpkins to reveal crates.
‘Open one of them.’
The fat man gestured helplessly.
‘Got a wrench?’ Cavalier asked impatiently.
The fat man nodded, rummaged in a toolbox and pulled out a wrench.
‘Lever the crate open.’
The man splintered the top, to reveal tightly packed white packets marked with a golden eagle. Cavalier recognised Mendez’s insignia.
‘Open a packet.’
The fat man obliged. White pills spilled onto the truck floor. Cavalier, holding the rifle in his right hand, and the phone in his left, videoed everything. He took a handful of pills and pocketed them. He ordered the fat man to put the pumpkins back in the truck and to close the roller door.
As he was doing this, the truck driver began to stir.
‘Take your mate back to the bunker,’ Cavalier said. ‘Don’t report the truck missing until 10.30 a.m.’
The fat man fretted: ‘What will you do with the truck?! We will be tortured and killed if it is lost!’
‘I may kill you,’ Cavalier said, ‘then it will not matter.’ His icy tone caused the fat man to plead for his life again. Cavalier heard a groan and turned to see the truck driver on his knees, holding his head with one hand and his crotch with the other.
Cavalier found the truck keys in the ignition. He walked up close to the fat man and said, ‘Don’t doublecross me.’ He stared hard at the fat man, causing him to turn away.
He looked back again. ‘We . . . we won’t . . . I won’t,’ he blurted. He hustled over to the driver as Cavalier got in the truck and drove off, crunching through the gears until he’d mastered their stiff movements.
Cavalier drove to the river’s edge, about fifty metres to the right of the bridge. He sat for a moment, thinking. If he waited until the morning, the odds were that he would be picked up by the drug runners from the bunker. He had two weapons: the rifle, and a handgun, which was in the glove box. They were some protection, but not against armed drug runners and border guards.
He tried to ring Rose. There was no answer. He left a message that he would attempt to cross the river at night.
Cavalier drove along the track by the river, past the bridge. The searchlight monitoring the area flowed over the vehicle but did not linger on it. It seemed they were expecting the truck. He could see a motorboat moored fifty metres away. Two men were sitting on the riverbank, waiting. One waved to the truck. Cavalier stopped, backed the truck up the bank and took a few minutes to push the pumpkins out. Both men stood up and yelled but, before they could do anything, Cavalier turned the truck around, braked twenty metres from the water on a slope and jumped out. He took the rifle and handgun, then released the truck’s brake. The vehicle slid down the slope and into the water. Cavalier twice fired the rifle above the heads of the men, who had begun to run towards him. The shots caused them to change direction and scramble away up the bank.
Cavalier dashed for the bridge. He looked back to see the truck was three-quarters submerged. All the merchandise, millions of dollars’ worth of drugs, would be ruined. He climbed onto the bridge and, crouching low, hurried towards the Thailand side. He was more than halfway across when a bullet pinged into the wood near him. He froze for a moment. Another bullet zipped into the wood railing. He began to run again.