THIRTEEN
WHEN SHEPHERD WOKE the next morning, his first thought was of how hungry he was. After taking a quick shower and getting dressed, he slipped his telephone into a side pocket of his trousers and shoved his wallet into one back pocket and his passport into the other.
Almost as an afterthought, Shepherd grabbed the envelope of documents he had gotten from Adnan about Charlie’s Thai bank accounts. He had drafted a set of transfer instructions on the flight into Bangkok that included what he thought was a fairly imaginative explanation as to how the money was going to be used. He figured he had better check through everything one more time over breakfast just to make absolutely certain the instructions was all ready to go. He wanted to go see this guy at Bangkok Bank right away, make sure the money was moved, and get the hell out of there as quickly as he could.
Shutting the door behind him and jiggling the handle to be sure it was locked, Shepherd headed out to get himself a lot of caffeine and a big-time sugar rush. He had the feeling he was going to need both.
Downstairs in the lobby, Mr. Tang, the elderly Thai-Chinese who ran the Grand, was at his customary post behind the front desk, while Hamster was sprawled on a couch reading the Bangkok Post. Shepherd had no idea what Hamster’s real name was. He was a wiry little Brit with the nervous habit of wiggling his nose whenever he talked and Shepherd had always assumed that unfortunate affliction was the source of his nickname. Hamster had been living at the Grand since before anyone Shepherd knew could remember, and Hamster was what everyone, even Mr. Tang, called him. Maybe Hamster didn’t have any other name or, if he did, even he had forgotten what it was.
Hamster peeked over the top of the Post when he heard Shepherd coming down the stairs.
“Tang said you were back in the house, Jacko. You staying long?”
Shepherd smiled and shook his head.
“You finally get yourself a new apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“In Hong Kong.”
That got Hamster’s attention. He lowered his paper and stared at Shepherd as if he had just mutated into a camel.
“You’re shittin’ me, mate. You’re living in Honkers now?”
Shepherd nodded.
“What the fuck you doing up there?”
“You know. Building up a law practice again. Just trying to find a way to earn a living.”
Hamster shook his head sadly and returned his attention to the Post. “Hell, Jacko, I’m disappointed in you, man. I thought you’d given up the straight world and dedicated yourself to a lifetime of exotic adventure in the magical Kingdom of Siam.”
If Hamster only knew, Shepherd thought to himself.
The press had never publicly linked him with Charlie Kitnarok, so not many people in Thailand had any idea about the sort of an adventure he was really living. That was altogether a good thing as far as Shepherd was concerned since it allowed him to operate under the radar. But he wasn’t at all sure how long his state of grace was going to last. At least a few people at the American embassy knew about his connection to Charlie; and if a few knew then pretty soon all the rest would know, too. After that it would be just a matter of time, probably very little time, before the press started poking around and asking questions. Exactly what would happen to his life when his intimate involvement with Charlie’s finances became public knowledge he wasn’t entirely certain. All he knew was that it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Hamster yawned hugely and folded up the paper.
“So you’re off to join the demonstration, are you?” he asked.
“What demonstration?”
“It’s the red shirts today, I think. Or maybe it’s the yellow shirts. Shit, it might even be purple striped shirts for all I care.”
Thailand was generally in the throes of some sort of political upheaval, but the results were usually pretty benign. Nothing much in Thailand ever really changed. Recently, however, the locals had taken to exhibiting their political sentiments somewhat more belligerently than they had in the past. They had adopted what amounted to team colors for each of the two primary movements. The yellow shirts were the supporters of the current government, whatever that might mean on any particular day, and the red shirts were the people who wanted to throw the government out and return Charlie Kitnarok to power.
Bands of red- and yellow-shirted demonstrators now roved the streets of Bangkok almost daily, proclaiming their support for whichever causes they had been told to love this week by the guys who were really running things. The whole business would have been mostly comic if the color-coded armies hadn’t started bashing each other occasionally. Although the weaponry had so far remained primitive and the conflict limited, a feeling of unease was inexorably sliding over the city. Would that be the extent of the street violence, or was something worse, perhaps much worse, out there just over the horizon?
“The reds and the yellows are both marching on Silom Road this morning, it says here.” Hamster lifted the Post and gave it a shake just in case Shepherd was uncertain of the source of his information. “I’d keep my head down if I were you, Jacko.”
“Hey, Hamster, see this face?” Shepherd framed his Caucasian features with his open palms. “It’s my personal free pass.”
Hamster cocked one eyebrow. “You mean ugly old farts are exempt from the hostilities?”
Shepherd flipped him the finger and headed out to get some breakfast.
***
THE GRAND WAS in one of the few pockets of the old city the real estate developers had somehow overlooked. Wedged into a few blocks between the embassy compounds on Sathorn Road and Bangkok Christian College, the neighborhood was marked by narrow streets overhung with willow trees and high walls that concealed crumbling villas a decade or two overdue for a paint job. It was a modest reminder of how life had been in Bangkok back in an age now largely forgotten by almost everyone.
In less than a generation Bangkok had been transformed from a lazy village crisscrossed by canals into a sprawling forest of glass and steel. Now almost none of the old city was left. The canals had been paved over to become roads gridlocked with traffic and the gentle swish of frangipani trees had turned into the throb of air-conditioning compressors. Shepherd knew the developers would eventually get to the Grand and its neighborhood, too, but for the moment at least an older, more tranquil way of life still survived there, and he hoped it could hold out just a little bit longer.
It was a good four hundred yards from the Grand up to Silom Road, but as soon as Shepherd stepped outside he heard in the distance the tinny screech of loudspeakers and the deeper rumble of a rhythmically chanting crowd. He stood for a moment and listened, wondering if perhaps he would be better off walking in another direction.
It was the general conceit among foreigners in Bangkok that none of this had anything to do with them, which is what Shepherd had meant when he told Hamster that his Caucasian face was his free pass. Yet sometimes he wondered if that was true anymore. Even in the best of times, foreigners were more tolerated by Thais than liked. They spent money, which was good; but they were big and loud, smelled funny, and screwed around with the women, which was not.
The innate shyness and natural deference of most Thais had shielded foreigners from the ups and downs of the kingdom almost from the time the first white men had sailed up the Chao Phraya River and demanded trade concessions from the puzzled and no doubt slightly bemused rulers of ancient Siam. In the last few months, however, shyness had inexorably turned into truculence and deference into confrontation. It was true that, for the moment at least, Thais were primarily taunting and confronting each other, but it seemed to Shepherd that it might be only a matter of time before foreigners might be tarred as the real enemy and the warring camps stopped bashing each other and joined together to bash foreigners instead.
It had gone pretty much that way almost everywhere else on the planet. Why should Thailand be any different?
FOURTEEN
&
nbsp; WHEN SHEPHERD GOT to Silom Road he stood on the sidewalk and watched the masses of yellow-shirted marchers surge by. There were a lot more of them than he expected. Was the government really that popular? Maybe, but then again, maybe not. He understood the basic principle of the color-coding and knew it was government supporters who wore yellow, but he was a little vague on all the nuances involved in the concept. And this being Thailand, he suspected they were many and largely unfathomable to foreigners.
Of course, most of the demonstrators were no doubt a little vague on the nuances as well. Many of them were not believers in any cause, but merely hired hands paid on a daily basis to carry the colors of one side or the other. Well behind them, deep in the shadows, stood the men who paid the poor to battle it out in the streets in the name of platitudes about which not one of them gave a damn. The goal, of course, was to control the government so the men in the shadows could line their own pockets and those of their friends. If one group had that power then the other side didn’t. It was that simple really. And that was why the battle went on and on, gaining almost daily in ferocity, with no end in sight.
Elizabeth Corbin slipped through the crowd and pushed in next to Shepherd.
“Where’s your shirt, Jack?”
She was a rail-thin blond, although whether natural or not Shepherd had no idea, and very tall, even slightly taller than he was.
“Gotta have a shirt,” she said. “Red or yellow, don’t make no never mind. But you gotta have a shirt to play.”
“Hello, Liz. Doing a story about the demonstration?”
“Nope. This stuff was cute for a while, but it got old fast. I won’t get another line into the paper until they kill a few people.”
Liz was the Bangkok bureau chief for The New York Times and her casual cynicism was a standard part of the kit carried by every foreign reporter Shepherd had ever met in Thailand.
“Then I hope you don’t get another line about it into the paper,” Shepherd said.
“I will sooner or late. You can take that to the bank.”
Shepherd nodded but said nothing.
“So where’ve you been, big boy? Lose my number?”
Liz flirted casually with Shepherd every time he saw her. It generally made him slightly uncomfortable, which Liz naturally realized and that just caused her to step it up. He often wondered if she handled every man she knew the same way or if he had been designated for special treatment.
“Not in the market, Liz. But if I were—”
“Yeah, I know. I’d be your first stop. You’ve said that before and I’m still waiting.”
“I’m flattered at your patience.”
“And I’m amazed at yours. Anita’s been gone how long now?”
It was Shepherd’s policy not to talk to The New York Times about his personal humiliations, so he said nothing.
“Okay, I get the message. Never mind. When you get over Anita, give me a ring. I may or may not be waiting.”
The last of the yellow shirts passed by and automobile traffic reclaimed Silom again. So much for politics. There was money to be made.
“You had breakfast yet?” Liz asked. “I think the Times can still afford to treat you at Coffee World, if only barely.”
“Sold,” Shepherd said. “It’ll make my whole day to know the Times is paying for my coffee and muffins.”
“Who said anything about muffins?” Liz asked.
***
COFFEE WORLD WASN’T very crowded and it didn’t take them very long to collect two lattes and a couple of bran muffins and settle in at a table by the window. Shepherd put the brown envelope with Charlie’s banking documents on the table, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and laid it on top.
Liz tapped the envelope with one perfectly manicured forefinger.
“What’s that?” she asked.
If she only knew, Shepherd thought. But that was not what he said.
“Just some corporate organization documents I’m reviewing for a client.”
Liz quickly lost interest in the envelope just as Shepherd thought she would. “I hear the prime minister’s going to resign,” she said. “What do you hear?”
Shepherd took a long hit on his coffee and pinched off a chunk of his brand muffin. “I’m not the guy you need to ask about that, Liz. I don’t know a thing about Thai politics.”
“Bullshit. You used to be big pals with General Kitnarok. Word around is that you still are.”
Shepherd gave Liz what he hoped was an appropriately enigmatic smile and said nothing.
“And how about your girlfriend, Jack? She’s right in the middle of everything that happens in this country. What does she say about it?”
Kathleeya Srisophon was the woman Liz always referred to as Shepherd’s girlfriend, no matter how often he told her how wrong she was. It was true that Kate was the Director General of the NIA, Thailand’s National Intelligence Agency, the local version of the CIA, and it was also true that Kate and Shepherd were acquaintances. It would probably even have been fair to call them friends. But calling Kate his girlfriend was stretching a modest acquaintanceship beyond all recognition.
“I guess there’s no point in my saying again—”
“Absolutely none, Jack. You can’t bullshit me. You and Kate have been an item ever since that mess you got into with Plato Karsarkis. I hear she saved your life.”
Shepherd knew better than to argue with Liz. He had already tried that. So he said nothing.
“What is NIA saying about the prime minister?” Liz pressed. “Is there going to be civil war?”
“Now look, Liz, just because there are a bunch of kids strutting around in colored shirts, don’t—”
“I’ll bet that’s exactly what the Jews in Germany said about the Brownshirts in 1936.”
Shepherd just shook his head and tore another chunk out of his bran muffin.
“I’ve heard something about Kate,” Liz started up again when she realized Shepherd wasn’t going to take the bait. “I know you’re going to say you don’t know anything, but at least tell me if you think I’m way off base here. Will you do that?”
Shepherd chewed silently, but Liz apparently took that as a yes. He wasn’t surprised. Liz took almost everything as a yes. Even an outright no.
“My sources tell me the prime minister will resign within a week,” she said. “And the ruling coalition is going to pick Kate to replace him.”
Shepherd almost choked on his muffin.
“You can’t be serious.”
Kate wasn’t a politician and Shepherd was certain she had no interest in becoming one. She was an administrator who ran Thailand’s intelligence apparatus, one that was both more extensive and more effective than most people knew. She wasn’t anything like the ignorant, corrupt farmers with bad haircuts who had controlled the Thai political system since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932. Kathleeya Srisophon as Prime Minister of Thailand? There was no way in the world that was going to happen.
“Then she hasn’t told you anything about it?” Liz prodded.
“I haven’t talked to Kate in a while,” Shepherd said.
It was true, but as an answer to Liz’s question it sounded pretty lame, even to him.
“Uh-huh,” Liz said. “Sure.”
“Look, Liz, I really don’t think—”
“She’d be the perfect choice, Jack. Think about it. Her great-grandfather was some mucky-muck in the court of King Rama VI. Her grandfather went to Oxford and led the Free Thai movement that fought the Japanese in World War II. And her father was a Nobel Prize winning economist who became president of the Asian Development Bank.”
“There is no way Kate is going to become Prime Minister of Thailand, Liz.” Shepherd shook his head again. “Absolutely no way.”
“Why the hell not? She’s spent nine years at the NIA and was Director General by the age of thirty-five. She has degrees from both the University of Massachusetts and Oxford University. She’s as qualified to run a
country as Barack Obama was when he was elected President of the United States.”
“It’s not that, Liz. Kate’s not going to be Prime Minister of Thailand because—”
When Shepherd realized what he was about to say, he abruptly stopped talking.
“What?” Liz snapped. “A woman? Is that what you were going to say, Jack? That Kate Srisophon will never be Prime Minister of Thailand because she’s a woman?”
Shepherd did his best to look offended, but of course that was exactly what he was going to say.
No woman had ever been prime minister of Thailand, a country whose social order is as nearly feudal as anyplace left on earth. Those few women who have achieved national office in Thailand had all been stuck away in places like the health ministry from which they could smile nicely for the cabinet photographs and then get the hell out of the way while the men got on with running the country. Shepherd had always assumed Kate had been appointed Director General of NIA only because the politicians had her marked down as a wealthy aristocrat with neither the need nor the stomach to demand a place around the open feeding trough that was government in Thailand. Kate probably seemed like a safe choice for an office out of which none of the real politicians could figure out a way to make any money.
Shepherd was about to say that to Liz when his cell phone rang. He glanced at the display. It was Pete Logan.
“I’m just finishing breakfast,” he answered. “Can I call you back in ten minutes?”
Shepherd could have sworn he actually saw Liz’s ears rotate toward him like two little satellite dishes.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Ten minutes,” he said into the phone. Then he hung up and put it back on the table.
“It was Kate, wasn’t it?” Liz said.
World of Trouble (9786167611136) Page 8