World of Trouble (9786167611136)

by Needham, Jake

  Talking to Tommy wouldn’t help him very much, Shepherd knew, but talking to Tommy would get him in to see Tommy’s boss. And that was a different matter altogether.

  He could call Kate directly, at least he thought he could, but approaching her through Tommy seemed a better way to reach her for at least two reasons. First, Kate was the Director General of the Thai National Intelligence Agency, not exactly the sort of person you rang up and expected to be put through to right away. And second, he and Kate had a history of sorts. The problem was, Shepherd wasn’t entirely certain they both saw that history in exactly the same way.

  Kate wouldn’t necessarily tell him what she knew about why Adnan was murdered just because he asked her to. But then again, she might. Particularly if she thought he might be in danger, too. They had a healthy enough history for that. At least he thought they did.

  There were not many Thai women in government, fewer still in powerful positions, and absolutely none as gorgeous and refined as Kate. Governments rose and fell in Thailand with monotonous regularity, but Kate had remained in control of NIA for more than four years while three prime ministers had come and gone. Shepherd knew some people wondered why. He guessed it was pretty simple. By now Kate must have gotten enough on the shifting cast of ignorant, corrupt Thai politicians to have the blundering old fools in mortal terror of her. This attractive, elegant, soft-voiced woman, not yet forty years old, was probably the J. Edgar Hoover of Thailand.

  After poking around a little online, Shepherd found a four o’clock flight to Bangkok the next afternoon. It arrived around 6:00 P.M. and then there was an overnight flight from Bangkok to Dubai that left at 2:00 A.M. That would give him nearly eight hours between flights. More than enough time to get back and forth from the airport, meet with Kate somewhere, and ask her what he needed to ask. And doing it that way had the additional advantage of letting him keep his promise to Charlie to come back to Dubai as soon as he finished everything he needed to do. He would just skip over mentioning to Charlie that making a stopover in Bangkok to meet with Kate was one of the things he needed to do.

  Shepherd booked first class seats for himself on both flights and then took out his phone to call Tommy. Maybe Tommy could even arrange for him to bypass Thai immigration and save him from standing in those long, slowly creeping lines at the Bangkok airport. Of course the little weasel could arrange for him to bypass immigration. He would damn well insist on it.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SOMEWHAT TO SHEPHERD’S surprise, everything was arranged in Bangkok exactly the way he had asked. As soon as the aircraft door opened a dark-skinned man wearing gold-rimmed sunglasses and a white shirt with a blue tie slipped inside and scanned the first class cabin. He held a brief, whispered conversation with a stewardess in the forward galley and she turned and pointed at Shepherd. Shepherd fought back the impulse to wave.

  The man led Shepherd out into the loading bridge while the flight attendants held the other passengers on the plane. He opened a small door set into one side of the bridge and pointed to a set of metal stairs attached to its exterior. A big black Mercedes was waiting on the parking apron at the bottom of the stairs. The windows were so heavily tinted it was impossible to see who was inside, but Shepherd figured he could guess.

  The driver got out as Shepherd came down the stairs and opened the right rear passenger door. He was a serious looking guy, not so much big as barrel-chested and solid. He had a close-cropped military-style haircut and wore a black safari suit. Shepherd nodded at him and slid into the backseat of the car.

  “It’s been a while,” Tommy said. He didn’t offer his hand.

  “You don’t sound too sorry about that,” Shepherd said. He didn’t offer his hand either.

  “Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not. I like you, Jack, but let’s face it. When you lived here, you were a pain in the goddamn ass.”

  The Mercedes pulled away from the plane and followed a road marked out with yellow lines painted on the tarmac, one that was used primarily for luggage carts and catering vans.

  “I checked a bag,” Shepherd said. “We need to go by baggage claim.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “What do you mean, don’t worry about it? I don’t want to lose my suitcase.”

  “We’ve already pulled it from the aircraft. It’s in the back.”

  Shepherd nodded, impressed in spite of himself. They drove parallel with the terminal building until they passed the last loading bridge, then they made a right and after that another right and passed through a sliding chain-link gate. A half dozen soldiers stood to one side and saluted the darkened windows of the car. The soldiers were in full battle dress and had automatic weapons slung across their chests.

  “What’s with the storm troopers?” Shepherd asked.

  Tommy shot him a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’ve got heavily armed troops guarding the airport. It looks like somebody is expecting trouble.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re expecting. Maybe you should tell your pal that we’re ready for him.”

  “I don’t do politics, Tommy. I’m just a lawyer who manages money.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that shit from you before, Jacko. You can’t wipe the mud off that easy. Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.”

  “You got anymore clichés you want to toss out while I’m still listening?”

  “Yeah, try this one. Go fuck yourself.”

  “Hey,” Shepherd said, spreading his hands, “I thought you said you liked me.”

  “I lied, asshole.”

  ***

  WITHIN MINUTES THEY were out of the airport and speeding down the expressway into Bangkok. The big Mercedes was like the QE2 cutting through a fleet of dinghies, and the hood ornament held the setting sun like a gun sight. Out of the corner of his eye, Shepherd looked Tommy over. He had a soft, almost pink face, and he wore plain, black-rimmed glasses. His dark hair was neatly cut and he was conservatively dressed in a dark suit that was neither snappy nor expensive, a white shirt, and a plain tie with a muted pattern. He looked like he could have been just about anybody which, when Shepherd thought about it, was probably what made him good at what he did. Still, Tommy looked older than the last time Shepherd had seen him, and not the kind of older that comes purely from the passage of time. It was the kind that came from nerves and fear whittling you down, the kind that tugged at the skin under your eyes and etched deep lines into your forehead.

  “So how’s the spy business these days?” Shepherd asked.

  Tommy turned his head very slowly and looked at him without expression.

  “How many times do I have to tell you, Jack, I am not a spy. I am merely the deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

  “Got it,” Shepherd nodded. “But seriously, how’s the spy business?”

  Tommy smiled in spite of himself.

  “I’m keeping pretty busy,” he said after a moment. “There’s a lot going on.”

  “Other than the red shirts and the yellow shirts?”

  Tommy shrugged. “There’s a lot going on,” he repeated.

  The Mercedes entered the outskirts of Bangkok and Shepherd stared idly out the window as it worked its way into the city. No one would ever claim Bangkok was a beautiful city, but it was twilight and Shepherd thought Bangkok looked a lot better at twilight than it did in the hard light of midday. Some people said there was so much crap in Bangkok’s air that it would be easier to walk on it than to breath it, but there was something undeniably magical in how, just after sunset, all that pollution colluded with the last rays of the sun to make the sky glow with a soft, mango-colored haze. For a few minutes at least, the light turned dreamy and otherworldly. Like a blanket of fresh snow, it camouflaged the ugliness. Twilight was as good as Bangkok got.

  Shepherd heard the soft crackling sound of static from the front seat and a radio suddenly spat a blast of colloquial Thai spoken so rapidly Shepherd didn’t unders
tand a word.

  The driver glanced back at Tommy. “Rod mae kwang thanon Petchburi trong soi Asoke,” he said. “Rod ja tit maak krub.”

  “Pai tang eun dai mai?” Tommy asked.

  “Long pai soi Ekamai, Laew Pai Tang Sukhumvit. Arj ja dee kwa krub.”

  Tommy pulled a Blackberry out of the inside pocket of his jacket and studied the screen. He punched a speed dial key and lifted it to his ear. Then he turned slightly away, murmured a few words, and listened.

  “Yes,” he said after a few moments. “Yes, I think so.”

  “What’s going on?” Shepherd asked.

  Tommy ignored him and listened some more. Then he looked at his watch.

  “Thirty minutes, maybe a little more,” Tommy said into the phone.

  He returned the Blackberry to his jacket and leaned toward the driver.

  “Pai apartment ti thanon Sathorn,” he said.

  “Are you going to cut me in here?” Shepherd asked.

  Tommy leaned back and scratched at his neck.

  “We’ve changed the location for your meeting,” he said after a moment.

  “Trouble in River City?”

  “There’s usually trouble in River City.”

  Shepherd thought back to the riot on Silom Road when he had been attacked by a teenage kid apparently keen to take his head off with an iron bar and eventually beaten to the ground by an old lady wielding a folding chair. Bangkok had been on edge for months and he knew some people were even beginning to whisper the unthinkable. That the whole place might be about to come down around their ears. Shepherd wasn’t so sure about that. Thailand had always had a near mystical way of righting itself just before it went over a cliff. But he knew things were getting worse, and that things might even get a lot worse before they got better. That is, assuming they ever did get better.

  “What’s happening today?” Shepherd asked.

  “Your red shirts have stolen some buses and blocked Petchaburi Road.”

  “They’re not my red shirts, Tommy.”

  Tommy snorted, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Snort all you want, little man. I have nothing to do with the red shirts.”

  “Save you breath, Jacko. You may have my boss fooled. But you’re not fooling me.”

  Shepherd let that pass. He was tired of fencing with Tommy. “Why do you care about buses blocking Petchaburi Road anyway?”

  “Traffic will be backed up halfway to the Cambodian border. We’ll never get across town tonight.”

  “Where across town are we going?”

  “Nowhere now.”

  “So where across town were we going?”

  “You don’t need to know that.”

  “Where are we going now?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Tommy, you’re so full of shit. You think I’m going to run around telling everybody where your shitty little safe houses are, you stupid turd?”

  “There we go.” Tommy bobbed his head and grinned. “There’s the guy we all remember. What was with all the politeness and restraint anyway, Jacko? You used to be all attitude, man. I miss that.”

  “Ah, fuck you,” Shepherd said, and went back to staring out the window.

  “Right,” Tommy nodded, “Fuck me. I love Americans. Yeah, I really do.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE CAR TURNED into Soi Ekamai, the main thoroughfare through one of the city’s most popular residential and commercial districts, and immediately bogged down in traffic. Shepherd knew the Ekamai area pretty well and was surprised to see it so crowded. Although there were generally plenty of people around, Soi Ekamai wasn’t exactly Fifth Avenue. He wondered what was going on.

  Almost as if he knew exactly what Shepherd was thinking, Tommy pointed out the window. “Take a good look, Jacko. Those are the kind of people you’ve teamed up with.”

  Scattered among the street vendors and sidewalk peddlers who crowded the city’s sidewalks day and night, Shepherd saw up and down the street loose knots of people dressed in identical red polo shirts. They could have been students and alumni headed to a University of Alabama football game. But of course they weren’t.

  “I haven’t teamed up with anybody, Tommy. I’m just—”

  “Yeah, I know. You’re just a lawyer. Save it, Jacko. I think you’re full of shit.”

  “Possibly so, little man. But not about that.”

  The red shirts were mostly male, and young, and none of them were doing very much but hanging around. Some of them were eating, but then Thais were always eating. Most of them were just standing there and quite a few were watching the Mercedes as it crawled by.

  “Why are they looking at us?”

  “Big car, government plates, darkened windows,” Tommy shrugged. “They probably think you’re somebody important.”

  “I am somebody important.”

  Shepherd reached for the button to open the window, but Tommy lunged across the seat and slapped his hand away.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” he snapped.

  “I was going to wave.”

  “Wave? Wave? Have you lost your goddamned mind, Jack? These are dangerous people.”

  “They don’t look very dangerous to me.”

  “You just can’t see it, can you, Jack?” Tommy shook his head. “People like you, you can’t ever see it.”

  “People like me? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Americans, Brits. You people from countries where nothing has changed in hundreds of years. You think life just goes on the same way forever. You think civilization is like the air you breathe. It’s just there and it always will be. Tomorrow your mail will be delivered and the trash will be picked up and you’ll drive down to the club and play a little golf with your pals. Out here, my friend, we know it can all be gone in a moment. We’ve lived it. We’ve lost it and gotten it back and lost it again. We’ve done it over and over. You don’t know a goddamned thing about that.”

  “I know that—”

  “You know shit, asshole. Ask the people in New Orleans how strong civilization is. The government gave up on them and in twenty-four hours they were ripping each other’s hearts out. We’re savages, Jacko. We’re twenty-four hours from the fucking jungle. Without government and law, we’re nothing but animals.”

  Shepherd looked back out the window at the groups of red shirts gathered along both sides of the street. He understood what Tommy was saying. He even more or less agreed with him. But these particular guys looked pretty benign to him. Mostly it was hard for Thais to look anything other than benign.

  “These are just people with a different idea of Thailand than you have, Tommy. That’s called democracy. Thailand is a democracy, isn’t it?”

  “They’re barbarians,” Tommy snorted. “They want to destroy everything we’ve built, everything that gives this country a chance at a real future.”

  “The barbarians are at the gate, huh?”

  Tommy said nothing. He just looked away.

  On the sidewalk just outside the window a young boy who appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen was juggling a stubby iron bar in one hand. While Shepherd watched, he flipped the bar back and forth between his hands, but the kid was too young and skinny to be threatening so it didn’t particularly bother Shepherd.

  “There’s going to be a civil war in Thailand, Jacko.” Tommy was still looking away, but he spoke in a voice tight with anger. “Your pal General Kitnarok is going to lead that rabble out there into the streets and the rest of us are going to fight back. We’re not going to let people like that take over our country. We’ll do whatever it takes to stop them. Whatever it takes.”

  “You’re afraid of people like that, aren’t you, Tommy?”

  “I’m afraid of what they might do to this country.”

  “The folks on your side aren’t exactly candidates for sainthood.”

  “You haven’t any fucking idea what you’re—”

 
A loud noise cut Tommy off, a single metallic bang as if something had fallen from the sky onto the roof of the car.

  “What the fuck was that?” Tommy snapped.

  Almost immediately there were two more bangs, but this time they had both seen the rocks come arcing in from the sidewalk before they hit the car. Shepherd cut his eyes back to the red-shirted kid with the iron bar just in time to see the kid wind up and fling the bar at the Mercedes. It hit flat against Shepherd’s window, the same one he had started to roll down before Tommy stopped him. The glass spidered to the edge of the frame, but it didn’t break. Shepherd had never thought much before that about the benefits of bullet resistant glass, but right at that moment it seemed to him to be one of the world’s greatest inventions.

  The driver wrenched the steering wheel to the left and popped the accelerator. The heavy Mercedes swayed into the opposite traffic lane and jerked as the driver cut between a bus and a delivery van and shot away up a side street.

  “You fucks!” Tommy screamed. He twisted around in his seat toward where the red shirts along Soi Ekamai were rapidly disappearing behind them. “You fucking cunts! We’ll destroy you, you lousy little shits! We’ll kill you all!”

  Leaning his head back against the seat, Shepherd closed his eyes. He had no doubt Bangkok was entering a slow slide into chaos. Malice and spite were everywhere. He could even feel it in the dim grayness of the early evening.

  Tommy’s breathing turned ragged as he struggled to control himself.

  “Fucking shits,” Tommy muttered, and then he was quiet.

  Shepherd said nothing.

  ***

  A FEW MINUTES Shepherd opened his eyes and straightened up. They were on Rama IV Road cruising steadily through traffic toward the financial district. He saw no more knots of red shirts on the sidewalks.