by Lee Weeks
70
The next morning the atmosphere in the camp was subdued. No one had really slept except Gee, who seemed to thrive on the basics and didn’t feel the stress levels. After washing and cooking up some coffee, they headed off just as the dawn was filtering through the tops of the trees. All around, the earth was coming alive with the sounds of calling birds. They struck away from the river in order to stay hidden and crossed over what appeared to be a well-used path. Louis stopped to check for signs that others had been that way.
‘Who makes these tracks, Louis?’ Mann caught up with him as he was examining some donkey droppings.
‘Drug runners mainly.’
‘I thought the Thai government had stamped that out?’
‘They don’t move the drugs by road any more. The only way to move the stuff is by mule.’ Louis stood. ‘You’re never going to stop it. Just because the Opium King surrendered, it didn’t mean anything had to stop. He left a fully-functioning supply chain from grower to smuggler. It was never going to stop just like that. Others slotted straight into a very well-oiled business whilst he made a deal to live the rest of his life under luxury house arrest in Rangoon. The Burmese government are expanding their opium production daily. They have moved their refineries away from the Thai border, that’s all.’
‘Have you ever been to this old refinery that we’re headed to?’
‘Yes, I’ve stopped there sometimes with the backpack medic team. It’s an eerie place. Things were just left abandoned. It feels like a place full of ghosts. Doesn’t it, Alak?’ Louis called softly across to the captain as he passed them, ever watchful, his eyes alert for any signs of trouble. Mann thought again how haunted Alak looked. He had the demeanour of a man who had never known a day without struggle. They caught him up and walked alongside him.
‘Why do you think he will go there, Alak?’ asked Mann.
‘I know him well. I feel his fear. He is scared now. He has had the five for two weeks. Whatever he hoped to achieve, it has not happened.’
71
Alak was getting more edgy as the day wore on. The oppressive stillness of the forest seemed to suck out all the energy and oxygen from anything that tried to move through it, as if they were not welcome there. Alak had halted them many times in the last hour. It was as if he sensed something in the air. As they neared the first set of three peaks, he disappeared. He returned ten minutes later.
‘There is a scouting party, out looking for us. It must be part of Boon Nam’s unit. We must kill them.’ Alak looked at them all. ‘Come with me.’ He nodded at Mann and Louis. ‘No guns. We must have complete silence, understand?’
Mann and Louis both nodded. Mann undid his shirt and added more throwing stars to the pouch he wore looped around one shoulder and across his chest. He held Delilah in his boot. He strapped his six throwing spears—especially weighted, feather-tipped, six-inch deadly spikes—to his arm, and he carried his most lethal star, capable of decapitating a man, the Death Star, nestled in a pouch on his belt.
‘How many of them are there?’ asked Louis, as he added a hatchet to his already well-equipped knife belt.
‘I have seen ten. We will need to strike fast and strong with everything we have, before they have a chance to fire their weapons. Ready?’ Mann and Louis nodded again. Alak turned to the others. ‘Stay here and stay quiet. If we are unsuccessful and they run this way, use these.’ He handed Riley and Gee two handguns. ‘Only use them if you have no choice because the noise will bring Boon Nam straight here.’
The three men stayed together as they reached the start of a ridgeway of trees and the first of the mountain peaks. They lay down in the stubbly grass at the edge of the forest and watched the line of soldiers walk stealthily across the clearing on the side of the second rise. They crawled forward on their bellies until they were crouched just in front of the approaching soldiers. Their weapons at the ready, they waited. The soldiers were still twenty feet away, moving warily across the open side of the ridge. Just as Mann undid his shuriken pouch and slipped the throwing stars into his hand, there was one single clap of gunfire that echoed around the hills and sent a flurry of alarm across the canopy of the forest. It had come from the direction of the camp. Had they missed another scouting party? They looked at one another for the answer. The only thing they knew for sure was that the others were under attack.
Up ahead, the soldiers turned at the noise and broke into a jog as they dropped down into the valley and headed towards the sound. Mann reached for his first set of shuriken. He knelt up in the grass and fired off all five at once. They sang in the air as they found their targets and sliced into muscle and bone. Three of the men dropped to their knees. Before they had time to reach for their weapons, Mann had fired off his second set of shuriken and three more fell. Louis and Alak were on their feet charging forward, knives in hand. Alak plunged his knife into one man’s chest and he fell to the floor. Louis slit another’s throat. Only two of the men were still standing when Mann reached for his throwing spikes and he threw with such force they struck the first man dead. The second man was struck with a shuriken in his neck and another in his chest. Alak plunged his knife into the last man’s heart as he lay there twitching then they turned together and ran back towards the forest.
Riley stood, and pointed his gun at the young soldier flying through the forest towards them. He didn’t seem to see them. He had lost his senses. He just wanted to escape from the army. He wasn’t looking for them.
‘Stop,’ Riley shouted to him in Burmese. ‘Or I will shoot.’
It was too late as Gee fired his gun into the trees but missed the soldier. The young man, beautiful in his youth, came to a standstill before them and stood there panting, his eyes panic stricken as he stared at Riley. He looked desperate to find a way out but he was frozen with fear.
Silently Run Run stepped up on a rock behind him, yanked his head back and slit his throat. His arms flailed wildly but his eyes locked onto Riley’s in panic before they rolled back in his head and blood spurted from his gaping throat.
‘What happened?’ asked Alak as the three men came running back through the forest. Run Run was standing silent with a knife in her hand. Her face was splattered with blood. She bent and wiped the blade in the grass. Gee stood, his hand shaking, still holding the gun. Riley answered.
‘The young soldier came from nowhere. Gee shot at him and missed. Run Run killed him.’ Riley shuddered.
‘It was my fault.’ Gee stood, his head bowed beneath the red cap. ‘I had the gun ready. I saw a person coming, I panicked, I shot at him. I missed. I am sorry. I was scared.’
Alak looked down at the dead soldier and then at Run Run.
‘Was this the only one?’
‘Yes,’ Run Run replied.
‘Okay, it is done. We need to move from this place quickly; Boon Nam is coming.’
72
By dusk the next day, Mann and the others came across the track that led to the old refinery. Louis looked anxious. Mann could see why. It was obvious that many people had been there recently. The grass was squashed; there were fresh mule droppings, covered in flies.
‘Keep to the track,’ Alak whispered along the line. They followed the lane until they stood above the plant, looking down on the abandoned refinery. The manmade lake below still contained water, though there were holes in the palm-thatched roofs, rust on the corrugated iron. Outside were piles of obsolete equipment and, more significantly, there were glass bottles glinting in the last rays of the sun, signs of recent habitation and a night of heavy drinking.
Mann felt his heart begin to race, a knot in his stomach, his hands sweating. He knew that something lay waiting to be found in those dilapidated buildings. He needed to keep himself calm and his pulse low. He needed to be ready.
He stooped to pick up a cheroot butt from the side of the lane. ‘It looks a few days old…’ Mann said to Louis and then paused to listen to a horribly familiar sound. ‘Something’s very wrong he
re.’
It was a sound that Mann had heard many times before, but he wished he hadn’t. It was the droning of thousands of flies.
73
‘I am coming this time,’ said Riley as he joined Mann and Alak as they made their way cautiously towards the large buildings in the centre. The others stayed to keep watch. They walked in a line until they came level with one of the barns. They followed Alak in silence as Mann kept his shuriken at the ready. As they passed the first of the smaller, open-sided barns Mann stopped to examine a pile of old sacks, their stamps still visible: they were branded with their supplier’s brand. As he picked it up, a large spider ran from beneath the hessian folds. He shook the sack and another dropped out, plopped onto the floor, and disappeared back into the bottom of the pile. He spread the sack out so that he could read it. It was Chinese script. He tore off a small tag with the logo on it and put it into his pocket. All around him were the remnants of heroin processing: containers that had once housed the sugar, the chemicals, and the vats for distilling. All around, the earth was churned with fresh footprints and a fire had been burning there very recently.
Despite himself, Mann felt his pulse quicken as they drew up to the entrance to the longest of the barns. Around them empty bottles of rum lay smashed and crawling with sugar-hungry insects. A cobra danced at them as they approached. The droning of flies was deafening.
‘Shit. Jesus Christ!’ Riley instantly recoiled as they rounded the corner of the building. A cloud of flies lifted, turned in the air and resettled onto another body.
‘There has been a night of madness here,’ said Alak quietly.
Flies swarmed over smears of blood and scraps of bloodied rags: women’s clothing lay in shreds across the floor. Three bodies lay on the wooden platform and a fourth was slumped over, tied to a roof strut on a raised platform. Its head was slumped forward. It appeared to be moving with flies and feasting insects and its legs were being gnawed at by a wild she-dog and her puppies.
As they mounted the platform and approached the body, the canopy of black flies parted and revealed strands of golden hair.
‘Jesus, look, Mann—she has blonde hair…’ Riley’s voice rose.
Alak held up his hand for calm. Mann looked back from the doorway to where Sue and the others were stood. He held up his hand to tell them to stay where they were. Louis nodded back; his face grave. They didn’t need to witness it to know that there was something dreadful.
Mann, Alak and Riley walked cautiously towards the body and stepped up onto the platform. Riley couldn’t take his eyes from the body.
‘Christ, it’s one of the girls. It’s Silke.’
The dog stopped to growl at the newcomers. Mann picked up a stone and threw it, it hit her on the rump. She yelped and ran off down the side of the platform, her puppies scampering behind.
‘Some people were lying here. You can see their outline.’ Alak pointed to the barren floor where the dust was missing. He knelt down and picked up the strands of rope that lay around. ‘They were tied together.’
‘Why the fuck has he started killing the hostages and why here?’ Riley couldn’t take his eyes from Silke.
‘They did this three days ago.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive,’ answered Mann, as he stooped to look at one of the bodies. ‘You can tell by the size of the maggots.’
Alak looked around him, as if the answer to this madness were in the roof, or in the still putrid air, as if it lay in the atmosphere.
‘He came here because he is frightened and he sought sanctuary. He came because he had no choice.’ He looked across at Silke. ‘He left her here for us to find. If we are to save the others, we must hurry. Whatever he wants he has forsaken. Now he wants to make the world pay. Let’s go.’
‘We can’t leave her,’ said Riley, visibly distressed.
‘We have no choice. If he passes this way again, he won’t know we have been here. He will think we are far away and headed in the wrong direction. Then we may have a chance to save the others.’
‘I agree with Alak, Riley,’ said Mann. ‘The less help we give him the better. We need to think of the living now,’ he finished quietly as he and Alak began to make their way along the edge of the platform.
‘I won’t leave her here.’ Mann turned to see Riley, his knife in his hand. ‘I’m going to cut her down.’
‘No, Riley.’ Mann stopped in his tracks.
‘Stop!’ Alak turned and shouted to him.
But Riley was already stepping over the piles of bloodied clothes towards Silke, until he froze and turned to Mann and Alak, his eyes wide with terror. He went to speak but whatever he was going to say was drowned by the sound of the explosion beneath his foot.
74
Mann was blown off the platform. Dazed, he struggled to his hands and knees and shook himself conscious. Alak was doing the same. They raced over to Riley. One foot was badly lacerated, the other leg was opened up like the petals of a flower. A piece of Riley’s shin bone was sticking out of his groin. There was nothing left of Silke’s body except her arms still wrapped around the roof strut.
‘Keep to the right-hand side, the place is boobytrapped,’ Mann yelled as Sue and Louis came running into the barn. Alak jumped down from the platform and slipped outside to stand guard.
Run Run pulled out the medical supplies from the bag. Riley was fitting from the shock and loss of blood, but still conscious. Louis strapped a tourniquet around Riley’s thigh and Sue tore open the medical pack and pulled out a pack of blood-clotting bandages.
‘You hang in there, Riley, you’re going to be okay.’ Mann kept talking as he worked fast with Sue and Louis to apply pressure to the massive wounds.
‘Bring me more bandages from the porters’ packs,’ Sue shouted. ‘Hold this…’ Sue gave Mann a pack of wadding. ‘Open it, but don’t touch it till I say. For Christ sake, Riley, it had to be you.’ She paused for a moment, pushing the hair from her face with the heel of her hand. It left a smear of blood across her forehead. ‘Riley’s not used to looking out for landmines—he’s not used to it the way we are.’ She looked at Mann, her eyes full of worry.
Louis gave Riley a morphine injection and an antibiotic jab and inserted a saline drip into his arm. Run Run helped Louis clean and close the lacerations of Riley’s foot. The floor was saturated in fresh blood and bone fragments.
Louis nodded towards the open medical bag. ‘In there,’ said Louis. ‘You’ll find an oxygen converter; it’s in a blue bag. Get it out for me.’
Mann wiped his hands on his trousers; they were wet with Riley’s blood. He leant across to the medical bag and pulled out the shoulder strap of a blue pack. ‘That’s it. Now get this stretch bandage around his foot for me whilst I set this up.’
Riley went still as the morphine kicked in. They got him onto a stretcher and carried him outside.
‘If I take that out, he’s going to die,’ Sue said, looking at the piece of shin bone jutting from his groin. ‘It’s right next to an artery.’ She shouted over her shoulder: ‘Alak! Radio Mo and tell her to get a stretcher team here immediately.’
Alak was already talking to Mo on the radio. He shouted back: ‘There is no team near. We will have to take him ourselves.’
Sue didn’t respond. She looked at Louis and Mann. Mann knew what they were all thinking—they would now lose half their team. Louis put it into words.
‘It will take four of us to get him down alive. The two porters will have to carry him and Sue and I will have to look after him. We have no choice—otherwise he will die.’ Louis started assembling the stretcher. ‘That means you have no guide, Mann. I am sorry. You’ll have to find another tracker.’
‘Somehow I don’t think we will need one.’ Mann looked at the sky. The explosion had sent a vast cloud of dust and debris upwards. ‘I think they will come to us.’
Alak was already preparing to leave. Run Run came over, knelt beside Riley and kissed his forehead. For a se
cond his eyes stopped rolling and focused on her.
‘Sorry,’ he snorted through the agony. They watched as he was lifted gently by Dok and Keetau. Gee was talking to them, giving them instructions. With anxious voices they answered him, and nodded their understanding. Gee knelt and murmured some encouraging words to Riley. Riley didn’t answer but he nodded.
Sue stared, panic-stricken, at Mann then at Riley.
‘You need me here,’ she said. ‘I am staying. Louis will manage to get Riley down.’
Louis looked shocked. He lowered his voice, speaking in an urgent whisper that could be heard only by Sue and Mann.
‘There’s a good chance he will die anyway, even with us both helping. He will definitely die with just me looking after him. What if something happens to me? It will take three days to reach the river. If you don’t come, his chances are next to nil.’
Sue turned to Mann, her eyes full of anguish.
‘Louis is right, Sue.’ Mann smiled at her. ‘You have to go.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She looked resigned. ‘Take care of yourself,’ she said to Mann, sadly. ‘I want to see you back at King’s, you understand? We have un finished business.’ She smiled bravely.
Dok and Keetau were already negotiating the stretcher over the uneven ground as they headed back down into the forest. Sue followed. Mann watched them until they were out of sight.
Gee and Alak were already repacking the bags. Run Run was looking at Mann. He smiled back reassuringly.
‘Riley’s a tough guy.’ He felt in his pocket for the piece of hessian sacking he had picked up with the company label printed onto it. In the explosion, he had temporarily forgotten about it. Its faded lettering was once brightly embossed—the head of the orchid imprinted on top of elaborate Chinese script, signify ing the union of China and Thailand. He would ring Ng as soon as they stopped and get him to investigate it. Just as he was studying it, a light flashed and he looked towards the distant mountain. Alak saw it too.