The Burma Effect
Page 26
He called Mai. She was also paralyzed with grief. Again, news that her man was dead had preceded Delaney’s return to Bangkok.
“Oh Frank, please, please tell me it is not true what they tell me now,” Mai cried out to on the phone. “Please tell me Nathan is coming back to me. Please.”
“He’s gone, Mai. I’m very, very sorry.” She wept quietly at her end.
“I’ll come to see you. Tomorrow, OK?” he said.
“OK, Frank,” she said “That will be OK.”
*
Delaney sat on his terrace for a while, drinking Jameson’s and daydreaming; resting, making his plans. The river far below buzzed with boat traffic and horns and muffled shouts. He, too, was paralyzed for a time.
The phone rang. It was Kate, calling very early Montreal time to tell him she was on a flight that night bound for Bangkok. His heart raced like a schoolboy’s.
“Vancouver to Tokyo then Bangkok overnight tonight. You’ll already be in bed when I fly. I can’t believe I’ll be seeing you tomorrow,” she said. Like a schoolgirl.
“Any trouble getting the time off?” Delaney asked.
“None. Professional reasons. A Mountie always gets her man.”
Rawson had organized a car for him, with a Thai driver. No uniform, but almost certainly a policeman or special services. The driver said nothing at all, just drove slowly through the heaving main Bangkok boulevards and then on to smaller and smaller back streets to Ben Yong’s neighbourhood.
Ben’s wife was waiting for him on a straightbacked chair set up outside the cinder block wall that surrounded her modest house in a dusty soi far from downtown. A large courtyard space where Ben used to park his car was now empty and forlorn. Cans of motor oil and plastic containers of turquoise windshield washer fluid were stacked neatly to one side.
She had made Delaney an elaborate Thai meal. The children had been sent to her sister’s for a while, she said.The house would be too sad for children to live in for a while yet. She would have to burn many more offerings of incense and put many more offerings of flowers and oranges in the small Buddhist shrine in the garden before the children could be expected to come back.
“Ben was one of the most reliable people I have ever, ever met,” Delaney said awkwardly as Mrs. Yong stirred furiously in her sizzling wok. She put down her spatula and gave him a slow wai. “Ben said he could depend on you too.”
“I should not have taken him where we went, Mrs. Yong,” Delaney said.
“He went many dangerous places with reporters,” she said. “It was his job. He said he liked his job. He liked all the foreign reporters.”
“I made a mistake, Mrs. Yong. We should not have been there.”
“You did not kill him, Mr. Delaney.”
Delaney was not so sure.
“He is not the first person who has died because of me and the work I do,” Delaney said. “A woman I loved also died because of me, because of a mistake I made. I never wanted that to happen again.”
“The souls of the dead are at rest if we love them,” she said. “It is your own soul, and mine, that now must seek rest in this lifetime.”
They ate silently for a time, looking up at each other occasionally and smiling.
“What will you do now, Mrs. Yong? You and your family.”
“My family is very large, Mr. Delaney. We will be OK. We will stay here and my family and Ben’s family will help us.”
“I would like to help too,” Delaney said.
“You have come to talk. That is enough.”
“Please tell me if you need anything, anytime. Even a long while from now,” he said.
“I will.” They drank tea.
“There is one thing.Two things,” Mrs. Yong said. Delaney looked steadily at her.
“Did you see where they buried him?” she said.
“Shall we leave him there?”
“His body has not been brought back?”
“Not yet. They are saying it is still a crime scene. But if it is nice there maybe he should stay?”
Delaney thought of the small clearing in the trees where Ben had been hastily buried. He thought of the birdsong and the butterflies and the heat and light. But it was not the right place.
“I think he is in a good place but it is not right for his final place. I think you should bring him back closer to his home and family,” Delaney said.
“And what happened to his car? We were wondering. My son especially. Ben loved his car.” “It was left near where Ben was killed, Mrs. Yong. I can try to find out where it is now if you want me to.”
“Please. Yes. My son has been asking. He wants to be a media driver too, when he grows up.”
That evening at the hotel there were drinks and more debriefings with Rawson and an embassy man named Franklin. The Thai side had still not indicated when they wanted to see Delaney but he was expected to stay in the country for a time. Rawson was clearly worried Delaney planned to write a story about Kellner’s plot to take Suu Kyi. Delaney did not reassure him.
Rawson wanted also to talk about the Australians in Burma. Not the embassy Australians—the casino Australians.
“They contracted for some private security through Kellner,” Delaney said. “He and his guys and the generals ripped them off. Then the generals double-crossed Kellner’s guys in Rangoon.”
“There is too much of this private militia stuff going on everywhere these days,” Rawson said. “Every two-bit mining project or building project or dam project or whatever it is tries to hire a private army to take care of things for them. It’s easy money for mercenaries and it never works out without problems. The Australians aren’t the only ones going that way. Canadian companies are doing it too, in Africa and other places.”
“Well, those Aussies were well and truly ripped off,” Delaney said. “They’ll be looking for payback in some way. Money, or political payback. They aren’t just going to sit around and get taken like that.”
“They seem tough?” Rawson asked.
“Not particularly. Probably in over their heads in Burma. They’d be better off back in outback Queensland somewhere, where they know the rules of the game. Their embassy in Rangoon seemed to know all about them. They want to keep it quiet. An investor confidence issue was how the embassy people put it. Not keen on the story getting out.
“None of us are keen on any of these stories getting out, Francis,” Rawson said gravely.
In his room alone later, Delaney finally began to address the issue of work and the fact that his editors at the newspaper were distinctly unamused.The last email in a series from Patricia Robinson and Harden, the editor-in-chief, said it all.
“Frank,” Harden wrote, “I’m told now that you have been arrested in Rangoon on an assignment. I have no idea when you might eventually see this and I, like everyone at the paper, fear for you and hope you will return safely. But the minute you do get this email, we will need to talk about a number of issues. The first and most important of which is how you ended up in Burma in the first place. Neither I nor anyone else at this newspaper assigned you to Burma, nor to Thailand for that matter. Patricia tells me you simply announced one morning you were off to London to research a column. London is not Bangkok or Rangoon. And even so, I did not assign you to or approve of your travel to London or anywhere else. Once again, we all pray for your safe return and we are doing all we can to help the embassy and External Affairs to negotiate with the Burmese authorities. But for the record, and for any legal issues that may arise later, this newspaper did not assign you to Europe or to Asia and can bear no responsibility for your situation. As soon as you are safely out of Burma, I must insist that we speak immediately about a number of important issues.”
Delaney saw that the email had been copied to Patricia, to the newspaper’s lawyer and to someone at External Affairs in Ottawa whose name he did not recognize.
“Dear Mr. Harden,” Delaney wrote. “I appreciate your concern and the concern of all my colleagues at the paper. I am sure you are already aware that I am safely back in Bangkok. I also very much appreciate the effort you and everyone else made to have me released. I am being debriefed by Canadian officials, and the Thai side wants to see me as well to give them details of what happened. I will call you as soon as possible for a full discussion of all of this.”
Suicidal, Delaney thought, as he clicked on the Send icon and watched the email go. Delaney is no longer at large. Delaney may soon be looking for work.
*
He called O’Keefe, knowing he would wake him up.
“Delaney, for God’s sake, where are you man?” O’Keefe said groggily.
“Did I wake you?” Delaney said.
“No, of course not, I was just coming in from my overnight shift at the 24-hour vigil we have all been keeping for you at Notre Dame Cathedral. A cast of thousands. Your picture on placards, locks of your hair in reliquaries.” “I’m back in Bangkok now.”
“Well, that’s a good thing. We were all worried at the press club someone would have to go all the way over to hellish Rangoon and retrieve your body.”
“No need.”
“You all right, Francis? They treat you bad?”
“Yeah, a little bad at first.”
“Even I started to get a little bit worried there for a while.” “Thank you.”
“What the Christ were you doing in Burma anyway?”
“I think I’ve got a good story going, Brian.”
“I hope to hell you’ve got something. I’m not sure you’ve got a newspaper to write it in anymore. Harden is some pissed off, my man. Royally pissed off.”
“It’s more of a magazine piece anyway,” Delaney said.
“That’s the spirit. No loyalty to the Tribune whatsoever. Good career move.”
Mordecai Israel Sebastian Cohen was always a trifle paranoid. The drugs and the alcohol and the dissolute life he led had made him so. But today, lately, his paranoia was extreme. As he went about his appointed rounds, delivering small stashes of dope here and there to the media and expat crowd in Bangkok and environs, he was sure he was being followed.
This was not the world-stopping, heart-stopping paranoia of the cokehead, in which sufferers imagine helicopters, rocket ships, hovering overhead with surveillance cameras and recording equipment monitoring the thoughts inside your very head.This was instead the creeping, nagging paranoia of the merely addled—a paranoia nonetheless worrying, because, in contrast to the cocaine-fuelled variety, there was always the possibility that someone, indeed, was watching, that some menace was indeed imminent.
Cohen darted in and out of taxis and tuk-tuks and various buildings, sweating profusely in his Hawaiian shirt while out of air-conditioning range; shivering and freezing while inside. He glanced incessantly over his shoulder, certain, persuaded, that he would see any number of police or hulking civilian assassins about to swoop.
He broke one of his own unshakable rules and smoked a fat joint of choice Chiang Mai gold outside, in public, while standing on a busy street corner near Patpong. His nerves were bad, very bad, had been getting worse each day since he got news that Delaney and his driver had disappeared. That, along with Kellner’s disappearance, had left him more shaky than usual. Far more.
There was that, and there was also the very strong possibility he had upset any number of players in Bangkok, northern Thailand, Burma and elsewhere. This was the most worrying aspect, he thought as he finished up the last of his outdoor joint. Not cool, not cool, not cool, he thought.
The Australians had been in touch, yelling at him in shifts down a bad phone line from Burma, demanding to know where Kellner was, where their security detail was, where their money was. To their entreaties he played dumb, and deaf. Kellner’s gig, not his, he said. He was just a helper, a messenger, a small player. Kellner’s gig, he said.
The Burmese side did not call him or approach him, however, and he could not decide whether this was worrying or not. He was just a helper, a messenger, a small player, but this time, for once, he was on his own gig, a freelance gig. Not Kellner’s. On the contrary. And this was now becoming most worrying, unbearably worrying. It had all, clearly, gone terribly wrong.
What had started out as a nice little sideline—a nice source of pocket money and, if he were honest, a nice source of pride that he, too, not just Kellner, could pull levers, run a scam, command respect— had now turned very sour indeed.
The Australians had at first been delighted with his little bits of information, his hints and allegations about Kellner’s plan for a rip-off. Services rendered for cash that would, Cohen had thought, also prevent Kellner from getting himself killed up in Mongla. Doing a friend a little service, saving his ass, and getting paid for it by grateful parties on various sides; it didn’t get much better than that. And if that meant that Kellner ended up with no money for his Suu Kyi thing, his even crazier thing for the lady, so much the better.
Or so it had seemed. Then Kellner disappeared and it had all started to unravel. Everyone suddenly on his case, questions from all sides, people passing through Bangkok at all hours of the day and night, Delaney dropping out of sight, the driver out of sight, hassles, worries, perturbations of all kinds. Uncool times, decidedly uncool. Now, stoned, paranoid and petrified Cohen went about his appointed rounds persuaded that soon, very soon, some heavy consequences would come crashing down around his aching, spinning head.
Chapter 16
Delaney had been followed many times before, both as a journalist and as a CSIS operative, and he knew the signs. The signs this time were glaringly obvious. It did not come as a surprise; Rawson himself warned that they would both very likely be followed by any number of players right up until they left Bangkok.
The morning Kate was to arrive, Delaney left the hotel early, told his waiting official driver he was taking a walk and that he would be back soon. He walked through the parking lot to the back automobile gate, away from the river, and saluted back at the white-uniformed gate attendant.
He walked up a curved side street heavily shaded by giant mango trees and put his head in at various small overpriced shops that sold brass dinnerware and chess sets and basketry to the wealthy who, like himself, occasionally deigned to walk somewhere rather than take an air-conditioned car.
This made it complicated for whoever had been assigned that morning to watch him. It would involve either a conspicuous walk behind him across the broad parking lot or a clumsy tail operation in a car, stopping and starting conspicuously as Delaney moved in and out of shopfronts.
They chose the car method and made a very poor job of it.Two solid-looking Asian men in suits, barely visible through the dark tint of the window glass on their white Land Cruiser. He’d seen the car on the first day he got back to Bangkok. Possibly plainclothes Thai police, Delaney thought. Possibly Burmese, but very difficult to know for sure. As he was already to travel with a Thai police or special services driver, he thought it more likely they were Burmese.
They parked up the street from where he window-shopped, not really making much attempt to conceal themselves anymore because they might lose him entirely if they allowed him too long a leash. Eventually, buying nothing, Delaney sauntered back through the hotel parking lot and into the back lobby. Through the plate glass he saw the Land Cruiser roll back through the gate and across a series of speed bumps to sit idling again near the back entrance.
Rawson was in the lobby, talking to some other Westerners in suits. He spotted Delaney and hurried over.
“I’m going out to the airport to get Kate,” Delaney said. “That white Land Cruiser out there is my tail today.”
Rawson wen
t to the glass and looked out. “Saw it yesterday. Pretty big vehicle for close surveillance,” he said.
“Could be Thai, because they don’t seem to care too much about whether we know they’re there or not,” Delaney said.
“But you’ve got one of their drivers anyway,” Rawson said.
“Yeah. No matter who they are, I’m not keen on having them with me at the airport when I meet Kate.”
“This idea of bringing Kate out here is not good, Francis. You know that. I don’t see why you don’t just wrap up the loose ends here and head back to Montreal. We don’t like the Kate idea at all.”
“Holiday, Jon. Some R&R after a tough assignment.”
Rawson looked worried.
“I’d much sooner see you out of here altogether,” he said. “Kate’s going to make things even more complicated.”
“We won’t need an escort where we’re going, Jon. We would in fact very much prefer no escort at that stage.”
“Well, you’ll have one anyway. My guys, the Thais for sure, maybe even the Burmese, depending on who owns the big four-wheel drive out there. No chance of a romantic getaway. That’s exactly my point.”
“We’ll see,” Delaney said.
He went back up to his room and called the airline to make sure Kate’s flight was on time. He checked his email. Only one message of consequence, this from Harden at the Tribune. Delaney had still not called in and had not told the paper which hotel he was staying at. Email was the only way they could express their extreme displeasure. Harden, an ex–wire-service man, did this in very few words. Each message was getting shorter.
This one read: “Delaney, insist you call in ASAP. No excuses accepted. Regards, Harden.”
Delaney wrote back, wire-style: “Got yours. Apols but still in debriefs. Best to give you full situationer when clear. Phone may not be secure. Please stand by. Thanks and bests, FD.”
He normally avoided confrontations with editors, but in this case he was also still not sure how he wanted to play the Kellner story. If at all. And, if he were to file something, for whom and how much of the story to actually tell. He was not at all sure that the Tribune was the proper medium for the Kellner story or if they would run it anyway. He sensed another bad career move on the horizon.