by Andrew Grant
Tuk Tuk moved slowly with the aid of an ebony walking stick with a gold and ivory grip. Knowing the old devil, I was prepared to bet that the stick housed the blade of a sword or even a gun. He had never missed a trick in his long life.
I laid the laptop on the table and removed a packet of Marlboros from my jacket as I waited for Tuk Tuk and Choy. I lit up using the BIC disposable I’d picked up in a 7-Eleven on my way to Geezers. I left the cigarette pack and the lighter beside the computer. I’d given up smoking three years before but Tuk Tuk wasn’t to know. However, I knew that of all the cigarettes on the planet, Tuk Tuk Song hated Marlboros. It had been something of a joke between us. I fought to keep myself from coughing and made a show of enjoying my fag and the view.
Tuk Tuk chose a seat and lowered himself into it. Choy moved to stand to one side of the table. When I sat he would be on my right which meant if I went for him, my striking hand would have to be my left. He knew full well that I was right-handed.
‘Sit, Daniel,’ Tuk Tuk said softly as he removed a cigarette from the flat gold case Choy extended to him, ‘and tell me why you are here and why I shouldn’t kill you.’
As I sat I picked up my fifteen-baht lighter and flicked it into life, leaning across the table to offer Tuk Tuk a light. He accepted, leaving Choy standing with a diamond-encrusted gold Ronson worth a couple of thousand pounds sitting uselessly in his huge hand. The big man straightened and dropped the Ronson into a side pocket in his jacket, his ruined face expressionless. He continued to stand like a miniature man-mountain with his arms folded, waiting.
‘Firstly,’ I said, my eyes meeting those of the man who had once almost been a friend, ‘Arune attempted to kill me because I found out he was planning a coup against you. He was going to have your car wired to two kilos of Semtex.’ My voice was flat and hard. I’d never had a chance to tell Tuk Tuk why it had happened. He knew how! Now I needed him to believe me. ‘Old friend,’ I said softly, ‘Arune wanted you dead. He wanted to take over. He tried to kill me and I had no choice but to kill him. Then you sent Choy after me before we had had a chance to talk. The rest you know.’
There was a near silence. I could hear birds, the hum of distant traffic and the wind in the trees, but that was as close to silence as it would get. Tuk Tuk Song blinked once, then twice and then a third time. He leaned back in his seat. His eyes had lost that hard coal-black edge. Suddenly, he looked like an old man, a frail old man. He knew the words I had spoken were the truth. We had that much trust still between us.
Despite his dark glasses I knew Choy’s eyes were on Tuk Tuk, and there was a look of concern on his face that even the damage I had inflicted could not hide. He had been Tuk Tuk’s right-hand man for most of his own sixty years. Tuk Tuk was his father in all but birthright. There was no doubt that he still wanted me dead, but there was something else there. He and I had also almost been friends in the days gone by.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Tuk Tuk asked in a whisper.
‘I didn’t have time,’ I replied. ‘I was involved with the Cambodians on a matter for my people. It was purely by accident that I found out about Arune’s plans.’
I paused for a moment to draw smoke into my lungs. What the hell! I prefered to die of lung cancer than Choy’s bullet in my brain, and the nicotine hit was making my head buzz.
‘Arune bought the Semtex from Savang over in Savannakhet. It was part of a tagged shipment we were monitoring. We’d tracked it in from Europe. We busted Savang and found that a big chunk of the pie was missing. With a little persuasion, he told me Arune had bought it. We handed Savang over to his people. That was one hell of a big mistake. He made some sort of deal and was free in ten minutes and on the phone to Arune.’ Tuk Tuk was leaning forward slightly in his chair. I had his total attention it seemed. ‘Arune and his goons were waiting for me when I went back over the border,’ I continued. ‘Incidentally, I’d assumed that Arune had bought the plastic for you.’
I accepted the tumbler of whisky that Choy handed to me. Tuk Tuk’s hand shook as he raised his glass to his lips. I could see in his eyes that he knew I was speaking the truth. ‘Go on please, Daniel,’ he said as I took a sip of my drink. It tasted better than any other I’d ever remembered.
‘Arune took me to a warehouse on the bank of a river up at Lopburi. Somewhere along the line he had had the bright idea of implicating my people and me in your death to take suspicion off him. He was showing off, Tuk Tuk, showing how bright he was.’ Tuk Tuk nodded. He’d known his son that well at least. ‘He told me everything. They were going to wait until you went to Sakura’s for the weekend and plant the explosive under the seat of your Lincoln when Choy brought it back to the city.’
Sakura was Tuk Tuk’s Japanese mistress. At weekends Tuk Tuk used to stay in the palace he had built for her down the Gulf at Phetchaburi. Usually Choy would drive him down there in the Lincoln and leave him while he returned to Bangkok. He would then go down on the Sunday or Monday, pick up Tuk Tuk and return with him to the city.
Arune had apartments in the city but he lived at Tuk Tuk’s magnificent Bang Khen mansion most of the time, and had plenty of opportunities to do the deed. Choy personally favoured big black Jeep Cherokees as his choice of vehicle. So when Choy was away visiting one of his many girlfriends, Arune’s plan was to plant the explosive and a remote detonator in the massive Lincoln. ‘Arune planned to have some of his guys go down to Phetchaburi, wait for you and Choy to leave Sakura’s place and bingo, all over.’ I illustrated the latter by flicking the remains of my cigarette away. ‘Meanwhile he planned to be very much in public view, going about the city creating the perfect alibi.’
‘Two kilos?’ whispered Tuk Tuk in sheer disbelief. ‘You said two kilos of plastic, Daniel?’
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Ten kilos and all of it under your seat.’
‘Oh,’ Choy spluttered. All three of us knew what that amount of Semtex could do to any automobile, but ten kilos inside an armoured vehicle was totally over the top. Firstly, it would vapourise everything inside the car then, because the blast was being contained beyond critical mass by the armour, it would turn the car into a second bomb, a huge bomb that would devastate anything and everything within a hundred yards in all directions. Talk about overkill! Half or even a quarter of a kilo would have done the job fine.
‘Did he hate me so much?’ Tuk Tuk whispered almost to himself. And then his voice hardened. ‘The stupid, stupid boy!’ He swallowed the remaining whisky and held out his glass for more. Choy moved to do his bidding. ‘Go on, Daniel.’
‘His plan was to kill me, then make sure enough of me was left close enough to the blast area to get an identification. He was even contemplating shooting me and putting me in the trunk of the limo.’ I shook my head. Arune wasn’t the sharpest tool in the workshop. I would have been vaporised just like Tuk Tuk and Choy. There would have been nothing left to identify. Of all of Tuk Tuk’s eleven sons and eight daughters, Arune had been the oldest, the heir, and that had been a problem. Unfortunately he had also been very stupid and very violent. A most dangerous combination!
‘Arune got careless,’ I said. ‘I got free and took a gun off one of his guys. We had a shoot-out and I killed Arune and one of his men but the other got away. I guess he called you with some fairy story and when I arrived back in the city, you had Choy waiting. You know the rest.’
‘Stupid greedy boy,’ Tuk Tuk said shaking his head. ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. The fault was mine for breeding such an imbecile.’
‘He did what he did, Tuk Tuk. It happens,’ I replied, accepting more whisky. ‘A father cannot be responsible for the actions of his son. Not in the real world,’ I added, thinking of my stepfather and the way we had parted. It hadn’t been quite as drastic as in Arune and Tuk Tuk’s case, but the end result had pretty much been the same.
‘Enough of that past, Daniel. I apologise anyway. Let us toast to our renewed friendship and the future.’ Tuk Tuk held his glass out. I pushed mine to his a
nd they touched.
‘Indeed, old friend,’ I replied, reaching for another cigarette. I was well on the way to becoming a human chimney. I lit up and stood. ‘Before we talk business I must alleviate the pressure in my bladder,’ I said. Tuk Tuk chuckled and Choy just watched as I walked away to the edge of the plateau. There I unzipped and did exactly as I had indicated I would.
The tiny radio microphone in the cigarette pack I’d left on the table was on, and the signal was loud and clear in the equally tiny earpiece built into the ear stem of my Ray Bans. They were speaking Cantonese. My Thai was excellent, as was my Lao. As they both knew this they spoke the language of their birth. Neither of them knew that I had been born in Hong Kong and Cantonese was virtually my first language, compliments of our nanny. Mandarin came in a close second thanks to the cook. It was always wise to keep some secrets in my business.
‘He is telling the truth,’ Choy mumbled.
‘I know he is,’ Tuk Tuk sighed. ‘Arune was an idiot, but he was my son. Only a father has the right to kill his own son.’
‘You will kill Daniel?’
‘Not yet, Choy. It will pain me to kill him, but eventually I must. Not now, later! First let us hear what business he has for us.’
‘Can I kill him for you then?’ Choy was asking. Damn him, he was so eager to have me dead.
‘Maybe when the time comes, but not until I say so,’ replied Tuk Tuk as I zipped up and turned to go back to the table. Immediately they both switched to Thai, talking about nothing to create a smoke screen. I sat down and smiled at Tuk Tuk.
‘Okay. It goes like this,’ I said. ‘Yamashita’s gold!’ Those two words dropped into the near silence like a depth charge.
‘Just a legend,’ said Tuk Tuk at last, looking faintly disappointed. Choy’s expression didn’t change, but he was looking intently at his master, as if willing him to give the word.
‘Wrong,’ I said. ‘The truth has been presented as legend by those who have the most to gain, namely the former allied block who defeated Japan and recovered much of the gold. That includes, of course, my people, the Americans and the Russians. I have read the most secret files on Yamashita’s mission.’ I paused purely for effect because the next bit was the one that was going to set the hook I had so carefully laid out for Tuk Tuk Song.
‘General Tomoyuki Yamashita gathered an estimated four billion dollars worth of gold, precious stones and artworks from China and Southeast Asia.’ I paused to let the figure sink in. Even as fabulously wealthy as he was, this was something else for Tuk Tuk. ‘Those were the dollar values of the day. Imagine what it would be worth today!’ Tuk Tuk’s eyes widened and even Choy gave a grunt. Inscrutable Orientals my arse. When it came to wealth they were all too scrutable, just like the rest of us. ‘Yamashita raped half of Asia of everything of value, and when the war was being lost and his retreat cut off, he hid his loot all over the place. The location of most of his bootie is still unknown.’
‘You know where it is?’ Tuk Tuk said, his eyes once more bright and hard.
‘Some of it,’ I replied. ‘About a hundred tons of gold, give or take,’ I added and watched Tuk Tuk’s eyes as he did the maths. I’d checked my figures before leaving home and gold had been sitting at over six hundred US dollars an ounce for months. Figuring that as the minimum, the little pile of bullion in the Andaman was worth two or three billion dollars, depending on whether you were into US billions or the other sort. Whichever, it was a lot of dosh.
‘Where?’ he whispered at last.
‘Close to here,’ I replied. From where we were seated, it was about 150 miles as the crow flies. ‘There is more than gold.’ I reached for the laptop. Choy tensed, his gun hand hovering close to the butt of his hand cannon. I gave him what passed for a reassuring smile as I gently opened the Toshiba. I didn’t want Choy to do something I was going to regret.
The first of the two pictures I had loaded appeared on screen. I turned the computer around so that Tuk Tuk could see the black and white image. He focused intently for a second or two before he raised his head and stared back at me from across the table, a puzzled expression on his face. ‘What do you see?’ I asked.
‘A small buddha,’ he replied, shrugging dismissively, ‘probably gold and covered with gem stones.’
‘Not just a small buddha,’ I said, preparing to drop the choicest morsel of bait into the shark pool. ‘That is a photograph of the Ruby Buddha of Pha To.’
‘Pha To!’ Tuk Tuk exclaimed. Suddenly he was interested, very interested. His eyes went back to the screen and he hunched closer to examine the image of one of the greatest of all Thai legends.
The Ruby Buddha of Pha To had been crafted in the sixteenth century. It was one of the truly unique artworks of Thailand, or of any other nation for that matter. Standing a metre high, the gold seated buddha was encrusted with more than 3,000 rubies that formed a robe covering part of its chest, shoulders and back. None of the rubies was reputed to be less than a carat in weight, most of them three and four carats. In addition to the rubies, there were more than two hundred large diamonds and dozens of other precious stones creating designs against the ruby background. All in all, the buddha was worth possibly a couple of hundred million dollars just for the gems and gold. However, as a work of art, it was priceless.
‘But when the Japanese came it was hidden, and the monks who hid it committed suicide rather than tell the invaders where it was,’ I said as Tuk Tuk searched his considerable memory bank. ‘Afterwards, people searched for decades but it has never been found—until now.’
I reached across the table and tapped the enter key to bring up a second image, this one in colour, mostly tints of green. I couldn’t see the screen from where I was sitting. I didn’t need to. I just leaned back in my seat and watched Tuk Tuk’s face. His brow furrowed as he squinted at the laptop. I knew it was a difficult image to decipher. The photographer had been hampered by bad light. After all, he had been a hundred or so feet under the surface of the Andaman Sea in the rusting hulk of an old freighter. Gradually Tuk Tuk made sense of what he was seeing and the frown became a question in the making.
‘The Japanese found the buddha,’ I said. ‘They moved it to the coast along with their other loot. They loaded it onto one of the freighters that Yamashita had working the Burmese coast to collect whatever his raiding parties found. Shortly afterwards, the freighter was sunk by marauding American fighter-bombers. A year or so ago, a scuba diver found the ship. He wasn’t looking for it at the time. Inside, he took that photograph.’ I paused for a moment to let this sink in.
‘So, old friend, the Ruby Buddha is still in one piece. The man who returns it to Thailand will become an instant hero. He will have the gratitude of the nation forever.’
A look of understanding began to form on Tuk Tuk’s face. He knew exactly what I was getting at. He didn’t need gold, despite the lure of a hundred tons of it. He had more wealth than he could use in a dozen lifetimes, and despite everything else, his life was coming to an end. However, like most mere mortals, he craved immortality, and here was his chance to become truly immortal in the eyes of the Thai people. Tuk Tuk wasn’t a Buddhist, but to return the famed statue and become a national hero, that would be his legacy. It was infinitely preferable to the alternative of being remembered as a cold-blooded thug, complete with a five-star rating in the great book of infamy. I could see by the expression on his face that the hook was well and truly set.
‘Why has this diver not claimed the buddha?’ Tuk Tuk wanted to know.
‘Because he was one of ours,’ I replied. ‘He was looking for something else when he found the ship and this.’
‘Why did your people not recover it?’
‘Because it is in Burmese waters and, as you know, our relationship with Myanmar is not as it once was.’ I was understating the case there. Britain’s relationship with the military regime was at an all-time low. ‘A large-scale salvage operation would attract too much attention, including tha
t of the Burmese authorities. I also doubt that if they found the buddha themselves they would even acknowledge its existence. We decided another approach might be in order.’
What I didn’t tell Tuk Tuk was that Bernard, in his infinite wisdom, had decided that the buddha and the gold were the bait I needed to persuade Tuk Tuk to, in the first instance, not kill me, and in the second, set up the nautical aspects of our mission. I had tried to argue the old sod out of involving Tuk Tuk at all. I could have used a common smuggler or fisherman and paid him a few thousand baht to take me to retrieve the object of the exercise. That object was, in fact, a lead-covered box, the contents of which I had no idea. We could so easily have recovered the box and left the buddha and the gold for another day. Bernard, however, had other ideas.
‘Understand me, Daniel,’ he’d explained in that damn schoolmasterly tone of his. ‘The buddha and the gold do not matter to us. All that matters is the box. Use the buddha, use the gold as bait and payment for the boat and crew. The box is the be-all and end-all. Everything else is unimportant.’ Those had been his exact words. ‘Also, we may need Tuk Tuk’s services later. This will clean the slate and ensure he is on our side.’
Knowing the convoluted logic that the old bastard was capable of, I had eventually conceded, not that I had had any choice at the end of the day. He was the fucking boss after all. Bernard had come up with the strategy to lock Tuk Tuk into the game, now I had to deliver the sell in my own words.
‘And you came to me, why?’ Tuk Tuk brought me back to the present and it was time for me to perform. I shrugged and gave him a half smile. ‘I knew you well and you knew me well. We were friends before Arune’s death.’ I switched to English because some words did not translate well. ‘Of all the people in Thailand who have the resources to help, and who, perhaps, deserve a chance at redemption, the choice was you.’