by Adam Brookes
“He will join you there.”
“No. Somewhere quiet.”
He felt the Clown’s eyes on him.
“It is already decided.”
“Undecide it.”
The Clown grinned, but his look was hard.
“Be there. Nine o’clock. He wants to see you.”
“I’m telling you, it isn’t safe.”
The Clown leaned toward him.
“Mr. Mangan, we will tell you when you are safe. Or when you are not safe.” He stood up, put a hand on Mangan’s bony shoulder, walked away. Mangan felt the sweat on his back.
The boxing ring was at the far end of an arcade. On either side were bars, mostly empty but for the sullen girls in skimpy tops, their eyes following the foreigner as he passed. A crowd was pressing in on the ticket booth, excitable young men waving banknotes, some tourists. Mangan waited and bought a ticket to the VIP area. A girl in a black T-shirt showed him into a roped-off area with dilapidated sofas. The ring was a mesh cage. Cigarette smoke, disinfectant on the air, high-volume rock music of the sort Mangan associated with trashy TV. Young Thai men in the cheap seats were whooping, shouting, jostling each other. The tourists looked awkward. The girl brought a beer.
He sat on one of the sofas, put the backpack—he didn’t want to leave the laptop in the hotel, so was taking the damn thing with him everywhere—between his knees and waited. He felt hot, exposed, uncomfortable.
An overweight man all in black with a microphone had begun haranguing the crowd in American English and Thai, previewing the evening’s fights, vamping in the manner of a fight announcer. Thai boxing at Loi Krooooooooh! Mangan looked around, wondered for an instant if he saw… something. Some wrinkle in the crowd. But then it was gone.
The first fighters were led out. A muscled European boy, shaven-headed, glistening with oil, white baggy shorts, red gloves. Duncan from Englaaaaaaand! A smaller Thai boy, less well-conditioned, a little roll of fat at the top of his blue shorts. Somchai from Thailaaaaaand! No surnames; cyphers, the two of them, puppets for the public. They turned and bowed to the crowd, which shouted and whooped. The Thai boy knelt and began making obeisances, the rock music giving way to the whine and shriek of the Java pipes. The English boy stood in the corner, limbering up. The young men in the crowd were starting to bet, hurling down their banknotes, shouting. The referee brought the two boys together, admonished them. They touched gloves and began to circle, the English boy leading with his left, still, confident, the Thai boy in peek-a-boo, jittery, feinting with his knee. The Thai boy kicked, moved into a combination and then the two of them were in a clinch, their knees working. They broke. The English boy watched, waited. The Thai boy was already breathing hard, letting go pointless kicks that found only air. With each one, the young men in the crowd yelled—insults, Mangan assumed. The noise of the pipes was excruciating. The Thai boy looked sullen, resentful. He jabbed, moved, made to get inside, but Duncan from England saw his moment, a roundhouse to the knee that hurt, broke his opponent’s balance, and then a jab that skated the edge of the jaw, sent a string of sweat beads glinting in the lights, and a lethal hook, the whole torso behind it. The Thai boy went down turning, the knees gone, the tension in him, in his limbs, his muscles, vanishing, as if at the flick of a switch, the wet thunk as he hit the mat, and then blood all over him, his neck, his shoulders. Mangan shifted in his seat, looked up into the lights, tried to breathe in the stifling air.
A hand on his shoulder.
He turned, and there was the ridiculous pocketed vest, a pair of aviator sunglasses and a smile so wide, so taut, it could not be real. Mangan made to stand, but Rocky didn’t let him, and then brought his fists up and made feinting and jabbing motions.
“You don’t like the boxing, Philip?” he said.
“The boxing is fine,” said Mangan.
“They said you don’t want to come. I said, zhen de ma? Really? Why he not want to come?”
Mangan thought briefly of all the protocols they had taught him. Do not be seen together. Make it hard for surveillance. Establish a cover story, fallbacks, routes of egress. Do the housekeeping. He thought of how utterly useless they seemed at this particular juncture.
“I want to talk, somewhere… quiet.” Meaning: secure, for Christ’s sake.
“Oh, yes. We do that. But now, just watch.”
He sat heavily, waved at the waitress, pointed at Mangan’s beer and held a finger for one more. They were helping the Thai boy out of the ring. He was up, blank-eyed, but his legs kept giving way and blood was running in rivulets down his chest. The English boy was doing his victor’s pose and the rock music had started up again. Rocky was clapping. For a split second, Mangan thought he caught Duncan from England’s eye, and found himself wondering, Where are you from? And how did you get here, bloodying up little Thai boys in this shithole? He felt himself reaching for the story, but the boy had turned away.
“We should go,” Mangan said.
“Not yet,” said Rocky. He pulled his sunglasses down, looked at Mangan benevolently over the top. “We are quite secure here.”
Mangan frowned. Rocky gestured with his eyes, meaning look about yourself. Mangan put his hand up to shield his view from the lights, searched the crowd, the bars, the lounging girls. And there, a couple of quiet boys in polo shirts drinking Coke. Over there, two more, and a woman, unsmiling, by the entrance to the VIP area. Suddenly, they were everywhere. Two more strolling up and down the arcade, eyeing the girls.
“Christ,” he said. “How many?”
“Enough.” Rocky sat back, pushed his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose, satisfied. “You must learn to look, Philip. Really.”
Too many, too big, Mangan thought. He tried to choke off his alarm.
Another bout was beginning, the pipes wailing, two slender Thai boys, wiry, taut, their sinewed arms, biceps sliding like knots beneath the skin as they knelt and bowed.
Mangan stood and picked up the backpack.
“Now,” he said.
Rocky grimaced. He waited a beat, looking at the boys in the ring. Then he suddenly got to his feet and made a gesture with his chin. The woman by the door started moving and the others followed. Mangan strode down the arcade, not knowing where he was going, feeling the sweat on his back, his neck. They made a cordon around him, their eyes skating across the crowd, the young Thai men frowning at them, stepping out of the way reluctantly, the bar girls shrinking back. It was a foul, arrogant performance, and Mangan felt the anger rising in him. Then he was on the street in the hot, thick night, the smell of grilled meat, curry, frangipani on the air, drains, exhaust fumes. Rocky was behind him, and Mangan felt the others forming up around him on the pavement. Rocky laid a restraining hand on his arm, and Mangan could feel the tension in it, the ticking anxiety. Two black SUVs pulled around a corner, moving fast. They came to an abrupt halt in front of him, and then the door was open and Mangan felt himself being manipulated into the back seat, the air conditioning dry and frigid, Rocky beside him, the eyes of the Clown polished granite in the rearview mirror.
I am forever being pushed into other people’s vehicles.
50
They drove in the darkness out of town, to the northwest, Mangan guessed, the road fast, straight, flat, cutting across a plain. He watched the city fall away, the traffic thinning. They passed a vast Thai military base, billboards of the royal family flanking its main gate. A Special Forces Group, said the signs. Mangan glimpsed the boys on the gate, flak-jacketed, M4s across the chest.
Then lesser roads, winding sharply upward into mountain forest. Mangan saw the lights of mansions in the trees, their manicured lawns, orchid beds, the driveways lamplit, tantalizing in the night.
Rocky leaned forward and tapped the Clown on the shoulder.
“Zai zher.” Here.
“Zhidao.” I know.
They turned left onto a poorly paved track into the forest, the SUV jouncing over the pitted surface. Mangan tried to steady h
is breathing, focus. They were pulling in before a villa, light spilling from the windows, the boys there before them, spread out, watching the treeline. Rocky turned to Mangan, grinned, made a big come-with-me gesture. Mangan saw the sheen of sweat on him.
He got out of the car, the night enveloping him like a hot, damp blanket, silence but for the wind in the trees, the clack clack of bamboo, footsteps on the driveway.
The villa was done out in faux Lanna style, deep, rich teak floors, delicate dark wood furniture, silken upholstery in pale pastels, pale walls downlit. It smelled of money, of dissociation, the taste of a seat-back magazine. Rocky planted himself on a chaise longue, lit a cigarette, gestured for Mangan to sit. Two of the boys lingered by the door, still, watchful.
“Tell them to leave,” said Mangan, quietly, in Mandarin.
Rocky thought for a minute, then nodded. He gestured, and they left the room reluctantly, closed the door.
“What is this?” said Mangan.
“What’s what?” said Rocky, the knee jigging now, Mangan saw.
“Why so many people? Who are they?”
“They are security.”
Mangan swallowed.
Rocky had his head cocked to one side, regarding him. He shrugged.
Mangan waited.
“They’re here, so we just accept,” said Rocky.
“They’re not your idea, is that what you’re telling me?” He saw Rocky blink, then cover it with a huge distended grin.
“What do you have for me?” he said.
Mangan sighed.
“Tasking.”
“Ah.” Rocky drew on his cigarette, and was that a tremor in his hand?
“What’s wrong?” said Mangan.
“Nothing is wrong.”
“It would be best if you did not keep things from me,” said Mangan.
Rocky gave a snort of laughter.
“Not so unusual, in our game.”
Mangan changed tack.
“Look, they want me to tell you that the account is open and a first payment has been made.”
“That’s nice.” Another long draw on the cigarette.
“Well, don’t you… don’t you want the details?”
“The details. Yes, I want the details.”
Mangan forced himself to concentrate, put aside his unease. He reeled off the account number, sort code, address in the Cayman Islands, passwords. Rocky just nodded.
“Tell them, thank you,” he said. “And now, the tasking. Task me.”
He’s going through the motions, thought Mangan. He’s waiting till we get to what matters to him. Get him talking, Philip. See what happens.
“Really?” said Mangan. “You want me to go through their dreary lists?”
Rocky picked a piece of tobacco from his tongue with his forefinger, examined it.
“Sure.”
“All right. They want to start with 2PLA, command structure, current operations. Then they’d like you to move on to signals intelligence, capacity along the borders, across southwest military region’s area of operations. And then, what was next? Oh yes, Party/military relations, chains of command, doctrine.”
Rocky frowned.
“What are they doing, writing a research paper?”
“I think they’re warming up. I’m sure there will be more exacting demands in future.”
Rocky pointed to himself, finger to nose.
“If I had an agent like me…”
Mangan affected a patient expression. “Perhaps you should tell them what they ought to know, rather than what they want to know.”
Rocky brightened, in his deliberate way.
“Exactly. Exactly.” He held up an admonishing finger. Now he was fiddling with the pockets on his vest, fumbling, tense. “We must trust, yes? They should trust me to tell them.” He was digging in the pockets, one after another, looking down, his mouth turned downward at the corners. He suddenly seemed old.
“I mean,” said Rocky, looking up abruptly, rediscovering his obliging self. “I can give them the signals stuff, sure. All the stuff along the border. They should already know, though, shouldn’t they? Since most of it’s run by CIA.”
Mangan made a wry face. He’d written a story once, about the mobile signals intelligence units that moved along China’s southern border, Americans and Chinese aboard, sniffing the airwaves for drug traffickers. And more.
“I’m sure there’s plenty you could tell them,” he said.
“Oh, there is.” Rocky laughed, went back to digging in his pockets, then appeared to find something.
“Here we are,” he said.
He laid on the table what seemed to be a small tile, perhaps two inches square, light gray. Mangan peered at it. Rocky watched him.
“I’m assuming you are going to tell me what that is,” said Mangan.
“I thought you might know.”
“I don’t.”
Rocky took another cigarette from the pack, lit it, inhaled with a hiss through his teeth. He pointed at the gray tile.
“That, that is a death sentence. For me. For them.” He gestured out beyond the door. “So you be careful with it.”
Mangan waited.
“It’s the skin of the J-20,” Rocky said, watching Mangan carefully.
The what?
He thought hard, almost panicked. No, the J-20, the new fighter aircraft. Stealthy, canard design, built by Chengdu Aviation, fifth generation, officially graded Extremely Scary. Chinese air power for the twenty-first century, and still mostly a mystery. He’d seen weird digitally altered photos of prototypes on the net. And the skin? The composite covering the fuselage and wings to throw off enemy radar.
“I’d guess,” said Rocky, “your people would want to look at it.”
Mangan picked the tile up, turned it in his fingers, a fragment, loaded with meaning. A little shard of power.
“I’m sure they would,” he said quietly.
“Mind you,” said Rocky, “I don’t think they learn too much.”
“Why?”
Rocky grinned, gestured to the tile. “It’s an American formula. We stole it.”
Mangan opened his mouth, made to speak, then caught himself. Later, he thought. Rocky’s eyes were still on him. He spoke in Mandarin.
“And some more things,” he said. He was holding a memory stick. “On here, some bits and pieces for J-20. New engine specs. Off boresight capability. And the weapons bay doors, tell them to look there. The design is tricky. In testing, they’ve found that the different material densities create backscatter.”
Mangan looked blank.
“Radar can see it,” Rocky said slowly.
Mangan nodded.
“Also, the onboard sensors. CNaC makes them and they’re shit.”
He dropped the memory stick on the table, its clack on the tabletop.
“Oh, and one other thing.” He pointed at the stick.
“Laser weapons. There’s a document. CNaC is making laser weapons. Blinding weapons. They can use them at sea, blind ships and aircraft. Also crowd control. Horrible, really. The laser touches your eye: it makes your eyeball boil, inside. It’s all illegal but CNaC doesn’t care. It’s all there.”
Mangan looked at the memory stick. He was suddenly conscious of heat and closeness in the room, could hear the ticking and chattering of frogs in the forest, the whoop of some night bird. The window must be open, he thought. He reached out and took the memory stick and the tile, unzipped a pocket on the backpack, put them in, carefully. So much for tasking, he thought. We ask him cub scout questions about his bosses, he brings treasure.
Why so eager to please?
Rocky was speaking, the knee jigging, fingers working, picking at a nail, a loose piece of skin on the thumb, the smile wide as a chasm.
“So,” he was saying, jovially, “that’s all for now. Let’s have a drink.” He stood up, walked to a sideboard, took a bottle from a drawer. Blue Label this time, two glasses, an ice bucket.
“
You know very well I have to ask,” said Mangan.
Rocky walked back across the room, sat, made a fist around the top of the bottle, cracked it open, poured, dropped in the ice.
“Ask away.”
“How? Where from?”
Rocky rolled the whisky around the ice, took a sip.
“You won’t respect me in the morning,” he said.
Mangan picked up his glass, drank, waited.
“No,” said Rocky. “Maybe later, I tell you.”
“They’ll want to know the source.”
Rocky just grinned again, shook his head.
“Why do you have it in for CNaC?” said Mangan.
Rocky looked up, sharply now.
“Why do you say that?”
“This is the third time you’ve given us information to discredit CNaC. The petroleum contracts, the procurement documents, now this. What has CNaC ever done to you?”
Rocky considered.
“This is not about CNaC,” he said.
“What is it about, then?”
Rocky’s look soured.
“It’s partly about CNaC,” he said.
Mangan sighed, let their silence hang in the air, the night noises coming in from the window.
“And,” he began, “you said that the formula for the skin composite was… stolen.”
“Ha!” shouted Rocky. “I wondered how long it would take you.”
Mangan looked down.
“Who stole it? How?” Rocky was affecting hilarity. “Well, now, Philip, you ask the really dangerous question.”
He stopped, took a pull on his whisky, then laughed more, breathing heavily.
“How we do it? The stealing? Maybe that comes later, too. Maybe.”
“When later?”
“Maybe soon.”
“Why all the security?”
“To be secure.”
“It’s not secure wandering around Chiang Mai with twelve goons.”
Rocky tapped himself on the chest.
“Makes me feel secure.”
“The locals will see you in a heartbeat.”
“I don’t care about the locals.”
“Who do you care about?”
“You mean who do we care about?”
“All right, we.”