Spy Games

by Adam Brookes

  Remain in place.

  This is how it works.

  He stayed in the room for two days. He slept, sent the boy out for more food and waited.

  60

  Chiang Mai

  To Patterson’s considerable relief, Bangkok station made the arrangements for the safe house. It was a villa to the north of Chiang Mai in the hills, a tourist rental, barely visible behind high walls and a creaking steel gate. She pulled up in a rented Toyota. The gate opened for her. She got out of the car, smelling the evening perfume in the air: champak, water jasmine.

  The E Squadron types, two of them, were already there. One beckoned her inside. He was fortyish, sandy, trim, sharp-featured in a way that looked accusatory. To her he reeked of army, the sergeant’s mess. She felt all her old snobbery surging back.

  “No names,” he said. “So I’m Mac.”

  Oh, God, she thought, I’ve landed in an airport thriller.

  “And this is Cliff.” He gestured behind him. Cliff was tall, dark hair past the collar, a jaw you could sharpen your bayonet on, but a posture that said calm. Cool, gray eyes that caught Patterson’s attention immediately, to her annoyance.

  “And what do we call you?” said Cliff, with a half-smile. He sounded Antipodean. New Zealand, perhaps?

  “How about ‘Boss’?” she said.

  Mac raised his eyebrows, turned and glanced at Cliff, who didn’t respond.

  “Boss it is,” said Mac.

  “How do,” said Cliff, and picked up her bags for her, led her upstairs to an echoing bedroom, laid the bags down.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Boss,” he said, and left her.

  She unpacked, made sure her run bag was together and took out the laptop. She cabled it to the sat phone and signaled her arrival.

  Downstairs, someone had brewed coffee. She poured a cup, went looking for the two of them. The villa was bigger than it seemed. A long wallpapered corridor took her to a gloomy annex. She walked in on Cliff unpacking equipment. On a camp bed were laid out lightweight body armor, boxes of ammunition, two sidearms and two MP7s, the quiet, vicious, compact submachine guns.

  “Christ, we’re not here to start a war,” she said. He turned quickly, looked startled.

  “No. But we like to be prepared, you know?” he said. He began putting the weapons into a duffel bag.

  “Whose idea was it to bring all this?” she said.

  “Normal operating procedure.”

  “Not for me, it’s not. Whose idea?”

  “We were just told to be… prepared for contingencies.”

  “What bloody contingencies?”

  “Nothing specific.” He held his hands out, conciliatory. “Look, we really don’t expect to be using any of it.”

  “Bloody right,” she said. “Kitchen. And bring Mac.”

  She pointed to the screen.

  “His phone signal puts him about a mile north of the old city, on this street, probably in this building. It appears to be a guest house called the Banyan.”

  “Well, what’s he doing there? He’s supposed to be at the Palm Pavilion,” said Mac.

  “Using his initiative, I expect,” she said.

  Mac rubbed his chin, doing a very-concerned act.

  “Think you can manage?” she said.

  Now he looked affronted, made to speak, but Cliff cut in.

  “I’m sure we can,” he said. “When do we go?”

  “Later. When he says he’s ready. You’ll bring him back here. We let him rest for a bit and then begin the debrief.”

  Cliff nodded.

  “And no weapons,” she said.

  Mac was leaning forward.

  “Hang on. What are we supposed to bloody do if the entire bloody Chinese State Security lands on us?”

  “Use your charming personality,” she said. She loathed his type, aggressive, insecure men, always second-guessing the female officer, the black woman. Loathed them because, like a cracked mirror, they showed her some version of herself.

  She signaled Mangan on the darknet.

  Be ready to move>

  Now, Cliff, on the other hand—she could get used to him.

  Mangan lay on the bed, smoking.

  Another tap at the door.

  “What is it?” said Mangan.

  “Mister,” said the boy.

  He walked to the door, listened.

  “Kai men.” Open the door, said the Clown, quietly.

  In the villa Patterson waited. No response came from Mangan. Mac paced and sighed, shook his head. Cliff lounged on a sofa reading a book.

  At one in the morning, Patterson stood up.

  “All right, let’s go. Let’s just go and see.”

  They took the Toyota, Cliff driving. Less than fifteen minutes and they were approaching the soi. Cliff stayed with the car. Patterson and Mac tapped at the gate of the Banyan guest house. No response. She rapped. The slap of footsteps on paving, the scrape of the bolt. The gate opened a few inches to reveal a sleepy-eyed boy in a T-shirt.

  Patterson smiled winningly.

  “Hello there. So sorry to wake you up. One of your guests. Tall man. Red hair. We need to see him. It’s rather urgent. Sorry.”

  She could feel Mac straining at her shoulder, wanting, she guessed, to kick the gate open and put the boy in a stress position.

  The boy frowned.

  “English? Guest?”

  “Yes. Very tall.” Patterson put her hand above her head, moved it up and down to indicate height.

  The boy nodded.

  “Yes. He go.” He gestured leaving, gone.

  “Gone? When was that?”

  “Maybe… eight. Nine. He go.”

  From Mac a whispered Jesus Christ.

  “And where did he go?” she said.

  “He say go away, maybe come back two… three day.”

  “Did he say where?” Patterson’s face a rictus now, Mac shifting on his feet.

  The boy shook his head.

  “Was there anyone with him?”

  The boy nodded. “One man, with him. Chinese man.” The boy made to close the gate.

  “Wait,” said Patterson. “How did he look? Did he want to go with this man?”

  The boy looked confused.

  “Did he… did he look angry? Like it was a problem?” She gestured to her face.

  The boy shook his head.

  “No. No. He look okay. No problem.” He closed the door.

  Mac looked at her, made a contemptuous snorting sound. She turned and walked quickly back to the car. She sat in the front seat, took out the laptop and activated the satellite link. The pulsing red orb on the map showed Mangan, or his phone at least, three hours or so north of Chiang Mai, heading toward the Mekong River.

  I’m to force him back into the breach, and he’s already gone charging off by himself.

  The Clown had begun to hustle him out of the room.

  “We have to go now, Mr. Mangan.”

  Mangan attempted to stand his ground.

  “Tell me why, and where.”

  “He needs to see you. We have to go fast.”

  “Why the urgency?”

  The Clown went to the window, looked out. Mangan shook his head.

  “How about we drop the drama. Why do we have to move fast?”

  The Clown looked at him, the rubber face, eyes like lead.

  “You saw. They are here. Looking for us. Events, Mr. Mangan. Events have caused us to speed up our plans. So we move. And so do you, now.”

  “Who is they?”

  “He will explain everything. We have to go.”

  “Where?”

  “A safe place. Our place.”

  “I cannot. Do you understand? I have orders to stay here.”

  The Clown sighed. Made a regretful face.

  “Mr. Mangan. You know a lot. You know my meaning? Too much maybe. You here… it is dangerous for us. If they find you.”

  He held out his hands, supplicatory.

  “So
. Really. You are coming now. He will explain everything. He has very much to tell you. Lots of valuable things. So come.” The Clown’s expression had hardened. “Now.”

  “Let me signal my… people.”

  “No time. Now. You bring your computer, phone. Later you talk to them.”

  Mangan considered. He picked up his run bag, went to the bathroom, closed and locked the door. He stood on the toilet seat and reached into the cistern, pulled out the dripping bags. He took one passport, some of the money. The pistol he stuck in his waistband, the spare clip went in the bag.

  When he emerged, the Clown was standing, impatient, by the door. Mangan packed the computer in the run bag. Phone on? Or off? He thought for a moment. Phone on.

  “How long are we going for?” he said

  “Not long. A day, maybe two days,” said the Clown.

  They went down the stairs. The boy was in reception watching television, K-pop music videos.

  “I’ll be back in a couple of days,” said Mangan. The boy nodded.

  They roared out of the city, heading north, the Clown apparently caring nothing for their silhouette, not even a glimpse over his shoulder. There’d be chase cars, Mangan assumed. They were silent and he watched the deepening night over the forests, the glistening lights through the trees, the insects in the headlights. After two hours they stopped. The Clown got out and made a phone call, spoke fast and urgently. Mangan stood by the car, stiff, his ribs aching. He tried to stretch, and lit a cigarette, felt the moist heat on his skin. Later, as they skirted Chiang Rai, Mangan broke the silence in Mandarin.

  “Will you tell me where we are going?”

  “Somewhere we control. To be safe.”

  “You need to tell me where the threat is coming from.”

  The Clown said nothing for a moment.

  “They are people who want to stop us. To stop change. Kill us, maybe.”

  “Why? Why do they want to stop you?”

  “Because they… they fear we will take everything from them.”

  “Are they right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Who are they? What do they want?”

  The Clown smiled.

  “Everything. They want everything. They want to buy everything. Own everything. Eat everything. Fuck everything.”

  Mangan shook his head.

  “I don’t understand. This is who? Is it the Communist Party? People in the Party? A faction? Who do you mean?”

  “We tend to think,” said the Clown, “we tend to think these words—Party, faction—don’t mean much any more. These are just… empty shells. What we see are systems, structures, networks.”

  “So we’re talking about a network. In China.”

  “Oh, it goes far beyond China.” He lifted a hand from the steering wheel, waved away Mangan’s naivete. “Far beyond.”

  The Clown sighed, shifted in his seat.

  “That’s why you’re here,” he said.

  They turned off the highway, onto an unmarked road snaking through fields, silent villages under a pale moon.

  61

  Cliff drove them back to the safe house, Mac in the backseat pointedly silent, arms folded. Patterson sat in the front, composing a telegram on the handheld.

  The date. A reference number.

  CX WEAVER

  TO LONDON

  TO C/WFE

  TO TCI/64335

  TO P/C/62815

  FILE REF R/84459

  FILE REF SB/38972

  LEDGER UK S E C R E T

  PRIORITY

  /REPORT

  1/ WEAVER personnel went to BRAMBLE’s last known location, a guest house. BRAMBLE was not there. The staff said he had left at approximately 20.00 local/14.00 ZULU, and would be gone two to three days. BRAMBLE’s destination was unknown.

  2/ Trace revealed that BRAMBLE’s mobile phone was approximately 130 miles to the northeast, and was continuing to move in that direction.

  3/ Staff at the guest house said that BRAMBLE left in the company of a Chinese man, and indicated BRAMBLE left the guest house willingly.

  4/ Grateful for confirmatory traces on BRAMBLE’s position, instructions.

  //END

  She sat in silence, furious with herself.

  “We can go after him,” said Cliff. “We’re still in contact with him. It’s okay.”

  From the backseat, another snort.

  “Something to say there, Mac?” said Cliff.

  “Just that, next time, maybe, we should get the agent’s location—” Cliff cut him off.

  “Yes, I think we all realize that, thanks. We’ll do better next time, eh?”

  Silence from the backseat.

  “We could just call him,” said Cliff.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

  She glanced across at him, but he was looking straight ahead into the darkness.

  They arrived at the Mekong River. Mangan stood on the bank. A quarter of a mile away, across the sluggish, black water was Laos. He tried to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, shielded them from the lights of the town with one hand. Chiang Saen had been an opium town, but now the money was in tourists lumbering along on elephants, stewing in spas, while the heroin and the little pills came down the river from Myanmar. He put his hand beneath his shirt and ran it over the sidearm.

  The Clown was standing at the water’s edge on a wooden jetty, looking both ways, as if about to cross. Then he held up what looked to be a torch, but no light came from it. Across the water, from the north, the low grumble of an engine. The Clown was tilting the lightless torch up and down.

  The boat was low and fast, a shallow draft to it. It was painted some dun color, had the look of a patrol boat, but Mangan could see no markings. The boat, its bow wave a white flicker in the dark, came scudding in, suddenly slowed and slid onto the jetty.

  Mangan took a deep breath, smelled the diesel over the river’s oily, mulchy stink. The Clown was gesturing to him, and, from the side of the craft, a crewman was holding out a hand.

  Another step. Into what?

  He looked around, heard the sound of the car they’d come in being driven away.

  The Clown was aboard already, hissing at him.

  “Come on, Mr. Mangan, we must go now.”

  He hefted the run bag, touched the sidearm one more time, put one foot over the side and felt himself pulled aboard, chivied below. The crewman showed him into a cabin with beds recessed into the sides. Mangan dropped his bag, lay down, tried to slow his mind down, collect himself. He thought of Patterson, thought of the flinty look she’d give him, the starchy admonishment coming his way. Should he call her? Too much of a risk? Probably, in this hyper-surveilled environment. Steal a phone? Now, there’s a thought.

  The pitch of the engines rose and the boat leaned away from the jetty, into the current.

  Toward China.

  He slept for hours, to his surprise. When he woke it was light. He put his head out of the cabin. The boat was plowing forward in a fine rain, pitching in the river’s chop. On the right bank, distant through the damp mist, Laos. On the left, closer, Myanmar. Ahead, China. He climbed to the cabin above, where the Clown stood next to a helmsman and another man who was looking through binoculars, the captain, Mangan assumed. The Clown turned, saw Mangan and, irritated, brought him quickly inside the cabin.

  “You must stay out of sight. Please,” he said.

  The captain lowered the binoculars, studied Mangan, then returned to scanning the river.

  “Now, please, you can tell me where we’re headed,” said Mangan, trying to sound brisk, businesslike.

  “Another twelve hours or so,” said the Clown. “By evening we’ll be there.”

  “You’re taking me back into China.”

  “Not exactly.”

  “What do you mean, not exactly?” Mangan allowed his voice to rise a little. “It’s either China or Myanmar. There are no other bloody countries I’m aware of up this river. So which one is it?”
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  “Well, as I said to you, we tend not to think too much in those terms. So we are going to a place which is sort of… between places.” He faced Mangan. “I understand this is frustrating for you. But please be patient. You are quite safe. I give you my word.”

  His eyes flickered down to Mangan’s waist.

  “And you are armed for your own protection. And that’s fine. Just please do not use the weapon, Mr. Mangan. This would be a very unfortunate outcome.”

  He smiled.

  “Hao ma?” Okay?

  Mangan said nothing.

  “Now, please, Mr. Mangan, how about some breakfast?”

  They fed him the thick, rich rice porridge with shredded pork and spring onions, instant coffee. He ate it seated in a tiny galley, a crewman looking on. When he’d finished, the crewman offered him a cigarette, which he took. The crewman lit it for him and he inhaled deeply, felt the hot bite of it in his chest.

  “So,” said Mangan, “spend a lot of time smuggling people up and down the Mekong, do we?”

  But the crewman just smiled.

  The rain slackened off in the afternoon, then stopped, and with a tremulous sun the temperature rose sharply. Through the porthole, Mangan saw steam rising off the forest on the bank. Visibility had improved and they were moving much faster now, the boat’s bow up. He lay in the cabin, teetering between boredom and anxiety. They were, he realized, trying hard to make him feel as if he were not a captive. And in the Clown’s tone of voice, beneath the obliqueness, Mangan discerned anticipation, the sense of a plan progressing. He was, quite clearly, part of an operation now. Someone else’s.

  At around six in the evening, the boat suddenly reduced speed, then hove to. The engine noise lessened to a low rumble and Mangan heard a loudspeaker across the water. They were being hailed. A crewman appeared in the cabin, gesturing urgently. Mangan picked up his run bag and followed the crewman forward through the galley into a dark storage compartment. Another engine, now, this one higher-pitched, pulling alongside. The crewman was running his hands along the bulkhead, looking for something. Then a snick, and the bulkhead came away to reveal a narrow space, eighteen inches or so deep, insulated with rubber matting. The crewman pushed Mangan in, gestured for him to lie down, on his side. Mangan eased himself down, and then the bulkhead was back in place and he was in a sweltering, stinking darkness. The rubber matting was saturated. He felt the water soaking into his clothes.