“Noi, my darling, this is Mr. Humphrey and Mr. Callaway.” The dog continued to yap as they greeted one another with wai’s across the pool deck. “Sawatdee kha,” she said in a sweet, little-girl voice, “happy to meet you.”
An elderly Thai servant arrived to take their drink orders and then disappeared back into the house. After lighting a local Krong Thip cigarette, the general blew a lungful of foul smelling smoke up into the air. He didn’t bother to offer one to his farang guests, assuming all Americans were health nuts who distained smoking. It was just one more thing he could not understand about these strange foreigners, but their money was good.
Returning with a large pitcher of lemonade, glasses, and cookies on a silver tray, the servant quietly placed them on the table in front of them. He poured the glasses and, without asking, he poured one for Noi and brought it and a cookie on a napkin to her by the edge of the pool where he served her with a bow. She fed the dog a piece of her cookie and the mutt finally settled down in her lap contentedly.
The general took a long, last pull on his Krong Thip cigarette and crushed it out in his cookie dish. He spoke in excellent American accented English with smoke oozing from his mouth and nostrils. “Your shipment arrived two days ago. I have not opened it but I have seen the manifest. It appears you fellows are going on a hunting expedition—hunting men, from the description of the automatic weapons in the box.”
He smiled knowingly, lit another rancid Krong Thip and continued. “I hope I can be of further service to you in that regard. Mr. Barker surely must have told you that I stand ready to offer a wide range of discreet services to my clients. I am more than just an arms merchant.”
Culler, wearing a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt, placed his hands behind his head and stretched, displaying massive biceps and forearms. “Can you get us transportation, like, maybe an airplane?”
“That can be arranged easily,” said the general. “I am a pilot and I own a small Cessna 172 four seater. It is a very reliable plane for, shall I say, surveillance of certain places in the area.” He smiled knowingly.
Mac didn’t know how far he could take this but decided the general could be useful in leading him to Khun Ut’s heroin. “What about a helicopter? Can you fly one of those as well?”
“Yes, of course. I have part interest in a Bell Ranger which has room for four people and some luggage. Very reliable. We use it mostly for tours up and down the Mekong and around the native hill tribe villages.
“That’s good to know,” said Mac. “Bill said you were both trustworthy and resourceful. It appears that he was right on both counts.”
“It goes without saying that all of this has to be held in the strictest confidence,” said Culler. “We don’t want anyone else knowing our business. No one.”
“Understood. You will not have to worry about me. It is like the American saying, ‘Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’” The general laughed loudly at his own joke, displaying a mouthful of nicotine stained teeth and gold.
“Okay,” said Mac, standing, “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s go see what Bill Barker sent us.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The three men padded in their stocking feet back across the polished teak floor of the foyer to the general’s study in the front of the house.
The general opened ornately carved teak double doors to reveal a warm, paneled room with masculine leather couches and chairs. A huge, beautifully carved partner’s desk dominated the center of the room. The room was impeccably organized, but it reeked of stale cigarette smoke. In one corner, two wooden shipping boxes were stacked neatly.
“The larger box contains the weapons and other gear,” said the general, reading from the manifest, “and the smaller one contains the ammunition. I am sure that both can’t be shipped in the same container.” He handed the manifest to MacMurphy. “Please check to see that everything is in order while I open the boxes.”
Santos walked over to help the general. After he picked up a claw hammer and the general grabbed a crowbar, they went to work on the boxes.
They inventoried the gear, examined each piece of equipment and found that everything had arrived as planned and paid for.
Sawat puffed on another Krong Thip. “That is quite an arsenal you’ve got there, gentlemen. Those automatic weapons are beautiful. I don’t think I have ever seen anything like them. May I see one?”
Culler handed him one of the rifles.
The general set down his cigarette, caressed the rifle and sighted down the barrel. “Very nice,” he said.
“It’s a POF 416 5.56 mm assault rifle. State of the art. Treat us right and we’ll leave one behind for you when we leave.”
“Oh,” said the general amidst a gust of smoke, “I will treat you right. No doubt about that. I would not want you coming after me. Not with those weapons.”
Mac grabbed an armful of the gear and headed towards the door. “Let’s start moving this stuff to the car,” he said over his shoulder to Culler, “but leave the H&K pistols and a couple boxes of the .45 mag ammo out. We should keep them close from now on.”
Culler removed the two H&K pistols and suppressors from their boxes and set them aside. He found the correct ammo and set a couple of boxes of those aside as well. Hunting for the holsters, he found that Barker had sent two holsters for each gun. One was a thigh holster suitable for carrying openly on military type missions, and the second was a mid-back, belt clip-on holster for concealment under a long shirt.
Barker had thoughtfully included two green military duffle bags in the shipment. They placed the loose weapons and gear into the bags before carrying everything to the trunk of the car.
The general watched intently from the door as Culler and Mac loaded the rental car. Noi padded across the foyer on bare feet about half-way through the loading operation. She was wearing a diaphanous top unbuttoned over her bikini and was still clutching Ling Ling at her breast. Her tanned skin shone from suntan lotion, and she smelled like cocoa butter. She regarded the activities with bored disdain.
“Daddy,” she said kissing the general on the cheek and snuggling his arm, “I’m going upstairs to shower and change for lunch. I won’t be long.”
Culler appeared and the dog began to yap frantically. He glared at the mutt until Noi and the dog disappeared at the top of the stairs. “Can’t stand yappy mutts,” he muttered to Mac. “But I do love lazy, floppy-eared dogs. You know, the kind that sit at your feet and look up at you adoringly. I like my women that way too...”
“You wish,” said Mac, “You wish.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Mac drove while Culler busied himself with loading ammo into the pistol magazines, wiping down the guns and breaking in the waist holsters by sliding the guns in and out of the form fitting, hard leather. He popped a loaded magazine into each gun and placed one next to Mac and kept the other for himself.
About half way back to Chiang Rai, Mac grabbed his cell phone. “We should call to set up a meeting with Charly Blackburn.” He had earlier programmed the blind cell numbers of Culler, Charly, Maggie and Edwin Rothmann into his phone and had added the general’s number that morning.
He pressed the speed dial for Charly Blackburn, but her phone went immediately into voice mail. “Hi,” he said, “This is Bob. We’re in Chiang Rai staying at the Wangcome Hotel. We can meet anytime after work in room 1048. Please give me a call and let me know what time you can meet. Thanks. Talk to you later.”
Mac had decided to meet in Chiang Rai rather than in Chiang Mai because Charly was well known as a consulate official in Chiang Mai. He knew the weakest link in any operation was usually the officially covered case officer. They were the most likely to be under surveillance by the opposition.
Security was never perfect, but he thought it would be good enough under these circumstances.
Charly Blackburn called a little over an hour later and left a short message on his phone. “Hi Bob. Good to hear from
you. See you at nine. Okay? Ciao.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
At eight-thirty Mac sent Culler Santos down to the hotel’s lobby to provide counter-surveillance for the meeting. In the lobby bar, Culler selected a bar stool with a good view of the revolving doors at the front entrance.
At eight fifty-six a woman who met the description of Charly Blackburn spun through the revolving door and hurried purposefully toward the elevators at the rear of the lobby. Her shoulder-length, black hair was pulled back away from her face and tied at the nape of her neck. She wore a black, short-sleeved, silk blouse, black slacks, and black pumps. She carried a large black leather shoulder bag.
The ninja lady, he thought as she breezed through the lobby in front of him. She entered an empty elevator and disappeared from his view.
His eyes moved back to the revolving doors at the entrance. Only moments behind her, a harried looking, balding Thai in a wrinkled white shirt, dark slacks and old tennis shoes entered the lobby through the revolving doors and stopped, frantically looking around the lobby for something or someone. Bingo, that’s the surveillance, thought Culler.
Culler watched the man move through the lobby, eyes darting about and clearly anxious. The man dropped into a comfortable armchair in the middle of the lobby and made a call on his cell phone. He spoke into it while still rubber necking around the lobby.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The knock on the door of room 1048 came at exactly nine o’clock. Mac greeted Charly at the door and quickly ushered her into the room. After glancing up and down the hall to make sure no one observed her entering the room, he shut the door and bolted it. When he turned to face her, he caught the hard slap on the side of his face.
“You bastard!”
He stood rubbing the sting out of his cheek with his left hand and holding his right up in front of him as if to say she had made her point. When it was clear there would be no follow-up strikes, he reached out to her. She slipped into his arms and they hugged tightly for a long time, rocking back and forth without saying a word.
They had first met almost ten years earlier. She had just finished her training at the top of her class at The Farm and had been assigned to Bangkok Station as a junior case officer.
He was visiting Bangkok on temporary duty to attend a narcotics conference. She followed him back to his hotel after a dinner party at the home of the Bangkok station chief, and that was the start of an on-again, off-again affair that lasted until Mac rotated out of Hong Kong and dropped completely off of her radar screen. He made no attempt to contact her after that.
Charly Blackburn was known as a “comer” in the Agency. Although her initial interest in Thailand was due mostly to her heritage, she honed that interest by majoring in Far Eastern History, earning a masters degree in the subject in her home state at the University of Oklahoma.
Her thesis on the history of the drug trade emanating from the Golden Triangle was widely published and received kudos from the academic community. The thesis was also the deciding factor in her selection into the elite clandestine service of the CIA, and in her subsequent posting to Thailand.
But it wasn’t just her academic achievements that helped to advance her budding career in the CIA’s clandestine service. She was blessed with native fluency in the Thai language and oriental good looks which allowed her to move gracefully throughout the Thai community as well as on the diplomatic scene.
And she never missed an opportunity to use these God-given feminine charms to advance her career. Ever since that night after the senior prom in Midwest City , Oklahoma, when she finally agreed to give Bobby Jack Spencer her virginity in the parking lot behind the Baptist church, she knew how to manipulate and control men. And she thoroughly enjoyed that power.
She learned to use that newfound power over men to advance her career in the insular community of the CIA. Indeed, the CIA management encouraged its officers to link up with one another. Better to sleep with the good guys than the bad guys. This was the philosophy. Keeping affairs in-house kept things more secure.
So she slept her way through the ranks of the CIA’s East Asia Division management and picked up a number of influential supporters along the way. Her targeting of MacMurphy was one such effort, but she ended up falling for the guy. Not what she had planned at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Seeing her again brought back emotions and memories that Mac had long buried. She was as beautiful as ever, despite the black eye and angry red scar closed with a butterfly bandage on her forehead, wounds she received when slammed against the wall during the explosion
The feel of her in his arms again aroused him. His hands began to explore first her hips and then further down. He kissed away her tears and she raised her face to meet his. They kissed deeply and longingly.
Memories of past trysts flooded their minds, and their hips pressed together hotly.
His cell phone rang, interrupting the moment.
They broke apart and he answered. “Hey… Okay…You’re certain? Okay… Good idea…Okay, but make it look like a robbery if it comes to that. Don’t do anything that that will bring attention back to us. ... Right… Okay… Stay there and keep an eye on him. We’ll be about an hour… Right, I’ll call when she leaves… Okay, bye.”
Charly was still breathing heavily, regarding him with misty, lustful eyes. “What’s wrong? What was that all about?”
“You were followed.”
“Impossible!”
“No, it’s pretty clear. He came in right after you, but you had already disappeared into an elevator. He knows you’re in the hotel. Santos is keeping an eye on him in the lobby.”
“They must have picked me up on the outskirts of Chiang Rai. There’s no way anyone could have followed me from Chiang Mai to here. I had the pedal to the metal all the way.”
“That’s it. They probably lost you on the highway and called ahead. There’s only one road between Chiang Mai and here. Where’d you park?”
“In a garage about three blocks from here.”
MacMurphy turned away from her and walked to the other end of the room where a bottle of Pino Grigio was chilling in an ice bucket on a coffee table sitting between two chairs. He busied himself opening the wine. “Sit down and let’s think for a moment.” He poured two glasses of wine and sat beside her.
“There’s only one way out of here, and that’s back through the lobby.” He was thinking out loud and his mood was all case officer now. “So, let’s figure this out. They know you’re meeting someone here. They just don’t know who. They may also have someone else staking out your car in the lot. But then again, they’ve already gotten as much as they’ll get out of this surveillance. They probably suspect you’re having an important meeting here, otherwise you wouldn’t have attempted to lose the surveillance, but they have no idea who that might be. So they’ve failed in that regard. The surveillance is already a bust. It’s lucky you got into that elevator so quickly.”
She took a long drink of her wine, sat back and crossed her legs. “I guess I blew it. Sorry Mac.”
“Happens to everyone at some time or another. Let’s just deal with it. My main concern is maintaining the integrity of the operation, and our connection with you is our weakest link. We’ve just got to get you out of here safely and make sure they don’t find out who you were meeting here.”
She held out her glass and gave him a sorrowful look. He refilled their glasses and continued. “Actually, when you think about it, there’s no need for them to surveil you any longer. They know you’ll be leaving here and going back home to Chiang Mai sooner or later. They know you’re meeting someone but don’t know who. It could be anything, a clandestine meeting with an asset or just a simple tryst. I just don’t want them to do anything stupid to you. These guys play for keeps.”
She lowered her head and looked up at him with her most sultry look. “Can we make it later rather than sooner?”
He reached over and caressed her
cheek pushing her silky black hair away from her face. “Not tonight, Charly. You’ve got to get out of here as soon as possible. Culler is downstairs watching your surveillant, and he’ll make sure you get back on the road safely. And you’re armed, right?”
“Got my trusty PPK right here.” She tapped her shoulder bag. “And this little ‘ole Oklahoma gal definitely knows how to use it.”
“I know you do. Just keep it close when you leave here. In your hand would be good.”
“I’m just happy you’re so concerned about my safety. I hope that’s a personal concern and not just a professional one.”
He smiled, looked her over from head to foot, and took a slow drink from his wine glass. “You’re a piece of work Charly. A real piece of work. Now let’s get down to business. We’ve got a lot to cover in a very short time.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mac pulled a pen and yellow pad out of a briefcase next to his chair. “As you know, without going into any great detail, we’re here to neutralize Khun Ut and bust up his heroin network. How we go about doing that depends greatly on the assistance we can count on from you.”
She leaned forward, all business now. “I handle an asset I recruited nine months ago. We use him to track Khun Ut’s heroin shipments from his jungle refineries to his main warehouse north of here in Mae Chan.
“Yes, Ed told me. Do you know the exact location of the warehouse?”
“Sure do. My guy has been there many times. I have the exact coordinates. But it’s heavily guarded, and those guys are a trigger happy bunch of thugs.”
“But it’s the logical place to start, the warehouse I mean, don’t you agree?”
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