After climbing the 300 steps of the country’s longest Naga staircase to the splendid golden Wat Prathat, Jana Rossi totally understood why the elephant had wanted to lie down, forever.
She’d made the pilgrimage to the famous wat because it was the thing to do. Every Thai she’d met had told her that no one could claim to have been to Chiang Mai until they’d tasted kai soi and visited Doi Suthep. So after indulging in a huge, delicious bowl of the chicken coconut noodle curry for brunch, she had taken a songthaew taxi to the foot of the temple steps.
There she admired the colourful serpent head that reared up at the bottom of the steps; and ran her hand appreciatively over its carved body that formed the railing all the way to the top. By step number 250, she was gripping the back of the Naga - the mythical serpent that had sheltered the meditating Buddha - hoping it could give her a lift, rather than enlightenment. The moment she reached the summit, however, it became irrelevant whether it was too much kai soi or not enough sleep that made the climb so tiring. Her exhaustion simply vanished and she was enveloped by an odd tranquillity.
Wat Prathat was serene, despite the other tourists. The temple precinct was all red, white and gold; the wat, stupa and shrines all stone and teak-carved, with sweeping serpent-edged roofs. Manicured trees dotted the highly polished flagstones underfoot and, everywhere she looked, there were carved Buddhas, live Buddhist monks, giant bells, golden umbrellas, Nagas all over the place, and even a statue of the Hindu elephant-headed Ganesh.
She stood gazing at the breathtaking view over the far-below and once-walled city of Chiang Mai, which had long ago spread out beyond its moat and what was left of its fortifications. The smell of incense was intoxicating, and Jana took a deep breath and smiled. She knew that if she ever needed a spiritual inclination then Buddhism would be the way she’d incline. Right now though, she didn’t care whether it was her own endorphins or a mystical rush, she just knew she felt ridiculously elated.
She’d finalised her last deal for the AET Council last night and was due for her first meeting, or rather informal dinner, with a local Helix Foundation project manager tonight. Lawan Terat, who was launching a new Helix-funded IT training bureau for businesswomen in Thailand’s north, had suggested that they meet at her hotel’s Miyuki restaurant at 6 pm.
At 12.30 tomorrow morning, Jana was due to meet the first of many roving Australian field agents employed by the Foundation, all of whom were apparently close personal friends of Ruth Jardine; and some of whom Jana would be working with from time to time - if she accepted the job.
So far Jana liked everything she’d learnt about her possible position as Forward Scout. She was extremely happy with the generous income, benefits and professional opportunities; she was completely taken by Ruth Jardine herself and the three other Foundation people she’d later met at the Windsor Hotel; and, of course, she heartily approved of the Helix mission and ideology, as well as the Foundation’s work practices and international reputation. She would get to do plenty of travelling and, best of all, would not have to move to Sydney.
Realising she’d just made the decision to take the job, Jana decided a celebratory drink was in order, on her own if she couldn’t find a friendly soul to join her. She lit a stick of incense and set off to ring a few temple bells - for good luck - before heading back to her hotel.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Canberra, Australia
Sunday 5 pm
Aaron Danby, ironically as it would turn out, was fresh from a session with Perfect Lash, in which he was the Prime Minister and she was leader of the Opposition. He didn’t imagine himself as just any Prime Minister, but as Robert Harvey - the current PM, human doorstop, lead-dead weight, and handbrake on Danby’s own route to the top job.
Danby therefore, and often, derived a hell of a lot more than just astonishing sexual pleasure from having himself, as Robert Harvey, thrashed with a cat-o-nine wielded by a voluptuous dominatrix wearing a photo-mask of the Opposition Leader Keith Turnstile.
A post-discipline frisson flashed from his groin to his brain as he turned his BMW into the drive of his Canberra residence, where he was surprised to see Mick Fleming just parking his own car. Not a good sign. His advisor was supposed to be on a flight half way to Melbourne by now. Something was obviously so very up, that Mick didn’t really need to fling out his hands and demand to know where the hell Aaron had been, although he did anyway.
‘Inside, mate,’ Danby said slapping his best friend on the back as he swiped his keycard for the front door.
‘Jesus Aaron, where have you been? You can’t do this, you have to answer your mobile, mate.’
‘Can’t answer it, if I don’t hear it ring,’ Danby pointed to the kitchen bench, where his mobile phones sat like the deliberately abandoned things they were. He picked up the Scotch bottle. ‘Drink?’
‘Yes. Don’t you want to know why I’m here?’
Danby shrugged. ‘You’ll tell me. You always do.’
Mick, unusually, got right to the point. ‘There was a shooting at Bondi Beach half an hour ago.’
‘Bondi?’ Danby stopped mid pour. ‘Wasn’t that where the Spry Miniature was launching our dubious and ridiculously-costly coastal surveillance initiative today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Enough with the suspense mate. I am so over Robert bloody Harvey. I swear I’ll go mad if you’re just going to tell me that shit again survived being really close to some unrelated domestic argument, or within two blocks of a terrorist targeting somebody else.’
‘They got Barney Cross. He and Robert were both shot, coming out of the surf, by a sniper.’
‘What? Oh crap, um, are they, um? Mick, mate, shit, fill me in. Are they okay, or not. Is he dead? I mean, I didn’t mean what I said about the terrorist before, well I did, but not really. Fuck. What the…’ Danby frowned, downed his Scotch and poured another.
Mick waited until his friend stopped speaking. ‘The PM was shot in the leg. He was taken to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital where he is, sorry, in a stable condition. The Attorney-General, however, is dead; apparently killed by a single shot straight through the heart.’
Danby didn’t quite know what to think. Or do. Or think. ‘Should we go to Sydney?’
‘I think it’d be a good idea, Aaron. I’ve got a flight on standby.’
‘I’ll go pack a bag, or something,’ Danby said. ‘I didn’t really wish actual death on him, on Robert I mean. And God - Barney? I can’t believe that. Who’d want to kill him? Shit, who’d want to kill any of us, this is Australia for Christsake.’
Danby registered Mick’s raised eyebrow and shrugged. ‘Okay, a lot of people might have it in for Barney. Like sick ones from when he was Health Minister, and half the workforce from when he was Industrial Relations Minister, and all those non-Australian asylum seekers and their un-Australian pinko sympathisers, from when he was in Immigration.’
‘Yeah all of them,’ Mick said, following Aaron to his bedroom to make sure he was actually packing. ‘And don’t forget the lawyers.’
‘True. A lot of lawyers hate, hated, his guts. I never understood that though, mate. Isn’t - wasn’t - Barney one himself?’ Danby had grabbed his overnight bag and stuffed it with socks, underwear, a T-shirt, track suit and runners, added his toiletry bag, then grabbed his already-packed suit hanger. He nodded towards the door, so Mick led the way out.
‘Barney was a law reform consultant barrister before he entered politics. In his early years though, he did a bit of lawyering for a human rights group.’
Danby stopped arranging his don’t-forget-this-stuff - three mobile phones, keys and swipe cards, reading glasses and wallet - and stared at Mick. ‘What?’
‘Yeah, ironic, eh? And even back then, he was always regarded by his own kind, as the kind of lawyer who gave his own kind the bad reputation they all endure. He is - was, if you like - the tar-brush itself.’
The Australian Foreign Minister gathered the last of his stuff and hea
ded for the front door, where he suddenly stopped and turned to his friend. ‘I just had a thought.’
‘What? That you might be half a step closer to The Lodge?’
‘No. Oh yeah, but no. It was actually a cringing thought. Knowing Robert, he was wearing those stupid dick-sticker togs of his. The jokes, when they start - and they will - are all going to be about that you know.’
‘Yep. Sad, isn’t it.’
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sunday 8 pm
Jana Rossi, her early dinner meeting with Lawan Terat enjoyably completed, was sitting in the Royal Princess lounge bar on her own. The American, who this afternoon she’d thought was trying to pick her up - in itself odd for a single white male in Thailand - was nowhere in sight. Then she recalled he wasn’t staying at this hotel, he’d only come to collect mail and have a drink. They’d had an interesting chat, after he’d assured her he only needed to talk to someone whose first language was English. A writer by profession, he’d regaled her with his latest project: a spy novel that was giving him a few plotting problems.
After that encounter, then the superb dinner with the amusing Lawan Terat, Jana decided it was time to call Ruth Jardine and accept the job - just in case she wasn’t the only candidate running around SouthEast Asia on a trial run.
Ever more willing to believe her great-grandmother’s tales of Romany blood in their maternal line, despite her genteel Gran’s refusal to countenance the possibility, Jana wondered if there was any way to trace a family tree that had no definable roots. Gypsy genes would certainly explain why she so loved to be on the road anywhere, but particularly overseas, travelling and working, staying in nice hotels or preferably with the locals met through her work. Okay, so it made for an erratic home life, and any kind of lasting relationship wasn’t likely, but she’d long ago opted for 30 good friends to stay with in exotic places, rather than a partner to stay put with in one place. Jana’s soul mate, if there was such a thing, could only ever be someone who also enjoyed a life of change, motion and adventure.
She lifted her eyes to the waiter delivering her coffee and in that same instance saw a vision behind him that was so truly awful it shouted, what the hell! very loudly, in her head. No nice person should endure such a horror more than once in a lifetime, let alone so soon after being trapped with it for the worst ten days of that same life.
What on earth was Alan Wagner doing out of Australia again? Why was he in Thailand, in Chiang Mai, in the same hotel as her? The man had never even been overseas, when she had unknowingly been so stupid as to organise his Laui junket. So this would be the second time in his life that he’d been anywhere. What were the odds of him invading her space by accident?
Jana pinched herself to make sure this whole Helix job-offer trip wasn’t a perfect dream being infected by a perfectly dreadful nightmare. Ow; and bugger.
Prompted by, she had no idea what, Jana leapt up from her club chair and headed out into the foyer to find out what the bastard was up to, following her around like this.
Alan was nowhere to be seen, but there was a westerner, with a large professional-type video-camera, standing alone out the front as if he’d just been dismissed and wasn’t quite sure why.
Jana approached him. ‘Excuse me, but did I just see Alan Wagner?’
‘Pardon?’ the guy frowned as if he was trying to place her. ‘Oh yeah, that was Alan. Um, and aren’t you, Jana Rossi?’
‘Yes,’ Jana frowned, and then pointed at his camera. ‘Are you here because I am?’
The guy looked genuinely taken aback. ‘Didn’t know you were, here. We’ve just done an interview with Sophie Deans and a bunch of elephants. This will freak Alan completely. He’s gonna think you’re stalking him, you know.’
‘That was my first thought about him,’ Jana said pulling a face.
‘And more likely - I know.’ Bob nodded. ‘He’s just taken off down to the bar that Sophie went to with her girlfriend, to ask her out for a late supper.’
Jana screwed up her face. ‘He’s old enough to be her father.’
‘Alan thinks he’s ageless.’
‘Doesn’t he know that Sophie’s girlfriend is her girlfriend?’
‘Apparently not.’
‘And you didn’t tell him?’
‘Not in so many words.’
Jana smiled. ‘Is he your friend or just a colleague?’
Bob smiled back. ‘We’ve known each other for 12 years; I am probably his best,’ Bob sniffed, ‘and only real friend. I’m certainly the only person who gets to call him a wanker without getting fired.’
‘Do you want to be a fly on the wall?’
Bob raised a ‘wait right here’ finger, dashed inside to hand his camera over to the concierge for safekeeping, and returned to escort Jana to the Kalipot Bar five blocks down Loi Khro Rd and round the corner in a narrow street full of bars, cafes and shops.
Alan Wagner was not, in fact, pursuing a date with the lusciously buxom Sophie Deans, at least not on this outing. That was a plan for later, after he’d met with the mysterious commando man who’d prompted this whole trip. He kind of liked this foreign correspondent notion, now that he’d gotten over the trauma of being taken hostage.
But, having endured that captivity, he now had a new credibility and had scored an exclusive with someone who would actually talk about the subject. If those damn Australian soldiers and their super-bitch wanted to remain anonymous well so be it, he’d get the skinny from the guys who blew things up instead.
The Singapore rendezvous had been an irritation until he was unexpectedly given the chance to do a three-day puff piece on Sophie Deans, in an exotic locale, and staying in the same hotel. Now that was an offer too good to pass up, and was probably thrown at him because of his new profile. So, luckily, it hadn’t been too hard to convince the SEAL, or whatever he was, that the only country Alan could go to outside Australia at the moment was Thailand.
Actually it was his assistant Berenice who’d done the convincing. She explained to the guy that because Alan’s passport was still on Laui then the best he could manage was some basic travel documents, from his contact in Foreign Affairs, which would allow him to accompany a Ministerial working party to Thailand. Part of that was even true-ish.
After the first call from the mystery man, Alan had rung Mick Fleming in Canberra to beg the favour of an emergency passport. The fact that three people from Aaron Danby’s department happened to be going to Thailand, Malaysia and South Korea, was neither here nor there, it was simply a believable reason why Alan couldn’t meet the SEAL guy in Singapore, but could go to Chiang Mai. And, as Berenice had put it so convincingly, it was great cover for them both.
Alan stumbled into the seats of the al fresco Kalipot Bar before realising he’d arrived at his destination. He rubbed his shins. The interior of the place was only half full but shrouded in cigarette smoke, so he opted for an empty table out the front but against the window away from passing traffic. He was early. Given the SEAL-guy would recognise him, he figured that plain sight was the best place to wait. A young Thai appeared, offered him a menu and was then sucked back into a small crowd of loud German backpackers who’d just invaded the limited outdoor space. The waiter re-emerged, took Alan’s order for a Heineken and left again.
It took Alan three minutes to discover he was not comfortable in the midst of so many alien languages, especially while sitting solo in a city that was foreign in so many more ways than just not being Australian. The whole city, but especially this nightlife precinct, was full of drunken Germans, loud Americans, obnoxious Poms, feral Aussies, and Thais who all looked the same. How the hell was he supposed to tell the difference between a bar hostess and someone’s sister? Alan realised he should’ve brought Bob as back-up - without his camera - for company and safety. Yep. In future he’d actually stipulate that - the need for a sidekick - in his request for more correspondent type stories.
When the waiter brought his beer, Alan’s attention was drawn aw
ay from the baffling Chiang Mai street-life to the Kalipot bar, and hence to the man just two tables away. It was the American journalist he’d seen earlier from the tuk-tuk. While checking their emails at the hotel, Alan had recalled the title of the guy’s best-selling book on the war on drugs. He and Bob had then Googled the author of Drugs R US-of-A. and there was his name: Scott Dreher.
And now, here he was: Scott Dreher, ex-New York Times, now a freelancer for a host of magazines and newspapers, including Time, USA Today, and even The Daily Telegraph in the UK. His book on the drug trade had come after 18 months research and a series of stories for the Washington Post.
Alan was working up the nerve to go chat with the Yank about their shared profession, when it occurred to him to wonder why the crack investigative reporter was sitting where he was. Why was the Yank in the same bar in Thailand where he was due to meet a US Navy SEAL for his story on the bungled hostage rescue? Coincidence? Not bloody likely.
Fuck this for a joke; this is not fair. He got up, weaved his way around three drunk Germans who hadn’t worked out what their chairs were for yet, and stood arms akimbo in front of the American interloper. When Dreher looked up, and raised his eyebrows questioningly, Alan completely forgot how he was going to berate him. ‘Hi,’ he said instead.
‘Hi,’ Scott shrugged.
‘Are you Scott Dreher?’
‘Yes. Are you an Aussie?’
Alan frowned. ‘Yes.’
Scott laughed. ‘Well, what else could I say, mate? You know who I am, but your identity remains a mystery.’
‘Sorry. I’m one of your lot, a fellow journalist. Alan Wagner.’ Scott shook the offered hand and waved at one of the empty chairs.
Alan sat down.
‘Which paper do you write for?’ Scott asked
‘I don’t. I host a current affairs show on Sydney television.’
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