The Wrecking Crew (Janac's Games) Page 10

  Naisborough opened his hands and shrugged. ‘That depends. Will the information help me do my job?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t concern drugs.’

  ‘OK. But I can’t make a complete commitment. It still depends on what you have to say.’

  Hamnet rubbed his cheek. He needed this man. He would have to take the chance. ‘My wife, Anna, was taken hostage by Janac just over a week ago. We now believe he’s taken her to General Lee’s.’

  ‘What makes you think she’s still alive?’ asked Naisborough.

  ‘He said he’d let her live in exchange for my silence on a matter that concerns Dubre.’

  ‘Ah, I see. Well, knowing Janac, if you remain silent, she’ll live. If you don’t, she’ll die.’

  ‘Too many others will die if Michael doesn’t reveal what he knows,’ said Dubre.

  Naisborough took a long slow breath. ‘Then if Janac’s got her up there, she’s as good as dead.’

  ‘That’s it?’ said Hamnet.’ You’re saying you won’t help me?’

  Naisborough shook his head. ‘This is a very big game, Mr Toliver. I represent the most powerful state in the world in its most operational frontline drugs-enforcement office. And I am powerless to do anything about these people in Burma. General Lee’s base is thirty kilometres north of the border. It’s easy to find him. But I can’t cross that border, whatever you may hear in the bars around Chiang Mai. The State Department would have a shit fit if they thought I was even having dreams about going up there to do a black-bag job. And the truth is, even if I could get permission, I’d need a US marine division and air support to get in and out of there without serious loss of life. This KMT general commands an army of about fifteen thousand regulars. We’re not talking dope-happy amateurs here, we’re talking a real army — uniforms, ranks, discipline and training. And some excellent hardware. The best a bunch of money can buy. I’m sorry, but even assuming that your wife is up there, you have an army as well as Janac to deal with.’ Naisborough leaned forward. ‘There is nothing I can do for you, Mr Toliver. Believe me when I say I am sorry for your loss. Please go home and mourn your wife.’

  Hamnet’s reply was quick. ‘I will see her, Mr Naisborough. She will not die alone. Whatever the personal cost might be, I will go in there and find her. If you will show me where to look.’

  Naisborough frowned slightly, running a finger across a tidy eyebrow. ‘I don't think you understand, sir. There is no question of what the cost “might” be. You’ll die, along with anyone I send with you.’

  ‘Then perhaps you can provide me with a map, or directions to this general’s camp?’

  A ripple of impatience passed through Naisborough’s taut figure. ‘Have you not understood a single word I’ve said, son?’

  ‘I’ve understood every word. I intend to join my wife. I will try and exchange myself for her. And I’ll die with her if that is the cost of trying.’

  Naisborough looked at Hamnet a few moments longer. He had seen a lot of living and a lot of dying. And he knew when men were serious. He turned to Dubre.

  Dubre looked at Hamnet. ‘You know, I . . .’

  ‘Save it.’ Hamnet returned his gaze. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, Dubre. This is what I have to do.’

  Chapter 13

  Hamnet snapped the clip shut on the borrowed DEA backpack. A couple of hours had passed since they had left Naisborough. The American had eventually agreed to provide him with a guide as far as the border and instructions as to how to proceed from there, but only after Hamnet had threatened to ask for help among the Chiang Mai trekking companies. The DEA’s man was due to pick him up in a couple of minutes’ time. Hamnet sighed deeply and turned to Dubre, who was leaning against the wall by the door.

  ‘Is there nothing I can say that will stop you, Phillip?’ asked Dubre with a resignation that reflected every second of the previous two hours of trying.

  ‘Nothing.’ Hamnet managed the briefest of smiles for his friend. ‘On the ship I had the chance to give myself up, supposedly in exchange for the lives of the crew. I didn’t — because I already knew he intended to kill everyone regardless. But Anna doesn’t know that.’ Hamnet hesitated, frowned at the floor. ‘I can’t let her die believing I deserted her.’ He looked back up at Dubre, his face clearing a little. ‘And if I can possibly save her, I will.’

  Dubre nodded, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He tried again: ‘I know this isn’t . . . I mean, I don’t want to appear heartless, but how do you intend to tell me about the Shawould if you don’t . . .’

  ‘If I don’t come back?’ Hamnet finished for him, gazing levelly at Dubre’s quickly averted green eyes. He stepped over to the coffee table and picked up one of the hotel’s envelopes. It was sealed but not addressed. Hamnet tapped it against his fingers a couple of times before turning back to Dubre. ‘It’s all in here. Everything you need to know to stop it happening again. I have three days left. If Anna or I aren’t back or haven’t been in touch by then, you can open it.’ He held it out. ‘Agreed?’

  Dubre looked at him. ‘Of course,’ he said, and reached for the envelope. ‘Midday, in three days’ time.’

  Hamnet watched his precious secret all the way into Dubre’s pocket. Then he picked up the backpack. ‘We might as well wait in the lobby. I have to check out anyway.’

  Dubre nodded, held the door open and followed Hamnet downstairs. Dubre’s steel-heeled shoes clicked loudly on the floor as they walked across to the reception desk. There was no one else around. As Hamnet paid his bill, Dubre stood and stared out into the street. When Hamnet had finished, he had to cough to regain Dubre’s attention, so deep in thought was the other man. Dubre turned, his face heavy. Hamnet was holding out some cash — the remainder of Dubre’s loans.

  ‘There’s some other stuff in that envelope, including a letter to my parents and one to Anna’s,’ Hamnet said. ‘They’ll return the rest of the cash I owe you from my estate. Your time, of course, will be paid for by the fee from the Shawould’s insurers.’

  Dubre — still deep in reverie — started to take the wad of notes, then stopped himself. He held up both hands. ‘You keep it, you might need it.’ He hesitated. ‘When you get back.’

  Hamnet looked at him, then at the money. And could think of nothing to say. The hotel door opened on the burning silence with a heavy breath of heat and dust. They both turned. A stocky Thai, dressed in black work trousers and a faded fatigue shirt, eyed them quickly before introducing himself with a limp handshake as Moh. Sensing the tension between the two men, he turned wordlessly on his heel and led the way out of the front door. Hamnet watched him climb into a battered Jeep, then turned back.

  ‘Thanks for your help, Dubre. I wouldn’t have got this far without you.’

  Dubre just shook his head, tight lipped, eyes cast downward. ‘Good luck,’ he managed finally. ‘I hope you find her.’

  Hamnet nodded, once, slapped Dubre lightly on the shoulder, swung on his heel and left.

  The Thai guide turned the Jeep north and headed out of Chiang Mai. The city quickly fell away behind them and the countryside opened out into scrubby land and fields. They stayed on a metalled road for a little more than three hours before pulling off onto a track. The gradient steepened, the track twisting and turning. The pounding, pothole-plagued ride continued uphill for twenty jarring minutes before the ground flattened out. Then the track disappeared completely as the jungle thinned onto the top of a ridge, which they followed for another twenty minutes. Moh stopped just as the gradient started to dip.

  ‘Walking,’ he said, and climbed out.

  They pulled their packs out of the back of the jeep and Moh led off at a brisk pace. He threaded his way downward, and through the screen of trees Hamnet caught the occasional glimpse of the jungle spread below them. Even in the shade it was stiflingly hot, and Hamnet was soon lathered in sweat. They traced a gradual decline across the contours, until the
y reached the bottom of a valley. A shallow stream, a couple of metres across, lay before them. Moh pointed to the other side. ‘Burma,’ he said.

  Hamnet nodded. Moh rolled the pack off his back, pulled out a book-sized brown-paper package, carefully taped, and handed it over. Hamnet started to unwrap it. He heard Moh resling his pack as he pulled off the tape. Inside was a single sheet of paper — a photocopied section of a map — and a weighty object wrapped in linen. He glanced up enquiringly — but Moh was gone. No sound, no movement amongst the trees. Hamnet opened his mouth to shout — and thought better of it. Moh’s instructions had obviously been to leave him here, and yelling about it wasn’t going to change that.

  He settled down to examine the map. The black-and-white photocopy wasn't particularly clear, but a red circle and dot marked a point on what was presumably the stream beside him. An arrow pointed upstream towards a second circle and dot, next to which was written the word ‘Janac’. The stream extended continuously, by way of a couple of tributaries, as far as his destination. It seemed a simple enough piece of route-finding.

  He tucked the map in his pocket and turned his attention to the linen package. He pulled away the cloth and sat staring at a semiautomatic pistol. He took a deep breath. Was this going to help? The last thing he needed was to get himself shot before he had had a chance to talk to Janac. The blued finish of the weapon had been ground down on the slide, presumably to lose the serial number. Naisborough was a careful man. Hamnet rewrapped the gun and stuffed it in his pack, deep in the sleeping bag.

  It was four o’clock, not much more than a couple of hours before sunset. He pushed the pace hard. It was a thirty-kilometre hike and the clock was ticking. He wanted to approach the camp after dark, which left him twenty-four hours. A path slowly developed beside the stream. This made for easier walking, but heightened the chances of meeting someone coming the other way. Hamnet moved about fifty metres up the side of the valley and continued threading his way through the scrub, until gathering darkness had him stumbling on unseen roots and rocks. He picked a flat spot with the last of the light and stopped. He ate a quick meal of bread and tinned fish, then turned in. And this time he slept.

  It was the slightest of human sounds that woke him. What had he heard? He stared into the half-light of dawn. The crack and grunt was repeated. Distant but definite. It wasn’t a sound that someone was trying to muffle. He rolled over and out of the sleeping bag in an instant. Then stopped and listened again. It was getting closer — several layers of noise, lots of people, maybe animals. All moving down the stream towards him. He rolled the gun back into the sleeping bag, packed quickly and moved off along the valley side until he found a covered vantage point from which to view the path.

  The noise was loud now, a steady clattering of hardware and the murmur of low conversation coming along the valley floor. Out of the gloom loomed a figure, a soldier with a rifle across his back. He walked openly down the footpath, followed by a second soldier and a third. Then came the first of the mules, laden with panniers. He had stumbled on an opium shipment. He counted forty animals, each with at least four soldiers in attendance, every one of whom looked alert and professional. Ammunition, water bottles and grenades were clipped to their webbing belts, rifles and mortars slung over their shoulders. Naisborough hadn’t been lying.

  Hamnet sat motionless for a quarter of an hour after the last of the train had gone by, the jungle assuming its former silence. Then he set off, contouring along the valley side above the stream. The foliage grew thickly, making it difficult to navigate. Several times he made his way back down to the path to check his directions and get water, and he almost missed the second of the two tributaries.

  It was midafternoon before the map told him he was close. The stream had petered out to mud as the valley sides had flattened and the downward gradient he had been following had levelled out. The trees began to thin, cut back deliberately. According to the map there was a plateau ahead, three-quarters ringed by a ridge of hills that dropped almost sheer onto its tabletop expanse. The camp was on the plateau. But Hamnet didn’t need the map. In fact he could have walked in blindfold. His ears told him everything he needed to know. He heard the first sounds from a couple of kilometres away — the clatter of engines and hardware, shouted orders borne to him on the thin mountain air. He stopped. It was five o’clock. He was as close as was safe in daylight; further reconnaissance would have to wait until nightfall.

  It was an eternity before the stars emerged in the darkening dome above him, and two hours after sunset when he finally set off. He contoured to his left, and the ground beneath him steadily steepened as he skirted round the plateau and onto the slope of the hills that backed it. The vegetation thinned until he was completely exposed on what had become almost a rock face. Judging he had gone too far, he backed up into some cover, then he turned upwards and started to climb. He picked his way as silently as he could. It wasn’t easy — the moon provided enough light for him to be seen, but not enough to see where he was stepping. And however carefully he placed his feet, the occasional rock would break loose and tumble noisily downhill in the still night. At each sound he would stop and listen, breath steady but pulse charging. And each time all he could hear was the distant hum of generators, the soft babble of voices and the occasional clatter of a vehicle.

  Ahead of him was a powerful glow, which threw his side of the hill into shadow. But he was unprepared for what he saw when he crawled to the top of the rise and looked down the other side. Thirty metres below, a huge parade ground dominated the centre of the plateau, from which all vegetation had been removed. Set around it along three sides were parallel rows of buildings, all backed up against the slope that dropped away beneath him and to his left and right. The fourth side, which faced the valley he had walked up, was fortified with barbed wire and gun emplacements. A track led through the defences towards the jungle, across as much as a kilometre of open space. Every couple of minutes a truck would set off along this, and just as often another would return. Hamnet could see people everywhere — walking, running, in groups, alone. Many were eating in huge open-sided dining shelters. The chatter and buzz of army life radiated out to him on the warm air. The sheer scale of the enterprise took his breath away. But it didn’t have a fraction of the impact achieved by the sensation of warm steel on the back of his neck.

  Hamnet froze. There was a moment’s silence before the click of a torch, the dazzle of a light in his eyes. Then voices, gabbling excitedly in a language he didn’t recognise, his pack was pulled away, hands on his arms, wrenching them behind his back. There was a sharp stab of pain as a loop of rope tightened around his wrists. He was hauled to his feet and pushed forwards, up and over the lip of the hill. The slope was steep, and his weight ran away from him as he struggled to keep his legs beneath his upper body. Slipping and sliding on the rubble underfoot, he kicked up a cloud of dust which swirled into the harsh light of the camp’s arc lamps, announcing his arrival as effectively as the yelling behind him. Figures he had been watching only moments earlier now stopped and turned to observe his noisy approach.

  ‘Janac!’ he shouted, and kept shouting, ‘I want to see Janac!’ Hands pushed him forward down a steadily growing gauntlet of uniformed figures. The faces were silent, impassive.

  He kept going, prodded and goaded — past the dining shelters, across the parade ground and between rows of brick huts. They approached a shadowy compound, enclosed on all sides by barbed wire and accessed by a narrow gate. Inside were several bamboo trapdoors, all opened to reveal a hole in the earth. Hamnet was pushed towards the nearest. He twisted and turned, walking backwards now, trying to tell them again. ‘Janac! Janac!’ he bellowed, louder and louder. The faces remained blank — uncomprehending or uncaring or both. Then he missed a step, felt the ground slide away beneath him, and realised he was losing his balance. He lurched in a reflex bid to regain control, only to find himself staring down a black hole as it rushed up to meet him.


  Chapter 14

  Falling has its own fear. A fear driven by the knowledge that what has happened has happened. That while body and soul might yet be intact, in an unstoppable instant they will be dashed against something hard and unyielding. The fear is barbed when the fall is blind. All this in a moment, then he hit the ground, an ankle turning awkwardly. At the sharp stab of pain Hamnet rolled sideways and fell hard into the wall of the pit. He was unlucky to take the impact in the same spot as when the Shawould had run aground. Unconsciousness rolled over him, a foggy cloud of pain, as the still healing wound thumped angrily at this new contusion. Until, a threshold passed, his mind shut down.

  When he came to, Hamnet was painless, floating. Where and why slowly began to return — sensation also. He dragged his aching body across the pit and wedged himself against the side. Staring upwards, he blinked and screwed up his eyes to try and restore his vision.

  When he could finally focus, he saw that the top of the pit was five metres away. The slats of the trapdoor were silhouetted against the glow of the camp lights. The walls were only two-and-a-half metres apart. The sides were supported and panelled with slabs of rough dark wood. But the floor was earth.

  He remembered his watch, and twisted round to take a look. He was surprised to find it still on his wrist. It was four in the morning. It would be daylight soon. Dubre would release the information in thirty-two hours. He had to make them understand that he must see Janac. He tried out his voice gingerly: ‘Janac.’ Then he drew a breath and yelled, ‘Hey!’ Silence. He tried again. And again, with mounting frustration: ‘Come on, you bastards. I'm awake. Come and get me. Janac, I want to see Janac.’

  Hamnet pushed himself to his feet against the side panelling and took a short step across the pit, wincing as his weight came onto his twisted ankle. He limped to the other side and yelled for Janac again. But the world above ignored him. And kept on ignoring him. He struggled back and forth, calling repeatedly. Each time the same words, always for Janac. He limped and yelled through sunrise, and on into the building heat. When his voice started to crack, he yelled every two turns across the pit, then every three. His throat closed, his head pounded and his ankle swelled. The laps slowed and then stopped as he fought dehydration and exhaustion. His voice died to a hoarse whisper, a whimper — and for Anna, not Janac. He slid down against the rough boards and curled into the foetal position on the dirt. He was out within seconds.