John Burdett - The Bangkok Asset

“Sure,” Krom says.

“I’ll make sure it reaches the right levels,” he says, nods again at Vikorn, and leaves.

I notice that Krom, also, is in a hurry to leave the room. When she has packed up her laptop and the surveillance gadgets she makes hurried apologies to Vikorn and me and also leaves. I decide to give her a couple of minutes before I follow.

Neither she nor the FBI are anywhere to be seen in the corridor. The obvious place to look for them would be in the smaller interview room next door. It is locked from the inside. When I put my ear against the door I am able to hear a conversation between the two of them. I cannot understand a word of it; it is in Mandarin. Perhaps one of them has attended an enhanced hearing class, though, because suddenly the door opens and Krom and the FBI are staring at me. They exchange a glance. The lawyer seems to be waiting for Krom to speak.

“Can we let him in?” she asks.

“Certainly,” Matthew Hadley-Chan says. “The Messiah has given his half brother full clearance, even up to the highest level.”

He pronounces the word Messiah in exactly the cringe-making way of any evangelist. I am shocked, but not so shocked that I lose curiosity in Krom’s reaction. As usual, I have no intuitive understanding of her mind: I just never seem to know where she is coming from. I am fascinated by the unforced reverence in her face.

“You’ve been with the Messiah recently?” she asks with naked awe.

“He has done me the extreme honor of including me in the next step of the project,” he says with nauseating piety. He turns to me. “Here,” he says, dipping into his jacket pocket and taking out a thumb drive. “All you need to know is on this drive. The files will self-destruct within the next six hours-and cannot be copied. I think the matter speaks for itself.”

I see from the body language of the two of them that it is time for me to leave. The point, apparently, is the thumb drive. I shake my head. That cannot be sexual attraction filling Krom’s eyes when she looks at the FBI; it’s an awe more radical than that. I exit and close the door as quietly as I can. In my pocket I carry the thumb drive. Six hours, I think, six hours. I better take it home. If Chanya’s working I can listen to it on earphones.

–

It is the FBI legal attaché who fuels my speculation as I make my way back to the hovel. In my mind’s eye I trace his probable life path. A smart Eurasian born, perhaps, in disadvantaged or lower-middle-class circumstances to a mixed couple, the Chinese half probably his father with the traditional Asian immigrant’s drive to succeed in a society more mobile and fairer than the one he was born into, which is not necessarily saying very much. His dutiful son passes exams at or near the top of his class, absorbs law at Harvard or Yale with relentless ambition, then joins the great benefactor, Uncle Sam, to serve honorably as living proof of the loyalty and dedication of a leuk kreung who knows all about the sneering racist forces ranged against him and is forever grateful for the protection built into the system. Like me, though, he suffers from an internal contradiction: the rootless I needs more than status to be sure it exists. Then a fateful meeting occurs: as in the book of Luke, Christ shows up at the lawyer’s office one fine day, whether in Bangkok or Washington, and the lawyer turns evangelist. My mind boggles.

At night when I’m working on a heavy case I switch to the vibrate function on the smart phone before I sleep. I leave the ringtone on, but turn it down low so as not to disturb Chanya. Even so, when it goes off it makes quite a display, lights flashing, the vibrations sending it on a circular navigation of the floor and, of course, the subdued ringtone (the Stones: “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”). I block it before it vibrates its way over to the bookshelves, then I pick it up. I am only one-third awake. The screen tells me it is two twenty-four in the morning and that the caller is anonymous-except that the freshly washed voice is familiar to me.

“A car will be outside your house in three minutes. It will wait thirty seconds. Do not bring your gun, you will be protected.” He hangs up.

Three minutes, as it happens, is exactly how long it takes to pull on some shorts, grab a T-shirt that I hold in my hand, slip on some flip-flops, leave the house, remembering to bring my wallet, keys, smart phone, and police ID, and walk to the road. The car is rolling up to our front door as I’m pulling on the T-shirt.

The driver is none other than Matthew Hadley-Chan of the FBI, looking very fit in shorts and sweatshirt as if he has been jogging. He owns a gun, a large combat rifle made of high-tech materials lying across the backseat. I sit in the front. We do not speak but drive off at high speed toward the police station at District 8. We do not stop there, though, but penetrate farther into the market area. I am aware that we are only one street away from where the Asset wrenched the head off Nong X, so that I am casting more and more glances at my driver.

“Can’t tell you anything, sorry,” he says. “Looks like they’re gonna bag the big one tonight. The Captain will explain soon as you’re there.”

“Captain?” I say.

“Yeah. The bright shining star himself.”

I am puzzled by the casual reference made in the offhand American style. “You don’t mean the Messiah, do you?”

His expression turns serious. He puts a finger to his lips.

–

The market is not open at night, but the framework of iron poles that provides support for tarps during the day is left intact, along with the bare wood boards. As I look I see that there are men and women with blackened faces under some of these stands, all with combat rifles, all lying very still on their stomachs. As I pass I count eight humans-some are Caucasian, some are black, a couple are Thai, three are female. The FBI leads me quickly to a corner where an alley leads onto the square. It is quite dark. At the same time as the FBI whispers, “Here he is, Captain,” a fine, slim hand reaches out, grasps my upper arm with unexpected strength, and pulls me into the darkness.

“We’re about to catch me this time,” he whispers. “I’m two minutes away,” he adds with a giggle. “Watch.” In the darkness I can just make out those perfect teeth when he smiles. “You do still think it was me who killed that poor girl and wrote your name on a mirror in blood?”

“Yes,” I say. Then, looking around at the carefully laid trap: “Okay, no.” I must be confused, because then I say “Yes” again.

“Watch. The perp will be heading for a specific building about thirty feet from where we stand, where the bait is waiting.”

Bait? I want to know if the bait is a professional and a volunteer-or not? Now that fine manicured hand grasps my arm again and a faint nod causes me to look across the silent market. A tall figure has appeared, a farang with hair so blond it could almost be white. He is young, springy on his legs, at an unusually high level of physical fitness. His face is obscured by a baseball cap. I think, Two? There are two of them? Two Assets? Identical twins? Why didn’t I think of that? Asset II sniffs the air a lot, sometimes bending down, sometimes reaching up nose first to catch whatever olfactory information is hanging around.

“He’s had the olfactory App,” my half brother explains with a sneer. “Guides himself through his nose, like a dog. Disgusting.”

We watch while the intruder works swiftly, moving from side to side but always heading toward one particular front door. He tries it, it is not locked. He turns the handle. I feel an urge to rush him, but a hand restrains me. He is allowed to enter the building. Seconds later there are two bangs that are too loud and too special to be shots from an ordinary gun. A child or young woman screams. We all move in a rush toward the building. A farang woman in combat dungarees emerges running with a young Thai girl in her arms, about twelve years old, horror in her eyes. The woman takes her to a van parked on the other side of the market. Everyone else makes for the front door. There are about ten of us now, entering one by one.