Assignment Bangkok (2 page)

He was near exhaustion when he finally saw a glimmer

Assignment—Bangkok 15 of light. It danced before him like a will-o’-the-wisp, and he was unable to define its distance. He came to a grating that barred his way. He heard the sounds of lapping water and distant motor traffic. The light came from a lantern on a moored sampan on the canal.

The grate was of wood, firmly fixed in place. He shook it with both hands. It did not yield. Despair roweled him. He was trapped in the tunnel. He sank to his knees and gathered his strength. Thirst rasped in his throat. He shook the grate again. Nothing happened. He backed up a little, then ran at a crouch at the barrier and slammed into it with all the strength left in him.

The heavy slats cracked, yielded, and he tumbled out into mud and tall reeds and fresh, warm evening air.

He stood on the banks of a wide
klong
under a hot, starry, evening sky. The water level in the canals, during this dry season, ran low. He sucked in deep, harsh breaths of the cooling air. To his left, at some distance, was the water gate to the Menam Chao Phraya, the Thai “Mother of Noble Waters.” Most of the houses along the canal were dark, their thatched roofs gracefully outlined against the stars. He climbed up the embankment. The long yellow flowers of cassia trees drooped around him, and the red and yellow hibiscus blossoms looked thirsty.

He had come a long way from the house with its prison cell. Although the sky seemed clear, he heard a low rumble of thunder, and wondered if a mango shower was due, although it would be another month until the southwest monsoon arrived from over the Indian Ocean.

Durell searched his pockets with a hand that annoyed him, because it trembled slightly. His money was intact. Over the sprawling city that reflected a blend of modern West and traditional Thai, he watched a sleek, fish-bellied jet liner departing from Don Muang airport. The plane screamed over the ornate
prangs
and
chedi
towers of the Buddhist
wats
, and at a distance, bright neon signs vied with Chinese lanterns in the streets.

He heard no alarm because of his escape. He waited another moment, then walked from the canal to the sounds of samlaw bells and the racket of Japanese motorcycles on a nearby street. It was still early in the evening. In the shadows of a tall
takhien
tree, he dusted and straightened his coat and trousers the best he could. The smell of white jasmine was everywhere.

No one seemed to notice him as he stepped into the racket of traffic on the wide boulevard. The lights bothered him, after his long confinement in the cell, and for a moment he felt disoriented. Among the pedestrians were older men and women in traditional cotton
panong
s. Girls were everywhere, most often with American servicemen and European sailors. Their tight miniskirts quivered, and the Chinese women looked aloof and wary in their slit
cheongsams
. Durell took in the traffic smells and caught a whiff of incense and a breath of spiced chili. He was hungry and thirsty, but there was no time for that. He changed his mind when he passed a food stall at the corner. He stopped there and ordered a bowl of curried rice and a bottle of Green Spot and drank eagerly and ordered another. The vendor was a young Thai girl who looked at him curiously, but said nothing about his muddied clothes and scratched and dirtied hands. Satisfied for the moment, he paid her in local
bahts
and walked on.

His left leg ached, and he limped as he favored it. Durell was a tall man, with thick black hair touched with gray at the temples. His face was sun-darkened, making his blue eyes look lighter than they were. He walked in a special isolation developed by his years with K Section. His hands were a gambler’s hands, inherited from his grandfather Jonathan, who had been one of the last devotees of the Mississippi riverboats. He had been raised by the old gentleman in the Louisiana delta country of Bayou Peche Rouge, where he learned the arts of the hunter and the hunted. He felt he was being stalked now.

He turned left across the wide boulevard and then crossed Mutiwongse Road, with its Indian and Thai restaurants. He stopped to look into a window full of Japanese electronic gadgets and saw two shadows halt at the corner behind him. Not far off was the fashionable Rajprasong district, with its modern hotels and shops. His own hotel was not far from the old Oriental, with its riverside terrace, where Somerset Maugham once creamed up his yarns of another Asia. At the next corner, he crossed a bridge over the canal, which was crowded with darkened sampans and barges huddled under graceful areca palms. Gecko lizards croaked in the trees. A lute sounded briefly, like coins tossed into the oily waters. The plaintive notes were promptly drowned in a blare of transistor soul music, and he winced at the dissonant shrieking.

He could define the two men behind him now. Big and burly against the slight shadows of passing Thais, they maintained their distance behind him.

So his escape had not gone unnoticed. He had hoped for surprise on his return to Uncle Hu’s house, but there was no help for it now, he decided.

Durell’s education at Yale had overlaid his Cajun accent with an indefinable New England tone. He spoke a number of languages of Europe and Asia, was fairly fluent in Japanese, but he felt rusty in Thai and the Lao and Meo dialects of the Thai speech. His training at K Section’s Maryland “Farm” had so far carried him successfully along for years in his business, which took him through the jungles of the world and the dangers of the world’s cities. He was a lonely man. He trusted no one. And he envied the simplicity of the people living on the sampans in the canal below.

Two weeks ago, he sent Mike Slocum into the restless northeast provinces of Thailand to scout a new threat to Thai independence. The Meos up there—-barbarians to the cultivated Thai of the rich Bangkok delta area—were being influenced again by Chinese from Yunnan province, despite the alleged thaw in Peking. Mike Slocum had disappeared. In Washington, Durell had been sweating out his annual contract renewal, with a tricky leg as a souvenir from a job in Africa. He was not enamored by organizational work or by a desk loaded with synthesis and analysis reports. He preferred to work in the field; he found it safer to work alone. Mike Slocum’s disappearance in the upland jungles of Thailand gave him the reason to shelve his desk work and fly to Bangkok. He would not admit to himself that he was breaking his own rules of ignoring loyalty or becoming personally involved.

Durell paused at the other side of the bridge over the
klong
. He was not far now from the house where he had been a prisoner. A hot breeze made the palm fronds clack overhead. He smelled salted fish, garlic, sweat, and cooking rice. Between the teak houses with their variegated pagoda-type roofs, there was a maze of footpaths and alleys. He heard the lute again.

The lane he chose twisted between the dark houses. There were few lights. The footsteps behind him scraped in the dirt, then came on more eagerly. He was pleased by this. His long hours in the cell had not made him friendly toward his captors. Maybe they were shocked by his immediate return to Uncle Hu’s house. Since they had not bothered to search him, he still had his gun under his rumpled jacket. There was a narrow cul-de-sac to his left, a path that led back to the banks of the canal. He stepped into it and waited.

At KGB headquarters in Moscow, at No. 2 Dzherzhinsky Square, his dossier was marked with a red tab. He was also on the kill list in the files of the Peacock Branch of the Black House, in Peking. As a chief field agent for K Section, the troubleshooting branch of the Central Intelligence Agency, Durell’s survival factor had long ago run out. He had seen many good men die, men who were competent in the business, merely because of a moment’s indiscretion, or an emotional diversion.

“Mr. Durell?”

His name was called in strangely accented notes. The two shadows now blocked the entrance to the lane. He could see Uncle Hu’s house, from which he had just escaped. The two men looked bulky and professional.

He called back softly, coaxingly.

“Come on, come on.”

“You wish to die,
Nai
Durell?”

“Who are you?”

“We put you in the cage. You wish some more? Worse?”

“Try it.”

“You very stubborn man. We teach you fine lesson. You also foolish man. Why come back?”

“Come closer,” Durell invited.

They were twenty feet away. The alley would permit only one to come at him at a time. Durell felt pressure move along his nerves. He stepped back, favoring the abused tendon in his left leg. There was a splash of water in the
klong
behind him. A sampan creaked by, poled by a thin woman in a lampshade hat.

“Come on,” he called again.

The two shadows hesitated. He heard them muttering, too low to be understood.

Then they came silently, in a smooth, fast rush. Durell could not see any weapons in their hands. He did not draw his own gun. The biggest came first, arms up, his head drawn down on his thick shoulders. In his eagerness to reach Durell, he bumped the teak side of the house to the right of the narrow lane, and his rush was thrown slightly off-balance. His arm shot out, and Durell caught his wrist, pulled him forward on his own momentum, tripped him, kicked him in the back of the knee, and sent him sprawling to the rear. The second
kamoy
faltered, and Durell drove a fist into the wide face, felt teeth splinter under his knuckles. The man stumbled. Durell brought up his knee and chopped down at the base of the man’s thick neck. He heard a rush of feet, labored breathing, and a grunt as the first man stumbled against his companion. Durell slid by. The way was clear for escape. But he did not want to escape. The first man reached for a knife, his face shadowed, eyes gleaming. Durell kicked at the knife, missed, felt arms encircle his knees. He went down. For a moment, there was a silent, breathless struggle. He used knees and elbows, broke free, saw the knife slash before his eyes in a wild swing. He rolled away toward the edge of the canal.

They came at him again, more warily. There was a low stone wall along the
klong
embankment, and from a comer of his eye he saw a wink of light aboard the nest of sampans under the bushes. A woman ran across the bridge, calling in a low voice laced with alarm. He took the next rush on his shoulder, flipped the man’s weight over on his back, and sent him flying against the low stone wall. There was a thud, a low groan. The second man swung wildly and Durell ducked, came in hard, and drove him against the side of the wooden house. He slammed his forearm against the other’s throat and squeezed hard. The Chinese gasped, his eyes bulged, and his hands clawed up to free his breathing. Durell kneed him, chopped at the side of his neck, and dropped him face down in the dust alongside the canal. The man curled up in a ball, hugging his groin.

The first
kamoy
had vanished, sliding over the wall into the
klong
.

“All right,” Durell said. He drew a deep breath. His leg ached. He had tom the shoulder of his suit, but he felt eminently satisfied. His tensions were gone, eased by the conflict. The man he had dropped got slowly on all fours, retching in the dirt. Durell pulled him half erect by his thick hair. “What did you want?”

The Chinese shook his head, his face anguished. He was young, wearing a striped lavender shirt and denim slacks. His broad face was bloody. Durell hit him hard in the belly. The man fell back, hair in a curtain over his face.

“Where is Uncle Hu?” Durell asked quietly.

The man’s mouth gaped open.

“Why were you waiting for me there?” Durell asked.

“No speak—”

“You’ll speak,” Durell promised. He hit the
kamoy
again. He remembered the concrete cell, the blow on the back of his head, the dreary hours in the narrow darkness. He put all his strength into the blow. The man’s breath came out with a gush and he fell and rolled over, legs twitching, then drew up his knees and lay on his side, his mouth open. Blood trickled from his big teeth.

“Did you kill Uncle Hu?”

“No. Not finished.”

“Why were you there?”

“Just ordered to go, to wait for you.”

“
Who
ordered you?”

“To teach you bad lesson.”

“Just to rough me up? Warn me out of Bangkok?”

“Yes, yes. But I just do orders.”

“Who do you work for?”

“Muang Thrup Union.”

“The labor organization?”

“Yes, yes.”

“Run by Chuk?”

“Chuk, he boss.”

“Chuk sent you to Hu’s to wait for me?”

“I get orders. Not know from who.”

“You’re one of the goons? The tong people?”

“No tong. Legitimate union of oppressed laborers—” Durell did not think the man was lying too much. He stepped back. The Muang Thrup was a Chinese outfit that ran the labor forces in the sprawling rice and teak mills along the river in Bangkok and the delta.

“All right,” he said. “Get going.”

“My friend—in the canal—”

“Tell Mr. Chuk I’m coming to see him.”

The Chinese wiped his bloody mouth with the back ol his hand and sat up, wriggling away from Durell. He rubbed his throat. “Yankee imperialist spy, you die, you stay Bangkok.”

“I won’t die alone,” Durell promised.

Voices rang up and down the mirrored ribbon of the
klong
. Lights went on here and there. A royal police siren hooted, far away. The Chinese got on all fours, staggered to his feet, then stumbled up the lane and vanished into the larger alley beyond. Durell walked to the stone embankment of the canal. A man in a coolie hat on one of the moored sampans at the water gate called to him in an agitated voice. Durell stood in the shadow of a leaning palm and looked over the wall. The water was black and oily, speckled with refuse. A thin piling and sturdy bamboo stakes stood up from the surface, and one of the stakes was topped by a large, black sagging object like a giant insect skewered on a massive pin.

It was the body of the first
kamoy
who had gone headlong over the wall. Durell watched it for a moment. The only movement was a faint swaying of the legs, hanging in the water up to the knees.