Skin : the X-files (18 page)

Ahead, the road seemed almost a living thing, serpen-tine twists of dark mud slithering between the lush green trees. The sky had long ago vanished behind a canopy of rain clouds, and the Jeep’s fog lights danced like ghosts as Mulder fought to keep the vehicle from pitching into the encroaching forest on either side.

Physical conditions aside, it had been an exhausting twelve hours since he and Scully had landed in Bangkok.

After deplaning, they had been met at the terminal by their military liaison, an army corporal in dress uniform with a permanent sneer embedded in his chiseled face.

Timothy Van Epps was a career soldier with little time or regard for FBI agents so far from their jurisdiction—and it was obvious he had been given the assignment at the last minute, without his approval. After taking the agents to a small, lifeless office behind the airport customs desk, he had rushed them through a brief discussion of the present state of U.S. relations with the Thai monarchy, and had handed them a sheet of printed directions to Alkut. Along with the directions came a map of the tiny 178

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fishing village and the surrounding geography—and a disclaimer: “Things may be a hell of a lot different in real life than they appear on that piece of toilet paper. We haven’t had much use for that area since Vietnam—so most of those notations are twenty-five years old at best.

If you want, you can fax me an updated version when you’re done with your little trip.” Mulder doubted the U.S. Army needed FBI agents to update its information—especially in a region of Southeast Asia where it had once deployed extensive military resources. It was much more likely that Van Epps had been ordered—or had taken it upon himself—to be less than helpful. Not because of some sort of overarching conspiracy—although Scully would have assumed that was where Mulder ’s line of thought was heading—but simply because it was in the military’s nature. The military often saw the FBI as an errant little sibling—to be tolerated, but certainly not encouraged. Especially when the little brother wanted to join in the fun overseas.

After giving them the map and information, Van Epps had escorted them to a government sedan with diplomatic plates and transported them from the airport to Hua Lamphong, Bangkok’s main train station. The trip had been mind-numbing after the tedious flight. The Thai capital redefined the notion of an urban jungle: narrow, tightly packed streets jammed with compact cars, open-air buses, bicycles, and moped rickshaws—and everywhere you looked, people, so many millions of people. Thai men 179

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dressed in white business shirts and women in silk dresses, children in dark school uniforms and monks in bright orange robes: a never-ending sea of people, bouncing through the sidewalks like balls in a pachinko machine. Rising up above the sidewalks, the buildings themselves were something out of a schizophrenic’s dream. Glass-and-steel offices towered over ancient, golden-roofed temples, while apartment complexes sprang up on every corner, each a mixture of a half dozen different architectural styles: jutting spires, cubic bal-conies, curved white corners, levels constructed of wood, plaster, stone, and steel. The buildings seemed locked in a battle between old and new, and the only constant was growth—perpetual, throbbing, unstoppable.

Mulder and Scully never had a chance to digest the eclectic images; Van Epps squired them to the crowded train station, a fairly modern complex lodged near the center of the city. He had pointed them toward the right set of iron rails, then waved them on their way. Mulder had not minded the hands-off treatment; he did not trust men like Van Epps, nor did he enjoy having the military watching over his shoulder. He and Scully were now free to conduct their investigation on their own terms and timetable.

Soon the swollen city of Bangkok had given way to a lush green countryside of dense forests and unending rice fields, as the train had briefly wound its way into the interior of the country on its journey toward the southeastern coast. Mulder had spent much of the trip con-180

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versing—in a mixture of English and inadequate French—with a Thai farmer on his way back home after a three-week trip to the great capital. When Mulder had told the rugged-looking man their destination, he had reacted strangely, backing away while grabbing at something near the collar of his shirt. Mulder had seen it was an amulet of some kind—a common Thai accoutrement.

The Thai were one of the most superstitious and spiritual people on Earth, and most Thai men wore at least one Buddhist charm. Still, Mulder wondered why the mere mention of Alkut had caused such a reaction.

When Mulder had pressed the farmer on the issue, the man mumbled something about
mai dee phis
—literally,

“bad spirits,” as Mulder’s English-Thai dictionary informed him. For the rest of the trip, he had stared out the window, avoiding conversation.

The train had taken the two agents as far as Rayong, a gulf town surrounded by white-sand beaches and sprawling European-style resorts. A fishing village famous for its
nam plaa
—“fish sauce,” the most popular condiment in Thailand—Rayong bristled with coffee shops and souvenir markets catering to the large number of tourists visiting the nearby newly finished resorts.

Mulder and Scully had rented the Jeep just outside the town limits and begun the long drive away from the tourist centers, trekking deeper into the untouched southern regions of the country. The roads had quickly gone from asphalt to dirt, the scenery from controlled, sandy beauty spotted by palm trees and waterfront 181

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hotels to uninhabited tracts of dense forest and rocky cliffs. The closer they got to Alkut, the worse the conditions; in some instances, it seemed as if they had driven right off the edge of civilization.

“The town shouldn’t be much farther,” Scully commented as she unfolded a corner of the map and gestured at a break in the trees just beyond Mulder’s shoulder. “I think the Gulf of Thailand is directly down that slope. And that outcropping to the right—that leads straight up into the mountains. See Dum Kao—‘the Black Hills.’ A twelve-thousand-foot ascension to its highest peak, dropping off right into the border with Kampuchea. According to the map, the See Dum range encompasses an area of nearly two hundred square miles. Mostly unlivable and uncharted—rife with mud slides, avalanches, predators, and disease-carrying insects.”

“Recluse heaven,” Mulder said. “Hide out in a cave somewhere, eat a few indigenous animals for supper, have your recluse buddies over on the weekends to watch the mud slides—”

“Mulder!”

The Jeep tipped perilously forward as the dirt road suddenly disappeared in a descending tangle of thick vegetation and loose rocks. Mulder yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, fighting to keep the headlights facing forward as the Jeep tumbled down the steep embankment. Tree branches lashed at the side windows as rocks the size of basketballs shot up around the churn-182

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ing tires. There was a brief second of dead silence as the Jeep lurched over some sort of rotted trunk—then the tires crashed down against packed dirt.

Mulder slammed his foot against the brake. The Jeep fishtailed to the left, then skidded to a complete stop.

Eyes wild, Mulder looked up—and saw that they were parked at the edge of a cobblestone road, facing a long, flat valley bordered on three sides by the rising forest.

The Gulf of Thailand was no more than three hundred yards to the left, separated from the road by huge granite boulders and gnarled trees that looked like a cross between a palm and a birch. Mulder was momentarily stunned by the sight; the clear blue water stretched on forever beneath the sky, flat and glistening like a plane of opaque glass. Mulder could make out a long wooden dock fifty yards away, surrounded by brightly colored Chinese-style junks and smaller, motorized fishing boats.

The rain did not seem to deter the fishermen—tiny shapes garbed in dark green, hooded smocks moved on the boat’s decks and along the dock. Mulder watched for a full minute as four fishermen struggled with a tangled net hanging off the back of one of the junks. Then he turned his attention back to the road ahead as he carefully restarted the Jeep’s engine.

“I think we’ve found Alkut,” Scully commented, breathing hard. She lifted her hands off the dashboard and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Mulder followed her gaze, letting the Jeep idle as he surveyed the scenery.

The cobblestone road ran parallel to the Gulf, leading 183

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toward the center of the quiet fishing village. Beginning twenty yards ahead, low wooden buildings were spaced every few hundred feet along both sides of the road, with shuttered windows and colorful vinyl overhangs covered in huge Thai letters. Most of the buildings seemed to be commercial shops, but Mulder recognized a few traditional Thai houses, with thatched roofs and slanted outer walls. Most of the buildings stood on short wooden stilts, and Mulder had a feeling the town spent many weeks of the rainy season under a few feet of water.

Farther down the road, the commercial buildings and traditional houses seemed to cling closer together, spreading backward from the main road in dense pockets, some rising as high as two or three stories. People of various ages, shapes, and sizes moved between the buildings, and Mulder counted at least a dozen other cars in the vicinity—most even older and more dilapidated than the mud-spattered rented Jeep. The cars shared the road with brightly colored wooden rickshaws, attached to rusty bicycles with wide umbrellas sticking up from their handlebars. Like the fishermen out by the dock, nobody seemed to notice the rain. The rickshaws careened between the cars, the drivers shouting at one another in singsongy Thai syllables. A small group of children ran along the edge of the road ten feet ahead, a pair of barking dogs following behind. To their right, two old women haggled loudly over a line of dried fish spread across a huge blanket beneath one of the vinyl overhangs.

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“It’s certainly quaint,” Scully said, as the Jeep rolled toward the center of town. “And quite different from Bangkok. It’s hard to believe they’re both part of the same country.”

Mulder nodded. “It’s a nation in transition. Bangkok is a microcosm of the whole—a totally modern, commer-cialized city with a preindustrial feel. Alkut, on the other hand, seems lodged much further in the country’s past.

Less than five thousand residents, probably no tourist industry to speak of. Just fishermen and their families.

And maybe a couple of Westerners left over from the war.”

As he spoke, his gaze settled on an elderly man standing by the edge of the road, a wide, toothless smile on his lips. The man wore three necklaces around his thin, bare chest, each supporting a tiny rectangular block of jade.

Amulets, like the one worn by the farmer on the train,
Mulder reminded himself: The country had more spirits per capita than anywhere else in the world. Men wore as many as a dozen amulets to guard against everything from disease to fishing accidents. Still, something about the old man unnerved Mulder. Not merely his relative indifference at seeing two
farangs
rolling into town—but something deeper, something in his smile and his dark eyes. It was almost as though he had been expecting the two agents.

Mulder shook his head, telling himself it was just the rain, the unending sheets of gray screwing with his per-spective. The old man was simply friendly—like most 185

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Thais. The next few villagers they passed offered up the same genuine smile, and Mulder’s suspicions trickled away. As the Jeep moved deeper into Alkut, he glanced at the map in Scully’s hands. “See anything that resembles a hotel?”

Scully shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll find something near the center of town. Nothing fancy—but we just need a place to dump our stuff. Then we can start tracking down Andrew Paladin.”

Mulder tossed a quick glance at the forest that rose up above the town, leading into the foothills of the See Dum mountain range. He thought about the two hundred square miles of uncharted land surrounding Alkut. He wondered which was easier, tracking a recluse in all that expanse of wilderness—or trailing a man who had supposedly died fifteen years ago. He had a feeling that both searches would lead to the same goal—the truth behind what had happened to Perry Stanton.

“This looks like the spot,” Scully said, huddled next to Mulder beneath the skimpy overhang of a tired-looking palm tree. “According to the army’s records, this clinic was built over the original location of Emile Paladin’s MASH unit.”

Mulder kicked water out of his right shoe, then pushed back a wet palm leaf to get a better look at the building before them. The clinic was low and rectangular, stretching along the muddy road for about twenty yards. The walls were made of aging yellow cinder 186

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blocks, and the roof was sloped and encircled by a patchwork of iron rain gutters, overflowing at the corners into huge wooden barrels lodged in the thick mud. There were a half dozen crude windows cut into the cinder-block facade, covered in thick sheets of transparent plastic. Above the nondescript main entrance was a carved, grinning Buddha sunk directly into the wall, beneath two rows of Thai lettering. The Buddha was plated in gold, seated with crossed legs, palms facing upward in what Mulder recognized as the southern, meditative style. According to the white-haired old man who ran the small hotel where Mulder and Scully had deposited their things, Buddhist monks had been running the clinic for nearly ten years.

“Mulder, check out the building across the street. Isn’t that a church?”

Mulder turned to look at the small two-story structure that faced the clinic. The building was painted white, with a single conic steeple rising almost twenty feet above the slanted roof. The top of the steeple housed a small bell tower, but the bell was missing, along with a fair-sized chunk of plaster where the steeple met the church’s slanted roof. The place looked as though it had been shut down a long time ago, and the front doors were covered in the same transparent plastic as the clinic’s windows. “It doesn’t look as if they’re doing a very brisk business.”