Return to Tomorrow (7 page)

“We all do the best we can. It's never enough, is it?” His voice was as hard as ever; the fleeting moment of shared commitment, however unintentional it had been, was gone like a puff of thistledown on the wind.

“Is that what you believe? That one person, no matter how hard he tries, can't make a difference?”

“I'd say that's what about ninety-nine percent of the people in this world believe,” he responded, answering obliquely but meeting her questioning gaze head-on. It might have been her imagination but it seemed to Rachel as if his expression had softened slightly. “You're one of those very few dreamers who are willing to back up their beliefs with damned hard work.”

“I'm not a saint.”

“No. You're a woman.”

“Why are you here?” She couldn't let the conversation get any more personal.

Brett continued to watch her, his expression noncommittal, any emotion in his eyes hidden by shadows cast by his thick, dark lashes.

“We're on our way to Chiang Rai to arrange for a final shipment of teak to be brought out before the rainy season.”

“Only teak?”

His frown was back, darker, angrier than before. “Do you think I'd tell you if there was more?” The expression in his eyes was easy enough to read now. It was contempt. Rachel felt the chill of it all the way to her bones.

“I didn't mean…”

“Yes, you did. Surely, your brother…at the Census Bureau…warned you not to ask too many questions of a man in my profession?”

“Actually, he told me to stay the hell away from you. Period.”

To her surprise he laughed. “He's smarter than I thought. You should stay away from a man of my reputation, if you value your own.”

“Bullsh…feathers.” Rachel had the satisfaction of seeing Brett Jackson blink in surprise. “Don't you think I can make my own decisions about people? And why didn't you ask me Micah's opinion of your trustworthiness. He's supposed to be your friend.”

“I didn't have to ask about Micah.” His voice was lower, less rough.

“He said I could trust you with my life.”

“Yes.” Brett said softly.

Rachel couldn't believe they were having this conversation, in the middle of the main camp thoroughfare, with people all around. She felt as if they were alone, the last man and woman on earth. She didn't know what to do with her hands. She stuck them in the pockets of her gray cotton shorts. She didn't know what to do with her eyes. She looked down at her worn, dusty canvas shoes.

“And which of your brothers do you believe?” There was an extraordinary, intimate note of challenge in his voice. Awareness raced across her nerve endings, as though he had touched her with his words. The sun dropped below the horizon and the light grew dim and hazy around them, sealing them more tightly into a world of their own.

She looked up, directly into his eyes, daring her demons, risking what little composure she had left in their hard blue depths. “Both of them.”

“So, there's bedrock common sense beneath the missionary meekness.”

“I'm not meek. And I'm not a missionary. Look, I apologize if I offended you. Although, with your reputation, I'd imagine you'd be used to others being suspicious of your motives by now.” To her utter amazement he smiled, then laughed, a deep, rich laugh that warmed her heart.

“You don't back down, do you, Rachel McKendrick Phillips? You know what is right and what is wrong and anyone in the middle be damned.”

“That's not true. I'm very open-minded. And I never pretend.”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “You don't pretend. You adapt, you survive, you do what's necessary to stay alive.”

She shivered, despite the heat of early evening, assailed by sharp-edged bits and pieces of memories of the past. He spoke as if he knew firsthand what forces had shaped her, made her what she was. “Once I did all those things,” she said so quietly he had to lean toward her to
hear the words. “Now I do what I want to do. Because
I
want to do it.”

“I know that, too.” He lifted his hand, touched her hair very lightly. His palm grazed her cheek, a fleeting caress, over in a heartbeat, yet Rachel felt as if he'd reached out, surrounded her with his arms, held her captive with the mere strength of his will. The smell of his pipe tobacco was evocative, masculine. It tickled her nose, momentarily overpowering the smell of dust and chickens and wood smoke that pervaded the camp. She closed her eyes, willing her thoughts free of the sensual pull of the man before her.

“How long will you be here, Rachel?”

The question surprised her. Her eyes flew open. “I have a little over a year left of my commitment to Father Dolph.” He didn't move closer, didn't touch her again, but still Rachel felt bound by his nearness.

“Do you have plans to come south?”

“No.” The denial was bald; she softened it. “I mean, I haven't made plans. I don't have leave until June.”

“The rainy season—not the best time to see the city, or the country, for that matter.”

“I'm not a tourist,” she reminded him, glad to hear her voice didn't tremble.

“I know that.” He straightened to his full height, giving her space, a moment to order her thoughts. “I want you to come to Bangkok.”

He'd thrown her off balance again. “I…I don't know.”

“I want to spend some time with you,” he said, moving back, moving away, setting her completely free, she
thought with relief, until he spoke again. A single word that sent her rushing off into the gathering dusk without even saying goodbye. “Alone.”

B
RETT STOOD BY THE WINDOW
in the main room of his home, a large Thai-style house, airy and open, with soaring rooflines. The house stood in a neighborhood that had once been a small village outside the city and still maintained aspects of its old identity. Bangkok was a city of contradictions; its commercial district had traffic tie-ups and noise pollution as bad as any modern city in the world, yet an age-old atmosphere of serenity infused the serious business of making money.
Sanuk,
the all-pervasive sense of fun and lightness that was an outgrowth of Buddhism, enabled the Thai people to conduct their lives and their businesses with both ambition and serenity.

Along the distant skyline, the gold-crusted
chedi
soared toward heaven, shoulder to shoulder with concrete and steel office towers, temples to other, less benevolent beings than the Buddha. Yet, even the occupants of those strongholds of capitalism would not think of neglecting to raise a spirit house outside their doors, a dollhouse-size temple for the devotion of the faithful.

There were other contrasts, too. Great wealth and even greater poverty in the same neighborhood, magnificent museums and art collections only blocks away from bars where nude dancers, some barely into their teens, gyrated to everything from Elvis to The Who. Some of the girls
were there of their own free will. Yet most were driven to Patpong Road and its environs by need and necessity, and still others, a few, were there because in this part of the world some men still trafficked in human flesh. Brett turned away from the window with a disgusted snort.

“Preach on, Brother Jackson.” The corner of his mouth turned upward in a bitter smile. The rain was causing him to turn philosophical, it seemed. Sometimes that happened about this time of year, although he usually didn't mind the monsoon all that much. There were fewer tourists crowding the flooded streets, less hassle at the restaurant, more time to travel, to read…to think about where his life was going.

The answer to that one was easy. His life was going to go nowhere in a hurry if he didn't quit spending so much of it thinking about things he couldn't change…and women he couldn't have. He should be concentrating on the details of his next meeting with Khen Sa, not comparing the color of the sky after a thunderstorm to the color of Rachel Phillips's eyes.

Today the sky looked like gunmetal, nothing more or less. And it was going to keep on raining, as it had rained the entire month of June and most of July, and would keep on raining until the cool, trade winds of autumn finally chased the clouds away for good.

Brett walked into the breakfast room, his footsteps echoing across the bare polished teak floor. The house was authentic Thai, made entirely of that precious wood, the roof of glazed tiles, but inside he'd taken some liberties with the traditional floor plan. Privacy didn't mean a lot to Thais; staying cool did. Most Thai-style houses used only partitions and screens to mark the boundaries
of different rooms. Brett's house had walls, at least in the sleeping and bathing areas. It was also air-conditioned. Living with high humidity and sixty inches of rain a year was one thing; living with rampant mildew was something else again.

He sat down at the breakfast table. Like magic the houseman, Nog, appeared at his elbow with fruit, black coffee and a soft-boiled egg.

“Shall I set a place for Mr. William?” he inquired.

“No.”

Billy was late. He should have been back in the city last night. Yet Brett had been unable to reach him at his home. No one at the Lemongrass had seen him or heard from him for a week. Brett ate his breakfast without tasting it, staring out at the timeless peace and serenity of the Chinese garden, Nog's special pride and joy, seeing nothing.

Billy could take care of himself. He'd been in Southeast Asia damn near as many years as Brett. But dealing with a man like Khen Sa, a throwback to the Dark Ages, tended to make you paranoid. A spot of car trouble, a washout on a northern road that necessitated an unexpected detour, any of those things could have delayed his friend. Nothing more.

Still, he looked up with relief when the Japanese rice-paper screen that served as a wall between the living room and dining room slid open and Billy stepped inside, his tall figure silhouetted briefly against the light background before he moved toward the table. He looked dirty, tired and hungry enough to eat a horse.

“Nog. Get me some coffee.”

“Certainly, sir.” Nog was Chinese, from Hong Kong,
and his upper-class British accent made him sound like a royal duke. He was a shade under five feet tall and somewhere between seventy and a hundred years old, as far as Brett could tell. He'd served with the British army during World War II and had lived in Bangkok since the end of that war. He knew everything there was to know about the city and what it took to get things done.

“I expected you back last night.” Brett cracked the shell of his egg.

“Got any more of those, Nog?” Billy asked, indicating the egg when the houseman returned with his coffee. “I'm starved. Last time I ate…was noon…the day before yesterday.”

“That bad?”

“Khen Sa's lieutenant, Ben Hua, he wanted to give me a goin'-away feast. All the best stuff—roast dog, fried bat, cobra's blood.” Billy scowled down at his coffee. Nog clicked his tongue against his teeth to indicate his sympathy. Brett grinned. “Put me off my food the rest of the trip.”

“I can imagine, sir. Although I remember in Burma during the war we had a cook who did cobra in a rather tasty curry dish.” Nog left the room shaking his head, still talking to himself.

“What else did you find out?” Brett asked when the old man was out of earshot. He pushed his egg and plate of fruit in Billy's direction.

“I'm too old to sleep on a dirt floor in the middle of the monsoon.” Billy inhaled his first cup of coffee and reached for the ceramic pot Nog had placed by his elbow.

Brett ignored the comment. “The meeting?”

“Not too bad. Khen Sa's no dummy.”

“He wouldn't have lasted this long if he was.”

Billy nodded agreement. He chewed thoughtfully on a bite of egg. “He's got a real setup there. His base camp is in Burma, like we thought, just across the border in Shan State. I didn't get invited up there. Probably won't, unless you're along.” Brett nodded. “The factory, though. It's in Thailand. Closer to the poppy fields.”

“Factory?” Brett didn't like the way Billy said the word. Most opium-refining labs were hole-in-the-wall operations in the jungle. Billy nodded again.

“We're not talking nickel and dime hits here, buddy. He's set on refining the stuff down to pure heroin. China White. It'll be worth—” he shrugged broad shoulders “—maybe a hundred million, if it gets to California or New York.”

“Was the harvest that good?” Billy was talking almost a ton of refined opium, ten percent of the Golden Triangle's entire harvest. Acres and acres of poppies, maybe a hundred tiny, remote villages under Khen Sa's thumb.

“In the region Khen Sa controls, yes.”

“And all of the opium being refined in one central location.” Brett drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “He's the only one who could have managed this, that's for sure.”

“Khen Sa wants to go big time. His troops are getting restless.”

“The Burmese government troops are harassing him in the north. I got a report…from our friend in the palace while you were gone.”

“Khen Sa's Shan troops hate the Burmese, that's no secret. He promised them a free Shan State. They're tired
of short rations and forced marches. He's going to have to let them go after the government troops, and soon. For that, our self-proclaimed general needs guns. And to get guns, he needs money. Cold, hard cash.”

“Did you set up another meeting?”

Billy poured a third cup of strong, black coffee. He shook his head. “They'll be in touch. I let them know we were real interested, but not overanxious. My guess is the general won't stir out of his redoubt up there in the mountains till the rainy season's over. We'll just have to sit tight till then.” He tipped his chair back on two legs, folded his hands behind his head and balanced there. “He's gonna want a hell of a lot of money. He's gonna want it in gold.”

“That goes without saying.” Brett pushed his chair away from the table, walked to the window, leaned his hand against the frame and stared out at the rain.

“Can your guy in the palace come up with the rest of the up-front money to satisfy Khen Sa?”

“If we can promise him the entire crop, I think he can. He'd damn well better be able to,” Brett added under his breath.

“Maybe it's time you talked to Alf Singleton face-to-face.”

“Not unless we have to. Any help we get from the U.S. government has to be strictly on the QT.”

He'd been working on this deal for almost two years. It had taken a lot of time, a lot of risk to bring the wily warlord this close to striking a bargain. If he did manage to bring it off without getting himself or Billy killed, they could call it quits, get out of the mercenary business. Retire. Settle down.

“Then all there is left to do is wait for the rains to quit.”

Both men watched the torrential downpour beyond the window and were silent.

“I'd best be gettin' along. I drove most of the night,” Billy announced, letting his chair ease back onto all four legs. Brett was being pretty closemouthed this morning. But Billy decided not to push him. This deal was the biggest thing they'd ever done. It was also way out of his league. Brett had never said so but Billy knew he was feeling the strain, too. Khen Sa wasn't your ordinary two-bit criminal. Hell, the man fielded a goddamn army up there. It wasn't like rousting some small-time pusher on Patpong Road, or setting up some greedy fool running drugs on the side, like the Vietnamese colonel—what was his name, Ky?—they'd engineered into taking a fall the year before. No, it wasn't the same at all. Khen Sa was big time with a capital T.

“Any problems along the way?” Brett turned away from the window. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his slacks and stared at Billy with narrowed eyes.

“Nope. Why'd you ask?” Billy knew perfectly well why his friend wanted to know where he'd been. He'd been due back yesterday. He waited, keeping his thoughts to himself.

“What took you so long? Bad roads?”

“No. I made a little stop on the way back from Chiang Rai, that's all.”

“What kind of stop?”

“Just a little visit to Father Dolph's camp.”

“Why?”

Billy blinked at the cutting edge in Brett's voice. “I thought I'd say hello to Ahnle. See how her English is comin' along.”

“Ahnle? The Hlông girl who works with Rachel?”

“Yeah, Ahnle. What about it?” Billy was on the defensive and he knew it.

The strange thing was he really hadn't had any intention of detouring off the main road to the camp. He'd just done it. He hadn't been able to get the girl out of his thoughts, and it bothered him. He'd spent less than an hour in her company, exchanged only a few words. She was young enough to be his daughter, for God's sake. Yet he still woke up most nights in a cold sweat, hard and aching, dreaming of Ahnle.

“Nothing, man. It's just not like you to blow off the plan that way.”

“Yeah, I know.” Billy stared down at his empty coffee cup. He'd had no business trying to see Ahnle again. He'd done it to convince himself to recognize her for the child she was. It hadn't worked.

“What did you two have to talk about?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? I would have thought her English would have improved considerably by now, with Rachel Phillips as a tutor.”

“It probably has. I didn't talk to her.” Here was the hard part. “She wasn't there, man, and neither was Rachel.”

“Where are they?” Brett asked.

No one knew Tiger Jackson better than Billy Todd. Still, he could detect little emotion other than natural curiosity on his friend's hard-edged features. Maybe he
was wrong in thinking Brett was as interested in Rachel as he was in Ahnle.

“Down near Surin somewhere. At one of the camps on the Kampuchean border.”

“What the hell are they doing there? The Khmer Rouge are stirring things up all around there, on both sides of the border.”

“That's what I wanted to know. I hunted up that French doctor, Reynard. He said there was cholera.” The word hung in the air between them. Cholera, a disease as deadly today as it had been throughout the centuries, capable of killing hundreds in a few days' time.

“Why the hell did Rachel go?”

“She nursed some Vietnamese nationals through an outbreak during the war. She volunteered to go and took Ahnle with her to help out. Dr. Reynard was against the idea but Father Dolph let them go.”

“He probably couldn't have stopped her if he'd tried.” Brett turned back to the window as if Billy's explanation answered some unspoken question of his own. He looked relaxed, at ease, but his hand on the window frame had curled into a fist. “How long have Rachel and the girl been there?”

“Three, four weeks.”

“Has anybody heard from them? Are they all right?”

Billy knew why he was asking. The camps on the border were crowded, grim settlements as large as cities. Crime and violence were common, and there was always the threat of attack by the Khmer Rouge or other antigovernment factions who crossed the border almost at will.

“Doc says Rachel won't let Ahnle near any of the cholera patients, and they're both all right.” He couldn't keep the relief out of his voice. She was just a kid, dammit. He shouldn't care so much.

Brett swung his head around to eye him sharply. “Do Rachel's brothers know where she is?”

Billy snorted, halfway between a laugh and a hoot. “No way. The Doc said Rachel told Father Dolph she'd pin his ears back if he gave them so much as a hint of what she was doing.”