The Burma Effect (15 page)

Delaney eventually decided on several things, several whiskies into his evening of journalistic analysis and deliberation. He would now make it known that this was all too hard and too dangerous and that he was no longer looking for Kellner anymore. He would perhaps play tourist for a while. And he would, at all costs, go up to Mae Sot to find Kellner's house, maybe even Kellner himself. But discreetly, very discreetly.

Delaney looked at his watch. Friday morning in Ottawa. Rawson would be in his office, almost certainly. Delaney dialled his mobile number. The CSIS spy handler answered immediately.

“This is Jonathan Rawson.”

“Mr. Rawson, this is Mr. Delaney.”

“Francis, excellent. I was wondering how you were getting on. Where are you?”

“Bangkok. In my hotel. The Royal.”

“Right. What phone are you on?”

“Cell.”

“Right. Hmm. So. How's your little trip coming along?” Rawson said, more guarded now.

“Complicated. Very complicated,” Delaney said.

“Some little setbacks.”

“I see,” Rawson said. “Anything really worrying?”

“Yes. For a little while this afternoon. Some very, very unhappy locals. I seem to have upset someone over here. Very badly. They made that clear to me, and to my driver, a little earlier today.”

“I see,” Rawson said. “Everything came out OK, though?”

“Just,” Delaney said. “Just.”

“Right,” Rawson said.

“I'm not sure where this is heading, Jon. Not sure at all. I think I may head to the beach for a few days, and think it all over a little. Koh Samui is nice this time of the year. I might bring Kellner's lady along with me. She needs a change of scene.”

“The beach. Right,” Rawson said. “Right. Whatever you think wise, Francis. Can you email me, perhaps. With details of your plans?”

“I will.”

“When?”

“Soon. As soon as I can,” Delaney said.

“Do that please.”

“Will do.”

“Any sign of our long-lost friend?” Rawson asked.

“Some. Maybe. I'll get back to you.”

“Right,” Rawson said.

Delaney dialled Kate's mobile phone number next. She also answered right away.

“Oh, Frank, it's good to hear your voice,” she said, speaking very low. “I'm really sorry, I'm in a meeting now. Can I call you later?”

“It's late now, Kate. Quite late here. It's good to hear your voice too. Go back to your meeting. I'll call you another time. I'll leave a message on your tape at home, to let you know what's up. I'll call you on the weekend maybe.”

“Good,” Kate said.“Good. Sorry, lover boy. I'm in a meeting. I really, really have to go.”

“Police business,” he said.

“Mountie stuff,” she said.

“Bye.”

He wanted to say
: It's late here. I'm tired and sore because someone tried to kill me and my driver today and we ran for our lives and I feel like someone needs to know that. Someone. Probably you.

He called her tape at home and then immediately regretted it. After her greeting message he was left with a large opening to fill and he wasn't sure what to say, or how much, or whether he should have called her at all, on any phone. He had simply wanted to connect with someone. He had spent too many long nights in too many silent hotels in the middle of the world, and he wanted only to connect. An outdated, 1950s concept. A suburban North American concept, according to some.

“Hi Kate,” he said to the silence of the tape. “It's me again. Sorry I disturbed you at work. I just wanted to say I was OK. In case you were wondering. Not sure when I can call you next. I'm going to go south of Bangkok for a few days. Still on this crazy assignment. I'll call you.”

He paused, with a tape running in an apartment ten thousand kilometres away in Montreal.

“This is getting a bit complicated,” he said. He wanted to add:
You and me.
He said instead: “This assignment.”

Of course he dreamed heavily that night. In his giant hotel bed in a silent hotel in the middle of the world. He dreamed the Natalia dream:

As always, she was lying dead in the snow in the Laurentian woods. The body in the woods, the snow falling steadily, silently down. But in this dream Kate and Mai were in the woods, too. And Aung San Suu Kyi. And other unidentifiable women.The snow falling steadily, silently down. He wasn't sure what they were all doing there, what they could all be expecting from him. Delaney watching, watching.

D
elaney slept in very late the next morning, exhausted by the events of Friday and by a night full of dreams. He knew also that this would be a transition day and so rest might be wise before heading into what would very likely be an uncertain and dangerous situation.

He decided against meeting Mai again at Kellner's apartment, certain as he now was that the place was being watched. He needed to get her over to the Royal and he needed Ben and his car. Ben, as Delaney had hoped, was waiting for him outside the hotel lobby around noon, even though they had fixed no meeting time. This was the style of the best Thai drivers. They sensed when they would be needed and they didn't mind a wait.

The old Toyota Crown looked as good as ever. Ben was polishing the new windshield glass, picking off a sticky label and looking very pleased with himself as he worked. The left rear tire looked much newer than the others.

“Quick work on the car,” Delaney said.

“My cousin's got a garage over near Siam Square,” Ben said. “Ready now to go again.”

“Good,” he said. “Ben, I've got some ideas for us and I want to make sure you're on board.”

They went into the lobby for coffee and Delaney told Ben about his plans. Ben was to go get Mai that afternoon for a meeting with Delaney at the hotel. Delaney had decided not to use phones anymore if possible. Ben was to be very sure he was not followed on the way back across town.

Then Delaney would explain to Mai that they were going to travel by train together to Surat Thani in the south, like friends, lovers or tourists, depending on who might be watching. Delaney would slip away at Surat Thani and fly back to Bangkok to meet Ben. Mai would carry on by ferry from Surat to the beach bungalows of Koh Samui and rest for a day or two there before very discreetly coming back to stay with one of her sisters until word came from Delaney, Ben or, possibly, Kellner himself.

Delaney and Ben would drive up to Mae Sot, find Kellner's house and figure out, if at all possible, exactly what was going on. Even Ben, a normally very optimistic and stoic specimen, saw several ways Delaney's plan could go badly wrong.

“You sure about this, Frank?” he said. “You think you can go to ground like that? Those guys yesterday were professional people, I think.”

“We have to try, Ben. We can't keep walking around Bangkok with everybody knowing our business.”

Ben did not look convinced.

“And Mae Sot is a tough place, Frank. We don't know what is what with Khun Nathan's house. Who might be there. We have to go easy, easy.”

“We'll go easy, Ben,” Delaney said. “What is it? You worried about your car?” “Not just the car, Frank.”

Mai was also unconvinced, decidedly unconvinced. She did not want to leave the apartment in case Kellner came home. She did not want to leave her cats. She did not see the logic of going at that point on what appeared to be a holiday with a Western man. She did not want to anger her brothers or upset her mother. But mostly she did not want to miss seeing Kellner if he came home.

Delaney used the same arguments with her that he had used with Ben. But he did not mention the Mae Sot part of the plan or anything about Kellner's secret house.

“We can't just keep on walking around Bangkok with everyone knowing what we are doing,” he said in the hotel's wood-panelled lobby. “Once we are clear of whoever's watching us I can look better for Nathan. Someone is watching your apartment. Someone is probably watching us here, now, in this hotel. We have to get ourselves some room to manoeuvre. And I want them to think I have given up, that I'm just taking it easy on the beach. I want them to think they have scared me off.”

“I think maybe they have scared you off, Frank,” Mai said sadly. “We still have to find Nathan.” “I will look for Nathan. That's what I'm trying to do, Mai. When we shake off whoever is on top of us first.”

Mai still looked unconvinced. Ben just stirred his coffee and tried to mask his own misgivings.

Eventually, however, Mai came around to the idea. They would meet the next evening at Bangkok's main intercity train station, and get overnight berths for Phun Phin, the closest station to Surat Thani. Somewhere there, Delaney would slip away and head for the airport and a flight back north alone.

Ben dropped him off at the Chivas Bar on his way to take Mai home. Delaney wanted to make sure Cohen, and therefore all of expatriate Bangkok, knew he was heading south on holiday. Ben would make certain the watchman, and therefore another circle of potentially interested parties, knew Mai was off to the beach with this new Western man.

Cohen of course, was in the bar, in the same booth as the previous day.

“So it's off for a little R&R then, with the lovely Mai,” Cohen said when Delaney had explained his plan. “I have always admired how the Thai ladies generously share their charms with friends of friends. I'm sure Kellner won't mind a bit, you jumping on her bones on the beach train.”

“She needs a break, Mordecai. So do I. This whole thing is going nowhere. Nathan will come back when he's good and ready. I think he's up at that house in Mae Sot anyway, like you said. I think he's probably OK.”

“A wise course, the wisest possible course,” Cohen said. “Let things unfold as they will. Get laid if you can. Try not to piss off your friends. My philosophy exactly.”

Delaney got up to go.

“Yes, a beach holiday with, Mai,” Cohen said. “Just the thing.” He paused, looked at the end of his cigarette. “No little side trips planned up north, I would assume? Mae Sot is not good this time of year.”

Delaney spent Saturday night worrying about his plan and about what he might encounter in Mae Sot. He tried to call Kate but got messages on both her mobile and her home phone. He also worried, but only for a few minutes, about his next newspaper column, due by Wednesday. Delaney at large. With a Canadian angle. He was not at all sure how he could find eight hundred words for the
Tribune
editors that week. Canadian journalist missing in Bangkok? Possible small-time drug dealer or business fixer or womanizer not seen for over a month? Girlfriend worried. Who cares? Why would
Tribune
readers care? Canadian Security Intelligence Service worried? Now that, maybe, was a story.

Late on Sunday morning, Delaney checked out of the hotel and threw his bags into the back of Ben's car. They drove to various places picking up the things any self-respecting Western tourist would need for a beach holiday. Some light shirts from Robinson's, shorts, sandals, a beach towel. Standard issue stuff. Then a long touristy lunch with Ben at a barge restaurant moored in the Chao Phraya River not far from the end of Khao San Road.

Eventually they ended up at Hualamphong Station, teeming as always with locals, Asian business types and tourists.The train to Surat Thani was due to go at 6 p.m. Ben stood watching for Mai as Delaney bought more travel things from one of the crowded little shops on the concourse. Sandwiches, nuts, fruit, bottled water, and a litre of mild Mekong whiskey.

Mai arrived looking very much the part, smiling broadly. Wide-brimmed sun hat, pink T-shirt, straw bag, leather satchel. She looked very good indeed. Delaney hoped he would be able to remember this trip was business, not pleasure. At least for the next 11 hours on the train.

“Have a good trip, Khun Frank. See you soon,” Ben said, shaking hands gravely with Delaney. “Bye bye, Mai.”

“Back soon, Ben,” Delaney said.

Their second-class carriage was full. In a few hours, teams of young State Railway staff would scramble all over the car, unfolding ledges, reversing seats, hanging curtains and making up narrow beds—transforming the seating area into a long series of snug bunk-style sleeping compartments. Travellers would perform ablutions at open sinks at one end, and then retire to their little enclosures. An armed watchman would doze at the other end while all slept.

While they waited for the compartment boys to arrive, Delaney and Mai sat quietly, sipping Mekong from plastic cups and munching peanuts. She was far more relaxed than the last time they had seen each other. After several small whiskies, she insinuated herself under his right arm and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Nice here,” she said.

They could have been any of a hundred such couples on the gently swaying southbound train.

Sometime after midnight, Delaney was reading in his little upper bunk. A crack in the drawn curtains let in some of the passageway light. Occasionally he saw the green-clad railway guard walk by, this way and that. He very much sensed the presence of Mai below him. He was glad the sleeping arrangements were single. This simplified matters a great deal. Mai had retired very much in her “smoke this and hold me” mode.

His mobile phone rang. It was Kate, apologetic for the late hour.

“Where are you now?” she said.

“On a train,” he said quietly. “In a berth.”

“Alone, I hope,” she said with a laugh.

“Of course. They are very narrow berths in Thailand.”

“I wish I was there with you tonight, Frank. I like trains. Don't quote me on this, but I think I may actually be missing you. Despite your lack of social skills.”

“Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder,” he said.

“Something like that,” she said. She paused.

“Where are you headed? What are you actually writing about over there?” she said.

“Nothing yet. Working on a sort of feature story.”

“About what?”

“Complicated. You'll have to buy the
Tribune
.”

“I wonder about you sometimes, Frank.”

“What do you wonder?”

“I wonder if I know as much about you as an alert policewomen ought to know.”

“Sergeant Kate of the Mounted.”

“Yes.”

“I'm a journalist.”

“Sometimes. When it suits you.”

“Yes. Self-assigned.”

“Lucky.”

“In some ways.”

“I look forward to reading your story,” she said.

“Working on it,” he said.

Phun Phin Station was fantastically crowded with tourists, other travellers and touts. It is a crossroads for people heading out to islands in the Gulf of Thailand and those heading back up north. Others changed trains there to head even farther south, toward Malaysia.

Delaney was quite sure no one had watched them on the train. Ben had been certain no one had followed his car to the Bangkok station. But Frank looked around carefully as he got off the train, fending off taxi touts and ferry boat touts and trying to spot anyone who didn't fit properly into the scene. He saw nothing that made him worry.

He picked out an older-looking taxi driver with a decent-looking older Mercedes and they went to the ferry quay, also teeming with travellers. In the confusion, he would get Mai settled on a crowded boat to Koh Samui and then take another taxi out to the airport for an 8 a.m. flight back to Bangkok.

Mai kissed him several times as he stood next to her on her outside deck seat.

“I don't think I like this idea anymore, Frank,” she said.

“It's best, you'll see. I'll see you back in Bangkok soon. Rest and swim for two or three days and I will see you back in Bangkok. It's best,” he said.

The deck was strewn with brightly coloured backpacks. Delaney picked his way past them just before the boat was to cast off. The quay was still extremely crowded. A line of taxis waited nearby. At the last possible moment, he headed quickly back down the gangplank and directly into an ancient Mazda.

“Airport,” he said. He didn't look back at the boat, knowing that Mai would be too tempted to wave.

The flight from Surat Thani was just 70 minutes. Ben was waiting for him at the Bangkok arrivals gate. Delaney was sure now that no one had followed him, that no one could have followed him. He was convinced that those interested in his movements would have completely lost his trail.

They headed out right away. Traffic outside the airport was heavy, as always, but it thinned a little once they were on what passes for the highway north toward Nakthon Sawan, Tak and then west toward Mae Sot. Delaney would share some of the many hours of driving with Ben. The major challenge would be staying out of the way of the fleets of belching, overloaded Thai trucks and buses that always dominated the road.

Ben's scratchy tape deck played Thai and Chinese tunes. His wife had packed sandwiches and sweet fizzy orange drinks for them. She didn't like Ben drinking beer while on a long road trip. Too dangerous, she said. Ben told Delaney this with obvious pride. He was a happy family man.

They pulled into Mae Sot just after nine that evening, tired and sore from the long hard drive. On the way into town they passed one of several refugee camps that had sprung up for Burmese Karen people fleeing the fighting between Burma's army and KNU rebels across the border. Delaney's journalistic instincts tugged him in that direction for a moment as they passed, but this was not the story he was after this time.