The Burma Effect (16 page)

The pedestrian and bicycle traffic became heavier and more exotic the closer they got to Mae Sot's small town centre. Burmese men in traditional
longyi
sarongs walked alongside the dark and rutted road, illuminated by dozens of dim yellowish headlight beams. Hill tribesmen and their wives also wore traditional dress. There were a lot of soldiers, Thai Rangers, sitting in small roadside beer parlours, drinking and smoking cigars. Western hippies and backpackers occasionally appeared in the light.

Ben said he knew a good guest house where they could wash, eat and get to bed. Their problem the next day would be to try to find Kellner's house without raising any alarms. But tonight they needed rest.

Ben pulled the car into the courtyard of the three-story Mae Thep Guest House, not far from the central square, and parked it under a massive mango tree. The aging engine of the Toyota clicked quietly as it cooled. Some small tables were set on the hotel's wide covered balcony and a mix of Western and Asian travellers were eating by the light of small oil lamps.

“This is the place, Frank. Nice here,” Ben said. “I know the house lady. Clean rooms, hot water usually.”

“Perfect,” Delaney said, climbing stiffly out of the car.

Half an hour after that they were drinking beer on the balcony, late suppers ordered and bags stowed in tidy single rooms. Delaney felt the glow he always felt on a warm Asian night, with the smell of bougainvillea all around and the humid air soft on the skin.

“Perfect,” he said again as plates of pad thai arrived. “Perfect.”

“Tomorrow we start,” Ben said, squeezing limes onto his meal. “Beers tonight.”

“Beers tonight.”

The next day they realized how hard their task would be. Finding Kellner's house without actually telling people what they were doing would be a delicate matter. Delaney realized also that there was a reasonable chance, unless Keller was actually hiding out, that they would simply run into him in the street somewhere in town. After all the effort he had made travelling to Thailand, Delaney was not actually sure what he wanted to ask Kellner if he found him alive. Rawson could eventually help him with that. Maybe.

They took a preliminary drive around town, in the hope that something would indicate a house owned or rented by a foreigner. Delaney wished he had asked Cohen more about what the house looked like or where it was located. Mae Sot was a typical northern Thailand outpost town: a hodgepodge of small shops, guest houses, dubious-looking banks, depots and warehouses. In this part of the world, near the Burma border, there was also a jumble of Buddhist temples, mosques for the Burmese Muslims and a couple of small Christian churches.

“Could be anywhere, Frank,” Ben said as he steered carefully between bicycles, motorized rickshaws, beeping taxis and walkers.

“Cohen said it was off by itself somewhere. Near the river.”

“That river runs all through town, Frank. And way past.”

They stopped outside a couple of places almost at random, looking for signs at least of foreigners living inside. But those houses could not be described as being off by themselves and none had any outbuildings. Cohen had mentioned a barn fixed up as sleeping quarters.

In the afternoon, Ben went into a real estate agency on the pretext of trying to find a house to rent for the foreigner in his car. Through the glass shop front, Delaney watched him talking intently to the young woman sitting behind an aging computer screen. Then Ben motioned for him to come inside.

“Mr. Delaney, this kind lady says there is nothing suitable just at this moment but she would like more information about exactly what you are looking for. She says a very nice place was rented to a foreigner about half a year ago that might have been good for you. Rented now, but she may find another one like it possibly soon.”

The agent's name was Somchay “Mary” Vechiraya. It was inscribed in full on a small plastic badge pinned to her blouse. Her long black hair had one enormous wide streak of white, apparently the latest in Mae Sot fashion statements.

“I'm a writer,” Delaney said. “I need somewhere quiet to work, with rooms for guests that may come in from overseas sometimes. Maybe three or four bedrooms and a good place to work. Quiet. Not in town.”

“Yes, yes. We have such houses sometimes in this agency,” Mary said. “Usually owned by army generals but coming for rent sometimes.”

“What was the one like you rented last year? When was that?” he asked.

“That was in September, I think sir. Last September. To a tall foreign person like yourself. He also wanted quiet.”

“Too bad that one is gone,” Delaney said. “Would it be available sometime soon, perhaps? Where would that one have been?”

“I do not think it will be free soon, sir. No. The foreign man liked it very much. It is not actually in Mae Sot. It is on the road to Huay Bong, actually. Maybe 10 kilometres from here. You have to first drive as if you are going to Mae La Lao and to the national park.Then a road goes off to Huay Bong. But it is not good maybe for one person. No one around. Too big for one. Better in town for you, I think.”

“That one sounds perfect,” Delaney said. “Does it have a parking garage?”

“A small barn, sir. Parking downstairs and some extra bed places upstairs. Too much for one man.” “That is the sort of place I need,” Delaney said.

“Not available sir,” the agent said, putting her palms together in a graceful wai. “I will look for another for you, beginning today.” “Thank you very much.”

*

Delaney and Ben looked carefully at a big-scale local map during lunch. There was not much between Mae Sot and Huay Bong. Nothing much shown at all. The Mae Nam Moei River flowed near there. It sounded like the right spot.

Ben proposed driving up there later that afternoon, but going right past if they sighted a house that looked right. He wanted to go back at night for a better reconnaissance if they decided it was the house they sought. Delaney was not sure about operating at night anywhere in that part of Thailand.

They drove slowly out of town and headed east and then north toward Huay Bong. The road became very bad after they turned off the main road, Route 105. They saw only small peasant houses once in a while, with chickens scratching in the dirt outside and small fires going. Occasionally a local kid waved and shouted. But it was far from a main thoroughfare. They saw no other cars, parked or otherwise.

After about 20 minutes heaving along the bad road, they saw a big copse of mango trees to the left and in the distance behind them, visible only through a break in the trees, a two-story house. A small barn lay behind the house. As they drew closer, with no break in the trees, the place was completely out of sight.

A rutted driveway wound away from the road and through the trees. They pulled closer and Delaney motioned for Ben to stop.

“Not sure it is good to stop here right now, Frank,” Ben said. “We come back later maybe. I will go up and circle back and we go past another time, OK?”

“Stop just for a second, Ben. Just for a second. We won't go up just now.”

Ben looked very dubious, nervous. He stopped where the driveway met the rutted road and looked in his rearview mirror.

“Not good, Frank,” he said. “We don't know who is up there. Later, maybe.” Delaney got out.

“Two seconds, Ben,” he said.

He went over to the driveway. It was in very bad shape. It would be four-wheel-drive terrain in the rain. The drive wound through the trees and no house was visible. There was no mailbox. Just a single post stuck in the ground near the road, leaning over at an angle. No number, no name. Delaney looked more closely at the post. “Let's go, Frank,” Ben said. “Back later when it's dark, OK?”

Delaney saw that someone had stuck a very small rectangular Canadian flag lapel pin into the top of the rotting post. A tiny pin, not visible from the road or from a car. That was all. The most subtle of signals.

“This is it, Ben,” he said.

“Please get back in the car now, Frank. Let's go.” Ben seemed annoyed. He never usually got annoyed about anything. He was clearly frightened. The shooting in Bangkok had left him rattled and he obviously wanted no more troubles like that.

“I'm sorry, Ben. But now we know it's Kellner's place,” Delaney said as they drove back. “Just because of a little flag.”

“It's the place, Ben. I know it. We'll have to go back.”

In the end, Delaney was able to persuade Ben it was better to go back in daylight. If they were caught snooping around the house at night, it could be very bad. If they were caught by day, they could feign innocence, claim to be house hunting, potential renters.

That gave them another night to relax and eat another excellent meal and drink more beer and Mekong whiskey.

After dinner, Delaney walked along Prasit Withi street and turned left into Sri Phuant past a mosque. There was a little Internet café there, Cyber Sot, run by a couple who in another era might have decided to launch a late-night grocery store or run a little taxi service. Their café was immaculate, their computers in excellent condition. An assortment of backpackers and local kids peered intently into glowing screens. Keyboards clacked gently.

Mr. Khongkaew and his wife showed Delaney all around their establishment and offered him tea before he was able to sit down at a screen. He was by far the oldest customer in the place, by at least 20 years.

“Best Internet café in Mae Sot. Best, best,” Mr. Khongkaew said proudly. “Always high-speed connection, never problems here.”

Delaney first sent an email message to Patricia Robinson, opinion page editor, with some bad news.
Tribune
readers would have to try to live without his column this week. Frank Delaney is away this week. Delaney is at large. Unavoidably detained.

“Try to deal with the grief, Patricia,” he wrote, somewhat fuelled by a series of drinks with dinner. “I will file something next week. Will try to break new ground.”

He copied Harden into the message; however, Harden was a different problem. Delaney knew the editor-in-chief was losing patience with him, but they had a long history together. Delaney was confident he could weather this latest newspaper storm. Harden was of the old school. He knew that every journalist, certainly every columnist, had fallow periods, distractions of various sorts.

Next, he emailed Rawson, filling him in a little about what he had found. As always with Rawson, not telling him the full story, if only because he rarely gave Delaney the full story himself about any freelance spying assignment.

“In Mae Sot up north now and think I may have found Kellner's secret house,” Delaney wrote.“I'm with my driver, Benjarong Yongchaiyudh. We'll go back to have a look tomorrow, and see if Kellner is there.”

He finished with a question: “There is a Burma connection that keeps coming up in this, Jonathan. What more can you give me from your end on that angle?”

Nothing much
, Delaney thought, as he paid for his computer time. Rawson will be holding something back, as always.

On the way back to the guest house, Delaney kept his eyes open for the Burma Border Press Club. He had read about the place, where dozens of exiled or refugee journalists from Burma gathered to talk politics and exchange information. He had read that they met regularly in a Chinese restaurant near the centre of town.

He doubted there would be a sign indicating where they met. The Burmese military regime managed the media with an iron fist. They would not take too kindly to gatherings of journalists anywhere, even in Thailand, where sedition was the lead story. Mae Sot was full of informers and spies. Some of the members of the press club were stringers for the BBC and Voice of America, and their reports could be heard inside Burma on shortwave. It was risky business.

Delaney and Ben went back about their own risky business early the next day, heading directly to what they now agreed had to be Kellner's house. Ben was still not happy, but absolutely loyal and dependable, as always. This was a job he had been hired to do and he would never let Delaney down. But he was silent, dead silent, as they made their way back up the bad road toward Huay Bong. The same local peasant kids waved and shouted at the car as it went past.

The house hove into view through the break in the mango trees and then disappeared again as they drove on. At the driveway, Ben stopped. He pulled the car off the road under the trees.

“Maybe I should block the driveway, Frank,” he said.

Delaney thought about that for a moment. “We're supposed to be here looking for a house to rent. Nothing to hide. Would we block the driveway?”

“We'd drive straight in if we weren't expecting trouble,” Ben said.

“I don't want to do that either. I don't think we should do that,” Delaney said. “Let's go up slow on foot, see what we can discover as we walk in.”

“OK, Frank.”

Ben carefully locked his car and they began to walk up the overgrown driveway toward the house. The drive twisted a couple of times and then they saw the house in the distance. The barn was out of sight from there. There was an uncovered balcony at the front of the house, extending to both sides of the open front door. A table and one chair were set out. Delaney wished for binoculars. “What you think, Ben?”