The Burma Effect (22 page)

“These men are going to make sure you don't get delusions,” Dima said. “They will be outside your door while you rest.”

Delaney lay down immediately after his door was closed. He lay flat on his back in his clothes and tried to ignore the sensation of swaying after the long drive. For him, the journey had been 12 hours of troubled reverie—half-sleep, half-nightmarish assaults of sorrow, guilt and regret about Ben Yong. Into that mix were folded the clearly remembered feelings Delaney had had for all the years after Natalia was killed, the same gut-wrenching certainty that his bad judgment had cost someone else's life.

He slept eventually. When he woke up, the light was already changing. It was late afternoon. He stripped off his dusty, foul-smelling clothes and took a long shower. While the water ran over him he thought of escape, but immediately realized such thoughts were futile—delusions, just as Dima had said. He had no money, no cards, not even his passport; the only thing he still had with him was his international press ID.

He would have to see this situation through, no matter how insane and dangerous it proved to be. And, he realized, there was still an element of reporter's curiosity as to where such an unlikely scheme as this might eventually lead.

When he opened the door to his room, the two young Thai policemen got up immediately from their chairs. They spoke no English at all, and so could not understand his questions about where the others might be. Stefan, however, came out of another room down the hall and saw Delaney in his doorway.

“Food now,” Stefan said. “Come on with me.” The policemen understood Stefan's sign language and let Delaney pass.

They joined the others already in the guest house dining room. Dima had a map spread out on a table. All except Dima were drinking Singha beers out of big, sweating bottles. A teenaged waitress was bringing plates of noodles, chicken, peppers, rice. “Reporter man,” Abbey said, raising his bottle.

“Asshole man,” Bobby said. “Trouble man.” Delaney sat with Dima and Stefan. At the other table, the rest of the men hove into their plates of food.

Delaney sat looking directly at the Russian and South African mercenaries before him. They sat quietly looking back. “Question?” Dima said. Stefan laughed, ordered a beer.

“You can't be serious about going ahead with this,” Delaney said. “You're going to bring weapons into Burma, and go ahead with this crazy plan?”

“We have powerful friends on the other side. And some rich Aussies just waiting to get ripped off,” Stefan said.

“And a beautiful lady to rescue,” Dima said. “Like in a fairy tale.”

“Why would they let you?” Delaney said. “Why would they let you do anything? Why would the generals let you bring arms into the country? Why would you bother anyway? The place is lousy with guns. You could get anything you want over there.”

“Questions, questions. Always questions,” Dima said, smiling.

“Nobody does anything over there without a general saying it is OK,” Stefan said.

“Why would it be OK?” Delaney said.

“Which part?” Stefan said.

“Any part.”

“The Australian part is good for business,” Dima said. “Or so the Australians think and also our military friends over there. The Australians think they are buying independent professional protection for their compound and their little bungalows and their wives if they are stupid enough to bring them into Burma. They get to build their next casino in Mongla and the road that will lead Chinese tourists to it and they'll all sleep well thinking they have professional guys like us hanging around at night with their own weapons and nobody to answer to but Australians.”

“The generals,” Stefan said, “or our generals anyway, think it's worthwhile to show the Aussies we can bring our own gear into the country, that we don't need anybody else to do our work. They think the more secure the Western moneymen believe they are, the better it is for business. The generals also find it amusing, an amusing little experiment, to see if we can bring our gear all the way up through Thailand and into Tachilek. They like to know that these things can be done.”

“They've got a giant border with China to bring AK-47s across, anytime they want,” Delaney said.

“It's an experiment; they like experiments. Some of the generals like to have little private experiments going on all the time, just to keep their options open. But it is mainly a show for the Australians,” Dima said. “Kellner's idea, actually. Everybody liked it.”

“And now Kellner is almost certainly dead,” Delaney said.

“Maybe,” said Stefan. “On the other hand, we may see him tomorrow in Tachilek, or Kengtung or Mongla. He's a good operator.”

“And at Mongla, what happens?” Delaney said.

“We make our Aussies happy, we make them feel secure,” Stefan said. “We take their five-hundred-thousand-U.S.-dollar retainer and we promise them, promise, promise, that we are at their service. Then we take the money and spend some of it on other expensive fun and games in Rangoon instead.”

“And which general is going to let you do that?” Delaney said.

“The one who thinks it is actually money to back his own nice little Rangoon project, another one,” Dima said. “You see, Delaney, all of these generals have their own little projects, their own little business deals. They are businessmen. They have their own bits of turf; they have their own factions. They need to have their own support systems, foreign ones and local ones. They put on little shows for each other, little demonstrations of their power or independence or how they have backing from here and backing from there. But by the time this partic ular general and his people find they have been ripped off too, by our little band of foreign fun seekers, we are all on a chopper heading back to Kellner's farm with the lovely Madame Suu Kyi aboard.” “They are going to kill you all,” Delaney said.

“And you too, I suppose. Correct?” Dima said.

Much of the two-way traffic across the bridge linking Mae Sai to Tachilek is pedestrian: Burmese fruit-and-vegetable hawkers walking in to Thailand to sell their wares at little stalls for the day; young Thai men and an assortment of cripples, beggars and a very few backpackers going the other way. Some big trucks occasionally lumber slowly across in either direction.

The mercenaries had loaded their trailer cargo of gun crates and other equipment onto an aging Bedford truck, covered with a tarpaulin at back.The vans were left parked and locked behind the hotel. At dusk, everyone piled into the back of the Bedford as well, leaving just Dima and the Thai police sergeant in front. At the last Thai checkpoint before the bridge, the sergeant disappeared inside with a small sports bag. Delaney and some of the others watched through a flap in the truck's tarp.

After what seemed a long time, the policeman emerged from the guards' hut looking tense and hot. He stood with the border police, smoking a final cigarette and joining his countrymen in a ritual of spitting and smiling. Eventually there were wais all around, handshakes, a bit of backslapping and it was over. The Thai police sergeant leaned inside the cab and said to Dima: “You go.”

Dima went. With a crashing of gears he moved the old Bedford forward while their policeman stood with the guards at the border post and watched. Dima drove slowly through the iron gates, under the “Welcome to Myanmar” sign, and into no-man's land. He pulled up at yet another guards' hut, this one staffed by cheerless Burmese soldiers who looked like they would do anything that night for a bit of trouble to pass the time away.

But parked next to this hut was a small black Mercedes 190, not new but immaculately waxed and aging gracefully. Small sets of black Venetian blinds had been installed in the back and side-rear windows. Delaney had seen many cars like this in his career. Their cargo was always power.

Out of the back of this vehicle stepped a Burmese general straight out of Central Casting, sporting the requisite wide-brimmed officer's cap covered in scrambled egg embroidery and other heavy insignia. He was in his mid-fifties. On his chest were rows of tiny square decoration patches, more insignia, more trappings of power. The aviator sunglasses, not at all required in the failing light, were standard issue as well. On a small rectangular patch on his chest, in black letters, were also the words Kyaw Thein.

The man, Delaney could see immediately, was to be their guide and protector for the next stage of this elaborate and increasingly dangerous game.

Dima climbed out of the cab, and the rest got out of the back of the truck. The border guards and the Mercedes driver watched impassively, well accustomed it seemed to mysterious assignations at the border at nightfall. “General Thein, good day to you, sir,” Dima said.

General Thein smiled and shook Dima's hand, “Welcome to Myanmar.” He looked over at the rest of the group and nodded. “Welcome to Myanmar. You have arrived well and with your cargo intact,” he chuckled happily.

“Yes, intact. All is well,” Dima said.

“Good. We go to Kengtung now, tonight. I apologize in advance for the quality of the road. It will take six or seven hours for 150 kilometres, I am afraid. But my government is seeing to road works, and other public works in this region, as quickly as we possibly can, as you all know. With some help from our foreign investor friends.” This prompted more throaty chuckles from the general as he pondered ironies.

“And our friend, Kellner?” Dima asked. “Is he well?”

“Ah, Kellner,” the general said. “Have you no news of him? We had expected to see our good friend by now. Perhaps to arrive with you.”

“No, General. No news.”

General Thein did not look particularly troubled by this.

“Perhaps Kellner will join us in Mongla then,” he said. “There is a newly arrived troupe of Russian exotic dancers there, at the Myanmar Royal Casino. Perhaps we will find him drinking vodka in his usual spot in the front row.”

Dima rode in the Mercedes with General Thein. A Burmese soldier drove the Bedford. It was to be another bone-crushing nighttime journey on winding roads. They travelled through dense forest, interspersed with tiny villages of thatched houses on stilts, which Delaney could just make out as they passed in moonlight. He wedged himself between a spare tire and a wall of the truck, but rest was impossible.

“This is one shit detail,” Tom said eventually as they lurched along, the only complaint Delaney had heard in two days. The others, wedged as best they could into various corners of the truck and its load, said nothing.

Well before sunrise, they pulled into Kengtung. Delaney knew little about the place, except that it was the last Burmese town of any significance before travellers entered the remote region of northeastern Burma that had been virtually handed over by the Burmese dictatorship to a powerful ethnic drug warlord, Lin Mingxian, on mutually lucrative terms.

They passed Kengtung's police station, a forbidding place except for the strings of sparkling fairy lights for some unknown reason slung through the barbed wire atop the compound walls. The town centre was a maze of narrow winding streets full of traditional shop houses with tiled roofs and dark wooden balconies. Eventually, their vehicles stopped outside a giant concrete-rendered building with a sign in Burmese and English identifying it as the Kengtung New Hotel. Two military policemen standing directly in the doorway saluted when General Thein emerged from his Mercedes, a car now far less grand with a thick coating of dust and mud.

“This is a government hotel. No problems here. Rest now,” General Thein said to the mercenaries as they unfolded themselves from the back of the Bedford. If he removed his sunglasses, Delaney imagined the general would look as tired as anyone else. “Talk is for tomorrow,” Thein said.

There was much talk the next day, most coming from General Thein, who was holding court at midday in the cavernous hotel dining room when Delaney came down, accompanied by Tom. It appeared Tom was to be his minder for this part of the trip.

Thein was in full uniform again, but now without sunglasses. Delaney saw that he was even tougher-looking without them. This was a career military man, someone who had negotiated his way through the dangerous shoals of the Burmese military to reach his fifties and a position from which he could direct his own little patch of Burmese turf. Delaney wondered which of the military's many lucrative business ventures had been awarded to him. This close to Wa State, the Mongla casino scene and Lin Mingxian's notorious private militia, Delaney thought, it could be any combination of timber concessions, gems, drugs, gambling proceeds, people smuggling and prostitution.

Thein was seated with Dima and Stefan. The others, and Delaney, sat at a table nearby, listening as they ate.

“The Australians are fools,” General Thein said.

“Kellner will have told you this. They have too much money for their mental capacities, and they have business ideas that are fine for Sydney and Melbourne and Perth but that do not apply here. They prefer not to know the whole story of how business gets done in Burma, but that is fine for us. For me and for my usual business associates.

“They are involved in building another casino in Mongla. The Myanmar Royal is already doing very well. Other Australians have a partnership with the Chinese for this, and it is in Lin Mingxian's region and it is doing very well. So this group wants to do the same thing. They are at the stage of road building, and the foundations for the casino are going in. But they are nervous, they are nervous in my country, so you are here to help them and make them calm and make them feel safe and happy.