‘The next stop will be at your village, Gee,’ said Mann.
‘Yes.’ Gee crushed the burning cheroot tip with his fingers and threw the stub out into the darkness. ‘It will take one more day—that is, if we make it.’ Gee swung down from his hammock. ‘Coming to the river, my friend? We will need to use tablets for the water; we cannot light a fire to boil it.’
They walked down in the direction of the small tributary of the river they had been following all day. ‘We will take it in turns to wash. I know how you must be waiting for it—I smell death on you. Come, I will keep first watch while you bathe.’
Mann picked up his pack. He would need fresh clothes. He had smelt Riley’s blood on his body, in his nose, in his hair all day. He emptied his pockets, laying the contents on the bank, and stripped naked. He felt the huge relief of clean water pass over his body. He waded further into the water. Now he submerged his head and allowed the cool water to fill his ears. When he lifted his head from the water, Gee was standing close to him.
‘I thought you had drowned, my friend,’ he said.
‘I’m not that easy to kill.’ Mann smiled.
‘Not like our poor friend today, Riley,’ said Gee as he moved back to his seat on a rock on the bank.
‘Riley’ll make it, he’s a tough guy.’ Gee nodded. ‘How well do you know Riley?’ asked Mann.
‘I have relatives in the refugee camp. Everyone knows him. He has been in Mae Sot many years. He is a good man.’
‘What do you think we will find in your village?’
‘I fear that we will find much that is bad. Dok and Keetau said that I must prepare myself—I will be very sad to see how many people lost their lives. So many elephants dead and now the main route to the village is mined to stop the KNLA coming and helping. But I will be glad to begin my new life. My humanitarian life.’
Mann resisted the urge to smile. The thought of Gee becoming a charity worker didn’t really sit.
‘But two days is a long time and many things can happen. I came with you thinking that we would be of mutual help to each other along the way. Now I find I have a good chance of getting killed before I get anywhere near my home, and I can’t see how that will benefit my village. My ex-wives will divide up my money and my village will name a seat after me, like you do in the UK, and that will be it.’ He sighed and shrugged. ‘But we cannot expect to live forever on this earth…and, anyway, who would want to?’
On their way back to the camp, Mann stopped to look for a signal from his satellite phone while Gee went on ahead. Mann looked up at the starry sky—so many stars. Somewhere up there, the satellites were waiting, listening for his call. He watched a symbol that meant he had a signal flash up on his phone. He looked at the battery icon on the screen. It was low; he had just two bars of life left. Someone, not just Riley, had been using the phone. The battery was precious and it would have to last him. It would be days before he could get near a recharging point.
‘How’s it going, Genghis?’
Just hearing Ng’s voice was a tonic. Mann could picture the scene in Headquarters. It seemed a very long way away at that moment—a different world, aircon, fresh coffee, and the smell of Pam’s perfume, the rookie detective, and the feel of a cool crisp shirt on his back. A world away from the heat and sweat he was in now.
‘Could be better. We walked into a trap today.’
‘Anyone killed?’
‘No, but someone had to be stretchered out. We have lost two medics and two porters. That means we are down to four. One of the kids, Silke, is dead.’ Mann heard the sharp intake of breath from Ng. ‘Things are going bad here. Saw knows where we are and the Burmese army are after us.’
‘Alfie told me Katrien is in your neck of the woods.’
‘Yes. It seems so. I don’t know what she’s up to. She can’t get the ransom unless she makes contact. Unless she has an insider here in the camp.’
There was a pause.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Ng.
‘Carry on. We don’t have any choice. We are in here till the end.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ Ng asked helplessly.
‘There is something—I want you to look up a company name for me.’ Mann pulled the piece of sacking out of his pocket. ‘It’s an old company named the Golden Orchid. I am looking at it now. It has Chinese script in the background and the outline of an orchid blossom over the top. It was shipping out heroin from here.’
‘No problem.’
‘What about Shrimp?’
‘He said someone’s been using strong-arm tactics down in Patong Beach. People have been forced to sign over their businesses.’
‘Tell him to be careful. I don’t want him getting killed.’
When Mann returned to the camp, Alak was setting up his radio and trying to get a signal. It was a long process in the cover of the trees. He had had to move, up towards higher ground, and it was already very dark. After a while, Mann could hear him talking to Captain Rangsan.
Run Run had prepared their evening meal. She stood and handed Mann a bowl. He thanked her. She hesitated as she passed it to him.
‘You are a good person, Johnny Mann. I see hurt in your eyes but I feel hope in my heart.’ She smiled.
Mann was touched. ‘Some day, I hope you and Alak find happiness.’
She smiled and shook her head sadly. ‘There is no happiness in this life for us.’ She turned away.
Alak was in a dark mood when he returned. He packed the radio away and sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, saying nothing. Run Run busied herself around the camp, but her eyes flicked constantly back to Alak. After he had finished eating, Mann went to sit next to him.
Alak looked up at him as he approached and shook his head sadly as he sighed, ‘I should not have gone there.’ Frustration and anger flashed across his face. ‘The risks were too great. Now there are only four of us and he knows where we are. Instead of tracking him, we have become the hunted…We must rejoin my men. I have talked to Captain Rangsan. We liaise tomorrow outside Gee’s village. Saw is here—he is all around, watching. We are the only real enemy he has. There is no one else to stop him but us. He will kill us because he can, and Boon Nam will help.’
‘Then all we can do is think faster, walk quicker, hide better,’ said Mann. ‘All we can do is what we set out to do, Alak. We are their only hope but I think we are still a good one.’
Alak nodded, his resolve returning. Mann took the piece of cloth with the golden orchid logo out of his pocket.
‘What do you know about this company?’ He passed it to him. Alak took it from him and looked at it with an air of reverence as he turned it in his hands and stared at it for a few minutes.
‘I first saw it many years ago. The Chinese master of the refinery talked about the significance of the orchid, the golden triangle, that symbolised the wealth of his company back home.’
‘What do you remember about that time?’
‘Khun Sa, Lord of the Golden Triangle, took us all as young boys to train as soldiers to fight the Burmese army and regain our homeland…Many people believed Khun Sa when he said that the opium was the only way to fund our freedom. But it turned out that the opium was more important to him than the war. He chose some of us to help him run it. Saw and I helped to run the old refinery. We did many things then that I regret. We smoked the opium and we lived our lives in the shadow of it.’ Alak looked over at Run Run. She looked back, not accusing, not judging. ‘The refinery changed hands several times. At one time we thought we would own it, Saw and I, we were promised a share. We had a lot of dreams then, but they all came to nothing and Saw and I returned to our villages. His village had been destroyed by the Burmese army, his family gone.’ Alak looked at Run Run. She held his gaze for a few seconds. Alak looked away and she stared down at her lap. ‘Things happened there that I will not speak about. But from that day on Saw and I became enemies. He deserted from the army and I did not know what happened to him. I joined the new KNLA and went back to fighting. I had heard that he made his money from looting and raiding the small drug operations around northern Thailand and Burma, and that he belonged to no cause but his own. He has joined the Shwit.’