Devil's Due: A Thomas Caine Thriller (The Thomas Caine Series Book 0) (14 page)

A young boy, just a teenager from the looks of his lanky body and oversized clothes, hurried into the room.
 
The boy filled all their cups with water from a wooden jug.
 
Then he bowed and rushed back out through the red curtains.

Alexi Rudov stared at Caine with his strange blue eyes.
 
His mouth was curled into a sneer.
 
Caine carefully lifted his water cup to his lips and took a long sip.
 
He matched Alexi's gaze with his cold, green eyes, and the Russian looked away.

He set the cup down.

"Why am I here?" he asked.

The other man looked up.
 
"Alexi here says he knows you.
 
Says you used to be a spy."

"I don't know him," Alexi grunted, "but I have seen his file.
 
Back in my days with the FSB.
 
He is a spy, and a traitor.
 
He's supposed to be dead."

So that was how Rudov had recognized him.
 
Although the United States and Russia maintained an uneasy alliance, from time to time Caine had come up against operatives of the FSB, Russia's Federal Security Service.
 
It was the modern successor to the old Cold War beast of the KGB.
 
It made sense they would have a file of some sort on him.

"Is that true?" the other man asked.

"Who are you?" Caine asked in return.

The man smiled.
 
"I am Kang Long Wei, but you know of me by another name."

"Pisac," Caine said.

The man nodded.
 
"That is a Thai word, but yes.
 
Pisac, naatsoe in Burmese.
 
I am the devil.
 
Now, please answer me.
 
Is Alexi's story true?"

Caine turned to Alexi.
 
"How does the FSB feel about you, Alexi?
 
Leaving military service to work for criminals?
 
You don't rise up in the Russian mafia without doing hard time, and I don't see any prison ink on you.
 
I assume your daddy did the time?"

Alexi slammed his fist down on the table.
 
"I kill you for these words you speak.
 
Enough talk!"

Kang rested a hand on Alexi's arm.
 
The Russian seemed to calm down, but his lazy eye twitched with rage.
 
Caine knew he had struck a nerve.

Kang placed more food in his mouth and chewed.
 
He drank more water.

"You come into my home," he said.
 
"You steal my property.
 
Kill my men.
 
All for what?
 
I want to understand why you do this.
 
I want to take a measure of you as a man."

"Considering you kidnap girls and blow up innocent people, I don't really give a damn what you think of me," Caine replied.

Kang nodded, his black eyes open wide.
 
"You don't want to say, but I think you came for these girls.
 
They are important to you ... or perhaps one of them is?
 
I think I understand now."

"You don't know anything about me," Caine said.

Kang laughed.
 
"Oh, you are wrong, Mr. Caine.
 
You and I are not so different.
 
When I looked in your face, I ask myself, why is a man like this, a white man, a man supposedly without honor, here in this jungle?
 
Why is he risking his life for these girls?
 
Alexi calls you a traitor, but when I look in your face, I see something else."

"Yeah?
 
What do you see?"

"I see betrayal."

Caine said nothing.

Kang nodded.
 
"My eyes see the truth.
 
I know all about betrayal.
 
Once you are wounded by true, deep betrayal, you are never the same.
 
Am I right?"

"Why are we wasting time with this asshole?" Alexi asked, his voice snarling with anger.
 
"Our shipment leaves tomorrow.
 
The girls are missing.
 
We have to find them before--"

"Please do not interrupt me," Kang said, pivoting his head to stare at Alexi.
 
"These are city girls you are talking about.
 
Bar girls.
 
How far do you think they could possibly go in this jungle?
 
My men will find them, and all will be as it was.
 
In the meantime, I wish to enjoy my conversation with Mr. Caine."

Alexi stood up.
 
"Forgive me," he muttered.
 
"I seem to have lost my appetite.
 
I go outside and smoke."
 
He stormed out of the room, tossing aside the red curtains as he exited the shack.

Caine was alone with Kang.
 
Alone with the devil, Pisac.
 
Maybe this is my chance...

Kang shook his head, and looked back at Caine.
 
"Much anger in that one.
 
Now, as I was saying... Do you think you are the only one who has been betrayed? You were what?
 
A solider?
 
An assassin?
 
I was killing for my people by the time I was sixteen years old."

Kang pushed his plate of food away.
 
He set a small metal dish on a rack above a candle.
 
Reaching into the folds of his clothes, he removed a red tablet and set it down on the plate.
 
Caine watched as the heat from the candle began to melt the tablet.
 
Droplets of red liquid began to sizzle and burn on the plate.

Yaba.
 
Caine was familiar with the drug.
 
Its effects included sudden bursts of energy, euphoria, and feelings of invincibility.

"I fought with the Burmese Communist Party, when the military junta seized control of the government.
 
It was still called Burma then," Kang continued, watching the pill disintegrate.
 
"I say fought, but that's not entirely true.
 
We fought some, yes, but for the most part our task was murder.
 
I was inserted behind enemy lines.
 
My men and I targeted officers, political figures.
 
Schools and hospitals.
 
Our job was to spread fear.
 
You would call me a terrorist, Mr. Caine, but the Communist Party of Burma called me a revolutionary.
 
They financed our war with opium money and Chinese weapons."

Kang shook his head.
 
"Communism, Chinese nationalists, civil wars ... it all seems like some strange dream now.
 
None of it makes any sense to me.
 
I don't suppose it ever did.
 
All I knew was that I was ordered to kill.
 
So I did.
 
I was good at it."

"I don't need the history lesson," Caine said.
 
"If you're going to kill me, just get on with it."

"I most likely will.
 
After I have tortured you."

Caine's muscles tensed, but he maintained an aura of calm.
 
"I have no information for you."

"Oh, I'm sure we can think of some questions.
 
Perhaps you sent these girls somewhere into the jungle?
 
You have a vehicle hidden across the river?
 
A rendezvous point?"

Caine said nothing.

Kang shrugged.
 
"We shall see.
 
Either way, there will be pain.
 
Pain brings clarity.
 
I feel you do not yet understand the true nature of where you are.
 
Of who you are."

"And you think you do?"

Kang nodded.
 
"Yes.
 
As I said, I know betrayal well.
 
In 1989, the Communist Party of Burma reformed into the United Wa State.
 
A ceasefire was declared with the Myanmar government."

Kang leaned over the small plate and inhaled the vapor of the burning pill deep into his lungs.
 
He looked up, and his eyes glowed with inner fire and intensity.

"Both sides had grown weary of bloodshed.
 
Everyone wanted peace.
 
Concessions were made.
 
There were secret conditions to the ceasefire, backroom deals we knew nothing about.
 
One of these conditions was that my men and I be turned over to the military, to face justice.
 
I'm sure you can imagine what that meant, Mr. Caine."

"Torture," Caine said.

"Yes.
 
Years of pain in a dark, diseased military prison.
 
The United Wa State Army gave the Myanmar Armed Forces the location of our camp.
 
It was a price they were willing to pay for peace.
 
We were betrayed.
 
Convicted as war criminals with no trial to speak of.
 
Most of us were killed.
 
After years of captivity, I was able to escape.
 
But not without a cost."

Kang lifted his left arm from under the table.
 
His hand was chopped off at the wrist.
 
A metal cap sealed off the wound.
 
A claw-like hand was screwed into the end of the arm.

"Must make using chopsticks tricky," Caine said.

"I cut it off myself, Mr. Caine.
 
It was the only way to free my arm from the chains that held me.
 
I spilled much blood that day.
 
I fought and killed and clawed my way to freedom.
 
And--much like you, I imagine--I made my way here, hoping to disappear.
 
Other refugees from my people had crossed the border into Thailand, and formed the Red Wa.
 
They resumed their drug trade with China.
 
I joined with them.
 
I began killing again.
 
It was only natural.
 
And soon, I worked my way up to become leader of this cell.

"Now I am free.
 
I understand the true nature of this world, and my place in it.
 
When you have suffered betrayal, when you have screamed in pain, knowing it will never end ... when you have lost all hope, then it becomes clear."

"What becomes clear?"

Kang smiled.
 
"That we are in hell, Mr. Caine.
 
You, me, all of us ... we are lost, trapped here in hell until we reach the next life.
 
And once you realize that, it takes only a short time to reach the obvious conclusion."

"Enlighten me," Caine said.

Kang sucked in more vapor.
 
He coughed, and it took Caine a second to realize that, beneath his gasping for air, he was laughing.
 
"In hell, there are only two kinds of souls--the devils, and the damned."

The older man used his right hand to waft the smoke up to his mouth and nostrils, his eyes closed in blissful peace.
 
He inhaled again.

Now!
 
The voice screamed in Caine's mind.
 
He lurched forward over the table, the fingers of his bound hands stretched wide, grasping for Kang's throat.

Without opening his eyes, Kang shifted sideways.
 
Caine had never seen anyone move so fast.
 
He slammed down on the table, sending Kang's food and the platter of drugs cascading to the ground.
 
Kang raised his right arm into the air.
 
Caine tried to roll off the table to avoid the blow, but again the man was too fast for him.

The arm struck like lightning.
 
Caine saw the flash of steel in the dim light.
 
The knife struck the table like a crack of thunder.
 
The blade pierced the collar of Caine's shirt, pinning him to the table like an insect in a museum display.
   

Kang looked down on him, and laughed.
 
His pupils seemed to swallow the whites of his eyes.
 
Caine heard a pair of footsteps enter the room behind him.

He shifted his eyes and saw the two guards from earlier had come, as if somehow summoned by Kang.
 
The older man stopped laughing and gestured to the curtain.

"Show him the iron road."

The men grabbed him under the arms and lifted him to his feet, tearing his shirt free of the knife.

"You will see," Kang said, his voice low and calm.
 
"It only takes a short time ...
 
not much time at all, to decide.
 
Devil or damned, Mr. Caine.
 
Devil or damned."

The men dragged him out of the room.

Caine bit down on his lip so hard he tasted blood.
 
The pain ... it had started as a slight irritation, but had grown in intensity.
 
He knew it would keep increasing, building until he would no longer be able to stop himself.
 
He would scream.
 
But for now, he refused to give his tormentors the satisfaction.

He heart raced.
 
Beads of sweat dripped from his body, and his tattered clothes were already soaked.
 
His pants were sliced at the knees, exposing his legs.
 
His hands and feet were tied to a wooden table that stood under a thatched roof.
 
Above him, the two guards grinned as they watched his body writhe in pain.
 
In his head, he had named them Eagle and Soda Can, after the designs on their shirts.