Spy Games (29 page)

Cliff drove them back to the safe house, Mac in the backseat pointedly silent, arms folded. Patterson sat in the front, composing a telegram on the handheld.

She sat in silence, furious with herself.

“We can go after him,” said Cliff. “We’re still in contact with him. It’s okay.”

From the backseat, another snort.

“Something to say there, Mac?” said Cliff.

“Just that, next time, maybe, we should get the agent’s location—” Cliff cut him off.

“Yes, I think we all realize that, thanks. We’ll do better next time, eh?”

Silence from the backseat.

“We could just call him,” said Cliff.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

She glanced across at him, but he was looking straight ahead into the darkness.

They arrived at the Mekong River. Mangan stood on the bank. A quarter of a mile away, across the sluggish, black water was Laos. He tried to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, shielded them from the lights of the town with one hand. Chiang Saen had been an opium town, but now the money was in tourists lumbering along on elephants, stewing in spas, while the heroin and the little pills came down the river from
Myanmar. He put his hand beneath his shirt and ran it over the sidearm.

The Clown was standing at the water’s edge on a wooden jetty, looking both ways, as if about to cross. Then he held up what looked to be a torch, but no light came from it. Across the water, from the north, the low grumble of an engine. The Clown was tilting the lightless torch up and down.

The boat was low and fast, a shallow draft to it. It was painted some dun color, had the look of a patrol boat, but Mangan could see no markings. The boat, its bow wave a white flicker in the dark, came scudding in, suddenly slowed and slid onto the jetty.

Mangan took a deep breath, smelled the diesel over the river’s oily, mulchy stink. The Clown was gesturing to him, and, from the side of the craft, a crewman was holding out a hand.

Another step. Into what?

He looked around, heard the sound of the car they’d come in being driven away.

The Clown was aboard already, hissing at him.

“Come on, Mr. Mangan, we must go now.”

He hefted the run bag, touched the sidearm one more time, put one foot over the side and felt himself pulled aboard, chivied below. The crewman showed him into a cabin with beds recessed into the sides. Mangan dropped his bag, lay down, tried to slow his mind down, collect himself. He thought of Patterson, thought of the flinty look she’d give him, the starchy admonishment coming his way. Should he call her? Too much of a risk? Probably, in this hyper-surveilled environment. Steal a phone? Now,
there’s
a thought.

The pitch of the engines rose and the boat leaned away from the jetty, into the current.

Toward China.

He slept for hours, to his surprise. When he woke it was light. He put his head out of the cabin. The boat was plowing forward in a fine rain, pitching in the river’s chop. On the right bank, distant through
the damp mist, Laos. On the left, closer, Myanmar. Ahead, China. He climbed to the cabin above, where the Clown stood next to a helmsman and another man who was looking through binoculars, the captain, Mangan assumed. The Clown turned, saw Mangan and, irritated, brought him quickly inside the cabin.

“You must stay out of sight. Please,” he said.

The captain lowered the binoculars, studied Mangan, then returned to scanning the river.

“Now, please, you can tell me where we’re headed,” said Mangan, trying to sound brisk, businesslike.

“Another twelve hours or so,” said the Clown. “By evening we’ll be there.”

“You’re taking me back into China.”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, not exactly?” Mangan allowed his voice to rise a little. “It’s either China or Myanmar. There are no other bloody countries I’m aware of up this river. So which one is it?”

“Well, as I said to you, we tend not to think too much in those terms. So we are going to a place which is sort of… between places.” He faced Mangan. “I understand this is frustrating for you. But please be patient. You are quite safe. I give you my word.”

His eyes flickered down to Mangan’s waist.

“And you are armed for your own protection. And that’s fine. Just please do not use the weapon, Mr. Mangan. This would be a very unfortunate outcome.”

He smiled.

“
Hao ma?
” Okay?

Mangan said nothing.

“Now, please, Mr. Mangan, how about some breakfast?”

They fed him the thick, rich rice porridge with shredded pork and spring onions, instant coffee. He ate it seated in a tiny galley, a crewman looking on. When he’d finished, the crewman offered him a cigarette, which he took. The crewman lit it for him and he inhaled deeply, felt the hot bite of it in his chest.

“So,” said Mangan, “spend a lot of time smuggling people up and down the Mekong, do we?”

But the crewman just smiled.

The rain slackened off in the afternoon, then stopped, and with a tremulous sun the temperature rose sharply. Through the porthole, Mangan saw steam rising off the forest on the bank. Visibility had improved and they were moving much faster now, the boat’s bow up. He lay in the cabin, teetering between boredom and anxiety. They were, he realized, trying hard to make him feel as if he were not a captive. And in the Clown’s tone of voice, beneath the obliqueness, Mangan discerned anticipation, the sense of a plan progressing. He was, quite clearly, part of an operation now. Someone else’s.

At around six in the evening, the boat suddenly reduced speed, then hove to. The engine noise lessened to a low rumble and Mangan heard a loudspeaker across the water. They were being hailed. A crewman appeared in the cabin, gesturing urgently. Mangan picked up his run bag and followed the crewman forward through the galley into a dark storage compartment. Another engine, now, this one higher-pitched, pulling alongside. The crewman was running his hands along the bulkhead, looking for something. Then a
snick
, and the bulkhead came away to reveal a narrow space, eighteen inches or so deep, insulated with rubber matting. The crewman pushed Mangan in, gestured for him to lie down, on his side. Mangan eased himself down, and then the bulkhead was back in place and he was in a sweltering, stinking darkness. The rubber matting was saturated. He felt the water soaking into his clothes.

Footsteps on the deck above. Muffled shouts.

He could barely breathe, the air thick with rubber, mold, the stench of the river.

Footsteps closer, now. In the galley, perhaps. Entering the storage compartment. Rapid-fire Mandarin, an officious tone. And a second
quieter voice, explanatory. A patrol? Customs? Then more movement, and silence.

Minutes passed. Mangan felt sick. The roll of the boat, the stench, the heat. His ribs pulsed with pain. He tried to breathe, but the nausea grew and he felt the prickle of sweat. He tried not to but he threw up, soiled his shirt, retched.

Interminable, there, in the dark and the filth. He closed his eyes, let his mind wander. He thought about Maja, standing in the mauve evening light, looking over the thatched huts, the wood smoke. He thought of her questioning of him, her immediate knowledge of the lie in him, its carving away of the truth like the current carves a riverbank, leaving only warped fragments, oxbows on a plain.

And he thought of Maja’s dismissal of him. Of her turning away.

Why do I allow this to go on? What need in me does it fulfill?

And then the panel was unlatched and pulled away and the crewmen pulled him out, recoiling at him, the stench of him.

He stripped and washed from a bucket, and they loaned him some coveralls. He rinsed out his foul shirt, laid it on the deck to dry. He lay in the cabin, trembling. They brought him food, a bowl of rice loaded with
mapo
bean curd. Mangan felt his senses strangely heightened, watched the startling reds and ambers of the sauce bleed into the white rice, smelled the oil and peppercorns rising from it.

Darkness came on, and the boat moved upriver, toward China.

Not long, now.

They docked at midnight. Mangan changed out of the coveralls, emerged from the cabin with the run bag, the sidearm at the base of his back, loaded. The weapon gave him comfort, a sense that he retained some measure of autonomy.

The night was close and hot, filled with the hiss and chatter of insects. The Clown stood on the dock with two heavies in polo shirts and khakis. One of the heavies held a machine pistol, covering the boat, his eyes following Mangan as he clambered over the side.

Beyond the dock, Mangan saw palm trees, lawns crisscrossed by torch-lit, gravelled paths leading to a sprawling complex of buildings in pale brick. The buildings were lit, blindingly bright, rearing up into the night out of the trees. Atop them, a faux temple roof, fringed with neon. Some sort of resort?

The Clown motioned to him and they walked, one heavy in front, one behind, their footsteps crunching on the gravel. The path wound across the lawn, up some steps, to a reception area of teak and marble, flickering candles, frangipani spilling down the walls. The staff were suited in impeccable cream uniforms with high collars in the manner of hotel porters. They smiled, made little bowing motions. Mangan saw the cameras, high up in corners, heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie. The two heavies handed him off to three more, all in their cream suits, buttoned to the collar. Nothing was said. They walked a corridor, glassed on one side to provide a view of ornamental gardens, pools. The Clown followed.

Situational awareness, Philip, at all times.

Mangan, every sense strung taut, tried to map the place in his mind, retaining the position of the dock relative to where he was, where the river was.

If I have to run, I run this way.

They took a lift. One of the suited staff held the door open, murmured,
“Qing.”
Please. So—Chinese.

The lift doors opened and Mangan was led out into a dim, cavernous space.

A casino floor.

A vast, murmuring, low-lit casino floor.

Two of the cream-suited minders, compact, controlled men, moved in close to him, almost crowding him as they walked, as if ready for him to make a move. Mangan slowed deliberately, trying to take the scene in.

The casino was suffused with blue light. Prominent at its center was a roulette table of rich polished wood. Mangan heard the
clack clack
as the wheel spun. To one side, a row of perhaps fifty or sixty
screens for digital poker, the players washed in their glow. Mangan saw blackjack and baccarat tables. The players were young women dressed in black, with numbers fixed to their uniforms. The women wore headsets, earphones, little tubular cameras. They swivelled their heads robotically, fixing their cameras on the cards, on the croupier or another player, laid their cards down slowly, carefully. And all, Mangan realized, at the remote command of some distant player in Beijing or Changsha or Wuhan.

And the visible clientele? Mangan made out Chinese kids, Shanghai hip, in quiet, nervous groups. Older Chinese men in poor suits, the maker’s label still on the left cuff, cadres from central China hemorrhaging someone else’s cash. Here, some Russians in sportswear and gold, sour-faced, dismissive, their Italian girls in couture frocks hanging on their arms, sullen. Willowy girls in cream
cheongsam
split to the thigh toted trays of martinis, iced bottles of vodka. And at the far end of the floor, on a low stage, to a subdued beat, two naked European girls performed a sex show, writhing and quivering in the half-light. As he walked past them, Mangan saw the gooseflesh on their thighs from the air conditioning’s chill.

They walked on, left the casino floor, entered a cavernous split-level marble lobby, a hissing, bubbling fountain at its center—to beat the listening devices, Mangan thought. He smelled cigar smoke. Men lounged on sofas of cream leather, staring at tablets, laptops, whispering into mobile phones.

Another lift. One of the cream-suited minders punched in a security code. They went up three floors and the doors opened into a suite.

“Here we are,” said the Clown.

And there he was, standing by the window, arms wide in welcome. He wore a gray suit and a white shirt open at the collar.

“Philip,” Rocky said, walking across the room to greet him. “Sorry for all this, this trouble for you.”

“Rocky,” he said.

“Come. Come and sit down.”

He took Mangan by the arm and walked him to a sofa. His grip
was hard, pulsing with tension. Mangan looked at him. His eyes were bright, feverish, his face moist, shiny. Two of the cream suits were by the lift door. The Clown stood behind him, slightly off to the side.