The Secret Agent (19 page)

“Are you in love with her?” he asked McQueen.

“Marjorie?”

“Your Thai girl.”

Alec shrugged. “Call it that if you like. Go to Paris, for God’s sake, Jack. I don’t want to print your obit in tomorrow’s paper.”

“I wanted Joan that way,” Roderick said through the cigarette haze. “I wanted her with a violence I’d never known and that I thought would consume me. I’d watch her talk to another man across the room at one of those damn parties and want to crush her throat in my hands.”

“But you walked away,” Alec said brutally.

Roderick shrugged and tossed his butt into the drained khlong. “It’s no kind of life, with murder in your heart. Besides, I was hurting the boy.”

The boy. Rory with his pale face and his gnawed fingernails, peering through the crack in the doorway at his father’s rage. Joan languid in the satin dress that hugged her curves, diamonds choking her neck. A glass of whiskey shattered on the parquet floor. The rich and lovely apartment thirty stories above Park Avenue, a cage they prowled together. Roderick had not seen his son in two years. Not since the divorce.

“Is your buddy Carlos with him?”

“With whom?”

“Ruth.
The KMT.”

Roderick shrugged. “Alec, if Boonreung talked, then a month in Italy won’t help. I could never come back.”

“Does that matter?”

“I don’t see you leaving Bangkok.”

“I’m not trading potshots with the dictator, pal. Given a choice between death and Europe, I’d take Europe any day.”

“A hunted man has nothing to lose,” Roderick muttered, “except the hunters.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Roderick walked on beside the stinking khlong, while the high-pitched screech of an angry woman drifted across the back gardens and the sagging water gates. The scent of fish sauce and fried mangos and garbage spiked his nostrils. The smell of something rotten.

He never answered McQueen.

S
tefani Fogg, in a large straw hat and a silk sarong, picked her way through the orchids and rustling palms of the Oriental Hotel’s back garden. At seven on a humid Wednesday morning in early November, the grounds were almost deserted. The hotel barge ferried a few early risers from the main dock to the spa and gym, a peak-roofed structure on the Chao Phraya’s opposite bank; but in general she had the world to herself. Except for the shadows that hung just beyond the range of vision: Jack Roderick and his pals, smoking a last cigarette under the waving fronds.

The river terrace blazed with refracted sunlight. She detected Matthew French within seconds. French was every inch the sort of man Oliver Krane would deem appropriate to the occasion: silver-haired, superbly suited despite the promised heat, with a grave line between his eyebrows. His gaze seemed fixed on the churning river
water; a copy of the
Bangkok Post
lay disregarded on the table before him. A black leather briefcase was propped correctly at the foot of his chair.

“Mr. French?” she inquired, and was gratified to see his eyes narrow with interest as he turned toward her.

“Ms. Fogg?”

She extended her hand. “I hope Oliver didn’t ruin your sleep last night. I’m very grateful that you were able to meet on such short notice.”

“Not at all.” He rose and grasped her palm firmly.

She slid into the opposite chair. “Were you waiting long?”

“A matter of three minutes.”

“Oliver will be proud of me. May I have coffee, please, and a fruit plate, croissants and some oatmeal?” she asked of the waiter who hovered at her shoulder. “I believe in a solid breakfast, Mr. French. So often it’s the only meal I’m sure of getting.”

“Just coffee, for me. Ms. Fogg—”

She considered inviting him to call her Stefani; she decided against it. She needed the formality of the gray suit far more than she needed a friend.

“Oliver Krane was brief in his instructions when we spoke last night,” French began, “but he faxed me copies of several documents this morning—and I’ve spent the better part of two hours examining them, in anticipation of this meeting.”

No chitchat, no disarming preamble; just a cold dive into the facts. Oliver got what he paid for.

“You’ve seen the will?”

“All
the wills,” French corrected. “The 1960 document, the second one dated February 1967, which Krane assures me has been declared legitimate by your counsel in the United States; and Max Roderick’s final testament, in which he left everything to you.”

Stefani’s insouciance faded. “You have a copy of Max’s will?”

“Would you like to see it?” The decision was made for her; French was already extracting a sheaf of paper from his briefcase. She waited, numbly.

“Most of this is irrelevant. The crux of the bequest is right here.” He slid a single sheet in front of her.

Stefani felt her throat constrict; but the sound that emerged was a laugh, not a sob.

She looked up from the document, and met French’s assessing eyes. “Interesting reading.”

“Quite. In this town, one might call it explosive. But there is a problem, Ms. Fogg.”

“Only one?”

Coffee materialized at Stefani’s right hand. Matthew French stirred some cream into his.

“Jack Roderick has always been more than just another legend,” he said thoughtfully. “Roderick’s a symbol of an entire era in Thai history—a figure that has entered the public domain, if you will. And practically everything that belonged to the man is regarded as sacred.”

“Oh,
crap.”
Stefani settled back against her chair, one hand on the crown of her hat and the other wrapped around her coffee cup. “I’m not terribly interested in sacred cows, Mr. French.”

“No. I didn’t think you were.” His gaze swept the length of her saronged figure. “What do you intend to do with the house, anyway?”

“Live in it. That’s what houses are for.”

“It might help,” he suggested delicately, “if you could guarantee that the art collection would remain available to the public. Such an assurance might smooth your path considerably.”

“In the courts? Or among the networks that really run Thailand?”

“Any Thai court worth its salt would throw out this suit on the grounds that Max Roderick never possessed his grandfather’s legacy before he died,” French retorted, not bothering to conceal his impatience. “Max’s attempt to pass his vague inheritance on to you is—in a word-invalid. Your best hope is to strike some sort of bargain. Accept an out-of-court settlement.”

“That’s one interpretation.”

“It’s the interpretation that will probably govern.” French spoke sharply. “Consider the facts, Ms. Fogg. Jack
Roderick’s estate—the house, the art—has been ably administered by the Thai Heritage Board established for that purpose. The assets have never passed out of the Board’s hands since Jack Roderick was declared legally dead in 1974. Max Roderick’s claim to his grandfather’s estate was unproved at his death. The weight of convention—the status quo, if you will—dictates that the courts do nothing.”

Stefani stabbed a piece of mango with her fork. “But what about the penumbra, Mr. French?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The penumbra. That gray area surrounding the facts. Jack Roderick made a will awarding his estate to his heirs. The Thai government systematically violated that will. If the man remains a legend in Thailand—a source of national pride, a sacred cow—this heist of his legacy should be a major embarrassment. How will my claim play in the realm of public opinion?”

Matthew French regarded her steadily. “Do you anticipate engaging the realm of public opinion?”

“Naturally. A PR campaign is all I’ve got. Mere law, as you’ve pointed out, isn’t enough. I need to take this case to the streets.”

French thrust his cup aside. “You run the risk, Ms. Fogg, of alienating exactly those people whose support you’d most need to win. You’re
farang—a
foreigner—and you’re a woman. You would appear … insensitive.”

“And too ballsy by half.” Stefani smiled dazzlingly. “But that’s
where you
come in, Mr. French. You can advise me. I’m sure you’ll know just how I should proceed. How long have you lived in Bangkok?”

“Nearly twenty-two years.”

“Then the informal networks that govern this place must be child’s play for you. Tell me something.” She leaned toward him. “Sompong Suwannathat. Head of the Thai Heritage Board—”

“And the Minister of Culture. Not a man to cross. Sompong owns half of Bangkok.”

“I’m so
tired
of hearing how many people Sompong owns. Nobody ever talks about the people he’s
sold.
The bastard must have enemies.”

“Indeed he does.”

“In the course of your long residence in Thailand, Mr. French, have you perhaps formed acquaintance with any of them?”

Matthew French sipped judiciously at his coffee.

“—Enemies of Sompong’s,” she went on, “who work in the broadcast media … or at the
Bangkok Post
?
“

Rush Halliwell was
accustomed to getting too little sleep. No matter how late the previous evening, he awoke at five o’clock precisely, coming out of his dreams as though doused with icy water. He meditated for half an hour in the semidarkness, then ran three miles around the waking city, before the pollution and the strident noise of
tuk-tuk
engines were too thick for comfort. By six he was drinking orange juice in the shower, and by six-thirty on the dot he was crossing Wireless Road, where the U.S. embassy dominated an entire block.

This morning, however, he winced at the crack of light filtering through the shade, felt the dull pounding at the base of his skull and fell back upon the pillows, cursing. His pride hurt as fiercely as his head. He had never seen the man or weapon that bludgeoned him in Chinatown; but he awoke a few minutes after one
A.M.
to find a light glaring in his eyes and a Bangkok policeman prodding his rib cage with his boot. He was probably lucky to be alive.

The essence of tradecraft, Rush believed, was strict
attention to detail. He followed his internal schedules religiously except when he varied them on purpose, so that what was predictable did not get him killed. The death toll for espionage was lower than for UN peacekeeping work, and indistinguishable from its cousin, diplomacy. But some neighborhoods of the world carried peculiar threats. Rush liked threat—or rather, if asked, he might have said that he relished outwitting the dangerous of the world. He was one of the CIA case officers who worked the hard targets for Bangkok station: armed insurgents, drug runners, the men (and women) who bartered illegal arms. And he was extremely good at what he did. Headquarters had left him in Thailand for nearly five years—an unusual period in a world of two-year tours. They admired his language skills and his effortless networks; they asked few questions about his personal life; and they awarded him medals as proof of national esteem.

This morning, he decided, he would avoid all mention of last night’s stupidity.

By nine o’clock
Rush was sitting at a government-issue desk with coffee cooling at his elbow and a pair of headphones over his ears, listening to tapes of conversations held in the Ministry of Culture—an annoying collection of chitchat and innuendo punctuated by the sporadic gold nugget. Sixteen months before, the chairman of a joint U.S.-Thai delegation on antiquities had presented Sompong Suwannathat with a rare Khmer statue carved from limestone. Four feet high and three across, the statue now rested on a credenza in the minister’s office. Sompong loved antiquities; he coveted them as another man might long for precious gems. Embedded in
the statue’s limestone, and masterfully disguised with an application of gold leaf, was a voice-activated microphone. Sound was relayed remotely to the station’s recorder.

The statue might be moved eventually or donated to a museum; and at that point, the bug would be deactivated. But right now, every word Sompong Suwannathat spoke in the confines of his office was overheard by Bangkok station. U.S. Intelligence could gauge the pulse of Thai governmental power from the depth of silence in a room; track the bloodless succession of Sompong’s varied mistresses; anticipate coups within the ministry and practically download the minister’s personal calendar.

It was the last that mattered most. Sompong performed the bare minimum of his official duties. But he used the power of his office—the public domain of Culture—to delve into an astonishing array of activities beyond his portfolio. He was jockeying, now, for the Ministry of Defense in the next government; from the agency’s perspective, his appointment could be disastrous.

Rush’s headphones were on his ears, his expression impassive. The conversation was in Thai—and the tape too delicate for Foreign Service nationals to translate. So complete was his concentration that he never looked up when Marty Robbins walked into the vault.

“Anything interesting?” Marty leaned over and thrust his face into his case officer’s. The exalted Chief of Station, Bangkok. Another early riser. Marty was a veteran of Vientiane, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and most recently, Phnom Penh. Pugnacious and sartorially challenged; grotesquely flamboyant of tie, balding of pate. The second generation of CIA operators in the post-Vietnam War era, canny and tough and unscrupulous and kind-hearted in surprising ways. Competitive with Rush, his junior by a hairsbreadth, in this blood sport of nations.

Marty thrust out a broad finger and stopped the tape.

“He quit early last night.” Rush eased the headphones to the desk and rubbed tentatively at the back of his head. “He’s booked solid today. Public appearances. Tomorrow he’s planning to fly to Chiang Rai.”

“Of course, Chiang Rai,” Marty muttered in disgust. “Sompong’s personal kingdom in the fabled north. Is he entertaining clients, or flying up alone?”

“Alone. In the ministry plane.”

“Shit.” Marty spun around, a vein in his forehead pulsing. “Another delivery to the boys in the bush. What I wouldn’t give to recruit somebody on Sompong’s staff. A mechanic who services the plane. Anyone who could give us a clue as to what the bastard’s swapping.”

“What we need is one of the troops on the ground,” Rush added pensively. “Find out why they’re training.”

Marty did not reply. They had already lost one recruit— a developmental asset among the farmer population of Sok Ruap, found with his throat slit one balmy morning—and the CIA staff at the base in neighboring Chiang Mai was growing restive. The Chiang Mai base had too much on its plate already to bother with Bangkok’s conspiracy theories. There had always been roving bands of armed men in the borderlands of the far north, and there always would be.

But Rush and Marty had been tracking Sompong Suwannathat’s flights to the Golden Triangle for the past seven months. They had overhead reconnaissance and infrared photography that suggested a sizable population of men living and training in the jungle area Sompong liked to visit, but even the CIA had trouble making the case that the Minister of Culture was plotting to march on the capital and seize power. Sompong was not the official liaison for a secret government security force. So why the army?