The Secret Agent (21 page)

Liar. Tell me. Before I execute you as I executed the men you made.

Gyapay had shrugged wearily, as though he had no patience with the foreplay of death.

Did he die for me? Or for one of my friends?

“He died because the minister ordered it.”

Which minister?

“There is only one who matters.”

I want his name.

“Why should I tell you, Roderick? You’ll still blow my head off.”

He was right, of course: Roderick would never stoop to torture, as Gyapay would, just to get information. Roderick had killed him, finally, because there was nothing else to do.

Miss Lucy was
waiting for him, sunk deep in the bed cushions, filing her nails. Roderick left her at dawn and got Lightfoot a shower and some eggs before the colonel flew out of Bangkok. Then, alone, he turned the Packard north and drove deep into Khorat, with the small iron box that contained Boonreung’s ashes.

“I avenged your son’s murder,” he told the tiny woman who waited among the wizened mulberry trees. “His spirit is at peace.”

“But yours is
not, farang.
I do not think it ever will be.” She placed a wreath of jasmine around his neck and bowed deep in the ceremonial
wei.

Roderick opened the car to the wind as he drove back to the city. The smell of death remained.

T
he television cameras—at least three different networks, including a unit from CNN’s Asia bureau-were waiting patiently in the main courtyard of Jack Roderick’s House that Wednesday afternoon, despite the raincloud that had burst minutes before. The do-cents in traditional Thai dress and the coolly efficient, Donna Karan-suited women who worked in the offices above the retail store attached to the museum had attempted, at first, to turn the reporters away. They had been overwhelmed, however, when the straggle of radio and print journalists was bolstered by the arrival of satellite vans and klieg lights. The docents had settled for roping off the press in a tight bunch in the far corner of the courtyard, to distinguish them from the tour groups in seven languages that waited patiently in the adjoining café. The cool women in business suits stood aimlessly near the front entry of the museum, with clipboards and microphones clutched to their breasts.

“What exactly is going on?” Dickie Spencer inquired, as he shook the rain from his umbrella at a quarter to one. The Managing Director of Jack Roderick Silk had received a message from the Thai Heritage Board’s dismayed secretary that afternoon, informing him that he was wanted at the museum. Spencer had driven to Jack Roderick’s House without delay.

“Some sort of press conference,” one of the women with clipboards told him. “We thought you knew.”

By one o’clock there was quite a crowd assembled in the courtyard. The peaked roofs of Jack Roderick’s House, with their deep red tiles, and the jungle foliage of the garden made a striking backdrop for the television cameras; the technicians were already focusing their lenses and barking orders about lighting. The cloudburst ceased as if on cue. The tourists were gawking openly at the spectacle, ignoring the docents who pleaded with them to check their cameras and remove their shoes in order to preserve the polished teak floors. Someone whispered that royalty was paying a call, but whether British or Thai, no one could say. Dickie Spencer ran blunt fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair and called his assistant on his cell phone.

A cream-colored Mercedes sedan driven by a uniformed chauffeur was admitted to the courtyard at seven minutes after one, and Spencer immediately paid his respects to the figure seated in its shadowed interior. He thrust his head through the open window and chatted for several seconds, but was not invited to sit in the car itself. Then Spencer darted across the courtyard to the retail store and the gaggle of well-suited women. He disappeared inside.

At one-fifteen precisely, a long black car nosed down Soi Kasemsan, the narrow lane that terminated in Roderick’s compound. Three reporters vaulted over the
cordon that separated the press pool from the courtyard proper, and raced to better positions by the entrance gates. Lights flashed. The car halted near the front door, and a silver-haired
farang
emerged from the backseat with such aplomb that for an instant, the watching crowd was completely fooled and believed it was Jack Roderick himself, sleek head and elegant form untouched by thirty-five years of age and absence.

Someone shouted, “He’s returned! Roderick has returned!”

The gray-suited figure held up his hand and smiled. The waiting crowd saw then that this was no Silk King, no Legendary American. He reached into the depths of the black car and drew forth a woman: slim, correct and clothed entirely in black. A figure of mourning.

The reporters and the tourists fell silent.

Rush Halliwell, from his post at a second-floor window inside the museum, stared down at the scene with a faint smile of amusement. Stefani Fogg, he thought, was a ringmaster. She’d turned the whole of Bangkok into a circus.

“… given the clear
indication of Mr. Roderick’s governing testament,” Matthew French intoned, “we would like to challenge the Thai Heritage Board and the Ministry of Culture to review the 1967 will, as well as the Board’s policy regarding administration of Jack Roderick’s House, in order to fairly address Ms. Fogg’s claims.”

He raised his eyes serenely from his notes. “Thank you very much. Ms. Fogg would be willing to take a few questions.”

A clamor of shouting broke out. Across the courtyard, the rear window of the cream-colored Mercedes slid down silently, and Stefani glimpsed a man’s head within, his
attention concentrated entirely on her. There was malevolence, cold as a viper’s, in the man’s look.

“Ms. Fogg! Ms. Fogg!”

The reporters were baying for attention. A Thai woman was wedged painfully between two burly men, her arm extended in supplication. Stefani pointed at her.

“Why did the family suppress Jack Roderick’s second will for so many years?” the woman cried, and thrust out a microphone.

“It appears that Jack Roderick misplaced the will by accident,” Stefani replied, “and that when it was discovered eighteen months ago, the document was contested by the Thai Heritage Board and the Minister of Culture. The Roderick family lawyers have authenticated Jack Roderick’s signature, however, and there can be no doubt that the testament reflects Mr. Roderick’s final wishes. I’m standing before you today in an effort to see justice done.”

“Do you think Roderick was killed so that the Thai government could seize his art collection?” a man shouted.

“No one can say what happened to Jack Roderick. We can all see, however, that the Thai government benefited far more from Roderick’s estate than did his heirs.”

Stefani’s eyes roved over the surging mass of reporters and came to rest on one who held no microphone, no tape recorder or pen. A powerful Asian with expressionless eyes and gleaming black hair, his arms crossed protectively over his chest. The thug from the Oriental. Her shadow. Rush Halliwell must have told him where and when to find her. She had invited Rush to the museum that afternoon as a sort of test: now she had her answer.

“What do you plan to do with the house?”

The question came from a mild-faced man with a shock of white hair and bright blue eyes, a Westerner who held a pad of paper in his hand.

“I have no plans as yet,” she replied. “My object is to honor Jack Roderick’s memory and win restitution for his family, whose rights have been disregarded for decades.”

“But the family’s gone,” the reporter countered. “Admit it, Ms. Fogg. You’re fortune-hunting at the expense of the Thai people. You’re hijacking our national treasures.”

Our
treasures? she thought. “I have no wish to deprive the public of access to the collection. If the Thai Minister of Culture, Mr. Suwannathat, is willing to meet me halfway, perhaps we could arrive at a compromise regarding the museum’s future.”

Across the courtyard, the window of the cream-colored Mercedes slid closed. The engine throbbed to life.

At the far end of Soi Kasemsan, a siren wailed. Dickie Spencer had called the police.

“Nice show,” Rush
Halliwell breathed in her ear. He had slipped down the museum’s main stairs and out the front door, so that he was standing just behind Stefani when the police arrived. “You look like a woman in need of consular support. Want me to run interference?”

“Call off your dog,” she said tersely.

“My dog?”

She nodded in the direction of a broad-shouldered man with dark hair who was forcing a path toward them. Journalists bobbed like bowling pins in his wake. The lump at the base of Rush’s skull throbbed sharply.

“The man’s name is Jo-Jo and he belongs to the guy in the beige Mercedes,” Rush muttered. “Sompong Suwannathat, if I’m not mistaken. I know his license plate.”

She stiffened. “Introduce me?”

“To the minister? No thank you.” He grasped her wrist tightly and half-pulled, half-propelled her toward the waiting black limo.

But Jo-Jo had reached it first; he’d propped himself firmly against the passenger door, an immovable wall. There was no way out by the front gate: the police were using bullhorns, herding the journalists like cattle toward the sole exit. Camera crews were avidly filming the scene as they went.

“Shit,” Rush muttered to himself.

Stefani wrested her hand from his grasp and darted back toward the house. She was making for the garden— for the khlong gate, and the water beyond.

The khlong.
It might work.

He turned abruptly and came up hard against Matthew French’s chest. The lawyer was staring after his fleeing client.

“Hold the guy who’s blocking the car,” Rush said urgently. “Do anything you can. She’s not safe.”

She had dragged
a bench against the garden wall’s ornamental stone-work, and was attempting to swing her leg over the vicious barbed wire that spooled along the ledge.

“Did you have to wear that skirt today?” Rush asked.
“Jesus—how
tight is that thing?”

He jumped up beside her and began cutting the wire with a Swiss army knife.

“I don’t need you—”

“Yes, you do. Hold this.”

He handed her his suit jacket and dove without hesitation into the khlong.

The water was colder than he expected, colder than in
the days when he’d jumped off the lock gantries for the sheer joy of doing it with the other tanned and bare-chested Thai boys. How old had he been? Eight? Ten? Rush came up sputtering, and swam toward the Ban Khrua side of the khlong and the dock thrust out into the water. The weaving families were long gone, now, and what faced him was a series of industrial sheds. He did not like to think about what swirled around him in the brown current.

He heaved himself onto the dock, which bounced and swayed on its pylons. Two boats lay overturned on the muddy bank. He righted the smallest of them and found oars tucked beneath.

There was a splash, and he glanced hastily around to see Stefani’s dark head rising out of the turgid water. Jo-Jo stood on the garden side of the khlong gate, his hands grasping the wall.

She pulled herself up beside him; Rush thrust the small craft into the water and she quickly stepped into it. People were shouting at them from both sides of the khlong, now.

She gave Jo-Jo the finger as they rowed away.

“That guy reported
to you at the Oriental’s cocktail party last night,” Stefani said, as she squeezed the khlong out of her hair. “Explain.”

“Jo-Jo is a piece of paid protection whose weapon of choice is an Uzi.” Rush leaned into the oars and feathered the brown water. The smell of garbage and decaying water plants was fetid: Stefani wrinkled her nose as she surveyed her ruined suit.

“I’ve watched Jo-Jo for years,” Rush went on, “but I’ve never run into him at the Oriental before. I blocked his
path at the party, and he told me in exquisite Malay to go fuck myself.”

“He was sitting in the hotel lobby when I arrived Tuesday morning. He took something from my tote bag that afternoon. And if I’m not mistaken, he intended just now to haul me off by force. In the course of twenty-four hours he’s gone from surveillance to kidnapping.”

“He’s working on Sompong’s orders.”

“The minister wanted to chat?”

“Don’t joke about it,” Rush said brusquely. “Jo-Jo’s methods aren’t pretty. I’m more worried about your safety now than I was last night—and last night I was worried sick.” He winced at the memory of the blow to his head. “What did he steal from your bag, anyway?”

“A piece of paper. I’d made … notes … on it.”

“Then assume Sompong’s read them.”

She pursed her lips, but volunteered no more information.

“Stefani, you’ve got to tell me why the minister’s trained his paid gun on you.”

“I want Sompong’s house.”

“It isn’t that simple. He saw you coming.”

“You expect me to believe that Sompong Suwannathat knew my name—knew what I intended in Bangkok— before this afternoon? That’s bullshit.”

“You’re willing to believe the same of me,” he observed quietly.

“You’re U.S. government,” she shot back. “You know far more than is healthy for anybody. Yesterday I’d have said you put Jo-Jo on my tail. But since you failed to hand me over this afternoon—”

“Let me make one thing clear, Ms. Fogg,” Rush said brusquely. “I don’t make contact with my own surveillance in the target’s direct line of sight. I don’t have an intimate dinner with somebody I’m following. And I
could be fired—or worse—for surveilling a U.S. citizen. I didn’t unleash the dog.”

Her dark eyes regarded him steadily. “I was warned about you. Or rather, the people you work for.”

“By whom?”

“Max Roderick. He told me the CIA knew the truth about his grandfather’s death. And that they’d make sure it stayed … buried.”

“Who says I’m CIA?”

She snorted and held his gaze.

Halliwell sighed in exasperation. “You think Max was murdered, don’t you? So do I. But I didn’t push his wheelchair off that cliff. And neither did anybody I work for.”

He saw from the slight movement of her head that he had surprised her. He shipped his oars.

“Max told me the same fairy tale about his grandfather eighteen months ago. He’d found the second will just weeks before, and made a quick trip to Thailand. It was the beginning of all his troubles.”

“You
met
him?” She broke in quickly, as though the very idea were painful. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

“I spent about three days in his company. He hit town the same week as our Secretary of Defense, and most of the embassy staff paid homage to Washington. I stayed behind to do some real work. I got to talk to Max.”

Her eyes had filled with a hunger that disturbed him. The boat rocked gently in the sluggish current.

“What did he want?”

“Anything we might have concerning his family. He thought there’d be file drawers with Jack’s name on them, I guess. I couldn’t help him.”

She laughed with bitterness. “He expected you to shut him down. And you did.”

“Jack Roderick was rumored to have been a spy for
most of his life. Who knows how close his ties were to the United States after he started his silk company? For a man who was supposed to be plotting coups in the fifties and sixties, he spent an awful lot of time supervising weavers and buying art. Max seemed convinced that his grandfather opposed the Vietnam War—and was eliminated by his own intelligence service because of it.”