The Solitary Man (3 page)

It would be almost two months yet before the opium plants would be ready. The red and white flowers had yet to appear, though the girl could see already that it was going to be a good crop. The plants were over a foot tall, strong and healthy, and the majority had five stems per plant. Her father had said that was a good sign. In a bad year, there would be only three stems on a plant. Four was good, five was reason for celebration. She picked up the basket and carried it a few steps forward. Her mother wanted a full basket of spinach, enough to feed the men in the compound. The men paid well for fresh vegetables. They were soldiers, not farmers, and didn't like getting their hands dirty. She bent down and pulled up another plant.

She jumped as she heard a loud snort from behind her. She dropped the plant in surprise and whirled around. A large white horse stood at the edge of the field, its rider wearing a camouflage uniform and dark sunglasses watching her. He had a peaked cap on his head, also of camouflage material, and strapped to his back was a rifle. The man kicked the horse with his heels and the animal moved forward.

The girl opened her mouth to tell the man to be careful, that his horse was trampling the poppies, but something about his demeanour warned her that he would not take kindly to being told what to do. She put her hand over her mouth. The horse snorted again. It was a huge animal, the top of the girl's head barely reaching its shoulder. She had to bend her neck back to look up at the man's face. He was middle aged, smooth shaven with a round face that might have been pleasant if it weren't for the sunglasses. They were so black that she couldn't see his eyes.

The man smiled for the first time showing white, even teeth. 'Ga-la had-you dumnya,' he said.

The girl was suddenly embarrassed at the unexpected greeting and she averted her eyes.

'Chum ya-ah you con-tee?' he asked.

The girl blushed furiously. Why did he want to know her name?

'Can't speak?' said the man, amused by her silence.

'No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.'

'How old are you, child?'

'Fourteen, sir.'

She glanced up, saw that he was still smiling at her, and bowed her head again and clasped her hands. The man walked the horse slowly around her. She could smell its warm, sweet breath and she could hear the clink of its bridle and the thud of its hoofs on the soft earth, but she steadfastly refused to look up.

'What is your name, child?'

'Amiyo, sir.'

'Do you know who I am?'

'No, sir.'

'Are you sure? Have you never heard of Zhou Yuanyi?' She caught her breath. Everyone knew of Zhou. Zhou the warlord. Zhou the opium king. 'Well?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Look at me, child.' The girl looked up. The horse snorted as she did and she flinched. 'There's no need to be afraid,' Zhou said. He looked enormous, sitting astride the animal. His riding boots shone, and there wasn't a fleck of dirt on his uniform. In his right hand was a leather crop. The horse stamped its feet impatiently. Amiyo looked up at the man's face. She could see her reflection in the sunglasses. 'Have you been up to the compound?' he asked.

She nodded. Her mother took her with her when she delivered vegetables to the kitchens there. It was where the soldiers were based, and where the opium was processed.

'I want you to come along to see me tonight.'

'But, sir, my father--'

'Your father won't mind,' he interrupted. 'Tell him you've spoken to me.'

'Sir, I . . .'

Zhou slammed his riding crop against the horse's neck. The horse jerked away but Zhou kept a tight grip on the reins and swiftly brought it under control. 'Do not argue, child.'

Amiyo lowered her eyes and said nothing.

Zhou ran the tip of his crop along her left arm, down to her elbow. 'That's better,' he soothed. 'Tell your mother you are to wear something pretty.' He kicked the horse and it broke into a trot.

Amiyo didn't look up until the sound of the horse's hoofs had faded away. There were tears in her eyes.

THE TWO MEN SAT together in the corner of the bar, their heads so close that they were almost touching, as if one was a priest hearing the other's confession. The older and more priestly of the two had thick greying hair and he peered over the top of a pair of hornrimmed spectacles as he listened.

The confessor, at fifty-two years old a full decade younger than his companion, had florid cheeks as if he'd spent much of his life outdoors and had the stocky build of a labourer. His hair was grey but thinning and from time to time he ran a veined hand over the top of his head as if to reassure himself that his comb-over was still in place. 'He's just a boy, Mr McCormack,' he said, his voice a low growl. 'We can't let him rot in that hellhole.'

Thomas McCormack nodded. 'I know, Paddy.'

'He did as he was told. He kept his mouth shut, he told them nothing.'

'I know, Paddy, and we respect that.' McCormack lifted his glass to his mouth and sipped his whiskey.

'My own sister's boy, Mr McCormack. Can you imagine what she's been like these past few weeks? Fifty years. Fifty years without parole. Jesus, even the British don't hand out sentences like that.'

McCormack put his glass down on the small circular wooden table. 'Paddy, it'll be taken care of.'

'When?' Paddy Dunne glared at McCormack with cold, hard eyes as if daring him to look away.

McCormack met the man's stare. For several seconds their eyes remained locked, a mental trial of strength that neither man was THE SOLITARY MAN 17 prepared to lose. McCormack reached across and laid his hand on Dunne's sleeve. 'You've got to trust me. It's going to take time.'

For a moment it looked as if Dunne was going to argue but then he slowly nodded. 'Okay, Mr McCormack. I'm sorry. Okay.' He pulled his arm away from the older man's touch and cupped his large nail-bitten hands around his pint of Guinness. 'Ray's not taking it well, you know? It's a hellhole, a cockroach-infested, AIDS-ridden hellhole. I'm not sure how long he can stand it.'

'Soon,' said McCormack. 'You have my word.'

Dunne drank his Guinness, then wiped his upper lip with his jacket sleeve. 'Is there anything I can do?'

McCormack shook his head. 'Best you leave it with me, Paddy.' Dunne drank again, draining his glass. McCormack caught a young barman's eye and nodded at the two empty glasses.

'Fifty years,' muttered Dunne. 'Fifty bloody years. That's almost as long as I've lived. What sort of people are they, Mr McCormack?'

McCormack shrugged.

The barman came over, placed a glass of foaming Guinness and a double measure of whiskey on the table. 'Compliments of Mr Delaney,' he said, picking up their empty glasses. McCormack raised his glass in salute to a small, neat man in a tweed suit who was standing at the end of the bar. Jimmy Delaney was the owner of the establishment and an old friend of McCormack's. Delaney lifted his own glass and nodded at McCormack but made no move to come over, realising that the two men didn't want to be disturbed.

Dunne took a long pull at his Guinness. 'What makes it worse is that we can't even go and visit him.'

'It has to be that way, Paddy. You can see that, surely.'

'Aye, but that doesn't make it any easier.' Dunne slammed his glass down on the table. Several heads turned to look at the source of the noise, but they quickly looked away. Thomas McCormack was well known around Dublin and there weren't many people prepared to openly stare at a member of the IRA Army Executive.

'Easy, Paddy. He'll be back here before you know it.'

Dunne slumped down in his chair. 'I'm sorry, Mr McCormack.

I'm sorry. But you don't know what it's been like. It's all that Brit bastard's fault.'

'That's going to be taken care of, too, Paddy.'

'It's all his fault and yet he's still swanning around the city in his flash cars as if he owns the place. Something should be done about him.'

'Something will be done, Paddy, but we have to get Ray out first.' McCormack took off his spectacles and polished them with a large, red handkerchief. 'Tell your sister not to worry. We're sending money in so that he can buy himself a few luxuries. But tell her one thing more, Paddy.' McCormack waited until Dunne looked up before continuing. 'She's starting to talk, Paddy, and we can't have that. It's local at the moment and I can keep a lid on it, so far. But if the Press gets to hear of it, if anyone makes the connection, the Organisation will have to embark on a damage limitation exercise. And that could get messy, Paddy. Very messy. Best we don't let it get to that stage.' McCormack looked at Dunne steadily. He looked a lot less like a man of the cloth without his hornrimmed spectacles.

'Aye, Mr McCormack. I'll talk to her,' said Dunne.

McCormack held his look for several seconds, then replaced his glasses. The hardness slipped away from his eyes and he smiled avuncularly. 'And don't worry about the Brit. You'll have your revenge, Paddy. We all will. But first things first.'

CABBAGES AND KINGS. THE phrase rattled around in Tim Carver's head as he watched the photographers click away at the Thai farmer and his field of poppies. It came from a poem or something, something he'd studied at school, but for the life of him he couldn't remember anything else, just the one phrase. One of the photographers, a balding Australian with a huge beer gut, growled at the female interpreter to tell the farmer to hold out his hands and to smile. The interpreter translated and the farmer did as he was asked, standing as if crucified among the flowers, grinning like a demented scarecrow. The cameras clicked like crickets on a hot night.

A lanky young man with a notebook appeared at Carver's shoulder. 'What do you think, Tim? Think this'll make a difference?' The accent was British, the tone sarcastic. His name was Richard Kay, a reporter from London, and he'd sat next to Carver on the helicopter that had taken them from Chiang Rai.

Carver smiled wearily. 'Cabbages and kings,' he said.

'What?'

'Just thinking out loud, Richard. Of course it'll make a difference. These people just want to make a living, they don't care what happens to the poppies. They don't even know that the opium harvested here ends up on the streets of American cities. All they want to do is to earn enough to feed their families.'

Another journalist walked up and stood listening to them. 'Lester Middlehurst, New York Times,'' he said, holding up a small tape recorder. 'How many acres are we talking about here, Tim?'

'Just over fifty.'

'And the DEA is buying the land, is that how it works?'

'Not exactly, no. For a start, this is a United Nations programme, not a DEA initiative. And secondly, the UN is paying the farmer not to grow poppies, and we teach him how to grow alternative crops.'

'Cabbages, right?'

Carver nodded. 'Cabbages. And potatoes.'

'But effectively you're buying the poppies, aren't you?' Middlehurst asked.

Carver looked across at a battered army truck where two Thai soldiers were being fitted with cumbersome flamethrowers. Carver's sandy fringe fell over his eyes and he flicked it away with a jerk of his neck. 'I'm with the DEA guys; you should be talking to the UN people,' he said. 'They're the ones persuading them to change crops. It's just a form of farming subsidy, but one that keeps drugs from getting to the United States.'

'Yeah, but at the end of the day, the United States is buying opium, isn't it? They're putting up the bulk of the cash for this programme, right?'

Carver held up his hands in surrender. 'Come on, Lester, stop putting words into my mouth. And remember, everything you get from me is totally off the record. If you want a quote, talk to 20 STEPHEN LEATHER Janis over there.' He nodded at the pretty blonde Press officer from the United Nations office in Bangkok who was fielding questions from a trio of Australian journalists.

Kay slapped a mosquito on his neck and examined the splattered remains of the insect on his palm. 'Okay, Tim, but off the record, we all know this is a complete and utter waste of time, don't we?'

Middlehurst put his tape recorder close to Carver's face to better record his answer to the British journalist's question.

The flamethrowers burst into life and the two soldiers tested them gingerly. The photographers turned their attention away from the Thai farmer and concentrated on the soldiers and their equipment.

'I'm not sure what you mean,' said Carver.

'For a start, most of the heroin comes from over the border, from the Golden Triangle,' Kay pressed. 'And how much heroin does fifty acres produce? A few kilos?'

'More.'

'Yeah? I was told it takes a third of an acre to produce a kilo of raw opium. Does that sound right to you?'

'Ballpark, I guess.'

'So fifty acres is a drop in the ocean.' Carver grinned ruefully. 'You know damn well that I'm not going to say that. On the record or off.'

Kay grinned back. 'Wouldn't expect you to, Tim.' He nodded towards the field and its mass of red and white poppies. 'The farmer says he's been growing poppies here for three years. But the land is only good for four years, total. After that all the nutrients have been sucked out of the soil and it's useless.'

Carver raised an eyebrow, impressed by the British journalist's knowledge. 'Fertiliser,' he said.

Kay's grin widened. 'Is that another way of saying bullshit, Tim? Come on, you know I'm right. These farmers don't know the first thing about land management. They slash and burn, grow what they can and then move on. That's why this country's jungle is disappearing at such an alarming rate. This guy was probably going to give up this land next year anyway. He can't believe his luck.'

'We're making a start, Richard. We're giving them a chance THE SOLITARY MAN 21 I to grow other cash crops. Tea, coffee, cabbages, potatoes. We're showing them how to use the land in other ways, to stop them being reliant on opium.'

The British journalist nodded sympathetically. 'I'm sure you are, but that's not what's going on here. This is a public relations exercise, a photo opportunity. And that's all it is.'

Carver nodded over at the pack of photographers who were clicking away at the soldiers and their flamethrowers. 'Got you guys out here, didn't it?'