The Windup Girl (10 page)

"
Khun
officers!" He shouts over the drone of the dirigible fans and the scream of freight megodonts. "I have a challenge for you!" He points to the descending dirigible with his machete. "I have two hundred thousand baht for the first man who searches a crate from that new vessel over there! Come on! That one! Now!"

The Customs men stare, dumbstruck. They start to speak, but their voices are drowned out by the roar of dirigible fans. They mouth protestations: "
Mai tum! Mai tum! Mai tawng tum!
No no nonono!" as they wave their arms and object, but Jaidee is already dashing across the airfield, brandishing his machete and howling after this new prey.

Behind him, his white shirts follow in a wave. They dodge crates and laborers, leap over anchor cables, duck under megodont bellies. His men. His loyal children. His sons. The foolish followers of ideals and the Queen, joining his call, the ones who cannot be bribed, the ones who hold all of the honor of the Environment Ministry in their hearts.

"That one! That one!"

They speed like pale tigers across the landing field, leaving the carcasses of Japanese freight containers littered behind them like so much debris after a typhoon. The Customs men's voices fade. Jaidee is already far distant from them, feeling the joy of his legs pumping under him, the pleasure of clean and honorable pursuit, running faster ever faster, his men following, covering the distance with the adrenaline sprint of pure warrior purpose, raising their machetes and axes to the giant machine as it comes down from the sky, looming over them like the demon king Tosacan ten thousand feet tall, settling over them. The megodont of all megodonts, and on its side, in
farang
lettering, the words: CARLYLE & SONS.

Jaidee is unaware that a shriek of joy has escaped his lips. Carlyle & Sons. The irritating
farang
who speaks so casually about changing pollution credit systems, of removing quarantine inspections, of streamlining everything that has kept the Kingdom alive as other countries have collapsed, the foreigner who curries so much favor with Trade Minister Akkarat and the Somdet Chaopraya, the Crown Protector. This is a true prize. Jaidee is all pursuit. He stretches for the landing cables as his men surge past, younger and faster and fanatically dedicated, all of them reaching out to secure their quarry.

But this dirigible is smarter than the last.

At the sight of the white shirts swarming under its landing position, the pilot reorients his turbofans. The wash gushes over Jaidee. The fans scream and rev as the pilot wastes gigajoules in an attempt to push away from the ground. The dirigible's landing cables whip inward, winding on spindle cranks like an octopus yanking in its limbs. The turbofans shove Jaidee to the ground as they spin to full power.

The dirigible rises.

Jaidee pushes himself up, squinting into the hot winds as the dirigible shrinks into night blackness. He wonders if the disappearing monster was warned by the control towers or the Customs Service or if the pilot was simply clever enough to realize that a white shirt inspection was of no benefit to his masters.

Jaidee grimaces. Richard Carlyle. Too clever by half, that one. Always in meetings with Akkarat, always at public benefits for cibiscosis victims, tossing money about, always talking about the positives of free trade. He is just one of dozens of
farang
who have returned to the shores like jellyfish after a bitter water epidemic, but Carlyle is the loudest. The one whose smiling face annoys Jaidee most.

Jaidee pushes himself fully upright and brushes off the white hemp weave of his uniform. It doesn't matter; the dirigible will return. Like the ocean rushing onto the beach, it is impossible to keep the
farang
away. Land and sea must intersect. These men with profits in their beating hearts have no choice, they must rush in no matter the consequence, and he must always meet them.

Kamma
.

Jaidee slowly returns to the cracked contents of the inspected shipping crates, wiping his face of sweat, breathing from the exertion of his run. He waves at his men to continue their labor. "There! Break those open over there! I don't want a single crate uninspected."

The Customs men are waiting for him. He pokes through a new crate's wreckage with the point of his machete as the two men approach. They're like dogs. Impossible to be rid of unless you feed them. One of them tries to prevent Jaidee from swinging his machete into another crate.

"We paid! We will be filing protests. There will be investigations. This is international soil!"

Jaidee makes a face. "Why are you still here?"

"We paid you a fair price for protection!"

"More than fair." Jaidee shoulders past the men. "But I am not here to debate these things. It is your
damma
to protest. It is mine to protect our borders, and if that means I must invade your 'international soil' to save our country, so be it." He swings his machete and another crate crackles open. WeatherAll wood bursts wide.

"You've overstepped yourself!"

"Probably. But you will have to send someone from the Ministry of Trade to tell me himself. Someone more much powerful than you." He spins his machete thoughtfully. "Unless you wish to debate me now, with my men?"

The two flinch. Jaidee thinks he catches a flicker of a smile on Kanya's lips. He glances over, surprised, but already his lieutenant is again the face of blank professionalism. It is pleasant to see her smile. Jaidee briefly wonders if there is something more he can do to encourage a second flash of teeth from his dour subordinate.

Sadly, the Customs men seem to be reconsidering their position; they are backing away from his machete.

"Do not think that you can insult us in this way, without consequence."

"Of course not." Jaidee chops at the shipping crate again, shattering it fully. "But I appreciate your monetary donation, even so." He looks up at them. "When you complain, make sure you tell them it was me, Jaidee Rojjanasukchai who did this work." He grins again. "And make sure you tell them that you actually tried to bribe the Tiger of Bangkok."

Around him, his men all laugh at the joke. The Customs men step back, surprised at this new revelation, the dawning comprehension of their opponent.

Jaidee surveys the destruction around him. Splinters of the balsa crate material lie everywhere. The crates are engineered for strength and weightlessness and their lattice works well enough to hold goods—as long as no one applies a machete.

The work goes quickly. Materials are pulled from crates and laid out in careful rows. The Customs men hover, taking the names of his white shirts until his men finally raise their machetes and give chase. The officers retreat, then stop and observe from a safer distance. The scene reminds Jaidee of animals fighting over a carcass. His men feeding on the offal of foreign lands while the scavengers probe and test, the ravens and cheshires and dogs all waiting their own chance to converge on the carrion. The thought depresses him a little.

The Customs men hang back, watching.

Jaidee inspects the line of sorted contents. Kanya follows close behind. Jaidee asks, "What do we have, Lieutenant?"

"Agar solutions. Nutrient cultures. Some kind of breeding tanks. PurCal cinnamon. A papaya seedstock we don't recognize. A new iteration of U-Tex that probably sterilizes any rice varietal it meets." She shrugs. "About what we expected."

Jaidee flips open a shipping container's lid and peers inside. Checks the address. A company in the
farang
manufacturing district. He tries sounding out the foreign letters, then gives up. He tries to remember if he's seen the logo before, but doesn't think so. He fingers through the materials inside, sacks of some sort of protein powder. "Nothing of wonderful interest, then. No new version of blister rust leaping out of a box from AgriGen or PurCal."

"No."

"It's a pity we couldn't catch that last dirigible. They ran quite quickly. I would have liked to search the cargo of
Khun
Carlyle."

Kanya shrugs. "They will return."

"They always do."

"Like dogs to a carcass," she says.

Jaidee follows Kanya's gaze to the Customs men, watching from their safe distance. He is saddened that they see the world so similarly. Does he influence Kanya? Or does she influence him? He used to have much more fun at this work. But then, work used to be so much more clear-cut. He's not accustomed to stalking the gray landscapes that Kanya walks. But at least he has more fun.

His reverie is broken by the arrival of one of his men. Somchai, sauntering over, his machete swinging casually. He's a fast one, as old as Jaidee but hard-edged from losses when blister rust swept the North for the third time in a single growing season. A good man, and loyal. And clever.

"There's a man watching us," Somchai mumbles as he draws close to the two of them.

"Where?"

Somchai jerks his head subtly. Jaidee lets his eyes roam the bustle of the landing fields. Beside him, Kanya stiffens.

Somchai nods. "You see him, then?"

"Kha."
She nods affirmative.

Jaidee finally catches sight of the man, standing a good distance away, watching both the white shirts and the Customs men. He has on a simple orange sarong and purple linen shirt, as if he might be a laborer, and yet he carries nothing. He does nothing. And he seems well-fed. Not showing ribs and hollow cheeks the way most laborers do. He watches, casually leaning against an anchor hook. "Trade?" Jaidee asks.

"Army?" Kanya guesses. "He's a confident one."

As though he senses Jaidee's eyes, the man turns. His eyes lock with Jaidee for moment.

"Shit." Somchai frowns. "He's seen us." He and Kanya join Jaidee in an open study of the man. The man is unperturbed. He spits a stream of red betel and turns and saunters away, disappearing into the bustle of freight movements.

Somchai asks, "Should I go after him? Question him?"

Jaidee cranes his neck, trying to catch another glimpse of the man where he has been swallowed by the bustle. "What do you think, Kanya?"

She hesitates. "Haven't we prodded enough cobras for one night?"

Jaidee smiles slightly. "The voice of wisdom and restraint speaks."

Somchai nods agreement. "Trade will be furious as it is."

"One hopes so." Jaidee motions to Somchai to return to his inspections. As they watch him go, Kanya says, "We may have overstepped this time."

"You mean
I
may have overstepped." Jaidee grins. "You're losing your nerve?"

"Not my nerve." Her gaze travels back to where their observer disappeared. "There are bigger fish than us,
Khun
Jaidee. The anchor pads. . ." Kanya trails off. Finally, after visibly working to choose her words, she says, "It's an aggressive move."

"You're sure you're not afraid?" he teases her.

"No!" She stops short, swallows her outburst, masters her composure.

Privately, Jaidee admires her ability to speak with a cool heart. He was never so careful with his words, or his actions. He was always the sort to charge in like a megodont and try to right the trampled rice shoots after.
Jai rawn
, rather than
jai yen.
A hot heart, rather than a cool one. Kanya, though. . .

Finally she says, "This may not have been the best place to strike."

"Don't be a pessimist. The anchor pads are the best of all possible places. Those two weevils over there coughed up 200,000 baht, no trouble at all. Too much money to be involved in anything honest." Jaidee grins. "I should have come here a long time ago and taught these
heeya
a lesson. Better than wandering the river with a kink-spring skiff, arresting children for generip smuggling. At least this is honest work."

"But it will get Trade involved for certain. By law, it's their turf. "

"By any sane law, none of this should be imported at all." Jaidee waves a hand, dismissive. "Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice."

"Justice is always lost where Trade is concerned."

"We're both more than aware of that. In any case, it's my head. You won't be touched a bit. You couldn't have stopped me, even if you had known where we were going tonight."

"I wouldn't—" Kanya starts.

"Don't worry about it. It's time that Trade and its pet
farang
felt a sting here. They were complacent, and needed a reminder that they still must perform the occasional
khrab
to the idea of our laws." Jaidee pauses, surveying the wreckage again. "There's truly nothing else on the black lists?"

Kanya shrugs. "Just the rice. Everything else is innocuous enough, on paper. No breeding specimens. No genetics in suspension."

"But?"

"Much of it will be misused. Nutrient cultures can't have any good purpose." Kanya is back to her blank and depressed expression. "Should we pack it all back up?"

Jaidee grimaces, finally shakes his head. "No. Burn it."

"I'm sorry?"

"Burn it. We both know what is happening here. Give the
farang
something to claim against their insurance companies. Let them know that their activity is not free." Jaidee grins. "Burn it all. Every last crate."

And for the second time that night, as shipping crates crackle with fire and WeatherAll oils rush and ignite and kick sparks into the air like prayers going up to heaven, Jaidee has the satisfaction of seeing Kanya smile again.

* * *

It is nearly morning by the time Jaidee returns home. The
ji ji ji
of jingjok lizards punctuates the creak of cicadas and the high whine of mosquitoes. He slips off his shoes and climbs the steps, teak creaking under his feet as he steals into his stilt-house, feeling the smooth wood under his soles, soft and polished against his skin.

He opens the screened door and slips inside, closing the door quickly behind him. They're close to the
khlong
, only meters away, and the water is brackish and thick. The mosquitoes swarm close.