Chimera (5 page)

“By ’this area’ you mean —?”

“Thailand.”

“Ah, I see.”

Hateley started out the jeep’s side window for a couple of seconds, then turned back to Wallis.

“What about my trophy?”

“The cat’s on his way to a first-class taxidermist as we speak.
 
I’ll deliver him to you, personally, in about ten days, two weeks at the outside; tree-mounted, as we agreed.”

“And the money I’ve already invested in my next Thai hunt?”

“Your hundred and fifty thousand dollar down-payment, minus our expenses to date, will either be refunded to you when I deliver your mount, or invested in some equally profitable ventures, your choice.”

Hateley remained silent as Wallis re-secured the night-vision goggles over his eyes, started up the jeep, and continued driving toward the main road.

When they reached the paved roadway, Wallis pulled off to the side of the dirt road, got out, quickly removed the infrared filters from the Land Rover’s headlights, got back into the vehicle, turned on the headlights, pulled into the flow of traffic, and headed east.

*
   
*
   
*

Fifteen minutes later, at a remote clearing far from the originally planned pick-up site, Wallis secured Hateley and his rifle case in the back seats of a helicopter with the words ‘Pauley Air Transport’ painted on the side in bold letters, and then quickly scrambled into the front co-pilot seat.

Wallis and Hateley had both donned microphone-mounted head-sets that enabled them to communicate with the pilot and each other; but neither spoke as the helicopter road up in to the sky and then began to follow a pre-planned route to the Phuket International Airport.

Both men started out at the distant, brightly-lit coastline of Thailand; each aware, in their own way, that they might never see this sight again.

 
At the helipad near the tarmac area reserved for private charter planes, Wallis helped Hateley out of the helicopter, handed him the rifle case and then walked with him over to the gleaming forty-million-dollar Gulfstream-Four that stood waiting like an about-to-be released falcon.
 
At the base of the stairs, Hateley turned and extended his hand.

“This turned out to be quite an exhilarating day, Marcus,” he said with a smile.
 
“I’d hate to think my hunting days in Thailand are over because of an unfortunate incident.”

“We’ll do everything we can to make sure that is not the case,” Wallis promised.

“Good, I was hoping you’d say that; but, in any case, I’m a patient man.
 
So what do you have in mind for my next hunt?”

“Something interesting, Mr. Hateley,” Wallis answered as he shook his client’s hand.
 
“You can be sure of that.”

“Fair enough.
 
I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Hateley said, and then climbed up into the cabin of the chartered plane.

The wealthy businessman settled himself into one of the four luxurious seats and motioned for the uniformed steward to fix him a drink.
 
Then, as the sleek Gulfstream jet began to taxi out to the runway, Hateley looked out the window at the nearby helipad; but the helicopter and Wallis were already gone.

*
   
*
   
*

Wearing the night-vision goggles again to cope with the almost total darkness, Wallis worked the four-wheel-drive Land Rover through the deep muddy ruts of a tree-lined dirt road leading into the western section of the Khlong Saeng Wildlife Preserve.

As he did so, he periodically checked his odometer.

At the 5.8 kilometer mark, Wallis slowed down, turned left onto a very narrow mud trail just barely wide enough for the Land Rover, and followed a set of recently-made tire tracks for another thirty seconds until he came to small, chain-sawed clearing where the park maintenance staff had built a storage shed for an old back-hoe and even older tractor.

There was another Land Rover parked next to the shed, illuminated — at least for night-vision goggles — by an exterior shed light that had been temporarily covered with an infra-red filter gel, and then turned on.

Wallis parked next to the Land Rover, flashed his infra-red-filtered headlights twice, shut off the engine, then stepped out of the vehicle and walked around to the rear.

As he did so, Quince Lanyard stepped out of the surrounding forest and opened the rear door of Wallis’ Land Rover.
 
Working quickly, the two men unloaded three back-packs, three scoped hunting rifles in waterproof cases, two tied plastic bags filled with shredded paper and a pair of walking sticks.
 
Lanyard started to remove a five-foot-long black plastic Pelican™ case and a blue-striped military ammo can from the back of the Land Rover, but Wallis shook his head.

“Leave it there for now,” he said.

“Are we still in the clear?” Lanyard asked.

“So far, but the shit will definitely hit the bloody fan when those Rangers are found.
 
We need to be gone before then.”

“With our assets secured and all loose ends tied, I assume?”

Wallis nodded.
 
“Exactly.”

“What about Pauley?”

“He won’t walk away from his business, and I can’t see him lasting long under Thai interrogation.”

“Same with our client, I’d wager.” Lanyard nodded his head knowingly. “He’d give us up in a heartbeat.”

“We’ll have to see to it that he never steps foot in Thailand again,” Wallis acknowledged.

“Must have been tempting to just give Jack one more body to stash.”

“If there was time for a proper disposal, yes.
 
But we’d be pissing away a chance to retire in style.”

“You really think he’ll go for it?”

“A man of his wealth, power and ego?” Wallis shrugged.
 
“I don’t think he’s capable of saying no to what we’re going to propose.”

“But aren’t we rushing things a bit?”

“The timing’s bad.
 
Another big cat hunt first would have been better.
 
I’m going to see if Draganov can push things along a bit.”

“What about Hateley’s Cloud?”

“We still need to get it out to keep him focused on the big prize.”

“But not through Yak, I take it?”

Wallis shook his head firmly. “No, it wouldn’t take him long to put two and two together and rat us out.
 
We’re better off going south.”

“You mean cross down into Malaysia?”

“It shouldn’t be a problem.
 
Our visas are still good, and we've got Kai to grease the proper palms.”

“Fucking Kai.”

“He’ll help.
 
He has no choice.”

“Still, it’s a long way to drive with contraband in the boot and Kai being Kai.
 
What about the boat?”

“The Avatar?
 
In the open seas? This time of the year?” Wallis cocked his head, a slight smile forming in his grizzled face.

“Not our favorite way to travel,” Lanyard acknowledged with a grimace, “but there’s a nice dive spot at Ko Tanga where we can sort things out with Kai.”

“Fine by me.” Wallis shrugged. “I’ll set up the meet.
 
Let’s get this done.”

*
   
*
   
*

After locking up the Land Rover, the two men shouldered the loads, and headed into the trees behind the shed.

Twenty yards into the dense forest, Quince pulled a remote device out of his jacket pocket and pressed a button.
 
Instantly, deep in the trees, a periodically-flashing firefly became faintly visible.

Using the flickering light as a guide, the two men slowly and methodically worked their way through the trees and brush, using the walking sticks to push tangled vines and large leaf fronds aside, and to warn any lurking creatures of their direction of travel.

The occasional whisper of a long snake tail disappearing into the thick underbrush spoke to the value of their precautions.

Finally, the two men stepped into a small, machete-cut, ten-foot-square clearing, two-thirds of which was taken up with a deep hole surrounded by piles of recently cut brush and vines, a stack of six-foot boards, a folded black plastic tarp, chunks of sod, a pair of shovels, and a much larger pile of rope-entangled and machete-chopped lengths of bamboo that — earlier in the evening — had formed a secure shooting platform for Michael Hateley.

Wallis stepped up to the edge of the six-by-six-by-eight-foot-deep hole that he and Lanyard and Gavin had dug several months earlier for just such a contingency, glanced down at the pair of machetes lying across the two twisted bodies at the bottom, and turned to Lanyard.

“Any problems I should know about?”

“Not really.
 
They were busy cutting the bamboo up into smaller pieces when the older one started getting pushy about being paid extra for difficult work.
 
I terminated their contracts early and finished cutting the bamboo myself.”

“Good,” Wallis grunted.

Working quickly now, using the intermittent flashes of the Fire-Fly™ for illumination, the two men tore open the two plastic bags, dumped the shredded remains of their office correspondence into the hole, and then tossed in the splintered lengths of bamboo, burying the bodies under a cross-laced fibrous mat almost a foot thick.

Then they opened up the tarp, spread it out as a much-too-big liner for the remaining portion of the hole, and worked as a team — Lanyard handing the rifles and back-packs down to Wallis who carefully arranged them in the hole, covered them with the tarp flaps, and then used a roll of duct tape to seal the bundle from the corrosive Thai soil.

A few minutes later, the two men finished arranging the sod squares over the crossed support boards covering the duct-taped cache, tossed an assortment of shredded brush and leaves over the sod, and stood up.

“I don’t think we have to worry about anyone finding this lot,” Wallis said, nodding in satisfaction as he looked around at the clearing that he knew, from experience, would be overgrown again with a few days.

“Not bloody likely,” Quince Lanyard chuckled as he looked up at the still-pulsing Fire-Fly™ hanging from an overhead tree limb, used the remote device to shut it off, and then dropped the remote back into his pocket.
 
“If it wasn’t for GPS, and that little flasher, I wouldn’t have found it either.”

*
   
*
   
*

Fifteen minutes later, using the IR-glow of the shed light as a guide, the two men were back at their Land Rovers.

Reaching into the back of his vehicle, Wallis pulled out a pair of armored vests with filled magazine pouches, two assault rifles, a pair of military ammo boxes, and a case labeled ‘electronics.’
 
As Lanyard transferred the armaments to Lanyard’s Land Rover, Wallis pulled out the five-foot-long Pelican™ case and the blue-striped military ammo can.

“Take this along too,” Wallis said.

Lanyard took the fifty-pound case and equally heavy blue-striped ammo box, and juggled both in his muscular hands.
 
“You really think Jack and I’ll need something like this to deal with Kai and his boys?”

“If Yak’s the one who informed on us, no, you shouldn’t,” Wallis said.
 
“If not —” He shrugged.
 
“Do what you have to do, and then dump it with the rest of the gear.”

“Bloody expensive toy to be tossing out with the trash after one use, don’t you think?” Lanyard suggested in a voice that was fully respectful.
 
Wallis had always encouraged Lanyard and Gavin to offer their opinions; but there was no question as to who was the leader of their illicit team.

“It’s just a tool that’s easily replaced.
 
Don’t hesitate to use it if you have to,” Wallis replied firmly.

Lanyard acknowledged the order with a quick nod of his head.
 
“Any word on Choon’s whereabouts?”

“He was at a brokers meeting in Surat yesterday.
 
Explains why we weren‘t told about the new patrol.”

“Is that a normal assignment for a police captain?”

Wallis shook his head. “I doubt it.
 
Probably got sent there by Bangkok HQ.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re on to us.
 
Could have been a routine check, and they moved him out of the way because they don’t trust him.”

“But if they think he’s helping hunters, we’ll have that damned Colonel Kulawnit on our ass.”

“Kulawnit’s scheduled to be at the Wildlife Interpol meeting in Tokyo all week,” Wallis replied evenly.
 
“By the time he returns, we should be out of Thailand.”

“Damned good thing.
 
What about Yak?”

“We’re having an early breakfast at his house tomorrow morning.”

“How did he sound?”

“Sleepy, confused, and upset that I know where his mistress lives.
 
Not like a man waiting nervously to hear if we were dead or in custody.”

“So where does that put Kai?”

“In a bloody bad light.”

CHAPTER 3

The Draganov Research Center, Cascade Mountains, Washington

The Cascade Mountain Range is a magnificent swath of hills, valleys and snow-capped mountains running north to south through the center of the state of Washington.
 
Making up almost a third of the state, the Range has been formed and reformed over the ages by tectonic collisions and volcanic spewing; the violence of which invariably destroys all signs of life in the immediate vicinity.

The plates and volcanoes are mostly quiet now.
 
But even so, great stretches of the Cascade Range remain thinly populated; or, in the case of the twenty-five National Forests, Parks and Wilderness areas located within the central Washington Range — which specifically includes the Wenatchee National Forest — hardly populated at all.