Death in the Kingdom (26 page)

‘Let's just say it's been lying around out in the Andaman since the war,' I replied. ‘It was obviously already on its way to these parts when the lab went up. Good timing, bad timing or just plain fate, huh?'

‘Yeah, fate. It's a pity you found it,' she said sadly.

‘Better
I
found it than the others who were after it,' I replied. ‘Much better, believe me.'

‘I hope so for all our sakes because there's something else we've just discovered.' Sylvia was now leaning forward, whispering. ‘There is absolutely no antidote that we know of for this one. Water kills it, extreme heat kills it, but we haven't got anything to immunise us against it. So you can guess what I'll be involved with for the foreseeable future.'

‘Oh boy,' I muttered. She gave me a faint smile and stood.

‘I'm going to catch up with the others and get organised for our flight. You take care, and yes, call me when you get back. I was joking about the boyfriend.' She leaned across the table. This time the kiss brushed my lips, then she was walking away. My heart was thumping in my chest. I sat and watched her walk out of my life again. She moved with her long back straight, but there was a sway to her hips and her hair gleamed. She was beautiful. At the door she turned, waved and was gone.

Karl's call came when I was back upstairs dressing for my next role in the bloody game we were playing. He was surprised that I'd already identified the killer as Dimitri Chekhov. The CIA had apparently been running an open file on him since he'd re-emerged in Thailand. Karl was also surprised I didn't know Chekhov had survived the attempt on his life. ‘We informed British Intelligence as soon as we knew,' he told me. I felt the hairs on my neck prick. Bernard had intentionally decided not to pass that little morsel on to me.

Karl told me that his mob knew Chekhov had appeared in Switzerland a year after the attempt on his life, and had undergone extensive plastic surgery for horrific burns. When he quit Switzerland two years later, the CIA lost track of him for half a decade. They eventually picked him up on their radar a year or so ago and re-opened the file. They were now digging. Having the Russian mob in the form of Dimitri Chekhov impersonating CIA didn't sit at all well with Karl's lot.

‘We're going all out to track the s.o.b down, Danny. When we do it will, I suspect, be a case of extreme prejudice when we make contact. Does that fit with your picture of things?' He was excited or agitated or both.

‘Absolutely,' I replied. ‘What about the Thais?'

‘I believe there are moves afoot to obtain their co-operation with this.' The CIA man paused. ‘You might consider talking to your friend, Tuk Tuk. Apparently Chekhov and his playmates are beginning to make inroads into his operations. Tuk Tuk's network may know where we can find Mr fucking Chekhov. We're harvesting all the intel we can find. I'll get back to you when we've got it. I've got some file photos, including one we managed to obtain in Switzerland. Not a pretty sight. I've printed them and a messenger will be there in twenty.'

‘Thanks. I owe you.'

‘Yes you do, buddy,' he replied before he let a big pause spread its wings. ‘Just tell me, what was so bloody important out there in the damned Andaman?'

‘Another time, maybe,' I replied.
‘Ciao!
' I hung up. I didn't want to tell Karl about Bernard's role in all of this yet. That could wait until we got Chekhov.

As I started applying the make-up that was going to complete my disguise, delayed shock started to work on my subconscious. Bernard and Chekhov! What an unholy alliance! It was obvious I'd been set up to fail from day one.

Every move I made had been monitored by Bernard and passed on to Chekhov. Thank God I didn't always do things by the good book of Bernard. What I couldn't figure out was why hadn't Chekhov already picked up the black box and just whacked me cold before I even found out he was alive? He obviously had the resources he needed to do that with no problem at all.

As I worked on darkening my skin I worried the why to bits. Maybe Bernard hadn't told Chekhov the full story. Maybe he had wanted to stage an attempt at recovering the box to cover his skinny arse in front of his superiors. Could the plan have been to let me recover the box, then take it off me and blame it on pirates? That made some degree of sense. That way Bernard went into his retirement with honour and Chekhov got the bugs for the market. If that was his intent, of course. When did Bernard tell Chekhov I'd been the one to hit him? The old bastard sure as hell wouldn't have let Chekhov know he had ordered the hit. Of course, the other factor might have been that Chekhov had the goods on Bernard and Bernard was hoping like hell Chekhov and I cancelled each other out, leaving him free and clear.

So what was the likely history between Bernard and Chekhov? Maybe back in the days of the cold war Chekhov had been running Bernard, or Bernard running him. The former made sense, given Bernard's background and sexual preferences. Had Chekhov even suspected it was Bernard who had sanctioned the original hit on him, or had he figured it was CIA? Bernard, the clever, foxy old queen, had probably pointed Chekhov in that direction. Of course, perhaps Bernard had been so intent on sterilising his potentially very embarrassing past, that the hit he had called on Chekhov had nothing to do with The Firm at all. Maybe he had simply orchestrated the whole thing and sent me on my mission to whack Chekhov and clear that particular slate. Now, years later, he was pointing Chekhov back at me. Nice boss, huh?

‘Bugger!' I muttered. My inattention to the job in hand caused me to poke my eye with a make-up brush. I wished Mary were here doing it for me. But Mary wouldn't be doing anything any more. My gut twisted and I tasted bile at the back of my throat. I forced it down and focused on finishing the make-up job. While I waited for it to set I picked up the phone and called Tuk Tuk. The conversation was short, stilted and very much to the point. Yes, he knew Chekhov, yes, he knew several of his possible locations and yes, he would have his people pinpoint the Russian. When they found him I would be informed. End of conversation. Don Don came in holding a large yellow envelope. ‘Special delivery,' he said, passing it across. ‘You look very,' he paused searching for words, ‘different.'

In the envelope there were three shots, each eight by ten. One black and white showed Chekhov as a young man in full dress uniform. Another was a street shot in an unidentified city. It showed a bear of a man in a black overcoat wearing a broad-brimmed black hat. A white scarf was pulled up high but it didn't hide the shiny white and red of the mass of scar tissue on the side of his face. The left ear, the one nearest the camera, appeared not to exist. The third photograph was taken in hospital. It was from a plastic surgeon's file, no doubt. Chekhov was in a white gown. His entire head was exposed. There was no hair, just what must have been transplanted skin in patches. The eyes were red-rimmed pits. The nose had obviously been reconstructed. It was like it had been formed of melting red and orange Play-Doh. The cheeks were patched with multi-coloured skin and ribbons of deep scar tissue. The lips were puffed, oversized and looked frayed and wet. The left ear was gone. There was just a tiny flap of skin. Most of the right ear was intact but for the ear lobe. That was gone.

‘Holy shit,' muttered Don Don. ‘Freddy fucking Kruger.'

‘Just as terrifying,' I replied. ‘Pizza face,' I pushed the photos back into the envelope, shoved it into my holdall and stowed it under the desk in my commandeered office to await my return. I hoped. Don Don pulled a set of car keys from his pocket as I followed him out the door. He was going to drop me down in the Old Town and I was going to go hunting.

26

The entire warehouse was gone. All that remained were blackened beams and crumbling stone work. Tendrils of smoke and steam curled into the night sky. Two fire appliances were still on the scene along with maybe a dozen men combing the debris under the white glare of three or four banks of construction lights. The lights turned the bleak scene into one of desolate, sharp contrasts. A pair of police cars and a large, dark-blue, windowless panel truck filled the street nearest the site.

I faded into the background and started watching everything. I located the old man and his drinks cart at the far end of the short street. I would make my way towards him once I had the scene and the people set in my conscious mind. I needed to observe what passed for normal in this place and time before I started looking for the abnormal.

Sami said Chekhov had people here. I had to spot them before they could identify me. This was a game of chess, with death instead of checkmate for the loser. If Chekhov had just one of his men there as bait, there would be others waiting to take down whoever came sniffing around. I thought, in the first instance at least, that I had a better chance of identifying Chekhov's people than they had of spotting me.

I'd made a bit of effort with my change of image and didn't look anything like the me of a few hours before. I wore a white shirt outside my belt and dark slacks with black shoes. My hair was black, shiny and slicked back behind my ears. I had a thick matching moustache and a pair of large dark-framed glasses. The glass inside the frames looked plain, like normal reading lenses. My tan had been seriously augmented by something out of a bottle. I looked at first glance like an Indian businessman, of which there were plenty in Bangkok. My disguise was completed by a leather briefcase, which contained a stack of newspaper for weight and effect.

No matter what I looked like, I didn't resemble the man Chekhov was no doubt looking to turn into chunky pet food. I wore the Walther under my shirt and the knife taped to my calf. I'd debated wearing my boots but they were a giveaway to anyone who knew me, and I had a feeling that thanks to Bernard fucking Sinclair, Chekhov knew me, right down to my choice of aftershave.

Not as pleasant as my aftershave was the smell of the burned out and doused building, one of the nastiest stenches I'd ever encountered. It was acrid and sickly, clinging to everything, my clothes included. I knew it would sit at the back of my throat and in my nostrils for days afterwards. I also knew that adding water just seemed to make the smell worse. Add a few fried body parts and it went to a new level of nastiness. The paper said twelve had died there, but that had probably been speculation. As I watched, the firemen carried a body bag out of the debris and headed for the black wagon. Beyond the men carrying the grisly burden, another group had stopped digging in the rubble. They were staring down at something they had uncovered. Another body, no doubt!

I moved as close as I could. There were people all around. Some were ghouls on the prowl, others were pickpockets working the tourists who had been drawn by the activity. Local traders hawked food, drink and cigarettes to the spectators. Even though so many hours had passed, the show still wasn't over. A shout from one of the firemen brought a policeman across to where they stood. A photographer followed. Shortly afterwards there was the flash of a camera and, a few minutes later, another black-bagged shape was carried out to the waiting meat wagon.

‘That makes fifteen,' an old Thai woman muttered to no one in particular. The old lady was squatting on the footpath a few feet away from me. She was fanning a charcoal brazier as she grilled chicken. Trade was good. Two or three people were hovering, waiting for their snack to cook. Over the acrid stench of the fire, the chicken smelt like heaven. I was tempted, then my eyes went back to the body that was being loaded into the back of the unmarked van thirty yards away. My appetite vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

One more time I scanned the people walking past and those standing watching, waiting for something, or nothing, the way people do when death is around them. Several times I saw faces that caused me to do a double take, but each time I let things ride. Anonymous people in a street were just that until proven otherwise. I needed more. I needed to see someone talk into their sleeve or make eye contact with me and lose it. I needed to see a carelessly exposed gun or a pair of guys trying to pretend they didn't know each other. I needed something, anything. The only thing I could be certain of was that Chekhov had people here.

I moved up the street towards where an old man was doing a fair trade in drinks. It was then that I saw Chekhov's sacrificial lamb, and I'd seen him before. Coincidentally the guy was standing under a streetlight. He was not only wearing colours; he was coloured to boot. It was Mr Beige in his hideous beige shirt. It was combined with a pale straw Panama, red trousers and yellow shoes. The sap had been dressed by Coco the Clown. Subtlety was obviously not one of Chekhov's strong points.

I eased back through the thin curtain of people behind me and moved across the creeping, honking traffic line, angling in Mr Beige's direction. The drinks cart was some thirty yards further up the street. I was perhaps ten or twelve feet away from Beige when a second guy joined him. This one was European. He wore jeans and a tight blue Nike T-shirt. He had the imposing shape of a steroid-swigging body builder and wore a short crop of silver spikes. There was a big gold earring in his left ear. As I drifted closer, I tagged him as Mr Muscles for obvious reasons. ‘This is a fucking waste of time,' the new arrival was saying to Beige as I moved past. The language was English, but the accent was Eastern European.

‘Orders!' replied Beige. ‘You don't want to piss the man off now, do you? Get your white arse away from me. I'm the bait, you fucker.' Muscles looked as if he wanted to argue a little but he grunted and moved back past me without a glance. I kept moving. I was guessing from the accent that the black guy was Jamaican. I didn't pause to talk to him about cricket or Bob Marley. I was past him in two strides and moving on away from the fire. I didn't look back.

I crossed the street again fifty feet further up from Chekhov's sacrificial lamb and moved on to the drinks hawker. The handcart was positioned at the entrance to a narrow alley that ran back towards the canal behind Sami's place. I fished coins out of my pocket. The stall owner was sitting on a stool cooling himself with a small hand-held battery fan. He grinned at me, took the money and passed me a cold can of Singha. I thanked him and moved back to stand by the alley entrance. I propped my briefcase at my feet and stood sipping my beer, wondering where Sami was. It was time to switch on my phone and make that call.