Bangkok Haunts

dead. “But there must have been arrangements for you to receive your share of the royalties. There must have been some kind of enforcement clause. I can’t imagine Damrong or you going ahead without guarantees.”
    Baker stares at me. “But there wasn’t.”
    Now it is my turn to stare. “How can anyone believe that? This is a contract of death in which the deceased is supposed to get paid posthumously. No way that girl was going into that without security.”
    Baker shrugs. “They gave her more than a million U.S. dollars up front. She told me it would be used by someone for enforcement if necessary. She was very confident—she told me not to worry about the money. She said I could insist on some up-front dough if I wanted it, but there was really no need to worry. When Damrong said that about money, you had to believe she had the whole thing under control.”
    I nod. “A million dollars buys a lot of enforcement over here, that’s true. But the main players, the invisible men, were never based here.” I stop and rub my left temple. “But then she was Thai. She would think in personal terms. Symbolic terms too. Magical terms.” I look at Baker and try to imagine how she saw his role. The same image that haunts my nights springs into mind: wild-haired, bent over her breasts, madness in her eyes, a grin of total triumph on her face. In the distance a priestess from the forest period arranges a multiple sacrifice to the gods.
    It is as if Baker has read my mind. “Yeah,” he says. “With hindsight, you can see why she wasn’t so worried about enforcement.”
    There is a knock on the door. It is not particularly heavy; nor is it repeated. One boot busts the flimsy lock, and the guy I first saw in guard’s uniform enters with another behind him bearing a Chinese Kalashnikov. They gesture to Baker to come with them. Baker looks frantically at me.
    “I forbid you to abduct this man. I am an officer in the Royal Thai Police.” They don’t understand a word I say. When I fish out my police ID, they can’t read it. It doesn’t make any difference—Baker goes with them anyway. I go to the camera on the tripod and look through the viewer. A Toyota minivan has appeared, and they bundle Baker into it.
    About ten minutes later I’m still in Baker’s flat with no one to interrogate. Lek calls. “Nothing unusual about Tanakan’s bank,” Lek reports, “except that he’s not there. He’s at some meeting with other bankers, some kind of all-day thing. I asked about the guards at the bank. They’re very carefully vetted—no way anyone who didn’t speak Thai could join their ranks.”
    Another ten minutes, and I see it is Vikorn calling. “Someone’s abducted Tanakan,” he says in a hoarse voice. “It was carefully planned. Some heavies who looked and acted like Khmer blocked his car as he was leaving a meeting and grabbed him. If you know anything about this that you’re not telling me, you’re dead.”
    “Colonel—”
    “Do you realize how bad this is?”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “Moron, of course it’s my fault. Don’t you understand?
I was blackmailing him.
That made him my responsibility. My honor died today.” He closes the phone.
    It is the next call, though, that surprises the most. “Sonchai,” Dr. Supatra says, “they’ve taken the body.” I’m too shocked to speak. “Some men came armed with combat rifles. They held us up for ten minutes while they went down to the morgue and grabbed the body. They didn’t take anything else, and they didn’t seem to be able to speak Thai. Someone said they were Khmer.”
     
    When I’ve assimilated that, I press buttons on the cell phone until I reach the message window and plug in Kimberley’s number:
    Can your nerds trace me from my cell phone signals?
    She messages back in less than five minutes:
    We can try. Why?
    I text back:
    Because I am about to go on a long journey.
     
    I sit on Baker’s bed for more than an hour before another Khmer guard appears with the standard-issue Kalashnikov. He points it at me in a desultory way and beckons for me to walk out in front of him. He prods me with the gun all the way down to the car park, where another Toyota four-by-four is waiting. I get in the back with half a dozen Khmer. We drive in an easterly direction for more than five hours before they decide to blindfold me. At the same time they take my cell phone away.

4
    ENDGAME

34
    Dearest Brother,
    By the time you read this I