World of Trouble (9786167611136) (34 page)

As he circled the park, Shepherd thought
about what he was going to do. It took him three circuits to
convince himself that the obvious thing to do was also the right
thing to do. He had to talk to Kate. He still didn’t understand
exactly how Tommy and Robert Darling were connected, but he really
didn’t see how it could be in any good way. Whatever it meant, Kate
had to know about it. And she had to know a fresh shipment of arms
was almost certainly on its way to Charlie’s red shirts in
Bangkok.

But how was he supposed to reach Kate? Tommy
had always been his contact and that obviously wasn’t an option any
longer. He could keep ringing the two cell phone numbers he had for
Kate, but she hadn’t answered either of them recently. Somehow he
had difficulty imagining the new prime minister rummaging around in
her handbag when her cell phone began to ring. He could always just
call the prime minister’s office and leave a message for Kate, of
course, but he doubted that a call from an unknown foreigner
claiming to be a friend of the prime minister would be taken very
seriously by anyone.

That just left one possibility that Shepherd
could see. He would have to do what everyone else in Bangkok did
when they needed to get something done. He would have to call
somebody who knew somebody. And the obvious man to call was Jello,
since he was not only a high enough ranking policeman to command a
lot of respect, he also knew just about everybody in Thailand who
was worth knowing.

Shepherd slowed to a trot and headed for the
shade of a stand of palm trees just off the sidewalk. He pulled his
cell phone out of his pocket and leaned against one of the trees
catching his breath and rethinking his plan one more time.

Was there any reason not to tell Jello that
he needed to speak to Kate? None that he could think of. Jello
would want to know
why
he needed to speak to her, of course,
but Shepherd was sure he would understand and accept that he
couldn’t tell him. He was equally sure Jello would find a way to
help him regardless. After all, they were friends, weren’t they?
Friends trusted friends. And friends helped friends, too, didn’t
they?

***

“YOU WANT ME to do
what
?” Jello bellowed when
Shepherd explained to him why he was calling. “What is this all
about?”

“Look, Jello, you know I’d like to tell you,
but—”

“Never mind,” he interrupted. “Don’t even
start. There is
no
way you’re going to get me involved in
whatever you’re up to. Do you have any idea what’s going on here
right now?”

“Yeah, I can see it for myself. I’m in
Bangkok.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Look, you have to trust—”

“I don’t fucking have to do
anything
,
Jack. You work for the wrong people.”

“I don’t work for any—”

“Fuck you don’t. And don’t try to tell me you
just have clients. You’re General Kitnarok’s man and everyone knows
it.”

“I’m not anybody’s man, Jello. Now are you
going to shut the hell up long enough for me to talk?”

Jello cleared his throat. “So talk.”

Friends trust friends, Shepherd reminded
himself. So what can you do when you need one of your friends to do
you a favor and they don’t like the idea of doing it? Easy. You
tell them a good lie.

“Kate isn’t answering either of the cell
numbers I have. I need for her to know I’m here. I need her to know
that I want to talk to her. That’s it. This is personal, Jello.
It’s got nothing to do with politics.”

“Personal? What does that mean?”

“Well, it means…” Shepherd trailed off into a
silence that he hoped sounded embarrassed. “You know.”

Are you serious, man?”

“Well... you know.”

There was a little silence while Jello
digested that.

“You dog,” he murmured after a moment. “You
goddamned hound dog.”

“Can you get a message to Kate to call me on
this cell number or not?”

“Probably.”

“Will you do it?”

“Maybe.”

“What the hell does—”

“That’s the best you’re getting from me right
now, pal. The very best. Just live with it.”

“Good enough then.”

“You’re sure this is nothing to do with
politics?”

“Nothing, Jello. You have my word on it.”

“You goddamned, fucking hound dog.”

Close enough for government work.

***

ALONG SHEPHERD’S ROUTE back to the Grand, he saw more
and more signs of the tension that was tightening on Bangkok like
the jaws of a vice. The parking lot of the Dusit Thani Hotel was
now entirely closed off with metal barriers. Cars were being
allowed to leave, but none were being permitted to enter. The
traffic on Silom Road had thinned noticeably and the sidewalks were
nearly empty. Every shop he saw was now closed, their facades
covered with metal grates. Even the Duke had gone dark. And the
street vendors and touts had completely disappeared. He didn’t
think that had
ever
happened before.

Shepherd speeded up a little, jogging back to
the Grand a bit faster than he had been going when he left. He felt
silly doing it, but he did it anyway.

SHEPHERD HEARD NO obvious signs of life coming from
behind the door of Keur’s hotel room, so he went to his own room
and stood under a very hot shower until the water turned tepid.
While he was toweling off in the bathroom, the telephone on the
bedside table rang, but it stopped ringing before he was dry enough
to answer it. Keur must be awake now
,
Shepherd thought to
himself. Since nobody else knew he was at the Grand, who else would
be calling?

He pulled on a polo shirt that wasn’t too
wrinkled and a pair of chinos. The he slipped into some boat shoes
and walked down to Keur’s room and knocked. When Keur came to the
door, he was rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“I thought you were awake,” Shepherd
said.

“I can’t imagine why you’d think that. Real
people need sleep, Jack. We’re not all vampires like you.”

“That wasn’t you on the telephone?”

“Did it sound like me?”

“The phone stopped ringing before I could
answer it. I just assumed it was you since nobody else knows we’re
here.”

“Well, it wasn’t me.”

It wasn’t entirely true that nobody else knew
they were there, of course. Shepherd had told Jello he was in
Bangkok, and Jello could have easily guessed where he was. But
there was no one else. He was sure of it. He and Keur just stood
there in the doorway and looked at each other for a moment.

“Don’t get paranoid,” Keur said. “Somebody
just called the wrong room.”

“You’re probably right.”

And Keur probably
was
right. But there
was still something unnerving about a telephone ringing in a hotel
room where nobody was supposed to know he was.

“Give me ten minutes,” Keur said, “I’ll get
dressed and come right down.”

***

TO KILL TIME while he was waiting for Keur, Shepherd
turned on the television and flipped through the channels. He
watched CNBC for a few minutes, but the stock and currency market
reports he normally monitored now seemed far-off and
inconsequential, like the light from distant stars that had been
created thousands of years before. He flipped over to CNN, but
World Sport was showing again, and no matter how bored he was he
wasn’t going to watch replays of Portuguese soccer games.

Keur knocked at the door. Shepherd muted the
sound, but he left the TV set on.

“That was fast,” he said when he opened the
door.

Keur didn’t respond immediately and that was
when Shepherd registered that Keur’s eyes were focused on something
over his shoulder. He glanced around and saw that CNN had shifted
back to the news.

On the screen now was a city street that
looked a lot like Silom Road. It
was
Silom Road. Shepherd
grabbed the remote control off the bed and punched the sound back
on.

“—from yesterday afternoon,” a male voice was
saying. “Elizabeth Corbin of
The New York Times
is in
Bangkok and she has the latest developments from there for us.”

Keur came in and closed the door behind him
and they both stood with their arms folded and watched the screen.
Liz appeared holding a microphone above a big, half-empty street.
Shepherd thought she must be standing on one of those pedestrian
bridges over Sukhumvit Road. He was pretty sure he could see a
corner of the Marriott Hotel in the background.

“There have been two important developments
in Bangkok today, Keith.”

It seemed to Shepherd that Liz looked a
little jumpy.

“The first development is that we have just
learned that some local fishermen have found a shipping container
in the Gulf of Thailand which is filled with what appears to be
numerous sets of human remains. The container was found in an area
about two miles offshore from a beach resort called Hua Hin that is
about fifty miles south of Bangkok.”

“Holy shit,” Keur said.

“The fishermen refused to be interviewed on
camera for fear of reprisals, but one of them told me there could
be many more containers and hundreds more bodies in the same area.
They also say they think that explains the exceptional catches they
have been making in the area recently.”

“Christ,” Keur murmured, “I’ll never eat fish
again.”

“There is intense speculation in Bangkok that
the area was used as a dumping ground by the military for the
bodies of hundreds of protesters who disappeared during what has
become known as the Yellow Shirt Uprising just before the last
election. We have been trying to obtain some comment from an
authorized spokesman for the Thai military, but none of our calls
have been returned.”

“Oh, man,” Shepherd said, shifting his eyes
from the screen to Keur. “If that turns out to be true, then—”

“What the hell?” Keur interrupted, still
staring at the television screen.

When Shepherd glanced back, it took him a
moment to process what he was seeing. Even when he
did
process it, it still didn’t seem real to him.

There on the television screen, in vivid
color, was a photograph of
him
. The picture looked slightly
familiar, although he couldn’t immediately think where it came
from. Maybe CNN had poached it from some web site.

“The second important development today
concerns this man,” Liz continued. “He is an American resident of
Hong Kong whose name is Jonathan William Shepherd.”

Shepherd stared open-mouth at the television
screen, rooted to the spot.

“Shepherd is the personal lawyer of General
Chalerm Kitnarok, the Thai military strongman ousted in the
elections last October that brought the present government to
power. Sources in the Thai government are saying that Shepherd has
slipped quietly into the country. It is widely believed that
General Kitnarok is plotting a return to power in Thailand and that
he may even be arming bands of his supporters in order to launch a
campaign of violent revolt against the present government. We are
told that this is the second time in recent weeks that a close
associate of General Kitnarok has slipped into the country. The
first was a Lebanese associate named Adnan Haddad, who has
subsequently disappeared without a trace.”

Shepherd knew exactly where Adnan had gone,
of course, both parts of him. But, under the circumstances, his
superior knowledge gave him very little pleasure.

“These same sources tell me that the
authorities here have launched an intense search for Shepherd. They
hope that his arrest will shed some light on General Kitnarok’s
plans and even perhaps what is in store for Thailand in the
immediate future. This is Elizabeth Corbin reporting from Bangkok
for CNN.”

The scene shifted to a middle-aged male in a
studio somewhere. Shepherd was still rooted to the spot, visions of
Adnan’s severed head dancing in his mind. Keur took the remote
control out of his hand and muted the sound again.

“Have you told anyone where we are?” Keur
asked.

He could see the answer right there on
Shepherd’s face.

“Who?”

“Jello isn’t responsible for this.”

“What the hell kind of a name is Jello?”

Shepherd told Keur who Jello was and about
asking his help to reach Kate.

“He’s my friend, Keur. He knows I don’t have
anything to do with Charlie’s politics. Jello isn’t responsible for
this.”

“But he’s a high ranking policeman.”

Shepherd nodded.

“Did you tell him where we’re staying?”

“No, but I told him I’m in Bangkok and he’d
guess. I always stay here.”

“Pack,” Keur said. “We’re leaving.”

“Come on, I don’t think—”

“Do it now,” Keur interrupted. “Don’t argue
with me. I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Before Shepherd could say anything else, Keur
was gone.

***

SHEPHERD SAT DOWN on the edge of the bed and thought
about what might be happening. A lot of possibilities came to mind,
none of them good. When Keur came back ten minutes later, Shepherd
still hadn’t moved.

“Goddamn it, Jack, move your ass. We’re
leaving right now.”

“Do you really think—”

“Yes,” Keur snapped, “I do. Pack. Now.”

Shepherd got up and retrieved his bag. While
he rummaged around the room collecting his things, Keur sat in the
straight chair at the small desk. His own bags, a common-looking
wheeled airline bag made of heavy black fabric and a scratched-up
brown leather briefcase, were on the floor at his feet. Something
about the picture bothered Shepherd, but he couldn’t put his finger
on what it was.

“I called a guy I know,” Keur said. “I’ve
arranged for us to use a Bureau safe house for a few days until we
figure out what this is all about.”