World of Trouble (9786167611136) (41 page)

He was about to remind Kate of all that, but
she struck out for the entrance to the main house before he could
say anything. Mutt and Jeff moved slightly ahead of her, one on one
side and one on the other. They were covering her as well as they
could, but there was only so much two men could do. Shepherd looked
at Keur to see what he thought, but he was already following
Kate.

Shepherd knew this whole show had been his
idea. It had seemed, as they say, like a good idea at the time, but
now that they were here, he wasn’t so sure anymore. He felt like
everything was only a beat from spinning completely out of
control.

What if Charlie just grabbed Kate and locked
her up? Or worse, what if somebody killed her? That would leave the
field completely open for Charlie. He could declare victory for the
reds and take over the country without firing another shot.

But Charlie was a decent and honorable man,
Shepherd reminded himself. He wouldn’t do anything like that.

Who was he kidding? Charlie was getting ready
to start a civil war and Shepherd didn’t think Charlie would be
willing to sweep his opponent off the board with a single
stroke?

But the truth was he really
didn’t
believe that. He had worked with the man for two years. He trusted
Shepherd and Shepherd trusted him. Charlie might want power—a lot
of people wanted power—but Shepherd was sure that wouldn’t turn him
into a killer. At least he was
pretty
sure it wouldn’t, sure
enough to place a wager on it.

And, come to think of it, he supposed that
was exactly what he
was
doing. He was betting Kate’s life
that he was right.

***

THE MAIN ENTRY to the house was up a short flight of
black granite steps directly across the courtyard from where they
had landed. At the top of the steps, a pair of glass doors was set
into a glass corridor that connected the two main wings of the
house. The effect of all that glass was undeniably spectacular,
since it provided a view all the way through the house and out to a
swimming pool set at the very center of the U-shaped structure. The
water in the pool was so blue it looked as if it had been dyed, but
no one was taking a swim or lounging in any of the teak chairs
scattered around it.

Sally Kitnarok opened one of the glass doors
and walked outside. She was wearing jeans and a man’s white shirt
with a pair of red, low-heeled sandals. Shepherd thought that was
encouraging. At least she wasn’t dolled up in Fidel Castro chic.
Who fought a civil war in jeans, a white shirt, and red sandals
anyway? On the other hand, he also thought Sally looked a little
nervous. That couldn’t be a good sign no matter what she had on her
feet.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Sally said
when they reached the top of the steps. “You should have told us
you were coming, Jack. I would have made some arrangements.”

Almost as soon as she spoke the words, Sally
realized the unintended irony of what she had said.

“I guess that was a poor choice of words,”
she quickly added. “What I meant was—”

“It’s not important, Mrs. Kitnarok,” Kate
interrupted. “We’ve come to see the general. Is he here?”

Sally cut her eyes to Shepherd, almost as if
she was asking him to give her the right answer to that question.
He nodded slightly, although he really had no idea what that was
supposed to mean. Sally seemed satisfied.

“Yes,” she said, “he is. Please come in.”

They mounted the steps and followed Sally
down the glass corridor. The last time Shepherd had walked down
that corridor it had been lined with small, terracotta sculptures
on tall pedestals that looked to him to be museum quality
pre-Columbians and a long, obviously custom-made Persian runner
covered the floor. Now the corridor was empty and it echoed
slightly from their footsteps. He wondered briefly what had become
of the sculptures and the Persian runner since he had last been
there, which caused him to start thinking about what had become of
him since he had last been there, too.

Sally led them into the living room at the
end of the corridor. The three of them took seats on three
off-white couches arranged in a U-shape facing the interior
courtyard. They each selected a separate couch and Shepherd smiled
at the unintended symbolism. Mutt and Jeff split apart. One moved
to a spot along the wall behind them from which he could watch the
corridor running back to the front door, and the other took up a
position on the front wall so that his field of view covered the
opposite direction.

Sally remained in the doorway. She was
clearly nervous and stood rubbing her hands together in a
cartoonish-looking gesture.

“Well,” she said eventually, “let me get
Charlie. He’s upstairs.”

***

NOBODY SAID ANYTHING while Sally was gone. The only
sound in the room was the ticking of a clock from somewhere.
Shepherd looked around and didn’t see a clock, which made him begin
to hope that the ticking he could hear actually
was
a
clock.

Shepherd glanced at Kate and she returned his
glance without expression. He was clueless as to what she was
thinking. Keur stared off toward the swimming pool and didn’t look
at either one of them.

If something unpleasant were going to happen,
it would happen now.

Mutt and Jeff seemed to sense the same thing.
Shepherd could hear them shifting around slightly, presumably
improving their defensive positions.

But nothing happened. Shepherd just kept
listening to that damned ticking and wondering where the clock
was.

After only a few minutes, probably less than
five, Sally returned.

“Jack,” she said, “Charlie would like to see
you alone first.”

Shepherd glanced at Kate, but she gave no
sign she had even heard. Her face was so still that she might have
been sitting there entirely alone.

“He’s upstairs in his study,” Sally
prompted.

When no one else reacted or said anything,
Shepherd nodded slowly and stood up.

“This way,” Sally said, and he followed her
out of the living room.

CHARLIE WAS DIRECTLY across from the doorway when
Shepherd walked in. He was wearing a green golf shirt and jeans and
sitting in one of a matched pair of red leather chairs that flanked
a Chinese chest on a red and blue Persian carpet. The whole
arrangement was positioned in front of a wall of glass with an
unobstructed panorama of the Andaman Sea.

Shepherd walked over and sat down in the
vacant chair.

“Hello, Charlie.”

Very slowly, Charlie turned his head away
from the windows. Shepherd thought he looked a lot older than the
last time he had seen him. He appeared drawn and weary, like a man
recovering from an unpleasant illness.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“That’s funny,” Shepherd said. “I was going
to ask you the very same question.”

“I don’t answer to you.”

“That’s true. You don’t.”

“You show up unannounced at my house, and you
bring that woman here without warning me. I thought you were my
friend.”

“I
am
your friend, Charlie. If I
weren’t your friend, I wouldn’t be here.”

Charlie grunted and waved one hand
dismissively.

“Kate is my friend, too, Charlie. You have to
understand that.”

Charlie grunted again and looked away. Then
abruptly he stood up.

“You want a cigar, Jack?”

Shepherd didn’t want a cigar, but saying no
didn’t seem the thing to do so he nodded. “Yeah, a cigar would be
nice.”

Charlie went over to the floor-to-ceiling
bookshelves lining the two sides of the room that weren’t glass and
pulled on a thick, bronze handle mounted at chest height. A
cupboard built into the bookshelves opened and Shepherd could see
that it was filled with boxes of cigars. When Charlie came back he
was carrying two Cohiba Espléndidos, each one the size of a child’s
arm. Shepherd had heard somewhere that Cohiba Espléndidos were
Fidel Castro’s favorite cigar. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign.

A cutter and a box of cedar Davidoff cigar
matches lay on the Chinese chest between their chairs next to a big
glass ashtray. Charlie handed one of the cigars to Shepherd and
then sat back down. He carefully sliced the end off his cigar,
inspected the cut like a pathologist faced with a particularly
nasty autopsy, then lit a match and puffed his cigar methodically
into life. When he was satisfied, he handed the cutter and the
matches to Shepherd and smoked quietly while Shepherd cut and lit
his own cigar.

Shepherd took several puffs, stared out the
window, and waited for Charlie to break the silence. The sky looked
hard. It was a shade of blue so steely it seemed almost
belligerent. A single cloud, thin and elongated like the remnants
of a smoke signal sent from somewhere very far away, lay just above
the horizon.

“You shouldn’t have brought her here, Jack.
No good can come of it.”

“Yes, it can. For you as much as for
anybody.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The two of you working together can stop
this, Charlie. You’re the only ones who can. That’s why Kate is
here.”

“Stop what? The government is going to fall,
Jack. My people are going to fill the streets until this country
stops functioning. Then the government will have to call a new
election and I’ll win it. It’s just that simple. There’s nothing to
stop.”

“How much does it cost to fill the streets
these days, Charlie? That’s what the money Sally picked up was for,
wasn’t it? So you could pay for your mob?”

Charlie shrugged and took a long draw on his
cigar.

“Is that your best shot, Jack? Because, if it
is, you might as well leave now. That’s the way politics works in
Thailand. People expect to be paid to demonstrate. Whether they
love you or hate you, they still expect to be paid.” He shrugged
again. “I don’t mind. I’ve got a lot of money and these people
don’t have any. It seems fair enough to me.”

“And what about the AK-47s and the grenades
and the plastic explosives you’re giving them? Does that seem fair
enough to you, too?”

Charlie chuckled and shook his head. “Get out
of here, Jack. Nobody’s giving any of these people weapons. Why
would I do that? They’d start a fucking civil war or
something.”

“I know about the plane, Charlie. We all know
about it. It will be on the ground in about another hour and so
that’s all the time we have to shut this thing down. Once they
start passing those guns around, it will be too late. Like they
say, you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube.”

“What plane? What the fuck you talking about,
Jack?”

Shepherd shook his head and looked out the
window. If Charlie was just going to sit there and deny everything,
they weren’t going to get anywhere. And somewhere downstairs that
damned clock was ticking.

“I know all about Blossom Trading. I know
about the shipments of weapons you’ve been trying to get into the
country. I know about the 737 that will be landing at Phuket in
about an hour with one more load. You’re going to kill a lot of
innocent people and become the very incarnation of the devil for a
lot more. And you’re doing it all to regain power in a country
where you’d be elected in a landslide anyway, if you would just let
it happen.”

Charlie took the cigar out of his mouth. “I
have no fucking idea what you are talking about.”

“Charlie, for God’s sake,” Shepherd snapped
at him. “This is
me
you’re talking to. I sell bullshit. I
don’t buy it.”

Charlie began to puff furiously on his
cigar.

“You little shit,” he roared. “Who the fuck
do you think you are?”

“I am your friend and I—”

“You come into my house and accuse me of
smuggling guns into Thailand. You tell me I’m going to start a war
here. What kind of man do you think I am?”

“I think you’re a man who wants to rule this
country again.”

“I am that, you motherfucker, but this
country wants me, too. I don’t need to kill anyone to become prime
minister again.”

“What about Somchai? Didn’t your people
assassinate him?”

“I had nothing to do with that,” he said.
“Nothing.”

“Come on, Charlie. Don’t try to jerk me off
here. You think the government’s people tried to kill us in Dubai,
so you—”

Charlie started to laugh.

“Give me a fucking break,” he said. “Haven’t
you figured that out yet? I thought you were supposed to be a smart
guy, Jack. Maybe you’re not. Maybe I’ve been paying you way too
much.”

Shepherd looked at Charlie and said
nothing.

“That was just a stunt,” Charlie said,
shaking his head. “Adnan organized it. We thought it might play
well with the media. You know, make me look like a hero and make
the government look bad. Like they were trying to assassinate
me.”

“Three people were killed, Charlie.”

“I don’t know what went wrong.” Charlie
refused to meet Shepherd’s eyes. “Adnan told me everybody was going
to use dummy loads, like in the movies. I don’t know anything about
that shit. I guess the security guys didn’t understand or
something. They had real bullets.”

“So you killed three people for a
stunt
.”

“I didn’t kill anybody, Jack. My bodyguards
killed three people. It was an accident. You know how it is.
There’s always somebody who doesn’t get the word.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t order the hit on
Somchai in retaliation for the hit on you?”

“I just told you, Jack, there
was
no
hit on me.”

“Then who killed Somchai?”

“I have no idea. None.”

Shepherd had the feeling there was something
Charlie wasn’t telling him.

“How about Adnan? What happened to him?” he
asked.