Fifty-five years after the end of World War Two, the Burmese jungles still holds bloody secrets...
When wealthy businessman and former Japanese POW interrogator Tetsu Kamata offers to make reparation for abusing his Allied prisoners, he is recognised by former POW Peregrine Harrison. Harrison never got over his maltrestment at Kamata's hands and has dreamed of killing him ever since. Now he has his chance.
M16 officer Sam Packer is diverted from his hunt for an ex-SAS drug trader and given the order to stop Harrison. The search takes him deep into Harrison's past and to the poppy fields of the Golden Triangle. To save Kamata from execution Packer must penetrate an alien and hostile world, a quest which brings him face to face with the very drug lords who have sworn to kill him...
Friday, 31 December
Millennium Eve
Sam was woken by the daylight streaming in though the cabin window. Instantly alert, he sat up and peered out, fearing their neighbour might have slipped away in the night. But the Estelle was still there.
He swung his legs to the floor and listened. Rigging pinged against a mast nearby, signifying a breeze. Its sound triggered a yearning to be under sail.
The space where Midge had lain was empty. He found her in the galley making coffee, still wearing the tee-shirt and briefs she'd slept in. The sight of her neat behind and slim brown thighs as she stuck bread under the grill brought him fully awake.
'Been up long?' He rubbed his eyes. The bulkhead clock said 7.15
'Half the bloody night. You were snoring like a walrus.'
'Sorry.'
'How does Julie put up with it?'
'Elbows me in the ribs and I turn over. If you hadn't been so against laying your hands on my body...'
'Yeah, yeah...'
'Any sign of life next door?'
'Nope.' She turned and looked quizzically at him. 'Who d'you reckon sleeps with whom over there?'
'Jimmy has Jan,' said Sam firmly.
'You'd think. Only he's not getting any. That guy was gagging for it last night. Ad why itch to make out with me if he had that little Thai poppet to play with?'
'Maybe you've got a better bum.'
She raised a contemptuous eyebrow. 'Seriously, I don't get the impression Jan's his playmate. She's more like a minder.'
'And Vicky?'
'Does the cooking-and anything else Nige wants. Looks to me like he found her in some bar. Not a very classy bar at that.'
'Thai police have anything o them?'
'Nothing useful. They tailed Jimmy to the airport, which is where Jan joined him. But they don't know who she is. The name on her ticket didn't fit anything on official records.'
'So,' Sam murmured, taking the coffee Midge offered him, 'where do we go from here, Inspector?'
'Whatever happens, we stick with him.'
'And if he doesn't tell us where he's going.'
Then I'll have to make it clear I just can't bear to be parted from him.' She set her jaw, her eyes steely with determination.
After they'd breakfasted and tidied the saloon, she handed him the wrench he'd used on the engine.
'I found this on the floor. Don't want to nag, but it probably has a home.'
'Leave it by the cooker and I'll put it away in a while.'
They washed, put on short and fresh tee-shirts, then went on desk to top up the water tank from a hose on the pontoon.
It was well after nine before Squires made an appearance, leaning over the rail of the Estell's sundeck. When he spoke, there was a coolness to his voice that made them both uneasy.
'Off short, are you?'
'We were just talking about that,' Sam hedge. 'What about you?'
'The girls have gone shopping. Nige and I plan to relax until they get back. He's still in his pit, lazy bugger. Then we'll see. Might go north to Phang Nga, maybe over to Phi-Phi. Jan's got a friend visiting today.'
Sam's antennae twitched. There'd been no mention of a visitor last night.
'We still going to be able to toast the Millennium with you guys tonight?' Midge checked, stepping onto the foredeck and spreading out a towel to lie on.'
'Maybe.' As Squires watched her apply cream to her legs, he smiled like a man who's spotted a trap but who reckoned falling into it might be rather pleasurable. He turned his attention to Sam again. 'By the way, Steve, I was interested in what you were saying last night.'
There was something distinctly disingenuous about the way Squires said it.
'Anything in particular?'
'How you preserve confidentiality when you're hiding clients' money...'
It was as if Squires was testing him on his cover story, but he played along. No alternative. He talked about nominee holding and anonymous accounts. Squires listened hard, putting in questions every few minutes.
'Interested for yourself?' Sam queried
The drug trader half-smiled and shook his head. 'For a friend.'
A charade, but it couldn't be him that ended it. As he turned to enter the saloon Squires called after him.
'While you're at it, give me one of Beth's too.'
Sam rummaged in his bag for the visiting cards they'd printed the previous day. Then he felt the boat rock slightly. He looked through the window. Jimmy Squires had come aboard. Midge had sat up and was making room for him on the deck.
Sam re-emerged with the cards in his hand. Midge shot him at glare that said to leave her to get o with her seduction, so he climbed up to the bridge and pretended to busy himself with charts and the pilot book. Over on the Estelle Nige had surfaced. He was facing away from them, his eyes on the shore. Sam followed his gaze and saw the women returning. Squires had spotted them too and was hunching forward in anticipation.
Jan's 'friend' turned out to be male. An oriental, dressed in a while polo shirt and dark trousers. He strode purposefully towards them, scowling at their foredeck as if there was something seriously amiss there which needed dealing with immediately.
Sam sensed things were about to go horribly wrong. He saw the alarm on Midge's face and watched her pull her knees to her chest in an instinctive move to protect herself. He guessed she'd recognised the man.
By the time he'd clattered down to the deck, Squires was on his feet. Midge too, clutching the towel to her chest.
'Scuse me a minute...' she whispered, trying to slip away.
Squires hooked an arm round her and pinned her to his side.
'Don't disappear, darlin'. This bloke spends a lot of time in Singapore. You'll have things to talk about.'
The man approaching them looked more Chinese than Thai. A hard, square face with slicked back hair. He marched along the line of boats like a military commander, a small leather attache case under his arm.
Midge began to panic. 'Get off me!' she snapped, struggling to escape Squires' grip. But the drug-runner had no plans to let her go.
Sam sprang forward and wrenched Squires' arm from her shoulders. Midge ducked away and stumbled across the deck towards the saloon. The former soldier bunched his fists.
'I don't know who the fuck you two jokers are, my friend...' He raised his right hand as if to give it to Sam full on the nose, but instead the fingers formed into the shape of a pistol which he jabbed against the middle of his forehead. 'But if I come across you again, you're dead!'
Holding his gaze for a couple of seconds, he turned away and hopped onto the pontoon, a hand snaking out to greet his guest.
Sam ducked inside the saloon, heart pounding. Midge was scrabbling through lockers. 'Handset...' she hissed. 'Where the fuck's the...?'
Sam pilled the police radio from a drawer and gave it to her
'Tell me...'
'Know his face.' She turned the set on. 'From photos in the files. Works for Yang Lai, the guy I was telling you about. Golden Triangle. He's number two or three in the organisation. Name's Hu Sin. And for some reason I can't explain, the bastard seems to know me.'
From outside there was an explosive roar as the Estelle's engines started up. Sam heard feet on the deck and spun round.
Hu Sin filled the doorway. In his hand was a gun, its barrel extended by a silencer.
Sam stopped breathing. Midge had the handset to her mouth, but couldn't speak, transfixed by the pistol levelled at her head.
Packer backed against the galley counter, remembering the wrench they'd left on the worktop. Fingers closing round its shaft, he lunged forward, cracking it down on Hu Sin'a arm.
The man yelped and the gun clattered to the floor. Midge unfroze and made a dive for it. His face twisting with pain, Hu Sin spun round and fled the saloon. The policewoman grappled with the pistol and took aim.
'Leave him!' Sam snapped. He's not the one you want.
They heard the clunk of feet on the finger pontoon as mooring lines were freed. Then the engine noise declined as the Estelle reversed from the berth.
'Fuck!' Midge hissed. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck!'
'How does he know you?' Sam growled, furious at coming so close to death for a cause she'd told him so little about.
'I don't know...' she howled. Then she caught herself, put a fist to her mouth and closed her eyes. She'd remembered.
Through the wide stern window of the saloon they saw the Estelle accelerate away. Jimmy Squires was at the wheel. On the cruiser's aft deck Jan and Hu Sin stood side by side, the man talking on a mobile phone, the woman clicking with a long-lensed camera.
Sam turned his face away. Theirs was a photos album he had no wish to grace.....
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