Part 52 (1/2)

By Burmese standards, Mandalay, just over a mere century old, was a recent city. Yet, lying athwart the upper Irrawaddy in the north, it had quickly become the center of all trading, being in the midst of the rice-growing districts. Still, its climate was often so dry that the sky was turned ochre by plumes of dust kicked up by ancient vehicles.

Mandalay nevertheless held a magic incomparable in the Burmese heart. It was said that it was to Mandalay that Gautama Buddha journeyed in order to announce that on the twenty-four-hundredth anniversary of his death the world's largest center of Buddhist teaching would spring up at the foot of Mandalay Hill.

This legend was the kind of thing the British dismissed out of hand as so much Asian mumbo jumbo. When they took over the city in 1885, they renamed the Royal Palace Fort Dufferin and made barracks of the sacred chambers. Mustachioed batmen diligently polished their officers' boots in lemon-scented corridors where, before, holy voices had echoed. The commandants unsheathed their Wilkerson swords, touching tips and shouting Hallelujah! Another outpost of the Empire had been secured.

In the early spring of 1945 the British sh.e.l.led the fortressthen defended by a handful of j.a.panese and Burmese soldiers. The gunners did such a thorough job that today only the outer walls and the moat remain.

This is what Tony Simbal was thinking of as he looked down upon the ruins of the Royal Palace, a perfect square whose walls faced in the four cardinal directions. He was studying the spot he knew to be the Lion's Room, the central throne room where the British general Prendergast led his horse when King Thibaw was forced into exile in the winter of 1885. The nervous animal's steaming droppings soiled a carpet many hundreds of years old brought to Mandalay from the ancient capital of Amarapura. The general thought it just as well. The weavers' detailed depiction of the Theraveda arhats or saints made him uneasy and he had it burned without a pang of remorse.

If one faced the Royal Palace today, Simbal thought, one could still catch a whiff of burning material.

To the east, the umber sky withheld its promise of rain. The achingly dry ground was cracked beneath a glaring sun, so many mouths crying silently for moisture. Simbal, in white sea-island cotton s.h.i.+rt, bush shorts and st.u.r.dy, high-topped leather hiking shoes, waited while Max Threnody laboriously climbed the hill.

The heat was intense and by the time Threnody made it up, his khaki s.h.i.+rt was soaked through. He wiped at his brow with an oversize handkerchief already darkened by many such moppings.

”Christ,” he said, ”but this is a G.o.dforsaken place.”

”On the contrary,” Simbal said, still staring at the palace ruins, ”it is quite near the place where G.o.d dwells.”

”And where might that be?” Threnody said sarcastically.

”There.” Simbal pointed to the northwest, where the purple mountains rose upward from the vast Irrawaddy plain.

”The Shan?” Threnody snorted, s.h.i.+fting on his feet. He wished desperately to get out of the sun. ”Christ, the only thing worth anything up there kills people.”

”Really?” Simbal was in no mood for his former boss's monodirectional thinking. ”There's power up there. Real power. The kind people like you can only dream of, The mountain knows that secret better than any of us.”

”I suppose,” Threnody said, ”that people like you don't covet such power.”

Simbal turned to look at him. The heat somehow made his eyesseem to pop even more. As a child, Simbal had once had a tropical fish tank. His uncle had brought him a pair of beautiful velvet-finned goggle-eyed goldfish. Simbal had loved them but one night he had gone out and inadvertently left the grow light on over the tank. When he returned, the goldfish were dead, bloated grotesquely, parboiled in the heat. Threnody reminded him of those fish now. ”I'm surprised you came.”

”Frankly, you didn't leave me any choice.” Threnody thrust his hands into his trousers' pockets. ”By the way, the Cuban's p.i.s.sed ash.e.l.l at you.”

”I'll try not to cry,” Simbal said. ”He'll get over it.” Threnody peered at him through his thick gla.s.ses. ”Do I detect a bit of hostility, Tony?”

Simbal reached into one oversize s.h.i.+rt pocket, deposited three photographs into Threnody's hand. They were black and white with the kind of grain brought about by blowing up a section of a negative. Also, they had the absolutely flat aspect produced by a long lens. They were surveillance photos Simbal had taken of a handsome man in his mid-thirties with clear, intelligent eyes, an all-American nose, a sensitive mouth. The bit of slightly out-of-focus background made it clear that the subject was photographed just outside the Royal Palace. ”So this is where he is,” Threnody said.

”Just like you, Max,” Simbal said shortly. ”Not, *My, he's still alive.' ” His eyes burned bright.

”What earthly good would that serve,” Threnody said. ”The fact is, Peter Curran is alive.” He glanced down at the photos Simbal had handed him. ”We'd better put whatever surprise we may feel behind us. I want him and you're going to get him for me.” ”Just like that?”

”Don't take that righteous tone with me,” Threnody said sharply. ”What kind of business do you think you're in, Tony? Do you suppose we're all gentlemen here, meticulously saying *please' and *thank you' and not getting in each other's way?”

”You used me.” Simbal's tone was accusatory. ”You used Monica and Martine to keep track of me.”

”Congratulations,” Threnody said, ”you've deciphered the language of your trade. Better late than never, Tony. Yes, I had a job to do. I used all the resourcesyou, Monica, the Cubanat my disposal. That's what the government pays me to do.” ”A f.u.c.king dirty job it is.”

”Should I say, *But someone's got to do it'? It's true.” He put the photos of Curran away. ”You have no legitimate complaints, you know. It's your job, as well.”

”But you're DEA, Max,” Simbal said. ”In case you've forgotten, Martine is a SNIT. That's CIA. The Company and the DEA are always miles apart on everything. You'd better tell me what I'm missing.”

”All in good time,” Threnody said. ”Now that we're both here you'll hear the whole nine yards.”

Simbal watched a line of saffron-robed monks moving slowly past one of the palace's twelve gates. Their shaven heads gleamed in the dusty sunlight. He thought of what the British had done to the Golden City, s.h.i.+t all over the rug from Amarapura.

”The Burmese,” he said after a time, ”practice a certain form of Buddhism. In Theraveda, there is no all-powerful G.o.d. One cannot even pray for the benevolence of Buddha. There can be no divine intervention. Salvation is entirely in the hands of the individual.

”All life is suffering, the Theraveda Buddhists believe. Life and death are opposite sides of samsara, the rebirth. There is only one way out of the perpetual cycle of misery and that is strict adherence to Buddha's sacred teaching, the Dharma. One must diligently follow the paths laid out by the arhats, the saints and the boddhisatvas, the Buddhas-to-be. Only then may one reach nirvana.

”Today, even here at the center of the world, perhaps it is only the monks who practice such a pure form of Theravada Buddhism.”

”And you are one of them, aren't you, Tony?” Threnody wiped at his face again. ”You're high above the ma.s.ses. You're on the Shan, on the mountainside, looking down at all the pathetic little ants crawling slowly along, going about the daily routines by which they must live.”

”Is that what you think of me?”

”Oh, come off it, Tony. You're a G.o.dd.a.m.ned elitist. Do yourself a favor and admit that much, at least.”

The monks were turning a corner. They were all in step, the many with one mind.

”Do you know who Peter Curran came here to meet at dawn?” Simbal said.

”Surprise me.”

”Edward Martin Bennett.”

”Well, well,” Threnody said, ”there's something the vetting department failed to turn up.”

”What does the diqui want with them?”

”Are you kidding, Tony? With what they stole from the DEA computer the diqui will have clear drug runs for months until we rearrange all our Asian networks.”

”I don't think this has anything to do with drugs, Max.”

”I don't care what it has to do with,” Threnody said. ”Terminate them and be done with it.” He waited for Simbal's head to swing around, the eyes to contemplate him. One thing you had to say for the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Simbal thought, he had great timing. ”It's time for us to have a little talk, Tony. Heart to heart, so to speak,”

”I don't think Chen Ju is our most immediate problem.”

Three Oaths lumbered across the teak deck of his new junk, delivering tea that Neon Chow had made.

”As of this morning Bluestone has increased his share of InterAsia to just over forty percent.”

”I wonder where he's getting all that capital?” Jake said as he took a meditative sip of the steaming tea.

Three Oaths recited the list of investors given to him by Bent-Nose Su. ”There's enough money in there to buy all of Hong Kong if necessary.”

Jake was aware of the anxiety in the other's voice. ”Bobby Chan, Six-Toe Ping, Sir Byron Nolin-Kelly, Dark Leong Lau. Impressive. Still,” he mused, ”there has got to be a limit to the amount of liquid a.s.sets even Bluestone's combine can sink into one project.”

”They only need nine percent more to gain control,” Three Oathssaid.

”That would make it thirteen million shares, give or take. What's the current price on the Hang Seng of InterAsia?”