Jake Maroc - Shan Part 54

"As far as any of my people are concerned," Threnody said, "I'm still there full time. They know I'm grooming Boxer as my eventual replacement."

"David Boxer?"

"Yes. You know him, of course."

"What's he been told?"

"That my doctors say I need to take it easy, ease myself out of full-time involvement. He's most solicitous. And very good. I have no worries there."

Simbal watched the colored light dripping from Max Threnody's face. He had always wondered what it would be like to have his world turned upside down. Now that it was happening he knew it was nothing like the fantasy. "What's going on, Max? Why are you here?"

"In a moment, Tony. First, I feel I need explain something to you. The President was not happy when I mentioned your name for this."

"Why?"

"As I said, you and Donovan come from the same club. You'rea.s.shole buddies."

"This is about Donovan, then?"

"I told the President that in this case I thought it might work in ourfavor. I told him I was banking on you, Tony, On your smarts, your honesty, your sense of justice. You're a G.o.dd.a.m.ned paladin, Tony. You like nothing better than to get on your white horse and have at the man in black." He paused significantly. "No matter their ident.i.ty."

"I see you won out."

"I know you better than the President does," Threnody said. "Besides, this all rests on my shoulders."

Below them lights were on in a square. A bunch of teenagers, naked to the waist, were playing chinlon. It was the Burmese national sport and something of a mania among the young. They pa.s.sed a ball made of woven sugar-cane leaves from one to another using complicated strokes that involved only the feet and the knees.

"Max, what the h.e.l.l is all this leading up to?"

"I think your bossRodger Donovanis working for the other side."

In the square, the kid with the ball had stepped outside the circle drawn in the dust. It had a diameter of six-and-a-half meters and he lost points for his misstep. Points were also subtracted if the ball hit the ground. One gained points from the degree of difficulty of the strokes one performed while one had the ball.

Simbal, watching the chinlon game, felt sorry for the kid. It was a close game and now he was out of contention for the lead. Then he realized that it was really himself for whom he was feeling sorry.

"I noticed," Threnody said evenly, "that you haven't said *You're out of your mind.' "

"Yet," Simbal said. The kid, rattled by his mistake, let the ball slip off the side of his foot. It bounced in the dirt and a hooting went up. Now he'd have no chance at all. "What makes you suspect Rodger?"

"Quite simply, it begins and ends with a painting," Threnody said. "Except that it's far from simple."

"I don't understand,"

"Do you recall the painting Donovan put up in his office when he took over as director of the Quarry?"

"Sure. It's a Seurat," Simbal said, bringing to mind the conversation he'd had with Donovan. "But it's only a copy."

"Says who?"

"Donovan."

"Then he's a liar," Threnody said. "It's the genuine article."

"I hope to G.o.d you don't suspect him because it's too expensive for a man on a governmental salary to have," Simbal said. "Donovan comes from money."

Threnody waved a hand in the air. "Of course not. Money has nothing to do with it. The thing is, I've seen that painting before. Years ago I was stationed in Paris. Even then I was hot on the Impressionists. I haunted the galleries, museums. And auctions! My G.o.d, I'd've sold my soul to go to just one more.

"That was the only time I cheated on the service. Even in the middle of the business day, I'd sneak off to any art auction I could get to. That's where I saw this Seurat. It was sold at auction. Sold to a beautiful woman with stormy gray eyes and thick honey-colored hair. I remember her well for a number of reasons. I wanted that Seurat but I am not like your friend, Donovan. I did not come from a monied family, I didn't go to the right schools." He laughed a little but there was a tinge of something dark there, as well, perhaps regret. "I was born on the wrong side of the tracks. I could only look longingly at the daughters of the Boston brahmins and wonder what it was that made them superior to me and my old man. Of course, in a law office on the Hill you never came home with a face black with coal dust and hands so callused by manual labor they looked like rhinoceros horn.

"But by the time I got out of college I knew my painters and, by G.o.d, I loved that Seurat. I coveted it even though there was no way I could have afforded it. So instead I concentrated on the buyer."

"The blonde."

"The blonde," Threnody affirmed. "Then I got interested in her for another reason. I recognized the face. I'd been doing some extracurricular research in regard to an operation that was getting somewhat strange. The Russians were apparently involved. More specificially the KGB.

"Which is where," Threnody said, "I'd come across that face. The Seurat had been bought by a KGB lieutenant by the name of Daniella Vorkuta."

Down below the moths were batting themselves to death in the lighted-up square. The kids should have been hoa.r.s.e by now with all the shouting but the noise, like the energies involved, seemed indefatigable. Looking down there, Simbal saw that the kid who had made the two miscues had rebounded and was in the forefront of the pack again. He wished that he was that young and resilient again.

"That's the sum of what you have on Rodger?" he asked after a time. "That he has a Seurat that you saw purchased by a KGB lieutenant years ago in Paris?"

"At the same time Rodger Donovan was there," Threnody said. "Idid some subsequent checking. Lieutenant Daniella Vorkuta was in Paris on recruitment a.s.signment. Her official t.i.tle then was second cultural attache, so she moved in some high-powered circles."

"And the Seurat?"

Threnody shrugged. "Recruits like to be romanced. It's part of the game. They all want something tangible the first time out. It's like testing the water, seeing how warm and inviting it is. The Seurat was most likely a gift."

"Some gift!"

"A measure of how important Donovan could be to them." Threnody reached into a pocket, withdrew a sweat-darkened envelope. "And believe me he lived up to his potential, Tony. It's all in there, copies of blown operations, crucial intelligence leaked. It's all very cleverly worked out, of course."

Simbal looked down at the envelope Threnody had placed on the table. "Why hasn't he been caught before this?"

Threnody shrugged. "What would you have me say, Tony? We're stupid. All of us in every service. We stumble blindly on. We all bungle things. As is true in every bureaucracy we f.u.c.k up more things than we get right. I admit I stumbled into this. Without the Seurat there'd be no suspicion. At least not in Donovan's direction."

"What do you want me to do?" In the square the game was over. The kid Simbal had been following had pulled it out, his last three strokes blowing away all compet.i.tion. Good for you, Simbal thought.

"He's killing us, Tony," Threnody said. "He's sucking our blood like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned vampire, bleeding us dry. It can't go on. He must be terminated. Quickly, efficiently, discreetly."

The boy for whom Simbal had been waiting had come. He quickly threaded his way around the tables. He came up to Simbal and grinned. He was from one of the mountain tribes near Mogok, where they mined the gemstones for which Burma was so justly famous. He looked into Simbal's face and grinned. Embedded into his front teeth were a heart-shaped ruby the color of pigeon blood and a diamond-shaped piece of Mogaung Imperial jade.

"They're on the move," Simbal said, rising. The boy had been watching the place where Curran and Bennett were holed up. "I gottago.; "To the Shan," Threnody said.

"That's where they're headed," Simbal said. "I've no doubt." Threnody looked up at him. He scooped up the envelope, held it out. "He's a bad one, Tony. The worst."

Simbal, with the kid pulling at his sleeve, took the envelope. "I'll take a look at what you've got."

"There isn't much time."

"What do you mean?"

"Go on, Tony," Threnody said. "The Shan is calling. The land where G.o.d dwells."

"Far from where Rodger Donovan is."

"That's part of the briefing. The last part," Threnody said. "My people, who are keeping tabs on Donovan, tell me he'll be here in a matter of hours."

"But why?" Simbal asked.

"That I don't know. In fact, I really don't care. The important thing, Tony, is for you to take immediate action."

"I haven't agreed to anything," Simbal said. "I'm here to track Bennett and Curran down. Do I have to say it again? I don't work for you anymore,"

"It's all there." Threnody's forefinger tapped the manila envelope. "Rodger Donovan's a traitor, Tony. A lot of people have died because of him." Threnody's gaze was steady. "You bring Bennett and Curran down. G.o.d knows they deserve it." It was a look Simbal had seen before. "But it's Donovan that the President and I are concerned about now. We want him gone." It was the look Threnody got when he had decided to take the leash off his bulldog and give him his head.

The old man had skin like gold leaf. The sun and winds racing along the Shan plateau had burnished him in precisely the same manner he burnished the products of his labor.

He was an artisan of the old school, a Burmese fast disappearing from even this remote sector of the country. He was a master lacquerware maker. He had been born in Pagan where, it was said, his art traveled into Burma sometime during the first century A.D. via Chinese of the Nan-ch'ao Empire, whose great-great-great-grandchildren now inhabited Yunnan.

Nowadays, the pearl-gray liquid, tapped from the thitsi tree in similar fashion to the way latex is extracted from the rubber tree, was wrapped around wooden or bamboo frames. This man still did his work the way his grandfather had, using twists of horsehair as his base so that the finished product possessed a marvelously flexible quality.

Jake spent some time squatting beside the old man. He had brought with him two bottles of Johnnie Walker Black and four cartons of American cigarettes, which lay between the old man's legs.

The old man did most of the talking, Jake nodding and occasionally asking a question while he watched the ancient hands deftly molding the lacquer, black when it combined with the atmosphere, around the horsehair.

Above, the sky was the color of cat's-eye, great ma.s.ses of cloud dimming out all blue. Perhaps it was all the foliage which turned the sky yellow or perhaps the dust along the plateau, great wings hanging like gauze turned by an artist's hand.

After a time, Jake stood up and went a little distance away from the end of the open-air market where traditional plaid silk scarves and opium weights were displayed for sale. In the shade of an overhanging tree Bliss waited. "He knows," Jake said. "He's heard of Chen Ju. Although he's not known by that name here. He's known as the Naga. Very G.o.dd.a.m.ned melodramatic. The great serpent out of Asian myth."

"Jake."

"Uncle Tommy knows where to find the Naga," Jake went on. All Burmese had American names and were known by them. "We're not far. It's just about"

"Jake." Bliss took his arm, led him around to the other side of the tree, where they were screened from the villagers. "What is it? Since that night on my father's junk you haven't said a word about anything besides Chen Ju. You haven't slept, you've eaten next to nothing. You have a look in your eyes that frightens me."

"It's nothing."

"As nothing as what happened at McKenna's?"

"What about that?"

"You were never so callous. Never so, I don't know, maybe s.a.d.i.s.tic is the word."

"I didn't enjoy what I did."

"No," she said, "perhaps not. But perhaps you could have considered another alternative."

"There was none. I told you White-Eye Kao was trained by a master."

"If that were truly the case, he would have died rather than reveal anything."

Jake watched her for a time. He was aware of the women in longyi, their faces roughly painted with pale yellow pigment. They watted upon the old man as if he were the Buddha himself.

"What are you saying."

"I am saying nothing," Bliss said steadfastly. Ever since they had come here she had gotten the impression that Jake was spoiling for afight. "What I am asking you to do is consider the possibility that White-Eye Kao told you just what he was ordered to tell you."

"Chen Ju wants me here."

"Perhaps, yes."

"But, why?" Jake asked. "It makes no sense to lead me to where he is. Far better for him to attempt to take over InterAsia by proxy as he is doing."

"He is afraid of you," she said. "Here, he can destroy you so much more easily than in Hong Kong. And there is no one to make an inquiry."

"It's stupid," Jake insisted. "And Chen Ju is not stupid." He had continued to watch her and now he caught something in her expression that he could not let go. "Unless you know something that I don't."

Bliss turned away. How to tell him about what had happened with his father? How to prepare him for da-hei? "I" And then she shut her mouth. She knew, with a terrible, sinking feeling that there was no way to prepare him for what she had to tell him. But why shouldn't he understand. How many times had she seen him slip into ba-mahk? Wasn't da-hei similar?

"You've changed," he said.

"As have you. I hope you still remember what it was like when we were together."

Something she said pierced him like an arrow and he let go of her, sliding until he was crouched down, his back against the bole of the tree.

Bliss knelt beside him. "Jake," she said, "what is it?"

"I don't know."

She knew it for a lie and foolishly told him so before she thoughtabout it.

"You know everything now, don't you?" he flared. "You knew when White-Eye Kao was lying and when he was telling the truth. Now you have divined a change in me. What else do you know that you aren't telling me?"

Bliss could have bitten her tongue for saying what she had. "Don't you have it backward?" she said softly. "It is you who can divine the truth. With ba-mahk you"

"No."

"What?"

"I no longer possess the ability to enter into ba-mahk." His face was in shadow but she did not need to see his expression to hear the bitterness in his voice.

"Is that what it's all about?"

He turned to her. "Is it so little?"

She put her arm through his. "Now you sound like a small boy who has lost his favorite teddy bear."

"I feel like a man suddenly gone blind."