CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER
EARLY THE NEXT MORNING NASH and Temple were standing on the deck of the ferry, gripping the rail and staring out at the water. Thura was asleep on the deck, using his backpack as a pillow. The air was crisp on the water, and they turned their faces away from the biting wind as the sun rose.
Thura had been true to his word, getting them on the slow ferry and providing them with hooded cloaks.
When they boarded the ferry Nash had told him, “We need transportation when we get to Bhamo, preferably an all-terrain vehicle.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “What do you need it for exactly?”
“To pick someone up and take them someplace else.”
Thura raised his eyebrows at this cryptic comment. “I know a guy.”
“I thought you might.”
Thura had taken out his phone and gone over to a corner of the ferry to make a call.
Now Temple, after glancing over at the sleeping Thura, said, “What do you think he did with her body?”
Nash eyed the water where perhaps creatures that ate corpses lurked. “I don’t even want to go there. You ever travel on the Irrawaddy on your previous trips here?”
Temple shook his head. “My dad and I were in other places. Yangon and Mandalay primarily, where the money was back then. Yangon has these fabulous gilded pagodas, temples that go up, up into the sky. I mean, they look like they’re solid gold.
And then there’re modern skyscrapers and this beautiful lake, I forget the name.
It also had this ship shaped like a dragon.
It was pretty cool. We came over to develop some opportunities while I was still in college.
Nothing came out of it, but it was a learning experience. ”
“I take it this was pre–Victoria Steers?”
Temple smiled bitterly. “My old man hadn’t become involved with her.
Yet.” He stared down at the water and said in a contemplative voice, “He was an asshole back then, too, Dillon, but nothing like what he eventually became. I looked up to him. I really did,” he added, as though to convince himself.
“He was the most confident person I’ve ever met in my life.
He’d walk into any room, any meeting, didn’t matter where the hell in the world it was or who it was with, and just take over the room by the sheer force of his personality.
I’ve never seen anything like it. Biggest balls in the world. ”
“Must have set a pretty high bar for you,” noted Nash, who had seen the elder Temple do that very thing many times.
“An impossible bar,” growled Temple. “And you know how parents usually want their kids to do better than they did?”
Nash thought of his own father and nodded. “Yeah?”
“Well, not my old man. He beat me down every chance he got. I didn’t know it at the time, but after he hooked up with Steers it got really bad.
I think he was pissed at himself for losing his wealth and needing to get bailed out by her.
And he took that anger out on me. And worst of all he got me involved with her.
And I only found out about it shortly before he died. ”
“How?”
“He came right out and told me. He did it to shock me, play mind games, and also to stick it to me.” He paused. “But he did say something. . .that I wanted to believe was true, only I’m not sure I can.”
“What was that?” asked a genuinely curious Nash.
Temple held up his scarred arm. “He told me he was the one who suggested to Steers that she give me this little souvenir.”
“Damn, your own father?”
Temple glanced at him. “But the thing is, Dillon, my dad told me that Steers had originally wanted to kill me, for some mistake she claimed I made. And maybe I did. So. . .so my old man suggested that she just hack up my arm instead.” He stopped talking and stared down at the Irrawaddy.
“So your father saved your life, Rhett. That means he must have—”
“What? Loved me?” said Temple, with a snort tacked on.
“No, he didn’t love me, Dillon. But I guess he didn’t want me to get murdered by that woman, either.
In his mind it probably would have made him look bad.
And we couldn’t have that, could we?” He stopped talking for a moment and then reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and produced a photo.
He handed it to Nash. It was a picture of a lovely woman in her forties with abundant brown hair, hazel eyes, and a warm smile, who resembled Temple.
“That’s my mother, Amanda. I lied to you before. I came up with the name for Mindy’s daughter.” Temple looked out to the water, his expression unlike any Nash had ever seen on the man. It was reflective, somber, containing depth, all things he had never associated with Rhett Temple before.
“She was a wonderful person, loving, nurturing, to me and my little sister. But my half-sister Angie’s mom?
She took off when Angie was a little girl, and Angie had serious developmental issues.
And my dad didn’t like that one bit, let me tell you.
You see, he never understood Angie, never.
But when my mom married him? Well, she took care of Angie, really wonderful care, like Angie was her own flesh and blood.
And she taught me to always do the same.
And. . .and I have, because, well, other than my mother, Angie’s probably the only person I ever really loved.
” He drew a long breath, glanced at Nash with an embarrassed expression, and said, “Jesus, I know, TMI, right?”
“It’s okay, Rhett,” said Nash quietly. “It speaks well of you.”
Nash had met Amanda Temple several times before she and her husband had divorced. He had liked her, a lot, and wondered how such a nice, kind, and loving person could be married to a man who was none of those things.
Temple looked back at the water swirling past. “I. . .I guess I always connected with Angie on certain levels. And I think I know why. Wanna hear my theory?”
Nash nodded, absolutely amazed by this string of personal revelations. “Yes, I do.”
“Because neither one of us ever grew up. Angie couldn’t.
And I guess I wouldn’t. It gave us sort of a bond.
” He wagged his head, as though trying to swirl around all the thoughts running through his mind.
“When my father was going through financial hell he was panicked, out of his depth, raging at everyone. But my mom stood by him. Even when it looked like he was going to lose it all. Hell, she even went out and got a job. It was more symbolic than anything. She couldn’t exactly earn the billions of dollars that he needed.
But she did it. And then when he got back on top—with Steers’s help—do you know what he did? ”
“What?”
“He dumped my mother. Divorced her. Fought her tooth and nail in court over every dime. Worried and depressed her so much that. . .that she ended up taking her own life.”
“My God, Rhett, I’m so sorry.” And Nash truly was sorry. He had never heard this story before.
“My dad covered it up, of course. Accidental overdose. But I know better. She saw me right before she did it.”
“Did she tell you that. . .?”
He shook his head fiercely. “No. I would have stopped her. I would have . . .” He glanced at Nash. “I loved my mom. She was. . .everything to me.”
“But you still ended up working for your father?”
Temple’s expression turned grim and then resigned.
“Yeah, after all that. Money-grubbing SOB that I am. Daddy had the dollars, so that’s where little old me went.
The easy route, you know. Instead of being a real man and telling him to go fuck himself even if it cost me every penny.
” He paused. “So that’s my long-winded sob story.
How about you? Were you close with your father? ”
“Let’s just say that we didn’t see eye to eye on a lot while he was alive. But after he died things became clearer how he actually felt about me.”
Temple nodded. “Shouldn’t be this damn complicated, should it?”
“Family is actually more complicated than quantum physics, least I’ve found it so.”
“Speaking of family, what do you think of Steers and her mother? I mean, from what I’ve heard they seem tight. She had older brothers and sisters but she beat them all out to get the top spot. And now she’s trying to break the lady out of jail.”
“She said her mother’s imprisonment was political,” noted Nash.
“You believe that?”
“Right now, I believe nothing.” Nash looked around at some of the other passengers who were sleeping on the deck, or else sitting and eating and drinking some of the provisions they had brought on board.
Other travelers had animals with them: goats, chickens, dogs, sheep, pigs, and a couple of critters Nash didn’t recognize.
He said, “Who else other than the military junta, or one of the regional crews Steers mentioned, could run a prison like that?”
Temple replied, “It’s near the Chinese border. So maybe Beijing? They seem to be involved in everything.”
Nash knew from the FBI that Steers was actually working with the Chinese. But he had a thought. Maybe that’s their leverage over her: Masuyo.
“So if the Chinese control the prison, does that mean they’re actually an enemy of Steers and her family?”
Temple looked uncomfortable, something Nash was quick to pick up on.
“You have another theory?” he asked.
Temple shrugged. “Just scuttlebutt I heard.”
“Tell me.”
Temple glanced around at some of the other passengers, who did not appear to be paying them any attention. When he spoke his voice was so low Nash had to lean in to hear.
“The thing is, Dillon, most people think Steers’s mother is Japanese.”
“You mean she’s not?” Nash knew this but he wanted to hear Temple’s version.
“No, she’s Chinese.”
“How do you know that? Did Steers tell you?”
“Hell no. She never talks about stuff like that, at least not with peons like me. No, I was at this huge facility in southern California used for processing and distribution of the drugs Steers brings into the country, when I overheard two of her associates talking. They were speaking a mix of languages, Thai and English and Mandarin. Now, I’ve traveled to Asia more times than I can count and I’ve got a passable talent for linguistics, so I was able to interpret some of what they said.
Anyway, Masuyo is a Japanese name, but I heard these men refer to her as Dai Lu, which is a Chinese name.
I looked it up, and it means ‘lead the way,’” added Temple. “Makes sense, right?”
“Yeah, it does,” said Nash. The FBI had previously told him about Masuyo actually being a Chinese agent, but they had not known her Chinese name; or if they did, they had never shared it with Nash.
“But they gave their daughter the name Victoria, which, I guess, comes from her English father,” pointed out Nash.
“Exactly,” Temple said in a scornful tone. “Queen Victoria. Fitting, since the bitch acts like royalty.”
Nash thought of the woman with the burned flesh standing over him that night. “From what you told me before, the kingdom wasn’t handed to her. She had to fight for it.”
“I’m not saying she’s not tough, she is. And ruthless and a killer. Which means since we have now gone off-grid from her plan we have giant bullseyes on our backs.”
A few hours later Temple plopped down on the deck and, like Thura, used his backpack as a pillow before falling asleep.
Amid all the noise, including sheep bleating and pigs grunting and the related odors that assailed him from all corners, Nash stood by the railing and looked out at the Irrawaddy, which flowed north to south, roughly cleaving Myanmar in half.
There were a lot of boats out there, from big ferries to personal craft to a single fisherman balancing on what looked like a few boards as he cast his line into the water looking for food to either eat or sell.
It seemed like every few minutes the ferry put into shore, where some got on and others got off.
The slow rocking of the boat combined with the growing heat finally overwhelmed Nash, and he sat with his back to the railing and closed his eyes.
He jerked awake when something touched his arm.
Temple and Thura were both staring down at him. As Nash looked around he could see that night had fallen.
Thura said quietly, “Bhamo is the next stop. About five minutes.”
Nash nodded and stood, stretching out his cramped limbs and trying to forget about his empty belly. They had left too early to get a meal at the hotel, and they’d had no provisions to bring on board.
“Hopefully, we can get something to eat in Bhamo,” he said as his stomach rumbled.
Thura nodded. “There’s a place we can walk to. Good food.”
Five minutes later, as they were trudging off the boat and onto land, Temple said, “I hope you have a plan for tomorrow, Dillon. Or else this might be our last stop in Myanmar.”
The thing was, Nash did have a plan. Now I just have to see if it works.
But he needed one other thing, and he asked Thura if it was possible.
“For a price,” said Thura. “Like the vehicle. I know another guy in Bhamo.”
“Good,” said Nash. “In tight spots it’s always fortunate to know guys who have the things you need.”