Chapter 1 #3
The jungle buzzed with insect life, and the air tasted of green growing things and rich earth, the sweetness from flowering vines competing with the sharper scents of decomposition and animal musk.
Wong gathered them in a tight circle for final instructions.
“Radio silence from this point forward. Hand signals only until we reach the village.” His gaze pinned to hers.
“Stay within sight of the person ahead. Don’t investigate sounds or movement I haven’t cleared.
If we encounter hostiles, drop to the ground and remain motionless until I give the all clear. ”
Familiar pre-mission adrenaline stirred inside her despite the oppressive heat. Her camera bag was impossibly heavy, the strap cutting into her shoulder.
Only ten miles to go.
On foot.
They began moving through the jungle toward Myanmar.
About ten minutes in, Chloe noticed Tobias stumble slightly ahead of her. His hands trembled as he gripped his medical bag.
“You okay?” she whispered, barely audible over the symphony of insects and the squelch of boots in mud that never quite dried despite the scorching temperatures.
“Fine. Just tired.”
But when he looked back, she caught something in his expression—a slight confusion, as if he wasn’t entirely sure where they were.
They’d been walking for two hours when the jungle’s character began to change. The oppressive heat remained, but the sounds shifted—fewer birds, more insects, an underlying tension that skittered beneath her skin.
“Contact ahead,” Wong whispered, bringing the entire column to an immediate halt.
Chloe pressed against a tree trunk, feeling the rough bark through her soaked shirt as she tried to control her breathing.
Voices echoed through the trees ahead—multiple speakers, too distant to identify language or intent but close enough to suggest organized movement. Military or paramilitary forces, advancing through territory they controlled.
She watched Tobias take cover behind a fallen log. His entire body seemed to shiver, or tremble.
Huh. She knew the man—he couldn’t be that afraid . . .
The voices grew closer, accompanied by the sound of equipment and heavy footsteps crushing vegetation. The air carried new odors—gun oil and unwashed bodies, a too-familiar mixture of tobacco and cheap soap that seemed to follow military units regardless of nationality.
She blamed her history of too many war-zone assignments for that piece of insight.
Move along, move—
“Drop your weapons and come out slowly.”
The command came in accented English, delivered with the authority of someone accustomed to immediate obedience.
Oh.
Maybe if she didn’t move—
And then, just like that, they were surrounded. Soldiers—maybe a dozen of them, armed, but not in the fatigues of the Tatmadaw. Still, weapons trained on them.
Captain Wong stepped out of his hiding place, hands up. “Don’t. Shoot.”
But even as he said it, the sharp copper taste of fear filled her mouth.
And all she could think was . . . she should have answered her phone.
What on earth was he doing here?
Again.
Easton “Skeet” Blackwood stood outside a second-floor apartment in one of Chiang Mai’s working-class neighborhoods, raising his fist to knock on Chloe Silver’s door.
Chloe’s apartment sat above a charming white villa like a secret hideaway, accessible by an external staircase that curved up past flowering hibiscus and hanging baskets of purple petunias. A little haven in the middle of a busy street.
Beyond the gated entrance, the narrow soi stretched out—concrete buildings pressed together like dominoes waiting to fall. The ground floor housed noodle shops, motorcycle-repair stalls, and tiny convenience stores that spilled goods onto cracked sidewalks.
Banana trees and scraggly bougainvillea sprouted from every gap between buildings.
The air hung thick with competing aromas—grilling pork from a cart vendor, diesel fumes from passing songthaews, the sweet rot of overripe mangoes.
And underneath it all, fish sauce. The base note that seemed to live in Thailand’s concrete.
Two days. Two days Chloe had been missing—at least, according to her crazy-worried sister Selah. But yeah, he got it. In Myanmar territory, two days missing meant the odds shifted from rescue to recovery.
Nope. Not today. Mission failure wasn’t an option.
“You look for Miss Chloe?”
He turned.
A woman emerged from the apartment below and climbed up the stairs. Seventy-something, with sharp eyes that missed nothing. She wore a traditional Thai blouse in faded blue and enough gold jewelry to suggest modest prosperity.
“Yes, ma’am. I’m a friend from America. Her family’s worried.”
“I am Mrs. Saetang. She live upstairs six months now.” She studied him.
His carefully chosen outfit—worn jeans, wrinkled polo shirt, canvas sneakers, and a Bangkok University baseball cap pulled low—was meant to suggest backpacker or English teacher.
Her eyes narrowed. “You are not teacher.”
Aw. “No, ma’am.”
“Military?”
Right. “Was.”
That earned him a nod. The scent of jasmine incense drifted up from her open doorway and mixed with cooking smells from inside. His stomach clenched with memory.
He hadn’t come to Thailand to eat, for Pete’s sake.
“Miss Chloe, she is good girl. Work very hard for sick people. But she ask many questions. Make people worry.”
“What kind of questions?”
“About children who get sick. Who die.” Mrs. Saetang glanced toward the busy soi before stepping closer. Her voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “She show me pictures. Very bad pictures. Children sick, mothers crying.”
His chest tightened. Maybe some kind of epidemic. Had to be connected to why she’d crossed into Myanmar.
“When did you last see her?”
“Two days ago. She pack big bag with camera.” Genuine concern layered the old woman’s voice. “A man come for her. Dangerous man.”
“Free Burma Rangers?”
Her eyes sharpened. “You know these men?”
“I know their reputation. They’re good folk—”
“They find trouble.” Mrs. Saetang shook her head. “I tell her, young ladies should not go to places where they go. There’s a war there. She say someone must tell truth.”
Classic war-correspondent mentality. Truth over survival. Sheesh. No wonder Selah had sent him after her. If she were his sister, he’d hide her passport.
“She leave anything behind? Notes, contacts?”
“You come.” Mrs. Saetang produced a key from a bowl near the door. “I have spare for emergencies.”
He supposed this felt like an emergency.
The lock turned with a soft click. A small place, with afternoon light streaming through thin window curtains. A one-bedroom with a wooden floor, small kitchen, and an apartment sofa, a round table big enough for two wooden chairs, and books piled on the floor.
He walked into the bedroom. A single bed.
A throw rug. And on the other wall, a sort of investigative obsession.
Photographs of sick children—dozens of them—covered every available surface, pinned in clusters with colored string connecting faces to locations.
And on a whiteboard propped on a table shoved against the wall, a crude hand-drawn map of the Myanmar border region marked with red dots.
GPS coordinates written in precise block letters.
Medical symptoms listed in columns. Timelines sketched in multiple colors.
“She work on this every night,” Mrs. Saetang said. “Lonely. Just pictures and papers and computer.”
Skeet moved closer. The photographs showed children in various stages of illness. Glassy, unfocused eyes. Drool. A kind of confusion that spoke of neurological damage. Village names were written beneath each cluster—some Thai, some Burmese. All in remote border regions.
“She very smart girl,” Mrs. Saetang continued. “But too brave for own good. Say children dying and nobody care because they live in wrong places.”
It looked like multiple villages across the border region, all marked with dates showing the outbreak spreading systematically from location to location.
What was she into here?
He pulled out his phone and took a few pictures.
“She find something important,” Mrs. Saetang said from the doorway. “Last few days, very excited. Say she know where sickness come from.”
“Did she tell you where?”
“Village inside Myanmar. Twenty kilometers from border. She say this where everything start.”
Which meant he’d need a tour guide. Unless she’d parked herself at the hospital Selah had mentioned.
Great.
He returned to his rental car. The AC kicked off halfway across Chiang Mai as he wound through streets barely wide enough for two cars. Past open-air markets where vendors sold everything from live fish splashing in plastic tubs to pyramids of dragon fruit and rambutan.
Children played football in any open space they could find. Empty lots. Temple courtyards. Even the wider sections of soi where traffic temporarily cleared. Street dogs lounged in random patches of shade, too heat-stunned to chase the motorbikes that wove around them.
He stopped at a roadside vendor whose som tam cart occupied the same corner where he’d eaten three years ago.
Same weathered woman. Same plastic stools.
Same explosive combination of green papaya, chilies, and fish sauce that had burned his tongue and cleared his sinuses during his last assignment here.
The memories had started to stir.
And maybe not just for him.
“Farang come back.” Broken English, but did she seriously recognize him despite the years and the baseball cap? “Same-same spicy?”
Huh. “Same-same.”
She pounded the ingredients in her wooden mortar, and the aroma rose in waves—sweet palm sugar, sour lime juice, fermented fish sauce, and enough chilies to make most tourists weep.
Pure Thailand in a plastic bag.
He ate standing beside the cart. Letting the familiar flavors ground him in the present.