Chapter 1 #4
Around him, the neighborhood continued its evening hum—shop owners hosing down sidewalks, families gathering around shared meals, the endless flow of motorbikes carrying people home from work.
This was the Thailand most tourists never experienced. Working-class neighborhoods where foreigners came to teach English or volunteer at clinics. Where rent was cheap and life moved to the rhythm of monsoons and market days rather than tourist seasons.
Traffic thickened as he drove toward the clinic, urban sprawl thinning into an area where development had started but never quite finished.
Half-built apartment blocks stood next to rice paddies, concrete shells sprouting weeds and housing the occasional family too poor to wait for completion.
Banana groves pressed against the edges of new roads.
Concrete shophouses gave way to small apartment blocks, then to scattered houses with tiny gardens where families grew vegetables and raised chickens in the spaces between buildings.
The medical clinic sat where the city finally gave up trying to modernize itself. A single-story concrete building with peeling blue paint and rusted security bars. A faded sign in Thai and English identified it as the Northern Borders Medical Assistance Foundation.
The building’s flat roof sprouted a forest of satellite dishes and cell-phone antennas. Window-mounted air conditioners dripped condensation into small puddles.
The waiting area held twenty plastic chairs. Nineteen of them occupied. The smell of disinfectant fought a losing battle against the competing aromas of traditional medicines, unwashed clothing, and human misery.
What was he doing here again? He’d look like an idiot if Chloe came from the back area and spotted him, a babysitter, eight thousand miles from home.
Overkill much? But his boss had said “Go to Thailand,” so yeah, he’d gone to Thailand.
He should probably figure out how to say no sometime.
A female doctor emerged from the treatment area looking as if she’d been running on coffee and determination for weeks.
No-nonsense, petite, mid-forties, she wore her black hair pulled back in a practical ponytail.
Exhaustion had carved lines around her eyes that spoke of too many patients and too few resources.
“I’m Dr. Malee. Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for information about Chloe Silver. I’m a friend from America—her family’s concerned.”
Dr. Malee’s expression shifted, and then she sighed.
“Two days ago she left with Dr. Tobias Nnamdi, our Nigerian doctor.” Dr. Malee gestured toward the treatment area, where a dozen beds held patients in various stages of neurological distress.
“She’s been documenting these cases for six months. Every symptom, every progression.”
The treatment area told its own story. Children, mostly. A few adults whose symptoms seemed less severe but equally mysterious. Trembling bodies, glassy eyes.
“They stop responding and eating and fall into a coma. And the progression is getting faster.”
“What’s causing this?”
“That’s what Chloe was trying to determine.”
“She went to investigate the source?”
“With Dr. Tobias. He specializes in tropical diseases. They left with a Free Burma Ranger escort to reach the worst-affected villages inside Myanmar.”
His chest tightened. “Any contact since?”
Dr. Malee’s expression answered before her words. “They were supposed to check in every twelve hours. We’ve heard nothing.”
Forty-eight hours without contact in hostile territory.
Perfect.
“I work in crisis management. If you could show me their planned route . . .”
Dr. Malee studied him for a long moment. “Are you with an aid organization?”
“Private consulting. I specialize in locating missing persons in unstable regions.”
Half-truth. Jones, Inc. did everything from hostage rescue to finding lost souls and even sometimes close body protection. This counted, though, as Worried Family Response.
So far.
She pulled out a phone and opened up her GPS map. Widened it. “The villages are located here. That’s all I know.”
“Dr. Malee.” A young nurse appeared in the doorway. “The little girl in bed three is having another episode.”
“I hope you find her,” the doctor said as she turned away. “Someone needs to save these children.”
He watched her go, then headed out the door.
If those were the stakes, maybe he wasn’t the man for the job.
He got in the car. Hopefully he hadn’t burned all his bridges here.
He headed toward Chai’s neighborhood, which occupied one of Chiang Mai’s nicer residential areas. Successful merchants and mid-level government officials maintained homes behind high walls and security cameras, protected by tree-lined streets.
He parked in the small drive of a modest two-story home and rang the bell.
Chai’s pretty wife answered and smiled at him, her eyes warm. “So you’re back.”
Not really, but, “Is he in?”
“’Round back.”
He found his old teammate in the back garden, pruning tomato plants. A big man for a Thai, he was still built like the Thai special-forces operator he’d been, although now he wore a T-shirt and jeans, a pair of bamboo flip-flops, and a wide-brimmed straw hat.
“Nice place.”
Chai turned, and it took a second, but then he grinned, shoved the pruners into his back pocket, and came over, hand out. “Trouble from the East.”
Skeet laughed. “Could be.” He looked around the cloistered yard with the flowing bougainvillea and jasmine, the small fountain. “Give peace a chance?”
“Why not?” Chai gestured to a couple of bamboo chairs under an overflowing frangipani tree. “Whatever the question is, the answer is no.”
A boy of maybe six burst from the back door onto the deck and raced toward the garden, shouting something in Thai.
Chai caught him in an easy scoop and set him on his hip.
“Skeet, meet my son, Bee. Bee, this is my old friend from America.”
The boy studied Skeet with the serious expression children reserved for adults they hadn’t categorized yet. “Hello, Mr. Skeet,” he said in English.
“Hello, Bee. Your papa’s teaching you to garden?”
“I help grow eggplant and chilies for Mama.” Pride rang in his voice.
Chai set his son down. “Go find Mama, little man. Tell her we have company for dinner.”
The boy scampered toward the house.
“He speaks good English.”
“May insists on English in the house. Thinks that someday he might want to visit his grandparents in America.”
Skeet nodded.
“Okay, give. What’s the favor?”
Skeet sighed.
Chai shook his head. “Great.” He got up and returned to his peppers. “There’s increased activity across the border. Military checkpoints. Detention camps expanding.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that professional smugglers are refusing runs. Tatmadaw’s cracking down hard on ethnic armed organizations. Anyone caught in the wrong place gets classified as an insurgent supporter.” He shot him a look. “You can’t go back there.”
Skeet folded his arms. “There’s an American journalist missing inside Myanmar. Been gone two days with no contact.”
“Official mission?”
“No. Personal.”
“The woman who’s been asking questions about the sick children?”
Skeet stilled. “You know about her?”
Chai picked an eggplant, tossed it to Skeet. “My wife works at a number of free clinics. Word on the street is that she crossed with Free Burma Rangers two days ago. And not for the first time.”
“They haven’t reported back, and I need to go in.”
“No.” He met Skeet’s eyes. “Don’t ask me.”
Right. Skeet looked away.
“I have a family. A son who needs his father. A wife who’s already lost too much to other people’s wars.”
“I get that. But apparently, she’s investigating a systematic illness targeting civilian populations. Children dying in remote villages.”
“Then call it in to the proper authorities.”
“And wait how long for diplomatic channels to sort themselves out?” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but—
Chai raised a hand. “I’m not without caring, but I’m not the man I used to be. I am done with war, and fighting.”
Movement from the house caught Skeet’s attention. May appeared in the kitchen window, her dark hair pulled back, preparing dinner for her family.
“I understand.”
“Do you?” Chai’s voice carried a sudden edge. “Three years ago, we barely got out alive. Six dead civilians because we trusted the wrong contact.”
Skeet’s contact, and he waited for Chai to say that.
Instead, his friend’s voice cut low. “I can’t risk my son’s future for someone who’s probably already dead.”
The garden fell silent except for the distant sounds of traffic, a child’s laughter from inside the house.
“Yep. Forget I asked.” Skeet stood to leave. Chai had earned the right to choose family over mission. Had earned the right to say no to dangerous requests from an old teammate who . . . well, had nearly gotten him killed once before.
“Wait.”
He turned back.
Chai’s expression had changed. Something harder. More familiar. He blew out a breath and kneaded a muscle behind his neck. “There’s been news from the border villages. Yesterday.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “A foreigner found dead. Western woman. Murdered.”
The words hit like physical blows. “Chloe?”
“Is that your friend’s name? I don’t know. Could be a tourist, aid worker, journalist. Could be your missing woman.” Chai picked up his pruning shears, gripping them until his knuckles whitened. “You’re walking into trouble, Skeet.”
He nodded, met Chai’s eyes.
“Aw,” Chai said and threw the pruner into the dirt. “At least let me eat first.”
Skeet’s mouth lifted in a smile.
Two hours later, Chai paced his family room, his cell phone to his ear, making arrangements while May packed them food.
It felt a little like old times, with loaded tactical packs and communications equipment. A map was rolled out on a table, their route marked.
Chai finally hung up. “We leave in one hour. Friend of mine runs medical supplies to refugee camps. He’ll give us cover for the border crossing.”
Good.
“One question,” Chai said as he grabbed his pack to carry it out to the car. “This journalist—she important to you personally?”
Skeet picked up his pack. “She’s a sister of a former teammate. Promised him I’d watch out for her.”
“That all?”
The question hung in the cooling air. Was it all? Professional obligation to a teammate?
Or something else? Something that made the thought of Chloe Silver dead in a Myanmar village turn his gut tight?
“That’s enough.”
Chai’s expression suggested that he didn’t buy the simple explanation. But he didn’t push.
Night was descending, a glorious pink-gold scrape across the mountainous hills to the west. Please, God, let her still be alive.
Through the kitchen window, he could see Chai hugging his wife, holding his son. Yeah, Chai had built the kind of life worth protecting.
This time had to be different.
This time he wouldn’t fail.