Chapter 27 Sophie
SOPHIE
Sophie’s aunt Malee had a house on a street lined with orchid trees, across from the Ping River on the outskirts of Bangkok. Her home was a place where Sophie had always felt safe; Sophie told her companions that’s where she wanted to go as they fled the site of the drone attack.
Even so, she barely registered their arrival in the neighborhood through the fog of shock. The last eighteen hours were blurred together in a haze of dark jungle paths, wet hidden boats, and Feirn and Kamon’s grim and creative efficiency at avoiding checkpoints.
Now that they’d arrived, Bangkok’s humidity pressed against her like wet wool. Moving robotlike through the motions of travel, Sophie felt nothing. Could feel nothing.
When she closed her eyes, all she saw was Connor, turning toward her, searching—and then that blinding first explosion.
So she didn’t close her eyes—but exhaustion threatened to win and take her to a hell of flaming destruction.
Once the group reached the city Kamon and his men scattered, but Feirn stayed with her.
He paid for an hourly-rate room where they were able to clean up and change their appearance by dressing in clothing bought at a bazaar. He hired a motorcycle taxi to take them close to Sophie’s aunt’s address, then paid the driver extra to forget their faces.
He guided Sophie through a narrow alley that smelled of fish sauce toward her aunt’s house.
Invisible from the main road, the narrow two-story wooden house stood like a dignified folded fan, its teak facade dark with age and monsoon stains.
The entrance was hidden, a small gate inset in the tall wooden fence behind a tangle of bougainvillea.
“Are you okay?” Feirn asked as they approached, his first words to her in hours.
Sophie nodded, dimly aware that she was deep in shock. Unable to do anything about the muffled quality of everything around her except to keep moving.
The door was carved with lotus patterns; she placed her palms on the smooth, warm wood, resting her forehead on the carving. Anchoring herself with something familiar.
From somewhere inside came the soft chime of wind-bells, and a whiff of jasmine rice steaming. The fragile petals of bougainvillea blossoms brushed her cheek as Sophie reached into a hidden alcove and pulled a string that rang a bell inside.
A few minutes later, the door opened a crack, then wider as she was spotted. “Sophie Malee!” Her namesake aunt Malee sat in a wheelchair, backlit by afternoon sun filtering through latticework over a walkway to the house.
“Auntie,” Sophie said. “This is my bodyguard, Feirn. I’m sorry I didn’t call . . .”
“Ah, my favorite niece. No need, you are always welcome.”
“I’m your only niece.”
“And you’d still be my favorite.” Malee’s dimples showed in a wide smile.
Sophie came inside; Feirn followed, locking the gate behind them.
Sophie leaned down to hug her aunt. She hadn’t seen her mother’s sister in five years.
Malee’s fine-boned face was still beautiful despite lines of pain etched around her eyes and a streak of white in her dark hair.
Her legs, visible beneath a simple blue sarong, were withered—the price of crossing Pim Wat when she helped Sophie get Momi back.
“I am so delighted to see you.” Malee’s voice was water over stones, soothing and full of affection; it brought quick tears to Sophie’s eyes. “Come. You look like you need food and a bed, both of you. And for that, you’ve come to the right place.”
Sophie pushed her aunt’s chair up a ramp into the elevated first floor of the house. The interior of the old place was a sanctuary of polished teak and aged silk. No air-conditioning, just ceiling fans turning lazily, stirring air perfumed with incense and the earthy sweetness of dried flowers.
The smell of rice cooking grew stronger when they reached the kitchen and eating area. A plump young woman, wiping her hands on a sacking apron, joined them.
“This is Ema. My helper,” Malee said. “Ema, my niece Sophie and her friend Feirn. Can you put on more food for us? And they will be staying here, so freshen up the guest rooms upstairs when you have a chance.”
“Of course. My pleasure,” Ema said, and bustled off.
Feirn leaned on a wall, monitoring the outside world with his ears and phone. Through the windows, from a distance, came the sounds of the neighborhood—vendors calling their wares, the sputter of motorcycles navigating narrow lanes, someone’s radio playing music, the distant clang of temple bells.
The Sig Sauer strapped to Feirn’s hip on one side and the sheathed blade on the other were discordant but currently welcome notes in the peaceful home.
Sophie collapsed more than sat on the woven floor mat cushions Malee indicated. Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. “I’m so tired, Auntie, but I can’t go to sleep.”
“Tea first,” Malee said, wheeling herself to a low table where a ceramic pot waited.
“Ema just made it for me when you rang. Talk and food next. Then, you rest.” The cup Malee pressed into Sophie’s hands was thin porcelain, painted with tiny blue flowers.
“You can tell me what brings you here when you’re ready. ”
Sophie paused to sniff the fragrant chrysanthemum tea, then sipped. Light and faintly sweet, the herbal brew was counterpoint to the sticky ball of grief lodged in Sophie’s throat.
Through the windows she glimpsed the Ping River; brown water moved slowly in the afternoon heat, long-tail boats stitching white wakes across its surface.
“I need to get it out.” Sophie told her aunt why she was in Thailand, and what had happened at the fortress. She didn’t know she was crying until dripping tears hit her hands holding the teacup.
Malee’s voice was gentle. “The Americans and their solutions. So final, so . . .”
“Destructive. Three hundred people died. At least.” Sophie’s voice cracked. “Maybe more. The whole stronghold, gone. And Connor—” She couldn’t finish.
“The man you loved.” Malee had been Sophie’s pen pal; they’d kept up via periodically exchanged old-fashioned letters. “Your mother spoke of Connor. She hated him. Because he killed her lover.”
“She told you about him?” This bit of information pierced through Sophie’s numbness.
“Once. Here, actually.” Malee gestured to the room around them. “The last time I saw her. When Pim Wat—cut me.”
“What?” Feirn roused from his place on the wall. “Pim Wat, your sister—she hurt you?”
“Pim Wat crippled me.” Malee tugged aside the blue silk sarong draped over her lap. She extended her shriveled legs, turned them at the ankle so a vicious, knotted scar above her heel was revealed. “Cut my Achilles tendons and left me to die. A punishment for helping Sophie get her child back.”
Feirn’s eyes went wide; he shook his head, seemingly unable to speak.
Sophie had known of Malee’s injury at her mother’s hands, but seeing it was another story. “Oh, Auntie. If there were any justice in the world . . .”
Malee shrugged. “She did not kill me. I was rescued in time to live, though not for my mobility to be saved. I am grateful to be alive. And that her attack did not make me bitter; I refused to let it do so. The greatest freedom we have is to choose how to respond to the blows life deals out.”
From the kitchen came the homely sounds and smells of Ema cooking—garlic and onions hitting hot oil, filling the air with comfort. Sophie realized she hadn’t eaten in an endless long time; her stomach growled.
“You need sustenance,” Malee said, hearing the sound. “The meal will be ready soon. Then, sleep. We must plan how to keep you safe in case the Americans want to tie up loose ends.”
“My father will protect me.” Sophie finished her tea and set down the cup.
“They’ve done enough. Blowing away the entire Yām Kh?mk?n.
Speaking of—I have to let him know I’m okay.
” Sophie took out her satellite phone. She made quick calls to both Ambassador Frank Smithson and Armita, letting them know she was safe and making her way home.
Soon Ema brought out a tray loaded with savory stir-fry and a big bowl of rice. Feirn joined them; they ate companionably around the low table, Malee with the tray across her knees.
Sophie wanted to stay awake, but now that her stomach was full, exhaustion was pulling her under like river current.
The room had taken on a dreamlike quality—dust motes dancing in shafts of light, the wooden walls expanding and contracting with each gust of wind, the distant bells marking a sort of minute-by-minute eternity.
“There are clothes in the guest room,” Malee said. “Your mother’s, from when she stayed here. You’re taller, but otherwise close to the same size.”
“Thank you, Auntie, I’ll—”
The front door opened without warning, flying back to hit the wall with a bang.
Sophie’s body reacted before her mind did.
She rolled sideways, her hand reaching for a weapon she wasn’t wearing.
She took cover behind a large ornamental vase, peering out to assess the threat as Feirn reached for the gun at his hip.
Before he could get it free, the silenced shot of a weapon rang out with a muffled spit.
The young man dropped his weapon, falling backward to the floor.
Ema screamed, throwing her apron over her head as if it would protect her.
Pim Wat Smithson stood in the doorway, dramatic as a figure from a shadow play.
Her mother wore tight black leather and tall shiny boots that probably cost more than a new car.
Her hair was a short, spiky platinum, and its cut emphasized the architectural perfection of her face.
She wore no jewelry but a single jade bangle on her left wrist—the one that concealed a garrote wire, if the CIA’s reports were true.
“Sister.” Malee’s voice was flat. “You always did like to make an entrance. At least we finished our meal before you ruined it.”
Sophie was frozen, unable to react or respond. Her mother had come to kill her at last. She’d probably kill everyone here—and what about Armita and the children? She had to do something!
Feirn groaned. Blood bloomed on the shoulder of his weapon arm.
Pim Wat lifted her weapon and shot him again, this time in the leg.
He screamed in agony. Ema screamed too. Sophie bit her lips to keep from crying out as well, thus giving away her location.
“Quiet, or I’ll put you out of your misery,” Pim Wat said to Ema. The only apparent change in her mother was that Pim Wat’s voice was hoarse, unfamiliar. Maybe the torture Agent McDonald had promised to put her through had left a mark after all.
Sophie scanned for something, anything, to use to defend them; but couldn’t see anything nearby effective enough. Her mother wasn’t just deadly with a gun, and right now Sophie was too far away to intervene without a weapon.
Pim Wat moved into the room with an assassin’s grace, inclining her head to Malee seated in her wheelchair.
“Malee. Sister. You’re looking crippled, as usual.
” Pim Wat then turned her beautiful brown eyes—Sophie’s eyes—to her daughter, hiding in her fragile, cowardly spot behind the urn.
“Hello, Sophie. I heard you were in the country. Thought I’d drop in for a visit with family. ”
Sophie found her voice. “I was looking for you, too.”
“You came to support Connor, you mean.” Pim Wat settled onto a chaise with fluid dignity, her weapon now pointed at Sophie.
“Foolish girl. Always leading with the heart.” Her expression didn’t change, but something flickered in her eyes.
“It was fun watching him die. Worth everything to see that whole place burn.”
The cruelty of it—so casual, so precise—took Sophie’s breath away.
But before she could respond, Malee spoke. “Pim, please. The child just watched hundreds die. Including the man she—”
“Why are you here?” Sophie interrupted. “To hurt your family more?” Rage rose in her chest like lava, extinguishing the shock and exhaustion that had muffled her responses. Her gaze found Feirn’s fallen pistol on the floor. One good lunge and maybe she could get it in time . . .
“I’m here to take over. There’s a hole in the ground and in the markets where the Yām Kh?mk?n used to be.
Room for a new organization to rise; one with me as its Master.
” Pim Wat picked up Feirn’s abandoned teacup and sipped.
“The CIA wiped the fortress and everyone in it off the face of the earth. They announced they’re done with subtlety.
And they work for me now.” She set down the cup with a soft click.
She smiled. “They’ve given me carte blanche to rebuild the organization as I see fit. ”
“What?” Sophie stuttered.
“I made a deal, you see. Intelligence so they could do their worst in a targeted strike. In return, they gave me my freedom—and more.” Pim Wat leaned forward, and through some trick of the air, Sophie smelled gunpowder and her mother’s expensive perfume.
“The question is: are you your father’s daughter, content to pine and die for love?
Or are you mine, ready to make the CIA pay for every drop of blood spilled? ”
Outside, a street vendor’s bell announced the evening food carts making their rounds. Through the windows, the Ping River gleamed like hammered bronze in the dying light. A mynah bird squawked.
Sophie stared at her mother—the woman who shaped her worst nightmares.
She had to find a way to get closer to the weapon. Any weapon. Move Pim Wat somewhere further away from the vulnerable hostages in the room.
“What did you have in mind?” Sophie felt something cold and patient wake where her heart used to be. She stood slowly, and stepped out from cover to stand tall, her hands loose at her sides. “I’m all ears, as the Americans say.”
Pim Wat’s smile widened; for the first time Sophie could remember, she saw approval in her mother’s eyes. “You’re finally asking the right questions, daughter.”