Missions from the Extinction Cycle (Volume 1) Read online

  Hal took in her emerald green silk sheath, which clung to her curves like a second skin, noting that she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. He followed Sunan past her, the faint aroma of jasmine rising from her hair intoxicating in the confined space. She closed the door and joined them in the living room, which was appointed with contemporary, expensive-looking furniture and a late model television and stereo. Hal looked through the sliding glass doors and saw a sliver of blue—the apartment had an ocean view, which had to command a premium, as did the air conditioning, which was welcome relief after the swelter of the street.

  Sunan confirmed her name and that she lived there, and then switched from Thai to English.

  “Let’s use English so my associate here can understand us,” he said.

  She nodded. “What can I do for you?” she asked. Her pronunciation was excellent.

  “We’re following up on the murder of Sergeant Kyle Walkins,” Sunan said.

  She nodded, and her eyes moistened. “I was wondering how long it would take you to find me.”

  “Why didn’t you come into the station and save us the trouble?”

  She shrugged and her cascade of raven hair shimmered in the sunlight. “What’s the point? Nothing’s going to bring him back.”

  “We need to ask you some questions,” Sunan said.

  She tilted her head and studied him. “Then ask.”

  “How long did you know Kyle, Aranya?” Hal tried.

  She searched his face, and Hal felt his throat tighten at the frank assessment. She was breathtakingly beautiful, her features those of a porcelain doll, refined and delicate, unlike many of the women working the bars, their impoverished hill tribe backgrounds showing in their darker complexions and coarser looks. Her eyes held his, and then she looked away.

  “Almost a year.”

  “He was your boyfriend?”

  She nodded.

  Sunan grunted. “Did he pay for this place?”

  Her eyes flashed anger. “What does it matter how I pay for where I live?”

  Hal tried a smile. “It’s just a question. We’re trying to get a picture of who Kyle was. Any help you can offer us would be appreciated.”

  “He helped with the rent,” she said, her voice soft.

  “It’s a nice place,” Sunan said. “Expensive?”

  “It’s not cheap.”

  “What do you do for a living?” Hal asked.

  Her face was a blank. “I’m between jobs.”

  “When you’re not?”

  “I was a hostess at a restaurant.”

  Sunan didn’t press the point that she’d been a bar girl—a sex worker at a nightclub, not a greeter at a dining establishment.

  “Must have paid well,” he said.

  “It paid enough.”

  “Tell us about Kyle. Did he have any enemies you know of? Maybe an ex-boyfriend of yours?” Hal asked.

  The scorn in her response was obvious. “Really? That’s the best you can do? That whoever killed him was connected to me? Am I a suspect?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant,” Hal backpedaled. “We’re trying to establish a motive, that’s all.”

  “I’m wondering if I made a mistake letting you in,” she said.

  Sunan cut in. “Nice stereo. And the furniture too.”

  “I like nice things.”

  Sunan nodded. “Did you buy them, or did Kyle? Or someone else?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” she demanded.

  Hal gave Sunan a warning look. “An air force sergeant doesn’t make that much money, Aranya,” he said.

  “We never talked about where he got his money from. Maybe he was well off. Did you ever think of that?”

  “I did. But I’ve read his file. He was from a modest background,” Hal countered.

  “If you say so.”

  “Help us out here, Aranya. Anything you can tell us might help catch his killer.”

  “You should talk to his buddies, not me,” she snapped, and then immediately looked as though she regretted it.

  “What do you mean?” Sunan asked.

  “I…nothing. They were with him. Maybe they saw who did it,” she parried.

  “Were they involved with Kyle in something?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t talk about Kyle’s business. It wasn’t like that between us.”

  “He was in the air force. What business didn’t you talk about, exactly?” Sunan asked.

  “It’s a figure of speech,” she said, but looked uncertain.

  “Aranya, I don’t want to have to take you downtown and interrogate you,” Sunan said. “We both know that can be unpleasant. So spare us both the pain and tell us whatever you know. If Kyle was into something illegal, we only care because it might provide a clue we can follow to find his killer. You want him caught, don’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then tell us about Kyle’s business.”

  She sighed and sat down, revealing a long tan leg, the slit on the dress reaching nearly to her hip. She gestured to Hal and Sunan to sit on the sofa opposite her, her brow creased in a slight frown. When she spoke, her voice was softer.

  “All I know is that he had some sort of thing going with the two he was with that night. Something involving the base. It must have paid well, because money was never a problem.”

  “He never hinted what it might be?” Hal asked, matching her quiet tone.

  “I gathered it was smuggling of some kind. But it was none of my business what he was into. That wasn’t why I was with him.”

  “There aren’t a lot of things you can smuggle onto an air base that would make good money,” Sunan observed.

  “I didn’t ask questions.” Her eyes widened. “You can’t tell his friends who you heard this from. Promise me it will stay confidential.”

  Hal saw no reason not to, considering that the men were dead. “We won’t breathe a word of it. But you need to tell us everything.”

  “I don’t know anything more. I swear. I’m telling the truth. He did what he had to do, and I…we made each other happy. Maybe he wasn’t perfect or was making money on the side doing this or that. It didn’t matter to me. Lots of people here make ends meet however they can.”

  Sunan nodded. “True. Did he ever mention anyone he was afraid of or worried about?”

  She laughed, the sound like the musical tinkling of wind chimes. “Kyle wasn’t afraid of anything.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “Right. He never expressed anything like that to me, and he wasn’t looking over his shoulder.”

  “Did he ever get into fights?”

  She looked away. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  Sunan let out an exasperated sigh. “Seems like you don’t know much besides his name and that he paid for everything.”

  Aranya’s lips were a thin line. “Is there anything else?”

  “Not unless you’re going to be honest with us and tell us what Kyle was involved in.”

  “I’ve told you all I know.” She paused. “I hope you find the killers.”

  Sunan raised an eyebrow. “Killers? Why multiples?”

  “Kyle was strong as a bull. There was no way one person was able to do that to him. I read the papers. That was more than one attacker. I’d have thought that was obvious.”

  Hal’s eyes narrowed. “Your English is very good.”

  “Thank you. I took classes.”

  Outside on the sidewalk, Sunan wiped away sweat and looked to Hal. “She knows more than she’s letting on.”

  “She seemed genuinely worried about Kyle’s buddies. That tells me that they were into something criminal enough for a street hustler to be afraid of.”

  “The obvious being drugs.”

  “It would make a lot of sense. Maybe Kyle and his friends were smuggling dope onto the base and selling it. That would explain the plentiful cash.”

  “True. But it’s easy enough to buy anything yo
u want without having to pay a middleman like them.”

  “If you’re on base and don’t have any leave time, you pay for the convenience. Wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened. Our soldiers in the rice paddies are walking pharmacies, so no question the demand’s there.”

  Sunan nodded. “A smoking gun. But something tells me that the drug angle isn’t going to explain why all these men have been killed in such a short time.”

  Hal badly wanted to tell him about the colonel’s revelation, but bit his tongue and instead settled for a shake of his head. “Probably not. But we don’t have a lot else to go on, do we?”

  “No.” Sunan hesitated. “Remarkable looking young lady, isn’t she? And she obviously enjoys her luxuries. Hard to believe she’d have limited her moneymaking opportunities to one master sergeant, isn’t it?”

  “You think she’s involved somehow?”

  Sunan shrugged. “I’m just considering all possibilities. She didn’t strike me as guilty of anything; but then again, I’m not going to theorize until we have more to go on.”

  “She didn’t know the two airmen are dead. She wasn’t faking that.”

  “Agreed. I’m going to find a phone and see if our anti-drug task force has turned up anything on whose Thai stick and opium was at their place. Right now that’s the only thing we have to go on.”

  Hal followed Sunan into the café and sat down beneath a ceiling fan while the inspector went to the rear of the restaurant to use the telephone, a vision of Aranya’s mesmerizing eyes and breathtaking features at the forefront of his thoughts, which he grudgingly admitted weren’t entirely limited to her role in the case.

  — 10 —

  “I want to go back to talk to the colonel, Sunan,” Hal said when the Thai inspector returned from the back of the café.

  “Not yet. We have a lead on the drugs from the murder scene. They were packaged by the Red Hands,” Sunan said.

  “Never heard of them.”

  “No reason you should. They’re a midsized outfit in Pattaya. But they control a lot of the street activity and move weight.”

  Hal rose. “What’s the plan?”

  “One of their top people agreed to talk to me.”

  “I thought all Thais distrusted the police.”

  “The criminals tend to have a better understanding of our position in the food chain.”

  Hal frowned. “Why would he meet with us?”

  “We’re a land of favors. Next time he gets caught in a bind, I might be able to do him one in exchange. It’s the art of compromise.”

  Sunan and Hal walked to the inspector’s vehicle. Hal pulled his door open, and moments later the engine roared to life and they were wending along the dirt road toward the sea, tuk-tuks and bicycles parting at the whoop of Sunan’s siren.

  After a ten-minute drive, they parked by a large seafood restaurant a block from the beach. Its palm frond roof and stucco walls stood in typical disrepair, but the adjacent parking lot was filled with late model sedans and motorcycles. Sunan led the way into the dining room, where a pair of heavily muscled thugs stood by a door at the rear, arms folded, the bulge of weapons obvious at their waistlines beneath the thin fabric of oversized shirts.

  Sunan nodded at the two guards, and the nearest one said something in a low voice. Sunan snapped a harsh response, and the other guard glared at Hal like he’d drowned the man’s puppy. The standoff lasted a few uncomfortable moments, and then the first guard knocked on the door twice and a voice called from beyond it.

  They entered the office and spied a squat man behind a desk in his late thirties with a Fu Manchu mustache and an elaborate tattoo running from his right ear to the collar of his T-shirt. The man motioned to them to take seats, and once they had, Sunan leaned forward and spoke in rapid Thai.

  Hal’s command of the language was rudimentary, but he grasped that the discussion was contentious at first. After several minutes of back and forth, Sunan sat back and turned to Hal.

  “He says that the two men were known to him and that one of his street dealers sold them the drugs.”

  “He admitted that?”

  “I’m not interested in interfering with his business. We both know that. He has no reason not to speak honestly. I promised him that anything he says will remain confidential. But he doesn’t like that I brought you.”

  “Tough. Ask him whether the men, or Kyle, were involved in anything criminal.”

  The gangster laughed. “They running drugs, soldier boy,” he said in broken English.

  “How do you know?” Hal demanded.

  “Not my drugs. Other gang. Seven Heart triad.”

  “What kind of drugs?”

  “We try do deal, but they want to pay too little. Heroin,” the gangster said.

  Hal and Sunan exchanged a glance. Sunan resumed speaking Thai, and after another long interaction, Hal waited for the summary.

  “He says they wanted kilos of heroin at a time. Said it was for export to the States. And needed some uncut in smaller quantities—the export had some cut, but they couldn’t accept that for the other.”

  “How many kilos?”

  “Twenty. That’s one of the reasons he decided not to play—too big, might draw attention. He said a couple of times they bought some of the smaller quantity pure stuff, but they couldn’t come to an agreement on the big shipments.”

  “And he’s sure they were shipping it home?”

  “That’s what he said.

  “Does he know how they were doing it?”

  “No. Just that it was his competitor who wound up doing the deal and supplying them for the last six months.”

  “Who was involved? Just Kyle and the other two, or were there more?”

  Sunan returned his attention to the gangster and raised one eyebrow when the man responded.

  “He says there was a doctor on the base who the pure stuff was for, but he’s no longer there. He offered to see if he can locate him, but it will cost.”

  “What does he mean no longer there? Was he Thai or American?”

  “American.”

  Hal sat forward. “Why is he not on the base anymore?” he asked the gang boss.

  The man smirked. “He like chase dragon. Maybe got kick out.” He shrugged. “I find if still in Pattaya. You pay, I find.”

  Sunan negotiated a price, and then the meeting was over with a wai from the dealer. They returned to the dining area, and Hal spoke to the inspector in a low voice.

  “What was the argument with the goons about?”

  “They wanted me to give them my gun. I told them no. They didn’t like that.”

  “You think he’s on the level?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Is he telling the truth? If so, this could be huge. Twenty kilos a week is a lot of heroin.”

  Sunan shook his head. “No.”

  “What do you mean no?”

  “Not a week. Each trip. Sometimes two or three a week.”

  Hal’s jaw clenched as they made their way back to the parking lot. When they reached the vehicle, Sunan regarded Hal with a neutral expression. “Hungry?”

  “I could eat,” he allowed.

  “Let’s find a place with a breeze. I know a few.” Sunan paused. “You can’t tell your colonel about the heroin until we find the doctor and learn what he knows.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Sunan smiled. “I would want to. But not yet.”

  “Mind telling me why not?”

  “Nothing stays a secret long in Thailand.”

  “He’s the commanding officer of the entire base, Sunan. If there’s a drug ring operating out of there, he’s the one who needs to know.”

  “I understand. But not yet. You don’t know how he’ll react, and once he knows, it’s going to cause big problems if the investigation leads back to some of his men. Let’s get our job done; then you can fill him in.”

  Hal remained silent for several long beats and then
nodded. “I can do that. For now. But there’s a limit.”

  Sunan checked the time and eyed Hal. “If the drugs aren’t related, then they are a distraction. If they are, we need to know more before you can say anything. Either way, we don’t talk.” He fumbled in his pocket for the keys. “You in the mood for seafood or seafood?”

  Hal squinted at the sun and mopped his brow. “A nice rib eye sounds good right about now.”

  Sunan looked puzzled. “Is that a fish?”

  “Close enough.”

  — 11 —

  Rain pelted against Aranya’s patio doors, and the sky flashed with trees of lightning from a storm that had arrived with the coming of night. Her eyes drifted to the sheets of water slamming against the glass and then returned to the television, the reception poor due to the weather. The news was covering a fashion show in Bangkok, and Aranya leaned back on the leather couch and reached for a half-smoked joint in an ashtray by her side. The lighter in her hand was the one Kyle had given her—a gold Dunhill easily worth a week’s wages.

  She lit the roach and inhaled the perfumed smoke deep into her lungs, waiting for the familiar euphoric relaxation to overtake her, still on edge after the police visit. Aranya couldn’t be sure that they’d bought her story, but she would stick with it—it was none of their business what Kyle was into, nor how she paid for her place and the things in it.

  Aranya hadn’t told them the truth about her real benefactor; she knew better than to even mention it. She couldn’t imagine him having anything to do with Kyle’s brutal murder, and there was no reason to drag him into her affairs. No, better to tell partial truths and wait for them to chase their tails than to come completely clean. After all, with Kyle gone, she still needed to pay the rent this month, and the police weren’t about to do it for her.

  She took another long hit and closed her eyes, remembering Kyle’s lean waist and ridged stomach, his body a miracle of genetics and exercise. She would definitely miss him, but not because of the sex—although it had been good, after as many partners as she’d had, they were mostly interchangeable, a means to an end, the male of the species easily flattered by her enthusiasm and feigned passion, which she’d learned to exploit at an early age.