Missing In Rangoon

Calvino turned the gun in his hand. It was an impressive piece of engineering—not unlike the weapons of the people who would be waiting for them outside the hotel, people they didn’t know and would never know. If he and Pratt were lucky they’d be done and out of Burma soon. Rob Osborne would go home to his daddy. The cold pill pipeline would be shut down. The Burmese Tropic of Cancer would once again be a tranquil paradise.

If only life worked out that way sometimes, he thought. Even once. That would be enough. In the meantime he was happy to have the Walther PPQ and a box of PMC 115 grain hollow points.

EIGHT

50th Street Bar

CALVINO STOPPED TO massage his calf muscle. It had seized up into a throbbing knot. Seeing his problem, Pratt waited a moment before continuing down the sloped pavement alone, past the uniformed guards with automatic weapons, and stopping at the street.

Calvino consciously tried not to hobble as he stood up and walked to where Pratt waited to hail a cab. A few minutes earlier they had passed three taxis idling in front of the hotel. How Calvino had wanted to climb into one of them. But it wasn’t an option. Living with aching calves and legs was the cost of following the standard procedure for choosing a taxi in his line of work. Any taxi parked in front of the hotel might be compromised. Colonel Pratt had learnt long ago that staying alive was tied to avoiding unnecessary risks. Even if it meant a bit of pain had to be endured on the walk to the street, where the drill was to flag down the second taxi that came along.

It wasn’t written in any book that it had to be the second car. Sometimes he waited for the third car. Habit and routine were the invisible handmaidens who delivered easy targets to operatives who had the job of tailing them and reporting on their conversations. Calvino’s encounter with the low-ranking MI agent had drawn notice that he was at least a subject of interest. People were watching.

On the drive Pratt said little. It was an old habit, riding quietly in a taxi driven by someone who might not necessarily be a taxi driver by profession. Calvino massaged one calf, then the other.

“Still sore?”

Calvino sighed. “A little. I need to go to the gym when I get back.”

“You could stop running marathons.”

“And give up my place on the Olympic team?”

“That would be a pity,” said Colonel Pratt.

The driver glanced at them in the rearview mirror. The taxi drivers in Rangoon, unlike those Bangkok, understood and spoke enough English to follow a conversation, especially one that involved sports.

The two foreigners let their inconsequential conversation drift away into silence during the balance of the twenty-minute journey. By the time they reached the

50th Street Bar, night had set in. The main streets had streetlights, but once the cab entered the side street, the depth of the darkness enveloped it. Outside was a blur of lights from inside houses hidden behind hedges and trees. The bar was buried down a long, empty street, but the driver had no trouble finding it. On the right side bright lights blazed, outlining a modern bar that looked out of place on the street. The bar stood out like a hooker in hot pants and high heels at a church picnic. Parked out front was a long row of luxury sports cars and SUVs, each one in showroom condition and freshly washed, their polished grilles glimmering in the light from the bar. Like an automotive version of a gated community, they faced the street together, leaving no room for intruders.

Pratt climbed out of the taxi and leaned back in for his saxophone case. He’d worn his blue silk shirt and black trousers. He looked more like a businessman than a musician. Calvino slowly emerged from the other side, turned and paid the driver.

“I hope you make the team,” said the driver.

“Thanks. They’re counting on me,” said Calvino.

“You think the driver believed you were Olympic material?” asked Pratt.

“It was low light.”

“It was dark.”

“Not in front of the bar.”

As they passed two of the expensive cars, Calvino stopped. His legs felt better for the stretch. He rocked back and forth on his toes, feeling his calf muscles.

“What do you figure this one cost?”

A silver Lamborghini Murciélago, sandwiched between a new Jaguar and a Maserati, stood out. Pratt walked around the Lamborghini like an earthling inspecting an alien artifact.

“Landed in Bangkok, taxes, shipping, about a million dollars,” Colonel Pratt finally said as he walked around to a standstill in front of the car.

“Last time I saw a Maserati in Bangkok,” said Calvino, “it didn’t look like this. It’d been in an accident. The owner had been racing it on the tollway. Rescue teams arrived with a blowtorch and mechanical jaws. There wasn’t much left of the driver.”

“I remember that accident. The driver was the son of someone powerful.”

“That’s called development. Soft loans from Western banks to build expressways so that rich kids can use them as private racetracks when they’re bored racing on Sukhumvit Road. And you remember the kid who ran down and killed a good cop, and walked away?”