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Peter produced his mobile phone and dialed. Soon he was engaged in an animated conversation in his own language. It seemed to go on for quite some time. At last he said his good-byes and put the instrument away.
"I talked to my paper," he explained, "they're going to call the police and get a team of photographers around here as quickly as they can. They're calling up a few sister publications as well, but it's a delicate situation. We have to be careful we don't lose the exclusive on this one."
"We have to be careful we don't lose our lives on this one," Smith countered rather coldly.
"Don't worry, Mr. Smith. My people know what they are doing."
"Peter is a very clever boy," his father confirmed from the drivers' seat, "you do what Peter says and everything is going to be all right."
There didn't seem to be much more to be said. Smith leaned back in the seat and tried to listen for any sounds coming from beyond the tattered gates. But the night was very silent, all that he could really hear was the occasional gentle lapping of water whipped-up by the breeze on the surface of the nearby canal, and sometimes the far-distant drone of a car-engine. Smith felt a strong urge to get out and snoop about a bit, but he knew it would be unwise.
"What sort of place is it in there?" he asked Peter, "What are they actually doing?"
"There is a man named Miller - an American man. He has many clubs, many businesses. Not under his own name, of course, but he is the real owner. Some of them are quite legal, ordinary bars, ordinary lady-houses. Some are a little bit beyond the law, but only a little. Casinos, places where soft drugs are sold, places where there is under-age sex. These the police tolerate, or will do if they are paid-off on a regular basis. It's not even as bad as that makes it sound - in this country everybody knows that such things will exist anyway, so if they are visible and out in the open it is considered better than if they are hidden away. You understand?"
"Sort of. I suppose..."
"But this place we are outside tonight, this is something quite different. You see, people like Miller always get too greedy, or perhaps they enjoy the excitement of the chase too much. They always try to go that little bit too far. They always want to go beyond what anybody can tolerate. And Miller has one business which is for things that go beyond all boundaries. It is not always in the same place, it is not happening every night, but if you are one of Miller's special customers, you will know where it is and when it is."
Peter lowered his voice. "At this place that I speak of, the business is murder. People are raped, tortured, mutilated... for the pleasure of others. Men pay Miller to be allowed to kill women and children in horrible ways. There is a film made of the whole proceedings. This is the inferno, Mr. Smith. An inferno that goes beyond even what Dante could have imagined. Yes, Mr. Smith. Our taxi is now parked at the gates of Hell."
Smith swallowed hard. "Do you think maybe we should pull back a bit from the gates," he suggested.
Peter looked around him. "We are in the shadows. I don't think we can be seen from the courtyard. If we start the engine again that's more likely to attract their attention."
He paused and listened. "It's very quiet in there. I think we are too early. It might even be Miller by himself, or just him and his personal bodyguards. That is very good. It gives the authorities more of a chance."
"More of a chance? What do you mean?".
"It is said that Miller has a private army. Probably an exaggeration, of course, but he is well-guarded."
Smith felt the small hairs on the back of his neck realign themselves.
For a few more minutes neither of them spoke. "Look, are you sure this is a good idea, Peter?" he said at last.
"I asked them to send a hundred armed men. And a helicopter in case Miller tries to make a run for it on foot."
"A hundred armed men and a helicopter," Smith breathed, "just like that?"
"This is perhaps our country's most notorious criminal, Mr. Smith. A powerful armed response is necessary. We have the men. We have the resources. This is serious stuff, Mr. Smith. We are not playing around here."
"A hundred armed men," he repeated to himself under his breath, "and a helicopter...." Smith was beginning to have doubts about Peter's sense of reality. He sat there silently again for quite a long time. Then he spoke. "Peter, there's no hundred armed men, is there? Nobody's coming here, are they?"
Peter seemed offended. "You think I am not serious? I will make sure they are on their way." He took out the phone again and dialed. The conversation that followed was in a foreign language but Smith could very nearly follow everything that was being said. Peter was becoming rapidly more furious with them because they were not taking him seriously enough, not doing the things he was telling them to do. At last he snapped the mouthpiece closed angrily and thrust the device back into his pocket. "I do not believe these people!" he fumed, "I do not believe these goddamn people!!"
"Not so loud, Peter," Smith warned, "they might hear you in there. What did they say?" Smith was rapidly becoming certain that nobody was going to come.
"The police said that they would look into it! Can you believe that? I deliver Miller right into their hands and tell them I need a hundred armed men and they say they are going to look into it! Look into it! What do they think I'm reporting, a cat up a tree!?"
Smith had been able to retain a philosophical distance for a while. Now he was becoming agitated. "Have you lived in this country all your life?" he asked coldly.
"No, I went to College in America. I graduated last year from the School of Journalism at the University of Michigan."
It was just as Smith had suspected. "Peter, I don't think you've got any better insight into this country and the way things work here than I have. This isn't bloody Michigan. You don't just call the cops and expect them to come out at five minutes notice to provide a bit of target-practice for Miller's mortar-guns. They probably know all about this place. They could probably have done what you're suggesting any old time. And there must be some reason why they haven't. Maybe they're corrupt, maybe they just have a good self-preservation instinct. Either way, they're not coming. Your father understands the people here one hell of a lot better than you do. His advice was good. Your little adventure is liable to get the whole lot of us killed. Now can we please get moving? This isn't going to be Miller's big showdown night, but it sure as hell could be ours if we're not careful."
Suddenly, Smith heard the sound of a two-stroke engine starting-up inside the compound. It was obviously Chelim's taxi getting ready to leave. "Listen," said Peter, "I think the girl is leaving again."
"I want to talk to her," said Smith, stepping out of the taxi.
As Chelim's vehicle emerged from the gates, he raised his hand and flagged it down. Soavarose looked completely terrified.
Smith walked slowly and purposefully up to her. "We meet again," he said quietly. "I think I may have got something that belongs to you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said so quietly that he could barely make out the words.
"No? In that case you won't mind my friend here calling your father and letting him know where you are. He must be worried."
This seemed to have the desired effect. "No... no, please don't do that. Look, I don't know who you are, but what you gave away didn't belong to you. It didn't belong to me either. The person who owns it is in there," she motioned back towards the compound, "and if he finds us talking here we could both pay for it with our lives. I'll talk to you, but not here. We've got to go somewhere else."
"Fair enough." He climbed in to the taxi beside her. "Do you know any good late-night coffee-bars, Chelim?" he asked the driver.
"No problem, Sir." "Okay. What are we waiting for. You might like to follow along, Peter?"
"Nothing would keep me away," he confirmed, as the two vehicles started-up again.
O
As the two motor-rickshaws traveled in convoy along the side of one of the city's smaller and muddier canals, Smith tried to make the best of this one opportunity to speak to Suavarose by herself. He knew that as soon as they got to the coffee-bar, they would have an audience. Peter would be listening, scratching around for anything that he could build into a story, now that his best shot had failed.
"You seem like a nice enough girl," he said by way of introduction, "certainly a very pretty one. I don't want to hurt you in any way. All I want is to clear my name. Is there some way you can do that for me? Because if there isn't, then I suppose there isn't really very much point in my talking to you."
It sounded a bit blunt and cruel, but it was the truth. She looked up at him but did not reply right away. "I don't know how I can help you," she said in a tone that to Smith suggested sincerity. "I'm in bad trouble myself. I've failed. Miller is very angry with me. That was more than a little your fault, you know. You didn't have to do what you did."
"I was completely innocent. I hadn't broken any laws. I still haven't. Why should I put my head on the block for somebody I'd never seen before in my life? Somebody who had tried to use me - who didn't care whether I got caught or not?"
She paused again. "Yes, it's true. I shouldn't have done that. It was wrong of me. I'm sorry. I was just so frightened when we got to the airport, I didn't feel I could go on with it. Haven't you ever been terrified like that? So desperate you would try anything?"
In truth, Smith couldn't remember a time when he had. "I .... suppose so." he said at last, "but just saying you're sorry doesn't make it all right, you know. I could go to jail for this. I could lose my career. It could destroy the whole of the rest of my life."
"I'm sorry," she said again, and seemed close to tears. Smith found that he couldn't be angry with her. Not when he was sitting so close, smelling her perfume, feeling the gentle pressure of her shoulder against his arm.
"Okay," he said meekly, "let's forget about it. But is there some way you can get me off the hook?"
"I'm not sure that there's any way I can help you now. What do you want me to do?"
He thought for a moment. "At first I thought your family might be able to do something. Because they're powerful people, aren't they? But now I can see that they're not in on this. They don't know anything about it, do they?"
"No, of course not. My family would be shocked - outraged - if they knew this was going on."
"Do you want to tell me about it - how you got involved?" Before she had time to answer this, the pitch of the engine changed and Smith felt himself being pushed back into the seat. The little rickshaw was accelerating with all the horsepower it could muster.
"Something happen behind us," he heard Chelim shout over the noise, "we followed."
Smith leaned out and looked back. As well as the modest central headlight of Fan's rickshaw, he saw the fierce glare of a powerful motorcycle's helium front lamp. The intensity of the light and the surrounding darkness blotted out any other details. As he watched, the powerful light seemed to draw level with the weaker one, then he heard a dull rattle of automatic gunfire and saw the little machine veer off to the left. There was a massive splash as it careered into the canal. It was too dark and the incident was over too quickly for Smith to register very many of the details. They were being tossed mercilessly from side to side now as Chelim tried to outmaneuver the motorcycle, which he knew he had no chance of out-pacing.
The girl suddenly grabbed Smith's waist for dear life and shouted into his ear "I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! Please! Please forgive me!"
When Smith next looked around he was staring into the eyes of a motorcycle pillion-rider who was pointing a very large, very black piece of steel precisely in his direction. That image, and Suavarose's pathetic plea for forgiveness, were the last perceptions of any kind that would enter Smith's consciousness.
AN END
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