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"Rose," he gently rocked her shoulder to rouse her, "are you awake? It's after seven o'clock, sweetheart. We've slept for almost three hours." She opened her eyes, smiled, and pulled his head down towards hers again. He managed to ration himself to a quick brush against her parted lips. "Look, there's nothing in the whole world that I would rather do than stay in this bed with you for the rest of the evening, but we can't. We haven't got the time. It's about five hours to midnight and we haven't even talked about what we're going to do yet." "What we're going to do? What can we do? There's nothing we can do. We're just ordinary - little - people. We can't fight somebody like Miller. All we can do is.. well, what we are doing. Try to enjoy our time together as much as we can. Make the best of what we've got. We can't change it..." "No! No, I'm sorry, that's not good enough! We can't just let him go on doing what he is doing. And what about your sister... and you? We can't just... do nothing! Not even try!" He sat up in bed, which pulled some of the covers off Suavarose and let him see the whole top half of her naked body. He couldn't resist stroking the sides of her head, following down tenderly towards her waist with his hands. "No," he said firmly, "I mustn't start that again. Will you please put your clothes back on, sweetheart? I'm not going to be able to think about anything else while you're like that." She smiled and skipped out of bed - visited the bathroom, where he heard the water running for a few moments, and then sat at the little dressing-table and hunted around for clean under-clothes in one of her bags. "So, what's your plan then?" she entreated as the two of them dressed. "I'll think of something," he said firmly, as much to reassure himself as Suavarose. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched her do mysterious things with eye-liner. "We do have one thing on our side," he said at last. "We can get Miller out into the open. Maybe even on his own. You said before that he won't trust anybody but himself to pick-up that package. That means we can get him here. If you phone up and tell him more or less the truth - that you put it in my hand-luggage and I've still got it. You could tell him that you followed me to this hotel, but you haven't been able to get into my room. You could tell him I've had a girl in here all evening - that would be a plausible reason why I wouldn't open the door. And it would also imply that I've had other things to think about besides an extra package of sweets in one of my bags. You could tell him that as far as you know I haven't found it yet. That would get him round here, wouldn't it?" She nodded. "I would think so." "Okay. Then all we need is the sting. We've got to have people here waiting for him. Armed men. And don't forget, if we do it right he'll be carrying the heroin, so that's enough evidence to get him put away for life. It's a golden opportunity when you think about it. All we need is the people to organize the sting." "And we haven't got anybody. Anybody we can trust." "Well," he said at last, I suppose one starting-point would be the people in those movies. The people he tortures... and kills. Who are they? Where do they come from?" Suavarose obviously found the question distasteful. She didn't like to have to admit that she knew anything of such things. "They're mostly children," she said with sadness in her voice, "street children. Or children he's enticed to come here from the country. You see there are people in this part of the world who are so poor they'll more or less sell their children. Not ask too many questions about what's going to happen to them. They think they're going to be adopted by rich families in the West, or going into domestic service, or... well, service of another kind. He has agents who do all that kind of thing for him. Sometimes he just kidnaps them - from perfectly good families." Smith found that he was more shocked than he expected. Maybe he wasn't quite the man of the world that he had believed himself to be. "And.. these people," he said hoarsely, "doesn't anybody ever miss them? Don't they have friends and family who come after them?" "Of course. There's a missing persons organization here in the city that has been around for years - they do their best, but you have to understand what it's like here. It isn't like England. It's a mass of corruption. Everybody is afraid of everybody else. Nobody will say anything. Nobody will give evidence. There's no way to get to a man like Miller. He's invincible." "Still, it's a starting point. They might be able to suggest something. Maybe they know some honest policemen or something." Suavarose glanced at her watch. "I'm afraid their office would have closed hours ago. I've no idea how to get hold of them now." "Okay. Let's try again... there must be somebody else... I know! You told me at the airport that when your father was in power he put through some anti-drugs legislation, right?" "Right." "Well, there must have been people that he worked with back then. Judges, ministers, senior police officers. People he trusted. If you think back, surely you can remember some names?" "It was ages ago. I was only a child really. And in this country, when the government changes, most of these senior posts change as well. The new party wants to put its own people in the top positions..." "Think, Rose. Please. It's our only chance." "Well... the Chief of Police back then was a man named Rasang. I don't think he's Chief any more but he still has some very senior police post. Papa had a lot of contact with him at one time. Always spoke very highly of him, as far as I can remember." "Rasang. Okay. How can we get in touch with him?" She shrugged. "There's no reason why he shouldn't be in the telephone book. But one thing, Leonard. Will you keep my family name out of it if you go to see him?" "Of course. No problem. I'll go by myself. There's absolutely no reason to involve you."
O Rasang lived in a very elegant modern apartment block near the city center. It was built in the shape of a huge curved horseshoe of tinted glass, enclosing a landscaped garden at the front with trees and fountains, opening in off the main road. Smith arrived just as dusk had begun to gather and the external floodlights came on automatically. It made the structure tower above him, fading into the dusky skyline like a giant's castle in a fairy-tale. You could almost smell the affluence. He found himself wondering what sort of place Suavarose's family lived in. Even more impressive than this, he imagined. It was silly, he knew, to feel intimidated by a building, but there was something unfriendly about this place, something superior and cold. He walked up to the main entrance and pressed one of the numbered buttons. "Mr. Smith," said a cultured voice with just a trace of the local accent, "please come straight up. Floor seven." When the ostentatious stainless-steel-and-glass elevator reached the landing, Rasang was waiting for him outside the front door of his apartment. He was quite a small, slightly-built Oriental-looking man in a dark blue business-suit and a gleaming white shirt, finished off with an obviously expensive conservative blue tie and a large gold tie-pin. There was a faint ring of silver around the edges of his neatly-combed black Asiatic hair. To Smith he looked quite unnaturally neat and well-groomed, like the doorman at an exclusive British gentlemans' club. "good evening, Mr. Smith," he said with a formal, almost exaggerated courtesy, "Please come this way." "I appreciate your seeing me at such short notice," Smith acknowledged as he followed the man down a short corridor. The floor, he noticed, was genuine marble, and heavily-framed portraits of members of Rasang's family and local political figures lined the dazzlingly-white walls. Rasang opened the door of a small study and stood back for Smith to enter. The furniture was ridiculously beautiful and everything almost oppressively clean and tidy. It could have been a Hollywood film-set of an Important Man's Study. It made Smith feel very ill-at-ease. But he didn't have to like this man, he knew. He merely had to trust him. And there was no alternative. This was the only game in town. Rasang offered him a seat and waited for him to take it before sitting down himself. "May I offer you something to drink, Mr. Smith?" he suggested. "No, thank you. I.... that is, we, have very little time, so I'll come straight to the point. Have you heard of a man named Miller, Mr. Rasang?" "Miller the American. Of course. He's something of a legendary figure around here." "Okay. I can tell you where you can get to him, in a public place, maybe even on his own, later on tonight. And he'll be carrying about a kilo of heroin. That means you won't need any additional evidence or witnesses. You'll be able to put him away for good." Rasang suddenly looked very serious. He looked Smith straight in the eye. "I see. How do you come to know Miller, Mr. Smith?" That's not important. Anyway I can't tell you. I have to protect my sources. I can't tell you who I am either. I'm sure you don't imagine that 'Smith' is my real name." Rasang's expression gave very little away. He continued to study Smith's face for a few seconds before he spoke. "How do I know that this is genuine?" he said at last. "With all due respect, Mr. Rasang, I think that's a rather silly question. What would I have to gain by coming here and telling you made-up stories about Miller? If it ever gets back to him that I came here tonight it may cost me my life. Do you really think I'm telling you this for fun?" It made Smith feel good to have, as he thought, at least a momentary upper hand. Rasang nodded almost imperceptibly. "Very well, Mr. Smith. I accept what you tell me. I presume you want me to arrange.... some kind of ambush?" "Exactly. You're going to need armed men. And they're going to have to be hidden. When Miller first arrives, he won't have the heroin. You have to let him pick it up first, then you strike." "Carry on, Mr. Smith. I am listening." O When Smith got back to the hotel room, Suavarose was lying down on the bed, with just the little bedside lamp switched-on to dispel the gloom. The sun had set quite abruptly, as it always does in tropical latitudes, and a few garish neon lights had come into view in the distance through the hotel-room window. At Smith's arrival she jumped to her feet and threw her arms around his neck. They had a brief but quite passionate kiss. "Thank God you're all right," he whispered. "How did your phone call go?" "Just as you said it would." she pulled him back towards the bed as she spoke and they sat down side-by-side. "I told him I'd slipped it in to your luggage and that I'd followed you here. I said you had been in your room with somebody all evening and I hadn't been able to get it back. I said that as far as I knew you hadn't found it yet. He said I mustn't leave here. That I should stay down at the bar, near the door where I could see anybody getting out of the elevator. He'll come and get the package back himself." "Did he say what time he would come?" "He said as soon as it got dark. And it just has. Are Rasang's people down there?" "I certainly hope so. He was phoning-up about it as I left. He said they would be here before I got back." "In that case, I'd better get down to the bar." "Down to the bar? Are you kidding? There's going to be shooting down there in a few minutes!" "But I told you, Leonard. Miller will expect to see me at the bar when he gets here. That's the arrangement. If I'm not there he's going to be suspicious. And anyway, there won't be any shooting when he first arrives. He has to come up here and get the package first. You told Rasang about that bit, didn't you? So as soon as I see him get into the elevator to come up here, I get out of the way. In fact I think I'll go right out into the road, I don't want my family name linked to this arrest in any way. It will be all right, Leonard. You'll see." |