“The Buddha came to me in a dream,” I mumble. “He showed me the gas bottles.”
“Oh, yeah? Listen, around us you don’t talk about the Buddha. Which Buddha? Be specific.”
“He was in the form of a child’s toy.”
“See! Can’t you even interpret your own dreams properly by now? The Buddha’s showing you it’s time to grow up already, dump your infant faith, and get into something adult. Didn’t they tell you the great Theravada admonition: ‘If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him’?”
“That’s Zen,” I explain.
“Really? Whatever.”
“And what about the gas bottles?”
“You weren’t supposed to take that literally, dummy. The gas bottles are you: pressurized gas, that’s all any of us is who has not reached the Far Shore.” He scratches his head, apparently genuinely perplexed. “I can’t understand how anyone could get that wrong.”
He stands up, comes intimidatingly close, and whispers in my ear, “Whatever little mind pictures you’ve got of me by now, kid, you better dump them. I don’t have an ego. Those Chinese burned every tiny little bit of it out of me, every root, every fiber with their cute little cattle prods-in the end I was secretly urging them on. I knew even then there was no way I was going to spend the next sixty years dragging a bleeding, damaged, heartbroken, resentful, miserable stump of ego around. If I had, I would have gotten sick and died thirty years ago. But I didn’t.” He lets a few beats pass while he assesses me. “You need to grow up. That great pile of black karma you’re so worried about, that huge Chomolungma of guilt that’s looming up in your mind and crippling your judgment-forget it. The people who will use this stuff are already dead, can’t you understand? They are stuck in their diabolic continuum because they trafficked in previous lifetimes. Whether they buy from us or someone else has no significance, because buy they must and buy they will-don’t you know that Clive himself is out there somewhere, shooting up in some squalid backroom above a supermarket in Shropshire, just another deadbeat with tattoos, paralyzed by the weight of his karma, helpless without his little brown servants and whores, the classic Caucasian male basket case of modern times? This isn’t my personal payback, this is world dharma we’re talking about. The earth itself is making this happen, otherwise we would never have gotten the stuff past customs.” He pauses for breath. “For my part, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to suck it all up and transform every last lost life into positive energy using the power of Tantra. And do you know how I acquired the means to do that? I’m not a Buddha, Detective; I’m not a bodhisattva; I’m not even a doctor of Buddhism, only of Tibetan history, and I’m not a monk. Detective, I have to tell you, I am one hell of a lot better than all of those things. I am a man, and I want my country back.”
He stops for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to speak his full mind. Finally, he leans closer so I can feel his breath on my ear.
“I am a mystery to you because I am psychically invisible. I show up on no one’s inner radar. I no longer exist in the way you do. I am your dharma. Get the fuck out of here right now and take your stinking pressurized gas with you.”
When he sees I am on the verge of obeying, he adds, “There’s someone at home waiting for you.”
I’m about ten paces away already when he calls out, “And don’t forget to watch CNN exactly one week from today.”
But leaving, it turns out, is easier said than done. I’m on the way to my car when I see that it is guarded by some of Zinna’s soldiers. I figure the game’s up with me, despite Tietsin’s help, and I just stand there for a moment, waiting to be shot or, more likely, taken away and tortured to death. Then I see there are quite a lot of soldiers, far more than Zinna’s quota, pouring in from the street. At the far end of the dock, Tietsin’s men seem to be rushing out of the area, as if they have an understanding with the soldiers. In spite of everything, I feel the need to warn Vikorn. Too late. Zinna is walking toward the Colonel. About five paces away, he suddenly raises one of his arms and clicks his fingers. Great spotlights originating in a military truck on the street suddenly illuminate most of the dock, especially Zinna and Vikorn, who are facing off in stark white light. The spotlights also reveal the extent of Zinna’s treachery: there must be over two hundred well-armed soldiers on the dock now, and a lot more outside the perimeter. Zinna smiles triumphantly, and almost apologetically, at Vikorn: “Looks like I won,” the little General says.
Vikorn has turned gray and is shaking slightly. When I examine him more closely, I see it is one of those near-epileptic rages that has taken possession of him. I am deeply saddened that he has been double-crossed and defeated; there is nothing to stop the General from simply taking all the smack from under Vikorn’s nose. Zinna is about to wipe him out. You could say he has done so already. Why do I feel such animal loyalty to the Old Man? I’m so depressed I feel ill.
“Looks like it,” Vikorn says with a groan.
Zinna gives the victor’s satisfied nod. “No point in a bloodbath,” he says in his brittle baritone. “Especially when all the blood spilled will be yours.”
“That’s true,” Vikorn says, nodding. “That’s very true.” He pauses, utters the single word “except,” and gives the tiniest little nuance of a nod toward the nearest ship to his right. Zinna is too wired not to notice; when he looks up at the ship, so does everyone else. At the same time, someone switches all the deck’s lights on. Now they are clearly visible: about a hundred cops who had been waiting in the shadows walk forward holding M16s all cocked to fire.
While Zinna is taking this in, Vikorn jerks his chin at the next ship. We are not surprised, this time, to see it light up to reveal another hundred or so cops. With the improved lighting we can see a great crowd of sampan ladies in their boats tied up against the two big ships, their silent oars hanging. The old bastard must have sent a secret signal as soon as he knew where the drop-off was going to be. At about the same time Zinna sent his secret signal.
Zinna has turned ashen, but is not defeated. “Don’t be a fool. I’ve got men on the streets, are you crazy, you can’t defeat me, I am the army.”
Vikorn nods gravely. “You have men on the street, but my men have cordoned off the whole area. I also have a communications van down the road. If you open fire, the whole country will be alerted that you are staging a coup. I do hope you warned your superiors that they are going to be running the country in the morning?”
Everyone is watching Zinna. Which way will he jump? An awful lot of guns are pointing at an awful lot of men. Well, at this point we need to bear in mind that he is Asian. He rubs his jaw. “Vikorn, you old fool, you’ve completely misunderstood, as usual. As the most senior army officer present I was just taking care of security.” He waves a hand to take in the whole of the docks. “Just in case. I wasn’t double-crossing you at all. Can’t you understand that I feel responsible for the safety of the operation and everyone involved in it? I can’t tell you how hurt I feel at your mistrust.”
“I most humbly beg your pardon,” Vikorn says with a glorious smile. “My mistake. Shall we get on with moving the smack, half to your warehouse, half to mine?”
Zinna nods and with another flick of his fingers turns off the spotlights. When Vikorn gives the signal for the two ships to shut their lights, we’re in near darkness again and I can finally go home.
Confused is probably the best word to describe my state of mind; very confused. It occurs to me that Tietsin has finally shown me something that should have been obvious all along: he’s not human. Not like you and me, farang; his brain systems are of a totally different order, and my most basic mental images of him seem to be dissolving even as I drive home. Who understands Tibetans? Maybe he is a reincarnation of Milarepa.