Zero Days, page 11
Drayton only managed to pocket the white cue ball. His opponent then sank five balls, one after the other, knowing his way around a pool table.
Drayton introduced himself as Andreas, a visiting businessman from the US, in the computer business. The guy just said, ‘your shot,’ and Drayton lined up his cue for another effort. He did hit a ball this time, but well wide of a pocket. The white stayed on the table.
‘Where you from?’ Drayton asked, trying to sound upbeat and friendly. But his opponent ignored him again, sinking more balls, which left him on the black. It was a tight shot, since the black was surrounded by Drayton’s sea of balls. He nominated a pocket at the far end of the table, narrowly missing.
Drayton then sank one ball. A sitter. It would have taken great skill to miss. He stood back from the table, trying to slow things down, saying, ‘You must be working for Digital Futures. Doing some good work, I hear.’
‘It’s still your shot.’
Drayton missed, and his opponent quickly pocketed the black, put his cue back in the rack and left the bar without looking at Drayton or saying another word.
‘Great pool player, that guy,’ Drayton said to the barman. ‘And you know what, I’ve completely forgotten his name already.’
‘Easy to do. That’s Grom, he’s from Brazil,’ said the barman, a young Australian.
‘Grom?’
‘Yeah. Like the character in World of Warcraft. The game. You know, the chieftain. The one who’s a really good blademaster.’ The barman said all the kids from upstairs have nicknames. ‘Some pretty weird ones.’
‘Tell me,’ Drayton said
‘Well, we’ve got a Phreak, a Bubblegum. Even a Tox. There was a Razor when I first got here.’
All names from Milo’s list.
‘Ever had a Neo?’ Drayton asked.
The barman yelled across at the kid on the laptop, ‘Hey Ghoul, you remember some guy called Neo working upstairs?’
Ghoul looked over, not replying. Then he quickly closed his laptop, jumped from his stool and left the bar.
‘Whoa. What’s bugging him?’ the barman said.
‘Ghoul. Nice name,’ said Drayton. ‘Where’re they all from?’
‘All over. I lose track. Ghoul’s Israeli, I think. I’ve only been here a couple of months, so still getting to know them, which isn’t easy.’
‘How’s that?’ Drayton said.
‘I guess it’s a thing about computer nerds. Not great with the talking.’
‘How long’s Digital Futures been here? It’s just that I never noticed the place or the bar before,’ Drayton said.
‘Six months or so, as far as I know,’ the barman said.
Drayton said thanks. Great bar. That he had to go, but would maybe come back, try his hand at some games, and the barman said he should come Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, which was always a big day for e-games. He said the bar would be busy since they had the new release of World of Warcraft, the new extension.
‘Hey Ko Win,’ he shouted at the kid at the gaming computer in the annex. ‘What time are the games Wednesday?’ Ko Win ignored the question, never taking his eyes off the screen.
The barman turned back to Drayton. ‘It will be around lunchtime, it always is.’
It was dusk when Drayton left the bar.
He looked for a door that might lead to the offices above, but there didn’t seem to be one, at least not out front. He followed the dark alley running down one side of the building until it reached an unmarked entrance with a keypad and fingerprint scanner, but then took a sudden step back, startled and for a moment blinded by a spotlight above the door, a motion sensor and surveillance camera alongside it.
He turned his back to face the wall opposite, unzipping his fly. Trying to give an impression of a drunk from the bar who’d come down there to relieve himself.
He heard the door open behind him. He waited, and then turned, making a big show of zipping up his fly, trying to make like he didn’t have a care in the world. Drunk happy. The door only opened a few centimetres and Drayton tried not to look at it. Pretended not to notice. But it was impossible not to see the face. The face in the gap, hard and cold, a long scar down one side, and with closely cropped blonde hair. The man was holding the door with one hand, the other on the frame. Big hands. Thick arms. On his right arm, a tattoo, a spider, its legs wrapping around the man’s elbow and wrist.
‘Needed the bathroom,’ said Drayton, waving, and moving back towards the road, trying to sound casual.
The man said nothing. Just stared.
Then he closed the door.
Drayton walked back to the main road, as quickly as he could without breaking into a run. Back to 50th Street. Only when he was well clear did he stop, pausing for breath, sweating heavily in the hot and humid evening air. His shirt was soaked.
He bought a bottle of water from a roadside stall, steadying himself against the wall.
That’s when he saw the car. An old Toyota, black with tinted windows, an up-market version, a Crown. It was moving slowly a hundred metres or so behind him.
He turned left into a wider road. The Crown turned left too. And when he entered a side street, the Crown turned in there too. He ducked into a market that lined the road, a maze of narrow alleyways packed with stalls. He squeezed past tables straining under piles of clothes, shoes and bags. Then, deeper inside, bowls of spices, fruit and teas. He passed food stalls selling steaming noodles and tables weighed down with pirated DVDs. It was dark, crowded and loud.
He found another exit. There was no sign of the Crown, so he hailed a taxi and told the driver to take him back to his hotel, turning and scanning the road behind as they drove. The Crown might have been nothing. Probably was. But the face in the door of Digital Futures had shaken him, and his heart was still beating heavily. That might mean nothing too. Most companies employed security, usually pretty thuggish-looking. He felt stupid and angry with himself.
There was an entire colony of mosquitoes in the back of this taxi. A few more joined the feast each time the driver opened the door to spit. Drayton took out his frustration on the insects, and by the time he got back to the hotel, his hands were covered in the speckled remains of squished mosquitoes.
*****
When Morgan arrived at Drayton’s hotel early the following afternoon, the American was still in bed asleep. He’d slept solidly for fourteen hours, and when his phone rang, it took him a while to remember where he was.
He found Morgan sitting on a stool at the bar fiddling with a ship’s telegraph and drinking a gin and tonic. ‘Always loved this stuff,’ the Englishman said, pushing the handle of the telegraph forward like he was on the bridge of a ship, sending instructions down to the engine room. Full ahead!
Drayton said the bar had a nautical theme.
‘And very good gin,’ said Morgan, taking a large sip. ‘I charged it to your room. Hope you don’t mind. A down payment on the work.’
‘What did you find out?’
Morgan didn’t answer immediately, telling Drayton that his car almost collided with a bus. ‘It’s an occupational hazard. You see they all drive on the right here and they have steering wheels on the right, so you can’t always see what’s ahead.’
‘I’ve noticed,’ Drayton said.
‘They used to drive on the left until a military dictator ordered everybody overnight to switch sides.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Astrologers told him it was luckier. Changed the numbers on banknotes too, so they were all divisible by nine. There was a rumour that he bathed in the blood of dolphins because he thought that would keep him young, and whenever he travelled he had all the stray dogs slaughtered in advance.’
‘Were they unlucky too?’
‘Especially the ones with crooked tails.’
Morgan paused, pushing again at the ship’s telegraph. Then he said, ‘Your research is never straightforward Chuck.’
‘If it was straightforward, I wouldn’t have asked you,’ said Drayton. ‘Tell me.’
‘The building where Digital Futures is based, and a lot of the other property on 50th Street, is owned by the army. Specifically, by the MI, Military Intelligence, which in its day was the most feared part of the junta. Nominally at least, Digital Futures is owned by a son of the MI’s second in command, who also owns one of the county’s largest cell phone networks and internet service provider.’
‘You say, “nominally”. What does that mean?’
‘It was common during military rule, when the country was under sanctions, for outside investors to hide behind nominees.’
‘But sanctions are over. Why do it now?’
‘Old habits. Many still like to do business that way. You never quite know what might be around the corner. Keeps things discreet. Especially if your money is not entirely clean, your business slightly dubious, or your partner a little tainted. It also means that Dmitry has a powerful military protection.’
‘What precisely do they do in that building that might not be clean?’
‘Precisely, I’m not sure. “Systems development”, is how Ken Tsang described it when I bumped into him and pressed him a little harder at the club later yesterday. He and Dmitry like to use our facilities for private meetings.’
‘And where does Ken Tsang fit in?’
‘The money man is my best guess. Talks the talk on cryptocurrencies after a glass or two of champagne. Wanted me to accept it in the club. Fool’s game that, if you ask me.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes. It’s sensitive.’
‘How sensitive?’
‘Very sensitive. I approached a good military contact. He was helpful at first. Then stopped returning my calls. When I eventually reached him, he sounded scared. Didn’t want to go there.’
Morgan said there were others he was still waiting to hear from, that he’d be in touch if he learned more, though he was going upcountry to a place called Bagan.
‘What’s happening there?’ asked Drayton.
‘My association is sponsoring some temple restoration work. There was a lot of damage up country, from the earthquake. Only the chap evaluating the damage dropped dead. Complete bureaucratic pain in the arse. His body and personal effects are still in Bagan. It’s been three months now. He wasn’t an easy character, to be honest. In fact he was a difficult bugger. String of academic posts, from Oxford to Princetown via all points in between. More respected than liked. There is family, but mostly they don’t want to admit to it, especially if it means coming out to Myanmar to sort out the old boy’s body. There’s a bitter ex-wife. American. She’s asked me to deal with it, as his sponsor. Which doesn’t exactly thrill me. It’s hard to get a straight answer from the authorities up there. That’s why I’m having to deal with it in person.’
‘Yeah, well, good luck with that,’ said Drayton.
After Morgan left the hotel, Drayton went back to his room and logged in to a World of Warcraft account that he hadn’t used for a while. He’d been a good player in his day, but that was a while back. He needed to get up to speed on the new expansion, if he was going to come close to holding his own at tomorrow’s games at the bar beneath Digital Futures. Going back was a risk. He’d drawn attention to himself, asking about Neo. But he figured that his best move now was to win a bit of respect in the gaming chair. Maybe that would get them talking.
It was as addictive as ever. That’s the one thing that hadn’t changed, and after several hours playing, Drayton couldn’t sleep. He dozed on and off until nearly dawn, before falling into a deep sleep. When an eleven o’clock wake-up call came through he ignored it. It repeated five minutes later, and this time he got up.
He’d expected the bar to be busy, but when he arrived the door was locked, and further secured with a heavy chain and padlock. It was dark inside, no sign of life. Chairs stacked up. He knocked on the door and then on the window, but there was no response. He took a few steps back, and saw the Digital Futures sign had been removed.
The keypad and fingerprint scanner were gone from the entrance in the alley, as were the surveillance camera and motion-activated light. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open and went inside. He entered a dark corridor leading to a staircase, which he climbed, guided by the torch on his smartphone. A landing led to a large room with big windows overlooking the street. There were a handful of empty tables and some chairs, but everything else had been removed. Cables hung from wall sockets like a snake infestation. A single photograph of a golden temple at night hung at an angle from a whitewashed wall.
Back on the landing, two heavy filing cabinets stood empty. He climbed to a higher floor where a series of smaller offices has also been cleared of everything but bare furniture. Several plastic cups were scattered on the floor, stained with coffee dregs. He checked the desk drawers, all of them empty, the bookshelves too. More redundant computer cables.
Digital Futures had closed down, and it had closed quickly.
He turned to leave, but then stopped, crouching beneath a desk, pulling at something dark buried beneath a pile of plain printer paper. It was a brochure from a tour company with a scooter on the front, driving along one of the remnants of the Berlin Wall. ‘Cold War Tours. Cold War Berlin by Scooter’. He folded it and put it in his pocket.
He heard the scrape of a chair behind him and the crunch of a plastic cup underfoot. Then felt something cold around his neck. A power cable, tightening around his throat, dragging him backwards. He could feel hot breath on his neck. He tried to force his fingers under the cable, struggling to breathe. He moved his head just enough to see the spider, the tattoo wrapped around a thick forearm. The cable cut into his fingers. He let go and with all the force he could muster, he thrust his elbows back hard.
The cable grip loosened just enough for Drayton to pull it away from his throat. He stumbled out of the room and down the stairs, pushing over empty filing cabinets behind him. He was in such a blind panic, dazed and still gasping, that he turned the wrong way into the alley, a dead end, a wall blocking his way. The wall was three metres high, and he began to climb a waste pipe that snaked up the side of the building close by. The pipe groaned under his weight, and began to peel away from the decaying bricks. Drayton fell onto a pile of bin bags, which pulsated and split, and he kicked and swiped as rats spilled over his feet, his legs, his stomach.
Then he saw him, the man with the tattoos approaching, silhouetted against the light at the far end of the alley. The pipe falling from the wall had wedged across the narrow alley, making it easier to climb. He scrambled up to the top of the wall and began to pull himself over. Then he felt a vice-like grip around his ankle. He kicked hard with his free foot into the man’s face. The grip loosened and he tumbled over the wall and into a pile of bushes on the other side.
He was in the courtyard of an old house; a woman was cooking. She glanced up, then looked back down at her sizzling wok, ignoring him as he limped past. He had no idea where he was, following a series of narrow lanes, sticking to the shadows of the dark crumbling tenements, just wanting to get as far away as possible.
He paused to rest when he reached a broader, busier road. He was exhausted. He leaned against a tree beside the road, not noticing the car until it had stopped beside him. It was the black Toyota Crown. Its rear door swung open, and a voice from inside said, ‘Drayton, get in.’
*****
Drayton couldn’t have run, even if he’d wanted to. He could barely put one painful foot in front of the other. And the voice was addressing him by name. It was American, it was familiar, and the tone didn’t leave much room for discussion.
‘So you come all the way to Burma and not a word to your fellow Americans,’ said Ric Cullen. ‘Bit fucking remiss don’t you think, Drayton. Like maybe you’ve forgotten who you’re working for. Forgotten our conversation in Berlin.’
‘I’m on holiday,’ Drayton said. ‘Taking in some temples. Getting a bit of spirituality. You ought to try it some time.’
Cullen pushed Drayton hard against the Crown’s window, grabbing a fist-full of shirt, which tightened around Drayton’s bruised neck. With the other hand, he poked at dried blood above Drayton’s ear.
Drayton could see his battered face reflected in Cullen’s wrap-around sunglasses. Below the glasses, Cullen’s teeth were clenched, his goatee beard tinged with sweat.
‘Let me tell you something Drayton. You’ve just fucked up again. Good at that aren’t you? This time you’ve fucked up an operation. A big operation. An important operation. You hear what I’m saying?’
Drayton ignored the question. Cullen’s grip was so tight he couldn’t speak. Then Cullen eased back. He pulled out an envelope from one of the multiple pockets of his short-sleeved khaki jacket and handed it to Drayton. ‘It’s an airline ticket. The next available flight out. To Bangkok.’
He looked at his watch. ‘There’s just enough time to call at your hotel, to clean yourself up and collect your stuff. Then we’ll take you to the airport.’
Drayton struggled for breath. ‘I can take a cab.’
‘Burmese roads are dangerous Drayton. We wouldn’t want you to get hurt – or miss your flight.’
*****
Cullen watched Drayton check in for the Bangkok flight, and then walked with him to the security check.
‘Thanks for the ride,’ Drayton said, holding out a hand.
Cullen ignored the hand, drawing in close to Drayton, their heads inches apart. ‘You’re finished Drayton. You’re a serial fuck-up hanging by a thread over a nasty fucking precipice, and I can cut that thread any time I like. If you want to salvage something, then you listen to me, and you listen to me good. You get the fuck out of Asia. Tell Schoenberg any shit you want. And next time I call, I wanna know what that old man’s thinking, what he’s hearing, what he’s seeing and what he’s doing. I wanna know it before even he does. From here on, I’m the one telling you how it is.’
As the border guard stamped his passport, Drayton turned to see Cullen still standing, waiting. Drayton waved. Cullen ignored him, only turning and leaving the building once Drayton was through all the formalities.
