A Needy, Greedy Traitor’s Lament
Chapter 11
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, join the federal government. That was me alright and I was damn proud of my career with Uncle Sam, but the kudos and ego rewards that went along with the job were never enough to satisfy me or pay the kids’ college bills. I’d mistakenly cosigned on those loans and now owed Ms. SallieMae big time for the educations of my three children. Did my kids pay them back? Hell no, either they couldn’t afford to or they simply stiffed me knowing daddy would pay up. I’d be more careful in the future about who I sired.
I couldn’t keep up with the payments and kept asking for deferments, but those options were quickly running out. I couldn’t even file for bankruptcy since the loans couldn’t be discharged under law. I would be indebted to the tune of 275k for the rest of my life. I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t even use the word couldn’t again without being repetitively redundant. Like everyone else, I wanted to live in a big house on easy street and enjoy my retirement in style and comfort. God knows I deserved it.
I decided to move to the dark side of the drug trade while I still had the chance. I’d never made enough money for my many years of service when I’d risked my life and limb on more than one occasion. The compensation was too damn little and too damn late as far as I was concerned. The pension I was owed wouldn’t make up for the dangers and hardships I’d endured over the years. I also had to split it evenly with the bitch, my miserable ex-wife. It was time to collect my own dues, diligently.
So what? I’d ask myself over and over again. The notion we could win the war on drugs was laughable. We’d already lost it, but the bureaucrats in Washington refused to acknowledge the fact, fearing a public outcry. Telling the truth could be a painful experience, especially if one was a politician looking to get reelected. Bad news never made for a favorable plank in a campaign platform.
Albert Wu and I had crossed paths a couple of years back when I was doing a drug investigation in Nong Khai that also involved an aspect of visa fraud as well. When I turned up the heat on him, he decided to do the honorable thing and offered a substantial bribe to overlook his petty faux pas, at least petty in his view. I took the money and that’s how I eventually met someone who Dick Avery called Kris Amar. I knew him by another name.
No worries, whatever his name, he now owned me and paid me well for the many services I provided to his organization. However, Avery would be a thorny problem in our side. Why now, I wondered? Was it simply happenstance, coincidence or just plain, bad karma that he showed up now on our doorstep? Regardless, he threatened to upset my dreams and plans of financial independence. However, that would never happen. Too bad, but he had to be eliminated before he did any real damage to me or my unofficial source of income. My very future was at stake.
I contacted Amar soon after Avery left my office and tipped him to his presence in Thailand. This was an important piece of information he would pay dearly for. The other favors I’d done for him and Wu paled in comparison, yet still useful in their own rights. I’d alerted Wu awhile back of a planned raid on an opium transit house in his district in Nong Khai. I didn’t know if he was the target, but he made sure he had no incriminating evidence on hand just in case. It turned out it was another target altogether and Wu’s operation remained untouched by the authorities.
There was another thing I did for them that helped their bottom line: providing actionable intelligence to the Thai drug suppression cops to close down competing cartels in the region, thus increasing the value of Amar’s shipments to the south. Like every other commodity, the price of opium would fluctuate based on the laws of supply and demand. They couldn’t be broken, but could be bent for Amar’s benefit and ultimately mine.
I had a good sense of Avery’s intentions and plans, discreetly following his vehicle at a safe distance and saw it turn into the entrance to the Na Pho camp. I saw an opportunity and took my shot. Unfortunately, I’d missed, not by much, but still a miss. Next time I’d have to set my sights a little higher. I felt no pleasure in what I had to do to a fellow agent, nothing of the sort. It was wholly a pragmatic, business decision and nothing more.
If I could, I’d put a bullet to the back of his head so his death would be quick and painless. Actually, it would be much like a quickie, a mercy fuck, but in this instance fatal. And there’d be no happy ending for Dick this time. So, he’d better be careful and watch his back because I was hunting for DSS special agent Avery. And there was no such thing as a catch and release policy in this brutal business.