Siam Unbounded
Chapter 3
The two-legged flight from Washington-Dulles to Seoul and then to Chiang Mai, Thailand lasted over 17 hours, including the layover in South Korea. I was authorized business class given the length of the journey and that took some of the sting out of the experience.
I was familiar with Thailand, having served at the embassy in Bangkok for two years as the Regional Security Officer, aka Security Attaché, aka Diplomatic Security Service Special Agent-in-Charge, aka Security Weenie. I answered equally to all titles. I also stooped to conquer with the best of them in those days. So much so, I was now recognized as a federal bureaucrat in good stooping by my esteemed colleagues.
My beat covered our diplomatic missions in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar. Within Thailand, I supported security operations and programs at the U.S. consulates in Chiang Mai and Udorn in the north and Songhkla in the south of the country. So, I had a pretty good sense of the political and cultural landscape. And they were excellent ones to work in since Thai and U.S. relations had been close and cordial for many decades. Moreover, the situation was ideal for what I had in mind with regard to Kris Amar. There would be no quarter given or received the next time we’d meet.
Lack of sleep and the time difference let me sleep soundly for the next 11 hours without interruption. When I woke, I was still groggy, but I put on my light beige, leisure suit, buffed my black wingtips to a high gloss and headed for a meeting with Dennis Williams, the consulate’s Regional Security Officer. I knew this was Denny’s last assignment before retiring. He was pretty much free to choose his spot and he picked a great one to end his career. We were sworn-in together at the State Department on the same day and had been close buds ever since. Misery loved company, I guessed.
We vied with one another for promotions over the years since the Foreign Service was and is a competitive system where rank or grade level is vested in the person and not the position like the civil service system. It’s similar to the military in that regard. Denny eventually won out because I retired early at age 44 with 23 years of service. I did so because I wanted to work in the private sector in a senior, corporate security position. And I did, spending many successful years working for several, large organizations.
Now, of course, I was given scutt-work and shit jobs Jersey Briggs occasionally threw my way. Just scraps from the table as he liked to say. Those were his terms for what I’d call dangerous assignments. However, I was the initiator of this particular gig so I had no room to complain whatsoever, nor did I.
I greeted Denny with a traditional Thai wai, putting my hands together as if in prayer and holding them above my head to signify that he was the senior, honored one. He laughed and gave me a more business-like wai by holding his hands at chest level.
“Well Khun Dickey, you saved face with that bit of comical shtick. I see you haven’t lost your sense of humor, a few hairs maybe, but not your ability to make people laugh.”
It’d been about two years since we last saw each other and we spent the next 40 minutes or so talking about families, friends and gossiping about the service and world affairs along with the meaning of life. Not surprisingly, we didn’t come to any definitive conclusions about the latter topic. I drew a complete blank on that one.
“You’ve got a sweet deal here Denny. Retiring in place in Chiang Mai prior to official retirement was a coup,” I teased. “Many of our colleagues are envious as hell of your plum assignment since quite a few end-up in the pits of this world. A number of them are already in line to take your place.”
“I have no doubt, but it’s not all sunshine and roses as you recall from your earlier days, Dickey. Remember the annual Songkra Water Festival? You have to be careful for three days each year so you don’t get shot with squirt guns or bombed with water balloons while walking or riding in the open-air tuk-tuks. Everyone is fair game during the event as you recall. There’s danger lurking everywhere my friend,” he said, laughing as he spoke the words.
“Seriously though, we had a scare about a year ago to the effect that remnants of Khun Sa’s rebel mercenaries might be mounting an attack on the consulate due to the DEA’s interdiction efforts in the Triangle. We temporarily relocated the satellite DEA office here to Bangkok for a couple of weeks as a precaution. It turned out the intelligence was bogus, probably disinformation from the traffickers and nothing more. However, that scenario remains a continuing concern.”
“By the way, how did you get that arrogant asshole, Jersey Briggs, to fund your travel here just so we could see each other again?” It seemed we both held Jersey in the same, high disregard.
“I was copied on the DS channel cable about your visit, but it had scant details. So what’s up, my friend?”
“It was purposely vague,” I replied. “I had an official obligation to notify Vientiane, Chiang Mai and Bangkok that I’d be working on their turf as a matter of protocol, but didn’t want to include too much detail in order to avoid tipping my hand.”
“I’m not suggesting anyone would intentionally leak information. But you remember the old adage about the State Department, it’s the only ship that leaks at the top. The hull’s not in much better shape in my opinion.”
“You’re right of course, Avery. Things aren’t always shipshape at Mother State to stay with your wishy-washy, nautical theme,” he chuckled. “Loose lips sink--whatever. So what’s up, I ask again.”
“Do you recall my investigation of the kidnappings of the two girls in Delhi? It was a couple of years ago.”
“Yeah, sure, of course, Jersey undeservedly received a lot of attaboys for your work on the case. You did a great job in recovering the girls unharmed.”
“Regardless, I think I have a good lead on the whereabouts of Kris Amar, the kidnapper. That’s why I’m here, to run him to ground and capture him. He’s a badly wanted bad boy, a terrorist with a reward on his head and now a drug trafficker in the Golden Triangle. That’s why I’m here and I need your help to locate and capture him.”
“Okay, what do you need from me? Whatever it is, you’ve got it.”
“Thanks, Denny. I really appreciate your support. Here’s what I want to get started: your local investigator for a few weeks, a loaded Smith 60 revolver, a one-time code pad from your safe and a meeting with the senior DEA agent here.”
“Oh, is that all Dickey?” he shot back.
I hoped I wasn’t asking for too much, but I desperately required those things if I was to be successful in my hunt for Kris Amar, the Death Master of Banaras.
“Look, I can easily arrange for all of those things except for Chi, my senior, Foreign Service national investigator. He’s my right arm and go-to guy for dealing with sticky situations with the Thai authorities. He retired from the National Police as a colonel and we picked him up. He spent his entire career working the northern tier of Thailand, with many years as an undercover agent working against the druggies. He later commanded police districts in the same areas as he rose through the ranks to become a top police operative.”
Denny was right about the enormous value of an experienced Foreign Service National Investigator to a Regional Security Office. They typically were hardwired to the host government’s police, security and intelligence services. That fact, coupled with their understanding of the local scene and superb investigative skills, made them invaluable assets. I understood Denny’s unease in detailing Chi to me.
“How about compromising? Give me Chi, but if you need him for another case, I’ll return him without whining. Do we have a deal?”
“Dickey, you silver tongued devil! Still the negotiator, diplomat and horse thief I see. OK, it’s a deal as long as we understand that if I need him, he high tails right back here ASAP or sooner.”
With that, Denny punched the phone intercom and summoned Chi to his office. Less than a minute later there was a polite knock on the door and a Thai gentleman of indeterminate age entered the office. I always had difficulty gauging the ages of people, Asians in particular. No, they all didn’t look the same or any other racist nonsense. I believed it had something to do with genetics, making them appear younger than their actual age.
At least that was true in Chi’s case. With his many years of service with the Thai National Police, he had to be at least in his mid-fifties, but the man standing before me appeared to be ten years younger. His short crew-cut added to his youthful appearance.
Chi made a polite bow, but didn’t offer a wai. Unfortunately, the long standing custom was going out of style and replaced by the Western handshake. We shook hands as Denny did the introduction.
“Dick Avery, this is Chanchi Shinawatra or simply Chi for us Americans who have no ear for foreign languages or non Anglo Saxon names.”
I gave him a slight nod of the head as a sign of respect. In Thailand, certain formalities were extremely important, even for ignorant foreigners. Face was one of those, saving it, or at least not losing it in any case. A personal slight, intended or not, could result in humiliation for the offended in certain social situations.
Since cultural slights were to be avoided at all costs, I was faced with a minor dilemma when attending a dinner by senior Thai police officials shortly after arriving in Bangkok for my two year posting. I was the guest of honor and as such I was offered supposedly the most delectable portion of a large, river fish: the meat of its cheeks! I didn’t like fish to begin with and not knowing the creature’s pedigree, I was especially leery about eating it.
I played the game for the sake of saving my hosts’ faces. While no one was watching, I discreetly placed a napkin to my mouth as if wiping my lips and spit the damn stuff into it. I then shook out the napkin under the table. The clandestine maneuver worked for other parts of the miserable fish as well. The waiters must have been aghast with this messy foreigner’s table manners when they swept up afterward.
“Khun Avery it’s a pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Chiang Mai. I hope you enjoy your stay in our fair city,” Chi said in almost flawless English.
“Thank you, Chi, but please call me Dick or Richard since I respond equally to both names,” I replied to his cordial greeting.
“As to Chiang Mai, I’m disappointed to say that I’ll not be staying long in your beautiful city that I’ve visited several times in the past. I plan to go to Nong Khai and hope you will accompany me on a dangerous assignment. I need your experience, investigative skills and contacts to help solve a case, a very personal one to me.”
I then explained who I was hunting and outlined in general terms what our game plan would be, knowing it would likely change given circumstances we couldn’t yet envision.
I had piqued Chi’s interest in the case, one that evidently appealed to his sense of danger and adventure. He mentioned he’d been assigned to the city as the district police commander before transferring to Chiang Mai and knew it well, adding he still had many friends and contacts there.
We chatted for the next half hour, simply a matter of getting to know one another. Chi related he was assigned to Udorn as a young, junior officer toward the end of the Vietnam conflict and got to know some of the diplomats at the U.S. consulate there. He winked and did air quotes around the word diplomats. It was a time when we were using the air base there for covert bombing runs into eastern Laos, specifically the Plain of Jars, to interdict North Vietnam troops and war materiel moving to South Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It was called the Secret War by most.
Chi then started laughing as if he’d just remembered something funny. Denny and I waited for the punch line to the joke and it didn’t take long.
It seemed the tiny U.S. consulate in Udorn didn’t have a cross-cut shredder to destroy classified documents in those days. Instead, it burned the documents in a fire pit on the compound. That procedure was okay as long as the documents couldn’t be reconstructed in whole or part. However, there was a problem with the methodology.
The American secretary would carry burn bags chock full of confidential and secret cables and memos to the pit. She would have the Thai gardener light the documents and return to the consulate, not watching them burn to a crisp as required by security regulations. Of course, once she turned her back, the Thai would tamp out the fire, scoop up all the unburned, classified documents and sell them as scrap paper to a local fishmonger in town. The gardener simply didn’t understand why the Americans so foolishly wasted paper since it had value in the local economy. But the story didn’t end there.
An enterprising Thai gentleman happened to visit the fish shop one day and received his whole Mekong carp wrapped in a lengthy, secret cable slugged “personal” for the consulate’s principle officer’s eyes only. He realized the significance of his find and offered the fishmonger a paltry sum of money for the nearly two reams of classified documents. Being a shrewd businessman and good friend of America, the gentleman offered to return the documents to the consulate, but for a price: $6,000 to be exact.
Both Denny and I had heard the story before because it was standard pap during the information security portion of special agents training, but without the detail and local color that Chi added for comic relief. Many of the young agents suspected it was more of an urban legend sort of thing rather than a true event, like the big bad wolf story, a cautionary tale for newly minted agents. Of course, we were wrong.
Chi concluded his story, mentioning that he was the officer who received the complaint from the consulate. The principle officer had asked if something could be done to get the documents back without paying what he described as a blatant extortion of the U.S. government. Chi’s superiors wrestled with the problem, but in the end could find no breach of Thai law. Ultimately, Uncle Sam paid the price for the lax security practices of one of his negligent minions. More importantly, Mekong fish no longer had to suffer the humiliation of reading poorly written, American prose.
Chi now had his marching orders and Denny and I had a late lunch at a Thai restaurant close by the consulate. Fortunately, there was no dearth of them in the city. However, not to be cheeky, I didn’t order fish, sticking with chicken pad Thai instead. Denny had something more exotic and unpronounceable. I didn’t bother asking what because I didn’t want to know.
The conversation was lighthearted until I asked for a favor.
“Denny, if I don’t make it out of here alive, could you tell my boys I’m proud of them and always loved them. You know you’re like an uncle to them and they respect you. Also, please check in with them from time-to-time. Like we once were, they’re young and still learning life’s ropes. They might need someone to help teach them how to tie the knots. I don’t want to go all sappy on you, but I would sure appreciate if you could look after them if I can’t.”
Denny’s spicy dish started to make my eyes water.
“You got it, but why so glum, chum? You’re damn good at what you do, one of the best in the investigative biz. Remember, Chi will have your back, so no worries my friend!”
“Thanks Denny. I simply have a sense of foreboding with this case, maybe because it’s a matter of unfinished business, but I have to admit it’s very personal and has become an obsession. I can’t let my feelings cloud my judgment or I’ll be in trouble. That’s what has me so damn worried.”
Denny and I parted company. It would be the last time we would see each other. I gave him a man-hug and he wished me good luck in return. We exchanged customary sawadees, used for both hello and goodbye in Thai. He was leaving for Bangkok in the morning for a security conference. I still needed to meet with the DEA rep for the briefing he’d arranged.
I tried to shake off my funk while walking to my hotel. I really liked Chiang Mai and had considered retiring here on more than one occasion. The people were friendly, health care excellent, the food superb (other than gross-looking fish) and the cost of living low. Many American expats had opted to retire here and I could be one of them.
That would remove a constant thorn in my butt and wallet, one Jersey Briggs. I’d no longer have to rely on his meager largesse and could finally retire my begging bowl too. I liked the thought and hung onto it.