The Burma Legacy Read Online Free Page A

approaching them looked more Chinese than Thai. A hard, square face with slicked back hair. He marched along the line of boats like a military commander, a small leather attaché case under his arm.
    Midge began to panic. ‘Get off me!’ she snapped, struggling to escape Squires’ grip. But the drug-runner had no plans to let her go.
    Sam sprang forward and wrenched Squires’ arm from her shoulders. Midge ducked away and stumbled across the deck towards the saloon. The former soldier bunched his fists.
    ‘I don’t know who the fuck you two jokers are, my friend …’ He raised his right hand as if to give it to Sam full on the nose, but instead the fingers formed into the shape of a pistol which he jabbed against the middle of his forehead. ‘But if I come across you again, you’re dead!’
    Holding his gaze for a couple of seconds, he turned away and hopped onto the pontoon, a hand snaking out to greet his guest.
    Sam ducked inside the saloon, heart pounding. Midge was scrabbling through lockers. ‘Handset …’ she hissed. ‘Where the fuck’s the …?’
    Sam pulled the police radio from a drawer and gave it to her.
    ‘Tell me …’
    ‘Know his face.’ She turned the set on. ‘From photos in the files. Works for Yang Lai, the guy I was telling you about. Golden Triangle. He’s number two or three in the organisation. Name’s Hu Sin. And for some reason I can’t explain, the bastard seems to know me .’
    From outside there was an explosive roar as the Estelle ’s engines started up. Sam heard feet on the deck and spun round.
    Hu Sin filled the doorway. In his hand was a gun, its barrel extended by a silencer.
    Sam stopped breathing. Midge had the handset to her mouth, but couldn’t speak, transfixed by the pistol levelled at her head.
    Packer backed against the galley counter, remembering the wrench they’d left on the worktop. Fingers closing round its shaft, he lunged forward, cracking it down on Hu Sin’s arm.
    The man yelped and the gun clattered to the floor. Midge unfroze and made a dive for it. His face twisting with pain, Hu Sin spun round and fled the saloon. The policewoman grappled with the pistol and took aim.
    ‘Leave him!’ Sam snapped. ‘He’s not the one you want.’
    They heard the clunk of feet on the finger pontoonas mooring lines were freed. Then the engine noise declined as the Estelle reversed from the berth.
    ‘Fuck!’ Midge hissed. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’
    ‘ How does he know you?’ Sam growled, furious at coming so close to death for a cause she’d told him so little about.
    ‘ I don’t know …’ she howled. Then she caught herself, put a fist to her mouth and closed her eyes. She’d remembered.
    Through the wide stern window of the saloon they saw the Estelle accelerate away. Jimmy Squires was at the wheel. On the cruiser’s aft deck Jan and Hu Sin stood side by side, the man talking on a mobile phone, the woman clicking with a long-lensed camera.
    Sam turned his face away. Theirs was a photo album he had no wish to grace.

Two
    They had their bags packed within minutes. The charter agent looked outraged when they returned the boat keys and asked for a taxi to the airport.
    ‘But, this is New Year Eve,’ he protested, as if no sane person would abandon plans for a millennium celebration.
    Their haste to get away was being driven by Midge.
    ‘Hu Sin was on the phone. You saw. Yang Lai’s mob won’t waste time. People who get in their way don’t live long.’
    At the airport they hid in a crowd of European tourists, then got lucky at the check-in. An extra flight had been put on for the busy Bangkok run and within minutes they were boarding an Airbus.
    They spoke little on the flight, but by the time they landed in the Thai capital an hour later both had recovered their composure.
    ‘It was that twat of a narcotics agent at the marina café,’ Midge muttered, as they walked through the terminal to the baggage collection. ‘Might as well have had a label