Assignment Bangkok Read Online Free PDF

northeast in a Thai Star plane for the job.
    According to General McFee, there were fresh Chinese incursions from Laos. Among the thirty or more hill tribes, Meo, Karen, Lahu, Musso, and Ko people, each with their distinctive cultures and slash-and-burn agronomy, and with a penchant for growing opium above the five thousand-foot level, there was a growing defiance of Bangkok and a flood of arms that could mean another divided country in Indo-China. It was a mission to gather information, nothing more, according to strict White House directives, McFee had said. Durell still did not know what had gone wrong with it. With Mike’s business connections up
    there, it should have been routine. But Mike hadn’t come back.
    Durell sighed, snapped off the lights, locked his hotel room door, and left.

5
    “I am ordinarily not a betting man,” said Mr. Chuk gently, “but I have wagered one thousand dollars, Hong Kong, on young Tinh, the boy in the red trunks. A protege of mine, you see.”
    “Why?” Durell asked.
    “Ah. He is a true fighter. In any conflict, the aim is to win, eh? The world is more violent today than in the past. To enter a fight—or a war—without the heart to win is to invite and anticipate defeat.”
    “And Tinh?”
    “He is vicious and single-minded. He wins.” Chuk smiled. “You are sitting in a reserved seat, my dear sir.”
    “I know,” said Durell.
    “You seek me, personally?”
    “You know it.”
    “Ah. Ah.” Mr. Chuk settled himself comfortably in the stadium chair. He was a stout Chinese-Thai, with a high, round belly under his tight white suit. A number of quivering jowls framed his round face. He mopped several of his chins with a lavender silk handkerchief. The air-conditioning in the sports stadium had broken down, and the heat from the avid crowd and the lights from the TV cameras rapidly built up the temperature. Bright reflections of Pepsi-Cola, Yamaha, and Sanyo TV shone in Mr. Chuk’s' hexagonal glasses.
    “You seem to be in good health, Mr. Durell.”
    “Shouldn’t I be?”
    “You are extraordinary. Very direct. You proceed like a charging Hon straight to your goal. Stubborn, too. Nothing turns you aside. And here you are, seeking me out.” “You know why,” Durell said.
    “I admit nothing.”
    “You admit you know my name.”
    “Ah, yes. But I am merely a businessman.” Mr. Chuk smiled apologetically. “I am only a middleman in the teak and rice industries, concerned with the oppressed laborers, you see. I am not one of your luangs , a royal palace official. My life is quite open. Neither am I an agent of the imperialist Mao Tse-tung, a charge to which many Chinese in Thailand are liable. It is the tragedy of our times, sir, that the innocent suffer and evil prevails. My business is simply smoothing the wheels of industry and labor in the mills of Thonburi and Bangkok.”
    “And you run the tong called the Muang Thrup.”
    “Not a tong. A legitimate labor union.”
    “You hire torturers, murderers, and rapists.”
    “Come, come, sir. You can prove nothing.”
    “I can. I will.”
    Mr. Chuk pretended to be appalled. “ Nee arai? What’s this? I heard of your arrival. You did not look like a fahrang , a Westerner, assigned to the MDU—the Mobile Development Units who aid our farmers. I am in the rice labor business. Did you know there are almost one thousand rice mills on the canals around Bangkok? No matter. You speak so quietly, Mr. Durell. Men like you never let the mind or body rest, eh? You see all things around you, and are always quick and decisive. You bore directly to the heart of the matter. But you are quiet. Ah, so quiet.” Durell shifted slightly so his gun in its underarm holster could be reached easily. He felt the pressure of Mr.
    Chuk’s fat arm against his, and he knew that the Sino-Thai was shocked by his arrival here. Two young Chinese thugs sat on the other side of Mr. Chuk, their faces impassive. He wondered if they knew by now of the