“Better stay where you are for the moment, ‘til I sort this out,” was all Samson Lee would say on the first call. “It may take a while. Don’t tell me where you are, just tell me if it’s secure for a month or two.”

“Month or two?”

“This will take some time.”

“Did they kill Hercules?”

“Of course they killed Hercules, what was left of him. His mother’s seriously pissed.”

McKay absorbs this information while, from an upstairs window, he watches Lalita’s mother pick rice. It doesn’t look so hard. You simply pull up a clump of the plant from the wet earth, bash it against the side of your foot and chuck it in the basket. It’s hot, though: the landscape turns into a mirage soon after sunup. And it cannot help to be almost blind. The old lady works mostly by feel.

On the second call on the second cell phone the next day, Lee tells him there is a whole gang of Columbians still in Thailand. They bribed the cops in advance, so no one is looking for them except Lee’s people. Lee’s people, though, have connections with senior police which go very deep. As a matter of fact, Lee is connected to almost everyone important in Thailand. The Columbians, who only had the know-how to bribe minor cops, are still at large, but they will find it difficult to leave the country. Magnus is probably not in imminent danger, he just needs to keep his head down until the Thai side of the war is won.

Magnus has to re-think his situation. A week in the country might be quaint, at a pinch, but a month or more is a different ball game. Especially without sex. With the increased emotional need which is a function of insecurity, McKay finds it difficult to keep his hands off Lalita. Images from those two incandescent times he slept with her provoke almost continuous arousal. What to do? Furtive fumbling at night, or during the day when her parents are working the fields, is out of the question, Lalita has made that clear. On the other hand, he dares not take her to a hotel in Surin, not so much because the Columbians might be looking for him (though they might be) but mostly because Samson Lee would surely find out and Magnus is supposed to be incognito. McKay doesn’t want to enrage Samson Lee at a time like this.

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