Read Online Bullet Beach by Ronald Tierney - Free Book Online Page A

automobiles to get pole position at the stop light. When the light changed they swarmed off in a deafening buzz.
    He ordered a cup of coffee at a table in a drab, colorless restaurant and spread out the colorful Bangkok Post . A few moments later a young Thai man in a baseball cap, olive tee shirt and jeans came in. Shanahan wouldn’t have noticed except that the kid seemed to make a special point of not looking around. He was trying very hard not to be noticed. When the waiter came, Shanahan saw the young man steal a glimpse before his gaze too quickly retreated.
    Shanahan looked down at his paper and paid no attention to the kid. He asked the waiter for two cups ‘to go’ and walked past the kid and out the door. He thought about trying to lose him, but he didn’t want to. If he was right about the tail, this was the only connection he had made so far. He’d have to figure out what to do about it.
    Maureen was awake and up when he got back to the hotel.
    â€˜Channarong called. Wants to know if you have plans for him.’
    â€˜I do.’ Shanahan went to the phone and punched in the numbers.
    â€˜What’s on our agenda?’ she asked, while Shanahan waited for Channarong to answer.
    â€˜Breakfast and a long walk,’ Shanahan said just as Channarong answered. ‘Can you meet us at ten here at the hotel?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Come on up to the room.’
    Shanahan didn’t want to discuss things in the lobby.
    Maureen stood out on the balcony and sipped her coffee.
    â€˜Are we going to have breakfast out?’ she asked.
    â€˜Can you wait until ten thirty?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜We’ll go downstairs. It is part of our rate, I guess,’ Shanahan said.
    She was a little disappointed. The breakfast buffet was OK – for what it was – a breakfast buffet. And it was a food adventure she had already experienced.
    Channarong stepped out on to the balcony. Shanahan followed.
    Looking down, Channarong said, ‘All that used to be a Chinese cemetery. On a morning like this morning the tombstones would look like sunken bathtubs in muddy water as if someone forgot and left the faucet running.’
    â€˜I’m reminding you,’ Shanahan said to Maureen who stood in the doorway. ‘I want to be cremated and my ashes thrown on a mountain.’
    She said nothing.
    â€˜What happened to the cemetery?’ Shanahan asked.
    â€˜They’ve taken it all away,’ Channarong said. ‘Progress. I suspect no one liked the idea of soggy corpses.’
    â€˜Are you up for a little intelligence work?’
    Channarong nodded.
    â€˜We need three people for this,’ Shanahan said, counting each one of them. ‘I will go for a long walk, perhaps to a park somewhere,’ Shanahan said. ‘You and Maureen will follow at a distance in order to see if we’re being followed.’
    Channarong nodded.
    Shanahan described the young man who was at the restaurant.
    â€˜It could be someone else now. Anyway I’ll go sit at a park bench somewhere. If I am followed, Maureen will come sit beside me. We will chat for a while. I’ll see her to a cab and she will go back to the hotel.’
    Maureen raised one eyebrow.
    â€˜Then I’ll begin walking again and I will lose him.’
    â€˜You don’t want to confront him? You want to lose him?’ Channarong said.
    â€˜But I don’t want you to lose him.’
    â€˜I see. You want to know where he goes.’
    â€˜Yes. You OK with this? It’s beyond the call of duty.’
    Channarong smiled and nodded. ‘Our temples are beautiful, but I can miss a day of explaining the reclining Buddha.’
    They stepped out of the heat and into the room.
    â€˜I have to come back to the hotel?’ Maureen asked, a little bit of warning in her voice.
    â€˜No, of course not. You can go anywhere you want,’ Shanahan said. ‘A temple maybe. There are thirty-two of