“You have Detective, lemme see, Jiplecreap, for the FBI legal attaché?” Her voice is squeaky over the voice transmission system.

“Yep.”

“I wasn’t expecting him to be in there. Do I come in or do you bring him out? I forget which.”

“I guess I can bring him out. Probably he could make it out all on his own.”

The woman nods gravely. “Okay, let’s do it.”

The marine raises his eyebrows, I nod, the young man opens the door of the cabin and I step out onto the moon.

“You are Detective Jiteecheap of the Royal Thai Police? Can I see your ID please? Sorry about this, but I have to sign for you. Thanks.” She establishes that I have not been substituted by someone else in the past five minutes and leads me across the forecourt toward the main buildings.

Katherine White is blithely unaware that she once accompanied me across a courtyard of startlingly similar dimensions, thousands of years ago. My Egyptian incarnation is the furthest I’ve been able to trace my lineage. A priest who abuses his power pays the heaviest karmic price. I spent three thousand years locked in stone before emerging as the most wretched slave in Byzantium. Pichai also recalled those far-off days when travel to the other side and back was commonplace. We occasionally relived those power-filled moments together: the escape from the body, the black night under our wings, the wonder of Orion.

Now I am standing in the office of the FBI legal attaché and his assistant, Jack Nape, who has just given me one of those gigantic smiles which are hard to believe in, and make one feel guilty for not believing in. Surely this is exactly how a man should be: positive, generous, optimistic, with a smile to swallow the world? He is average height for an American. I am tall for a Thai, so we are pretty much eye to eye.

“That was pretty fast. I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”

“ Bangkok helicopter.” I look around the office. There are two desks of identical size facing each other next to a window, a computer monitor on each, a set of filing cabinets with an American football on one, bookshelves against one wall with a set of dark legal tomes, a sofa, a coffee table, some spare chairs against a wall, an American flag standing in a corner. I’ve seen this office before, surely, hundreds of times, in movies?

“Jack?” A voice calls out from behind a door. “That detective here?”

“Yep, just arrived.”

A sound of water in a washbasin, and the door opens. This man is older, perhaps in his mid-forties, with graying hair, broad shoulders, a heavy walk as he crosses the floor with his hand out. “Congratulations, I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone cross town so quickly. Tod Rosen. How d’you do it?”

“He got the Bangkok helicopter,” Jack Nape says.

“ Bangkok helicopter, huh?” Rosen looks uncertainly at Nape, who shrugs.

A moment of silence. Too late I realize I am supposed to explain. Unforgivably, I let the beat pass without doing so. Jack Nape comes to the rescue. “Could it have been a motorbike?”

“Yes,” I say brightly.

Still Nape has to rescue the moment. He turns to Rosen. “Sounds crude but those motorbike taxis really do beat the traffic.”

“Oh, right.” Now I understand that Rosen is new to Krung Thep. “Whatever works, I guess. Great city, lousy traffic.”

Again I miss the beat. Normally I do better than this. The problem is that suddenly I cannot look at a man without seeing a cobra gnawing at his left eye. I’m sure if I looked in a mirror I would see the same thing. This vision has wrecked my social skills.

“Well, ah, let’s sit down, shall we? Can I get you a coffee?” I say no. I don’t ever want to eat or drink again. “I want you to know how much we appreciate your coming to see us at a time like this,” Rosen adds.

“That’s right,” Nape echoes. “If my partner had just been killed, I don’t know how I’d feel.”

“You’d feel pretty damn shitty.”

“I guess so.” Nape shakes his head in wonder. I swivel my head from one to the other.

“Not that we don’t feel badly ourselves.”

“That’s right.”

“I didn’t know Sergeant Bradley personally, but I hear he was a fine man.”

“A fine man, a great marine and a fine athlete.”

“Served all over the world, mostly on security in embassies.”

“We haven’t told his buddies yet. There’s gonna be some very sore marines when they hear what happened.”

“That’s right.”

Both men peer at me for a moment, then Rosen says, “Damned cuts.” He looks at Nape.

“Yep.” Nape shakes his head.

“If this had happened in the seventies, a charter jumbo would have left Washington already with ten Bureau investigators and a mobile forensic lab.”

“If it had happened in the eighties we would at least have gotten five agents on a scheduled flight.”

“Right. Now what do we get?”

Nape looks at me. “Tod’s been on the telephone yelling at Washington ever since we got the news.”

“Not that it’s doing me much good.”

“What’s the score now, Tod? How many do we get to investigate the violent death of a loyal long-term serviceman?” Rosen holds up his index finger and makes a face of exaggerated misery. “One? I can’t believe it.”

“Of course, if it looked like terrorism, that would be different.”

Suddenly they are both looking at me with curiosity and intensity. I admire the way they have come to the point so quickly. Who says Americans are not subtle?

“I understand.”

For some reason this statement surprises them. “You do?”

“If it’s not terrorism, it must be the other thing, no?”

Nape sighs with relief while Rosen looks stonily at the floor. When he looks up again it is with a smile so false it is almost offensive. “The other thing?”

Nape and I exchange glances. Rosen really is very new and Nape wants to apologize, but there is no opportunity. Rosen is expecting me to answer his question. It seems that we’re done with subtlety. I wait for Nape’s nod before I proceed.

“Bradley was in his mid-forties,” I begin.

“Forty-seven,” Nape confirms, clearly hoping that will be enough explanation, but Rosen is still staring at me.

“Close to retirement?”

“He had almost exactly one year to go.”

“Perhaps he had been here awhile?”

“Five years. Much longer than normal, but he fitted in.”

“Liked the city?”

“He was a very private man, but the word is, yes, he loved it.”

“Enjoyed a privileged lifestyle and intended to stay after retirement?” I raise my eyes.

Finally, Rosen gives a nod of recognition. “I guess we’re thinking along the same lines, Detective. I just wanted to be sure. You think he double-crossed his wholesalers, huh?”

“That would be the first hypothesis.”

“You ever hear of them doing it with snakes before?”

“Actually, no. Never. But it is not unusual for an aggrieved party to make an example of the source of his grievance. Pour encourager les autres.” I did not mean to be pretentious. The French came to the top of my head as it does from time to time. I am relieved that Rosen smiles.

“That’s a pretty good accent. I did a stint in Paris myself. ‘To encourage the others.’ Yep, it sure looks like that, doesn’t it?” He shakes his head. “One hell of a way for a man to die, though.” He’s looking at me: Who is this half-caste Third World cop who speaks English and French? Nape has guessed. He is an old hand in Krung Thep. Just a tinge of Anglo-Saxon contempt in his expression now, for the son of a whore.

All of a sudden Rosen gets up, talking as he moves. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how hard Washington wants to push this one. They’re sending a woman out-a special agent-but it might be just for appearances. How’s a special agent with no Thai and no knowledge of the city supposed to investigate something like this?” Half to himself: “Maybe she screwed up Stateside and they’re moving her sideways. In the meantime, though, in the interests of information-sharing, I want to ask you how you think this might fit with your hypothesis. We found it in his locker. There was nothing else of any interest, only this.”