The Tsunami File by Michael E. Rose Page A

the record, if you’re feeling more comfortable. How would it be if we started off like that?”
    The deal clearly worked for Smith. He launched immediately into a detailed tirade about the missing Deutschland file, about the missing elements of the file he had observed before it disappeared completely, about the brush-off he got from various DVI colleagues, and from Adrian Braithwaite. He told Delaney about the late-night visit from a possibly drunken Horst Becker. And eventually he told him about the blackmail note. Once Smith decided to tell Delaney the story of the file, he told it all.
    â€œWhat did the note say exactly?” Delaney asked eventually.
    â€œWell, it basically said if I didn’t stop asking questions about the file, there’d be trouble. I’ve got it back in my room if you want to look at it.”
    â€œWhat kind of trouble?” Smith took off his glasses and polished them with the end of his shirt.
    â€œAh, now we will have to be well and truly off the record, Delaney,” he said.
    â€œWe’re as far off the record as we can go,”
    Delaney said.
    â€œIt said that they, or he, or whoever wrote it, would tell my wife back in London I was having an affair out here.”
    â€œAh,” Delaney said.
    â€œExactly,” Smith said. “Ah.”
    â€œYou know what I am going to ask you now, don’t you, Jonah?” Delaney said.
    â€œYou’d make a very good prosecutor, Delaney,” Smith said with a bitter smile.
    â€œSo I’ve been told,” Delaney said.
    â€œLook, OK, here it is. I have been seeing a woman from another DVI team. We spend a lot of time together. Yes, it’s an affair. But it’s nobody’s business.”
    â€œA lot of Western men meet Thai women when they come out to places like this,” Delaney said. “No big revelation there.”
    He thought of Nathan Kellner, a lifelong ladies’ man before he was killed in Burma in 2001. He thought of Kellner’s Thai girlfriend solemnly feeding cats and goldfish in their apartment in Bangkok while she waited for word from Delaney whether her man was alive or dead.
    â€œShe’s not Thai,” Smith said. “It’s not like that. She’s not a bar girl. She’s with the police. From Spain.”
    â€œAnd if the people you have pissed off tell your wife about that, is that a problem for you?” Delaney asked.
    Smith put his glasses back on.
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anymore. Certainly it would be complicated. But maybe not such a bad thing. Not sure.”
    Delaney paused for minute to process that frank evaluation of a marriage and to allow Smith to do the same thing.
    â€œYou think whoever wrote you that note would be police?” Delaney asked.
    â€œOr civilian,” Smith said quickly. “It could be a civilian. There are lots of civilian staff working out here from all over the place. From Thailand too. It could be anyone.”
    â€œHow many people did you talk to about your worries on this thing?” Delaney said.
    â€œQuite a few,” Smith said. “Too many, in retrospect.” “I would say.”
    â€œAnd the place is a gossip’s heaven. Anybody I asked about the file could have told anybody else. Word flashes around here like wildfire about any little thing,” Smith said. “Who’s sleeping with whom, for example.”
    Delaney drank tea. Smith worked on his bottle of mineral water. They watched each other for a while in silence.
    â€œWhat is it you want me to do exactly, Jonah?” Delaney said eventually.
    â€œFind out what’s happening. Ask senior people the right questions on the record and see what they say. Light a fire under some of these people. And if they don’t fix things up, then damn it, tell the world about it.”
    â€œAnd you think the world cares about one lost file, in a situation like this?” Delaney