and on whose behalf, depended very much on circumstances. He had grown comfortable with such professional and moral ambiguities.
The last time Delaney had gathered information in Thailand was in early 2001. The ambiguities of that little misadventure almost got him killed by the Burmese military and had almost got Kate Hunter killed, just at the stage in their on-again, offagain relationship when he was finally letting down the last of his defences. He had neither expected nor wanted to be back in Thailand so soon.
Like most of his journalistic and spying assignments in recent years, the Phuket business came to him by accident, through no particular inclination of his own. Usually these things started because someone had an unanswered question. Sometimes it was an ordinary person, sometimes an editor, sometimes it was a spy, often it was Canadaâs national spy service itself asking, more or less officially, for assistance. In all cases, people with questions were attracted to Delaney because it was his special talent to find answers on behalf of others.
If he was luckyâand Delaney had no illusions anymore about how much his journalistic and other information-gathering successes had to do with luckâhe found answers to questions that were far bigger than the players initially realized.
Delaney was in Phuket for International Geographic magazine, his main outlet for freelance stories and income at this stage of his erratic career. He had burned almost as many media bridges in Canada as there were left to burn. The bridge to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was smouldering, if no longer in full flame. The Thailand and Burma business of 2001 had cost him his columnistâs job at the Montreal Tribune, and his sometime handlers at CSIS had shunned him for almost a year afterward, ostensibly because he had ignored their orders not to publish what he found out about a bizarre, ill-fated plot to kidnap Burmaâs pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
But International Geographic , based in Washington and therefore comfortably removed from Canadian media and spy service machinations, had a long history of taking on people like himself with a lot of experience in trouble spots around the world and with few family or other ties to prevent them from accepting assignments that required week after week on the road. The magazine paid exceptionally well, did not quibble about expenses, always provided Delaney with the best photographers and gave him a very good spread when he was actually ready with a story. This time, they had told him to take as long as he needed to produce the definitive piece about the international disaster victim identification operation after the tsunami.
Delaney had been on the story now for almost six weeks. He had travelled to Indonesia to have a look at what was going on there after the waves crashed through Banda Aceh. In that case, once the authorities assured themselves there were few, if any, Western victims, they simply began piling bodies in mass graves and refusing most offers of international DVI assistance. Delaney had subsequently been to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, badly hit, yes, but not like Thailand. Now he was in Phuket to report on the biggest, and most politicized, of all the postdisaster operations in the affected region.
Delaney first encountered Jonah Smith, appropriately enough, at a brief funeral ceremony near the TTVI mortuary compound, with its long rows of refrigerated shipping containers crammed with bodies. Smith was standing beside him under an awning in the hot breeze, watching a profusely sweating priest in white robes reading prayers in Swedish and leading shell-shocked relatives of the dead in mournful Nordic hymns as they stood before five coffins, each draped with their countryâs flag.
Whenever bodies of foreign nationals were officially identified in Phuket, they were placed in simple wooden coffins, appropriate flags were obtained,
The last time Delaney had gathered information in Thailand was in early 2001. The ambiguities of that little misadventure almost got him killed by the Burmese military and had almost got Kate Hunter killed, just at the stage in their on-again, offagain relationship when he was finally letting down the last of his defences. He had neither expected nor wanted to be back in Thailand so soon.
Like most of his journalistic and spying assignments in recent years, the Phuket business came to him by accident, through no particular inclination of his own. Usually these things started because someone had an unanswered question. Sometimes it was an ordinary person, sometimes an editor, sometimes it was a spy, often it was Canadaâs national spy service itself asking, more or less officially, for assistance. In all cases, people with questions were attracted to Delaney because it was his special talent to find answers on behalf of others.
If he was luckyâand Delaney had no illusions anymore about how much his journalistic and other information-gathering successes had to do with luckâhe found answers to questions that were far bigger than the players initially realized.
Delaney was in Phuket for International Geographic magazine, his main outlet for freelance stories and income at this stage of his erratic career. He had burned almost as many media bridges in Canada as there were left to burn. The bridge to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was smouldering, if no longer in full flame. The Thailand and Burma business of 2001 had cost him his columnistâs job at the Montreal Tribune, and his sometime handlers at CSIS had shunned him for almost a year afterward, ostensibly because he had ignored their orders not to publish what he found out about a bizarre, ill-fated plot to kidnap Burmaâs pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
But International Geographic , based in Washington and therefore comfortably removed from Canadian media and spy service machinations, had a long history of taking on people like himself with a lot of experience in trouble spots around the world and with few family or other ties to prevent them from accepting assignments that required week after week on the road. The magazine paid exceptionally well, did not quibble about expenses, always provided Delaney with the best photographers and gave him a very good spread when he was actually ready with a story. This time, they had told him to take as long as he needed to produce the definitive piece about the international disaster victim identification operation after the tsunami.
Delaney had been on the story now for almost six weeks. He had travelled to Indonesia to have a look at what was going on there after the waves crashed through Banda Aceh. In that case, once the authorities assured themselves there were few, if any, Western victims, they simply began piling bodies in mass graves and refusing most offers of international DVI assistance. Delaney had subsequently been to Sri Lanka and the Maldives, badly hit, yes, but not like Thailand. Now he was in Phuket to report on the biggest, and most politicized, of all the postdisaster operations in the affected region.
Delaney first encountered Jonah Smith, appropriately enough, at a brief funeral ceremony near the TTVI mortuary compound, with its long rows of refrigerated shipping containers crammed with bodies. Smith was standing beside him under an awning in the hot breeze, watching a profusely sweating priest in white robes reading prayers in Swedish and leading shell-shocked relatives of the dead in mournful Nordic hymns as they stood before five coffins, each draped with their countryâs flag.
Whenever bodies of foreign nationals were officially identified in Phuket, they were placed in simple wooden coffins, appropriate flags were obtained,
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