Trouble Follows

Chapter One

  
Shots rang through the forest even as the ringing knifed through the pre-dawn air.  

Jon groaned and turned over.  With the dream still raw in his mind he fumbled for the cell phone and his hand struck air.  The traditional phone ring jangled loud in the predawn stillness.  For once he wished he’d set it to one of those silly song rings, something subtle, less jarring.  He opened his eyes just as the phone rang again.  He flicked on the bedside light.

“Yeah,” he said shortly and all the while his mind methodically went over what the emergency could be. 

“Jon.”  The voice was distant, anxious and male.

He didn’t recognize it.

“Yeah.  Who’s this?”

“Evan.”

The next words were garbled.

“Evan.”  He sat up.  “Look, I can barely make out what you’re saying man.  Evan Whyte?  What are you doing calling here?  You’re supposed to be in Myanmar.”  He gripped the cell phone.  Myanmar or Burma as most of the world knew it.  What the hell was his replacement in the British Embassy in Myanmar calling him here in Minneapolis - and especially now, in the middle of the night?  That alone annoyed him.  There was no excuse for not checking time zones. 

“I am.  Calling from Myanmar I mean.”

Jon flipped the nightstand switch on.  The caller ID was blocked.  Static filled the line.  “You’re there?  Myanmar?”  A shiver shot down his spine.  He’d say it was an omen if he believed in such things.  Myanmar still haunted his dreams and filled him with guilt. 

“Right.  Look the phone connection isn’t good.   I’ve got to make this fast.  They’ve asked me to leave.  Can you speak to him?”
“Speak to whom precisely?”

“Thura.”

Jon closed his eyes and he shifted the cell phone against his other ear.  Thura, he knew him well.  He was one of the generals of Burma’s ruling military and the primary figure in Rangoon.  He held back a sigh.  When he had begun contracting diplomatic skills he had considered himself semi-retired.  Instead he’d been on the road, one assignment, one trouble after another for the last few years.  He’s finally blocked some free time – a vacation and after that he was slowing down for keeps.  That’s how it always was, he thought as he sensed his long awaited vacation sliding softly away. 
“What did you do?”  He bit out in a sleep unused, throaty voice.

“He thinks I insulted his nephew.”

“Did you?” Jon said quietly but his hand tightened on the phone at the thought of what this might mean to him.  The least of it all was that his plan to stick close to home for a quiet few months had just ended.  But Burma…  It was the one place in the world where he’d planned never to return.