Summary:
Kid and Nikov decides to depart to Myanmar, and they manages a private contact with Raymond Reddington. There, Raymond Reddington recalls to the two about the growing threat, and that they will have to solve this problem of their own. Inspired by Raymond's own list, Kid and Nikov look on Myanmar.
But their trip doesn't end in the way they expect, with full of skepticism and tensions, as well as the military's agents. They, however, soon perceive something bigger and perhaps, even worse in Myanmar.
The call from Kid to Raymond Reddington had come as a claim. Raymond soon told to Kid.
"I saw the list. It is very strange, yet special. The man who can collect such thing … must be smart. Very, very smart indeed."
"You're also the holding of your own list, so I think you can find the common."
"Nothing very common anyway. But there is a special thing: the moment I saw the list from your iPhone, it is very complicated. I can contact Keen if you want to."
"I don't need Elizabeth Keen. I would like to solve it my own."
"Then, hope so. But there is a warning."
"What's warning to be spoken, Raymond?"
"You have to be careful. Some people in the list … have tied with various parties that deemed to be … national and, international threats. This is very risky, and it may result with death. Where are you heading for?"
"A warlord in Myanmar. He resides in Mandalay, but he is a Turkish national. His name is Çelattin Albayrak."
"A Turk in Myanmar. Hilarious."
"I wonder why Albayrak went to Myanmar. Because from an important profile of Interpol, Albayrak came to Myanmar and had not returned to Turkey for 10 years."
"He is a notorious man. Finding him will be a tough job. I don't know, but it will require luck there."
"So be it, Reddington. We will see again … if I feel we need from you."
"Then, good luck in Burma."
…
…
…
Yangon, Myanmar
"ရန်ကုန်အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာလေဆိပ်မှလှိုက်လှဲစွာကြိုဆိုပါသည်။ သငျသညျရန်ကုန်၌သင်တို့၏သက်သာရှာတွေ့ပါလိမ့်မယ်မျှော်လင့်ပါတယ်။ ခံစားပါ။" (Welcome to Yangon International Airport. Hope you will find your comfortable in Yangon. Enjoy.)
Yangon was the former capital of Myanmar until the junta moved to Naypyidaw. The city of Yangon, however, still retains as commercial and political center, and the U.S. Embassy, is still in Myanmar's Yangon.
Kid and Nikov intended to come to Mandalay, but Yangon was nothing close, either. Due to bad infrastructures outside Yangon, they could only hire a specific taxi. Two men, an American and a naturalized American, became some specific guests in the country's less hospitable junta. And unsurprisingly, when they entered immigration center for foreign tourists who came to the country, they were immediately carried … with two guests.
"(Not really hospitable, right?)"
Nikov was surprised to see two agents of the Tatmadaw, or Burmese Army, assigned in the entrance. In Nikov's memoir, Burmese are famed for their friendly attitude. However, it seemed like only the people, not the army.
Kid and Nikov were just two foreign guys in the larger group of foreigners, but some were not Caucasians like them. Kid's face turned dark as he faced some bitterness from two young Tatmadaw men who looked on them with suspicion.
When they came, official in immigration entrance soon asked them in English.
"Any papers, sirs?"
"Two people, coming as tourists and travelers in Mandalay. We'll stay there for at least two weeks."
Kid and Nikov represented their American passports and its papers that were supplied by the Burmese embassy in Washington. Then, the official looked a brief and approved, allowing them to enter in Myanmar, or Burma.
When Kid and Nikov walked away a bit, the official in immigration officer soon looked on the eyes of two Tatmadaw agents. Those two decided to follow the footsteps of Kid and Nikov. There's still unclear reason behind it.
…
…
…
Kid and Nikov have long impressed about the rich heritages of Yangon, the former capital of Burma. And no doubt, Kid was passionate of the city. Yet, he could even smell something from that.
On the road, Nikov and Kid took a taxi, who could speak fluent English. But as they were on, Kid and Nikov passed through the Hantharwaddy road's corner, Dora-the-Kid was stunned.
Protest.
Growing anti-foreign protest increased, as speakers used both English, Chinese and Burmese. The image of the protest was extremely frightening, for both Kid and Nikov themselves: locals reacted very hostile to American and European criticisms on the country. On the same time, China was also held accusation for financing all problems in Burma.
Nationalist sentiment in Burma has been witnessed by recent years, but nothing compared to calling of massacres of Rohingya and other minorities, calling them "terrorists", even labeling "Muslim terrorists" despite many groups are not Muslims.
Kid wavered a bit, but he distrusted the local driver so he didn't talk to them. They just tried to stay away as fast as possible, to not take any further problems with the hostile locals
…
After getting out of the city, since the railway system between Mandalay and Yangon did not exist, Dora-the-Kid and Dora-nikov expected a fiercer situation. As road continued, Kid and Nikov soon kept it going before.
One thing that put Kid and Nikov to choose taxi, was because the airport in Mandalay, just three days ago, was subjected under a militant attack. 19 people were killed and Kid realized that. This led to the airport to be closed.
Yet, the strange feeling continued. Myanmar, or Burma, is renowned for Yangon and Mandalay. Mandalay was the previous seat of the last Burmese Empire, the Konbaung.
And they just went through …
…
…
…
…
…
Mandalay, Myanmar
The city of Mandalay was completely amazing. Not just because of being ancient heritage, it was also the living history to speak of Burma.
Kid and Nikov had never been to Burma, so their trip to the country impressed them to learn more of the country. But the army of the state seemed not very welcoming.
Although Myanmar has been open up since 2011, the country remains isolated in some parts. This was not a lame claim, Kid and Nikov had seen demonstration, and they had their legal reasons to be afraid of.
After paying money, mostly due to their activities. War in the country that displaced nearly two million people. But as the war occurred outside the country's Irrawaddy basin, rare people have true knowledge about that.
Irrawaddy basin, which concluded from mainstream in Mandalay and northern Myanmar, spread south to Yangon. But that's all they got. This is the economic bulk of Myanmar. Outside, it is nothing. Burmese Army has clashed with ethnic fighters, but it came intensified by years. The role of China also made it further complicated, as they put both sides against each other.
Mandalay has a lot of Chinese immigrants for recent 25 years, many intermarried or at least keep living with the same Chinese customs. Despite this, Burmese culture is still permanent.
However, hostility between Chinese and Burmese might have been increasing. And it could be attributed for the past. Recently, Chinese participation, and PLA's mercenaries fighting on the rebels, further strained relations between locals and Chinese.
After Kid and Nikov decided to rest in a local hotel Diamonds Inn, Kid and Nikov decided to talk less and to be more involved in the question of the Turkish-born Çelattin Albayrak and what motivated a Trabzon citizen to go to Myanmar and not going home for years.
"(Kid, most Burmese locals seem to be friendly, right?)" Nikov tried to calm.
"Yeah, but some few of them, perhaps."
Since the short trip took them 7 hours and 45 minutes, Kid and Nikov had to go to the bedroom first. They chose the room of 302, and talked less about it.
…
Yet, from outside, two officers, that two, those mysterious one, appeared again. They had secretly followed Kid and Nikov since their arrival to Yangon. As Mandalay airport was due to under massive repair, having been damaged by few days ago's attack, they came to watch. Soon, one of them reported to someone from the phone.
"အထွေထွေ, သူတို့ကစိန်ကအင်းဟိုတယ်တွင်ထံသို့လာကြပါပြီ။" (General, they have come to the Diamond Inn Hotel.)
"နားလည်ပြီ။ သူတို့ကို ကိုကြည့်ရှုပါ ။ သင်သည်တတ်နိုင်လျှင်သူတို့ကိုသတ်ကြလော့။" (Roger that. Watch them. Kill them if you can.)
…
But Kid and Nikov were well-informed. They understood that, there was something messy when they arrived there. The way official in immigration office looked on them, to two mysterious officers, all linked Kid and Nikov to close the door and pulled the curtains in to cover their activities. Since they chose to live away from turmoils, it was now two years before they returned, this time, to act alone and to solve the mysterious list that Abdulla left for them.
Meanwhile, in the other room, just few step …
…
"Mrs. Eli, you are now 19 years old. You have to be more realistic if you want to graduate as a model."
"I was quite an idol but now … seriously … I am afraid of dark, and you want me … to perform like this?"
"Trust me, you are now an angel in the dark. So, go on."
This room was where a man, who, in turn, had carried a strange baggage, small, but sometimes was running inside. He was also a photographer, but there was another side of his. It's just about to find out.
As the man finally put some few photographs, he left the room, carried with his own baggage before putting in front of 302 room, the room where Kid and Nikov were sleeping. What's running inside?
…
…
…
Kachin Region, Myanmar
"Bunu zaten yaptığını düşündüm. Nerede olası bir geçiş bulabilirim? Ankara'dan Bangalore'ye gönderebilir misiniz?" (I thought you have already done it. Where can we find a possible transit? Can you just send it from Ankara to Bangalore?)
"Yapıyoruz, ama bu yeterli değil. Kendi işinle ilgilenmelisin." (We're doing, but it's not enough. You have to handle your own.)
This was the voice of someone. This man, who lived in the dark and quietly covered himself so not to be found. He soon addressed to his henchmen.
"Now, the Chinese Government has been playing both against us. They send weapons to us and then they also send weapons and assist the evil junta. Two-faced bastards! This is why I need the packet of weapons to be transported from Bangalore. But it has not been done."
"Quite of. But what I am afraid is, the Chinese have decided to send Special Forces. We are not clear what's next."
"The butcher of Kachin! Zheng Wangji, I know that!" The Turkish man stated: "We will have to find the ammunition and to see how did it happen. Seek out any possible Chinese presence, we can start from Mandalay and the rest of the mountains."
…
…
…
At 21:00 by the local time, Kid and Nikov were busy reading from the internet and they connected with the Huawei iPhone of Abdulla Bangsan, now death.
Nikov was wary about the new being reported in Peru few days earlier. He kept reading, both in English and Russian, and the news of the death of Rodrigo López Amirello "The Mastiff" because of gunfire, might have put them into attention.
Nikov soon realized, it seemed like this story had a greater impact than he could imagine. Because of the vast information from the media, they needed to cover their actions as soon as possible. The body of Abdulla was also found there.
Suddenly Kid discovered something on this report, which Kid decided to name it "The Lost List" before.
"Wait a second, Albayrak did have a meeting with a rogue general named Than Myint."
From this point, Nikov turned his eyes up: "(Wait, Than Myint?)"
"Than Myint is a high-ranked General of the Tatmadaw. A Major General of the Burmese Army who is responsible for mass killing of Karen people in the east. You do know him, right?"
Nikov didn't intend to hide anyway.
"(Indeed. Than Myint used to pay a special visit to Moscow in 2010. I had seen him in the Red Square.)"
"How did he look?"
"(At least 45 years old, well-experienced.)"
"Great. Anything else of him?"
"(Than Myint is also notable for facilitating the drug trade from Myanmar to the rest of Asia. Starting point from Shan State, but his major base lies in Kachin State. The drug trades might have been supplied by Yunnanese officials as well.)"
"Chinese officials?"
"(China has a big role in Myanmar's ethnic tribal wars, but it's very complicated. One side, they sell for the Government the needs; but another, they support the ethnic rebels with ammunitions and weaponry.)"
"Do you think Yunnanese officials have something with such politics?"
"(I came to Yunnan for only one, perhaps six years ago, or longer, I can't remember fully. But I remember that I was barred from entering a part of Xishuangbanna Forest, in which it was reinforced by a bulletin board registered 'specific area, no entry'.)"
"Then I guess this is a secret base of the People's Liberation Army." Kid noticed in Google Map: "Because the place you told me, it was not far away from a military base there."
"(Three years next, the Chinese Government announced their mission is to expand its influence to the south, which to serve for its One Belt, One Road project. Yet, ever since the project comes to work, drug trade has surged dramatically. The base may not be a base we are looking, but … I guess this is more than a base.)"
Nikov naturally is a wolf. So while he was typically patient, he sensed something. Thus, he soon walked outside and opened the room's door. Eventually, he discovered a small baggage outside.
"(Baggage? What on earth … wait!)"
Nikov was pretty fast to react. He soon seized the baggage and opened it out, as the baggage remained just 0-0-0 for the code. When he watched inside, he was stunned to see something …
…
…
It was a bomb!
A bomb that was placed in front of their room. A bomb for what? But now, they really felt sense: there was a hostile element.
He closed the door and told Kid.
"(Kiddo! Run! We have to collect and get out of here! Someone wants to kill us!)"
"What?" Kid got startled when Nikov pointed out a baggage which carried a bomb. It was a pressure cooker with a bomb carried inside, an act that must be contributed to some fanatic murderers.
"But … how? Why was someone intended to … Wait!" Dora-the-Kid was quick to remember about two mysterious hostile military officers in the immigration entrance. From this point, Kid collected all stuffs and got out before the detonation.
"But before I leave, how many seconds?"
"(We have 15 seconds left. Get out of here.)"
Kid and Nikov were able to see that, and they used exit entrance. Shortly after they left the room, one thing shined in their room as it came with an …
…
…
…
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
The bomb exploded, ruined entire of their room they intended to stay. Both Kid and Nikov had left their keys back in the room and carried all of their small stuffs out to not be watched.
Immediately after using the exit entrance safely, Kid and Nikov decided to catch a new taxi and left the Diamond Inn Hotel, where they looked for a new hotel, but this time, covered in secret.
…
…
…
From outside, two men, who were not noticing that Kid and Nikov had left prior to the blast, reported:
"ဒါဟာပေါက်ကွဲခဲ့သည်။ သူတို့အားနှစ်ခုအသက်ရှင်သေးသို့မဟုတ်မဖြစ်ကြပါလျှင်ကျနော်တို့မြင်လိမ့်မည်။" (It has exploded. We will see if those two are still alive or not.)
…
…
…
…
…
Next morning
The investigation of the bombing in Diamond Inn Hotel in Mandalay was on the run. Two mysterious officers than showed up their own badges, claiming themselves from special investigation team of Mandalay police.
"ကျွန်မထွန်းယောဖြစ်ကြောင်းကိုနှင့်ဤအထူးစုံစမ်းစစ်ဆေးရေးအဖွဲ့အနေဖြင့်ထွန်းဇော်ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။" (I am Htun Yaw and this is Htun Zaw from the special investigation team.)
"ဒါကို။ ချင်းတို့, ရဲ့ရကြပါစို့။" (Alright. Let's get in, sirs.)
After all, they were Htun Yaw and Htun Zaw, twin brothers. The twin investigated the side of the bombing, where they also talked with some locals. However, none of them could see any sign of two mysterious men who looked like a robot-cat and a scarf-covered man. After that, Htun Yaw was surprised a bit. Much of the surprise, Htun Zaw had to report this time.
"ပေါက်ကွဲမှုဖြစ်ပျက်သည့်အခါဗိုလ်ချုပ်မှူးကြီးသူတို့အဲဒီမှာမရှိကြပေ။" (General, they are not there when the blast happened.)
…
The General?
Turn out, a man with glasses, wearing Major General uniform in grey. He was surprised to hear the new, and he refused to respond. Overall, he got mad a lot, but tried to maintain his calmness.
"အထွေထွေမှားဘာလဲ" (General, what's wrong?)
"သူတို့ကထွက်ပြေးလွတ်မြောက်ပါတယ်။ ဤရွေ့ကားခွေးမျှော်မှန်းထားသည်ထက်အတော်လေးပိုမြန်ကြသည်။" (They've escaped. These dogs are quite faster than expected.)
"ထို့နောက်ဗိုလ်ချုပ်ကြီးနောက်တစ်နေ့ဘာလဲ" (Then, what's next, General?)
After ten years, now older, yet more mature, more fox-like, he was quick to re-order:
"သူတို့ကိုပြောပြပါကျနော်တို့စစ်ပွဲဇုန်အဲဒီနှစ်ခုကိုဖိတ်ခေါ်နိုင်ပါတယ်။ ထိုအရပ်မှကျနော်တို့ကသူတို့ကိုသတ်ပစ်ပါလိမ့်မယ်။" (Tell them, we can invite those two to the war zone. From there, we will kill them.)
And the name of his badge … told all.
…
…
…
Major General, Than Myint.
What a surprise, he wanted them from now …
…
…
…
…
…
Days after the bombing, Kid and Nikov took charge and looked outside the window. They believed, the bombing had a negative and tremendous effect on the country's reputation, already been worsened by the ethnic tribalism in the country. But as usual, they tried not to take too much attention.
"Dog! They think it is funny?"
"(Much, much difficult now. Who else yet … damn it.)"
Nikov and Kid were all aware with two mysterious officers, and they even remembered their faces. The two Doras decided to make action by trying to silence those Burmese officers, in order to discover the mysterious Turk.
They also placed their skepticism over Albayrak, because the attack seemed to be something about themselves. They suspected the Turkish national for, perhaps, behind the bombing. However, Kid and Nikov still retained their suspicious toward two Burmese officers.
Yet …
"Do you think the junta wants us dead?"
"(Not sure. But typically, the Burmese junta doesn't like foreigners. It is like something about that.)"
As Nikov explained, Dora-the-Kid with his computer quickly discovered on Abdulla's Huawei phone another important report.
"Hang on! I just saw something!" Kid awoke Nikov as the Russian-American guy looked into the computer, where a man came into the list.
"I just tagged a person named Zheng Wangji."
"(Zheng Wangji?!)"
"A Chinese national, he served as a former special force's soldier of the People's Liberation Army before retirement. He later got invited by the Burmese junta to act as military advisor, which he constructed the Tatmadaw into a modern, more flexible force. But he later returned to China without a reason. However, a video last year showed that he had resurrected."
"(When?)"
"In the city of Kunming. Here is a specific camera register." Kid pointed out a video on the Huawei phone. CCTV camera in the street showed a lot of appearance in one side.
In Kid's video just coped from the iPhone, Kid discovered a man in Tatmadaw military uniform and a mysterious figure who covered himself in a typical PLA's uniform. They got a big thing, as the meeting was actually …
… in the CCTV camera last year in Kunming, they saw …
…
…
…
Than Myint's mansion is also in Mandalay, a typical British-styled mansion. Not big but very capable to host large party, the Burmese General came out with a meeting, sitting in a sofa facing the opponent.
"ငါတို့သည်သင်တို့ကျပ်ငွေသန်းပေါင်းများစွာပူဇော်နိုင်ပြီး, ကသင့်ရဲ့အမဲလိုက်ခြင်းအဘို့အများကြီးကူညီပါလိမ့်မယ်။ သင်ရုံမကြာသေးမီကငါကတရုတ်ဗမာဆက်ဆံရေးမြှင့်တင်ရန်လိမ့်မယ်ထင်ပါတယ်တရုတ်အစိုးရကပြန်ပြောပြကြသည်။" (We can offer you millions of Kyat, and it will help a lot for your hunt. You are just recently recalled by the Government of China, I think it will boost Sino-Burmese relations.)
That man, written in Chinese and English language. A man, tall, handsome, yet having a scar on the left eye, typically brutal and full of muscles. He is …
… Zheng Wangji.
"我不确定,因为中南海对缅甸军队的能力持怀疑态度,而缅甸政府在改善它方面做得很少。 我想要Albayrak的头,比什么都重要。 土耳其狗已将云南变成毒品区。" (I am not sure, because Zhongnanhai is skeptical of the ability of the Myanmar Army, and the Government of Burma has done little to improve it. I want Albayrak's head, more than anything else. The Turkish dog has turned Yunnan into a drug zone.)
"ငါ့ညီကိုဆင်းလာကြ၏။ ကျနော်တို့ကိုခွေးသူတို့၏သားတို့အဆီးကိုကူညီလျှင်, သင် Albayrak ၏ဦးခေါင်းကိုရပါလိမ့်မယ်။" (Come down, my brother. If we help us exterminate those sons of a bitch, then you will have the head of Albayrak.)
Than Myint was trying to persuade Zheng Wangji to help capture, and the General represented to Zheng the photos of Kid and Nikov, with his private translator spoke to Zheng. Both were last time seen in the Diamond Inn Hotel but survived the bombing. Zheng, having seen these photos, got skeptical of the success of operation.
"我怎么能知道,如果他们在那里曼德勒?" (How can I be sure if they are there in Mandalay?)
"ရုံကဆင်းငြိမ်သက်။ သူတို့ကကချင်ကိုထွက်ခွာသွားကြပြီမဟုတ်။ သူတို့ကသူပုန်များနှင့်တွေ့ဆုံရန်ချင်တယ်။ သူတို့ရှာဖွေတွေ့ရှိလျှင်, ကျွန်ုပ်တို့ရှည်လျားကျွန်ုပ်တို့၏အသက်တာကိုစောင့်ရှောက်ရန်နိုင်ပါလိမ့်မည်မဟုတ်။" (Just calm down. They have not left for Kachin. They want to meet the rebels. If they discover, then we will not be able to keep our lives long.)
"我以前从未听说过他们。 但他们似乎很聪明。 给我三百万人民币,我会抓住他们的生命。" (I never heard of them before. But they seem to be smart. Give me three million Renminbi, I will seize their lives.)
Zheng Wangji declared he wanted three million Yuan. But exchanging for Kyat, it was a large sum. And the Burmese General got surprised a lot from the demand of Zheng to a point he asked to lower the price, because he needed money to be cautiously shared.
"ဘယ်လိုပဲသန်း 200 ကျပ်ငွေကော? ငါသညျဤအဘို့အထိုကဲ့သို့သောကြီးတွေပေါင်းလဒ်ရှိသည်။" (How about just 200 million Kyat? I have such big sum for this.)
Zheng saw this beg from Than, and Zheng decided to lower the price. He agreed that 910.000 Yuan would be the price for them. It was worth to understand, given Zheng's experience as a special force, Zheng was right now facing familial turmoil, so a large money sum might solve the difficulties.
This put the growth of Zheng's determination, and so, he decided to agree with this price, to ensure the good relations between him and General Than. After that, he nodded and stood up.
"好吧,我会的。" (Well, I'll.)
Then, in a move, Than Myint decided to contact with the twin brothers who were in Mandalay. He told Zheng to wait a moment.
The twin was Htun Yaw and Htun Zaw. He told Htun Zaw and Htun Yaw to be ready and work with new guys who would become important henchman.
…
…
…
…
…
