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"You are drug trafficker," said ator "Yes?"

"No"

"You cos Destroy moral fiber"

"Never," I said "I’s in pack"

"They searched ot here," I said "They didn’t find anything"

"This time," he said confidently "This time we find"

But they didn’t, and it didn’t es with his subordinates, and you didn’t need to know the language to realize he was pissed off – at them, at me, and at the stars in their courses

He barked a command, and they pulled drawers out of dressers, ran their hands over the bare closet shelves, crawled around looking under the furniture And they came up empty

Well, Burht What could you expect from the Third World? His American counterpart would have come well prepared, with some contraband of his own to discover if he couldn’t find any of mine But this creas so sure they’d find that foil-wrapped brick in my knapsack that they didn’t have a Plan B

"I don’t knohat you’re looking for," I said reasonably, "but it doesn’t look as though you’re going to find it Why don’t you tell ether?"

"Shut up," he said

I opened my mouth, considered, and closed it

"That What is that?"

He was pointing at aroo," I said "A fanny pack, they call it, because if you turn it around" – I demonstrated – "it rides on your fanny Of course, they don’t call it that in England because a fanny is so different over there I don’t knohat they call it in Canada"

He held out a hand Obediently I unclasped the Kangaroo and gave it to him He opened it and shook out its contents onto the bed No foil-wrapped brick, but how could there be? The brick was substantially larger than the exterior diaroo pouch

"Now take off clothes"

"Couldn’t you just pathere," I said "Nothing at all"

"Take off clothes," he said again, and one of his un at me

I took off my clothes My pants, really, because that was all I earing And my undershorts And, at his insistence, my money belt

"American currency," he noted

"Well, yes I suppose I’ll be sorry I didn’t take traveler’s checks, but-"

"Now you bend over"

I braced myself, as one does for a routine prostate exareat fears at such a tiood Neither came to pass The procedure, let us say, was not overly invasive

"Put on clothes"

"With pleasure," I said I got into my shorts, then reached out a hand for uess that’s a no," I said, and put on a shirt and trousers I picked up my belt, and he took it away from me

"It’s just a belt," I said "To keep h the buckle, draped the noose he’d thus for himself "Not safe," he said

"But that’s ridiculous," I said "You can’t expect me to walk around without a belt"

He looked at h the articles he’d shaken out of ht, examined the batteries He checked outa concealed-weapons charge Then he picked up a foil-wrapped condom and thrust it at me

"You are on sex tour," he said "Come to corrupt women of Myanmar"

I didn’t even try to answer that one, and he threw the offending article back on the bed

"You drug trafficker," he said "Yes?"

"No"

"I think yes"

An-ah-deh seeured to hell with it "I think you’re full of crap," I said "I don’t approve of drugs, let alone traffic in them I hardly ever take aspirin for a headache, and I certainly don’t-"

"What’s this?"

"Lariaain?"

"Lariam, just like it says on the wrapper They’re malaria pills"

"Malaria pills?"

"Well, anti-et et it from a mosquito"

The Lariam tablets, like the condoms, were individually wrapped in foil packets There were h I had to take one a hile I was in Burot back home They contained mefloquine, the prophylaxis of choice now that most strains of the disease were resistant to chloroquine (If you build a better mousetrap, someone once told me, God will build a better mouse) Lariam wouldn’t prevent infection, but it would kill the parasites once they got in your bloodstream, before they could be fruitful and multiply And it would rely produced a new strain of Lariae tore open a packet, took out the pill it had contained He touched the tip of his tongue to it