Bangkok Burn (14 page)

Big Tiger came back with the Aussie couple. The guy had arrived with a woman in tow. In their late thirties, early forties, at a guess, they looked like Ken and Barbie, only worn and a bit wrinkled. Big Tiger shouted out to me from the door.

“Tell him to sit next to you so he can have a view of the sea. Then I can sit next to this beauty. Look at the fucking tits on her.” Big Tiger’s uni girl got a serious pout on. Her lips came out about an inch.

Dinner and deal done, Ken and Barbie, actually Bret and Sheena, were now in the white Urvan on their way to Samui, courtesy of Big Tiger. Smiles all around. He was salivating at the thought of seeing Sheena in a bikini. Already planning a trip to that ‘fucking resort of mine, on that goat fucking miserable monkey infested swamp of an island’, his name for the island of Samui.

Big Tiger hadn’t noticed his uni girl had taken off with Bret and Sheena. Flirting in English throughout the meal, Uni girl had talked them into a threesome for ten thousand baht. She gave me a smile from the back of the Urvan.

I turned to him.

“So the favor with Por.”

He turned to me still smiling. “Yes?” Looking confused.

“This was it. We’re even now.”

“Sure, sure. Don’t even think about it. And thanks for your help, Chance. I’d have been fucked without you. Didn’t understand a fucking word when you guys were talking in English. Might as well have been fucking kangaroos for all the sense I could make out of it.” He looked around. “Where the fuck did that girl of mine go?”

Holy Road Trips

17 May 2010 Bangkok 5 am

I had forty-six hours left
to find Uncle Mike. Or to figure out how to get him back and not lose the money. Worst case scenario. We lose the money.

Ken surprised me. He hadn’t attacked at Chumphon. He waited until the money was in the warehouse in Phuket and stole it from there. One of our guys got a nasty bump on the head. They trucked it out of Phuket that night and took it to Nakhon Si Thammarat. Ken's car had a GPS transmitter on it from when he had been in the warehouse at Lat Krabang. We had tags on them all the way. We got everything on tape. Ken looked especially cool – a nice profile shot of him, Mild seven packet in hand, shaking out a cigarette, the forklift carrying the money into the warehouse behind him. He had a smile on his lips. Chai won our bet – he’d said they’d steal it in Phuket.

The trick had been making it look real. Cheep had chosen a warehouse in Phuket that had a wall at its back. We’d protected the front heavily. The clever Japanese had broken in through the back. Even the guy with the bump on the head wasn’t supposed to be there. He’d sneaked off for a piss. Ken had pulled the lend and steal move before – SOP for him. Ken had seriously screwed up. But he didn’t know that yet.

Big Tiger had also made his first mistake. No one other than him, his crew, and Chai knew that I was having dinner there. The shotgun guy on the pier could only have learned it from him. We weren’t followed – not possible. So it was Big Tiger.

I lay in bed, hands crossed behind my head, thinking about how I was going to take him down. I still couldn’t figure out how Big Tiger knew my safe houses. If he’d been planning this for a while, it was possible he’d had me, or Pim, followed. Big Tiger tells Por he needs me, knowing Por will ask to see me in person. He tries to take us both out with a bomb. Fails. He then hires some Cambodians, cheap ones, because he’s a tight bastard, and because they’re cheap, they fail. Thinking about Por, losing his leg. Pit 51. The young, hungry, horny croc pit. Starve them a little. Dip Big Tiger’s feet in cow's blood and drop him in the pond. Alive. One problem solved.

So the uncle Mike kidnapping is a coincidence? It seemed unlikely but I couldn’t see Big Tiger pulling it off, simply because there were foreigners involved. He’d hire Cambodians - he can curse at them - but he had an abiding shyness of dealing with foreigners. On the other hand he had made a deal with Bret and Sheena. So why not Lisp and Natasha?

I got up and ran Big Tiger’s cell phone number against numbers we had from the phones we’d tracked in Phuket. No matches. Didn’t really mean anything. I used different phone numbers all the time. So it was possible that Big Tiger had hired Lisp and Natasha or at least was working with them. But somehow it didn’t gel. If Big Tiger knew of the plan to kidnap Uncle Mike and knew Lisp, he would have known I was alive. And he hadn’t known. The look on his face when I showed up at his restaurant was real.

So Big Tiger and Uncle Mike’s kidnapping were separate events but possibly connected. It was looking increasingly unlikely that we could find Lisp and Natasha before Wednesday morning. That meant we had to plan for passing over the cash. At least we had it. The real cash that Ken delivered went on the air-conditioned coach to Phuket, after spending the day at the Crocodile Farm. Mother had done the switch at the warehouse, unpacking, scanning, repacking with counterfeit and Ken’s transmitters.

Showered, having breakfast, the cell phone rang. It was Mother. She was up early.

“Chance, how are you?”

“I’m good, Mother. Just having breakfast.”

“Good you need to eat. Keep your strength up. Now some good news. Aunt Su came through with her contact in Malaysia. None of the passports have entered Malaysian territory, and a preliminary scan of the foreigners entering the country hasn’t drawn a match.”

“That is good news. Can we get anyone in the coastguard to check the area north of Langkawi? But we only want them to look not approach.”

“Already asked and explained. They’ll get back to us sometime later today.”

“Great. How is Por?”

“Good. Still in a coma but his vital signs are improving. He’s over the worst. Thomas is sure he’s going to make it.”

“The attacks are coming from Big Tiger.”

“Are you sure? I didn’t think he had the courage.”

“Sure. He’s the only one it could be. Yesterday someone tried to cut me down on his pier. Luckily, Chai took him out before he got the shot off and Big Tiger’s boys aborted their hit. Seeing Chai with an Uzi in his hands is a strong deterrent. The only people who knew I’d be there were him and his crew.”

“He’s got to go.”

“We’ll talk more in person later.”

“Chance?”

“Yes, Mother?”

“Remember your promise.”

“Yes, Mother.”

We’d stayed the night at the Peninsula. Even from there you could hear the explosions downtown. Chai checked us out and was waiting for me in the forecourt, sitting in a green Range Rover, engine running. We had to get the money to Phuket safely. Mother had organized to send a large Buddha statue south to Phuket. Monks from the temple where it was created sat with it in the back of a canvas covered truck. Underneath the floor they were sitting on, a hundred million, real, United States dollars. We would follow at a safe distance and the taxi we had used last night, now with a new set of plates, in front.

We passed the truck just south of Samut Sakon. Another eight hours and we’d be in Phuket. We pulled over, filled up with gas, and waited for the truck to pass. Traffic going south was steady and heavier than in other parts of Bangkok. People getting out of the city. No army to be seen. Normal life, if life can ever be called normal.

In view of the press interest, Mother had decided to cut my funeral short and I was to be cremated, along with Por at 4 pm that afternoon. We’d worked out a plan. It was sad, complicated, and final, but Samuel C. Harper had to go. Where it gets complicated is that in Thailand I have two ‘birth’ certificates: one for Ohgaat and one for Sam Harper. Mother had handled the paperwork. Dr. Tom had put Ohgaat on the death certificate attached to the body. Mother had the paperwork switched and Dr. Tom signed the new papers. Ohgaat lives. Sam Harper dies. Mother had a plan how to handle the “case of mistaken identity” is how she described it.

Pim called at ten.

“I’ve got a hit. SS Marine, a Singapore boat charter company, has a Hatteras 53. They chartered it with a crew of two to a party in Langkawi last Tuesday for a two week charter. The customer paid cash. Was a Russian but didn’t have a lisp. Everything was normal until last Friday. Since then they haven’t heard from the crew and the crew is supposed to check in every day.”

“That’s it. That’s them. What is the company doing about the boat and crew?”

“They’ve told Singapore Police and Malaysian Coastguard and Police.”

“Good work. How did you find all that out?”

“It was online. An article that came up when I searched Google. I called SS Marine and pretended to be Malaysian police following up.”

“Nice work. Let Mother know. I’ll call you when I get to Phuket. Call me if anything else develops.”

“Love you.”

“I love you too.”

We were just passing Meuang Prachuap Khiri Khan, making decent time. Highway four, straight south to Nakhon Si Thammarat and then across to Phuket. About another five hundred and thirty klicks to go. Six hours give or take. That would put us into Phuket at four fifteen, four thirty, something like that.

An hour later, Cheep called. He was laughing. I could hear his boys laughing in the background.

“How did it go?”

“You’ll hear on the news. A surprise red shirt protest and riot. Commercial buildings burnt down. Police say arrests are imminent.”

“Everyone get in and out okay?”

“No problems. We’re in the clear. We had time to break the blocks down and leave no trace.”

“Ken’s boys?”

“We used the army to move them away during the protest. When they came back the fire was already burning good.”

“Nice.” I chuckled. “See you this evening. We need boats, fast ones, seagoing. Can you organize?”

“How many?”

“Three should be enough. With drivers who know what they’re doing but not showboaters.”

“Can do. Have you got a lead?”

“Maybe. Talk more when I get there.”

I was guessing Lisp would be at sea somewhere between Langkawi and Phuket. I had to find them before the coastguard did. If the Malaysian coastguard, not connected to us, caught them for ripping off the yacht, I was worried they’d kill Uncle Mike. The cruising speed of a Hatteras 53 is about 13 knots, using about 90 liters per hour at that rate. Fuel tanks hold about three thousand liters. That gave them a cruising range of about five hundred and fifty miles, assuming they didn’t carry extra fuel in drums. No one at the marina could remember filling any up, so I assumed they didn’t have any.

Langkawi to Phuket is about a hundred and eight nautical miles. Assuming they’d stay within fifty nautical miles of the coast, that made a search area of over five hundred square nautical miles. I figured the eight am thing was a ruse. They’d either drive around in circles or want the exchange to happen at dusk, figuring, with radar, they could slip away in the dark. That’s what I’d plan on doing.

Passing through Chumphon, we heard on the news about the red shirt protest in the Democrat stronghold of Nakorn Si Thammarat. Ken would be wondering why I hadn’t called him to tell him the hundred million had been stolen. Or maybe he’d be wondering about the money going up in flames and how he was going to explain that to the bosses back home.

The monks stopped for a pee break in Chumphon. We took the opportunity to eat. ‘Khao Mok Ghai’, spicy chicken in rice at a roadside stall. It was delicious. Break over we got back on the road.

At Surat Thani we cut across the isthmus of Khra and entered Phang-nga province. The sun hung mid horizon on my right shoulder. Our route, Highway 4 to the 402 and then Phuket. So far it had been a smooth trip. No surprises.

The cell phone rang just as we entered Meuang Phang-nga. Mother.

“Malaysian Police have found two bodies, suspected to be the crewmen of the Hatteras. A fisherman caught them in their nets and reported it in.”

“Where?”

“North of Langkawi. But the bodies could have floated with the current. They were fairly badly chewed up. They’d probably been dead for a few days.”

“Okay, thanks, Mother.”

My bet was they were planning on running to Indonesia, probably down the western side. They wouldn’t want to deal with the Malacca Strait. I spread the US Navy and Thai charts I had of the area out on the back seat. I’d been over them all before, the creases in the folds familiar. With calipers, I marked off the areas on the chart where I wanted the boats to wait. I was pretty sure we’d have to make the exchange. I was sure the exchange would be at sea. Somewhere just on Thai borders at dusk. Then I was sure they’d run for Indonesian waters.