The other two members of the team came running, firing their automatic weapons as they ran. Spraying rounds into the fast food restaurants. Muzzle flashes streaked across the fifth floor. This was undisciplined, undirected fire, showering broken glass and plastic everywhere. The huge plastic ice cream cone in front of the Dairy Queen exploded as it took several direct hits. Pieces of the overhead plastic signs rained down on top of Jess and Calvino. As they looked around, they discovered that Naylor had vanished. There was no time to look for him.
Calvino had dipped the coffee mug back into the oil and was waiting behind the counter. He saw the second Thai emerge, his black high-top boots catching a glimmer of light. He was shooting random bursts. More muzzle flash as glass exploded from the cinema ads above the elevator. Calvino crawled to his left side, slowly set the mug on the floor, rolled underneath the counter, edged out the other side, and, lying on his back, squeezed off three rounds. Two of the shots from the .38 hit the second member of the squad just above his right ear; the impact of the bullets sent him crashing over a table and chairs. He was dead before he hit the floor.
One to go, thought Calvino.
Jess had crawled out in time to see the last member of the team running to the other end where all the electronics, washing machines, fridges and TVs were sold. Calvino took the CAR-15 off the dead man he had shot and shouldered his .38. Jess fired several rounds at the fleeing man. None of the rounds connected.
“Naylor, he’s coming in your direction,” said Jess, who was now on his feet, running down the outer perimeter, past the automotive, the sheets, blankets, and towels near the elevator. Squeezing off rounds as he ran, Calvino ran the opposite side past all the glassware and expensive crystal. As they converged at the back, they had the third man trapped.
“How many more men came with you?” Jess said in Thai.
Another member of the team rose into sight, his hands raised over his head. He was a farang. A sheepish grin on his face as he stepped forward. The question was whether he was the surviving member or whether there were others.
“Hey man, don’t fucking shoot. I am American. Who were those guys? Jesus, first a blast and now those guys. Hey, what’s going on?”
“How many others, asshole?” asked Calvino, who squatted low, looking around for other members of the commando team. But the floor was silent. He looked back at the farang.
This looked like the same guy who had hit Naylor in the face as they had walked out of the elevator. But in the low light it was difficult to tell. This farang was dressed in commando gear, which made it difficult to play the innocent tourist role.
“Put your hands against the back of your head,” said Jess. “Do it now.” He had the CAR-15 pointed at him. The blond-haired man stepped forward, his hip touching the metal railing that wrapped around the side of the atrium.
“Am I under arrest or something?”
“Don’t move. Just stand very very still and everything will be okay.”
Calvino had come around the opposite side past the kitchen appliances and mobile phones. The farang’s back was turned in his direction.
“Did you guys hear that bomb? Man, that was something.”
“How did you know that it was a bomb?” asked Jess.
Calvino was close enough to see the farang was palming a small hand-gun at the base of his skull. Another two steps was all that separated him from the farang. As he had moved in closer, he was sure he was the same guy that Naylor had kicked in the balls. He was sorry now that he hadn’t let Naylor kick him a couple of more times. Now he pressed the barrell of the CAR-15 in the farang’s back. “Drop it.”
“You seen Naylor?” asked Jess.
“He’s probably eating chicken at KFC,” said Calvino.
The brief conversation was a distraction. A split second in which the farang had to make a decision. On one side was Calvino with a CAR-15 and on the other Jess, holding the same kind of weapon on him. He knew the other two members of the team were down. Was he running or was he looking for Naylor, thought Calvino. But where was Naylor? The question hung unanswered in the air. The farang had committed himself to a course of action, and once the momentum of action started, one’s fate was sealed. It didn’t matter that this was absolutely the wrong course of action, much like his assault at the elevators, which had backfired. The man had learned nothing. At the first twitch of the farang lowering his gun from the base of his skull, Naylor rolled out of the cupboard where he had been hiding and put the full weight of his shoulder into the farang, striking him hard from behind, knocking him against the railing. The farang struggled to break free of Naylor as Jess and Calvino moved in. They were a couple of seconds too late. In superhuman feat of strength, Naylor had hit the farang from behind, pushing him forward, knocking him off balance; he raised him up. The farang was screaming as Naylor shoved him forward and the momentum carried him over the railing like a diver coming off a three-meter board. But it was more than three meters and there was no swimming pool at the other end. The farang dropped five floors, hitting the marble floor with a dull thud. A body hitting with such force ought to have made more noise. Flesh and bone smashing hard and splattering across the floor was barely audible. The three men stood at the railing and peered down. The farang, splayed out on the floor, was barely visible in the half-darkness. Naylor reached up and put his arm around Jess and Calvino’s shoulder.
“Who’s the bodyguard in this crowd?” he asked, wiping his hands together as if cleaning off dust. “Thought I had run away? You don’t know me. I never run from a fight.”
“We better check him out,” said Calvino, looking over the railing. He had a strong feeling that the team hadn’t been sent to kill Naylor.
“Forget it. We are getting the fuck out of Dodge City,” said Naylor.
“Calvino’s right. We check him out first,” said Jess. “That was the same guy who attacked Naylor outside the elevator.” This was more of a question than a certain observation.
“It looked like him,” said Calvino.
“Of course it was him. Why do you think I threw his ass overboard?”
“What matters is finding out who was behind this hit,” said Calvino looking directly at Jess. “And we might even find who they were sent to hit.”
“They were after me,” said Naylor. “Who do you think they were after?”
Calvino looked straight at Jess, who had the CAR-15 cradled in his arm. “Naylor, you are no doubt a really important guy. But I don’t see any reason why or how a dysfunctional Chinese family would hire a commando team to make a military-type assault just because you came to buy their hotel. The expressway shooting, yeah, that I can buy. That is their level. A couple of Isan cowboys in a ten-wheeler who can’t shoot straight. Now let’s go.”
“Then who were they trying to kill?” asked Naylor.
“We don’t know,” said Jess.
Calvino nodded. “He’s right. We don’t know. That’s why we need to check out the guy you shoved over the balcony.”
“He ain’t gonna be answering too many questions,” said Naylor.
There was no need to say anything to Naylor about the drug case in LA. Jess already knew what he was saying and was grateful he was keeping his thoughts to himself. The last thing Jess needed was Naylor’s big mouth broadcasting to the world that he was part of an undercover drug bust in Bangkok.
NOI held the bloodied head of the dead farang in her arms. Sitting on the floor, she rocked back and forth, crying, tears streaming down her face. Calvino squatted beside her, put a hand on her shoulder. “You are mixed up with some very dangerous people.”
“I didn’t know. Danny never told me he was going to do this. Now he’s dead. I don’t understand why he used me. You have to believe me.” Her sobbing continued.
“Noi, it would be safer for you if you came with us.”
“I can’t leave him like this.”
“There’s no time to argue. There’s no time to mourn,” said Calvino. It wou
ldn’t take long for others to find out the three-man squad had gone down. Others would be dispatched. That’s how these kinds of people worked.
“They wouldn’t do anything. I did what they asked. I didn’t know.” She quickly lost her English and slipped into Thai, the natural storage bay of words to express her feelings. She didn’t even realize she was speaking Thai, saying that she was afraid, as the full implication of what Calvino had said sunk in. She gently laid the farang’s head down on the marble floor.
Exactly who were they? If there were no other reason to pull her along it was to find the answer to that question.
“You are lucky to still be alive,” said Jess in Thai.
Her attention turned away from the dead man. She rose to her feet. “You won’t let them hurt me?” Her eyes searched Calvino’s, then she looked across to Jess.
“You’re going to have to help us,” said Jess. “Tell us about your friend and his friends.”
She nodded, fumbling with a cigarette and staring down at the dead farang.
McPhail came down the escalator clutching a Tower Records bag.
“Another fucking jumper, man.” He looked down at the dead body. Then opened his bag. “I wonder if they would take these back. There’s bound to be a big sale. Bomber special. Hey, Noi is still here. Now that’s a miracle. First you couldn’t find her, now you can’t seem to get rid of her. That’s true of all yings.”
ON level B2 of the parking lot, dozens of uniformed police and military personnel worked the crime scene. A large part of the lot had already been cordoned off and no civilians were being allowed inside the taped-off area. Police and military vehicles blocked the exits. The wall of tall glass which wrapped around the lobby had been blown out. After the explosion, all the dust and fragments of metal, paint, fabric, and flesh had been pulled up the atrium like hot air shooting up one very large updraft ventilation shaft. To the side of the entrance the electrical unit housing the main power supply was shattered, sparking and spitting talons of fire from a melted core made up of the smouldered maze of broken wires and cables. Inside the immediate blast zone—several meters wide—the scene was one of complete destruction. Shards of glass and twisted pieces of plastic, metal, and rubber had ripped through cars, splattered against the pillars and walls. No question about it: someone had set off a large amount of explosive to cause this much damage. Even seventy meters away car windows had been shattered.
Calvino walked ahead looking for his car. Noi and McPhail walked together behind Naylor and Jess. Calvino couldn’t remember exactly where he had parked. They had come out a different entrance in the parking lot from the one they had earlier taken into the shopping mall. Finally he spotted it. Calvino stopped and motioned for the others to stop. His Honda, or what was left of it, was ten feet ahead. Somewhere in the wreckage was his car. Emergency service personnel were removing bodies. And body parts. On the driver’s side an intact head was still attached to the spinal column and shredded meat and organs clung to the outer edges of the spine and the femurs. The shoes and feet, like the head, were recognizable as human; but the parts of the body between the head and the feet didn’t look like parts that belonged to a human being. On the passenger’s side was a limp, damaged body—the left side had been sliced away from the force of the blast—but the second victim was at least in one large chunk. A headless torso with ragged flaps of flesh where the head had once rested. The torso was minced around the edges and scorched black from powder burns. An emergency unit with its members wearing protective clothing, masks, and gloves placed the pieces in large, black plastic bags. Uniformed police stood guard around the car waiting for the owner to return.
“Let’s get out of here,” said Jess.
Calvino nodded and a couple of minutes later they had blended into the crowd of shoppers, clerks, security guards—a great exodus of people—walking, half-dazed, taking the Soi 24 exit ramp which led out of the parking lot.
“Someone toasted your Honda,” said McPhail. “What the hell is this?” asked McPhail, kneeling down and picking up a round steel ball.
Jess looked at the steel ball rolling inside McPhail’s cupped hand. “Claymore,” said Jess. It looked like an ordinary steel ball-bearing.
“Heavy shit,” said McPhail. “No way your insurance is gonna cover this. The war exception clause fucks you every time.”
“I’ve seen enough,” said Calvino.
“How are we getting to the Brandy?” asked Naylor. “I’ve got a meeting this afternoon. And I want to see Jep before we go back.”
“The meeting has been cancelled,” said Calvino.
“You can’t do that, Calvino. I came to Bangkok for that meeting.”
That was probably somewhere between a half and three-quarters of a lie. But it was no time or place to argue. “Jess, Noi goes with us. McPhail, take Wes to the Brandy, then go along with him to his meeting.”
Naylor and McPhail looked each other up and down like a couple of soi dogs marking their territory. McPhail had that “fuck you” expression on his ultra thin upper lip, making it curl into a sneer as he clutched his Tower Records bag.
“When did I start working for you, Calvino?” asked McPhail.
“About fifteen minutes ago.”
“You can’t assign your bodyguard job like a maintenance contract on a crummy apartment,” said Naylor, suddenly becoming lawyer-like.
“I just did.”
“Then you’ve seen Vinee’s apartment,” said McPhail, smiling.
“You don’t need a bodyguard. You need a business agent,” said Calvino.
“Jess, you’re not going along with this shit, are you?” Naylor looked frightened.
“Let me put you straight, Mr. Naylor. If those men were trying to kill you, it was for reasons undisclosed to me. If it is just the hotel deal, Calvino’s right. If it is some other deal, then he’s still right. You don’t need us because nothing is going to save you.”
Calvino opened the rear door of a taxi that had stopped. Others were banging on the door, trying to get in the cab. Holding a taxi was a New York City art form. Calvino stood in the way of several others who tried to push their way in front. Jess and Noi climbed inside. Calvino shut the door and got into the front, looking at the driver, a small, dark skinned Thai with a thick head of badly cut hair. “Rama IV Road,” said Calvino.
“Meter broken,” said the driver, grinning. “Five hundred baht.”
Calvino agreed to pay the extortion money for the fare. “Go.”
Rama IV Road was a vague, opened-ended destination that made it clear to the taxi driver that Calvino both knew where he was going and wasn’t going to tell the exact destination until the last moment. Such contradictions were natural components of life on the street.
Calvino knew where he was going. He was heading for Klong Toey. A vast slum built under expressways, along canals, beside the Port of Bangkok.
Klong Toey was the last place he wanted this driver with the stupid grin and appetite to make money to know. The five hundred baht rip-off fee told Calvino all he needed to know: The driver would take the first opportunity to tell to anyone who asked and paid for the answer to exactly where he had taken them. And no doubt, there would be men with their hair cropped short, guns in their waistbands, making the rounds, asking taxi drivers, offering money, for information as to where a group of farangs had been taken.
TEN
CALVINO PRESSED THE cellphone against his ear, watching the traffic as he listened to Pratt. “If you had replaced your window, you would be dead now. The two men who tried to steal your car got the Claymore lucky draw meant for. . . .” said Pratt, his voice trailing off. Those were the first words out of his mouth. He already knew what had happened.
“All of us would be dead,” said Calvino, finishing Pratt’s sentence. Their taxi edged through the crowds spilling into the street around the Emporium. Their forward progress was painfully slow. Noi and Jess sat in the back listening to Calvino’s end of the conversatio
n with Pratt.
It was difficult to comprehend that such a large element in their survival had turned on Calvino’s failure to replace the broken car window. Normally neglect was the demon that got people killed; this one time, against all odds, negligence had parlayed itself into the ultimate good fortune—forgetting his keys in the car had kept Vincent Calvino alive.
“You’ll find two bodies on the fifth floor. Commando types. They can find two CAR-15s in the pool next to the restaurant. Not more than a couple of feet away from the dead farang. The third member of the team was a farang. He went over the railing without a parachute. Do you have any idea who those guys were working for?”
It had been Jess’s idea to dump the CAR-15s in the shallow water so looters wouldn’t take them. No way they were going outside with the place crawling with cops carrying automatic weapons.
“We’re checking on that,” said Pratt.
“Okay, so you know about that. Have you figured out who those two guys were who got blown up in the car?”
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