The Second Poison

by Pieter Wilhelm

  The Second Poison

  Pieter Wilhelm

  Dollarbird

  Burrough on the Hill

  Published in 2019

  by Dollarbird, an imprint of Monsoon Books Ltd

  www.dollarbird.co.uk

  www.monsoonbooks.co.uk

  No.1 The Lodge, Burrough Court,

  Burrough on the Hill, Leics. LE14 2QS, UK

  ISBN (paperback): 978-1-912049-56-1

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-912049-57-8

  Copyright©Pieter Wilhelm, 2019

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Cover design by Cover Kitchen.

  In Buddhism, greed, hatred and delusion are known as the Three Poisons. The most destructive of these three is The Second Poison.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  16. Chapter 16

  17. Chapter 17

  18. Chapter 18

  19. Chapter 19

  20. Chapter 20

  21. Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Author's Note

  Prologue

  Camp Anaconda, Balad Air Base, 80 km north of Baghdad

  The Sunni sat opposite the interrogator. He was chained to a metal chair bolted to the concrete floor. For almost two weeks now he’d been kept in a shipping container, not knowing if it was day or night, and with no human contact. There were no lights in the cell and a video had been projected onto a wall, playing a constant loop of violent porn and graphic images of men, women and children being raped and tortured. The volume had been cranked up, making the victims’ screams unbearable. The Sunni’s hands were cuffed behind his back, making it impossible for him to block the sound of the screams, and leaving him unable to pray. In the final few hours before they brought him out of the container, new images appeared, interrupting the video for split seconds at a time. He saw images of his house, and his wife and children. He couldn’t tell if he was hallucinating or if the images were real. He began to scream, but the sound was drowned out by the deafening screams from the video recordings.

  The interrogator was an expert in coercive interrogation tactics, methods that took days or weeks to build up to a climax. A particular favourite technique of his was exploiting the victim’s fear over the well-being of loved ones. Through such methods he’d previously managed to track the location of US soldiers and contractors who’d been taken hostage, and coercive interrogation had allowed him to locate the headquarters of a splinter terrorist group in Basra. Despite his successes, the interrogator’s reports would never be publicly disclosed and he would never be given a citation. The video recording he’d used in this particular case had been confiscated from a cell of a terrorist group called Jabhat al-Nusra. The cell had been destroyed and all its members killed before they could publish the video online. As all the figures in the video wore head masks, the interrogator could suggest they were Americans.

  The interrogator spoke softly to the Sunni, “I’ll go out for a smoke while you watch one more video so you can see your mother, wife and children. When I come back I’ll ask you for two favours. I don’t think you’ll need to think hard about the consequences facing your family if you refuse to help.” The interrogator then started the carefully edited video for the Sunni to watch, removed a cigar from his desk and left the room. The Sunni cried out when he saw his whole family tied up in chairs in his living room. He saw the fear in their eyes and a row of masked men looming behind them. The camera zoomed in on the face of a figure behind his youngest son. As the camera focussed on this figure, the man removed his mask and smiled. It took a few moments, but the Sunni’s heart sank on recognizing him from the videos that had been running on a loop for the past two weeks. This was the man who’d caused all the haunting screams as he raped, tortured and killed dozens of people. The Sunni began screaming and continued until the interrogator returned to his desk. Broken, the Sunni whispered the information that the interrogator demanded from him. They spoke for some twenty minutes and then the interrogator sat back in his chair.

  “You’ll be taken away now and transferred to the main jail,” he explained. “Understand that your family will be set free only when I hear that you’ve granted me the second favour.”

  The Sunni cried, “What could that be? I’ve told you everything already!”

  The interrogator bent over and whispered into the Sunni’s ear. The Sunni froze and a guard entered the room before he could respond. The guard wrinkled his nose as he stepped through the door. Two weeks of sweating and the lack of washing facilities while he was sitting in a dank shipping container had given the Sunni a foul odour. The guard marched him directly to the shower unit. Ten minutes later the guard banged on the cubicle door, shouting that the Sunni’s time was up. There was only the sound of running water. The guard kicked the door open and saw the Sunni lying in a pool of his own blood, his wrists slashed with a shard of glass. He was undoubtedly dead.

  The interrogator received a call, “Hello, Tony. I’m afraid there’s been an unfortunate accident.”

  1

  Chapter 1

  Tony

  My name is Tony Lynch. I was assigned to a Special Operations task force at Camp Anaconda, where I ran an elite team of interrogators. Few knew that Camp Anaconda had been home to an interrogation unit. I personally conducted more than three hundred interrogations and supervised more than a thousand others. After President Obama’s announcement in October 2011 that troops would go home by the end of the year, the number of US military bases was quickly whittled down as hundreds of trucks laden with troops and equipment headed south to Kuwait. My job description changed overnight after Obama’s inauguration. Enhanced interrogation techniques were reclassified as torture so my colleagues and I were encouraged to take early retirement. I’m not too upset about all this, although I’d never expected that Uncle Sam would treat us like criminals. We didn’t have a choice about getting our hands dirty. Military retirement is fairly lucrative for career servicemen though, and after twenty years I was eligible to a decent retirement package. The past few years spent living in overseas military facilities meant I hadn’t had many opportunities to spend money. My last civilian address was my family home in Kentucky where my father still lived. He was a retired miner who was laid off years ago after the local mine was closed. My unit arrived at Ramstein Air Base in south-west Germany about a hundred hours after leaving Camp Anaconda. The air base was built by the Nazis but is now the overseas hub for America’s “war on terror”. Largely ignored by the US media, Ramstein is crucial both for drone and clandestine operations. As the most important overseas Air Force base, it operates as a kind of grand central station for airborne warfare. Ramstein was the transport hub for our journey home, as it was for most other US soldiers. Once I got back I knew it wouldn’t be long before I’d be discharged.

  Two weeks later I arrived at Louisville International Airport in Ke
ntucky wearing civilian clothes, and carrying a duffel bag containing all my belongings. I went to the Avis counter in the arrivals lounge and rented a car for the last leg of my journey home to Hardburly. I took my time and cruised along the highway for the two hundred-mile drive home. It was years since I’d been home so I took in the landscape. At first the countryside consisted of agricultural and cattle farms, but then that gave way to industrial estates, old mining sites and boarded-up mining offices. As I got closer to Hardburly, the surroundings became desolate with boarded-up shops and supermarkets. Weeds grew on the pavements and litter was strewn everywhere. The main street looked mostly as I remembered it. Some cars were parked in the union-office car park, a few bars were open and the police station looked like it was still operating. I decided to continue on to the family home as it was late afternoon and I was eager to arrive before dark. Mining companies had built “coal patch” or “coal camp” villages near the mines throughout Kentucky and other coal-mining states, so many of the former miners remained in Hardburly after the mine closure. My father’s house was about a twenty-minute drive from the town. Some of the coal camp houses were nicely maintained by the retired miners with plenty of time on their hands. My father’s home didn’t look so good though. There were knee-high weeds, and the truck on the driveway was dirty. The whole place looked as if it had been deserted for a while. I banged on the kitchen door but there was no answer. I tried peering through the kitchen window but couldn’t see much. I noticed a loud buzzing sound and then clouds of blue flies. I knew exactly what to expect before I forced the kitchen door open. I had been in war zones long enough to recognize the signs and smells of death. My father’s body was slumped in an armchair in the living room with a sawn-off shotgun at his feet. It was obvious that he’d been dead for a while. Maggots had feasted on his decaying body, and most of his face was already gone. The carpet was crusted over after soaking up most of his body fluids. I stood there for a few more moments. No matter how hardened you are, it’s impossible to get used to the smell of death. I retraced my footsteps and closed the damaged kitchen door before returning to the rental car to drive to the police station.

  I was met by a bored-looking officer manning the desk who asked for my ID when I tried to report the death. I offered him my Army ID-card and he gave me a form and asked whether I had already contacted the coroner. When I told him I’d come straight from my father’s house he made a call and said that someone would be with me shortly. Glancing at the form while waiting, I decided I really wasn’t in the mood. I was mentally and physically exhausted and it didn’t seem to make much sense to go through these motions. I just waited to be seen instead. A plain-clothes officer appeared and introduced himself as Harry Cunningham. He said he was sorry to meet under such sad circumstances. He looked worried when I explained how I’d forced entry into the house and at how I described the scene. Harry ushered me into his office and got me some coffee before he dispatched a patrol car to the coal-camp village. Apparently all they could do now was take a look and seal off the scene until the coroner staff arrived from Lexington the following day. Harry suggested I stay at the Holiday Inn Express down the road and said he’d contact me there about any developments. I drove to the hotel, checked in at the desk and then went straight to my room. I was exhausted and can only remember taking a shower before falling into a coma-like deep sleep. I woke early the next morning from hunger as I hadn’t eaten since the lunch on the plane. Someone called out my name while I queued for the hotel buffet breakfast. I looked up and was surprised to find Harry at a table, beckoning me over. He explained that he’d returned from the miner’s village and they were still waiting for the Lexington forensics team to arrive.

  “I had a look and it’s not a pretty sight,” he said. “We’ll have to wait for what the forensic guys come up with, but it seems clear that it’s a suicide. I suggest you stay away until the forensics guys are finished and the body is removed. You’ve probably seen worse, but this is your own father. Let’s meet here again tonight once I know more.” I nodded in agreement.

  During the day I went for a walk down the road and had lunch at a sandwich shop. I had a few more drinks at a bar than I probably should’ve had, but then again I had stumbled onto my dad’s maggot-ridden corpse only the day before. I was flicking through a local paper at the hotel restaurant when a tired-looking Harry finally arrived. We collected dinner from the buffet and didn’t talk much while we ate. We took some coffee to sip on the terrace while Harry smoked a cigarette. The forensics guys had arrived in the morning and photographed the scene, dusting everything for fingerprints before removing the body. They hadn’t found any evidence that it was anything other than suicide. Harry asked me to call in the station the next morning to sign some forms, assuring me they’d release the body soon.

  That night I didn’t benefit from the kind of deep sleep I’d had the previous night. Instead I tossed and turned and didn’t fall asleep until early morning. I must have looked very tired when I walked into the police station because Harry poured me a strong cup of coffee almost immediately. He explained that I needed to tell the coroner which mortuary the body should be sent to as he handed me a list of options. Harry then apologized that I’d have to wait for the sheriff’s office to release the scene before I could return to the house. That required a coroner’s report, which probably wouldn’t come until later that day.

  I started making the final arrangements. The body was released to the mortuary two days after the autopsy. I just went through the motions and opted for cremation without a service. My mother had been religious when she was alive, but my father and I were ardent atheists, and my time in Iraq hadn’t given me any reason to question that. After I collected the ashes, I found Harry waiting in the parking lot, and offering to drive to wherever I wanted to scatter the ashes. I couldn’t think of anywhere better than at the closed mine where my father had spent most of his life.

  I decided to stay in town just long enough to clear the house and sort out my father’s finances. I wasn’t looking forward to these duties, but they couldn’t be avoided for much longer. I returned to the house the next morning. The police tape was still attached to the damaged kitchen door, but Harry had assured me I was free to enter the house. The stink of death and decaying flesh still lingered inside. I grabbed a shovel from the shed, dug a hole, and then dragged the armchair and rug into it. I doused them with gasoline and threw in a match, creating a tall flame with black smoke billowing out from the top. I’m not sure why, but I then added my father’s mattress and all his clothes to the fire.

  Over the next two days I loaded the remaining furniture and a few other items into my father’s truck. The kitchen drawers were full of the bank statements of decades, together with insurance policies and unopened mail. There was a lot of paperwork to go through and it took a whole day to sort. It looked like my father was behind on payments for his insurance, union membership and magazine subscriptions. There were also some unusual transfers from his bank account. I decided to scrutinize that later and put all the papers into a cardboard box. The next morning I prepared myself for a last trip to the house. This time Harry dropped me off so I could take my father’s truck. It took a while, but the heavily-loaded truck eventually came to life and I drove away without looking back. The night before I’d looked up local charities that accepted donations and chose the Miners Charity. It was surprising how many forms needed to be completed for them to take everything, but it did include the truck. Once that was done, I retrieved the cardboard box containing my father’s documents from the truck, and then one of the volunteers from the charity gave me a lift back to the hotel.

  After lunch I took the car and drove to the local branch of the Citizens National Bank. I explained the purpose of my visit to the woman at the front desk, and the manager invited me to his small cubicle office. Settling and closing the account of a deceased parent is a fairly straightforward procedure, but the bank manager looked troubled when he looked
into the account. Funds had mysteriously disappeared from my father’s account in the months leading up to his passing. “I cannot tell you much except that the account receiving the funds is at a Hong Kong registered bank,” he explained. “Not long ago I had a young lawyer in my office asking similar questions about transfers to the same account. I can give you her contact details, and perhaps she’ll be able to shed some light on this.” He rummaged through his desk before handing me a business card reading:

  Maura Schwartz, Attorney-at-Law

  4th floor

  300 Argyle Street

  Lexington

  I phoned Maura as soon as I got in the car. Evidently it was a small office because I had her on the phone within a minute. After I’d explained why I was calling, she said, “Oh – the Thai boiler-room case!”

  Thailand boiler rooms

  For decades, Thailand has been a hub for firms selling bogus shares to foreign nationals through high-pressure overseas telesales. Individuals with little or no investment experience are approached with the promise of high returns on investments. More often than not, their contact details are hacked from databases belonging to institutions such as insurance companies or pension funds. Most boiler-room representatives offer an initial placement of shares or an investment in a start-up company. Boiler-room representatives assure potential investors that the stock price will go through the roof, but of course, the company (fictional or otherwise) never actually goes public and the share certificates are never issued. By the time the investors realize all this, they have been defrauded since the call centres will already have moved on and changed their name and or location.

  In a country far from home, many cash-strapped travellers, such as backpackers or sexpats, are keen to work in one of these boiler rooms in order to simply survive or to finance an otherwise out-of-reach lifestyle. Hundreds of foreigners work in a number of boiler rooms in Bangkok. One diplomatic source suggested that around fifty boiler rooms exist in Bangkok, with hundreds of employees calling numbers hacked from databases or simply extracted from phone books and online directories.