The Second Poison

by Pieter Wilhelm

  “You could climb from your balcony to his,” suggested Bao Shen.

  “There are hundreds of condo units facing my side of the building,” I said. “Even if I was stupid enough to try that, someone would call the police within a few minutes.”

  Jennifer cleared her throat and focused on the old man. “I delivered the access codes for the guy’s bank account and bitcoin wallet. It seems to me that you lot need to work out how you’re going to use that information.”

  Uncle Zheng

  I didn’t understand this business with the arsonist. There’s nothing simpler than a bullet. It’s clean and quick.

  “Why would you hire an arsonist, Bao Shen?”

  “It was his idea,” Bao Shen replied, nodding in Tony’s direction.

  I listened intently as Tony explained the plan; applying torture and suffering is something that I could agree to, and Tony persuaded me that a bullet would just give Hubert an easy passage to the next life. I understood this American’s desire for his enemy to suffer, since it wasn’t strange to Chinese culture. I was aware of Tony’s previous career, which made sense.

  “Our interests don’t conflict with yours,” I told the American. “We just want to take out the competition and consider any money out of this deal as a bonus, so I don’t see why we can’t let these actions run simultaneously. But timing will be essential. I didn’t bring Jennifer to Bangkok for sightseeing – she’ll help both of us recover our funds without the need for an amateur break-in. Here’s what I need you to do.” I explained in detail the plan that would unfold over the following days.

  Jennifer

  I know I look good. My long silky black hair reaches down to my butt, and I know how to dress up. When I arrived by limousine to Tony’s condo, the doorman took my luggage to reception.

  “I’m moving in with my husband,” I said. “Take my luggage upstairs.”

  “You are expected,” the front-desk officer replied. “I have your keycard ready and you just need to complete this form while I take a copy of your passport.”

  I passed him the American passport Uncle Zheng had given me. The passport photo wasn’t mine, but the resemblance was close enough, and the passport surname was the same as Tony, my fictitious husband.

  Tony returned later that day. I’d set up what looks to the untrained eye an analogue TV antenna in the living room, and a portable parabolic antenna on the balcony. Both were connected to my laptop.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll show you how we’re going to steal his private keys. The private key is like a secret number that allows bitcoins to be spent. Every bitcoin wallet contains one or more private keys that are saved in the wallet file. His computer and WiFi network seem unhackable, but thanks to our kinky friend Bao Shen, we have full-access control over his smartphone.”

  I opened a file to show Tony the list of Bluetooth connections in Hubert’s smartphone settings. “His smartphone is linked to his computer, so I can send bridgeware from the smartphone to the computer. It will register his private key. His computer is about a metre above your ceiling. We’ll receive his private key via the computer’s magnetic radiation broadcast, either through the ceiling or the antenna on the balcony. Now we just need to wait for Hubert to log in to his bitcoin wallet.”

  17

  Chapter 17

  Tony

  Since moving to the new building, I usually ate at a food stall on the street just a few hundred meters away. The place served several different fried-rice dishes, which I enjoyed with a local beer. After Jennifer’s arrival, however, I’d been accompanying her for dinner at upmarket restaurants. The food was good, but I didn’t feel comfortable sitting between the high-society types and the wannabe “hi-sos”. I missed my local street food, and brought the subject up a few nights later with Jennifer.

  “I fancy getting some normal food,” I said.

  Jennifer raised an eyebrow in response. “You aren’t inviting me?”

  She smiled when I explained where I usually went for dinner.

  “You seem to forget that I’m Asian,” she said. “I’ll come with you.”

  I guess you could say we both had dominant, albeit opposing, personalities, but her remark managed to break some of the ice between us.

  The following evening we went to the food stall. Jennifer appeared quite at home sitting on a plastic stool on the pavement, spooning her noodle soup while sipping a bottle of Chang beer, no less elegantly than she’d done with her glass of red wine the previous evening. It was the first time we had a meaningful conversation, and I outlined my plan in full to her.

  The Arsonist

  I’d checked into a decent hotel in Bangkok with a rooftop swimming pool and three renowned eateries. The hotel bar was always crowded with an international clientele. The room cost two hundred dollars per night – a bargain.

  With the material specifications fresh in my mind, I located a hardware store where I bought a few tools, a small cooking-gas canister with a regulator, some flexible rubber hoses, duct tape, a three-way elbow connector and hose clamps. I then took a taxi to Chinatown for the electronics I needed. The Chinese shop owner nodded when I explained what I was looking for, and he disappeared into a small storage room in the back of the shop to collect the items. A little further down the street, I found a stall selling second-hand smartphones, and selected the oldest-looking one there. “I’ll buy it if it comes with a new battery,” I told the stallholder. After I had everything I needed, I took a taxi to one of the numerous short-time hotels in Chinatown, where rooms could be rented by the hour. “I’ll get a girl later,” I told the attendant as he handed me two towels, a condom and a bar of soap. The guy didn’t seem to notice me and returned to playing a game on his phone. I climbed the stairs to my floor and unlocked the door; the room contained only a bed, a dirty bathroom, a fridge and a TV that was secured in a metal frame and bolted to the wall. I switched on the TV and was rewarded with very loud porn. I couldn’t find a remote to turn the volume down, so set to work.

  After removing the gas canister from my backpack, I opened the gas regulator and removed the valve, reducing the output pressure. I then replaced the valve with an electronic gas valve that had only two settings – fully open and fully closed. When activated, gas would stream out of the canister uncontrollably and empty the canister within a minute. I needed to operate the electronic valve remotely, so I modified the second-hand smartphone I’d just bought, soldering some wires to connect the phone to the electronic valve and a motorbike spark plug. On receiving a call, instead of ringing, the smartphone would activate the electronic gas valve, and then switch on the spark plug a few seconds later via a relay switch, using the phone battery to power both. To prevent it from being activated accidentally, I went into the smartphone settings and blocked all incoming calls except for a single number. I had to smile when I programmed the number into the smartphone settings, knowing that the police would check the origin of the call that activated the device; it would be a nasty surprise. I inserted a SIM card into the modified smartphone. It was from a country where proof of identity was not required when buying a preloaded SIM card. I went online and used a caller-ID spoofing app to make a test call.

  Caller-ID spoofing

  Nowadays almost all public telephone networks provide caller ID information, which consists of the caller’s number and often the caller’s name. Some Voice over IP networks allow callers to forge caller-ID information and present false names and numbers. This is known as caller spoofing. These false IDs are then forwarded to public networks; using this method it is possible to make calls appear to originate from other countries

  The Arsonist

  It worked perfectly; the smartphone didn’t ring, but instead activated the electronic gas valve and the spark plug a few seconds later, exactly as planned. Now that both SIM cards were registered on a Thai network, the numbers and IMEI number were now stored somewhere in the records of a local telecom company. But I didn’t worry as there wa
s no way it could be connected to me, and Chinatown was far from my hotel.

  I connected the gas regulator to the canister. Then, after screwing the three-way elbow connector to the opening of the regulator, I attached the spark plug to one of the other available openings of the elbow connector. The third opening would later be connected to the Mercedes’ air-conditioning system. Next, using the duct tape, I taped the whole thing together and placed it in my backpack. As I left the short-time hotel, the attendant was still focused intently on his game.

  Back in my real hotel room, I locked the backpack away in a wardrobe. I took a shower and changed into swimming gear then went up to the rooftop swimming pool. I sipped a cold beer and thought, not bad for a day’s work.

  One thing I still needed to complete the mission was a vehicle. A motorbike would be perfect on Bangkok’s congested roads, but rental bikes required some ID, and buying a bike would involve even more paperwork. The following morning I returned to Chinatown using the MRT to Hua Lamphong station, then hailed a motorbike taxi to take me to the Khlong Thom market. Walking to the Worachak intersection in the market, where spare parts could be had for almost every make of car and motorbike imaginable, I turned into a small side alley lined with Chinese workshops where men were dismantling motorbikes. Components were scattered over the shop floors, waiting to be cleaned and later sold at the nearby market. I greeted a man who was lingering at the entrance of a workshop, speaking to him in Mandarin.

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” the man responded in the same tongue.

  “I need one of those,” I said, pointing to a motorbike in the process of being taken apart. “But I need one that is still intact. I don’t need the original paperwork, though. Just give me something I can get away with if I get stopped on the road.”

  The man made no response, and I lit a cigarette. When I exhaled, the mechanic sniffed and I offered him one from the packet. It was a brand sold only in mainland China. The mechanic appeared a little more open when he realized where I came from.

  “When do you want it?” the mechanic asked.

  “Today would be good,” I said.

  “It’ll take some time; come back in the afternoon.”

  Returning later that afternoon, I found the motorbike waiting for me in the back of the workshop. I’d already bought two motorbike helmets in different colours, and placed one under the seat along with some spare shirts, so I could change my appearance a few times to avoid being noticed by the target. I paid the Chinese mechanic and rode off to an apartment building near my hotel. Pretending to be a resident, I parked the bike next to a few others in the car park of the building and then walked back to my hotel.

  The next morning as I was eating noodle soup at a food stall near Hubert’s condominium block, I saw the Mercedes leave the garage. I didn’t hurry my breakfast since I knew the car would be stuck in traffic within a hundred metres.

  I got on my bike a couple of minutes later and set off in the direction of the car, spotting several traffic cameras along the route. As expected, the Mercedes had got stuck in traffic at a junction. A small police booth stood at the centre of the intersection, and I grinned when I noticed a set of traffic cameras on the roof. The cameras were positioned at different angles to catch incoming traffic from all directions. I knew this location could work, but I still needed to know if crossing this junction was part of Hubert’s daily routine so I spent the next couple of days following Hubert’s movements at the intersection.

  I also needed to find out where I could work on the Mercedes and soon realized I’d have to work on it in the basement garage of Hubert’s condominium block. This was the only place where the car was left unattended.

  18

  Chapter 18

  Ma Boxer

  I had already visited Yayee in the hospital a few times. She was still in a coma and unaware of any visitors. I knew the nurse had shooed Tukataa away from Yayee’s bed several times. Tukataa was in the same hospital but on a different ward, and as soon Tukataa was able to walk, she’d tried sneaking into Yayee’s ward. The male nurse explained to me that Yayee probably had a blood clot on the brain.

  “We’ll have to wait and see if she comes out of it,” he said. “The police have come a few times, but I had to tell them that an interrogation or transfer to the jail is out of the question.”

  “When will they come again?” I asked.

  “They told me to call them if she wakes up or dies.”

  I looked at Yayee, lying comatose on the hospital bed with her face wrapped in bandages and I felt sorry for her. When I left the hospital I noticed a coffee shop in the lobby and ordered an iced coffee. The coffee shop overlooked the car park in front of the hospital. As I looked out the window, a pickup pulled up and an elderly couple got out. The old woman was crying; her husband attempting to comfort her. The couple left some time later. As they drove off, I noticed a coffin in the back of the truck. It looked like they’d come to collect the body of a loved one. As the pickup drove away, an idea started to formulate in my subconscious. I waited in the coffee shop until the same male nurse had finished his shift. When I spotted him crossing the car park, I approached him and made him an offer.

  Tukataa

  “Please wake up, Khun Yayee,” I pleaded as I hugged Yayee’s unresponsive, lifeless body. I know I had been annoying the hospital staff and had been caught wandering throughout the hospital on numerous occasions.

  A ward nurse beckoned me with her index finger when she again caught me at Yayee’s bedside.

  “Come with me, nong [young lady],” she said. “We need to have a serious talk about your blood-test results.”

  Tony

  It was Friday morning, and the moment had arrived. Jennifer had taken over the other bedroom after arriving in Bangkok. She usually woke up late, but this morning she was already seated at the dining table when I got up. She didn’t acknowledge me when I walked in and peered over her shoulder at the laptop screen. I saw that the bitcoin key receiver was active and I knew that the plan was nearing completion. I went into the kitchen to brew some coffee, thinking that Jennifer might need a cup or two as she was really more of a night owl. I returned holding two cups of coffee, but Jennifer was already disconnecting the wires from the antennas.

  “It’s done,” she said. “Hubert just bought fifty thousand dollars of bitcoin, and I got his private key as soon as he logged in to his desktop bitcoin wallet.”

  It felt like an anti-climax as I stared at the jumble of letters and numbers on the laptop screen.

  Later that day I entered the car rental office and approached the girl at the front desk. She tried persuading me to rent a Nissan March.

  “Don’t you have something bigger?” I asked.

  After punching the keys on her keyboard for a few seconds, the girl said, “Yes, we have a Toyota Fortuner for you.”

  Half-an-hour later I arrived at the car park under my condo. The security guard opened the barrier and advised me to get a magnetic key card from the service desk. Once parked, I went up to the lobby to complete a form requiring the car license plate number and some other details. I handed it to the girl, who in turn gave me a key card. Over the following few days, Jennifer and I moved the Fortuner in and out of the garage at random times, especially late at night, to ensure that the security guards got used to it coming and going.

  Bao Shen called just before the weekend with the arsonist’s instructions. The arsonist didn’t want to be seen by a westerner, and so Bao Shen asked for Jennifer to pick him up in the Fortuner, insisting that she came alone.

  Jennifer told me afterwards that when she arrived at his hotel the arsonist got into the Fortuner carrying a backpack containing the camping gas bottle he had rigged up with the regulator and the electronics he’d modified earlier. Jennifer also said she noticed the arsonist was wearing latex gloves. He would wear them until the job was finished.

  Ma Boxer

  As we expected, the male nurse repo
rted the death of a female patient one afternoon shortly after I made him the offer, and it was evening by the time a doctor arrived to sign the death certificate. The young woman had been in the ward for almost two weeks and simply hadn’t woken up after overdosing on yabaa. She hadn’t had any visitors since arriving, which was not unusual for drug patients in Thailand. When the night shift started, the nurse brought a bag into the holding room for the deceased. He wrapped a towel around the recently deceased young woman’s head, withdrew a piece of steel pipe from his bag, and then proceeded to hit the cocooned head repeatedly. He paused and unwrapped the towel to check the condition of the face. It was beyond recognition. He then re-wrapped the head in bandages and wheeled the body into the side ward where Yayee and a few other patients were sleeping. Earlier that evening he’d added some strong sleeping tablets to their regular medicines to ensure he could work undisturbed. He exchanged Yayee’s identification tag with the deceased woman’s, and then struggled as he transferred their bodies onto each other’s beds. He then wheeled Yayee to the holding room where he carefully removed the bandages covering her face. She moaned despite being comatose. The nurse took no chances and injected her with a strong somnifacient to ensure she wouldn’t react as he put her into a body bag. When he was done he phoned the morgue in the basement, “I have a new customer for you.”

  I was waiting in the hospital parking lot. I got a text from the nurse and drove to the morgue entrance. The nurse gave me some paperwork and told me to hand it to the man at the desk. The desk worker had a quick look at the forms and said, “Yeah, this one just came in.” He didn’t show much sympathy and just stamped my forms and scrutinized the receipt to ensure that I had paid all the hospital bills. “Everything looks OK,” he said finally, “I’ll help you collect your sister.”