He turned his head and saw a Japanese couple sitting across the aisle from him watching some kind of pornographic cartoon on their laptop computer while their hands busied themselves underneath a blanket. Hentai anime—he knew what that was. A slender Thai woman in a traditional silk dress walked down the aisle and smiled at him as if she knew him. A crazy martial arts movie from Hong Kong was playing on the little TV screen mounted in front of him. He craned his neck, looking behind him. The perfect couple from the ticket counter at LAX slept snuggled together in their seats. She had her head on his shoulder, he leaned his head onto hers. They had a blanket tucked up under their necks. They looked like a Hallmark card for honeymooners.
Heidegger looked at his watch. He’d been asleep for twelve hours. As he started to come to his senses and regain feeling in his body, he realized that his bladder was about to explode.
He stood in the little airplane bathroom and urinated for such a long time that he almost fell back asleep. He pulled a paper towel out of the dispenser and wiped up the area around the toilet where he’d missed, then turned and looked at his reflection in the mirror. There was a long and shiny trail of drool down the left side of his cheek, like a slug had crawled up his face and into his mouth while he was sleeping. Heidegger washed his face and slowly began to wake up.
He remembered he’d wanted to take a sleeping pill and had asked the flight attendant for a glass of water. She’d brought him a tumbler and he’d popped the pill and downed the clear cold liquid in one big gulp. Language is a tricky thing, and when a person says “water” it’s understandable that someone else, in this instance a flight attendant, might hear “vodka.”
Heidegger had coughed and gagged, surprised and slightly alarmed as the equivalent of six martinis burned its way down his esophagus and into his stomach. The effect had been immediate and powerful.
He should’ve been angry—the combination of booze and a sleeping pill could have been fatal—but he had to admit that, although he felt a little dehydrated, he’d gotten a really good night’s sleep. Now he just needed to see if there was anything to eat. He was ravenous.
…
Sheila sat up when Somporn entered the hut. She’d been sleeping, lying out naked on the cot for anyone to see. Somporn stopped and looked at her.
“You should get dressed.”
“What’s happening?”
Somporn knelt by the cot and pulled a long wooden box out from under where Sheila lay.
Sheila looked at the box. “What’s that?”
Somporn quickly spun the padlock that held it latched shut and opened the box. Sheila gasped. “What’s going on?”
“Your husband was on his way. Now he is not.”
Somporn pulled the wooden stock of an AK-47 out of the box and quickly began to assemble the gun. This was not, of course, one of the original AK-47s designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1949, but it was a high-quality Chinese knock-off that was every bit as good at a fraction of the price.
“Is he okay?”
Somporn didn’t look up as he fixed the barrel to the stock, checked that everything was aligned, and slammed a clip home. There was a sureness and precision to his movements that impressed Sheila.
“I don’t know.”
Somporn stood and headed toward the door. Sheila sat up, her pale breasts swinging from the movement and catching Somporn’s eye.
“What do you want me to do?”
Somporn turned and looked at her.
“Get dressed.”
…
Captain Somporn slung the AK-47 over his shoulder and walked quickly down the beach to where one of the boats was waiting. He looked up at the sky; it would be dark in another hour. That would make finding Turk and the money nearly impossible.
Saksan and Kittisak intercepted him. Where was he going with a gun? Somporn told them about the disturbing phone call. He was going to the drop site to check and see what was going on. The men offered to go with him, but Somporn told them it was too dangerous. If it was a trap, it was better only one of them got captured. They should stay behind to pack up the gear and get ready; they might have to abandon camp quickly.
Somporn shoved one of the wooden boats out into the water. He jumped in, pulled the cord, and fired up the motor. As he sailed out of the cove and negotiated the tangle of mangroves, he shook his head in dismay. What the hell am I doing? He had always prided himself on being a smart, cautious, almost conservative criminal. That was how you stayed alive and out of prison. So what was he doing now? This went against everything he knew, all his instincts and all his years of experience. Normally he would just pack up camp, kill the hostage, and disappear into the jungle. He’d drift around for a few months and then turn up at the little beer hall in Bangkok, where his crew would be waiting. What he was doing now was stupid. He was risking capture and imprisonment, possibly death. But Captain Somporn, scourge of the South China Sea, couldn’t help it. It was crazy, but he was in love.
…
Turk had seen a TV show about sea turtles. How they are shoved and bullied by the surf as they wallow their way onto the beach to lay their eggs. That’s what I must look like. Despite the life jacket, the suitcase was getting heavier and heavier, and the choppy surf wasn’t helping, finally pushing him into a tangle of trees. The suitcase snagged on the branches, and the roots caught and tugged at his legs like there were little sea monsters trying to pull him under.
But Turk wasn’t going to give up. He yanked on the suitcase, breaking branches and jostling the trees, sending birds shrieking into the air. He kicked at the roots of the mangroves, cutting his foot on some sharp underwater branches. Eventually he found some footing and was able to stand. He slogged through what smelled like an open sewer and felt like slimy quicksand, dragging a thousand-pound suitcase filled with a million soggy dollars.
The tangle of mangroves gave way to a shallow canal and he was able to wade to a small spit of sand. He collapsed on the ground, spent and exhausted, flopping on his back and gasping for air. For a scary couple of minutes, as he tried to catch his breath, he felt like he might be having a heart attack. His heart pounded as if it was about to leap out of his chest, his lungs burned, and his legs ached.
Turk rolled over onto his back and looked up at the sky. It had shifted from a pale blue to a deeper violet, and the setting sun was kissing the tops of several coconut palms, their fronds shimmering in the gold light like fireworks. A few birds flew overhead, now reduced to black shapes against the darkening sky. Turk looked up and realized that this view might be the last thing he ever saw; this might be the end of Turk Henry, bass player. And for some reason, he was okay with it. If you’ve got to go, what better place than right here, right now?
After a few minutes, Turk started to feel better. He sat up and tried to see where he was. Off to his right, a three-foot-long cobra was relaxing on a rock, catching the last rays of the setting sun. The birds had returned to the mangroves—kingfishers sat in the branches while a pair of large herons waded in the shallows, catching crabs with their sharp bills. Dozens of bats started appearing, swirling and diving in the air as they fed on masses of late-afternoon mosquitoes. Turk reached in his pocket and found the GPS. He flicked it on and was pleased to see it blink to life. He looked over at the cobra. It wasn’t going anywhere. Turk inched a little closer to the snake to warm himself in a shaft of sunlight filtering through the trees, and opened the beer Marybeth had given him.
He took a sip and raised the can in a toast to the cobra. “Rock ’n’ roll.”
Turk drank deeply.
…
The Sea-Doo bobbed in a tangle of mangrove trunks. Ben squinted through his binoculars and watched as Turk sat on the beach and drank from a can. What was he doing? Drinking a beer?
Ben wiped the pus weeping from his swollen eye and looked again. He scanned the shoreline for any potential witnesses. The coast was clear. This entire escapade in Phuket had been one wretched fuckup after another, and now it wa
s time to put an end to it.
Ben pulled the sidearm out of his holster and slid off the Sea-Doo into the water. He crept silently through the tangle of branches. He was going to get as close to Turk as possible. He wasn’t going to miss this time.
…
Turk finished the beer and crushed the can. He then dug a little hole in the sand and buried it. He smiled at the cobra.
“Leave only footprints.”
Turk lay back, letting the beer begin to metabolize, feeling the alcohol climb up his spine to his brain. He wished he’d brought a six-pack. He could use another, and he thought Sheila might want one, too.
Turk let out a long, deeply felt, and slightly hoppy belch. It sounded like some strange Buddhist chant drifting skyward.
…
If you look it up, you’ll learn that mangrove forests are made up of taxonomically diverse, salt-tolerant trees and other plant species that thrive in intertidal zones of sheltered tropical shores. If you’re actually walking through one, waist-deep in black water, you’ll discover that it’s a fetid, foul-smelling breeding ground for every biting, stinging, and swarming insect on the planet. It might be good for the earth’s ecology, but it’s no fun to creep through.
Ben didn’t like it, but he let the bugs feed. The last thing he wanted to do was attract Turk’s attention. If Turk took off running he’d have a big head start on Ben. The tangle of branches was intense; it was like a spiderweb made out of wood. Ben ducked and shimmied, turned and wriggled, trying to slip through the mangrove tendrils as discreetly as possible.
It’s common knowledge that the M-67 fragmentation-type hand grenade used by the U.S. military comes equipped with a safety pin. The design of the grenade is extremely simple, efficient, and effective. When the safety pin is withdrawn, the safety lever is released from the grenade’s body. The release of the lever causes the striker to rotate and spark the primer. The flash from the primer ignites the delay element, which gives you four or five seconds to throw the grenade. Once the delay element burns to the detonator … well, in military terms the main charge is ignited. In more human terms, shit blows up.
When Ben had hooked the grenade to his backpack, he didn’t imagine he’d be creeping through a mangrove swamp, and he for sure never thought that a teeny tiny little branch from a mangrove tree would snag on the safety pin and pull it out. But that’s exactly what happened.
Ben heard the grenade splash in the water and smelled the primer simultaneously. He couldn’t run—he was too tangled in the branches—so he bent down, groping frantically in the black water, not worrying about being quiet now, to get the grenade and throw it somewhere, anywhere. The last things he felt were soft mud and mangrove roots.
…
Fortunately for Turk, he was lying on his back, belching on the sand, when the grenade exploded. The blast was followed by a geyser of stinky water as krill, baby crabs, and young shrimp took their first flight. Burning-hot pieces of shrapnel rocketed out in all directions, cutting branches and shredding leaves, killing a kingfisher and a couple of bats, but missing the rock star on the beach. Turk sat up.
“What the fuck?”
The backsplash came raining down, Ben’s biobits dropping from the sky, followed by leaves and fragments of twigs. Turk looked over and saw that the cobra was gone. It had crawled under a log, not waiting around to see what would happen next.
Turk stood up and looked toward the explosion. The water was still boiling; the trees, blown out of their roots, were smoldering. Behind the hole in the mangroves he saw a bright yellow Sea-Doo drifting toward shore.
Somporn had gotten as close to the drop point as he thought he could before cutting the motor. He’d been drifting there, watching and waiting, for about thirty minutes when he heard an explosion about a half-kilometer away. He didn’t know what possessed him, but he started the motor and headed toward the blast, cradling the AK-47 on his lap.
Sixteen
Somporn cut the motor and drifted toward the mangroves. He could still see a bit of smoke rising from where the explosion had occurred. He pulled back the firing lever on his gun, racking the first shell into the chamber, and let the boat drift in.
As he rounded the tangle of trees, he saw Turk Henry, bass player for mega-platinum-selling superstar rock band Metal Assassin, waist-deep in muck, trying to drag a Sea-Doo toward the shore. A quick scan revealed that Turk was alone and that a suitcase decorated with psychedelic daisies stood on the beach.
Turk looked up and saw Somporn. Then he saw the gun. He raised his hands in the air. “Don’t shoot.”
“What are you doing?”
“I need a ride. Can I borrow your boat?”
Somporn looked at the Sea-Doo. “What happened to the Zodiac?”
It dawned on Turk that he was talking to one of the kidnappers.
“Where’s Sheila?”
“She’s good. Where’s the boat?”
“It sank. I had to swim.”
Somporn pointed to the Sea-Doo. “What’s that doing here?”
Turk shrugged. “Fuck if I know.”
Somporn pointed his gun at Turk. “You were supposed to come alone.”
“I did. Honest, man. There was an explosion and all of a sudden this thing was here.”
Somporn studied Turk for any sign of deception. Turk shrugged, baffled. “Maybe it’s a magic trick.”
Captain Somporn didn’t know what to think. Turk seemed to be telling the truth—the boat was missing; but the Sea-Doo? The explosion? Turk interrupted his thoughts. “Are you a terrorist?”
Somporn looked at him, surprised. “Why do you think I’m a terrorist?”
“They said you were, man. I never thought that.”
Somporn looked Turk in the eye. “I’m a pirate.”
Turk couldn’t believe his ears. “What?”
Somporn enunciated. “A pirate.”
Turk nodded. “Like with a peg leg and the skull and crossbones?”
“Exactly.”
“I didn’t think you were a terrorist. I told them that.”
Somporn changed the subject. “Did you bring the money?”
Turk turned and pointed to the suitcase on the beach. “It’s all there.”
Somporn hopped out of his boat and dragged it ashore. He walked down toward the suitcase. Turk called out after him. “Watch out for the cobra.”
Turk followed Somporn to the suitcase. Somporn lay it down and unzipped it. He saw the money and looked up at Turk.
“I’m a big fan of your band.”
Turk nodded. “Thanks.”
Somporn began pulling the wet stacks of cash out of the suitcase.
“I want to see Sheila.”
“Sit down and be quiet.”
Turk didn’t feel like arguing with the gunman, even if he was a fan. So he sat on the beach and watched as Somporn counted the money in the suitcase, dividing it into two piles. The big pile he wrapped in a plastic trash bag and, using his hands to scoop out the soft sand, buried near a tall tree. The smaller pile he stuck back in the suitcase. Somporn then stood over the buried loot, took a small GPS device out, and locked in the coordinates.
…
Turk sat in the front of the boat with his back to the bow. He was facing Somporn, who was holding the gun with one hand and driving the boat with the other. Somporn leaned forward and spoke over the exertions of the outboard.
“Why did you break up?”
“What?”
“Why did Metal Assassin break up?”
Turk thought about it.
“Why did you kidnap my wife?”
“For the money.”
Turk spread his hands in a kind of “voila” gesture. “Exactly.”
Turk watched as Somporn processed that. He could see that Somporn was an intelligent, thoughtful man. And surprisingly handsome. For some reason Turk had assumed that the kidnappers would either be ragged, toothless orc-like cretins or bearded, turban-wearing fanatics. To discover that the cri
minal was actually a kind of beach bum Chow Yun-Fat … well, it unnerved him.
…
Somporn couldn’t risk taking his boat out on the open water. For all he knew a police helicopter or a CIA submarine might be lurking, just waiting for a glimpse of him, a clean shot at his head. He wasn’t being paranoid; someone had been on that Sea-Doo, and something had to explain the explosion.
So he took the back way, expertly guiding his little boat through the narrow channels that naturally develop in mangroves. It would take a little longer, but he’d already called his men and told them he had the money. They should break camp. They needed to disappear tonight.
…
Sheila watched as Kittisak ran out of his hut and began barking orders. The men and women dropped what they were doing, a couple of men taking machine guns and running off in different directions to guard the camp, while two women took pots of rice off the fire and dumped the contents into the sea and others began to pack up their belongings as quickly as possible. It wasn’t like they were panicked; it was simply that it was time to go.
Saksan approached her with a length of rope. He roughly grabbed her arm and dragged her toward a palm tree. Sheila tried to pull away from him, but that only made him grip her more tightly.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Sorry. Captain say.”
Sheila was suddenly nervous; things were changing too fast. Her lower lip quivered and tears sprung out of her eyes.
“But why? What’s going on?”
Saksan shoved her against the trunk of the tree, yanked her arms behind her back, and tied them. He then came around to face her. “Don’t worry. It’s part of the show.”
Sheila swallowed and nodded. “Okay.”
Saksan turned and looked around, making sure no one was watching, and then he quickly copped a feel, grabbing her breasts in both his hands.
Sheila recoiled at his rough touch. “What are you doing?”
Saksan smiled, and one of his gold teeth glinted. “American girl.”
With that he walked off.
Turk didn’t know what to expect. As the boat cut through the mangroves he saw fires illuminating a clump of huts along a tree line and a couple of boats beached on the sand. Silhouettes flickered in and out of the blackness as people moved quickly and purposefully around what looked like a camp. Turk saw Sheila, off to the side, tied to the trunk of a palm tree.
Salty: A Novel Page 21