by JL Curtis
“Well, I guess that’s good news in a way.” The old man continued, “Jesse, Aaron, Matt and Felicia had a run in with some Guat cowboys in California earlier this week, but I don’t think that will make any waves, because it wasn’t related to them hauling drugs.”
Jesse wandered in and Bucky got the rest of the story from her, and then begged off, saying he had to get home. With a round of Merry Christmases he was out the door shortly afterward.
About 9 PM, Matt finally returned, and kept trying to turn away from folks. Finally, Jesse saw the side of his face, and said, “Oh my God, Matt, who gave you the black eye? Did you get in a fight?”
Matt turned beet red mumbling, “No, it’s not what you think.”
Juanita came over and grabbed Matt’s face. “Let me see. What the hell happened?”
Matt sighed. “Well you know little Pedro?” He asked, holding his hand about knee level. “He wanted to play and I got down on the floor with him, and he was playing and kicked me with his new cowboy boots! And I need to ask a question, what does Oso Blanco mean? All the kids kept calling me that.”
Juanita doubled over laughing, and then went to the fridge, and pulled out a piece of liver. She cut it in half and brought it to Matt. “Put this over your eye, maybe it will take a little of the swelling down, and maybe you won’t have too much of a black eye.”
Aaron chortled. “Oh man, wait till the guys at the base hear this! Matt got his ass kicked by the littlest Mexican!”
That caused everybody to start laughing, and only Rex heard a car door slam. Rex ambled to the door and barked once, and the old man went to answer it. He came back with Felicia in tow, and everyone burst out laughing again at the sight of her, causing Felicia to literally stop in her tracks. She looked at Matt, with the liver on his eye, and got a devilish gleam in her eye. “So what story did you tell them, Matthew?”
Matt grumbled. “The truth— that Pedro kicked my ass.”
Felicia laughed and said, “Oh my God, my whole family is so embarrassed, I bring a guest over, and he gets beaten up; they are all afraid you will be mad at them.”
Matt smiled. “No, I’m not mad, but I do want to know what Oso Blanco means. None of the kids would tell me.”
Felicia laughed again and said, “Oh, they are calling you the White Bear! I think it’s because you are so big and were playing with them and growling like a bear.”
Somewhat mollified, Matt reached out and Felicia came and sat on his lap, casually putting her arm around Matt’s neck. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay, and ask Jesse if what I heard is true?”
Jesse nodded and Felicia jumped up and drug Jesse down the hall to talk.
The next few days flew by, and Jesse ended up driving Matt and Aaron back to Midland to catch flights back to Los Angeles. She and Aaron embraced and planned for the next visit, with Aaron wanting Jesse to come back out in late January, when he would have a few days off prior to the MSOB deploying for further training.
Jesse pulled into the parking lot and watched until Matt and Aaron’s airplane took off before somberly driving back home. Jesse realized she was truly happy, and spent the ride home figuring out whom to invite, who the bridesmaids would be, and reminded herself to get with Juanita to plan the wedding dinner.
30 Thailand Here We Come
The house phone rang, but the old man ignored it, concentrating on getting the end of the month accounting done. Jesse yelled from the kitchen, “Papa, it’s for you, Joe somebody!”
The old man sighed and punched the speaker on the phone, “Cronin.”
A scratchy voice came back. “John, this is Cho, I need your help, if possible.”
Turning to concentrate and grabbing his wheel book the old man said, “Hey, Joe, I haven’t heard from you in quite a while, what have you got?”
“People smuggling and corruption I believe, we’ve got a lead again on a possible smuggling operation that I believe ties into the 666 heroin you’ve been seeing coming in through Mexico, but every time we investigate, it doesn’t seem to pan out. I’m afraid if I go through channels to officially ask for you, it will tip off whoever is running the operation and getting information from inside the government.”
The old man grunted. “Not fun, Joe, but how can I help?”
“John, I have a copy of your paper, and one of my officers attended your seminar earlier this year, so I think I need your consultation to look at what we are doing and see if you find things we are missing in our investigation,” Cho responded.
“Well, if I come without approval, I won’t be able to help. So what would I be doing?”
“No, John, if you come here for a vacation say, then I can hire you as consultant, pay you a fee, and give you official status with the Central Bureau. That would be most effective for me, I can bury paperwork for weeks before anyone outside my team is aware you are here and working. This is short lead time. Next week expecting ship to call at Laem Chabang for twenty-four hours. It is Chinese ocean going freighter, and believe they are paying off Port Authority, but it carries legal cargo too.”
Scratching a note ‘3rd week Feb’ on a notepad and circling it, the old man said, “Joe, let me see if I can get off on this short a notice, and I’ll get back with you by tomorrow. Is there a good number?”
Cho rattled off a long string of numbers that was the international code for his phone, and asked that the old man call him at the same time tomorrow.
Looking at his watch, the old man decided to make a couple of calls before going on shift, and see what the situation was. First calling the SAC at the National Academy, he determined there weren’t any issues with official support to Thailand and got the code word for requesting a meet with the onsite FBI agent at the American Embassy in Bangkok. Next he called Bucky to see if he was aware of any situations with the international drug shippers, and nothing turned up other than a shortage of heroin after the latest bust in Los Angeles. His last call was to the sheriff asking for a meet at lunch.
He turned to the filing cabinet against the back wall and pulled out his shipboard smuggling folder and threw it in his gear bag, figuring he’d have time to review it during patrol.
Telling Juanita he was leaving, he loaded up and hit the road. The morning was quiet so he was able to review the folder and get some possible ideas of ways to support Joe. At noon he met the sheriff at Bienvenidos and found him at the back table as usual. Quickly ordering the taco plate and iced tea, he turned to the sheriff. “Jose, would you mind if I take a little vacation next week? I got a call from Cho over in Thailand and he needs my help on a smuggling situation over there.”
“Hell, as soon as I get the request from state, I’ll sign it and you don’t have to take vacation John,” Jose said.
“Well, Jose, that’s the rub, there isn’t going to be a request. Cho is afraid there are conspirators inside the government, possibly inside the agency, so he doesn’t want to submit one. The last two times he’s asked for help have been a clean miss. This time he seems to have good intel, and wants to bring me in as a hired gun so to speak. That way I’ll have at least some status if not official status.”
The sheriff leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling for a minute. “John, I’m not going to tell you no. I know you don’t need this job, but this request just raises the hairs on the back of my neck. Something doesn’t sound right!”
“I know,” the old man said. “But I’ve already made a few calls, and there aren’t any indications that either the FBI or DEA are aware of that indicates the Thai’s are going off the reservation. And I’ve known Cho for over twenty years, and worked with him before. Remember?”
Jose chuckled. “Oh yeah, that butt ugly damn elephant I still have to move around every time I go on the back patio, and Betsy refuses to hide it... Seriously, if you go as a tourist, that means no weapon John, and I’m not too comfortable with you being over there without one.”
“Jose, I’m not going to be doing anything but sit
ting in an office in all probability or at worst case, I’ll go down to the pier and look at a boat while it’s tied to the pier with half the Central Bureau at my back.”
Shaking his head, the sheriff said, “Okay, I’ll take you off the schedule next week and all I’ll say is be careful.”
Nodding, the old man agreed and they dug into the food. After lunch, the rest of the day passed quickly, and the old man pulled back into the house at a little after 6 PM. After going online and making reservations with American to get there, he looked at hotels and realized the only one recognized was the Hilton Millennium in Klongson, wincing as the made the reservation, he decided he’d better get enough consulting fee out of Cho to at least cover the airfare and hotel, if nothing else.
The combination of the two was damn near $10,000! But, he admitted to himself, he was just too damn old to spend twenty plus hours sitting in coach, much less deal with the lack of sleep. At least business class had better seats and the booze was free.
After dinner he finished up the books, and called Jesse into the office. “Okay, I’m going to be out of pocket next week, little trip to Thailand. The sheriff has given me time off, and I’ll be leaving Sunday and should be home next Saturday or Sunday.
Since you’re already running things, I don’t have to tell you what to do, other than you’ll have to actually get up and let Rex out.”
Jesse just looked at the old man, “Work related?”
He shrugged. “Kinda, sorta…”
“In other words, don’t ask ‘cause you’re not going to tell me.”
“Jesse, it’s not that, it’s just that… Well, I don’t want you caught up in the middle of this if it goes south.”
“Papa, I’m a big girl now, and a deputy too, and I’m running the books and the ranch pretty much, so I’d think you would be able to trust me.”
“Hon, it’s not about trust. It’s about a world I hope to God you never have to get into. It’s not pretty, nor is it real healthy for either side. You don’t need any more nightmares.”
Jesse turned and stomped out of the room and the old man turned back to the computer. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust her, he just didn’t want to inflict the horrors on her that he’d seen and still had nightmares about. Or another set of nightmares… Smiling to himself, he thought, hell a few more and they’ll be taking a number to haunt my ass.
He drug out his wheel book and wrote a note to buy a couple of bottles of Blanton’s and thought about what kind of clothes to pack; checking the weather, it looked like low 90’s for next week and probably rain, hell it seemed like it rained every day there.
Since this was an unofficial trip, no uniforms were needed, but maybe a couple of pairs of Dickie’s wouldn’t be out of line. Polo shirts, slacks, and comfortable shoes. Try to look anything but American, so maybe those slacks and shirts he’d brought back from Italy would work.
At 6 AM the next morning he called Cho back and told him he would come. Relaying his arrival time and hotel in generic terms and figuring Cho would pick up on the references. The rest of the week went smoothly, except for Jesse ignoring him. His research complete on the known heroin routes and players in Mexico, and the sketchy details he was able to get on the trans-pacific shipments were all filed on the laptop along with a list of questions for Cho. Saturday night he packed a suitcase, had Francisco drive him to Midland; he caught a flight up to DFW and stayed at the Hyatt at the airport until his flight on Sunday morning.
The Dallas to Los Angeles flight wasn’t bad, at least he got fed in first class, but then he had to hang around LAX waiting on the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. Boarding was finally called, and he boarded in business class to find a clean airplane, young and attentive flight attendants, and juice, tea, or coffee offered in a real glass or a real cup, rather than the usual plastic ware one got on a US airline.
Twelve hours later, the plane landed at Hong Kong and the old man realized that even with the upgrade he was stiff as a board, and tired as hell. It might be 7 PM Hong Kong time, but to his body it was 6 AM, and he decided to walk around and find something to eat, and maybe some coffee.
He finally ran across a Starbucks, and realized he had nothing but greenbacks, so he used the credit card with the smallest limit and hoped to hell they didn’t scam him for the balance on the card. Sitting at one of the small tables, he tried to figure out how much he’d just paid for a lousy cup of burned coffee and an overpriced piece of supposedly lemon cake.
The cake reminded him of the days in the Army with what they used to jokingly call the dessert driers in the chow halls. They might have looked pretty and allowed the soldier to pick his own dessert, but damn they were always dry as a damn bone…
Two and a half hours later, it was back aboard another Cathay Pacific flight, and with two more hours of flying, finally touched down at Suvarnabhumi Airport on the outskirts of Bangkok. His bag was one of the last bags to show up and he picked a line for customs, which was, as usual, the wrong damn line.
He cleared customs after having to pay an import fee on the Blanton’s, and wondered why the Thai’s seemed to like doing things backward. Most countries you cleared immigration or passport control then cleared customs; but no, not here.
Another line and the old man was mentally mooing as he was herded along through the ropes. Clearing passport control, he stepped outside and inhaled the miasma of Southeast Asia- smoke, rotting jungle, people and shit.
Shaking his head, he looked around and noticed a group of what appeared to be chauffeurs waiting to pick up incoming passengers even after midnight. As he started for the taxi line, he casually glanced at them and realized one said Cronin-083.
He stopped and looked at his watch while he tried to figure out what was going on, then looked at the chauffeur more closely. He realized it was actually the young Thai he’d met last year at the National Academy seminar.
Walking over, he played dumb and said, “I’m Cronin. I assume you have a car ready?”
Bowing, Som said, “Sawasdee krup, please come this way Mr. Cronin. May I take your bag?”
As Som grabbed the bag and began walking out, the old man said, “Thank you. I assume you have the directions to the hotel, correct?”
“Yes, sir, the hotel arranged everything, as requested.”
They walked to the chauffeured car park and Som placed the bag in the trunk of the black Mercedes along with the old man’s briefcase. Looking casually around, and seeing they were not being watched, he said, “When I open the door, please to get in quickly.”
The old man nodded and let Som lead him around to the passenger’s side door. When Som opened it, the old man slid in quickly, and as the door shut, he realized there was someone in the back seat with him. He started to react, but a voice said, “Please don’t hit me again John, I still remember the last time!”
The old man relaxed. “Dammit Joe, you almost got nailed for that.”
Cho shifted in the seat and said, “Oh, I know, but I had to take a chance on doing it this way for now. I’m just glad you picked up on Som’s sign and remembered our class number, and he didn’t have to go chase you down. It’s almost an hour to the hotel, and we know this car is clean, so it will give me a chance to brief you and tell you what I would like you to help with.”
“Okay, so I’m here,” John said. “Now what the hell is going on, Joe?”
Cho turned on a reading light as they pulled out of the parking area, picked his briefcase up off the floor, opened it and said, “First your passport John, I need to add a stamp that will tell the police to not trouble you.”
Handing over his passport the old man said, “I hope I’m not going to have to rely on that.”
“No, this is just one piece,” Cho replied. “I assume you have your credentials, right?”
Carefully marking over the passport stamp, he pulled a small stapler out and stapled a folded page into the passport, then handed it back.
Reaching into the briefcase again,
he took out a multipage document and handed it to the old man. “Here is your consulting contract, and your check. Just sign on the last page and you’ll be official. And put this in with your credentials, this is your official paperwork that shows you’re working with us.”
The old man flipped quickly through the document and figured in for a penny, in for a pound as he signed it. Looking at the check he was startled. “Damn, this is for twenty thousand dollars!”
“Well, your plane ticket was almost nine thousand, and your hotel will be another two thousand, and five hundred for food, and one hundred an hour for your time, so there it is. I know you’re not cheap John, and I really need the help on this one,” Cho said.
The old man shook his head in amazement. “Damn, okay, you’ve got my attention now!”
Sticking the check in his pocket, he returned the signed contract and sat back.
Cho proceeded to outline the case as he knew it, the girls who would go missing from NEP[25] and Soi Cowboy which he explained was where the sex trade had moved when Patpong Road changed. Occasionally, a body would show up, but mostly the girls would just disappear into thin air. The snatches always seemed to take place within a week of certain ships that were known to have ties to the drug trade pulled into Laem Chabang.
They had been close a couple of times, but never seemed to find either the girls or prove there was anything being smuggled aboard the ships. That was what had keyed Cho, between last Tuesday and last Thursday twenty-two girls went missing, and not a single lead existed. All of them were either Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese or Thai orphans; in other words, no families were going to be complaining. They had also picked up indicators that a large shipment of heroin had left Afghanistan was thought to be moving east through the Golden Triangle for shipment to either Mexico or the States. Cho had decided that he would not go outside the Central Investigations Bureau on this one; as he felt there were spies in both the police and port authority.