The Hacker Who Becomes a Mafia-Consultant in the Caribbean After a Diamond Coup in Bangkok

by Stieve Adams

under control, Valerie towed him against the beach as if she were a professional lifeguard. Given my experience in the crocodile farm, I was very worried. There should be crocodiles in the river, if the wild crocodiles were not extinct. I decided to believe in the latter option.

  We swam purposefully, towards the beach, the beach where we had our Vespa parked. Björn also seemed to be a good swimmer, so the situation seemed to be under control. Upstream we heard shouting and screaming, our kidnappers seemed to be nice and vital, but lay in the water and splashed just like us. We also heard a boat launch, it could be friends of the kidnappers,

  "Hurry up, soon will the bad guys come!" I listen.

  We hurried, we landed without seeing crocodiles or water buffalo. We landed just a few hundred meters from our Vespa. I took uncle Wu, he did not weigh much, and jogged down to the village. I carried uncle Wu into his hut, put him on the nearest bed. I gave the old woman who was in the cabin a lot of dollars and talked that I needed to borrow a bike while I regretted that the boat had disappeared.

  I do not know if she understood any of what I said, she seemed to be destroyed by uncle Wu being fainted, bleak and bloody. We did not have time to stay so I took the bike that was outside the hut and kicked Vespan.

  "Can you drive a Vespa?" I ask Björn.

  "No problem," he says. "If you ride a bike, then Valerie and I will go to Vespa." When you get tired we will change vehicles. "

  Quickly, that Swede. The Vespa started now and I took full speed on the bumpy bike. On this bad road, it was almost as fast as riding a Vespa. But just before we reached the main road, The Vespa stopped. I shook the scooter to hear if there was fuel in the tank. It did not, we had run out of the gasoline.

  There is usually a reserve tank on such vehicles, but when we saw the cigarette lighter, the crane found the reserv tank already on "R". careless boy, Vespa owner, he had forgotten to change the crane so now the tank was completely empty.

  "We take the bus," says Björn. "Here on the main road there are buses every quarter, I think."

  "Do you know Singapore?" I ask.

  "Yes, pretty well. I usually live here when I'm not at sea."

  Without further problems we came to our hotel, the bus had a stop right outside the hotel, actually.

  "You're up to my room," I say to Björn. "You Valerie looks up a little and then we have a meeting in my room to chart the situation."

  Up in my room, I switch to dry clothes, Bjorn can borrow a pair of jeans and a shirt of me. Unfortunately, he does not get the jeans at the waist so he adheres to the hotel's robes.

  "You want to have a jaw?" I ask Björn and call and order dinner with beer and wine for three people to the room. Good hotel in Singapore, no one touches mine when we get in wet and torn and dinner at three o'clock in the morning.

  "I'll probably have only mineral water," says Björn doubtfully.

  "Drink beer like a man," I say obliviously.

  Up comes the food, let's taste well, especially Björn who poures two beers in no time.

  "More beer for the people," says Björn, taking the phone and ordering more beer. When I came back from a visit to the toilet he had ordered additional beer, a domestic brand equivalent to the Danish elephant beer. Björn claimed that after two beers, tinned up and was very talkative and very drunk. The man did not tolerate alcohol for five penny, it was clear.

  21. Sentosa: Singapore's Discovery Island

  We got Bjorn in bed eventually. After a lot of discussion, he went out of bed in the extra bed in my room. I even went out as effectively after another 30 seconds.

  When it was morning, or rather morning, I was awakened by a delicious coffee soft as well as the smell of bacon and eggs. Together with the breakfast, a nice and well-liked Valerie also appeared. After a while, I asked for Björn, where Valerie exclaimed:

  "I thought he was on the musty or something. You've been in control of him, he was sleeping in your room? "

  The breakfast, the good English, had a tendency to get stuck in the throat. We quickly found that Björn was missing. After all this job to find him and to save him from the shady individuals who kidnapped him, it felt a bit hopeless and snooped.

  "OK, Valerie," I said, "you know him better than me. Do you have any idea of where he made the way? "

  We eventually agreed that we should search him in the Chinese neighborhood where he probably lived. Quick on all clothes, ie a cool shirt and a pair of thin pants. Valerie's light floral dress liked the climate, we were close to the equator and yesterday I felt that Scottish wool was not the right material for clothes in this city.

  And very well, the humid heat struck us as soon as we left the air-conditioned hotel. With the help of a taxi driver we succeeded in locating the place where we thought Björn lived after some problems. I talked to the businessman I met last time I was there. This time he was very accommodating and spoke gladly and willingly that Björn had been there in the morning. He also pointed out that he had not worked very well, he seemed to be a little hopeless and embarrassing.

  We had some understanding, we did not feel well either. At least, the cash was that Björn obviously picked up a bag and disappeared in the direction of the harbor. We thanked for the information and let our taxi take us to the harbor. Because Björn was the captain of a tugboat, it might be so easy that he was going to work in the morning and did not want to wake us up. We tried to locate which boat it was and whether it was in the port.

  It was not nearby and the port office was only able to inform it that it had no mission this morning.

  "That cable car up there, what is it?" I asked the harbor people.

  Well, there was a cable car with baskets floating high above the river and taking tourists and others to the island of Sentosa, where there were a number of attractions, such as an 18 hole golf course. From the cable car there was a magnificent view of the harbor and its immediate surroundings. After finding out that the tug boat was called Sitting Bull, we quickly took a taxi to the World Trade Center, paid some Singapore Dollars, boarded one of the cable car gondolas and set us up for a nice ride over the water.

  Over the water suddenly the cable car stopped with a jerk. We became somewhat nervous because we had some memories from the previous night that could indicate that someone might want to hurt us. But when we sat there for good rest, we used my binoculars to search for Sitting Bull. And actually, on our way from the harbor and straight to our gondola we were able to identify the tugboat with a bearded figure at the helm. The tugboat was of an older model painted in red and black and with car tires hanging over the rail as fenders.

  We tried to make us hear there 50 meters above the water, but it was judged to fail.

  "I'm jumping," I said bravely.

  "50 meters above the water. You're crazy". It was not the first time that Valerie had the opinion of my ideas. I tried to get a window in the gondola. It did not work very well. The tourist authorities in this city did not want people to jump into the ocean. That's probably because the windows in the gondola could only be opened a decimeter. The glass or plastic was too strong to break it with your hands or shoes.

  "Write a letter," Valerie thought.

  "Write yourself," I thought. Valerie wrote and I was looking for a Coca-Cola bottle as a weight for throwing letters on Björn. About the missed boat it became a bottle post. The letter in the bottle, a t-shirt as a shock absorber and with a well-rolled throw I would meet the boat as it passed below us. Because I was a good player in cricket, that would not be a problem.

  I threw and the bottle bounced a couple of times on the boat and seemed to remain. But the rudder, who should be called Björn, noticed nothing but continued with surprisingly high speed to the west. The next anthem appeared to be the Malacka Peninsula or Sumatra. And here we sat in a basket heading to Singapore's holiday island and Björn, as we went around half the globe to meet, were disappearing.

  "What do you write in the letter?" I asked.

  "Just a few kind words,"
said Valerie and looked clever.

  "Yes?"

  "Well, there were seven West Indian swords and that he would turn around because we wanted to meet him. Finished with puss ... "

  As we looked back, we saw some people who were involved in a fierce discussion at the cable car departure station. On the streets it seemed as though someone tried to get the mechanic to back the cable car. Probably it did not go backwards, why we continued on to the island after a while.

  We saw that there was a boat harbor on the island why we thought we could rent or borrow a boat to search for Björn. We have to pay entry and take the local little railroad to get to the boat harbor. Once there we try to find a boat renter, but that was not available. By praising some singapore balls, we succeed in getting some good tips from the local portman after some trouble.

  At the furthest end of the pier was a large white yacht with dual engines as well as a Union Jack fluttering in the stern. We ran out of the pier and started our persuasion campaign. The owner of the yacht was a typical British gentleman wearing khaki as well as a ginger-colored slokmustasch. I presented my case calmly and concisely.

  "Follow that boat," I whipped, "It's in a hurry."

  "Excuse me my lord from the highlands and my lady from the colonies," said the gentleman politely, "but I do not really understand what that is the matter about. Firstly, this is not a taxi boat; secondly, that response does not work at sea.