Highway Robbery

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘We don’t have to listen to this,’ said Silver.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ said Chom. ‘But you’re not going anywhere for a while so you might as well.’

  ‘You have no right,’ said Silver. ‘There have been no charges laid.’

  ‘Well, if you’d just shut up and listen for a minute, you’ll hear them,’ said Granddad Jah. He really would have made a good detective. Not necessarily a popular one. The lawyer laughed rudely but both of our guests seemed disoriented. I took advantage of their stupor.

  ‘Highway frustration mounted in the form of the bleating of horns and the flashing of headlights,’ I continued. ‘In fools attempting to pass in the ditches, in the hi-so vehicles nudging the trucks like dogs sniffing at backsides. But the truck drivers didn’t care. They had the Thai spirit of Chez Guevara mud flaps and a rich employer on their side.’

  I noticed the silvery suit guy was still toying with his cell phone. He didn’t believe me but he wouldn’t get a signal. That was our ace. We were in the countryside and he was out of his element. I continued to describe Warm’s version of the heist, of the bougainvillea curtain, and the spaghetti sauce road carnage. I described how the supposed crash victims got to their feet, sedated Warm, moved the money to the pick-up and were on their way in under three minutes.

  ‘So, where is my client’s money?’ said Silver, probably for the benefit of the camera.

  ‘Oh, do stop it,’ said Chom. He stood and walked behind Warm and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Were we supposed to believe this nice young fellow orchestrated an elaborate heist? Of course we were because we’re just country folk and police-people in the countryside would naturally settle on the obvious. Am I right? That’s why the perpetrators snatched him and released him a short distance from the robbery. We’d find him. Nobody would believe the story of an ex-con. He’d be arrested and locked away in a ghastly cockroach-infested dungeon and the money would never be located. Ten years ago, that would have worked. But that magical, all powerful internet gives us so many more options these days.’

  ‘There’s a website,’ I said. ‘Called Road Madness. It’s international. Sales of dash cameras have rocketed since its inception. People vent their road frustrations, not by shooting each other like in the good old days, but by posting their highway videos on the web. The footage is all dated and timed so it’s quite easy to search a particular road in a particular country on a particular day. People are desperate to belong to a community. Road-ragers are no exception. Traffic stupidity transcends language and borders.’

  ‘Amen,’ said granddad.

  ‘And, what better time to submit your film to the site than when you’re stuck, seething in traffic?’ I continued. ‘Two road users posted footage of the three-truck slow race out of La Mae. In one of them, the camera person is stuck directly behind the trucks. You can hear the driver swearing in Bahasa Malaysia. Some languages are better suited to profanity than others. In one of the videos, the number plate of one of the trucks is clearly visible. Sloppy on somebody’s part. It wouldn’t have taken but a few minutes to put on fake plates. But, arrogance knows no bounds. And would you believe who the owner of that truck is?’

  ‘I advise you people to be very careful with the direction you seem to be headed,’ said Silver.

  ‘Why, darling?’ said Chom. ‘We haven’t said who the owner is yet. Do you happen to know something?’

  ‘You’re insinuating it was one of Khun Amorn’s fleet.’

  ‘Then I may as well insinuate that all three of the slow moving trucks belonged to Khun Amorn,’ said Chom. ‘How about that?’

  ‘And what’s the problem with that?’ said Amorn. ‘I have trucks on the road all over the country.’

  ‘A coincidence then that three of them should be in the same place at the same time,’ said granddad.

  ‘It’s called a convoy, old man,’ said Amorn. ‘Common enough.’

  ‘And you just happened to have three trucks blocking the road so the security van wouldn’t have any help at the scene of the staged accident,’ said Chom.

  ‘There’s nothing illegal in driving at a safe speed on a busy highway,’ said Silver. ‘Now I think you’d better let us out of here before you tie the nooses around your necks even tighter.’

  ‘But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there?’ said Chom. ‘You see? Once we had the truck registration number it was the easiest thing in the world to find the driver. It wasn’t till he saw the news that evening that he realized what he’d been involved in. And he was very talkative about the instructions he’d been given that day. In fact he said that his supervisor had told the three drivers not to let anything pass them once they hit the Lang Suan stretch of the highway. If they could achieve that there’d be a sweet bonus coming their way ‘

  ‘Listen,’ said Silver. ‘Even if this is true…’

  ‘And that Khun. Amorn was in the room during their briefing,’ Chom added.

  Silver looked at his boss.

  ‘My word against that of an idiot,’ said Amorn. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he gave those instructions without my knowledge.’

  ‘Three idiots,’ said Chom. ‘And the supervisor, who was smart enough to speak up and make a statement in return for immunity from prosecution.’

  ‘You still have nothing,’ said Silver. ‘There’s no evidence of a heist. No proof that anyone other than this van driver was at the scene of the robbery.’

  ‘And, so far, you’re quite correct,’ said Chom. ‘But we returned to the big question, “Why would you go to the trouble of stealing your own money?” We assumed the consignment was destined for the villages. Handouts to encourage the simple farmers to vote for whoever your dad wanted them to. Nothing new about that. But it was while we were chasing the money trail that we-.’

  Amorn let out a belly laugh.

  ‘Chasing the money trail?’ said Silver. ‘You lot? Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘I’m sure I could, at least, get a smile out of you?’ said Chom, winking.

  ‘Again you underestimate rural acumen,’ said Major Mana, back on the field now and running with the ball. ‘We have a state of the art IT network.’

  Or, as I preferred to call her, Sissy. My sister had traced the cash shipment back through the airports all the way to the Banx central security centre. Worrying for the world of security that she could hack their system, but good news for us. At Banx, Amorn’s money was inspected, authenticated and shipped out. It’s just that the signature on the docket was not that of the company’s usual inspector. It appears the director of the southern region, the man currently sitting opposite me, had asked to authenticate the shipment personally. His was the signature on the consignment.

  ‘We know what happened at Banx in Bangkok,’ said Chom. ‘We have copies of their files on your shipment.’

  ‘You couldn’t possibly have access,’ said Silver.

  ‘Ask your co-conspirator,’ said granddad.

  Amorn looked at the Banx man.

  ‘What are they talking about, Phram?’ he asked.

  The man didn’t respond. He sat, head bowed with his hands behind him.

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Chom. ‘Completely forgot to mention. The southern Thai Banx manager is in fact handcuffed to the back of his chair. Of course, the chair is a flimsy lump of cheap furniture and if he were Bruce Willis he’d have no trouble breaking free. But I think he realizes the game is up. Am I right, Phram?’

  Phram didn’t respond.

  ‘That’s southern for “yes”,’ I said.

  ‘No, no,’ said Silver. ‘Without a court order, any documents you claim to have must have been obtained illegally. None of this is admissible.’

  ‘But it’s all mounting up nicely, don’t you think?’ said Chom. ‘Enough that I have a warrant for the arrest of your boss.’

  He picked up a folder and fanned his pink cheeks with it. Amorn and the lawyer exchanged another glance.

  ‘What are the charges?’ Silver ask
ed.

  ‘Oh, where do I begin?’ said Chom.

  He loved these drama queen moments. He stood dramatically but daintily and spun around to look out of the window at the early evening flitting of the swallows between the trees.

  ‘Collusion sounds like a lovely place to start, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Banx is very sensitive about its regional managers getting involved in criminal activities. The mother ship would have been distraught to learn they’d hired a van driver with a criminal record. The company positively cringes at the thought. Poor Warm was doomed from his first day on the job. Primed to take a fall. Phram would, naturally, be fired for failing to do a background check but, by then, he’d have a very comfortable cushion to fall back on. Am I right, Phram?’

  Again, the Banx man chose to keep quiet.

  ‘And as soon as the company looks into the reason for Phram inspecting the shipment in Bangkok…’

  ‘All right, then it’s settled,’ said Silver.

  He could obviously see that his client was getting progressively more uncomfortable with his surroundings. He and I were both aware of the shortness of Amorn’s fuse. Silver saw this as a good time to negotiate.

  ‘Phram conjures up a plan with this boy driver and they run off with the money,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a scenario everyone will understand. We can live with that. I suggest we leave it there. I show you all our thanks with a monetary reward for the hard work you’ve done in solving the crime and we all go home happy.’

  I smelt desperation. We were prodding the musth elephant closer to the pit.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I hope you aren’t offering us bribes.’

  ‘Gifts of gratitude,’ said Silver.

  ‘But you don’t have your shipment yet,’ said Chom.

  ‘You know? These two and their gang have probably laundered the money already,’ said the lawyer. ‘Old notes. Easy enough to filter back into the system. Sometimes you have to admit when you’re beaten. I think the central police administration and the media will agree with that. We can tell them how impressed we are with the Pak Suan police force.’

  ‘Pak Nam,’ said Mana.

  ‘Right. What say we leave it there and all get on with more important business?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ I said. ‘But we haven’t even got to the best part yet.’

  ‘No, that’s enough,’ said Silver. ‘Why don’t you suggest an amount that you feel is fair? I’m sure we can match it.’

  Amorn was bubbling like boiling linseed oil.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You seem like an honest grassroots family-oriented group. We wouldn’t want your relatives to suffer unnecessarily, would we? No accidents.’

  ‘I don’t think-,’ Silver began.

  ‘Shut up,’ said Amorn.

  The lawyer blanched.

  ‘I’ve had enough of these fishermen,’ said Amorn. ‘I’m feeling insulted. I won’t sit here and be humiliated by a room full of freaks. You know who I am and you know what I’m capable of. If I can-.’

  ‘I’d stop there if I were you,’ said the lawyer. Amorn glared at him and laughed like a Chinese opera villain.

  ‘I’m indestructible,’ said Amorn. ‘That’s what the press said about me. If I can get away with murder, don’t you think I can-?’

  ‘Amorn!’ said Silver.

  His employer forwent legal advice and started to prance around the room staring acupuncture needles at each of us in turn.

  ‘Don’t you fools get it yet?’ he asked. ‘Do you not know how your own system works? There’s shit poor people who have no choice but to wait in a queue to have some sort of justice dispensed in their direction. Then there’s people like me. I own judges. I own police commissioners. I own your bosses up in Chumphon. You know that? By that reckoning, I own every one of you in this room but you don’t have any worth. You’re dispensable.’

  ‘Well, I must say, I’m feeling terribly intimidated,’ said Chom.

  ‘Me too,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, keep it up, fairy,’ said Amorn. ‘They’ll love you in jail. You won’t be able to sit for a month. Go on, finish your story. I’d like to see how it ends.’

  ‘Have we got it right so far?’ I asked.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘But I’m keen to learn why a wealthy man such as me would want to steal his own money.’

  He returned to his seat, brimming with confidence now, grinning like a fat monkey. Silver had given up. He went to the window to admire the sea view, shaking his head in desperation. Buying their way out of trouble was no longer an option. His boss was off the leash again and nothing he could do would calm him down. He’d seen it before. Somebody was going to die.

  ‘Then, with your permission, I’d like to continue,’ I said.

  ‘Go ahead, chubby.’

  I gave him my sweetest smile.

  ‘As the elderly gentleman to my left said earlier,’ I began. ‘You are in financial meltdown. Your final attempt at running a business, this shipping company, has failed. It’s been operating at a loss for eight months. Your father’s washed his hands of you so you’re on your own. Nobody wants to invest in you. But you do have politics. The red shirts love celebrities. They wouldn’t want you to run for a seat given the balls-up you made of it the first attempt, but they’re happy to put your face on posters. Have you talk at rallies. Launder their money. They trust you, in a way. Perhaps that’s why they didn’t imagine you’d screw them so brilliantly. I have to admit there was an element of genius about it.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome. The money wasn’t exactly yours to start with, was it? The red shirts wanted to invest in winning some seats in the south. It’s never been a red shirt enclave. Never got a look in, really with the Democrats running the show. The reds needed to get the cash down here and in the hands of their representatives in preparation for a snap election. As they’d done many times before, they used your shipping company as a front to move the cash. But you couldn’t stand watching all that money passing through your hands, could you?’

  ‘Could you?’ asked Amorn.

  ‘Probably not, but I didn’t steal it, you did. And not only did you steal it, you stole it twice. The red shirts handed their cash to you in Bangkok. But the consignment you delivered to the Banx office was slightly different. The amount was the same but the money was counterfeit. That’s why you needed your Banx man, Phram there in Bangkok to do the authentication. He did the standard tests, passed it as genuine. How am I doing?’

  Amorn stared in the direction of Phram who still hadn’t made eye contact.

  ‘Well, you have been a talkative little fellow, haven’t you?’ said Amorn. ‘Didn’t I pay you enough? Never mind. You’ll be denying everything when we get out of here. I know where your kids go to school.’

  I didn’t want to interrupt his splendid intimidation but I had to get all the charges laid out there in front of him while he was still being talkative.

  ‘You couldn’t send fake bank notes to the reds in Lang Suan because they’d spot they’d been duped. So you decided to steal the money a second time. Dazzling. I imagine your smart lawyer here planned the whole thing.’

  ‘Him?’ said Amorn. ‘He couldn’t plan a two-course meal.’

  ‘So it was all your idea?’

  ‘Every last detail.’

  The lawyer slapped his forehead.

  ‘Astounding,’ I said. ‘You end up with three-hundred-and-sixty million baht, you bury the counterfeit money…’

  ‘Burned it,’ said Amorn, with no hidden pride.

  ‘Of course. You burned it. Remarkable. You lean on the senior police you own so they don’t put too much effort into investigating the heist. The blame goes on our friend, Warm here who never reveals where he’s hidden the money. You apologize to the reds. Given your splendid track record, they forgive you and it’s business as usual.’

  Amorn got to his feet again and applauded.

  ‘Well, I can’t say this hasn’t been i
nteresting,’ he said. ‘You’re a peculiar bunch. In another life we might have been friends. But in this one, I’m going to destroy all of you. You’re going to have to look over your shoulders from now on. I’m sure you know what I mean.’

  He walked towards the group of police officers gathered in the doorway.

  ‘Now, if you’re not planning to shoot me, I’ll be leaving now,’ said Amorn. ‘And I’ll be taking my men and the guy in the shiny suit too. You idiots really do have to get out of my way if you know what’s good for you.’

  He found himself up against a triangle of Pak Nam’s finest blocking his path with Constable Ouan, 82kgs, in the nine-pin position. They didn’t budge.

  ‘I’m ordering you to let me through,’ said Amorn.

  The policemen laughed.

  ‘I’m warning every one of you.’

  ‘Cuff him,’ came a voice.

  The decorated officer who’d watched the whole performance in silence was now on his feet. To his credit, Amorn took on the scrum of constables but they quickly subdued him and had him handcuffed. They did not, however, gag him and our Pak Nam police station had never heard such vulgarity. The officer waited calmly for the visitor to run out of expletives.

  ‘Perhaps I should introduce myself,’ he said. ‘My name is Major General Prapat, and I am the commander of Region Eight, based in Surat Thani. Chumphon answers to me. Your contact there has been moved to an inactive post pending an assessment.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ said Amorn. ‘And does Police General Jakthip answer to you too? Because he outranks you and he’s a personal friend of mine.’

  ‘No he’s not,’ said Prapat. ‘He’s a personal friend of your father. He isn’t that fond of you. Neither’s your father by the sound of it. I’ve been told to assess the evidence I heard here today and arrest you if I believe there’s enough proof that you committed a crime. I think I’ve heard more than enough.’

  ‘You idiot,’ said Amorn. ‘Don’t you get it? Nothing that took place in this room is documented. There’s no internet signal. None of you have your phones on and this silly cow has been recording the whole fiasco without turning on her camera. The recording light’s been off since she set it up. Do you think I’d confess to stealing my own money if I thought anything I said was on record? I did it. Hear that? I planned the whole show. But I’ll deny it till I’m blue in the face. I don’t need my father’s contacts. I have my own. And when it comes to my word against a room full of morons, I’ll walk again.’