JET II - Betrayal (JET #2)

by Russell Blake

  “The joints look pretty shabby,” Jet observed. Perhaps at one time decades ago it had been a hotspot, but Nana had an air of decay about it – of an aging debutante long since past her prime, but still clinging to her partying ways.

  “They are. Same with Soi Cowboy – one of the other big sex districts. Both Nana and Cowboy have seen better days, and now with the economic downturn, many of the bars are losing money.”

  “Wow. So even the whoremongers are feeling the pinch?”

  “I’m sensing a distinct lack of sympathy.”

  Bar after bar with young Asian women beckoning to anyone walking by to sample their wares blinked with neon desperation in the perspiring night. Jet and Rob moved past the currency exchange and took the escalator to the first floor, where the motifs catered to every possible depravity – bondage and S&M, ladyboys, schoolgirl playpals, and straight go-go bars.

  “The real kink is on the top floor,” Rob explained, “and at the private clubs in the area. Ping pong shows. That’s what our man Lap Pu specializes in, along with prostitution.”

  They cruised the plaza and the surrounding streets, where everything imaginable was for sale.

  “I had an acquaintance tell me that if I wanted a knock-off Chinese-manufactured Benz that looked like the real thing right down to the last detail, he could get me one. There are literally no limits here.”

  She looked around at the hookers of all shapes and sizes. “How much worse could it get than this?”

  “Much. You’ll see once we start hitting his clubs. They have shows in the front and whorehouses in the back. But it doesn’t stop there. Even though the official stance is that child prostitution is vigorously prosecuted, it’s well known that it goes on every day, and Lap Pu is one of the big names in the business.”

  After another half hour wandering the streets, fending off propositions every few feet, she was done. “I think I’ve seen about enough for one night.” A man had just leaned towards them and made a distinctive popping sound with his mouth and inquired in English if they were interested in ping pong. Jet thought she would never be able to hear the words again without imagining his leering face, discolored teeth and wisps of black mustache framing his popping mouth.

  “All right. You’re lucky it’s a Tuesday. If this was a weekend, it would be three times more crowded.”

  “What about disease? AIDS has to be rampant.”

  “It’s on the increase. For about a decade, condoms were mandatory for sex workers, but that’s become more relaxed as the economy has tightened. Some of the girls will do anything for a few more baht, and they wind up paying the ultimate price. Same for the boys. It’s an ugly situation all around.”

  “How much does a sex worker make?”

  “I think the going rate is anywhere from two thousand baht to five thousand baht. Depends on where you get them. In dollars, that’s anywhere from fifty dollars to couple of hundred, again, depending on where you pick them up and how long you stay with them. A lot of the tourists come here and want a girlfriend experience, a situation where she’ll stay with them for however long they want, twenty-four hours a day, and lay by the pool, go to dinner, the whole works. That costs more.”

  “So maybe they can take home thirty to forty thousand dollars a year?”

  “Again, depends. I’m not an expert at this, but what I’ve heard is that it’s a big piece of the Thai economy. Imagine if your options were making five or six hundred dollars a month as a bilingual schoolteacher, for instance. Starting to see where the financial driver is here?”

  She was tired from the multitude of experiences and psychically drained by the exposure to so much corruption. Bangkok was a black hole, a dwarf star for energy. At the moment, it was hard to imagine that anything good existed in the world.

  Jet said goodnight, and Rob promised to get in touch as soon as he knew something. They parted ways on the sidewalk in front of the Nana hotel, a multitude of older male tourists laughing loudly as they exited, on their way to the sex mall for a night of abandon.

  Her hotel was only a two-minute walk, and she’d never been so happy in her life to be back in a small room with working air-conditioning and a sturdy lock so she could hose off the accumulated filth that seemed to have coated her entire being – and wake up to a new day that wasn’t steeped in toxicity.

  Chapter 12

  Rob’s voice sounded excited on the cell phone the following afternoon. “We’ve got a lead.”

  “What is it?”

  “Lap Pu sighting late last night at his largest club. An informant slipped us the tip. Apparently, he’s got some meetings tomorrow night.”

  “That’s great news. Whose informant?”

  “Friend of one of the bouncers. Works club security on the evening shift. Saw the great man himself at midnight with an entourage. Overheard him agreeing to get together tonight and meet tomorrow. So we have two nights, at least.”

  “How long since his last trip north?”

  “It should be time for another one within the next week. He disappears for a week at a time. Nobody knows what he’s doing.”

  “What do you suggest for tonight?”

  “We meet up for dinner at nine, eat, then go to the club and throw some money around. I noticed you didn’t drink last night. Do you have a problem with alcohol? Because it would help if you could throw a few back in the bar.”

  “No problem. I just don’t like it very much.”

  “Have any preferences for dinner?”

  “Anyplace but British cuisine.”

  “I’ll call you later.”

  Rob hung up, and she returned to her table, where a slew of photographs of the man known as Lap Pu were spread out on the table, courtesy of Edgar.

  The dossier on Lap Pu proffered a paucity of real insight. Fifty-something years old, a Bangkok native, started out life with a couple of his family’s markets, gravitated to the sex trade in the late Seventies. Opened a bar in Soi Cowboy, then another in Phatong, and from there moved up the food chain until he was a major player in the business. Lived a lavish lifestyle, with homes all over the country, including several resorts on Phuket. Friendly with every administration, he had never been arrested and was considered a stand-up fellow. Except for the rumors that he was one of the top sex slavers in Bangkok and had an elaborate network of smugglers moving females from Myanmar and Laos to Thailand, many underage. But like so much in Thailand, rumored truths were not an impediment to his prosperity, and he had kept his nose clean – or at least as clean as someone in the sex trade in Thailand could.

  His main enterprises were brothels catering to specialized tastes, the kinkier the better. Ping pong shows, ladyboys, every sort of domination and submission, groups…if you could imagine it, chances are that Pu offered it in one of his establishments.

  The last team that had disappeared had followed Pu into the jungles at the northernmost edge of Thailand. But that was Jet’s only hope of finding their target. Other than Pu, the CIA had nothing, and even with him they hadn’t gotten far.

  She opened the safe, extracted the Beretta and stripped it, studying the various components to verify it was in good shape. It looked almost brand new. The silencer was new, showing no evidence of having ever been used. The magazine held fifteen 9mm rounds, with enough stopping power to handle most urban situations, provided that she didn’t require accuracy over fifty yards. The silencer would drop that some, but then again, she wouldn’t be shooting apples off anyone’s heads.

  The problem was that it was unwieldy and problematic to conceal with the silencer, so discretion would have to take a back seat to practicality. She retrieved the butterfly knife and expertly flipped it open, confirming that the blade was razor sharp. Pacing the room, she flicked it open, closed, open, closed in a reassuring motion as she thought through the permutations of scenarios.

  Rob seemed as competent as anyone she’d met with the American intelligence service, but she was still uncomfortable going into the fiel
d with a partner. If he did anything stupid or unpredictable, it could be disastrous. She would need to keep a close eye on him – her daughter’s ultimate future depended upon this mission going successfully, and she couldn’t afford any slips.

  As Jet reassembled the pistol, she decided that she would carry it in her purse without the silencer. If there was any shooting, then it wouldn’t be a secret – she’d take that risk. There was actually far greater chance that her purse would be stolen than her getting into a gun battle, she knew, and reminded herself to keep it glued to her, especially once in the club.

  She debated calling Edgar to request a more compact weapon, and decided that it was warranted.

  “I need it as small as they come. But not a .22. Has to have some heft,” she instructed over the phone.

  “Let me see what I can get on short notice. Shouldn’t be a problem. How about something clandestine – if I can get a disguised weapon will that help?”

  She described her likely evening’s agenda, and he grunted.

  “Let’s see what the spy armory can come up with. I have a few ideas. I’ll call as soon as I know something. Is it okay if I send it along with Rob, or should we meet before?”

  “I think I’d like some time with whatever you get, so we need to meet.”

  “I’ll call within an hour. The park work for you again?”

  “Always.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Four hours later, Jet was back in her room studying the two pieces Edgar had slipped her. The first was a Sig Sauer P238 sub-compact pistol with a six round clip, five and a half inches long and easily concealed. Accuracy would be considerably lower than the Beretta, due to the shorter barrel, but in a club it would be effective enough. She hefted it and was surprised by how light the evil-looking little weapon was.

  The second item was what appeared to be a working Nokia cell phone, but with an undocumented feature – it held three .32 caliber rounds which could be fired using the center select button after punching the call button. Edgar had told her that it would only be effective for ten to twelve feet, but it might come in useful in an emergency situation.

  She shook out a tiny micro-transmitter from a plastic bag and inspected it, then powered on the cell phone gun, which had another feature: it could track the chip up to a distance of fifteen miles. The screen illuminated, and a street map popped up with a red dot glowing. It showed her position accurately, and Edgar had said it was the latest technology – good to within one foot. Civilian GPS was only accurate within eight yards. Military GPS could get that down to under three yards with dual frequency technology that compensated for atmospheric disturbances to the transmissions, and with augmentation it could get down to sub one-foot accuracy, but that would require a team tracking the chip at Langley and then forwarding on the information, which was inefficient and cumbersome. Better to be able to track him real-time on the phone.

  She had no firm plan, or really any idea what to expect going into the club. They knew he would be there, but beyond that it was a question mark.

  Rob met her at a Thai restaurant a few blocks from the club, and they ate a light dinner as they watched the locals traverse the teeming streets and vendors hawking trinkets and pirated goods. A group of bar girls who worked as prostitutes at one of the myriad nearby go-go bars walked by, laughing.

  “They don’t look like they’re older than fifteen,” Jet commented, taking a bite of her Kaeng phet pet yang – duck in red curry.

  “They’re older. Asian women tend to look younger. It’s genetics. Most of the bars do regular checks for underage workers, so the mainstream ones are strict about it.”

  “I don’t know. They don’t look it.”

  “Many of them dress and do their makeup so as to appear younger. It’s a more desirable look here.”

  “Why is that? I mean, I get the whole idea of youth being attractive. But, come on. There’s youth, and then there’s borderline children.”

  “It’s the market. I don’t get it, either. But many of the patrons of the sex trade are Thai men, and they like them young. Probably has to do with the woman being unspoiled and youthful,” Rob speculated, chewing on a shrimp.

  “Unspoiled? Come on. If you’re a hooker, servicing God knows how many men per night in a go-go bar, isn’t that a stretch? I mean, I can rationalize as well as anyone, but please…”

  Rob held his hands up. “I agree. But I don’t make the rules. That’s what sells, and the market is what the market is.”

  “So it’s a society of pedophiles.”

  “Not necessarily, although there’s certainly plenty of that to go around. It’s more about some twisted male fantasies about having sex with the teenage girls you could have had in your youth. Even though most of the men that come here know full well that these girls are eighteen and up, they’re buying into an illusion. There are whole clubs that offer nothing but schoolgirl-themed sex workers. It’s a big business. And the Japanese eat that up. Their society is rigid and based on control and rules, so they come here and want the forbidden. Even if it’s all an act.”

  “Hmmm. It just seems wrong. I mean, I’ve been all over the world, and I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’m not exactly innocent – I’ve been in a lot of horrible places. But it seems to me that this whole civilization is based on selling youthful sex to fat, red-faced white men.”

  “You aren’t that far off, except that again, Thai men are huge consumers.”

  They ate in silence, dissonant music blaring from a tinny speaker in the far corner of the restaurant, and then another group of bar girls ambled by on their way to work.

  “They all have darker skin. Is that also what the market wants, or is that just me?”

  “Most are from Isaan, in the north. The skin is darker up that way. That’s one of the reasons Thais consider the typical women that farangs favor to be low class. Darker skin is associated with poverty, which is the worst sin you can commit here. Being poor. The average annual income of someone in Isaan is four hundred dollars a year,” Rob explained.

  “So they come here to make that in a week. Or in some cases, in a few days.”

  “Exactly. Like I said yesterday, it’s economics. Always.” He took another mouthful of noodles and shrimp. “What’s the plan for this evening?”

  “Edgar said that you were going to be briefed before you came to dinner on the latest from the club. He’s got a guy outside on the street. What did he tell you?” Jet asked.

  “The bouncer is working tonight, and he said they expect Lap Pu in later. Beyond that, we have nothing new.”

  “I was thinking we spend some time there and see if there’s an opportunity to plant a tracking device on him, or at worst, on his car. I don’t like my odds of being able to follow him from the club.”

  “He has a number of homes. Nobody’s really sure how many.”

  “But the only one we’re concerned about right now is wherever he’s staying.”

  “It’s a long shot. But I suppose it’s as good as any.”

  They finished their dinner and paid, then moved out into the bustle of the streets. Two blocks south, they rounded a corner and found themselves facing a blinking neon cat, sporting a top hat and a lascivious grin.

  A man approached them from the darkened doorway.

  “Ping pong show. Very nice. Best in Bangkok. Anything you want. Girls. Boys. Come on in. Cold beer.”

  Jet exchanged a look with Rob that appeared unconvinced.

  “I don’t know…”

  “Top Cat famous all over world. Anything you want. I get for you. Anything.” He offered them a leer that promised that indeed, anything that could be imagined could be found in the Top Cat.

  “Can we just look around?”

  “Of course. Come in. Drink cold beer. Look at all the ladies, the show. Come. Come now, sexy lady. Come to the Top Cat.”

  She took Rob’s hand, raised an eyebrow and nodded. Rob played along, and they moved into the doorway. Two large b
ouncers stood immediately in front of a black velvet curtain. Music boomed from behind it. Rap. The street hawker nodded at them, and the larger of the pair pulled the curtain aside with a hand the size of a ham.

  Rob led, and within two seconds, a hostess wearing what appeared to be a gladiator outfit crafted from black vinyl latched onto them and led them to a booth near the raised stage. The club was half full, all tourists, ninety-five percent male. At least forty young women wearing little but smiles lounged around, chatting in pairs and threesomes, their more fortunate co-workers having already found willing companions for the next hour among the men gathered around the stage.

  They took a seat, and the gladiator asked them what they wanted to drink. Rob held up two fingers.

  “Singha,” he yelled over the music, ordering the most popular beer in Thailand.

  She departed on stripper heels, and Jet took in the club. It was larger than she’d expected – looked like it could hold several hundred people. Lighting was limited to red, which was appropriate, and was dim, with barely enough to make out the other clubgoers. She supposed that was typical.

  The beer arrived within seconds, very cold. Rob paid for them. They’d agreed he would be the money for the night – in keeping with their cover as a couple on holiday looking for something exotic.

  The music changed, and the stage lights illuminated with a flourish. There was no introduction. A young woman mounted the stairs to hooting applause, and then held up a foot-and-a-half-long metal tube, brandishing it like a baton. More cheers.

  Rob leaned close to her ear.

  “Darts. See the balloons around the stage?”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “How the hell…”

  Any questions she had, or had never even considered, were answered over the next five minutes.