name of the bar listed on the websites was that of a airline pilot from Turkmenistan called Ahmet Abylow.
Despite that knowledge, Ahmet knew the day he stopped being careful would be his last. Doing what his father had once taught him, Ahmet stopped again. This time he stood at one of the street food vendors just outside the bar to buy a quick bowl of Pad-Thai soup. Then he once more checked the street around him.
Despite escaping with his life, nevertheless it had still left him with the bitterness that he had lost everything he had painstakingly built up around him. The authorities in UAE, under pressure from not just their security sponsors of the United States but by the Russians as well, had impounded both of the aircraft that he had owned in partnership with the former interior Minister of Adwalland and worst still, frozen his bank accounts that he held in one the Emirate of Ras al-Khaimah banks. To make matters worse his teenage sisters had resorted to prostituting themselves in the bars of Bur Dubai in order to survive.
All that remained from their family's empire was this share in this little bar he owned that gave him just enough to live on.
As the hot spicy soup worked its magic on his tongue, Ahmet's mind drifted back to Litchfield. He spat on the floor the second the man's name entered into his head.
"All of my family woes are because of that fucking Jelep!" he thought, using the Turkmen word for whore.
Up until the Oligarch had entered his family's life, his future had been secure. A spell in the air force as fighter pilot once his military service was completed, a position in his country's political structure, before eventually the taking over his father's businesses. Unfortunately, this privileged career path ended the night Litchfield got one his father's trusted lieutenants to kill him in Dubai.
With no friends or allies, the crows led by that fat pig that had once served his father quickly turned on him, his sisters, and mother. Left with no choice but to flee Turkmenistan they escaped to Dubai, where Ahmet survived and supported his family by using his piloting skills by becoming a cargo pilot flying into and out of Africa.
When he had caught sight of the Englishman walking through his business partner's hotel in Adwalland he had thought that Allah had finally given him the opportunity to avenge his father's death. Yet now it appeared to him that Allah was testing him further.
The only satisfaction Ahmet had gained from that attempt in England on Litchfield was the news that the Jelep who was the reason for his father's murder in the first place had, according to the papers, had been pregnant with the Englishman's son when she was killed. That fact alone allowed him to sleep at night despite the loss of everything and the shame of his sisters.
Seeing that the street was filled only with the typical fat, western, dirty old men and various backpackers seeking a touch of excitement that fueled Thailand's sex industry, Ahmet finished his Pad-Thai, handed the small clay pot to the hag of an old woman who looked sixty but was probably only forty crossed the road and entered the bar.
"Mr. Ammy," chorused the collection of young looking Thai waitresses with their fixed smiles as he entered the bar.
"Evening girls," he answered warmly. "Lots of loving tonight," he added making an effort at employee industrial relations. "Yes?" he followed up to the collective giggles of the girls who were already focusing on the two dark bronzed Mediterranean looking gentlemen that had followed him into the bar.
"Yes, Mr. Ammy," said the youngest of the bunch, a naive girl fresh off the bus from the south who said she was twenty-one but looked younger. She was still trying to impress him believing he represented her meal ticket because he had enjoyed and taken her virginity.
"Very good," he said flashing his smile as he stroked the face of the pretty teenager who had answered him before leaving her with a playful smack on the bum and a further giggle by a way of a thank you before he walked up to the back and into the office to join his business partner.
"Evening Wassam," he said to the forty-five-year-old Thai who was a Muslim like himself and a former Inspector in the Aviation Division of the Royal Thai Police.
Suddenly out of nowhere he felt bolts of electricity sear through his veins and his arms as he was grabbed on either side of his body and a needle being was jammed into his neck. Darkness soon followed as the drug took effect.
As, the darkness turned to light Ahmet's mind began to focus. The first thing he felt was a blinding headache in his head, then weakness in his limbs. He immediately tried to move his body before realizing to his horror that he was sitting down on a chair and had been bound by his feet at the front and his hands at the back.
"Rejejow," said the voice. Immediately Ahmet forced his eyes to focus on the person who had spoken to him. As he did so fear gripped him when he suddenly realized whom the voice belonged to.
At first, when the Thai had contacted his security team letting them know he could lead him to the Turkmen for a price, he hadn't given it much thought. Over the last couple of years, numerous attempts had been made by a variety of con men saying the same thing in an attempt to claim the bounty of five million dollars Thomas had placed on his head for knowledge of his whereabouts. Yet Mikhail had quickly changed his mind when the Thai sent him a passport scan of the man and then let him know his real name.
"Rejejow!" Thomas had said, the shock showing in his face when Mikhail had walked into the study of the house in Moscow three weeks ago. It was a name he hadn't heard in years. Feelings of hatred quickly surfaced. His eyes had narrowed. The sad silence of Mikhail had confirmed that old friend was not lying. "Where?"
"Bangkok." Mikhail replied.
"Confirm it and then once I get back from Washington?"
"I know," his trusted friend answered with sad eyes.
Now as Thomas stood in front of the son of the man who had forced Nara into prostitution as a child but also ultimately played a part in her death he muttered quietly, "Seni? mertebe bolmak meni? mertebe," meaning, "Your fate is my honor," to the ghost of his beloved Nara whom he had promised to be her "Saklamak," a Turkmen word meaning "guardian" before in his mind failing in the task.
Upon hearing the words, the Turkmen immediately laughed then spat on the floor in an attempt to hide the fear in his eyes from moments before.
"The children of my sisters and their children after will avenge my and my father's blood," he said in Turkmen referring to "qan dushar," a term that means "blood reaches" and the unwritten law of the tribes of Turkmenistan that allowed an individual with a common patrilineal ancestor who is not more than seven generations removed to seek revenge on the killer and their immediate kin.
For a second time in two days, an instrument of an enemy had been before him. One had asked for forgiveness on behalf of his wife and son. This one had just told him that?for seven generations, his family would seek vengeance on his and Nara's blood for the death of their father and grandfather. Sadness wrapped itself around Thomas's heart, for he knew that this feud would continue and bring consequences to Victoria and her children long after he had gone. Then all too quickly the demon of his soul took over his mind.
"So be it," Thomas whispered as he took the head of Ahmet Rejejow in one movement from his torso with the razor sharp gift from the men of his former regiment had once presented with him when he left them all those years ago for his tour with the SAS. It was the very same weapon he had used on Wasir Osman Hassan in the same manner in Mauritania, a Kukri Knife.
12
Dubai
The bronzed exotic dark haired young woman's mind was in a whirl when she awoke from her restless sleep. The snoring of the latest man in a string of many that she had spent the night with over the last two years in the desert emirate was like a rumble of heavy thunder through her head. Taking the snoring as a sign to escape, the pretty young woman lifted her weary athletic frame from the Irish linen sheets of the bed and then carefully made her way to the bathroom for a quick shower and a quick recount of the ten thousand Dirhams, the currency of the UAE, she had earned for
her night's work.
In and out in less than five minutes because she hadn't washed her hair, she then quickly dressed and left the sleeping man's hotel suite.
The floor butler of the Burj Al Arab ignored her as she walked pass him because she was one of many working girls that left the suites of the hotel first thing each morning. So by definition, it was a regular occurrence.
She joined two other working girls in the lift that, like her, were on their way out. Because they all knew each other well enough to know that they lived in the same area of Karama the area of Dubai known as "Little Moscow" by the locals,?the three of them quickly agreed to share a cab back into the city because it was safer than being a cab alone. Luckily because it was a Friday, the Arab weekend, the journey only took half an hour.
After paying the bearded Afghan driver, one of the many who made up about seventy percent of Dubai Transport the official cab company owned by the city's government, the young girls quickly said their goodbyes to each other in Russian and then went their separate ways.
After stopping at the local Choithrams just behind the Iranian School for some Lebneh and flatbread for breakfast, the pretty girl then made her way up the stairs to the small one-bedroom apartment she shared with her mother and sister. As she opened the door the sounds of tears and
The Devil's Playground Page 15