Sleepless in Bangkok

by Ian Quartermaine

  Starting with the laboratory, Steven commenced his task by placing a grenade amongst some drums of flammable solvent used in the refining process. Pulling a reel of cord from his knapsack, he tied the end to the pin. Moving along the rows of shelving stacked high with heroin, he placed more of the lethal iron nuggets throughout the gloomy building. Systematically, he attached the long cord to each and every pin.

  In the low light, Steven accidentally tripped over the body of the guard Kronsky had executed with a shot to the back of his head. Expressionless now - due to the fact the bullet had travelled through the skull to blow his face away - the man’s congealing blood contrasted with the whiteness of the neatly packed bags of heroin, over which it had splattered.

  As he stumbled, Steven narrowly missed pulling the cord attached to the pins of every one of his carefully placed grenades. The closest grenade wobbled on the edge of the shelf where he had placed it. Staring at it for a long minute, wondering if his time had come, the grenade finally stopped moving and he was safe.

  Realising how close he’d come to an immediate, violent end, a few tense beads of sweat appeared from nowhere and attached themselves to his forehead. Satisfied his work inside the drug commissary was complete, Steven helped himself to the Colt 45 inside the dead man’s holster and placed it inside his own belt.

  Carefully unwinding the ball of cord linked to the pins of the many grenades inside, Steven walked out of the building.

  82

  A Blow Job

  Appearing from inside the building with a determined expression, Steven walked away from the drug commissary. Carefully unwinding the ball of cord linked to the pins of the many grenades inside, the length of rough twine was too short to stretch between the wooden hut and the forest where the jeeps were parked. Staring at the space between where he stood and where he wanted to get to, Steven momentarily appraised his seat-of-thepants demolition plan.

  With no other alternative he could think of, Steven took a deep breath, pulled hard on what was left of the cord, and ran like a bat from hell towards the edge of the clearing.

  Synthesising with the chemicals in the heroin factory, an almost instantaneous sequence of explosions ensued as the grenades detonated. Asuccession of shock waves immediately followed and dispatched themselves through the air faster than a hurricane. Thrown to the ground as the drug commissary exploded behind him, a huge cloud of heroin filtered down on the scene like a gentle snow shower at Christmas.

  Like a scene from Robin Hood, splinters of wood and bamboo shot into the air like a fusillade of arrows from an army of archers. From his position on the ground, Steven covered his eyes.

  As the chemicals in the drug commissary continued to detonate, the commissary was engulfed in flames and smoke. Slowly raising his head, Steven looked back to view his handiwork.

  Seeing that the jungle based drug commissary was no more, Steven allowed himself an ironic observation. “There will be a lot of stoned insects and snakes in this neck of the woods for some time to come.”

  83

  Goodbye Asshole

  Pleased to be in one piece other than a few scratches and a future attack of post traumatic stress syndrome, Steven picked himself up.

  Almost catatonic and apparently undisturbed by the blast, Montgomery-Fairfax remained in one of the jeeps. But where were Kronsky and Gunn?

  From behind one of the vehicles, Kronsky slowly stood up. With a large pistol in his hand, he obviously meant business.

  “Turn around very slowly and no funny business. Now the money,” he said, pointing his gun at Steven’s head.

  “Big weapon,” Steven said. “German. A Luger. That’s a collector’s item these days. The Nazis used them.”

  “I’m a fan of both,” Kronsky replied. The big man with a big weapon caught sight of the Colt 45 Steven had boosted from the dead hill tribesman, now sitting snugly inside his belt.

  “That was careless of me. Lift it out very slowly and drop it to the ground. Two fingers only,” Kronsky ordered.

  Steven did as he was told, knowing the Beast of Bosnia would not hesitate to kill him for pleasure, let alone three hundred million dollars.

  “We’re not trying to double cross you, Stanislav,” Steven said, cooly using the big man’s first name, hoping such verbal intimacy might defuse the tense situation in some way.

  “If you kill me you’ll never get the money because Gunn doesn’t know where it’s hidden,” Steven said, supplying Kronsky with a convincing reason not to do so.

  Steven glanced around the compound, seeking his young female companion.

  Kronsky dropped his gun like a baby losing its favourite toy, as a small dark shadow moved silently behind him.

  “Shit, I’ve been too long in this godamned country,” the big Slav gurgled as blood trickled down the sides of his mouth.

  Moaning softly as he slumped to his knees, Kronsky’s words were processed in Steven’s mind. Their cover had worked, women in Thailand were beneath the big man’s notice or respect. Gunn was just an unimportant whore present only to provide sexual services. His error had been to disregard her completely. By absorbing South East Asian culture, the mistake had just cost Kronsky his life.

  As his final act on Earth, Kronsky slumped forward onto his face, Gunn’s feminine looking stiletto sprouting from his evil aorta.

  “I see Kronsky’s had a heart attack,” Steven said, mainly to himself, as he saw Gunn standing behind the crumpled shape of the now dead drug dealer. “Totalled by a little Thai girl.”

  Gunn said nothing.

  “Where’s the bank draft?” Steven urgently asked, realising they had to get away from the environs of the warlord’s camp without delay. Preferably the day before yesterday.

  Gunn looked dismayed and spoke in bursts. “Kronsky tried to search me when you were setting the charges in the drug commissary. When the shock waves from the explosion hit the air, I must have been knocked unconscious. I don’t think I was out for long though. It probably fluttered away in the blast. Kronsky didn’t realise the small piece of paper was his bank draft for three hundred million dollars. That’s why he was still asking you for money when he had already held it in his hand. He was about to throw it away. I guess the shock waves from your demolition contract did it for him.”

  Three hundred million dollars worth of disappointment showed on Steven’s face, his hope for wealth beyond avarice terminated as totally as the Slavic American drug dealer had been.

  But then Steven thought for a moment. Was Gunn telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Seeking any hint of duplicity, he searched his young partner’s face.

  Inscrutable and emotionless, Gunn’s demeanour gave nothing away.

  Using a metaphorical third person - an upper bracket English barrister - Steven satirically voiced his thoughts. “Short of giving the witness a strip search and an internal examination m’lud, I believe we’re going to have to accept her evidence as fact. Love to assist the court, but unfortunately no time.”

  Gunn stared back, cryptically, leaving Steven no other alternative but to accept her ‘lack’ of word for it.

  “Shame there’s no time for a strip search,” Steven finally added in the voice of an ultra pukka British barrister.

  Gunn remained silent and expressionless.

  “Mai belai krap, never mind” Steven said to himself, before taking one final look at Kronsky lying dead on the ground.

  “A cretin to the end. Mega rich for a few seconds but blissfully unaware of the fact. Dead from the neck up in life, dead from the neck down since Gunn hit you with her handbag. Well, what was in her handbag. Shit, we’ll never find the bank draft amongst all this mess.” Gunn remained silent.

  Steven gave the former professional sadist a departing glance as he lay on the bare earth. “What an asshole. Three hundred million dollars. Enough to make anyone lose their head.”

  The content of Steven’s eulogy was hardly reverential - certainly not from the perspective of the
deceased’s family - but as they would not be paying for the funeral, that was all Kronsky was going to get.

  “We’d better make ourselves scarce,” Steven said, his voice raised.

  Possibly in shock, Gunn did not move.

  “The warlord and his compadres will be down on us like a pack of wolves any minute now. Hello. What your name? Where you come from? How long you stay in Thailand? You buy drink for me? I know you can smoke heroin, but I don’t think smoking it all in one go was exactly what they had in mind. Not the way I just did it, anyway. Let’s make tracks,” Steven ordered.

  Gunn stared at Steven, a look of incomprehension on her face.

  “I think that another crazy farang joke. Why you do that?”

  Steven avoided his young companion’s gaze. Perhaps his ironic comment had been inappropriate. However, the bizarre comedy of ‘The Goon Show’ on steam radio as a child, followed by ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’ on TV as a teenager, had influenced his generation to adopt a mildly cynical approach to the human condition. Later exposure to Oriental culture, Thailand in particular, had eventually lateralised Steven’s view of people and institutions to an exponential degree.

  But this was not an action adventure movie so maybe his Pythonesque eulogy had been inappropriate. And yet, gallows humour allowed the professional soldier to retain some semblance of sanity once blooded into the military craft. Although clearly well trained, Gunn had probably not benefited from so many enlightening experiences at the sharp end. Albeit, she did appear to have taken to the task with some enthusiasm. Kronsky and the hill tribe guard she had so conclusively sent to another dimension, were proof of that.

  Suddenly, with the power of a mighty dam when the sluice gates are opened, a torrent of words gushed from the petite Eurasian girl.

  “It was a man like Kronsky who distributed the drugs that were sold to my brother after our parents died. It was a man like Kronsky who commenced the chain of events leading to my brother’s death. Kronsky was a bad man and his death will ensure that others will not die in agony and despair. He can no longer sell his deadly wares to inadequate or insecure people, many of them children. That is reason why I am here with you Steven. I am glad this man Kronsky is dead.”

  At last Steven understood something relevant about his beautiful young colleague. But there was no time to enquire further, and Steven pushed Gunn into the late Kronsky’s jeep and drove away from the scene postehaste.

  84

  NeverUnderestimate Women

  “It was almost certainly Kronsky’s intention to kill us both, once he’d got his hands on the bank draft and ravished you,” Steven advised as he drove. “Unless you’re into S and M, I don’t think you’d have enjoyed the experience.”

  “Thanks for saving my life again. That’s twice,” Steven yelled above the whine of the engine as the jeep raced like the devil away from the recently demolished First National Bank of Heroin: Golden-Triangle branch.

  Wrestling with the steering wheel as the jeep raced across the rough terrain, Steven momentarily stared at his young companion, his chauvinistic perceptions about the opposite sex somewhat altered.

  “That’ll teach Kronsky to underestimate women,” Steven said as he continued to look in Gunn’s direction, only half concentrating on the track ahead.

  Gunn remained silent.

  Steven added a rider. “Remind me to take note of that advice myself in the future.”

  85

  The Great Escape

  Crying and moaning softly, Rupert was mildly out of his mind. “Rupert looks like a bag lady dozing on a park bench,” Steven shouted as he turned to see if his former commanding officer was still in one piece. “He missed it all. I’m glad. He always hated loud noises, which is a bit unfortunate when you’re in the armed forces like we were. I’m still uncertain why the British government sent him with us. Probably hoped they’d never see him again. Well part of him won’t be coming come back, that’s for sure. His finger!”

  Gunn appeared calm in the circumstances. “ Hoop bak. Shut up,” she said.

  Wrestling with the steering wheel, Steven stared at his young companion for a few seconds, his expression suggested he may have learned something.

  “Poison spread through your farang friend’s body. Gangrene if no treatment soon,” Gunn said as she looked round to inspect Montgomery-Fairfax bobbing about in the back seat of the all-terrain vehicle as it jerked its way forward, dust flying up like a sand storm as Steven forced the jeep to maintain momentum.

  “We’ll be lucky to survive with fingers or without,” Steven yelled. “The dust tornado we’re throwing up makes us stand out like a farangsize dick on a Thai katoi. If the warlord manages to contact his associates, we’ll have all the bad men in the Golden Triangle after us. I hope our axles stay in one piece.”

  86

  Molotov Cocktail

  An hour passed before the noisy jeep reached the beautiful waterfall cascading down the side of a steep hill to the forest below. The place where Steven and Gunn first met Kronsky, was also where the jeep Rupert’s toothy kidnapper had supplied gave up the ghost. Despite its tranquil appearance, the place did not seem too lucky.

  Stopping the motor, Steven and Gunn washed their faces in the crystal clear pool. The beautiful landscape, lush tropical vegetation and the sound of trickling water contrasted dramatically with the explosive events earlier in the day.

  Gunn dipped her bandanna into the sparkling waters and wiped Rupert’s brow with the damp fabric.

  “We’d better find the medical kit and give Rupert an antibiotic. It’s in the jeep that packed up on us yesterday,” Steven said, more as a request than an order. But Gunn did not take it that way.

  “I think male chauvinist person order liberated female person to play nurse to gay male person.”

  Never the less, Gunn did as she had been requested and walked to the back of the jeep where the medical kit had been left the day before. She opened a travel bag. “Shit,” she exclaimed.

  “What now?” Steven asked.

  “Insects have found their way into the medical kit and eaten most of the contents. I’m afraid there is no antibiotic,” Gunn replied.

  “Poor Rupert, his luck is out this trip,” Steven said.

  “Karma,” Gunn stated. “Rupert’s intentions have not exactly been positive towards Thai people or to you. His underlying approach is to exploit. That usually gets paid back in this life or the next.”

  “He’s a victim of the English public school system, that’s the way the ruling classes have been conditioned to behave for centuries. How do you think Britain gained its empire?” Steven replied.

  “Same way the ruling classes in Thailand have always kept power,” Gunn confirmed. “Public school,” she added, almost spitting out the phrase. “It means private school. My father was English, same same you.”

  “Can’t do much to amend Rupert’s personality at this late stage, but we will probably be able to pick something up to help heal his body. There are bound to be some isolated houses when we get closer to civilisation.,” Steven answered.

  Steven looked thoughtful. “There must be a shitload of drug criminals after us by now. What’s the solution?”

  “Male chauvinist lost for ideas?” Gunn chided.

  Steven smiled at Gunn’s bitchy remark, but did not rise to the bait. He just stood looking at the jeep they had been forced to abandon the previous day. After a few seconds, he answered his own question.

  “We’d better think of a diversion. If we blew up the jeep that packed up on us yesterday, maybe the warlord and his crew would think we’d gone with it.”

  Half listening, Gunn dipped her bandanna in the rock pool and pressed it against her own forehead. “It’s so hot,” she said.

  “If we continued onwards in Kronsky’s jeep and went east into Lao instead of south towards the Burmese/Thai border, that might fool them completely. Maybe they’d stop looking for us all together. What have we got to lose? Let�
��s try it before they come over the horizon brandishing their automatics. I hope they don’t hold a grudge!”

  Gunn gave a quizzical look but said nothing. She would probably never understand ironic farang humour.

  Pushing hard against the side of the disabled jeep, Steven steered it the few yards towards to the edge of the escarpment. “Women’s liberation can’t help?” he asked.

  Gunn quickly moved to help Steven push the jeep forward. Steven jammed on the hand brake as the vehicle reached the edge of the ledge.

  “Thank you.,” Steven said. “Handsome and strong chauvinist pig currently tired and stressed out.”

  Gunn smiled. “Think Steven Hunt not entirely bad man. Sense of humour good thing.”

  “Feminist should make up her mind,” Steven replied.

  With the jeep standing at the edge of the escarpment, Steven opened his backpack and removed three grenades. Carefully, he hooked the pins over the stump of what remained of a broken wing mirror.

  “When the jeep goes over the side, the violence of the fall should remove the pins and detonate the grenades. However, we won’t take any chances.”

  Pulling a spare pair of boxer shorts from his travel bag, Steven soaked the garment in gasoline from a can at the rear of the jeep. He then stuffed the petroleum soaked shorts into the defunct vehicle’s gas tank.

  “Once the shorts are alight, the trick is to push the jeep over the edge moments ‘before’ the tank explodes,” he explained.

  Gunn did not look particularly impressed. “Exploding shorts? There’s a joke there somewhere.”

  “The movement of the jeep as it falls over the side or the gas tank detonating, whichever comes first, will explode the grenades. The warlord and his compadres might think jeep and us went up in smoke like their heroin did. But if the shorts burn down ‘before’ we heave the jeep over the side!”

  Gunn’s deadpan reply was accompanied by a blank stare. “Great planning!”