Rex Dalton Thriller series Boxset 2

by J C Ryan

  “That sounds like a good plan.” To Digger, Rex gestured with his hand to relax.

  When the dog was settled on his belly, with his forelegs balancing him and his head up, his eyes alertly and intelligently fixed on Kraisee, the young man took a deep breath and began at what he considered the beginning—the land.

  “My parents are not wealthy. My father worked a part-time job to pay his way through medical school and became a doctor. After he qualified, he returned to his home village in the Mueang Phan district, in the Lampang province up north, close to the border of Myanmar, where he set up his practice. He did all right, and we were given the opportunities to study after school, succeed in business, and have a few luxuries, but great wealth, no.

  “Our family’s land is near the village, but my father chose not to farm it. It has lain fallow for forty years or more. A few years ago, the largest zinc deposit in Thailand was found nearby. It is a rich deposit of valuable mineral, but the mining is a blight on the landscape!”

  Rex didn’t want to upset Kraisee, but this was going too slowly. “What does that have to do with your family’s land?”

  “Oh,” said Kraisee, blinking. “Didn’t I say? Our land has the same Jurassic strata as the zinc mine. Over the years, various corrupt politicians have been trying to take it away from my father. My father does not want it mined, so he will not sell it.”

  Rex sat back in his chair. So that was the motive. “What’s the rest of the story?” he urged.

  “My father is well-known and well-liked by the people of his village, including some who have worked their way up in the government. Until recently, the attempts to steal our land have been blocked by those friends. But in the past few months, efforts have intensified. We—my parents, my older brother, Sunstra, and myself—gathered at my parent’s vacation home on the beach to discuss what to do. And then Sunstra didn’t come home on Thursday night, as I said.”

  “I take it this is your home. Where are your parents and older brother?”

  “No, this is my brother’s home. He is also a physician, and he has done well for himself. He asked me to stay here and look after our business in town while he accompanied my parents to Pha Daeng.”

  Rex curbed his impatience. Kraisee was obviously in shock and highly distressed over Sunstra’s fate, but his disjointed telling of the story was frustrating.

  Where the heck is Pha Daeng? Are they safe? Why did they go there?

  Rather than pepper the man with his questions, Rex cut to the chase with some assumptions.

  “Your parents and older brother are on their way to sign over the land for Sunstra’s safe return, is that right?”

  “Yes,” Kraisee answered. “To us, nothing is as valuable as my sister’s life.”

  “Agreed. And I take it the land is not in the tsunami area?”

  “Oh, no! It is far to the north. Almost to the border with Myanmar.”

  “Okay. So, can you get in touch with them? Maybe they don’t want to be so hasty to comply with the demands.”

  Kraisee stared at Rex, a frown marring his smooth forehead and his mouth slightly open. After a few seconds, he exclaimed, “Of course they will comply with the demands! How else can we guarantee my sister’s safety? Are you insane?”

  Rex took a deep breath. He was about to put a scare into Kraisee, but he was certain he had more experience with this type of crisis than the young man or his family.

  “You can’t guarantee her safety by complying. The most dangerous time for the perpetrators in this type of kidnapping is when they have to deliver on their promise, in other words, when they have to return their captive after getting what they want. Keep in mind, she now knows who they are, she may have seen their faces. How will they keep their illegal actions quiet if they let her go? Once they have what they want, there is no motivation to keep her alive.”

  Rex hadn’t thought it possible for Kraisee to turn any paler, but his face turned a few lighter shades of gray as Rex spoke.

  “Then it is hopeless!” he cried.

  “No, not at all, but you’ll have to listen to me, and do as I tell you.”

  “What do you… what experience…”

  Rex held his hand up to stop him, “Kraisee, we don’t have time for that. You’ll have to trust that I know what I’m doing. Now, just contact your parents and tell them to stall. Demand proof of life. That’s the first step. We want a picture, or better yet, a video, of Sunstra, unharmed, holding the latest newspaper with the date showing prominently. She should be allowed to speak and tell us she’s okay.

  “I want to see the video, so I can determine whether she’s been given a script. Meanwhile, I’ll get some help figuring out where she was on Thursday before the abduction. Pull yourself together, Kraisee—we need to move fast.”

  Kraisee nodded. “All right, I’ll do it. But my parents may want to speak to you and learn what you know about kidnappings. Why you are so confident that stalling is the best course of action now.”

  “I’ll speak to them if that’s what they want. Do you mind if we, my dog and I, stay here? It will be easier to coordinate our efforts if we’re in the same place.”

  “Certainly! My brother would never forgive me for not extending our hospitality to a friend of Sunstra’s. Are you hungry or thirsty?”

  “Let’s put things in motion and then come back to that question. Digger and I have had dinner. We don’t need anything right now.”

  Digger had laid his chin on his front paws as the conversation went on, but his ears showed he was alert and listening. Every time Sunstra’s name was mentioned, they swiveled toward the speaker. He alerted to the word ‘dinner’ as well, which made Kraisee laugh despite his tension.

  “Digger, is that your dog’s name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Curious name. It looks like he would like more dinner, if you ask me.”

  Rex smiled. “That’s okay, he always acts as if he’s being starved to death. He’ll wait. Now call your parents.”

  ***

  BEFORE LEAVING INDIA, Rex had set up Rehka, the woman he’d originally gone to Saudi Arabia to rescue, as his financial administrator and IT support person. Part of her job was to help hack into the hard drives he’d ‘liberated’ in his raid on Usama, an Afghani drug lord’s, compound. He was certain there’d be information on where Usama had stored his vast wealth, and since the man had no more use for it, being dead, Rex reckoned he was entitled to spoils of war. He was still working on a plan to get some of the money he hoped to extract to the families of the men in his team who were killed. It was not as if he could just mail them a check with a note saying, hey, I’m Rex Dalton, and I was there when your loved one was killed, but I survived and here is some money for you.

  The Saudi rescue operation turned out to be much bigger than just Rehka Gyan, and he thought it was fortunate that Rehka had just the skills he needed, having been trained as an accountant and IT specialist before falling into the debt that landed her in a human trafficking situation. He’d taken her and six of her fellow ‘pleasure wives’ from the monster, Mutaib, who’d bought them as sex slaves. In the process of ridding the world of Mutaib, he’d also liberated valuables and computers from him, and he’d given Rehka the task of tracking down the money in offshore accounts, extracting it and putting it in a trust, as well as administering it for her benefit and that of the other women.

  Anticipating the need to communicate with her privately from time to time, Rex had also asked Rehka to set up an unbreakable secure system for them to speak to each other in real time. She’d come through with flying colors. It was Rehka he intended to contact now about finding Sunstra’s financial tracks, Finint as it was referred to in the intelligence community, for the day she’d disappeared.

  Rex figured CRC’s own security experts couldn’t have done a better job than Rehka had. She had equipped them both with encrypted satellite phones. Rex’s phone was encased in a shockproof and waterproof casing, because he would be out
and about in nature and some rough places with his phone. Hers was daintier and looked like a normal mobile phone.

  The phones’ ringers were set to sound like a normal smartphone. On close inspection of the two phones, however, it was evident that the phones were programmed with only the other phone’s number. Rehka had only Rex’s number on her phone, and Rex had only Rehka’s number on his.

  If someone were really, really technical, understood the latest and greatest in secure communications and encryptions, and had a lot of time, he might have been able to figure out that every call made through these phones were end-to-end protected. Each phone had an encryption app, developed by Rehka, running on it. Each app had encryption keys, and they expected and accepted only keys from the app on the other phone. In other words, it was impossible for a man-in-the-middle attack to be successful.

  Apart from the encryption, the signals from the phones were digitized and sent over the internet through a heavily encrypted virtual private network tunnel, which was routed and rerouted through no less than twelve virtual telephone switches located across the globe. Only after a worldwide tour through a maze of virtual telephone-switch destinations did the signal arrive at the sender’s or receiver’s phone, though the trip took less than a second.

  It was not impossible to tap into their conversations, but to do it, someone would need one of the phones in his hand, he’d need the password to unlock the phone, and he’d need to know the passphrases, which Rex and Rehka had agreed on beforehand. He’d have to give that passphrase to the other party when they made the connection and before they would say anything. The passphrases were set up to sound like a normal greeting between two normal people about to have a normal conversation, but certain words in the phrases would signal if the other party was under duress or not. That is, any mention of weather meant things were okay. No mention of the weather meant things were not okay.

  Rex went out to the car and retrieved his luggage, Digger’s bowls and kibble, and of course, the kong. Digger was too well-behaved to jump at the toy, but he gave his happy smile and wagged his tail excitedly when he saw it.

  “Sorry, buddy. We don’t have time to play right now, but I’ll make it up to you as soon as I can.” Rex lugged everything into the house and headed in the direction of the room Kraisee had indicated before he called his parents.

  The young man was still on the phone with them, listening and then answering in rapid Thai, when Rex passed him. Rex paused and lifted an eyebrow. Kraisee nodded and gave Rex a thumbs-up, which startled him at first. He’d learned from Sunstra that only children used that gesture, and it meant something far less positive than its international meaning—more or less the equivalent of an upraised middle finger. But when Rex glanced at Kraisee’s face in confusion, he saw a smile and a nod that told him Kraisee had meant it the American way—everything was okay. He returned it, smiled, nodded, and continued to his room.

  Once there, he dug through his effects until he found what he was looking for, the satellite phone. Through a curious anomaly in time zones, Phuket was only an hour and a half ahead of Mumbai time, and although it was nearly midnight in Phuket, the time was not alarmingly late in Mumbai—not quite ten p.m. Too late for a social call, to be sure, but not so late that Rehka would be startled out of sleep.

  Rex dialed and waited.

  When the passphrases had been exchanged, Rex’s mentioning the tsunami though it wasn’t strictly speaking a weather event, Rehka was more than intelligent enough to understand Rex was okay. He asked how she was doing and if he’d awakened her.

  “Oh, my goodness, no, Ruan. I have just returned from seeing a film with Vidya Patel. Aarav was kind enough to do the babysitting which allowed us to have a nice girl’s night. How can I help you?” Her tone was light, unstressed.

  It pleased Rex that she was doing so well after the ordeal in Saudi Arabia. She was a strong woman.

  With her in such good spirits, he didn’t want to burst her bubble, but there was no easy way he could tell her what he wanted and why, without her remembering her own situation just a few months ago. “Rehka, I need your help on an urgent matter. It isn’t for me, but for a friend. I’m afraid she’s been kidnapped, and her captors have a two-day head start on us.”

  Rehka’s tone conveyed she’d grasped the seriousness of the situation immediately, but it was also clear it had brought up memories she was trying to forget. She was quiet for a long while, Rex didn’t speak. He knew she needed the time to compose herself. Then she cleared her throat and said, “What can I do to help, Ruan?”

  “Can you hack her credit cards and bank account? We need a location of her last known whereabouts.”

  “I can. Just give me her card number or bank account details,” she said without hesitation.

  Rex gave Sunstra’s name and spelled out the impossible surname, and the bank account details, which Kraisee provided. Rehka read everything back to him to be certain she had it correct. Then she said, “Give me some time. I’ll be in touch when I have it.”

  “Can you do it tonight? It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Ruan, since you say it is a matter of life and death, I will do it yesterday.” The lilt at the end of the sentence let him know she was smiling. Then she grew more serious. “Ruan…is it… ah… a situation like mine and the others? The pleasure wives?”

  “No. She’s being held for ransom. Unfortunately, there’s no time to explain. Please, get that information to me as soon as possible. I can’t do anything until I know where she was two days ago, on Thursday, when she was abducted.”

  “I’ll get on it right now.”

  With nothing to do but wait, Rex returned to find Kraisee. The young man was off the phone by the time Rex located him in the kitchen. Digger had been shadowing Rex, as usual, and the dog had evidently decided Kraisee was a friend. He walked up to the young man and leaned against his leg. Rex thought it might have had more to do with the fact that Kraisee was scrambling some eggs than genuine friendship and concern for the young man.

  Kraisee had guessed right—scrambled eggs were a particular treat for Digger. Rex thought too late about the kong and Digger’s bowl. Kraisee was already bending down with a plate of eggs to place it in front of the dog. Digger’s tail wagged rapidly as he practically inhaled them.

  “How did you know?” Rex asked, smiling.

  “We always had dogs at home,” Kraisee answered, his gaze on Digger. “I miss owning a pet. Digger is very smart, isn’t he?”

  Rex had told Sunstra that Digger was his emotional support dog, so he didn’t hesitate to tell Kraisee that the dog was not only smart, but well-trained. He mentioned their day of search and rescue.

  Kraisee’s hand went to his forehead. “I’m so sorry… I keep forgetting the tragedy that has struck my country. I can only think of Sunstra. Did you find… Are there many dead?”

  “I don’t have a count,” Rex answered. “But on a positive note, I can say there are entire walls of survivor names. We can only hope the death toll is much smaller. I found your name that way,” he continued.

  “Really? How curious. I did not report my whereabouts to authorities.”

  Rex stared at him. That was curious indeed, and it might be important. “Excuse me, I need to make another call.”

  He returned to his room and went through the ritual to call Rehka again.

  “I don’t have anything, yet, Ruan. I will call you when I do.”

  “I understand. But I’ve just discovered something that may be important. I don’t know if you can do it, but after you get Sunstra’s movements on Thursday, can you see if there were many calls to the rescue coordinators’ headquarters earlier today? Someone reported her brother as a survivor, and it wasn’t him. We don’t know the motive, or who it could have been, but if there’s a chance the kidnappers are keeping tabs on her family, one of the calls could have been from them.”

  “That’s what Americans call a long shot, isn’t it, Ruan?”


  “Yep. But sometimes long shots hit home. Sunstra’s movements first, then a list of the phone numbers calling this one.” He recited the number of the rescue headquarters. Chances were there’d be hundreds, but even a large amount of data could be quickly checked against other databases. If he had the full resources of CRC behind him, it wouldn’t even take very long. It might take Rehka longer, however with him guiding her efforts, it was doable.

  After securing Rehka’s cooperation, Rex hung up again, for the first time noticing Digger hadn’t followed him back to the room. He found the dog enjoying pets and scratches from Kraisee, a blissful look on both faces.

  Hmmm. Maybe Digger’s a great emotional support dog after all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  REX SUGGESTED THAT Kraisee should probably get some rest, it was obvious he’d been awake and stressed far too long. He admitted he hadn’t slept since late Thursday night, and it was already forty-eight hours since then. The man was practically out on his feet.

  Kraisee answered that he’d try, but he didn’t have much hope of sleeping. As he left the room, he mentioned that although his parents had agreed to stall, his older brother, Narong, was on his way to Phuket on the first flight he could get. Narong wasn’t happy with the plan but agreed to talk to Rex face-to-face before making a final decision.

  “He’ll be here first thing in the morning. Maybe you should get some rest yourself,” Kraisee concluded.

  “I’m waiting for some information, but you’re right. We should all be fresh for whatever tomorrow brings. I’ll turn in as soon as I hear back from my contact.”

  Without further question, Kraisee continued toward his room, while Rex returned to his. This time, Digger went with him. Rex thought about ordering the dog to stay with Kraisee, but he decided maybe exhaustion would help the other man to sleep, while he needed some distraction to keep him awake. Besides, he’d promised Digger a kong session.