by J C Ryan
Rex looked over the room carefully to make sure there was nothing Digger could break if he bumped into the furniture in his enthusiasm for the kong. The furnishings were simple yet appeared of high quality. Décor was sparse, and he found nothing that would be in danger.
Speaking quietly, he settled Digger before giving him the kong. Instead of tossing it to set it bouncing and excite Digger too much, he handed it to the dog, who took it gently in his mouth. Digger seemed to understand it was late, and he didn’t need to go crazy. Instead, he lay down on his belly with the toy and began to gnaw it like a bone. That was good enough for Rex. Digger never ceased to amaze him with his spot-on understanding of situations.
He kept up a running conversation with his mute buddy while he waited for Rehka’s call, but Digger was too busy with the kong to respond to anything. So, the soliloquy quickly wore him down and he lost the struggle against his heavy eyelids. The day’s and previous nights’ events had worn him out, and tonight’s revelation about Sunstra’s danger hadn’t helped.
He wasn’t sure for how long he’d slept when the sat-phone’s ringing woke him. He was so impatient for the information that the elaborate security dance, though it took only seconds, irritated him.
“Rehka, finally!” he said. He instantly regretted his abrupt words. “I’m sorry. I’m sure you did everything as quickly as possible.”
“It’s all right. You must be under a great deal of stress. This woman is special to you?”
Rex was quick to answer. “Just friends, but a special friend, yes. Like you.”
Her voice sounded as if she might be smiling again when she answered. “Okay, then let’s waste no more time. Your friend did some clothes shopping, had lunch at an inexpensive restaurant, bought theater tickets, and finally visited a jewelry store, where she bought two watches, a woman’s and a man’s.”
Hmmm.
When Rex made no further comment, Rehka went on. “The last visit was fortunate. There is security video footage, and I was able to download it. She is very beautiful, Ruan.”
“Yeah, I only befriend beautiful ladies, like yourself,” Rex flattered her, then started laughing and was relieved to hear a giggle from the other end. “Was there anyone else with her in the store?”
“Not when she walked in, but a man came in after she had been there for a few minutes. It seemed he was trying to avoid the camera, but I was able to get two images, one full-face and one in profile. I isolated the still shots, and I can send them to you if you want.”
“Do you have any reason to believe he’s related to the kidnapping?”
“Nothing directly, but as I said, he was obviously trying to avoid the camera. And then, when she left, he followed without engaging the clerk.”
“That sounds suspicious, all right. Would you send me the addresses of everywhere she went, as well as those two pictures? And can you get a still of Sunstra? They probably have pictures of her here, but just in case, so I can show them to the store employees?”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Those calls to…”
“Oh, yes,” she interrupted. “I have that list. It’s a lot of calls, Ruan.”
“I understand. What databases could you hack to try to identify who the numbers belong to? Can we get names, maybe even addresses?”
“I think so, but I need some rest, so I don’t do anything to alert the data providers that I’m in their systems. They have defensive mechanisms to shut down intrusions, and then we wouldn’t be able to finish the job.”
“I understand. Get some rest, and then that’s top priority for tomorrow, okay?”
“First thing. Got it.”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
Nothing more could be done that night, even after Rex had downloaded the encrypted email with the images and the list of phone numbers. He looked at the image of the mysterious man who’d evidently been following Sunstra. Maybe Kraisee could identify him, or maybe he was just a hired thug. Kraisee needed his rest, so it could wait until morning.
The list of numbers wouldn’t be of any use until they had names to go with them. There were far too many to begin dialing them and asking if the person answering had kidnapped anyone lately.
Rex looked at the file with Sunstra’s image last. She looked happy, and more beautiful than he even remembered. Who was the man’s watch for? Her father? One of her brothers? He’d have to remember to ask Kraisee in the morning if any of them had a birthday coming up.
Just before he drifted off to sleep, Digger’s weight made the bed dip. “Digger, off,” he mumbled before sleep took him.
As he dreamed that night, disturbing images of Sunstra’s drowned visage kept him restless. He felt a weight on his chest and his subconscious mind interpreted it as great grief and a sense of having just missed something very important to him.
Digger remained vigilant. His human friend was distressed, but Digger could detect no imminent danger. So, he did the only thing he could. He laid his big head on Rex’s chest and joined him in sleep.
***
DESPITE THE LENGTH and anxieties of the previous day, Rex woke refreshed and relieved to see the cause of his heavy chest.
“Digger,” he groaned, “I told you to get off.”
Digger’s nose was pointed at Rex’s chin, and when he heard Rex’s voice, he lazily opened the eye that wasn’t buried in Rex’s chest. Rex had lifted his head just enough to see the dog’s face. “Yes, I’m talking to you, mutt.”
He couldn’t keep the amusement and affection out of his voice. Digger’s tail thumped once, painfully, against Rex’s bare calf.
“Okay, not kidding now. Off. I need to get up.”
Digger bounded to his feet, still on the bed, and then dropped lightly off to the floor. He went to the door and looked back and forth between it and Rex, clearly indicating he needed to be let out for his morning constitutional.
“Give me a minute,” Rex said. He knew if push came to shove, the dog could open the door himself, but he wouldn’t unless he was told to do so. A few moments later, he had a pair of pants and t-shirt on and was leading Digger outside when a male voice he didn’t recognize, raised in anger, arrested his attention and his progress.
“How do you know who this man is? Did Sunstra ever show us his picture? No! She did not! For all we know, he is the kidnapper!”
Rex surmised quickly that the voice belonged to Narong, and that the recipient of the scolding was the younger of the brothers, Kraisee. With a hand gesture, Rex commanded Digger to wait where he was, while he stepped into the room to support Kraisee.
“Hold up, there, cowboy,” he said. “If you’ve got a beef with me, take it up with me.”
Both men turned to him, and they bore identical expressions. Rex figured Kraisee’s meant, “Are you out of your mind?” and Narong’s meant, “Who the hell are you?”
He repeated his hand gesture, so Digger wouldn’t get into the act, and let himself smile. “No offense. I assure you, I haven’t kidnapped your sister. I’m her friend, and I’m as anxious as you to see her returned safely to her family.”
Narong had collected himself by that time, though Kraisee still looked as if he thought Rex had picked up a live grenade. The older brother stepped forward aggressively. “What proof do you have?”
“Difficult to prove a negative, but if you meant proof that I’m her friend, would a picture of your sister playing with my dog settle it?”
Narong raised his eyebrows without answering, and Rex took it as assent. He reached inside his pocket for his cell phone and pulled it out. Narong relaxed slightly but crossed his arms over his chest.
Didn’t Kraisee tell me his brother was a doctor? Why is he built like a Navy SEAL? And acting like a bear with a sore tooth?
Rex found a picture of Sunstra, her hair blown back in the wind, a look of pure joy on her face, hugging Digger. He handed the phone to Narong with his left hand, while signaling Digger to come with his right. A moment later
, he felt Digger’s solid presence at his side, as Narong studied the picture and then the dog.
Narong handed the phone back to Rex. “My apologies. My sister’s abduction has put us all on edge.”
“No worries. I’m a little touchy myself. My dog needs to go outside. Can we take this up in a few minutes? I have news.”
“Certainly. Kraisee, would you mind preparing breakfast for our guest?”
Half an hour later, Rex and Digger were both on cloud nine from the amazing breakfast Kraisee had prepared. It hadn’t occurred to Rex to ask him what his occupation was, but during the interval before Kraisee announced it was ready, Narong had filled him in. Kraisee was a chef at one of the posh hotels in Phuket. After breakfast, Rex would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that Kraisee was the top chef in Thailand, not just Phuket.
In the same interval, he’d rapidly told Narong what Rehka had found and had learned in turn that the reason Narong was built like a Navy SEAL was that he’d been one, in the Thai navy. His medical training had come first, and then he’d enlisted and was part of a team that was regularly assigned to search and rescue, which often required emergency medical care for the rescued even before they were taken to hospitals. Only five years after leaving the Navy, his practice in Phuket was booming.
However, he wasn’t entirely convinced that Rex had the right approach, which was to play for time while making a plan to set her free.
“Listen, I appreciate your willingness to help, but you don’t know Thailand. We must co-exist with this type of corruption, and it doesn’t surprise us at all. You don’t need to worry about Sunstra. Losing our land is maddening, but it is not as important as Sunstra’s safety. My father will sign it over, Sunstra will be returned safely, and next week my father will be invited to dine with the district administrator, who is one of the men forcing the sale, and everything will be fine. No, we won’t forgive or forget. But we won’t fight it, either. There is no point.”
Before Rex could respond, Narong went on. “However, if the bargain isn’t kept, and she is hurt in any way, I’m going to war against them, and nothing will stop me.”
That changed Rex’s direction when he responded. “Why wait and see if they hurt her or not, Narong? I think you should prevent it not wait for it to happen. In any event, you may have been the medic on a Thai SEAL team, but you’re going to get your sister killed and yourself in serious trouble if you retaliate as a one-man army. Let me help you.”
Narong’s expression went from annoyed to frankly irritated. “Excuse me. I am trying to be polite to you, a guest in my home. However, my brother has told me why you have a dog. I doubt that a man who has need of a service dog will be of any help.”
Rex smiled. Since the events that sent him underground, he’d never felt the need to explain his former profession and he was not about to change that. So, his answer was a cryptic, “You’d be surprised.” He had a fleeting thought about giving Sunstra’s brothers a demonstration of what his ‘service dog’ was actually trained to do but quickly decided against it.
Narong paused a beat and intently looked Rex up and down, apparently in the process also noticing Rex’s hair, currently in need of a haircut as well as being tousled from sleep and the lack of a morning shower yet.
“You don’t look like you’re in the military.”
Rex said, “That’s because I’m not.”
“You don’t look like you’re in the police either.”
“That’s because I’m not,” Rex answered.
Narong said, “So, not in the military, not in the police—then you must be a tourist.”
“That I am.” Rex smiled broadly.
Narong shook his head and gave an exaggerated sigh. “This is serious stuff. You could get hurt, maybe even killed. You and your dog.”
All Rex needed was a base of operations and for the Chevapravatgumrong family to stall. If the brothers weren’t going to be of any help, he would do it on his own. He had always operated better on his own, and lately, with Digger as his companion, he was even more lethal than ever before. He wasn’t going to show his hand. They could play their cards. He would act accordingly.
He shrugged. “Well, my travel agent promised me an adventure holiday in Thailand, and so far, I’ve seen very little adventure. I’ll take my chances.”
“Okay, have it your way, don’t blame me if you get injured or killed, and make sure you don’t get in my way.”
Rex nodded. “I promise.” He looked at Digger, who was sitting there looking at them with a big smile, enjoying the repartee if Rex had to guess.
“You hear that Digger? We’re not to get in this guy’s way. It might get dangerous. You okay with that?”
Digger woofed.
“Kraisee, thanks for breakfast. It was outstanding. Narong, would you prefer I move into a hotel?”
“Please, that will not be necessary. A friend of Sunstra’s is always welcome in my home.”
“In that case, could you let me hook into your home network? I have a few pages of data to print.”
“Certainly.” Narong set Rex up in his own office, gave him the WiFi password, and reluctantly agreed with Rex to talk to his father and convince him to bring up the proof of life issue before signing over the land for the ridiculous price of one-thousand bhat, which the kidnappers had insisted upon paying so that the contract would look legal.
Rex began printing the list Rehka had sent that morning, which now included names in Thai and a column that transliterated those names so that Rex could attempt to pronounce them. She had cross-referenced them with various government databases, so that anyone who worked for the government in any capacity was identified with columns for the names of their agencies and their titles within the agency.
Rex was printing only that subset of the numbers, a list that required about ten pages. Narong came back in before the last page had finished printing and reported that his father would cooperate.
“What do you have there?” he asked.
Rex explained what he had and why he’d asked for it but looked out the window without answering when Narong asked how he’d gotten it. Fortunately, Narong was so distracted by his sister’s dilemma and impressed with Rex’s reasoning regarding the list that he didn’t insist on an answer. How he got the list was not important. The fact that he had it was.
“That’s very clever,” he said. “Let me look at it. I can identify the names of individuals I know, and of those known to be corrupt even if I don’t know them personally. That will narrow the search, yes?”
“Exactly what I was thinking, Narong. Once you’ve narrowed it down, we can go to work on the crooked ones, maybe get a clue. See, we can work together after all. But I’ll be sure not to get in your way if it comes to a fight.”
“Excellent idea. How did you come up with it?”
“When Kraisee said he hadn’t reported himself as safe to the emergency center, I started wondering who did, and why. Whoever did it was keeping tabs on your family, and reporting Kraisee as a survivor was an improvised message to a conspirator. In other words, ‘Kraisee is still in town. Be careful.’”
Narong still looked confused. “Why couldn’t they just make a call?”
“My guess is one or more of the kidnappers was in the danger zone when the tsunami hit. There could be any number of reasons this message needed to be conveyed in this way, but the simplest of them is that somehow their communications lines were cut, either literally or because one of them went missing. Maybe it’s a blind chain. What’s clear to me is there’s something more valuable than zinc on your land, and the stakes are higher for the kidnappers than we knew.”
Narong turned pale like his brother had the night before. “Which means it’s even more dangerous for Sunstra!”
“Now you’re getting the picture. So, let’s get that list narrowed down, and then we can go rattle some cages. We also need to take these pictures to that jewelry store and see what the clerk can tell us.”
C
hapter Eighteen
THE JEWELRY STORE clerk was arrogant and unhelpful and got Rex into a bad mood when he made shooing motions at Digger. He shook his head at the pictures of the man who’d followed Sunstra in and claimed he’d never seen the man, though he did remember Sunstra and her purchase. He smirked as he looked from Narong to Rex, as if he thought they were rivals for the girl’s affection and wanted to know who the man’s watch was for. Rex had the impulse to wipe the smirk off the clerk’s face but decided a dust-up wouldn’t make any difference except to his ego. He let it go.
They quickly went to the other places Sunstra had been as evidenced by her credit card and bank records, but since the jewelry store was the last chronologically, they didn’t expect any help, and that proved to be true. A few remembered her, but none saw her follower.
Narong was discouraged as they went back to the house. Kraisee had prepared a nice lunch, but he informed them that the restaurant where he worked would be open soon, so he had to leave.
Narong gave a dispirited wave, saying, “That’s all right. You can’t help, anyway.”
Rex caught the hurt look Kraisee turned on his brother, but Narong had his head in his hands and didn’t see it. When Kraisee left the house, Rex started talking about his younger brother. He hadn’t said a word about him to anyone since he broke up with the woman who would have been his wife if his family hadn’t been killed.
“I had a younger brother once. They can be a pain in the rear, I know.”
Narong lifted his head and stared at Rex. “What?”
“The way you spoke to Kraisee. Dismissing him. He must be a screw-up and a disappointment, right? Just being a chef and all, instead of a doctor.”
Narong puffed up like a bantam rooster. “How dare you! Kraisee is a great chef. Someday, he’ll own a chain of fine restaurants. You barely know him, or me. Why would you assume…” He broke off, noticing Rex’s smile. “Wait, you said you once had. What…”
Rex took a deep breath. This was going to be difficult, but he had to do it to make his point.