From Thailand with Love

by Camilla Isley

  We eat breakfast sitting on the rock in our underwear while our skin dries off. This close to the river, and without the steam from yesterday’s storm coating the jungle, there are no insects around to pester us.

  Protein bar done with, Logan turns to me. “As much as I’d like to spend all day here with you, we have to get back to camp.”

  “I know,” I say.

  We get dressed, collect all our supplies, and once my backpack is nestled once again between my shoulders, I take a hold of Logan’s hand and interlock our fingers. “Let’s go.”

  Logan

  We reach the main camp when there’s still an hour or so left of daylight. Enough for us to assess the situation while remaining hidden in the bushes at a safe distance.

  I squint my eyes, but from this far away, I can’t tell if the camp has been overrun or not.

  “Can you see anything?” I ask.

  “No, use this.” Winter hands me the miniature telescope again.

  I take it and bring the lens to my eye and adjust the focus to scan the circle of tents. In the gap between two of them, I’m able to make out Dr. Boonjan sitting in the dirt on the left side of the camp with a miserable air about himself. Somchai is slouched next to him. Their hands and ankles are tied.

  My heart sinks. Smith has wasted no time.

  “What’s going on?” Winter asks.

  “Smith must have control of the camp,” I say. “Somchai and Dr. Boonjan are tied up; they’re sitting on the ground with their backs against a tree.” I observe more closely and notice the length of rope sneaking around their chests. “Bound to the trunk.”

  “What about Tucker and Archie?”

  “I can’t see. They must be on the other side of the tree. Let’s shift.”

  Careful not to make any noise, we shuffle sideways, crawling on our elbows and knees. Once we reach our new vantage point, I look through the mini-telescope again, clocking in on Archie’s ashen features.

  Before I can stop myself, an involuntary roar of rage escapes my lips.

  Winter pushes my head down toward the ground, and we both lie flat on our bellies.

  “Are you crazy?” she hisses. “You want to get us caught? What did you see?”

  “It’s Archie,” I say. “I have to go.”

  I try to push up again, but she pulls me back to the ground, saying, “Calm down.”

  “Check for yourself”—I hand her the telescope—“and then tell me again to calm down.”

  Winter takes the black tube from me and spies the camp through the high grass covering the terrain. I know when she has Archie in her focus, because she gasps loudly.

  “Those bastards,” Winter whispers angrily, without removing her eye from the lens. “They’ve made him sit on his wounds.” She pauses, takes another look, and gasps even louder. “There’s blood on the ground; the stitches must have burst open. He has to be in a lot of pain.”

  I take the telescope back from her and examine my best friend’s face. “It’s not just the pain. He’s not well. An infection, most likely. Smith must’ve gotten here last night. If Archie has been sitting in the dirt with open wounds for twenty-four hours, he must already be feverish. We have to do something.”

  “Agreed,” Winter says, and preventively grabs my arm to ground me. “But rushing in there won’t solve a thing.”

  “It’s Archie.” I struggle to get free. “I have to go.”

  “Logan.” The tenderness in her voice makes me pause. “Say you attack now, and even manage to cut them free. Then what?” She pauses. “Archie will need to be carried at this point. Tucker looks more like a teddy bear than someone who’d be helpful in a fight.” No matter how fit he is, I add in my head. To go against Smith, one needs to be mean, and Tucker doesn’t have an ounce of mean in him. “And the only thing Dr. Boonjan has fought in his life,” she continues, “is probably an unruly book page. So unless Somchai has some hidden martial arts skills, you’d be in there alone fighting three highly trained ex-Special Forces armed to the teeth with no weapons of your own. You’d only get yourself caught and tied to the tree with the others. Then Archie would really stand no chance.”

  Winter’s right. I hate that she’s right. And not because she has outsmarted me once again; because it means I’m powerless to help my best friend when he needs me the most.

  “So what do you propose?” I ask.

  “We wait.”

  “For what?”

  “It’s almost dark. If the soldiers haven’t left by now, they must be planning to leave at first light tomorrow.”

  “I’m not sure Archie has that much time.”

  “Listen to me, Logan, we’re his only hope and we only get one shot at this, so we have to get it right on the first try.”

  “You have a plan?”

  Winter winks at me. “I do.”

  I shake my head. I swear, this woman never ceases to amaze me.

  ***

  While we wait for the cover of night, we retreat further away from the camp to drink our last water, split the remaining protein bar, and rest. We hide our backpacks in a thick bush and stand by until the jungle is coated in darkness.

  Then, hiding in the shadows, we crawl back toward the assembly of tents. The camp lights provide just enough illumination for us to check on the state of things through the telescope.

  “The prisoners are still in the same spot,” I say. “You think they’re feeding them? Giving them water?”

  “I don’t know,” Winter replies. “But let’s focus on our mission right now. You have eyes on Smith?”

  “Yeah, he’s with his minions having dinner under the tarp.”

  The three of them are sitting around the table with a lantern placed in its center, eating and talking. Voices carry out to us, but not loud enough for us to pick up what they’re saying. The bastards are laughing, most likely discussing all the ways they’re going to spend their loot.

  “What of the rifles?” Winter asks.

  I squint my eyes against the darkness. At their feet, I catch a glint of moonlight reflected on black metal: the armory and ammunition box.

  “They’re guarding them closely.”

  “Good,” Winter says. “Just as we imagined. Smith knows we’re out here, weaponless. He must’ve figured that if we tried something, we’d go for the artillery first. What about the phones and laptop?”

  As the moon rises higher in the sky, the scene before us becomes clearer still. “Smith has my phone case next to him. The laptop, too,” I say. “He’s literally keeping it under his arm.”

  “What about Tucker’s phone?”

  I search and search, but… “I can’t see it anywhere.”

  “Could it still be in his tent?” Winter asks hopefully. “Did Smith know Tucker had a second satellite phone?”

  “Let’s hope he didn’t,” I say grimly.

  We crawl a few yards back, keeping out of sight.

  Waiting.

  Again.

  I hate waiting.

  Winter shuffles closer to me, and her lips find mine in the darkness. And for a second nothing else exists anymore. Just me and this woman. This fierce, brave, insufferable person that has stolen much more from me than Smith and his puppets ever could. She has taken my heart, and now it’s hers to do with as she pleases.

  We find comfort in each other. Saying with tender kisses and caresses what’s too hard to put into words. Trying to cure the other of the fear we’re both feeling for Archie. For ourselves.

  The sudden silence shakes us to attention.

  “Have they gone to sleep?” Winter asks.

  “Let’s go check.”

  As stealthily as we can, we slither back to our vantage point. With the camp’s lights out, the half-moon provides just enough light for us to see that the camp is still. All is quiet.

  “Looks like they’ve retired for the night,” I say.

  “They didn’t leave anyone to
guard the camp?”

  My eyes go at once to where I spotted the armory box last. Poking out from inside the tent next to it, there’s a boot. And, judging from the angle the foot is at, it must belong to someone sitting on a chair.

  “Someone is guarding the weapons and coms,” I say. “Just as you predicted. But I don’t know who it is; I can’t see their face.”

  I can only hope it’s not Smith, I add silently in my head. We stand a better chance if one of his brainless pals is the only person awake out there.

  “Okay,” Winter says. “Let’s wait another half an hour just to be on the safe side, and then we go in as planned.”

  I nod, even if I have no intention of sticking to the plan.

  Eighteen

  Logan

  “It’s time,” Winter says a while later.

  I squeeze her hand to let her know I’ve heard her.

  We start to circle back toward the camp, Winter in front of me. But I stop at once. With the moon completely risen, her head of white-blonde hair stands out in the darkness like a beacon.

  “Wait,” I call-whisper.

  “What?”

  “Your hair, it’s too light, it’s unmissable. I could spot it from a mile away.”

  “Logan, I’m not staying behind,” she threatens.

  “I wasn’t suggesting you did,” I say, not eager to repeat the argument we had earlier on the topic. But I’m not letting her go exposed like that, either. “Come here,” I add, and quickly pull one of my dark shirts out of my backpack.

  When she reaches me, I wrap her hair under the fabric, securing the shirt around her head with two tight knots.

  She smiles at me throughout the whole process, the hint of flirtation clear on her face—which, by the way, shines just as bright as the hair. Even after two weeks in the tropical sun, her skin is still pearly white and too reflective even in the faint moonlight.

  Without giving her any warning, I sink my hands in the moist dirt and smear a generous amount across her cheeks.

  Winter sputters in protest. “What are you doing?”

  “Covering your face,” I say, adding a smudge to her forehead. “Your skin is too light as well.”

  “Really?” She scowls. “You seem to be enjoying yourself an awful lot, Dr. Spencer.”

  And, if in the beginning her calling me Dr. Spencer used to annoy me… now the title has a whole different effect.

  Not the time.

  “It’s for your protection,” I reply, dead serious.

  “Well, in that case.” She sinks her hands into the muddy ground and returns the favor, saying, “If you’re into dirt-y foreplay.”

  And even if the circumstances are so dire, she manages to crack a smile out of me.

  Once the camouflage is complete, we resume the journey toward Tucker’s tent. My muscles scream in protest from all the crouching and crawling, and my body hurts everywhere. The amazing woman next to me must be in the same state of pain and exhaustion, but not a single complaint escapes her lips. And I can’t help it; my chest swells with pride, as if her endurance was my merit somehow.

  When we reach the other side of the camp, Winter starts forward toward Tucker’s tent, but I pull her back.

  She looks at me questioningly.

  “You go get the phone,” I whisper. “There’s something else I have to do.”

  “What?” she hisses. “Logan, no! We have a plan, you stick to the plan.”

  “I can’t. I can’t leave Archie like that. I have to find him an antibiotic and some water.”

  A ray of moonlight hits Winter’s face, and I can see the fear in her features while her brain cogs are furiously at work.

  “You get the phone,” she says after a while. “I’ll find the medicine and water for Archie.”

  “What? No!” I protest. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I’ve never been inside Tucker’s tent,” Winter protests. “I have no idea where he keeps the phone and stand no chance of finding it in the dark. And even if I did, I don’t know how it works. The antibiotics are in the supply tent, I know the layout, I can get to them more easily,” she says with finality. “We meet again where we left the backpacks.”

  And before I can protest further, she dashes in the opposite direction. I suppress a curse that my plan not to stick to the plan has majorly backfired on me and put her in more danger.

  I sigh. Nothing I can do about it now; I have to focus on the task ahead.

  I approach Tucker’s tent from the back, slither Smith’s knife out of its sheath, and cut a vertical opening in the tent’s fabric. Before going in, I check the path is clear by spying between the gap. The front of Tucker’s tent is zipped down, and there’s no one inside. Perfect. No one will be able to spot me from the camp.

  I slip in and squat on the floor, suddenly disoriented. Without the moonlight filtering in from outside, I’m in complete darkness. Blind, I carefully place the knife back in its sheath so I don’t accidentally stab myself. Then I search the surrounding space with my hands. My fingers finally clasp Tucker’s cot. I grab it and, even if it doesn’t make much of a difference, given the poor light, I close my eyes, trying to remember the layout of my friend’s tent. The window flap should be somewhere above the bed.

  I climb on the cot, my heart jumping in my throat when the metal springs squeak. I pause, breathing heavily, while my pulse races into a frenzy and my ears strain for any sign the noise has been heard and that I’ve been discovered. But the night mercifully stays quiet. My thoughts go out to Winter. What is she doing? Has she reached the supply tent? If they catch her… I have to crush the panic rising in my chest. Seeing her trapped once has been enough for a lifetime. Not an experience I care to repeat.

  Don’t be silly, Logan, that woman is ten times tougher than any men around here. She survived the jungle with ease, swung across that ravine like Tarzan of the Apes. No way a night incursion is what takes her out.

  Right.

  She’s probably already waiting at the rendezvous point, wondering what’s taking me so damn long.

  Searching the tent’s wall with my fingertips, I finally come in contact with the flap. I roll it up and tie it with the small string attached in its center. The window isn’t big, but it lets enough moonlight into the tent for me to make out shapes. I give my eyes a few more seconds to adjust, and then begin my exploration.

  I’m sure the soldiers searched all the tents, so if they didn’t find the phone, it means Tucker must’ve stashed it somewhere out of sight. But where?

  I climb off the bed and search the ground underneath. Nothing here.

  Next, I move in a clockwise circle around the tent, searching every box, bag, and crevice I can find.

  Nothing.

  The blasted phone is nowhere to be found.

  I sink back on my haunches, racking my brain. Where could my friend have put it?

  My eyes drift back to his backpack. I’ve already patted it, and it was only soft fabric inside. Clothes. Nothing more.

  But maybe the army guys performed the same superficial search and came to the same conclusion.

  I kneel in front of the rucksack and resolve to try every last pocket. When I’ve removed a dozen folded T-shirts, my hands finally bump against something solid. My fingers fasten around a plastic handle, and I pull out the phone case, touching it to my lips. I quickly throw all the discarded clothes back in the sack and restore it to the spot where I found it.

  I consider climbing on the bed once again to close the window flap, but I doubt even Smith would notice such a tiny detail. And, anyway, if they come looking, the slash in the back wall will be enough to give away the nightly incursion.

  Decision made, I slip out of the tent the way I came in and scamper far away. Giving the camp a wide berth, I retrace my steps to the spot where Winter and I left our meager supplies.

  She isn’t there.

  My heart falls.

  My first inst
inct is to run back and go look for her, but the ghost of her voice prevents me. “You stick to the plan.”

  Right. Even if, worst-case scenario, they caught Winter, the best I can do right now is call for reinforcements. That’s the first priority. At least that way, when I go look for her and probably get myself captured in the attempt, there will be help on the way.

  I take the phone out of the case and squat low behind a bush to screen the inbuilt light from sight—in the surrounding darkness, it’d have the same effect as an emergency flare and give away my position, especially if Winter has been found out and Smith is looking for me. On the retro-illuminated green screen, I scroll for preloaded numbers and dial the emergency number of the American embassy in Bangkok.

  They pick up on the first ring.

  “Hello, this is a distress call from Dr. Logan Spencer…”

  Winter

  Before Logan can start an argument and get both of us caught, I crawl away from him, ending the discussion. The ground is hard under my hands and knees, dotted with small, pointy rocks that attack the flesh of my bare palms and tear at the fabric of my pants each time I move. But I’ve become accustomed to the pain; I’ve lost count of the cuts and bruises on my skin. I swear, if I get out of this alive, I’m going to spend the next month in a Thai spa immersed in a coconut milk and jasmine oil bath, and I’m coming out only to be massaged.

  Mmm. The thought of moisturizing lotion, of a hot bath, almost makes me cry with longing. Why couldn’t I be one of those photographers who are content doing weddings and baby photo-shoots? No, I had to seek adventure…

  Aha!

  I’ve had enough adventures for a lifetime.

  A loud snore makes me stop in my tracks and jerks me back to the here and now of my mission. In the semi-darkness, it’s hard to get properly oriented, but I’ve passed two tents since Tucker’s—Logan’s and Archie’s—which means I’m at the main gathering tent. Right behind where the sentry is stationed. Did they fall asleep?

  I strain my ears and, there, barely audible amidst the night noises of the rainforest, is the faint breathing of someone fast asleep. And, yep, another soft snoring sound.