“Oh dear,” said Grimes looking concerned. “I am sorry to hear that.”
Thran’s staff then brought in the wooden trunk they unloaded from Grimes’s Mercedes SUV and placed it on the floor.
****
This part of the sting had taken several weeks to organise, but using his skills as a con artist and Akhim’s skill as a master forger, along with a few old contacts in the UK, it hadn’t been too difficult.
The objective of this phase of the plan was to get Kim into Vietnam alone, where she would be an easy target for abduction. Grimes figured the easiest way to do this, was to target her mother.
He had researched Thran and Nga thoroughly and formulated an elaborate plan, but first needed to gain their trust.
Adopting his old alias of Duke Phillip of Southerby, he had his Vietnamese staff contact Nguyen Gia Khiem, the Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, who understood nothing about royalty.
Grimes’s staff claimed to be from the United Kingdom Embassy in Ho Chi Minh City, told him that the British Royals were the figureheads of the commonwealth countries, and requested an appointment for their Royal representative.
Intrigued, Prime Minister Khiem agreed to meet with Duke Philip of Southerby.
At the meeting, Grimes told the Prime Minister that the British Royals wanted to bestow an honouree doctorate for business and industry on a Vietnamese government member, to make trade between the two countries easier.
Grimes explained that Vietnam was chosen to accept this prestigious honour because it was one of the fastest growing economies in Asia.
The Prime Minister looked delighted and felt overjoyed at the opportunity to get a foothold in the commonwealth market. “So what will the person chosen have to do?” he asked.
Grimes smiled and told him the only thing that the nominated individual would do was have his portrait done wearing his doctoral robes and bonnet.
He took photographs from his briefcase of people stood in their robes smiling and holding their doctorate certificate He showed them to the Prime Minister and said. “After I acquire the measurements from the honouree, the robes and decrees would be sent from Buckingham Palace and the portraits could be done in Vietnam. The honouree would then be entitled to use the title, Doctor.”
“Oh, said the Prime Minister, “that sounds simple, so who would get the honour.”
Grimes smiled. “I don’t know Prime Minister. Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth makes that decision. What I require was a list of your high ranking officials along with details about them which I can send to Buckingham Palace,” he said and smirked. “Oh, and make sure you are top of the list, Prime Minister Khiem.”
The Prime Minister smiled. “I will have that done immediately Duke Philip.”
While Grimes waited for a list to be compiled in English, he and the Prime Minister chatted. Thirty minutes later a woman came into the office and handed the Prime Minister a folder.
The Prime Minister glanced at the documents inside the folder, smiled, and handed it to Grimes, who looked at the list of names, smirked, and said. “I will have this sent immediately to London and get back to you in a few days… hopefully, with good news for you Prime Minister, Doctor Khiem,” he chuckled. “Oops, silly me, it just slipped out.”
The Prime Minister grinned as Grimes left his office, imagining himself in the regal academic robes of the English gentry.
Grimes sounded excited when he arrived at Prime Minister Khiem’s office a week later clutching an A4 size envelope with a fake Buckingham palace wax seal stamped on the rear.
“This arrived earlier from London,” he said and handed the Prime Minister the envelope. “I thought I would give you the honour of opening it Prime Minister Khiem.”
The Prime Minister smiled and using a letter opener slit open the envelope and removed the documents.
He looked excited as he read the first document and then looked disappointed.
“Is everything alright Prime Minister?” asked Grimes as the Prime Minister sighed and said. “I thought they would have chosen me, but they said that a Prime Minister can only be chosen once every twenty years. Because it was only two years ago when a country’s Prime Minister was honoured, they had to choose someone else.” He handed Grimes the phoney letter from the Lord Chamberlain of London, and Grimes frowned. “Oh dear, I am sorry to hear that Prime Minister, so who have they chosen?”
Prime Minister Khiem sighed and said. “The recently promoted Minister of Public Security, Thran Tangh.”
Grimes appeared disappointed for Prime Minister Khiem and then smiled and said. “Oh well, Thran Tangh can accept the doctorate on Vietnams behalf. Would you be so kind as to introduce me?”
The Prime Minister nodded and called Thran to his office where he introduced him to Grimes. The Prime Minister, speaking Vietnamese, told Thran the importance of Duke Phillip, and how much new trade and technology Vietnam could receive from their new commonwealth trading partners, telling him how important it was for him to accept the doctorate on Vietnam’s behalf.
Thran looked at Grimes and smiled.
Grimes explained to Thran that it was his responsibility to prepare him for his new role as honouree doctorate.
He visited Thran’s home in Ha Tay Hanoi over the next few days to take measurements and prepare him. Grimes took Thran’s measurements for his robes and bonnets and met Nga, his target.
A Vietnamese employee of Grimes started working at the Tangh’s house as a newly appointed gardener, who Nga employed the day after their old gardener suddenly died of a heart attack.
Grimes learned of Nga’s tastes and on his visits bought her small gifts of Cay hia nhai, Jasmine smelling ornaments. Nga cooed when the noble Grimes brought her presents, she told him how jasmine was her favourite fragrance, and Grimes convinced her that it was also the Queen of England’s favourite. She and Thran enjoyed looking at Duke Phillips phoney photographs of him with Queen Elizabeth, assuring them that they would one day meet the Queen when he took them to England.
Several days later, Grimes told Thran that they were now making his scarlet robes and black /gold tasselled Tudor bonnet in Oxford, which would not take long. He handed Nga a pewter box engraved with a British Royal seal and an enclosed letter. Nga read the letter, looked at Grimes, and then opened the box.
“Thank you very much Duke Phillip. This is from Queen Elizabeth,” she shrilled, showing Grimes a forged letter and a small bar of fragrant soap in the box.
Grimes smiled. “I mentioned it to Her Majesty that you shared the same taste in fragrances, she must like you already.”
Nga took out the soap, taking a lingering sniff.
“Jasmine and...” she paused and furrowed her brow, trying to place the unfamiliar fragrance. She shook her head, “I don’t know what else that is.”
Grimes smiled and told her. “That’s English rose.”
“Ahh,” Nga cooed, and letting out a pleasing sigh said, “It smells gorgeous.” She excused herself and went to the bathroom.
Grimes then told Thran that he would leave the following day and travel to Oxford to pick up his doctorate and wait for his regalia to be finished.
After ten minutes, Nga came back into the room smiling.
“Oh, lady Nga, you smell more wonderful than ever,” said Grimes gushing, “Doesn’t she Thran?”
Thran smiled and agreed.
“I will use it all the time, it smells beautiful,” said Nga, smelling her hands and arms.
“I hope you do,” said Grimes, Her majesty will be delighted when I tell her.”
Grimes left the Thran’s and returned to the Sheraton, feeling pleased knowing that the target felt happy with her Royal Jasmine, English Rose, and *Thallium soap.
The following day, Grimes caught a flight to Bangkok as Duke Phillip of Southerby, returning from Bangkok to Ho Chi Mihn a week later as Julian Grimes, with an old looking wooden trunk, which he sent to Hanoi.
After successfully conning Ca, he and
Akhim returned to Hanoi and, again as Duke Philip went to complete the Thran episode.
****
Thran smiled as he looked at the name stencilled on the trunk: Doctor Thran Tangh, Vietnam.
“I think I will go for a lay down, I don’t feel well,” said Nga.
Grimes bowed as she left the room while Thran smiled and took the robe from the trunk and held it up.
“Oh I do hope Nga gets better soon,” said Grimes as Thran rummaged through the trunk containing more of his fake academic robes and bonnet, which had taken five days to make in Thailand.
Thran strode up and down his living room in the lordly fashion.
“I have a photographer booked for tomorrow Thran; he will come here, set up a background scene, and make the portrait photograph that will hang in Buckingham Palace,” said Grimes.
Grimes returned the following day with a photographer who set up a screen depicting hounds and English countryside in the corner of the living room. He took several photographs of Thran standing in his robes and then left.
Grimes looked concerned and asked. “How is Nga today?”
Thran smiled but Grimes could hear the concern in his voice when he said. “She will be fine Duke Philip. The Doctor came and said she had chronic indigestion. He gave her medicine and told me that she should feel better in a few days.”
Grimes smiled and said, “Oh, that is good news, please give her my regards and wish her a speedy recovery.”
Grimes knew the Thallium had been effective and was slowly poisoning Nga. He knew that the lab in Saudi had impregnated the correct amount of the poison into the soap to present the symptoms now shown by Nga.
‘A few days more,’ thought Grimes as he left the Tangh’s house for the last time. He now needed to concentrate on his other plan.
Several days later, Grimes, while sitting in his office within the now finished Control Centre next to the Cu Chi tunnels, received a phone call from his Vietnamese secretary in Hanoi. She relayed the message from Thran’s gardener, who told her that Nga had been taken to hospital that morning and he had taken the soap from her bathroom and destroyed it.
‘Excellent,’ thought Grimes and smirked before calling Sheik Mohammed’s staff in Saudi Arabia and having them arrange a private viewing for the Sheik of the Holy Relic.
Grimes sat back and grinned. ‘Now we just have to wait,’ he thought and called Ca to tell him to standby and keep him motivated.
— Chapter Eleven —
Daylight popped through the darkness when the helicopter landed on a small field and four passengers disembarked.
The four headed to a waiting car and the helicopter took off.
The army driver saluted Lee and took them to the Sangkat office in An Giang, where a man dressed in Cambodian Immigration uniform greeted them and took them into his office.
He spoke Cambodian, so Spock and Stu gawped as the man handed Lee an envelope.
Lee thanked the man, looked at his watch, and suggested they went for breakfast until their bus arrived to take them to the border crossing.
Spock and Stu grumbled about the ungodly hour and drank sweet strong Cambodian coffee as they sat in a small outdoor Cambodian restaurant nearby. Their droopy eyes looked like piss holes in the snow.
Lee and Pon ate pork stuffed winter melon while the lads, after looking at the pans of mush in a food warmer, shared a tube of Pringles.
While eating, Lee took the envelope from his bag, opened it, took out three passports, and handed them to the three. One was Cambodian and two from the United Kingdom. Spock and Stu glanced at Pons who was again travelling as a Cambodian tour guide under the name Chai Te-ad, which normally would have Stu and Spock in fits of laughter, had they not been feeling tired and as rough as badgers arses. All Spock could muster was. “Welcome back Shithead.”
“I arranged a tour bus to pick you up here shortly and take you to the border crossing. You should use your own passports going into Vietnam, but keep these, should you need them for an emergency.”
Spock and Stu then looked at their new passports, which they thought were good copies considering the time that the Cambodians had to process them. Stu would be Mr Kerry Eggleton, and Spock, Mr William Anchor.
“They’ve named you after the Cambodian beer and our young English prince, that’s smart,” said Stu looking impressed at Spock’s passport.
Spock had a different interpretation of the name.
“W. Anchor... Wanker!” said Spock sounding indignant, “some Cambodian boneheads got a sense of humour.”
“You’re not wrong, but at least they haven’t given you a bloody girl’s name,” said Stu furrowing his brow.
Pon couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. ‘It wasn’t as bad as Shithead,’ he thought.
Lee smirked as their bus pulled up outside the restaurant.
“Good Luck,” said Lee, “and stay in contact. Remember, if you cannot find a safe way in, let me know what you find out, then abort and go to Hanoi as we planned.”
Lee felt concerned, he knew the dangers they all faced and as he got back into the car he looked at Pon, Spock, and Stu boarding the tatty old bus and thought. ‘I hope this will not be the last time I see you, my friends.’
The old bus drove fifteen minutes to the small border crossing with Spock and Stu both hoping never have to use their fake identities and swearing Pon to secrecy, or risk increased ear clippings.
They walked across the border into Vietnam and met up with a waiting tour group. There were eight other foreigners in the group, mainly Chinese. They took a small bus to a waiting boat for the three-hour journey down the Tonle Basak River.
Even though the craft was a speedy modern riverboat with a large air-conditioned cabin and large comfortable seats, noisy Vietnamese Karaoke screeched out from several overhead TV’s
“Sounds like two cats with their knackers in a meat grinder,” said Spock who promptly fell asleep and started his own ripe wind section of the Karaoke. Stu also fell asleep while Pon closed his eyes, meditated, and thought about Kim.
They missed the colourful rural scenery, pagodas, and sweet aromas of the floating markets along the riverbanks.
Spock and Stu slept through the entire boat trip and most of the bus journey from Can Tho to Behn Dinh town, which took another three hours.
They arrived in Behn Dinh town near Cu Chi, and the tour leader, a small Vietnamese man who spoke English, booked them into a guesthouse. He told the group to meet in one hour for the tunnel tour. Spock, Stu, and Pon showered and then sat in Stu’s room going over the plan.
The tour group met in reception an hour later and got onto a bus for the twenty-minute journey to the start of the Cu Chi tunnels.
Stu noticed how little traffic there was on the Vietnamese roads and saw mopeds and pushbikes whizzing up and down the modern quiet roads, which seemed a pleasant change from the congestion of Pattaya.
They arrived at the designated area and the guide gave them earplugs. Then, a dozen Vietnamese men dressed in the Viet Cong Guerrillas renowned black pyjamas and Non-la hats performed demonstrations with AK47 rifles, shooting at targets.
Spock and Stu frowned; even with the earplugs, the noise of the shots aggravated their hangovers.
The guide then took them over to a small camouflaged hatch on the ground where the Viet Cong used to pop out and shoot Americans. The guide lifted the hatch, looked at Spock, and joked how the holes were too small for the large westerners to fit through. The tourists peered down the small hatch and then the tour leader closed the hatch and moved on. Spock and Stu brought up the rear to cover Pon as he opened the hatch and jumped into the tunnel shaft. He put on his LED headlight and looked at his tunnel map.
Pon scrambled along his planned route following his GPS signal location to the target.
He saw the signal was in an unmarked section of his map, so realised that a new section must have been added and he hoped there was a way in from the hot humid small branch of a main tunn
el that he now crawled through.
After crawling through the muddy tunnel on his hands and knees for twenty minutes, he checked the map. He knew that around the next narrowing bend he should come to a dead end, even though the signal that the satellite had picked up was at least another 200 yards further along.
He rounded the corner and saw a bright light illuminate the small tunnel for a few seconds, which then went dark again as he heard a metal door closing. He shielded his eyes against a bright torch beam shone into his face. An irate Vietnamese man came face to face with Pon and shouted at him. Pon did not understand Vietnamese, but the man sounded serious, so Pon slipped his Juglave from his jeans waistband under his loose fitting T- shirt.
The angry man kept the torch on Pon, but his voice changed as he received instructions in Vietnamese from another person, lurking behind them in the shadows. The man lowered his pistol and shouted at Pon in Pidgin English. “Stupid tourist, are you lost?”
The speaker and his mysterious shadow assumed Pon was a tourist, so knew that if he went missing they would instigate a search, which they could not risk.
“Oh good, you speak English,” said Pon sounding anxious. “Please can you help me? I have been going around in circles for hours. I only stopped for a few minutes to take photos.” He showed the man his GPS, which in the darkness, he hoped he would mistake for a camera.
The man in the shadows gave an instruction and as Pon slipped his Juglave back in his waistband, the man in the tunnel gave him directions on how to exit.
“Thank you, thank you,” said Pon sounding relieved. He squeezed himself around and crawled back along the tunnel, pleased knowing that he had found one way in. He felt around the wet muddy floor of the damp tunnel as he made his way back and found two pressure pad detectors buried under the surface.
‘Entering here will be difficult, but not impossible,’ he thought, as the tunnel behind him illuminated again briefly, as the Vietnamese men disappeared back into the Control Centre.
Pon crawled along until he joined another tourist tunnel. He came from a hatch at a tourist station, apologised to the angry tour guides, and explained about getting lost. Pon told them he was with his foreign friends in another group. A guide then took him to find his tour group and Spock and Stu.
Bimat--A Vietnamese Adventure Page 14
