Apart from the gardener, the other staff felt terrified but Thran ordered them to comply with everything Akhim told them. The staff, comprising of one female cook, her female helper, one female cleaner, and their spy gardener, did as instructed. The cook doubled as a nurse to Nga, who still suffered the after effects of the Thallium and side effects from the Prussian blue treatment.
Akhim told them that the only one who could leave the house was the cook’s helper to go and buy food at the market. He told her what time she must leave and what time she must return. Apart from that, they were confined to the house.
Akhim then set up his monitoring, broadcasting and communication equipment.
Throughout the ordeal, he spoke to the Tangh’s as little as possible, spending his time monitoring for any significant information.
His satellite feed monitored any military movement around the area near Cu Chi and he had a direct link to Grimes and Mohammed.
Akhim convinced Thran that they were a fanatical terrorist cell and if he spotted any intervention by the Vietnamese government forces, his daughter would die. Akhim told Thran nothing about the reason behind all this, only that he would find out when he had completed his task and they would be released unharmed.
Thran, although uncertain and confused, went along with every instruction. The berretta 92F pistol Akhim constantly waved about made Thran nervous, especially since Nga had not fully recovered. Thran decided at this stage with discretion being the better part of valour, he would comply until any opportunity arose, knowing it was all now in the Thais’ hands.
Akhim instructed the household to remain working as normal, which he knew from Grimes’s undercover research and the gardener, exactly what that entailed, which would be pivotal in his evasion and escape. The gardener kept a close eye on the other staff so he could inform Akhim of any plot or scheme and Akhim reassured him that when the assignment was over, he would be the richest gardener in Hanoi.
Even though there was a tense atmosphere in the house, the staff went about their business as usual. The cook prepared the meals for them all and moved freely in and out of Thran and Nga’s room. Akhim and the gardener lurked around monitoring the staff. The kitchen hand went to the market shopping early each morning to fetch the daily supplies dressed in the attire that Akhim instructed her to wear.
This small, but efficient, single man operation centre ran smoothly. Akhim had all the information he needed at his fingertips.
He checked in with Grimes in the Cu Chi Control Centre regularly and he gave the gardener a satellite phone that connected to Julian should anything happened to him.
Everything remained calm until the capture of the Cambodian commandos, which made the tempo shift into a higher gear and Grimes instructed Akhim to apply pressure to Thailand to move up the deadline. He let Thran speak to his daughter and then call Taksin.
When Thran was locked back in the room, he looked confused.
“What is it Thran?” asked Nga looking worried and sounding anxious.
Thran furrowed his brow and said. “I still don’t know what is going on, but I think Pon’s coming here.”
He scratched his head and said, “but I don’t understand, they told me I was speaking with Pon… but I wasn’t.”
Akhim relaxed in Thran’s armchair, glancing at a framed photograph of Thran in Academic robes, with an English countryside backdrop, holding a diploma.
‘Good old Julian,’ he thought, ‘He really is the master trickster and all being well we should be out of this godless country soon.’
Early the following morning, Akhim prepared. He scoured the internet from first light. He logged into the site for the Bangkok Post and read that day’s news. He didn't have to search far because the story he was looking for had made the headlines.
The Tangh household knew something was different when Akhim told the kitchen hand that she would not be doing the shopping that day.
Akhim told the gardener to keep everything as normal during the day and told him to free them all after 8pm. He said to tell the authorities that he felt too afraid to inform anybody any earlier, especially after what had happened that morning.
The gardener looked puzzled as Akhim looked at his watch and smirked. Everything that had been pre-set to happen that morning would take place in the next few moments. He knelt on the floor, faced in the direction of Mecca and prayed.
Mophi had assumed that the Hanoi Police or Vietnamese Special Forces would have snipers in position on rooftops, to observe and protect Minister Thran and he had been correct.
At 7:00 am, from their hidden rooftop positions the snipers saw the kitchen hand standing in the doorway and about to leave for her daily walk to the market.
She was wearing the same loose fitting Ao Dai, silk dress and a Non-La, Vietnamese hat she had worn for the past few days.
“Have you seen her face yet?” asked a marksman laughing at his colleague who peered down at the girl through telescopic sights.
“Not yet,” said the sniper and chuckled as he sat up and stretched. “Those stupid Non-La hats don’t let you see anything from up here. But I’m sure I’ll love her when I see her face,” he smirked as a massive explosion then rocked their position.
Two more blasts shook other rooftops, blowing snipers off their feet with their eardrums imploding as flesh tore from their bodies.
The scene looked chaotic with men running around the flat roofs screaming and engulfed in flames from the explosions of concealed C4 placed inside clay flowerpots put there by Mophi earlier.
Akhim put the detonator into the shopping bag and, as the panicked neighbourhood came rushing out to see what had happened, he strolled to the parked Hyundai and drove away. Once he felt sure that he was safe, he took off the Non-La and threw it in the rear seat next to the large shopping bag containing all his hi-tech equipment. He stroked his chin and complimented himself on a job well done. He drove along route 2 towards Noi Bai airport and turned off alongside a rice paddy. He stopped his car alongside two parked vehicles where two Vietnamese men greeted him. The men looked at him, trying not to snigger as Akhim got out of the car in his Ao Dai. Akhim ignored them until he went behind thickets and changed into the clothes he had worn at Thran’s.
Akhim gave the men their instructions, checked they had the bribe money, and told one of them he would meet them at the airstrip. He then gave them his bag to put onto the helicopter and his women’s clothes to dump. They got into their respective vehicles, drove back to the road, and headed in different directions.
Akhim drove to the Hanoi International Airport. Knowing that he would be waiting another few hours before Pon, Stu and Spock arrived. He bought a copy of the Bangkok Post, which had arrived on an earlier flight from Thailand, to confirm the information from the website.
Smirking, Akhim drove around the airport and stopped to eat at one of the many small restaurants outside. He ate Banh Cuon, a rice flour roll stuffed with pork, and prawns served with a spicy sausage.
Akhim grimaced as he ate the spicy food but knew in a few days he would be tucking into his favourite Shawarma and Falafel at Sheik Mohammed’s palatial home, millions of dollars richer. He looked at the TV on the wall and watched a Vietnamese TV news channel reporting on several large explosions in the Ha Tay area of Hanoi. Although Akhim could not understand Vietnamese, he recognised the area from the video footage. He smirked when he saw the carnage from his handy work and while the Vietnamese looked horrified and chatted, he calmly read the newspaper.
****
Pon, Stu, and Spock came out of the arrivals section along with other passengers.
Taksin had planned well, and the domestic flight from Ho Chi Mihn and the international flight from Thailand landed within ten minutes of each other.
The three lads had spent the journey planning imaginative, although unrealistic schemes. Pon thought that it would take their minds off the seriousness of the situation. They went over the details of the story that Taksin had given t
hem for the abductors. Taksin sounded concerned when he told Pon that he had put a story in the Bangkok Post, but reassured him that he had another story ready for when things were resolved, although they both knew that might not happen. He also told Pon not to tell Spock and Stu, which puzzled Pon.
Pon changed his phone card to the clone that Taksin had prepared, so any calls now made to Taksin from the kidnappers would now come to him.
The three collected their baggage, walked into the car park as instructed, and saw Akhim. Taksin had given them his description, along with the location where he would meet them. Being an Arab in Vietnam, they easily spotted Akhim sitting on the bonnet of a Hyundai holding that day’s Bangkok Post and the lads walked over.
Akhim never spoke and glared at the three before showing them the morning headlines.
Pon took the newspaper and showed Spock and Stu the front page.
Spock and Stu gasped and raised their eyebrows when they saw the headlines about a theft from the Imperial Palace the previous evening.
The article headlined the burglary of the Holy Relic from the Temple of the Sacred Light and wrote about the significance of the artefact and the great loss to the Thai people. Then it showed three separate photographs and underneath it read:
‘The Prime Master of the Tinju, Pon Meesilli, along with his two English accomplices, Mr Peter Harris, and Mr Stuart Wilson, are the only suspects.
A nationwide manhunt is underway for the arrest of the fugitives.’
The story went on to offer a reward and requested any information.
Akhim watched their reactions as they read the newspaper. He saw the Englishmen looking nervous, but the Thai remained calm, which he put down to acceptance of his fate.
Pon, seeing the shocked expressions on Spock and Stu’s face, now realised why Taksin did not want him to tell them. He knew they could not have acted so shocked and would have burst out laughing.
Akhim smirked. “So how did you escape Thailand?”
Stu answered as planned because Pon did not want Akhim to recognise his voice and realise it was not the same man who he had been negotiating with.
Stu looked at Akhim and with a quake in his voice told him how they had helped Pon steal the Holy Relic with the help of friends at the Imperial Palace. They had fled Thailand by using false passports.
“Here look,” said Stu, and they each showed Akhim their counterfeit passports. William Anchor, Kerry Eggleton, and Chai Te-ad in his Elvis mullet.
Although Akhim spoke English, he had difficulty grasping the Northern English dialect, enunciation, or that Stu was talking bollocks.
Akhim smirked and said. “You will come with me, now.”
Pon pointed to the toilet block and then walked towards it.
“Come back here,” said Akhim and as Pon ignored him, he looked at Spock and Stu smirking and sounding outraged, said. “Where’s he going.”
“He’s got the shits and gone to take a dump,” said Spock smirking.
“What?” asked Akhim glaring at Pon as he disappeared into the toilet.
Stu smirked and said. “He has diarrhoea and needs the toilet; unless you don’t mind him pooping in your nice clean car.”
Akhim glared at Spock and Stu. “Put your bags in the boot of the car,” he said sounding annoyed.
Spock and Stu did, and then got in the back seat where they asked Akhim question after question.
Akhim ignored them and after ten minutes, he looked angry and sounding impatient, said. “He’d better not be trying anything or his wife dies. What’s taking him so long?”
“Probably grooming his tail,” chuckled Spock, before he and Stu burst out laughing.
Akhim, not understanding, looked angry and sounded the horn.
Pon went into the men’s room feeling surprised that the group had only sent one man to escort them, but as they held all the cards, he knew that they wouldn’t consider them a threat. Pon went into a cubicle where he changed into his monk’s robes, hid his Juglave, and put his mullet in his cloth bag. He whispered Mantras for their protection until he heard Akhim’s car horn and went outside.
He walked to the car and got into the front seat. Akhim looked taken aback by Pon’s appearance in his monk’s lightweight orange robes, with his shaven head as bald as a baby’s botty.
Akhim gave Pon a look of disdain and pointed to his cloth bag, “Is the relic in there?”
Pon looked confused and shrugged.
Akhim, thinking Pon didn’t understand him, grabbed the cloth bag and peered inside. He smirked and put the bag at his side.
‘I have what I need out of it anyway,’ thought Pon and looked ahead and smirked.
Stu warned Akhim not to put his hands in the bag, as there was almost certainly a mullet on the loose and it would bite.
Akhim ignored him and drove to the airstrip. Pon stared ahead in silence while Spock and Stu invented more mullet jokes in the back.
They arrived at the small airstrip where a large Puma helicopter waited with its rotors idling. One of Akhim’s men greeted them. The man had bribed the airport superintendent not to report the helicopter’s arrival or departure because it wasn’t a registered stop.
Spock, Stu, and Pon were ushered into the aircraft’s fuselage where a Vietnamese aircrewman directed them to seats at the rear. Akhim boarded last, and the aircrewman gave him three plastic tie wraps.
Akhim ordered the three to put their hands behind their backs, fastened the wraps in place around their wrists, and pulled them tight.
Once Akhim secured the three, he told them to sit. He then went forward to sit behind the pilot and ordered him to take off.
By the time the helicopter reached its cruising altitude, Spock and Pon were working on their bindings.
They did not have a set plan, as they did not know what scenario they were up against. They had thought of a few stupid and sporadic ideas, one of which they now tried.
Pon eased his supple body through his arms, so he now had his arms and hands in front of him, then ‘thwap.’ Spock spat his dentures out and into Pons cupped hands.
Pon snapped the dentures at the repaired break, so he had two sharp pieces. Stu kept a lookout on Akhim and the aircrewman as they sat with their backs turned wearing headphones and looking out of the cockpit. Pon partially cut his plastic tie wrap and did the same with Spock and Stu’s restraints.
“One good tug and they’ll snap,” whispered Pon. “I just hope they are as careless with their searches when we reach our destination.”
Pon repositioned his arms behind his back and slid Spock’s dentures between the seat folds.
Spock looked exasperated and mumbled. “Woken up at silly o’clock in the morning, beer levels at an all-time low, not even a sniff of a shag, and now my poor old dentures are fucked… Somebody is in for a major arse kicking.”
Akhim turned around and saw his passengers sitting innocently like the three wise monkeys smiling back at him. He turned back, looked out of the cockpit, and called Grimes.
— Chapter Fourteen —
The amphibious vehicle stopped within the brightly illuminated Control Centre where the mercenaries shoved the three prisoners out and ordered them to stand in line.
Pon felt concerned as he looked around and noticed rooms, partitioned sections, and hi-tech monitoring equipment on metal desks arranged in a circle in the centre with technicians working at several machines.
‘Someone went to a lot of trouble to get us here and get the Holy Relic,’ he thought.
“It looks like a low budget set from an early James Bond movie, and its stinks fusty,” said Spock, and they looked at one another and shrugged.
“Be quiet,” shouted Mophi and sneered at Stu.
Technicians and mercenaries glared at them and smirked before continuing monitoring the security and environmental screens.
Akhim and Mophi walked to Grimes’s office and went inside carrying Pon’s cloth bag and Spock and Stu’s backpack.
Whi
le three mercenaries trained their rifles on the three captives, the other three went over to their comrades and bragged how easy the job had been.
Pon looked at doors of the other rooms before Grimes’s office and caught a whiff of Kim’s sweet scent, mixed with other odours. He detected an earthy, dried blood smell coming from the other room.
Pon saw that the mercenaries in the Control Centre were armed with M9 side arms, unlike the ones guarding them, who carried bullpup rifles.
Pon weighed up his options. Although he realised they were outnumbered and out-gunned; he knew the information now gleaned would come in useful later when his ally arrived, whom he figured was not that far behind them.
Akhim and Mophi came from Grimes’s office and walked back over to the group. Mophi barked orders to the mercenaries, who stood back and lowered their weapons.
Mophi strode up to Spock, sneered, and pushed his face against his.
“Soon, little man,” he said with a menace in his voice. “You will die slow and painful.”
Spock stared at the larger and more powerful Mophi sneering at him and grinned.
“Yeah, right,” he said and head butted Mophi on the bridge of his nose.
Mophi yelped, covered his bloodied nose with one hand, and slapped Spock with the other. Pon became nervous in case Spock lost his cool and snapped his partially cut bonds. Spock however, smirked as he looked at the damage to Mophi’s nose.
Akhim saw Mophi looking enraged and glared at Spock. “You three follow me,” he said.
The mercenaries again aimed their rifles at the three lads, went behind them, and shoved them.
Mophi trembled with rage and wiping blood from his nose, walked alongside Akhim cursing in Arabic.
Spock smirked and looked at Stu. “I appear to have upset the Ab dab again.”
“Quiet,” said a mercenary pushing his rifle into Spock’s back.
They shoved the prisoners until they were outside the door of Grimes’s office. Stu imagined going into the office and seeing a man with a silly Russian accent and a fat white cat purring on his lap, while Pon focused on ways to mount an offensive.
Bimat--A Vietnamese Adventure Page 18
