Snatched

by Lilburne, Guy

  “What do you want, O’Brien?” he shouted from the safety of the terrace.

  “I need to talk to you. Nok is missing! Will you let me in?”

  Borg went back inside the house and pressed the button for the gate and the heavy gate slid slowly to one side. Danny and Meiwa walked along the driveway up to the house.

  “She is not here” said Borg in a calm voice, as they climbed the four steps to the terrace. Borg had left the baseball bat inside the house.

  “Have you seen her? Has she contacted you at all?”

  “No. I have not seen her and no, she has not contacted me. Why should she? We are finished. You made that perfectly clear Mr. O’Brien.”

  “Have you got any idea where she might have gone?”

  “No. I have no idea. Now, if that is all, I would like you to leave. Give my regards to Nok if you ever find her!”

  Danny nodded.

  “Would you mind if we had a quick look around?”

  “Get off my fucking property!”

  Danny nodded again and turned to Meiwa and flicked his head towards the gate and the two of them walked back along the driveway and out onto the soi. They drove back to Nok’s agency office in silence.

  Danny sat in the chair behind the desk and Meiwa sat on top of the desk facing him. Danny got a flash of white panties as she did so.

  “Do you believe him, Danny?”

  “No I don’t. He knows something!”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s just a feeling Meiwa, but he didn’t seem too concerned. He didn’t ask when she had last been seen. He didn’t ask anything.”

  “Maybe he is still hurting from the break up!”

  “No. There was something cruel in his voice. Something sadistic! He enjoyed saying ‘If you find her give her my regards.’ I think she is still alive and I think he knows where she is, but it’s just a hunch.”

  “So what are we going to do now?”

  “I’m going back up to the house when it gets dark and I’m going to go in and have a look around.”

  “Be careful Danny” said Meiwa, putting a gentle hand on top of Danny’s. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  Danny looked at Meiwa and she held his gaze and smiled back. She was a beautiful woman and sexy too. Danny thought that she had just given him an invitation to become more than just friends. He allowed himself to mentally undress her before he shook the thought from his mind.

  “I’m going back to the house tonight. I’ll ring you if I find anything. In the meantime I want you to go through all Nok’s files, diaries, note books, papers, anything. Just look for anything that stands out especially anything from this last week.”

  Meiwa smiled and nodded.

  “Okay. I won’t disappoint you.”

  “I’m sure you won’t!”

  Danny left the office and walked back out into the blazing afternoon heat. There were black storm clouds over to the north. Hopefully it would bring some rain later and some much needed cooling air.

  Danny had already spotted a good surveillance location when he had been to Borg’s house in the morning with Meiwa. There were some bamboo trees on the opposite side of the soi and nothing else behind them except for a steep rocky bank. The trees were away from the street lighting and were big enough to hide Danny and his motorbike in the shadows. Danny was in position just after dark. He had taken a hip flask of brandy in case it was going to be a long watch. There were a couple of lights on inside the house and a flickering, changing light which Danny was satisfied was the TV. Occasionally he would see Borg’s shadow moving around the house, possibly going to the bathroom or kitchen. He couldn’t be sure because he didn’t know the layout of the property. Danny was hoping that Borg was going to be going out, if not then he would have to wait until he was asleep before going inside and he would have to be a lot more careful. He was in luck. The TV was turned off and Borg came outside. He locked the door behind him but left the lights on inside. He got on the PCX150 motorbike that was parked in front of his car and drove out through the gate that was still sliding open and about halfway through its journey. The lights of the motorbike illuminated the bamboo trees where Danny was hiding, but he wasn’t seen and Borg drove down the soi and turned left at the end towards Patong. Danny dashed across the soi and through the open gate which had now started to close again. He checked around the house for an insecure window but there wasn’t one and behind the glass in each window were ornate iron bars. There was no way in unless he was prepared to make a mess and smash his way in but Danny didn’t want Borg to know that he had been there. He looked around under the mat and under plant pots in case there was a spare key, but there wasn’t. He was out of options. He knelt down next to the car and tried to ring Nok again. Her phone rang out unanswered but he could hear it ringing somewhere in the distance. He pulled his phone away from his ear so he could listen better. He could hear Nok’s phone ringing and it wasn’t in the distance! It was in the car. He moved around the car, it was ringing from the boot of the car. He took out his own set of keys and straightened the key ring as best he could and used it to pop the boot. The boot looked clean and empty. He rang Nok’s mobile again and then saw it illuminated as it rang out. Nok had been in the boot and she had hidden her phone there, tucked behind the steel work frame of the boot and wedged in with some rags. Danny grabbed the phone and heard Borg approaching along the soi on his motorbike. Danny closed the boot. He didn’t have time to climb the gate before Borg would be there so he hid behind the house. The gate started to slide open and Borg drove in with a young Thai girl clinging to his back. By the state of her dress code Danny knew that he had just taken her from one of the bars. They went into the house and Danny slipped out of the gate before it locked closed. He rang Meiwa on the way back into Patong and told her to meet him at the detective agency office. She was there waiting inside when he arrived.

  Danny told Meiwa about Nok’s phone in the boot of Borg’s car. Together they examined the phone. Photos, calls made and received and missed messages.

  Messages! The last message received on the phone was one that Nok had sent to herself from two days ago. It just read;

  ‘Pink Lady Chin.’

  “What does that mean Danny?”

  “How the feck should I know!”

  ~2~

  Captain Potts, Sgt McGinley and the rest of the Special Projects Team of the SAS were making progress towards their target deep in the tropical rain forest of south Thailand, but the progress was slow. The torrential rain turned the ground into a boggy mud bath and flooded rivers and streams. They were moving slowly through the jungle, but it was hard yards! They moved day and night because of the urgency of their rescue mission, but under the cover of darkness they could move more quickly. They had already come across a few patrols of Muslim insurgents. They were in small groups of between six and ten men. The SAS troop could have taken them out easily, but just lay low instead and let them pass in order to avoid any unnecessary noise. It was vital to their mission to get to the target undetected. They were resting four hours and moving on twelve hours, resting four, moving twelve. It was hot and exhausting work for even the fittest of men, but these were the fittest of men and they were always alert and ready. Ready to be deadly!

  They knew that they were getting closer to the target when they started to ascend the Sankalakhiri range of mountains, which included the Titiwangsa mountain range that extended south from Thailand into Malaysia. The jungle was tough. The climb made it even tougher! They moved silently, closing in on their target.

  ~3~

  Danny and Meiwa were working late into the night going back over Nok’s case files. Starting with the most recent and working backwards, but they were not finding anything that might help them to find Nok. Danny had wiped the appointments off the white
marker board and had written the words ‘Pink Lady Chin.’

  He was thinking about all the possibilities; ‘was this a clue to the ID of three people, Pink, Lady, and Chin? Or two, or even one? If Nok meant a pink lady she would have just typed farang lady surely. If she was typing the message in the darkness of the boot of the car and frightened and in a panic then maybe she had mistyped something or missed out a letter; ‘Pink Lady Chain’, ‘Link Lady Thin’, ‘Lank Lady Thin’, ‘Think Mady Chin’. The words were spinning around in his head and nothing jumped out as being likely. They would have to assume that Nok had typed her message correctly and that it meant something. But what?

  Pink Lady Chin.

  Meiwa was looking tired and Danny suggested calling it a night. He needed to sleep on it. He called into a Seven Eleven shop and bought a bottle of Sangsom to take back to the hotel and then he sat on the balcony and drank it before he fell into bed and slept a drunken sleep.

  ~4~

  The war in Myanmar was being won. The Muslim and ethnic rebels were trapped and surrounded in a small pocket up in the north of the country. They asked for a cease fire but the Myanmar government refused. It had to be unconditional surrender or nothing. Two days later the surrender came. Only five British troops had lost their lives in the conflict. It had been a swift and victorious campaign and was hailed a great success. The business of rebuilding Myanmar had already started and so had the business of reuniting the people of Myanmar from all ethnic groups. The opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi took responsibility for leading the way in making the changes that the country needed and would be acceptable to everyone. There was an air of confidence and hope in Myanmar. A big development for tourism in order to open Myanmar up to western tourists would soon have pounds, dollars and euros pouring into the country. America, Japan and especially Great Britain had huge contracts in rebuilding airports, hotels and the infrastructure in general. Aung San Suu Kyi campaigned for more reforms and in particular for compensation for the people, of all ethnic backgrounds, who had their land seized by the regime. The government accepted that for a peaceful and prosperous future it had to be all inclusive. Everyone had to feel that they had a stake in their country’s future. The world watched on as Myanmar was transforming itself before their very eyes. The government decided on having a free and fair election. The opposition leader had been banned by the regime from ever standing again for election, but this order was revoked and she was told that she could stand for president. The world media declared that democracy was the winner and there was a growing confidence that Myanmar would finally get the leader that they wanted and deserved, more than twenty years after she had first won a general election, but been denied power by the military. Things were indeed changing in Myanmar and more change was to come.

  ~5~

  Danny awoke early but it was already light outside. He moaned and groaned as he got out of the king sized bed and walked around naked looking for a towel. The empty bottle of Sangsom stood next to the glass ashtray, over spilling with stubbed out cigarette ends of surprisingly various lengths. He opened the fridge and drank from a cold bottle of water until the bottle was empty. He drank several cups of coffee and showered before going to meet Meiwa at the agency office. Meiwa was sat on the floor eating something sticky and sweet from a banana leaf. She greeted Danny with her sweet smile and a very respectful wai. Danny nodded and grunted something which she couldn’t hear, but took for a greeting.

  “How many more files have we got to go through?” he asked.

  “Not too many more.”

  “How did Nok meet Borg in the first place, Meiwa. He doesn’t seem her type!”

  “She did some work for him. He was having trouble with a former business partner and it was turning quite nasty over a dispute over who owed money to who.”

  “Is there a file on that?”

  “Yes, but she didn’t keep it with the other files. She always kept it separate and locked in her cabinet.”

  “Do you have the key to her cabinet?”

  “Yes, of course.” Meiwa jumped up from the floor and went into Nok’s office to return a few moments later with a big file that had been parcelled up with string. She put the parcel on the desk in front of Danny. It was nearly a foot thick and Nok had written across the top;

  ‘Private & Confidential’. In brackets she had written ‘Secret’ and Danny smiled because he knew that Nok had written that because she knew what secret meant, but might forget the meaning of the other words.

  “Meiwa I’m going to take this file back to the hotel with me. There is a lot to look through here and I want to be comfortable. Do you want to come back with me? We can have some breakfast and then go through this!”

  “Yes. That sounds good.”

  Meiwa jumped on the back of Danny’s motorbike and hugged him tightly as they drove the short distance to the Holiday Inn Hotel. They had breakfast in the restaurant and then went to the room and showered before settling on the bed wrapped in white Holiday Inn towels and opened the Borg file.

  ~6~

  Captain Potts, Sgt McGinley and the rest of the SAS troop had reached the target house last night. Trooper Steve Walker had the forward observation position, the rest of the men were laid up further behind. They had had luck on their side and managed to avoid any contact with enemy patrols and had arrived at the target house totally undetected, but their luck had changed. Just after they had arrived at the target, a platoon of 30 Muslim rebels had arrived to join the five Syrian special forces soldiers who were holding Prince William. The enemy strength was now 35, the SAS troop were 16 men plus Captain Potts and Sgt McGinley, a ratio of about two to one against. It wouldn’t be a major problem, but Captain Potts decided to attack after dark. With a bit of luck the Muslim rebels would move out during the day and the rescue would be made a lot easier. They drew up two plans for the rescue. The first one was attacking the camp with the strength of 35 men. The second plan was attacking the camp with fewer men guarding it. When the troop arrived under cover of darkness the previous night there were just five Arab soldiers guarding the camp and Prince William was nowhere to be seen. McGinley and the others guessed that he was being held in the house, which was the only solid structure in the camp. They had decided to go in and grab the prince while his guards were playing cards outside. The house had no windows and just the one door. Sgt. McGinley and trooper Kev O’Mara circled around the camp and decided to make the rescue through the roof of the house. They got to the roof and pulled back some of the corrugated tin, but could see immediately that the prince was in a bad way, was in no condition to go out through the roof and he would need urgent medical treatment before being moved. It was as they were on the roof when the platoon of thirty rebels arrived at the house and that was another reason why they had to abort their original plan. McGinley and O’Mara managed to replace the roof and make it back to the others unseen.

  Whatever happened they were going into the camp to rescue the prince tonight. They waited, watching and hidden in the heavy undergrowth. There was no change in the camp and it looked like the rebels would be staying at least for another night. When trooper Steve Walker was in the forward observation point one of the rebels wandered out to where he was hidden. The Muslim rebel leaned his rifle against Walker lying in the undergrowth and squatted down just inches away from him to empty his bowels. The stink was horrendous and stayed long after the rebel wandered back to the camp. The darkness of night crept slowly over the jungle, squeezing the last remnants of daylight into submission. The door to the house was still open but nothing inside could be seen. The rebels posted four guards around the camp, one on each corner of the camp. Two camp fires had been lit and the men had divided themselves into two groups around the fires. One group was playing cards and drinking, the other group sat around chatting. A few others were just milling around in ones and twos. The four men at each corner
of the camp didn’t look too alert and were only going through the motions of standing guard. The atmosphere in the camp was relaxed and quiet, but it wasn’t going to stay that way for very long. The rescue plan was simple. Four troopers would take up position near the corners of the camp. They were going to take out the four guards silently and at the same time. McGinley and O’Mara would then make a silent dash to the back of the house and get inside from the roof. They would secure the prince and toss out some hand grenades. The rest of the troop would then attack the camp from two assault positions, the front and the side. That way they would not be in each other’s field of fire. They synchronised watches. The strike was going to be in just twenty minutes at twenty hundred hours. The troop nodded to each other and moved out. Twelve minutes later the four troopers were in position near the corners of the camp. McGinley and O’Mara were outside the back of the camp on a steep ridge that fell away to the river below. They were as near to the house as they could get unseen. The minutes ticked slowly by. Everybody was cocked and ready to go. The rebels and Syrian soldiers remained unaware. The only sounds coming from the camp were low whispers, occasional laughter and the crackling and spitting of the two camp fires.

  Twenty two hundred hours. The four SAS troopers struck in deadly silence killing their targets with blades and a twist of their necks. One of the rebels sitting away from the others saw a movement in his peripheral vision and turned and saw Wiffy Watson dragging the dead guard into the undergrowth. The rebel screamed out a warning and opened fire towards Wiffy with his semi-automatic rifle. All hell broke loose. McGinley and O’Mara hadn’t made it to the roof of the house yet. At the sound of gunfire they lobbed grenades over the top of the house into the camp. The rebels were already scattering spraying the surrounding jungle with fire from machine guns and semi-automatics. Only the highly trained Syrian special forces rolled away into low firing positions and looked to see where they were being attacked from. Azeez ran into the house and locked the door. Four grenades exploded outside. The rest of the troop attacked from the front and side of the camp, firing at each enemy with a shot to the head and two to the chest. More grenades exploded outside. Men screamed as they died. Azeez held his semi-automatic rifle to the head of Prince William.