Snatched

by Lilburne, Guy

  The situation in Syria was causing tensions around the world. Nobody wanted another world war, but that was a very real and looming possibility, which would become the reality if anything was pushed too hard.

  The 5:30am private meeting at 10 Downing Street was a War meeting, or at least, a pre-war war meeting! The only politicians at the meeting were the Foreign Secretary and the Prime minister himself. The rest were made up of top military brass; Commander in Chief of British Forces, Chief of General Staff, Chief of Defence Staff and Director of Special Forces, Major-General Martin Charles Llewelyn Brown, GCB, LVO, OBE, and some military and legal advisors. The meeting was told by the legal advisors that the Syrian regime had committed an act of war against the United Kingdom in kidnapping Prince William and, as such, Great Britain was within international law to respond. But the purpose of the meeting was to decide how to respond. In the media there had already been calls to declare war on Syria. This seemed to have the backing of the British public, because of the success that had been achieved so quickly in Myanmar. The fourteen men at the secret Downing Street meeting talked calmly and quietly about the options. The Prime Minister was reluctant to declare war with Syria. He knew it would be expensive and drawn out and they would be burdened with another long lasting legacy of trying to keep peace in a country that wouldn’t want them there after the war was won.

  The meeting came to a natural quietness after everyone had expressed their opinions and ideas. All eyes were now looking at the Prime Minister. A decision had to be made and, whatever the decision was, it was going to be a tough one. But tough decisions have made great leaders, as long as the decision was the right one. The PM looked towards the Director of Special Forces.

  “Martin, have you still got SAS on the ground in Syria?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Have you got enough to raid the Presidential palace in Latakia, arrest the President and fly him back to the UK for trial?”

  “You know he will resist arrest of course?”

  “Then use whatever force is necessary to ensure the safety of your men.”

  “Deadly force?”

  “Yes. Deadly force. But the mission is a mission to arrest and not a mission to assassinate. If however, the President was to resist arrest and the arresting team felt under immediate danger, then deadly force would be appropriate.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand. I will have to send another team in, but that is not a problem.”

  “Okay gentlemen. That is the conclusion of the meeting and is obviously to remain top secret until the successful outcome of the arrest mission.”

  There was a general nodding of heads in agreement. The meeting was closed.

  ~10~

  The rain had started pouring down again in Bangkok. Danny sat high up on his balcony overlooking the Chao Phraya River. He was dressed in only a towel wrapped around his waist. He held a cigarette in the fingers of one hand and a glass of brandy in the other. He watched the huge barges, three and four at a time, being pulled along by powerful little tug boats. Restaurant boats, hotel boats, passenger ferry boats and even little fishing boats, all came and went along the river below him. Huge buildings towered all around like a forest of glass and cement. The city could swallow people up and often did. Meiwa could sense Danny’s melancholy mood and left him alone on the balcony with his thoughts. She lay on the bed, wrapped in a bath towel, and watched a Thai programme on the TV. Danny walked back into the room and Meiwa got up off the bed to kiss him. He smelt of brandy and cigarettes. The smells were as heavy as his mood. Meiwa fell back onto the bed and rolled over getting up onto all fours. She looked over her shoulder.

  “Fuck me Danny” she whispered.

  Danny pulled at his towel until it dropped to the cream tiled floor and took a few more paces until he was up behind Meiwa. He went through the motions of having sex with Meiwa, but he was thinking about something else. He was thinking about Nok and how he could find her. She had been his friend for a long time. More than a friend! He felt guilty; guilty about being unfaithful to his wife, guilty and responsible about what had happened to Nok, guilty that he was drinking again. He knew he wasn’t such a good man, he knew he had too many weaknesses and he wondered why Ling loved him. He wondered why Nok loved him and he wondered if Meiwa was falling in love with him!

  After they had finished making love they both wrapped themselves back up in the towels.

  “Meiwa, I need you to go to the land registry office and see if the Pink Lady is registered to Wok Chin.”

  “Then what?”

  “I want you to see what else is registered in his name.”

  “What if the building isn’t in his name?”

  “Actually, it probably won’t be. But look at whatever is named on the deeds, whether it is a company name or an individual. I want to know what else they have registered under the same name.”

  “Okay Danny. I’ll shower and get on it, but it might cost!”

  “No problem. Pay whatever we have to pay. There must be more places like the Pink Lady and we have to find them. We have to find Nok.”

  After twenty minutes Meiwa was showered and dressed and, with just a hint of make-up, she looked fantastic. She kissed Danny on the cheek. He returned to the half empty bottle of brandy that was waiting for him back out on the balcony. He missed his wife and his family and he knew what a wretched man he was without them. He decided that, as soon as he found Nok, he was going to go back home and confess all to Ling and beg for her forgiveness. It was a drunken idea, but it seemed like a good drunken idea. Danny tried to hold onto it as other thoughts and ideas came and went into his wandering drunken mind. He liked this stage of drunkenness. Too drunk to walk or even move very much, but not drunk enough to be unconscious. His mind was free and it flashed back at random over his life and into a bizarre future, which may or may not be his future. Lost in a drunken mind maze he carried on fuelling the trip.

  When Meiwa returned with the information, Danny was asleep on the floor. He didn’t look as if he had fallen, but maybe he just didn’t make it to the bed. Meiwa put a pillow under his head and left him to sleep it off. She woke him up at 10:00pm with coffee. He had already been asleep for hours and she didn’t want him to sleep on the floor all night.

  “Jesus! What’s the fecking time?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “In the morning?”

  “No. At night.”

  “Why did you wake me up?”

  “Because I wanted to know if you were still asleep!”

  Danny’s mind was still too pickled to unlock that particular Thai statement, so he just nodded and sipped at the coffee. It was bitter.

  “Why am I on the floor?”

  “You wanted to sleep on the floor.”

  Danny nodded and, happy with the explanation, he didn’t challenge it.

  “Did you find out anything, Meiwa?”

  “Yes. I find out lots. But first you go and shower and wake up properly.”

  “No. You’re grand. I’ll stay here. What did you find out?”

  “No. First you shower and wake up.”

  “Jesus!”

  Danny struggled to his feet and walked to the bathroom. He stood under a cold shower for longer than usual and, when he came back into the room, a fresh coffee was waiting for him, which was as bitter as the first one, but he drank it.

  “What did you find out?”

  “The Pink Lady is registered to a company called ‘Tiger Holdings Ltd.’ and the company has many buildings and a lot of land registered to it. Tiger Holdings is registered to Wok Chin.”

  “Jesus! It’s going to be like trying to find a needle in a haystack!”

  “Maybe not, Danny. Of all the properties registered to the company, I think only another two are probably locked br
othels. The Mango Tree Club and the Dark Angels Club. I think the rest are legitimate businesses.”

  “Well done, Meiwa. Where are these clubs?”

  “Both in Bangkok. I have the addresses.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow. I think I might go back to bed now.”

  “Good idea.”

  ~11~

  The Mango Tree Club was a similar building to the Pink Lady, but just in another part of town. The Mango Tree was in a quiet soi on the edge of Chinatown. A three story grey cement building, sandwiched between other buildings, which all looked the same. Many of the other buildings in the small soi were low-end guest houses that provided somewhere to sleep for European backpackers. Danny wondered if any of the female backpackers ended up in places like the Pink Lady, Dark Angels or the Mango Tree, which was the building he was looking at now.

  Just like the Pink Lady, there was only one way in and out and, just like the Pink Lady, two powerful looking Thai men stood on guard at the entrance to the place. Danny assumed that they were armed. He assumed correctly. It was just after 9:00am and Danny watched as men started to enter the Mango Tree. He walked towards the front door and was greeted by nods from the two guards, one of whom opened the door for him. It was a bigger building than the Pink lady, but the layout wasn’t much different. This place had the first room on the left converted into a reception. The receptionist was young and pretty, just like the one in the Pink Lady. There was a blackboard behind her marked out in exactly the same manner as the Pink Lady blackboard.

  Danny saw that a Thai lady called Nok was in room five. She didn’t have an X or a time against her name. Room five was on the first floor. There were two more guards sitting in the reception and there were a total of 14 girls locked in rooms at the Mango Tree. One of the guards took Danny up to room five. The room was bare except for a metal framed bed, which stood on wooden floorboards. The walls were grey cement and the window had been bricked up. A light bulb hung down from a single flex in the middle of the ceiling and it gave off an eerie light and cast a sinister shadow around the edges of the room. A naked woman was chained to the bed. Her back had been mutilated. Someone had carved the word ‘Dog’ in big letters down her back. They had cut in deep and, although already several days old, the wounds were not healing well. The woman was Nok.

  She turned and saw Danny and started crying.

  “Oh, tee rak! I knew you would come for me.”

  She was in pain when she tried to move.

  “Jesus! Who did this to you Nok?”

  “Borg carved up my back before he gave me to Wok Chin. He used a Stanley knife. It hurts, tee rak! Is it bad?”

  “It looks pretty bad. He has carved the word ‘Dog’.”

  “I know. He told me as he was doing it.”

  “How did he get you?”

  “He took me at gun point. I thought he was going to kill me, but this is even worse.” She put up her hand to feel the new bumps and bruises that customers of the Mango Tree had left her with.

  “Holy Jesus!…………..”

  “Mother of God!” Nok finished Danny’s sentence for him. She tried to smile, but it was a sad smile and her damaged lip cracked open again and a trickle of blood dribbled from it.

  “Are you taking me with you, tee rak?”

  “Yes Nok! I am! But I have to go away on my own first. There are four guards in the place and I need something to fight them with. They are armed.”

  “Be careful, tee rak. When will you come back for me?”

  “In an hour or two. As soon as I have what I need, I will come back and get you Nok.”

  Nok put her hand on Danny’s and they looked at each other for a long time before Nok fell asleep. After the hour was up there was a knock on the door and a guard shouted “Time’s up.”

  “Nok, I’ll be back very soon. I promise.”

  “I know, tee rak. Khob khun mak ka.” (Thank you very much)

  Danny left the Mango Tree and went straight back to Meiwa and told her about Nok.

  “How are you going to get her out? You cannot go to the police. They will be paying big money to the police and, if you ask them to investigate, they will come up with nothing.”

  “I know. I’m going to have to do it myself. Meiwa we need a gun. Can you get one?”

  “Of course I can. This is Bangkok!”

  Danny fished out a bundle of 1000 baht notes from his wallet and gave them to Meiwa.

  “Okay. Go and get a gun, and we need a car.”

  “Do you want me to hire one?”

  “No. I’ll steal a car. You get the gun. Meet you back here as soon as you get one. I’ll settle up with the hotel. When we get Nok we’ll be going straight back to Phuket.”

  Danny put on an extra pair of shorts under his jeans and a tee shirt under his shirt.

  They packed their things from the room and left the bags with reception. Danny paid the bill and they both left the hotel. Danny was the first one back with a white Honda Civic. It was brand new and still on red plates. He took the plates off another Honda and swapped them with the red ones on the stolen car. The red plates went into the river and he parked the car away from the hotel, so that he wouldn’t be seen with the car on the hotel’s security cameras. Meiwa arrived back at the hotel a short time later.

  “Did you get a gun?” asked Danny. Meiwa nodded.

  They collected their bags from reception and the young man behind the counter wished them a good day. They walked around the block to where Danny had left the car. Once inside the car, Meiwa opened her bag and handed Danny the gun. It was a Beretta 9mm with a five inch barrel and a black plastic chequered grip. It was showing some handling wear at the front of the frame, barrel, trigger guard and operating levers, but it worked okay and would do what Danny intended to do. She also had a box of bullets for it.

  “I got this as well.” Meiwa reached into her bag and pulled out a grenade.

  It was a Russian F1 grenade. It had a blast area of 200 metres and was effective within 60 metres.

  “Well done Meiwa! Jesus! They sell these in the market, do they?”

  “It’s a special market. But yes, they do!” she smiled. “I thought that these might be useful too.” She handed Danny a pair of small bolt croppers.

  “I hope they are big enough to cut through the chain!”

  “I hope so too.”

  “How are you going to get all this stuff inside?”

  “Down my trousers!”

  They pulled up at the end of the soi and Danny pointed out the Mango Tree to Meiwa.

  “In about eight minutes the shooting is going to start. As soon as it does, you drive to that building and wait for me with the engine running. Okay?”

  “Okay. Good luck Danny.”

  “Thanks.”

  Danny walked along the soi and was greeted with nods from the guards. They gave no sign if they remembered him or not from earlier, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Danny went left into the reception and saw that Nok had an X and a time against her name, which meant that there was a ‘customer’ with her. The room next door had no customer.

  The receptionist did recognise Danny.

  “Back again already” she smiled.

  “Yes. But I want a different girl this time. The one this morning was all cut up.”

  “No problem, sir. Which one would you like? I have five still available.”

  “I’ll take the black girl in room six.”

  Danny paid and was escorted to the room as the receptionist placed the X and the time on the blackboard. The room was identical to the room next door in which Nok was being held. The girl chained to the bed was black and aged about twenty five years old. She muttered something in French and spread her legs. Danny ignored her and waited for a few minutes to g
ive the guard plenty of time to return to the reception area. The black girl was lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling. She didn’t see Danny take out the gun and leave the room, closing the door behind him. Danny turned the handle of room five and went inside. Nok was lying on the bed and a farang man was on top of her. He didn’t see Danny come into the room. Danny cracked him around the head with the gun.

  The man rolled off Nok holding his bleeding head.

  “Ouch! Fucking hell! That hurt!”

  Danny smacked him again at the base of the neck.

  “Ouch! What the fuck are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to knock you out, you fecker.”

  The man lay down on the floor and closed his eyes.