The sun was not due to set until after eight o’clock so we planned on having an early dinner before heading to the next beach. Asia was already at the bar with Esteban and the girls when I walked over to meet them. Barrett was sat outside of his cabin with a bottle of beer and I thought it strange that he was not drinking with the others. He had his back to me and his view appeared to be split between the bar and the ocean. As I approached, I took a casual glance from side to side. The cabins were divided into two rows with the front ones directly facing the ocean and the rear ones just behind them. The difference between the two was about ten feet and two hundred Baht.
Esteban had one of the cabins in the rear. Everyone kept their doors shut to keep out unwanted visitors such as snakes or lizards, but I noticed that the Argentine’s door was clearly ajar even though he was at the bar. I assumed he had not closed it properly and the wind had blown it open. I walked over to close it for him when I detected movement from inside.
‘Hey!’ I instinctively called out as I ran towards the door.
Upon reaching it, I quickly pushed it fully open and stepped inside. The layout was identical to the one I shared with Asia. It even had a double bed, which unlike mine was perfectly made. I saw nobody in the bedroom so assumed whoever was in there had fled to the bathroom when they heard me coming. I took a step forward, but then suddenly felt a strong hand muzzle my mouth and drag me into the corner of the room. I struggled to break free, but my assailant was stronger than me and their hold proved immovable.
My initial suspicions fell on the mystery night swimmer. My mind overflowed with the possibilities of what might happen next. Would I be kidnapped, killed or simply knocked unconscious; left to wake up with a thunderous headache and even more painful questions buzzing around my mind. None of these things happened. Instead, my assailant merely asked me to stay calm and keep my mouth shut. It was a voice that I clearly recognised.
‘Esteban Cruz is not who you think he is,’ the man said. ‘I can explain everything, but first you are going to have to trust me. Do you understand?’
Sensing a trick, I continued to struggle against his hold.
‘Ben, listen to me,’ he said. ‘I think that Asia in danger.’
This time he got my attention. I stopped struggling and in turn I felt his grip on me loosen. I pushed his arms away from me and took a few steps deeper into the room. I did not attempt to flee.
‘What does breaking into my friend’s cabin have to do with Asia?’ I asked.
Clay crouched down beside Esteban’s backpack. He then reached into a side pouch from which he removed a manila envelope. He threw this onto the bed.
‘Before you ask any more questions, you should take a look at this.’
The envelope was not sealed and I peeled back the cover to peek inside. It contained a selection of large photographic prints. I slid the first one out and I realised at once that Clay was telling the truth. Esteban Cruz was certainly not who he claimed to be. The photo was of Asia, but it was not recent. It had been taken before Esteban had met her or even me for that matter. At least that is what I assumed. Evidently, he had an interest in Asia before the introduction at the full moon party.
‘There is more,’ said Clay, urging me to look further.
I tipped the rest of the envelope’s contents onto the bed. There was a selection of passports, all of which represented different nationalities. Though the name on each of them was different, the pictures were the same. They all belonged to Esteban Cruz, if indeed that was his real name.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What does all of this mean?’
Clay took the pictures and the passports from me and after putting them back into the envelope, he returned it to the side pouch of Esteban’s bag. He then moved closer to the bed and placed his hands underneath to retrieve something else.
‘Asia is his target. You merely got in the way; a problem that he has been trying to rectify.’
He slid a large black bag out from under the bed. It was the same bag I had witnessed being smuggled to shore the previous night. The story of the spear fishermen was an obvious lie as I now realised that Esteban had been the one on the boat. I almost did not want to know what was inside. As Clay peeled back the zip, I looked away fearing that a body would fall out.
‘You should look at this,’ he said.
I glanced over. There was no body in sight, but what I did see raised an even greater question.
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘What use could that possibly be to anyone; it’s been destroyed.’
He peeled back the vest of the BCD to reveal the cylinder attached to it. There were about a dozen scratches across its surface and there was a puncture at the bottom. A single tooth was still embedded in the aluminium casing. Clay reached his hand up to the point where the air tank had been attached to the vest. He turned his wrist as if attempting to unscrew or perhaps even just twist something loose. When I saw his hand again there was a palm sized metal device resting on it. It did not look like any part of the kit that I was familiar with.
‘What is it?’
Rather than passing it over for my inspection, he placed it into his pocket.
‘It’s a shark magnet.’
This was not something that I had ever heard of.
‘A shark magnet?’
‘All living things give off an electro-magnetic field. Sharks have tiny sensors built into their snouts that enable them to pick up on these signals. Each creature has a unique signature and the sharks can read this and use it as a hunting tool. The shark magnet gives off a pulse that is undetectable to a human, but easily read by a shark. They can be tuned to resemble the same signature pulse of an injured fish in distress. Big game fishermen use them to help them bring in the biggest catch.’
‘So these things are legal?’
‘Not quite.’ He returned the bag to its hiding place under the bed. ‘I’ll explain outside. It’s safer if we do not hang around here for too long.’
We left the cabin and I noticed that Clay refastened the padlock as we did so. He then led me back towards my own cabin. It put us out of sight of the bar, but I could see that Barrett was acting as a lookout.
‘Commercial shark magnets are much bulkier than what I just showed you and require an external power source. The fishermen attach the electromagnet to a battery by a waterproof cable that they lower into the water. The tech that we are dealing with here is much more sophisticated as it has its own power source. Of course, the compromise comes in the form of a greatly reduced battery life; possibly no more than a few minutes, but when you know that there is a shark close by that is enough.’
It did not take me long to figure out what he was implying.
‘You’re saying that Esteban was trying to kill me?’
‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘Your so called “friend” was very eager to exchange BCD’s with you when yours became damaged. A little too eager, maybe?’
I began to feel light headed.
‘He can’t have. You saw that my BCD was broken. That is why we exchanged.’
‘Not broken; sabotaged. Esteban deliberately rigged your air filter to jam so that he could give you the BCD with the shark magnet attached. It also gave him an excuse to stay out of the water. The plan very nearly worked too.’
The image of the tiger shark as it moved in for the kill was still clear in my memory. Could Esteban really have instigated the whole thing? It did not make any sense and Clay seemed to be able to come up with answers to my questions far too easily. Something was not right.
‘How do you know so much about all of this?’ I asked. ‘How do I know that you haven’t planted all of this evidence in his cabin?’
He took carefully measured glances over both of his shoulders before reaching into his pocket. He withdrew a small leather wallet, which he then flipped open and held up for my inspection. It looked no more special or secretive than any other form of ID that I had seen before. The left side comprised of a pass
port sized image of Clay and the right half was taken up with a large blue circle with a yellow border. Inside the circle was a white shield with a red star on it sitting below the head of a bald eagle. The words Central Intelligence Agency was embossed along the inside rim of the circle.
‘Is this some sort of joke?’ I asked.
If it was, he was not yet ready to reveal the punch line.
‘The security of my nation is no laughing matter,’ he replied, a little sternly.
‘So you’re telling me that you are a secret agent?’
‘Special Agent,’ he corrected. ‘And at this present time I believe that an American citizen is in extreme danger.’
‘So what are you going to do?’
‘The two options available to us are extraction or elimination.’
Elimination? It suddenly occurred to me that if indeed Clay was with the CIA, he may be carrying a gun. In fact, I would be wise to assume that he most certainly was. This changed things considerably. My life had been so much simpler five minutes earlier. It is amazing how much things can change in such a short space of time. If he was lying, it did not really matter what my next move would be as he would already have decided what he would do with me. If he was telling the truth though, it would be a big mistake not to cooperate with him.
‘Tell me about the extraction option,’ I said.
The plan was simple. The means of our escape had already been put into place. The only difference was that we would no longer be returning from our camping trip. At least not back to the resort anyway. Clay made a call on his satellite phone and arranged for a boat to pick us up at the beach. It went against all of my principles, but I agreed that we would keep Asia and the other girls in the dark for as long as possible. If Esteban was true to form then he would be watching us leave and if the girls knew that we were fleeing, their body language would only give the game away.
Under Clay’s instruction, I arranged to meet Esteban at the bar for a drink before leaving. He gave me a small pill to slip into the South American’s beer. He assured me that it was nothing more than a strong sedative and would do no lasting harm; just buy us enough time to get off of the island without being followed. I did as I was told and by the end of our drink together Esteban complained of light-headedness and repaired to his cabin to lie down.
***
‘Care to share your thoughts?’ Asia asked me as we progressed deeper into the bush.
The rocky coastline and high tide had meant that the safest means of passage was the inland route through the forest.
‘What do you want to know?’ I replied.
‘Why you keep looking over your shoulder every two minutes would be a good start. You don’t think that we’re being followed, do you?’
‘Followed?’ I tried my best to look perplexed by the question. ‘Why would I think we were being followed?’
I am not the greatest actor in the world. The pinnacle of my stage career was playing a shepherd in the school nativity play. I was given no lines, but did get to hold a toy sheep. Unfortunately, I had no such prop at my disposal to make my deception here any more convincing.
‘We are being followed,’ interrupted Barrett.
The American was at the rear of the group ensuring that we all kept pace whilst Clay led the way from the front. I was startled by his admission. Both he and his partner had been very clear about what we should not tell the girls. At least it drew Asia’s questions away from me. She immediately turned to her countryman to request clarification on his provocative statement. He looked at me smugly before offering his answer.
‘This is the jungle,’ he replied, knowingly. ‘Eyes and ears are everywhere. As I speak, a thousand different creatures are sizing us up. Most see us as a threat, but to some we are an opportunity as they taste our sweat on the wind.’
Asia’s eyes lit up with anticipation at the merest mention of danger.
‘Show me,’ she replied.
Barrett walked between us, brushing roughly into me as he did so. He then raised his arm up into the foliage of a tree and let it hover for a moment before sharply reaching down onto a branch and snatching something away from it. When he turned back to face us he had a small lizard clasped by its tail between his index finger and thumb. It was no bigger than a cherry on a stick.
‘That looks really dangerous,’ I said. ‘You better be careful it doesn’t chew one of your fingers off.’
He did not reply. In fact, he ignored my sarcasm completely. Instead, he just squatted down on the ground and brushed the tiny lizard teasingly against the grass before letting it go. It stayed completely still when he released it and it was only when he took a step back that it dared to move. Taking cautious steps first and then breaking into a full on sprint, it tried to return to its tree.
It never made it.
I did not see from where the snake came, only that it swallowed its prey in one perfectly timed lunge before slinking away into the bushes.
‘It would be wise for us to not stand about for too long,’ Barrett said. ‘There’s always a bigger snake.’
He winked to Asia and then carried on following the rest of the group. I wanted to hit him.
‘You heard the man,’ Asia said. ‘Let’s go.’
We quickly returned to our place in the middle of the pack. The English girls were not coping too well in the heat and did not ask what we had been doing. It took us about forty five minutes to complete the trail, but with the humidity it felt like double that time. Everyone was relieved when we finally made it to the clearing. It came as no surprise to me that there was a boat waiting for us when we got there.
‘I thought you promised that we would have this beach to ourselves,’ Asia called out to Clay when she saw the small vessel. ‘Somebody already beat us to it.’
‘There has been a change of plan,’ he replied. ‘I need you girls to all get on that boat. It will take you to safety.’
There were two men standing by the boat, which was actually no more than a dinghy. If they too were CIA, they did not look it. Both were Asian, possibly Thai, but it was difficult to tell in the failing light.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Asia, turning to me. ‘Why does he want us to get into a boat with strangers?’
‘I don’t have time to explain right now,’ I told her. ‘This island is no longer safe; I’ll explain once we are on the water.’
For the first time, she looked at me with disappointment in her eyes.
‘You knew about this?’
‘It’s a long story, but right now we have to get on that boat. Trust me; we may be in danger here.’
Izzie and Dee were also confused, but their boyfriends explained the situation to them much more effectively. The pair of them quickly ran down to the dinghy and threw their bags in the back. The two strangers helped them to climb aboard, whilst Asia reluctantly followed me down to the shore. Her sense of adventure, which had pretty much defined our relationship, had been replaced by apprehension. I had not seen her like this since the evening of the attempted mugging. She took off her sandals and climbed aboard first. I was about to join her when I was stopped by a restraining hand on my arm.
‘Not you, Ben,’ said Clay. ‘We have to do this in two trips. The boat will come back for us.’
Asia tried to climb back out, but one of the strangers stopped her. He pulled forcefully on her arm and in response I punched him on the side of his face. As he fell, he dragged Asia down with him and when I tried to help her up, he lunged at me. I was able twist out of his direct path and use his own momentum against him.
I grabbed onto his shoulders and pushed him down into the shallow water. By this time my adrenaline was pumping fast and after all of the scheming and suspicion that had burdened me for the previous twenty four hours, I was eager for a fight. Nobody had intervened to break us up so I moved in to hit him again. That was when I saw the gun.
‘Everybody stop!’ shouted Clay.
He took a few steps forward in
order to place himself directly between me and the man who was pointing the pistol. His next words were not in English, but they were effective. The second Asian, who had risen from his seat in the dinghy, lowered his firearm and then helped his friend to clamber back out of the water. I could see that the girls were all terrified and they waited eagerly for what Clay had to say next. As he had done earlier with me, he showed them his CIA badge.
‘I’m sorry that things have panned out the way they have,’ he said. ‘We never figured that any of you would be placed in danger. Barrett and I were on vacation until we learned that the head of an international drugs cartel was planning on setting up shop on this very island.’
He told the lie with such conviction that I was both surprised and disappointed that he had not just used it on me earlier. It would have been preferable to knowing the truth; that Esteban had been stalking Asia for at least the past month. Izzie and Dee accepted the information without question, but Asia was sceptical.
‘I’d sooner face a drug dealer than get on this boat,’ she said.
‘Unfortunately, you no longer have the luxury of choice,’ replied Clay. ‘This dinghy will take you to a ship that is moored 4km from the coast. You will be back in Bangkok within twenty four hours and from there we can take you to anywhere you want to go.’
‘What about our bags?’
‘We will retrieve what we can and forward it on. You will be fully compensated for any losses.’
‘Why can’t Ben and I travel in the same boat? I don’t want to leave him; let me stay to get the second.’
‘Ben stays with us,’ replied Clay. ‘Don’t worry; he will be with you soon enough.’
She did not look convinced. Her locket was around her neck and she clasped her hand over it securely.
‘Do not worry,’ I assured her. ‘I’ll be on the next boat and we’ll be together and far away from this place in no time.’
Stealing Asia Page 10
