Death Trip

by Lee Weeks

  ‘I’m trying.’ Jake could hear that Thomas was close to tears, breathless from the effort. Now Jake heard the whir of Weasel’s bamboo cane coming down harder, faster, and more viciously. The men laughed as Thomas screamed out in pain.

  ‘Stop it,’ Jake shouted back. Thomas couldn’t hide his distress. He was crying and yelping with the pain and fear and Weasel’s demonic giggling grew more manic and shriller as he chased him with the stick and its movement became harder and quicker as it sang in the air.

  Handsome came alongside and Jake said, ‘Make him stop.’

  But Handsome only grinned at Jake as the noise of Weasel’s cane and the sound of Thomas’s crying suddenly stopped, only the grunting of the men continued. Jake turned to see if Thomas was all right. But he was gone and so was Weasel.

  8

  Magda sat with her head in her hands, scanning the table as if she was too scared to keep looking at it but too scared to look away. She had taken off her long wig and now had a silk scarf wrapped around her bald head. She leant forward, resting her elbows on the table as she thought.

  ‘But we want to help,’ she said as she looked from Alfie to Mann.

  ‘You will be more help to me here,’ said Mann. ‘You have to trust me on this, Magda. I will do everything that is humanly possible to get Jake home.’

  Magda looked spent, overwhelmed by the hundreds of sticky notes, maps and other pieces of paper scattered around.

  Alfie thought hard and then nodded. ‘I understand what you are saying, Johnny. We each have a part to play. We must work as a team.’ He got up, opened the fridge, and pulled out three beers. ‘First we need to tell Johnny what we know, before we get all these maps out.’ He came back over and gently moved the maps to one side.

  Magda took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes and spoke quietly.

  ‘It was supposed to be a fantastic trip for Jake. He has had a hard time in the last year, with my illness and everything. I didn’t want it to stop him going. I was in remission when he left. This week I found out I have secondary and I can’t have any more chemotherapy. I just have weeks left.’

  Alfie took the tops off the beers and set them on the table, careful not to touch the map; then he placed his hand on Magda’s shoulder and gave her a supportive squeeze before sitting back down.

  ‘We live for today and today you are still here and Jake is still in the jungle. And today we have new help. We have Johnny Mann. We have hope.’

  ‘Tell me from the beginning, Magda. How did it all come about?’ asked Mann.

  Magda looked down at her hands, gripping the edge of the table without realising she was doing it. ‘They wanted to do something fantastic together before going to university.’

  ‘Why did they choose a volunteer project inland? Usually the kids head to a beach somewhere like Koh Samui, just lie around and smoke weed for a few months.’

  Alfie answered for her. ‘Jake didn’t want to go to the usual places, to the south, the beaches. They all agreed that they wanted to help someone. We researched it—found out about the Karen people who have been displaced from Burma. There’s been a civil war going on there for sixty years. The hill tribes are forced out of their villages, they end up in refugee camps along the Thai/Burma border…They were going to help build a school there. We thought it would be a great opportunity for him.’

  Magda held up her hand. Alfie paused.

  ‘I thought it best to go there.’ Magda closed her eyes and clenched her hands in mid-air as she shook her head emphatically. ‘It was my idea. I was so wrong.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Magda.’ Alfie placed his hand over hers. ‘You are not the one to blame.’ Magda smiled gratefully at him and sighed deeply.

  ‘So, what have you been told?’ asked Mann.

  ‘We got a phone call from the people at NAP to tell us that the camp had been attacked.’

  ‘Is that the company that sent them out?’

  ‘Yes. Netherlands Adventure Project. We got a call from Katrien—I call her the Bitch—who runs it. She told us there was likely to be a ransom demand. She didn’t know how much then. But she said we should get our homes on the market, look at taking out loans, anything we could, as the Dutch government were definitely not going to pay.’ Alfie gave a grunt of disgust as he swigged his beer. ‘I tell you.’ He shook his head with disbelief. ‘She is the coldest bitch on the earth.’ He slammed his beer down. ‘She talks to us as if Jake being kidnapped is a trivial matter. They are supposed to look after the kids—they take big money from them to send them into this. She is a lying little bitch.’

  ‘Alfie, please…’ Magda held up her hand.

  ‘Sorry…sorry…just makes me so mad,’ Alfie said and went back to drinking his beer.

  ‘What did you tell her?’ Mann asked Magda.

  ‘I said we did not have any money. All the parents said the same. We are all doing everything we can; we have our homes up for sale, but people are not buying at the moment. We don’t have any savings—even if we did, it would never be enough.’

  ‘She came to see us,’ added Alfie.‘She walked in here, dressed all in black as if she was coming to a funeral. She looked around the place as if she was trying to see how much we were worth. Then she said they were asking two million US.’ Alfie shook his head. ‘It may as well be fifty million. We don’t have it.’

  ‘Did she say where the ransom demand came from?’

  ‘She said it was from a breakaway group of Karen freedom fighters.’

  ‘Did you talk to anyone in the government?’

  ‘Yes, some stuffed shirt. They say only that the Burmese are doing everything they can to help. There is a Commander Boon Nam from the Burmese army who is leading the rescue mission. This is him…‘ Magda pointed to a photo on the board of a stocky-looking man with a moustache in full military uniform. He looked smug, vain, thought Mann. His eyes looked coldly back into the lens. ‘…but when it’s Burma, who knows?’

  ‘And then the political situation kicked off,’ said Alfie. ‘Suddenly we stop getting any news. There’s trouble in Thailand, a military coup about to happen, there’s trouble in Burma, it’s politically unstable and they’re killing the monks. Laos has fighting on the borders.’

  The room fell silent as the fridge hummed away and the cat ate its food. Laughter drifted up from the street below. Magda held her face in her hands and closed her eyes as she said: ‘We can’t wait any longer. We don’t have the time. I don’t have the time. I must have him home now. Please God, before I die, let me know he is safe. They say we have to be patient. They tell us—it will be all right. They will survive. They will come home. No one will die.’ She shook her head as if suddenly it was all too much, all hope had left her. She stared at her hands for a few seconds before lifting her head and looking straight into Mann’s eyes. Her eyes were glassy like cloudy sapphires. ‘It doesn’t matter what they say. I am so close to my son. We dream the same dreams sometimes.’ She gave a sad smile. Tears fell freely now and landed on the map. ‘Now, every bone in my body, every beat of my heart, tells me my boy needs me, and every day takes him further from me and takes us both closer to death.’

  9

  Jake knew how much his mum would be missing him right now. He managed to slip his hand into his pocket and pull out the piece of paper. It was a photograph of them together on the beach. He unfolded its corner just enough to glimpse Magda’s smiling face looking back at him. Jake didn’t know what had made him print out the photo when they stopped at an internet café on the way up to Chiang Mai but he was so grateful that he had. Now the photo gave him hope that he would see his mother again. He knew that she would be thinking of him at that exact moment because they were so alike. Silently he told her that he loved her. He folded it back up and eased it into his pocket; he would not be able to open it again many more times; it was deeply creased where it had been folded too many times. From where they lay on a rough mattress of ferns and forest debris Jake could see the distant lig
hts of a town. Across from them, the five porters, four women and an old man, huddled together forlornly. Saw had forced them to come with them from the last village they had stayed in. Jake hadn’t seen them eat anything for days. They were being worked to death, carrying the heavy loads and never allowed to stop for a rest. He looked around at Saw’s men, they were drinking heavily and fights were breaking out. It was always the same when Saw left them.

  He had disappeared as soon as they made camp for the evening. From his place by the fire Weasel was watching Jake and the others. Jake looked across at Thomas. He felt terrible for him. He felt frightened for them all. Until today the attacks had just been threats: now they were real.

  ‘If he comes near me again—I will fucking kill him.’ It was the first time Thomas had spoken all evening.

  ‘It’s all right, Thomas. It’s all right…‘ Silke wrapped her arms around him as Thomas buried his head in his knees and continued rocking. Eventually he went quiet as he lay on his side. Jake could see that his eyes were wide open. Jake wanted to say something to help Thomas but he didn’t know what. Jake had never felt more helpless in all his life as he did now. He looked over at Weasel watching them.

  ‘Silke, sit up…‘ said Jake.

  ‘But Thomas is my brother. He needs me.’ Silke held Thomas and hugged him.

  ‘You will make it worse for him. They think we’re all pathetic enough,’ whispered Jake.

  ‘I don’t care…‘

  ‘No, Silke, Jake is right. Please…‘ Thomas gently pushed her away and drew his knees back into his chest. ‘Don’t worry. I’m okay.’

  ‘Walk in the middle of us tomorrow, Thomas,’ said Jake. ‘Don’t give Weasel a chance to…‘ Jake stopped mid-sentence as Thomas rocked violently back and forth and moaned and cried. Silke went to hold him again but he turned away from her.

  ‘You don’t know what he tried to do to me…If Saw hadn’t stopped him because he was in such a hurry to keep moving, he would have done more.’ In the moonlight Jake could see Thomas’s eyes were full of tears, his face stretched tight and terrified. ‘You don’t know what he did to me, Silke.’ Silke put her hand on his arm. ‘No. Don’t, please, Silke, don’t touch me.’

  ‘You couldn’t have done anything, Thomas,’ Jake whispered as he looked across at Weasel, still with his eyes fixed on the group. ‘That bastard Weasel is a psycho.’

  ‘None of us could have done anything, Thomas,’ said Lucas and he looked across at Jake. Both of them seemed to hit on the same thought at the same time.

  ‘We need to escape.’ Jake looked across to Lucas. He nodded. Thomas said nothing. Anna smiled and nodded but Silke looked worried. ‘Saw’s gone somewhere tonight. I saw him leave. If he’s still gone tomorrow, then that’s our chance.’

  ‘How?’ whispered Thomas.

  ‘When one of the girls is tied to Toad,’ said Jake.

  ‘Yes, when it’s steep and he has to hold on to the branches, then he lets go of the rope around our neck,’ explained Anna.

  ‘Then that’s what we aim for,’ said Jake. ‘It’s getting steeper every day. We stay close and wait for our chance. We take our time, then hang back. Saw’s men will go ahead.’

  ‘Weasel’s always running on. He hates going slow,’ said Anna.

  ‘Yes, then we’ll be left with just Toad,’ agreed Lucas.

  ‘We keep an eye on Toad, make sure Handsome and Weasel are at the front, and we jump Toad at the back. We jump him, cut our ties, take his weapons and run.’

  ‘We will have to kill him,’ said Anna. ‘Who’s going to do it?’ asked Silke.

  They looked at one another. There was silence.

  ‘I will,’ replied Jake.

  10

  As Mann left the hotel the icy wind hit him full in the face. He pulled the collar of his navy cashmere coat up around his neck and he dug his hands into his pockets as the bitter chill made his eyes water. It had been a long time since he was this cold—probably not since he ran around a freezing rugby field in England when he was at school. He had left behind a beautiful thirty-degree day in Hong Kong to come to windchill factor six below in Amsterdam. Spring looked like coming late to the tulip fields that year.

  There was a lull on the streets as the rush to work was over and the tourists were not yet out in force. Mann cut a smart figure striding athletically across the cobbles, his eyes always fixed on the horizon. In the melting pot of Amsterdam society his Eurasian ethnicity, his mix of Chinese and English, didn’t look out of place, though his tanned face stuck out amongst the pasty look of people emerging from a European winter.

  The place he was looking for was situated on a side street in a five-storey merchant house that had once been a beautiful eighteenth-century building and was now carved up into at least thirty companies. Mann found the right intercom. He pressed the buzzer. There was a loud click as the heavy door lock was released and he was buzzed up. Standing in the hallway, he looked at the board of company names in the hall. NAP was on the second floor.

  There was the sound of clacking keyboards and muted telephone conversations as he emerged onto the second floor. NAP was one of three companies that had their offices there. The NAP office door was open. There were six desks that Mann could see, laid out in a herringbone fashion behind a long, modern, wood and chrome reception desk. There were two men and four women busy on PCs and phones. On the walls were posters of exotic faraway places.

  It was a plush office. So far as Mann could tell, it looked like the expedition industry was booming.

  Mann went inside and stood in front of the reception desk and waited for the young receptionist to remember that, when the buzzer sounded downstairs, it usually meant someone was on their way up. Her black metallic fingernails drummed away on the desktop whilst she rocked slightly in her seat and giggled into the phone. She had last night’s heavy makeup smudged under her eyes and her hair was flattened at the back of her head. It looked like she’d been lying on her back for most of the night but probably not sleeping. Her glitzy top revealed more than it covered up and she had the aura of stale wine, stale cigarettes and something else around her. When she finally looked up from her desk and saw Mann, she blinked, grinned and slammed the handset back on its base.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked in Dutch, tilting her head slightly to one side and then the other as she leant forward over the desk to show him some more cleavage.

  ‘You can if you speak English.’

  She giggled. ‘Of course, sir. What can I do for you?’ She played with her hair. It looked like she could do a lot, thought Mann, except he liked his women washed and at least ten years older.

  Mann placed his hands flat on the desk in front of her as he leant across. He gave a lingering look down her top and then he slid his eyes upwards towards hers as he gave her a big smile. She looked up at him, her eyes wide with surprise and delight. He could practically hear her panting. She was as excitable as a kitten with a new ball of string.

  ‘I am here to talk about the five volunteers who have been kidnapped,’ he said, a little too loudly, whilst keeping the smile. All other activity in the office stopped as all heads turned his way.

  ‘I’m sorry…‘ The receptionist blinked at him a few times. She lowered her voice instinctively as she lost her smile; just when she was beginning to think it was her lucky day. ‘We are not allowed to speak about that.’ She looked over her shoulder and smiled nervously at an older woman who had been watching and listening. She had a nameplate that said ‘Dorothy Jansen’ on her desk.

  Mann kept his hands on the desk as he gave a sweeping look around the room, before he stood up to his full height and brought his police badge out of his inside pocket. And, just in case anyone in the room was hard of hearing or had trouble with English, he pronounced the words slowly and precisely as he flashed his badge.

  ‘Hong Kong Police.’

  It wasn’t worth a damn here but he knew she didn’t know that.

  The receptionist lo
oked over at her colleagues for support but they looked away nervously and tried to act like it wasn’t their problem. Only Dorothy continued to watch the situation.

  ‘One moment, please.’ The receptionist stood, wriggling her micro black skirt down from where it was lodged at the top of her thighs, revealing a hole in her tights, before tottering away on her skinny legs and oversized platforms. She disappeared through the door at the back of the office. Whilst she was gone Mann looked around at the rest of the team. Only Dorothy was smiling back. She looked like she was in her late fifties. Probably come back to work after the divorce. She looked like she had something she wanted to say but wasn’t sure how to begin. She also had a look that said it couldn’t be said in front of everyone.

  The receptionist returned. Two minutes later a chiclooking woman in her late thirties appeared. She was olive-skinned. There was something Oriental about her appearance. She was five foot two at the most, size zero, short boyish hair with auburn lights in it. The way she was marching towards him as fast as her pencil skirt allowed, she reminded Mann of an angry wind-up doll in one of those horror movies. Her eyes were glued on him, beautiful but cold, hard and calculating: all black kohl eyeliner. Her full lips were perfectly painted in burgundy. In an otherwise casual capital like Amsterdam, this woman was a power dresser: a black, tiny-waisted jacket and a pewter-grey silk camisole tucked into the waistband of a black pencil skirt. Mann looked at her feet Victorian-style black ankle boots with aubergine-coloured straps lacing them, plus stiletto heels—she was a brave woman, given that the whole of Amsterdam’s centre was cobbled. She studied him as a female spider eyes a potential mate.

  ‘This is our manageress, Katrien.’ The receptionist smiled at him apologetically.

  The woman’s face remained stony as she said: ‘Follow me.’ This must be the Bitch that Alfie referred to. There would only ever be one woman in one office. Otherwise, like territorial rats, one would definitely have eaten the other.