Tunnel Rats

by Vincent Zandri

  Cindy grins amusingly. “How about a little on-the-house boom boom between coworkers?”

  “Great minds,” Sam says, unbuttoning his shirt. “Great big minds.”

  The alarm goes off at two-thirty in the morning. Sam awakes with a start. He’s still not over the time change and, as a result, he fell into a very deep sleep. Taking a quick glance at the empty mini-wine bottle he pilfered from the fridge bar, he realizes it wasn’t only his exhaustion that led to his deep sleep.

  “The booze will do it every time,” he whispers to himself.

  Next to him, Cindy is pulling her covers off. She rises, her naked bottom staring him pleasantly in the face. The triangular area where her bikini blocked the sun is pale and somehow sexy. Sam is amazed at how attracted he is to her. Normally he goes for the tall, athletic type. But Cindy is small, almost petite. There is, however, something about her that he can’t quite put his finger on.

  Is it her hair, her eyes, her breasts, the way her bottom does a little jiggle when she walks?

  He honestly doesn’t know what’s making him feel this way other than she is beautiful and he just feels it. He slips out of bed while she heads into the bathroom and brushes her teeth. He realizes he’s left all his toiletries in his personal room down the hall. Getting dressed, he sneaks into the bathroom.

  “All my junk is in my room,” he explains.

  Cindy holds out her toothbrush. “We had our tongues down one another’s throats last night,” she says with a mouthful of toothpaste. “Among other things. You’re more than welcome to use mine.”

  She spits the toothpaste into the sink. Suddenly, he likes her even more. No, that’s not right. He’s in love with her even more now. As serious as their job is, she doesn’t take life seriously. She doesn’t take herself seriously. Maybe that’s why Sam finds himself falling fast and hard for his asset. A sense of humor. It’s as attractive to Sam as her naked jiggly bottom.

  At ten minutes before three o’clock, Sam and Cindy do their best to slip out of the hotel without being spotted by Channy. The terrorist should still be fast asleep. Theoretically speaking, that is. But Sam and Cindy both know anything can and will happen. They must always be prepared for that. The last thing Sam wants is a confrontation with Channy while standing in the lobby awaiting his own ride to the same location. If that were to occur, Sam would have to make something up like, “Well, you caught me, Channy. Cindy agreed to sleep over, and I promised to get her home safe and sound.” It might not be all that believable, but it would be believable enough.

  The lobby is dim, almost dark. A concierge different from Trah Bing is on duty for late night arrivals, but he seems too preoccupied with his smartphone to take any real notice of Sam and his asset. The two quickly make their way out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk. At this hour of the morning, Bangkok is mostly asleep. There are other popular sections of the city that won’t sleep until daylight, but they are located further in the center of the city. The infamous Cowboy Soi red light district is one of them.

  A driver pulls up in a black sedan with tinted windows. He gets out and silently nods at Cindy then opens the rear door for her, and she gets in. Sam follows.

  Settling back behind the wheel, the driver pulls away from the curb and drives. He never once asks where they are going since, no doubt, Cindy already informed him of their precise destination.

  She is a professional, after all, Sam thinks. She is a beautiful and dangerous asset.

  By the time the banks of the River Kwai come into view, the sun is rising red-orange on the horizon. Cindy has slept most of the way while Sam stayed awake, staring out the window. He couldn’t possibly sleep a wink knowing Channy would be meeting with the one man who would be supplying the terrorist with the destructive tools of his trade.

  As a former Army Ranger and a veteran Sky Marshal, he’s not the type to get nervous before an operation of this importance. Correction, the nerves are always there. Fact is, nerves are a good thing. They keep your wits about you when things get hot. They warn you about impending danger. Make you duck at the appropriate times and run away during others. Anxiety is different—it has never been a problem for Sam.

  But ever since they left Bangkok, Sam has been feeling his built-in-danger-detector kicking into high gear—a sixth sense located in his gut somewhere between his stomach, his heart, and his soul. At present, it seems to know something that Sam’s brain doesn’t. It’s sending him a warning, and it’s that warning that’s keeping him from nodding off, despite his lack of sleep.

  Something doesn’t feel right, he tells himself.

  He pats the .45 on his hip. Feels the solid weight of the 9mm strapped to his ankle and the fighting knife balancing it out. He glances at Cindy as she opens her eyes to the new day and shifts in the seat so that she’s sitting up straight.

  “I guess I fell asleep,” she says. “We must be there by now.”

  Sam glances out the rear window at the river running slow and brown. Up ahead, he can make out an old metal span trestle railroad bridge. He knows from his history that the metal bridge was built after U.S. forces blew up the wood bridge constructed by POWs who were being used as slaves by their Japanese captors. He also knows a part of that old wooden bridge still exists and is now a part of a museum. If his mission were more peaceful, he would take the time to browse the museum and play the part of the tourist.

  He places his hand on Cindy’s knee. “I could use a coffee right about now,” he says just as a bullet enters through the driver’s side window and strikes the driver’s head, sending a spray of blood, bone, and brain matter against the passenger window.

  As the fatally wounded driver drops onto his right side, the car makes a sharp right turn. So sharp, Sam swears the vehicle is about to flip over. But just as quickly as the car goes right, it veers sharply to the left.

  “Shit!” Sam barks as he fights off the G-forces and leans into the front of the car, yanking the dead driver out of the way. If Sam doesn’t manage to grab hold of the wheel and get the car under control, they will roll down the bank and into the Kwai River. He jumps into the driver’s seat, slips behind the wheel, grabs it with both hands in an attempt to get it under control. The car is fishtailing and swerving on the soft shoulder of the road. Rear tires are spitting gravel. “I knew something wasn’t right. I could feel it in my belly.”

  Another shot hits the windshield putting a nickel-sized hole in it.

  “Who the hell is doing the shooting?” Cindy barks.

  Sam looks at her reflection in the rearview. He sees her draw her weapon as she rolls over onto her knees until she’s staring out the rear window.

  “No one is following us, Sam,” she adds. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Sam speeds toward the bridge. The road is uneven, mostly gravel covered. He looks over one shoulder and then the other. On his left is the river. On his right, nothing but rice fields. Directly ahead is the bridge and the small village of Kanchanaburi which is also home to the Kwai train station.

  Another bullet smacks the windshield. It barely misses Sam’s head.

  “Jesus,” Sam says, “I felt that one go by.”

  He gazes into the rearview, prays Cindy isn’t hit. He breathes a major sigh of relief when he sees that she’s unharmed.

  “Someone’s sure as hell shooting at us, Sam,” she says. “Those bullets aren’t heaven sent.”

  That’s when Sam spots something hovering above them.

  “Maybe not heaven,” he says, “but those bullets definitely are coming from above.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a drone,” he says. “There’s a drone tailing us, and it’s armed with an automatic rifle.”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” Cindy barks, flipping herself back around. “That’s science fiction.”

  “Not at all,” Sam says. “Our own military has been experimenting with armed drones for a while now. They’re used all the time against U.S. troops by t
he Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and now Syria.”

  Another bullet enters through the driver’s side window, again barely missing Sam’s head. The same bullet exits through the passenger side window. The car swerves and bucks.

  “That’s enough of that,” Sam says, slamming on the brakes.

  “Christ, Sam,” Cindy shouts, “what are you doing?”

  “What I do best,” he says. “I’m gonna kill that fucking drone.”

  He gets out, pulls out his .45, aims it at the unmanned flying machine. The attached rifle fires at Sam. Rounds explode at his feet. Sam holds his ground, takes careful aim, shoots. Not one but three rounds. The bullets not only nail the drone, the machine breaks up mid-air, crashes to the ground.

  Sam gets back in the car. “That takes care of that,” he says, settling himself back behind the wheel. He gazes at the dead driver slumped over in the passenger seat. “Now, we gotta figure out what we do with him.”

  “Not yet, Sam,” Cindy says.

  “What do you mean not yet?” Sam says.

  She slaps him on the shoulder. We’ve got company, and they don’t look like friendlies to me.”

  The truck comes up on them fast. It’s a full-sized Toyota pickup 4X4. Sam can see that it’s not only got one hell of an engine, it’s also armed with a tripod-mounted .30 caliber machine gun in the back bed. He spots the terrorist manning the machine gun—a small, compact man dressed in black with a black scarf wrapped around his face, exposing only dark eyes. He’s cocking back the machine gun’s housing, taking careful aim. He’s pressing the trigger. Sam sees and hears the fiery rounds spraying out of the machine gun barrel.

  What’s left of the back windshield blows out. Rounds ricochet against the metal. Anything made of plastic explodes and shatters.

  “Get down, Cindy!” Sam screams as he hits the gas, the wheels beneath them spinning until they catch on hard gravel.

  “I am down,” she barks back.

  “Shoot back at them already,” he insists. “Kill anything that moves!”

  Sam keeps his eyes on the road ahead while glancing back and forth into the rearview. He sees Cindy taking aim at the truck while trying her best to keep her head down. She pops off a few rounds, managing to nail the truck’s front grille and the windshield. But her well-placed rounds don’t seem to slow the bandits in the slightest. Another burst of machine guns sound off. The rounds blow away most of the passenger seat. They nail the driver in the head and shoulders. Not that he can feel them, Sam thinks.

  “We’ve got to figure out a way to lose these assholes!” Sam shouts. “Christ, I feel like I’m in Syria, not Thailand.”

  “Welcome to the new world order, Sam Savage,” Cindy shouts.

  Sam sees the village ahead coming up. Fast. The crowds of people occupying the road begin scattering. Some are staring at the speeding vehicles from the sides of the road, their faces flush with alarm. One old woman is desperately pulling a cow out of the road by its harness. One man pushes a cart filled with fruit out of the way. A tuck-tuck pulls over, the driver shouting an obscenity.

  It’s amazing I haven’t run anyone over . . .

  Another burst of machine gun fire enters through the busted back window and shatters what’s left of Sam’s windshield.

  In the distance, he can plainly make out the train station dead ahead. What he doesn’t see is the wheeled cart stacked with boxes and luggage that’s no doubt intended to be loaded onto an outbound train. Instead, Sam runs into it, sending the stuff flying into the street.

  “Did they have to park the damn thing in the middle of the road?” he yells.

  Another glance in the rearview. He sees the truck right on his tail.

  “What are we gonna do Sam?” Cindy barks. “We’re running out of road, and we can’t shake these killers.”

  The road runs out.

  “End of the line, Cindy!”

  Sam turns the steering wheel frantically, making donuts in the small turnaround outside the train station. The truck stops only a few feet away, its .30 caliber spitting out round after round, some of the bullets nailing the sedan and blowing out all four tires, others hitting the train station, but most of them ricocheting off the exposed rails and hard ground. The people waiting for the train run for cover behind an old brick wall near the single-story train station.

  Sam is desperate to get him and Cindy the hell out of there in one piece. That’s when he notices the tracks that lead to the trestle bridge over the River Kwai.

  “I think I know what we’re going to do,” he says, a sly smile painting his face.

  “Oh no,” Cindy says. “You’re not about to do what I think you’re about to do.”

  “No choice,” Sam insists. “Hang on tight.”

  Sam whips the wheel so that the car is heading toward the incline that leads up to two narrow parallel gauge rail beds. Sam hits the brakes and turns the wheel sharply to the left, positioning the car’s blown out tires onto the rails. He gazes once again into the rearview mirror at the truck still on his tail . . . and still firing at him.

  Despite the bullets, Sam finds himself smiling.

  “We’re in luck,” he says. “These deflated tires are perfect for riding the rails.”

  The sedan acts like a mini train as it makes its way toward the railroad bridge. Sam grips the wheel, keeping it steady and straight to prevent the tires from slipping off the narrow rails.

  “Here’s we go, Cindy,” he says. “Be ready to jump if I give you the word.”

  “Whaddaya mean jump?” she questions.

  As the sedan enters the trestle bridge, Sam glances at the rearview and sees the truck is still on his tail. They’re also riding the rails. Suddenly, it seems like they are airborne as Sam drives over the deep river gorge. Trying to keep the sedan’s tires on the rails isn’t as easy as he assumed it might be. Sam can feel the car sliding to the left. But somehow, he’s gaining speed and managing to pull ahead of the truck.

  Takes a lot of balls to follow me onto this bridge. These guys are crazier than I am . . .

  For a second, optimism fills his insides, but the optimism is short-lived when he hears the train whistle. Staring directly ahead, he comes face to face with his greatest fear—the Kanchanaburi-bound train bearing down on him.

  “Holy crap,” Sam screams. “Cindy, get ready to jump!”

  The train whistle blows. The high-pitched screeching of locomotive wheels braking against the metal tracks pierces Sam’s eardrums. The train is barreling for the car. Sam scooches up against the seat, lifts his legs and presses his feet flat onto the driver’s seat. He pulls his torso out the window.

  “Cindy!” he shouts, “give me your hand!”

  He extends his right hand toward Cindy, he has his left hand pressed flat on the car’s roof. Holstering her gun, she takes hold of his hand.

  “Slip into the front!” he demands.

  Without letting go of his hand, she shifts herself through the opening in the seats over the sedan’s center console. The locomotive whistle is blaring, the brakes are screaming, sparks flying, the trestle bridge trembling. The train is barely five-hundred feet away.

  “Here we go!” Sam insists.

  “Where?” Cindy screams.

  “Over the side!” he asserts, waiting for an opening between the oddly angled metal trestle supports.

  Yanking the small woman from the driver’s side seat, she and Sam go hurtling through the air, dropping like human stones into the river, seventy feet below.

  Sam wonders if he’s dreaming. Or dead? He knows he hit the water so hard everything went black. When his hold on Cindy gives way, she seems forever lost to him. As the blackness turns to daylight, Sam realizes he’s still underwater. Recalling his Army Ranger training, he instinctively knows enough not to take a breath and to allow his body’s natural buoyancy to cause him to rise to the surface.

  What he hears and sees is nothing short of surreal. The Kwai locomotive colliding with the sedan and the
pickup truck, both vehicles going over the side of the trestle bridge, the terrorists who occupied the truck screaming as they drop into the river like ragdolls. Sam watches it happen, but at the same, he feels like he’s experiencing it all from another dimension . . . like he’s actually drowned and is viewing everything out-of-body.

  His head barely above water, the vision of the crashed train comes and goes from consciousness like the light inside a room being turned on and off again and again and again.

  “Cindy,” he cries out.

  But he gets no answer.

  And then . . .

  When he wakes, Sam finds himself very much alive. He also finds himself inside a dank, dark place. If not for a small square of light sneaking through a high overhead opening, he would be surrounded by complete darkness. A chill from the dampness sends a shiver through him. He smells the aroma of mustiness and decay. It doesn’t take long to realize that he has been tossed inside some kind of underground cell.

  Positioning himself on his hands and knees, he feels his way around the mold-covered concrete floor. The walls are brick and also covered in mold. His fingers come into contact with a set of flat iron bars covered in rust. He estimates the cell to be maybe four feet by five feet.

  The cell is small, cramped, claustrophobic, wet, and the rancid odor triggers his gag reflex. It’s not like he’s been tossed into a brick and mortar room constructed by human hands but, instead, swallowed whole, his body now residing within the belly of the beast. Rather, not the belly, but the colon.

  He touches his torso as if to make a blind inventory of his body parts. He’s still wearing his damp work-shirt, his even damper jeans, and his soaked through jungle boots. But his .45 is gone. When he feels both ankles, he realizes the fighting knife and the backup 9mm have also vanished. Finally, he feels for his smartphone, but he needn’t have bothered. It’s also long gone. At least he was smart enough to store his wallet and passport in the safe at the hotel back in Bangkok.