And suddenly, she was back in Thailand, with all its contradictions and clamor and charm.
The plane banked and began its descent, and then the wheels were bumping down the runway, and they were taxiing to the private terminal, which turned out to be little more than a hut. She liked the place already. A warm breeze tugged at their hair as they strolled along the tarmac and approached the surrounding booths, Hannah clutching her hand, pulling her forward in her eagerness to explore new wonders.
The transaction for the rental car took longer than expected, and then she remembered where she was. Things didn’t ever seem to go quite as planned in Thailand, and on an island, where the pace was even slower than usual, progress was likely to be glacial. Eventually, the always-smiling attendant directed them to a little red Nissan sedan, and after studying the map, they set off in search of Matt’s new digs.
The southern side of Ko Samui was more developed than Jet had imagined, and she saw many familiar franchise names and endless rows of beach hotels with endless groups of wandering tourists milling on the sidewalks. It seemed that the unspoiled paradise that Matt had described to her had been discovered, and developer money had moved in, bringing with it the madding crowds. It happened everywhere, she supposed; there was no escaping it.
They rounded the tip and drove north, where things became much more rustic, all jungle and lush greenery, with few complexes marring the natural beauty. She checked the map again and then spotted the turnoff the clerk had marked, laughing in broken English as he’d remarked, “You’re never lost on an island – just late!”
They weaved down the road towards the beach, where she could make out several compounds of newly constructed resort buildings, then turned right on the frontage road, crawling along as they admired the natural beauty of the flawless turquoise water and glistening sand. It was idyllic. Paradise found.
“Look, Mommy. Smoke,” Hannah called from the back seat, pointing to an area a quarter mile away where a black cloud hung lazily over the strand.
Jet’s throat tightened as they approached the site of the fire. They rolled past a gutted lot, the foundation the only thing remaining of the building, the ground scorched and still smoldering, natives ruminating the rubble as a uniformed police officer waved them by. She tried engaging him in halting Thai, asking what had happened, but he shook his head and motioned for her to continue down the road. Outwardly she was calm, but inside, her heart was sinking.
Several hundred yards up the road, they came to a little market with an attached bar. Jet pulled into the gravel lot and shut off the engine. Five tourists were loitering at the bar, enjoying their beer, looking down the road at the wreckage.
She climbed out of the car, got Hannah free of her baby seat and approached them.
“Hey. What happened down there?” she asked.
“Big fire last night. Whole place went up. We’re staying right down the beach at the closest resort. I swear I heard shots, and then a big explosion, but everyone thinks I was drunk. The cops don’t want to hear about it. Lazy buggers.” The speaker’s face was red from sunburn and decades of heavy drinking, his Australian accent unmistakable.
“Really? What are they saying happened?”
“Hard to make it out with their jabber, but from the scuttlebutt at our hotel, the owner of the house and two workers were killed. Bodies were carted off earlier,” he said, then chugged half his bottle of beer.
Jet tried for a grin but felt bile rise in her throat and had to take deep breaths to keep from vomiting. She bantered and probed for any further information, but the Aussie holidaymaker didn’t know anything more. Her stomach in knots, she led Hannah into the market and asked about the fire, but got the same story from the woman working the scarred register.
“He nice man. Verrry handsome for a farang. Shame. Maybe he piss off wrong people,” she said, shaking her head.
“Why do you say that?”
“My cousin police. He say everyone shot in head. That always criminals. No accident.”
“Really. You wouldn’t happen to know what the address was, would you?”
The woman frowned, thinking.“I think it number nine. Don’t know. Nobody use address here.”
Jet paid for a bottle of water and thanked her, then pulled Hannah back outside. She looked down at the slip of paper with Matt’s address on it in her trembling hand. Number nine.
Vertigo hit her, and the beach seemed to spin giddily before it settled down and her vision cleared. Her heart pounded like a drum roll as she led Hannah back to the car, where she had to force several deep breaths before taking the wheel and pulling back towards the ruins.
The policeman glared at her as she crept by, eyeing the destruction, and then she picked up speed as she returned the way she’d come, suddenly wanting to be rid of the island as fast as possible.
“Mommy. Why cry?” Hannah asked, afraid she had done something wrong.
“It’s okay, honey. I was just thinking about a friend.” Her voice cracked, unable to continue.
Jet dried her eyes at the intersection and pulled onto the main road, the image of smoking devastation behind her receding in her rearview mirror as she accelerated towards the illusory safety of civilization, hoping she could get the next flight out.
<<<<>>>>
JET III ~ Vengeance excerpt
Prologue
Two Weeks Ago, Alatfain Valley, Yemen
The battered gold-tone Toyota Land Cruiser ripped down the dirt road, throwing up a cloud of yellow dust as it approached the desolate hamlet, which was deserted except for a Mercedes sedan – the lavish vehicle incongruous amid the wind-torn walls and half-collapsed structures of what had once been a hopeful little village, long abandoned to the encroaching desert.
The SUV rolled to a stop near the car and the rear doors flew open. Two men stepped out holding assault rifles. The front passenger door swung wide and a figure in a navy-blue pinstripe suit, carrying a briefcase, climbed from the cab and moved towards the nearest building, the black eel-skin valise gleaming in the harsh sunlight.
The gunmen surveyed their surroundings with suspicious eyes, though there was nothing to see but the dizzy haze of the ravaged land, distorted by the heat waves rising from the sand. A few miles in the distance, a ridge of hills shimmered with the same washed-out palette as the rest of the landscape.
The sand and dust permeated everything eventually. Even in the rarified atmosphere of the SUV, with filters for the filters, the fulvous essence of the desert seeped in, coating everything with a desiccated film.
The suited man seemed unfazed by the brutal heat, appearing for all the world to be a successful banker or businessman on his way to the office rather than an interloper in the inhospitable landscape. He stepped gingerly over the bloated corpse of a dead dog, ignoring the swarming congregation of black flies, and strode into the building past his bodyguards, whose postures conveyed agitation at this solitary rendezvous as their weapons swept the horizon.
“That’s far enough. Tell your men to stay back. Only you approach.” The sandpaper voice was abrupt, the accent harsh and foreign. Russian was obviously not the man’s forte.
“Of course. They are merely here to ensure we aren’t interrupted. I have no doubts about you, or I wouldn’t be here,” the suited man assured – his insincere half-grin tugging at his wormy lips. His Russian was fluid, languorous, musical, with the cadence of a native speaker. He made a gesture and the gunmen took positions in the shade just inside the clay brick entrance, one of them eyeing the aperture overhead where the roof had collapsed, the victim of an errant mortar round.
“You have brought what was agreed?” the robed man demanded, his thawb gathered around him as he sat cross-legged on the dirt floor. Armed with machine guns, three guards clad in the distinctive dress of the local tribesmen stood in the shadows at the far end of the room.
“Yes. A token of our intent. Enough so that you can verify our claims. And to save you some trouble, I a
lso brought you some footage of the effects on a volunteer.” The corners of the suited man’s mouth twitched the beginnings of a smile.
“Very well. Show me.” The seated man gestured for the suited man to approach.
As he reached into his suit pocket, the guards bristled, watching him as he slowly extracted a cell phone and held it out. The seated man rose and stood facing him, eyes fixed hawk-like on the screen.
A date and time indicator ticked away in the bottom right corner, revealing that the image had been captured three days prior. Static gave way to the drab gray of raw concrete walls, where a young man sat on a bunk behind bars, sipping a bowl of soup, obviously unaware that he was being filmed. Then the lighting changed subtly as the images jumped ahead an hour. The prisoner was pacing his cell, wiping perspiration from his face, his ragged shirt drenched with sweat stains, screaming in a panicked voice for his captors to help him. The time indicator jumped ahead another two hours: the man was now lying on his bunk, shaking and moaning, his body racked by tremors. Two more hours and he was convulsing, his face distorted by agony. Two hours further on his nose, mouth, and ears were seeping blood; his pants were soaked with it, a trail of crimson vomit on his shirtfront as he lay gurgling on the floor in a pool of his own making.
The robed man’s eyes flickered from the screen to the suited man’s steady gaze, then back to the image. One hour later: The corpse’s skin was discolored, bluish-black, already bloating from the pressure of internal gasses.
The final frame was of something barely recognizable as human: the epidermis split open, rotting as the flesh liquefied, horrifying to witness even on the tiny screen. The digital counter froze. Total elapsed time was a little over eight hours.
“And this can be introduced how?” the robed man finally inquired, his face betraying nothing.
“It was engineered for airborne delivery. Anyone breathing it will suffer the same fate as the man on the video.”
“Is it contagious?”
“No.”
The robed man grunted, and then returned to his spot on the floor.
“Can you make it contagious? So infection can occur without direct inhalation required?”
The suited man appeared to consider the question, as if it hadn’t been a topic of hot debate with his superiors. Eventually, he nodded.
“Anything can be done for a price. But it would be very time-consuming, and it isn’t simple.”
“It never is.”
“One of the concerns is that taken beyond its weaponized form and made contagious, we could not allow it into anyone’s hands until there was a one hundred percent effective antidote or vaccine. Otherwise this would be more than simply a bio-weapon. It would mean the end of human life.”
“Hmmm. Well, we don’t want that, do we? Just the end of some human life.” He motioned for the suited man to sit across from him on a blanket that had been placed on the ground for the purpose, and shifted on his own blanket. The suited man sat, as though this sort of meeting was a common one for him.
“I have a sample with me, which should be enough to try on a handful of subjects so you’re assured of its effectiveness. But I warn you, the bodies must be disposed of. Cremated, so there are no trails to follow. And you absolutely cannot release it in any way. Even a hint that this has made its way into the world will shut down all discussion with my group and bring about the harshest of consequences. That is not negotiable.” The Russian’s tone had softened.
The robed man’s eyes narrowed to slits in the gloom; an ugly look had taken residence on his face.
“You dare to come into my world and threaten me?” he growled.
“Of course not. I am merely passing on the message, as instructed.”
After a tense moment, the robed man nodded his understanding as the other slid the briefcase towards him, scraping a trail in the yellow dust.
“There is no way to reverse-engineer this agent, and it will only remain active for seventy-two more hours. The production version will be effective for one week. Handle it with supreme care – the slightest deviation from the accompanying instructions will result in disaster,” the Russian said.
“I will make the transfer to your account. Twenty million euros, correct?”
“Yes. As agreed. Once we have that, I will need to understand how large a batch you will be ordering, and will get some estimates on the cost of making it contagious. How large a population do you need the agent to…neutralize?”
The robed man’s eyes rolled towards the ceiling as he considered the question.
He frowned. “As many as possible. Thousands. Millions, if it can be done.”
The suited man’s expression didn’t change.
“I see. That will be expensive. Especially if we are able to make it contagious.”
“I expect that it will be – very expensive. Do not worry about costs. Leave that to me. Just go back and convey my requirements.”
The suited man rose. “We are concluded for now. Remember, no traces of your verification tests or this contract will be terminated before it begins.” He tossed the phone containing the footage to the seated man and turned without another word, his hand-crafted Scarpe di Bianco shoes rustling on the dirt as he made his way back to his waiting gunmen at the building’s entry.
A whippet thin bodyguard with an ivory-colored headdress approached the briefcase, waiting until the robed man nodded before shouldering his weapon and stooping down to pick it up.
“Providence has smiled upon us,” he said in a reverential tone, cradling the valise carefully in his gnarled hands.
“Indeed it has – we are close to achieving our goal now. Closer than ever before. The infidels will soon pay an unimaginably high price for their arrogant colonial ways. But come – we are done here. Prepare to leave,” the robed man ordered, steepling his fingers as he regarded the case.
Outside, the Land Cruiser started with a roar and returned down the track, dust billowing from behind as it disappeared into the blurred beige horizon.
From a strategic position on the far hills, a figure shifted binoculars back to the hamlet, waiting for the Mercedes to depart. Steel gray eyes peered through the lenses, a rivulet of sweat trickling through the powdery crust on the man’s face, leaving a dark streak as it worked its way towards the arid ground. He was invisible, he knew, as long as he didn’t make any sudden movements, the rocks he was nestled behind cloaking his position.
He lifted his satellite phone to his ear and pressed the transmit button, then murmured into it, all the while watching the rendezvous site.
A flash from below caught his attention. He swung his glasses towards the glint and, for a brief second, saw a gunman looking in his direction through binoculars of his own; then watched in horror as the man dropped his glasses to his chest and called out to the guards in the building, pointing up at his position.
Shit.
He was blown.
There was no point in waiting for the inevitable. The screaming man pulled a phone from his robe and made a call, then barked instructions as four guards clamored out of the structure to join him.
He had seen enough. Moving stealthily, he ducked back behind the cover of the boulders then crawled down to a ravine. Once out of sight of the buildings, he bolted for a small cave on the other side of the hill where he’d made camp the day before.
He lost his footing on an area of loose gravel and went down hard, wrenching his ankle and slamming against the ground. His binoculars hit the rocks with a clatter and one of the lenses shattered. The impact stopped him, but he shook it off – every second counted now – there was no time for hesitation.
From across the expanse, he heard motors start. One would be the Mercedes, but he wasn’t worried about the sleek sedan. It was the others that had been concealed around the back of the village that were trouble – but an even larger concern for him was the phone call the gunman had made.
He hurriedly limped to his ATV and pulled the camouflage n
etting from it, then climbed onto the parched seat and cranked the starter. The engine sputtered to life with a puff of blue smoke, and within seconds he was flying down the back side of the hill towards a gap, where the trail he had taken led to a dry river bed that would deliver him back to relative civilization.
A hazy cloud followed him as he roared up the ravine, his tires gripping the sandy terrain tenaciously as he goosed the throttle, mind racing over his escape options even as he climbed in altitude. The dry air stung his eyes, grit borne on the wind an ever-present hazard; he squinted, ignoring the discomfort as he raced from his pursuers.
He slowed once he came to the river bed, and cocked his head, listening.
It sounded like at least two ATVs coming after him.
The options weren’t good. He could try to outrun them but had no advantage other than a slim head start, so it would likely come down to whose gas tank contained the most juice. He knew he had a half tank but if one of the pursuers had more, he was toast.
That left him with the option of finding an area of high ground and ambushing them.
The strap of his Kalashnikov bit into his shoulder, as if urging him to allow it to solve the problem. That choice held a lot more appeal than running through the desert mountains in the hopes his pursuers would run dry first.
The rumbling sound of approaching motors decided it for him. If he didn’t ambush them, he was a dead man.
Twisting the handlebars, he gunned the gas and shot for a rise several hundred yards away. With any luck he could reach it before they came into view, and then it would be child’s play to pick them off, even with the questionably-accurate AK-47.
He rolled to a stop next to an outcropping of brown rock, killed the engine, then dropped to a crouch before moving away from his vehicle. No point in telegraphing his position, in the event they caught a glimpse of it. The tan paint job made that unlikely, but his luck wasn’t running strong and he didn’t want to chance it.
JET II - Betrayal (JET #2) Page 26
