Bangkok Burn

by Simon Royle

  After about a kilometer, a small road forked right and stopped at a farmhouse in the middle of about twenty rai - one rai is half an acre - of rice paddy. The Civic was parked outside beside a pick-up. Chai drove on straight for about fifty meters and parked behind a thick clump of eucalyptus trees. We climbed out. I was stiff from the journey. We went around to the back of the Cayenne. Chai unzipping his backpack and taking out a pair of black coveralls, one for each of us, a pair each of German made paratrooper boots and camouflage paint. A flashback to when we were eight, making a raid on the mango trees of Joom’s next door neighbor. Three minutes later, we were shadow.

  All Thai farms, and a good proportion of homes, have a dog. Most have at least two. Chai always carried a tranquilizer gun from the farm. He’d experimented, using the stuff we shot the crocs with, on the boys. Chai liked dogs, and dogs liked Chai. He didn’t like killing them. Never had. He squirted some of the juice out of the dart, squinting to make sure he got the measure right, and then we set off.

  On the edge of the eucalyptus trees we were in darkness. A dog barked. We froze, waiting. The dog’s barking grew and soon we heard its feet running on the hard packed dry red earth. When it reached us, it did what ninety-nine percent of Thai dogs will do. Stop and bark. It got out two barks before Chai shot it. The dog managed another half a bark and a whimper, then keeled over. Chai retrieved the dart and we waited.

  The house seemed quiet, nothing moving on the outside. The moon hadn’t yet risen and the rice provided good cover. We ran, crouched low, to a chicken coop about ten meters from the back of the house. At the back appeared to be a kitchen enclosed in metal bars. Chai crouching low, scuttled over to the wall of the house, on the corner. He signaled for me to follow. I crept across, hearing my boots on the hard ground. We inched along the wall keeping low. At a closed window light poured out. Chai peeked up and ducked down, nodding to me. I took a peek.

  Nong Um was sitting at a table, hands in lap, head looking down. The guy who he’d picked up was standing against the wall to my left. The guy standing over Um, with his finger in his face was new. Two other guys sat on the floor cross-legged, playing cards.

  The guy standing over Um was pissed off.

  “You fucked up. You were paid to do a job and you fucked up. Because of you we couldn’t do what we needed to do. You made us look like fucking idiots. What did you say?” I couldn’t hear what Nong Um said, but it earned him a slap around the head. The guy moved around the table. I ducked. Waited. Then the sound of more talking. I eased my head up until I could see into the room again. The guy who’d been doing the talking, had his back to me, everyone else was in the same position. He was talking, nearer the window, even though he was facing away from me I could still hear him clearly.

  “I don’t give a fuck who got killed. It’s a war. Us against them, and you’re a soldier. People get killed in wars. Soldiers get killed when they don’t follow orders....”

  Chai tugged on my sleeve and pointed. Back on the road, another vehicle had stopped at the turn off to the farm. Inside the room I heard the ring tone of a cell phone. Shit. We speed walked, crouching, back to the chicken coop. Keeping the coop between us and the house, we ran, crouching, along a low earthen dyke separating the paddy fields. About fifty meters from the farm we dropped into the rice paddy behind the dyke and looked back at the house. Nothing had changed. Then I heard the sound of the Honda Civics’ modified engine start up. The Civic and the pick-up took off up the dirt road. Men standing in the back of the pick-up, one hand holding onto the truck, the other holding what looked like AK-47s.

  The car on the road drove up passing the Cayenne. It did a three point turn, the beam of light cutting across the green paddy field. I lost it behind the trees. The sound of cars doors being slammed and automatic gun fire made me duck but it wasn’t aimed at us. The muzzle flashes highlighted the Cayenne. The firing stopped and the car doors slammed again. Red dust thrown up, shown by their taillights. We watched until we couldn’t see lights anymore.

  We went back to the house, Chai checking the entire perimeter while I waited in the paddy by the chicken coop. He came out of the back door, unlocking the metal gate in the bars. Dirty dishes in the sink, Styrofoam boxes for food, lots of them, in the trash. They were here a while. In the house, sleeping bags, the cards, discarded, some DVDs, karaoke and porn. They left the small TV and DVD player. They took what they needed to carry, and that wasn’t much by the look of things.

  Chai was crouching in the doorway, in darkness, Uzi in hand, looking down the road.

  I might have given you the impression that Thailand is filled with gun toting individuals, but that’s the world I live in. So I would stress here that the vast majority of Thais do not go around carrying firearms. I’d go further to say, less people here, per capita, have guns than those in the USA. Not sure of my facts there, but I’d take the bet, and I don’t gamble. So, when a bunch of guys open up on your car with full automatic weapon fire, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist, to figure out you’ve stumbled into something pretty fucking heavy. Chai confirmed my deductions.

  “I recognized one of them. Guy playing cards. Ex Ranger.”

  “They all looked hard.”

  “Military, for sure, all of them.”

  “Yeah, and they were all wearing black.”

  We crossed the fields, angled well above the Cayenne. It was shot to pieces. Flat tires and riddled with shots from the front to the rear. I opened the rear door. My shirt and shoes had survived.

  “Well, looks like we’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us,” I said as I wiped the camo cream off in the wing mirror of the car.

  “That’s not the bad news. We can catch a cab on the main road.”

  “What’ the bad news?”

  “This car belongs to General Montri. He’s expecting it back tomorrow.”

  A Casualty of Circumstance

  23 May 2010 Bangkok 3:30 am

  Driving around Bangkok, after curfew, with weapons, was an invitation to be on the front page, afternoon edition, of the Thai Rath daily. Roads to and from Bangkok, north and north-east, were heavily patrolled with army and a few police checkpoints. Three days after the crackdown, the 3 am knock on the door, ‘we’d like you to help with our inquiries,’ was running hot. A call to Mother cleared our passage with Colonel Damrong. He ordered an army Humvee to pick us up in Chacheongsao and take us back to Pak Nam. I debated telling Mother about the true condition of General Montri’s car and decided I’d leave the details vague – yes, just won’t start, might be a fuse. I could deal with that when the sun shone.

  As we came past the airport, on the way in, I asked the lieutenant who’d picked us up, how much money he earned a month as an officer. He glanced in the back but the soldiers he’d brought with him were asleep.

  “About ten thousand baht,” he whispered. “Of course, I don’t have to pay for food or lodging.”

  Ten thousand baht is around three hundred and thirty dollars. I took out ten thousand baht and slipped it to him. “Thanks for picking us up.”

  We did a couple of rounds of the polite thing of him refusing, me insisting, rinse and repeat, and the money fitted reasonably well in the top pocket of his tailored green army jacket. I counted out another ten thousand, and watched his eyes flicking towards the cash as I counted.

  “I’d like you to do me a small favor. I need to see someone. It’s on the way, but let me give you this for your trouble.” I took his hand and placed the cash in it.

  “Where would you like to go, Khun Oh?”

  “Suthisan.” I wanted to get to back to Um’s apartment, just in case he was stupid enough to go there. Even if he’d bolted we might find out a little bit more than what was on a Facebook page, by having a look around.

  We stopped in the soi before the apartment. Chai and I got out. Chai left his Uzi in the Humvee. We just took hand guns. The lieutenant looked nervous, checking his watch. Few lights were on in the apartments above us. It wa
s your typical, local apartment building with a hair salon, laundry, and restaurant on the ground floor next to the entrance. An old man, dressed in a guard’s uniform, slept, slumped on a blue plastic stool. In the entrance, behind the glass doors, were a small elevator and a stairwell, the fire door propped open with a brick.

  I’ve learned through past experience that it’s better for me to disguise my Farang appearance rather than try to explain what I’m doing with a Thai cop banging on doors at three in the morning. Wearing a DSI sharpshooters cap and a pair of very large Ray-Bans does the job nicely. Chai gave the old man a tap on the arm. The old man’s cap fell on the floor. Chai picked it up for him and flashed his fake cop DSI (Department of Special Investigations) badge. The old man stood up and came to attention. Chai showed him the photo of Um.

  “What’s his room number?”

  The old man extracted a pair of black framed glasses and put them on, frowning.

  “Oh, that’s Nong Um. He hasn’t returned. Drives a white car, expensive one. Just the exhaust cost twenty thousand. One shock absorber, ten thousand. Expensive car. Has he done something wrong?”

  “We need to take a look in his room. Have you got a key?”

  “No key. Most of the rooms have outside padlocks on them anyway. No point to a key.”

  “What’s the room number?”

  “He’s in 511, I think. Could be 509, but anyway, on this side of the building, which is all the odd numbers.”

  I took out a photo of Ice and held it in front of his eyes.

  “Have you seen her?” I said.

  “Yes, sure. That’s his girlfriend. Saw her just a couple of weeks ago. But haven’t seen her for a while. Good boy that Um. Most of the boys here have girls in and out, more than there are meals in a day, but not Nong Um. Good lad.”

  I nodded at Chai.

  “Thanks and buzz us in, Uncle.”

  He stepped smartly to the card swipe, swiped his card, and opened the door for us, standing at attention, a shirt tail hanging out.

  The lift door opened, the door opposite said 501, and the one next to it 503. The corridor was silent. Outside a couple of doors, used dinner plates had been left for the restaurant to collect when they next delivered food to someone on the floor. As the old man had said, all the doors had latches for padlocks, but none had a padlock on them, except 509. It was an expensive, high security padlock – said so on the label. Chai took out a small can with a needle thin spray nozzle. Two quick squirts into the lock. There was a fizzing sound and the lock fell on the tiled floor with a clatter. Chai removed the remainder of the padlock from the door, careful not to touch the metal ends where he’d sprayed.

  The gap between the door and wall exposed the normal door lock. Chai used a flat file to ease it back until the door popped open - took at least five seconds. It was a typical three meter by four meter one room apartment. Toilet, shower, door opening onto a small balcony with an air-conditioning compressor taking up most of the space on it. There are millions of these apartments in Bangkok. It’s where fifty per cent of the population live; population of Greater Bangkok, eighteen million. You do the math. All rented, the price varies depending upon amenities and location, but ranges from 2,500 at the low end, no air-con - in the boonies. This one was probably in the four thousand a month range.

  The apartments come furnished with bed, mattresses, cupboard. The TV at the foot of the bed, and the computer on the work table were his. Also his, were the drawings, posters and other “red” paraphernalia that covered the walls of the room. Not football red, political “red”. Not good. There was another enemy that was the worst kind – the clever fanatic.

  It didn’t take long to search the place. There are only so many places you can hide something in a four by three meter concrete box. In the wardrobe, women’s clothing took up more than half the space. I doubted Nong Um was a cross-dresser. I reckoned the clothes belonged to Ice. I took the large central shopping bag folded on the top of the drawers in the wardrobe and shoved all the paper on Um’s work desk into it. Emptied the bedside drawers in there as well.

  “Take the computer. Let’s go.” There was nothing more to be learned from the apartment.

  Back in the Humvee, the lieutenant all smiles, paying no attention to the computer that Chai was carrying on his lap, the driver taking us south, home.

  Por was always good with women. Whether his own or others, treated them with respect. He did have a rule or two though, and one of them, was that if you were sleeping with him, then you shouldn’t sleep with anyone else. It looked like Ice had been breaking that rule. If Por found out he wouldn’t do anything about it, but the cash and presents would cease. I didn’t judge Ice. Bangkok is a big, hard, hungry city. It devours innocence, rewards corruption, and destroys it all on a whim with a smirk on its face. Everything is what it seems and nothing is what it seems.

  The roads were deserted. It was eerie. I’d never seen Bangkok this quiet, not even at four in the morning. I wondered if we had changed, if the latest in this long series of political power struggles had reached in and twisted something inside us. Or maybe I was just projecting. Had I changed? It’s hard to know that about one’s self, and now wasn’t the time go there. Now was the time for doing. Thinking and analyzing could come later.

  My guess was that Ice was supporting Nong Um. Um was mixed up with some heavy guys: military and they had the worn look of a team that’d been active recently. The “men in black” (MIB) a term used by the media to describe the so-called ‘Ronin warriors’, a term used by the now dead, Seh Daeng, fighting on behalf of the red-shirts. None of these MIBs had been arrested or killed. Or if they had been, the bodies had been disposed of and none were the wiser.

  I’d been thinking about the suite in Heaven, trying to remember the layout. As far I could remember, and I planned on going back to check, there wasn’t any furniture near the entrance to the master bedroom. There would have been nowhere to plant the bomb, unless it was wired into the ceiling but then the blast would have taken out another floor and it hadn’t. So the bomb was in the room, near the door. The bomb must have been carried by Ice. I remembered the bag she had with her, multi-colored swathes of leather, a large bag - easily large enough to carry a half a kilo of Semtex without it being noticed.

  Ice was many things, but not a suicide bomber. Despite our Jihad in the South, we hadn’t any suicide bombers to date. So obviously Ice was not the first. If she had carried the bomb, and it sounded like she had, she had done so unwittingly. Either by fault or design, she was killed. She may have been intending to plant the bomb and it had gone off accidently. She may not have known what she was carrying. It would be easy to dismiss this as Ice carrying a bomb for her red fanatic boyfriend to deliver to his mercenary “friends” and the bomb accidently going off. And maybe that’s all it was. Wrong place, wrong time. But that discounted Colonel Sankit and his knowledge of our meeting.

  Big Tiger was off the hook for the moment. Sankit could have known from Pim that I was meeting with Big Tiger for dinner that night. I wasn’t sure, and it was a bit awkward to ask, but I sort of remembered mentioning to her that I was having dinner with Big Tiger on the Monday. I may even have mentioned the restaurant. The Cambodians and Sankit were speculation, but Heaven and Sankit were not. Chatree had pointed the finger. Sankit had known Por and I would be there, and a few hours later a bomb had gone off nearly killing us. Ice, a not-so-innocent casualty of circumstance, devoured by Bangkok. Too much coincidence.

  The Humvee’s driver, directed by Chai through the back sois in Pak Nam, pulled up outside the gate to Mother’s house. Pichet, on sentry duty, let us in. A hot shower and sleep beckoned, tiredness hitting my legs as I climbed the stairs to my bedroom. The room was empty. Pim must have decided to sleep in the guest room. I felt a guilty surge of relief. I wasn’t up to dealing with questions.

  Stripped, I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and peeled the bandages around my ribs off. The bruises around my stoma
ch fading into a yellow tinged purple. The 9 on my chest still showed clearly, looked like a tattoo. I eased the plaster off my eye. Dry around the stitches, sewing together nicely. I could shower without a shower cap.

  Showered and dry I slipped between the cool, soft, heavy white sheets. My cell phone’s alarm went off, 5 am. I reached across, ‘Dismiss’.

  Tell It Like It Is

  23 May 2010 Bangkok 8:30 am

  In the early days of the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force commissioned a study into sleep deprivation. Fighter pilots were few. German bombers were many. The conclusion they came to, was that the average male needs four hours sleep in every twenty-four hours to operate at a minimum of efficiency. In other words with less than four hours sleep, you start to do stupid things.

  Chai was shaking my arm, a cell phone in his hand. I glanced at the time on the cell, 8:30 am. Three and a half hours - better than nothing. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked at the number but didn’t recognize it. I put my hand over the mouthpiece.