by John Ringo
“Just because Daria and I think we’ve got this done right isn’t the same thing as getting someone who knows it inside out and backwards putting their seal of approval on it to make it all nice and pretend legal,” Jace said. “Besides, if we tell him we know his little game, there’s no way he would blow the whistle on us. He won’t want to destroy the comfortable life he’s made for himself and his family.”
Mike nodded. “Roll Inara out at oh-dark-thirty hours. I want plenty of time for you all to pay this guy a visit.”
* * *
Six hours earlier, Senior Customs Official Prasopchai Maneerrattana had left his office at the Central Administration Sub-Division of the Import Cargo Examination Division, Bangkok Port Customs Bureau, at the end of another workday. He smoothed his thinning brown hair, loosened his handmade, purple pindot English silk tie and unbuttoned the French cuffs on his Charles Tyrwhitt Black Label oxford button-down shirt as he walked to his silver 2012 Jaguar XJL supercharged sedan with tinted windows.
Pras drove home, skillfully avoiding the seemingly endless traffic jams on the freeways around the city by virtue of knowing which side roads to take and cut a half-hour off his normal ninety-minute commute to his sprawling house in the upscale Huai Kwang neighborhood on the northeast side of the city. There he had dinner with his lovely second wife, Araya, and his two daughters, Vipada, aged eight, and Sunsia, aged ten. He played with the girls afterward, then the family settled down to watch television before sending the kids off to bed at 9 PM. With nothing planned for the rest of the evening, Pras and Araya relaxed for a couple of hours before going to bed themselves—the perfect end to another perfect day.
This was nothing new to Pras, however, as he had truly led a charmed life from the moment he entered this world. Born to a comfortable merchant family in a middle-class suburb around Bangkok, he had been educated in the best schools his family could provide—including being sent to Eton on a partial scholarship—and had never known want, or any sort of hardship, really. He had played cricket in college, and being better than average looking, dated more than the average number of young women before falling for his first wife, whom he had been with for several years. She had caused the only interruption of his otherwise harmonious life when she had left him after five years, primarily for what she claimed was a “lack of ambition.”
That had rankled Pras at the time. He had just completed his second year at the Bangkok Port Customs Bureau, where he was doing all right. The job came easy enough to him; the only problem was that there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go in terms of upward mobility. And Pras had expensive tastes that were getting more difficult to finance. But when the Asian financial crisis of 1997 hit, he found ways to make his position more lucrative.
Customs agents were often approached by foreigners, businessmen, or criminals attempting to bribe them to let certain packages pass through the port with little or no inspection or interference. Even with money tight, people would ironically spend large amounts to get whatever they needed shipped wherever it needed to go. When a man who appeared to be a legitimate Singapore businessman came to him with an offer that would net Pras a cool one million baht just to look the other way, he decided to go for it. Why shouldn’t he partake in the rampant corruption that extended into every part of the Bangkok government? After all, everyone did it.
Pras not only did it, but found he was very good at it. So good in fact, that one of his regular people tipped him off that the government was looking into “irregularities” in the customs accounts. They were working with his superior, a crusty, by-the-book supervisor named Niwat Kadesadayurat, to gather evidence. Knowing the old man would catch him if he looked into things too closely, Pras struck first. He neatly framed Niwat for approving several illegal packages going through customs without proper inspection or paperwork. He even turned the man in himself, knowing the surest way to deflect suspicion was to step up as the loyal subordinate who, although troubled by what he found, knew he had to do what was right.
Niwat was arrested, fired, and spent the rest of his days in abject poverty, dying soon afterward. As a reward for his betrayal, Pras was promoted into Niwat’s position. More bribes followed, and even a few more internal investigations, but much like his earlier life, Pras always escaped getting caught. Part of this was due to the extensive network of friends and associates, both legal and illegal, he had built up over the years. The other part was his learning from that first time so many years ago, and keeping meticulous records of his real and fake shipments, so that he could produce authentic, if completely false, documentation when needed.
So things had gone this way for years, with Pras able to provide for his new wife and family, gradually working up to a higher station in life where they were more comfortable. And it all would have kept on being perfect, too. Except for 2009.
The financial panic had wiped out much of Pras’s savings, and his overreactions to the market swings had led him to gamble on risky investments, which had cost him even more. With his oldest daughter about to go off to the same prep school he had—at a much higher cost twenty years later—he was scrambling to keep everything afloat. So, when word of the Chinese general who worked in the black market had come to him, and he had verified the shipment for himself, Pras thought he had found the answer to his problems. One big score, instead of waiting and hoping for a bunch of little ones to trickle in over the next year, and everything would be back to normal.
The real beauty of his plan was that the general would have to pay. He certainly couldn’t go to the authorities and ask that his shipment of illegal arms be released, risking an investigation from both Thailand and China. He also certainly couldn’t put too much overt pressure on Pras without risking the whole scheme being uncovered either.
That was why the customs official had enjoyed the relaxing evening with his family, and why he had gone to bed secure in the knowledge that he would be much richer in the next forty-eight hours. That, and the knowledge that the security system in his house was state of the art, and the police were well paid to patrol their neighborhood.
Therefore, it was an incredible shock when Pras was jolted awake in the dark, quiet hours of the morning to find himself immobilized in his bed with a gloved hand clamped over his mouth. Other than his eyes, which scanned wildly in all directions, he couldn’t move a muscle. He could only move his eyes enough to see shadows moving on either side of him. He couldn’t see his wife, who normally slept right beside him, and he had no idea if his daughters were all right. Panic rising in him, Pras tried thrashing around as he shouted into the gloved hand. His efforts were just as futile as the first time. Whoever or however they were holding him, the grip was unbreakable.
A head out of a nightmare appeared in front of him. The intruder’s face was completely covered in a matte-black helmet, goggles, and concealing facemask. This person was the same one who had the hand over Pras’s mouth. The person waited until he stopped moving and calmed down.
“Can you understand what I am saying?” he asked in Thai, letting up on Pras’s head just enough for him to nod.
“Then listen to me very carefully. Your family is unharmed. They will sleep through the night and have no idea that anything ever happened here—if you do exactly what we say. Do you understand?”
Pras nodded again.
“All right. In a moment I am going to release you. You will get up, get dressed, and gather whatever materials you need to approve the entire shipment being held in Lot Twenty-Seven in Warehouse Seven at the Bangkok Port Customs Bureau. Nod if you understand.”
Pras nodded again. The person took his hand away, and the Thai customs official felt the pressure on his body lessen. He looked around to find his bed surrounded by five more people, all dressed in black and holding huge, black guns.
Pras checked on his wife, who looked as if she was still sleeping peacefully beside him. He reached over to touch her, then shake her, but got no response. She was breathing, but unconscious.<
br />
“The clock is ticking, Mr. Maneerrattana. Believe me, this is one inspection that you do not want to be late for,” the masked leader said.
Too terrified to speak, Pras scurried to his closet. Grabbing the first shirt and pair of pants he put his hands on, he struggled into them. Shoving his bare feet into a pair of Italian leather shoes, he turned to find the masked man right in front of him, holding a tie. “You will need to look professional if you are going into work, won’t you?”
With a shaky nod, Pras took the tie and tried to tie it around his neck, the silk slipping through his fumbling fingers. After the third try, the masked person shook his head and moved his fingers away before tying a perfect half-Windsor knot. “Get your jacket, we have to get moving.”
Once Pras was dressed, the masked man led him to the garage. “Here is what is going to happen. One of my associates and I are going to accompany you to your office. There you are going to take care of any internal issues with that particular shipment. Then we are going to that particular warehouse. While we are doing that, the rest of my associates are going to stay here and keep watch over your family—”
A pained sob rose in Pras’s throat, and he couldn’t stop it from escaping. “Please, I will do whatever you wish, just do not hurt them—”
The masked man held up a hand. “They will not be harmed as long as you do what we ask.”
“H—how do you expect to remove the shipment? It—it is more than twenty-five large, heavy wooden boxes. No trucks are scheduled to come in tonight.”
“By the river, of course. Don’t worry, you’ll be overseeing the entire operation from start to finish. Once we have everything we need, I will call my associates, who will leave your home and family in exactly the same condition they found them in. If anything goes wrong, or if I do not call them to check in one hour from now, well, I am sure you have a pretty good idea of what will happen to them. Now let’s get going, shall we? Make sure you have whatever identification you require for access to both your office and the warehouse.”
Pras double-checked that he had everything he needed, then got into his car, with the two men accompanying him both sitting in the back seat.
He drove first to the main customs office, a long, shallow, U-shaped building that faced the river, with two wings branching off the main unit. He had to go into the smaller, F-shaped building in front of it to enter the inspection appointment and falsify the approval for the shipment to go out.
When he pulled into the parking lot, he turned to the men in the back seat. “I must go in alone. It would be suspicious to have anyone with me at this hour.”
“Of course.” The speaker placed a pen in the inner pocket of his suit jacket, and one in his outer jacket pocket. “The outer pen contains a tiny video camera with sound, so we will be able to see and hear every movement you make, every person you talk to. The inner pen contains an ounce and a half of Semtex, a high explosive that is connected to both a timer and a remote. The amount is more than enough to kill you if you force us to detonate it. Go inside, do whatever you must do to clear the shipment, and return to your car. You have fifteen minutes to comply, starting now.”
The next several minutes passed in a terrifying blur for Pras. He was aware of certain things as they happened . . . activating the door security lock with his identification . . . dropping the key to his office and hitting his head when he bent to retrieve it while trying to make sure that both pens stayed in his pockets . . . frantically typing in the clearance and scheduling the inspection for that morning . . . printing the proper forms and grabbing the correct stamps . . . walking back to the car, all the while aware of the small, concealed bomb resting in his breast pocket. Pras was petrified that someone would try to engage him in conversation, even at that hour of the morning.
When he reached the car, he was soaked in sweat. Sliding in, he turned to the man, who was now alone in the back seat. “I have everything you will need—please take this thing off of me!”
“Not yet.” The person took the printed forms and scanned them for what seemed like an eternity. With a nod, he took the bomb pen back, but left the camera one where it was. “Let’s go.”
“How do you expect to make it through the main gate?” Pras asked.
“One of us will be crouched in the back seat, the other in the trunk,” the man replied. “A pistol will be on you at all times, and, of course, we will be watching through the camera. Try to alert the guard or give any kind of warning, and you will die before your family does. Just stay calm, get us to the warehouse, and we’ll handle the rest.”
Pras started the car and drove to the white main security gate that led into the customs holding and warehousing area for Bangkok. After clearing the security checkpoint, he drove along a double row of warehouses that had been built back-to-back, facing both the river and the city, until he stopped in front of Warehouse Seven. Unlocking the door, he pushed it open, revealing an interior stacked high with various boxes.
“They are over here.” He led the two men to the Chinese general’s containers.
The masked man compared the numbers on the boxes with the list Pras had printed on the inspection invoice, then compared both of those with a third list on a smartphone. Only when he was satisfied did he hit a button on the phone and say something in a strange language.
“Stand right here.” Pras did as ordered. The first man waited for less than a minute before the sound of multiple boat motors could be heard. Moments later, a long, sleek cigarette boat pulled up to the dock outside, and several more men, all clad in black, got out.
Pres looked over to see the man holding out a sheaf of papers. “Finish your inspection and clear this shipment.”
With a shaking hand, Pras did as he was told, marking all of the boxes as having cleared customs on the Import Declaration Form: Kor Sor Kor 99/1. He stamped it where indicated, signed off on releasing the shipment, and held out the papers to the masked man who read them again, then nodded to the other men, who immediately began team lifting the boxes out to the boat.
It took ninety minutes and two trips, but finally all of the boxes were gone. The masked man was the last one to leave the warehouse after handing the customs official his smartphone.
“Go home to your family, Mr. Maneerrattana. They are safe. My people left twenty minutes ago.” The masked man watched him as the cigarette boat powered away from the pier.
A shaking Prasopchai Maneerrattana dialed his house with trembling fingers as he felt his bladder finally let go, releasing warm urine that trickled down his leg.
* * *
During the mid-afternoon of the same day, Mike met General Cong several miles outside Yangon to hand over the liberated shipment. He’d chosen a deserted beach near sparse rows of palm trees dotting the surrounding terrain, and told Cong to arrange for three trucks and either a forklift or a lot of strong backs to offload his cargo.
Dressed in a double-breasted charcoal gray suit, Cong himself had arrived from the Andaman Sea in a thirty-foot cigarette boat to supervise the transfer. He was very meticulous, examining each box as his sweating men unloaded them, but found nothing amiss. “There were no problems, then?”
Mike shook his head. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
The general nodded. “And there has been no word about any sort of break-in or incident at the customs facility in the press or across military channels. You have performed admirably, Mr. Jenkins. Are your people ready to go?”
Mike nodded. “Just waiting for the word to move.”
“I have a few things to wrap up in the city, but there is no reason not to get a head start this afternoon. There is a small shipping company that lies just north of the Mingalardon Industrial Park on Route 3. Take Thu Dhammar Road and follow it all the way out of the city. Meet me there in eight hours.”
“We’ll be there.” Mike said, staring into the Andaman Sea, where an amazing superyacht lay at anchor. At least three hundred feet long, it was a third longer
than the Big Fish, and was a study in sleek white and black steel. With four decks, it looked like it could comfortably sleep twenty, and uncomfortably handle twice that number.
“You like what you see out there?” Cong asked.
“That is a nice boat. Yours?” Mike asked.
The general nodded. “It was built for one of our real estate billionaires. Unfortunately, he ran into some legal trouble with the government, and all of his assets were seized. I got it for a song, all things considered. When we’re finished here, you should come aboard. I’ll give you the captain’s tour.”
“I look forward to it. Until this evening, then.” Mike watched the small man get aboard his shore boat and head back to the huge yacht a half-mile away. “Now that’s the way to sail.” He had made sure to anchor the Big Fish several miles away. No sense in letting Cong get any more information on him than the man already had.
“Yeah, if you can afford it,” Adams said beside him. “That sucker would wipe out every dollar you got, and not even come close to buying a third of it, I’d bet.”
“You been looking into the books again, Ass-Boy?”
“Hell no, I just know what you’ve put into the place back home, that’s all. Come on, buddy, your own superyacht will have to wait for another day.”
“Yeah, someday . . .” With a last, wistful look at the magnificent vessel, Mike turned back to his own boat, and signaled for the others to head back to the Big Fish.
They were cruising through the sapphire-blue waters of the bay when Mike got a call from Vanner. “You are not going to guess who just requested permission to come aboard?”
“Lieutenant Fang Gui of the Hong Kong Police?”
“Yeah, how in the hell did you know?”
“Because he is the very last person I would expect to see out here.” Mike frowned as he pushed the throttle forward, making the sleek boat’s bow rise out of the glass-smooth water as it surged ahead. “Have him come aboard, keep him on the rear deck, and tell him we will be there in about twenty minutes. By the way, we are still in international waters, right?”
