by AD Davies
“Ask him where they sent her.”
He did, and got a short reply. Even Cantona was sweating in this box. Giang said, “He will not tell you.”
I turned to the prisoners. “Who knows where an English girl was sent?”
Cantona yelled something, and Giang translated, “No talking to them.”
“Sarah,” I said. “Her name was Sarah.”
Cantona addressed one of the zombie gun-children, who raised his AK-47 to strike me. I cowered and held up my hands. Cantona barked again, and the boy stood down. I nodded reluctantly to show I wouldn’t try it again.
But one of the prisoners caught my eye. A boy, the youngest, whose thin, ragged form made an accurate guess at his age impossible. He whispered something. It wasn’t loud enough for Cantona to hear, and I wondered if he’d really spoke. He did not look up from the floor, but if I understood correctly, he said, “Artist.”
Giang said, “Choose. They will not be patient.”
If they got suspicious, there was nothing here backing me up. Even with Giang’s recommendation, I was walking a sharp edge already. To get the boy, I show no enthusiasm.
I said, “I want to ask them something. The prisoners.”
“You cannot do that.”
“I want an English-speaker.”
Giang asked Cantona the question and the Man U fan pointed at each in turn, giving what turned out to be a quick bio. The two Caucasian girls were Russian prostitutes exchanged for an internet expert sourced from Hanoi; others were taken as debts accumulated by people in remote villages, and the boy was a rebellious factory worker whose parents could not control his unproductive nature.
“How much for all of them?” I asked.
Giang translated the answer. “It would cost about six hundred thousand. But he says you cannot have all. Other customers will come tomorrow. You said you want one item. Choose one. Or two. But you must pay a deposit for each.”
“The Russian girls. How much?”
“One hundred thousand per girl. Very desirable.”
“What about the others?” I forced my expression into neutral. “Are any of them worth the twenty-thou I put down? Any I can take with me today?”
Cantona didn’t like that. A cheapskate diner ordering the salad and tap water. He waved as if to dismiss me.
“Then I’ll take them all,” I said. “One million US dollars for all of them.”
Giang relayed my offer, which forced Cantona into some mental arithmetic. If the Russians were top of the line, the premium lobster, then the others were worth far less. A quick tally ran through the man’s brain and he nodded.
I said, “Tell me where the funds need to go, or I can arrange cash on delivery.”
On Cantona’s behalf, Giang asked, “Where will you like them delivered?”
“To The Rex Hotel. Within twenty-four hours. I will arrange rooms for them all, on a full board basis, and I expect them all to have legitimate travel documents and be cleaned and clothed appropriately.”
“Is fine,” Giang said. “All documents are part of the package. Their belongings too, if they have any.” Seemingly counting his commission in his head, he told Cantona my conditions, and the man agreed.
I had one final demand, though. “And I take one with me now.”
He shook his head. Rubbed his chin in faux-consideration.
I was never much good at bluffing, as Curtis Benson would attest. But it was all I could try. If I failed, and Cantona caved too early, I was sunk.
“This one.” I pointed at one of the Russian girls.
Her eyes lit up and my gut dropped. She wasn’t going anywhere yet, but the hope that sparkled so brightly … her desire to be out of here no matter what I might inflict upon her … I wanted to cry. When Cantona laughed off my request, I tried one of the stronger-looking men, someone who would be of value to a land-owner or who needed a domestic to lift and carry. Giang said Cantona believed him to be worth in the region of fifty-K.
Referring to the boy, I said, “This one can’t be worth more than ten.”
Cantona eked-out the decision a little, to maintain an illusion of “winning” the negotiation. Through Giang, he said, “Okay. Take him,” and one of the guards hustled the boy out of the room. The other prisoners deflated like punctured dolls.
I said, “Tell them they’ll be free soon too.”
Giang didn’t need to ask. “Not a good idea. If they worry you are a bad man, they may try to run. They will be killed. You go now.”
I was drenched in sweat and the air was closing around me, stink and moisture now a thick aura about my body. I stooped back into the passageway, and when I saw real daylight I started running. I grazed my back on the roof a couple of times. Sped up. I needed to get out. I hit the stairs and scrambled up. Cool, cool air wafted over me. The hole seemed even smaller as I raced to emerge, skinning my left knee as I collapsed onto the ground outside.
And there I lay, the jungle heat now a refreshing experience.
Giang and Cantona climbed out too, Cantona rather amused by seeing me there. I was actually grinning. My money—partly earned by Roger Gorman’s horrible investments and vile clients—had saved ten young men and women from a life of slavery.
I was still fumbling in the dark as far as Sarah was concerned, but in the wider world, I’d finally done some good.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Beside one of the huts, the boy was given a wash in a bucket of river water, and traditional Vietnamese clothing lay folded on the tree-trunk table. He waved at me. Perhaps he understood that I was not a predator or slave-master. Someone brought him a sack the size of a swimming bag, which I assumed contained the possessions brought along when he was taken, and which now technically belonged to me. On the surface, it was an oddly-polite gesture, but it made perfect sense. A glimmer of familiarity, of happiness. It helped keep them compliant.
While I was still sat on the floor, Cantona handed me a laptop computer with a Wi-Fi dongle attached to a satellite phone.
Giang translated, “You must transfer one hundred thousand dollars now, and provide proof of funds for the rest. Otherwise, his boss will not authorize him to inconvenience the other clients. The assets will remain here, for sale.”
“No problem,” I said.
I logged on to a surprisingly fast internet connection, but when I entered my banking passwords, none of them worked. I tried again, and still nothing.
Cantona watched me closely.
The accounts didn’t respond with the “Your details are incorrect” message, but went straight to “Please contact your bank” and provided a number to ring. I asked to use the phone to which the internet was linked, and Cantona allowed it. I got through and gave my details, passed the security test, and then I learned what the problem was.
And everything I had achieved so far disintegrated before my eyes.
“Suspicious activity on your account, sir,” said the chirpy lady on the other end. She cheerily outlined my recent transactions. “We are required to freeze all activity until you can verify your identity.”
“Well, I’ve verified it,” I said. “Please un-freeze the account.”
“Oh.” A pause, then, in that same nothing’s wrong tone, “The suspicious activity is just one of the problems, sir. When we detected this, we are required to do a search on other possible accounts, to prevent further chance of fraud. And there is a stop on all your funds. Because you are not legally present in the country where the activity took place, the authorities there have declared it illegal for you to process any financial transaction in Vietnam.”
“It’s my money. I can do what I want, where I want—”
“And because there is a European arrest warrant now issued to all EU countries … I’m sorry, I can’t unblock this account. You must present yourself at a bank or police station with necessary ID, and once this matter is cleared up you can access your funds again.”
“Present ID? I’m in the middle of a jungle—
”
“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”
“I need the money. Now. Just a hundred thousand—”
“There is nothing I can do, sir. I have to hang up now,” she said, still as chirpy as can be. “I hope you manage to untangle things.”
“Wait—”
But she had gone.
Roger bloody Gorman. He exerted no authority over my personal banking, but plenty of knowledge of financial crime. Heck, it was our specialty. When tracking someone who has absconded with funds, the best way to make him surface is to eliminate access to those funds. So all Gorman would need is proof of criminal activity (check: France was indisputable) and reasonable doubt about my financial activity (check: company credit card, company equipment), and the big cash withdrawals which my personal bank would be legally obliged to disclose when that customer was wanted on a European arrest warrant.
I stared at the phone before handing it back to Cantona. He didn’t read my dazed expression, and wired it back up to the laptop.
Giang knew, though. “What should I tell him?”
Those people, underground in that furnace of a dorm.
Two guards brought the boy to me, presented him in his loose-fitting black outfit. He hadn’t stopped grinning, expecting to be taken away from this place.
Cantona jabbed a finger at the laptop and mumbled something.
In a thick accent, the boy said, “He say hurry.”
Cantona slapped the boy round the back of the head and used a phrase I assumed meant, “No talking.”
“Do not screw with me,” Giang said.
My head fell into my hands and I rubbed my face.
Cantona and Giang exchanged words that grew in volume, bodies swinging left and right. Giang eventually shut up.
He faced me. “You must leave now.”
I pulled myself up and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Giang gripped my wrist and shook his head.
“I paid for him,” I said.
“This is not Harrods,” Giang said. “Go to the boat. I will meet you there.”
Down the path that led into the jungle, three guards were visible.
As if reading my mind, Giang said, “If they were going to kill you they would just do it. They do not play games.”
“What about you?”
“If you go to the boat and do not look back, I will be there in five minutes. I must do something for them first. Something that will ensure we both leave safely.”
When I glanced at the boy, his mouth was open slightly. One of the guards passed Giang a handgun.
I didn’t move. “What are you going to do?”
Giang set his jaw, his eyes rigid, taking on a hollow quality akin to the young guards. “I am going to take you back to Saigon, and you will forget everything you saw. The only reason you are not dead is you have value. As someone who may be missed. These others, they will not. But if you make trouble, they will take that chance. You call it risk versus reward. I remember this from the Americans.”
I still didn’t move. One of the shirtless guards took a step toward me. Cantona shouted at Giang. The policeman cocked the gun.
“Go,” he said. “You do not want to see this.”
“I paid for him!” I yelled. “He’s mine!”
“It is your forfeit,” Giang said, tears brimming. “For promising money you do not have.”
“I have it. Tell them I have it. I just need to—”
Cantona yelled again.
Giang pointed the gun at the boy, who squeezed his eyes shut tight. Giang took a breath. Cantona shouted a single word.
And I dived forward. Too fast for the guards, too fast for Giang. I slapped the gun from his hand. He whipped out a pearl-handle from his pocket. A blade sprang from the housing. I parried his clumsy attack and elbowed him in the throat. As the other guns came up my way, I tangled myself up and splayed Giang, took his knife, and used him as a shield. I gestured at the gun and the boy handed it to me and hid behind us.
In one hand, Cantona aimed a pistol. In his other, he pressed a mobile phone to his ear.
I said, “Tell him I’ll kill their pet policeman.”
The boy frowned. “Tell them … you kill him?” His English wasn’t great.
“Yes.”
As Giang gasped for breath, the boy spoke in a high tone. Cantona shook his head. His reply, through the boy, was, “They do not care. They kill us all.”
Bolts racked. Barrels pointed. No negotiating. Except…
Cantona spoke into the phone, frowning at the reply. He made an affirmative grunt, then hung up with a chuckle. He barked orders at me.
The boy said, “You must kill policeman.”
Giang sputtered, “No. Wait…”
Cantona talked quickly, waving his gun in our direction.
The boy said, “They do not like for him. Their boss, they say cop too greedy. He a risk. Take too many money. He bring you here. If you kill him, they trust. You take me then.”
“No,” I said. “I can’t just—”
Giang forced an argument out, but Cantona aimed at him, which shut him up. To me, Cantona held up a hand, his fingers and thumb extended.
One of the guards yanked Giang from me and positioned him on his knees.
Cantona pulled his thumb back to his palm. Then, slowly, his little finger.
A countdown. 5 … 4 … 3…
All three guards trained their weapons on me and the boy.
Giang whimpered on the dusty ground, yellow teeth bared in a panicky grimace, the herpes sore wet and raw. He said, “I am not a bad man … I do this thing, this business … for my family…”
I thought of the hookers he’d defiled, the money he’d taken, Gareth and Sarah whom he’d handed over … all for personal profit.
Not for his family. Not for his survival. For money. For personal gratification.
But I couldn’t kill him like this. I couldn’t.
2…
The boy gripped my free hand, the broken finger troubling me. He may not have been a direct victim of Giang’s greed, but if the policeman had done his job…
I wasn’t a killer, though. I couldn’t…
The guards aimed at us, readying to fire.
I hefted the gun. It said “Colt” on the side. I stepped closer. A thousand options flew through my mind, but all of them resulted in me and the boy full of holes.
Except one.
1…
The gun roared and bucked in my hand, and the back of Giang’s head vaporized in a cloud of red and grey mist. He thumped to the ground like a slab of meat.
I killed him. Murdered a cop.
Now, and forever, I was just like them.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I stood stock still, staring at the pulpy mess; the bone fragments, the globs of brain, and one lifeless eye, his other closed against the floor. Dust coated his open scab. Someone had taken the gun from me without me realizing. They patted me down again, this time locating the cloned credit card and passport taped to one leg, but not the two-hundred dollars taped to my other. They returned my passport but not the credit card, and let me keep Giang’s knife. I folded it back up, and placed it in my pocket.
Then they marched me back to the river. As I trod one step after the other at the barrel of an AK-47, the jungle hummed like a million wasps trapped in a huge jar beyond the wall of green. My only solid thought was a vow that I would find this place again. Even if I had to utilize Roger Gorman’s private security clientele, I would ensure every man at that camp died, every slave would be freed, and I would raze this place from the face of the Earth.
No bloody compromise.
We reached the pier and the boy held my hand. I moved to get into the boat, vaguely running Giang’s start-up process through my mind, but the memory was of a man with half his head missing.
The young guard said something and the boy translated, telling us to wait. We stood in silence for almost ten minutes, until two men carried a six-foot parcel o
ut of the trees, Cantona at the rear. The bundle of sacks and bin liners could only be one thing. Cantona said something which needed no interpretation but the boy did so anyway: “We take this.”
The guards lowered Giang’s corpse into the boat and Cantona signalled for us to get in. The boy automatically took the helm and I didn’t object. I hadn’t said a word since I shot Major Giang.
Major…
I killed a police officer. A father and husband. A vile predator in his spare time, but his family would never know that side of him, and would forever wonder why he left home one day and never returned.
Cantona tapped me on the head and crouched to my eye-level. He said, through the boy, Giang was going to die anyway. “Orders from boss. He stupid to bring someone here. Is better this way.”
Back in that quarry, the Man in Tan asked me, “Was it the Giang problem again?”
Problem…
Again…
Cantona stood and waved the teenaged sentries back up the jungle path, and strode after them.
The boy said, “We go?”
I nodded. The engine roared to life first time and he handled it like a pro. Better than Giang, in fact. We sputtered along the narrow jungle passage, my eyes on the bundle all the way.
The boy said, “Thank you, sir.”
“What’s your name?” I asked, my throat dry.
“Tho,” he said. “It mean long life. That is why you pick me. I have to live long life.”
“I picked you because you seemed to recognize Sarah.”
“Yes. Girl from England. Like to draw. She was there. Short time, though.”
I needed to forget what I did back there. Concentrate on the future. I said, “What can you tell me, Tho? Who took her?”
He was silent for a moment. “Na Trang.”
“Who’s Na Trang?”
“Not ‘who’. A place. On the sea. Take me there, I show you girl.”
I found my bag of food untouched and opened the remaining water. It was as warm as a bath, but it washed over my throat, taking with it the sandy film that I couldn’t swallow. I caught Tho licking his lips and passed him the bottle.
