Devil's Due: A Thomas Caine Thriller (The Thomas Caine Series Book 0) (6 page)

Satra shook his head.
 
His dark eyes looked earnest and concerned, and he furrowed his brow.
 
"I think that, too, but then our technical investigation turn up this website.
 
These are just screen captures, real website vanish, get taken down weeks ago."

Caine looked at the pictures on the phone.
 
"Is one of these your missing girl?"

Satra set the phone on the table.
 
"This her."
 
He swiped to a candid shot of a beautiful Thai girl.
 
She was standing outside a bar, smiling at tourists in the streets.
 
She was dressed in a skin-tight red baby tee and black patent leather hot shorts.

"Look here," Satra pointed to the heart symbol beneath her picture.
 
The number next to the heart was 150.
 
"On real site, you could vote for how much you like a girl's picture.
 
If you like how she look, you give her hearts."

"So your girl was popular.
 
She's pretty, no big mystery there."

Satra nodded.
 
He swiped through more photos.
 
"All these girls on same site.
 
This girl missing."
 
He swiped to another photo.
 
"This girl missing, too.
 
And this one...."
 
He continued swiping through a series of eight pictures.
 
All the girls were beautiful, young, and dressed for work.
 
Caine didn’t recognize any of them, but he noticed that all the photos were candid shots, taken with a telephoto lens.

"All pretty, all bar girls, all missing.
 
And look at hearts."
 
Caine saw that the heart count beneath each missing girl was high.
 
155, 129, 140...

"Every girl with hearts over one-hundred is missing," Satra said.
 
"This no coincidence.
 
Thai Angels is no dating site.
 
These girls are being targeted."

"Targeted by who?" Caine asked.

Satra's eyes darted around the bar, and he lowered his voice.
 
"I don't know.
 
Website go down soon after we find it.
 
I start talking to girls, asking around.
 
Putting pressure on dealers, street punks, anyone with links to chao pho families.
 
You pay them off as well, yes?"

Caine nodded.
 
The chao pho families were a loose collection of patron-run crime cartels.
 
They were the de facto controllers of organized crime in the cities of Thailand, and anyone operating a business, legitimate or otherwise, was almost certainly paying a cut to the family that controlled their territory.

"You think the chao pho put up this website?" Caine asked.
 
"I know some of the families are involved in human trafficking, but this doesn't really seem their style.
 
Too high profile.
 
Too much risk."

Satra nodded.
 
"Maybe you right.
 
But soon after I start questioning, the investigation is stopped.
 
I ordered to drop case."

Caine squinted as he sipped his beer.
 
"Dropped? Why?"

"You remember the bombing, couple weeks ago?"

"Yeah.
 
Muslim extremists, according to your National Police Chief.
 
He paid the entire department a reward out of his own pocket, right?
 
I thought you had the suspect in custody."

"Yes, he pay reward to himself and other officers.
 
Sugar to ease bad taste of medicine.
 
He make big announcement, say case solved, everything OK.
 
But that was all lie."

Satra took another sip of his whiskey.
 
"The day of explosion, police received a note.
 
Says to lay off the chao pho investigation.
 
Stop searching for girls, or there will be more bombs.
 
More explosions.
 
Note was written in blood of a policeman, man working with me.
 
Man asking questions.
 
Good man.
 
He missing now, too."

"So, why aren't the Royal Police going after whoever is responsible?
 
You'd think they'd be even more driven to catch these guys now."

Satra shook his head.
 
"In Thailand, tourist industry is everything.
 
Justice, the law, lives of few bar girls ... these mean nothing compared to the millions of dollars tourism bring here.
 
If more bombs explode in city, more tourists are killed ... tourists go away.
 
Money go away."

He sighed, then clenched his hand in a fist.
 
"I know you don't trust cops.
 
Many cops here are bad, dirty.
 
They are poor, their salary is very little, not enough to raise a family.
 
So they take money, look the other way. But not me.
 
My father was police officer.
 
And his father before him.
 
I cannot just let this go.
 
This in my blood."

He leaned across the table.
 
"But I am only one man.
 
Chief Battang refuse to let me use police resources to find these girls.
 
He afraid if I caught, it look like police support investigation again.
 
But you ... you have skills, training.
 
I see you fight that man.
 
You have connections to chao pho.
 
You can help me.
 
You can help these girls."

Caine was silent.
 
He finished his beer and quietly set the bottle down on the table.
 
He stared at Satra, then looked away.
 
"Satra, I can't get involved in something like this.
 
And believe me, I'd only make it worse if I did."

Satra stared at Caine.
 
"And what about the missing girls?
 
If they leave Thailand, no one see them again."

Caine stood up.
 
"Satra, you seem like a good guy, so take my advice.
 
Listen to your chief, drop this case, and stop playing hero."

"You can give up so easily?
 
You can just walk away?"

"I heard you out.
 
I gave you an answer.
 
The answer is no.
 
Don't follow me again."

Caine fished a few crumpled baht notes from his pocket and dropped them on the table.

"Here.
 
Drinks are on me."

He turned and walked out of the bar, back into the muggy, hot air, the gray skies, and the falling rain.
 
He walked a few blocks, letting the droplets of water soak through his hair and clothes.
 
He forced himself to forget Satra's words, and the images of the missing girls.
 
He did not look over his shoulder as he walked through the wet, muddy streets.
 
He knew Satra would not follow.
 
It had all been a silly mistake.

In his heart, he knew he was not the man Satra was looking for.
 
Now, Satra knew it as well.

A few days later, the rain stopped, and Pattaya sprang back to life.
 
That night, the neon lights blazed above the heads of the tourist crowd as they meandered up and down Soi Six and the other walking streets in the area.
 
Each and every soul wandering beneath that explosion of color and light was seeking something in the hot, humid night air: cheap beer, cheap food, cheap sex.

For those seeking all of the above, Ruby's Club did not disappoint.
 
Now that the rain had stopped, Ruby's was going out of its way to make up for lost time.
 
Beer and drink specials were advertised all night, and the club bussed in girls from other bars to work extra shifts.

Naiyana smiled as she spun around the chrome pole above the main stage.
 
She was naked, with her neon bikini top and briefs scattered on the stage below her.
 
As twirled around, she saw a kaleidoscope of colorful lights and faces, laughing and cheering in the shadows.
 
The applause and music were deafening.
 
The spinning lights danced across her body, reflecting bursts of color in the sweat, oil, and glitter that covered her skin.

Sometimes she found herself overcome with the energy and excitement of the crowd.
 
The men, the girls, the lust and decadence in the air ... sometimes she could feed off it, drawing strength from the wild, chaotic currents of energy.
 
Other times, that same chaos seemed to feed off her instead, devouring her piece by piece.

But tonight was a good night.
 
She felt alive, happy.
 
With so many men in the bar, the odds were good that a few would be young, good-looking farrangs.
 
Men with kind smiles and fat wallets that would be more than satisfied to pay for an hour of her time.
 
The money meant little to them, but for her and her family, it was all that kept them going.
 
It was food for her daughter, a roof over her mother's head, medicine for her father.
 
Her family never asked her how she provided all these things for them.
 
They already knew, for there was only one possible answer.
 
To speak of it would be rude and shameful.

Naiyana shimmied to the top of the pole and flipped upside down, hanging on with her strong, tan legs.
 
She closed her eyes, feeling the pulse of bass vibrate over her hot, naked skin. Her thick, dark mane of hair swung through the air below her.
 
She flexed her thighs, allowing her body to slide down the pole, slowly spiraling around it as she fell.
 
When her hands touched the ground, she did a quick flip off the pole.
 
She smiled, bent over, and gathered her clothes and a few crumpled baht notes from the stage.
 
The music skipped to a new song, signaling that another girl's show was about to start.

Naiyana left the stage and headed for the bar.
 
She slipped back into her bikini as she pushed through the crowd.
 
She felt men touching her, grabbing at her, but she ignored their groping hands and kept a wide smile plastered on her face.

She took a seat at the corner of the bar, and the bartender set a glass of club soda down in front of her.
 
She sipped the cool liquid as she surveyed the crowd.
 
After weeks of slow nights, she was anxious to book some short time.
 
A handsome, young farrang would be nice, but right now anyone would do.

"You breaking my heart," a deep voice shouted into her ear.
 
"Beautiful woman like you should not sit alone."

She glanced back and found herself staring into a pair of large blue eyes, set in a harsh, angular face.
 
It took her a moment to recognize the man.
 
It was the Russian, the one from the other day.
 
Her friend had beaten the man's hired thug to a bloody pulp.
 
She smiled, but her eyes darted around the bar, searching the crowd for the two large bouncers that were working that night.

The Russian saw her anxious eyes, and smiled.
 
"Please, let me buy you drink.
 
I wish to apologize.
 
My behavior the other night ... I was not exactly the gentleman, yes?
 
Too much cheap vodka, I'm afraid."

Naiyana looked sideways at the Russian as she sipped her club soda.
 
He seemed calmer than before, but something in his gaze still set her nerves on edge.
 
It's not the lazy eye
, she thought.
 
It was the intensity of his stare, the hunger behind those bright blue orbs set in such a dark, hard face.
 
They reminded her of a wild dog in the street, eyeing a hunk of meat.

Alexi snapped his fingers and held up a thick wad of baht notes.
 
Naiyana eyed the stack of cash with an equally hungry gaze.
 
The bartender took notice; within a few minutes, a vodka on ice and another lady drink for Naiyana were set down in front of them.

Drink in hand, Naiyana spun on her stool to meet Alexi's intense stare head on.

"Your friend OK?" she asked.

Alexi laughed as he nodded.
 
"Gregor, yes, yes, he's fine.
 
He has a few new scars, but he deserved it, no?
 
He's a bit over-protective of me, I'm afraid.
 
His father and mine are old friends, so we are like brothers."

She sipped her drink again, turning everything over in her mind.
 
The bar was full; there were plenty of potential customers.
 
But this man had money.
 
And he desired her.
 
He seemed to think himself important, and in her experience self-important men tended not to last long in bed.
 
She would be back downstairs in twenty minutes or less, with plenty of time to approach more men.

She smiled and drank, pretending to listen to Alexi as he boasted of his family's heritage back in Russia.
 
Her mind was far away, doing a series of mental calculations.
 
And the final equation was the same as it always was.
 
She didn't like this man--but that didn't matter in the slightest.