Stealing Asia (12 page)

There were two
thugs waiting on the edge of the forest. They had obviously seen what fate
befell their comrades and as such they were reluctant to expose themselves. It
would take them a few minutes to make it to my position under cover of the
forest canopy, so I left them to it and ran in the direction of the reception
block.

The bar was busy
with a party in full swing. The bright oil lamps that lined the decking had
blocked out the brief burst of violence, which had occurred further down the
bay. As far as I could tell, nobody was watching the back of the building. The
quad bikes, which I had earlier taken out with Ben and Asia, were parked by the
edge of a dirt trail leading into the forest. Unless I was prepared to swim for
it, these were my only means of escape.

I started up one
of the quads, but kept my hand pressed firmly on the brake as I tied down the
accelerator switch. When I sensed that the gunmen were closing in, I released
the brake and let the quad propel itself into the forest. I then crouched down
behind the side of the building and moments later the gunmen emerged and they
took the bait. One of them signalled to his comrade that they should each take
one of the remaining quads.

They both had to
lower their weapons to start the machines and that is when I made my move.
Picking up a loose piece of firewood, I sprinted toward the pair and hit the
first of them with the wood, knocking him out cold. The other had time to raise
his weapon, but not to get off a shot. I batted the firearm from his hand
before catching him squarely on the chin with my follow up swing.

The gunmen were
both out cold, but I had to be sure that they could not follow. I put a bullet
into each one’s thighs. That would be enough to incapacitate them should they
wake sooner than expected. I then climbed onto one of the quads and applied
maximum acceleration as I skidded onto the dirty and uneven trail leading back
into the jungle. So long as I kept to a westerly bearing, I knew that I would
soon find another settlement or resort to use as a base to plan my strategy. I
did not look back.

Chapter 2

The U.S. has the
most elaborate network of spies and covert agencies in the world, yet it still
finds room to outsource to private contractors like myself. This was not the
first time I had worked for the Americans; usually I prefer to deal directly
with the military as they insist on a certain amount of separation, which suits
me fine. It gives them deniability and I have the luxury of avoiding the pencil
pushers. The politicians on the other hand, are never easy to work for. If a
job goes to plan, they want anything but anonymity.

Take the job I
did before this one. Some senator is coming up for re-election and he needs to
stir up publicity to remind the voters of who he is. Years of broken promises
and failures can easily be forgotten if the last headline before the election
is a positive one. Narcotic trafficking was a hot topic for political debate and
it was thought that getting that one policy right could be enough to clinch the
vote. That is where I came in. I was hired to infiltrate a major drugs cartel
directly at the source.

Columbia is a
long way from my birthplace in Argentina, but to these rich people, we dagos
are all the same. They sent me in with too little preparation and not enough
back-up. Suffice to say, the mission was a disaster from the start. All that
was ultimately achieved was the arrest of a dozen low level cartel members,
most of them nothing more than slaves, and the seizing of a few hundred kilos
of cocaine. The street value of the haul was a lot less than the expenditure on
the operation. It would have been more cost effective to have simply bought up
all of the drugs to keep it off of the streets that way.

Of course, the
politicians had a very different take on the outcome. Even though the resulting
story had barely been newsworthy, the senator decided to waste even more tax
payer money on a lavish dinner to celebrate, and hopefully for him; to boost
his dwindling campaign funds. I was invited along as an ego boost. By insisting
that I rub shoulders with the rich and the privileged it made them feel a
little closer to the action. In reality, the only thing they dirtied their fingers
with was the hors d’oeuvres.

I was paraded
before them like a piece of art. All the while, I knew that to them, I was only
slightly above the criminals they hired me to bring to justice. At the first
opportunity, I made my excuses to leave. I was tired and this was not my idea
of relaxation. What I needed above all else was a vacation.

‘Excuse me, se
ñ
or,’ said
a voice, as I waited to collect my coat.

It was one of
the low level aides. I had noticed him hovering around the senator for much of
the evening and I figured his role to be strictly domestic rather than
political. I met his gaze, but did not reply.

‘May one have a
word in private?’ he asked.

‘Actually, I was
just leaving,’ I told him.

‘It will only
take a minute and I promise that it will be worth your while,’ he replied.

I followed him
into an empty room at the far end of the main hallway. Although it was far away
from where the party was taking place, I knew exactly where I was. It was the
only part of the house not fitted with security cameras. An imposing mahogany
desk sat at the foot of a ceiling high portrait of the senator’s late wife. She
was a beautiful lady and from an extremely wealthy family. It was well known
that she was the one who had funded his rise to political power. I could only
wonder what lies and trickery he must have used to snare a woman like that.

‘She is
beautiful, isn’t she?’ said the man, who had led me into the room.

‘Is that why you
brought me in here,’ I asked, ‘to admire a painting?’

‘No, it is not,’
he replied. ‘I brought you in here in order to discuss a most delicate matter
that is of utmost importance to the senator.’

‘Why can the
senator not tell me himself instead of getting a lackey to do his dirty
business?’ I asked.

‘I assure you,
señor, that I am no lackey.’

I waited for him
to substantiate his claim. It was obvious that my silence vexed him, but since
he had been the one to initiate our meeting, I saw no reason to make an effort.

‘I am the
senator’s personal secretary and I am in charge of the running of this
household,’ he said.

I had already
seen the senator’s “personal” secretary and she was a lot prettier than this
guy. I guessed a more apt job title would be house butler. He was the only
person at the party to be looked down upon more than I.

‘Okay, I get
it,’ I said. ‘Whatever the job is, it is off the record and will not be traced
back to his eminence.’

 He was
unmoved by my sarcasm.

‘There is no
need to take that tone, but you are perfectly correct in your assumption. The
task I have for you is of personal importance to my master and he thinks that
you are the best man to handle it.’

He removed an
envelope from inside his jacket and handed it to me. It contained a photograph
of a girl. She was beautiful, in her late teens or early twenties. I did not
need to ask who she was. She had inherited her looks from her mother.

‘This is the
senator’s daughter,’ I said. ‘If she is in some kind of trouble, you have come
to the wrong man. I don’t deal with domestic problems.’

‘Miss Katherine
is perfectly safe,’ he replied. ‘She is currently enjoying a break from her
studies and taking time out to travel the world.’

Although the
senator had never once mentioned his only child, young Katherine Cole was
certainly talked about at the party. Expelled from her third college in two
years, it was rumoured that she had been blacklisted by many of the top
academic institutions in the country. My initial thought was that she had
runaway and I would be asked to bring her in. As far as I was concerned, she was
free to run to wherever she wanted. This kind of job amounted to nothing more
than abduction and I would have no part in it.

‘I think you
have made a mistake,’ I said.

‘There is no
mistake. Miss Katherine has chosen to do her travelling alone and the senator
is concerned for her safety,’ said the butler. ‘All he asks is that you keep an
eye on her. Just to make sure that she does not get herself into any trouble. I
can assure you that you will be compensated handsomely for your time.’

So that was what
he wanted of me; to stop daddy’s girl from causing any further embarrassment.
If Katherine got into any trouble abroad, the effect on the upcoming election
would be cataclysmic. Given her track record, keeping her out of trouble would
not be straightforward. When the senator had gone to college he had studied
alongside future leaders of commerce and industry. He had sent his daughter
away to bunk with the offspring of Hollywood A-listers and rock stars. It had
not taken long for her to become corrupted.

‘What level of
surveillance are we talking about?’ I asked.

‘You will be
free to use whatever methods you think best. Watching and tracking her
movements is all that is required. There is to be zero contact unless her life
is placed in jeopardy.’

‘Jeopardy?’

If there had
been any threats made; I wanted to know about it. There was more than one way
that the senator’s daughter could affect the outcome of the election. As well
as a potential embarrassment, she was also a prime target for kidnapping.

‘You know how it
is with a pretty girl travelling alone,’ said the butler. ‘Should she receive
any unwanted attention; you are to deal with it swiftly.’

I was certain
that I would regret it, but I agreed to take the job. The way I figured it, I
still got to take the vacation that I wanted, but with a healthy pay cheque on
top. The risk, if any, would be minimal. Flights and a visa had already been
arranged in my name and just three hours after leaving the senator’s mansion, I
boarded a flight bound for Malaysia. I had no leads other than where the girl
had started her journey, but I did not expect finding her to prove too
difficult.

Since the death
of her mother, Katherine Cole’s relationship with her father could at best be
described as fractious. There was even a rumour circulating that she was not
his real daughter and had been the result of an affair that her mother had had.
Many names were bandied about from rival politicians to rock stars. For the
most part, the senator managed to keep the stories from reaching the tabloid
press, as he knew what a detrimental impact a disputed paternity case would
have on his political career. As such, the young traveller did not once call
home or even send a postcard.

It took me just
twenty four hours to track her down and I did it through her credit card. I
knew that once she made her first withdrawal, a stop would be placed on her
account. Malaysia is the credit card fraud capital of the world. Whenever an
overseas card is used at a cash point the issuing bank automatically freezes the
account. Statistically, such a high proportion of them are stolen that they do
not take any chances. Following a small cash bribe, I saw from the bank’s logs
that she had called to get the card cleared from a backpacker hostel in the
Golden Triangle area of town. I paid a friendly visit to the establishment’s
owner, who for the bargain price of three hundred Ringits told me that he had
recommended to her a place in Georgetown on the island of Penang. I immediately
booked into a hotel on the opposite side of the street.

***

Malaysia is a
Muslim country. Whereas, Muslims are effective at keeping the peace and fending
off the twin evils of drugs and alcohol, they have never been as successful
with economics. This is where the Chinese come in. Every major city in the
country has a flourishing Chinatown and there is none bigger than on Penang.
Chinese New Year was coming up and this gave me plenty of places to blend in;
plenty of crowds.

Now that I had
located my target, I had to ensure I did not lose her. I figured that two
tracking devices would be enough; one on the bag and one on the girl. The
latter would be the most difficult to plant. I had to figure out what was most
precious to her; the one thing that she would never leave behind.

There were no
twenty four hour bars on the island and by three o’clock the whole town was
usually sleeping. The hostel was not locked and the reception left unmanned.
Luckily for me, the girl was staying in one of the town’s more up market establishments
and as such the building was fitted with a fire alarm system. After checking
the guestbook to get her room number, I smashed the casing on the alarm trigger
before quickly exiting back onto the streets. By the time the residents started
to shuffle bleary-eyed onto the street, I had climbed atop an adjacent rooftop,
which offered an ideal vantage point to watch the street below.

The guests began
to gather in various stages of undress. Some had made the effort to put on
trousers or gowns, but many, including Katherine, had simply wrapped a sheet
around themselves. All of the guests were eager to get back to their beds, but
the ringing of the alarm was prolonged as the landlord could not locate the key
for shutting it off. Of course, it never occurred to him to check the pockets
of the guy who was now snooping about his roof. Whilst everybody outside was
distracted, I located and unlocked a hatch that led directly onto the corridor
of the top floor.

I soon found
Katherine’s room. After picking the lock, I slipped inside and took a brief
look around. A few photos from home (nights out with friends and a visit to a
rock concert) had been tacked to a wall by the bed, giving the place a more
personal feel to it. Her backpack was still largely unpacked and I had no
trouble fitting a discreet tracking device into the fabric. Next, I checked the
drawer to her bedside cabinet. Her passport and a few other pieces of ID were
inside; all amended to show her new name. Rather than change it completely she
had kept the surname, which is how I had found her entry in the guest book.
Again, that was her mother’s. The senator had adopted it early in his career to
align himself with one of the state’s most powerful families and also to mask
his own humble origins.

 The only
other item in the drawer was a silver chain attached to a locket. She had been
wearing it the whole time that I had been watching her, but I had not been
certain if it was of any value or merely a souvenir trinket. I flipped it open
and saw an image of the same woman who had stood proudly on the canvass behind
the senator’s mahogany desk. This was the priceless find I had been hoping for.
I carefully attached a second tracking device behind the photograph and then
returned everything to how I had found it, before exiting via the roof.

The alarm had
not abated when I got outside and I could see the owner becoming increasingly
agitated by the crowd of tired travellers surrounding him from all sides.
Rather than allow him to resort to destroying the alarm control box with an
axe, I flipped the keys over so that they landed by his feet. These were
spotted and picked up by an eagle-eyed backpacker and normality was soon
restored to the guesthouse.

With my tracking
devices in place, I was able to take things easy. It was no longer necessary to
watch my target all of the time, so I acquired a car and decided to see a bit
more of the island. I checked out the beaches to the North and explored some of
the city’s colonial past in its Dutch, Portuguese and British influenced
architecture. For the first time in my life, I actually felt like a regular
citizen; like a tourist. It was a pace of life that I could easily get used to.
Each evening I would return to watching the girl as this was when she was at
her most vulnerable.