The 13th Tablet (42 page)

 

He switched on the WIFI connection on his laptop and picked a few signals from various modems in the neighbourhood. One of them was not password protected, so he connected his laptop to it. He clicked on the same special website he'd used the other day to track Wheatley's whereabouts but typed a different character combination. This website was a backdoor into an hour-by-hour satellite photographic coverage of various regions of the world. He typed in the longitude and latitude coordinates of Patong Beach, 7° 53´ 24´ N, 98° 17´ 24´ E, and was almost immediately offered a choice of fifty high resolution satellite photographs from the past five hours. As soon as he glanced at the first two, he knew his hunch was the right one. There was only one yacht of the kind Wheatley could be interested in and the detail of the photographs was such that he was able to identify men guarding the yacht, carrying submachine guns. He checked the last position of the yacht and it hadn't moved from its location in the past four hours. He had to go and check. Maybe that's where they were being held. He noticed the barman had returned but hadn't wanted to bother Jack while he worked. He gestured for the man to approach. He handed Jack the printed photograph and asked an exorbitant amount for it, which Jack paid without a murmur. The barman returned to his customers, a happy man. Jack called him again.

‘Yes Sir?' asked the barman.

‘I need a small boat, a rowing boat. Any ideas? I need to rent it for a few hours,' Jack said.

‘With motor?'

‘Yeah. Why not,' Jack replied.

‘OK. No problem. You come with me and I show you,' said the barman.

 

Jack packed the laptop and the photograph into his rucksack and followed the barman, who was busy making a phone call. He hesitated about returning to the bungalow, to wake up Mina and let her know where he was going. But he guessed he would be back before morning, so there really was no point scaring her unnecessarily. The barman was waiting outside on his moped. Jack climbed on the back and off they went. He'd tried to find out how much this rental would cost him, but the barman had conveniently gone deaf. After a ten-minute ride, they drove down a path that lead back to the sea front. Jack could see a small boat, moored to a pier, made of a few odd planks of wood thrown together. They got off the moped. The barman walked over to the boat, followed closely by Jack. ‘Here is boat,' said the man.

‘But where's the motor?' asked Jack.

As he said these words he heard the approaching sound of another moped.

‘My friend brings it now.'

Jack waited for the other man to fit the motor, start it and show him how it worked before paying his favourite barman. The price was as before, overwhelming, and Jack thought of the multiple ways he could knock out both men and disappear with the boat, but in the end he shoved a hand in his pocket and pulled out a wad of crumpled dollars.

 

Once both men had left, he stepped onto the boat and turned on his laptop. He needed to take another look at the satellite photographs he'd saved, comparing them to a coastal map he'd downloaded. He could roughly estimate how far he had to go to find the yacht. Hopefully it was Wheatley's. He couldn't bear the idea of navigating in the dark for an hour or more, covertly boarding the yacht to find a group of drunken Japanese businessmen playing cards. But did he have a choice? He started the motor and slipped away into the night. It was a good thing there was a relatively powerful torch at the front of the boat, but as he got closer to the yacht he would have to be discrete, which meant turning off the torch and also the motor.

 

Within an hour he found the yacht, roughly where he'd guessed it would be. He spent twenty minutes or so observing the comings and goings but there seemed to be very few people on board. One guard stood on the main deck, another below and he also caught a glimpse of Natasha, Wheatley's head of security. Now came the difficult part. He needed to tie his boat to the yacht and get on board unobserved. After ten minutes spent approaching the yacht's port side as slowly and cautiously as possible, he looped a rope around a metal bar which ran along the lower deck. He had tied the other side of the rope to his boat's motor. He then checked his pulse, closed his eyes and started breathing slowly and deeply. When he was satisfied with his state of calm, he smoothly reached up on the port side, and grabbed hold of the brass opening of a cabin window, resting his right foot on a large bolt protruding from the hull. He suddenly heard some footsteps coming from the main deck, so he made as little noise as possible and waited. He tried relaxing as much as he could, but he couldn't remain in this position for much longer. He mustered his strength, and swung himself upwards, onto the deck. He looked left and right and didn't see anyone. He bent low and crawled to the door that lead to the stairwell. As he stood up, a guard appeared to his right. He quickly beamed his torch in the man's face to startle him, crouched down and felled him with a quick sweeping kick. Before the guard could get back on his feet, Jack kicked the man's gun out of his hand and knocked him out with a powerful blow to the temple. He grabbed the man's hand gun and stuck it in the back of his own jeans. He stood up and dragged the man to the side door, pulled him over the high step and dumped him in a corner of the stairwell. After knocking another guard unconscious in the stairwell, this time with the butt of his gun, Jack reached the lower deck. There, through the bay window he saw his mum and sister, tied up and seemingly asleep on a large, white leather couch. He looked around, but saw no more guards. He ran into the room, woke them both up and untied them, urging them to keep quiet and remain as calm as possible. Jen shook as tears of relief coursed down her face. Jack put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and was about to usher them out onto the deck when Natasha appeared in the doorway. Jack immediately fired off two shots in her direction but Natasha was faster still as she ran into an adjoining room. Jack bolted after her and locked the door behind her. She was locked in. His panic-stricken mother and sister looked at him, waiting to hear what to do next. He reassured them, that he had everything under control now. He picked up a rope ladder lying nearby and returned to the spot where he had climbed onto the yacht. He secured the ladder to the railing, and made his mother and sister climb down onto the small motor boat. He followed and immediately started the motor. Before long, all that was left of their passage was a silvery trail on the sea's calm surface.

‘Pick up the phone dammit!' Jack yelled frantically and slammed his fist down onto the dashboard in exasperation, frightening the taxi driver. His sister and mother were half asleep in the back, exhausted after their kidnapping and dramatic rescue.

‘Hi, Jack? Is that you? What time is it?' asked Mina anxiously.

‘Yeah. It's me. It's six a.m. I don't want to go into details over the phone. I've managed to rescue mum and Jen and we're off to the airport.'

‘But…' Mina tried to interject.

‘No buts. Get into the first taxi and meet us at the airport. Go!' he shouted.

He turned off his mobile immediately after the call and hoped with all his heart that Wheatley's thugs wouldn't have had time to track Mina's phone, which until now they didn't know about. He thought about what to do next. There were a number of flights out to Bangkok. From there he would try to get them home on whatever flights were available. All he knew was that they had to get out of there as quick as possible.

Mina jumped out of bed and felt queasy for a moment, her legs swaying underneath her. She looked around her. What should she take? Did she even have time to pack? Jack had rescued his mother and sister! She had only just digested what Jack had said. There was nothing stopping them now from leaving as planned. Who knew what disaster would strike today. She went for the simplest solution: leave everything behind. She slipped on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a good pair of sneakers. She checked that she had her phone, passport and money and slipped out into the dark maze of bungalows and palm trees. She took a wrong turn, and after a few more, hit the main road but too far down. She had to walk at least fifteen minutes to the taxi rank. She walked along the main road, avoiding a few drunken tourists returning from a bar to their hotel rooms. A taxi passed by her. She waved at the driver who slowed down and parked a little further on. She ran towards it, but two men were closer, opened the door and by the time she got there, the car had pulled away.

‘You bastards!' she yelled, fuming.

 

She walked on and saw an empty tuktuk near the entrance of their hotel. The doorman noticed her questioning look, and told her the driver would be back soon. While she waited, she noticed a local squinting at her from the other side of the street. She thought for a moment the man had mistaken her for someone else, and she was suddenly afraid. But she was wrong about him; he seemed to have lost interest and before she knew it, he was talking on his mobile phone. She sat on a low wall waiting for the driver to return or another taxi to arrive. The man across the street was gone. The tuktuk driver came out of the hotel laden with boxes and wrapped-up gifts. Before Mina had time to speak to him, he had already fitted his load on the backseat and was ready to go. Mina was frantic. Would she ever find a cab to take her to the airport? Suddenly a taxi stopped at the rank. This time she practically tore the door open.

‘Are you free?' she asked.

‘Yes. Where you going?' he replied.

‘The airport,' answered Mina.

But as she looked inside, she noticed someone was already in the front passenger seat.

‘You come in?' the taxi driver urged her.

‘Well, I was just waiting until your other customer left,' she answered.

‘No. She my friend, going airport too,' he replied.

‘Right,' said Mina.

She didn't feel as if she really had a choice in the matter.

As the car left the taxi rank, Mina took a better look at the veiled woman in front. She had a funny sensation of
déja vu
, or more precisely, she recognised the woman's perfume. It was quite distinctive, both edgy and classy; a fragrance that simply didn't seem right among the locals. Suddenly a cold sweat broke out over her entire body as she remembered when she had last smelled it. She tried opening the door, but it was centrally locked.

She screamed ‘Let me out! Now!'

The woman turned around and pointed a gun at her. She lifted her veil and sunglasses and let her blond hair loose.

Natasha Mastrani smiled cruelly at Mina. ‘Shut up and stay still,' she ordered.

Mina lost control and tried breaking the window with her mobile phone. The driver saw Mina wasn't wearing her seatbelt and slammed on the breaks. She was thrown violently against the front seat but she wasn't knocked out. Natasha suddenly plunged a needle into Mina's thigh and emptied the entire contents of the syringe. Within seconds Mina felt an immense weariness spread through her and a moment later she lost consciousness and was out cold.

‘What was that?' asked the driver.

‘At least we won't have to hear her moaning until tomorrow. Drive back to the yacht,' answered Natasha.

 

Chapter 33

 

December 26th, 2004. Phuket. Airport

 

 

 

Jack was a nervous wreck. What was Mina doing? He should have driven back to Patong beach to pick her up. His mother was asleep and Jen was stroking her head. Her eyes seemed vacant. They were still traumatised from their recent misadventures and Jack knew he'd have to find them some help when they got back to the States. Normal people don't get over kidnappings in a matter of moments. He was still amazed at Mina's resilience after all her ordeals at the hands of Wheatley. Maybe it was hatred for the man that kept her from collapsing. What was she doing? They couldn't wait that much longer, it was almost 7:30 and they had already missed one flight to Bangkok. He'd called her mobile phone many times and she'd never answered. He hoped she'd forgotten it in their room and that nothing more sinister had happened. After switching off his phone for the the tenth time to avoid being traced, he turned it on again and this time noticed he had a text message. He opened it and immediately wished he hadn't.