Tiger by the Tail (31 page)

Yosif’s smile didn’t fade until after his team had finished their work and filed out behind him to the wrecked first floor and into the street.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Now
that
is a suitable haul of booty.”

Mike surveyed the group with a satisfied smile. The johns had been allowed to slip away into the night once the Keldara had relieved them of their cell phones—not that they would be in any hurry to call the police after where they had been.

The girls were grouped by the side of the M35. Around thirty all told, they were dressed in whatever clothes they could scrounge from the building.

A thorough search of the premises had come up with several small caches of bills and jewelry. They had also discovered a four-foot high safe. It had been blown open to reveal stacks and stacks of baht, along with around one hundred thousand U.S. dollars, a shoebox filled with jewelry, a collection of gold coins, and about ten kilos of heroin, which Mike had left on the floor in front of the safe. They had also found several sets of identification papers, which Mike held in his hands.

For this part, Mike had brought Soon Yi with him to translate. He stepped on the bumper of the truck and held both hands up. “Ladies, all of you, please listen to me!”

Every girl turned to him, and Soon Yi began translating in Chinese, while Jace repeated the same message in Thai.

“My name is Michael Jenkins, and I am the one responsible for what has happened tonight. Now, I don’t know each of your situations, and I don’t really want to know. However, since your previous place of employment no longer exists—”

He nodded to Oleg, who hit the radio detonator for all the charges inside the building. With a loud report and a huge cloud of dust, the three-story building collapsed on itself, reduced to a pile of rubble in seconds.

“—You can now choose what you wish to do with the rest of your life. So, here’s the deal. Anyone who wants to leave right now, step forward,” Mike said.

There was a pregnant pause, then one girl meekly stepped forward. When she wasn’t slapped, beaten or shot, several more joined her. In the end, roughly half of the girls wanted out.

“All right, when one of these two—” Mike handed half the stack of IDs to Soon, and the other half to Jace. “—call your name, come and collect your papers.”

Soon called out the first name, and a tiny Korean stepped forward. Soon gave her the passport, and Mike handed her a thick stack of baht worth at least two thousand dollars. Tears streaming down her face, she hugged Soon, Mike, and even Vanel, who had been holding the money, before tucking the bills away and starting to walk down the street.

“Jesus—Soon, go get her and tell her we’ll take her to a hotel to rest and get cleaned up and dressed first,” Mike said. “Okay, who’s next?”

They went through the rest of the group that were leaving while Mike called Chal. By the time all of the departees were set up, a small bus had arrived, and the driver recited the arrangement Mike had made with Chal word for word.

“Good. And if I find out any of these girls end up back in the life, both you and the old man will be seeing me again, and I guarantee neither of you will like it,” he’d told the driver, who nodded so hard Jace thought he was going to sprain his neck.

“What about rest of us?” The tall Chinese girl asked once the bus had left.

“You have a choice,” Mike replied. “You can go back to the streets and keep trying to earn a living that way . . . or you can join us.”

“Doing what? Same thing we did in there?” She pointed at the ruined building.

“For now, yes. However, there will be several changes. First, you will be paid much better than you were working for them. Second, you will have a small stipend to replace whatever you may have lost. Third, you’ll have the chance to get an education . . .” Mike went through the entire harem pitch to the girls, ending with. “. . . Anyone agreeing to accompany us will be leaving Thailand.”

To his surprise, the majority of the girls burst into laughter. “We fucking hate it here!” said a willowy Japanese girl with a detailed dragon tattoo crawling down her arm.

“Well then, are you coming or staying?” Mike asked.

The girls all hudded together to confer about the offer. In the end, three more decided to leave, and Mike gave them their IDs and severance pay. That left an even dozen prostitutes filing into the M35.

Jace looked at the bevy of girls packing into the truck and turned to Adams with a befuddled look on his face. “Does this happen often?”

The master chief shrugged. “More often than you would think. Don’t look so surprised. What Mike’s offering them is a damn sight better than anything they’d find here. Come on, get on, we’re getting the hell out of here.”

“What about her?” Jace pointed at the unconscious dragon lady lying by the side of the road.

“Too ugly to fuck, and we got enough managers already.” Adams didn’t even glance at her as he climbed in the back of the truck. “I say let that sleeping dog lie.”

* * *

The rest of the night was mostly clean-up. Mike had radioed ahead to have the ship prepped for their new arrivals around tomorrow afternoon. Then he had taken them all to the Hyatt and put them up two to a room, telling them to get cleaned up and rest before shopping for replacement clothes and other essentials later that morning. He requested Katya and three of the intel girls to come ashore and help oversee the new girls’ excursion to the mall and answer any questions they had. Soon Yi agreed to serve as an interpreter, and Jace agreed to go along as both back-up translation as well as escort. Mike let him do so with a strange smile and a knowing shake of his head.

It was a decision the former Marine soon regretted. The girls, while separately charming and delightful in their own way, devolved into a group of fashion and appearance-obsessed little girls the second they hit the mall. It also didn’t help that they saw him as their personal valet, piling bag after bag onto him until he made arrangements to collect all of the purchases from each store at the end of the trip.

Jace’s morning passed in a grinding blur of women’s clothes shops and perfume and makeup counters. They walked from one end of the large shopping center to the other and back again. By the time they were finished, he had a headache from all the scents he’d been subjected to, and was still so loaded down with department store bags, he could hardly see—things the girls didn’t trust the stores to hold for them.

“Holy shit!” he said as he collapsed into the bus seat. “I’d rather do a thirty-klick march in full ruck than go through that again!”

Sitting across the aisle from him, Soon Yi smiled. “Surely you knew what you were getting into when you signed up for this?”

Jace ruefully shook his head. “I’ve been with this outfit for less than a week, and already I’ve seen more action than in two full tours of duty as a Marine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m just not sure if this Kildar is a tactical genius, insane, or some combination of the two.”

Soon Yi’s smile faded as he spoke. “It is very likely that he is the latter.”

“I’m sorry, did I say something to offend you?” Jace asked.

Soon shook her head. “No—it is a private matter.” Her smile was more hesitant this time. “Do not worry about it. It is nothing that should concern you.”

“Oh. Well, if you don’t mind my asking, how’d you sign up with these guys?”

She looked at the rest of the chattering, squealing whores with a sad, knowing smile. “I was also a prostitute at a pirate den that the Kildar and his men attacked and shot up. I was taken as a spoil of war, and now service the Kildar exclusively. Oh, and provide translation on occasion. Does that answer your question?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They were both quiet the rest of the way back to the dock.

* * *

“Damn, it was bad enough to be tripping over the intel girls on their way back and forth from the sundeck—now we’ve got these other women running every which way!” Adams’ complaint would have been more believable if he hadn’t been wearing an ear-to-ear-grin while saying it.

“Yeah, you look like you’re dying over this. Everyone settling in all right?” Mike asked.

“The new girls seem to be, though Morgan looked a bit shaken when Soon and he came back from their shopping trip.”

Mike chuckled. “I was going to warn him, but decided experience would be the best teacher.”

“So, other than having to squeeze past barely dressed hotties every time I leave my room, things are great.” Adams stared at Mike. “Tell me again why you didn’t bring any of the harem with us on this trip?”

“That smile on your ugly mug is your answer,” Mike replied. “Besides, there’s always Daria if you’re so inclined.”

Adams shook his head. “Not my style. Don’t get me wrong, she’s a looker, and she can act the part, but I know her heart’s just not in it, that’s all. Kinda takes the fun out of it for me.”

Mike’s jaw dropped. “Damn, I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

“Hey, just ’cause I get my rocks off doesn’t mean I don’t want the girl to have a good time too, if possible.”

“And here I thought you were all about hitting it and quitting it. You best watch it, buddy—I might start thinking you’re a man of unsuspected depth.”

“I try to learn from the best,” Adams said.

“But getting back to your original question: the other reason is that this is a
training
mission, remember?” Mike mock-frowned at him. “And mostly because then I wouldn’t have to worry about you dipping your wick every chance you got before they came aboard—like I do now.”

“Hey hey hey, they have to get a full health clearance from our medic before they get to sample my wares. Momma Adams didn’t raise no fool, you know.” Adams managed to return Mike’s deadpan stare for a few seconds until they both burst out laughing.

The humor was interrupted a knock at the door from Daria. “Kildar? Am I interrupting something?”

“If you mean two braying jackasses, then yes you are, Daria, but come in anyway,” Mike said.

Walking to his desk, she handed him a tablet. “Here is the cost breakdown and profit figure for the trip so far.”

Mike ran down the numbers. “Chal’s payment put us back in the black, and about two-point-five million to the good so far, even with scrambling Kacey, Tamara, and the girls down here by our private airline.” He stared at the screen again. “With all the running around we do, you’d think we could figure out some way to lease a used jet, or time-share one at least.”

“The cost versus availability window has never worked out, but I’m still looking for a program that might work for us,” Daria said.

Adams drained his Mountain Tiger and belched. “At least all this—” He waved his empty at the yacht. “—is on the house, thanks to Uncle Sam.”

“Yeah, don’t remind me.” Even with his investments in the valley of the Keldara, Mike was comfortable, to be sure, but the money they’d gotten from the “sale” of the boards was certainly welcome. Mountain Tiger beer was steadily gaining market share in the U.S., but it was slow going. If Adams’ contact paid off in China—hell, throughout Southeast Asia—they’d probably have to expand their brewing operation to keep up with the demand. But that would cost money in the short-term before starting to show a profit.
All in good time . . .
Mike thought.

“There is one more thing.” Daria hit the screen to bring up an e-mail. “Chal has set up the initial phone call with your contact in Myanmar.”

“No rest for the wicked, eh?” Mike pulled out his satphone and dialed the number. With Vanner bouncing any communications off several area satellites, he wasn’t concerned about being traced.
Besides, I’m on a motherfucking boat
. . .

The phone rang four times before it was picked up. “Hello.”

“This is Mike Jenkins. I was told to call this number regarding a job.”

“Call this number in three minutes.” The voice repeated an international number twice, then hung up.

“Very careful,” Mike said as he finished jotting the number down and committed it to memory. When the allotted time had elapsed, he dialed the new number and waited.

Six rings later, it was answered. “Yes.”

“This better be who I am supposed to be talking to.”

“Who gave you this number?”

“The first guy I spoke to three minutes and—” Mike checked his chronograph. “—eleven seconds ago.”

“You are Mr. Jenkins?”

“Yup.”

“And you are currently sailing off the west coast of Thailand.”

“Around there, yes.” Mike was getting impatient. “I heard you have a job you need doing, right?”

“I have many things that need doing. However, for this one, I require specialized personnel.”

“Well, if you’ve been watching the news out of Phuket, you should know what we’re about.” After delivering video of their op, as well as a few heads in a bag to prove they’d done what Mike had said they could do, he had spent a pleasant hour with the old man. Chal had ended up buying the gems and jewelry for a nice price. However, despite Mike’s polite fishing, the old Thai would not say whom he would be meeting regarding the computer boards. All he would say is, “You probably wouldn’t believe me.” He did, however, tell Mike two things. First, not to use any official currency conversion places like banks in Myanmar, but to exchange any money on the street, as he would get a much better rate. Second, to look him up again the next time he came to Thailand.

Mike had kept an eye on the news reports as well, and watched as the local media described the remains of the deserted building as being destroyed by a fire of unknown origins. The reporter did say that the police were checking on whether clashing gangs might have been the culprits, but there was no mention of any foreigners being involved.

Mike had smiled as he’d watched the report. He’d made sure both teams and Lasko had all used brass catchers on their weapons, ensuring no telltale casings were left at the scene. Chal had also assured him that the official report would say that the building was destroyed by fire, with arson suspected, but never proven.

“Yes. From what I have seen so far, you may be acceptable. Be at the Mandarin Oriental in Bangkok at eleven tomorrow morning. You will be contacted there.” With that the speaker hung up.