The Assassin on the Bangkok Express Read online

  ‘I am an illusion. I can only hope it lasts another day.’

  ‘You love the charade, don’t you?’ she said. ‘That performance you gave in Melbourne when we first met when you impersonated your cricket coach at an old school dinner; your taking off of a Frenchman to evade police in Chiang Mai; a Swede to carry out the liquidation of Mendez; an Englishman to escape Thailand last year; and now this, a Frenchman again. Any more characters you want to perform as?’

  ‘Michael Caine would be cool,’ he said with a slight smile as he sat up. ‘People have often said I have his eyes.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘He played the butler in a Batman movie.’

  ‘Still never heard of him.’

  ‘Do you know Mr Bean?’

  ‘Yes. Everyone in Thailand knows and loves him,’ she paused and scrutinised him. ‘You look nothing like him.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I know an English guy in Chiang Mai who is the spitting image of the Rowan Atkinson character. Every time he goes to the market, Thais point and tell him he looks like him. He becomes very angry, just like Mr Bean, and goes home to complain to his Thai partner.’

  ‘You seem relaxed, for someone planning to …’

  ‘I can assure it’s a cover for nerves. I’m always on edge at these moments, although I am clear on what I must do.’

  ‘Don’t you fear death?’

  ‘I try not to think about it. This is not a suicide mission.’

  She looked concerned.

  ‘I do know I don’t want to be there when it happens,’ he said flippantly.

  ‘So you are scared. You can back out now. You can achieve so much more alive.’

  ‘We all die,’ he said, his expression more serious, ‘but only what we die for counts.’

  ‘Please, you should leave the train.’

  ‘There are no scheduled stops between here and Singapore.’

  ‘I can arrange it. Just go, please …’

  ‘I can’t leave Pon now.’

  ‘If you manage to achieve your mission, have you an exit plan?’

  ‘No. It depends …’ He felt he had said too much. He stood up. ‘I need to rest.’

  Jacinta walked to the door and unlocked it.

  ‘If you need any assistance …’

  ‘I don’t want you implicated,’ he said touching her shoulder. ‘If you know nothing, you can’t be accused of being an accomplice.’

  31

  MIDNIGHT MEETING

  Cavalier woke at 2 a.m. after three hours sleep and felt the Express was now living up to its name as it sped into Thailand’s jungle-riven south with its interspersed rice fields and dragon rocks flowing all the way from the Himalayas, which burst up through the vegetation. He looked out the window and watched the moonlit landscape of tangled undergrowth broken by ramshackle villages or cleared field, a false green by day but black and grey at night. He concentrated on staying awake, taking a few moments to collect his thoughts. Several things conspired to lull him into further sleep: the hypnotic clip of the wheels; the reassuringly steady train movement plunging on into the dead of night; the just discernible clang of the couplings at his end of carriage 29; the unthreatening, slight back-and-forth slide of the woodwork in his cabin. It felt like a sleep-inducing womb.

  The moonlight fell away as the train burst through a long cutting. The room’s colour scheme seemed to change to a dark purple. It was ethereal and strange, and it brought Cavalier to his full senses just as the Express emerged back into the endless jungle.

  He shook his head, breathed deeply and moved into the presidential suite, making sure to lock the partition door, especially after being told that security guards had searched his cabin. He dressed as Edward Blenkiron, edged his wheelchair into the corridor and wheeled left towards the end of the train. He could see security guards at the other end of carriage 29. Three Mexicans, all slumped in sleeping poses, guarded the corridor leading to carriages 30, 31 and 32, the observation lounge bar and the observation carriage.

  Cavalier, his special glasses on and hat jammed down on his scalp, drove his chair with its faint but distinct whirring sound, which was more pronounced in the quiet of the night. The one guard fully awake barely acknowledged him.

  Cavalier was surprised to see Topapan and Marc Makanathan in the observation car. They were both smoking and enjoying the cooler night air. Next to them, but not engaging with them, were the Dempsters, the Australian graziers. Cavalier rolled past them, closer to the end of the train, and ignored the other four. He sat at forty-five degrees to them.

  After five minutes, Azelaporn appeared with Cortez. Cavalier froze, but had the presence of mind to ignore them. He placed his extrasensory earpieces in his ears. When they had passed, he edged his chair around so that he almost had his back to the new arrivals, who perched in the open alcove at the very end of the train.

  Cavalier adjusted the sound and heard the conversation from about eight paces.

  ‘Can that old man hear or see?’ Cortez said.

  ‘Do not worry,’ Azelaporn replied with a wave of the hand, and annoyed that he had to speak English, ‘he is deaf, nearly.’

  ‘He seems to be listening to music okay.’

  ‘With the volume up very high,’ Azelaporn chuckled. His expression changed as he added, ‘Don’t worry about the Muslims. They are no longer on the train.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  Azelaporn shrugged. ‘No one knows.’

  ‘And that Frenchman you mentioned?’

  ‘He had books in his cabin, that’s all. But we’re watching him. I have a guard right outside his door all day and night he is inside. My deputy says he is harmless. I ordered her to sleep with him.’

  ‘Did she?’

  ‘Not sure. She was not happy about my directive.’

  Cortez wiped his weeping good eye and fiddled with his eyepatch. He grinned and exposed uneven, nicotine-stained teeth.

  ‘How very fortunate for him, if he did,’ he observed as he lit up a cigarette, much to Azelaporn’s irritation. ‘Have you looked closely at all the Americans on board?’ Cortez asked.

  Azelaporn nodded vigorously. ‘There are ten; five couples all over seventy and retired.’

  ‘And that old prick in the chair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a disturbance at the entrance to the car. Pon, dressed in a pink nightgown, was trying to enter. Cortez tossed his cigarette over the side and bustled to her.

  ‘Take her back to the room and give her a shot,’ Cortez ordered his men. ‘Lock her in and stay with her until she is asleep. Make sure she is in the top bunk.’

  Cavalier twitched in his chair but did not turn his head. It was all he could do to restrain himself again as Cortez gave Pon a sharp slap across the face and hissed at her, ‘Behave yourself, you drunken slut!’

  Two guards dragged her screaming back to the cabin.

  Cavalier kept staring out into space as Cortez returned to Azelaporn, bumping the wheelchair as he did so.

  ‘That damned woman!’ Cortez said.

  ‘She looks terrible! I can’t believe it is the same person whom I heard play in your Chiang Mai bunker last year.’

  ‘It’s sad,’ Cortez said. ‘She was so beautiful. It’s the drugs …’

  ‘You should dump her. She will be trouble.’

  Cortez nodded ruefully and ran his hand through his hair. ‘I’d like to get rid of her, permanently,’ he said.

  ‘Not on the train,’ Azelaporn said with a jerk of his head as Makanathan and her husband were leaving the carriage, ‘not with that bitch on board.’

  ‘I have read about her,’ Cortez said, glancing at the doctors as they left.

  ‘She is bad for police! I had much trouble with her. Sticks her nose in every investigation.’

  ‘I shall attend to my girlfriend when we reach Singapore. She has passed her use-by date. Her piano performances are woeful.’

  ‘You will …?’ Azelaporn began a
nd made a sweeping motion across his neck.

  ‘I have no choice. She knows too much.’ He paused a few seconds and added, ‘It will not be a problem. She is thought to be dead anyway.’

  ‘You do not worry about her father, the journalist? We believed he assassinated Mendez.’

  ‘He thinks his daughter was guillotined by Mendez. That’s why he killed him.’

  ‘You will avenge his death?’

  ‘Huh! If we could find him. The coward has disappeared. I have my spies in Australia. They can’t find him.’

  Even though Cavalier could hardly tolerate what he was hearing, he had to stay and learn as much as he could. He saw Marco Rodriguez enter the carriage. He strode past Cavalier and joined Azelaporn and Cortez at the rear of the train.

  Rodriguez shook hands with them.

  ‘This is a good time to meet,’ he said, ‘middle of the afternoon in New York. I am wide awake.’

  Cortez lit another cigarette. Rodriguez joined him with a cigar.

  ‘The Chinese bought more gold today,’ Cortez said. ‘Our bullion went up $10 million.’

  ‘Our bullion?’ Rodriguez said, staring hard. ‘It is not yours. Implant that into your skull, please. I don’t know what Leonardo said or promised. But you are a salaried employee. I hope you comprehend that.’

  Cortez’s head movement was ambivalent.

  ‘He who has the gold rules, eh?’ he remarked.

  ‘Yes, and it belongs to the cartel.’ Rodriguez turned to Azelaporn. ‘You are sure about security?’

  ‘No problem,’ Azelaporn said. ‘The bullion will be met at Singapore by the bank and its security. They will take it straight to their vaults.’

  ‘Good,’ Rodriguez said, ‘I’m going back to bed.’

  ‘We have arranged a frigate in Singapore,’ Cortez said.

  ‘You arranged a frigate, not me. The gold goes into a Singapore bank. We are not going to risk pirates on the high seas trying to seize it.’

  Cortez eye flared to his dead stare for a fraction of a second, although he refrained from arguing with his new boss.

  ‘Let’s meet here tomorrow an hour earlier,’ Rodriguez said, ‘say 2 a.m. All right?’

  The others nodded and watched Rodriguez stride off, his heavies close behind him. Cavalier waited. He had his back to Cortez and Azelaporn and wanted to hear their reaction.

  ‘I hate that shit!’ Cortez mumbled. ‘When Leonardo was in charge, we did all the hard work to build up the cartel. Now he wants to make it all legitimate. Property, stupid businesses with small profit margins, football teams, TV stations. It is not our core business!’

  Cavalier rolled his chair slowly out of the car. He lingered at the door to Cortez’s cabin. He watched the guards who sat between carriages 29 and 30. They were less lethargic with their bosses so close, yet there was still a carelessness in their attitude. Cavalier rolled on past the suite he was occupying as Blenkiron. One guard sat facing the door to Garriaud’s cabin. He was asleep. Cavalier eased his chair forward to observe him for a few seconds. Then he backed up to the presidential suite just out of the guard’s line of sight, and entered it.

  Cavalier showered and worked on his plan. He looked at his phone. There were ten missed calls and messages from Melody Smith.

  Sorry to have not replied,

  he texted her,

  but we are out of range and the train rules don’t allow mobile use. Please send your team to Singapore by tomorrow afternoon. Stand by with trucks and arms, just in case. Am ready to use your special kit soon. Must do before Singapore. Wish me luck.

  Smith sent back a quick response.

  What train?

  Bangkok Express. Pulls in about 8 a.m. on 27 April. Bullion on board. Must intercept before it goes straight to bank vaults.’

  Which bank?

  Don’t know.

  How many armed cartel?

  A dozen.

  Including Cortez?

  No. Add two heavies with Marco Rodriguez, and his wife. She is quite hefty in a certain way.

  Marco Rodriguez—Mendez’s nephew?

  The same.

  What is he doing?

  Protecting his investment.

  There was a pause of thirty seconds before Smith’s next text:

  Why didn’t you let us know about the Express?

  I told you; I like solo operations.

  But we could have helped you!

  Just push your squad to Singapore train station on time, please.

  32

  LAST CHANCE

  At 7.15 a.m. the next morning, the second of the trip, a steward knocked on Blenkiron’s door, handed him his breakfast and, apologising profusely for the interruption, asked for his passport.

  ‘Why?’ Cavalier asked grumpily, knowing full well that they would soon be passing into Malaysia. He handed it over, shut the door and moved fast to remove his disguise before there was a knock at Garriaud’s door.

  ‘I’m in the bathroom,’ he called. ‘I’ll bring the passport to the porter in a few minutes. Leave the breakfast tray outside the door.’

  The steward obliged. Cavalier picked at both breakfasts and drank the coffee of one before leaving the trays outside the two doors. Dressed as Garriaud, he delivered the French passport to the porter.

  An hour later the passports were returned. Cavalier wanted a break from masquerading as two different people. Still acting as Garriaud, he told a steward that he was not feeling well and would miss the lunch before the train reached Butterworth inside Malaysia. He said he would consider later in the morning if he would join the tour of Penang Island. Cavalier felt sluggish after a couple of days devouring rich French food without his usual physical workouts. He cleared the floor in the presidential suite and went through a rigorous exercise routine, including calisthenics and yoga.

  Late morning, he received a text message from Smith:

  Have intercepted messages from Bangkok. IS branch in Basilan (Philippines) is set for an attack in Malaysia, next 24 hours. Mention of bullion in communications. Making assumption that they may target Express. Possible points Penang, Kuala Lumpur. Would need access to roads in and out if bullion is target.

  Cavalier now felt compelled to stay on the train and not join the tour group, which he doubted would be attacked. The train, sitting at a station, would be the likely target. He informed Jacinta, who suggested to Huloton and Azelaporn that the passengers and security guards stay on alert on the train.

  ‘What are they attacking for?’ Azelaporn asked. ‘If it’s to rob the passengers that is one thing. The bullion is another.’

  ‘I would imagine it’s the bullion,’ Jacinta said. ‘My information is that there has been a flurry of exchanges on the IS networks with mention of bullion. Given their cash shortages, I doubt they are mounting an attack for Rolexes.’

  ‘Where did you obtain this?’

  ‘Good contacts,’ Jacinta said, ‘impeccable.’

  ‘You should share them!’ Azelaporn said.

  ‘Not a chance.’ She turned to Huloton. ‘Alert the Mexicans. And have your guard doubled at that end of the train.’

  ‘Mon Dieu! What about the passengers?’

  Jacinta pondered this for a moment. ‘On second thoughts, let them go on the tour of Penang. That way they won’t be in harm’s way should there be an attack on the train itself. But make it a shorter trip. No more than three hours. Have four train guards go with them. See if you can commandeer some local police as well for both the train and the passengers.’

  After the meeting, the Express jolted its way into Butterworth station, located on the northwest coast of peninsular Malaysia. The bland, gleaming white, ultra-modern structure had an eerie, almost morgue-like feel about it. No other train was on any track. No passengers were in sight. The Malaysian police had done a thorough job, it seemed, in shutting down the station, if not the surrounding area.

  Jacinta knocked on Garriaud’s door. He let her in. She noticed five canisters on the bed.


  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘If there is a fire fight, opportunities might arise. Chaos can provide good cover.’

  ‘You’d be better staying out of it. You’d be exposed. Azelaporn would have you arrested.’

  ‘By whom? He’s not a cop any more. We’re not in Thailand.’

  ‘The train is Thai territory. Please don’t put me in an invidious position.’

  ‘I doubt that the train’s status would stand up in a court of law,’ Cavalier chuckled. ‘The French could claim it’s their territory.’

  ‘Huloton could inform the Malaysian police.’ Jacinta glanced at the canisters. ‘You’d have some answering to do over your rifle.’

  ‘You knew about that?’

  ‘When you escaped down the Mekong to Vietnam last year, you shot at my boat with unerring accuracy. My brother monk was your pilot. He saw you assembling it.’

  ‘You know pretty well everything now,’ he said with a half-gesture of resignation.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

  Cavalier showed her to the door, keeping out of sight of passing passengers.

  *

  Cavalier assembled his rifle and loaded it. He sat by the window watching the passengers file out of the train and into a bus that would take them to Penang’s Georgetown. He could hear them complaining about the heat, which was nudging forty-four degrees; many were using fans. He’d seen the sights along the town’s cobbled streets before and did not envy them the conditions on a tour.

  After the bus left, he saw about twenty police, including a local version of a SWAT team with automatic rifles, arriving. Huloton could be seen waving his arms in the direction of the rear of the train. With him was Rodriguez wearing another immaculate suit, this time a pinstripe, its pure wool unsuited to the weather. They were soon joined on the platform by Jacinta dressed in her all-black uniform of vest, trousers and cap. The only thing missing was the Thai Special Unit of Investigation (SIU) insignia on her cap and the breast pocket of her shirt.

  He could see her taking charge, directing Huloton and giving an order to a rattled Azelaporn. She was also in a brief discussion with first Rodriguez, then Cortez. Cavalier gripped his rifle. One shot, he thought, his emotions taking control of him for a second. If he opened the window now, he would be almost certain to make a kill from about thirty paces. He put aside the temptation once more, aware it would have been a suicidal move. He looked along the platform for his daughter. She was not in sight. What had he done with her, Cavalier wondered for a depressing moment. He imagined an IS attack in which he could somehow fire off a shot at Cortez. However, he thought that the chances of doing a swab, extracting blood and taking snaps of the body would be next to impossible in such circumstances.