The Assassin on the Bangkok Express Page 19

  A nervous three hours passed. Cavalier tried reading the biography of Napoleon but could not concentrate. He spent time cleaning the rifle and his handgun once more. He was watchful when four women wearing white Muslim hijabs wandered onto the platform, and seemed confused as to their location. They pointed in every direction. His concern lessened as the women were joined by four Muslim men, then a squad of officious police, who ushered them brusquely off the platform, upstairs and out of sight.

  The tour group returned. The train was away swiftly after they arrived and any possible attack had been averted, perhaps by the show of local police strength. Anyone spying on the Express would have reported on up to fifty armed officers, Mexican guards and train security personnel. It would have taken at least that many attackers in a concerted ambush to have any impact.

  Huloton made the decision that there would now be no stop in Kuala Lumpur after consulting the Malaysian police, who were worried that there could be an ISIS strike there. They had cornered two trucks driven by suspected terrorists of a convoy of five in the city. The remaining three had slipped away and their whereabouts were unknown.

  The Express swept through Kuala Lumpur’s beautiful Moorish-style building at the south-east of the National Mosque, with several passengers complaining that they wished to photograph the renaissance-like facade and arched colonnades.

  ‘You can see wonderful pictures of it on the net,’ Huloton told them, knowing full well that some would grumble about not receiving full value for the trip as promised.

  When a few protested further, he shut the conversation down by telling them, ‘I am sorry, it is a security matter, about which I cannot speak.’

  Cavalier dismantled his rifle and thought he should make an appearance as Blenkiron in his wheelchair. He rolled into the observation carriage and sat staring at the dense, impenetrable, dark-green Malaysian jungle. He wore his special glasses and hearing aids while others, including for a time Azelaporn and Rodriguez, relaxed. The heat was too much, so he wheeled into the airconditioned observation lounge and kept his lone vigil. He was absorbing the movements of the Mexican carriage as much as possible. There was activity in the region of Cortez’s cabin. Cavalier had timed, to the second, how long it would take him to wheel from where he was to that door, open it, and then go through with his mission.

  He believed he had to strike in the coming night. It was his last chance.

  33

  MARTYRS ON THE MOVE

  The three-truck terrorist convoy lumbered south out of Kuala Lumpur just after midnight. In the lead truck were the ten members of the Philippines contingent making up one part of the Islamic State offshoot, Servants of Allah. They were all in the twenties and thirties. Most were attending to their weapons—rifles, AK-47s, handguns and swords. Some were singing; one had a banjo; others listened to music on their phones. One or two jokes flew around, perhaps to calm nerves, or just from bravado. Most of them were clean-shaven with short hair. Their dress was Western casual, primarily jeans and T-shirts; anything but traditional Muslim. Most were wearing caps, with various American and Japanese baseball team insignias. Apart from the weapons, they could have been on their way to a ball game or a picnic. This was the way the ISIS leaders had dictated they look. The terrorists had been flown in at different times over the past two weeks from the island of Basilan, the largest in the Philippines’ Sulu archipelago. Their leader, known to all as ‘Hercules’, was a short, muscular man of twenty-eight with a shaven head. He looked as if he spent all day pumping iron—his biceps were too big for shirts and he always wore a collarless white vest.

  The second truck held the home-grown and -trained Malaysian contingent of ten in this first-ever joint terrorist attack by extremists from the two countries. It would have been three, had the two captured Indonesian intelligence gatherers Irina and Nani been included. They were now languishing in a Kuala Lumpur jail. The average age of this group was about twenty-one years. They all had hair growth. A couple looked so young that it may have been a struggle to demonstrate this manliness. They wore blood-red martial arts uniforms and navy blue bandanas. Their weapons—all high-powered rifles—were sitting in a crate in the centre of the truck. The Malaysians were quiet and moved on cue into a prayer formation in the cramped area for a solemn session.

  Truck three carried the overall commander and planner of the combined force, Syrian Abu Hal Basha, thirty-three years of age. He was roly-poly and cheerful, a condition and disposition that belied his role in the mission. Apart from the twenty warriors, he had to mind four suicide bombers, three of them sitting quietly in the back and one in the front with him as he drove the truck.

  One was a thirty-year-old defector from the UK, named Robert George McKenna, who had been born Catholic to a British mother. His American father named Patrick had worked as a co-producer in Hollywood action movies including Dances with Wolves, Superman II, Batman, Sixty Seconds and Death Warrior 11. Patrick had been disappointed by his outstandingly good-looking son, who had toyed in his teens with becoming an actor, a career decision Patrick could have helped with through his wide film industry contacts.

  Robert had looked for an adventurous outlet. He had settled on radical Islam, much to his parent’s shock, and had flown in secret to Syria, going by the name Abdulla-al-Englandi (‘the Englishman’). His conviction had faltered a month earlier when he learnt his wife was pregnant. With the help of drugs and some well-placed inspiration from the jolly Basha, he had firmed up once more for the mission, knowing that whatever the outcome of today’s exercise, he would never see his wife again or meet his child.

  The second in the rear was a bespectacled Syrian male, twenty-five-year-old Abu Moanmar, who was single, and regarded by everyone as a humble, deferential scholar with an unfathomable command of the Koran. He needed no substances to inspire him to the act of blowing himself up for the extreme Islamic cause. Moanmar was a true fanatic. He believed that he would control a harem of seventy-two virgins promised in the afterlife, although he wasn’t clear what this meant or what he should do with so many of them. He was excited because Basha had been so enthusiastic about how wonderful it would be.

  Moanmar claimed in his diary to have found reference to the certainty of his post-death grand sexual fortune in religious scriptures. He referred unselfconsciously, under the current circumstances, to being blessed for two things: he was himself unsullied and not homosexual.

  The third suicide bomber was a thirteen-year-old female, known only as ‘Amula the Paris Princess’. She was a pretty child with a round face and plump body. Her fourteenth birthday would coincide with the attack on the Bangkok Express, and the end of her life. In her drug-controlled state, Amula was convinced she would spend most of her special day in heaven. She had been born in France to Iraqi immigrants and had fallen in with a radical crowd at school in Paris’s Arab enclave.

  Brainwashed by local radical imams, she had been spirited to Aleppo in Syria to service the Islamic State fighters, along with thousands of other gullible young women, who believed that they were doing honourable and great things for the cause.

  Used and abused by scores of young men, she had tried to commit suicide. Amula had been drugged into believing it would be a more admirable departure from earth if she became a martyr. She looked sullen and fiddled with two gold rings on her left hand, despite Basha’s attempts to humour her and keep her from backing out of the mission.

  ‘C’mon Amula,’ Basha said, twisting in the seat to look at her, ‘you’ve done a wonderful job with the warriors. They have all been lifted by their intimacy with you and will fight all the more in the knowledge that they will have many more like you when they enter the realms above.’

  Amula did not respond. She stared at her leather sandals that poked out from under a long black dress. She was either buried in her own thoughts or petrified by what was about to occur.

  ‘It is written that you will marry a prince of Islam,’ Basha assured her, ‘and that Allah forgives y
ou and smiles upon you for your work and wonderful sacrifice.’

  Amula now looked up, her face a changing vista of hope, fear and uncertainty. Basha smiled perfunctorily. In the end he would have no compunction about shooting her, a point he made clear in arguing that it was better to die honourably in Allah’s name, rather than being executed in a way that would shame her memory and her family.

  Bomber number four was the simplest and most malleable, Syrian Abu Qasawarta, just eighteen, who sat next to Basha in the front, begging him to teach him to drive once they reached the jungle outside Kuala Lumpur. Basha relented and let him take over the wheel, which led to a series of jolts before the young man adjusted to this new and challenging task.

  ‘Where is the speedometer?’ he asked.

  ‘Are you really worried about speeding at this important time?’ Basha asked in a moment of levity that he shared with those in the back. ‘You’re on your way to martyrdom!’

  34

  KILLING TIME

  At 2 a.m. on the third night of the trip, Cavalier sat in his chair in the observation car minutes before the prearranged meeting of Rodriguez, Cortez and Azelaporn, who again were congregated at the end of train.

  ‘I feel like pushing that creep out of the train,’ Cortez said, jerking a thumb in Cavalier’s direction as they arrived. ‘He is here every night, staring out at the blackness.’

  The others ignored the remark.

  ‘What did you make of the security alert at Butterworth and the bypassing of KL?’ Rodriguez asked, straightening his tie, and glancing around to see the Makanathans settling down and lighting cigarettes. The others shrugged without replying.

  ‘Now they are a couple I’d like to push off the train,’ Azelaporn said with a nod in the couple’s direction. ‘She makes me very nervous. Huloton informs me she is officially the most senior Thai on board the train, now we are in Malaysia. While on board we are still in Thai territory.’

  ‘Does she carry a gun?’ Cortez asked drily.

  ‘Wouldn’t think so,’ Azelaporn replied.

  ‘Then I don’t think she is the most senior person on board,’ Cortez said, tapping his vest, which hid a gun strapped to his side.

  ‘I’d like to know about security in Singapore,’ Rodriguez said.

  ‘We will not be involving the Singaporean police,’ Cortez said. ‘They would be most interested in our steel boxes.’ He grinned. The others were not amused.

  ‘I don’t think there would be an issue with terrorists,’ Azelaporn said with a reassuring shake of his head. ‘Apart from your guard, the bank will send its own trucks and guards. I’ve warned them to be extra vigilant and well armed.’

  At that point Cavalier sloped off in his chair, leaving the carriage.

  He heard Cortez say, ‘Lucky he left when he did. That American prick gets on my nerves.’

  ‘Has he said something to you?’ Rodriguez asked.

  ‘No. I just hate all Yankees!’

  Cavalier glanced at his watch as he rolled through the observation lounge and into carriage 30. He pulled skin-coloured surgical gloves from his left trouser pocket and put them on. He then removed his all-purpose key from his right trouser pocket. He slipped the key into the lock, snapping open the door to the cabin. He rolled in, jumped from the chair and locked the door. He collapsed the chair and pushed it into the bathroom. Cavalier heard Pon stirring on the top bunk. He removed the KK pack, gun and silencer from the arm of the chair, and climbed up onto the top bunk, where his daughter was asleep, on her side and facing the wall. Pon was snoring lightly with shallow, sharp breaths, made louder in his ears, even though he had turned the ESEPs down low. He judged she was heavily sedated as he eased up next her. Cavalier wished to touch her tenderly and whisper that he was here and that everything would be all right. Yet he dare not. The shock would be too much for Pon.

  He opened the kit, just as he heard movement from the observation lounge. He had no time to prepare the kit. Cavalier slipped the silencer onto the handgun. Cavalier could hear his own heart beating through the earpiece. He took the earpiece out just as Cortez fumbled with the lock. He stepped in and locked the door. Hearing Pon make a slight noise, the Mexican hesitated, his hand near the light switch. Cavalier’s glasses allowed him to see Cortez clearly. Cortez switched on the light, turned and looked up to see Cavalier pointing the gun at him. Cortez sucked in his breath, his fish-like eye widening to show for a millisecond inside his murderous mind, yet it showed also fear. He had recognised Cavalier.

  ‘She is all right,’ Cortez said motioning to Pon, ‘I … I have looked after her. Please … what good would killing me do?’

  ‘I’m glad you know who I am, Señor,’ Cavalier said. ‘I’d hate to see you die without realising who your killer was. I will be your last sight.’

  Cavalier took a step down the ladder, keeping his gun trained on the Mexican.

  ‘Please, Señor, I mean you no harm …’

  ‘You tried to kill me on the Mekong River.’

  ‘Please, please, Sir. I have billions in gold on board. You can have a share of it … anything …’ His voice was trembling. He kept talking, hoping that help would come, or he could reach for his holstered gun under his vest. ‘You must know I have billions in gold bullion. You can have as much as you like. I can arrange it. Please take it.’

  Cavalier lifted his glasses so that they rested on his head.

  ‘Think of that,’ he said, ‘what a wonderful last thought! All that gold you’ll never be able to use. You’ll be dead; like Mendez.’

  Pon stirred again.

  Cavalier put a finger to his lips and indicated that the Mexican move to the centre of the room.

  ‘Lie on your back on the floor,’ Cavalier said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. Do it!’

  Shaken, Cortez did as ordered. As he dropped to his knees, he reached for his gun. He turned to fire. Cavalier saw the movement. He shot the Mexican in the chest. Cortez crumpled, fell forward and rolled onto his side. The fall jarred the gun out of his hand. The muffled sound of the bullet, louder than Cavalier expected, caused Pon to roll over. Her eyes fluttered. Cavalier waited a few seconds, his gun trained on Cortez, before descending two more steps down the bunk ladder, gun in one hand, KK pack in the other. The Mexican’s right hand seemed to reach for his weapon. Cavalier thought at first that it could have been a reflex action. Then he noticed the Mexican’s one good eye burning with a flame of shock mingled with hate.

  Cavalier reached the floor and stood a metre from his victim’s feet. He fired a second shot into the Mexican’s chest. The force of the bullet jolted Cortez’s false eye from its socket and out from under the tartan patch. In the ensuing silence as Cavalier stepped closer, the white glass eye rolled towards his feet. He kicked it aside and pulled Cortez onto his back. He felt for his neck and wrist pulse. There was none. Blood had already seeped over his shirt vest and the upper part of his trousers. Cavalier glanced at the ‘good’ eye. It stared back, truly dead now and without the flame that had reflected his careless, soulless attitude to his own victims.

  Cavalier pulled a swab from the KK pack and pushed it into the Mexican’s mouth. His teeth set tight on it, snapping the swab. Half of it stayed lodged in the Mexican’s mouth.

  ‘Bugger you!’ Cavalier muttered.

  He removed the camera from the pack and took eight photos, four of the face from different angles and the same with the body. He pocketed the camera and noticed that Cortez’s mouth was open again. Cavalier used the second swab, more gently this time, and collected mucus. Satisfied he had a good deal of moisture on it, he pushed it into its small cylinder. There was plenty of blood, still oozing from the chest, from which to draw a sample into the syringe. Cavalier kept clear of it, though, knowing that it could be judged as contaminated. He felt for a neck artery and plunged the syringe needle deep into it, drawing a good sample, before placing it too in its cylinder.

  Concerned about the first s
wab in Cortez’s throat, Cavalier took a knife and spoon from the bench, wedged open his mouth and tried to fish out the swab. Again, the glasses were helpful as he found it lodged partially in the Mexican’s throat. After much dentist-like probing, he was able to retrieve it. He placed it in its cylinder.

  Pon stirred on the bunk above. Cavalier waited. She mumbled something and gave a sustained cry but was soon snoring again. Cavalier took off the gloves, put them in the KK pack and wrapped it up. He lifted the wheelchair from the bathroom, took it to the door and placed his gun and the KK pack in the right-arm chair-rest pocket. He put on his hearing aid. He could hear Rodriguez and Azelaporn making their way into carriage 30.

  Cavalier heard Rodriguez say:

  ‘I want you to ask him now.’

  ‘He may be in bed,’ Azelaporn said.

  ‘I don’t care,’ Rodriguez said. ‘He only left us five minutes ago.’

  Rodriguez knocked on the door. There was no response. Cavalier waited, his heart seeming to burst through the earpieces. Rodriguez kept banging. Pon half sat up on the bunk. She groaned a semi-conscious protest, and then fell back on the bunk without looking down at her stricken captor and Cavalier. Rodriguez heard her reaction and banged again.

  Doing his best to sound like Cortez, he called, ‘Cannot!’

  ‘What’s he doing in there?’ Rodriguez asked

  ‘Fucking, by the sounds of it,’ Azelaporn said.

  ‘See me first thing in the morning,’ Rodriguez shouted, ‘before breakfast!’