Chapter 42

Wiang Hiran

'COME IN, COME IN. Make yourselves at home. My name is Philip. I call my home Wiang Hiran. Do you like it? If you donʼt know, it was named after a major city in the time of the Lanna Kingdom; very apt for me, donʼt you think?'

Philip was proud of his home and also of himself.

Mike and Pat nervously looked around them. The building was solid teak. There was little in the room: one chair, no pictures, neither photographs nor art, just polish, polish everywhere. There was not much natural light and even less electric light. There is no way to make yourself at home.

'It's bare, is it not?'

'My dear lady, this area is for greeting people only. Believe me, you have seen nothing yet.'

Kev and Skylab were led forcefully into the well-polished room.

'You sit,' the scarred Thai pointed to the chair. Skylab eased herself into the chair. 'Mai chai, eng baa. Khun. ' ' No, not you. You crazy, you,' said the ugly man.

As he pointed to the sole chair. The ugly man's Thai was nearly as bad as his English.

Kev sat. Ugly stuck a cattle prod into Kevʼs privates. He jumped and screamed in agony as sparks flew. Skylab moved towards her man as the prod flicked towards her. That was not the welcome you expect in a northern home.

'Welcome to our home,' said Joe, who had appeared from the right-hand side of the room. 'You have a lot to learn about following someone. I saw you at the bus depot yesterday. I saw you at your hotel today. What do you think you are doing?

Philip took over the conversation.

'Are you well, Mike? Perhaps you donʼt remember me? I visited you in jail; I got you out of Laos with a passport, remember? I have an eye for talent.'

'No, not really; I was in a haze for most of my time in Laos. Am I now supposed to kiss your feet or something?'

'No need to show your gratitude. I imagine you had too much of your own medicine. Most people in this business would have had you disposed of, but I think I am smarter than most. I wanted you alive in case anything happened to Pu Yai; well, as you know, it has happened. I blame you, Kev, for the death of my most loyal comrade.'

'Me? What did I do?'

Another jab with the prod stopped Kev from talking. The smell of burning was enough to stop anyone talking, especially when it was burning their flesh.

The big boss carried on.

'There were only two people who could make my pills; now there is only one, so you will now make them for me. I want you to upgrade the product, but the production cost must decrease. Easy for you, I expect.'

'Oh no, I wonʼt; I had enough trouble last time.'

'We shall see, won't we?' said Joe, laughing.

'Joe, please show them the way,' said Philip.

Joe roughly lifted a sore Kev out of the chair. Kev resisted the urge to relieve himself by scratching his parts. Joe lined up the girls behind him, with the ugly one leading them to the back of the room. Their host signalled to Mike to stay where he was. Mike sat in the warm chair.

The small column of prisoners reached a door disguised as a wall. Ugly slid back the wood. A narrow corridor ahead of them opened, revealing some stairs going down. The corridor then doubled back under the stairs, revealing a glass floor.

The smell was the first sense that greeted them, followed by dampness, urine, and fear. They stopped walking without thinking until the threat of the prod got them stepping forward. Then, the very sad sight of people who had given up all hope confronted them.

'My God, look at them,' squealed Skylab. 'Donʼt say we are going in there?'

They walked on and down the stairs; they went.

The first glass cage revealed one girl who had run away to the family guesthouse. She screamed out Skylab's name; the scream awakened her friend, who was locked in the next cage. They had caged six other young girls in separate cells. Leaving four empty boxes. They were roughly shoved one by one into their new accommodation.

Upstairs, Philip spoke. 'Now Mike, don't try anything silly. You know I have your friends and girlfriend locked downstairs. They are very comfortable. At least, they are for now. Also, I would not be stupid enough to try one of your concoctions. So don't try to slip me anything. Please take over from Pu Yai and produce something special. A product that will take the world of illegal drugs into the future. We will make a great team. Pu Yai wanted nothing for himself. To know I would fund and support all of his antigovernment movements. Naturally, I was happy to do this; the more, what shall we say, confusion amongst governments, the better it is for me. Now I wonder what you want?'

'All I want is for us all to go home and forget we ever saw you!'

'Yes, Iʼm sure you do. That will not happen. I am happy to pay you eventually. You will see the benefit of working alongside someone as forward-thinking as me. Whatever you want will be cheaper than paying for Pu Yai's little wars.'

Philip pointed the way Mike was to go. The place was like Dr Who's Tardis; there were rooms within rooms. Mostly, it seemed underground or underwater. Mike passed a cinema, a fully equipped gym, and other oddly decorated rooms. Did one look like a scene from Alice in Wonderland? Mike was finally taken to a kitted-out laboratory.

'You see, Mike, I have everything you need - local opium, loads of it, Mandrake, which grows on my farm now. Luckily, the authorities donʼt know what it is or what it can do. And marijuana, now that is a problem; I have to get it from Kaeng Krachan, which is the best quality in all of Asia. Local yobs now make amphetamines. And the last ingredient? Kompot, which our friends from East Germany were generous enough to send over. Unfortunately, they did not get to enjoy their payment.'

'It has been a long time; I'm not sure I can remember how?' said Mike.

'Really? Slide back the window cover. It might jog your memory.'

The sliding wood moved quickly, revealing the cages. Ugly was waiting for his boss's order. Both men, Ugly and Philip, smiled, enjoying this.

The electric prod turned high and was thrust into the lass in cage number one. She squirmed in pain again and again, and the prod was poked into her private area. The pain was so bad she could not scream; smoke drifted upwards as she slumped forward. She would suffer no more.

The other occupants of the glass boxes screamed, but they could not help watching. Ugly near the jails, Joe's boss in the lab could not contain their sadistic pleasure. Joe relaxed; he had seen it all before; he carried on eating a chocolate bar ordered from the Mars factory in Slough.

Mike worked.

Camilla was hidden from sight. Mike and the rest did not know she was there. She was in the next-door lab, smaller than the one Mike was to work in; hers was only for stocking little jars in a big fridge.

Black, back in his office catching up, snatched up the receiver.

'Please, Lord K, please understand me. I donʼt know where she is. All I know is that they all went up north. I have heard nothing for hours.'

'Black, if you wonʼt find my girl, then I must find her myself. For your information, I came back to Thailand yesterday to sort out my daughter.'

Black got his friend Skip at the Dusit, and he was about to field at the first slip.

'I need your help.'

'Wait a minute, I have not told you about my chanceless fifty. Brilliant, even if I say so myself.'

'Get back to your office. We have a huge problem. Your cricket team can do without your bowling today.'

Mike was perspiring. The task was not as easy as he remembered; it had been a lot of beers ago. Philip kept sticking his head through the door, asking if there was a sample ready yet. The answer was no, not yet.

Mike worked long and hard and was nearing the formula's correctness. He needed some rats to test the concoction, so they supplied rats. Philip was far from happy with the slow progress, so he decided the next experiment would be on a human. The only question was, who?

Downstairs, the inmates stared at glass walls, which did not offer much to look at.

It was getting late, and nobody was ready or able to sleep. They had locked the Burmese girls up for days, and they looked blank, like caged zoo animals.

Every so often, one girl would go, and another would arrive. The supply of females had also slowed since Pi Meow had died. An annoyance Philip tried to cover up.

Philip's love of young flesh was insatiable. His strange kink was to dress as a schoolboy; his victim was to pretend to be a strict teacher. A veteran prostitute could pull it off, but a teenage girl with no experience could not. This left Philip unsatisfied. The schoolboy would then be very naughty. He would torture the teacher with the prod.

Philip had led a very unusual life, starting with school. His father was a headmaster. He enjoyed beating his son with a miniature cricket bat made from an old orange box. It was painful, but young Philip enjoyed it. The schoolboy was not that bright, but with a headmaster as a father, he passed all his exams with ease. Exam success surprised his teachers and classmates. He became the brunt of the school bullies' cruelty.

Young Philip was a gifted liar and cheat. He wormed his way into a university, where he used his skills to earn a degree.

Armed with a self-adjusted degree paper, he landed a job with the Secret Service. His first boss, a very strict, unmarried lady who was unappealing to the good-looking men in the office, found pleasure in beating young Philip, an act they both enjoyed, leading to an undeserved promotion.

This odd attraction was not to last. The lady committed suicide under strange circumstances. They found her dressed in a Mortar Board and cloak, with nothing underneath. Nothing was proved, but they immediately moved Philip out east to Malaysia.

Asia proved to be a playground for him to indulge in his whims. He found he was not the only one. Soon, he began luring wealthy European businesspeople into blackmail traps. Money then became his first love.

His earnings increased, and they moved him to Hong Kong. No one could work out how he managed it, but around that time, Philip caught his superior with a young boy. Philip was promoted again.

Unnatural sex spiced with drugs became a fascinating way to earn money. With the protection of the British Foreign Office, he could not go wrong.

He felt his days as a British Citizen were numbered, and it was time for a change.

He then sold his blacklist of customers. All his contacts and information to the highest bidder. He became what the Thais call "unusually wealthy" with unheard-of amounts of corrupt money.

Ugly came down the stairs, unlocked two doors, and dragged two unfortunates. Mike was having a euphoric moment.

'Got it,' he shouted. Philip was about to enjoy his evening's fun. He was a little upset that he hadn't tested the product on a human guinea pig. When he heard Mike shouting, he raced to the lab.

'Done it?'

'No,' answered Mike, 'but now I know why I could not.'

'Go on.'

'I need to dose myself up with Mandrake, then when I dream, it will come to me, and in the morning Iʼll have cracked it. It worked before, and I remember how I did it in Laos.'

'Okay, this is not a trick, is it? If it is, I've been thinking of the perfect punishment.'

'No, I would not dare call it being a professional, a kind of pride in your work.'

'Good, get on with it then; I have customers all over Asia waiting for their new, improved supply.'

Mike set to work cutting and dicing the Mandrake root. It works pretty quickly, he warned Philip. They sent Ugly to escort Mike to his cage for his night of dreams.

Mike soon drooled and mumbled in Welsh.

They dimmed the lights; only Mike lay down to sleep. Philip had enjoyed his little girl, who was sent back to her cage covered in blood, too upset for tears.

Mike rolled over and whispered to Pat in the next cage.

'Pat, take this, see what you can do with it.'

Mike had removed a stolen pen from his shorts. The cages had glass sides and ceilings, but the box had a wire base to make cleaning easy. The pen was passed through the wire beneath their feet. They set the door locks in a metal frame, which was set into the strengthened glass.

'I remember the night you were in a mess, and you beat me up. You had too much to drink; later, you got talkative and admitted you had broken into the schoolmaster's office. To change exam papers - using a pen, not for the papers but to unlock the door! Now let's see what you can do.'

'You are a good actor; I believed you were smacked.'

'Mandrake has little effect unless you use a lot. It all adds to the mystery.'

'Christ, Mike, you are a clown!'

'Stop talking and get us out of here.'

Black and his man, Skip and a crew of his men, Pat's father and the King's Special Forces were all rushing north to Chiang Rai.

Pat shushed her friends.

'Okay, now you know my wicked secret, be quiet and let me concentrate.'

She snapped the pen's clip back; it came off in her hand. She returned the bulk of the pen to Mike. She would not need that bit. Luckily, she didn't drop it through the base. Mike had further plans for this broken pen. Pat was twisting and turning the steel clip in the lock.

The three teams of law enforcement men all arrived at Baan Rub Aroon guesthouse one after the other. About half an hour apart. The landlady wondered what was going on. The King's men were the first to arrive, and she was not taking a chance by upsetting them.

To the first team, she had said, 'Toward Chiang Saen,' which she then repeated to the leader of the other teams.

Pat was busy; she first freed herself, then opened each cage. She pressed a finger to her lips when releasing the Burmese girls; they were keen to comply with her wish. They crept slowly, quietly and smoothly up to the stairway. Then, along the corridor, finding the hidden doorway back to the entrance room. Young hearts were pumping. Nerves were more than ragged; they were ripped when the last of their group entered the highly polished room.

'And where do you think you are going?'

'I tried to stop them,' said Mad Mike as he slid across the polish. Cockney Joe levelled his pistol as Mike neared him. Mike raised his arms like they do in every good Western movie.

'Get Philip, he'll tell you.' Mike was almost at a level with Joe. Joe opened his mouth to scream orders at Ugly. Mike pressed the button on the top of the purloined pen, sending liquid into Joe's eyes and mouth. He could no longer see but suddenly speak the lovely tonal Welsh language.

Mike took the weapon from Joe's hand, which would no longer comply with his brain's orders. Ugly came bursting through the door, swinging the cattle prod. Kev grabbed the only furniture in the room and used it to defend himself and the others. They circled Ugly.

Mike would not shoot for fear of hitting one of his friends. Ugly, swinging and missing with the prod, was tiring fast. He was unused to fighting people who fought back. Kev inched his way closer and closer; eventually, he was close enough to swing the chair and batter Ugly. He slumped to the ground. One of the Burmese girls grabbed the chair from Kev and crashed it into Uglyʼs head repeatedly. She only stopped when Skylab pulled the young girl away from the pulpy skull. The other Burmese girl snatched the chair, now falling to pieces. She started stabbing splintered chair legs into the still-blind Cockney's face and body.

Camilla, in the small lab, was standing in front of the "baby" fridge as her job that day was to impregnate herself. She was about to remove a jar from the refrigerator when she looked up. A monitor showed the entrance to the floodlit building. She congratulated herself on her new life and was intrigued by everything she saw. She noticed the armed teams of serious-looking men coming up the drive. Thinking hard, she guessed this was not a social call. The aim now was to pretend to be chained in the lab. Make it look like she was a prisoner and then bluff her way out of the situation, which was worsening.

'Enough!' shouted Philip.

'All of you stand in line over by the door. As you can see, I have a powerful AK47 in my hands. Kev, I think you have seen one of these in action. I suggest you do exactly as I say. Or I'll fire, killing you all except Mike, who I can still use. Even if he has a bullet hole in his leg, and by God, I will enjoy making him graft.'

The front door burst open, and police, special police, and Embassy staff came flooding in.

'I guess Iʼm in trouble?' said Philip.

'I am empowered to arrest you, Philip Roger Payne, for treason. For giving secret information to enemy states and being a thoroughly nasty individual.'

'I am working for the King of Thailand. I will arrest you for masterminding the sale and supply of narcotic drugs in the Kingdom.'

'We are here to arrest you. For many murders, torture, 'groomingʼ and supplying underage females. And anything else we can think of.'

The front door opened once more.

'And I want to kick your butt for the way you have treated my daughter.'

'Oh, Daddy, you came to save me, ' Pat said, breaking down in tears.

Philip Roger Payne raised the machine gun, saying. 'I'm sure I'm in trouble.'

He aimed the weapon at the gathering in front of him. Bullets pinned him to the wall; he did not get one shot off as they peppered him with bullet holes. Slowly sliding to the polish on the floor with a hideous smirk on his face.