Chapter 47

  Phuket Thailand

  Sue Chin had never seen his naked body except at night. Now, she could see the many scars on his deeply tanned body in the morning light. The man was trim and fit. He had long, dark, wavy hair starting to turn gray and a week’s worth of facial hair. She had also never seen the large tattoo of a cobra with its head poised to strike at a mongoose on his back. She had only seen the ones on his arms. She didn’t know what they represented and was afraid to ask. One was of a coiled, diamond-patterned snake with its forked tongue out and fangs bared and the words “Don’t tread on me” below it. The other was of a wavy American flag with swords crossed and the words “Live free or die” across the face. On the shoulders that she could see was a tattoo of a winged skull with a beret and crossed knives below the jaw. Below the knives were the words MAC V SOG.

  The beautiful twenty-something, wearing nothing but her birthday suit, gently nudged the man lying on the king-size bed. To her amusement, he just rolled over and said something indiscernible. Not deterred, she pinched his butt cheek.

  "Ouch," the man said playfully while opening his eyes and turning toward the young woman with a smile.

  "Good morning, my little Teerak…I see you brought me some coffee. That was very nice of you."

  "Yes, I did," Sue Chin said while holding a cup of steaming black coffee.

  "I hope you didn't walk around in front of Kasem like that; you're likely to give that old man a heart attack. Set it down on the table and come and give me a kiss."

  Sue giggled and set the cup down, knowing that he probably wanted more than just a kiss.

  Ten minutes later, Shawn sat up on the edge of the bed and consumed his now lukewarm coffee. He turned to look at the young woman lying face down on the bed and smiled. His days of hard drinking had slowed considerably, but not his taste for young Asian women. He got up, slipped on his robe, and headed for the kitchen. He poured himself a hot cup of coffee, gave his breakfast request to his housekeeper Kasem, and then took a shower.

  After his shower, he returned to the kitchen, refilled his coffee cup, and walked out onto the balcony just off the kitchen. The white rattan sofa, with beep blue cushions and white throw pillows, had been swept clean of any debris accumulated from the previous night. Shawn loved his morning coffee overlooking the sea. It was one of his few private moments in his ordinarily busy day. Sometimes, his thoughts would drift back to the hills around the Cumberland Gap, and he reflected on how fate, or the hand of God, had brought him to this paradise.

  *****

  After the incident in Miami, Shawn returned home to Middlesboro, Kentucky, with his truck and camper. But it wasn’t long before he learned of his stepfather’s death and of the warrant that had been issued for his arrest. One of the sheriff’s deputies, with whom Shawn had played football in high school, had warned him that the sheriff had no choice but to arrest him. With this foreknowledge, he quickly left town and traveled to the East Coast, where a job was waiting for him, a job that would take him out of the country. But before he left, he asked his sister and her husband, who owned a small farm, if they would continue to store his car as they did when he was in the service. Shawn sold his truck and boarded the ship where he would spend the next year and a half on the high seas as an undocumented merchant marine using false documents and passport thanks to an army friend whose father owned the small shipping company. But everything changed when we woke up in a whore-house after a hard night of drinking in Phuket during shore leave. He learned that his ship had sailed without him, and he never looked back. He had found his new home.

  *****

  Kasem arrived with his breakfast and the current edition of the Phuket Gazette just as Shawn was finishing his coffee. “So what’s new in the world today, Kasem?” Shawn asked as he did almost every day.

  “I only cook and clean; I don’t have time to read.” was his usual reply. But not today!

  “Very bad, Mr. Shawn…I just got newspaper. The American President was assassinated yesterday.”

  Kasem put down the tray containing his breakfast and the Phuket Gazette on the glass coffee table in front of him.

  “What?” Shawn grabbed the newspaper and quickly read the headlines.

  “United States President Assassinated”

  Shawn was stunned. He continued to read the article, which outlined the events that happened in Mystic. He threw down the paper on the coffee table and headed for the kitchen to get more updated information. He grabbed the remote off the center island bar and turned on the flat-screen television mounted on the wall across from the center island eating area. Kasem was right on his heels carrying his uneaten breakfast and placed it down in front of his boss, who had just pulled up a stool.

  "Will you bring me another cup of coffee, Kasem?" Shawn said while searching for CNN.

  He sat memorized as he watched the last day's events unfold before his eyes.

  The cable news channel was continually playing the scenes of chaos and destruction at the Mystic, Connecticut, cemetery. He heard the death toll and of those injured. The list was staggering: names of prominent men and women from across the country and foreign dignitaries. The reaction to the stock market was immediate. The S&P, DOW, and NASDAQ all plummeted, finishing the day down nearly twenty percent in the last hours of trading. The Asian markets followed the U.S. markets on the opening of trading. Shawn watched as the talking heads ran down the list of possible suspects. The list was a who's who of Islamic terrorist groups. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Hamas, and Jemaah Islamiya, although none had taken responsibility, and that puzzled many of the pundits. CNN cameras were in the streets of Gaza and Damascus, showing women, children, and young and old men shouting "Death to America" and claiming a great victory for Allah over the Great Satan.

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  CNN interviewed citizens on the streets of Los Angeles and New York, giving their reactions to the assassination. Wolf Blitzer had on a spokesman for CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) condemning the attack and asking for restraint and a rush to judgment.

  “We wholeheartedly condemn this cowardly attack,” and “Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance.”

  “Yeah, right, tell that to the people who were killed by the Pattani guerrillas,” Shawn said to himself, referring to the unrest in Southern Thailand by the Islamic Separatist Group embedded there.

  Shawn had heard enough from Blitzer and switched channels to the BBC, where he got a little different slant. The BBC was doing a story on the new President of the United States. That’s when he got his first look at Sydney Williams. CNN had talked about the former Secretary of State briefly but not in great detail. Shawn finally started to eat at the urging of Kasem, who finally threw out his cold breakfast and started over again.

  Shawn could care less about U.S. politics, or politicians for that matter. He didn’t follow the U.S. elections or care who was in office. He had lived in Thailand for so long that he felt that this was his home now. But deep inside the man, he felt a burning anger and profound sorrow for his former homeland and country that he had once sworn to protect and defend.

  He noticed that the new President was gorgeous, and somehow, she looked very familiar to him. But in his line of work, he saw beautiful women from every corner of the world on a daily basis, at his club and on the streets of Phuket. He listened to the BBC reporter with casual interest until he heard the words former Secretary of State and CIA agent. His eyes were instantly drawn to the screen and the image of the new Commander in Chief. Even the name Sydney hadn’t registered immediately until it was coupled with a former CIA agent. He looked at the face on the screen, and the light came on.

  He put his hand over his mouth and said softly, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

  Another man watched the news reports with keen interest, although he wasn’t forty-three hundred miles from Washington, D.C. He was much closer. Jesse Taylor was only a few miles away.

  *****

  Shawn Harris was the owner of a very successful and trendy nightclub called The Mongoose Club. His home, however, was far from the noisy tourist area, in a very exclusive area of Phuket. Setting atop a peninsula just south of Nai Yang Beach, his luxury home was originally built by media mogul Sondhi Limthongkul as one of his many escape homes. But after his conviction for falsifying documents to secure a multi-million dollar loan for his media empire, it was sold along with the vast majority of his other assets to pay his attorney fees and creditors circling like hungry vultures. The home afforded the new owner breathtaking views of the Andaman Sea and surrounding area and the additional security of five fenced-in acres.

  The contemporary three-story white stucco home was designed with four bedrooms, four baths, an indoor pool and spa, and two outdoor pools. All the bedrooms were on the top floor and had full glass doors leading to their private balconies, and each offered a different view of Phuket and the sea. The second-floor living room was surrounded by full-length glass with sea views on two sides. The home provided one of the best vistas of the sea of any property in Phuket and seven thousand square feet of living space. A new Supercharged Range Rover was parked in the garage along with the owner's pride and joy, an unrestored Turquoise and White 1956 Chevy Bel Air two-door hardtop. There was a vacant spot usually filled by a 750Li BMW, but its owner wasn't happy with the homeowner's philandering and had recently moved out.

  After watching the news for almost two hours, hoping to glean more information about Sydney's past and her rise to the country's top spot, Shawn finally shut the TV off and headed for the gym in the lower level of his home. Kasem had informed him that Chong Eng had arrived. Normally, he would have worked out for an hour on the weights before training with his Tae Kwon Do Master. But today was different.

  After only ten minutes of sparing, Eng threw his hands up and said, "I'll come back when your head's in the right place. You're paying me way too much to kick the shit out of you without a fight."

  Shawn looked at Eng and said, "You're right. I thought this would help, but I can see it won't. I'll pay you for the rest of the day. Why don't you come back in two days, and I'll make sure to kick the shit out of you properly so that you can feel like you've earned your money."

  "Now that makes me feel much better. If you don't mind my asking, does this have to do with what happened in the U.S. yesterday?" Eng had been educated in the United States and was very intuitive.

  "More than you could possibly know," Shawn replied.

  *****

  After Eng left, Shawn took a shower, and his thoughts turned to Jesse and the last days of the Vietnam War. He was sad that he had never been able to find his friend again. During his heavy drinking days following the war, Shawn often thought about the irony of that last mission with the Rangers. He sometimes wondered if God had heard his prayer that night long ago. But as the years passed, those memories seemed to fade into the fabric of time.

  Then his thoughts turned to Sydney and the manila envelope he found just before leaving Xuan Loc. After his discharge from the Army and before he went to search for his stepfather, he made friends with a man at a VFW hall in Middlesboro, Ky. The man was a former Military Intelligence Officer and had a very sharp analytical mind. During one night of casual drinking, Shawn asked if he knew anything about encryption. When he told him that he did, Shawn told him about the file he had found and under what circumstances he found it. The man asked if he could look at it. He was intrigued by the story of the file and the author, who had died under mysterious circumstances.

  Shawn met the former officer several days later over a few beers. After a warm greeting, Shawn handed him the envelope containing the encrypted document to examine. The man first looked at the envelope and the remainder to the torn note at the top. The only thing written on the note was;

  04/05/1 The rest of the year was cut off.

  “Do you have the rest of the paper that was torn off here?” the man asked, pointing at the stapled note.

  “No, that’s just the way I found it.”

  He nodded, pulled the single page from the envelope, and set it on the clean table. He studied the page and the envelope inside and out for any signs of other writing. Finally, he said, “I think what you have here is a book or text cipher. I assume you don’t have the key.”

  “This is all I have.”

  “Do you know who this was being sent to?”

  Shawn looked at him and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I take it that’s a no. Well, without the key or knowledge of who the intended receiver was, I don’t think I can help you.”

  “Are you saying that it’s impossible to decipher?”

  “I didn’t say that it was impossible. You would have to dig into the man who wrote it and find out who it was intended for.”

  “Could someone break it without the key?”

  “Maybe…maybe not; it depends. But if I were you, I’d try to find out to whom he was writing this. Because frankly… you’re chances of having it deciphered without the key are Slim to none, and I’m afraid that Slim has packed his bags and left town.