Klempner – Thailand
And in the heat of the afternoon…
Movement. By the main entrance of the villa…
Ahhh….
There he is…
Garcias…
White-suited, he strolls from the house, surrounded by…
By what?
Again, I don’t know the faces, the individuals; but the body language is there… Fawning, bowing; subtly, and not so subtly; they defer to this man, who from the look of him, is barking orders.
There’s a woman with him, tall, willowy, blonde, dressed in an ornate, overly-elaborate white dress that shrieks of more money than taste.
The same woman I saw him with before?
Or just a ‘clone’?
His type…
I’m not sure. But her body language, similar to the woman at the hotel, is interesting. Despite the expensive clothes and the sparkle at neck and wrist, she walks no closer to Garcias than is strictly necessary.
Not a partner or a wife then.
An ornament.
Garcias strolls the gardens, following footpaths laid out in quads and circles, apparently taking the air. Several times he disappears from view, behind a tree or in the shadow of the perimeter wall.
It’s not going to be an easy shot.
One chance only.
And I watch.
He takes a seat at the poolside, gesturing to the woman and she snaps to the seat next to him, arranging herself just so; legs crossed at the ankles, hands clasped.
Scared…
A slave with privileges…
A servant serves from a jug into tall glasses. Again, visibly cringing, head ducking down, she pours…
… and stumbles, splashing bright orange juice over Garcias’ woman and the fancy gown.
Garcias stands, backhanding her to the ground, shouting incoherently, first at her, then to the guards, gesticulating to the rear compound.
The girl is weeping and pleading, grovelling at his feet, but two of the guards take her, one to each arm, lifting her and dragging her to the compound.
Garcias spins on ‘his’ woman, as though she’s about to get it too, but there’s a call from the doorway, some minion waving an arm and holding up a phone.
Garcias yells something back, then with a jerk, stalks to the house, snatches the handset away and vanishes inside. The blonde takes her cue from his disappearance and scuttles off to join the rest of the sunbathers.
The sun’s getting high and the angle could betray me with reflections, so I put the binoculars away. Taking my time, I pace up and down, squinting against the light as I consider where to set up.
One chance…
In the heat of the day, all grows still, with only the susurration of insects for sound. Even the birds fall silent.
Then, in the distance, but growing louder, the sound of an engine. It rumbles closer, the tone dropping an octave as it crunches into a lower gear. A truck grinds up the drive. More guards open the main gates then close them again as the truck follows the track to the rear. Now the compound gates swing open, then close again as it parks up.
In the still air, the guards’ voices carry. Not that I can pick out the words, even if I understood Thai, but the harsh bullying tone comes through perfectly as twenty or more women step down from the back of the truck, to stand, heads hanging. Some are crying. Others simply stand, arms wrapped around themselves.
As the sun falls, the door opens and Garcias reappears, shouting something, his arms waving.
Perfect timing…
I stand, stroll around a bit, limber up…
The adrenaline is pounding.
Calm down…
I hold out my hand. It’s trembling a little.
I stroll some more, take a couple of deep breaths, then try again, splaying fingers.
Steady as a rock…
Taking my place, flat-chested to the ground, I sight him.
The crosshairs weave one way then the other until…
There… Got him…
… they centre squarely over my target.
It’s a hell of a shot.
Over a mile
It’s been done before…
I’m not quite comfortable, the ground uneven under my ribs, so I shift the biped a little.
That’s better…
I inhale the sweet perfume of earth and rotting vegetation, mixed with the scent of gun oil. The birds are louder somehow. The buzz of insects more intense.
Focus on the right senses
Concentrate…
There’s a breeze up here, but down there I can’t see even a whisper of movement in the palm fronds.
Head shot or chest?
Chest…
More reliable at this range.
Two figures emerge from the villa, moving to stand beside him. One of the men is blond, the other dark. Wearing normal civilian clothes, they look to be arguing about something.
Who are they?
His sons?
Bodyguards?
Not in those clothes.
Does it matter?
Probably not.
And I squeeze the trigger.
So far to travel, even a bullet takes a few seconds reach its target…
Time stretches… as I wait…
Plaster spits on the wall behind Garcias. Only off by a few inches, but it’s still a miss.
Fuck!
All three dive, necks craned to see where the shot came from, but I’m already aiming again for Garcias.
One of the ‘sons’, the blond, pushes Garcias off-side. I fire again…
One… Two… Three…
… and the blond’s chest splashes red, spattering Garcias.
My heart pounds hard enough to shudder up my arm as I move. The snap and click of the rifle bolt is a smooth, almost poetic motion as I aim once more.
Garcias is running now, pelting for the shelter of the villa. But I’m targeting again, now not at him, but at where he’s going to be in… six… five… four…
I fire…
… and inhale… three… two… one… seconds.
… and as I exhale again, he falls, mouth flung wide as his white suit erupts into blood
The sunbathers are screaming, women running for cover in all directions, some clutching towels to their breasts as they flee, others simply dashing for cover. The guards aren’t much better; an ants’ nest of panicky activity as they too sprint for cover, some looking wildly out as they try to figure where the shots came from.
I’ve two rounds left in the magazine and I use them in quick succession, missing my target with the first, but downing another guard with the second.
But as he falls, another sees, looking out and towards me, flinging out an arm and yelling. Another close by snatches a handset from his pocket, yammering into it.
Time to leave…
I snap the legs of the bipod back into place. Then standing, shrug on my backpack, sling the rifle over my shoulder and step smartly out on my planned escape route: not the way I came in, in case anyone picks up my tracks, but a continuation of my ‘pig-track’, along the ridge and, eventually, to the harbour.
With barely a hundred yards behind me, I hear the thwack, thwack, thwack of…
A helicopter rises from somewhere beyond the house…
Where the fuck did that come from?
And why didn’t I see the pad in the satellite shots?
?
?
Out of date images?
The ‘copter rises, swinging up and circling over the complex before the remaining ‘son’ runs out, yelling upwards and gesticulating in my direction.
Crap!
Stepping up my pace, I march, trying to watch both my footing and the ‘copter headed my way…
What model?
No tail rotor…
KA-50?
Oh, fucking brilliant…
Expensive toy for a crime baron…
Police in his pocket?
??
What does it come with?
Trying to run and think at the same time I dredge my out-dated knowledge of air-mounted artillery and the vehicles that carry it…
30mm cannon…
High frag? AP? Incendiary?
Semi-rigid mounting though…
So, he can’t turn too much to aim…
How much?
No idea…
…
What to do?
??
Run for it…?
Hide ’til nightfall, then run…?
??
Equipped with infra-red?
Probably.
No point waiting for sundown then.
Better to stand and fight now…
… while the heat of the day works for me…
Where?
??
The forest…
Some cover at least…
…
How far was it?
All uphill… not as far as it felt…
The chopper circles, then slants off, following the trail.
Spotted the track from the air?
But not me…
Yet…
The chop chop of the rotors abruptly cuts off as it rounds the ridge and disappears from sight.
Carpe diem…
How long? Before it’s back…
Ten minutes?
Five?
Two?
Run…
U-turning, I set off at as fast a jog as I can manage for the cover of the forest…
Get rid of some weight…
Shrugging off the backpack, I take out the spare mags – stashing them into a back pocket – and the water bottle, then shove the pack over the edge of the cliff-face. Then, shouldering the rifle once more, I go…
Sprinting hard back the way I came, downhill all the way, not bothering with cover while the copter’s out of sight, I make good progress. Freed of the weight of the pack, and with the gradient working for me now, just now the main danger is a stumble…
A twisted ankle…
It would finish me.
Prudence says I need to slow down, watch my feet, but now from behind, the sound again of rotors, closer, louder…
And I’m exposed here, with no tree cover; the naked track against a naked rock face and me… in plain view…
Loose stones skitter under my boots as I take one giant bound then another, leaping across ground that should be carefully negotiated.
And now, behind and above me, the roar of engines, the whoosh of air and…
The ground explodes into splintered rock in a racing line beside me as I run. A hundred yards more and the forest will close over me… Something slashes into my shoulder.
Pain…
But fuelled by adrenaline and terror, the pain is… nothing. After a moment it fades…
And the forest, the blessed green canopy draws closer.
Another line of fire shatters the decayed carcass of some forest giant; rotted wood bursts in all directions, showering me in God-knows-what, but the treeline is right ahead of me and with a scream of tortured engines, the coptor swings up, clearing the trees and away into clear air.
And I pelt into shaded green safety…
More or less…
Above me, above the canopy, a shadow hovers, a dark silhouette. Dodging between one tree and the next, I stay covered as best I can, but the shadow follows…
Infra-red…
…
Infra-red…
The waterfall…
The overhang…
I move quickly, darting from tree-trunk to tree-trunk, pausing to gather my breath behind one before sprinting for the next. Over the clatter of the rotors, the roar of water grows louder.
And ahead of me, the forest opens once more to the roaring falls.
I don’t bother to admire the view. There’s no shelter between me and my target. Above me, the shadow screams forward, then swings through one-eighty to bear on me as, dashing headlong for the overhang I leap from one slick stepping-stone to another.
Sheer momentum keeps me upright as, helter-skelter I dash for cover trying, impossibly, to outrun the gunfire which chatters and screams behind me, biting at my footsteps.
Skidding, I leap first one way, then another as a single rock, then a line of rocks squeals and shatters by my feet. Doubled-over as I run, I almost lose my footing and, at the last moment, regain my balance as moss, green gunk and ferns explode in a running line off the slick rock-face.
Full pelt, I vault headlong through the curtain of water and under the shelter of the overhang.
My mind skitters and veers in excited panic, but my body reacts by rote, doing its thinking all independent of my brain, letting training and adrenaline work their magic.
Ignoring the pounding of my heart, the rasping of my lungs and taking orders directly from the base of my spine, my hands swing the rifle from my shoulder and to the ground, snap in a fresh magazine…
My body follows, and with a few seconds respite, my brain regroups.
The water curtain flows and ripples and shimmers all but continuously. Here, the infra-red won’t penetrate, and I cannot be betrayed by my own body-heat.
But in a few spots, the curtain parts; inches only, and with wayward splashes and ripples, but the narrow openings are there; enough to poke the muzzle of my rifle through and to aim.
The copter hangs above, meandering in the air, slightly concealed by the line of the canopy edge, but nonetheless, silhouetted against bright blue sky…
Idiots…
… a perfect target…
Range?
A couple of hundred feet?
Less…
The angle’s more difficult than the range. As the thing hovers and swings, a grey vulture over the trees, I stack flattish rocks under the biped, twisting to look, trying to bear on the damn thing, then lying flat-shouldered to the ground, I squint upwards to sight…
Where are the fucking fuel tanks?
Does it matter? At this range?
Modern copters…
No space unoccupied these days. Bound to hit something vital.
Go for it.
Nudging the sights first one way, then as it shifts, the other, I aim, square-on for the front windscreen and the shadow of the pilot behind it.
Finger around the trigger… I squeeze…
Fuck!
… then roll to one side as the recoil just about dislocates my shoulder at the ridiculous angle I’m lying…
But the pain vanishes under a haze of euphoria as, above me, flame blooms and belatedly, I slap palms over my ears, curling in on myself…
The shock wave ricochets over me, making the water curtain shiver and my ear-drums bang. The rush of falling water competes with the glock-glock-glock of falling metal, whirling to destruction, before with a sound that crashes over me, what remains of the chopper meets the ground and…
I start to sit up to look, then my brain takes over from my tourist instincts…
This isn’t the moment to sit up and admire your handiwork…
The pressure wave thumps against my chest, drawing out the air, winding me. With an effort, I bang my ribs with a fist, knocking the air back in then, scrambling up, hefting the rifle back onto my shoulder, I abandon my watery shelter and run…
Where to?
??
Does this change anything?
No…
Time to vanish then…
Back to the city crowds…
*****