The Spy's Little Zonbi (17 page)

“
And the principal doesn't want any trouble,” Chase said. “Not from bad guys and not from the government.”

“
That's right. The principal is a good man at heart. He wants what's best for the kids and the school. When I was brought back and released, I was told to explain the soldiers and helicopters were from the Thai government. That it was all part of the search for the girls.”

“
He knew that wasn't true.”

“
I don't know, but he allowed me go on teaching. I look him in the eye, maybe for help, maybe to have him tell me what to do. But he looks away.”

“
And these guys let you return to the school because a missing American girl would get our government involved?”

“
Yes, exactly, they let me go until they were ready, until the bats were collected and set to go. Bua Yai is isolated, but government welfare trucks come through with supplies every couple of months or so.”

The same notoriety that got her kidnapped had also kept her alive. A famous American Peace Corps volunteer being killed by Islamic jihadists would bring the entire Thai military into the region, followed closely by the U.S. State Department and the world press corps.

Instead of taking the risk of locating and importing a bat expert, the insurgents found their own in Beth, who knew enough from her Peace Corps training to be useful. She'd been taught how to induce an artificial hibernation that would allow for the safe examination of a specimen—an important step in collecting and storing enough bats to create havoc in the Thai capital.

Lukman Lima had read the wonderful
Bangkok Post
article about the magic
farang
, and ordered her capture.

After explaining to the reporter how she and the villagers had constructed dozens of new bat houses from wood bravely salvaged from homes occupied solely by ghosts, she'd gone on to describe how they were able to examine and even tag some of the pregnant females.

“
Bats can easily be induced into an artificial hibernation,” she explained to the
Post
reporter, who had traveled to the Wat Prachamimitr School to meet the American Bat Girl. “And as the body temperature is lowered and the heart-rate is slowed, a bat can survive on only a few grams of stored fat during a six-month hibernation. We experimented and put the caged bats in the school kitchen refrigerator and, sure enough, they entered a deep sleep from which we later woke them. All our bats survived and were returned to their roosts, tagged and perfectly healthy.”

“
Hear that droning noise?” Beth asked. “If you listen closely, you can hear the generators running the freezers from anywhere in the mountain.”

Chase could feel the humming in the metal edge of the cot he was sitting on, could hear them over the gentle snoring of the three children.

“
So why did they grab me?” He hoped it had something to do with his job as a journalist and not as a DB6 agent. He was really concerned about receiving the gun, that at least one student had been trusted with the knowledge that he might be more than just a reporter.

“
You were in the wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. They're getting ready for the final phase of this plan, just as an important American journalist arrives to do a story on the school. It was their good fortune that you came at this time.”

Did they really believe he was just there by coincidence? What about the gun they'd found and taken from him while he was unconscious? Whatever was about to happen, his role would be much easier if they didn't suspect he could cause them any problems.

“
So if not anthrax or tiny hand grenades, how are they arming the bats?” Chase got up to stretch his legs.

“
They tried a whole bunch of different things while I was back at school. The girls told me a lot of scary stories about burning and exploding bats, things that gave them a lot of nightmares. Some of the bats took off like rockets. I believe the formula they decided on came from a Pakistani bomb expert. Tiny hearing aid batteries are wired to blasting caps. The electrical charge is temporarily interrupted by insulation at a point where it's tightly wrapped around the hibernating bat's leg. Once the bat is released, it comes out of its sleep pretty quickly and its first instinct is to find shelter in some high-up crevice.”

“
It wakes up and finds a place to hide.”

“
Yes,” she said. “Once in a safe spot, the bat would begin to gnaw at the foreign object, chewing away at the insulation and freeing the electrical charge into the blasting cap. That would detonate the small casing packed with plastique C-8 explosive. They'll also explode if they hit something hard enough to rip the insulation, so it's no place to be when they wake up.”

“
Each ounce of C-8 would create a one meter blast radius.”

“
You know about explosives?”

“
Things I've read. I know a lot of people would to die from half a million bat bombs.”

Just then, the door banged open and an armed soldier in the same uniform as those on the chopper strode toward Chase and stuck an AK-47 in his face. It was apparently time to find out exactly what they wanted.

Beth and the children were left behind, as he was prodded down a carved natural stone corridor lit at intervals by mesh-encased light bulbs. It was cool and damp, as water dripped here and there into small black pools. The passageway opened into a large cavern, maybe thirty feet high and twice that at its widest. It was a little more festive looking in here, as they'd strung hundreds of feet of the white Christmas lights designed to resemble twinkling icicles around the highest perimeter. It was a merry little cave—if you ignored the row of coffin-like freezer chests chock full of sleeping bats.

The floor of this space was crammed with seven large Maytags, side by side, with narrow passages on either side. A great tangle of extension cords came together in a heaped mass, like an exhausted rubber-band ball at the far end of the room. The wires disappeared through a small round cut in the stone, which had to lead to the generators.

“
This is one of five such rooms,” came a man's voice from behind. Chase was greeted by the head jihadist himself, Lukman Lima, with a clasped-hand bow of the local custom. “Lukman Lima.” He reached out to shake Chase's hand Western-style, his Domke camera bag slung over his left shoulder.

“
Chase Allen, Associated Press.” They shook hands. “Now that you've poisoned and kidnapped me, what can I do for you, Mr. Lima?”

Lima handed over his camera bag, which must have been snatched up by one of the helicopter pilots. He motioned for them to continue out of the cavern and down a narrow corridor. Despite the friendly greeting, the rifle muzzle never left the small of Chase's back. They turned left into what was apparently Lima's cave headquarters.

Maps on walls, radio equipment, and laptop computers made for an interesting juxtaposition to the clump of bats hanging from the farthest corner of the ceiling. They were like a bunch of fuzzy gray bananas, there as if to say, “You humans may have taken over our home, but we're sticking around over here in one nasty, throbbing ball, just so you know it's not over.” They'd left a dark cone of guano beneath them.

“
They are beautiful.” Lima smiled toward the huddled, throbbing mass. It was a statement, not a question. He stepped behind his compact desk covered in more maps and notes written in elegant Arabic, and took a seat in a swiveling red vinyl office chair, which rolled noisily on the stone floor. “Please have a seat, my dear Mr. Allen.”

“
It seems you're interested in a reporter for an upcoming exclusive.” Chase rummaged through his bag, pulled out a pen and a reporter's notebook. His passport and other credentials were gone.

“
Miss Flanagan has provided you with the background of our situation, am I right?”

“
You plan to attack the government and people of Thailand with bomb-laden bats.”

“
We are a peaceful people of the Nation of Islam.” Lima removed his wire-rimmed glasses, wiped them on the coarse material of his untucked uniform. He wore a plain black Muslim prayer cap and the same olive drab uniform of all the other soldiers Chase had seen. There were no decorations on his chest or arms, no bars or brass on his collar. In this army, you were either in charge or not in charge.

“
It is the oppressive Thai regime that has forced our hand.” Lima replaced his glasses, an unimposing jihadist leader, with thick jowls and a complexion ruined by too many hours in the sun.

“
And when will you be releasing the bats?”

Lima smiled. “In two days time, Mr. Allen, on the fifth of May.”

“
Coronation Day,” Chase added. The papers had been filled with stories and photos of the upcoming anniversary of King Bhumibol Adulyadej's coronation.

“
I've been told that American journalists would sell their souls for an exclusive story. Would that be a fair assessment, Mr. Allen?”

Yeah, well, of course it was true, Chase thought. “Yes, Mr. Lima, that's a fair statement. So how are you getting the bats to Bangkok?”

“
Shortly before daybreak on the morning of the coronation, twelve helicopters carrying seven freezers each will be dispatched to their targets,” Lima gleefully explained. “Each of your very well constructed American appliances holds roughly six thousand explosive devises.
Allahu Akbar
!”

Chase did the quick math in his head.

“
Here is my offer to you.” Lima paused for effect, again removing and wiping his glasses on his dusty uniform. “Would you like a ride on our thirteenth helicopter?”

Chase smiled and reached across to shake his hand, saying, “I would rather not refer to it as selling my soul.”

“
Terrific news.
Allahu Akbar
!” Lima rose, still clenching Chase's hand, pumping away. “I knew you would be interested in bringing news of this great victory to the world.”

“
My job as a journalist is to reflect events as they happen. The teacher and three girls will be set free?”

“
Of course, of course they will.” His face split into a wide jowly smile. “They'll receive their freedom at the conclusion of our successful mission,
Allahu Akbar
!” He lowered his voice. “Our mission is perfect. It is a mission of Allah and there can be no flaws in His will. You will join me and my generals for dinner tomorrow tonight when they arrive from Patani. I'm sure you have many more questions.”

And Chase did. Like, how to blow up this mountain in the next day or two, while rescuing Beth and her kids, and still get his own ass out alive.

“
I'll hold you to your word to set them free. I'll write this story and see that the entire world understands your views, but not at the expense of innocent children or the teacher.”

“
You think Muslim children are not innocent? This entire operation is to ensure the future of my children and my people against the repression and suffering inflicted by this country's illegal regime.”

“
I'm a journalist here in this country doing a story about a peace mission. I'm just asking that Beth and her kids survive your successful mission and are set free.”

“
Our mission is one of peace as well.” Lima signaled his men to take Chase away. “It is in the hands of God.”

The soldier with the AK-47 pushed Chase into the hall. Lima's radio crackled and the hanging clump of bats screeched a response.

It was all hands on deck for Lima's four hundred men to arm the remaining bats with their small packs of explosives in order to be ready for Friday's coronation. Each passing hour brought more shouting and running soldiers, hurrying to respond to various orders of more wire, more detonators, and more straw to tuck between the bats.

Beth played tea party with the captive girls, sipping pretend cups and telling them stories about her family back in Massachusetts. They laughed to tears when she explained the name of her dog, Flea Bag. They sat in silent awe when she described Christmas at the Flanagan house, and how a fat jolly elf flew a reindeer-driven sleigh across the sky to bring presents down the chimney. The girls fingered the small pieces of loose gravel on the floor as she described packing icy-cold snowballs and they laughed again as she told how she'd scored a direct hit, right between her older brother's eyes. The little girls tried hard to picture a tree inside a house, strung with electric lights and colored glass balls. They asked question after question about the presents and where they came from, and how Santa Clause knew what to get each child. A list? This magic man knew when children were bad and when they were good?

“
Why doesn't Santa Claus come to Thailand?” asked the youngest.

Orders were barked just outside their cave-like room. The hurried pace of the footsteps became more frenetic, as Chase's watch ticked past midnight.

Probably because no soldier could be spared, the three children were left in Beth's care, and there was no reason to return her to Bua Yai. Let them send a message of the missing American girl to Peace Corps headquarters in Bangkok; it was far too late for them to cause any trouble. Just after one in the morning, two soldiers banged open their door with another army cot and a filthy, twin-size mattress, returning a few minutes later with bowls and pots of soup and rice.