Red Alert(NYPD Red #5)(50)

“None of them are pretty, David,” Kylie said.

“I know, but the Americans at least pretend that the inmates are there to be rehabilitated. In Thailand they’re there to suffer. They sleep sixty, seventy men to a room. No beds, no mattresses—just a thin sheet on the cold, hard floor. There’s one open toilet in the room, no medical, and not enough food. The State Department did a study that says every year spent in a Thai prison is equivalent to five years in a maximum security prison in the U.S.”

“It’s gratifying to hear that our government is finally spending our tax dollars on a study every American will want to read,” Kylie said. “Look, kid, we’re not here to judge the Thai justice system. All we want to do is talk with Flynn Samuels. What can you tell us about him?”

Hinds shrugged. “Never met him. I just know that he’s in building five, which is where they house the hard cases—murderers, rapists, drug offenders—all of them sentenced to fifty years or more. A lot of them go stark raving mad after seven. Samuels has been there for fifteen. All I’m saying is, brace yourselves.”

The prison itself turned out to be just what we’d expected: stone walls, barbed wire, steel doors, tight-lipped guards with sadistic eyes. Flynn Samuels, on the other hand, was nothing like what Hinds had prepared us for. He was neither undernourished nor crazy. He was a big outgoing bear of a man with a thick mop of graying reddish hair and a full gray beard. At about six foot eight and 350 pounds, he filled the doorway of the visitors’ room. And like every Aussie I’d ever met, he was likable from the get-go.

“G’day, mates,” he boomed, plopping down on a bench on the other side of a thick steel-mesh divider. “You’re the first visitors I ever had from New York.” He laughed. “Hell, you’re the first visitors I’ve had from anywhere.”

“Thanks for seeing us,” I said.

“Happy to take time out of my busy two-hundred-year schedule,” he said. “Besides, I’d do anything for my boy P.J.”

“P.J.?” I said.

“Pongrit Juntasa. He’s my man.”

“We had dinner with him last night. He certainly speaks highly of you.”

“He’s a big fan. Sends me special little gifts from time to time: food, booze, smokes, a hooker for Christmas. He made sure I have a private cell with a bed and a blanket. In this hellhole, it helps to have friends in high places.”

“You’re lucky,” I said. “He didn’t seem like the type to have favorites.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt that I helped him get his job. I blew his predecessor to kingdom come. So what can I do for you?”

“We’re looking for Geraldo Segura, also known as Rom Ran Sura.”

His face lit up, and he let out another laugh. “And since you’re NYPD, I’m guessing that little bugger is blowing up people on your side of the pond. Hot damn, I’m proud of that boy. I taught him everything he knows.”

“How?” Kylie said. “How do you teach someone to build bombs in a place like this without getting caught?”

“Rolling paper.”

He paused. The man was in no hurry to tell his tale. He had two hundred years to kill. I stared at his hands while I waited. They were just as big as the rest of him. I tried to picture him manipulating the delicate mechanism of a bomb.

He caught me looking. “I know,” he said, holding up his hands. “You’d think these giant paws would be a handicap, but no—not when you use jeweler’s tools. Nobody can build a shaped charge bomb like me. I can put one in the middle of a symphony orchestra, take out the piccolo player, and leave the entire string section intact. I never shared my technique—figured it would die with me. Then one day Rom Ran asked if I could teach him the tricks of the trade. I thought, Hell, it can’t hurt to be buddy-buddy with the toughest motherfucker in the prison. So I diagrammed the first step on a piece of rolling paper, gave him five minutes to study it, then rolled a cigarette and smoked the evidence.”

“And then what?”

“Then I told him to redraw it for me. Of course he couldn’t. It took him weeks before he could commit that first step to memory. When I was sure he had it, I moved on to step two.”

“How many steps are there altogether?”

“Nineteen. I probably gave myself lung cancer waiting for that wanker to commit every step to memory, but I guess all that studying paid off. The kid gets an A plus.”

“We need to find him,” Kylie said. “Do you know where he is?”

“Sorry, but he didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

“Is there anything you can tell us that might help? We’d really like to tell your pal P.J. that you were cooperative…” Kylie’s voice trailed off, the quasi threat dangling in the air.

Samuels rubbed his thick beard. “How many people has he killed so far?”

“Two,” I said.

“Two,” Samuels said, repeating the number. “If I were you, I’d hurry on home, mate. He ain’t done yet.”





CHAPTER 48



Suvarnabhumi Airport was only a thirty-minute drive from the prison, and after spending less than a day and a half in Thailand, we were, as Samuels had suggested, hurrying on home.