The Hunt for Shambhala

8

Selena gripped the dashboard as Riley Carr swung around a tight corner and pulled the tuk-tuk level again. They were thundering along behind Kunchai now, and Decker was leaning over their shoulders from the back. “You two do this for a living then, huh?”

Riley allowed his focus on the road to hide his hesitancy, but Selena replied almost before the American had finished asking the question. “Of course — why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Decker drawled, and lowered his voice. “You just don’t seem very good at it, is all.”

Selena turned in the front seat and prepared to berate Mitch Decker. “Now, look here…” before she could go further, Riley launched the tuk-tuk onto the sidewalk at the side of the road in a bid to avoid a long line of stationary cabs in heavy traffic. As men and women flung themselves out of their way he pulled the wheel back and sent the tuk-tuk piling across the road again and into a street market.

“Bloody hell, Riley!” Selena snapped. “You could have told me you were about to do that.”

“He’s getting away!” the Australian replied, still focusing on the road as he weaved deeper into the marketplace. Pedestrians milled around and browsed through endless seas of plastic Chinese phone cases and Indian textiles. Tourists strolled along under parasols as they watched a man frying chicken on the sidewalk.

And then Selena honked the tuk-tuk’s horn and the scene changed from lively to chaos.

Riley turned and stared at her. “Hey! I’m driving.”

Selena huffed. “Like a girl.”

“And how do you drive?” Decker said from the rear.

“Like a lady, of course,” she said, lifting her chin to underline the statement.

Riley laughed, but then Decker ended the moment. “Guys, we got company!”

“Where?” Riley said.

“Another tuk-tuk right behind us, and they look pissed!”

Selena raised an eyebrow. “They’ve been drinking?”

“Huh?”

“He means pissed off,” Riley said. “Poms…”

Selena sighed, “Americans…”

“Aussies…” Decker said.

The other tuk-tuk raced up behind them and then swerved to get alongside. They pulled in tight and hit them, knocking them to the left and forcing Riley to swing the handlebars hard to the right to correct their trajectory through the market. They turned the next corner and burst out of the busy market and now found themselves screeching along the road beside the river once again.

“There’s Kunchai!” Selena cried out. “He’s just up ahead by that bridge!”

“Here — take the handlebars, Lena!”

“Eh?”

“You have the con!” The Australian said, and swung in his seat to face the enemy tuk-tuk. He lashed out with his right leg, booting the driver’s hand as he gripped the handlebars. The man responded fast, pushing the handlebars back hard to counter the Australian’s attempts to knock him off course.

The goon hit the brakes and fell behind them for a few seconds as they regrouped. When they accelerated the next time it was to go to the left of them, and this time the man in the rear had a surprise for them — a compact M79 single-shot grenade launcher. The other man passed his associate a grenade and gave the driver some instructions.

“You have to be kidding!” Riley said as he leaned out the tuk-tuk and prepared to jump over and take the fight to them.

“This is a God-damned nightmare!” Decker said.

“We can’t lose Kunchai, Riley!” Selena said, desperately trying to keep them on the road. “He’s gone under the bridge now — can you see him from out there?”

He swung to face her again. “Er — trying to stay alive here!”

As the other man deftly weaved their vehicle in and out of the Thai traffic, the man in the rear with the launcher grinned at Riley and shook his head. “No kidding,” he said, and then fired the break-action launcher at him.

The 40mm grenade burst from the launcher with a bright muzzle flash and ripped toward Riley at two hundred and fifty feet a second. The speed and range meant the Australian had no chance to dodge the projectile but luckily the tuk-tuk’s dodgy suspension meant the grenade went high.

“Holy Lord Jesus on a scooter!” Riley yelled as the grenade scorched through the air a foot above their heads. It tore across the Chao Phraya only inches above the tourist boats and water taxis and then smashed into an apartment block spraying chunks of white brickwork and bent steel balustrades all over the busy waterfront.

“Riley!” Selena yelled, her eyes still fixed on the road. “Whatever the hell you’re doing it’s not bloody helping!”

“Just keep this thing on the road!” he called back.

The street flashed past them in a blur of terrified faces and angry fist-waving, and now the man was reloading the M79. He fumbled it and dropped the grenade. Cursing as he stooped down to pick it back up, Selena now swung the wheel hard to the right and powered along Rachini Alley.

“Where the hell are you going?” Riley said.

Selena made no reply but now spun the wheel hard to the left and drove the tuk-tuk up onto Phra Pin Klao Bridge.

Behind them, the other tuk-tuk gained speed and smashed into the back of them. Despite Selena’s best efforts to keep things steady the impact was too hard and it sent them all over the road. The tires squealed as the unstable rickshaw swerved and skidded across the asphalt and smashed into the kerb, almost flinging Riley off the tuk-tuk. He fell forward and only saved himself by grabbing onto the mudguard.

The hubcap was grinding against the concrete kerb now and sending up a shower of sparks into Riley’s face. “Not today thanks, mate,” he said, and heaved himself up, clambering into the back again. He collapsed down into a cooler box beside the American, smashing down through the polystyrene lid until his face was submerged in a pile of cold slime. “Jesus!” he said, leaping back in disgust.

“What is it?” Decker said, sharing his disgust.

Riley leaned forward and peered inside the box and smiled. “Looks like we have some ammo after all!”

A second later, the Australian spun around and began to hurl marinated Thai squid at the man in the tuk-tuk. The first one was a direct hit, slapping him dead-center in the face. He reacted in horror, dropping the grenade launcher into the road and stumbling back into the vehicle as he clawed wildly at his face to find out what Riley had thrown at him.

“Riley,” Selena called out from the front. “Why does everything suddenly smell of coriander?”

“Don’t ask me, mate,” he said, and reached into the box for another squid.

“I’m surrounded by lunatics,” Decker said.

The tuk-tuk tipped again as they reached the north end of the bridge and Selena made a hard left and turned onto a road running parallel to the river. The relative freedom of the enormous river meant that Kunchai was slowly widening the gap on them

The other tuk-tuk took the corner so fast they tipped over for a few seconds and one of the goons fell out the vehicle and crashed into the river.

“Enjoy swimming in that, you bastard!” Riley said.

“Talk to me, Riley!” Selena yelled.

“They’re still all over us!” His sentence was punctuated by the other tuk-tuk as it accelerated and swerved closer to them once again. Driven by the sight of their colleague bobbing up and down in the brown wash of a tourist boat, they were angrier than ever and were now taking it personally.

The man who had fired the launcher emerged from the shade of the tuk-tuk and poked his head out as he aimed a pistol at them. He fired rapidly and unprofessionally and his poor tracking meant the bullets slammed into the asphalt behind the speeding tuk-tuk.

He fired again, and this time he hit them. The rounds struck the cheap metal siding. Some of them buried into the vehicle while others ricocheted off at different angles. Riley checked to see if Selena was all right, and when she gave him the thumbs up sign he glanced at Decker who gave him a sarcastic smile. Riley returned the smile and turned his attention to their pursuers.

The goon was fumbling as he tried to reload, and Riley saw his moment. He brought his leg up and kicked the gun from his hands, but the man’s reply was like a lightning strike, reaching out and grabbing his ankle before he had a chance to retract it into the relative safety of their own vehicle.

The Australian felt the strength in the man’s hands as he twisted his ankle. The pain shot up his leg like electricity as he fought to stay on the tuk-tuk. Another twist and the Australian felt his tibia start to strain. He knew the next stop was a fractured ankle and then he’d be out of the tuk-tuk and rolling across the cobblestones on his way to the bins.

Riley kicked him away with all his might and Selena swerved hard into them. The two tuk-tuks collided in a shower of sparks and the goons came off worst. They fought to regain control and push Selena aside but it was too late and the next second they smashed into a low brick wall at the side of the river. The tuk-tuk flipped upside down and crashed into the water, where it slowly began to sink.

Selena and Decker gave each other a high-five and it was then they saw Kunchai slowing down. “What’s the stupid bastard doing?”

“He must be out of fuel!” Selena said. “We’re in luck!”

Kunchai steered the water taxi to the far bank. The small outboard belched a cloud of blue smoke and cut out just as he hit a jetty. He clambered out of the boat while his goon fired a few shots at them, but the gunman saved the last bullet for a taxi driver who was waiting at some lights.

Ordering the man out of the cab, Kunchai and his man jumped into the seat and started to drive down the busy road running along the western bank of the river.

Selena wasted no time. She had gotten used to how the tuk-tuk handled and now she expertly raced up over another bridge and brought the tuk-tuk into the same road Kunchai was using.

The Thai gangster steered to the left and was out of sight, but Selena swerved to the left in pursuit of him. They were now racing down another narrow road, lined with yet more market stalls.

Up ahead they saw the cab Kunchai had car-jacked. He had slowed to weave his way through the narrow market street and Selena was soon pulling up behind him. When they reached him Riley had an idea and knew he had only one chance to do it.

“I’m jumping!”

Decker shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be this guy’s insurance company.”

Selena craned her neck and strained to see the Australian as he heaved himself up onto the roof of their tuk-tuk. “No you bloody well are not, you idiot!”

“This is our only chance, Lena. When the road opens up he can swerve again and stop me getting to him!”

Riley leaped off the cab and crashed down on the roof of Kunchai’s cab in front. The Thai gangster responded instantly, firing indiscriminate shots through the steel roof of the taxi in an effort to kill the Australian.

In all the noise of the market and the revving engines of the cab and the auto-rickshaw, it took Riley until the third bullet to realize what the man was doing. He watched a nine mil round go through the cab roof at his feet and leave a jagged hole in the steel. “Holy shit!”

He moved to the back of the vehicle where both rear windows had been rolled down and tried to lower himself inside. Kunchai’s goon was trying to reload his weapon with two trembling hands.

“Let me help you with that,” Riley said, piling a chunky jab into his nose and nearly knocked him out. Kunchai cursed, turned and fired, but Riley was ready and dodged the bullet. The rounds traced past his shoulder, blew out the rear window and ripped through a bag of dried red peppers hanging in a market stall. A bright red cloud of chilli dust exploded over the scene as the rounds tore through the bags and sent customers screaming in all directions.

Riley was still clinging onto the roof. “Sorry folks!” he yelled.

Kunchai’s goon climbed half out onto the cab’s roof. With his lower body still in the vehicle he swiped out with his hand at Riley’s ankles and tried to hook him over.

The Australian jumped back, all the time trying to regain his balance and not fall off the cab. If he came off the thing, Kunchai and the journal would fly away into the backstreets of Bangkok and never be seen again.

The man lashed out again and this time caught one of Riley’s ankles, sending him fly back off the cab. The Australian fell backwards but managed to reach out his hands and grab the taxi’s roof just in time to stop himself from falling off completely.

Kunchai turned in his seat and saw him dangling off the back and fired his last bullet at him, but it missed, and now Riley saw the other goon clambering up onto the roof.

The Australian knew it was now or never and he heaved himself onto the roof but not fast enough. Before he was on his feet, the goon kicked him in the face and sent him flying onto his back.

Riley cursed like a pirate’s parrot as the man leaped on him and clasped his hands around his neck. The grip on his throat was tight and he felt the man’s fingers pushing into the soft flesh of his neck and slowly crushing his windpipe.

Riley struggled to stay conscious as the speeding cab rattled through the market, crashing into stalls here and there and knocking over boxes of fruit, spices and jewellery. Traders and tourists screamed when they realized the desperate fight that was happening on the cab’s roof, but everything was turning into a blur for Riley as the man’s strong hands continued to squeeze his throat.

The Australian brought his knee up into the man’s groin as hard as could and a wet-crunching sound was followed by a howl of pain. The man rolled over and gave Riley all the time he needed to boot him off the cab’s roof. The man hit the hard concrete road and rolled a few times before coming to a stop, still clutching at his balls.

In the confines of the market, Kunchai was unable to swerve, and his attack on the dried spice stall had emptied his last magazine, so Riley knew it was now or never. He clambered across the roof and leaned over the driver’s window. Kunchai glanced up just as the former SASR man sailed a hefty punch into his jaw through the open window.

Kunchai rolled with the blow. Anything less from a Thai gangster of Kunchai’s standing would have disappointed Riley Carr, but when he landed the second one the man lost control of the cab for a moment and began careering toward a stall where an old man was barbecuing a neat line of chicken heads on a red-hot grill.

Riley saw the journal inside Kunchai’s jacket and he leaned in to grab it, then the road opened out and Kunchai seize the moment, swerving violently to the left and hitting the gas.

Still hanging off the roof, Riley didn’t stand a chance. With the extra momentum from the sharp turn and the rapid acceleration he was propelled from the cab and sent flying into the Chao Phraya River. As he crashed into the filthy brown water he looked up to see Kunchai turning onto the main road and disappearing into the night.