returned his gaze with a reassuring air of confidence as he left the cafe. He took his time as he walked towards the meeting place, affecting an air of self-confident nonchalance. The beach crowd was a strange sight. 8:30 a.m. and the beach was already full of tourists from every country in the world; Belgians joking with Germans and Americans, the young Swedes checking their diving gear with the Israeli couple. He heard people speaking Spanish and French as he walked past the holiday-makers. Some were walking by the waterfront, others were laying down to get a back massage from a cute Thai girl. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t see many Thai people enjoying the beach. They were too busy taking care of business. He passed a few British men lying on the beach snoring. He couldn’t figure out if they were early risers who had just arrived and fallen asleep again, or if they had dropped dead drunk on the beach the night before after partying heavily.
He arrived at the Chiang Mai restaurant, a select establishment that catered for wealthy holiday-makers who enjoyed being cut off from the riffraff. Wheatley was sitting in the shade under a large parasol, flanked by two bodyguards. He saw Jack from a distance and waved to him to approach. Jack looked around the restaurant but didn’t notice any other goons. He walked straight up to the table.
‘Hello Major,’ said Oberon condescendingly, as he stood up to shake Jack’s hand ‘I’m Oberon Wheatley, but call me Oberon. I feel like we’ve known each other for years.’
‘Hi,’ replied a stone-faced Jack, keeping his hands firmly at his sides.
‘Not to worry,’ Oberon said with a large sweeping gesture of the hand, ‘there’s no-one here but us. Would you like a drink?’
‘Thanks, no. Where is Mina?’ asked Jack.
Oberon nodded to one of his bodyguards, who handed Jack a pair of binoculars.
‘If you look down the beach, right to the end, near the wall, you’ll see a small shack. She’s standing there.’
Jack took the binoculars and found the spot indicated by Oberon. He recognised Natasha standing next to Mina.
‘That’s not good enough. I want her here next to me when we do the deal,’ said Jack.
‘Hmm. Where’s the photograph? No, let me guess. You don’t have it on you but somewhere close by,’ said Oberon.
‘Correct. I’ll call someone to bring the photograph when I’m satisfied that Mina is OK.’
‘Fine,’ said Oberon.
He picked up his mobile phone and rang Natasha.
‘Bring Miss… bring Mina to the restaurant,’ then raised an eyebrow at an irritated Jack, ‘Satisfied?’
‘I’ll make the call when they’re here.’
‘Aren’t you being overly suspicious?’ asked Oberon.
Jack didn’t react to Oberon’s facetious tone. He chose to ignore him and remain businesslike. He watched Natasha and Mina walking down the beach, slowly approaching the restaurant. People on the beach weren’t paying much attention to them as they were too busy staring out to sea, watching flocks of birds seemingly gone mad, flying frantically towards the coast and then inland. Jack shuddered with a sense of foreboding but kept his thoughts to himself, especially as Wheatley and his men hadn’t noticed anything.
Dr Jim Carson had received the first seismic data from stations in Australia earlier in the morning. This data had immediately been forwarded to his fellow seismologists in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka with a warning of a potential tsunami. Each of them in turn had called him to confirm they’d received his tsunami warning. But he didn’t know more right now. There simply wasn’t enough data. There he was trying to coordinate information from various local centres, but it would take much more cooperation between them to be able to issue an actual tsunami warning in all confidence. He rushed down to the main desk and asked the secretary for the telephone number of the South Indian bureau, which hadn’t contacted him since he had first sent off the data. Bob Rear, the secretary, seemed very nervous and almost stuttered as he read him the number.
‘What’s wrong Bob? We’ve had other scares in the past,’ said Carson.
‘It… It… It’s not that Dr Carson.’
‘Well what is it?’
‘Someone called two days ago. I thought it was a crank call.
I’m still not sure what it was.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked impatiently.
‘A major in the US army told me he had classified information according to which an earthquake was going to occur today.’
‘Two days ago? That’s impossible.’
‘I know. I tried explaining this to him, but he hung up on me,’ Bob lied.
‘That’s a real shame. Did you get his name or his number?’ asked Carson.
‘No. He didn’t say.’
‘That’s not good enough. Bob, next time someone tells you a tsunami is about to occur, patch him through to me immediately. Maybe there is a classified military research project on earthquake detection that we are not aware of. We can’t afford to dismiss information out of hand, especially when it turns out to be correct.
‘With hindsight, I…’ Bob began.
‘Just do it next time,’ said Carson cutting him off mid-sentence.
‘I’m so sorry sir.’
Jim Carson was furious. Until five minutes ago he thought he was at the head of one the most advanced seismic detection centres in the world. But here was a secret military researcher who had somehow managed to detect an earthquake two days ahead of the event. As a seismologist he couldn’t understand how that was possible, but as a scientist he had to accept the evidence when it stared him in the face. He would make every effort to find out who had called the centre two days before and what he knew exactly.
Natasha stepped onto the terrace, pushing in front of her a dishevelled Mina, who seemed to hesitate with every step. Natasha hardly concealed her gun. Jack walked up to them.
‘Mina. Are you OK?’ he asked her.
She seemed dazed, and tearful as if she’d been drugged.
‘I’m not feeling very well,’ she murmured weakly.
He turned around to meet Oberon’s cold gaze and asked angrily, ‘What’s going on here? Did you drug her?’
Natasha took a step forward and answered for Oberon, ‘Be happy nothing worse happened to her. She’s been so out of it, I haven’t even had the opportunity to have her raped.’
Jack turned around to face Natasha, brimming with barely restrained anger.
‘I should’ve dealt with you on the yacht last night,’ he spat.
‘You should have, big boy,’ she answered, keeping a safe distance between her and Jack.
Oberon was enjoying this banter but he had more pressing things on his mind.
‘Don’t you have a call to make?’ asked Oberon.
Jack dialled Noi’s number.
‘Hi there.’
‘Hello sir. Do you want me to come now?’
‘Yes. Don’t forget the bag.’
‘I’m coming,’ the boy answered and hung up.
‘It’s on its way’ Jack said to Oberon.
‘Good,’ Oberon replied. He turned to Natasha. ‘What’s going on out there? What are all those people looking at?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ she answered looking through the binoculars, ‘the water’s edge, which is normally right
