accelerated out of the landing area, leaving the former jeep driver guard the helicopter.
In a jeep in the Khlong Preserve
Captain Achara Kulawnit continued to accelerate the four-wheel-drive Cherokee jeep through the deep muddy ruts of a tree-lined dirt road leading into the western section of the Khlong Saeng Wildlife Preserve, pushing her battered Thai Forestry Police patrol vehicle — and the two others following closely behind — to their limits of their engines and headlights because she sensed they were finally on to something that might give her access to the killers who had dared to strike at her brother and father and fellow Rangers.
Next to her in the front passenger seat, Chief Narusan — seemingly oblivious to the police captain’s manic driving — read a map with a flashlight and monitored an electronic tracking device mounted on the jeep’s dash while Colonel Kulawnit’s two re-assigned bodyguards held onto the overhead safety straps with one hand and their M4 carbines with the other.
In the second jeep, the Ranger lieutenant — who had started out in charge of this raid team — in the front passenger seat and the senior sergeant behind the steering wheel chuckled approvingly at the driving skills of Colonel Kulawnit’s famously aggressive daughter, while the three constables stuffed into the back seat simply held on.
In the trailing jeep, the junior sergeant in the front passenger seat chided his corporal — a lesser-skilled driver — to go faster while the second trio of constables in the back seat rolled their eyes and prayed.
Every few seconds, Captain Achara Kulawnit briefly took her eyes off the road to check her odometer.
At the 5.8 kilometer mark, she slowed down, made a sharp left turn onto a very narrow mud trail just barely wide enough for the jeep to slip through, and followed a crossed-over set of old tire tracks for another thirty seconds until she came to a small, chain-sawed clearing in front of an old maintenance storage shed.
Achara brought the jeep to a sliding stop in front of the shed, shut off the engine, and then turned to Narusan; only vaguely aware that the driver of the trailing jeep had taken up a blocking position on the road, and that her newly assigned bodyguards and all of the uniformed Rangers were rapidly taking up protective positions around her jeep, carbines and assault rifles aimed outward and at the ready.
Major Preithat had made one thing very clear to the assault team members: anyone who allowed Captain Achara Kulawnit to be injured in her search for the killers of their fellow Rangers would answer to the Colonel personally; an unthinkable possibility that the Colonel’s two hardened, chastened, re-assigned and now coldly furious bodyguards informed the other uniformed Rangers would simply not happen. They would all die first; an admonition firmly echoed by the assault team’s senior sergeant who had been a close friend of Sergeant Tongproh.
“Where do we go now?” Achara asked, the controlled anger in her voice matching the fierce expression in her dark eyes.
The Chief Petty Officer consulted his electronic device and map once more, and pointed with his open left hand at a distant point in the trees off to their left. Then, having done so, he set the map and electronic device aside, pulled an IR-filtered flashlight out from under the seat, and then reached up and snapped the night-vision goggles over his eyes. Achara did the same.
Outside, one at a time, the two uniformed sergeants directed the highly-trained members of their assault team to put on and activate their own night-vision gear.
On foot in the Khlong Preserve
They went in a single file, Chief Narusan and the senior sergeant in the lead, closely followed by Achara and her two mothering bodyguards, and backed up by the corporal and two constables. The junior sergeant and the other four constables maintained a rear-guard position around the shed and jeeps.
Twenty yards into the dense forest, everyone paused while Narusan pulled a small transmitter out of his jacket pocket and pressed the center button. Instantly, off to their right and deep in the trees, a periodically- flashing firefly became faintly visible.
“Ha, good CSI!” the chief exclaimed to the senior sergeant, smiling broadly.
Using the flickering light as a guide — the senior sergeant, Achara and her two bodyguards probing their way with long sticks to scare off lurking snakes and predators while Narusan kept the distant flasher in sight, and the three trailing Rangers monitored their flanks with forefingers softly brushing against the trigger guards of their rifles — the assault team slowly and methodically worked their way through the trees, brush, fronds and clinging vines until, finally, they came to a small, machete-cut, ten-foot-square clearing that was already starting to be covered over and filled with new plant growth.
Above their heads, the newly-awakened flasher originally attached to the extended tree limb by Quince Lanyard pulsed cheerfully; the intermittent bursts of light clearly revealing the irregular squares of sod beneath the new forest growth that hadn’t quite grown back together yet.
Moments later, roles reversed, Achara, the senior sergeant and the two bodyguards maintained a watchful vigilance while Chief Narusan and the three uniformed Rangers got down on their hands and knees to dig up chunks of sod, tear away lengths of board, and cut away sections of black plastic tarp under the blinding greenish glare of eight IR-filtered flashlights that had been secured to surrounding tree limbs and branches.
Fifteen minutes later, Captain Achara Kulawnit stood at the edge of the six-by-six-by-eight-foot-deep hole and stared silently down at the pair of twisted bodies at the bottom partially covered by machete-chopped lengths of bamboo.
Beside her, Chief Narusan was carefully arranging a pair of machetes, three back-packs, three scoped hunting rifles in waterproof cases, two tied plastic bags filled with shredded paper, several cut-up handfuls of thin nylon cord, and three separate piles of chopped bamboo sections — divided into the piles by length — on a clean tarp that he’d brought along for just this purpose.
As Achara Kulawnit continued to stare down at the twisted bodies, the anger in her heart growing, Narusan paused in his inventorying to pick up and examine the four sections of thick bamboo that had been sharpened at one end and visibly hammered on at the other end. All four of the sharpened ends had clearly been driven into soft soil to a depth of about six inches.
“What are you doing?” she asked, forcing herself to look away from the bodies.
“Thinking CSI,” the chief explained as he continued to examine the cut ends of the bamboo. “Khun Ged said a good crime scene investigator should always think about what he sees; not just collect, package and tag evidence like a robot.”
“Do those pieces of bamboo tell you something?”
“Maybe… yes, I think so,” the chief nodded firmly.
“That’s good,” she said as she reached into her jacket pocket for her satellite phone, “we definitely need to know more than we do right now.” Sighing, she selected a rarely-used number from the phone’s menu, thumbed the TALK button, and then waited patiently for the satellite relays to make the connection.
Finally, a familiar voice answered. Major Preithat’s wife, sounding very sleepy.
“This is Captain Achara Kulawnit,” she spoke into the phone. “I apologize for calling so late, but may I speak to Major Preithat?” A pause. “Yes, I’m sure he’s very tired, but please wake him anyway. Tell him it’s very important.”
CHAPTER 28
Redmond, WA
The Hood Electronics building was located in an older industrial section of Redmond, Washington, just west of the Sammamish River and about three miles north of the far more spectacular Microsoft facilities. According to King County records, the one-story cement block structure had been built thirty-six years ago, and had five previous owners — all electronic manufacturing operations that had quickly gone out of business.
But from Special Agent Gedimin Bulatt’s perspective, the grey and purple paint on the building looked new; the surrounding parking lot for employees and visitors had recently been resurfaced and striped; there were forty-
