As she waited in customs, an older Thai man approached her and wai’d, then began speaking to her in the native tongue, mistaking her for a local due to her features. She smiled but shrugged, and he switched to English, embarrassed, apologizing profusely. That boded well for her ability to blend in, and she hoped it would make her relatively invisible in the bustling city.
Once through immigration she collected her sparse luggage and set out for the taxi stand, where again, the attendant rattled off a question in Thai, and then, realizing his error, he switched to English before blowing on a shrill whistle and waving a car forward.
The driver placed her suitcase into the trunk and waited expectantly for direction. She told him to take her to the Dynasty Hotel, located a few hundred yards from the entrance of the Nana Plaza — one of the five major sex tourism destinations in Bangkok — and near the site of Lap Pu’s main brothel. He nodded and opened her door for her, then rounded the car and jumped into the driver’s seat.
Driving in Bangkok was more of a suicidal rite of passage than mere transportation. She was convinced they were going to collide with motorcycles, bicycles and other cars at least a dozen times every few blocks, and by the time they reached the hotel, she’d concluded that the locals had a death wish.
Jet checked in, noting the predominantly Caucasian male clientele, many accompanied by young Thai females. She was pleased to find that her room was nicely appointed — and quiet. Her travel had taken over twenty-six hours between getting to Los Angeles, the layover and then the Thailand flight, and because of the turbulence, she hadn’t gotten much rest. She turned down the bed, unpacked her suitcase and locked her valuables in the safe, and then set out the Do Not Disturb card on her doorknob.
The Bangkok skyline was breathtakingly beautiful, with skyscrapers beaming out every color of the rainbow. The recent rain had scrubbed the city clean, for a time, and it was as radiant a jewel as any she’d seen. She took in the display from her window for a few minutes as she sipped a bottle of mineral water, and then pulled the curtains closed, ready for some serious sleep. Tomorrow would be a big day. She was supposed to touch base with Arthur in the morning and arrange a meeting with the CIA operative who ran the Bangkok station. Hopefully, he’d been productive over the last twenty-four hours while she’d been in the air.
Jet had agreed to meet Edgar, the CIA’s point man, at one o’clock at Benjakiti Park, a half mile south of her hotel. When she arrived, she spent five minutes reconnoitering the rendezvous spot before moving to a cluster of trees on the edge of the expansive pond, where a group of children were playing under the watchful gazes of their mothers. She was there an hour early, wearing sunglasses and a forest green baseball cap she’d bought from a sidewalk vendor.
Dressed in jeans and mauve blouse, she blended in easily with the office workers eating lunch on the grass — she could have been a low-level clerk or a shopkeeper on her break. The rental boat pier that was the meeting place teemed with tourists, milling about and taking photographs of each other with the impressive edifices of the skyline as a backdrop.
At the agreed-upon time, a man matching the description she’d been given walked to a bench and sat down, taking off his red windbreaker and folding it by his side. He removed a bag from his satchel and unwrapped a sandwich. Jet watched as he munched on it and then walked by as he was finishing.
“The boathouse, thirty seconds,” she said in English and continued ambling towards the pier.
He rolled his wrapper into a ball and dropped it into the bag, then stood and picked up his windbreaker and walked to the boathouse, Jet now out of sight. He waited expectantly, but was still surprised when she materialized behind him, seemingly out of thin air.
“Damn it. You scared me,” he said with a grin, then hugged her. She returned the hug and then moved down to the rental boats, holding his hand with the abandon of a lover.
“I rented one. Come on,” she said playfully, and within two minutes, they were pushing away from the dock in a floating swan-shaped contrivance, pumping the pedals with their legs.
Once they had traveled several dozen yards from the pier, he began speaking.
“I’m Edgar. You must be Kyra.”
“Correct,” she lied. “What do you have for me?”
“We’ve narrowed down our man Hawker’s likeliest associates to Lap Pu. We think he’s definitely in regular contact with him and that they meet once every few weeks up in Myanmar or Laos. Our intel says Hawker is now involved in facilitating human trafficking — girls from Laos or Myanmar, sometimes just children, for sex work in Thailand. Lap Pu has a host of bordellos here, most of them masquerading as ping pong clubs with motels or rooms available for rent by the hour.”
“Ping pong clubs? That wasn’t covered in the file.”
Edgar explained the concept — a sex show involving everything from ping pong balls to snakes.
Jet didn’t say anything, her face stony.
“And this is legal?”
“No. Not technically. But the laws aren’t enforced, and bribery is rampant. Many times it’s the police or politicians who own the clubs. In this case, Lap Pu pays the right people, so he’s untouchable.”
“And there are many of these places?”
“Tons. And the only real customers are farangs — white men. Thai men wouldn’t be caught dead in one. It’s a cultural thing.”
“How noble. So the clubs are sort of a freak show for sex tourists.”
Another swan boat, containing a laughing couple precariously pedaling away, veered towards them before straightening out and continuing on its way.
“Correct. And of course, there’s the prostitution angle. Nothing like picking a girl after the show to help you relax…”
“How is the target involved in this?”
“It’s unclear. Could be he just uses Lap Pu as his eyes and ears on the street, or could be he’s helping traffic minors in the slavery trade.”
“I read the report. Fully forty percent of the prostitutes are under eighteen?”
“Supposedly not, but the truth is that number might be low.”
“And this is culturally acceptable?”
Edgar rubbed his face. “No. It’s condemned. But the biggest customers for prostitution are actually Thai men, so what they say and what they do are two different things. The view about sex here is different. While it’s not really out and out acceptable to frequent sex workers, it’s tolerated, and in some cases viewed as a reasonable choice for males.”
Jet digested that.
“And what about the women?”
“That’s also a mixed bag. Many of the adult workers view it as a legitimate way to make money in an environment where they have no other options.”
“There are always options.”
“Try telling that to a fifteen-year-old with a fourth grade education who hasn’t eaten in a week and is culturally expected to do everything possible to support her family. Prostitution is an economic crime, in the end, whether it’s males or females. Many of these kids are starving to death wherever they live, so a life of sex work is preferable to death. It’s a pretty stark reality many westerners don’t understand. They can’t imagine a world where there isn’t a safety network to catch those at the fringes. But here, it’s not the fringes. Most of the peasants in northern Thailand as well as Laos and Myanmar live in extreme poverty. It’s the same everywhere human trafficking is rampant.”
“I’m not from the U.S..”
“Hmm. Anyway, the attitude in Thailand is different. There isn’t as much of a stigma to being a sex worker. For many, it’s their only chance at making more than sustenance wages. If you have a family of brothers and sisters and two sick parents all depending on you, it’s a vicious circle and the money’s compelling. But anyway, let’s not get hung up in the detail. The point is that Lap Pu operates some ping pong clubs, and we know which ones, and we’re currently staking all of them out, so we’ll know whenever he shows up.”