Chapter 2

Characters introduced in this chapter:

Horst Knyphausen

The fa-rang, mercenary, 6’-0’’ tall, 195 pounds, 37 years old, sandy blond hair, gray eyes

It was but a short walk, a half mile or so, to where he had his vehicle, an Isuzu pickup with a crew cab and short bed, parked. It appeared to be nearly new.

“Get in on the left, the passenger’s side,” I told him before adding, “I’ll drive,” only to discover that the vehicle was locked, but this was one of the new series of vehicles which only required that the electronic key be in the vehicle to operate it. Therefore, I only needed to touch the lock area to open the vehicle and start it running.

“How did you do that? I tossed away the key when I saw you attacking the guards,” the foreigner demanded after a gasp.

“It isn’t difficult for one who can control his own system and the electrical and magnetic spectrum as well,” I told him before opening his door and pushing him into the vehicle and onto the front passenger’s seat. Closing the door then, I re-locked his door before going around the vehicle and getting in behind the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle, as the Thai drive on the left side of the road.

While the engine was already running, I didn’t start off quite yet. Instead, I questioned my prisoner instead.

“What is your name?” I demanded, but received no answer.

“Who do you work for?” I demanded next, but still received no answer.

“There are other ways of obtaining the information that I desire,” I reminded him.

“I won’t tell you anything under torture. They hypnotized me, and I will only remember where to go after I have completed my mission, which I haven’t done,” he told me with a smile.

“Even so, the information is there, and I will have little trouble finding it,” I assured him, as I reached over and pressed my finger tips against his forehead. It was the work of only a minute or so for my senses to locate the area of his brain with the information, which was there to read for one with my skills.

“So your name is Horst Knyphausen, and you are a mercenary from Germany. You were hired by a CIA undercover agent and are to meet him with me at 1800 hours on Saturday, the 22nd at a house on a small soi off of Thanon Pho Phait in Chinatown. How interesting,” I finished.

“How can you know that?” he gasped in shock, as I removed my fingers from his forehead.

“It’s a small talent that I have,” I told him before putting the vehicle in drive and pulling away from where he had parked.

It is purported that the distance from Bangkok to Chiang Mai is some 432 miles or 695 kilometers, and that it can be driven in 8 hours and 40 minutes or so at 50 mph or 80 kph. This, however, does not include stops for fuel, eating, or the purchase of clothing, all of which were necessary in my case. I had grown my hair out into a buzz cut while driving on Road 108. Eventually, we reached the connection to Road 106, and took it to its connection with Highway 1, which we took south to Tak, Nakhon Sawan, and then on south into Bangkok. We stopped in Tak for fuel and in Nakhon Sawan to eat and to purchase clothing for me.

It was close to 6:00 in the evening when I pulled up to the Tawana Hotel on Thanon (Road) Surawong in the Bang Rak district of Bangkok. It is an older hotel, but has parking on the premises, and I had stayed there previously. After parking the vehicle, we entered the lobby to register. A problem immediately developed.

“I need to see your passports to register you, sir,” the clerk told us, and I released control of Knyphausen sufficiently for him to get out his passport, while I produced my Thai identification card. The clerk only glanced at his passport, but studied my ID card carefully.

“This ID card is for a monk, are you a monk?” he asked, looking at me suspiciously in my new slacks and short sleeve shirt.

“I was a monk at Wat Mai Nong Hoi for thirty-three years, but a few days ago my companion arrived with news that I was needed by my family to take over our business, as my older brother had passed away without an heir,” I told him.

“You don’t have a passport then?” he asked.

“I will need to see about obtaining one, but my family is rather important and will arrange it for me,” I told him, and he allowed us to register. We received a room on the sixth floor, and carried what little luggage we had up there ourselves.

The room was adequate for us with two beds and a small bathroom. I showered first and then allowed Knyphausen to shower and change clothes. Later we went down to eat in the hotel’s restaurant, and then returned to our room. I quickly put him to sleep before resting myself for a time.

I had chosen this hotel because it had been here for a long time, and I had left items here before going to Wat Mai Nong Hoi. Items that I would need to recover now. Awakening later that night at around two in the morning, I slipped out of the room and took the stairs to the fifth floor. There was a janitorial closet there where I had left important documents, money, credit cards, and identification cards. While the hotel had undergone a renovation of the rooms, halls, and the entire ground floor, I was sure that the ceiling of the janitorial closet hadn’t been included.

I found the closet locked, but it was no challenge at all to my control of mechanical items to open it. The closet was crowded with cleaning supplies and equipment, but I extended the length of my right arm, and opened the small section of the ceiling in the back corner of the room to recover the package I had left there thirty-three years ago. It was still there and unopened. I felt much better on retrieving it. While its contents could be duplicated, it would have required time, time that I didn’t want to spend at this point. After restoring everything to its previous condition, I returned to the room for a good night’s sleep.

Awakening in the morning to find the sun already up, seemed strange after so long a time as a monk where we rose before the sun. So after rising, I sat on the floor to chant for a time before getting up and going through the exercises that I had been doing nearly every morning for the last two thousand years or so, but at a much greater speed and intensity this morning than I had used at the Wat. My chanting had been interrupted part way through by the arrival of the cleaning woman, who had been shocked to see me sitting on the floor, naked, and chanting. She had quickly closed the door and departed without saying anything.

On finishing and showering again, I felt very relaxed and woke Knyphausen, and had him use the bathroom before we went down to have breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. Following breakfast, I returned him to the room before checking with those in the lobby.

“Is there a good place to buy a computer near here?” I asked the persons on duty there. They directed me to a store not far from the hotel that sold computers.

Following their advice, I went over to Selom Road, the next road that ran parallel to Surawong Road to check on the store that had been recommended. The store turned out to be a major computer and electronics center, and carried all types of computers, smart phones and other electronics. Initially, I was interested in a laptop and not a PC or tower computer, or one of the many tablets that they had on display. I needed something portable with a lot of computing power; more than that of a tablet, although I would also need a tablet for local use.

Computers had certainly come a long way while I was in seclusion as a monk, and were now much more usable than those back in the 90s had been. They had certainly grown more expensive as they grew in power. After looking at several laptops and comparing their specifications, I selected the one that I thought would do what I required.

Computers or tablets, at least, had been introduced in the Wats in the last eight years to help keep track of the Wat’s finances and other things. Although monks couldn’t handle money directly, there were donations and expenses to be kept track of. Many of the older monks and abbots had a hard time adjusting to the tablets, and they usually selected a trusted younger monk to do the accounting and using the Wat’s tablet. Some of the older monks and abbots had still been using the Lukk-hid, or abacus, and were very skilled with it.

Being a westerner, I had been selected to be the one at Wat Mai Nong Hoi to take over the accounting and to use the tablet, as they believed that I already knew about computers. It had been no problem for me to learn to use the, in my opinion, primitive tablet having used the much more advance computers of the Immortals. I was able to do much more with it than what was taught to the other monks. This was how I had made contact with the various organizations that I had accounts and money with while at the Wat. I would shortly be in touch with some of them again to obtain new credit cards and to access funds and other things. In the meantime, I would use what I had recovered from its hiding place last night. I would also need a phone – a smart phone and an international one at that.

Having looked at everything and decided what products and specific models that I wanted, I approached the main counter to purchase them. The clerk there greeted me warmly, and was definitely surprised when I told him what I had decided on. He went to get the items from stock and sent the manager over to see me.

“Sawat dee krup,” the manager said in greeting with a respectful wai, both of which I returned.

“Your order is a rather large one,” he stated getting down to business in very good English. “How will you be paying for it?”

“I will be using my credit card if you take those,” I told him.

“May I see the card?” he requested, and I removed the card from the wallet that was in the package that I had retrieved. The manager inspected the card very carefully.

“This is a rather old form of credit card. Are you sure that it is still good?” he asked.

“You will notice that there is no expiration date and that instead it says ‘Indefinite’. I have been staying at a Wat for many years and didn’t need the card, but my family has recalled me to work for them again, and I need to use it,” I explained before showing him my Thai ID card.

“I am not sure if our machine will accept it, but will try once the sale is rung up,” he assured me.

The clerk had returned by now with the boxes and sat them on the counter. The manager personally entered all of the information on their sales computer, making adjustments to several of the prices giving me a discount because of the size of the purchase. Once he had the total, he swiped the card in the machine and I entered my PIN number. It required a short time before the answer appeared. In that time, the manager seemed unhappy with the wait. After a minute or so, the machine lit up and began printing out the receipt. On looking at the machine and then the receipt, the manager was quite surprised.

“Thank you for shopping at our store for your purchases, krup,” he said with another very respectful wai. “There is a message at the bottom of the receipt for you also,” he finished. Looking down at the bottom of the receipt, I saw a phone number to call for a new card. The store personnel activated the phone that I had purchased for me before I left, and I soon returned to the hotel with my purchases.

Much of the remainder of the day was spent on the internet using the WiFi connection provided by the hotel. It wasn’t as secure as I would have liked, but would be adequate for catching up on current events, which is what I was doing. Later that afternoon, I called the number that had been on the bottom of the receipt to order a new credit card, as they would be open for business by then, and I wanted to speak to a human and not a machine. I had them send it to the hotel where I would be staying after the visit to the CIA undercover house on Saturday.

That evening, Knyphausen and I went out to a restaurant for a large steak dinner. For the past thirty-three years, I had subsisted on rice and vegetables with only a little meat or fish. Now that I was no longer a monk, I needed some meat, as my people are carnivores, and while I could exist with little or no meat, I had a great desire to sink my teeth into the hot bloody flesh of prey that I had brought down myself.

It was an ancient and primeval desire from the earliest days of my race, and would have to be satisfied with eating a large hot and juicy steak, at least for now. Later, when there were plains, forests and mountains available and I had resumed my original form, perhaps then I would be able to indulge my most primitive desires.

The steak house was one of the large Japanese restaurants in Bangkok, and all of the beef was imported and of the very best quality. I ordered the largest steak on the menu for myself and another for Horst. He didn’t seem all that interested in his meal only picking at it.

“You don’t seem very hungry,” I said to him on seeing his loss of appetite.

“I’m not all that hungry,” he told me after seeing me devour my steak, and I finished his steak also since he wasn’t interested.

Later that night after putting Horst to sleep, I went back on the internet to several sites that were encrypted, signed in and made arrangements for departing Thailand after arranging to receive several new passports, checkbooks, ID cards and driver’s licenses for several countries. All of these items would be delivered to me at the hotel where I would be staying shortly ... alone.

On completing my business, I sat on the floor again and chanted for an hour or so to relax my mind and body. The habits of the past thirty-three years were much harder to lose than the monk’s robe had been. Following that, I slept for a number of hours.

Rising late for a monk the next morning, there were no interruptions while I chanted and performed my exercises. I went to breakfast alone as Horst didn’t seem to have much of an appetite.

Following breakfast, I used the tablet that I had bought to find the names and addresses of the best custom tailors in Bangkok, selected one, and took a taxi to the address, where I was measured and paid for two of their best quality suits, one in blue and the other gray along with four shirts. I was assured that the suits would be ready in three days. On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at a shopping center to obtain underwear, socks, shoes, and several neck ties, plus a good solid suitcase and toiletries. I returned with all of this to our hotel where there were questions.