Chapter 1
Bangkok – a few days ago
The office isn’t a place of peace. The sing-song banter is at full volume, phones are ringing, people are talking, shouting, laughing and eating. Despite the noise, Sunan has set up the monthly payments and now opens the balance sheet screen. Time and time again he has been told of the importance to always take a screen capture for the General.
The screen takes a long time to load. The connection is never fast, even here in a municipal building. He sits waiting for it to load. The screen loads blank and he waits for the browser to load in the numbers. He leans forward and turns up the desk fan that’s making almost no impact on the heat of the room.
“This system is crap, why do we have to pay so much for this?” he calls out to no one in particular, knowing he will get answers from the whole room.
“Aawat is still downloading his porn collection...”
“Too much Facebook”
“They have dug up the road again”
“They should go fuck their mother”
The men, as they are all men, spend each day sitting in the stark white office staring at computers. Churning the numbers, balancing the books. Counting the Generals money. Sunan’s stomach rumbles, it will be lunchtime soon.
Sunan sits back planning the visit to his mistress. A mistress is the sign of a big man. He can now afford these luxuries working for the general.
It’s been over a week since he’d installed the girl in a flat belonging to his brother and so far, he’s failed to sneak away from home to visit her.
The girl’s a bit dim but turns heads. But who wants brains in a mistress. Brains are only important for a wife, as they have to look after the home, teach the children and balance the books. A mistress is just for…. Relaxing with.
He reaches for the phone; thoughts of pleasurable distractions after lunch makes him pick up the phone. He dials the number, listening to the ringing phone waiting for the screen.
“When are we going to get good internet… for the money general pays someone should be shot for this...”
He checks the screen again and then hits reload again, this time it reloads quickly. He sits up, feeling sick, not really believing what he sees. The total on the screen says $0000.00. This account should have US$40 million in it. He has today sent twenty-five payments based on that account having $40 million dollars in it. This can’t be right, he clicks to refreshes the page again.
The voice on the end of the phones purrs “hello”. He hangs up distracted. Thoughts of lunchtime sex are gone from his mind. He still can’t quite believe what he is seeing.
He stands up, steadies himself against the desk and walks to the table in the centre of the room and picks up the red phone. All around him, hands pause at keyboards, people stop talking on phones, the conversation dies away, food never reaches mouths and for those already chewing the food loses all taste.
He picks up the phone, it rings once, the voice on the end says simply “Yes?”
“I need to talk to the General”. Sunan swallows “It’s district one accounting.”
“We know”
“It’s account 11, it’s showing empty and it should have over US$40 Million dollars in it. I have set up 25 standing orders to that account.”
“Where is it managed?”
“Out of the UK, the City of London firm.”
“A car has been dispatched, they will pick you up in five minutes” the phone goes dead.
He looks around the room; no one will meet his eye. They all know that the stories of the last person to pick up that phone. He simply disappeared.
For the first time since he was a child Sunan begins to chant a Buddhist mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum” *, tears streaming down his face, his colleagues give him face by not looking at him as he struggles to control himself and picks up his jacket and straightens his tie and walks towards the door. He turns and apologises to his colleagues for his emotional outburst, claps his hands together, wais, and leaves the room.
He steps outside into the heat and traffic fumes. He waits for the black car he has only seen twice before. He could run but it would only delay the inevitable, the General runs Bangkok, he would be found and then it would be worse. At least this way they may believe he is innocent. Regardless he is a dead man; he takes out his phone to call his children to say goodbye as the car pulls up. Too late, he sees the car door open and he steps in. The car pulls away into the traffic
*invokes the powerful benevolent attention and blessings of Chenrezig Buddha, the embodiment of compassion
