The Northern Cross eased alongside a narrow wooden pier. It had traveled non-stop from England as fast as its engines and the Egyptian authorities in the Suez Canal would allow. The trip had been rather dull, with the exception of Sato becoming uncharacteristically seasick during a storm near Sri Lanka. After initially attempting to send the boat through the Arctic, the GPS had guided the mercenaries to this pier successfully.
The cabin door swung open and Zachary Taylor stepped out into the mid-afternoon sunlight. He clambered down to the pier, staggering as his sense of balance attempted to normalize itself after days on the ocean. Pulling a rope down from the boat's deck, Taylor moored the boat to an iron fixture that had likely never been used for anything larger than small fishing craft previously. A Thai boy on a moped stopped at the far end of the long pier and gazed with incredulity at this strange new arrival.
Sadeski lead the remainder of the mercenary crew out of their vessel and onto the pier. After some brief stretching, the group began moving towards land. The Thai boy turned towards a nearby fishing village and sped off. Rene Levancon watched him go, his eyes lingering on the bamboo houses of the village. "Welcome to the stone age." he sullenly remarked.
"They have the internet on this island." Gordon Weston's voice was as placid as ever.
"OK, welcome to the stone age with modems." A helicopter passed overhead. Sato tried and failed to repress a snort of laughter. Rene didn't look at him. "It came from the mainland."
Bob was getting annoyed. "Rene. Drop it." The crew reached the end of the pier and set off down the dirt road the Thai boy had arrived on into a thick jungle. Sadeski looked down at his portable GPS. "I'm amazed this thing works out here, internet or not. It doesn't even work in parts of the U.S."
"Are we going the right way?" Taylor dodged a hanging vine at the edge of the road. "Probably not a good idea to get lost in here."
"Yeah, this way should get us to Haad Rin in half an hour tops." Bob returned the GPS to a pocket of his long jacket. "All right, listen up boys. This island is called Ko Pha Ngan. Remember that. We are going to Haad Rin Beach. There's a full moon festival there tonight. The area is infested with tourists during these festivals. Perfect cover, we won't need to speak Thai to get around. You can buy things, but you're spending your own money. It's basically a tourist trap. At midnight, you need to be back on this road where it comes into the beach area. I'm meeting our contact here."
"Who's the contact?" Rene checked his pockets to make sure he was adequately armed. "Are we gonna be doing any shooting?"
"No, but better safe than sorry. I don't have a name, just a code name. We're picking up a government agent who's here on vacation. Apparently we're cheaper than ferry and rail tickets." Sadeski sighed. "I honestly don't know how Mark makes a profit on this."
Takeshi unzipped his jacket. Despite that it was only April, the air was hot enough to make him uncomfortable in his "mission" clothes. "Got it. So we've got about seven hours of free time?"
"Free time, yes. If you can learn any Thai in the process it'll probably help. English is all well and good for tourist areas, but we're only going to be here today, and then on to Bangkok. And we're not staying there all that long, either." Gordon was completely unfazed by the climate, but he had donned a pair of sunglasses which seemed useless in the thick jungle.
Two more Thai boys on mopeds rode past, staring at the foreigners until they had passed. Rene followed them with downcast eyes. "Why do you always know more of the plan than we do, Gordon?"
"Because if I wanted to, I could get switched with Zeke and run a crew myself, kid. I'm old. I know my way around the world." Weston's features remained constant as he spoke. At thirty-six, Gordon was over a decade older than Rene and Takeshi- an old man in a business where men frequently did not live to see thirty.
The next hour followed a regular pattern of banter and locals on mopeds. The jungle road hugged the coast, but even this close to the sea the trees were densely packed. Sunlight filtered in from above, and strange plants poked into the road in places. After a particularly tortuous stretch of road, the travelers were confronted with an abrupt fork in the road. One path was poorly lit and clearly led inward, toward the center of the island. The second appeared to open into a beach where the first building since the fishing village could be seen. A few fair-skinned tourists mingled with an equally small number of natives outside the stone and metal structure. The mercenaries set off for this outpost of civilization, Sadeski calmly leading the way.
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