Stephen Leather - Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

Noy understood. Bless her. She kissed me on the cheek and wished me luck and I went downstairs and caught a taxi.

I was shown to a changing room where I took off my clothes put on a pale blue hospital robe. I was shown through to another room where a pretty nurse who looked about fifteen years old sat me down in a chair and put a needle into a vein in my left arm and held it in place with a strip of sticking plaster. There were two other patients there, a Thai man in his seventies and an obese Arab who kept wiping his face with a large white handkerchief.

Dr Ma-lee arrived fifteen minutes after I’d been prepped. She was wearing surgical scrubs and her long hair was tucked back in a net. She checked the needle and asked me how the cleansing had gone.

Ah yes, the cleansing.

I’d gone onto the internet to check out what was in store for me and pretty much everything I’d read suggested that the preparation was a lot more uncomfortable than the procedure. I had to drink the eight pints of solution that the hospital had given me, then wait until the eight pints had passed through me, taking pretty much everything with it.

It was not pleasant.

Not pleasant at all.

The first intestinal rumblings began about six hours after I’d finished the last drop and I spent a further two hours in the bathroom.

But I just smiled and nodded and told Dr Ma-lee that the cleansing had gone just fine.

She explained the procedure again and asked me if I had any concerns.

Any concerns?

Well, yes, actually. I was concerned that there might be a tumour the size of a grapefruit in my gut and that I’d be dead by the end of the year because, please God, I didn’t want to die.

‘No, I’m good,’ I said, and smiled confidently.

‘It’s going to be fine, Khun Bob,’ she said, and patted the arm that didn’t have a needle in it.

I guess my smile wasn’t as confident as I thought.

She went away and five minutes later two female orderlies in pale green scrubs came in pushing a gurney. They asked me to lie down and they wheeled me down a corridor into an operating room. Dr Ma-lee was there. She’d put on a cap that matched her scrubs and was wearing surgical gloves. She asked me to lie on my side and then she attached a hypodermic to the needle in my arm and I felt a coldness spread along it and across my chest and then I felt warm and safe and happy, so happy that I actually giggled.

I felt a draught as a nurse loosened my robe and I was still giggling as she inserted the camera and it began its twenty-two-foot voyage of discovery.

I wasn’t laughing when I was wheeled into the recovery room, but I wasn’t feeling any pain, either. I’d been conscious for the whole procedure, and for most of the time had been able to watch the camera’s progress in and out of my digestive tract. Even I could see that my colon was in good shape, smooth and pink and glossy. I had the colon of a twenty-five-year old, Dr Ma-lee said at one point.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling and sighed. It was over. And I was pretty sure that everything was okay. Now I just wanted to go home.

After about fifteen minutes, Dr Ma-lee came to see me. She’d taken off her hairnet but she was still wearing her scrubs. She gave me a beaming smile. ‘No problems at all,’ she said.

‘That’s a relief,’ I said.

And it was.

‘I’d recommend that you have another colonoscopy in five years,’ she said.

‘I’ll put it in my diary,’ I said.

‘Get yourself checked every five years and I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll never have a major problem with your colon,’ she said. ‘Once you get to your age, five-year checks are a life-saver.’ She placed a DVD on the table next to my gurney. ‘Here’s a copy of the recording we made.’

‘Thanks, doc,’ I said. ‘Can I go home now?’

‘Isn’t your wife coming to get you?’

‘I don’t want her to see me in hospital,’ I said.

‘Very macho,’ she said.

‘She doesn’t like hospitals much,’ I said.

And to be honest, neither do I.

‘Just be careful,’ she said. ‘You might find you’re a bit unsteady on your feet for a while.’ She flashed me another beaming smile and left me to it.

I actually didn’t feel too bad.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, took a deep breath and stood up.

I was fine.

I was fit, I was healthy, I was going to live for ever.

By the time I’d changed into my clothes I felt even better.

I left the hospital and climbed into a taxi and told the driver where I wanted to go. Home.

He drove away from the hospital and turned right onto Sukhumvit Soi 3. I looked at the DVD that the doctor had given me and wondered what I was supposed to do with it? Did people actually watch them? Did they sit down with a cup of coffee or a beer and revisit the journey through their intestines? Did they invite their friends and family around? I figured the best place for it was the trash can.

I heard the roar of a motorcycle engine and looked out of the window.

There was a gun pointing at me.

A big gun.

A revolver.

A Smith amp; Wesson Model 637 Chiefs Special Airweight revolver, snubnose stainless-steel barrel, aluminium alloy frame, exposed hammer, black rubber grips,. 38 calibre.

It’s funny how your mind focuses on the little things when you’re about to die.

The Model 637 only has five shots but the. 38 is a big bullet so five is all you need, especially when your target is sitting in a taxi just three feet from you.

It’s a snubnose so it’s easy to conceal. And it weighs less than a pound so it’s easy to carry. Under any other circumstances I’d have said that it’s a nice gun.

The man holding it was dark-skinned and wearing a red and white bandana across the bottom of his face. He was sitting on the back of a small motorcycle, a 110cc black Honda Click. The driver was wearing a full-face helmet with a black visor and he was revving the engine impatiently as he waited for the pillion passenger to pull the trigger.

The shooter was holding the gun with his right hand and holding on to the driver’s shoulder with his left. The Model 637 packs a punch and I don’t think even I would try to fire it one-handed if I had the choice.

It kicked as it fired and the window exploded into a thousand cubes and the bullet smacked against the side of my head.

Time seemed to stop.

I could feel a searing pain, just above my right ear.

I could hear a bus sounding its horn.

I could see the hatred in the shooter’s eyes which I really didn’t understand because he must have been a hired gun so it shouldn’t have been personal.

I could smell the cordite.

My ears were ringing from the explosion but I could hear the driver shouting ‘again, again!’ in Thai as he revved the Honda.

I could feel cubes of glass cascading down the front of my shirt.

I could hear the taxi driver screaming in panic.

I could feel blood trickling down my cheek.

I could see the shooter’s finger tightening on the trigger for the second shot.

I could hear the pounding horn of a bus, louder now.

I could see the red flecks of blood on the headrest of the front passenger seat. My blood.

I felt the DVD slip from my fingers and clatter onto the floor of the taxi.

And that’s when the cream and blue Bangkok Mass Transit Authority bus smashed into the back of the bike and sent it and the two men on it hurtling down the street.

I guess that’s when I lost consciousness.

‘Mr Turtledove? Can you hear me Mr Turtledove?’ It was a man’s voice. Speaking English but with a Thai accent. Then he spoke in Thai to someone else. ‘He’s still unconscious.’