Alex Mitchell - The 13th Tablet

‘Ah. Of course you did. What’s your name again?’

‘Noi, sir.’

‘Noi, I’m Jack. Could you do another small errand for me? I’ll pay you well.’

The boy’s eager eyes widened in anticipation, ‘Yes Sir, no problem, Sir!’

‘OK. I have a meeting at the Chiang Mai restaurant at nine, and I want you to wait for me here with this bag,’ Jack said, handing him his rucksack. ‘When I phone you, you come to the restaurant with the bag.’

‘That’s all sir?’

‘Yes. I’ll need your phone number and here’s half the cash,’ he said, giving him $40.

Patong Beach. Chiang Mai Restaurant

Oberon Wheatley and Natasha Mastrani were having tea on the outdoor terrace of the Chiang Mai restaurant. Oberon was reading a newspaper and Natasha was checking emails on her laptop when they felt the earthquake. Within minutes he had received fifteen emails on his blackberry from various researchers and his centre in Mumbai. But none of them satisfied his hunger for explanations.

‘Information,’ he thought, ‘I need accurate information.’

Something was nagging Wheatley, a splinter in the back of his brain; something he should be thinking of right now, but couldn’t recollect. The sky was blue and the sun was shining on his face. He stopped checking his blackberry and tried to remember this elusive fact. He placed his phone neatly on the table, at equal distance between his cup of tea and the bread basket. He had always liked space between objects to be exact; it helped him think properly. Natasha noticed, but did not comment; she liked his penchant for details and his exactitude in preparing his plans and business strategies. ‘Natasha, I’m glad we have the place for ourselves.’

‘I rented the entire restaurant for the day, Sir,’ she replied rather formally.

He smiled, seeming pleased with himself. ‘I presume, my dear, that our friend Jack didn’t sleep much last night?’

‘I guess. Waiting to contact him until the late morning was a nice idea,’ she replied.

He looked at her for a moment and could not decide if he enjoyed her flattery or found it irritating.

‘Is our lovely Miss Osman still asleep?’

‘Yes sir. I’m sorry.’

‘You had the Hillcliff women on board the yacht and you lost them. You had that little Iraqi bitch in your grasp and you drugged her up to her eyeballs!’

‘The important thing is that she didn’t have the photograph with her. She was on her way to meet Hillcliff, so it was obvious that he had it,’ she said to Oberon.

‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but that’s not the point. I wanted to question her about contacting NOAA. How much of the stuff did you inject her with?’

Natasha was about to answer when he suddenly felt he was on the brink of remembering the idea he was desperately searching for.

‘Sir?’ she said, breaking his chain of thought.

‘What? Damn you! I was about to remember a detail,’

‘My men have just told me that Jack Hillcliff is on his way.’

‘Ah,’ he replied, focusing his attention on the matter in hand and dismissing all other thoughts, ‘good. Go now Natasha. I’ll welcome the Major.’

Jack was in his element, now that the wheels of action had been set in motion. He looked at the boy, who returned his gaze with a reassuring air of confidence as he left the cafe. He took his time as he walked towards the meeting place, affecting an air of self-confident nonchalance. The beach crowd was a strange sight. 8:30 a.m. and the beach was already full of tourists from every country in the world; Belgians joking with Germans and Americans, the young Swedes checking their diving gear with the Israeli couple. He heard people speaking Spanish and French as he walked past the holiday-makers. Some were walking by the waterfront, others were laying down to get a back massage from a cute Thai girl. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t see many Thai people enjoying the beach. They were too busy taking care of business. He passed a few British men lying on the beach snoring. He couldn’t figure out if they were early risers who had just arrived and fallen asleep again, or if they had dropped dead drunk on the beach the night before after partying heavily.

He arrived at the Chiang Mai restaurant, a select establishment that catered for wealthy holiday-makers who enjoyed being cut off from the riffraff. Wheatley was sitting in the shade under a large parasol, flanked by two bodyguards. He saw Jack from a distance and waved to him to approach. Jack looked around the restaurant but didn’t notice any other goons. He walked straight up to the table.

‘Hello Major,’ said Oberon condescendingly, as he stood up to shake Jack’s hand ‘I’m Oberon Wheatley, but call me Oberon. I feel like we’ve known each other for years.’

‘Hi,’ replied a stone-faced Jack, keeping his hands firmly at his sides.

‘Not to worry,’ Oberon said with a large sweeping gesture of the hand, ‘there’s no-one here but us. Would you like a drink?’

‘Thanks, no. Where is Mina?’ asked Jack.

Oberon nodded to one of his bodyguards, who handed Jack a pair of binoculars.

‘If you look down the beach, right to the end, near the wall, you’ll see a small shack. She’s standing there.’

Jack took the binoculars and found the spot indicated by Oberon. He recognised Natasha standing next to Mina.

‘That’s not good enough. I want her here next to me when we do the deal,’ said Jack.

‘Hmm. Where’s the photograph? No, let me guess. You don’t have it on you but somewhere close by,’ said Oberon.

‘Correct. I’ll call someone to bring the photograph when I’m satisfied that Mina is OK.’

‘Fine,’ said Oberon.

He picked up his mobile phone and rang Natasha.

‘Bring Miss… bring Mina to the restaurant,’ then raised an eyebrow at an irritated Jack, ‘Satisfied?’

‘I’ll make the call when they’re here.’

‘Aren’t you being overly suspicious?’ asked Oberon.

Jack didn’t react to Oberon’s facetious tone. He chose to ignore him and remain businesslike. He watched Natasha and Mina walking down the beach, slowly approaching the restaurant. People on the beach weren’t paying much attention to them as they were too busy staring out to sea, watching flocks of birds seemingly gone mad, flying frantically towards the coast and then inland. Jack shuddered with a sense of foreboding but kept his thoughts to himself, especially as Wheatley and his men hadn’t noticed anything.

Hawai. NOAA, Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre

Dr Jim Carson had received the first seismic data from stations in Australia earlier in the morning. This data had immediately been forwarded to his fellow seismologists in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka with a warning of a potential tsunami. Each of them in turn had called him to confirm they’d received his tsunami warning. But he didn’t know more right now. There simply wasn’t enough data. There he was trying to coordinate information from various local centres, but it would take much more cooperation between them to be able to issue an actual tsunami warning in all confidence. He rushed down to the main desk and asked the secretary for the telephone number of the South Indian bureau, which hadn’t contacted him since he had first sent off the data. Bob Rear, the secretary, seemed very nervous and almost stuttered as he read him the number.

‘What’s wrong Bob? We’ve had other scares in the past,’ said Carson.

‘It… It… It’s not that Dr Carson.’

‘Well what is it?’

‘Someone called two days ago. I thought it was a crank call.

I’m still not sure what it was.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he asked impatiently.