On the far side of the world from Jeannie and Johnnie ...
Two days earlier ...
In southern Thailand ...
SIS Agent Le Bon crouched behind a concrete wall and pulled out his pocket mirror. Angling it with a gentle rocking motion until he caught sight of the reflection he was looking for, he used it to peer around the corner. Two gunmen were creeping towards him. The remaining members of the Kayinah Brigades, a Myanmar terrorist cell he'd been sent to hunt down. Only now he was the one being hunted.
Steady, steady, they were roughly fifteen feet from him and closing in. His fingers, slick with sweat, tightened around the gun he held in his left hand. With his right, he checked the holster on his hip for the second gun. He flung the mirror onto the asphalt path, drew out the second gun, leapt around the corner and fired.
The shorter man clutched his chest and collapsed. Le Bon's other shot went wide and the second man raced off into the jungle. Le Bon chased after him, quickly losing sight of him in the dense undergrowth. He staggered into a clearing and took a deep breath. The air was thick, suffocating, his senses piqued.
Branches rustled. Le Bon looked up; too late he saw the pair of booted feet dropping down. They kicked him square in his chest, knocking him to the ground. The man landed on him and two wiry brown hands gripped his throat.
He tried to push the man off, then fumbled around his belt. Coughing and gasping for air, he withdrew a steel pen. One flick of his thumb and it became a skewer. He plunged it into his attacker's side and the man keeled over, limbs floundering. The poison acted fast.
Agent Le Bon stood, brushed the loose dirt off his suit and said to the dead man, "How nice of you to drop by."
An hour and a change of clothing later, he entered the poolside lounge attached to the Silk Elephant Luxury Resort and Spa. A lounge where everyone was young, beautiful and rich. He sat under the bamboo awning at one end of the bar and gazed out at the bikini clad women sashaying around. A lithe Thai woman with smouldering eyes passed by, flicking her long black hair. She glanced over her shoulder at him, a come-hither smile on her lips.
He watched her peel off her red sarong, which she dropped onto a nearby table. She poured herself into the wicker chair next to it and stretched out her long dark legs.
The bartender slid a martini with a twist of lemon over to Le Bon. She was looking his way, though pretending not to, turning her face away a split second too late. At her next over-the-shoulder glance, he raised his glass to her and winked. Tomorrow he'd be back in dreary old England; today he'd make the most of it.