The Garbled Message
Chapter 33
“Oh Albert, you loveable fool! You and your part of the operation were dead to me already. I no longer had any use for you my friend.”
Kris spoke aloud to no one after reading Albert’s e-mail. With his new partners and their distribution lines, Albert Wu was merely a redundant, disposable and expendable commodity.
Perhaps he wouldn’t kill Albert after all, considering what he’d done to alert Kris of danger. They’d worked out a duress signal earlier in their correspondence in the event one or the other was being forced to write an e-mail. And that’s what Albert’s message contained, tipping Kris to a problem, a serious one in this case. The name Al was the tipoff. Albert hated the diminution of his given name and would never use it except as a code.
It was all Dick Avery’s doing and he had no doubts about the fact. He’d turned Albert or so he thought. That much he believed to be true. The comment about cooking the books was intended to enrage him to the point he’d come after both of them to seek revenge. It was a clever ploy, but Kris saw through the ruse. However, he’d play out the absurd charade awhile longer to convince them he’d been suckered into their little melodrama. His thespian talents would come to the fore.
He sat down at his computer and composed his response:
“Al, I can’t believe you’ve turned your back on me, you fucking traitor! After all we’ve been through together and now this. This is too much to tolerate, my faithless ex-partner. You’ve sealed your death warrant and you deserve to die a horrible, painful death. And I plan to arrange just that. It will be a slow one; that much I can promise. If you thought Ron Johnston little exercise was painful, you haven’t experienced anything yet, my miserable friend. His wimpy, torture session will pale in comparison for what I have in mind for you. Oh, by the way, tell your best new friend, Dick Avery, he’ll feel my wrath as well. Neither of you will live much longer, so seize the days you both have left and enjoy them while you still can. You know me well enough that I don’t make idle threats, I only fulfill promises. And I promise you will rue the day you double-crossed me! …A.”
Kris thought his message a good one and played well into his new role as a scorned lover.
Well, the game was now on, Kris thought and he planned to be the winner. He might have to be a houseguest of General Pang’s for awhile given the inevitable brouhaha that would ensue after the murders, but he didn’t mind. In fact, he’d be closer to the shipments and able to keep a closer eye on the opium and pills going south first and then to India. It wasn’t that he didn’t fully trust Pang, but he really didn’t fully trust him.
He unfurled his small rug, kneeled toward Mecca and began the first of his daily prayers to Allah. Among his several obligatory ones, he beseeched his lord for guidance in his personal quest in murdering two, heathen infidels residing across the Mekong. He hoped his prayer would be answered soon, inshallah.