A Lopsided Triangle
Chapter 4
finally going his way.
He’d visited Nong Khai several times over the past few months in furtherance of plying his new, macabre trade. He typically walked across the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge that linked the two cities over the Mekong River. He found the name funny and laughed to himself whenever he heard it mentioned. International donor nations had funded and built the project, yet he was still amused at the name of the bridge. Friendship was a serious misnomer. The two countries greatly mistrusted one another and had oppositional forms of government. Nonetheless, Friendship Bridge it was. One could only hope, he mused.
Kris actually detested the city of Vientiane with its stodgy communist regime and its equally stodgy lifestyle. That’s why he looked forward so much to visiting bustling Nong Khai and his compatriot and business partner there, Albert Wu, a Chinese national and entrepreneur like himself. They’d met soon after Kris arrived in Laos and started up his illicit enterprise. He needed a partner, a facilitator and coconspirator and Albert turned out to be a perfect choice. He owned a prosperous mortuary on the edge of the city. The vast majority of Thai and Lao were Buddhist, meaning their bodies were cremated on pyres.
Albert was the go-to guy who handled all of the funeral arrangements: the religious ceremony, hiring the monks, holding the corpse of the deceased for the ritual, seven day mourning period, preparing and lighting the pyre and cleaning up the ashes afterwards. However, Albert made much more profit from his business venture with Kris Amar. Albert was agnostic when it came to religion, but not money. He worshipped the almighty dollar like other avaricious heathens.
The Golden Triangle, what a perfect place for golden opportunities for those willing to take risks. The rewards were enormous in the lawless land where Laos, Thailand and Myanmar converged, Amar thought. He believed he was such a person, a ruthless entrepreneur and opportunist, but more importantly, a loyal soldier of Al Qaeda in the ongoing battle with the infidel imperialists. With time, the Americans and their lackeys would weary of the war and concede territories to the true believers without a fight. Then the spread of Islam throughout the Middle East and beyond would continue unchallenged until all peoples would follow the teachings of Mohammed, inshallah.
War was expensive and Amar’s mission, as before, was to raise money and funnel it to his mujahedeen brothers fighting on the frontlines in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. And he’d done well as a financier and rainmaker for the cause.
Amar sometimes reflected on his life in his hometown of Banaras, India. It had been a good one for the most part until an American dick forced him to flee the country. He had prepared for such an event by stashing a go-bag at a safe-house in the city. The bag contained a large amount of cash in various, convertible currencies, three passports, including his true one, and his family’s page-worn Koran. He then ran for his life and was now a wanted fugitive.
With some baksheesh, he booked passage on a tramp steamer in Mumbai that was headed to Myanmar and eventually made his way north by bus until he reached his destination in Vientiane, Laos. Border controls were lax and he easily crossed into his newly adopted country. He’d been living and working in the capital city for about two years and business had been exceptionally profitable. He was looking forward to even more rewards if his new business models were successful, wholeheartedly believing they would be.