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  “Yeah,” the woman said, nodding. “Two or three, they call that recreational, but any more than that and you must be a drug dealer. You did a plea, right? Got a short time?”

  “The lawyer said I’d get like twenty years if I didn’t,” Sarah replied, “so, yeah, I did. Was that a mistake?”

  “Ha!” the woman barked. “Twenty woulda been light if you hadn’t. More likely you’d’ve got life! They like giving life to us farangs, sweets! Be glad you was smart, and you better hope you got fam back home what’ll send you money for food and stuff.”

  Sarah knew what she was saying, but let her face register surprise to stay in character. “They have to send me money to buy food? What if you don’t have any money?”

  “Then you can work for one of the women who does, or you can put out to the Toms. Toms is the lezzies, they’d love to get onto a pretty little sheila like you! You won’t go hungry, no worries!”

  Sarah leaned back as if the woman’s words had disturbed her, and said nothing more. A few minutes later, another guard came and got her, took her to a shower room and made her change into jailhouse clothing: a pair of midcalf pants, a loose pullover shirt and what seemed a female version of boxer underwear, but no bra. Sarah understood what was happening, even if she didn’t understand anything the woman said to her, and a half-hour later she was back in the same cell.

  The Australian women were gone, and different women were in their cell. Sarah wondered where they’d gone, but didn’t ask.

  Sometime later, she was given another bowl of rice and fish. Since there was no one to steal it from her, she actually got to eat it, and then lay back on her bunk. She was genuinely tired, after getting very little rest the night before, and sleep claimed her long before the lights went out at ten.

  ELEVEN

  While Sarah was enduring her ordeal, Noah and the other men were staying in character. Thursday meant another day of visiting inmates and talking with prison staff, though the warden still declined to give any kind of interview.

  They had visited two women, one American and an Australian, and then visited with a man from the UK. After each visit, they had gone to the visitors’ store and purchased gifts for them, usually food and toiletries. The British man had asked them to send him books if they could, and they managed to find a few American spy novels in the store for him.

  When their day ended, they went back to their hotel and waited for darkness to fall. Noah had decided to go ahead and cut their entrance that night, but instead of all three of them climbing the wall, Marco would make that climb and do the job alone. Noah and Neil would keep watch from a safe distance, each of them armed with the special guns they had been provided.

  The ferry didn’t run that late, so they took a taxi to the area near the prison where they had set out their tracking units. The ride took about an hour, but it was worth it. Not only would no one recall them on the boat, but the taxi driver would only remember dropping them at a restaurant nearby.

  Luckily, that section of wall was just as deserted as it had been on the mockup. Marco shot the grapple up the wall, shimmied up it like a spider monkey and was back down on the ground less than forty minutes later. He headed back toward the restaurant without even looking in their direction.

  “All set,” he said when Noah and Neil rejoined him. They ate a late dinner and then lingered a little longer over some of the local beer before getting another taxi to take them back to the hotel. If everything was going according to plan, Sarah had already been arrested and should be showing up at the prison within the next few days.

  On Friday, they selected three more inmates to visit and went about the day just as they had done before. Neil had wanted to carry the tablet along with them, but Noah had vetoed the idea.

  “We don’t want to run the risk of someone seeing the layout of the prison on its screen,” he said. “Leave it in the room, and make sure the tracking software is turned off. The last thing we need is for one of the housekeepers to notice something funny on it. Sarah will be all right for the day if she happens to turn up while we’re away.”

  Neil grumbled but did as he was told. They spent their allotted visits as they had done before, even to the point of wasting time choosing gifts to send to those they had visited. By the time they were ready to head back to their hotel, it was nearly five o’clock.

  As soon as they entered the room, Neil grabbed the monitor and turned it on. He activated the tracking software and then made a sour face. “Nothing yet,” he said.

  “There’s no telling how long it will take them to get her sentenced,” Noah said. “I’m sure it won’t be more than a few days, but I have my doubts they bother on the weekends. Most likely, we won’t see her appear before Monday, now.”

  Neil grimaced and started to set the tablet down, but suddenly it sounded a tone that made him look again. His face broke into a smile as he looked up at Noah.

  “Get this,” he said, “she just came in range. According to the blip, she’s moving along the street we were on last night.”

  Noah and Marco crowded around him and watched as the blip that indicated her presence moved along the street and came to a stop in front of the main entrance. A moment later it moved slowly inside, and toward the women’s section.

  “Perfect timing,” Noah said. “At least now we have something to keep us busy through the weekend.”

  * * * * *

  The day had seemed excessively long to Sarah, as she waited for someone to come and take her to the prison. The sheer boredom of sitting in a cell with nothing to do was driving her crazy, and every minute that passed without anyone calling her out of it seemed to last an hour or more.

  She had been awakened with another bowl of rice, minus the fish, for breakfast. She had eaten it in the interest of keeping up her strength, then sat for what she thought must have been six hours before another bowl was brought for her lunch. The other inmates close to her did not speak English, so she didn’t bother trying to talk with them. That increased her level of boredom and frustration, as more hours passed.

  She had just reached the point of deciding it was time to scream for attention when a third bowl of rice, this time with chunks of chicken, was shoved through the bars at her. She tried to asked the guard what time it was, but the woman simply shrugged and walked away. Like Noah, Sarah decided that she probably wouldn’t be moving until Monday, and sat down forlornly on her bunk to eat. The thought of two more days of such intense boredom was more intimidating than the thought of entering the prison itself.

  She had just finished eating and set her bowl outside her cell when she heard keys rattle and a guard stepped up to open her door. “Come on,” the Thai woman said. “You go prison now.”

  Sarah tried not to let the relief show on her face, certain that staying in character would require her to look frightened, but the woman paid no attention. She was told to turn around in the doorway and her hands were cuffed behind her back, then a hand grabbed her arm and marched her out and down the hallway once again.

  This time, she was led out a door and directly into a van that held six other women. None of them had been in her cellblock, but she noticed a couple of Caucasians in the mix.

  “Hey,” she said to one of them. “Any idea what’s going on?”

  “Yeah, baby,” the woman said. “We’re going off to the Bangkok Hilton. How long you get?”

  Sarah grimaced. “Three years,” she said. “I was stupid and bought some of those yaba pills. I just wanted to try, I never had a chance before.”

  “Yeah, me too.” Sarah noticed that her accent seemed American. “These idiots said I was trying to sell it, can you believe that?”

  “They said that about me, too,” Sarah said. “I only had twelve pills, is that really so much?”

  “Twelve? Hell, I had fifty. I scored it for me and my friends, but they got me before I even got back to my hotel room. Somebody snitched me out.”

  Sarah nodded. “Me, too,” she said. �
��From what I understand, the dealers like to sell it to us and then tell the cops who they sold it to. I guess they get paid for ratting us out.”

  A guard stepped into the van and started shouting, and Sarah didn’t need an interpreter to know she was being told to shut up. She sat back in her seat and stayed quiet as the van moved out.

  The ride lasted about an hour and a half, and very few of the women tried to talk during the journey. Sarah simply looked out the window beside her at the passing scenery, but her mind was racing as she uttered silent prayers that Noah was on station and ready for her arrival at the prison. With any luck, she would find Sharon Ingersoll quickly and this whole nightmare could come to an end.

  The van arrived at the prison and the women were let off one at a time. Female guards from the prison had come out to escort them in individually, and it was nearly 20 minutes before it was Sarah’s turn to get out. She made a point of not giving the guard any resistance, and was quickly brought into a room where she was seated at a desk.

  A pretty young woman was sitting there and she looked up and smiled at Sarah. The guard handed a large envelope to the woman, and she opened it swiftly to dump out its contents onto her desk.

  Sarah was surprised to see not only the paperwork regarding her case, but a substantial amount of Thai currency. Apparently, the money she had had in her hotel room had been correctly counted and sent along with her. The young woman at the desk counted through it, then looked up at Sarah.

  “You are Kay-la Mag-wire?” Despite being a native, her accent sounded British.

  “Yes,” Sarah said.

  “Okay, you have 18,400 baht. I put it in your account, so you can use it to buy what you need. Be careful with it, and it will last you a long time in here.” The woman shoved the money into an envelope, sealed it and put it in a drawer of her desk, then turned to a computer and began entering the information from Sarah’s paperwork. A moment later, another printer spat out a strip of paper. The woman slid it into a plastic sleeve and then used a tool to affix it to Sarah’s wrist. “My name is Nan,” she said as she did so. “I see many American girls like you come into this place. You have only three years, that is not long. If you be very careful, you will not have any trouble in here.”

  The simple human kindness in her voice was more than Sarah could handle, and tears began to flow down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said. “I plan to be very, very careful.”

  Nan nodded her head. “Are you all alone? Do you know anyone who is in our prison?”

  For a brief moment, Sarah thought about asking about Sharon Ingersoll, but common sense prevailed and she only shook her head. “No,” she said. “This is my first trip to Thailand, and I don’t know anybody here. My lawyer said someone from the embassy will come to see me here?”

  Once again, Nan nodded. “Yes, they will come, but it may not be soon. There is only one man who comes for the American women, and he is very busy. I think it may be two or three weeks before he comes again, and he will have many of you to see. You may not see him that time, but he will come and talk to you when he can. His name is Jonathan, but that is all I know.”

  Sarah managed to stop the sniffles. “Thank you. You speak very good English.”

  “I went to school in London,” Nan said. “Sometimes I wish I had stayed there, but I take care of my mother, so I had to come back. I was lucky to get a good job like this.” She tapped a series of keys on her computer and a couple of papers shot out of a printer nearby. “You’re all done,” she said.

  Nan waved a hand in the air and the guard took hold of Sarah by the arm once again. She was led into a holding cell, just like the one she had been placed in the mockup the first day of their practice runs. Some of the other women from the van were already sitting there, but guards were taking them out one at a time and leading them into the prison itself.

  She was led into another shower room, where she went through the same routine she had experienced in the mockup. The prison clothes they gave her were only slightly different from the ones she had been given in the jail, which were tossed into a box, but at least the boxers were replaced by a pair of cotton panties. Since it was already late in the day, she was led directly to a sleeping room and pushed inside.

  Sarah stood just inside the entrance and scanned for an empty pallet, but let her eyes rove over the women in the room at the same time. There were a few Caucasians, but none of them looked like the photo she had been shown of Sharon Ingersoll.

  A woman on a pallet near the door tapped her on the foot and pointed across the room. Sarah looked where the woman indicated and saw an empty pallet, then carefully stepped over and around the women between her and her goal. When she reached it, she sat down and looked at her neighbors.

  One of them was a black woman, and she looked at Sarah questioningly. “American?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Sarah said. “You?”

  “Yep. I’m Raylene, from Birmingham. Where you from?”

  “Muncie, Indiana. Have you been here very long?”

  “Starting my fourth year,” Raylene said. “You got family to help you with money?”

  Sarah thought quickly and decided she didn’t want to mention that she had money on the books already, so she nodded. “Yeah, a little bit. Do I really have to buy my own food?”

  “Honey, you got to pay for it somehow. Did you have any money when you come in?”

  “Not much,” Sarah said. “I’ll need to write home as soon as possible and get my folks to send me more as soon as they can.”

  The woman smiled and let her eyes roam over Sarah’s body. “Well, don’t you worry none, honey. If it takes a little while, Raylene will take care of you, don’t you sweat it.”

  The look on Raylene’s face was enough to tell Sarah what the woman was proposing, but she thought it best to pretend ignorance. “Oh, thanks,” she said, “but I should be okay until I get hold of them.”

  Another woman, this one apparently British, waved a hand to get Sarah’s attention. “Don’t you get mixed up with Raylene,” the woman said loudly. “She won’t do anything for anyone without there being something in it for her. The last thing you want to do in this place is owe anybody any favors, take my word for that.”

  Raylene glared at the woman, but didn’t say anything. Sarah glanced back and forth between the two of them, then lay down on her pallet and folded her hands under her head.

  Dear Lord, she prayed silently, please let me find Sharon right away and then let Noah get us out of here. Please, Lord, I don’t know how long I can take this place.

  TWELVE

  Neil got onto his computer first thing Saturday morning and started looking at inmates they could visit for the day. “Hey, Noah?”

  “Yeah?” Noah said.

  The skinny kid grinned at him. “How about Sharon Ingersoll? She’s on the list.”

  Noah shook his head. “I don’t want any association between us. If she got a visit from some random Americans just before she apparently escapes, I think it would set off alarm bells that would piss off the Dragon Lady. Let’s stick to men today.”

  “You got it,” Neil said. He chose three male inmates: one American, one Brazilian and one from New Zealand. He printed out the bio sheets on all three and passed them to his boss.

  Noah scanned over each one, passing it to Marco as he finished. He was just finishing the last one when Marco grunted. “Something wrong with that one?” he asked.

  “The Brazilian guy,” Marco said. “Juergen Klug. Sounds more like a German.”

  “World War II,” Noah said. “Toward the end, a lot of Nazi personnel began jumping ship and heading for South America. Argentina and Brazil were considered German allies for a while, so a lot of them settled there.”

  Marco nodded. “Yeah, I remember my history lessons. Just struck me as odd.”

  “You’re odd,” Neil said.

  “I think we all are,” Noah added in. “Let’s go get some breakfast and then go play reporter.�
�

  “One minute,” Neil replied. “Just want to check on our girl.” He picked up the tablet and turned it on, then held it out toward Noah. The blip showed her in one of the workrooms. “Looks like they’ve given her a work assignment already.”

  “Good. The more she gets to mingle with the other inmates, the quicker she’s going to locate the target, and the sooner we can get her out of there.”

  Neil cocked an eyebrow at him. “Do I detect a hint of worry?”

  Noah shrugged. “I’m not worried,” he said, “I’m just quite certain she wants to get out of there as soon as possible.”

  “Noah, I can set this up so that the display is turned off, but it will sound a tone if she signals us. Want me to bring it along?”

  “No. The plan is to go in during the midnight shift change. She won’t send a signal during the day, and we’ll be close to our entry point shortly before midnight, every night from now until she does.”

  “Okay. I’ll just leave it on the charger, then.”

  They left the hotel and went to a nearby restaurant for breakfast, then made their way toward the ferry landing. The boat seemed unusually crowded that morning, but Noah figured it was simply because of the weekend visiting opportunities. The number of women with children bore out that theory.

  A different clerk was working the registration desk, so they had to go through the entire process of showing identification and explaining the reason for their visits once again. By the time they got the clerk to approve them, it was already close to eleven.

  * * * * *

  Sarah was roused before the sun came up and led with the rest of her bunkmates to the feeding room, where tables were laid out. Bowls sat on all of the tables, but most of the women shoved the bowls aside and sat down to eat the food they were pulling out of pockets and from inside their clothing. Those who didn’t seem to have any food either ate from the bowls or begged from the women close to them.

  Sarah sat down and looked at the bowl in front of her, then cringed back away from it. It contained rice, but there were a number of insects in the bowl, as well. The woman across from her, a scarred and gray-haired woman with a French accent, leaned forward and pointed at the bowl.