ChuckParis16
A/N: I'll be OOT for a week or so.
Chapter 17 – The Honeymoon from Hell and Hannah's Kids
Bangkok, Thailand
It was the beginning of the rainy season, not that they cared at all about the weather. They were staying at a Ring-owned hotel, in the penthouse, and would spend most of the first day napping, adjusting to the time changes. That was the plan. She had an agenda to keep.
"Chuck, this is special to me. I want to go. This is where I'm from. I want to see the place where I was born and share it with you. I know so little about who I am, really. Oh, I know who my mother and my father are, but nothing about this place in their lives. The refugee camp is still in operation and probably will be for the foreseeable future. Some things never change."
"I don't think it's safe. Our host, Chai, was very clear on that point. The area around it is still teeming with insurgents who cross the border at will and prey on the locals on both sides. Please, Hannah, think this through."
"I have. I'm going, Chuck, with or without you. I have to. It's like an imperative, I have to."
"Fine. But you'll not go alone. I'll borrow a security detail from Chai to accompany us. Those are the conditions, Hannah, accept them or you will not go. No debate."
Kritikak Refugee Camp
2km west of the Laotian Border
They rode in Toyota Land Cruisers. It was raining and the roads were marginal even in dry weather. Their driver spoke no English but Hannah managed to carry on a conversation using what little of the language she retained from her childhood.
"Chuck, I remember this village. It hasn't changed much at all. My mom used to come here and barter and trade for food and cloth to make her dresses to sell. I was 4 or 5. She met my stepfather in the camp and the rest is history."
It was a cluster of shops, houses on stilts with graceful roofs, animal pens and small gardens that appeared suddenly and disappeared just as quickly as they continued down the track.
"Hannah, I don't mean to pry but I don't think Jacques is the kind of man to abandon his family to a refugee camp. What happened? He never would have left your mom and you without some support."
"Politics happened. Citizenship became an issue. Marital status became an issue. The powers in Bangkok didn't want their precious pure blood diluted with refugee blood and so if you weren't 'connected' you were sent to the camps. That's what my mother told me. I was too young to remember."
"The Thai version of ethnic cleansing? Seems harsh but then life here seems to be more than a little difficult."
They reached the refugee camp but smelled it a hundred yards before seeing it. The smell of garbage, human waste and a mass of more than 800 people created quite a stench. The camp itself looked more like a prison camp from some old war movie. High barbed wire fences, guard towers and guarded gates surrounded a patchwork of tin-covered shelters side-by-side with thatched roofs and plastic tarps. Not much had changed in twenty years.
"This is where you and your mother lived?" He was horrified and suddenly very grateful that Hannah's mother had escaped from this and married a decent man.
Her eyes were swimming in tears as she nodded her head and choked out, "Yes, this was my earliest memory."
"We're leaving. Get this truck turned around. I don't want my wife here a moment more." He was angry and frustrated. There was so much wealth in the world and these people had nothing but what they wore and little else.
Chuck saw the 'headquarters' a hundred yards down the track from the main gate. The baby blue of the UN flag flew above the gate. 'Probably down wind, too. Bastards!'
"Take us to the main building please. I want to talk with the administrator of this cesspool." Hannah just looked at her hands, folded in her lap. He recognized this as her position when she was greatly upset about something and wanted to be left alone to think. She was gnawing at the inside of her mouth, another clear sign of her distress.
He whispered in her ear so that only she could hear. "Hannah, we're going home. I won't have you stay in this filthy place one second longer than is necessary. We'll fly to Australia and dive the Great Barrier Reef or tour the outback or go anywhere else in the world that will put a smile back on your face. We were wrong to come here."
She reached over and grabbed his scarred and crippled hand in both of hers. Her palms were sweaty, another sign of distress with her but her voice was firm and strong. "Stop at the main building, please. I want to see the administrator," she said to the driver. "We'll see, my love. But first, I need to speak with the man in charge. Will you 'have my back', Chuck, no matter what?"
"Back, front, bottom, top and sides, always." She smiled and squeezed his hand and looked back as the Land Cruiser stopped in front of the gate. An armed guard came to the window and prattled something to the driver and Hannah answered in the same language, her voice harsh and demanding.
"Out, Chuck. We're here and he'll take us in to see the administrator." She seemed different, more self-assured and confident.
It was like stepping into a 1930 Sydney Greenstreet flic set in the Orient. There he was, a sweaty, sloppy fat European in a white linen suit sitting in a rattan chair and drinking a cold drink under a slowly-revolving ceiling fan. There were two teenaged girls sitting at his feet.
The flash was detailed and disgusting. This man was a minor agent for the Far East Ring. He made money providing children and young girls to the whorehouses in Bangkok. He 'bought' them from parents desperate to escape the camps and resettle their remaining family elsewhere.
Chuck introduced himself, ignoring Hannah but squeezing her hand and sending a message of 'Trust Me' as if she could read minds.
"So, what do you want? Are you here for children? Something older perhaps? You obviously have good taste, sir, since you have one of the most beautiful short-time girls in all Bangkok on your arm." He was leering and mentally undressing Hannah who was wearing a light silk jacket over a tank top and silk slacks.
"Actually, my rent-a-friend here recommended I come here. I heard you have quite a stable to select from. May I see them? I've come well prepared to do business. Perhaps take a few off your hands?"
"Surely." He clapped his hands like some oriental potentate and a middle-aged Eurasian woman came out onto the verandah and received her instructions. "Take this gentleman to the holding area. I'll entertain his friend while he's shopping. The usual fees plus a premium for delivery to wherever he directs."
He pointed to Hannah and motioned for her to sit at his feet. Chuck almost drew his weapon and shot him but better sense prevailed.
"No. I've paid for her and I'll be the one she 'entertains'. Now, quickly, for it is beastly hot and I hadn't planned on spending much time out here in the jungle." He did everything but simper, hoping to further disarm the fat slob he planned on killing some day.
They followed the woman out to a fenced enclosure. There were several adult women, all young, in the large enclosure.
"What about those over there?" There were three children huddled together in an uncovered wire mesh enclosure barely big enough for them to lie down.
"Those are dust-bin children, mixed race, and they will be going to the village to work in the fields. Their parents are dead or too poor to provide for them and they have no one to raise them so they will go be workers for the villagers. Now, these over here are the ones you may select from. I'll have them disrobe…"
Hannah pulled Chuck's pistol from his waistband behind his back and shot the women in the head. Her face was contorted in rage and angry tears were running down her cheeks. The women in the enclosure pushed back into the shadows, hoping she would forget about them and not kill them.
He carefully peeled her hands from around the pistol and put it on 'safe', thankful that he'd had the foresight to screw on the silencer. He shoved it back into his pants under the jacket and took her in his arms.
"It's alright, Hannah. I understand. Those kids…I do understand, baby, really. We can't save the whole world, sweetheart, but we can at least give you your completion. Let's take them home. No field slaves. No sex slaves. Let's give them a home and parents – us."
He waited while she trembled against him, trying to stop crying. Finally, he could wait no longer. "Hannah, get your shit together. We have to get the kids and get out of here. Stop this crap right now! We don't have time for it."
He left her standing and walked over to the enclosure and saw it was padlocked. He shot off the lock and motioned for the children to come out but they just cowered as far from him as possible.
"Hannah, I need you over here. Talk to them, sweetheart, and tell them to follow us. Tell them we're taking them someplace where they won't have to be afraid, where they won't be hungry all the time and where people will love them and teach them. Do it, Hannah. We don't have any time for this!"
She snapped out of her fugue state and squatted down and chattered to the children. They reluctantly came to her and she told them to join hands and to follow her and her husband. They were safe now. No one would hurt them.
Chuck retraced the path to the verandah and walked out and made the sign of the Ring to the fat slob still sitting in his rattan chair. The response was immediate. He reached under his jacket for a weapon and Chuck shot him. He shushed the two girls and motioned them into the house and then he led Hannah and the children out to the Land Cruiser.
"Have them lay down in the back and not make a sound. We're heading back to Bangkok and then we're getting the hell out of Thailand." He called Chai and instructed him to have exit permits and visas for three children ready for him when they arrived at the plane at the airport.
"Chuck, this is insane. You can't run around shooting the Ring Administrator for the Thai region and then just disappear. There will be repercussions. The Far Eastern Ring will put a bounty on your head. I can hide the fat man but not the children. You must dispose of them. Take them to a villager and give them away. Labor is at a premium."
"Have the passports, visas and exit paperwork waiting at the airport. You are now the Ring Administrator. The people in the camps are your responsibility. There are enough men there that you can easily double your forces. Take advantage of the chaos and establish your authority. You'll have the Director General's backing and support for whatever you need. Now, Director Vathanakul, do your duty. Someday we'll laugh about this over wine in Paris but now is not the time to be timid."
"I understand. An additional hundred men will definitely be welcome. The paperwork and your luggage will be waiting for you at the plane. I'll have a flight plan filed for…where are you going?"
He thought for a minute and then grinned. "We're heading to Australia, of course. Going to dive the Great Barrier Reef and enjoy my honeymoon."
He redialed a number and spoke to Jacques and explained the situation and told him they were heading for India and then across Europe to France. They'd hop across Eurasia until they entered 'friendly airspace'.
Jacques spoke briefly to Hannah and then hung up the phone. He was glad he'd retired. He just hoped his successor was up to handling the mess his son-in-law had created. This situation could easily escalate into a full-blown civil war among the Ring regions. He laughed and poured himself another glass of wine. Grandchildren to spoil rotten.
Chuck sat in the back row of the plane rerunning everything that had happened back at the refugee camp. He remembered how Hannah had gasped and then stiffened when the woman who was to be their guide walked out of the house. Hannah, the woman who had almost left him when she found out he'd killed someone, had taken his pistol and executed the woman without flinching, freezing up only after she'd made her kill.
Of all the possible scenarios for the situation, Hannah killing someone was never in the realm of possibilities and yet, she had. When she'd cried it had been for herself not for the woman she'd killed. He wouldn't push it. If she wanted to explain the 'why' she would, in her own time.
He was looking out the window not seeing anything as his mind ran through the events since the wedding. Hannah sat down beside him and asked him what was wrong.
"Hey, handsome, what's buggin' ya? You've been sitting back here in a funk since take off. What's wrong, Chuck?"
"I just wanted to give you time to talk to the kids, that's all. I've been sitting here running through all that's happened and I trying to figure out where we're going to put all the kids and us. The carriage house is too small and your father has the 'big house'. Maybe we could find a house in the village? It would mean some changes but I think we could manage. What do you think?"
"I think you worry enough about things for the rest of us. Thank you for your gift, my husband. You really over did it with three babies. OK, so they're not in diapers but they're ours now. So, Dad, come meet your offspring. They're afraid of you, y'know? They see you as some big white man who's taken them from all they've known and they're afraid."
"I think I'm more afraid of them than they are of me. What do I know about being a father? It's not like my parents were role models. My mother left us on Mother's day and my dad's a few fries short of a happy meal and couldn't decide whether to stay with us or leave. He left. See? Really good role models."
"The oldest is Pol. He has no idea how old he is. I think he's 12 or 13. He went from family to family within his clan but finally the guards spotted him and pulled him out for 'sale'. The oldest girl is Thi and I think she's probably 10 or 11. The little one is Pol's sister, Su-Phi but I have no idea how old she is. Chuck, she doesn't speak, not at all. I think something happened, something terrible, and she doesn't speak because of it. We'll get Ellie to give them proper physicals when we get home."
"They called them 'dust bin' kids. That's the same as calling them 'trash'. I'm glad those two are dead. Chai's coming in to recruit a force from the men and to distribute the aid packages that are in the warehouse behind the main office. Bastard wasn't distributing the food to the internees. He was probably selling it."
"Yeah. I remember how he offered food for 'favors' of some women. I guess he got really bold as the years went by." She was hiding something. Chuck's spy training could detect deceit from body language and patterns of speech and Hannah's fairly shrieked 'LIAR'.
"Come, Chuck. Come meet your new family. You'll do fine. Just quit worrying about it and just be you."
'And just who in the hell am I now? A spy, the intersect host, a double agent and now, a husband and father. What happened to just plane old 'Chuck & Hannah'? And why did my gentle wife kill that woman in cold blood without even blinking?'
Su-Fi was sitting on her knees looking out the window at the clouds and the land far below. It was a day of firsts for her. Her first time in a vehicle. Her first time in an airplane. Her first day in a new family. She cringed when the big man sat across from her and smiled and offered her a bottle of water.
"This is water. It's OK to drink it, Su-Fi. I'm Chuck and that's Hannah, my wife and your new mother. I know you don't understand a thing I'm saying to you but we want you to be happy."
He unscrewed to top of the bottle and handed her the water bottle. She warily accepted and sipped experimentally and then almost drained the bottle. She had been so thirsty and the water was so good. It was clean and clear with none of the harsh tastes from the water truck that brought water daily to the camp.
Maybe this one would be different. He seemed kind and his woman spoke the tongue of the camps. She'd withhold judgment. If he 'visited' her sleeping pallet then he was no different than the rest.
She turned to look back out the window at the world she'd never imagined existed. She ignored him and he looked away sadly and his woman said something she couldn't understand to the man.
"Don't worry about her, honey. She'll come around. Use that Bartowski charm on her like you used it on me. Just remember she's only 8 or 9 but has lived a really harsh life."
She'd seen the sadness on his face and wanted him to understand the situation but she was afraid to explain too much lest he ask her questions about her life in the camp.