Stealing Asia Read online

  STEALING ASIA

  By

  David Clarkson

  http://www.davidclarksonwriter.com

  As always, this book is dedicated to my Katie, without whom, I would never have taken up writing in the first place.

  Stealing Asia

  Copyright 2013 by David Clarkson

  Kindle Edition

  Cover Image/Design by David Clarkson

  Copyright 2013 by David Clarkson

  Also by David Clarkson

  The Outback

  Diamond Sky

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events or localities is purely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part 2

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Part 3

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part 4

  Conclusion

  About the Author

  Also by This Author

  Copyright Notice

  Part 1

  Chapter 1

  Travelling is supposed to be easy. People join the trail all the time. It is simply a matter of bumping into them in the right place and at the right moment.

  A hostel dorm room, a crowded bar; anyplace can provide the backdrop to an unexpected bringing together of kindred spirits. You could find a drinking buddy for the night or make a lifelong friend. Who knows? The whole world is waiting for you and all you have to do in return is simply show up. At least that is how it should be. You see, sometimes the timing is just not quite there.

  It was the third time I had been to that particular bar. On both prior occasions I had been left to drink alone. This was not by my choosing. I tried to start conversations with people who I presumed to be of a similar age and in a similar situation, but without success. The biggest problem seemed to be the language barrier. It felt like I was the only English speaker in that part of town. Every person I spoke to possessed a different native tongue and we would never progress past the most basic of pleasantries. I put it down to luck. Unfortunately for me, it was the wrong kind of luck.

  There is, of course, only so much disappointment a person can take. I was nearing the fill of mine. By the time I had finished my first drink on that third night I could already predict where the evening was heading. It got me to thinking that maybe it was time for me to move on. Find a new city. Make a fresh start. I would do whatever it took to break the cycle of loneliness.

  With my mind made up, I was all set to leave when I noticed her sitting in a booth over the other side of the bar. That was the moment that changed everything. She was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Not just in the superficial, lustful way (although she certainly invoked that feeling too), but in the way that hooks your mind, body and soul all at the same time. The best part was, like me, she appeared to be on her own.

  Normally, in this kind of a situation I would be quick to go over and introduce myself. Sometimes it is best to act before you have time to think. I have always found there to be a fine line between what comes across as charm and what comes across as smarm, with the more I improvise, the better, seeming to be the general rule of thumb. On this occasion, however, I was apprehensive. I had been alone for too long and it was affecting my confidence. Before even trying I had already resigned myself to defeat.

  I ordered another beer to steady my nerves. To say I felt conflicted was an understatement. Despite fearing that all I would likely gain from speaking to her would be rejection and another dent in my self confidence, I could not allow myself to leave without at least trying. What if she was just as lonely as I was? What if she would actually be grateful of me making the effort to speak to her? What if I stopped acting like such a loser and just went over there and said hello?

  In between each sip of my beer I tried to steal a glance in her direction. There was still the danger that we may not even understand one another. It had happened before. It had happened too many times for me to even remember. The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I had no idea what her nationality was. Her skin was tanned, but was not everybody’s in this part of the world? She could have been from the Mediterranean or Manchester for all I knew.

  Whilst I continued to stall, she finished her cocktail. There was an illustrated menu on the bar and from this I was able to discern that her drink had been non-alcoholic. It was a mixture of orange and cranberry, the colour of which perfectly matched that of her hair (I don’t know if it quite counts as a fetish, but I always did have a thing for redheads). She declined the barman’s offer of a top-up and stood, presumably to leave. That was when our eyes met. This was my one and only chance to try and make an impression on her.

  Should I smile or try to play it cool?

  I had given myself two perfectly valid options, but somehow managed to choose a third. I let my nerves get the better of me and cast my gaze downwards, towards the floor. This was the worst thing I could have done. I was three thousand miles from home and all alone. I had the most beautiful girl I had ever seen looking at me and I had nothing to lose. Yet there I was, staring at my feet. My big fat ugly feet.

  They say the first thing a girl looks at in a man is his feet. I hoped this was not true. The temperature had been in the high 30’s since I arrived in the country and it rarely dropped much lower at night. I had long since discarded my trainers for a pair of much more airy sandals and thanks to the Malay tradition of no footwear indoors, I spent a lot of time barefoot. This had left me with Hobbit feet; bloated, hairy and hideous.

  Of course, now, like then, I procrastinate. There was only so much time I could spend counting my toes. With that in mind, I dared another sideways glance at the girl. She was still looking at me, but not quite in the way I would have hoped. She seemed intrigued rather than interested. A girl like her would no doubt be used to guys staring at her, so to now have one going to such great lengths not to look at her must have been a first.

  I glanced back to my feet then back to the girl. I do not need anybody to tell me how ridiculous this was. It was starting to get embarrassing. If the window of opportunity had ever been there, it was now surely closed. I was hopelessly out of my league and it must have shown. Why did this have to happen now, I thought, whilst my confidence was so low?

  As if sensing my discomfort, her smile broke into a giggle. She then shifted her glance toward the door before bringing it back to me. She repeated the action several times whilst making her way to the exit.

  She’s looking at me. She’s looking at the door. She’s looking at me. She’s looking at the door.

  Before leaving, she offered me one last glance over her shoulder. Despite my earlier anxiety, I sensed that she wanted me to follow. Or maybe, I just hoped that she wanted me to follow. Either way, one thing was certain; I was going to follow.

  It was not long since I had
arrived in South East Asia. Two, maybe even three weeks. It is hard to keep track of time when you do not have a job.

  Naturally, the change of culture was a shock to the system. My trip began in Kuala Lumpur and it was not long since the city had been home to the world’s tallest building. I assumed that you could not get any more modern than supersized skyscrapers. It seemed like the ideal place to make a staggered adjustment into an alien society. I could not have been more wrong. Outside of the modern central business district the city was a convoluted mess of clashing cultures all struggling to find their place in the twenty-first century.

  I did not stick around the capital for long. Once I left my small inner-city windowless box of a hotel room, I headed north, to the city of Georgetown on the island of Penang. Sun, sand and sea cannot be too different whatever the culture and I figured I would have no problem finding friends once I got to the coast. Again, I was wrong. For some reason, luck was just not on my side.

  Of course, beating myself up was not going to make things any better. It was clear that the only way my situation was going to improve was if I took direct action to change it myself. I had to start taking chances and stop worrying about the threat of failure. That was why I had to follow her.

  With a fresh sense of purpose, I quickly finished what was left of my drink and exited the bar.

  I stepped out onto a poorly lit street. There were no streetlamps or electric storefronts, just the occasional glow from a house window to provide illumination. Clumsily parked cars lined each side of the road and an open drainage system ran parallel to the pavement. A constant upward flow of steam marked this potential hazard out to any passing pedestrian. It was typical Georgetown, really.

  By this time the girl was already ten or so metres ahead of me. Every so often she would glance back over her shoulder. I could tell she was deliberately slowing down; waiting for me to catch up with her. This afforded me time to rebuild my confidence before the inevitable introduction. What neither of us realised was that I was not the only person taking an interest.

  The mugger had been hiding behind a parked car. Rather than a simple snatch and run, he bundled the girl into a side alley. The thief made his move with lightning speed, but he also made one fundamental flaw. He had launched his cowardly assault in full view of a witness. With my head light from beer and my hormones going wild for the girl, it did not occur to me that I would be in danger too. I clenched my fists and hurled myself down the alley to help.

  The thug did not flee when I caught up to them. He pushed the girl to the ground and turned to engage me. Up close, I could see that he was shorter than I; maybe by as much as three or four inches. The weight advantage was also in my favour. I am lean, but athletic, whereas he appeared slight and skinny. I knew instantly that I could take this guy.

  Not surprisingly, he was the one to throw the first punch. It was a clumsy and ill timed attack. He overreached, which left him off balance and vulnerable as I stepped to the side and intercepted his swing with a firmly delivered blow to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. If not for the alcohol inside of me, I doubt I could have pulled it off so successfully, but that hardly mattered. This was the first time I had been in a fight since middle school and I was happy to be riding my luck. I struck him again, across the face this time. He was left dazed by the impact and as I rammed him up against the wall of the alley, I could see nothing left apart from fear in his eyes. The fight was clearly won, so I shoved him back into the road where he could run away like the coward that he was.

  The girl was still on the floor, curled into a tight, protective ball. I offered my hand to help her back onto her feet, which she took gratefully to pull herself up. As far as I could tell, she did not appear to have any physical injury.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  She did not answer. She merely raised her arm and pointed over my shoulder. I guessed at once what this meant; the thug was not giving up like I had expected him to. This did not worry me too much. I had bested him once and was fully confident that I could do so again. I was still high on adrenaline and a part of me actually looked forward to having a second go at giving this creep what he deserved. Without hesitation, I turned to face him once more.

  The sight facing me wasn’t what I was expecting and my confidence dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. The odds had changed considerably since our first scuffle and not in my favour. This time I was afraid. Very afraid. The mugger was holding a gun and he pointed it directly at us.

  Instinctively, I stepped in front of the girl. At that moment I would have gladly taken a bullet to protect her. Even though we had never even spoken to one another, I felt that keeping her away from harm was all that mattered. All of my memories leading up to that moment had vanished along with any aspirations for what may follow. Nothing existed anymore apart from the girl, myself and the gun. Deep down, I knew it was the end.

  I closed my eyes.

  An almost deafening screech exploded into the air. This was followed by several much more concise bangs. I assumed that I was being shot, but I felt no pain. In fact, I did not feel anything. There was no impact. Nothing. This could mean only one thing; the thief was not shooting at me. He was not shooting at the girl either, because I could still feel her behind me, her breath warming the back of my neck.

  I opened my eyes to see the gunman illuminated by a spotlight like a lone figure on a stage. He was standing with his body turned at a ninety degree angle to myself, shooting up into the street. This was when I realised that it was not a spotlight shining on him, but car headlights.

  The force of the collision flipped the thief onto the bonnet where he rolled into the windscreen, cracking it as easily, though certainly not as painfully as his ribs. The vehicle then carried on without stopping until it got to the end of the street, taking the mugger with it. Then, finally, the driver broke hard, using the sudden reversal of momentum to jettison his unwelcome passenger onto the tarmac before speeding away into the night.

  The girl was now standing alongside me, as surprised by the unfolding scene as I was.

  ‘Oh God, is he dead?’ she asked.

  This was the first time I had heard her speak. Her accent was American. From my knowledge of US television, I guessed from the West coast, California perhaps. Despite the gravity of the question, her words had a laid-back feel to them. Images of golden beaches and pot smoking surfers gathered around a campfire came to mind.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I replied. ‘Maybe we should call the police.’

  ‘No; we should just go.’

  I looked around and saw that the street was both quiet and still. As far as I could tell, we were the only witnesses. Cities in this part of the world were not like cities back home. There was no CCTV in operation and it seemed like we could make a clean break. Well, clean in the sense of not being caught at least. Until the adrenaline wore off there was no way of knowing if my conscience would escape quite so easily.

  ‘What about the guy?’ I asked. ‘We can’t just leave him.’

  ‘Why not?’ she replied, without giving his body a second look. ‘He was about to kill us. I’m a long way from home and the last thing I want is to spend the night in a police station. That guy made his choice and now he can suffer the consequences.’

  I did not argue. Her response was driven by shock and fear rather than callousness. Besides which, she was probably right. We needed to put some distance between ourselves and the alleyway. As we left I saw lights come on and doors open at the other end of the street. People would find him soon enough. He was their problem now.

  The guesthouse where the girl was staying was only five minutes away, but she insisted that we first stop at a café in order for her to settle her nerves. I bought her a latte and got a herbal tea for myself. Coffee had never appealed to me and herbal was the only kind of tea that they ever got right in this part of the world. I once tried a regular brew, but it was more like a warm milkshake and came with higher sugar content t
han a can of cola. The Malaysians seemed to think that is how westerners like it and it was impossible to explain to them otherwise.

  We took our drinks to a table by the window, which gave me an unobstructed view of what was going on outside. The scene of the accident was only a couple of streets away and I wanted to keep an eye on the passing traffic. Until I knew that it was being properly dealt with, I would not be able to rest easily.

  The silence lasted for half a cup. Our only communication was via the occasional timid glance and awkward smile. It reminded me of when we had first exchanged eye contact back at the bar. Of course, a lot had happened since then. How different would things have been if I had made a move right away instead of waiting until we were outside?

  Despite having no desire for food, I read the menu twice and she did the same. The tension was only broken when a police car passed by the window. Its siren sounded and it was followed five minutes later by an ambulance. The question as to whether we should try and do something for the injured mugger was now irrelevant. If he had survived, he would now be looked after. If he had not, then all culpability was solely his own.

  ‘Are you going to be okay?’ I asked.

  ‘Thanks to you,’ she replied.

  She raised her right arm to her chest whilst her other hand remained wrapped around the warm coffee mug. Her fingers gently stroked the casing of a silver locket. Underneath the chain a slight break in her otherwise perfect tan told me that she had rarely taken this item of jewellery off. She was not carrying a purse and I assumed this was what the mugger attempted to take when they had struggled.

  ‘That must really mean a lot to you,’ I said. ‘Is it valuable?’

  Not the cleverest question to have asked. She might have thought I was fishing for a reward. It was bad enough how I had come to be in that alleyway in the first place. I would not normally follow a girl out of a bar like that. We had not even spoken, just held eye contact for three, maybe four seconds. I could easily have misread the signals.