Escape Read online

  ‘Long time since you’ve been there?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah, long—well, I’ve never quite made it. I mean to. For sure, one day.’

  The gamblers played into the night. The tube lights sang to the mosquitoes and prisoners held their chains aloft as they stole towards the open toilet. If anyone should hope to cut through those bars and into the night he would first have to subdue his one hundred cellmates. Inconceivable it seemed to me then.

  First thing each morning every inmate crouched before a portrait of His Majesty while a tinny loudspeaker broadcast a chipmunk version of the national anthem. Once dismissed the cooks would begin their fires and the little stalls would open for business. All watched by twenty prisoners continuously rotating through the row of toilets, trying to balance chains and the scoop to splash their bums.

  Despite our shared imprisonment there remained differences between nationalities. In Bangkok alone over 700 Nigerians were locked up. Often of the Ebo tribe they survived with little money and no consular support. While Europeans were often crushed in Klong Prem, most Africans adapted. A few of their bosses were inside, providing a comforting illusion of support and brotherhood. In my second week I met two clansmen arguing priorities. Both claimed to be Ebo princes. Thailand had become too hot for the Nigerians and a move to Cambodia was underway. That afternoon their dispute did not weigh on lost kilos or even money but on the currency of couriers. Since African couriers were always searched to the toenails, Westerners were now more often employed. A white traveller was more valuable than drugs or even connections.

  Prince Nathan wanted payment for a German courier, lost while on loan to Prince Mupara. He dismissed an offer of ten kilos.

  ‘I know you have fifteen tourists. Five French, another two Germans and Japanese. Japanese, you know! You are a rich man.’

  Prince Nathan was modest. ‘Not Japanese. Only Americans. Good for one, maybe two times. Just give me two white men and we’ll shake hands.’

  Even in this deepest pit of failure the tradition of their forefathers’ slave trading was being honoured. Perhaps they were princes.

  As in any prison expectations are the things that prevent endurance turning to mutiny. Locals knew what to expect and fitted in. The English felt a duty to be survivors in a foreign land, the French to show independence, the Germans to be organised, Australians and South Africans to soldier through it and the Scandinavians to be saved by hordes from the north. Few Americans could overcome the culture shock and were deeply suspicious of any of their countrymen who could. Dean Reed’s fluent Thai and cultural immersion was felt as a betrayal, especially as he slept in another building with Thais.

  Martyn, the English scientist, had been in the Cure for longer than most foreigners. He was awaiting trial accused of being the translator for a group of Canadian smugglers. One-day hearings would occur every couple of months and it could be years before any judgement. Martyn was relaxed about the delays and I found him one morning making a concave mirror for a telescope for someone who wanted to see his girlfriend housed in the women’s prison. Martyn had placed a dish on an old record-player turntable. The dish was filled with resin that would harden in a gentle curve and Martyn was finding 33 rpm too fast.

  The operation was interrupted by trusties dragging a small Thai prisoner through the building gate. He appeared dizzy so it was no effort to throw him before the building chief. He had wandered away from the hospital yard where he was kept as being crazy. He had climbed over a factory shed, an inner wall and was pawing the base of the high outer wall when caught. Caught by prisoners whose job is to scoop the sewer moat for plastic bags that clog the pumps. The chief did not dirty his hands with serious beatings so gave him only a token caning before having him taken away. Besides, only a crazy man would try to escape. Had Martyn heard of any successful escapes?

  ‘Not in my time. Not from here. A few years ago a couple of fence workers managed to get to the top of the wall. The electric wire gave them a jolt and one fell back inside. Hurt himself. The other got to the monastery next door but the monks turned him in. Anyway, things have been quiet like that since the Bangkwang riot.’

  A few years earlier, in the old Nonthaburi jail, prisoners had briefly taken control. The guards had fled and most trusties had hidden. An army platoon was called in. The activists were cornered and killed by machine-gun fire. Once the army left and guards once again controlled the prison, a re-education program was mounted. In the following three months over 200 troublesome prisoners were killed by various applications of mistreatment.

  Most foreigners misunderstood the interests of the consular officials who came to visit and lived in hope of royal pardons. Before prisoner-exchange treaties royal pardons for foreigners were almost standard. Granted after eight years to lifers; four years to those sentenced to less. Canada and the USA had effectively changed that with their exchange agreements. Those favoured by their nations could return home to complete their sentences there. American magistrates would re-sentence convicts before return based on the amounts alleged. It still meant a decade or so in prison, although few Western countries insisted on the full term. Since prisoner-exchange treaties had become operational royal pardons were granted mostly to allow those dying to do so away from Thailand.

  Even those who cared little for their embassies seemed beyond enacting any alternate plan. Daniel, a loner at Bumbudt, spoke rarely and morbidly. He was someone who seemed to have once had a life somewhere.

  ‘Westlake, remember Sunday mornings?’ he might say without warning. ‘Cool, fresh air from a garden doorway. The soft, rising sweeps of music. Gentle light from leaves brushing clear windows ... Heavy, blue breakfast plates. A teapot. Glazed brown breads opening their puffed white hearts. Newspapers on a low table spill glossy colour. Duck-down cushions so plush you’d stretch and writhe with happiness?’

  Edvart Fleischl from Switzerland had been in a Thai prison before. He’d once been caught stealing from a cheap hotel in Phuket. This time he had agreed to do a run to Zurich for a local Pakistani outfit. A kilo in swallowed capsules. As Eddie had overstayed his Thai visa by some months the Pakistanis found it cheaper to give him a doctored passport. Eddie liked that idea as he had served five years in the 1980s for two kilos at the Swiss border.

  Two things worked against the plan: Eddie didn’t like the idea of eating over a kilo of heroin, even in capsules. He cut them open and repacked the load in two tins of talcum powder: locally made Prickly Heat powder that could be useful in the Swiss winters. Worse, Eddie’s substitute passport had originally been sold to the Pakistanis by a German flagged on Interpol watch lists. Eddie’s arrest at Bangkok airport’s immigration desk was rapid and efficient. Plan B had been to kill himself but despite taking 140 Rohypnol in the police cells, the only result had been a three-day paralysis on the cell floor. That went unnoticed.

  The original holder of Eddie’s unsound passport—the most-wanted German, Viktor Lehman—was himself now in Klong Prem. Folded and hunched in a corner he had the posture and complexion of a wet twisted pillowcase. I wondered if he had looked the same in his passport photo.

  Compared with the other foreigners I’d met so far Eddie was an experienced smuggler. Like the others he had no friends prepared to visit. Yet his willingness to risk escape was no small thing.

  A few days after my arrival Calvin’s lawyer, Abe Sousel, visited the prison. A fellow American, Abe was the only Westerner operating the criminal-law game in Bangkok. I’d met him during my brief court appearance when he tried to squeeze a power of attorney through the bars. I recalled only that the red-nosed, baggy-eyed paralegal hack in a wrinkled suit had promised to send through some lunch. He had been unable to arrange a close meeting and no lunch was sent.

  ‘Abe guarantees me four years,’ Calvin said as we walked to the prison’s visit cages. ‘I hope he brings his phone today, he promised.’

  ‘You know he’s not a lawyer,’ I said.

  ‘I know that, Dave. He told m
e he used to sell vacuum cleaners in Hawaii. That was a bit honest, at least.’

  While I swatted mosquitoes swarming under our bench Calvin tapped a small roll of paper through the grill to Abe.

  ‘I’ll get this fax off to your mother,’ Abe told Calvin, ‘as soon as I get back to the office. Now, the four thousand has arrived. Your mom sent it by Western Union but I’ve got to have the balance as soon as possible. Then we can really get to work. My associate office in the States will get all the depositions ready.’

  Abe’s Bangkok office was a room at the back of his Thai wife’s flower shop. The US associate was a cousin who worked the phones to ensure the families of imprisoned foreigners paid in advance. Abe’s US$12,000 fee bought little more than talk and the services of the most underpaid Thai lawyers in town. As scams go it was fair. The four-year sentence Abe held before desperate clients was simply the minimum waiting period before repatriation to home jails. Understandably this sounded better than death to those newly arrested.

  ‘I hope you guys are keeping strong,’ Abe offered.

  Calvin pushed Abe for the promised phone call to his six-year-old boy in Oahu. Even though there was no one near our dark corner Abe worked up some head-darting before thumbing the numbers into his mobile phone.

  ‘So, little Nicky is coming now?’ Abe winked at Calvin before holding his phone to the grill. After a long minute of shouts and straining it became clear Calvin couldn’t hear a word. Abe took over while Calvin yelled endearments at the phone.

  ‘Nicky wants you to know he loves his dad,’ Abe repeated with treacle.

  There wasn’t much left of Calvin after a few more minutes of this kind of thing and Abe clapped the phone shut as a guard approached. Calvin was wanted in the next row. A woman from his embassy was waiting to see him. As Calvin clanked away Abe looked through the wire to Judy, a US vice consul. They didn’t nod to each other.

  ‘Share a cab on the way out?’ I suggested.

  ‘I get quite a few referrals from the embassy.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Nicky keeps late hours for a young man. It must be midnight in Hawaii.’

  Abe said nothing so I continued. ‘That was a dirty trick, playing Cal’s kid. Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. Calvin might not sleep tonight but at least he’s feeling something.’

  Abe wouldn’t admit to the pantomime so moved on. ‘I’ve got some good news for you, Dave. I’ve been doing a lot of work on your case—but you must’ve annoyed somebody on our side. And I’ve spoken to Sharon in Sydney. She says your friends will send the money, you don’t have to worry.’

  ‘Abe, you don’t want my money. And my friends wouldn’t have much to say to you. Just so you know, I met Sharon four months ago. She teaches small children and sings in a band at night. Does both well and I didn’t expect to hear from her. I was more than surprised when she’d asked her lawyer to look for someone here. That was nice but there’s nothing you can do for me. There’s maybe three foreigners who’ve won a case here in the last decade and, even then, they were in the appeal courts for five years. Anyway your drinking buddies should have told you my dance card’s marked, if they’ve told you anything. I don’t want you bothering Sharon. If she calls tell her what you like. I can’t stop you. But don’t ask her for money.’ I hadn’t spoken at such length in weeks.

  Calvin shuffled back to our bench and slumped. ‘My wife’s just divorced me,’ he said looking away. No one spoke for a minute.

  ‘Damn battery’s gone dead.’ Abe pocketed his phone.

  The Americans Andy and Big Bill had been arrested a week apart. Kuwaiti Saleem four months earlier and an old German, Charley Schweidler, within the last fortnight. All sat at a bench drinking English Martyn’s pineapple liquor from plastic cups, getting to know each other. Each had been arrested at the airport with 2.8 kilos of heroin. None had made it as far as the check-in counter as the Thai narcotics police were waiting for them. Photographs had been supplied by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. All had stayed at the same evil-smelling guesthouse and had been put in a taxi by the same Nigerian Joe.

  Warmed by the distilled hooch Big Bill—as visible, yellow, and gas-filled as a streetlamp—was the first to admit he had told everything to a DEA agent within an hour of arrest. Old Charley, who claimed to be a baron, had gone further: ‘I told them to let me go on to Chicago. I’d lead them right to the brutes!’ Andy had provided the crumpled guesthouse card. Saleem said he made no admissions but was the first to make the connection.

  ‘Don’t you see? They know everything, the fucking Americans!’ hastily adding, ‘Not you guys, I mean the government of the U-S-A!’

  The DEA had sixty-four operatives stationed in Bangkok. With such numbers it wasn’t long before the narcs got busy with the Nigerians. For a few years co-operation produced satisfactory results. The princes got their dope to Chicago and the DEA’s usefulness was demonstrated by the growing number of airport arrests. The Nigerians could afford to name every fourth courier for the supply of poor Africans was inexhaustible. The problem with success was high visibility and the Thais were soon obliged to arrest every African courier. The princes were unable to recruit enough Europeans and had threatened to move elsewhere. So for the past year the DEA had been supplying the identities of potential white couriers, often targeting them from the bar rooms attached to US army bases in Europe.

  Reactions to this arrangement in Klong Prem varied with nationality. Americans Big Bill and Andy felt no more than cheated as they readily believed their government capable of any conspiracy. Baron Charley thought the set up dastardly but had some admiration for being outwitted. Saleem was wild with outrage, a sense of injustice particular for criminals who find police acting criminally. For an Arab it was, of course, worse that Americans were playing this trick on him.

  Martyn was working nearby on his specific-gravity meters, floating them to measure just the right amount of raw sugar for the next brew. He did not share their outrage. ‘What difference does it make that the DEA works with traffickers? One way or another we all walked into their world, eyes open. Whether it’s drugs or peanuts makes no difference. It’s like the alpha monkeys say, “Come, climb up our tree, you’re welcome. Even more welcome when we push you off!” The vice or virtues of narcotics has nothing to do with it.’ Martyn had been a respected member of the Anarchist’s Society in Britain.

  Fortunately I was called away from this never-ending debate by Kupla who wanted me to settle with the prison tailor. My court suit was ready. At THB250 it was a good buy. The alternative was to select a prison uniform from a tub of never-washed brown shorts and T-shirts that smelled like gangrenous bandages. I was due in court the following week.

  Kupla was from a once-large family of Chiang Rai traffickers. Chiang Rai was central to the narcotics Wild West of Thailand. Two of Kupla’s brothers had been shot dead following business disputes and a third was now serving a life sentence. These days Kupla spoke with a curvy American accent, having spent six years in US federal prisons. Ten years earlier he had stepped off a plane in San Francisco with two kilos of heroin to find his one contact had recently been arrested. After three days he had made new friends: undercover FBI agents. Kupla had spent his time in half a dozen prisons in as many states since leaving the dispersal jail in Oregon. He returned to Thailand with a fat international address book and his experiences had encouraged him to expand his small family business. His first new venture led to arrest with five kilos in Bangkok. Yet his enthusiasm had not dimmed. The immediate obstacle was an almost certain life sentence, due to be given sometime in the next three years. Kupla was Thai, experienced and not without contacts. As close to a real player as I would find here yet without any solution to the forty years he would see in prison before release. He dismissed any ideas of escape from Klong Prem as hopeless. I would later come to know of his life sentence as well as his ambition to buy a transfer to a small country prison from where day release could be granted for a reasonable fee. There would be
many things I would later come to know, including the fact that Kupla still waits in Bangkwang prison.

  3

  After just one month in the Cure I saw that not every prisoner in Klong Prem was resigned to his fate.

  Four Thais and a Singaporean had managed to control their dormitory long enough to cut their way out to try for the wall. Their attempt failed but alone deserved a silver medal for silencing the informers for nine hours. This is how they went:

  The escaping prisoners’ dormitory was as fully packed as the others of Bumbudt were. It held over one hundred, including some trusties. The rules were clear that any prisoner noticing an escape attempt had to call out. For trusties, a near-sacred duty. Many things in Klong Prem were tolerated as mischief: cash handling, the possession of radios or porn magazines. Even drug dealing and gambling were negotiable as long as kept in-house. Escapes, however, cut to the core of the prison’s existence. Mere attempts threatened the safety, incomes and careers of staff from tower guard to superintendent. For the guards the consequences of escapes were so fearsome that they saw any attempt as utter betrayal. Betrayal of the loyalty they had earned for allowing some prisoners to eat well and run small businesses. The guards’ cut in this commerce was not seen as a bribe. More of a tribute, a token of respect; a share of the food at the table. For any prisoner to endanger this fine co-operation would be madness or treachery. Any officer would sooner answer to the chief for beating a prisoner to death while drunk than to account for fleeing prisoners.

  As it was, the night-duty guards usually slept throughout the small hours in peace. Great care was taken by trusties to prepare their beds, linen and refreshment. Should any prisoner’s laughing, singing or crying penetrate the guards’ mosquito nets as they slumbered under the cool of the buildings, the disturbed sleeper would stumble upstairs to exact punishment. Noisemakers would extend their hands through the bars for caning.