A Time for Pirates by Gavin Black

Author:Gavin Black [GAVIN BLACK]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780020266
Publisher: The Langtail Press Ltd

The taxi hit heavy midtown traffic and took a long time to get me home. I sat in clothes that seemed to be drying stiff, possibly from the chlorine in the pool.

Min Kow Lin were certainly showing a flexibility in opposition which one doesn’t really expect from a large corporation with a glass skyscraper head office. It was obvious that they were totally contemporary in outlook, right in there with the new thing. Kidnapping as an instrument in commercial warfare is probably a perfectly logical development from the games a number of us have been playing in recent years, and particularly out in these parts, but the first time you hit its applied use personally there is a certain shock factor, even a sense of outrage.

It was perfectly easy to see what they were up to. Either Akamoro or me, preferably both, set gently to one side just at this time, would be advantage to Min in a very big way. We could be quietly detained at a remote rubber estate or vegetable farm in the Cameron Highlands for as long as it took Min to negotiate for and finally secure a government mineral exploitation concession over a considerable area of southern Kelantan. I was pretty certain they did not know I was in contact with Batim Salong in this matter for I’d been careful to take evasive action in that night drive to the Tunku’s rural hideout. As Min saw things the solution to their problem was a couple of snatches. In my case they knew that a disappearance wasn’t going to cause much excitement because I’ve rather made a habit of dropping out of the local picture from time to time without leaving a forwarding address. Tokyo would be very unhappy about a missing executive but Min were probably counting on Hawakami not wanting publicity since this would involve a beam focused on them that could be embarrassing in the extreme. There was also the fact that people do vanish rather too frequently in Malaysia, public opinion geared to accept this.

I didn’t think I’d have been killed or mistreated, just held as a prisoner of commercial war, finally released as the result of a belated ransom demand that I hoped my accountant would have decided to pay, with nothing in all this to point a finger at Min. And if I tried to do some finger pointing when I got free the result would be a million dollar slander suit.

The fact that two kidnap attempts had been muffed didn’t rule out further attempts. Akamoro simply could not be left lying around loose in Kuala Lumpur while I was up north. I needed Bahadur with me which meant that he wouldn’t be available as a bodyguard of the second class. The only safe place for my Japanese colleague was with Batim Salong.

While I had a shower and changed I thought about the Tunku’s probable reaction to my suggestion. It was unlikely to be warm. It was so cold that I thought for minutes that we were going to lose our new Chairman.

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