Captured by Tina Johansen Page A

to grab his laptop from the living room, where it had sat in its case for several months gathering dust.
    “So where the hell are you?”
    The line was crackly, which Daniel found extremely ironic: it was possible that they were only steps from each other – not that she knew that. Nor did he intend to tell her until the timing was right. For now, he had to play it cool.
    “Bangkok,” she answered.
    Now that he knew to listen for it, he could definitely tell that something had changed with her. She sounded happier than he had ever heard her. He tried to identify the noise in the background, but couldn’t hear anything distinctive. What did I expected? he wondered. The big guy was going to jump on the line and challenge him to a duel? He hoped not: Daniel was going to have to get rid of him somehow, but there was no way he was pitting himself physically against that giant.
    “Wow, lucky you,” he exclaimed. “How’s it been so far? Where are you staying?” he tried to make it  sound like a throw-away question.
    “Oh some cheap guesthouse in Bangkok,” she answered, nonchalantly.
    “I know Bangkok, but where ?” he asked, trying hard to keep the urgency from his voice. Time was passing by much faster than he wanted.
    “I don’t know. Hey Grant, what district we in ?”
    So that was his name. Grant. He played around with the sound in his mind. Grant .
    She came back on the line. “Sukhumvit, apparently. We’re in this grotty little guesthouse called the Welcome Inn, how cheesy?! Why are you so interested anyway, I didn’t know you’d been to Bangkok!”
    “Just wondering.” I’m right here . “Some of us are stuck in work and need a little excitement. Listen, I have to go. Meeting. Everyone says hi.”
    After speaking to Kirsty, he resolved to be as prepared as possible, even though he still had no idea of what he was going to do. He returned to the balcony with an icy gin and tonic, thinking. He couldn’t afford to make a wrong move. He put his drink down with a clink on the glass table, and watched as humidity-induced rivulets of condensation ran down the glass. He smiled: he had finally had an idea.
    He had found the apartment the same day, paying cash to the expat rental agent, who didn’t bat an eyelid. He remembered then all the stories and rumours he had heard about shady foreigners in Bangkok. What was it his friend Kenny had said? “Like moths to a flame, they can’t help themselves.” That was fine by him; he could use the anonymity.
    He walked back to the hotel, in order to familiarise himself with the neighbourhood around Kirsty’s guesthouse. He wore fake Ray-Bans, a pair of stripy cotton shorts and a souvenir t-shirt he had picked up from a stall near the apartment: even if Kirsty saw him today, he doubted she would recognise him. That was vital. He had rented the apartment on the basis of its proximity to the guesthouse, and was surprised to discover it was in close proximity to the hotel too (though that was moot – there was no way he could have brought them to the hotel without attracting attention).
    Options were the key, he thought, before embarking on a cross-city treasure hunt for knives, ropes, needles and industrial bin bags, taking care to return to the apartment each time, and to make his purchases appear innocuous by buying in different areas.
    The gun had been trickier to procure: he’d known he couldn’t contact anyone for recommendations, not even his shadier acquaintances. In the end, he had walked the streets before settling on the seediest expat establishment he could find. He sussed out the owner for several minutes, pretending to be engrossed in one beer after another, before making his move. The guy behind the bar – Daniel couldn’t place the accent but thought he heard a light Northern inflection – looked as if life had thrown him a series of uppercuts to the chin, and he’d grown tired of deflecting them. He looked pathetic enough to trust, but