Brogan Abroad: The Brogan Series, #5

By Kev Richardson

Kev Richardson unveils more intrigue in distant lands…all true dramas!

Three distinctive true tales are, in Brogan Abroad, threaded into a single adventure. Brogan plans none—all are thrust upon him and all prove life-threatening. Each destines him to having his throat slit in some dark alley…

Yet what can a man do, he laments, when to accomplish one I must fail at another?

While hiding out in Thailand from a Sydney cocaine cartel, he becomes involved in smuggling high-profile prostitutes into Australia—an adventure interrupted when unwittingly used as a courier in a third-world nation counting down hours to bloody revolution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781597054041

Book preview

Wings ePress, Inc.

Edited by: Karen Babcock

Copy Edited by: Jeanne R. Smith

Senior Editor: Pat Evans

Executive Editor: Marilyn Kapp

Cover Artist: Kathy Williams

All rights reserved

NAMES, CHARACTERS AND incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

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 permission in writing from the publisher.

Wings ePress Books

http://www.wings-press.com

Copyright © 2010 by Kevin Richardson

ISBN 978-1-59705-404-1:

Published by Wings ePress, Inc. at Smashwords

Published In the United States Of America

February 2010

Wings ePress Inc.

403 Wallace Court

Richmond, KY 40475

Preface

Dear Readers,

Had Brogan of Brogan, Brogan’s Bust, and Brogan’s Bella lived two generations later, he may well have been the Brogan of this tale. Or is it that this Brogan is his grandson?

He certainly has every qualification!

Brogan Abroad is the first of a further series of Brogan adventures as gripping as those of the Aussie hero our readers have already met. Our modern Brogan lends himself to three real-life situations confided to me, in the course of my travel-journalism, on true-life experiences. For reasons obvious once the telling is done, real names are withheld.

Brogan Abroad begins just prior to revolution erupting in the Sudan. Brogan’s clandestine running of intelligence in that episode of world history, his innocent involvement of cocaine-running in Australia, and the human trafficking episode—the smuggling of a high-profile prostitute across international borders—are indeed true tales, each albeit in different time frames from the single one depicted.

True-life adventures are happening every day, week and month all over the world. Only sometimes, however, are their inner truths told. Those told to me on these adventures will surely illustrate why true identities must remain anonymous.

While I have turned the adventures into a romp, I have endeavoured to keep Brogan true to his namesake of generations prior. This one reaches out that readers might sense his traumas, understand the fears faced—each earmarking him for having his throat slit in some dark alley.

Kev Richardson

Glossary of Thai words

Ahahn   food

Bai   go

bairt-sip   eighty

baht   Thai currency (3 US cents)

beersing   Singha Beer

ber sahm   number three

daeng   colour red

deum   drink

farang/falang   white westerner

hawk-sip    sixty

kop kuhn kah    thank you (female voice)

kop kuhn krup    thank you (male voice)

kuhn   you, Miss, Mrs., Mr.

nahm kang    ice cubes

prik nahm plah   chillies in fish sauce

nahm sohm   orange juice

neung   number one

pee-chai   older brother

raw dee-oh na    just a moment

sooay mahk   beautiful indeed

s’wat dee kah   hello/goodbye (female voice)

s’wat dee krup   hello/goodbye (male voice)

wei   Thai greeting

Dedication

’T is all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days

Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:

Hither and Thither moves, and mates, and slays,

And one by one back in the closet lays.

Stanza XLIX—The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Disclaimer

Names and characters depicted in this work are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to their personages’ involvement in actual events, locales, organisations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.

One

W hat the hell is going on?

Brogan stood atop the wall of his compost heap, peering over the fence, the clamour of splintering woodwork, smashing glass, and men shouting still ringing in his ears.

People were running up the lane behind his house—voices strident enough to be heard even over the roar of the helicopter hovering close enough to burst eardrums.

A man at the neighbour’s gate shouted, Stop or I fire!

And in what were but seconds later, shots indeed rent the air, but had no one screamed?

When the mayhem shattered the quiet, Brogan had been making coffee to take up to his study.

In Sydney’s Paddington, where once stately Victorian terrace-houses had gone through their tiring years to have, after renovation, again become fashionable, one’s windows were never more than a few metres from the fence of a neighbour. Draped over Brogan’s fence was, like most in the area, greenery to absorb neighbourhood noise—yet such commotion as this was attention grabbing.

Neighbours Winslow and Polly’s rear courtyard was landscaped in the Mediterranean style, cobbled, shaded by hanging gardens. Several men had burst through the back gate, crossed the courtyard and smashed their way through a glass-panelled door.

Instinct told Brogan it was a break-in, yet in the same second he realised that burglars didn’t come in force, yelling loudly enough to alert the entire neighbourhood, to smash through a glass door. Nor were they ever accompanied by a helicopter. Such were only police sounds.

There was a second rear doorway from the house, and it seemed that as attackers burst into the kitchen, those who had been inside ran from the breakfast room door to cross in reverse direction the courtyard so recently cleared by the attackers, to hightail it up the lane.

Second instinct told Brogan to keep out of it, to simply get on with his work.

I should not let neighbours’ business become my business!

He also wondered if Winslow and Polly were home, so had quickly run to his front parlour to check the street—Winslow’s Land Rover was there, so he would be home, yet no BMW meant Polly wasn’t. She was a busy-busy lady, heading up a thriving advertising agency. Winslow’s hours, however, him being a landscape gardener, were less regular.

So it’s not unusual for him to be home at high noon... is what had flashed through Brogan’s mind in the instant.

So is Winslow in personal trouble then? If alone and in trouble, then he maybe needs help?

So his conscience had come down in favour of at least seeing what the rumpus was about. So now, coffee still in hand during the activity that had lasted maybe all of sixty seconds, he was quickly into his own garden and atop the compost wall.

Through the dense wisteria he could see some half dozen men in street clothes and heavy jackets. The back gate was open, one man leaning out, watching the chase, every other holding a pistol except for he on the ground, a man with his face pressed painfully into the cobbles, a booted foot planted between shoulder blades.

What the hell is going on?

All faces looked up, surprised at being so accosted, other, of course, than he with his face in the cobbles. Only one made a move, however, quickly returning his pistol to inside his jacket to reach with his other hand into a pocket as he came to the fence. He held up an ID wallet with badge and photograph.

This is a police matter, sir. We have a warrant, and all is authorised. Will you be home for the next fifteen minutes?

It wasn’t easy to hear through the noise of the chopper, despite it had moved up the lane a little way, now hovering there, so Brogan nodded, to which the captain nodded in turn, to then return to his business.

But as Brogan turned, the face in the cobbles looked up—it was Winslow.

Get Polly! he shouted.

He was about to add more, it seemed, as two things flashed by the shock of Brogan’s mind—firstly that the foot in Winslow’s back moved quickly to the nape of the neck to none too gently shove the face back into the cobbles. The second was that in the movement, Brogan could see what the foot and leg had hidden: Winslow was handcuffed.

He jumped from his perch to only then realise he still clutched the coffee mug, now spilled and near empty. So he returned to the task of refilling it, his mind racing...

Was that really Winslow?

He felt he had to keep asking that question, for the man was a trusted friend.

Winslow a target for a police raid? Handcuffed? And he wants me to tell Polly? Tell her, I presume, what is going on?

And further doubts kept arising...

It being a police matter, one with a warrant, should I interfere? Yet surely I owe it to a friend to do his desperate bidding?

He sat staring through his study’s window. It was the rear room upstairs that overlooked his own small garden, although on that occasion he saw nowt of it, for his eyes were focused internally, arguing with his conscience on whether to ring Polly or not ring Polly.

He earnestly wished Becky were home—to maybe throw the different slant as she was habitually able to do in a crisis.

Not that we have many, but we’re both lucky in proving ‘foils’ when the other seeks opinions.

Neither worked regular hours; their jobs didn’t call for such a system. Brogan wrote travel articles and was also a would-be novelist, while Becky was both a keen amateur thespian and regular actress in TV commercials, documentaries, and ‘soaps.’ Brogan appreciated the times she was at work; they left him free to absorb himself in creative writing.

Their relationship was into its second year. They had met on an overnight ferry in the Greek islands, to link up for a short tour through Turkey. The friendship had not only developed quickly, but blossomed.

Right now, however, he was alone, and the chilling shattering of smashing glass and the splintering door still rang in his ears. And the helicopter, its sound muted now he was back indoors, persisted in making him realise how much a real and serious drama was afoot out there.

And here am I asked to take part in it, and no Becks around to give me a second opinion!

Yet if there were some chance the police might be in error, for he expected they were no more perfect than himself or any other man, then Winslow was in a desperate situation with Brogan the only friend aware of it...

...Except for those scarping up the lane, of course. And it’s clear they aren’t bothered about letting Polly know.

Polly called the agency by her married name, he knew, and it was located somewhere in Glebe. The name was Italian, and Brogan felt utter frustration at not finding it in the ’phone book.

Maybe a double ‘s’?

He was still thumbing pages when the doorbell rang.

The captain, now divested of the ominous jacket, introduced himself. They sat in Brogan’s parlour, he answering to how well he knew his neighbours.

We exchange dinner parties from time to time and share interest in civic matters...

He made it clear that he had never had cause other than to hold them in high regard.

I am not at liberty to explain what the fracas is about, Mr. Brogan, but I must insist you have no cause to be alarmed. I repeat that I have here authorisation should you wish to see it...

He had a hand inside his now suit-coat pocket, but Brogan waved away the suggestion that he might want to inspect it.

What did our prisoner call out to you? With all the pandemonium, I missed the words.

Brogan told him.

And did you?

I was looking up the number when you came to the door.

I cannot instruct you, Mr. Brogan, but I ask that you do not. We are involved in a serious matter, and interference by those not involved could only hinder rather than help.

Brogan didn’t bother to explain his preference for preferring his name used without the ‘Mister’; the occasion wasn’t right. There were higher priorities for the policeman to be right now considering.

When again alone, Brogan’s dilemma heightened. His reason for coming down in favour of phoning remained valid. So after several more minutes of weighing options, he found the listing with a double ‘s’ and punched in the numbers.

Will she be in? Or in conference?

Surely the urgency demanded he avoid leaving a message for her to call back.

But the alternative? And should she be out, could I really expect they might give me a number where I can reach her?

He could but imagine how legendary office gossip would create havoc should he give the real reason, and was just giving thought to hanging up in order to reconsider his approach should she be out, when it answered.

And certainly his dilemma was not assuaged by the unexpected voice at the other end. It certainly was not the lilting voice of the bubbly receptionist Polly’s business would surely have; it was female as were most of her staff, yet this voice was rough, gruff, and officious.

Nevertheless, he asked for Polly.

Can you tell me who are you? And what it’s in connection with?

I am her neighbour, and the call is personal.

She cannot take calls now. Give me your number, and she’ll call you back.

So the police control her office also!

However, he gave her the number.

And Polly did not call back.

Maybe she didn’t get the message?

He didn’t even consider phoning Becky. Her work didn’t cope with interruptions, and he had learned to never risk placing her in that sort of situation.

So for the rest of the day he tried turning his mind to his own work, yet unsuccessfully.

Within a half hour of the captain’s departure, there was a further rumpus next door.

Several dogs were the cause.

Brogan pushed aside the guilt of peeping and used to good advantage the broad view the side window of his study gave of its companion window next door, a room Polly and Winslow used as a guest room. In it, uniformed men and women were turning out wardrobes and drawers, strewing contents haphazardly. At ground level, as he then looked down, others were smashing pinch-bars through air-vents in brick footings to flash torches under the floors where sniffer dogs were loose.

Late in the afternoon, activity levelled off as police began to leave. More sounds of breaking glass brought Brogan back to his kitchen. Police were sweeping broken glass aside with their boots, he gathered, at least enough that the broken door would close. Or nearly close. They left it ajar. That’s all he could tell from his viewpoint, other than that when the dogs were returned to their van, all were soon gone...

Winslow with them, I presume.

He cogitated then, for hours, having returned his empty coffee mug to the kitchen, supplanting it with several glasses of wine.

What a bloody day! What is quiet Paddington coming to?

He went next door to inspect the result of the police egress. Paddington was a near-city suburb prone to housebreaking, and he reckoned the police wouldn’t have been able, even if feeling inclined, to turn on the burglar alarm seeing the door was left open. And they hadn’t, of course. The twelve-pane glass door was splintered beyond repair, and the black slate floor had glass fragments ground into every joint. He didn’t look in the rest of the house, but from what he had already witnessed through his window, he realised all would be a shambles.

He boarded up the broken doorway best he could and telephoned the local police to let them know their colleagues had left the house open and unguarded.

He also left a note for Polly. Come in when you lob home, it read.

And Becky arrived home before Polly.

Hello, darling, she said as he came down the stairs on hearing her enter.

They kissed.

How was your day?

In the normal course he would smile inwardly as she broached the usual question that he seldom bothered to answer. He knew she never really expected one.

But on that occasion, he did answer...

Noisy and disruptive, my pet. Can I pour you a drink while I tell you about it?

Ooh, yes, please. I’ll just go up and drop these things.

She still wore the leotards she had left in. He knew she was doing dance rehearsals.

No sprained ankles? he joked as she bested the stairs two at a time, an indication to tip him into the fact that she had enjoyed her day. It was when she came in looking tired and slowly climbed the stairs that he knew she hadn’t. She would still want her drink, however, for it was the time they normally switched off, relaxed over a drink to chat on incidents the day had brought or on what eventualities might mean a change in either’s programme or timetable.

Brogan’s routine was pretty well documented, while hers was anything but.

His wont was to pack a grip for two to three months of travel and take off for Africa or Europe or South America or anywhere inspiration pointed, or to where a specific assignment directed him, to spend countless one-, two-, or three-night stands before moving on to the next. He would then come home and write his articles over a further two or three months, sending them, progressively, to his literary agent. She would, in turn, send them to her London client, one who seemed to ever have airline magazines waiting for what Brogan wrote. He would then spend the rest of his year writing what he hoped might be world-best-selling novels.

That I’ve had one published means the hope is ever open, he would oft-times joke.

And it was while they were sitting over their drinks, he telling her about his day’s excitement, that they heard Polly slam the door of her car.

Let’s wait, Brogan said. Let her choose the time. Maybe she’ll want to look around the mess there. I left a note telling her to come over.

Becky rose. She’s an independent bird. She may feel she shouldn’t load her problems on to us. I’ll go in and talk her into coming over.

He nodded, following her into the hall.

I’ll leave the door on the latch.

IN NO MORE THAN TEN minutes, however, both girls arrived, Polly carrying a supermarket bag with PJs and slippers. And her body language spoke a million words. She was no more the suave, composed-in-any-crisis Polly that Brogan knew so well.

This is rather a confused bystander caught in a whirlwind, whose life and world are suddenly as shattered as the sorry state of her house.

There’s no way I can sleep in that mess tonight, she said as the three sat over drinks. I’ll go to a motel. Then she told them about her day at the office.

Yes, it was raided—simultaneously with the house, I’d reckon. Around midday, wasn’t it?

Brogan nodded.

They searched my office both as systematically and untidily as they’ve done the house. They found nothing, of course, simply apologised and left me as dumbfounded as my poor staff, everyone sitting around, stunned and helpless. But they found cocaine in the house. They sent a police-woman to tell me they had found it in the ceiling of our guest room.

But why? He had no reason, Polly, surely?

It had long been obvious to Brogan and Becky that their neighbours were financially well off. There were no children. Both had always seemed totally career-minded.

Polly couldn’t come to grips with the fact that Winslow had been running dope.

It is so pointless, she kept repeating.

Maybe it niggled him, Polly, Becky said while Brogan put a stopper into the scotch decanter, to open a fresh bottle of red, being of such a traditional Italian family, yet having a new-age American wife with a business contributing, from where we sit, more income than his?

Polly sighed. Yeah, that’s pretty close to it, Becks. He’s always said it isn’t a problem, yet I know it bugs him. However, I never realised, it now seems, just how much. I can’t for the life of me see any other reason why he would do something so stupid.

Brogan had also always wondered about the name Winslow; it was certainly not an Italian name. He had simply assumed it to be a nickname.

But now certainly isn’t the time to be asking that question.

He got up and moved to the door.

I’ve had a casserole defrosting all day. Curried chicken sound all right for you, mate?

Polly forced a smile and nodded.

During the meal as they talked through detail of the raid on her office, and Brogan gave his version of what had gone on at the house, she only picked at what was served. But she then helped Brogan stack the dishwasher while Becky turned their ‘junk-room’ into a guest-room.

You’ll have plenty of un-ironed laundry to keep you company, Polly, but I’ll kill you if, come breakfast, I find you’ve been up during the night doing it! Did you bring something to help you sleep? I’ve some ephedrine that I’ve found helps.

No, I’ll be all right, Becks. I’ve enough thinking to do... band-aiding morale at the office, working out the getting someone to repair the doors and scratched floors, getting my housecleaner to come and stuff things back in their drawers and cupboards... and all I know of what is happening with Winslow is that I’ve been given a number to ring tomorrow. They’ll tell me where he is and if I can see him. And what I feel regarding him at the moment is nothing more than the most confused jumble of emotions I think I’ve ever had to confront. So my brain has enough to work on tonight, without having to drug it.

She finished all that off with a shake of the head and an exasperated little giggle.

Let me worry about getting someone in to fix things at the house, Brogan told her. I reckon the door is beyond repair. You’ll need new. I can organise all that because it will have to be done as a priority. You’ll need the security.

"Ah, thank you both. You’re good friends.

NEXT MORNING BROGAN and Becky woke to find Polly had toast cooking and fresh coffee brewing. While eating, Brogan concentrated on convincing Polly to quickly get home and showered, and Becky to leave the time-consuming things to him while she got off to rehearsals. He was always better if alone when getting things organised and done.

And let’s face it, Polly’s got a bloody day-and-a-half to face during the next several hours, pulling together not only the threads of her business but her personal life that seems, by her reaction to things so far, to be hanging in tatters.

And he had his own worries, the biggest of them now exacerbated by this problem.

He kept telling himself not to get involved, that it was none of his business except that he had been Johnny-on-the-spot when it happened and Johnny-next-door when it came to someone coming to Polly’s aid.

Poor thing! Here on her own, an American by birth, culture, and mien, her parents away...

After many years in Sydney where Polly had not only begun and developed her business to then marry there, her diplomat father had been moved to Hong Kong.

...so she’s stranded as far as personal help goes. And Winslow, stupid bastard, is now sending her totally up shit-street!

So he felt obligated.

But if Penelope gets wind of me spending even a little time on something like this, augh!

He felt utterly frustrated, even before the doorbell rang.

Who is it now? I just have to quickly get the guy who rebuilt our bathroom over to next door to get him started.

Even while walking up the hall, his mind was visualising the builder’s entry in his Teledex.