going to be running a little lean on fuel by the time they reached the
skies over U Feng, and the more time they spent circling Point Lima–a
marshaling area just north of Chiang Mai, thirty miles south of U
Feng–the less time they’d have over the target.
From what he knew of the way command decisions were often made, Batman
was not reassured.
0641 hours, 21 January
That International Hotel, Bangkok
“Silence! Silence!” Kriangsak shouted in English. His throat was raw
with gun smoke and screaming, his head still fuzzy from the blast which
had stunned him almost two hours earlier. He pointed the M-16 he’d
picked up somewhere at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The sudden,
shocking burst of gunfire cut through the screams and cries of the
hostages and brought a sudden, deathly silence to the lobby. “Quiet,
everyone!”
Plaster dust and smoke floated in the air of the hotel lobby. Nearly
forty civilians, men, women, and a few children, knelt or lay on the
expensive red and gold patterned carpet in front of the hotel’s
registration desk. A half dozen of Kriangsak’s men kept their automatic
weapons pointed at the crowd, patrolling the outer edge of the group
like sheepdogs.
Two bodies lay on the floor nearby, a doorman in a military-looking
white uniform and a That policeman in khaki, both killed when
Kriangsak’s men had stormed into the hotel. A third body, a hotel
security guard, lay across the room near the front door.
It was a large, long room, lined with shops and opening into a
ground-floor restaurant. After fleeing the disaster on New Phetchaburi
Road over an hour earlier, Kriangsak’s men had broken in and quickly
secured the lobby and all of the ground-floor entrances.
Hotel guests in the foyer and the restaurant had been herded into the
lobby. Most–all of the Orientals except for the staff–had been freed
immediately. Under Kriangsak’s orders, the hotel’s employees had then
begun moving through the hotel, ordering the guests to evacuate the
hotel.
As the guests, many of them half-dressed or still wearing night clothes,
had exited the elevators and stairwells, Kriangsak’s men had sorted
them.
Orientals had been allowed to leave by the front door, but Westerners
had been roughly shoved into the growing crowd in front of the
registration desk. One of Kriangsak’s men had gone through the hotel’s
registration book, calling out names. One by one, the Americans in the
group of hostages had been identified, the others released.
By now, all of the hotel’s rooms had been emptied and checked by
Kriangsak’s men. Other rebel soldiers stood guard at each window and
entrance. It wouldn’t be very long before the authorities were forced
to act.
“Colonel!” one of the soldiers yelled. He wore a bloodstained bandage
around his head, covering a gash where he’d struck his head during the
Americans’ attack on the tank column. “They’re coming, Colonel! Front
door!”
Kriangsak walked to the wide windows at the front of the lobby. Outside,
the city looked peaceful, not like a city under siege at all. The only
signs that anything was wrong were the absence of the usual early
morning traffic on the street, and a smudge of smoke hanging above the
buildings in the distance.
He saw movement, troops in camo uniforms, moving cautiously among the
trees which filled the International’s park-like grounds. Soon a white
flag appeared above a low mound of earth two hundred meters away.
“Attention!” an amplified voice blared in That. There was a squeal of
feedback, quickly adjusted. The white flag continued to wave.
“Attention in the hotel! We wish to talk with you!”
Kriangsak wiped his face with his hand. The issue, whatever the
outcome, was about to be resolved. “Let them come, Dhani,” he said to
the soldier.
“They will have things they wish to discuss with us.”
He waited as Dhani showed himself, holding his CAR-15 above his head.
The government’s negotiators rose from hiding and approached, holding
the white flag above their heads.
Kriangsak smiled. The Americans might have thwarted his attempt to
seize the government, but in the end, they would still have to come to
him, deal with him. They would have no choice.