When Noi arrived in the room, Kaori was in the shower and Ma?l was busy wiping blood from his face.

  Not his blood, Noi reflected with pride as he assessed quickly Ma?l’s body with a professional gaze. Plenty of wounds, nicks and bruises. Some bleeding around the knee and down his calf, but that didn’t look too bad. The worst of it was a deep, dark groove along his arm, and a nasty looking bruise on his torso. Ma?l’s body had clearly taken a serious beating, but most of it had nothing to do with this fight.

  Those don’t look like fight injuries at all, in fact. What the hell did he get into?

  Noi was no surgeon, but he knew how to evaluate damage better than most paramedics—though in all fairness, he was often the source of said damage.

  Ma?l pointed to the men lying on the floor.

  Now, those were fresh wounds. He inspected each man in turn. All three looked Japanese. They had major facial lacerations and their arms were cleanly dislocated. Their pants were dropped down to their ankles and tied with their belts. Simple, but effective if you want to prevent someone from running away.

  Noi looked at Ma?l.

  He shrugged, “These guys assaulted us when we were in bed.” he explained.

  “And you snapped their arms?”

  “I didn’t want to get shot.” Ma?l pointed to the weapons on the bed. Two guns, three knives, a pair of brass knuckles and an hypodermic syringe/needle. One of the knives had fresh blood on it.

  Noi picked a gun, a chrome-plated Desert eagle 50E.

  “Nice stuff!”

  The men’s wallets were stacked next to the weapons but they only contained money, no papers or IDs. One man had a phone but it had been crushed in the scramble and didn’t seem to work.

  “Do you know who they are?”

  “No. Never seen them in my life.”

  Noi pulled one of the men’s shirt up, and smiled. The man was heavily tattooed. He checked the other two. They all had similar tattoos.

  “Yakuza. What kind of mess did you get into in Japan?”

  “Not sure. I had an argument with a fight promoter. He was pretty pissed off, but that seems a tad excessive, no?” Ma?l answered. It was common knowledge that yakuza ran the fight scene in Japan.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Noi inspected Ma?l’s face carefully, then his gaze turned toward Kaori who was coming out of the shower, dressed in fresh clothes and looking her usual gorgeous self.

  “Fight promoter, eh?” he laughed. “Are you sure it’s nothing to do with your Japanese princess?”

  Ma?l laughed. “Well, you know how fight promoters are, right? Surely you don’t think my princess got involved with all these mean promoters?”

  There was no sneaking one past Noi.

  “Fine. What do you want me to do with these pieces of shit?” Noi said, nodding to the men lying prone. Two of them were conscious but pretended not to be. The third had no need to pretend. It made no difference either way. Without guns, Ma?l doubted very much they could do anything to Noi, especially in their current condition.

  “They attacked your police quarters in the hotel. Our presence in the room doesn’t change much, does it?”

  “I suppose you’re right. Do they have backup outside the hotel?”

  Ma?l paused. Three men had gone in, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more.

  “I don’t know, I didn’t interrogate, them but there should be. They brought the trolley in, so I guess they planned on taking us away. I’d assume there is at least one more guy with a van downstairs.”

  “Got it. My men are already setting up a perimeter. We’ll see what we can find. For now, we need to get you guys out of here. Take a shower and change, I’ll get you a helicopter ride out, it’ll make things easier if you aren’t here at all. Do you have a place to go?”

  Ma?l thought for a moment.

  “One of my pals has a house on the coast, near Pratchuap but he’s back in the States. Should be pretty safe if you can drop us there.”

  “That’s fine. Get cleaned up. I need you guys to be gone in five minutes, I’ll take care of the rest.” Noi said. “And please, no more bodies. I’m up for promotion, you know.”

  As Ma?l stepped in the shower, he saw Noi wrangling one of the men. What the— Oh, of course. Blood. Noi was going to make it look like he had been assaulted too.

  Those were his quarters, after all, the story would work better if he’d been involved in the fight. There was plenty of evidence that he and Kaori had been there, but no one would look closer into Noi’s report if he was covered with the men’s blood.

  “What about the hotel’s cameras? There’s plenty of footage of us coming and going.”

  “Don’t worry about that stuff. Who do you think is going to be in charge of the investigation anyway? We have internal directives to clean up foreign gangs and these guys are yakuza invading my quarters with guns! I could shoot them down right here and now, not one would say anything. I probably should.” he said with a wicked smile, kicking one of the men who was sneakily trying to free his legs. The man froze.

  Nothing goes past Noi and the Royal Thai Police was known to be ruthless. These men were fools if they thought they could run away now. Ma?l’s violence was practical, but Noi’s easy going demeanor could turn downright wicked if he was crossed. He was one of these men who made either great friends or terrifying enemies.

  Ma?l gave Noi a very respectful Wai and rushed into the shower. Fresh blood came off easy, and soon he was on his way to the roof with Kaori in tow. He’d have to take care of the cut on his knee, but for now, that could wait.

  This spy business sure involved a lot of running.