Chapter Ten: Escape to Sumatra Using a Joint Replacement GPS Secret Compartment

I walked back into our cell and took a good look at it. It was about three feet wide and nine feet long. There was a small hole at the back and a dripping fawcett. My claustrophobia kicked in and I sat down on my mat. I didn’t remember putting on a light blue prison blouse or navy blue prison pants. I looked at Brenda’s unsmiling, expectant face. “So is Terry going to post bail or what?” She said. I looked at her sadly, “I don’t know, when I told him we were in Phuket, the line went dead.” Her eyes widened, “I TOLD you a hundred times! It is Pronounced Phookay!” “Oh my god!” She wailed. That didn’t work out too well for me so I said to the lady next to me, “So tell me your life story and don’t leave anything out.” She smiled at me like I was one stupid kid and began, “My name is Maureen Douglas and I have been here since 1987. I’m from Australia and I was a waitress at the Sydney opera house deck patio when I heard how easy it was to smuggle heroin out of Thailand to Sydney. I saved up for six months for airfare and came over and made my buy from the same guy Nola Blake did and next thing I know, I’m here in prison. She was scheduled for the firing squad but her family got a good lawyer and she got out after eleven years. I don’t even know how old I am but I was born in 1960. Their calendars are different than ours. Sad thing was, wasn’t a junkie like Nola. I just did it for quick cash so I could take acting lessons. I wanted to be a star. Now I just get up at the 5:30 whistle and work in the sewing room until bedtime at 7:00 PM. That’s when they lock us in for the night. No family, no lawyer.” I shook my head in disbelief, “Well, I’d like to stay but I have claustrophobia and I have to go now. Tomorrow’s my birthday.” Maureen laughed and tossed her short white curly hair. “Right, and I’m the queen of England” She said. “Say, if you need fresh air you can come with my cleaning crew in the morning. We’re scrubbing the Mae Fah Luang bridge in the morning for the Loy Krathong festival.” “Bren, say good-bye to Bam Bat Phiset” I looked at her and nodded down at my knees. “Remember that knee replacement I had last year? I got more than titanium baby.” I looked around the cell and saw a pile of Maureen’s belongings in the corner and leaned over and picked up an old black plastic knife. I carefully followed the outline of my knee-cap to the edge where the skin was thin. Darn, I had lost my reading glasses at the Full Bucket party somehow. I slowly cut the thin skin from the top and sides of my knee. The pain was unbearable, but I bore it like a soldier or mother-to-be too stupid for an epidural. “I opened the thin silver door to my GPS and entered: ETD 19.90882 and 998.83454 0700, Chopper. ETA 13 d 15’ 50” N 100d 33’ 14” E.” Brenda’s eyes widened. “Did you take an advanced course I missed from the Secret Service? What was that?” I left my pant leg up so the blood could dry. “Why yes I did! I took advanced GPS artificial joint tracking 101 while you were busy writing your book. It was SO hard! For the final exam we had to memorize all the coordinates for our area of interest. Lucky for us I took the Southeast Asia exam. I just contacted Ricky to pick us up at the Mae Fah Luang bridge tomorrow morning at seven AM.” Maureen shook her head, “What are you two anyway? Some kind of international spies?” We both looked at her seriously and nodded. The door opened again and the guard pointed at Brenda and motioned for her to follow him. She was back in fifteen minutes with a long, sad face. At my questioning look she said, “Tommy said he was in the middle of a hand and he’d call back.” She slumped back down on the floor on her mat again. I was dreaming I was snorkeling in clear blue water when the 5:30AM whistle sounded. I rolled over on my knees and pushed myself to my feet and followed Maureen and Brenda to the breakfast hall. After our rice and tea we followed Maureen down another long white hall with a red floor into a room of cleaning supplies. There were four other women there and they just stared at us with bored faces as they picked up buckets and scrub buckets. We climbed into the long white prison van and drove along the road filled with vendors and stalls and out towards the bay. There were already hundreds of people working on displays of flowers and stages and our bridge was festooned with flowers on the wide, thick concrete railings. I looked at the sky for any sign of Ricky’s Nighthawk helicopter. Brenda was already on her knees next to Maureen scrubbing the platform that went down below the bridge. Maureen said, “This is the platform that lots of people prefer to float their krathongs from. They are like crowns made from flowers and banana plants and all kinds of things. Then at night, they float thousands of candles and send up millions of candles up in the air. I saw it November 1987, two days before I got busted.” I was slowly lowering myself down the wide steps on my tender knee when I heard it. The unmistakable sound of chopper wings. As it came over the bay I could see a sign on the side that said, “Best View Of Festival! $49.99!” I saw Bren look up and yelled at her, “Run! Quick! Up on the railing!” I raced up the step and ran to the middle of the bridge and jumped up and hoisted myself to the top of the railing with Brenda hot on my heels. The copter dipped and we both jumped for the landing skids and ...