Look, we’ d been waiting and looking forward a long time to the chopper run; a big group of motorcycles on a long ride up north. Meet at the Esso Truck Stop out on the northern highway and head up. We simply HAD to be there. It’d be another year to wait if we missed it.

Our friend Mr Neng had asked us why we’d not left already. It was Saturday morning right after Chinese New Year’s Day which had been the Friday, he’d been passing by and seen the Eliminator - our quite large motorcycle - parked outside our apartments. It was eleven in the morning. We’d not left for the run.

My head felt like it was bursting as I muttered, "mate, you were here last night and you saw the state I was in - that whisky, what in the name of god was that shit, and those guys, who the hell were they?". I squinted in the morning sun, looked over at Mr Neng who had a broad grin on his face; he said "well my friend, when I arrived here last night, you were drunk for sure, but you were alive, and that alone was lucky. I guess they liked you."

The chopper run was an annual event. But I guess that now we just wait for next year’s run. Ah well, I guess plans were made to break, and we sure broke this one. So, we’d missed the run, my head throbbed, my eyes watered and I felt simply ill.

Damn that bloody local whisky! And damn my stupidity for going and getting involved with a bunch of hoods drinking Lao Kao whisky. But then again - it never hurts in a place like this to know people like that, really, it never, ever hurts. Unless they hurt you. Then you have a problem, yes.

But I digress, what about this "chopper run"? In Bangkok there are many choppers - customized motorcycles. Every size, color and style under the sky - some tasteless, some veritable works of art. As the Asian economies pick up and incomes increase, fancy cars, new houses, glass skyscrapers and other symbols of rampant greed become more common; as do choppers and other extravagant and exotic forms of transport. Bandits, outlaws, sufferers of mid-life-crisis, business men, off-duty cops, hoods and gangsters, army personnel, all riding choppers. The other day I noticed that the special security forces following The King’s car around were mounted on no less than a couple of 1100 CC Yamaha "choppers", submachine guns slung low over their backs, black bullet-proof kevlar jackets flapping in the breeze.

Each year, certain interested parties organise a gathering, ride and party for all and any who care to attend - bring your own chopper. The "run" gathers on the outskirts of Bangkok at a highway fuel station and rides north to Saraburi, about 100 kilometers. Upon arrival a local "rong raan" or hotel is used as a base for various festivities such as "drink da beer", "ride da bike in circles", "tell da tall tale" and, perhaps "fall over dead-drunk". A typical motorcycle gathering to which we had planned to ride the infamous and formidable Eliminator.

The Eliminator of which we speak is my… - well, rather Ms Nan’s - 900 c.c. race- tuned motorcycle. It is quite powerful, at 126 horse power at the back wheel, one of the most powerful in country. But her legs won’t reach the ground so I have to ride it everywhere. Shame about that. We were going to "blow them away" out at Saraburi. That was the plan. But what happened to the plan? Well, that’s a story.

It was Chinese New Year; myself being at least 0.01% Chinese blood I decided that it was of paramount importance for me to celebrate my ancestry. So I took a day off from my job at an consulting engineering firms offices where I act as a kind of software/hardware/wetware mechanic. Well, that is what I think of my role. The firm call me "IT Manager", but I am such a querulous and troublesome individual they don’t much like to take me along to meetings.

The lovely Ms Nan, my lady-friend, and I had decided to drop by the local bike mechanic’s after we’d done some shopping at the markets on the corner of Soi Sutthiporn and Ding Daeng in Huay Kwang. It was a typically hot and smoky Bangkok day and we had taken the dread Eliminator out for a ride to do the shopping and just check out the neighbourhood.

Such a fine idea to stop by the mechanic’s and get the oil, coolant and air topped up before the big run tomorrow. I rolled up the concrete soi to the old broken down timber shack at the rear of the vacant brick-paved lot where Nu the mechanic had setup his "work area", a rough patch of oily brick block paving with a torn canvas awning to keep the blistering sun off his back as he worked his magic on motorcycle engines.

Opposite Nu’s was another torn green canvas awning. I noticed it was an army issue awning, still bearing the stenciled Thai insignia of some battalion or another and a small picture of a tank below the Thai script. I was talking to Nu in my very poor pigeon Thai - "Khun Nu, phom ow, um, um, ow nam oyul quaat saam khrup". Very, very poor pigeon Thai. As I made my spotty arrangements with Nu, Nan had wandered over to the other awning.

Under the shade of the canvas a young Thai girl had setup a very rough bar. She had 2 old refrigerators, a 4-ring gas burner, some woks and a stained and grimy bain-marie with some warm food sitting in its steel pans. She had a shelf, full of Thai and Lao whisky of many brands and types. There she had a neat Chinese/Lao medicinal whisky with some large snake in the bottle, here she had some evil looking blood red whisky with a Lao label and something floating inside the bottle. In one corner a very old US Army juke box - complete with the original collection of US Army R&R hits from the late 60’s.

You had to get a nickel coin from the girl to play a tune. "Don’t ride the white horse" was beating out across the vacant lot. Little bars and cafés like this proliferate all over the city of Bangkok. 24 hours a day, old and young Thais sit down and relax with some food and drink.

I sat down there to relax with one, single, small cold beer while I waited for Nu to finish off topping up the Eliminator. Nan had already settled in with a "nom saam" or orange juice. She was sitting talking to a middle aged but very, very fit looking Thai gentleman. Sitting each side of him were 2 equally fit looking Thai gentlemen. They were all dressed in jeans and T-shirts and were all smiling broadly as they spoke in Esan, a dialect from the North East of Thailand closely related to Lao. Nan was happy, coming from Esan she loves to meet and talk to other Esan people here in the big smoke. These guys looked a lot like army types or police off duty. I was betting on them all being Thai police.

I stared out over the soi back to the Baron Hotel opposite us, watching the small motorcycle taxis, three-wheeler tuk tuk’s, cars and people passing by in the shimmer and glare of the afternoon heat. I could smell the spicy "tom yum" cooking behind me. I lit a cigarette and glanced across the vacant lot back to Nu, kneeling down at the huge, black Eliminator. The heat shimmering across the concrete and brick ground made Nu’s face appear to be very wrinkled and wriggling around like some berserk rubber mask. I blinked twice, turned back and took a large gulp of the cold beer. I turned and looked again, Na’s face still wobbled. Damn, where were my sunglasses, this sunlight was playing tricks on my eyes now. Rubbing my eyes with one hard, I fumbled on the table with my free hand, searching for my sunglasses.

My shades had fallen, laying on the ground with the screw holding in one arm missing, the arm lying off to the side. I picked them up and put them on the table. One of the guys talking to Nan reached over and picked them up. In good English he said "wait here, I go and fix these for you now, OK mai?" Well, pretty good English in any case. I said thanks and he wandered off. The guy in the middle introduced himself as "Kai" and introduced the third man as "Lek". Lek said the guy who’d gone to fix my glasses was named "Ging".

So, here we had Khun’s Kai, Lek and Ging and Kai was reaching over and pouring rather a lot of his Saang Thip whisky - an evil and strong brew - into and over my cold beer. With what appeared to be an idiotic, perhaps drunken grin on his face he said "here, drink this". It was not said as a request. I took it as some kind of command and proceeded to concur. Nan frowned at me, she knows I can’t drink whisky. Whisky knocks me out - totally and completely and very quickly. It’s a fixed law of physics.

Ging came back with my sunglasses, a new screw holding the arm back on to the frame. I think he’d taken the screw out of Nu’s glasses, intending to replace it later. The traffic moved slowly up the soi. The sun beat down on the concrete. Ms Nan took a walk home, we were not very far away from home. Kai, Lek and Ging just kept pouring Saang Thip in my glass and commanding me - "here, drink this, now".

Nu called out, the Eliminator was ready for me take away. I said goodbye to everybody, paid my bill and walked (read that staggered) across the lot, nearly reeling over from the solid wallop of the sun on my back. I got on the Eliminator, leaning to the right I kicked up the side stand on the left. Leaning to the right, leaning to the right…. Bonk.

You know, that thing is just so damned heavy to pick up. I’d just kept leaning and over it had gone. The guys all came over and helped me to pick it up, but the motor had stopped and I could not start it again. Lek suggested that I sit down, relax with "the boys" and rethink my situation.

Lek said "sit down please" again and I guess the sun had got to my brain by now. I did sit down and Kai immediately pushed a glass of whishky and iesh (read whisky and ice) across the table. The sun beat down, the dust skittered across the lot in the little breezes kicked up by the passing traffic. The young girl had now started to grill pork sausages, the very spicy Esan style sausages, and the fragrant smoke drifted over us all as we sat in the afternoon heat. I felt at peace with the world and so I relaxed and drank with my new friends.

The sun had set, over behind the line of glass towers along New Petchaburi road to the north. Clouds of ming-wee, small flying ants, buzzed around the fluorescent tubes strung below the canvas. An excellent, cool, night breeze had kicked up and the torn edges of the awning fluttered and hit out a beat that seemed to me to be close enough to the beat of the music coming from the old juke box in the corner. It was not a bad evening at all.

By 8 PM I was, more or less, toasted and thought I’d better be getting home. Although my brain and mouth certainly appeared to show signs of close-to-normal function - my legs and hips had decided to take leave. As I stood to depart, my feet stuck to the floor as though glued and the momentum of my body just went ahead forward. I rolled back over onto my back, stared up at the night sky and said "hey, can one of you guys get me home please?". Kai, Lek and Ging all immediately stood up and took command of the situation. As I found out later, they were all quite used to taking command of situations.

Kai took the Eliminator, Lek and Ging lifted me onto the back seat. My apartment was only about 1 kilometer away, Lek and Ging walked and we met them there in the lobby. I invited all 3 men to come up and have a cup of tea. It was the only polite thing to do.

Ms Nan was already in and she opened the door to this somewhat motley crew I had assembled in the hallway. I muttered apologies and walked into the living room with the 3 men following me. They all did the requisite Thai greeting to Nan and started to look around the room a lot, on the shelves, in the pile of cassette tapes, walking around poking things and muttering in Thai. Nan looked at me, I looked back at her and shrugged my shoulders. Ging had a bunch of magazines out of the bookshelf and was silently flicking through them. Kai stood with his arms crossed staring at me while Lek was looking closely at a Nepalese painting on the wall.

Nan asked the men and I if we’d like to take some tea. All agreed on this we sat on the floor around the low coffee table and Nan brought in a small blue china tea pot with a set of tiny Chinese tea cups. The teapot steamed, fragrant steam, jasmine tea. Lek, Ging and Kai were rough looking characters and surprised me when they quietly praised the tea. Ging spoke Esan with Nan while Kai and I talked in English. Lek watched on interjecting here and there in Esan, Thai and rough English.

Conversation got around to what I did for a living here in Bangkok. I explained that I worked here in an office for an engineering company, but due to the simple fact that I spend vast amounts of each day online to the Internet and moving project data around from one remote site to another and back to various regional offices - I effectively didn’t do much of my work here, in physical Thailand. Kai said "I know about the Internet" and explained what I’d said to the others. I asked him how he came to know about the Internet and such. He said "oh I remember that sort of stuff from communications training classes.". He then looked at Lek and Ging and said "don’t you remember that stuff? What? Did you sleep through EVERY class?". Lek and Ging grinned and giggled. Although tough looking and in their early 40’s; like little kids they giggled.

"Um, Kai, what classes?" I said. "Oh, when we were in special forces training, you know, you had to learn about many different things." said Kai. "Uh huh, I see… and what special forces would that be Kai?" I replied. Kai went on to explain that they were all ex-Royal Thai Army special forces - border patrol up on the Burmese border, keeping the Burmese out from traditional Thai protected tribal areas in the far north. Border patrol in the far south, working in the jungle like the Guerrillas they are fighting. They are keeping the "communist insurgents" out of Thailand by whatever means necessary.

"Kai, what do you all do now?" I asked. "Oh, we work for the army and the police now." he replied. I asked what they did with the army and police, which departments did they work in. He told me that they did not work in departments. They took out contracts at various levels of the army and police hierarchies. Special contracts. Kai looked at me and said "If anybody gives you any trouble, you contact us. There will be no more trouble, it will end just like that". "Hmmmm" I replied.

He grabbed a scrap of paper from the coffee table and asked me for a pen. I passed him one from the sideboard behind me and he wrote down three numbers. Two normal phone numbers and one mobile phone number. He then wrote something in Thai to the left of each number, then he wrote each of their names in English to the right. Very methodical in execution, it looked almost machine made as it lay on the table. Kai picked it up and stared at me as he handed me the paper. I met his eyes - they were cold and seemed to cut through me, meeting my eyes but as if staring at something behind my eyeballs. I’ve seen that somewhere before, I am sure. Then he smiled broadly, the other two started to giggle again, I sat back and smiled and Nan poured more tea.

Just then there was a knock on the door. Kai looked at me and I said "relax". Nan got up and walked to the door, peeping through the peephole. She turned back to me and said "It’s Mr Neng". She had a smile on her face. Only a small smile to be sure, but for Nan to smile at the arrival of Mr Neng had until now been unheard of. Immediately, through the whisky inspired fog I understood that Nan was, in fact, slightly worried about my new "friends".

Mr Neng is not of Thai nationality. Ex-British Army, retired early to Bangkok. A man of many practical and unusual talents; "Neng" is a nick-name, it means "bald". He "knows" some "people" here and there in Bangkok. Nan was happy to see him, happy to see somebody we knew and who she knew would cover us from the danger that she had perceived us to be in. Protective instinct.

Mr Neng speaks Thai and started to chat with the other men. They all came from military backgrounds and they all knew some people in common, Neng’s Thai wife’s family were all army or military, so the conversation in Thai started to flow, with me struggling to keep up and understand a little of what was being said.

We all drank more tea. Neng complained of the lack of beer. Nan told him to leave it off for a while. Once the tea was finished, my rescuers rose to leave. They bid us farewell and Kai said "remember now, any problems, call us, OK?". "OK" I said. "No charge, OK?" said Kai. "No charge, OK" I said back, grinning at him. He returned my smile, turned and they all swaggered away down the hallway, laughing with each other.

The moment the door shut Nan started to quiz Neng about who these guys really were. Nan has seen some shit go down in her life, she reckons she smelt trouble with these guys. Neng claimed that they were, in fact, exactly who Kai had claimed they were. He knew some police person or another and some other mid-level army guy who they also knew. This calmed Nan down a lot, relaxed her. She felt safe and an old bond of hostility between her and Neng appeared to drop off - for the time being.

The men’s stories tied in with what Neng knew about the border patrols - which was quite a lot. These were retired special forces guys, working contracts with the army and police to do whatever. Go up the border and set some bombs. Sneak into some place over the border and remove somebody. Sneak over the border and extract somebody. Remove a threat to the status-quo here and there. Neng claimed it was a good thing to have met them - "a good contact" is what he said.

I hold the bit of paper with their phone numbers in one hand. I wonder as I stare at the numbers, I wonder if I called on them, asked them to "remove a problem". Would they do it? Neng says they would. Good thing there’s nobody and nothing in the world at the moment that I need to have "removed". Not even the dog down the soi that bit me. Hey! Anybody wanna play God?……..