Tidal Rage by David Evans (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

Kim was no fool. These opportunities only came along once in a lifetime, if you were lucky, and she agreed to the contract. You can imagine her surprise when Hank had her and Sebastian go to Chiang Rai, 800 kilometres north of Bangkok. She asked no questions, as Hank had made it clear he was footing the bill, so it was his party. After landing, he drove in the hired car some twenty miles further into the interior to a large camp, which looked like a military base.

Hank, in the two days prior, had done his homework well. He had used his contacts from previous visits to arrange the treatment. Kim had no idea what she was going to be undertaking.

The camp was eighteen acres, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards posted every forty yards. The recovery unit was an open secret. Colonel James Fallon had seen the drug abuse first-hand in Vietnam. Fallon knew wherever there was substance abuse, the military would need rehabilitation units. Men who had left home as fresh-faced GIs could not be sent back as gibbering drug addicts.

Colonel James Fallon took his retirement and set about creating a critical rehabilitation unit in the countryside outside Chiang Rai. He agreed to multi-million-dollar contracts with the US government to rehabilitate soldiers, and South Vietnamese persons of interest to the US government. The camp was also open to those who had problems and could afford the costs to undertake the treatment.

Kim had no idea what she had signed herself and Sebastian up for. At first, she was bewildered, but she wanted her other half of the $500 bill. Plus, she had promised she would do anything Hank wanted within that month.

Hank handed over the mother and child, explaining she was his wife, and that was all the attending physician required. Besides the thousand dollars for each of their treatments.

Hank flew to Bangkok, and enjoyed the services of several call girls over the next two weeks, as Kim begged and screamed to be released; screeching and begging for heroin. Sebastian cried and cried unmercifully. Although only three years of age, Sebastian would never forget the pain, or the experience, throughout his sordid life.

When Hank returned nearly four weeks later, he was more than pleased to pay a $1,500 bonus for successful completion. Kim was dressed in a blue and silver sarong and looked more like nineteen than thirty years of age, as she had when he had met her. She was clean, and she was calm.

Doctor Charlton was a young ear, nose, and throat consultant from Cambridge, had volunteered twelve months of free service through the World Health Organization to help the clinic. He undertook operations in the camp to rebuild septums in noses, or repair holes in windpipes from inhaled drugs. Doctor Charlton had screened Sebastian and felt sorry for the little Eurasian, drug-addicted boy with the harelip.

Hank was delighted to see Sebastian's harelip was now only a tight scar running from the repaired lip to the nose. While it was apparent Sebastian had undergone surgery—he looked different—he would not stand out so much in a crowd. Hank looked at the boy and saw cold, brown eyes staring back from the little boy's improved face.

Hank was a chemical engineer, a respectable and upright career with excellent remuneration and benefits. He was comfortable, with a healthy bank balance, all of which he explained to Kim. She heard the words 'marriage' and 'moving to England', where Hank worked.

Better to have one obese, sweaty man mounting her than the hundreds if not thousands she would have had to sleep with over the coming years. She would accept Hank's marriage proposal. She was clean, and she deserved to be looked after for once in her life.

Hank took a three-month sabbatical from work; his company were quite helpful over the matter. After all, Hank was an excellent engineer; so what if he needed to get some Thai call girl to marry him? The company thought Hank would be a complete salaryman when he was married. Hank had wanted to ensure that his new possessions, Kim and Sebastian, were clean and presentable before turning them into his new family, which he did in October of 1976.

Chapter Two

Kim was used to paddy fields from her hometown, and the stinking streets of Patpong. It was a significant shock to both her and Sebastian when, a few days after the marriage, they landed at Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom. The taxi sped eastwards along the M62 motorway towards their new home in Southport, on the outskirts of Liverpool. Once a bustling holiday destination, it had now grown quieter and more sedate, abandoned by the tourists who preferred the sun of Spain to the rain of northern England.

It was not the colour of Sebastian's skin that alienated him from his childhood peers and teachers at the infant school. It was his nature. Most children have their tantrums and take it out on other children. Teachers often turned a blind eye to such outbursts. But Sebastian had wild fits of temper which far exceeded the teachers' level of tolerance.

Sebastian's eruptions were met with a stern telling-off, and on occasion, a cane to the bottom. The teachers had no idea what Sebastian had gone through in his formative years. To them, Kim was a respectable mother. They didn't know he was the son of a reformed prostitute and reared on heroin.

While Sebastian's IQ was up and beyond that of his peers, his social skills were not. It was clear to him, even at that age, that the teachers did not seem to have the same affection for him as they did for the other children; not that he cared.

Another legacy of the prenatal addiction he had inherited from his mother was a compulsion to pull out