[Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black Read Online Free PDF

day before, the old man’s name was Narong. He had been a carpenter before murdering both his wife and her lover. He had set fire to a van they were using for one of their romantic trysts. He claimed not to know they were both inside it at the time. The trial didn’t go his way.
    However, the fact that his cousin was an oral surgeon officially qualified him to act as the prison’s dental services provider. They even let him carry his old tools. Prisoners requesting dental care lined up at his table. They were responsible for acquiring their own cups of alcohol to sterilize Narong’s implements.
    Caine looked away as Narong lowered a pair of pliers into a shivering, emaciated prisoner’s mouth. Screaming filled the air. It was not an unusual sound in Bang Kwang, and the guards paid no attention.
    Caine felt a prickling on his neck. He once again scanned the yard, drinking in the details. He watched Narong tugging at his pliers, the grimace of pain on his patient’s face. The guards kept their backs to him and the other prisoners, studiously avoiding the horror show playing out behind them. Why are they all looking away?
    A man emerged from the pack of prisoners, his leg chains jangling with each step. In seconds, the man closed in, and Caine knew what the prickling was: the sixth sense of a killer, recognizing impending violence. He had been sent here to disappear. It only made sense Lau would send someone to finish the job.
    Caine, like every other prisoner, wore irons and chains around his ankles. There was just enough play for him to step forward and balance on his rear leg. He brought his hands up in front of him, palms open.
    The assassin blinked, surprised to see his target advancing instead of moving away. Only an inch or two shorter than Caine, muscles bulged beneath his prison rags. Caine swore at himself for not noticing him sooner.
    A tattoo of a scorpion danced across the thick cords of his shoulder and neck. It was the symbol of a Chao Pho, a local gang of mixed Thai and Han Chinese ethnicities. They controlled organized crime in Thailand’s cities. Caine had a working relationship with the gangs, and he paid them a percentage when operating in their territory. But this was obviously not personal. Just business.
    Scorpion made a rapid, twisting motion with his left ankle. The iron manacle clicked open and fell to the ground. Caine barely had time to register the movement before the big man pivoted on his left foot. Then, Scorpion launched his right leg into a powerful spinning heel kick.
    Caine instinctively tried to execute a defensive kick. He raised his right foot, but then heard the clink of the chain surrounding his ankles pull taut. Cursing, he turned his body to the side, trying to pivot out of the way, but it was too late. Scorpion’s heel smashed into his chest.
    Caine’s back slammed into the ground with a loud crack. Coughing and sputtering for air, he immediately assumed a defensive ground position. Covering his face, he rolled left and right, blocking blows where he could with his foot. The chain around his ankles made this almost impossible. He would have to get back on his feet if he hoped to survive.
    To relax his spasming diaphragm, he took a deep breath. His instincts began to take over. Time seemed to slow down. He sensed the other prisoners circling them, cheering the fight on. They did not register as a threat, and his mind muted their bloodthirsty cries to a dull background roar. But the buzzing still tingled at the back of his neck…. There was another danger nearby.
    Caine rolled to his left, towards one of the old battered picnic tables that dotted the courtyard. He allowed momentum to carry his body under the table. A blunt stick hit the dirt where his head had been a moment earlier. Another prisoner had joined the fight, this one tall but lanky and malnourished. After a few days on the prison diet, Caine could see why. The new attacker wielded a prison guard’s baton. He, too,