They had been standing in the warm rain by the Chao Phraya River, Kowalski filled with wonder at the sight of traditional riverboats travelling against a backdrop of gaudy neon lighting, when he had first kissed her.
He might have had a girlfriend back home, and she might have been on the run from an abusive husband, but it seemed like the most natural thing in the world; and Asami had responded in kind, two lovers kissing in the rain.
They made love soon after, and once again, Kowalski had his eyes opened as she taught him to slow down, to appreciate every touch and caress.
His two week break came and went, his SEAL buddies had flown back to the United States, and still Kowalski remained in Bangkok. He had another couple of weeks left before he had to report for duty, and he was determined to spend every moment he could with Asami.
What would happen then, he didn’t know. He was half-planning on inviting her back to the United States with him when the unthinkable happened.
They were asleep in bed in the room they had rented in the Khao Sing Apartments, Kowalski’s arm round her shoulders, her head on his chest, when the door splintered to pieces, wood showering the room.
Kowalski hardly had time to open his eyes before the room was filled with men, three of them hauling Asami, naked, out of the bed, ripping her from him and throwing her on the floor.
Kowalski, also naked, was half-way out of bed when he was struck on the back of the head by something hard and heavy. He saw stars instantly and collapsed to one knee, head spinning.
He vaguely saw movement in front of him, men coming towards him with stilettoes and meat cleavers. In his peripheral vision, he saw Asami being dragged from the room by her hair.
The sight was enough to propel Kowalski into action, and he leapt forward, encasing the arm of the man with stiletto in his hands, twisting the blade sideways into the man next to him, cutting savagely across.
The first man’s grip loosened as the second man dropped to the ground, and Kowalski ripped the dagger from him and plunged it through his neck, blood from the arterial spray covering his face and naked body as he pulled the knife back out.
He never stopped moving, a blur of action in the dark room as he checked a blow from a meat cleaver with his forearm, contacting the attacker’s wrist below the blade. His stiletto went through the man’s heart an instant later, buried so deep that Kowalski couldn’t pull it back out.
Another cleaver arced in at him and he angled his body away at the last moment, the edge of the blade slicing across his ribs, his own blood spurting across the room. But he ignored the pain, bending to collect the dead man’s meat cleaver and hacking away at his attacker’s shins with the brutal weapon.
The man cried out in a feral mix of surprise and pain, and Kowalski jumped to his feet and buried the cleaver through the man’s collarbone, powering diagonally down through the body halfway to the lungs.
The fractured, gruesomely bloody body dropped heavily to the floor and Kowalski realized there was nobody else near him; the others had gone, taking Asami with them.
He picked up another cleaver from the floor and raced from the room, naked and bloodied.
Someone was waiting for him outside, and Kowalski barely managed to duck in time as the club almost took his head off; he cut sideways as he ducked, slicing the cleaver cleanly through his attacker’s abdomen, loops of grey intestine spilling out across the hallway floor.
Up ahead he saw three men dragging Asami with them, turning the corner towards the stairs, and he gave chase, legs pumping as he sprinted down the hallway.
He caught them at the stairwell, hacking down through the first man’s head with the cleaver, fracturing it wide open. He pivoted swiftly to the other side, burying the cleaver through the next man’s face, shattering bones and teeth as it passed through.
The last man was faster, slicing his own dagger across Kowalski’s chest, narrowly missing his throat; and then the dagger was arcing back towards him again and Kowalski managed to get his foot up, kicking the man away.
The thug staggered down two of the steps then regained his balance, pulling Asami down with him, arm round her neck, dagger to her throat.
He screamed at Kowalski in Thai, indecipherable and furious, and Kowalski could see blood begin to leak from Asami’s pale skin as the dagger pressed deeper.
Kowalski regarded the man carefully as he watched him retreating down the stairs with Asami. He raised his hands slowly above his head in pacification, cleaver held loosely as he calculated vectors, angles and timings.
And then — when the man turned slightly at the bend in the stairwell — Kowalski’s right arm came down in a blindingly quick action, the cleaver flying through the air, tumbling over itself in tight arcs once… twice… and then embedding itself in the side of the man’s skull with a huge geyser of blood, which covered the dark walls of the stairwell like black paint.
The man dropped dead to the floor before he’d had a chance to move the dagger even a quarter of an inch, and Asami was racing back up the stairs into his arms.
Kowalski could hear the heavy footsteps of men racing through the downstairs foyer for the stairs — backup for the gang. In the distance, he could hear sirens approaching, the police no doubt called by the building’s residents, some of whom were watching through the cracks in their doors.
Kowalski pulled Asami back down the corridor. They were going to have to get out of there fast — but they wouldn’t get far without clothes or passports.
They reached their room, a horror house coasted with thick blood and eviscerated human tissue, and Kowalski was surprised how calm Asami remained in the face of such gruesome terror, almost as if she was used to it.
Together, they pulled on their clothes as fast as they could and Kowalski turned to the window, breaking it open with an elbow and hurling their bags into the street below. He climbed out onto the window ledge, all too aware of the footsteps racing down the hallway towards them, and gripped hold of the metal drainpipe at the side, sliding three stories down to the rain-soaked street below.
He called for Asami, who was waiting on the ledge, and he saw hands reaching through the window for her as she grabbed hold of the drainpipe, half sliding and half falling down the side of the building.
Kowalski was waiting for her at the bottom, and she fell into his arms, saving her from the impact with the concrete sidewalk.
Kowalski looked up, saw men shouting down to the street below, some of them fighting to get out onto the window ledge first.
Kowalski had no idea what was going on. Why did they want Asami so badly? Was it revenge, just because Kowalski had beaten those first three thugs who had been attacking her? Or was there something else going on?
The streets were coming alive, crowds moving towards the apartment complex, curious onlookers mixed with armed policemen blasting on whistles.
Everything was confusion, the crowd was absorbing Kowalski and Asami, hiding them even as the police tried to separate everyone; but was the crowd friendly? Or was it filled with more gang members, after their blood?
And then Kowalski felt Asami being pulled away from him, and when he turned to her, he saw it was girls from the local bar, trying to pull her to safety; and Asami nodded that she would go with them, Kowalski understanding that they would be harder to identify if they split up, yet unwilling to let her go; something deep down, a gut feeling he could never place, told him that if he let her go, he would never see her again.