When Hope Calls: A Human Trafficking Story

12:45PM

The wait was excruciating.

Every second felt like an hour, and the tense anticipation weighed heavily on the three staff members in the office. Morris sat with his head in his hands, staring unblinkingly at the phone, willing it to ring. Jeremy put up more of a semblance of work; it was obvious from his idiosyncratic typing that he wasn't getting any work done. Margaret seemed to be her usual productive self, but her heart was with Morris, praying for the second call. The air itself hummed with anticipation, as if infused with gaseous caffeine.

Ring ring, ring ring.

Even though he had been waiting for it for over two hours, Morris jumped with shock when the phone finally rang. Jeremy made a mad dash to join him.

"Hello! This is Morris!" he cried out in Burmese, abandoning the protocol to speak Thai.

"Mr. Morris..." the familiar timid voice said, before breaking down into piteous sobs, "I do not know if I can call you again. When will you come rescue me?" The sobs became uncontrolled crying, sending sympathetic shivers down Morris' spine. It didn't take an acute understanding of Thai for his colleagues to recognize the anguish in her words. Morris fought to contain his emotions – there was work to be done.

"Mya, I promise I will do all I can to rescue you. Don't give up, okay?" He heard a murmured "Yes" from her and proceeded, "Now I have to ask you some questions to see where you are. Did you see any large landmarks since your last stop?" The crying stopped, followed by a slight pause.

"I...I think I saw some mountains..." she stuttered.

"Good job, Mya! How many mountains were there?" Morris could hardly contain the excitement in his voice. As he wrote MOUNTAINS on his notebook, Jeremy and Margaret leaned in, concentration etched on their faces.

"Many mountains, all in a line." Morris scribbled down the details madly in English for his peers, LINE OF MOUNTS.

"How many, Mya? Can you guess how many there were?"

"Six...no, seven...no...I don't remember!" A cry broke out, which brought Morris back to his empathic senses; slow down! She's just as lost as you are...guide her slowly, slowly. Jeremy had picked up on the Thai words for "six" and "seven", and began to search online for mountain ranges.

"It's okay, Mya! You're doing great!" he reassured her. "We are much closer to finding you now. Did the line of mountains face you or point away from you?"

"They faced me...in a line." More writing, FACED HER IN LINE.

He suddenly remembered a crucial question: "Mya! Were you looking out from the left or the right side of the car?"

"I..I...do not know..." she said, hesitating, then drew in a sharp breath, "It was the left! I saw the mountains from the left." Morris almost slammed the desk in elation. This was good, this was so good, but they still needed many more details. He almost forgot to write down, LEFT OF CAR.

"And were they close or far away?" he continued.

"They were close." Yes, yes, this was progress! CLOSE. So they were probably a range of sandstone hills, one among the many dotted throughout northern Thailand. Jeremy already had Google Maps opened on his laptop, searching for highways or roads that run close to mountain ranges. Morris, desperate to continue this flow of clues, prodded: "Mya, you are doing so well. Did you see anything special along the way? Something that stood out?" A moment's pause, which felt like an eternity.

Finally, hesitantly, Mya replied: "We passed by many sunflowers. They were beautiful..." Sunflowers? They couldn't have asked for a more unique landmark. Jeremy suddenly punched the air in triumph as he shoved his laptop at Morris: the highway running through the Sabari province – about an hour and thirty minutes' drive from Bangkok – was famous for its sunflower fields.

"Sir, where are they taking me –" sudden silence, interrupted by a man's voice shouting for Mya to hurry up. "Find me, please, or they will hurt me again! Rescue me, please!"

"Wait wait wait wait wait! Mya, leave your cellphone on in your pocket!"

Then there was silence. They didn't know if their message was heard. They hoped it was.

Morris gritted his teeth with frustration; they needed to get more information from her kidnappers! They now knew which highway the kidnappers took to enter Bangkok, but not a clue as to their present location. Without knowing when – or if – Mya could make the next call, they needed solid leads, and fast. From the corner of his eye he could see Jeremy lean back in his chair with frustration. But as he was about to hang up, he heard a muffled voice speaking in Thai, "...next time you take so long, we'll make you pee in a bag! Get in the van!" Either the speaker did not know Mya only spoke Burmese, or he did not care. Morris immediately gestured for Jeremy to keep quiet as he pressed the speaker button on the phone. From her desk, Margaret watched intently, her fingers poised over her own phone, ready to call her contacts in the Royal Thai Police, the Ministry of Justice...anybody and everybody on her list.

The muffled voices now broadcasting in their office were gruff and...young. Morris could not stomach the idea of young men kidnapping their peers for profit. And he wished that his Thai was better, because they spoke quickly, and used a lot of slang. It was tough trying to translate what they said in real time; Jeremy and Margaret soon gave up with their limited Thai, fixing their attention instead on Morris' facial expressions and occasional translation notes. The youngsters' conversation flitted from one mundane topic to the next for ten painful minutes; with each passing remark, there seemed less hope that they would ever mention any bit of useful information.

"...seriously? Another Central Plaza? They're popping up everywhere." Morris wrote CENTRAL PLAZA on his notebook, causing Jeremy to sit upright in his chair, hurriedly searching on his laptop for locations of the well-known shopping mall chain; it may be just one of the thousands in Thailand, but progress was progress.

"All this driving's making me famished. Where are we eating?"

"Haha, you're always hungry! Turn left on Yaowarat road, I'm craving some KFC." The listeners had concluded that this voice belonged to the non-driving captor; his voice was slightly younger, higher in pitch and with more of a colloquial slur in his words. Morris added to his list, YAOWARAT ROAD, KFC.

"What's with you and Western food? You never want to eat Thai food. Hey...are you sure this is the right –" Suddenly, the line went silent. Morris and Jeremy looked at each other, eyes wide with surprise.

What had happened to the phone?

...and what had happened to Mya?