“See you around,” he said.
Noi’s head turned around and the fear sprang back. “No, don’t go. Please give me a chance.”
“Then tell me what you saw.”
“It was my fault. I accused my boyfriend of being lazy. I think he lie to me and not try to find work. He said, ‘You don’t believe me? Then I take you and you watch me work. You think I lie that I have a job? Come. Come.’ We drive on the highway to Sattahip. He turns off on a small road and we go to a beach. It is still dark and he is driving with his lights on. I still don’t believe him. I think he is wasting my time and that my boss is right, this man is no good. Why do I keep giving him one chance after another? We are fighting when he gets out of the pickup and walks to the edge of the sea. I get out the other side and still am screaming at him. He turns and raises his hand. I don’t know why. But I stop yelling at him. I walk to the beach and wait until we see a small boat with men. My boyfriend has a flashlight and he points it at the sea and turns it off and on three times. I see a light on the boat return the signal. A couple of minutes later, the boat reaches the beach and three men climbs out. They drag the boat onto the sand. My boyfriend waied one man. He was the captain of a trawler. My boyfriend worked for him before and the captain liked my boyfriend and wanted to help him. One of the other men was Thai. He was a relative of the captain. And the other man, I don’t know who he was. He wasn’t Thai.”
Calvino pulled out Hasam’s photograph, the one that Jardine had given him, and showed it to Noi.
“Was that the man?”
She studied the photograph. “The man I saw wore a mask and had a beard.”
“Could it be the same man?”
She nodded.
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Do you have any idea who this man is?” Calvino shook his head.
“Rangsan said he cigarette smuggler.”
“Cigarettes?”
Obviously she had no idea and it was likely that her boyfriend Rangsan knew nothing about what he was getting himself into. He had simply taken on a job from a trawler captain he had worked for in the past and that was all he needed to know. What was important at this point was to get her through the rest of the story without rattling her, making her more scared than she already was. Telling her that the man was named Hasam and he had come into Thailand for the purpose of committing an act of terrorism wasn’t the path to take. One leak, and in a place where the bamboo telegraph operated at near the speed of light, the entire operation to catch him would be compromised.
“What happened after Rangsan waied the captain?”
“They talked a little. About how his catch was and whether he might need my boyfriend to help take the catch to market later in the day. The captain said that wouldn’t be necessary. But next week he would have work for him. But now he needed a hand with something in the boat. All the men stood next to the boat. They leaned over and lifted out a big box. It looked like a coffin. I am scared, and think about pee—ghosts. I thought someone had died and they had put the body in the box. And we would take it to the wat. The four men carried the case and slid it into the back of the pickup. My boyfriend covered it with a tarp and tied it down so you couldn’t see what was underneath. The captain said to my boyfriend, ‘Take him where he wants to go and help him with the case.’ And my boyfriend he says, ‘Okay.’ The foreigner stayed behind with us as the captain and his relative got into the boat and rowed out to the open sea. The three of us got into the pickup and my boyfriend drove back to Pattaya in silence. I sat in the middle, staying close to my boyfriend. The stranger stared straight ahead at the road. He had that expression of a farang who sits in the bar and orders one drink all night, his mind all full of things he doesn’t want to talk about and you can’t get near him. He won’t buy you a drink. He won’t do anything but hurt you. But I think maybe he’s not a farang. I think an Arab. I stay away from that kind of man.”
“Where did you drop him?” asked Calvino.
“In Pattaya.”
“Where in Pattaya?”
“A construction site in South Pattaya. On Beach Road. We drove down Soi 7. It was quiet. No traffic. The foreigner told my boyfriend to park and wait. Ten minutes later he came back with three other men. My boyfriend got out and untied the tarp and helped them unload the case. When he got back into the pickup, he was smiling. I asked, ‘Why are you smiling like that?’ He laid out five one-hundred-dollar bills on the dashboard. I couldn’t believe it. So much money paid for doing such a little thing. I was so happy and then I was scared. I asked him, ‘Why do they pay you so much money? Is this drug business? Is it another bad thing?’ My boyfriend said, ‘Cigarette business.’ ”
“What did the men do with the case?” asked Calvino.
“They carried it into the construction site. Okay, smuggled goods. Not so bad. Let it be. My boyfriend is feeling good that he’s got some money. And I am feeling good because he actually did have a job and he wasn’t telling me a lie.”
“What kind of trouble happened to Rangsan after that?”
She sighed and looked out at the sea.
“He telephoned me and said he had a problem and had to go away. I asked him, ‘What kind of problem?’ And he said, ‘You remember the night we drove to the beach and brought that man back to Pattaya.’ He didn’t have to say anything more. I somehow knew this would be a problem. He said that I was in the pickup and they knew my name and maybe I had a problem, too. I said we should go away together. He said, ‘No. Cannot. I must go now.’ I started to cry and said I didn’t believe that he ever loved me. He said that wasn’t true. And if he didn’t love me that he wouldn’t be making a phone call. He would just go. And I think, what he says is true. I know there is this rich farang who came to the bar sometimes. He was interested in me. He gave me his card. I go to Valentine and think, okay, it’s not so bad to live in such a beautiful place and to be one of his wives. I can do this. Why not? I can live and one day my boyfriend comes back and we can start our lives over. I have my dive master license. I can always work. No problem. But it wasn’t so simple. Pee Prasit knew lots of people. One day I told Pee Prasit about my boyfriend and that we had this problem. A few days later, he said it might be dangerous for me to stay at the compound. He was a good man. I am very sorry he died.”
“You think that he killed himself?”
She brushed away a tear.
“I don’t think so.”
“Would his wife have killed him?”
Noi smiled. “Pee Fon loved him very much. Impossible.”
“Did you ever see a man named Ton while you lived at Valentine’s?”
“He came to see Pee Prasit with Ajarn Sawai.”
She was playing three poker hands at the same time. One should have been a full house. The smart money would have been to play five hands. Noi believed in her man until the end. She never thought that she should have called for a different card or that she should have played multiple hands. In her new life inside the wat, she had time to think about the odds of winning when the game is stacked against you. Paying for a nose job and believing that the good times were around the corner showed that she wanted a version of life that wasn’t on the DVD she had drawn. Play it forward, play it back, and every time the story ends the same way. Rangsan disappeared upcountry and people all around her want her dead.
THIRTY-NINE
AT THE FAR end of the ballroom, Colonel Pratt huddled with some top brass down from Bangkok. Tables were being setup for a thousand invited guests. A security detail was working to assemble a metal detector in front of the entrance. Security was already tight and it was about to get a whole lot tighter. The American ambassador was the scheduled speaker. Someone from the hotel security staff watched as a farang in a suit did a microphone sound check from the podium. “One, two, three.” In less than forty-eight hours, the room would be packed with bigwigs and big faces, American and Thai ranking military officers seated at the VIP tables. American security offic
ers were everywhere in the ballroom. A dozen men in dark suits with wires running up the back of their collars, were barking orders, checking equipment, scanning chairs and tables. Heads in sunglasses connected to earpieces. David Jardine and a couple of other suits huddled with a Thai general and two of the general’s subordinates near the podium.
“One, two, testing. Testing. Can you hear me in the back of the room? Charlie, what sound level are you picking up?”
An American flag standard was positioned on one side and the Thai flag standard on the other side of the podium. Protocol on flag placement had taken the morning to hammer out. Calvino walked through the entrance to find a Thai uniformed cop blocking him
“You can’t go inside,” the cop said. “Unless you have ID.”
The cop waited for Calvino to turn around. When Calvino stood his ground, the cop leaned forward, the thumb of his right hand riding the 9mm sidearm in a leather holster on his right hip.
“You have ID?”
“I have an appointment with Colonel Prachai.”
The cop shook his head.
“No ID. Mai dai.” Cannot. Impossible. Never. Get lost. That was the general translation. No reason, no explanation given.
Mai dai is a not a simple brick wall; it is a fortress of reinforced concrete three feet thick. “Mr. Jardine is my boss. I left my ID upstairs in my room. He will be upset if I am late. You know how farangs get upset and they get red in the face and shout and shake their fists? Mr. Jardine has an evil temper. What did you say your name was? Just in case
I have to tell Mr. Jardine why I couldn’t report to him. He would want to know.”
Slowly Calvino drilled through the three-foot-thick wall of impossibility.
“You said you have an appointment with Colonel Prachai.” The cop was clutching at straws. That was a good sign.
“And with my boss, Mr. Jardine, too. He’s going to be fucking pissed off.” Calvino rolled his eyes and sighed.
“I don’t think I got your name.”
The cop nodded, eyes narrowed, and stepped aside. “Next time state your business clearly.”
Uniforms always had to win in a head-to-head confrontation—it was their training, they always had to be right. Power made them right. Only a much larger power could make them yield their ground.
“I’ll remember, sergeant,” said Calvino. He walked into the ballroom without ever getting the cop’s name. Colonel Pratt’s head was turned, talking to some other cops, as Calvino approached him from the right.
He circled around, passing Jardine, “You seem to be everywhere,” said Calvino.
“I was about to say the same thing about you. How did you get a pass to get in here?”
“I said I worked for you. Seems that your name has influence with the Thai cop at the door.”
“You got something for me?”
Calvino wrinkled his nose, shrugged his shoulders.
“Not much. My client thinks I am taking too much time on the case.”
“He might have a point,” said Jardine. “I like being thorough.”
“There’s something to be said for that. Remind me again why you’re here.”
Calvino nodded at Colonel Pratt. Jardine looked at the colonel and then back at Calvino.
“I worry about Americans who get too chummy with the local police.”
“Not as much as I worry about Americans who run covert operations using the local police as cover.”
Jardine turned away. There was nothing more to say. The conversation had attracted the attention of the group including Colonel Pratt. Calvino walked a few steps ahead and waied the colonel. The superiors saw the farang making a wai. They liked what they saw—a farang paying respect to authority, showing submission to power and rank. A farang whose gesture showed that he knew the meaning of a uniform. That kind of farang they liked. He wasn’t going to make anyone uncomfortable; no one would lose face. But it still didn’t answer the question—was this farang part of the American contingent setting up the room? He looked different. He didn’t look like government.
Colonel Pratt introduced Calvino to his colleagues and he waied each of them. “Khun Vincent is my old friend from America,” said Colonel Pratt.
Calvino played the role. He knew what was expected. The script was one he had memorized. Dance the dance. Sing the song. Wrap his fingers into a prayer wheel and wai and bow. “If the Colonel has a moment, I need his advice.”
They walked out of the ballroom past the cop who had refused to acknowledge Calvino’s existence. “I hope that this is important, Vincent.”
“I have a possible location for your man. Is that important enough?”
Colonel Pratt stopped walking. “How did you get that information?”
“It doesn’t matter how. What matters is who has this information.”
“Did you tell Jardine?”
Calvino smiled.
“What do you think?”
“You got this from Noi.”
“She remembers where they dropped Hasam.”
Colonel Pratt studied Calvino’s expression. Did Noi really know this? Or had she made something up just to get rid of the farang? The American intelligence community with all of their resources hadn’t been able to find Hasam. What if it were true? The next question the colonel had was what should he do with the information. Who should he inform? The Americans had placed a five million dollar reward for information leading to Hasam’s arrest. With that kind of money, there would be jockeying to claim the reward. It had happened over the Hambali arrest. Everyone had scrambled to stake a claim to the reward, like a hungry mob hitting a buffet table. If he told Jardine at this stage, there was the risk of another headache. Fighting over money was bad enough, but the Americans would claim sole credit for the bust. They’d leave the Thais out in the cold.
“You haven’t said anything,” said Calvino. “I am thinking.”
“What I am thinking is that we should check out the information ourselves. It might be nothing. But then again it could be what everyone’s looking for.”
“You know there’s a reward for Hasam’s capture,” said Colonel Pratt.
“Yeah, how much?”
“Five million dollars.”
“What’s that in baht?” asked Calvino, grinning. “Two hundred million baht.”
“Fuck-you money for this life and the next five lives.” They walked into the parking lot until they came to Calvino’s car. He pulled his keys from his jacket. Colonel Pratt stared at him over the roof the Honda.
“What Noi saw happened nine months ago,” said Colonel Pratt.
“It’s a start. It’s all we have.”
“It doesn’t mean that he’s still there.”
“He’s likely long gone and holed up elsewhere.”
“It’s better not to tell Jardine,” said Colonel Pratt.
“We should have a look around the construction site.”
“How do you know it’s a construction site?”
“I drove past before coming here. I wanted a look. It’s one of those monster condo complexes left over from the 1997 crash. It’s a shell. The usual pancake stack of unfinished concrete floors and walls. Someone must have taken a big hit. All those years and all they have to show is rusty rebar sticking like wild hairs out of eighteen floors of concrete. There’s a security guard out front. It would be a miracle if it’s the same guard who was on duty the first of January. Miracles like mercy are in short supply these days. We might get lucky.”
The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Colonel Pratt quoted from The Merchant of Venice.
“I wouldn’t use that one on Jardine. He’d think you’ve gone soft.”
FORTY
IN PATTAYA AND Bangkok, many uncompleted projects dotted the lanes and roads like ruins from an ancient civilization which had invented concrete before it had invented money. Half
-finished buildings survived as ghostly reminders of the days when everyone in Thailand believed that real estate prices could never go down. People believed all kinds of things then, and they had started to believe the same kind of things again. They had new things to fear and had forgotten about what had made them afraid before. Noi and her boyfriend had driven Hasam to a place that spoke of greed and failure. What better place to hide a terrorist than a place already defeated and humbled? The JI wouldn’t have known all those months in advance that the American ambassador and ranking officers of the American Pacific Command would be in the same ballroom not more than five minutes away. They had just got lucky. Hasam had been sent to go to sleep until the time was right to wake him. Jardine had all but told them he had intercepts and information from Hambali himself that the time to awaken had been transmitted to the field. This was likely a lie. As soon as Hambali was captured, the first operational reaction of those in the field would have been to change all the codes and timetables, as they would have been compromised. Hambali would have no idea about the new schedule.
He was bluffing and Jardine knew it.
As they drove to the construction site, Calvino glanced over at the colonel. “Two men have a better chance. A Thai and a farang aren’t going to make anyone nervous. Jardine would show up with half the Thai army and Hasam, who knows that soi better than anyone alive, would know, when he sees what’s coming. And he slips away.”
“I am in uniform.”
“I brought a change of clothes. Shirt, trousers and jacket.” Colonel Pratt looked into the back seat. “Your spare set of clothes?”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t worn them.”
“I am not worried about that. Working undercover with a civilian could get me fired,” said Colonel Pratt.
“When they find out the civilian you teamed with was a farang, they might make you do visa runs every ninety days for the next thirty years. But on the up-side, with half of five million dollars, you could fly first class.”
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