Trader of secrets pm-12

by Steve Martini

  “That’s handy,” she says. “Let me see.”

  I focus the light and hand it to her.

  She stands up and shines the narrow beam of light down the row of cabinets, five drawers on each one.

  “That’s strange.”

  “What?” I say.

  “Usually a cabinet has a single lock at the top. It locks all five drawers. Look at these.”

  She is right. Each of the cabinet drawers has its own small brass push-button lock. There is a printed label slipped into the label holder on the face of each drawer. Some of them are in English, others in a script that I assume is probably Thai. From the ones I can see, some of the labels appear to bear the names of businesses or companies, while others are for individuals.

  “Let me see the flashlight.”

  Joselyn hands it to me.

  Each label appears to be printed on a standard form. In the upper left-hand corner of the label, in smaller twelve-point type printed in green ink, are the letters “TSCC Ltd.” Underneath this, also in green ink, are two lines of Thai lettering, each one followed by Arabic numerals on the same line. Beneath that in English is an “Office Telephone Number” and under that something called “Client Messaging System” with a different phone number.

  “The drawers look like they’re all locked. Even if we could get into them, we wouldn’t know where to begin looking,” says Joselyn.

  “Let’s start by going up and down the aisles. Check and see if anything jumps out at us.”

  “You mean ‘Waters of Death’?”

  I nod.

  “Charlie Four, can you hear me? Come in, Charlie Four.”

  “This is Charlie Four.”

  “Any sign of them?”

  “Negative. But I’m still looking.”

  “Charlie Three, do you read?”

  “HELLO! HELLO! THIS PATTAYA POLICE DEPARTMENT. WHO IS THIS?”

  Charlie One took his finger off the button on the wireless mike. “Shit!” He stood in the abandoned office on the third floor above the green door looking at his compatriot. “What do we do now?”

  “Why don’t I drop down, take a quick look, make sure they didn’t come into the building some other way.”

  “Do it,” said Charlie One.

  “Be back in a sec.” The other agent raced out the door and headed for the stairs.

  Charlie One hesitated for a second, then pressed the button on the mike once more. “Charlie Three, come in! Are you there?…”

  “THIS PATTAYA POLICE. WHO IS THIS!”

  “This is Charlie Three.”

  “Do you have them?”

  “N…” All of a sudden there was a screeching sound in the agents’ ears as somebody else toyed with the squelch on the band.

  “Damn.” Charlie One jerked the earbud from his right ear. He put his finger in and wiggled it around a little trying to relieve the pain. Then he held the bud up to his ear without putting it in. “Repeat. Charlie Three. Do you read?”

  “Nothing yet. I’m almost to their hotel. I’ll check there and let you kn…”

  “THIS IS LIEUTENANT CHATNGEON, PATTAYA POLICE. THIS OFFICIAL POLICE BAND. WHO IS THIS? IDENTIFY YOURSELF!”

  Charlie One released the button on the mike. He pulled out his cell phone and started to dial just as the door opened behind him.

  “Quiet as a tomb downstairs,” said his partner. “I took a peek from the stairwell. 208 is locked up tight, lights out as usual. I checked all the way down to the ground level. There’s no sign of them in the building. Who you calling?”

  “The embassy. If any of those three get themselves killed, Washington’s gonna have our scalps.”

  “What can the embassy do?”

  “If we don’t find them soon, we’re gonna need help. The Pattaya police aren’t gonna be feeling terribly helpful when they find out we’ve been working their turf without notice.”

  “And?”

  “And so we may need a royal dispensation,” said Charlie One.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Liquida talked for a minute or so to the motorbike taxi boy sitting in the beach chair up on the sidewalk. Body language indicated to Liquida that of the three kids lounging at the taxi stand, this one was probably the boss. After conversing for a while, he took out his money clip, peeled off a few bills, and handed them to the kid. The biker got up and followed him across the narrow alley of a side street where the two of them climbed a couple of high steps onto the tiled floor of an outdoor beer bar. The place was already starting to rock with loud music. By nine you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think.

  They sat down at a table, and Liquida ordered two beers. He talked to the bar girl who delivered them. After a few seconds, she pointed to one of the other women who was working the bar.

  The other woman was wearing a tight white dress with large burgundy flowers printed on the cloth. Liquida paid the barmaid for the beers and gave her a generous tip.

  She walked over and talked to the woman in the flowered dress and then gestured toward the table where Liquida and the taxi driver were seated. The woman in the tight dress walked over to Liquida’s table.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “The other lady says you speak good English,” said Liquida.

  “Yes?” She studied the pockmarks on his face.

  “This is my friend,” said Liquida.

  She glanced at the taxi driver seated next to him. The kid was hunched over the bottle of beer, his eyes cast down at the table. There was enough road grit on his face to know he probably hadn’t showered in two days.

  Liquida leaned toward the bike driver. “What’s your name?”

  The kid looked up and said, “Kee.”

  “This is my friend, Kee,” said Liquida. He wanted to make sure that the next time the girl saw him she would recognize him, so that there would be no problems. “If I get busy, sometimes Kee takes care of things for me.”

  “I see him before,” she said. “Over there.” She gestured toward the taxi stand where his friends were still hanging out.

  “Yes, well, I have a problem, you see. I wonder if you would mind doing me a favor? There are some papers I have to pick up in an office just across the street. Right over there.” Liquida pointed lazily in the direction of Second Road. “I have a conflict, you see, and I cannot go over and get them right now. It’s helpful to have someone who speaks such good English. I wonder if you would mind walking across the street and picking up these papers for me?”

  She turned and looked back toward the street, the direction where Liquida had pointed. This was not the usual request from one of her male customers. “I don’t know. I’m not really supposed to leave, not unless I am bar-fined out,” said the girl. A bar fine was the amount of money a customer paid to take a girl out of the bar.

  “I’d be happy to pay you if that’s the problem,” said Liquida.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know… Say five hundred baht?”

  She flexed her eyelids, jerked her head back just a bit and smiled. “You going to pay me five hundred baht just to walk across the street, pick up some papers, and come right back?”

  “Yeah.” The way she looked at him, Liquida knew he’d stepped in it. He tried to do some quick calculations and realized that he had just offered the girl fifteen bucks for a quick two-minute stroll across the street. This was probably two days’ wages working in the bar.

  The money was too easy. Now she was suspicious. “Why can’t you get it yourself?”

  “The problem is I’m supposed to meet a friend. He should be here any minute.” Liquida regrouped instantly. “If I’m not here when he shows up, he’s liable to leave thinking I decided not to come. And he doesn’t have a cell phone, so if I miss him I may not be able find him later. So you see, I have to stay here. And when my friend gets here, we have to leave immediately for a meeting and we need the papers. So you would be doing me a big favor.”

  “Why can’t he do it?” She look
ed at the biker.

  “He’s waiting for a fare; guy went up to get something in his room, said he’d be right back down,” said Liquida. “He can’t leave. Listen, if it’s too much trouble, don’t worry about it. I’ll find somebody else.”

  “Let me talk to my boss,” said the girl.

  “Sure, no problem. Go ahead. We’ll wait here.”

  She walked away and disappeared around behind the bar. Liquida sat waiting, thumping his fingers on the table to the beat of the music as the taxi boy sat drinking his beer.

  A few seconds later the girl came back. “My boss says I can go so long as I am back in five minutes.”

  “No problem. I’ll show you where it is. It’s just right across the street.” Liquida got up and told the taxi boy to sit tight. He picked up the beach bag and escorted the girl to the front corner of the bar where it bordered the sidewalk on Second Road. From here they had a good view across the street and to the south about a quarter of a block. He told her about the green door just beyond the tailor’s shop, next to the pharmacy. He waited for a break in the stalled traffic that was now bumper to bumper until they got a glimpse of the door. He described the interior of the office and told her the filing cabinet she was looking for should be in the second row from the right, about halfway down. Liquida hoped they hadn’t moved it since that first day when he set up the account and they gave him the tour.

  Then he grabbed one of the bar napkins, took a pen from his pocket, and wrote something on it. He handed her the napkin.

  “There will be a label on the drawer that will look just like this. It will have this typed on it in big letters. You can’t miss it. Just go ahead, take everything out of the drawer; there shouldn’t be that much. Drop it all in the bag and bring it back here. That’s all you have to do.” He handed her the beach bag and the keys and told her which one was for the office door and that the other was for the cabinet drawer. He gently took her arm and eased her toward the sidewalk. He thanked her and then watched as she slowly threaded her way through the stalled traffic toward the other side of the road.

  Harry was wondering what in the hell was taking so long. At first he was worried that something might have happened inside. He was tempted to knock on the door, but as he got up close to the translucent glass he saw the faint flicker of a light inside. They must have found some kind of a flashlight. He left them alone and checked his watch.

  He felt a little obvious standing outside the door, so he wandered down the hall toward the restrooms forty feet away. Just as he got there Harry heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. They were coming fast. There was no time to go back and tap on the glass. Besides, whoever it was was moving so fast they were probably on their way to the ground floor and out of the building, unless it was a call of nature.

  Harry figured he could hide in one of the stalls. He opened the door to the men’s room and stepped inside only to discover that the room was a single-holer, one commode. Good news was, there was a latch on the door.

  He waited to lock it to see if whoever it was would go on down the stairs. They didn’t. The footfalls suddenly stopped. Harry eased the door open just a crack. There was a guy, six feet tall, Caucasian, in slacks and a polo shirt standing just outside the stairwell. He was looking at the door to room 208 as if he was in a trance.

  The thought suddenly hit Harry that perhaps there was a motion sensor inside the room. If so, the janitor who fixed the lights might have reset it when he locked up, in which case it may have triggered a silent alarm. They needed to get the hell out of here.

  The guy in the polo shirt walked away, down the hall in the other direction. Just as Harry started to take a deep breath, the man came walking back, headed straight for the bathroom. Harry closed the crack and locked the door. Six seconds later he heard the door handle jiggle, and somebody pulled on it.

  If Harry had known the Thai word for busy, he would have used it. But he didn’t. So he just held his breath and hoped the guy would go away. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps going the other way, and then elephant feet on the stairs again, all the way down to the ground floor.

  Harry waited a couple of seconds, lifted the latch on the door, and peeked out. The coast was clear. He walked quickly down the hall toward the dark office. It was time to leave. Just as he got there, elephant foot was back. Coming up the stairs two at a time. Harry knew he was screwed. He stood there frozen, waiting for his fate. The guy was close enough that Harry could hear him breathing. Any second the man would step out of the stairwell and into the hall and Harry would be standing there in front of the dark door. That is, until he realized that the sound of the thudding footfalls was now coming from overhead. The guy had gone on up to the next floor.

  Harry let out a deep sigh. He was standing there catching his breath when he heard them. Much slower and lighter this time, a tapping patter on the concrete steps. High heels. The place was getting busier than Union Station. Harry turned around and rapped on the glass. “Come on!”

  The patter of the footsteps was getting closer. They seemed to be slowing as they approached the second floor. Harry skated on the balls of his feet down the hall as fast as he could. He grabbed the door and slid into the men’s room. He held the door open and caught his breath as he peered through the crack.

  The woman entered the hall from the stairwell. She didn’t even slow down. Instead she walked right up to the dark glass in the door and slipped a key into the lock.

  Chapter Twenty

  Traffic was thick as cement. It was approaching the peak of rush hour. Cars and tall tourist buses were parked in the lanes on Second Road. The little blue baht buses, light pickup trucks with stainless steel tops and benches in the back for passengers, were stacked up all over the shoulder of the road picking up and dropping off fares.

  Liquida watched the gal in the flowered dress as she threaded her way through the stalled traffic, checking between lanes so that she didn’t get creamed by a motorbike riding the lines.

  As soon as she disappeared, Liquida went back toward the table in the beer bar. He snapped his fingers, and the taxi bike kid got up from the table. He left his beer, and together the two of them headed back to the taxi stand where the bikes were parked. Liquida gave the kid a five-hundred-baht banknote. “You know what you’re supposed to do?”

  The kid nodded.

  “Sabai, comprende?” said Liquida. “You understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Soi 2.”

  With that Liquida turned and headed quickly back toward Second Road. When he got there, he turned right. But he didn’t go into his hotel. Instead he walked past it and kept going south along the sidewalk. He looked across the street to see if there was any sign of the girl. He didn’t see her. By now Liquida figured she must be inside the building.

  He picked up his pace and kept walking. He glanced over as he passed the green door on the other side of the street. He walked another fifty yards and stopped near the curb. Liquida took one last look around and then stepped off the sidewalk. He used a key from his pocket to pop the seat on one of the motorbikes parked at the sidewalk. He grabbed the helmet from under the seat and put it on. Then he fastened the strap under his chin and closed and latched the seat.

  Liquida took a deep breath, put the key in the ignition, threw his leg over the bike, straddled it, and began to roll it backward out onto the shoulder of the road. He turned the handlebars to the left and worked the bike back and forth a little with his feet until it was parallel to the stalled traffic and just a few feet off the road.

  Cars and buses were creeping forward, inches at a time. Liquida turned the key and pushed the starter button on the bike. The little Suzuki Hayate started up instantly, its engine purring almost silently as it idled.

  Liquida had rented the motorbike the day before. He used it the previous night to scout out the area behind the office building looking for signs of surveillance. He didn’t see anything, but he still wasn’t convinced. It was the reason he had li
ved this long.

  Joselyn and I take turns working high and low, using the small flashlight to quickly scan the labels on the filing cabinets and hoping the single battery in the Maglite lasts.

  We get to the bottom drawer at the end of the last aisle. Joselyn looks up at me. “That’s not it. So either there’s nothing here, in which case we’ve wasted a lot of time and a good deal of money,… or else it’s the one we saw back over there.”

  None of the labels on any of the cabinets bear the words Waters of Death.

  “That would explain why the fellow who leases the office-I assume he owns TSCC limited, whatever that is-why he told Thorpe’s people that he never heard of anything called Waters of Death,” says Joselyn.

  “Do you remember where it was?” I ask.

  She gets to her feet and starts walking along the back wall past the end of each aisle until she comes to the second row of cabinets. Using the Maglite, she flashes it up and down the face of each cabinet. “It was around here somewhere.”

  “As I recall it was up high, first or second drawer,” I tell her.

  She moves forward a few more cabinets. “Here it is.” She holds the light on the label. In the center of the two-by-three-inch label is the word WOD in large block letters, all capped. It is printed on the same form as every other label, with the three large black letters just under the smaller green print showing “TSCC Ltd.” and telephone numbers.

  Joselyn reaches up and grabs the handle on the drawer and pulls, but it is locked. You can see the small brass cylinder lock jiggle in its setting just a speck each time she jerks on the handle. “Any ideas?”

  “No. Last time I saw one of these locked up like that, it was in our office. Somebody lost the key. We had to call in a locksmith. It would take a crowbar to pry it open, and then we’d probably make enough noise to bring the whole place down on us.”

  Something catches my eye on the top right corner of the cabinet. “Here, let me see that.” I take the flashlight from Joselyn and look more closely.