by Barry Eisler
“Can you get me some of them Asian-midget-porn channels for free?” Dox had asked, upon hearing the news about the club’s vulnerabilities.
“Absolutely,” Kanezaki had replied, dry as ever. “And we’ll erase any minibar charges, too.”
“Oo-rah, I knew there was a reason I agreed to do this job.”
Kanezaki laughed. “Look, we know from the server log when the locks are activated and deactivated. There are workers in Les Nuits getting the club ready for business from six o’clock every evening. Then the club opens at nine and closes at four in the morning, at which point cleaning crews are there until eight. So I can pop the locks and get you close to a ten-hour window with the club all to yourself. But you also have security cameras everywhere.”
“If you can open the doors for me, can’t you take out the cameras?”
“We can, but we can’t guarantee a security guard won’t be watching the feed. Probably there won’t be—it’s just an empty club, after all, not a bank or a military installation—but we don’t know. Sorm’s presence might have changed their security posture.”
“Call me old fashioned, but I have to respectfully tell you once again that I think it would be a whole lot less trouble for me to just shoot this sumbitch and be on my way. Fewer moving parts and all that. Though damn it, I did promise Mr. Vann I wouldn’t.”
“Also, if you killed him, my guys wouldn’t get a chance to interrogate him en route to New York.”
“My God, the lengths you will go to, just to satisfy a little curiosity.”
Kanezaki laughed. “It’s more than that. Sorm has been around forever, first with CIA, and now DIA. He’s always been dirty, as dirty as it gets. Which makes him a poison pill for everyone. I mean, if he were ever to testify, shit, how would we explain working with, protecting a guy like that? Former Khmer Rouge? Human trafficking?”
“You want to know why DIA would take that risk. Especially with Sorm under indictment.”
“Yes. What are they getting from him?”
“And how do you get it for yourself?”
“Maybe. Depending on the risk-reward ratio. But look, from your perspective, once Sorm is at trial and then in a cell, no one will be motivated to kill Vann anymore. Vann said killing him was about slowing down his Sorm investigation, dragging things out until the next GIFT person takes over and the whole thing can be deep-sixed. But once the trial starts, there’s nothing to slow down anymore. There’s no longer an advantage to killing Vann.”
“Well, I’m fond of Mr. Vann, seeing as how he reminds me of the Dalai Lama and all. But remind me of how all that helps me?”
“Once we interrogate Sorm and figure out who at DIA is behind him, we shouldn’t have much trouble mending fences. Maybe what you did to Gant feels a little personal to them, but not unduly so. After all, you only killed Gant when you found out he was trying to do the same to you. Right?”
“That’s right.”
“I think they should understand that. And Gant’s accomplices and the sword guy, too. You never behaved other than professionally. Anyway, maybe right now they’re worried about you. But when Sorm is in custody, they’ll be worried about him. He’ll want to cut a deal, for immunity or at least a reduced sentence. He’ll threaten to spill everything. At that point, you’ll no longer be a focus.”
“I don’t mean to sound as though I’m not reassured, but I’m looking for something a little longer term than ‘at that point.’”
“At that point—and after—we ought to have plenty of opportunities to ameliorate tensions. There are only two ways this thing ends. Either Sorm will spill the beans about what he’s been up to for all these years while on the Uncle Sam payroll, and what DIA tried to do to Vann to protect him, in which case your knowledge of how they tried to kill Vann is superseded. Or—”
“Or Sorm hangs himself in his jail cell.”
“In which case I make sure to explain to whoever that if you were going to be indiscreet, you would have done so already. But you haven’t been, because overall you’re a live-and-let-live kind of guy.”
Dox would have preferred the first scenario, with Sorm testifying, but the safe bet seemed like the second. And he knew Kanezaki was stringing him along at least a little, but he’d also learned that when Kanezaki played the game, there was always some kind of secret side bet. So far, there had never been a conflict between that side bet and the primary action.
So far.
And that’s where they’d left it. Not a perfect plan or a complete solution, but it was also true that when you wound up blowing a DIA officer’s brains out, the road back to whatever you called normal was apt to be somewhat serpentine.
He kept strolling along, passing more bar patios and more rheumy-eyed old white men. Seeing them everywhere made the town feel like a damn hospice or something. He wondered about his mood. He’d liked Pattaya well enough back in the day. Maybe it was different when you got older. Maybe seeing all those pensioners made you start thinking about how you could become one of them, about how maybe that process was already stealthily under way. After all, they’d never expected it to happen to them, had they? And then, one day, you’d find yourself nursing a hangover and your fourth noontime beer on the patio of your local bar, trying to make sense of it all, how’d you’d fallen so far and never even noticed, how all the goodness you’d always expected from life had gone and evaporated and you’d never even realized until it was too late.
Jesus, man, what’s wrong with you?
He shook it off. There was a place for philosophizing, and okay, maybe he ought to make a little more time for it. But right now, he was operational. Best to do things in their proper order.
He came to what Kanezaki had told him to look for—an alley between a tiny store called Siam Silver and an open-air restaurant called Best Foods. He made a right and immediately came to a dilapidated place called Best Friend Bar 10, with vinyl-covered stools lined up under a corrugated awning. It seemed there was only one patron, a white guy of about sixty in tan cargo shorts and a plain blue tee shirt, sitting on one of the stools and angled in such a way that he had a view of the alley and the street beyond it, a half-empty bottle of Singha in front of him. The guy was wearing gray aviator shades, but even so, Dox could tell the guy had clocked him immediately, not that he’d made any show of it, his head turning slightly past like he’d been taking in the sights and not focusing on anything in particular. Unlike the area’s typical retirees, this guy looked solid—not a gym rat, exactly, but not someone whose only exercise was lifting a beer up and down all day, either. Plus the guy was wearing hiking sandals—the same as Dox, in fact, light enough not to be out of place in the area, but a hell of a lot sturdier, more protective, and more reliable than the flip-flops more commonly favored by Pattaya expats. His toes were on the ground, too, where they could do some good in a hurry if there were a problem, not wrapped around the back of the bar stool. A khaki mailbag rested by his feet, the strap looped over one of his knees.
Dox made sure the guy could see his hands were empty and moved slowly past. He stopped a little ways down and plonked himself onto a stool, the guy to his left and well within his peripheral vision. The guy was facing forward now, keeping an eye on Dox just like Dox was keeping one on him, his hands on the bar like a good professional letting a contact know he wasn’t a threat. Or at least not an immediate one.
A young Thai guy was sitting behind the bar, reading a magazine and getting hot air blown onto his back by a fan perched alongside the bottles lined up behind him. “Hey there,” Dox called out to him. “What’s a man gotta do around here to get an ice-cold beer?”
The bartender stood. “Singha sixty baht.”
“I favor Chang. Got any of that?”
“Chang sixty-five baht.”
“Well worth the premium, in my opinion. I’ll have one, thank you. And it can’t be cold enough.”
Dox pulled out a crumpled hundred-baht note and smoothed it out on the bar. A moment
later, the bartender placed a frosty bottle of Chang in front of him, popped the cap, and went back to his reading.
Dox glanced at the guy to his left, lifted the bottle, took a long, tasty pull, and belched. “How’s your day going?”
“Can’t complain.”
The guy had a gravelly voice. Maybe a smoker. For some reason, Dox had the sense he was a former marine. It would have been hard to say why—it was just one of those things you could tell, like when a beautiful woman was actually a lady-boy. Well, scratch that, there’d been that one time in Bangkok when he hadn’t known, and was about to go back to his hotel with a gorgeous creature named Tiara when Rain had belatedly—and way too reluctantly—interceded. The man still liked to give Dox grief about the incident, or near incident, and it was true Dox had been mortified at the time. But he’d come to figure, hell, if it had happened with Tiara, the world would have kept on spinning and it would have been just one more strange thing that had happened to him on this crazy ride of life.
“I’m guessing you’re from around here,” Dox said, departing somewhat from the bona fides Kanezaki had provided him. Just walking up and saying The moon is blue or whatever always felt so artificial to him. “You mind if I ask you a question?”
The guy took a sip of beer. “Go ahead.”
“What do you reckon is the best go-go bar in all of Pattaya?”
“Pattaya go-go bars are overrated. Try Phuket. Better yet, Soi Cowboy in Bangkok.”
Bingo.
The script now called for the guy to exit stage right, leaving behind the mailbag. But for whatever reason, that scenario was suddenly making Dox’s teeth itch. He got up and sat next to the guy. The guy watched him, scowling a little as though perplexed or irritated at the departure from the script, and from sound tradecraft, as well. But the way Dox saw it, scripts and tradecraft and all that were more a guideline than a rule. Marines were encouraged to adapt and improvise. And besides, his whole nom de guerre was short for “unorthodox.” It would be a pity not to live up to the name.
“I like your bag,” Dox said, gesturing with a finger and thereby drawing attention to the very thing that was supposed to be most unobtrusive in their interaction. “Had one just like it I bought from a J. Peterman catalogue back in the day, but a light-fingered lady made off with it in the dead of night, along with my heart.”
“That’s a sad story,” the guy said, appealingly unfazed.
Dox raised his beer in agreement, took a sip, and set it down. “It is, it is. Though in the strangest way, I realize now the bag is somehow associated with her in my mind. Would you do me the kindness of allowing me to have a look at yours? For me, it would be a little trip down memory lane, and I’d be grateful.”
The guy took a casual glance around. It didn’t feel like a witness check, more an Are we being watched? kind of thing.
He pulled the strap from his knee and handed it to Dox. “Be my guest.”
Dox set the bag on his lap. If there was a bomb in it, it would blow his balls off, but the rest of him would be gone, too, so he wouldn’t have to miss them. He didn’t really think there was a bomb—Kanezaki was solid, he knew that—but the shit with Gant and then the sword guy had rattled him a little, and he didn’t like the idea of a stranger handing him a package and walking off to some minimum safe distance, at which point the package could easily go boom. Better to confirm. And the fact that Mr. Gravelly Voice seemed unperturbed to have Dox handling the bag right alongside him, while perhaps not confirmation itself, was at least reassuring.
He opened the flap and took a peek inside. Immediately visible was the very Wilson Combat Tactical Supergrade he’d requested, along with two spare magazines. There was also a fist-sized metal canister labeled CTS MODEL 7290-9 FLASH BANG. 1.5 SECOND DELAY.
He might have reached inside, but that could have made his new friend understandably nervous. In his experience, these encounters tended to go better when everyone tried to keep everyone else relaxed. So instead, he gave the bag a good shake. The guy just frowned a little, as though perplexed or impatient. Well, perplexed and impatient were fine, as they weren’t the typical reactions of a man sitting alongside someone shaking a bag with a bomb inside it.
He supposed it was possible the guy himself had been duped and didn’t know that what he thought was a flashbang was in fact an IED. But these what-if scenarios were getting increasingly unlikely. Probably Rain would have brought along an X-ray machine, or explosive-detection wipes, or a bomb-disposal robot, or whatever, before signing for the package, but Dox himself felt satisfied.
He took another swallow of the cold Chang, glanced around, shouldered the bag, and stood. “Well, sir, I’d like to stay and chat, but I’ve got places to go and people to meet. If you don’t mind my saying, I do like your style, and I’m not talking only about your taste in mailbags.”
“Yours is interesting, too.” The guy seemed to be struggling not to smile.
“Well, thank you. People say it’s an acquired taste, but I like to think your more discerning types can appreciate it right away. I hope our paths will cross again sometime.”
The guy looked at him as though trying to decide something. Then he reached into a pocket and produced a card. Dox took it. Mark Fallon, the card said. Tips Tours & Trips. With an address, email, and phone number. On the opposite side was the same information in Thai.
“You speak Thai?” Dox asked, pocketing the card.
“I’ve been out here for a while. You think you’re the only one with a sad story about a stolen heart?”
Dox chuckled. “No, sadly, life’s hardships are more widely distributed than just that.” He held out his hand. “Call me Dox.”
They shook. “Fallon.”
“I’m glad to make your acquaintance, sir.”
Fallon lifted his beer. “Good luck to you.”
“And to you. Semper fi.”
Fallon smiled at that, and Dox knew he’d been right about his being a fellow jarhead. He gave a nod, headed back to the street, and caught a tuk-tuk. It was time to get to know the world-famous Ruby Hotel.
17
Livia tossed and turned for a long time, juiced on adrenaline, replaying over and over in her mind everything that had happened at the airplane graveyard and the quarry. Killing Dirty Beard, knowing he was dead, remembering his terror and helplessness and shrieks of agony . . . it suffused her with something. Peace. Fulfillment. A measure of satisfaction, she supposed, at the feeling that maybe there could be a tiny bit of justice amid so much horror and cruelty.
But at the same time, she was worried again the feeling wouldn’t last. She didn’t sense that emptiness, the way she had after killing Square Head. But she could tell she would. She didn’t understand how that could be. She was making them pay. All of them, one by one. What she’d longed for, dreamed of, fantasized about, obsessed over, for sixteen fucking years. It wasn’t right that killing them wouldn’t offer more than a palliative. It wasn’t fair.
She tried thinking of something else. How to get to Sorm. Yes. That seemed to help. She needed a way that didn’t involve Little. But she couldn’t find one. The best she could devise was something that might mitigate her risk, not eliminate it.
But no risk, no reward.
She called him. It was the middle of the night in Thailand, so afternoon the next day in the States.
“Livia,” he said when she put the call through. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Or a surprise, anyway.”
“Is there a problem?”
“More an opportunity.”
“What can I do?”
“Do you know someone named Sorm? Rithisak Sorm.”
There was a pause. “You know I do,” he said. “His name is in the files I shared with you.”
“And do you know where he’s located?”
“If you read those files, you know I don’t.”
“Well, I think I do.”
There was another pause. “I don’t mean to sound
doubtful,” he said. “But . . . I’ve had people looking for Rithisak Sorm for a long time. The man’s a ghost. Are you sure you’ve located him?”
“No. But it’s a solid lead.”
“What kind of lead?”
“Just a lead. But to follow up on it, I’m going to need your help.”
“And you don’t like asking for help, do you?”
“Do you want to keep trying to psychoanalyze me? Or do you want to get Sorm?”
“Can’t I do both?”
She ignored that, having made her point. “I think he’s at a club in Pattaya. Les Nuits. In the Ruby Hotel.”
“Okay.”
“I think he’s using the club as a trafficking conduit.” That wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t untrue, either—she didn’t know that Sorm wasn’t using the club that way, and the elision would obscure her reasons for asking Little for help. “I want to get a closer look.”
“Why do you need me for that?”
“Because I want to get into areas not ordinarily accessible to guests.”
“Livia, I like your style.”
“But I don’t know your capabilities,” she went on. “You said you have resources to waste. Well, can you get schematics for the club? Identify security vulnerabilities? Exploit them?”
“Yes, yes, and maybe.”