by Barry Eisler
Fallon didn’t respond.
“Let me put it this way,” Carl went on. “Had I shared Labee’s and my plans with Kanezaki, whose name Labee is at this point familiar with, I have no doubt he would have approved. But nor did I see any need to burden him.”
Fallon nodded, seemingly unfazed about Livia knowing Kanezaki’s name. Maybe he figured if there was a problem, it was on Carl. “That’s fair. If I’m going to get involved, though, I have to ask why you think Kanezaki would have approved.”
“Because Kanezaki, as I’m sure you know, is one of the good guys. And the Thai gentleman we aim to speak with is most assuredly not.”
Livia was getting tired of all the circumlocutions. “His name is Leekpai,” she said. “He sells children to rapists. If that’s something you’d like to stop, then you should help us. If you don’t care, then we don’t need your help. Or want it.”
She had a feeling her interjection must have exasperated Carl, but to his credit, he showed nothing.
Fallon looked at her. Finally, he said, “Sells children, you say?”
“Yes.”
“To rapists.”
“Yes.”
He nodded, and his expression hardened in a way she liked.
He looked at Carl. “We don’t know each other well. But I don’t think you’re a bullshitter. And Kanezaki certainly doesn’t think so.”
Carl sipped his beer. “You’re both right.”
Fallon nodded. “All right. What do you need from me? And if the answer is just translation services, I’m going to be disappointed.”
An hour later, the three of them were sitting in a twelve-person passenger van in a parking area at Bangkok Port in Khlong Toei, a long, baking asphalt scar wedged between the opaque green Chao Phraya River and the labyrinthine metal tubes of some sort of refinery. Livia had used the Gossamer to track Leekpai here. He was somewhere inside the port, beyond a security fence, so there was nothing to do but hope his vehicle was parked somewhere in the enormous lot, and that he would soon return for it. The thought that she might finally be on the verge of learning where she could find that little girl, who Dirty Beard said he had acquired from Leekpai, was maddening. She kept trying to push it out of her mind, but it kept forcing its way back.
Apparently, Fallon owned several vans—two of them with the doors stenciled TIPS TOURS & TRIPS; the third, the one they were in, unmarked. And on this occasion, sporting stolen plates, as well. Just in case. Fallon was in the driver’s seat, Carl in the passenger’s seat, and Livia in back, sheet plastic spread out across the seats and footwells. She was monitoring the Gossamer carefully, not just because she didn’t want to miss Leekpai, but because it was the only way she could distract herself from her surroundings. The smell of polluted water and bird shit and diesel, and the sight of the massive container-moving machines that she had first seen at night and thought were monsters when the men drove her and Nason and the other children to the port . . . it was reanimating that early overwhelming, primal terror. It was making her feel like that little girl again, so panicked, so helpless, so unable even to understand what was happening or to do anything at all to stop it.
Carl and Fallon had been talking about life in Southeast Asia, but Carl must have sensed her distress because he looked back and said, “Everything all right?”
She nodded, not looking up from the Gossamer.
“You sure?”
She nodded again. She was so anxious she thought she might throw up.
Easy, girl. Just breathe. Like before a judo match. Like that. Just breathe.
“Hey,” Carl said, “we don’t have to do anything. When Leekpai shows himself, old Fallon here is going to bring him right in. All you and I need to do is wait.”
She nodded again.
For a gruff guy, Fallon must have had a sensitive side, too, because he said, “I know you’d do it yourself if you could, Labee, but we’ve already discussed this. Too big a chance this guy has been briefed on one or both of you. So just relax and leave it to me.”
Ten minutes later, and about one minute before she thought she would have to step out of the van and throw up, Leekpai’s phone started moving. “Here we go,” she said.
She kept her eyes trained on the Gossamer. In a few seconds, she had confirmed Leekpai’s direction. “Coming toward us,” she said. “The parking lot.”
Fallon said, “Murphy’s law.”
She looked up. And saw what he meant. The parking area was crowded with cars, but had been mostly devoid of people while they were waiting. But now waves of them were approaching from the river. A ferry must have come in, maybe more than one.
“Hell,” Carl said. “Which one is Leekpai?”
“Call him,” Livia said. “He’s . . . fifty yards away. Call him now.”
Fallon pulled out a phone. Livia read Leekpai’s number aloud. Fallon input it, then opened the driver’s door and got out. Carl exited, opened the rear sliding passengers’ door, and got in next to Livia. He was holding the Supergrade in his lap. In case Fallon ran into any opposition.
“Everybody take it easy,” Fallon said. “I’ll be right back.” He pressed the “Send” button on his phone, dropped the unit in his pocket, and started walking toward the river.
Livia and Carl scanned the crowds coming toward them. A lot of the people were talking on mobile phones. But twenty yards away, a middle-aged Thai guy with long, greasy hair and a face as round as a full moon reached into his pants pocket, then held a phone to his ear. He spoke into it, waited, and spoke again. Then he looked at the phone as though confused, and dropped it back into his pocket. Leekpai.
There were two other Thai men, younger- and fitter-looking than Leekpai, just ahead of him and to each side. They both looked back when his phone rang, then faced forward again, scanning the crowds. Bodyguards.
Carl saw it, too. “Shit,” he said. “You get the wheel and bring the van around. This doesn’t look like it’s going to be as subtle as we’d hoped.”
He jumped out the sliding door and jammed the Supergrade into the back of his shorts. Ten yards away, the two bodyguards were looking at Fallon. Looking at him hard.
Carl started waving frantically in their direction. “Dr. Rosen!” he called out, as loudly as though he was using a bullhorn, pointing at Fallon as he moved. “Dr. Rosen! Is that really you? All the way here in Bangkok? My God, what are the chances? Everybody, look, that is Dr. Evan Rosen, right here in the flesh, a world-famous Harvard physician and healer and very handsome man, too, and he is right here in Bangkok, gracing us with his exalted presence!”
Probably no one could even understand him, but the spectacle was enough to get everyone—even the bodyguards—to look first at Carl and then at Fallon, who without missing a beat but with a distinctly irritated expression called back to Carl, “Bob, is that really you?”
“You bet it is,” Carl said, and then the Supergrade was coming around, and the bodyguards’ eyes bulged, and they reached behind them, and Carl dropped the near one with a headshot and Fallon hit the other the same way. Livia popped the clutch, burned rubber backward from between the cars to either side, yanked the hand brake hard and did a J-turn 180, threw it into first, and rocketed forward, then a second later jammed on the brakes and screeched to a stop right next to them, scattering the people nearby. Carl and Fallon already had Leekpai by the arms and threw him in back, landing on top of him an instant later. Carl flung the sliding door closed and yelled, “Go!” And nearly fell backward, because before the word was even out of his mouth, Livia had hit it again and they were accelerating out of the parking lot.
In two minutes, they passed under the expressway, headed briefly north, and made a squealing right onto Rama IV Road. Livia immediately slowed down and merged with local traffic.
“Holy shit, can you drive!” Fallon called from in back.
Carl laughed. “That ain’t nothing, you should see her shoot!”
Five minutes later, they were on secondary roads. Liv
ia immediately pulled over, opened the door, leaned out, and puked onto the gravel shoulder. She remained that way for a moment, gasping, afraid there was more. When she was sure it had passed, she pulled the door closed, wiped her mouth, and drove off.
“Sorry,” she said. “The port . . . isn’t a good place for me.”
“Sorry for what?” Fallon said. “Anyone who can drive like you is welcome to puke right inside the van.”
They stopped a little while later, in the shadows under the elevated toll road. Carl and Fallon had duct-taped Leekpai’s ankles together and his wrists behind his back. He lay prone in the footwell, his body arched across the center hump, his face pale and plainly terrified. Livia moved the front seats forward and joined them in back.
She glanced at Fallon. “Look at his phone. Let’s be sure it’s him.”
“I already checked his license while you were driving.”
“Good. But I also want to see who he’s been calling.”
Fallon reached into his own pocket, pulled out a mobile phone, and pressed the power button. “Passcode protected,” he said.
“Tell him we need the passcode.”
Fallon told him. Leekpai shook his head.
“Ask him if he knows who I am,” Livia said.
Fallon did. Leekpai shook his head again. But a dark stain began to spread out at his crotch and the interior of the van suddenly reeked of urine.
“Glad we put plastic down,” Carl said. “Even sanguine as you are about good drivers puking in your vehicles.”
“You’re lying,” Livia said to Leekpai, with Fallon translating in real time. “You do know who I am. Vivavapit. Sakda. Juntasa. That’s who I am.”
Even before Fallon was translating, Leekpai began to blubber.
“Shh,” she said softly. “Shh. They were the ones who took my sister and me. Not you. That means you have a chance they never did. Now tell us the passcode. Don’t make me ask again.”
Fallon translated. Leekpai mumbled a four-digit number. Fallon input it. “Bingo,” he said.
Livia nodded. “See if he has an address-book entry for a Rithisak Sorm.”
“He’s got nothing in the address book. This phone’s a burner.”
She kept her eyes on Leekpai. “What about recent calls?”
Fallon worked the keypad. “A half dozen numbers. No names. Most of the calls made today. A few yesterday, too. Yesterday’s are all to the same number, and he called that number today, too, just before we grabbed him.”
“Tell me the number.”
Fallon told her. She input it into the Gossamer. Nothing. The number Leekpai had called belonged to a phone that was currently turned off.
Carl said, “Sorm, you think?”
Leekpai’s eyes bulged in terror and despair at Sorm’s name.
She looked at him, then nodded to Carl. “Looks like Sorm turned off his phone right after that last conversation. Probably radio silence in advance of the meeting with Dillon. Fallon—ask him.”
Fallon did. And said, “Yes. Sorm told him to turn off the phone. Until nine o’clock. He was going to, but we got to him first.”
“Why nine o’clock?”
Fallon translated. Leekpai shook his head and said nothing.
She looked at Leekpai. “What’s happening tonight at the Srinakarin Night Market? What did Sorm tell you?”
Fallon translated. Leekpai shook his head again.
“We know about the meeting,” she said. “If what you tell us now tracks with our information, you can live. If you won’t tell us, or if you lie, I’ll do to you what I did to the others.”
Fallon translated. Leekpai stopped shaking his head and began talking—or babbling, really. Several times Fallon had to stop him, slow him down, ask clarifying questions. But the gist was, Sorm was meeting an important visitor at the Night Market. A visitor who wanted a firsthand look at the trade.
“Are you talking about Dillon?” she asked. But when Fallon translated, Leekpai merely shook his head. Apparently, Sorm hadn’t shared the visitor’s name. She hadn’t really been expecting otherwise.
“Who did you call right before we took you?” she said. Fallon translated. Leekpai began to beg.
“I already know the answer,” Livia said. “I want to hear you say it.”
Fallon translated. Leekpai said, “Sorm.” And immediately began to beg again.
She felt a hunch bubble up. “Are you bringing children from the port to the market tonight? Or is it the other way around?”
Fallon translated. Leekpai spoke rapidly. Fallon listened, then said, “The children are at the market now. They were supposed to be brought to the port two days ago, but Sorm wanted to show them to the visitor. Leekpai was at the port to pay the boat captain for waiting.”
Livia tried to control her excitement. And her rage. She looked down at Leekpai. “Two months ago, you provided a little girl to Krit Juntasa. So the American senator could rape her. Who was she? Where is she now?”
Fallon translated and listened to the response. “He says he doesn’t know.”
She breathed deeply, in and out, trying to control the dragon. “Doesn’t know who she was? Or where she is now?”
Fallon translated. “He says neither.”
She stared at Leekpai, feeling the dragon slipping loose, trying to hold it back. “Tell him I’ll do to him what I did to Sakda if he doesn’t stop lying.”
Fallon translated. Leekpai began blubbering again and words rushed out of his mouth. Fallon translated simultaneously, “‘Sakda came for a girl, but I didn’t know who she was or what she was for. Or what happened to her after. Sorm knows those things. Only Sorm.’”
The dragon broke loose. Livia yelled, “You fucking liar!” She grabbed him by the hair, cleared and opened the Infidel—
Instantly, Carl’s hand was on her arm, holding it back. “Labee. I don’t think he knows.”
Cut his face his eyes hurt him make him pay make him pay MAKE THEM ALL FUCKING PAY
Her arm trembled. Carl said, “You’re doing a great job with him. We need the information. Keep going. You’re doing great.”
She breathed hard in and out again. And somehow managed to beat the dragon back. She closed the Infidel. Leekpai watched her, his eyes bulging with fear. She realized they couldn’t have done a better good-cop-bad-cop if they’d been trying.
She blew out one more breath and said, “Where are they being held at the Night Market? And that, you better fucking know.”
Fallon translated, listened to the response, and said, “He says they’re in a shipping container.”
Instantly her heart was pounding, her mind flooded with images of the container she and Nason had been held in. The dark. The echo. The smell. She tried to shove it away and couldn’t. “In this heat,” she said, her voice rising. “You left them in a sealed container in this heat?”
Fallon translated, listened, then looked at Livia. “He says there are air holes. And dry ice.”
Yes, she supposed there would be. A farmer doesn’t want his produce to rot en route to the market.
But that didn’t mean it never happened, regardless.
“Which container?” she said. “Where? Tell him to be specific.”
Fallon and Leekpai engaged in more back and forth. Fallon said, “He says Sanam Golf Alley. I don’t know what that is.”
“Hold on,” Carl said. He got out his phone and fired it up. After a minute, he said, “It’s not an alley, actually, it’s the name of a road. There’s a golf course on the east side of the market. Sanam Golf Alley runs along it. In between looks like . . . parking for the golf course. Maybe deserted at night. And south of that is a gas station and . . . maybe a junkyard or I don’t know what. That might be the place, too. Either way, we know the general location.”
Livia looked down at Leekpai. “How long will the children be there?”
Fallon engaged Leekpai for a long time, then said, “If they’re not at the port at midnight, the boat will leave
without them. The captain is upset and the buyers are furious. Sorm’s visitor is supposed to hand over a big bribe both for the captain and for the buyers. Sorm has to deliver it personally to avert some kind of trouble.”
“Is the girl with them?” she asked. “The girl you gave Sakda.”
In her peripheral vision, she could see Carl looking at her, concern in his expression. She knew the question didn’t make sense. Why would that little girl be in this shipment? But maybe she was. She could be. She had to be somewhere.
Fallon translated. “He swears he doesn’t know. Sorm knows.”
Please, she thought. Please let that be true.
“Who are the buyers?”
Fallon translated. Leekpai spoke. Fallon said, “A Ukrainian crime syndicate. He thinks. He says Sorm knows.”
“Why does he think it’s Ukrainians?”
Another exchange. “He says Sorm is very nervous about the delay. And that only the Ukrainians make Sorm that nervous. Because they’re ruthless and crazy.”
Livia was familiar with the reputation of Ukrainian trafficking gangs. She looked at Leekpai. “Are you supposed to meet Sorm at the shipping container?”
Fallon translated. Leekpai nodded.
“What time?”
Again Fallon translated. He listened to the reply, asked more questions, then said, “He doesn’t know exactly what time. Sorm is supposed to call him.”
“But he must have some parameters.”
Fallon asked more questions, then said, “He’s supposed to be at the Night Market no later than nine. And to turn on his phone when he arrives.”
Carl said, “Then Sorm’s not expecting Dillon until then, either.”
“But it won’t be much later,” Livia said. “Sorm needs time to get those kids to the port. He can’t be late.”
Carl nodded. “That gives us a manageable window.”
Livia thought for a moment. Sorm was going to call Leekpai. They had Leekpai’s phone. But the conversation would be in Thai. Even if they were texting, her language skills wouldn’t be even close to adequate.
Fallon must have had some notion, because he said, “How can I help?”
Livia looked at him. “Can you hold on to his phone?”