by Barry Eisler
He offered them each a wai, the phones sandwiched between his palms. “Thank you, ladies. And I hope you won’t think I’m exaggerating when I say you might just have saved my life.”
The two girls both exclaimed “Thank you!” in English. Then they all ran off, probably to buy all sorts of Night Market goodies they hadn’t thought they could afford.
“That was nicely done,” Labee said. “I once bought a truck the same way.”
He handed her one of the units. They checked the phone numbers, called each other to confirm, and headed back to the entrance. Dox looked out at the sky again. He still didn’t like it.
“You know what? Let’s stay put for the moment. I have an idea.”
He downloaded Signal to the girl’s phone, then used it to call Kanezaki. After the exchange of IDs, he said, “How we doing over there?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Well, here’s the deal. I have a new phone I’ll be using. Obviously Signal’s working fine now, but let me give you the number in case I’m out of Wi-Fi range and you need to call me directly.” He read Kanezaki the number.
Kanezaki said, “What’s this about?”
“Just being careful, that’s all. You won’t be able to use the old number anymore. Reach me at this one.”
He clicked off again. “Come on,” he said. They headed out, and within a minute had found a pushcart vendor selling fried insects. He took out the burner he’d been using and powered it up. Labee obviously knew what he had in mind. Without saying a word, she did the same, handed him the phone, and started ordering various fried insects from the old woman pushing the cart. While the two of them were engaged, Dox knelt as though to adjust his hiking sandals and slipped the old phones into a box on a shelf at the bottom of the cart. When he stood, Labee was holding two bags of fried insects. The old woman gave them each a wai and moved off.
Dox watched her go. “You don’t think Dillon would hurt her, do you?”
Labee shook her head. “Even if someone tracks the phones, they’ll see her and instantly realize what we did.”
“I hope you’re right. I’ve got enough things I’m going to burn in hell for.” He upended the bag and poured a bunch of whatever was inside it into his mouth. “Dang, them’s good eating.”
Labee handed her his.
“You don’t like insects?” he said.
There was a pause. “When I was a girl, sometimes . . . that’s all I could find to eat.”
He suddenly felt like shit. “I’m sorry, Labee. I didn’t—”
“It’s fine. Just not a good association.” She gave him a small smile. “Not as bad as the port, though. So you don’t have to worry about my throwing up.”
He liked that she was joking with him. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of increasing comfort, or dealing with the stress of an op. Probably both.
He checked his watch. “Nine o’clock. Time to let Fallon know we’ve got new phones.” He took out Fallon’s card, input the number, and waited while the call went through.
“Hello?” came the familiar gravelly voice.
“It’s me. Got a new phone.”
“Good timing, too. Guess who just called.”
He looked at Labee and nodded. “Sorm?”
“You bet. I didn’t pick up. I texted back that I couldn’t talk, and asked him, ‘What time?’ It was oblique for communication-security purposes, and also exactly what he would have expected Leekpai to ask, given that they’d already agreed on the place. He texted back right away. Ten o’clock sharp.”
Dox felt a nice little hit of adrenaline snake out through his gut. “Outstanding. Sir, when this is done, I am buying you that Singha beer. Though I myself, you’ll be unsurprised to learn, will again be drinking Chang.”
“Well, you won’t be the only friend of mine who’s also a philistine. I’m going to stay in the area in case you need me. Just south of where the meeting is supposed to go down.”
“Appreciate that. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, but it’s good to know there’s backup if we need it.”
He clicked off. “You heard, right?”
Labee nodded. “Ten o’clock. Now all we need is—”
Dox’s phone buzzed. Signal. He answered.
“I got him,” Kanezaki said.
Dox nodded to Labee. “Tell me.”
“First, that number you told me might be Sorm’s—it came on five minutes ago. The parking lot west of the market. It made a call and received a text back.”
“I know about that one. Anything else?”
“Yes. As predicted, two brand-new burners, both activated at virtually the same time. The first from the same position as the call from the parking lot.”
“Sorm.”
“Yes. The second from right in the middle of the market.”
“Dillon.”
“Yes.”
Damn, that wasn’t much more than fifty yards from where they were standing. They were lucky they hadn’t just run into the guy. Or unlucky.
“Are they moving?”
“I don’t know. The phones are already off. But I was able to get a machine-text translation of the call.”
Dox grinned. “I meant it that time I called you a miracle worker.”
“Dillon wanted to know where Sorm was. Sorm was being cagey. He told Dillon to go to a place called Soul Garage in the northwest corner of the market. Do you know what that is?”
Dox had practically memorized everything he’d seen and learned online. “I know exactly what it is. A custom and vintage motor-scooter place in one of the market’s quieter sections.”
“Dillon was clearly trying to draw Sorm out, asking Sorm if he was already there. Sorm said not yet. ‘Just wait for me in front.’ I don’t think Dillon was happy. He was expecting Sorm to be in position. Then you could drop Sorm, and he could drop you. Now he’s the one who’s going to be a sitting duck.”
“I doubt Dillon would let that happen. But yes, most likely he’ll be heading in that direction. Call me if anything changes. I’m going after him.”
He clicked off, his blood up now at the prospect of how close Dillon was, and how close he was to killing the man. “Dillon’s likely heading toward Soul Garage from south of us. Sorm, I don’t know. He might be heading there from the parking lot on the west side of the market. But he wants Dillon to be there first, so it’s possible he’s going to check on the truck beforehand.”
“We should go for Dillon first. He’s—”
“Listen. You go to the truck. Sorm might be heading there now. That’ll give you a shot at Sorm while I go after Dillon. From the timing of their conversation, I expect I’m already behind him. But if I hurry, I can pick him up.”
“I don’t want to—”
“No, Labee. You can ride in front anytime you like. But tonight, I’m taking on Dillon. He killed the Dalai Lama. You can have Sorm. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”
He hadn’t meant to be so harsh. But this was not the time to fuck around.
She looked at him. “I thought we were partners.”
Damn it, she looked so hurt it might have killed him. But he couldn’t afford the distraction. “We are partners. With two separate jobs to do. Go to the damn truck. If Sorm shows up, he’s yours. If he doesn’t, make your way to Soul Garage and that’ll be your second chance. Now go on, git. There’s no time.”
He turned before her expression could change his mind and headed northwest across the market, his head swiveling as he moved. With all the people and tents and activity, it was about as bad a countersurveillance environment as imaginable, so Dillon would be having a hard time watching his back. The problem was, the same factors that would make it hard for Dillon to spot him were making it hard for him to find Dillon.
He cleared the tents and walked quickly up an avenue with long, low-slung brick buildings to either side, each with a half dozen stores selling anything anyone had ever invented that was vintage and kitsch. Unlike the antiques section on
the opposite side of the market, it was shadowy over here, the only illumination coming from a few incandescent bulbs strung overhead and from inside the stores. And though both sides of the thoroughfare were lined with antique trucks and microbuses, the finer specimens—and the crowds they attracted—were all on the other side.
The street grew darker. There were no people here at all. He didn’t like it.
He hugged the line of vehicles to his right, his eyes scanning the long, low rooftops, his hand around the grip of the Supergrade under his shirt.
Where are you, you son of a bitch. Where—
A soft voice came from eight feet behind him. “Don’t move, Dox.”
Dox froze. A huge hit of adrenaline mushroomed through his torso. Bastard had ghosted right up on him from between the parked trucks.
He didn’t move his head but swept the area in front of him with his eyes. He saw nothing threatening. Or, unfortunately, useful.
“How you doing, Dillon?” He was surprised, and not displeased, that his voice sounded so calm.
“I’m fine. I want you to very slowly take your hand out from under your shirt. Your empty hand.”
Dox complied.
“Good. Now where’s the woman?”
“Ah, ‘Cherchez la femme.’ A cliché maybe, but still, words to live by, if you ask me.”
A second went by. Then there was a shock and an explosion of white behind his eyes. He staggered. For a second, he thought he’d been shot. But then he realized—Dillon had pistol-whipped him in the head.
“That’s funny,” Dillon said, from a distance again but not as far as the first time. Maybe six feet now, or five. “You want to hear something serious? There’s lots more where that came from. Those three men in Pattaya were my best.”
Dox felt blood trickling down his neck from what must have been a gash in his scalp. It didn’t bother him. On the contrary, it was nice to have proof he was still alive. And besides, he’d been hit in the head more times than he could count, with fists, chairs, and on one memorable occasion with a rubber mallet, usually without much effect. He was hardheaded, figuratively, of course, but literally, too.
But Dillon didn’t know that. He’d think the blow from the gun butt had caused more damage than it had. Plus the man was obviously taking Pattaya very personally. If Dox could enrage him further—and hell, Dox had enraged experts in his time, he knew no one who could do it better—he might be able to get Dillon to momentarily forget the rule that if you could touch it, you could take it, and get closer than he ought to for the satisfaction of inflicting more punishment.
A long shot, no doubt, but actually a pretty sunny alternative compared to the overall current range of options.
“I feel your pain,” Dox said, putting a little grogginess into his tone and making sure to wobble as though the pistol-whipping had messed up his balance and coordination. “That sad moment when you realize your best just weren’t good enough.”
“I fought with those men, asshole,” Dillon said. Closer now. Four feet at most. “Bled with them.”
“Well, I don’t mean to sound Pollyannaish here, but the good news I guess is that they’re not bleeding anymore.”
“Okay,” Dillon said. At most three feet away now. “I’m going to ask you one more time. If you give me anything other than a straight answer, I’ll put a bullet in your head. Now. Where. Is. The woman.”
Damn, not as close as Dox had been hoping, but maybe close enough, and anyway he sensed this was the end of the line.
He relaxed—tension would slow him down and telegraph the move. He would just say whatever incongruous thing popped into his mind, hope it provided a second’s distraction, and spin and go for the disarm. Probably it wouldn’t work, but there was nothing complicated to consider. There just weren’t any other options.
“Here’s the thing about women—” he started to say.
Labee’s voice cut him off. “If you even think about pulling that trigger, it’ll be the second-to-last thing that goes through your brain.”
Without an instant’s worth of thought, Dox spun clockwise, bringing his right arm up and out, and snatched the gun straight out of Dillon’s hand. Labee took a long step away, keeping her gun pointed at Dillon’s back.
“Damn,” Dox said. “Those disarms really work. Or can work, anyway. I’d always hoped never to have to try one.” He glanced at the gun in wonder and saw a sweet little SIG P229.
Then he was flooded with a surge of relief so strong it actually made his knees buckle. “Hoo-boy,” he said. “I’ll tell you the truth. If you’d asked me a few seconds ago, I wouldn’t have predicted I’d be standing here right now. Oh, Labee. Don’t you ever again let me try to tell you what to do. In fact, I want you to start telling me.”
Dillon looked at him. “I’m not here for the two of you, you dumb hick. I’m here for Sorm.”
Dox laughed grimly. “Well, I expect that’s half-true. The wrong half.”
Labee stayed silent and steady. She knew Dillon was his. As Sorm was hers.
“What happened to you?” Dox said, keeping the SIG on Dillon. “Back in the day, you were a damn hero.”
Dillon sighed, apparently realizing his last ruse was done. “The higher you go . . . the more different it looks.”
“Yeah?” Labee said, apparently unable to contain herself. “How does selling children into sex slavery look from your exalted position? Because I could tell you a lot about how it looks from mine.”
Dillon looked at Dox. “I don’t suppose there’s any way we might start over?”
He sounded more amused by the absurdity of the notion than hopeful about its possibility. Dox had to admire the man’s cool.
“If there was,” he said, “you blew it when you killed the Dalai Lama.”
“The Dalai La—”
Dox stepped to the right so Labee would be off line in case the bullet went all the way through. And shot Dillon in the forehead.
Dillon’s head jerked and a spasm went through his arms. His legs folded and he collapsed backward, hitting the pavement with a dull thud.
“Yeah,” Dox said. “The Dalai Lama. That was for him, you son of a bitch. And I think he’d even have approved.”
“Take his phone,” Labee said. “Sorm.”
Dox knelt and started going through Dillon’s pockets. Dillon had been wearing cargo shorts like any good tourist, and it was a wonder Dox hadn’t heard the man clanking when he’d snuck up from behind, because he was carrying two cell phones, one satellite phone, and one cell-phone tracker. Not to mention the SIG, two spare magazines, and a nice little Emerson CQC-10 folder that Dox immediately took as a trophy, a habit he had once tried to explain to Rain but that the man would never understand.
“You shouldn’t have followed me,” he said as he stripped Dillon of the gear. “Not that I’m ungrateful, lord knows, but your best shot at Sorm might have been at the truck. We better hope he’s coming this way.”
It was a good thing the bellyband had extra compartments and was expandable, because at this point he had enough gear to fill a damn backpack. He got out of his shirt, pulled off the bellyband, and started filling it. He glanced at Labee, who was scanning the area, her gun at low ready. “Hey, did you hear me?”
She paused her scanning and looked at him. “We stick together.”
It was such a simple statement, and more a conclusion than an argument. But he found he had no response. So he just nodded and said, “All right, then.”
Among Dillon’s phones, only one of the mobiles was turned on, so that must have been the unit he was using to talk to Sorm. Dox kept that one out. By the time he was done filling the bellyband, he could tell it would be too much to run with. So he fixed it around his back and across a shoulder, then pulled the shirt on again, leaving it unbuttoned. A bit of a wild look, but the main thing was access to the Supergrade.
Wherever Sorm might be coming from, it seemed a safe bet he was still planning on meeting Dillon at Soul Garage,
so they hurried in that direction. The avenue grew lighter again, but visitors were still sparse. At the far end was an open garage with black-and-white tiled flooring in front and a sign overhead reading Soul Garage. A half dozen vintage scooters were lined up in the street before it. In between, on the sidewalk, were a few tables and chairs occupied by a handful of people, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. It looked like Soul Garage was as much a club as it was a shop.
They slowed and ducked between a pair of antique fire trucks parked fifty feet down the avenue. Labee started scanning behind them. Dox put his back to hers and scanned the other way.
“See anything?” he asked.
“No.”
Dillon’s phone buzzed. Dox glanced at Labee. She nodded. He clicked the answer button and raised the phone to his head. “Yeah,” he said, trying to imitate Dillon’s smooth voice and Yankee accent and keeping his voice low as though trying not to be heard.
“Where are you?” The accent was weird—Southeast Asian, French, he couldn’t tell.
“At Soul Garage. Where are you?”
“I’m looking at Soul Garage . . . who is this?”
Dead phone.
“Damn it,” Dox said. “He made us. But he’s close.”
They looked around wildly. They saw nothing.
“He must have been across from it,” Labee said. “If he’s heading south toward the container, he’s on the other side of those buildings. Come on!”
She pulled the Glock and took off running. Dox followed close behind, gripping the Supergrade. At the first break in the long buildings, she cut left, then right again. Thirty yards ahead were the tents and lights and crowds.
“Slow down,” Dox said. “Slow down. This is how Dillon got me, I was moving too fast and didn’t spot where he’d set up.”
But she didn’t listen. Damn, she was fast. He was having trouble keeping up.
At the edge of the tents and heading south was a short man in beige slacks and a white button-down shirt. The kind of outfit designed not to be noticed. The man had gray hair, was holding a cell phone to his head, and was moving about as quickly as possible without his speed becoming obvious.