by Jake Needham
It didn’t help when I stepped out of the elevator on the lower level and Alisa wasn’t there. I didn’t see anybody at all, and the longer I stood around waiting, the more exposed and vulnerable I felt.
I had just turned to get back in the elevator when I heard the BEEP of an air horn and a green motorbike rolled down the garage ramp and stopped in front of me. I didn’t recognize the make, but then I didn’t know much about motorbikes so that was hardly a surprise. A little dirty and with a few scratches, it could have been any one of a hundred bikes that had roared up Sukhumvit Road in the last few minutes, which I supposed was pretty much the whole idea. The rider who wore jeans, a black windbreaker, and a black helmet with the mirrored faceplate closed could have been anybody, too.
Alisa flipped up the faceplate with one hand. With the other, she tossed me an identical helmet that had been hanging from the handlebar by its chinstrap.
“Get on,” she said.
I swung onto the pillion seat behind her and pulled on the helmet, but I was still fumbling with the chinstrap when she slapped down her faceplate, racked the throttle, and roared the wrong way down the driveway out into Sukhumvit Road. My hands flew to the grab handle on the back of the seat and I avoided, if only barely, getting dumped on my ass right there in front of the Sheraton. That really would have been a bad start to the day.
When the bike slowed to thread its way into traffic, I pried one white-knuckled hand off the grab handle, buckled my chinstrap, and closed my faceplate. The bike hissed west through the accumulated moisture from the morning rain. It was just wet enough to cool the day, but not wet enough to soak my clothes.
I had no idea where we were going, but there was no way to ask Alisa. It was hopeless even to think about shouting through two helmets over the combined sound of the bike engine and the traffic all around us.
The most efficient way to negotiate Bangkok’s clogged streets, sometimes the only way, is on a motorcycle. A skilled rider can weave one of the whining little beasts between the vehicles tangled in the gridlocked streets and arrive at almost any destination long before a car or truck. On the other hand, there is a downside. You still get stuck in traffic sometimes anyway, and sitting on a motorbike in ninety-five-degree heat sucking down the exhaust from a clapped-out Chinese bus isn’t everybody’s idea of a good time.
We worked our way out of Sukhumvit and passed under the Expressway. Just on the other side of the Central Embassy Shopping Mall, so named because the British Embassy sold off its front lawn to developers to build it, Alisa shot across traffic moving in the opposite direction and up onto the sidewalk on the other side of Sukhumvit. A few moments later she made an abrupt right into Soi Somkid, rode about fifty yards, and made an equally abrupt left into the garage at the Central Chidlom Department Store. She took the ramp up to the top floor at what struck me as an entirely unnecessary rate of speed, rode all the way down to the end where the store had parked a half dozen panel vans that looked like they hadn’t been used since General Prasert wore short pants, and tucked the bike in between two of the vans. She shut down the engine, pulled off her helmet, and shook out her hair. I took off my helmet, too.
“I doubt anybody could have followed us,” she said, looking back at me over her shoulder.
“Not unless they have a teleporter.”
That earned me a smile, but only a small one.
Alisa kicked down the bike’s stand. I climbed off a little clumsily, but she swung her right leg across her body and slid to the ground with a grace I could only envy.
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“Being cautious. Too many people know where you’re staying. I didn’t want to have an audience.”
“I’ve been watching and I haven’t picked up any surveillance.”
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you?”
She had me there.
“LET’S GET THIS sorted out,” she went on before I could say anything else, “and get the hell out of here.”
“Fine.”
“Key,” Alisa said and flipped me the key to the bike.
It pleased me that I caught it cleanly. No man wants to look like an asshole in front of an attractive woman.
She gave me a long look filled with doubt. “You do know how to ride one of these, don’t you?”
“I’d rather be in something with four wheels, but I can manage.”
“Have you ever ridden a bike?”
I just looked at her.
“Okay, have you ever ridden a bike in Bangkok?”
“No,” I admitted. “I haven’t.”
“It’s not like riding anywhere else,” she said.
“I noticed that coming over here with you.”
She tossed me the helmet she had been wearing, which I also managed to catch without looking too awkward, and then she shucked off her dark olive-green backpack.
“Your other stuff is in here. When you take Kate’s clothes out, the backpack is big enough to hold both of the helmets.”
She held the backpack out to me and I took it. She watched me carefully as I unzipped it and looked inside.
At first all I could see was a stack of neatly folded clothes and some running shoes, but I moved them to one side and saw on the bottom of the backpack a Sig Sauer 9mm semi-automatic in a black Kydex inside-the-waistband holster and an extra magazine. I also saw the blue cover of a Canadian passport. I left everything where it was and pushed the helmet Alisa had been wearing in on top. It was a tight fit, but I was still able to zip the backpack, and I slipped the straps over my shoulders.
“Who do you plan to shoot?” Alisa asked.
“You’ve heard the old saying. Better to have a gun and not need it than to need a gun and not have it.”
“I haven’t, actually.”
“Well, you have now.
“If you shoot a soldier or a cop, they’ll blame Kate and they will come after all of us.”
“They’re going to come after all of you anyway.”
Alisa just looked at me.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not going to shoot anyone. Not unless it’s absolutely our last resort.”
“I don’t know whether to trust you or not.”
“I didn’t realize this was going to be an interview. I thought you were just delivering the stuff I asked Jello for.”
“I feel responsible for Kate.”
“Then you get her out of the country.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, there you go.”
Alisa just stared at me.
“How are you going to do it?” she asked.
I shook my head, but I didn’t say anything.
Alisa looked alarmed. “You mean you don’t know how you’re going to do it?”
“I mean I do know, but I’m not going to tell you.”
“You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t know whether to trust you or not.”
Alisa looked away and sighed. “I guess I deserved that.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I shrugged. “It’s not a matter of trust. The fewer people who know where we are or what we’re doing, the safer we are. It’s as simple as that.”
“I saw the Canadian passport. Are you taking her to Canada?”
I said nothing.
“We need Kate. Without her, we have nobody to follow. Without her, the army wins.”
“With her in prison or dead, the army wins.”
Alisa nodded slowly. For a moment I thought she was going to say something else, but she didn’t. She just nodded again and walked toward the garage elevator. After three or four steps she stopped and turned back.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “What’s in it for you?”
“It’s not very complicated. Kate’s my friend. I help my friends when I can. That’s the way the friendship thing works.”
“You’re putting yourself in great danger.”
I said nothing.
“Don’t get caught.”
&
nbsp; “People keep telling me that.”
“Listen to them. They’re right.”
Alisa gave me a half smile that looked a little sad for some reason and pushed the elevator call button. The doors opened almost at once and she got on. When she turned around, I saw she still had the same sad looking half-smile on her face.
I should say something reassuring to her, I told myself, but I never got the chance. Before I could think of anything even halfway reassuring, the elevator doors closed and she was gone.
FORTY
AFTER ALISA LEFT, I went over the bike carefully. It was an older model without any fancy electronics so it took me only a few minutes to get comfortable with it. I inserted the key and hit the starter. It fired immediately and settled into a reassuring rumble. I check the fuel level. Full. Jello didn’t seem to have overlooked anything.
I glanced at my watch. Almost ten.
One hour to show time.
I had no reason to go back to the Sheraton. I had already taken everything I needed from there to Laura’s house and anything I’d left behind was something I could do without. We would be traveling light and traveling fast and anything we didn’t absolutely need was just excess baggage. I certainly didn’t intend to check out. After Kate disappeared, I doubted it would take General Prasert more than an hour to send soldiers over to kick in the door of my room and find out what I had to do with it. The hotel would know soon enough that I was gone.
I pulled on my helmet, tightened the chinstrap, and flipped down the faceplate.
Leaving the garage through the Soi Chidlom exit, I turned left. It was only a few hundred yards to Laura’s house and that was where I headed first. I wanted to empty the clothes Alisa had brought for Kate out of the backpack so there would be room in it for both helmets, then I planned to take the long way from there to EmQuartier. I needed time on the bike to make me comfortable riding it, and I wanted to look at alternate routes we could take coming in the other direction if something unexpected happened.
Left on Sukhumvit, a quick right into Soi Tonson, and about three hundred yards down I stopped in the short driveway in front of Laura’s gate. When I came back with Kate, I would release the lock on the driveway gate from the inside, roll the bike in, and close it again. Then there would be no sign of the bike from the street in case anyone had seen us leave EmQuartier on it and given the army a description. But for now, hiding the bike hardly seemed necessary.
When I got inside, I quickly checked the house to make certain it was exactly as I had left it. It was. No one had been there since I put my stuff away and brought in the food, which was exactly as it should have been.
I started upstairs to unpack Kate’s clothes, but all at once an awkward thought occurred to me. I stopped dead at the top of the stairs and just stood there. The day before I had put my own stuff in the largest bedroom without really thinking about it. So where did I put Kate’s things now? Yeah, that was a tricky one.
Putting Kate’s things in the same room with mine would be downright tacky, of course. We had never been an item exactly, although a lot of people thought so. It seemed to me we had just missed, that our time had come and gone and either we hadn’t realized it or we had done nothing about it and that was that.
I didn’t know if Kate felt the same way or not. Maybe she thought I had rejected her. Maybe she thought she had rejected me. I simply had no idea.
Either way, putting our things in the same room now sent absolutely the wrong message. On the other hand, putting our things in separate bedrooms carried a message of its own, didn’t it? And maybe that was the wrong message, too.
There was only one short period in my life when I understood women. I think I was about eight or nine at the time.
So, same bedroom? Different bedrooms? Which?
Come on, Jack. Make a decision, man.
So I did.
I WENT INTO the master bedroom and collected all my things. I carried them downstairs and stacked them on one of the two brown leather couches that faced each other in front of a big fireplace with a brass mantelpiece. After that, I opened the backpack, stacked Kate’s things on the other couch, and put the Canadian passport on top of them.
It was a Solomonic decision. If I’d had an audience, I was certain it would have broken into applause.
I started to return the handgun to the backpack, but then it occurred to me that didn’t make much sense. If I needed it, it wasn’t going to do me any good in there so I put the extra magazine in my pocket and slid the holster inside the waistband of my slacks. I clipped it over my belt at about the two-o’clock position and let my shirt fall down over it.
Two o’clock isn’t a recommended place to carry a firearm for quick access, and I knew that, but I was concerned about riding a motorbike with the gun at the more natural four or five o’clock position. There was a risk it might print under my shirt and an even a bigger risk my shirt might blow up and expose it. Putting it at two o’clock let me bend forward slightly on the bike and make absolutely certain it wouldn’t show.
The backpack was empty now except for the extra helmet for Kate. I zipped it and slipped the straps over my shoulders.
When I left Laura’s house, I steered the bike through a narrow alleyway next to an office building, turned left on Witthayu Road, and rolled north past first the American Embassy and then the British Embassy. At Petchaburi Road I turned right, passed under the Expressway, and rode east until I could work my way back into the tangle of small streets that filled the area between Petchaburi Road and Sukhumvit Road.
I took it easy all the way to EmQuartier. Riding the dirty green bike with the scratches on the fenders and wearing my black helmet with the reflective visor, I could have been anybody. There were a hundred bikes and a hundred riders around me, all of whom looked more or less the same. No one paid the slightest attention to me. I only hoped it stayed that way.
When I had finished checking out the routes we could take away from EmQuartier, I turned right on Sukhumvit 39 and followed a service drive around behind the mall until I came to the supermarket loading dock. The second slot was crowded with bikes and scooters left there by employees just as I expected it to be. I shut down the bike, rolled it into a spot that left me with a clear run out, and kicked down the stand.
I took off my helmet and pushed it into the olive green backpack with the spare helmet for Kate, and then I swung the pack over my shoulders and walked out to the sidewalk. I stopped a few yards away and looked back. The bike was lost to sight in the tangle of fifty others that were equally dirty and beaten up.
It was just after ten-thirty. The opening was at eleven. The bike was where it was supposed to be. So was I.
So far, at least, so good.
FORTY-ONE
THE SIDE ENTRANCE to EmQuartier is the one closest to the loading dock and it’s used mostly by people going to the supermarket, not by the mass of shoppers and tourists who crowd the mall’s designer shops and restaurants. It isn’t generally very busy so I was surprised to see a line of people piled up outside the door waiting to pass through the security check.
What was going on? I had scouted out the entrances to EmQuartier before and seen for myself that the security checks were real knee-slappers. There were the usual metal detectors, of course, and uniformed employees generally manned them, but those employees were uniformed like doormen, not security staff. They didn’t look prepared for anything more challenging than saluting the people passing through and murmuring the Thai equivalent of have a nice day!
Security checkpoints almost everywhere in Bangkok worked like that. People walked straight through the metal detectors carrying purses and backpacks and bags, the metal detectors beeped like they were about to explode, and the security guy at the checkpoint saluted over and over and made no effort to stop anyone or inspect anything. You could probably walk into most places with a rocket launcher on your shoulder and the guy at the checkpoint would just salute and stare off into space. Thais, pa
rticularly dirt poor Thais who have crappy jobs like standing next to a metal detector all day, don’t get involved in things that might get shit on their shoes. They see nothing, hear nothing, and do nothing.
So why, this morning, was there a line of people outside the side entrance to EmQuartier slowly shuffling through the door?
I eased up on the crowd and peered through the doors without making it obvious I was checking out the security. At a glance, nothing looked unusual. There was a metal detector with a long table sitting perpendicular to it, behind which the usual guy in his doorman uniform was crisply snapping off salutes at every person passing through.
Stalling for time, I fished the burner phone out of my trouser pocket and put it to my ear. I didn’t make a call since there was no one I wanted to talk to, but nothing is less suspicious in Thailand than someone standing around in a public place with a telephone against his ear. I moved my lips enough to look convincing and kept watching through the glass doors to see what was holding up people passing through the checkpoint.
That was when I noticed the two brown-uniformed policeman. They were on the other side of the metal detector randomly stopping people who set it off, which was very nearly everybody, and looking through their belongings.
Uh-oh.
I strolled away from the door doing my best to look like a man talking on his cell phone rather than a man anxious to get away from a security checkpoint where the cops were searching people.
What the hell was going on? Did this have something to do with Kate’s appearance at the restaurant opening? Surely not. Maybe the extra security wasn’t at every entrance, I told myself. Maybe it was only at this one for some reason.