International Incident

by Melissa F. Miller

  Mel’s expression grew serious and she leaned forward. “Okay, listen up. This is an important safety tip. While you’re in here, do not—I repeat, do not—drink anything in any bar or restaurant that doesn’t arrive at your table in a sealed container.”

  “Wow. Really?”

  “Really. There have been instances where tourists’ drinks have been spiked with everything from LSD to Rohypnol to Lord knows what. The idea is to render the mark incapacitated and then rob them or worse. Even in a nicer place like this it’s best to be cautious,” Mel said matter-of-factly.

  “Thanks for the warning,” Connelly said. He perused the wine list. “Hmm, a merlot or a cabernet sauvignon?”

  Sasha had a more pressing concern. “Wait, then how am I supposed to get my coffee?”

  “Oh, no worries. This place serves a great bottled coffee.”

  Sasha narrowed her eyes. “Bottled coffee?” This news was easily as troubling as the risk of being drugged.

  “You’ll love it,” Mel promised. “It’s a dark cold-brewed coffee they order directly from a roaster in Bangkok.”

  Sasha made a noncommittal noise. “We’ll see.”

  Just then, a waiter materialized to take their order. Sasha took a deep breath and ordered the bottled coffee.

  The food and drinks arrived quickly, and as they ate, they chatted—mainly about Mel’s experiences as an American woman living and working in Southeast Asia. She was quick-witted and funny, and the time passed quickly. Sasha almost forgot that this wasn’t a social visit, and Mel wasn’t an old friend. She was an authorized representative of the United States government who was trying to help them ensure that a murdered woman received some measure of justice.

  With that sobering thought, Sasha looked up and met Connelly’s eyes over the table. He was staring past her—his gaze locked on something or someone over her right shoulder. She twisted in her seat to see what had caught his attention.

  “What is it?” Sasha asked.

  Connelly held up a finger as he cocked his head to listen intently. After a moment, he said, “A couple of guys at the bar are griping, in English, about Thale. I guess they had a ship come in today unexpectedly. The name caught my ear.”

  Mel nodded. “That’s not really surprising. Like I said, this is a big fishing town. And Thale’s a big fishing company. If memory serves, it has its own pier down at the docks.”

  Sasha blinked at her. “So the ship that docked—it could be the one I saw.”

  “It could be. The odds are against it, though. Thale has an entire fleet,” Mel pointed out.

  “Sure, but if the boat that came in today wasn’t scheduled to be here, that means something out of the ordinary happened. It doesn’t have to mean that extraordinary event was a murder … but it seems to me that fact changes the odds somewhat.”

  The legat shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Sasha wasn’t a big believer in coincidences. “Connelly, what do you think?”

  “It might be nothing—could just be a ship that needs a repair or has run out of some important supply and can’t wait for the resupply boat to come out. Or it might be something—a captain running scared because a girl was shot to death and now he has a panicked crew. I don’t know.” He rested his forearms on the table, leaned in close, and lowered his voice to a near-whisper, “But I know an easy way to find out.”

  “How’s that?” Mel asked in a voice tinged with suspicion.

  “You two wait here. I’ll take a walk down to the docks and poke around.”

  “No way,” Mel answered.

  “Absolutely not,” Sasha added.

  “Sasha—” Connolly began.

  She cut him off. “Don’t Sasha me. You are not going to go skulking around the docks alone in some violent, crime-infested Thai village.”

  She watched as he stiffened.

  “Do I really need to remind you that I’m a veteran federal agent? You know I do know how to handle myself.”

  Mel was suddenly transfixed by the pattern on the tablecloth. Apparently, wading into a marital dispute was above her pay grade.

  “I’m not saying you don’t. I’m saying you’re not going without me. It’ll be—”

  It was his turn to cut her off. “Please tell me you weren’t about to say ‘fun.’ This isn’t some sort of cloak-and-dagger game. You saw a woman murdered. We have two children to think about. And you aren’t trained to do this. I am.”

  They locked eyes. After about ten seconds, Sasha realized that he was right, but she wasn’t about to give in that easily. So she continued to eyeball him, staring hard, hoping Mel would chime in soon.

  After a moment, the legal attaché cleared her throat. “What’s your plan? You’re just going to stroll down to the docks and make them talk? These guys at the bar may speak some English, but the men actually working on the boats … I’m not so sure.”

  “Why not? If this is such a hard-scrabble town, good old American currency should be able to inspire some dockworkers to give up what they know about Thale. I’ve found that cash can bridge a lot of language barriers.”

  “Well, bribery is a time-honored tradition around here,” Mel conceded.

  Sasha jumped in. “Why don’t all three of us go? Then I’ll be one hapless civilian in the company of two seasoned federal agents. I’d be completely safe. And Mel can translate for you.”

  He shook his head. “Look, I’m half-Vietnamese, so I have some chance of blending in down there if I go alone. But if I stroll up with a tall blonde and a tiny green-eyed American, I’ll stand out like … a kitten in a dog show.”

  She couldn’t resist laughing at his tortured simile, but her smile faded quickly. “Mel, you aren’t going to go along with this are you?”

  Mel’s expression was pained. “I shouldn’t. Ron will be apoplectic when he hears about it. But … if the boat is down there now, we should find out so we can stop it before it goes back out to sea. It could be gone for months. And the jurisdiction gets way messier if we try to board it on the open sea. This could be a real opportunity.”

  Sasha opened her mouth but Mel steamrolled along. “I don’t love the idea of him going down there alone, but the reality is, he’s right. You and I would stick out and draw attention. It’s broad daylight, and he’s a big guy. I don’t think anyone will mess with him.” She checked her watch then turned to Connelly. “Just be smart about it. Find out if it’s the boat that was in the gulf earlier and then get the hell out of there. No heroics. Meet us back at the car in, say, thirty minutes.”

  “Will do.”

  While Mel sketched a quick map to the private docks on her napkin, Connelly bent and kissed Sasha just above the ear.

  “I’ll be careful,” he promised.

  “I know you will, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Welcome to my world,” he smirked.

  17

  Jan was unbelievably comfortable and warm, enveloped in the embrace of the heroin. He’d been suspended in a half-awake, half-asleep dream state for some time. How long exactly, he couldn’t say. Although the rest of his life ran on a timetable with military precision, when he was in the den, smoking, he lost all track of time.

  That wasn’t quite true. It was more that time began to bend and undulate, whirling around him like the smoke---circular, not linear, and ephemeral, utterly without import. He relished this languid feeling.

  But bodily functions could only be ignored for so long. And Jan needed to use the head. He reluctantly forced himself up from the deep, plush couch. His arms and legs felt as heavy as his eyelids as he made his way to the door. He stumbled out into the hallway with the laughter of the doorman/heroin dealer floating behind.

  After using the facilities and washing his hands, he felt more alert and suddenly hungry. He splashed cold water on face and straightened his shirt then headed to the bar to place an order. He intended to hole up at Bar Pavot for the duration of his shore time, eating, and sleeping, and smoking. Cherise, the
smiling Chinese waitress assigned to the bar today, took his order and promised to bring the sandwich and a bottle of water back to him in the private room. He thanked her and turned to leave.

  As his pivoted away from the bar, he heard loud female laughter rising over the music. It was coming from the dining room. The sound caught his attention even through the fog that was still settled over his brain. As a rule, he’d always found Asian women to be less boisterous, more demure than their Western counterparts. Curious, he glanced toward the source of the laughter.

  Two women—one blonde, who sat facing the bar, and one brunette, with her back to the bar. Both obviously Westerners and, if he were to hazard a guess, both American. He frowned. The women were unaccompanied by men and, in his view, were foolish to draw so much attention to themselves. Bar Pavot was one of the nicer establishments in town, but they were still in Samut Prakan, after all.

  Well, their safety was not his concern. His concern waited for him, rolled tightly in a cigarette.

  And yet. He couldn’t stop staring at the women. An anxious pocket of his brain was fighting through his heroin-induced chill to worry that they might be cruise passengers or crew members, liable to expose his secret if they bumped into him here. He narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the low dividing wall that separated the dining area from the bar area.

  No, he didn’t recognize the blonde. She was neither a crew member nor a passenger. The brunette, however, was a passenger. And, he realized, as she turned her head and he saw her profile, not just any passenger. It was Sasha McCandless-Connelly. His initial anxiety gave way to irritation and flaring anger. How dare she, the cause of so much of his current stress, show up here.

  As he stood staring at the two women, a waiter juggling a large, round tray jostled him, and he hurriedly moved aside. Where was the Connelly woman’s husband? And who was the blonde woman? He was certain she wasn’t one of the passengers. He prided himself on matching every name on the manifest to a face within the first day of every cruise.

  He considered their attire. Although Sasha Connelly wore standard garb for a woman on holiday--a sundress, sandals, and a light sweater--the other woman wore a dark, no-nonsense business suit. He searched the recesses of his memory. Mrs. Connelly was, if he recalled correctly, an attorney. He supposed she might have a colleague or an old law school chum living in Thailand. But Samut Prakan was not the sort of place where people like Sasha Connelly tended to spend their free time.

  That was the entire point. He chose the port town for his personal recreational activities because his passengers would not be there. Why were they here?

  The band finished its set and announced a break. The noise level fell in the bar and, if he strained forward, he could just hear a snippet of their conversation. What he heard chilled him and chased away the lingering remnants of euphoria.

  He distinctly heard the words ‘embassy’ and ‘girl’s murder’ from the Connelly woman.

  As he watched, the blonde woman nodded, her face grave. He focused on the movement of her lips and strained to hear her response. ‘The Bureau … Bangkok police … the IMO … murder.’ The disjointed words that floated back to him over the noise seemed to be intended to reassure Sasha Connelly, but they struck Jan in the face with the force of their meaning.

  Jan saw the Connelly woman relax her shoulders. Then the blonde met his eyes and wrinkled her forehead. He realized he was staring. The blonde woman half-rose from her seat, and Mrs. Connelly twisted around to get a look at him. Jan turned on his heel and pushed through the bar crowd. He raced down the hall to the back room and pounded on the door in a panic until it opened.

  Before the bouncer could growl at him about causing a commotion, Jan grabbed him by the shoulders. “You need to call your boss. Now.”

  18

  Leo walked purposefully toward the dock but didn’t hurry. He didn’t want anyone who might be watching him to sense urgency or fear. He whistled. He was pleasantly surprised he’d been able to convince Sasha and Mel to go along with his plan.

  All he needed to do was eyeball the boats, confirm whether the Thale vessel was, in fact, docked, and find a dockworker who spoke adequate English and who was willing to confirm that there’d been a woman aboard. A few minutes of legwork, and he’d be able to help Mel and her boss build a case against Thale; more importantly, he and Sasha would be able to put this mess behind them and return to their regularly scheduled program of cocktails and sunsets.

  As he got closer to the sea, the neighborhood changed rapidly. The tourist-friendly veneer slipped away, replaced by crowded streets strewn with litter and rodents. Broken glass cracked under his feet as he walked. The storefronts gave way to dilapidated shanties and boarded-up shacks. The pungent smell of fish permeated the air.

  He passed a row of large, metal containers lined up, probably waiting to be filled with the day’s catch. A handful of boats were tied to the rotting, wooden dock. Each looked more battered and unseaworthy than the next. The numerals and characters that identified the vessels were uniformly faded, obscured, or missing entirely. Leo figured that was likely by design.

  Voices shouting directions near the boat at the far end of the pier caught his attention and he walked toward the sound. A crew of men was engaged in a whirlwind of activity, hauling buckets and containers from the deck of the ship onto the dock in an assembly line. He approached the man closest to him, who handed the buckets off to a runner—a lithe teenaged boy, who raced across the dock to a refrigerated container, where he emptied each bucket and then ran back for another.

  Leo waited until the boy took off toward the containers.

  “English? Do you speak English?” he asked the man.

  The man raised his weathered, lined face and looked at Leo with tired, bloodshot eyes. He shook his head no, rested the bucket on the ground for a moment, and jerked his thumb toward a round-faced, smiling man in the middle of the line. “Thiha Bo. English,” he said in labored, heavily accented English.

  Leo bowed his head in gratitude then pressed a few crumpled bills into the man’s free hand. “Thank you.”

  The tired eyes widened in shock at the sight of American currency. He stuffed the bills in his pocket before anyone else could notice and grabbed the next bucket as the runner returned.

  Leo approached the fisherman who had been identified as an English speaker. He was in a state of constant, rapid motion, reaching back to grab a bucket and flinging it forward to the next man in the chain without pause. Leo waited. After several moments, there was a break in the action.

  He stepped forward. “Thiha Bo?”

  The man nodded. “Hotekae.”

  “You speak English?” Leo enunciated and spoke slowly.

  A shadow of suspicion flitted across the man’s face, but he nodded again. “Hotekae, yes. I speak English.” His pronunciation had a British lilt.

  “My name is Leo Nguyen.” It stung to use his father’s surname rather than his own, but he was certain it was the right choice under the circumstances. “I’m looking for a girl.”

  Thiha Bo erupted with guttural laugh. “You’re in the wrong place, Leo Nguyen. The girls are in the bars. Or look for a red light.”

  Leo shook his head. “Not that kind of girl. A girl who works on a fishing boat.” He watched the man’s reaction closely.

  The leer gave way to a look of wide-eyed astonishment, which morphed almost instantly into an expression of fear. He took his time responding. “Men only are permitted on the boats.”

  Leo took a step closer and lowered his voice. “What happened to her?”

  Thiha Bo clamped his mouth shut and looked away. His smile vanished and his lips were set in a thin line. The line resumed its work, and the man focused on passing the buckets.

  Leo considered pushing him further, but Thiha Bo’s reaction had given him the answer he needed. This was the right boat. He reached into his pocket for more cash, but when he tried to hand the money to Thiha Bo, the fisherman refused it.<
br />
  “Please, take it. It’s a gesture of my thanks.”

  “No. It is not necessary, Leo Nguyen. I was not able to help you find your girl.”

  Leo hesitated. He didn’t want to argue with the man and draw attention to them. “Please, Thiha Bo. I insist.”

  The man relented and took the money with a little bow. Leo turned and walked away. He’d gone about four feet when Thiha Bo called after him, “Leo Nguyen!”

  Leo turned. Thiha Bo abandoned his spot in the line and jogged over to where he stood. “I will take you to see Binh. He knows about the girl.”

  19

  Sasha turned around to get a look at the pervert Mel said was staring at them, but no one was standing between the bar and the dining room. “Where’d he go?”

  “He took off. I’m sure it was nothing. He was just a garden-variety barfly,” Mel assured her.

  But Mel herself didn’t seem quite convinced of that. The legal attaché’s face was pale and drawn.

  “Are you sure? You look pretty shaken up,” Sasha told her.

  Mel picked up her wineglass and took a sip before responding. “I mean, yeah, he creeped me out. I’m not sure why, to tell you the truth. He looked really very normal. He was a Caucasian dude. Older. Buttoned up. Not the sort of guy you’d expect to give you trouble. But the way he was looking at us…. He had this dazed expression, like he was half out of it, but he was staring at us so hard. It just …” She gave a little shudder and trailed off.

  Sasha sipped her wine as well. Social convention would say they should just shake off the unsettling incident. But social convention was no friend to women. Krav Maga had taught her not to ignore her instincts out of some warped desire to be seen as polite or nice or feminine.

  They sat in silence for a moment. The noise from the bar, no longer masked by the live music of the band, sounded somehow more threatening and ominous. Less like a rowdy celebration and more like a riot about to boil over. Sasha knew Mel could feel the difference, too, because her eyes kept flitting over Sasha’s shoulder to the raucous crowd behind them.