Trader of Secrets: A Paul Madriani Novel

by Steve Martini

  Liquida headed out of the room and down the stairs. He passed through the small lobby in front of the clerk at the desk and stepped out onto the sidewalk, which was teeming with pedestrians. He instantly lost himself in the sea of people moving quickly around the corner onto one of the side streets.

  Ten feet farther on, two Thai teenage boys, motorbike taxi drivers, lay lounging on the long seats of their bikes while a third one sat perched in a low beach chair up on the sidewalk. They were all wearing worn and soiled green vests with the name of a local beer bar on the back. This was their turf, the corner where they hung out hoping to pick up fares. For a few baht they would give you a thin plastic helmet, let you hop on the back of their bike, and deliver you anywhere in the city. That is, if you could hang on and if you didn’t mind the occasional near-death experience.

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  The narrow walkway between the buildings delivered Harry, Joselyn, and me into the middle of a parking area directly behind the building with the green door. In the back was a small loading dock, and on the elevated concrete pad was a steel overhead door that was closed. Next to the loading dock was a set of cement stairs leading to a heavy steel door, only this time the door was open.

  Harry and I look at each other. “Listen.” I turn to Joselyn. “Why don’t you stay here? If we’re not out in, say, ten minutes, go see if you can find a local Thai policeman and tell him where we are.”

  “I got a better idea. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go in?” Joselyn doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she takes off like a greyhound for the open door, Harry and me trailing along in her wake.

  Inside the door is a large storage area, a stack of fifty-gallon drums against one wall and what looks like part of a motorized rack for hanging clothes in a commercial laundry. We don’t loiter. Instead, we pass quickly through another door and find ourselves in an open hallway. We move down the hall toward the front of the building; the smell of food, chicken broth and steamed noodles, fills the air.

  “I’m gettin’ hungry,” says Harry.

  “You want to stop and eat?” asks Joselyn.

  “Not now, but when we’re done, yeah,” he says.

  We reach the front of the building and end up at the foot of a staircase leading up to the second floor.

  “According to the note, it’s upstairs, second floor, room 208,” I say.

  Harry is already climbing, two steps at a time. We get to the top and start checking off the numbers on the doors. The place is a rabbit warren of small businesses, some white collar, others providing support services for some of the shops on the ground floor. We pass by one and see several women inside working sewing machines, stitching jackets and slacks, probably for the tailor’s shop downstairs. The next door is all the way open, swung back against the wall. I very nearly pass it when Joselyn taps me on the arm. She points to the open door, the numerals 208 reversed on the translucent glass on the upper panel of the open door.

  “Maybe we got lucky,” she says.

  We peek inside. I am guessing that the room is maybe twenty feet deep by thirty feet wide. There are no windows or desks, just filing cabinets arranged in neat rows with narrow passageways between each row. I count six rows. There is a man in the far corner standing on a tall ladder up against the ceiling. His back is to us. He’s changing out fluorescent tubes in one of the light fixtures.

  Before I can stop her, Joselyn dips down low and slips through the open door. She scurries into the aisle between two of the rows of cabinets, keeping low so the guy on the ladder can’t see her.

  “What’s she doing?” Harry whispers in my ear.

  I shake my head.

  When I see her again, she’s on her hands and knees peeking around the corner of the end cabinet, crooking her finger at me to join her.

  The guy on the ladder is almost done. He is replacing the long plastic cover, clipping it into place on the light fixture.

  I lean toward Harry and whisper: “Stay here and keep an eye. Warn us if anybody comes.”

  The guy is halfway down the ladder. Before Harry can say a word, I slip down low and cross the open space between the door and the cabinets. I end up in the aisle between the first and second row of cabinets, huddling up close next to Joselyn down on the floor.

  She is giggling silently, a single finger to her lips shushing me to be quiet. We hear the tall aluminum ladder being folded up and a second later the clatter of metal as it hits up against some of the cabinets while the guy makes his way down the long aisle. He is four rows over. I am praying he has no more lights to fix. I glance up. The fixtures overhead appear to be fine.

  We press deeper down the aisle as he approaches the open door. We have an angle of defilade unless he actually steps into our aisle. A few seconds later the lights go out. Then we hear the door close.

  Joselyn and I sit on the floor in silence for a few seconds as we listen to the clatter of the ladder being carried down the hallway until we can no longer hear it.

  “Now we look,” she says.

  “How?”

  “You think it would be safe to turn on the lights?” she asks.

  “Not with that glass door. Gimme a second.” I fish in my pocket for keys. I don’t know why I’m carrying them halfway around the world from my house and car. I suppose it’s habit. On the key ring is a tiny Maglite powered by a single triple-A battery. I’m hoping it’s not dead. I twist the end of the little flashlight and we get a beam.

  “That’s handy,” she says. “Let me see.”

  I focus the light and hand it to her.

  She stands up and shines the narrow beam of light down the row of cabinets, five drawers on each one.

  “That’s strange.”

  “What?” I say.

  “Usually a cabinet has a single lock at the top. It locks all five drawers. Look at these.”

  She is right. Each of the cabinet drawers has its own small brass push-button lock. There is a printed label slipped into the label holder on the face of each drawer. Some of them are in English, others in a script that I assume is probably Thai. From the ones I can see, some of the labels appear to bear the names of businesses or companies, while others are for individuals.

  “Let me see the flashlight.”

  Joselyn hands it to me.

  Each label appears to be printed on a standard form. In the upper left-hand corner of the label, in smaller twelve-point type printed in green ink, are the letters “TSCC Ltd.” Underneath this, also in green ink, are two lines of Thai lettering, each one followed by Arabic numerals on the same line. Beneath that in English is an “Office Telephone Number” and under that something called “Client Messaging System” with a different phone number.

  “The drawers look like they’re all locked. Even if we could get into them, we wouldn’t know where to begin looking,” says Joselyn.

  “Let’s start by going up and down the aisles. Check and see if anything jumps out at us.”

  “You mean ‘Waters of Death’?”

  I nod.

  * * *

  “Charlie Four, can you hear me? Come in, Charlie Four.”

  “This is Charlie Four.”

  “Any sign of them?”

  “Negative. But I’m still looking.”

  “Charlie Three, do you read?”

  “HELLO! HELLO! THIS PATTAYA POLICE DEPARTMENT. WHO IS THIS?”

  Charlie One took his finger off the button on the wireless mike. “Shit!” He stood in the abandoned office on the third floor above the green door looking at his compatriot. “What do we do now?”

  “Why don’t I drop down, take a quick look, make sure they didn’t come into the building some other way.”

  “Do it,” said Charlie One.

  “Be back in a sec.” The other agent raced out the door and headed for the stairs.

  Charlie One hesitated for a second, then pressed the button on the mike once more. “Charlie Three, come in! Are you there? . . .”
r />   “THIS PATTAYA POLICE. WHO IS THIS!”

  “This is Charlie Three.”

  “Do you have them?”

  “N . . .” All of a sudden there was a screeching sound in the agents’ ears as somebody else toyed with the squelch on the band.

  “Damn.” Charlie One jerked the earbud from his right ear. He put his finger in and wiggled it around a little trying to relieve the pain. Then he held the bud up to his ear without putting it in. “Repeat. Charlie Three. Do you read?”

  “Nothing yet. I’m almost to their hotel. I’ll check there and let you kn . . .”

  “THIS IS LIEUTENANT CHATNGEON, PATTAYA POLICE. THIS OFFICIAL POLICE BAND. WHO IS THIS? IDENTIFY YOURSELF!”

  Charlie One released the button on the mike. He pulled out his cell phone and started to dial just as the door opened behind him.

  “Quiet as a tomb downstairs,” said his partner. “I took a peek from the stairwell. 208 is locked up tight, lights out as usual. I checked all the way down to the ground level. There’s no sign of them in the building. Who you calling?”

  “The embassy. If any of those three get themselves killed, Washington’s gonna have our scalps.”

  “What can the embassy do?”

  “If we don’t find them soon, we’re gonna need help. The Pattaya police aren’t gonna be feeling terribly helpful when they find out we’ve been working their turf without notice.”

  “And?”

  “And so we may need a royal dispensation,” said Charlie One.

  Chapter

  Nineteen

  Liquida talked for a minute or so to the motorbike taxi boy sitting in the beach chair up on the sidewalk. Body language indicated to Liquida that of the three kids lounging at the taxi stand, this one was probably the boss. After conversing for a while, he took out his money clip, peeled off a few bills, and handed them to the kid. The biker got up and followed him across the narrow alley of a side street where the two of them climbed a couple of high steps onto the tiled floor of an outdoor beer bar. The place was already starting to rock with loud music. By nine you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think.

  They sat down at a table, and Liquida ordered two beers. He talked to the bar girl who delivered them. After a few seconds, she pointed to one of the other women who was working the bar.

  The other woman was wearing a tight white dress with large burgundy flowers printed on the cloth. Liquida paid the barmaid for the beers and gave her a generous tip.

  She walked over and talked to the woman in the flowered dress and then gestured toward the table where Liquida and the taxi driver were seated. The woman in the tight dress walked over to Liquida’s table.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “The other lady says you speak good English,” said Liquida.

  “Yes?” She studied the pockmarks on his face.

  “This is my friend,” said Liquida.

  She glanced at the taxi driver seated next to him. The kid was hunched over the bottle of beer, his eyes cast down at the table. There was enough road grit on his face to know he probably hadn’t showered in two days.

  Liquida leaned toward the bike driver. “What’s your name?”

  The kid looked up and said, “Kee.”

  “This is my friend, Kee,” said Liquida. He wanted to make sure that the next time the girl saw him she would recognize him, so that there would be no problems. “If I get busy, sometimes Kee takes care of things for me.”

  “I see him before,” she said. “Over there.” She gestured toward the taxi stand where his friends were still hanging out.

  “Yes, well, I have a problem, you see. I wonder if you would mind doing me a favor? There are some papers I have to pick up in an office just across the street. Right over there.” Liquida pointed lazily in the direction of Second Road. “I have a conflict, you see, and I cannot go over and get them right now. It’s helpful to have someone who speaks such good English. I wonder if you would mind walking across the street and picking up these papers for me?”

  She turned and looked back toward the street, the direction where Liquida had pointed. This was not the usual request from one of her male customers. “I don’t know. I’m not really supposed to leave, not unless I am bar-fined out,” said the girl. A bar fine was the amount of money a customer paid to take a girl out of the bar.

  “I’d be happy to pay you if that’s the problem,” said Liquida.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know. . . . Say five hundred baht?”

  She flexed her eyelids, jerked her head back just a bit and smiled. “You going to pay me five hundred baht just to walk across the street, pick up some papers, and come right back?”

  “Yeah.” The way she looked at him, Liquida knew he’d stepped in it. He tried to do some quick calculations and realized that he had just offered the girl fifteen bucks for a quick two-minute stroll across the street. This was probably two days’ wages working in the bar.

  The money was too easy. Now she was suspicious. “Why can’t you get it yourself?”

  “The problem is I’m supposed to meet a friend. He should be here any minute.” Liquida regrouped instantly. “If I’m not here when he shows up, he’s liable to leave thinking I decided not to come. And he doesn’t have a cell phone, so if I miss him I may not be able find him later. So you see, I have to stay here. And when my friend gets here, we have to leave immediately for a meeting and we need the papers. So you would be doing me a big favor.”

  “Why can’t he do it?” She looked at the biker.

  “He’s waiting for a fare; guy went up to get something in his room, said he’d be right back down,” said Liquida. “He can’t leave. Listen, if it’s too much trouble, don’t worry about it. I’ll find somebody else.”

  “Let me talk to my boss,” said the girl.

  “Sure, no problem. Go ahead. We’ll wait here.”

  She walked away and disappeared around behind the bar. Liquida sat waiting, thumping his fingers on the table to the beat of the music as the taxi boy sat drinking his beer.

  A few seconds later the girl came back. “My boss says I can go so long as I am back in five minutes.”

  “No problem. I’ll show you where it is. It’s just right across the street.” Liquida got up and told the taxi boy to sit tight. He picked up the beach bag and escorted the girl to the front corner of the bar where it bordered the sidewalk on Second Road. From here they had a good view across the street and to the south about a quarter of a block. He told her about the green door just beyond the tailor’s shop, next to the pharmacy. He waited for a break in the stalled traffic that was now bumper to bumper until they got a glimpse of the door. He described the interior of the office and told her the filing cabinet she was looking for should be in the second row from the right, about halfway down. Liquida hoped they hadn’t moved it since that first day when he set up the account and they gave him the tour.

  Then he grabbed one of the bar napkins, took a pen from his pocket, and wrote something on it. He handed her the napkin.

  “There will be a label on the drawer that will look just like this. It will have this typed on it in big letters. You can’t miss it. Just go ahead, take everything out of the drawer; there shouldn’t be that much. Drop it all in the bag and bring it back here. That’s all you have to do.” He handed her the beach bag and the keys and told her which one was for the office door and that the other was for the cabinet drawer. He gently took her arm and eased her toward the sidewalk. He thanked her and then watched as she slowly threaded her way through the stalled traffic toward the other side of the road.

  * * *

  Harry was wondering what in the hell was taking so long. At first he was worried that something might have happened inside. He was tempted to knock on the door, but as he got up close to the translucent glass he saw the faint flicker of a light inside. They must have found some kind of a flashlight. He left them alone and checked his watch.

  He felt a little obvi
ous standing outside the door, so he wandered down the hall toward the restrooms forty feet away. Just as he got there Harry heard footsteps coming down the stairs behind him. They were coming fast. There was no time to go back and tap on the glass. Besides, whoever it was was moving so fast they were probably on their way to the ground floor and out of the building, unless it was a call of nature.

  Harry figured he could hide in one of the stalls. He opened the door to the men’s room and stepped inside only to discover that the room was a single-holer, one commode. Good news was, there was a latch on the door.

  He waited to lock it to see if whoever it was would go on down the stairs. They didn’t. The footfalls suddenly stopped. Harry eased the door open just a crack. There was a guy, six feet tall, Caucasian, in slacks and a polo shirt standing just outside the stairwell. He was looking at the door to room 208 as if he was in a trance.

  The thought suddenly hit Harry that perhaps there was a motion sensor inside the room. If so, the janitor who fixed the lights might have reset it when he locked up, in which case it may have triggered a silent alarm. They needed to get the hell out of here.

  The guy in the polo shirt walked away, down the hall in the other direction. Just as Harry started to take a deep breath, the man came walking back, headed straight for the bathroom. Harry closed the crack and locked the door. Six seconds later he heard the door handle jiggle, and somebody pulled on it.

  If Harry had known the Thai word for busy, he would have used it. But he didn’t. So he just held his breath and hoped the guy would go away. A few seconds later, he heard footsteps going the other way, and then elephant feet on the stairs again, all the way down to the ground floor.

  Harry waited a couple of seconds, lifted the latch on the door, and peeked out. The coast was clear. He walked quickly down the hall toward the dark office. It was time to leave. Just as he got there, elephant foot was back. Coming up the stairs two at a time. Harry knew he was screwed. He stood there frozen, waiting for his fate. The guy was close enough that Harry could hear him breathing. Any second the man would step out of the stairwell and into the hall and Harry would be standing there in front of the dark door. That is, until he realized that the sound of the thudding footfalls was now coming from overhead. The guy had gone on up to the next floor.