Chasing the White Lion

by James R. Hannibal

  MAE HONG SON PROVINCE, THAILAND

  THE FOREST CANOPY FILTERED the gray light of dawn, turning everything a shade of green, including Po. The refugee walked a few paces ahead of Finn and Ewan, following the blood trail. Half an hour after sunrise, he stopped, raised a fist, and said something in Thai.

  “He found another wire pen.” Ewan bent to his knees for a breather and offered Finn a hit from an old-school canteen. “Water?”

  Finn wiggled the CamelBak drinking tube hanging at his shoulder. “I’m fine. Came prepared.”

  “Right. I forgot. Commando.”

  “Thief.”

  “Whatever.”

  The new holding pen looked much like the last two they’d found. Spent bandages and junk food wrappers were strewn about. Po took on a sad expression and raised a small sandal with yellow straps, hanging from his pinky.

  Somewhere a little girl—no more than eight, by the size of the sandal—slogged through the jungle with one bare foot, driven by her captors.

  Finn’s hand went to his weapon. “Look for the blood trail. We need to keep moving.”

  “There is no trail.” Ewan swept a slow path back and forth through the tangled brush beyond the pen’s gate. “Whoever was wounded stopped bleeding after this stop.” He straightened as Finn came over to him. “Perhaps that’s a good sign.”

  “Or perhaps not.” Finn lowered his voice when he said it. He had not forgotten that one of the missing children was Po’s son. And the Thai man understood at least some English.

  But without the blood trail, how could they continue the search?

  They gave it a shot. Using a terrain map, Finn connected the dots from pen to pen. The line curved, but the kidnappers had driven the children generally south. The three took a heading and marched on.

  An hour later, the jungle looked exactly the same.

  “Water break.” Finn nodded at Ewan’s canteen. “Drink. You need the hydration.”

  “You too.”

  “Yeah, I know. Thanks.” As he unhooked the CamelBak tube and set it between his lips, Finn turned in a slow circle, taking in the endless green. But the green wasn’t endless. At least, it wasn’t unchanging. One sector seemed lighter. He checked the compass clipped to his belt. “Ewan. Look southwest. Tell me what you see.”

  The Compassion man followed his gaze. After a moment, he nodded. Both men said what they were thinking at the same time.

  “A road.”

  They marched two hundred meters more and stepped out from the trees onto gravel and red dirt.

  “Big truck came through here,” Finn said, kneeling to draw a finger across a muddy tire track. “A few days ago, maybe. I don’t know. Two sets of tires on the rear axle, though—a dually. A sheepherder who dated my mom drove the same type.”

  Po looked Finn right in the eye and rattled off a few sentences.

  “He says big trucks don’t use this road. Too dangerous and totally unnecessary. There’s a better road to the east that joins all the villages in the region.”

  Finn gave the refugee a shrug, addressing him directly. “Makes sense for our kidnappers. They’d want to steer clear of prying eyes.”

  They kept looking, and a few paces up the road, Po found footprints. Lots of them. He’d found the place the kidnappers loaded up the children. “But the tire tracks look the same in both directions,” Ewan said. “Finn, can you tell which way they went?”

  He wished he could say yes, but he’d never learned proper tracking skills. The frustration of his inadequacy made him a little cranky. “I told you. I’m not a commando. I’m—”

  “A thief. We get it.” Ewan seemed to let Finn’s anger flow right past him. He got down on his knees in the grass beside the road and bowed his head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Praying. Hush.”

  Finn turned to Po. The refugee got down and bowed his head as well.

  The thief huffed, shaking his head. “Great. You two gents have at it. In the meantime, I’ll try to do something useful.” He walked the road.

  Fifty meters or more along the northwest track, something silver flashed in the sun. Finn snatched it up and jogged back to the others in triumph. “Oi, fellas! Look at this!”

  Ewan made him wait for several seconds while he finished his prayer. As he stood, he eyed Finn’s trophy. “It’s . . . litter.”

  “Not just any litter.” Finn pulled two more wrappers from his pocket. All three bore the same green and yellow logo on a silver background. “I collected these from the pens. One of our kidnappers is particular about his junk food. And since we know where they loaded up and where this was dropped, we can make a good bet which way they were headed.”

  Instead of patting Finn on the back, Ewan lifted his eyes skyward and said, “Praise God.”

  Po raised his hands to match the sentiment.

  “God? I’m the one who searched the road. I found the wrapper.”

  “Because Po and I prayed and asked for direction.”

  “I . . . You . . .” Before Finn could muster up an argument, he heard the rumble of an approaching truck. His eyes narrowed. “Po says no one uses this road, right?”

  Ewan and the refugee both nodded.

  “Into the trees. Now.”

  They ducked into the foliage and watched as a beat-up Toyota HiLux rolled to a stop a few feet away. The driver leaned his head out. “Come oot, come oot wherever ya are.”

  “Mac.” Finn led the others into the open, waving. “’Bout time you showed up. Did you have trouble tracking my signal?”

  “The mountains make it spotty at best.” The Scotsman slapped his door. “Borrowed this beauty from the airfield manager. Whaddaya think?”

  The introductions went as well as Finn might have predicted, revisiting the whole Scottish-Thai thing. With that out of the way, Po hopped into the back, and Finn and Ewan crammed themselves into the cab. As they drove off, Ewan looked skyward again and offered up a thankful nod.

  “What was that for?” Finn asked.

  “I also asked God if he could find us a ride.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-

  SEVEN

  BO SUPHAN

  SUPHAN BURI PROVINCE, THAILAND

  GOREV DESPISED CENTRAL THAILAND, a sweaty alluvial plain covered in wet fields and little else. No cover. He let the Bentley roll to a stop more than a mile from the cinder-block structures where Panther Five One and his people waited. The two buildings were already visible in the light haze hanging over the rice fields. Five One had not reached his elevated status without some modicum of intelligence. He might be watching. Any closer, and Gorev would give his boss away. “I walk from here.”

  “Yes, yes. Fine,” said Boyd, preoccupied with his phone.

  “You drive, da?” They had not discussed that part of the plan before leaving the Twin Tigers. Boyd usually did not sully himself by participating in this end of things. Gorev had never seen him get behind the wheel of a car.

  “Yes, I can drive. As long as it’s an automatic.”

  Gorev just looked at him.

  Boyd kept working his phone, bristling. “You have something to say about a well-to-do gentleman who can’t work a manual gearbox?”

  “Nyet.”

  “Then get out and let me do my thing.”

  As Gorev opened the door, Boyd touched his bicep. “Wait. The Maltese Tiger is dead.”

  “The Greek?”

  “Guess who took him out.” Boyd turned the phone for him to see and played a video. Gaming tables and well-dressed partiers whirled and swung through chaotic footage until the camera settled on three distant figures, standing on a platform beneath an obsidian dome. A pair of women armed with pistols fired round after round into a gray-haired man. The partiers screamed and shouted.

  Boyd stopped the playback. “Cobra One Eleven posted it this morning. And there were four others. All claim the shooters are the Macciano Sisters. One claims it was a full-on hostile takeover, involving t
he daughters of Marco Calafato, the retired crime boss.” He snapped his fingers. “Check on our new hawks. Now.”

  Gorev lifted a tablet from his nylon rifle bag. “Affirmative. Hawk Four One Eight claims she and sister took out Maltese Tiger instead of field mouse. They send thirty-five-million-dollar apology for”—he squinted at the word—“im-prov-is-a-tion. Do you accept?”

  “I think we can accept,” Boyd said after a time. “But the dead Greek leaves us an opening at the Frenzy.”

  “Who shall I invite?”

  “Who do you think? With Jafet gone, we can bring four new panthers to the party. Thirty-five million puts both sisters in the running. Send the new invitation.” He flicked his fingers. “Now get out. I have work to do. You have twenty minutes.”

  As he walked beside the road, rifle slung at his shoulder, Gorev called up the videos of the shooting. None were stable, but one gave him a grainy profile view of the woman in the black dress. He held the screen close to his eyes, shielding it from the sun. “Intriguyushchiy.” Intriguing.

  Twenty minutes later, Gorev lay prone among the low stalks of a rice paddy a hundred meters from the rendezvous, feeling what smelled like raw sewage soak into his clothes. The bipod of his FN Ballista rifle would not stay upright in such an environment. He had to support it with one hand, sinking his elbow into the muck.

  He sighed. His services were worth more than this.

  A thumping sounded in his ear. “Is this thing on? Gorev, you hear me?”

  “Transmitter go only one way,” he said to the mud. “Idiot.”

  Boyd’s car came into view across the road, pulling into a gravel lot between the pair of cinder-block structures. He climbed out of the Bentley and slammed the door. Another teeth-rattling noise in the Russian’s earpiece.

  Gorev put his eye to his scope and set the crosshairs slightly ahead of his boss, adjusting for the quick pace of his gait. How easy it would be to cut the puppet from the strings. But the puppet master would not like this, so he refrained.

  A man in fatigues stepped out of the western building to greet Boyd. Satisfied this was Panther Five One, Gorev panned around in a radial search pattern to identify additional targets. There were five—four grown men and a teenager, all armed with Kalashnikovs.

  No problem.

  “Mr. Boyd,” he heard Five One say through his boss’s hidden transmitter. “We were expecting your man two days ago.”

  Boyd gave him a used-car-salesman smile. “I wanted to come out and see the product myself. Hence, the delay. I hope it’s all right.”

  Panther Five One gestured at the door, and Gorev lost sight of them as they entered the building. The transmitter crackled with interference from the cinder-block structure.

  “Is this all of them?”

  “No sir. Half are here. Half in the other building.”

  “These look healthy enough, except for that one.”

  “Yes, but he is not the type of product you asked for, is he? We’ll put him down before we leave.”

  “I wouldn’t waste the bullet. He’ll expire soon enough. I think I’m ready to move forward. I’ll just need to see the others.”

  “Yes. Right away.”

  The door opened, and Gorev saw Boyd for an instant before the Englishman backed into the shadows again. “Please,” he heard him say, “after you.”

  Gorev kept his scope on the door and laid his finger on the trigger. The moment was fast approaching. Five One came out first, followed by the two soldiers who’d gone in with him, and then Boyd.

  When all four were in the open, Boyd drew a silenced Beretta. “That’s far enough.”

  Panther Five One shouted in Thai. Two of his soldiers reacted with decent timing, but not fast enough. Gorev pulled the trigger twice. They both fell. The others clued in and raised their rifles high in surrender, except for the teen, who froze. Gorev let out a breath. If the boy so much as twitched, he’d have to put him down.

  “What are you doing?” Five One asked. “We had a deal. You said you would connect me with buyers.”

  Boyd walked two paces closer. “I said I’d connect your product with buyers. Tell your men they work for me now.”

  When his victim hesitated, Boyd pressed the silencer to his forehead. Five One stammered out a few sentences of Thai. His men nodded their understanding. The teen let his rifle hang from its strap. Gorev gave him a quiet grunt. He’d live another day.

  “Any of you speak English?” Boyd asked.

  One of the soldiers raised a tentative hand.

  “Good. Come here.” The Englishman stepped out of the way. “Put your rifle to your boss’s head and pull the trigger.” When the soldier dragged his feet, Boyd thrust his pistol at him. “Don’t make me ask again.”

  “Still,” Gorev muttered, drawing his eye from the scope and jerking his elbow out of the muck, “you cannot do own wet work.” He had no desire to watch. The echo of the Kalashnikov’s three-round burst told him the job was done.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-

  EIGHT

  MILOS NATIONAL AIRPORT

  MILOS, GREEK ISLES

  THE CREW ARRIVED AT THE AS2’S HANGAR on Milos in midmorning after a short sleep. Cleanup at Club Styx had taken some time. Talia, along with Tyler, who had shown up at fifteen past midnight, had lingering guests to shoo away.

  “Some people just can’t take a hint,” Tyler had said, using a few well-placed rounds to encourage a pack of drunks to wade off down the ferryman’s tunnel.

  Eddie had gobs of files to download. Pell and Darcy had weapons and ammo to collect from Jafet’s armory, and Val had dozens of ten-sided gem dice to gather from the balcony game tables.

  A message was waiting for Talia at the computer station Eddie had set up beside the jet. Finn wanted to talk. She called up the video chat application on the center screen and dialed his number.

  “Hey, there.” Finn looked down into the camera from the passenger seat of a pickup truck. The image froze, jittered, and froze again, with only fleeting seconds of clarity. “How was the club?”

  “The usual. Lots of noise. Self-indulgent patrons. Left me with a splitting headache.”

  “Headache?” Finn seemed to catch her subtext. “You injured?”

  So, he did care. “Bump on the head. That’s all.”

  “Wish I’d been there.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” She shifted the conversation. He hadn’t left the message just to check on her. “What about the kids?”

  “Still looking. We tracked ’em to a road in the jungle. A goat herder walking the same stretch saw a pair of covered troop carriers two days back. Got pretty riled about it once we got him on the subject. Gave us a pretty fair description. Seems they ran him and his black Bengalis right off the track.”

  Her heart dropped. Talia didn’t know what, exactly, she had dared to hope for, but it was more than a description of some trucks. “Okay.” She tried not to sound disappointed. “What’s next?”

  “We’re asking after them at every fuel stop and village. Got a few leads. Looks like they’re heading toward Bangkok.” He turned his phone so that Talia could see the man beside him, a Thai man in a muddy button-down and jeans. “Helps to have a translator. We’d never have gotten this far without Ewan here.”

  “I’m sorry. You’re breaking up. It sounded like you said that Thai man was Ewan.”

  The Thai man rolled his eyes and shook his head as Finn turned the camera back to himself.

  “Another fuel stop’s coming up. Gotta go.” The call ended.

  Looking past the monitor, Talia saw Val, Tyler, and Don Marco at the edge of the hangar, looking grave.

  “But you can’t,” Val said to Marco as Talia walked over. “They’ll arrest you the moment you show up at customs.”

  The Italian gave her a fatherly smile. “Do you think I did not know this when I left Campione?”

  “So avoid customs all together. Your jet—”

  “—is not coming back. My ord
ers.”

  “This is my fault. I should never have called you.”

  “It was the right thing, figlia mia. The only thing. Part of a greater plan.” Don Marco took Val’s hand in both of his. “And I was glad to be here. Seeing you in this work warms my heart. You will dismantle the evils of Jafet’s organization, and do the same to a far greater monster—Livingston Boyd.” He raised her fingers and kissed them. “I am so proud.”

  Still holding her hand, as if unwilling to let go yet, Don Marco turned to Tyler. “You will take care of the house, my people?”

  Tyler nodded. “If that is what you wish. But Val’s right. You don’t have to do this. You don’t owe anyone.”

  “That is where you are wrong, amico mio. My eternal account is credited, yes. But wrongs as grievous as mine demand earthly consequences. The time has come for me to face them.”

  The dismay in Val’s expression left Talia puzzled. She had spoken with such disdain of her father before. They’d been estranged for years, yet now she refused to be parted from him. “What about the talk we never had?” asked the grifter, on the verge of tears. “We could go somewhere, sit down for a while.”

  “I have seen all I need to see—heard all I need to hear.” Don Marco took Tyler’s hand as well and placed it in Val’s. “This, whatever it may be, has my blessing.”

  A shout from the computer station stole Talia’s attention. Eddie slapped his fidget spinner down on the folding table. “We’re in!”

  When she looked back again, Val had buried her head in Tyler’s shoulder. Don Marco was ambling away across the tarmac toward a commercial jet—an old man with nothing but a rolling suitcase to his name.

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-

  NINE

  BO SUPHAN

  SUPHAN BURI PROVINCE, THAILAND

  THE DAYS AND NIGHTS in the cinder-block building had blurred together. Thet Ye couldn’t remember how long they’d been there. Aung Thu did not remember either, and he no longer answered when Thet Ye asked.

  When the soldiers had herded them inside—a barefoot race from the truck to the building—Thet Ye had seen a matching structure across the road. He could only hope Hla Meh, Teacher Rocha, and Pastor Nakor were in there. They had been taken in the other truck. He hated being separated from his best friend, not knowing if they’d ever see each other again, not knowing if she’d ever forgive him.