was a generic one that all the tenants used, so it was impossible to know who punched it in. For that, the facility relied on a security camera mounted near the door. Peter wasn’t worried about that, either. His years of working as a spook wrangler had given him a healthy sense of paranoia, so he never went anywhere without a portable electronic jamming device in his pocket. He switched it on before approaching the door, and knew that for the few seconds he was there, the camera would seemingly malfunction.
Inside, he made his way to his unit, and input the combination on the bottom of the lock. This didn’t actually open it. Instead, it released a small panel on the surface that exposed a touch screen. He placed his left thumb against it, waited, and heard the faint click of the real lock on the inside of the door as it disengaged. The padlock remained closed, having already served its purpose. He pulled on it, and the door swung out.
The interior light came on as soon as the door was back in place. The unit looked pretty standard, albeit with only about half the amount of stuff it could have held. Peter moved around a couple stacks of cardboard boxes, and lifted a nearly invisible trap door in the concrete floor.
Forty-five seconds later, he was sitting in his safe room below the church.
Using one of the disposable phones he kept there, he called Misty first. She had been his assistant back in the Office days, and proved herself time and again as one of his most valuable assets.
“Misty?” he said.
There was a long pause. “What’s wrong?”
“An old case has resurfaced. I need your help.”
Another hesitation. “You’ll have to get me out of my current gig.”
“You’re still at the Labor Board?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I can do that. Finish out the day. You won’t need to go back until we’re done.”
“When and where do you want me to report?”
“You remember the townhouse in Georgetown?” he asked.
“The one on the top floor?”
“Yes.”
“I remember it.”
“After work, go home, pack a bag, and head there.” He paused. It had been six months since he’d checked in with her. “You can do that, right?”
“Are you asking if I have someone waiting for me at home?” She laughed. “Just Harry.”
Harry was her dog, a little Westie that was getting up in years.
“Can someone watch him?”
“My neighbor. What am I supposed to do when I get to the apartment?”
“I should be there ahead of you. If not, just get everything operational and wait for me.”
His next call was to the one man who could clear up what had gone down in Las Vegas the night Mila Voss was supposed to have died.
One ring, two. After the third, a recorded voice said, “Please leave a message.”
“Quinn, it’s Peter. I need you to call me as soon as you get this. Don’t blow me off. I need to talk to you now.” He gave the number of the phone and hung up.
He tried to remember the last time he’d spoken with Jonathan Quinn. It had been a while. Once the Office was disbanded, Peter had no longer been in a position to need the cleaner’s talent for disposing of unwanted bodies.
While he waited for Quinn to call him back, he logged on to his secure computer, and started putting feelers out to some of the sources he had in Asia, seeing if anyone might have unknowingly worked with Mila.
At a quarter after four, his phone rang. Only Misty and Quinn had the number, so he snatched it up without looking at the display.
“Yes?” he said.
“You called?” Not Misty.
“Quinn?”
“Hello, Peter.”
Not Quinn, either.
CHAPTER 3
BANGKOK, THAILAND
Browsers and shoppers and people who had nothing better to do crowded the sidewalk, checking out the stalls and tables selling charms and tokens and Buddhas by the bucketful. Though their number included more than a few tourists, most were Thai. The sellers who offered the best wares drew the largest crowds, sometimes making the sidewalk impassible for a minute or two.
On the street itself, cars were caught in a logjam, their pace even slower than that of the pedestrians-a few feet forward, stop, wait, a few feet more.
One of the taxis veered toward the curb. Before it had even stopped, the rear door swung open, and a farang — a foreigner-climbed out. Dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, he looked like just another Westerner out exploring the sights of the Land of Smiles. But he hadn’t come to Thailand for the culture. He was there for only one purpose.
Those on the sidewalk seemed to sense the difference in him. It wasn’t fear he invoked, but something closer to determination, a sense of mission, causing Thais and tourists alike to move to the side so that his path was unimpeded.
The clouds that had been gathering above Bangkok all morning had finally blanketed the sky, and the distant rumble of thunder warned of a change ahead. Many of the street vendors began to double-check the canopies and umbrellas that covered their goods, and those who didn’t have protection began packing up.
The smell arrived first. Rain on asphalt, perhaps a few blocks away. Then the initial drops began to fall. It started as a smattering, nothing more than a tease, but within seconds became a downpour, skipping all steps in between.
Tourists caught in the open rushed for cover, while the locals, who lived with the rain every day, went on with business as usual. The man in the black T-shirt continued walking as if the sun were still shining, and gave the rain no acknowledgment whatsoever.
It wasn’t long before he came to the point where the road took a sharp turn to the right. Instead of continuing with it, he went left into a short extension of the asphalt filled with food carts, where cars were no longer welcome. Dozens of tables were set up under umbrellas and tarps, crowded with people enjoying meals and staying dry.
Vendors called out to the man, trying to entice him to stop. Each time he put his hands together in front of his chest and bowed his head slightly in a Thai wai, thanking them for the offer but never once slowing his pace.
At the back end of the food area was a permanent structure. Inside were more stalls, a mixture of food and T-shirt vendors and souvenir shops. This was where the majority of the farang tourists had taken refuge.
The man walked all the way through the building and out the other end, onto a covered ramp that led down to a dock. Beyond was the wide and mighty Chao Phraya, the river that sliced the city in half. Its brown water was littered with green patches of vegetation floating rapidly southward toward the Gulf of Thailand. Long boats and barges and small river ferries, unconcerned about the rain, continued to move up and down it.
On the covered part of the dock, several people waited for one of the ferries to arrive. The man could see it approaching from the north. Like the others that traveled between the piers, it was long and low to the water, with rows of seats along each edge, like a canopy-covered airliner missing the top half of its tube.
The man walked all the way down to the dock, and took a position several feet from the others. He carefully scanned the river, noting at a subconscious level where each vessel was.
With a series of whistles from a man at the back of the boat, the ferry eased against the dock, then the motor was thrown into reverse to hold it in place. The whistler jumped off, and tied the vessel to the pier. As soon
