calling card for short duration calls to Rob or Edgar, but she wasn’t going to chance it with Arthur. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.
The sidewalks were filled with office workers going home for the evening as Edgar waited for Jet in his car in a parking lot near Nana. She’d called at five, as agreed, and they had arranged a meet for six-thirty, so she could get her kit. Street vendors held baskets of food aloft to the teeming multitudes, offering delicacies such as snake and fried, seasoned beetle — all for a nominal amount.
Jet’s knock on the passenger-side window caused him to start. He unlocked the door.
“Nice ride,” she said, surveying the nine-year-old Kia sedan’s fading interior as she slipped into the seat next to him. “Drive.”
“Where?”
“To the park. I’ll keep an eye out for any tail. I didn’t see any watchers on approach, but let’s be sure, shall we?”
Edgar eased out of the stall and paid the attendant, then pulled into the gridlocked traffic, the little Kia’s motor threatening to stall as he mistimed the clutch. The taxi he cut off honked a short, percussive toot. Edgar waved and shrugged. Jet studied him with a doubtful smirk, then resumed her watch in the side mirror. If someone had them under surveillance, they would have had their work cut out, unless they were doing so on foot.
Five minutes later, they’d advanced one block.
“We could probably crawl faster than we’ll get there in the car,” Edgar complained.
“Maybe so, but I have my reasons. Did you get everything?”
“Yes. It’s all in a duffle in the trunk. I have to admit that two of the items raised eyebrows. We don’t see a lot of call for those. Anyway, we had to go with the P90. I couldn’t get my hands on the MTAR in time. But I have one coming, by tomorrow, if he’s still around.”
“Big if.”
“I know.”
“Any more word on that?”
“Nothing new. He’s still at the condo as of now.”
“I’ll need a car when he bolts. And I might not have much time. Can you get me one that’s clean?”
“I already have one waiting.”
“No tracker on it — or in any of this gear, right?”
“Correct. Sort of would defeat the purpose at this point.”
She fiddled with the air-conditioning vent, pointing it at her face.
“Arthur convinced me to give Rob a chance. Tell him I’ll be calling him within the next few hours on his cell. Did he get his chip removed?”
“After we had our chat. He’s clean now. Although I think it’s more likely that they tracked one of your phones than the chip. By the way, I have Rob’s, along with yours. We had one of our assets on the police force go and collect it at the doctor’s. I presume you’ll want it in the car with Rob?”
“Correct. That way anyone tracking us will think we’re following Pu, which I think they probably expect at this point if the attack came from them. I would bet money they’re tracking the chips. If my instinct’s right, the other teams were dead before they ever left Bangkok.”
“I still don’t think they are, but this is your show.”
“That’s right. It is,” she said and left it at that.
They crawled along, tuk tuks and motorcycles roaring past them like swarms of metal locusts, vendors darting in and out of the endless rows of cars with every imaginable type of merchandise. The streets had converted into a giant moving market, which she found somehow fitting. She watched for any surveillance for another ten minutes and, finally satisfied that they were clean, patted Edgar’s leg.
“Pop the trunk. I’m going to walk.”
“What? Right here?”
“Yes. Pop it now. I’ll get in touch soon.”
With that, she opened the door and stepped out into traffic, quickly rounding the fender and pulling the black duffle bag out of the trunk. She slammed the lid closed and, without looking back, darted between a delivery truck and a taxi, then veered around a motor scooter, and was gone.
Chapter 20
“Happy to see me?” Rob asked.
“Ecstatic.”
He motioned to the duffle. “You have everything in that?”
“Yup. Let’s roll.”
It was two a.m., and they’d gotten word from the surveillance team that Pu had departed his club half an hour earlier, but instead of returning home, the car had headed north. Rob had picked her up near Nana and was haring up the expressway, trying to catch up. The signal had slowed near Don Muang airport, and they were closing the distance when Rob’s phone rang. Edgar told them that the car signal had returned to downtown, but the watch signal was now headed north again.
“How long until you’re at the airport?” Edgar asked.
“Five minutes,” Rob replied.
“He’s on highway one headed north. I instructed the surveillance car to stick with him until he either stops or you catch up to them. If you’re five minutes from the airport, they’re still around fifteen miles ahead of you, so I’d put my foot into it,” Edgar advised. “They’ll hand off the tracker once you’re close to them. They’re in a white Jetta with a frog decal on the back bumper.” He gave them the license number.
“All right. I’m signing off. I’ll call you once we’re in sight.”
The speedometer climbed until they were doing ninety miles per hour, racing along the nearly deserted freeway into the hinterlands. After they had passed the airport, the lights of Bangkok faded in the rearview mirror, replaced by the haphazard illumination of the smaller towns and convenience stops along the freeway.
An hour later, they saw the Jetta as they were approaching Ban It. Rob called Edgar, who instructed them to pull off at the next exit and do the swap.
The handoff took seconds, and soon they were back on the road, the signal blinking bright on the handheld tracker Edgar had arranged for them.
“Looks like he’s about a mile and a half ahead,” Jet said. “I’d get to within a mile of him then settle in for the duration.”
“This is going to be a long night. The last team tailed him all the way to the Myanmar border before he crossed over and ditched the car. That’s many, many hours of driving.”
“Want to bet he’s not driving himself?”
“I think that’s a given.”
“Why wouldn’t he fly?” Jet asked.
“Good question. Best we could tell, he doesn’t want any record of his coming and going. Even a private plane would create a record, these days. It isn’t like it was ten years ago. Automation isn’t the smuggler’s friend.”
“And yet he didn’t have any problems getting Lawan to Bangkok, so it can’t be that foolproof,” she said.
“I didn’t say it was perfect. I said it was harder than it used to be. Anyway, that’s my guess. Or maybe he’s afraid of planes. Who knows?”
“No point in speculating.”
Rob nodded. “True. What do you think the chances are they try to hit us on the road?”
“Nil. Why would they, when as far as they know, we’re coming right to them? Assuming it was this group that was after us, I’d wait until we were on their turf. Wouldn’t you?”
“Sure, but what do you mean assuming it was them? Who else would it be?”
“I don’t know. I just know something about all of this isn’t adding up,” she said, then sank into silence for a minute. “How rested are you?”
