a boat’s oars trailing in the water.
Unlike the street, which was packed solid with motorbikes and the occasional bus or taxi, the sidewalks were fairly clear, and Karr had no trouble timing his approach.
Sidestepping a row of bikes parked against a building at the corner, he lumbered into Thao Duong just before the intersection, sending him sprawling to the ground. Karr scooped the thin man to his feet, planting the clear bug on the back of his hat at the same time.
“Sorry, pardner,” Karr said cheerfully. “Very sorry.” He repeated the translator’s apology in Vietnamese.
Thao Duong’s face had turned white. For a moment, Karr thought he was going to have a heart attack. But he sped forward, skip-walking across the intersection just as the light turned.
“Working?” Karr asked the Art Room.
“Yes,” said Chafetz. “He’s crossing the street about halfway down the block.”
“Must have a suicide wish,” said Karr as the motorbikes whizzed by.
About fifteen minutes later, Thao Duong entered a three-story office building within sight of the port. The building looked as if it dated to the early 1950s, and its stucco exterior looked as if it hadn’t been painted since then.
“Which side of the building?” Karr asked the Art Room.
“North side,” said Sandy Chafetz. “We’re not sure what floor, second or third.”
Karr took what looked like an expensive tourist camera from his backpack and began fiddling with the lens. The camera contained a miniaturized boom mike that could pick up vibrations on window glass, but it had to be aimed at the proper window.
“How’s this?” he asked, aiming the device at the top floor.
The feed was sent back to the Art Room via the booster in his pack.
“Nothing. Try the next room,” said Chafetz after two minutes.
Karr aimed the “camera” at the next window.
“Two women talking. Next window,” said Chafetz.
It took three more windows before Karr found the proper room. By that time, it appeared that Thao Duong’s conversation was nearly over; he was telling someone how disappointed he was.
“It’s a dispute about money. The other guy seems to be holding him up for more than they bargained for,” explained Thu De Nghiem, the Art Room translator. “And he wants payment by the end of the day.”
“Don’t they always?”
“Thao Duong is coming out of the building,” said Rockman. “In a hurry.”
A white-haired Vietnamese dockworker was staring at Karr’s camera when he turned around.
“Take my picture?” Karr asked the man. Before he could object, Karr had clicked the “camera” off and thrust it into the man’s hands. “You look through the viewer, see? Then press the button on the top.”
The man gave Karr a confused look, then did as he was told, aiming it in the general direction of the blond American giant who had just accosted him. As soon as he pressed the phony shutter button, Karr came toward him.
“Didn’t work,” said the man in Vietnamese. “No click.”
“Thanks, Pop,” said Karr, grabbing the camera.
“No click. No click.”
“He’s telling you that the camera didn’t work,” said Thu De Nghiem in the Art Room.
“No, well, then I’ll have to get it checked out.”
“You want the words in Vietnamese?” Thu De Nghiem asked.
“No,” said Karr. “But tell me how to ask him where there’s a good restaurant. My stomach’s growling.”
53
“The office Thao Duong visited in Saigon belongs to a company called Asia Free Trade Shipping,” Marie Telach told Rubens. “As the name implies, they arrange shipping from the port. Furniture, mostly. Some leather goods.”
“Have you found a link to Infinite Burn?” asked Rubens, staring at the screen at the front of the Art Room. It showed a feed from the front of Thao Duong’s building. Thao Duong was back inside in his office, having returned there after visiting the Asia Free Trade Shipping office.
“Nothing obvious. But the company does have connections in the U.S.,” said Telach. “And the man Duong met wanted more money. Maybe for a second attempt?” Rubens put the fingers of his hands together, each tip pushing against its opposite. Good intelligence was often a matter of making good guesses; the trick was knowing when a guess was good.
“Nothing else?”
“We’re looking.”
“Stay on Duong. Arrange to intercept any international calls Asia Free Trade makes. Put together a call list, a transaction scan — find out everything there is to know about anything remotely connected to either Duong or that company.”
54
Dean caught up with Karr just after Thao Duong had begun to move again, this time walking in the opposite direction from the waterfront. At first they thought he was going back to his apartment, but about a block away he veered right and began zigzagging through a series of small alleys.
“Thinks he’s being followed,” said Dean. “We better hang back for a while.”
“He’s going to take one of those taxi bikes,” predicted Karr. “Come on. I have a motorbike around the corner.”
“You think I’m getting on the bike with you?”
“It’s either that or walk,” said Karr.
“I’d rather walk,” insisted Dean.
Karr obviously thought he was joking, because he started to grin. Dean relented when Sandy Chafetz told them that Thao Duong had apparently found a Honda
They followed Thao Duong to the north side of the city.
Dean kept his eyes closed the whole way.
“He’s in a bus station,” Chafetz told them when they were about a block away. “Odds are the key he had last night fits a locker there.”
“Not much of a bet,” said Karr. He pulled off the street into a small loading area at the side of the station. “You feel like driving for a while, Charlie?”
“You follow him. I feel like stretching my legs.”
“What are you going to do?”
“See what else is in his locker.”
The tracking data from the Art Room was good enough to locate a person to within a meter and a half. That still left Karr nine feet of lockers to check. Each door was just over a foot square, and they were stacked six high.
“Can you give me a little help here?” he asked Chafetz.
“Your guess is as good as ours.”
Karr reached into his pack and pulled out his night glasses, hoping that the infrared lenses would pick up a temperature difference in the locker that had been recently opened.
