Lau spat on the floor in front of Mark. “You still don’t get it, stupid farrang! I not your friend. I was your partner. I with you to make money!”
Mark lurched forward and grabbed Lau by the lapels of his colorful shirt.
“We were making money, you stupid bastard! What the hell did you do?”
Lau glared at him. “We making peanuts. You wasting my time. You too scared to take the next step, so I take it for you!”
Mark slammed his fist into Lau’s gut and dropped the coughing, sputtering man to the ground.
“Why are the Royal Police all over this? Why are they so worked up over a bunch of counterfeit purses and designer jeans?”
Lau wiped his mouth with his arm and glared up at Mark.
“Not jeans, asshole. Not this time. Something bigger. Your bribe too small now. You no longer protected.”
Mark took a step towards Lau’s prostrate body. He kept his voice low, but even with the thumping music outside, his words cut through the room like a blade of ice.
“Drugs?”
Lau laughed, a short, pained bark, and propped himself up to a sitting position on the floor.
“Not drugs. Guns.”
Does it matter? Mark wondered. He knew both charges carried the death penalty.
“How did the police find them?”
Lau shrugged. “I tell them, of course. I change the shipment. I inform Chief Battang of the new arrangement. He get to make big arrest for gun smuggling. Now that you out of picture, he get bigger cut for future shipments.”
Mark stared at the man in shock. “You told him? You burned an entire shipment of guns just to sell me out?”
“Could have burned two ... three, fuck it! Money well spent. You think too small. We have the contacts; we have boat. The police are in our pocket. We making pennies when we could have big score! Drugs, guns, women! This my operation now. Consider this your retirement!”
In the space of a heartbeat, between the pulses of laser light, Mark’s anger burned into white-hot fury. His mouth twisted in a silent snarl.
Lau gasped in fear and tried to shield himself with his hands. Mark grabbed him by his shirt, hoisted him into the air, and threw him back against the wall with all his strength.
He pummeled Lau’s pudgy face, first in a series of measured, one-two strikes. But soon the punches became more erratic. Each wild swing battered Lau’s flesh with a dull thud.
“You have no idea!” Mark screamed. “No idea what you’ve done! You hear me, you piece of shit?”
Mark’s fist rose to strike again, when he felt a sudden blunt impact on the back of his head. He dropped to the ground as more blows rained down on his body. Several Royal Police had stormed the room; in his rage, Mark had left his back to the door.
One of the officers helped Lau to his feet. The traitor could barely stand, but he pushed the officer away from him. He grabbed a white towel from a bottle of champagne in the corner to wipe the blood from his mangled face.
He knelt down in front of Mark.
“I know exactly what I did, farrang. I did what you afraid to do. You don’t belong here anymore. You never did.”
Lau stood back up and took a long, hard look at Mark, who was moaning and rolling on the floor. His leg shot out, kicking Mark in the face. The force of the blow rolled Mark onto his back. He stared up at the blurred faces of Lau and the policemen.
A lone thought went through Mark’s mind before he slipped into unconsciousness. After he was arrested, the name “Mark Waters,” along with his fingerprints, would be processed through Interpol’s computers. The results would show up on the daily logs of every intelligence service in the Western world.
That was going to cause problems since his name was not, in fact, Mark Waters.
It was Thomas Caine.
Chapter Three
Rebecca Freeling ran.
Raindrops bounced off her skin as she drove her body forward. Her long, lean legs moved back and forth with smooth, rhythmic precision. Her arms pumped in time to each step.
The early morning sky was cold and grey. Ominous rolling clouds were backlit by the first stirrings of sunlight. This was the meridian between day and night. Light and darkness. This was her favorite time. This was when she ran.
She shifted her weight as the road curved around a grassy hill. The soles of her running shoes gripped the wet pavement as she leaned into the turn. She was careful not to push too hard. Some runners had taken nasty spills on this part of the route, and the last thing she needed was a broken leg or twisted ankle. The thought of months in recovery, trapped, unable to run ... a shiver ran through her body. She dug in as she left the turn behind, picking up speed on the straightaway.
She struggled to clear her mind of stress and fear. No job. No compromises. Just the rain, and wind, and the smooth, percussive beat of her footsteps.
An electronic chirping interrupted her serenity.
Rebecca moved to the shoulder of the road and slowed to a stop. She stretched her arms up as high as she could, arching her back like a cat. The cell phone clipped to her waist continued its soft ringing. It would go on forever, she knew. There was no voicemail. When that phone rang, she was expected to pick it up, come hell or high water.
As her breathing returned to normal, she tapped the screen to answer.
“Go ahead.”
The voice on the other end had the nasal, high-pitched whine of a teenager, though Ethan Maslin was in his twenties. Ethan was her information specialist, a hacker busted in an FBI sting operation. Now, to avoid a jail sentence, he put his talents to work for the CIA.
“How do I know it’s you? Maybe you’ve been kidnapped and replaced by a robot duplicate.”
Rebecca sighed. “It’s too early for this, Ethan. I’m in the middle of a run.”
“You know, you do work behind a desk, Rebecca. What’s with all the exercise? Do you have field ops envy?”
“The better to kick your ass with, Ethan. Hanging up now—”
“Wait! Bernatto called. He’s set a meeting. Kryptos, 9:00 a.m. on the dot.”
She checked her phone’s clock. Just enough time to finish her run and get ready. A short buzz indicated Ethan had already sent the invite.
“Thanks, Ethan. I’ll be there. See you in a couple hours.”
“Hey, Rebecca?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s your time?”
She laughed. “Shitty, as always. Trust me, Ethan, it’s not about the time.”
She hung up and spared herself a minute to look around, soaking in the tranquility of the cool morning. The truth was Rebecca had run this route dozens of times ... and she had never once timed herself. For her, it really wasn’t about the time.
It was about the escape.
She picked up her feet and resumed her pace. The morning mist grew thicker, surrounding her, and then she was gone, lost in a cold, grey cloud.
Two hours later, Rebecca had traded in her damp sweats and sneakers for a charcoal Helmut Lang suit. Her long, fiery red hair was slicked back into a thick ponytail, and she wore a navy blue raincoat, belted at her waist.
The sharp lines of her designer clothes made her feel like a shark—a smooth, deadly predator, relentlessly moving forward. Her black heels clicked on the walkway between her office and the New Headquarters Building. Up ahead, a courtyard separated the two buildings with a centerpiece known as Kryptos, a sculpture as enigmatic as its name suggested.
Rebecca strode up to the eight-foot-tall copper statue. The sheet of metal rose up from the ground in a curved S-shape. It stretched twelve feet from left to right. A series of letters and symbols was stamped into the metal, divided into four square sections. Each section contained a coded message, all but one of which had been cracked and translated. The fourth code remained a mystery, known only to the artist and, according to legend, the director of the CIA.
Allan Bernatto stood in front of the copper statue, gazing up at the strange symbols that adorned i
ts surface. Clad in a black trench coat, he held an umbrella in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee from the nearby cafeteria in the other. He stood with his back to her, but he spoke before she entered his field of vision.
“You’re late, Freeling.”
Rebecca didn’t bother glancing at the slim platinum watch on her wrist.
“Sorry, Allan. Rain slowed me down.” She stood next to him and glanced at the fourth section of the Kryptos panel. This was the code that no amateur or CIA cryptographer had been able to translate. “Taking a crack at the fourth code?”
Allan gave a short laugh, more of a grunt than an expression of humor. “You know how much this thing cost? Fucking ridiculous.” He looked down at Rebecca, raindrops beading on his small, round glasses. “Walk with me.”
Rebecca looked up and tried to read his eyes. As always, they were as dark and unyielding as the metal wall before them. She shrugged and nodded.
They turned and walked down the pathway leading out of the courtyard. The older man didn’t say a word as their footsteps crunched across the pebbled path. Gradually, the sound of the rocks beneath their feet became louder than the chattering of their coworkers in the courtyard. He cleared his throat once.
“Where are we on the Kusaka situation?” His voice was low and even, as emotionless as the navigation system in her car.
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“No,” he interrupted, “don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew it was a futile gesture. She already knew how this conversation was going to go.
“I don’t care about your ‘due respect’ or your opinions on the matter, or why you don’t think we should get involved. I don’t care if you like me, or hate me, or you think I’m the fucking Antichrist. I assigned you a task. I’m on a tight timeframe here. What do you have for me?”
Rebecca stopped in her tracks, forcing Allan to shuffle a bit before turning to glare at her. “May I be blunt, sir?”
He nodded.
Rebecca took a breath. “I do not have the access required for the task you’ve assigned me. The assets you want to deploy in this situation require an extremely specific skill set. Language skills, deep cover background, regional knowledge ... I’ve exhausted the normal pool of outside talent, and no one comes close.”
Allan looked at his watch. “I’ve got a meeting with Homeland in ten minutes. Give me your pitch.”
Rebecca stifled a laugh. Working for Allan had taught her new meanings of the word “arrogance.”
“I don’t have a pitch, Allan. I’m just not sure—”
Allan held up a gloved hand. “Just tell me what you want, Freeling. What’s it going to take to get you to do your job?”
All humor left her face as her features hardened into an icy stare. The man knew how to get a rise out of her.
“All right. I need higher clearance to find the kind of talent you’re looking for. I need access to records that are closed off to me right now. And I need Ethan working point for me on this. That’s what it will take to get this done in the timeframe you’ve given me.”
Allan nodded and looked towards the shiny buildings in the distance. Although he seemed disinterested, she knew him better than that. The far-off look in his eye was risk analysis. He was weighing the odds and planning his countermoves in case things went south.
“All right, fine. As of now, you are head of a new task group I’m starting. The Extra Departmental Assets Group, or some other bullshit name we come up with. High-level clearance. Minimal oversight. Ethan has access to any and all files he needs. Just get someone suitable in Tokyo by the end of the week. I don’t care who it is. I don’t even want to know who it is. Just get it done. Are we clear?”
Rebecca opened her mouth, but no words came out. Of all the possible outcomes of this meeting, a promotion was one she had never considered. Finally, she settled for a firm nod.
“Good. Don’t bother keeping me posted.... I’ll be keeping tabs on you.”
He turned and walked off into the rain. Rebecca bit her lip, turning Allan’s words over in her mind. She mentally replayed the conversation word by word. It occurred to her that a promotion at the CIA could be a curse in disguise.
Maximum clearance and minimal oversight ... just enough rope to hang herself.
Chapter Four
After forty-eight hours in Bang Kwang Central Prison, Thomas Caine ranked it near the top of his list of godforsaken hell holes. Eighty acres of stinking, sweat-stained concrete and metal surrounded him, and the air was thick with sewage and despair. He wasn’t sure which smelled worse. He knew he had seen worse.... He had suffered pain and captivity the likes of which most people could never imagine. But Bang Kwang, the legendary “Bangkok Hilton,” was a close second.
As he swatted a fly off his sweat-drenched forehead, he felt optimistic. True, conditions were bad, abysmal even. But in a place like this, a place of sickness, violence, corruption ... how far away could death be? How long could he realistically expect to suffer before infection, or a cold metal blade in the dark, ended his horror for good?
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. You’ve survived worse. You didn’t give up then. You can’t give up now.
But why not? he asked himself.
His gaze drifted across the courtyard. Men were everywhere, like bloated, lethargic vermin infesting a long-dead corpse. Some talked in groups, smoking cigarettes they had bought off the guards with favors and contraband. Others played cards or flipped the pages of moldy, faded paperback novels.
Across the cement square, near a group of old picnic tables, a dozen or so prisoners lined up. An older man sat at the table with a worn leather satchel full of rusted tools. One by one, the men stepped up and opened their mouths, allowing the old man to peer in, examining their teeth.
As Caine had learned at mealtime the day before, the old man’s name was Narong. He had been a carpenter before murdering both his wife and her lover. He had set fire to a van they were using for one of their romantic trysts. He claimed not to know they were both inside it at the time. The trial didn’t go his way.
However, the fact that his cousin was an oral surgeon officially qualified him to act as the prison’s dental services provider. They even let him carry his old tools. Prisoners requesting dental care lined up at his table. They were responsible for acquiring their own cups of alcohol to sterilize Narong’s implements.
Caine looked away as Narong lowered a pair of pliers into a shivering, emaciated prisoner’s mouth. Screaming filled the air. It was not an unusual sound in Bang Kwang, and the guards paid no attention.
Caine felt a prickling on his neck. He once again scanned the yard, drinking in the details. He watched Narong tugging at his pliers, the grimace of pain on his patient’s face. The guards kept their backs to him and the other prisoners, studiously avoiding the horror show playing out behind them. Why are they all looking away?
A man emerged from the pack of prisoners, his leg chains jangling with each step. In seconds, the man closed in, and Caine knew what the prickling was: the sixth sense of a killer, recognizing impending violence. He had been sent here to disappear. It only made sense Lau would send someone to finish the job.
Caine, like every other prisoner, wore irons and chains around his ankles. There was just enough play for him to step forward and balance on his rear leg. He brought his hands up in front of him, palms open.
The assassin blinked, surprised to see his target advancing instead of moving away. Only an inch or two shorter than Caine, muscles bulged beneath his prison rags. Caine swore at himself for not noticing him sooner.
A tattoo of a scorpion danced across the thick cords of his shoulder and neck. It was the symbol of a Chao Pho, a local gang of mixed Thai and Han Chinese ethnicities. They controlled organized crime in Thailand’s cities. Caine had a working relationship with the gangs, and he paid them a percentage when operating in their territory. But this was
obviously not personal. Just business.
Scorpion made a rapid, twisting motion with his left ankle. The iron manacle clicked open and fell to the ground. Caine barely had time to register the movement before the big man pivoted on his left foot. Then, Scorpion launched his right leg into a powerful spinning heel kick.
Caine instinctively tried to execute a defensive kick. He raised his right foot, but then heard the clink of the chain surrounding his ankles pull taut. Cursing, he turned his body to the side, trying to pivot out of the way, but it was too late. Scorpion’s heel smashed into his chest.
Caine’s back slammed into the ground with a loud crack. Coughing and sputtering for air, he immediately assumed a defensive ground position. Covering his face, he rolled left and right, blocking blows where he could with his foot. The chain around his ankles made this almost impossible. He would have to get back on his feet if he hoped to survive.
To relax his spasming diaphragm, he took a deep breath. His instincts began to take over. Time seemed to slow down. He sensed the other prisoners circling them, cheering the fight on. They did not register as a threat, and his mind muted their bloodthirsty cries to a dull background roar. But the buzzing still tingled at the back of his neck.... There was another danger nearby.
Caine rolled to his left, towards one of the old battered picnic tables that dotted the courtyard. He allowed momentum to carry his body under the table. A blunt stick hit the dirt where his head had been a moment earlier. Another prisoner had joined the fight, this one tall but lanky and malnourished. After a few days on the prison diet, Caine could see why. The new attacker wielded a prison guard’s baton. He, too, had been freed from his leg irons. Lau must have paid the warden a pretty penny to arrange this hit.
Caine popped up on the other side of the table. He slid back into his defensive position: hands raised, legs apart, one foot farther back for balance. He stared down his attackers. His emerald eyes were calm, and he did not blink.
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