by Barry Eisler
His staring eyes filled, and the tears slipped down his face. It didn’t make her feel sorry. It made her feel triumphant.
He croaked out four numbers in Thai. She pressed them on the keypad—and was in. But the interface was in Thai.
“Show me,” she said. “Show me his mobile number. And if I find you’ve lied to me, you know what I’ll do.”
Tears leaked from his eyes. “Please don’t tell them. Please.”
“Which is his?”
He reached for the phone. She handed it to him. He tapped the screen several times, then pointed to a name and number. She took the phone and looked. Yes, Krit Juntasa. Her Thai was rusty, but properly cued, she could read it. With an entry for a mobile number.
She used the burner to snap a photograph of Dirty Beard’s information, then did the same for the “Recent Calls” screen and the address book. There weren’t many entries. The iPhone might have had other valuable information, and she wished she could have just taken it. But someone might notice it missing. She judged the risk not worth it. Besides, she had the photos.
She pulled a sleeve down over her hand and wiped down the iPhone on the sweatshirt. She passed it back to him to ensure his prints would be on it. Not that anyone would look, but if they did, no prints at all would have seemed odd. He took it in his right hand, transferred it to his left, and placed it back on the shelf.
She switched the burner to video again. “Tell me what you did,” she said.
He shook his head. “Please. No more.”
“You need to confess. You know that. You can feel that. Don’t tell me you’re sorry if you won’t even confess.”
“Please.”
“You kidnapped and raped little girls, didn’t you?”
Tears streamed from his eyes. “Yes.”
“And your accomplices were Chanchai Vivavapit and Krit Juntasa?”
“Yes.”
“Stop hiding from it. Own it. Say what you did.”
“I kidnapped and raped little girls. With Chanchai Vivavapit and Krit Juntasa. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Now in Thai. Say it in Thai.”
He did. She recognized enough of the words to know it was accurate. Besides, he was obviously beyond dissembling.
She clicked off the burner, dropped it back in one of her shorts pockets, and glanced around. Everything was still silent but for the hum of the machines and the whoosh of the fan. The woman remained insensible. No one else was about.
She reached into the pack and pulled on the motocross gloves. She glanced around again. Still no one.
Alongside Square Head’s torso lay a spare pillow and an unused blanket. She took hold of the top of the pillow with one gloved hand and slipped the blanket over it so that her hand was sandwiched between pillow and blanket. With the other hand, she pulled free the oxygen tube taped under his nose. Despite all he’d said of karma, his eyes popped panic-wide and he fumbled for the tube.
Too late. She swept one hand down and pressed his arms to his abdomen. With her other hand, she pushed the pillow over his face.
His bony legs kicked feebly. She released his arms and used both hands to compress the pillow against his face. He scratched at her, but his nails danced harmlessly over the blanket, beneath which was the carbon fiber of the gloves. His body began to shake, and he gripped her forearms and tried to push her away. Despite his decrepitude, in extremis he was able to squeeze hard enough for her to feel the pressure even through the magazines taped over her forearms. But a little pressure through the magazines, even a lot, wouldn’t matter. There would be no bruises on her, and no DNA on him. She doubted there would be any fibers from the sweatshirt to be found, either, or that anyone would look for them, but even if she were wrong, she had purchased the garment just yesterday, kept it in plastic separate from her other belongings, and would quickly dispose of it.
Square Head’s struggles lasted only a few seconds. Then his body relaxed and his hands collapsed to his sides. His knees, which had been pointing toward the ceiling, fell open in a spread eagle, creating a gap in the diaper through which Livia could smell that he had fouled himself.
She kept one hand pressed firmly on the pillow. With the other, she moved the blanket back alongside him. She used her teeth to pull off one glove, then the other, slipping each back into the pack with one hand while maintaining the pressure on the pillow with the other.
When she was sure he was past any possibility of revival, she moved the pillow alongside the blanket. Doubtless there would be some drool on it, but that would mean nothing.
Square Head’s head was tilted back, his mouth agape in a pantomime of a desperate gulp for air, his eyes frozen wide in terror and despair. Maybe in his final moments he’d realized there was something worse than karma in this world. Maybe he’d seen a vision of hell in the next one.
She glanced around one last time. The woman in the adjacent bed hadn’t stirred. A breeze drifted in through the open door at the far end, but beyond that everything was still. She replaced the oxygen tube, wiped the spot she had touched with a sheet, shouldered the pack, and walked out the way she had come.
She felt strangely empty. Seeing his face again had made her want to tear him apart, the way she had Skull Face. But in the end, she’d dispatched him with not much more than euthanasia.
It was the right call. It couldn’t look like murder. You’d be a suspect. Dirty Beard would know you’re coming. You wouldn’t get to Sorm, the brains behind what happened to you and Nason. And you’d never find that little girl. You killed him. After all these years, you killed him. Let that be enough.
But what if it isn’t enough?
She’d spent sixteen years—almost half her life—craving revenge. And killing the senator, and his aide, and most of all Skull Face, was sweet. It was.
But all that had been only two months earlier, and now she was back. And . . . it wasn’t helping the way it had before.
What if it’s never enough?
It has to be. It has to be.
But all at once, she didn’t really believe that. And she had no idea what that meant. Or what to do about it.
10
Dox woke at first light in the small room he’d taken at the Blue Bat Hotel in Battambang. At the riel equivalent of about twenty dollars a night, the place was cheap enough to take cash and accept a story about a lost passport, but decent enough to have solid doors and locks. And overall it was more than comfortable. The bed was nice and soft, the way he liked it—he’d spent enough nights in cramped sniper hides to appreciate a good mattress and feather pillow. But despite the furnishings, he hadn’t slept well. It was the feeling that he should get the hell out of Cambodia. If Rain knew he’d stuck around after a job, he would have told Dox he ought to have his head examined, and Dox knew he wouldn’t be able to argue. And job, hell, it was more than that. He’d killed the guy who hired him, a guy who’d turned out to be—oops!—a DIA officer up to his neck in unspecified skullduggery. And three accomplices right after. And now there was the damn sword guy on top of it.
The problem was, there was at least some chance Sorm would turn up in Cambodia, and Dox didn’t want to cross a border only to learn that he had to go back right afterward. On the other hand, according to Vann’s hunch, which Dox had relayed to Kanezaki, Sorm was likely in Pattaya. So he’d compromised, taking a late bus to Battambang, a city northwest of Phnom Penh with a laid-back vibe, some remarkably well-preserved French-colonial architecture, and a name Dox had always secretly loved. Battambang would give him reasonably good access to Pailin, Sorm’s home province, as well as to various border crossings into Thailand, where he’d be within shooting distance of Pattaya, figuratively speaking, if Kanezaki wound up confirming Vann’s hunch.
He headed down to the hotel restaurant. It was far too early for the hotel’s trekker clientele to be up, and he enjoyed having the pastel-colored room to himself for a meal of scrambled eggs, tropical fruit, and black coffee. When he was done, he us
ed another burner to call Kanezaki.
“New phone?” Kanezaki asked.
“Just trying to avoid any more unpleasant surprises.”
They quickly confirmed the Signal ID was a match. “Well, how’d old Vann’s hunch work out?” Dox said. “As well as yours?”
“Maybe better.”
It was hard not to smile at that. “You don’t say.”
“I don’t want to give him too much credit. But he got me looking in the right direction. Helped me eliminate some false positives and probably saved us a lot of time overall.”
“That’s good. I’d certainly like to resolve this unpleasantness sooner rather than later.”
“Don’t get me wrong. This wasn’t easy. At all.”
Dox laughed. Kanezaki couldn’t stop himself—he always had to remind you of how difficult a task was so he could exact some greater concession in return.
“When this is over, I’m going to send you a bouquet of roses and give you a big wet sloppy kiss. But for now, could you just tell me what you found out?”
“All right. Vann’s sense that a Sorm front company was investing in that deluxe hotel in Pattaya was key. I pointed some financial-forensics people in that direction, and they uncovered connections Vann hadn’t managed to.”
“And then?”
“This is the good part. In the last week—the same period Vann told you Sorm has been in the wind—a dozen calls have been made from a dozen burner phones, all from the nightclub in that hotel, all to known Sorm associates.”
“Son? I don’t just appreciate you. I think I love you.”
“Wait, that was only the good part. Here’s the best part. The mobile phone of one of said associates has shown up in the club three times in the same week. Not proof positive, but about as solid a trail as we ever get in this business. Sorm is there. And he’s meeting people.”
Dox took a sip of coffee, suddenly suspicious. “Yeah, it sounds solid, all right. A little too solid, you think?”
“I had the same thought. But I really did have to work a lot of angles to get this intel. Sorm doesn’t know all our capabilities. You wouldn’t believe how many bad guys out there are careful about their own phones but don’t think about the patterns created by the phones of known associates. And sure, Sorm is being careful, but he also knows he’s being protected. Maybe that’s making him more complacent than he should be.”
That did sound about right. It just always made him twitchy when a trail seemed a little too easy to follow. “All right,” he said. “You’ve convinced me.”
“Now listen,” Kanezaki said. “The intel is good, but you need to be careful. Sorm’s not just a monster. He’s a survivor. He’ll have heard about Gant. I doubt he’ll be out in the open. And I expect he’ll have bodyguards.”
“I expect the same,” Dox said. “Speaking of which, sadly, I had to ditch the SR-25 Gant had procured for me after I sent him to his reward with it. So other than my usual collection of exotic sharp and pointy things, I’m feeling a little light on tools at the moment.”
“No. I can’t help with that. Whatever else is going on, Sorm is a DIA asset. You can’t kill him. I can’t be part of that. It’s a bridge too far.”
“Look, I already promised Vann I wouldn’t kill the man. But I do at least need to have a word with him. And I’d prefer that word to be Glock, say, or SIG, or, ideally, Wilson Combat, which yes I know is two words, not one. Just to establish the right conversational tone. You want him to open up to me, don’t you?”
There was a pause. Then Kanezaki sighed. “All right. I’ll have something for you in Pattaya. I need to reach out to a contact in the area, and then I’ll let you know where and how.”
“Good. And while we’re on the subject, I favor the Tactical Supergrade in .45 ACP.”
“What do you think I am, Santa Claus?”
“Well, you’re both miracle workers, right? Oh, and a bellyband holster wouldn’t offend me, either.”
Kanezaki laughed. “I swear, one day you’re going to get me into real trouble.”
“Maybe, but you know I’ll always be there to help you get out of it, too.”
“Yeah, I do know that. And no bullshit—thank you.”
Dox hadn’t been expecting that, and was surprised to find himself touched. “Well, same to you, amigo. Lot of water under the bridge between us. I’m glad you know I’ve got your back. And it feels good to know you’ve got mine. The only way to make sense of this crazy world of ours is to know who your real friends are.”
Kanezaki laughed again, and the unfamiliar emotional moment was gone. “Remember, I want to know what Sorm has been feeding DIA. The basis for that relationship. And why they tried to kill Vann.”
“I know, I know.”
“And don’t kill him, damn it.”
“I won’t. Can’t promise I won’t hurt his feelings, though.”
He clicked off, powered down the phone, and slipped it into the Faraday case.
Yeah, he wouldn’t kill Sorm. Not unless he had to. For the moment, Sorm wasn’t the real threat. That was the people behind Sorm. So as much as he might enjoy it on a personal level, there wouldn’t be much point to killing Sorm without first learning who at DIA was backing him.
But he hadn’t said anything about killing bodyguards, had he? No, he sure hadn’t. Must have slipped his mind.
11
Livia spent the next two nights at the retreat. Remaining at the scene was contrary to all her instincts, but she’d reserved for two nights, and leaving abruptly would draw attention.
It wasn’t logical, but she half expected police to show up. They didn’t. Instead, there was a small and dignified ceremony in the chapel for a recently deceased patient. The body was wrapped in red cloth, incense was burned, and one of the friars said a few words. The only mourners, so far as Livia could see, were hospice staff and other patients. Everything about the simple send-off seemed familiar and routine. And why not? This was a hospice for the indigent dying of AIDS. What could be more unlikely here than murder? And what could be more common than another ravaged patient succumbing to the disease?
At least she was able to use the time well. With the Gossamer, she plotted Dirty Beard’s movements. Over the course of just under forty-eight hours, his primary points of contact were Royal Thai Police Headquarters in Pathum Wan, and a building in a nearby neighborhood called Ekamai, which she learned online was known for its pricey condos. Not the kind of place a Thai cop could ever hope to afford on his salary alone. She wondered whether it was his primary residence, or whether he owned it through some sort of cutout. A cop living ostentatiously beyond his means would be a huge red flag in the States. Maybe here, the brass was content to ignore it.
As long as they got their piece, too.
She edited the confession video down to its most salient aspects right on the burner, then transferred the photos and video using the Tails operating system and an encrypted thumb drive to keep her laptop uncontaminated. After that, she roamed the Internet behind a VPN, scouting locations, acquainting herself with routes and distances, judging potential risks and rewards. She didn’t see anywhere she might have a shot at taking Dirty Beard by surprise. And she didn’t have time to wait for a lucky break. She would have to force him to come to her. The problem was, it wasn’t like Seattle, which she knew intimately as a cop and from innumerable weekend rides. In Bangkok, it was the other cops who had the advantage. She could mitigate that through meticulous preparation. Find ways to keep them moving, reactive, off balance, the way she would on the mat against a bigger, stronger opponent. If she could take away their base, their footing, all their natural advantages would be neutralized.
If.
On her second night at the retreat, she tracked Dirty Beard’s phone to the Srinakarin Rot Fai Night Market, east of the city center. She checked online and saw a dense, labyrinthine network of thousands of stalls and pop-up restaurants selling every manner of books, food, clothing, electronics, and asso
rted arcana. From the Night Market, he headed south all the way to Pattaya, a beach town on the east coast of the Gulf of Thailand, arriving at a new hotel called Ruby. It was nearly a two-hour drive from Bangkok, and whatever he was doing there, she expected he would stay the night. But when she checked upon waking the next morning, she saw that he had turned around after only about an hour. She didn’t know what any of it meant, but it would likely be useful to have two known points of contact about which to interrogate him.
She left later that morning, thanking Brother Panit for a wonderful experience that had allowed her to at least temporarily clear her mind of her everyday concerns.
“You must come again,” he said as they waited for the cab he had called her. “Two days is good for the spirit. Two weeks is better. Or longer. Many people have stayed with us as volunteers, caring for the dying. Like Saint Francis, most of them have found the experience transformative.”
She smiled, recognizing from the natural diction that the speech was practiced. Not that she doubted its sincerity.
“I can imagine,” she said. “And by the way, was that a funeral I saw yesterday?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Sakda. He came to us three months ago. He speaked very little and I think had so much sadness. But he is at peace now.”
I hope not, Livia thought. She wanted to ask more, about Mr. Sakda’s visitors especially, but knew too much interest would look strange and would be too memorable.
Two hours later, she was back in Bangkok. She’d kept the room she took in the Sathorn business hotel after arriving from Seattle. She was in town practically on official business, after all, so she was using genuine ID at check in and credit cards to pay. Anything else would have looked odd. For the same reason, keeping the room made sense. For anyone looking, it would seem as though she’d been in Bangkok continuously, and she wouldn’t have to account for the two nights she’d spent at the Franciscan retreat.
She’d left her personal cell phone powered down at the hotel. If someone were tracking it, it would look odd that it had been off for two days. But that was better than someone using it to follow her to the scene of Square Head’s demise.
