by Barry Eisler
She walked along, part of her observing the terrain tactically and calculating how to exploit it, part of her marveling at the sheer strangeness of the place. Six-lane Ramkhamhaeng Road was only a few hundred feet away, but the noise of traffic was muted, the field filled with birdsong instead. The whole place was an improbable, incongruous urban memento mori.
A dusty strip of dirt ran the length of the site. She watched a lean dog trotting along it, coming toward her. It stopped a few yards away and stared. Her hand dropped to the Infidel, clipped to a shorts pocket, and she bared her teeth. The dog decided it had no interest, and moved on.
She imagined how it would all look at night. Well, she’d be back soon enough, she wouldn’t have to imagine. She thought about night-vision goggles. You could buy them commercially in the States. Maybe there was a store in Bangkok, though she hadn’t seen any in the surplus place where she’d bought her other gear.
What if you can’t get it, and Dirty Beard can?
That was a disquieting thought, and she was suddenly furious at herself for not having thought of it sooner.
It’s okay. You’re overloaded. The unfamiliar terrain. Everything dredging up the past. It was late, not never. And no harm, no foul.
That was true. The main thing was that she had spotted the potential problem while there was still time to mitigate. Besides, she had an idea about how.
When she had thoroughly finished exploring the interiors of the wrecked fuselages and everything about the site itself, she walked the perimeter, assessing the likely approaches, determining the best tactical hiding spot. She decided on the eastern boundary of the field, a thick line of trees and ferns and underbrush dropping down an embankment to the drainage canal. There was a particularly dense tangle of ground foliage about forty feet from the back of the fuselage. The soil beneath was loose, and she used the Infidel to carve a trench in the sloped ground about the length of her body. A crime to use such a fine blade to hack a hole in the dirt, but she hadn’t thought to bring a shovel and she could sharpen and oil the knife later.
By the time she was done preparing the spot, she was covered with dirt and soaked with sweat. She didn’t care. It felt great. Deliberate. Methodical. Effective. She wiped her face with a shirtsleeve and walked back and forth to the fuselage, clearing the few pieces of debris in between so she’d be able to sprint across in the dark without having to worry about her footing.
She wiped her face again and took one last look around. Everything felt right. The plan. The preparations. The purpose.
It’s going to work, little bird. I’m going to get him. I’m going to make him pay.
She went back to the Nex and left. On the way into central Bangkok, she stopped to buy some items she would need. At a hardware store, a propane torch, a set of metal files, a multibit screwdriver, duct tape, and a Zippo windproof lighter. At a mobile kiosk, a second iPhone burner. At a photography store, two 600-watt strobe lights and a wireless activator, along with a pair of tripods to support them, and a FLIR—forward-looking infrared—attachment for the iPhone. At a sporting-goods store, a daypack, talcum powder, a microfiber towel, a box of chemical heat packs, a pair of running gloves with touchscreen index-finger tips, and a single-piece, five-millimeter-thick cold-water wetsuit along with matching boots and gloves. And at a surplus-and-police-gear store, a twenty-four-inch ASP expanding steel baton and a pair of Smith & Wesson handcuffs, both the genuine article, both exorbitantly expensive compared to in the States, both well worth it.
Her last stop was a car park. After checking for video cameras and seeing none, she used the screwdriver to remove the license plates from a van, pushed them into the backpack, and headed to the hotel. She tried to sleep, but didn’t even come close. Too much riding on what would happen that night.
When it was dark, she went out again. She paid cash to check in to a new hotel, a trekker place about a half mile away. If Little was watching, tonight would be a bad night to be seen. She left the new gear in the room and went out to the truck with the propane torch and the metal-file set. She drove around until she found a suitably lightless alley, where she used the files to remove the vehicle identification number from the front of the engine block, softening the metal a few times with the torch to make sure all traces were obliterated. She checked the other places a VIN might be hiding—front of the frame, under the rear wheel well—and found nothing. The one on the driver’s-side interior dash was aluminum, and the one on the driver’s door frame was just a sticker. Neither of those would matter.
When she was satisfied about the VINs, she stopped at a gas stand, where she filled the tank and bought two ten-liter containers, filling them, too, and putting them in back. She picked up an order of som tam green papaya salad and a bottled water at a stall, then went back to the trekker hotel and ate, checking the Gossamer every hour, irrationally afraid that Dirty Beard would somehow disappear—get on an airplane, or turn off his mobile phone, or something else that would ruin her opportunity. But he didn’t. He was at work. She needed to stay calm. To wait for the right moment. To make him come to her and not give him time to prepare.
At nine o’clock, she checked the Gossamer again. Shit—in the twenty minutes since she’d last checked, he’d left work. But he was traveling his usual route toward the condo in Ekamai. No, wait, he wasn’t. He was heading farther east. Toward the Night Market.
If he continued south to Pattaya again, it would spoil everything. She breathed slowly and deeply, calming herself.
Not spoil. Just delay. Wait.
She did. And watched him head west again, back toward Ekamai, after another brief visit to the market.
Something was going on there. And she was going to find out what.
She grabbed the backpack, already loaded with the gear she would need, and went out to the alley where she had parked the truck. She swapped the plates, keeping the legit ones in case things didn’t work out the way she had planned and she needed the truck again.
The worst of the evening traffic was past, and it took her only forty minutes to get to the airplane graveyard. She headed up the driveway she’d used earlier, past Green View Chill Cuisine. It was lively now, apparently with a wedding party, a dance floor set up outside with a band alongside it. The parking area was full—beyond full, with several cars perched on the grass. She left the truck at the far end, between a pair of trees, then walked into the field, carrying her gear.
The walled interior was devoid of any illumination of its own, but was suffused with a gray glow from the surrounding ambient light. She paused amid the trees and waited for her night vision to adjust, then continued on toward the wreckage of the planes at the opposite end. A dog barked from somewhere inside, maybe the one she had seen earlier. She continued on. The dog barked again. The sounds of traffic faded quickly, and soon the field was eerily quiet.
She came to the gaping, circular mouth of the fuselage closest to Ramkhamhaeng Road and looked inside. It was too dark to see, even with her eyes fully adjusted to the dim light of the field. Good.
She pulled on the running gloves and used a SureFire mini light, her everyday carry, to look inside the wreck. Everything was exactly as it had been just a few hours earlier.
She carried the pack inside and sat on the floor for a moment, the SureFire extinguished. She checked the Gossamer again. Dirty Beard was in Ekamai, probably thinking he was in for the night. Thinking wrong.
The feeling of being this close to killing another of the men who had hurt her and Nason, and who had doubtless spent decades doing the same to countless others, was making the dragon breathe fire. She couldn’t let it. Not yet.
Her heart pounding, she attached Square Head’s confession to a text in the burner, wrote a message that included the names and mobile numbers of several of Dirty Beard’s superiors, all gleaned from Little’s file, and input Dirty Beard’s number. She paused for a moment, looking at the text.
Enough thinking. It’s a good plan. You’re ready. You c
an do this. For Nason. For that little girl.
She took a deep breath and hit “Send.”
13
Livia sat in the dark, her eyes readjusting, breathing steadily, focusing on slowing her galloping heartbeat.
It worked. A little.
Dirty Beard was a cop, and a corrupt one at that. She didn’t have to worry—she knew his phone would always be on. Still, her mind was insisting on playing what if games. She reminded herself of who she was. A cop, not a little girl. A warrior, not a victim. She didn’t think what if. She thought when/then.
It felt like longer, but according to the phone clock less than three minutes had passed when the reply came. It was Thai, but simple enough for her to read. What is this?
She called him. She continued to focus on breathing slowly and deeply, but her lungs felt hot. The dragon’s breath.
He picked up instantly. “You,” he said in English.
Hearing that voice—the voice from the deck of the boat sixteen years earlier—caused her heart to start pounding again. “Give me a good reason I shouldn’t upload that video to everyone named in my text,” she said.
“I pay you.”
She thought he might say that. “You’re damn right you’ll pay me. Because you know as well as I do those people will never let you be prosecuted for your crimes. They’ll kill you first.”
“One million baht,” he said.
She laughed harshly. “Thirty thousand dollars? That’ll barely get me a first-class ticket home. Ten million.”
“Okay. Ten million.”
“Right now,” she said. “Cash, in a bag, per my instructions.”
“You tell where.”
Even as corrupt as he obviously was, she doubted he had the baht equivalent of three hundred thousand dollars just lying around. She might have believed he was panicked. But she didn’t. His response felt planned. And why not? He knew she’d killed Skull Face. And the senator. He’d even warned Square Head. He knew she was coming for him. What he didn’t know was how.
“The airplane graveyard.”
“What?”
“In Bang Kapi.”
“I don’t know this place.”
“You don’t know Bang Kapi?”
“I know Bang Kapi. I don’t know airplane graveyard.”
She smiled. It might have been true. What occasion would he have to come here? And from what she’d managed to find online, the graveyard was an oddity even locals had never heard of.
“It’s on Ramkhamhaeng Road Soi 101. Next to the Thanombutra School.”
“Okay.”
“Meet me at the back of the plane closest to Ramkhamhaeng Road.”
“Okay.”
“If you’re not here in under an hour, with the money, I upload the video.”
“I be there. With money.”
“If you’re not alone, I upload the video.”
“I come alone.”
Bullshit, she thought, and clicked off.
It took her less than ten minutes to rig the strobe lights and tripods inside the fuselage. She tested them with the wireless remote, turning her back to preserve her night vision. They worked perfectly, like a flash of indoor lightning. She checked the rest of her gear. Everything she needed, all where she wanted it.
She left the burner powered on, under a ripped-out seat just inside the fuselage. It was possible Dirty Beard had a Gossamer of his own. If so, the phone would act as a decoy. Alongside it, she left the duct tape and the handcuffs.
At the back of the fuselage, she opened the box of hot packs and squeezed each of them, mixing the chemicals inside and activating the heat. Then she arranged them behind the innards of a ripped-out seat. Back at the opening of the fuselage, she checked with the FLIR-equipped second burner. The image was perfect. If she hadn’t known better, she would think she was looking at the heat bleed of a person hiding behind the seat.
She checked the Gossamer. Dirty Beard was heading toward her. A hot rush of adrenaline snaked out from her gut and into her limbs.
Easy. Easy. Still plenty of time.
She shouldered the pack and exited the fuselage, then made her way to the spot she had prepared. Along the way, she double checked the route. Everything was still clear.
The density of the foliage made the eastern side an unlikely route into the field, and she expected Dirty Beard and whomever he might show up with to enter at the front end, or perhaps at the back, as she had. But if she were wrong, the undergrowth would offer concealment, even against night vision. Thermal imaging, which would identify her by her own body heat, would be a different problem. Hence the wetsuit.
It was far from a perfect solution. Because over time, her body heat would make its way through the neoprene insulation and warm the exterior of the suit. Meaning the longer she wore it, the less invisible she would be. But for a short time, in this environment, and if Dirty Beard entered at the opposite end and focused on the fuselage, as she expected . . . it would be enough.
She checked the Gossamer again. Assuming he made no stops, she estimated she had thirty minutes before Dirty Beard arrived.
She pulled off her boots and clothes, spreading them out so their temperature would more quickly equalize with the ground. The clothes were cotton, which lost heat quickly. The insides of the boots would be hotter and would take longer, but buried in the pack it wouldn’t be a problem.
She stood and closed her eyes for a moment. The night air was still sultry, but there was a slight breeze, palpable now against her naked skin. It wouldn’t cool her much, but every little bit would help.
Keeping one eye closed to protect her night vision, she pressed the wireless remote for the strobe lights again, even though she’d already confirmed at the hotel that the setup would work at this distance. The lights popped lightning-stark inside the fuselage. She adjusted the setting to a three-second burst—more than enough time to reach their position.
From the pack, she removed the wetsuit and set it on the ground. It was too soon to get into it. Besides, she wanted the neoprene to be the same temperature as the ground, not the air. Probably overkill, but again, every little bit would help.
She scoped the field through the FLIR. There were no people anywhere, just the heat of traffic on the street off to her left and, alongside some distant debris, a small signature she suspected was the dog. She checked the Gossamer. Ten minutes now, maybe less. She took a deep breath and nodded to herself. It was a good plan. A good setup. She could do this.
She closed down the FLIR. The unit threw its own heat signature, and if she was using it when Dirty Beard showed up, it could give away her position. She set it down in an indentation in the earth. With her body over it, it would be invisible to thermal even before it had cooled.
She was sweating, so she toweled off and doused herself with talcum powder. Even so, it took longer to get into the wetsuit than when she’d tried it on in the air-conditioned store. When she was done, she pinwheeled her arms, rotated her torso left and right, and did a quick pair of drop steps. For five millimeters of neoprene, the thing was incredibly flexible. But in the Bangkok heat, it was oppressive the instant she got into it. She pulled on the integrated balaclava hood and drew the drawstring tight. Then the neoprene boots and gloves. The ASP steel baton, retracted, fit nicely in a zippered stomach compartment, along with the wireless remote.
She checked the Gossamer again. Less than five minutes. Time to get in position.
She proned out and burrowed into the ditch she’d dug earlier, making sure she was well covered with leaves and vines, the FLIR concealed beneath her stomach, her head protruding just enough to maintain a view of the fuselage and the likely routes into the field. She closed her eyes and listened. The thick balaclava impeded her hearing. She’d considered cutting small earholes, but didn’t know how much heat might bleed through and decided the thermal-imaging protection was more important.
After a few minutes, she thought she had a reasonably good notion for the base
line sounds of the area. An intruder would disrupt that baseline.
Another few minutes passed. She thought he should have arrived by now. She wasn’t worried about waiting—she’d waited sixteen years—but the interior of the suit was already sauna-hot. Even five millimeters of neoprene wouldn’t conceal that heat for much longer.
You’re okay. Half-buried in dirt and covered with underbrush. And it’s nearly ninety degrees out here. The contrast will be minimal. And it’s humid as a steam room, especially alongside that drainage canal. That’ll cut the contrast, too. You’re okay.
The dog barked. She glanced around, moving only her eyes. She saw nothing. The dog barked again.
The way it had when she arrived. And hadn’t since.
Someone was coming in. But where?
She resisted the urge to take out the FLIR. Instead, she closed her eyes again and listened intently. It was maddening to have the sound dulled by the neoprene. For a moment, she regretted her decision not to cut earholes and was tempted to pull off the balaclava.
She heard a branch snap behind her and to her left. She froze.
Footsteps, moving slowly, crunching the underbrush, more than one pair. The sound couldn’t have been ten feet away. They were practically on top of her.
14
If they had thermal, the part of her that would show most clearly would be the exposed area around her eyes. From this close, that would be enough.
Slowly, she lowered her face and pressed it to the earth, breathing shallowly to minimize any heat signature from her own exhalations. She kept absolutely still, withdrawing all her energy, feeling as though she wasn’t even there, that she had ceased to exist. If they saw her, she was dead.
The footsteps came closer. They slowed. Stopped.
She felt nothing. She thought nothing. She was. Nothing.
The footsteps continued past her. It took her a moment to realize it, as though she was rebooting from some suspended state. She waited, and when she couldn’t hear them anymore, she raised her head and glanced right.
