World of Trouble (9786167611136)

by Needham, Jake

  “No, I doubt that. But an awful lot of other people are going to blame him. If I were General Kitnarok, I wouldn’t be hanging around here like a sitting duck either, just in case some of the folks on the other team get it into their heads to deal out a little revenge. I’m sure that’s why he took off.”

  If that was what happened, Charlie would have called, or at least left a message about what was going on, wouldn’t he? Shepherd took out his cell phone and checked for messages, but the screen was dark. He must have forgotten to turn the damned thing back on after getting off the airplane. Maybe that was why he hadn’t heard from Charlie. Shepherd pushed the power button and waited for the little beep that would tell him the phone had logged onto a local network.

  “Don’t bother,” Keur said. “I tried both his cell numbers. The telephones are turned off.”

  Shepherd’s phone beeped and he looked at the screen again. Sure enough, no messages. He took a quick glance at his email. Nothing from Charlie there either.

  “How did you get Charlie’s private cell numbers?” he asked Keur.

  “Come on, Jack. Get real. I’m the fucking FBI, remember?”

  Shepherd put his phone down on the table and wrapped his hands around his coffee cup. Six hours on an airplane and he had stepped off it into a world entirely different from the one he left. It was like science fiction.

  “Thailand is going to fall apart,” Shepherd said. “You can’t build a real country out of nothing but colored t-shirts.”

  Then he thought about it some more. Maybe he was looking at everything backward.

  “On the other hand, maybe this will work out okay,” he said. “With Somchai dead, there’s nobody left now but Charlie. Maybe the Thai people will carry Charlie back into office on their shoulders and that will be that.”

  “I don’t think so,” Keur said. “I hear the government has already picked a new prime minister. They’re digging in for a fight.”

  Shepherd was bit surprised by that, he had to admit. He didn’t think the existing government had anyone with enough stature to take Somchai’s place. It seemed unlikely to him that they would be able to come to an agreement on a new prime minister without months of wrangling, not to mention hundreds of palms being crossed with considerable sums of money.

  “Are you serious? A new PM? Already?”

  Keur nodded.

  “Who is he?” Shepherd asked.

  “It’s not a he,” Keur said. “It’s a woman.”

  If Shepherd had been surprised before, now he was downright dumbfounded. The yellow team had chosen a woman as prime minister? No woman had ever been prime minister of Thailand. In a nearly feudal society like Thailand, women had little or no political power. In fact, the only woman he had ever heard of who held a genuinely significant government position in Thailand was—

  Keur interrupted Shepherd’s reverie. “The new prime minister used to be the director of the National Intelligence Agency. Her name is—”

  “Kate,” Shepherd said. “Her name is Kate.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “WHERE DO YOU want me to drop you off?” Keur asked when they got back to the car.

  Shepherd didn’t really know what to tell him. He had come to Dubai to lay low with Charlie only because Charlie had insisted on it. Charlie’s abrupt and mysterious departure had not only rendered that idea quaintly naive, it had left Shepherd homeless again. He could always check into a hotel, of course, but what would be the point of that? With Charlie in the wind, there was really no reason at all for him to be in Dubai.

  So maybe he ought to just fly back home to Hong Kong. Okay, he thought, and do what after he got there? Shuffle papers while his client was on the run, perhaps even somewhere plotting to start a civil war? Sit around drumming his fingers while he waited for Charlie to call and tell him what the hell was going on? Watch CNN wondering if Kate would be the next Thai prime minister to be murdered?

  Shepherd made a snap decision that didn’t really commit him to anything, which he thought under the circumstances was the best kind of snap decision to make.

  “The airport, please,” he told Keur.

  He could decide where he was going after they got there.

  ***

  SHEPHERD LOOKED IDLY through the window as Keur drove out of Internet City and wound his way among dozens of medium-rise office buildings that all looked more or less the same. The grass was impossibly green and the artificial lakes were impossibly blue. Everything looked as if it had been colored with food dye. And for all Shepherd knew, it had. Eventually they emerged from the office park onto a busy road and followed it until it joined a yet even busier road. Then they followed that one too until they came to the massive Sheikh Zayed Road. SZ Road was a concrete arrow that ran dead straight through the desert for thirty miles all the way from the middle of Dubai to the neighboring emirate of Abu Dhabi. Keur eased into the heavy traffic and turned east toward the airport.

  Shepherd watched the utterly flat and featureless landscape slide by. In less than a generation this desolate wasteland of sand and scrub had sprouted hundreds of soaring towers filled with offices and apartments, all connected together by massive coils of freeways and a glittering monorail system. At what must have been a staggering cost, vast stretches of desert had been laced with water pipes and carpeted with thousands of acres of deep, rich grass interspersed with full-grown trees flown in and arranged into complete forests.

  In spite of all that, there was an unmistakable feeling of fragility to Dubai. Men could bring water to the desert, pave it with concrete, and set down spires of glass and steel that reached hundreds of stories into the heavens, but they still had not figured out how to put down roots in a place like this. Out beyond wherever they stopped building, there was always the sand. The sand simply waited and bided its time. There was too much of it, and it had been there too long. It would never be defeated.

  They sped on down SZ Road, the car’s tires whirring hypnotically on the smooth concrete. Occasionally, stretches of the roadway dipped below ground level and the wide excavations through which it ran were lined on both sides with blue and white tiles that had been formed into the shape of huge waves. The whole effect was very much like driving at high speed through a giant men’s room.

  After a half an hour they crested the Al Maktoum Bridge high over Dubai Creek and Shepherd saw the airport off in the distance. By then, he had decided exactly what he was going to do.

  ***

  KEUR PULLED THE car to the curb outside the Emirates Airways terminal.

  “Where can I reach you?” Shepherd asked.

  “Does that mean that you’re going to help me?”

  “It means that I might want to call you one of these days.”

  Keur looked at Shepherd, unsure of what that meant, but he took only a moment to give up trying to decide. He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and scribbled something on the back.

  “Use this number,” he said.

  Shepherd took the card, glanced at the number written on it, and turned it over. A blue-and-gold seal was embossed in the upper left-hand corner. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, it said around the shield. Below it was an address in Washington and a telephone number.

  “What if I call this number in Washington instead?”

  “They’ll tell you I’m not there. They may even tell you I’m on medical leave, but maybe not. I’m not really sure what they’ll say. When I call myself I generally use the cell number I gave you. You probably ought to do the same thing.”

  Keur got out and opened the trunk. Shepherd followed him around and retrieved his bag.

  “Thanks for the ride.”

  Keur nodded and tossed off a little salute.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” he said.

  ***

  INSIDE THE TERMINAL, Shepherd strode straight to the Emirates first class check-in desk… and then walked right past it.

  He found a staircase that led to the a
rrival level of the airport, trotted down the steps, and went back outside. In five minutes he was in a taxi on his way to the Dusit Thani Hotel. If Keur or anyone else who had been following them had parked and come inside to see where he was going, they would be out of luck. And even if they eventually worked out that he hadn’t gotten on an airplane at all, a Thai-owned hotel was probably the last place in Dubai anyone would think to look for him.

  The Dusit Thani had an executive suite available. Shepherd took it for one night and paid cash. The girl at the check in desk never batted an eye. If he had tried to pay nine hundred dollars in cash for a hotel room in New York, Shepherd figured the cops would probably have rushed in before he got his wallet back in his pocket, slapped the cuffs on him, and charged him with felony failure to use an American Express card. In Dubai, tossing out a big pile of cash was about as sinister as wearing a Rolex.

  After the bellboy left, Shepherd went into the bedroom, got undressed, and took a very long, very hot shower. There were few conditions in life that couldn’t be improved with either a hot shower or a drink and, since it wasn’t even 10:30 A.M. yet, he chose the shower. Drying off and dressing in a fresh shirt and jeans, he opened the drapes and picked up his cell phone. He settled into a big upholstered chair in front of the windows, swung his feet up on the coffee table, and started dialing for dollars.

  ***

  MAYBE SHEPHERD HAD caught a plane home to Hong Kong. Or maybe he had caught a plane to wherever General Kitnarok was. But Keur was almost certain he hadn’t done either.

  Shepherd wasn’t a guy likely just to go home and sit around sucking his thumb until somebody called him. On the other hand, right now Keur was pretty sure Shepherd didn’t have any better idea where General Kitnarok was than he did. Keur had watched his face carefully when they talked about the general’s abrupt disappearance, and he had looked carefully for any sign that Shepherd was bullshitting him. He had seen none.

  No, Shepherd didn’t know where Kitnarok was, but he did have ways of finding out. He would find him. Keur would make book on that. And he would lay even better odds that trying to find out was exactly what Shepherd was doing right at that moment.

  Shepherd had doubled back through the airport, gotten in a cab, and checked into a hotel in Dubai. He had probably taken a shower, wrapped himself in the fluffy bathrobe that came with his expensive room, maybe ordered something from room service, and now he was sitting back in a big chair with his feet propped up on a coffee table making telephone calls. That was what Keur would have done, and he didn’t have the slightest doubt that was what Shepherd was doing.

  That was why Keur was absolutely certain Shepherd would call him within twenty-four hours. Once he found General Kitnarok, what was he going to do? That was when Shepherd would realize that he needed Keur’s help and that was when he would call.

  After that, he would be in. After that, it would only be a matter of time.

  But what if he was wrong? What if that didn’t happen?

  Keur guessed then that he would just have to start over. Maybe with Shepherd again, or maybe with someone else altogether. Either way, he was going to get this done. He had always accomplished what he set out to do and this time wasn’t going to be any different. General Kitnarok wasn’t going to be the first asshole to slip through his fingers. He just wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  SHEPHERD’S FIRST CALLS were to the numbers where he usually reached Charlie: his cell numbers and the private number at the Palm Jumeirah compound. None of those numbers answered or were even redirected to voice mail. They just rang until Shepherd got bored listening to them and hung up.

  Then he called the Kitnarok Foundation, identified himself, and asked if Charlie was in the office. Shepherd knew he wouldn’t be, of course, but he wanted to see what they said. They didn’t say much. The woman fielding calls was someone whose voice he didn’t recognize and she just said Charlie wasn’t there and they didn’t expect him. Although Shepherd had assumed the foundation would be a dead end, he was still disappointed it was quite as dead an end as it turned out to be.

  Shifting tacks, he tried Kate’s private cell number in Bangkok. Not surprisingly under the circumstances, his call was diverted directly to voice mail. He hung up without leaving a message. Then he tried calling Tommy. The result was the same: voice mail. He hung up again without leaving a message.

  Shepherd really wasn’t doing any worse than he expected to do, but he was still a little frustrated. He had been hoping to catch some kind of a lucky break.

  Then with his next call, he did. Jello picked up on the first ring.

  “It sounds like you were sitting there just waiting for me to call,” Shepherd said.

  “When shit hits the fan, I’m always waiting for you to call,” Jello said. “Where are you?”

  “Dubai.”

  “Figures.”

  “I need a favor,” Shepherd said, getting straight to the point.

  “This is not a good time to ask for favors, Jack. You may have heard we’re a little busy. Having a prime minister murdered tends to make a real mess out of my day.”

  “Yeah, well, imagine what it did to his.”

  “What do you want, Jack?”

  “This is a favor for you, too, man. But you’re going to have to trust me on that. I can’t tell you why right now, but this is connected with the matter that has your full attention today.”

  Jello didn’t say anything.

  So Shepherd told him about white 737 with the UAE tail number parked at Don Mueang. He didn’t tell him how he knew about it, and he certainly didn’t tell him that Kate called the plane Harvey. Bringing Kate’s name into the conversation would have spun it off in directions he really didn’t want to go, and telling Jello the airplane had been named after a six-foot rabbit from a fifty-year-old movie would probably have caused him to hang up.

  “I need to know if that airplane is still there,” Shepherd said. “And if it isn’t, I need to know when it left and what kind of a flight plan they filed.”

  Jello still didn’t say anything, but he didn’t hang up either.

  Shepherd could tell he was thinking it over. “Yes or no?” he prodded. “I promise you that by tomorrow you’ll be happy you did this for me.”

  Jello made a sound on the other end of the phone that Shepherd didn’t much like.

  “Come on, man,” he pleaded, “trust me here.”

  There was a pause and then Jello sighed heavily. Shepherd knew then that he had him.

  “Where do you want me to call you?” Jello asked.

  “On my cell.”

  “Give me fifteen minutes,” Jello said.

  Then he hung up.

  ***

  JELLO CALLED BACK in ten minutes.

  “Your plane left this morning. It took off at 9:27 A.M.”

  “Exactly when was Somchai murdered?”

  Jello was quiet for a moment as he thought about why Jack was asking him that.

  “A little after eight this morning,” he answered slowly.

  “Your shooters were on that plane.”

  “Listen, Jack, whatever you know about this—”

  “What about the flight plan?”

  “They filed for Dubai with a stop in Phuket.”

  “Dubai,” Shepherd muttered. “Fuck me dead. When did you say they took off?”

  “9:27 A.M.”

  Shepherd did the math in his head. An hour and a quarter to Phuket, maybe a half hour to make a quick landing and take off again, then a little over six hours to Dubai, give or take. That would put the plane on the ground in Dubai around 5:30 P.M. Bangkok time, which was 2:30 P.M. Dubai time. He glanced at his watch. It was 11:40 A.M. The plane was still three hours out.

  Of course, flight plans got changed for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes pilots even filed flight plans to one destination and then re-filed them to another destination after they were out of the departure airport’s control zone. Maybe the pl
ane wasn’t coming to Dubai at all.

  Who was he kidding?

  The CIA didn’t use Harvey for weekend jaunts to Las Vegas, did they? Of course the plane was coming to Dubai. Blossom Trading was in Dubai and everything that was happening was somehow tied into Blossom Trading. Even if he wasn’t yet sure exactly how.

  “Did you check when the plane actually left Phuket?”

  “Yeah,” Jello said. “It didn’t.”

  “You mean it’s still there?”

  “No, I mean it never left because it never arrived.”

  “Then where did it go?”

  “Beats me.”

  Maybe Somchai’s killers had been onboard the plane when it left Bangkok and maybe they hadn’t been. But they most certainly wouldn’t be on it when it got to Dubai. The plane had landed somewhere, probably at a private strip in the deep south of Thailand. Filing a flight plan to Phuket would have taken it in exactly the right direction for that. That would have been where the shooters got off, but it didn’t really matter to Shepherd where the shooters got off. They were just hired guns and he didn’t really give a damn about them.

  What he did give a damn about was what the plane was going to do after it offloaded the shooters, and his guess was that the plane was coming to Dubai for another cargo of weapons Those weapons would then be loaded onto it and it would fly right back to Thailand. Maybe Charlie was even waiting at the airport to get onboard himself and slip quietly back into Thailand without anyone knowing about it. Unlikely, Shepherd thought, but not impossible.

  The ground in Thailand would never be more fertile for Charlie to stage his triumphant return. All his followers needed was some leadership and a little muscle, and the whole country would be theirs for the taking. Charlie was the leadership, of course, and the arms from Blossom Trading were the muscle. He didn’t even want to think about where that left Kate and a whole bunch of other decent and honorable people who thought Thailand deserved better than another military dictatorship sponsored by the CIA.