Chapter 8
WEST PHILIPPINE SEA
As soon as they were out over the ocean and the aircraft had a secure satellite uplink, Harvath let the office know the team was ready for the briefing. Moments later, the screens in the main cabin came to life.
Over a spinning logo, they could hear the voice of the Carlton Group’s “brain” before they could see his face. Nicholas, or Moonracer as he was code-named for security purposes during operations, stood less than three feet tall due to primordial dwarfism.
“All good on your end?” he asked, having patched his feed in, followed by McGee’s. “Audio and video?”
“Five by five,” Harvath responded, flashing a thumbs-up at the nearest monitor, all of which came complete with built-in cameras and microphones.
Gathered around Harvath in the cabin were Haney, Staelin, Ashby, and Palmer—all handpicked for the Itbayat operation, now along for the ride to Bangkok and whatever their new assignment might entail.
“Let’s go over what we know about the bombings thus far,” Nicholas said, as he cycled through a series of video clips captured immediately before, during, and after the explosions.
They were followed by a tally of dead and wounded, broken down by nationality. A percentage of the deceased were so badly disfigured, they had yet to be identified. Similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, it was going to take an army of DNA technicians to fully complete the task.
And in relation to the 9/11 attacks, Nicholas explained, the international media was now calling this Thailand’s very own 9/11.
“Has any group claimed credit yet?” Harvath asked, repeating the same question he had asked the CIA’s Manila station chief.
McGee shook his head and chimed in. “There are multiple online rumors that have taken off and spread like wildfire, but so far, nothing credible.”
“Don’t terrorist organizations like to jump out fast and grab the limelight?” Ashby asked.
“Not always,” said Nicholas. “After 9/11, it was U.S. Intelligence—based on intercepted communications and prior intel—that announced the attacks had been carried out by al-Qaeda. Bin Laden denied it for years before finally admitting responsibility.”
“Do we even know if what happened in Bangkok is Muslim terrorism?” said Haney.
Once again, McGee shook his head. “Thailand has had its share of terrorism from Muslim separatists in the south, but so far there’s no evidence connecting them to what happened in Bangkok. And if they did it, this would mark a massive escalation.”
“If not Islamist terrorists, who else would want to carry out a bombing like this?”
“Thai intelligence and the Thai military are looking very closely at their neighbor, Cambodia,” Nicholas responded.
“Why?” Palmer interjected. “Are they trying to start a war?”
“Depending on who you talk to, it’s already started. Last July, fighting broke out in multiple locations along their disputed border. Heavy weapons were involved.”
“How heavy?” Staelin asked.
“Howitzers, multiple launch rocket systems, tanks and armored vehicles, combat aircraft,” said McGee. “They’ve also been using cluster munitions and land mines. Nasty, nasty stuff.”
“This is state-on-state conventional warfare,” Nicholas added. “Not merely border skirmishes. It has been the most intense fighting in over a decade. Forty-eight people have been killed and over three hundred thousand civilians have been displaced.”
“All over a disputed line on a map?” Ashby wondered aloud.
Nicholas pulled up another set of slides and explained, “It’s more complicated than that.
There’s a lot of history that goes back to the ninth century and the rise of the Khmer Empire, which ruled most of Southeast Asia for six hundred years.
But then the Siamese kingdom became the big kid on the block and pushed the Khmer—or the Cambodians if you like—out.
“From the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Cambodia got pushed around and squeezed by its neighbors until it became a French protectorate and ultimately part of French Indochina. Cambodia wouldn’t be fully independent until the early 1950s.
Thailand, however, maintained its independence during the colonial era and developed much faster, especially economically, than Cambodia. ”
“So Cambodia has a chip on its shoulder when it comes to Thailand,” said Palmer.
“A big one,” McGee agreed.
“But the border itself,” Nicholas interjected, “is the real bone of contention.
In 1907, the French forced Thailand, then Siam, to cede a bunch of territory, culminating in the Franco-Siamese Treaty.
Included in all the land that Siam was forced to give up was the ancient Hindu temple of Preah Vihear.
When Thailand allied with Japan in World War II, they took a huge chunk of the territory back, including Preah Vihear.
“In 1962, the International Court of Justice forced Thailand to give the temple back.
What the ICJ failed to do was to definitively rule on the land around it.
That led to lots more fighting until 2013, when the ICJ finally said the land around Preah Vihear also belonged to Cambodia, which should have put an end to everything.
“Last spring, however, there was a skirmish near the temple and a Cambodian soldier was killed.
Each country blamed the other and a bunch of border and economic sanctions were enacted.
There was a huge political scandal in Thailand where their PM was seen to be too sympathetic to the Cambodians, and it ended up destabilizing the Thai government.
There were massive protests and the PM was ousted.
“Then, a couple of months later, in July, a Thai border patrol stumbled across a land mine, accidentally triggered it, and five Thai soldiers were injured.
Bangkok accused Phnom Penh of cutting barbed-wire fences, sneaking into Thai territory, and laying new land mines.
Thailand curtailed diplomatic relations, which ended up with both countries recalling their ambassadors and eventually the aforementioned fighting with heavy weapons breaking out.
“Thailand declared martial law in several border districts. Civilian areas in both countries were alleged to have been hit by rocket and artillery fire, with Bangkok alleging hospitals had been struck and Phnom Penh claiming one of their schools had been hit. It went back and forth like this until a very tenuous ceasefire was put in place.”
Palmer looked at Nicholas via his monitor. “How well has it held?”
“Very touch and go. Forbidden from exchanging gun, rocket, or artillery fire, the Cambodians have been finding other ways to antagonize Thailand. One of their favorites is finding anything significant in Thai culture and, where justified, accusing them of cultural appropriation. Thailand replies that there wasn’t ever much culture in Cambodia to begin with and what the Siamese took was taken hundreds of years ago.
They claim that the Cambodians are only angry because they have to live in such a crappy backwater that no one in the world cares about.
The rhetoric, on both sides, only serves to piss people off.
“Both countries are now wrestling with tsunamis of angry nationalists who are agitating for all-out war. With every passing day, the political clout of the populist factions is growing and the Thai/Cambodian confrontation clock is ticking closer to midnight.”
“So in other words,” said Harvath, “it’s a total powder keg.”
Nicholas nodded. “It’s beyond volatile. Someone could sneeze in the wrong direction and that’d become the spark.”
“So, all of this over a temple and a disputed line on a map,” Staelin stated, uninterested in getting involved in a border war between Thailand and Cambodia.
“Obviously, it’s deeper than that,” McGee interjected. “But if you’re looking for a thirty-thousand-foot explanation, that’s as good as any other.”
“You said that the Thai government was looking into it, but do they have any evidence that Cambodia was behind the bombings?” asked Harvath.
“As far as we know, nothing yet,” said Nicholas, cuing up a new deck. “But when we look at the bombs themselves, that’s where things start to get interesting.”