Chapter 12
BANGKOK, THAILAND
The Carlton Group Gulfstream landed at Don Mueang International Airport and taxied to a stop. Waiting for them on the tarmac were a fleet of black U.S. Embassy Toyota Land Cruisers.
Once the private jet’s forward door was open and the airstairs had been extended, the team exited the aircraft.
It was hotter than Manila, but the early evening Bangkok air was less humid. Beneath the usual notes of airplane exhaust and jet fuel, the breeze carried with it something exotic.
Harvath had been to Thailand as part of his honeymoon. He had loved the culture, as well as all of the sights. It was an incredible country.
As long as the on-the-ground contact the embassy had sent was solid, the mission would already be off to a good start.
It was at that moment that the rear door of the lead Land Cruiser opened and their contact stepped out.
Harvath couldn’t believe his eyes. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” he said, the roar from the engines of a departing plane drowning him out.
Though none of his teammates had heard what he had said, they could read him like a book. Whoever that man was who had just climbed out of the SUV, he and Harvath had history. And by all appearances, it wasn’t good.
The man was tall, muscular, and close in age to Harvath. He had an angular face with a cleft chin and close-cropped, obviously dyed, jet-black hair.
Unlike the other representatives from the embassy, the man wasn’t wearing a suit. He was dressed in street clothes, sported a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses, and carried himself with a palpable arrogance.
“Scot Harvath,” the man exclaimed, walking over to the bottom of the airstairs. “If ever there was a better argument for a retirement home being welded shut and covered in concrete, I haven’t seen it.”
“And if it isn’t Rick ‘The Prick’ Morrell,” Harvath replied, tilting his head at the setting sun and adding, “Aren’t you contractually required to remain in your coffin until nightfall?”
He smiled. “And miss welcoming America’s biggest mistake to Bangkok? Not on your life.”
Off to the side, Staelin muttered, “Who’s this asshole?”
“Ground Branch guy,” stated Haney, as he waited to help offload the team’s gear from the jet.
“You know him?”
“Not really. He landed at CIA several years before I got there.”
“Ever deploy with him?”
“Thank fuck, no. He had a rep as a real dickhead.”
Staelin grinned. “Doesn’t look like much has changed. Where was he before Ground Branch?”
“Some SEAL Team,” said Haney. “I think he was asked to leave. I’m not sure.”
“That tracks.”
Haney shot him a return grin and the pair aided the crew with the bags. In the meantime, Harvath and Morrell came together and shook hands.
“It’s been a minute,” Morrell observed.
Harvath nodded. “It has.”
“Heard you got married.”
“I did.”
Morrell cocked an eyebrow. “To a woman?”
Harvath nodded again. “Yup. Your mom didn’t want people to think I was only with her for the sex.”
“Jesus,” the man replied, shaking his head. “Fuck you, Harvath.”
“Speaking of which,” Harvath continued, “it’ll probably take some getting used to, so don’t worry about not calling me Dad right away.”
Morrell gave him the finger and Harvath smiled.
The two men had started out as bitter antagonists, but over time had developed a grudging respect for each other. That respect had eventually evolved into a lukewarm friendship.
“What the hell are you doing in Bangkok?” Harvath asked, genuinely surprised.
“Bangkok’s where they park you when you’re useful, but inconvenient,” Morrell responded, taking in the rest of the team. “You going to introduce me, or am I supposed to guess who does what?”
Typical Morrell, he kept his mirrored aviators on as the introductions were made.
After one of the embassy people collected their passports and sped them through the private customs-and-immigration process at the MJet FOB building, they piled into the Land Cruisers and got moving.
The private aviation area was already heavily secured, but as soon as they drove past the commercial side, they could see masses of soldiers and cops, as well as checkpoints augmented by columns of military and police vehicles.
In the aftermath of the bombings, the Thai government was leaving nothing to chance.
The country’s most vulnerable targets were seeing triple, and in some cases quadruple, the security.
As they made their way into the city, Morrell—who was riding shotgun while one of his guys drove—gave Harvath and his team the lay of the land.
“Bangkok is crowded and busy as fuck. It’s got about eleven and a half million residents, shit urban planning, and lousy infrastructure.
The traffic is a nightmare and is only made worse by the fact that for the last two years running, Bangkok has been the most visited city in the world with over thirty million arrivals each year.
All of those factors played into making the bombings even more devastating.
“As for who’s handling things, the Royal Thai Police are doing most of the grunt work.
Their Special Branch Bureau is directing their efforts with special emphasis from their intelligence, counterintelligence, and counterterrorism divisions.
The Thai Armed Forces have spun up both their Counterterrorism Operations Center and their domestic security apparatus known as the Internal Security Operations Command.
“Hovering over the top of all this and pushing down hard is Thailand’s National Intelligence Agency.
They’re the ones getting the most heat from the politicians.
Two schools of thought are already taking shape.
Either the bombings were the work of Islamist terrorists from the deep south of Thailand who as part of their ethnonationalist insurgency are looking to break away and form their own state, or it was a black op by the Cambodians in hopes of getting Thailand to abandon its territorial ambitions along the disputed border region. ”
“What does the CIA’s Bangkok Station think?” Harvath asked.
Morrell turned around in his seat to look at him. “Bangkok Station thinks the bomber came from outside the country.”
“Because?” Staelin inquired from the back row of the vehicle.
“Because the bombs were practically perfect. Whoever built them knew what they were doing. In more than twenty years, none of the bombings that Thailand has experienced come anywhere close.”
“The Muslim insurgents could have imported a bomber,” stated Palmer. “Correct?”
“It’s possible,” the CIA man agreed. “But they don’t have a lot of transnational connections.
And besides, when they strike, they focus on Thai security forces in their own backyard—the Narathiwat, Pattani, Songkhla, and Yala areas.
Their fight is with Thailand, not foreign tourists.
What happened in Bangkok would signal a major escalation. ”
“So that’s a clue,” said Haney. “By being too good, the bomber exposed himself as an outsider.”
“That’s what we believe. The FBI has been helping scour all of the bomb sites for evidence, but beyond shrapnel, there’s not much.”
“How about CCTV and other cameras?” asked Ashby. “With all of the tourists taking photos and videos in those areas, there’s got to be mountains of footage.”
Morrell nodded. “That’s the problem. The Thai government created a social media hashtag and a website where people could direct anything they think might be helpful.
The response has been overwhelming. It’s like drinking from a firehose.
And on top of that, there has been a lot of bullshit AI content that takes a while to debunk. ”
“Who makes a terrorist attack worse by submitting fake AI content to investigators?” Ashby remarked.
“Could be the aforementioned insurgents in the south. Could be the Cambodians. Thailand’s relationship with its northern neighbor Myanmar hasn’t been too cozy either. Could be random internet trolls. No one knows at this point, and nobody has the bandwidth to get to the bottom of it.”
Harvath shook his head. “What about the placement of the bombs? Any further intel there?”
“The first wave appears to have been all car bombs—or more appropriately, based on CCTV footage, van bombs. The second wave of explosive devices were hidden in food delivery boxes strapped to scooters and motorcycles. All of them, it appears, had been strategically parked to maximize casualties.”
“What about the drivers? We were told these were not suicide bombers. They placed the vehicles and left the scenes. Is there any CCTV footage of them?”
“There is,” Morrell replied. “But they were all disguised. The motorbike and scooter operators wore inconspicuous clothing, including gloves and helmets with darkened visors. The van drivers also wore unremarkable clothing, as well as hoodies, ball caps, sunglasses, gloves, and neck gaiters pulled up over their noses.”
Harvath was reminded of the footage several years ago of the D.C.
bomber who placed pipe bombs outside of the DNC and RNC headquarters.
He had gone to similar lengths to disguise his appearance and it had taken the FBI forever to track him down.
“Have the Thai police run the footage of the drivers through gait analysis?”
“They did, which revealed another problem. All of the drivers appeared to have some sort of a limp.”
“Which means they were expecting to be seen and probably put something in their shoes to make them limp.”
Morrell nodded again. “They also knew where the blind spots in the camera coverage were. Slipping into those, where they couldn’t be seen, it appears they ditched their disguises, lost their limps, and then blended in with the rest of the public and disappeared.”
“Have they retrieved any of the helmets or other clothing? There’d probably be DNA and other trace evidence on them.”
“Nope. Nothing was left behind. We think another team covertly picked everything up.”
“So we’re dealing with some sort of a cell that’s both thorough and well organized,” said Harvath.
“Agreed,” Morrell replied. “Right down to the license plates they used—all of which were stolen from vehicles on the outskirts of Bangkok where there’s less camera coverage.”
“And the vehicles themselves? Any luck identifying those yet?”
“That’ll take even longer. The explosions were massive. Finding a VIN somewhere in the rubble, if not blocks away from the blasts, is going to take a while. Our guess is that the vehicles were probably stolen down in Phuket and smuggled up here for the attack.”
The man had a point. “Pretty intense operation,” Harvath stated. “Is this something insurgents could have pulled off?”
Morrell shrugged. “Who knows? I wouldn’t have thought a bunch of assholes living in caves in Afghanistan could have pulled off 9/11, but they did.”
Another good point. “What about CCTV footage or tips coming in via social media? Are the Thais being cooperative? I’ve got to think CIA and NSA could really help speed the process.”
“Don’t get me going on Thai cooperation. They want to be in complete and total control of everything. They’re okay with foreign boots on the ground, helping sift through the wreckage, but handing over digital evidence has been a nonstarter.”
“Why?” asked Harvath. “Are they afraid something is going to happen to it?”
“I think they realize they’ve got the eyes of the world on them and want to look like they can handle this situation.
They don’t want to appear to need help from anyone—especially America.
Between the border clashes with the Cambodians and the ongoing insurgency problems down south, the current government in Bangkok was already balancing on a knife’s edge.
If they botch the response to these bombings, they could end up with another coup on their hands. ”
Harvath was familiar with that part of Thailand’s history. There’d been a dozen successful coups since 1932, with the last one only twelve years ago. Despite its natural beauty and tourist appeal, just beneath the surface, the country remained a powder keg.
At the same time, Harvath knew how much Thailand mattered to the United States.
It sat within reach of the Malacca and Singapore Straits, as well as the Indonesian passages beyond—strategic, maritime choke points that carried traffic between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
In any war with China, controlling those narrow stretches of water would be central to cutting off Beijing from energy, trade, and reinforcements.
Thailand was also one of America’s oldest security partners in Asia.
It allowed access to its bases for transit, refueling, and training, and—most important—provided the U.S.
military with an invaluable foothold in the region.
If hostilities ever broke out, the alliance—much like America’s relationship with the Philippines and other aligned Indo-Pacific nations—would be a game changer.
As complicated as some of those relationships could be, to Harvath’s mind Winston Churchill had summed it up best when he said, “There is only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and that is fighting without them.”
“So where does that leave us?” he asked.
“In need of a break. A big one,” Morrell replied. “We’re coming up on forty-eight hours since the bombings and we’ve got next to nothing. Everybody can sense that the trail is going cold.”
Harvath drew a breath to comment, then stopped.
A tiny electronic chime cut through the vehicle. Two quick notes, high and sharp, like a digital cricket buried somewhere in the SUV.
Morrell swore under his breath, dug into a pocket, and came up with a scratched, no-name handset. One glance at the screen wiped the sarcasm off his face.
“What is it?” Harvath asked.
Morrell looked back at him, eyes suddenly razor sharp. “We may have just caught our break.”