Chapter 15
Kevin Koebler had entered Thailand on a Dutch passport under the name of Frederik Rijneveld. The Rijneveld identity had been approved for an extended-stay “kickboxing” visa. The visa had been sponsored by a threadbare, down-on-its-luck gym in south central Bangkok called Khlong Kiat Muay Thai.
Classes were twice a day, six days a week, and included accommodations in decrepit, single or double dormitory-style rooms. If you paid up front and in cash, the owner didn’t care what you did.
Attendance wasn’t taken and there were no “bed checks.” Students were free to come and go as they pleased.
Even more to Koebler’s liking, there were no security cameras. KKMT was the perfect bolt-hole.
Despite the loose rules, he had drifted in and out, showing up for the occasional class and spending enough time in his room to make his presence look believable.
When he wasn’t in the ring or his rack, he was exploring the surrounding slums, dive bars, drug dens, and whorehouses of Khlong Toei.
It didn’t take him long to pick up on the area’s anti-establishment and particularly anti-cop sentiment.
Pinned between the motorway and the river, he couldn’t swing a bamboo cocktail umbrella without hitting someone who was either bent or on the make.
Like his gym, if you paid in cash, you could get just about anything you wanted.
And what Koebler wanted was invisibility.
He found it in a local landlord nicknamed “Mr. Baht,” after the Thai currency.
Mr. Baht specialized in go-go bars and nudie clubs.
He also dabbled in some of the neighborhood’s commercial real estate, such as tattoo parlors, storefronts, a handful of warehouses, and a little office space here and there.
The best thing Baht had going for him, at least as far as Koebler was concerned, was that the man was discreet.
That, and the fact that he didn’t care about background checks, credit worthiness, or formal lease agreements.
Baht understood his customer base and had no illusions about what kind of service he was providing.
As long as tenants paid on time, nothing else—within reason—mattered.
Without giving his name, Koebler explained what kind of space he was looking for.
He would be creating “adult content” and needed an open floor plan and a private bathroom.
The building also needed to be quiet, and he wanted his own private entrance; one that didn’t have to be shared with other tenants.
Baht had a spot, not far from the docks. It was above a shuttered storefront. The “farang,” as Westerners were referred to in Thailand, would be the building’s only occupant. They agreed to a price and Koebler paid him for two months in advance.
“What should I call you?” Mr. Baht asked as he pocketed the money and handed over a set of keys.
“You can call me Ben,” Koebler replied, peeling off five more U.S. hundred-dollar bills and handing them over, along with a list of items he wanted the landlord to source and have delivered.
Checking the list, Baht nodded. “What about models?”
“Models?”
“Yeah, you know—girls? Only the most beautiful. Very good price. Boys too. Maybe ladyboys? More expensive, especially for the beautiful ones. But still good price.”
Koebler thanked the man and told him he already had everything taken care of. All he needed were the items on the list.
When he returned to the space two days later, everything that he had asked for was there. The mattress and sheets were in the middle of the front office; a small refrigerator, coffee maker, and microwave had been set up in the break room; towels and toiletries had been placed in the bathroom.
After installing a couple of his small Wi-Fi cameras to monitor for any intruders, Koebler changed the locks on the door and reinforced the windows.
He had been clear with Baht that during his tenancy, he didn’t want to be disturbed.
At the price he was paying, he expected the landlord to honor his wishes.
From what he could tell, no one had been anywhere near the space.
It was here, at his tertiary bolt-hole, that he had ultimately headed after the ambush at Teens.
After making certain that he wasn’t being followed, he wiped the data off his phone, disassembled it, and scattered the pieces.
He then made his way to an internet gaming café on the other side of the river, where he traded a series of coded messages with his handler.
Matías was disturbed by what had happened. He told him to go to ground and he would reach back out once he’d worked his contacts and had more intel.
By the time the encrypted app on Koebler’s new burner phone rang, three hours had passed. Matías had news. None of it was good.
Seated in his Bosques de las Lomas penthouse in western Mexico City, Matías cut to the chase. “One of my sources says Thai police recovered three of your wireless cameras near Teens.”
“And?”
“They don’t think it’s a coincidence. Everything has been kicked upstairs to the Special Branch Bureau. ISOC has also stepped in.”
While Special Branch was the intelligence division of the Royal Thai Police, Internal Security Operations Command, or ISOC for short, was part of the Royal Thai Armed Forces responsible for counterintelligence and counterinsurgency.
Despite a PR makeover that aimed to make it appear more akin to the United States Department of Homeland Security, it had a fearsome reputation for ruthlessness.
“Why is ISOC involved?”
“Four of the bodies at Teens are suspected Cambodian nationals,” Matías replied, texting him photographs of the corpses. “Recognize any of them?”
“I do,” Koebler stated. “They were part of the team that attacked our meeting. Who are they?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“What happened to the rest of the attackers?”
“At the moment, that’s not our problem,” Matías replied, trying to focus the conversation.
“The hell it isn’t. I need to know if I’ve been burned—and if so, how badly and by whom.”
“You haven’t been burned, but the temperature is definitely rising.”
Koebler gripped his phone tighter. “Meaning?”
“Meaning hundreds of rounds fired at Teens, four dead Cambodians, and some very expensive hardware which, by the way, was still transmitting when the cops showed up. That’s unlike you.”
“Things deteriorated quickly. I had to improvise. How bad is it?”
“Special Branch and ISOC have already begun pulling CCTV and gathering witness statements. They’re convinced the cameras are connected to the shooting. They’re also investigating if what happened at Teens is in any way linked to the bombings.”
“Not good!” Koebler exclaimed.
“Not good at all,” Matías agreed. “And we should assume it’s going to get worse.”
“How much worse?”
“Every piece of security video from a four-block radius over the last twenty-four hours is being uploaded into one of the government’s massive cloud servers.
They’ll compare it against all the footage they’ve gathered from the days leading up to and including the bombings.
If they’re able to put you in two or more places you shouldn’t have been, that’s it. Game over.”
Knowing that the Thais had sophisticated surveillance systems, Koebler hadn’t relied only on disguising his appearance.
He’d also used crutches, a wheelchair, a knee walker, an electric scooter, a bike, and a motorcycle to defeat gait analysis.
Even today—pain in the ass that it was—he’d alternated stones in one shoe, then the other.
Unless there was some sort of new tech that no one had ever heard of, he was certain that he was in the clear.
But that brought up another issue.
“There was a camera inside Teens,” he said. “Near the bar, by the storeroom door. It was hidden, but not well.”
“I know,” Matías replied.
“Tell me it wasn’t recording.”
“According to police, the DVR had been turned off. The clients wouldn’t have wanted to be recorded any more than you did. Our problem remains what the Thai authorities can pull from outside CCTV.”
“Don’t worry,” Koebler said. “They won’t find any video that ties back to me.”
“What about prints? On your cameras?”
He shook his head. “No. They’re weatherproof. Nano-coated. They don’t pick up fingerprints.”
“Well unless you dropped your wallet at the scene,” Matías responded, “you’re bulletproof.”
Koebler hadn’t dropped his wallet.
But bulletproof knocked loose a thought that had been floating at the edge of his mind.
“You said four were Cambodians. How many other bodies were there?”
“Two more,” Matías replied. “On the client’s side.”
Koebler’s brain raced back to the operative at the door who had taken his pistol and had handed it off to a colleague. An unremarkable act—practically standard operating procedure considering the nature of the meeting. Now, however, everything had changed.
“Fuck,” Koebler mumbled.
“What is it?”
“They patted me down when I walked in. Took my Glock.”
Matías texted him a pair of additional crime scene photos. “Was it one of these guys?”
Koebler looked and felt the bottom drop out.
The second photo was the man who had accepted custody of his pistol. He was splayed on the floor, mouth slack, and jammed in his waistband was the Glock.
Thai authorities now had multiple pieces of evidence tying him to the scene.