Chapter 60
PATTANI CITY
SOUTHERN THAILAND
TUESDAY
The smugglers had pushed the small boat as hard as they dared. With its engine whining, they had run dark through the last of Bangkok’s canals and out into the Gulf of Thailand. The spray coming over the bow had kept Koebler soaked to the skin the entire way.
The transfer to the larger vessel had been done with a rope ladder and without a lot of conversation. The crew didn’t speak much English and weren’t looking to make new friends. That was fine by Koebler.
He was shown to a cramped cabin, given a change of clothes and an expected ETA. He locked the door, then stripped out of his wet clothes and hung them to dry.
Next, he peeled the money belt from around his waist. Inside was the cash, passport, and phone he had retrieved from his fallback bag at the luggage storage facility on Kasem Rat Road.
As a SEAL, he knew the best time to waterproof things was before ever getting near the water, so when he learned from the client the means by which he was being moved south, he had wrapped each item in the Thai version of a ziplock bag.
As was their shitty custom, the client’s men had once again disarmed him. And once again, they had missed his polymer knife, which he placed under the pillow on his bunk.
The weather-beaten ship stank of old diesel and even older fish. It had gotten underway as soon as he was on board and was now rolling on mild swells. He had been told tea was available in the galley, but there’d be no food until morning. Food was the farthest thing from his mind at the moment.
He sat on the bunk listening to the hull groan as the vessel worked its way south. Beyond the bulkhead a deckhand called out to one of his shipmates and the sound was swallowed by the engine. Koebler ignored it and forced his mind to think several moves ahead.
The Americans at the canal were his most immediate problem—and two things were obvious.
One, they were working with the Cambodians.
And two, they were steps ahead of, and apparently not working with, Thai authorities.
That meant this was a black operation and they were playing by their own rules.
Neither of which was good for him. He had to assume they would keep coming.
His next most pressing problem was his client. While he and his network had ultimately proven resourceful in developing an exfiltration plan from Bangkok, what they had not been was transparent about what came after the Pattani City operation. That troubled him.
In his experience, men that meticulous, who suddenly wanted you to be patient and to trust them, were normally some of the most untrustworthy people there were. They didn’t suddenly become vague by accident.
Which meant from this point forward, he needed to think beyond this next operation itself.
He needed to study the target package, understand the terrain, and quietly begin preparing for the very possible moment that the client decided his work was complete and he had become more dangerous alive than dead.
He spent another hour running every detail and every scenario he could come up with through his head. Then he quieted his mind, closed his eyes, and got some sleep.
Hours later, he was awakened by a change in the engine’s pitch. The vessel was slowing down.
His first concern was that they might have been stopped by the Royal Thai Navy, but the voices and activity on the deck overhead suggested otherwise.
They were followed by a sharp knock at the cabin door and a voice in broken English, which said, “Ten minutes.”
The ship had carried him far enough south through the night to clear any dragnet that might have been established in the aftermath of the canal warehouse firefight.
He repacked his money belt, got dressed, and prepared to move. They had reached the next handoff.
Up on deck, two crewmembers lowered a launch into the water and ferried him ashore to an empty stretch of coast in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province.
From beyond the tree line, he was met by two smugglers and a dented truck, which took him deep into the interior. By dawn, they had delivered him to a grass strip so narrow and uneven that it looked abandoned.
The airplane was a decrepit, single-engine utility craft held together, it seemed, by fading paint and patched aluminum. It lifted off in a long, shuddering climb and flew south at low altitude, skirting military airfields and radar coverage.
After landing on another rough strip outside Songkhla, Koebler was handed off again, this time to a single driver from a local network who moved him in a poultry truck.
Despite being secreted in a hidden compartment fed by air-conditioning from the vehicle’s cab, both the smell and the noise were terrible. But be that as it may, the truck got him past the police checkpoints and the military presence without any secondary inspections.
By the time they finally drove into Pattani City and turned through the gates of the safe house, he was overheated, filthy, and hungry. He needed a shower and food.
The house was set behind a high wall topped with broken beer bottles and shaded by two overgrown mango trees—neither of which did much to blunt the heat. The driver helped him out of the compartment and then led him inside.
The place smelled faintly of curry and stale cigarette smoke.
The furnishings were sparse. There were a few cane chairs, a sagging sofa, and a table with an oscillating fan that clicked at the end of every sweep.
In short, the place was a dump, but Koebler tried to concentrate on the positive.
He was out of Bangkok, which meant he was one step closer to being on his way out of Thailand.
He took a ten-minute shower in a bathroom with rust-stained tile and weak water pressure. When he came out, the driver was long gone.
In the kitchen, he found food in the fridge and helped himself, washing it all down with a tall bottle of water.
He had just finished eating when he heard the gate open and a car come crunching up the drive. Looking out the window, he saw a gray SUV with a handful of switched-on-looking Chinese. The client had arrived.
Two of the security goons came in first and patted him down—though where he would have found a weapon on his trip south was beyond him. They then swept the safe house and gave the all clear.
The client entered in fresh clean clothes, soft leather loafers, and his arm still in the sling. He took a seat at the dining table, laid a thin folder atop it, and invited Koebler to join him.
Koebler sat down and paused, holding the man’s gaze longer than necessary.
He was tempted to ask whether they had served steak or salmon on his flight, but decided against it.
There was no sense in antagonizing him and making the situation worse.
Nobody had forced him to come. He had agreed to be here.
All that mattered was completing the job and making sure the client held up his end of the bargain.
“Are those the details?” he asked, looking at the folder.
The client nodded. “Everything’s there. Reconnaissance. Components. Placement windows. Detonation.”
“What’s the time frame?”
“We want it done by tonight.”
Koebler chuckled. “You want speed, attribution, and clean execution in a city I’ve never worked in, without even telling me what I have to work with?”
“You’ll have everything you need.”
“That timetable is a bit reckless, don’t you think?”
“We hired you for your expertise,” said the client, “not your opinion.”
Reaching for the folder, Koebler reminded himself to stay calm. Opening it, he studied the contents. There were photographs, maps, radius projections, and handwritten notes in English.
Closing the folder, he said, “And after?”
The client folded his hands. “Once the job is done, we get you out.”
“How?”
“When the time comes, you’ll be told.”
Koebler smiled. “I’d like to be told now.”
“What happens,” said the client, leaning forward just enough for the movement to register as deliberate, “is that you do the work you were brought here to do. You do it well. And then you leave Thailand alive. That is the arrangement.”
The bombmaker heard the words, but not a single one of them rang true. With each passing moment, he was becoming increasingly convinced that the client was going to try to kill him.