Chapter 74
BANGKOK
Harvath reached the restaurant just as the sun was beginning to set. Morrell had picked a great spot.
Dollar beers and fifty-cent oysters, the view west over the river, and the classic country music playing from speakers on the outside deck were terrific. Even better was the company. Morrell and Davi were already there.
They had taken a table near the railing. Two bottles of beer were sweating on the wood between them, along with a dented bucket full of oysters on ice. Davi, in heels and a sleeveless dress, looked much different than her ISOC persona. Morrell, in jeans and a linen shirt, was still Morrell.
“You’re late,” Davi said, waving Harvath over.
“I had to make sure my team got off okay.”
“To Phuket, right?” Morrell asked.
Harvath pulled out an empty chair. “I promised them some R&R in Manila, but then dragged them straight to Bangkok. I’m a man of my word. This was overdue.”
Davi gave a slight nod. “At least one man at this table keeps his promises.”
Morrell shook his head. “We just got here and you’re already taking swings?”
“I’m just warming up,” she replied, smiling.
Harvath sat down and a waiter appeared, dropping a cold beer in front of him before disappearing again without a word.
They all needed this. No bombs. No bullets. No bullshit.
A George Jones song started playing. Harvath reached for his beer and the trio toasted. Sitting back in his chair, he took a long swallow.
For a few moments, nobody spoke. The river moved below them, green and slow. Across the water, the opposite bank took on a soft blur.
Eventually, Harvath had to ask, “How bad is it?”
“Bad,” Davi replied, taking a sip of her beer and setting it back on the table.
“The official line is that Thai authorities uncovered a coordinated campaign of bombings in Bangkok and the south, directed by foreign extremists and carried out with help from local militant facilitators. The operation’s chief architect was killed in Pattani City before he could unleash a second wave of attacks on first responders.
The broader network is being dismantled.
Additional arrests are expected. Investigations are ongoing. ”
Harvath reached for one of the oysters. “What’s being said privately?”
“Privately, people are scared shitless that the plot made it this far. Imagine if we’d decided to go to war with Cambodia?
That said, no one is in a hurry to accuse Beijing.
They want it airtight, watertight, and spin-tight before they go public.
They want the evidence so obvious and so damning that the Chinese can’t lie their way out of it claiming Hang was some sort of a rogue operator. ”
“Speaking of which, is he continuing to cooperate?”
Davi paused. “He understands that he’s standing in front of several doors. Only one has anything halfway decent on the other side. Whether he walks through that door depends on how useful he remains.”
“What about Tevy?”
“He, along with his team—including his wounded man in the hospital—have all been quietly repatriated to Cambodia. Just as we agreed.”
“He’s a good man,” said Harvath.
“Who was running black ops in Thailand,” Davi clarified.
Harvath took that in. “I guess if Mexican intelligence was inserting itself into my affairs, I wouldn’t like it either.”
Raising his beer to take a sip, Morrell said, “We’d all be up in arms.”
Harvath nodded and kept pressing Davi for more information. “In Pattani, Hang had two men nearby, protecting Koebler. One was KIA. What happened to the other?”
“He died before local police could get anything useful out of him.”
Harvath looked at Morrell. “What about our Chinese Embassy friend from the periodontist’s building?”
“The security agent?” Morrell asked, grabbing the last oyster from the bucket and signaling the waiter to bring more.
“Beyond what he gave us about the embassy physician, he was pretty useless. My guys wrung out of him what they could. After that, they took a photo of him in front of Bangkok’s golden Buddha with him holding up a sign that said ‘I talk too much,’ and then put him on a flight to Beijing.
An hour before the flight landed, they sent the photo to every known email address in the Chinese diplomatic corps. ”
“That’s not going to do much for his career advancement.”
“I take my pleasures in this job where I can find them,” Morrell replied.
“By the way,” said Harvath, “I never got around to asking—how was the Pattani prison system?”
“Blessedly brief.”
“Thanks to me,” Davi said.
“Whatever you had to trade for him, it wasn’t worth it.”
Taking the first oyster from the new bucket that had just arrived, Davi replied, “Thai authorities got to claim credit for foiling the attack and Richard was released into my custody.”
“For the record,” Morrell replied, “I thought the handcuffs were completely unnecessary and entirely too tight.”
“You used to like that,” she said, looking up from under her lashes.
“I still do,” he smiled.
“I’m out,” Harvath declared, laying a thousand-baht note on the table and standing up. “It’s wonderful to see you both reconnecting, but I miss my wife and have no desire to be anywhere near the blast radius if this turns ugly.”
Davi laughed. “Sit down.”
“Yeah, moneybags,” Morrell added. “You’re paying.”
“Me?” Harvath asked, before turning to Davi. “Doesn’t he still owe you a body? Isn’t that worth something?”
“Actually,” she replied, “I did release that corpse to both of you.”
Morrell rolled his eyes. “You can’t believe a single thing this guy says.”
“Nevertheless, we’re here and I’m in the mood for the tomahawk. You two can figure out who’s paying.”
Harvath laughed. Morrell laughed.
For the moment, they could relax.
Then both of their phones went off at the same time.