Chapter 23
When Davi completed her phone call and let Harvath and Morrell know that the Glock was still being processed, there wasn’t much else the two men could do at Teens.
Recalling the team, they met up with Staelin and Haney down the block and all drove back to the safe house. As they pulled up, Morrell’s cell phone chimed.
The CIA man read the text message and then looked at Harvath. “Our tech guys think they have something on the watch you recovered. Want to swing by the embassy with me?”
Harvath nodded, and after dropping off their colleagues, they headed back out.
Looping around Lumphini Park, they made a left onto Wireless Road, so named for having been home to the country’s first wireless telegraph and radio station. The irony wasn’t lost on Harvath as they were on their way to learn more about a Breitling with an emergency radio beacon.
The U.S. Embassy sat upon eleven acres at number 95, Wireless Road. It was the fourth largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world—and for good reason.
Thailand was a major non-NATO ally. Its geography made it ideal for monitoring China, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, as well as the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea. Historically, it had been a fallback and transit hub during the Vietnam War and had subsequently never lost that role.
Because of its importance, the CIA, DIA, NSA, and other critical U.S. agencies operated regional desks out of the embassy. In addition to coordinating military cooperation, training, and arms sales, they also handled intelligence sharing and joint planning across the Indo-Pacific.
Simply put, the U.S. Embassy Bangkok was enormous because it functioned less like a normal embassy and more like a headquarters for U.S. power in mainland Southeast Asia. It was big because the job was big.
After clearing security and parking the Land Cruiser, they proceeded to a highly secure area within the newly completed New Office Annex building, or as embassy staff referred to it—the NOX.
Despite being after 9 p.m., the CIA’s science and technology department was still buzzing with activity. Ever since the bombings, they had been operating around the clock, aiding the FBI teams who were bagging and tagging evidence from the attack sites.
Morrell led Harvath to a small lab crammed with electronics equipment, the centerpiece of which was the aforementioned RF (radio frequency) cage.
Inside were two men in their mid-twenties.
One was wearing jeans, a Randy Watson tee, and canvas Converse.
The other had on cargo pants, vintage Air Jordans, and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Along with their messy haircuts, patchy beards, and slim builds, they looked more like a pair of Silicon Valley coders than CIA tech specialists.
Knocking on the outer glass window, Morrell opened the door, not waiting to be invited in. Harvath followed behind him.
Looking up from the table where they were working, the man in the T-shirt said, “Sorry, Morrell. The exploding vibrator you ordered won’t be ready until next week.”
“Very funny,” Morrell replied. “Scot Harvath, meet KitKat and Mo.”
“If you’re here to intimidate us,” the other man said to Harvath, “we already told him we’re not selling any urine to help him pass his next drug test.”
Harvath chuckled. “Wow. You can’t kick over a single rock in Thailand without coming across your fans.”
Morrell rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I only attract the best people.”
“KitKat and Mo?” Harvath continued, nodding at the techs. “Are those call signs?”
“No. I call this one KitKat,” Morrell replied, pointing at the man in the T-shirt, “because he’s always on break. And this one,” he said, pointing at the man with the Air Jordans, “Mo, which is short for Motion Light, because he only works when someone walks by.”
Harvath shook his head and laughed once again. Morrell was definitely not going to be named coworker of the month anytime soon.
Looking at the two men, Morrell said, “You texted me something about a breakthrough on the watch?”
The man named KitKat opened a folder on his table and pretended to read from a list. “Exploding vibrator. Switchblade nipple clamps. Fifty-caliber butt plug. I don’t see anything about a watch. What about you, Mo?”
Opening his own folder, the other man looked down and stated, “Bulletproof biker vest with matching chaps, spiked leather dog collar with integrated digital camera, flashbang ball gag…” His voice trailed off.
Then, after flipping the page over, he said, “Yes. Hold on. Here it is. We did receive a Breitling chronograph watch. Emergency edition. Rush analysis for one Richard ‘Blister’ Morrell.”
“Blister?” Harvath repeated.
“That’s what we call him,” said KitKat. “Because he only shows up after the hard work is done.”
“Again, very funny,” the CIA man replied. “Are you finished?”
“For the record, I voted for calling you G-spot,” said Mo, “since nobody can ever find you.”
Harvath liked these guys. It was good to see that they weren’t afraid to give it to an older operative with both barrels.
“Now are we done?”
Laughing, KitKat and Mo stood up and waved their visitors into the RF cage. Harvath and Morrell followed. On a workbench inside was the watch. Next to it was a detailed schematic that the tech team had downloaded from Breitling.
After closing the cage door behind them, KitKat walked over to the workbench, picked up the watch, and said, “Professional-grade, emergency locator beacon watch.
Fifty-one-millimeter case. Standard replaceable battery for the watch movement lasting two to three years, rechargeable lithium-ion battery for the distress beacon, lasting anywhere from eighteen to twenty-four hours depending on ambient air temperature.
“Beneath the crown is an additional larger crown, which is attached to a coiled piece of wire that can be extended out and which functions as an antenna. Once it is removed, another antenna pops out of the other side, and the emergency locator beacon activates.
“Per its design, the signal broadcasts on the 121.5-megahertz International Air Distress frequency, as well as the more powerful 406-megahertz frequency, which is monitored by the Cospas-Sarsat system of low earth orbit and geostationary orbit satellites.”
Handing the watch to his colleague, KitKat finished his presentation. “That’s it,” he said. “Binary system. Antenna comes out, beacon turns on. No menu. No software tricks. It’s designed to be idiot-proof.”
“At least that’s how it’s supposed to work,” Mo stated, taking over. “This watch, however, goes a step further.”
“Further how?” Harvath asked.
“As soon as we began probing it inside the cage, we noticed a blip of RF activity that shouldn’t have been there. We’re talking milliseconds. Not any sort of sustained transmission.
“We thought it was just noise at first, so we began cycling everything that might interact with the transmitter—crown, bezel, antenna housing. One variable at a time.
“What we found was that when the bezel was rotated to a specific index and the lower crown was depressed before unscrewing it, we got a series of short, deliberate bursts. And they weren’t on the 121.5 or 406 frequencies.”
“Someone had modified the beacon,” Morrell replied.
Mo nodded. “Exactly. It piggybacks on the existing transmitter and broadcasts via an undedicated, midrange frequency. So, unless you’re looking for it—”
“You’re never going to notice it,” said Harvath, finishing the tech’s sentence for him.
Mo nodded again. “This isn’t a replacement for the original beacon. It’s a parallel one. A covert emergency channel. One that doesn’t trigger international search and rescue protocols.”
“Any indication who modified the watch?” Morrell asked. “Could it be the Chinese?”
KitKat shook his head. “For all we know, it could be the Pennsylvania Dutch. We took it completely apart and even after comparing it to the Breitling schematic, there’s nothing—not the workmanship or the additional components—that tells us who did this.”
“If the Thai authorities had access to a similar watch,” said Harvath, concerned about the two dead men at Tommy Sombat’s, “what kind of a conclusion do you think they’d come to?”
“That depends,” Mo replied. “With all the evidence they’re poring over from the bombings, unless they believe the watch is connected, it’s not going to be their highest priority.
If anything, maybe an evidence tech who doesn’t know what he’s doing activates the default beacon.
Beyond that, the odds are probably pretty low that they’ll discover what we did. ”
Harvath agreed and glancing at Morrell saw that he felt the same way. That just left him with one other question. “Since the alternate beacon is on such an uncommon frequency, is it possible to scan for who’s monitoring it?”
Jumping back in, KitKat shook his head again. “Not with our resources. Unless and until that secondary signal starts broadcasting, you’re not going to know who’s on the other side of it.”
This time, Harvath didn’t need to look at Morrell to confirm that they were both on the same page.
There was only one option available to them.
They were going to have to trigger that beacon, and when they did, they’d have to have set a trap so strong that no matter who showed up, they were guaranteed to be captured.