Chapter 35
A smog-washed light spread across the city as metal shutters rattled upward and morning commuters pushed their way through the streets.
Orange-robed monks moved along the sidewalks collecting alms as vendors arranged stools outside their noodle stalls already filling with customers. Bangkok was waking up.
For Harvath and his team, the day had never ended.
They had been at it since the operation on Itbayat, grabbing only brief snatches of sleep along the way.
The adrenaline from last night’s work had burned off, leaving behind the fatigue that came from too much caffeine and too little rest. No one, however, complained.
They were professionals and they kept moving.
Their Land Cruisers rolled southeast toward the port district of Khlong Toei, where the city’s skyscrapers gradually gave way to warehouses, shipyard cranes, and long strips of aging concrete buildings.
Harvath rode shotgun next to Morrell in the lead vehicle. Ashby, Palmer, Staelin, and Haney were in the SUV behind them.
As the morning traffic thickened, Harvath kept his eyes peeled and his head on a swivel. Bicycles, delivery scooters, battered taxis, and pickups filled with crates bound for the docks were everywhere. Not since Delhi could he remember being in a city this crowded.
“There it is,” said Morrell, double-checking his GPS. “Up there on the right.”
A weathered sign hung above a largely open-air structure with a corrugated metal roof. Khlong Kiat Muay Thai.
Harvath radioed the team to look sharp, adding, “Ashby and Haney, I want you watching the alley. Staelin and Palmer, stay with the vehicles and keep an eye out front.”
Grabbing the first spot they found, Harvath and Morrell got out and walked toward the gym.
The rhythmic slap of elbows, knees, and shins against Muay Thai pads echoed into the street. Morning conditioning was already underway.
Inside the gym, two fighters worked in the ring while another jumped rope near the entrance. A trainer barked instructions in rapid Thai. Each command was followed by the sharp cracks of strikes hitting leather pads.
The place had seen better days. Rust streaked down the metal roof supports. Faded fight posters curled away from the wooden posts holding up the structure.
Outside, painted across one of the gym’s exterior walls, was a large mural of a Muay Thai fighter driving a knee into his opponent’s side. Years of heat and monsoon rain had bleached the colors and cracked the paint, but the power of the image was still unmistakable.
Harvath took everything in. There were no cameras mounted on the building and no security lights above the entrances. A narrow alley ran along the left side of the gym, vanishing between two concrete shop houses.
Morrell noticed it too. “Good place to disappear.”
Harvath nodded. “Let’s see if our Dutchman’s actually been here.”
They stepped beneath the roof and into the gym. The odors of canvas, sweat, and stale liniment hung in the air. A handful of fighters glanced at them, but it was only a passing curiosity, and they quickly went back to work.
At the far end of the gym, an old Thai man—clearly the one running the place—sat at a nicked-up desk reading a newspaper while the morning class trained around him.
He had a wispy beard and his hair pulled back in a bun.
A half-smoked cigarette rested beside a small glass of dark coffee.
He didn’t look up as the two farang approached.
Only when the men stopped in front of the desk did he lower his paper and look at them over the top. His eyes moved from Harvath to Morrell and back again.
“Beginner class Wednesday, Friday morning. Six hundred baht a week. Shower and towel fifty baht extra.”
Harvath held up his hands. “I’m more a lover than a fighter.”
The old man jerked his chin toward Morrell, though his eyes stayed on Harvath. “How about your boyfriend? He here to fight?”
Morrell didn’t miss a beat. “Only if you’re volunteering.”
The old man snorted.
“We’re not here to train,” said Harvath.
“Then what you want?”
Harvath pulled out his phone and brought up the photo Nicholas had sent. “We’re looking for one of your students. Dutch guy.”
The old man bent forward slightly and gave the screen a quick glance. “Many Dutch students. Good fighters.”
Harvath didn’t smile. “You signed off on his visa.”
“So?” the old man replied, setting his newspaper down and reaching for his cigarette.
“So the last place this man was seen, a lot of people died.”
The cigarette stopped halfway to the old man’s mouth. The bombings had been on every television in Bangkok for the last three days.
Harvath let the silence stretch as Morrell leaned casually against the desk, blocking the old man’s view of the gym.
“You’ve got a very serious problem,” Harvath continued. “Either you talk to us, or you talk to police and Immigration Bureau. Your choice.”
The old man took a drag and studied them again. Longer this time. Smoke drifted slowly from his nostrils as he considered the situation.
Finally, he reached down, opened one of the desk’s drawers, and withdrew a weathered ledger.
Flipping it open, he ran his nicotine-stained finger down one of the dog-eared pages and stopped. “Rijneveld,” he muttered, as he studied a column of names. “Yes. Dutch.”
“Is he here now?” Harvath asked.
The old man shook his head. “No.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Maybe week,” he replied, taking another drag.
Harvath returned his phone to his pocket. “Does he have a room here?”
The old man studied them again and then closed the ledger. “Yes. Upstairs.”
“Show us.”
“Six hundred baht a week,” the old man repeated, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “Fifty for shower and towel.”
Harvath looked at Morrell. “Pay him.”
The CIA man didn’t like being extorted, but he also understood this was how the world, especially the Bangkok underworld, worked.
Pulling out a roll of Thai currency, he peeled off the appropriate amount of notes and placed them on the desk.
“Each,” the old man stated.
Morrell rolled his eyes at Harvath before peeling off the same amount again and dropping the bills beside the first stack.
The old man scooped up the money, gave it a quick count, and then tucked it into his shirt pocket.
Crushing out his cigarette in a tin tray, he stood and gestured toward a wooden stairway at the back of the gym. “Come,” he said.
He was smaller than he had appeared behind the desk, but despite his age, there was nothing frail about him.
At the stairs, he climbed toward the second floor without looking back. Harvath and Morrell followed, keeping their eyes peeled for any signs of covert surveillance, particularly the tiny Wi-Fi cameras Koebler was suspected of having planted around Teens.
They arrived at a long hallway with eight doors. The old man led them to the very last one, where he produced a set of keys from his pocket.
“Rijneveld,” he said, unlocking it and standing back so Harvath and Morrell could enter.
The room was barely bigger than a storage closet. A thin mattress sat on a wooden platform against the wall, the sheets rumpled. An old metal fan turned lazily in the corner. There was a small sink, a cracked mirror, and a blue plastic chair beneath a dirty window. The Ritz Carlton this was not.
On the sink sat a cheap toothbrush, a travel-sized toothpaste, and a disposable razor. Harvath picked each item up and turned it in his hand, studying it. Then he set them all back where they had been.
Only a few pieces of clothing hung in the wardrobe, a couple pairs of socks and underwear in the lone drawer. In the trash can was a single, empty water bottle.
Harvath stood there for a moment, taking it all in.
Morrell had been watching him. “What do you think?”
Harvath gave the room one last slow scan before responding. “The toothbrush and razor are brand-new. The sink doesn’t have a single hair in it. There’s no luggage. And there’s only one item in the trash.” Nodding toward the mattress, he added, “Someone staged the bed.”
Looking back at Morrell, he concluded, “He doesn’t live here. This place is a prop.”