Chapter 48 #2
On the TV, as the country waited for someone authoritative to tell them who to hate, anchors were speculating—Islamic terrorists, domestic extremism, criminal networks, foreign sabotage. Everyone was filling airtime until they had an answer.
Knowing what the answer would be, Hang was already prepared and had his propagandists all lined up.
There was the once-respected newscaster with a large, patriotic following, who had been forced into early retirement by scandal.
There was a retired colonel turned “citizen journalist” with ties to the officer corps.
Two online outlets popular with the nationalist movement willing to ask reckless questions, draped in patriotic language.
None of them needed to be told what to do.
All they needed was a nudge and a plausible line of attack.
Once the report landed, Hang would be able to give them both.
One of his officers tilted forward to get a better look at his laptop, and Hang saw the man’s expression change. “What is it?”
“There are reports that authorities in Pattani Province have interrupted a brN cell in advance of a major terrorist attack.”
Barisan Revolusi Nasional was Thailand’s deadliest Islamist independence movement and leader of the separatist insurgency in the south.
Spreading terror and uncertainty through well-trained secret militia units, they used assassinations, guerrilla warfare, and bombings in particular, to pursue their ultimate goal of making southern Thailand ungovernable.
The room went still.
“How?” Hang demanded.
“According to what I’m seeing, a courier was stopped and questioned.
Officials became suspicious and searched his vehicle.
Bomb-making materials were found. Due to heightened threat levels in the wake of the Bangkok bombings, local authorities moved quickly and with overwhelming force.
They were able to identify and arrest the entire cell. ”
Hang asked to see the laptop so he could once again read the information for himself.
There it was on the screen—a stupid, ordinary explanation.
A traffic stop combined with a weak courier and sloppy, local handling.
It was the sort of petty incompetence by which entire operations had been lost before.
It was also one of the reasons Hang hated outsourcing operations to insurgent groups.
If only religious fervor came coupled with equivalent competence.
Making him even angrier, the timing was impossible to ignore. Teens. Tommy Sombat. The beacon trap. Now this.
Sliding the laptop back, he reached for the map that marked the southern districts.
The northern track had never been intended to stand alone. Attacks from Cambodia would inflame patriotic outrage and focus elite anger. Pressure from inside the kingdom, from the loud and often violent south, would widen the crisis, making the situation feel more dangerous and even more unstable.
Together, they would make Thailand look and feel like a country whose civilian government could no longer protect its people and no longer hold the nation together.
Suddenly, however, his entire plan was in jeopardy.
After taking a moment to think, he looked at his team and announced, “We’re going dark.
Shut down all nonessential channels. No one moves without direct authorization.
I want every southern contact, every cache, every courier, and every safe house revalidated.
Until proven differently, assume that the Cambodians have fully compromised this operation. ”
The men moved at once while Hang remained where he was, still studying the map and Thailand’s southern districts.
If this was really about his operation being penetrated, the entire network he had devoted himself to building might be no longer usable.
And without the Islamist separatist component, the entire plan could fall apart.
If that happened, he might be left with no other option than to shoot himself—saving Beijing the trouble and his family the indignity of paying for the bullet.
An encrypted app on one of the phones began to ring, and the MSS officer nearest it checked the display. Looking up at his boss, he said, “The Mexican.”
Hang took the phone and activated the call. “Something wrong with the payment?”
“No,” Matías replied. “The payment was received. Thank you. I have a problem, however, and you may be the only man in Thailand who can fix it.”
Hang said nothing.
“Your infrastructure is better than mine. How can I put this? It has gotten a bit warmer where you are than we expected. I am unable to help our mutual friend with his departure.”
“Your contractor, your problem.”
As a seasoned intelligence officer, Matías paused, weighing how much truth to spend.
“Ordinarily,” he admitted, “I would agree. Job complete. Job paid for. However, if our mutual friend fails to depart in a timely manner, he may find himself subject to parties who could make your life quite difficult.”
Hang’s stance didn’t move. “You overestimate our friend’s value.”
“Respectfully, I must disagree,” Matías replied. “He knows a lot. He knows what the contract called for and he knows who supplied the ingredients. To a party willing to accommodate him, he could be quite useful.”
While it was true of most Western cultures, Hang had found that the Americans were exceedingly quick, especially when their backs were against the wall, to resort to blackmail. The Mexican’s veiled threat didn’t come as a surprise. And he had no desire to play the man’s game.
Hang did, however, have a game of his own. To win it, he needed the handler to fully impale himself on the hook. So, he waited.
Hearing nothing, Matías pressed on. “The situation is deteriorating quickly. He cannot stay where he is. He requires movement, shelter, and a cleaner route out than I can provide on such short notice.”
That, Hang thought, was the most honest thing the Mexican had said. And all of a sudden, the problem in front of him looked very different.