Chapter 57
BANGKOK
Harvath was on the roof of the CIA safe house when the encrypted handset chirped once and went silent. Beside him, Morrell had been adjusting the small directional antenna they’d lashed to a vent pipe with a length of paracord. It was precisely seventeen minutes before the hour.
“That’s him,” said Morrell.
Harvath keyed the radio. “Go.”
For a moment, all he heard was the wash of static. Then Tevy’s voice came through. “They’re moving the cargo south. Tonight.”
“What time?”
“Soon.”
“From where?”
Tevy gave him the location—a canal-side transfer point in an industrial quarter of the city. Harvath looked at Morrell, who nodded.
“Are you there now?”
“En route.”
“What else can you tell me about the location?”
“It’s a handoff point. Nothing more. Move.”
With that, the channel went dead.
As Morrell took down the antenna, Harvath texted the team that it was time to roll. By the time they were downstairs, Ashby already had the drone case slung over one shoulder and Palmer was checking magazines. It took less than three minutes to load both Land Cruisers.
Morrell’s was parked beneath the overhang, still covered with the dust and grime of the last twenty-four hours. Harvath took the front passenger seat and Morrell got behind the wheel. Before they were even through the gate, Harvath had the handoff location up on his phone.
“How’s it look?” Morrell asked as he turned onto the street.
“Bad,” Harvath replied. “About a thousand ways in and out, and too many places to position shooters.”
“Well, let’s hope they don’t do that,” Morrell quipped.
Harvath widened the map and traced the waterways leading away from the area. “This city has more canals than Venice.”
“That’s where the word Khlong comes from. Khlong Toei is actually named for a plant that used to grow along the southern bank of the canal in that area.”
Harvath glanced up at him. “Read a couple books while recovering from that heart attack, huh?”
Morrell shook his head. “I learned it from Davi. Bangkok used to be called the Venice of the East. Something like sixteen hundred canals stretching more than twenty-six hundred kilometers. It’s crazy.”
“What else did you learn from Davi, beyond that eating Viagra out of a Pez dispenser isn’t good for you?”
Turning left, Morrell raised his right hand, gave Harvath the finger, and said, “Keep making jokes, asshole.”
Harvath grinned and went back to studying the map. Ball-busting and graveyard humor were necessary to maintain one’s sanity in their line of work. With as much as they gazed into the abyss, as Nietzsche would say, it was what prevented the abyss from gazing back into them.
When they got to the canal Tevy had identified, they saw that the area was nothing but warehouses and scrapyards. The neighborhood’s biggest industry seemed to be stacks of rusting pipes lying in weed-choked lots.
Morrell killed the headlights a block and a half out and eased the Land Cruiser into the shadow of a vacant fabrication shop.
Behind them, the second Land Cruiser pulled in along a sagging wall plastered with old product posters.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was off the street and far enough from the transfer point that the vehicles wouldn’t be seen and the engine noise wouldn’t carry.
After using the MBITR to quietly announce their arrival, they donned their tactical gear, powered up their night vision goggles, and went to link up with the Cambodians.
They found Tevy on the roof of an old garment factory two buildings over.
He was down to three men. One watched the canal through a pair of aging night vision binoculars, while another covered the road with a carbine.
The third man was at the other side of the roof, keeping an eye on the alley below.
Harvath dispatched Haney with his Heckler & Koch HK241 battle rifle to relieve the Cambodian covering the road, and sent Staelin and his SIG Sauer M250 light machine gun to help watch the alley. As Ashby unpacked the drone, Palmer took up position at the far corner of the roof.
Tevy watched the Americans fan out and then, looking Morrell up and down, with his HK MP5 MLI submachine gun and all the thirty-round magazines he carried in his vest and the drop holster strapped to his thigh, said, “You came prepared.”
“Always better to have it and not need it,” Morrell replied.
Harvath looked at the three men the Cambodian had left. His fight against the Chinese had cost him dearly. “Your operator made it through surgery. He’s resting now.”
Tevy appreciated the update. “Thank you,” he said.
Harvath removed his handheld thermal device, activated the power button, and flipped up his night vision goggles. “Which building is the handoff supposed to happen at?”
The Cambodian pointed to an old warehouse along the canal.
The roll-up door to the left was shut, but the one to the right was cracked just enough to throw a weak strip of light onto the loading apron.
In the water, tied to one of the pilings, was a workboat with a steel canopy over the rear half of the deck.
Off to the side was a refrigerated truck and a smaller delivery van.
“Any activity?” Harvath asked.
“Three men so far,” Tevy replied. “One on the road. One by the warehouse door. And one on the boat. All carrying small arms.”
Harvath gave the property a slower scan, taking his time until he had picked out each man. “Any sign of Koebler?”
“Not yet.”
“You said they are moving him south. Why?”
“The Chinese had a bombmaking cell in Pattani Province, but it has been compromised.”
“How?”
“We don’t know. All we know is that Koebler is being moved in to replace it.”
“Was it part of an Islamist separatist network?”
Tevy nodded. “Barisan Revolusi Nasional. Koebler’s job is to build bombs that will look like they came from the brN.”
“Another false flag,” said Morrell.
Harvath agreed. “Which will create new waves of chaos and fear, not to mention stress the Thai government even further.”
A few feet away, Ashby had unpacked the drone, checked the props, and made sure it had a fully charged battery.
Looking at Harvath, she said, “Skippy’s ready to launch.”
“Keep it high,” he replied. “If they hear a drone, this whole thing falls apart.”
Ashby flashed him the thumbs-up and activated the small quadcopter, which climbed above the rooftops and traveled out over the water to take a position well above the canal.
Working off the tablet feed, Ashby began tracking the approaches. For several minutes, nothing moved. Then, headlights appeared at the far end of the canal road.
The vehicle crept in, its suspension bouncing over the bad pavement, as it navigated around potholes big enough to take out one of its wheels.
A moment later a box truck could be seen entering the yard. It made a three-point turn and backed toward the loading bay and the partially cracked warehouse door.
At almost the same time, a long-tail boat came gliding out from under a bridge farther down and crossed toward the pilings.
“Smugglers?” Harvath wondered aloud.
“If any of this was legitimate,” said Tevy, “they wouldn’t have been hiding under a bridge. They’d already be at the pier.”
It was a good point and Harvath nodded in reply.
The warehouse door rolled up halfway, and a man carrying a rifle ducked out from beneath and walked down to the pier to meet the long-tail.
Two more armed men appeared from inside. The first took up a position facing the road. The other stopped where he could watch both the loading dock and the canal.
The truck jostled as something, or someone, moved inside.
Suddenly, there was a flash of movement as a figure dropped to the apron and rushed beneath the half-raised door, disappearing inside.
Tevy looked at Harvath. “Was that him?”
“Yes,” Harvath replied. “It was him.”
Haney, who’d had eyes on the truck the entire time, radioed, “No clean shot.”
It was decision time.
Koebler was inside the building. Two boats were waiting. And Harvath was running out of time.