Chapter 70
The binoculars Koebler had been provided with were garbage.
The barrels were out of alignment, giving him a double image and an instant headache from the eye strain.
With all the trouble the Chinese had gone to on this operation, the fact that no one had even checked the optics before handing them over told him everything he needed to know.
Use him. Pay him if they had to. Trust him with absolutely nothing they didn’t have to. The optics were only his latest reminder.
The client had given him a burner phone for comms, but no gun—despite his having asked for one, as operations could go sideways in ways no one predicted.
The client had listened, but then calmly told him that there was no need.
His people would be close by. Watching. If anything went wrong, they would take care of it. That still bothered him.
It had been offered as reassurance, but Koebler had heard it for what it really was—a reminder that he wasn’t a member of their team. He was the hired help. Paid to do a job. Nothing more.
Shifting his weight, he changed his angle and pulled back a little from the opening.
The green construction mesh hung limp along this side of the building, snapping now and then when a breeze came through.
Around him it smelled like hot concrete dust and old rainwater.
Massaging his eyes once more, he brought the binoculars back up.
The lot outside Pattani Hospital’s emergency entrance was changing by the minute. Ambulances were racing in, civilians with bloodied family members were rushing the doors, and waves of police and soldiers continued to show up in hopes of maintaining order.
Death. Destruction. And chaos. The market team had placed the bags where they had been told and done their job. That alone was almost surprising.
The client had managed to scrape together a working Plan B from the wreckage of his original Pattani operation.
Under better circumstances, Koebler would have had more time, better people, and the ability to rebuild the operation from the ground up.
Instead, he’d gotten whatever had survived the arrests—both the materials and a handful of separatists with just enough intelligence to follow instructions.
Coupled with Chinese handlers who wanted speed more than elegance, it made for an ugly situation. But ugly could still kill. And ugly made for compelling images.
He still had no idea what their endgame was.
All he knew was that the client wanted the bombings in Bangkok to ultimately look like Cambodia was behind them and for the bombings in Pattani to be blamed on separatists.
It was some sort of a destabilization campaign.
What China got out of it, however, was anyone’s guess. He didn’t care.
Sweeping the lot, he found the ambulance again. It sat one row from the entrance to the ER, exactly where the local cutout had been told to park it—an object so contextually correct that it disappeared into the broader panic.
So far, no one had given it a second look.
Another ambulance came in fast, followed by a pickup that jumped the curb and came to a stop just shy of the doors. A woman jumped out, clutching a blood-soaked towel to a boy’s face, screaming for help.
Koebler continued to surveil the lot. Knowing when to detonate was just as much art as it was science. Every vehicle that arrived meant more metal, more bodies, more confusion. He was almost ready.
Then he felt a vibration in his pocket. Pulling out the burner, he looked at the screen.
Armed men coming up.
Koebler swung his head toward the dark stairwell as the first man came out of it already firing.
But by then, Koebler was already moving, diving through the mesh onto the bamboo scaffolding.