An hour later, she trotted back to the front door and did her cool down stretches before mounting the three steps and re-entering. A small pile of twenty and hundred dollar bills sat on the kitchen table along with a smaller T-shirt and a few hygiene items. Someone had been thinking, but it was hardly comprehensive, and she would need to stop at a pharmacy as well as a clothing store.
After another shower, she towel-dried her hair and returned her attention to the files, selecting one of the two she hadn’t yet read.
This one was different. A provisional report; incomplete and filled with speculation.
Anthony Simms, age thirty-two, had been dispatched into Laos after receiving word that Hawker had taken up residence in the hills there and was employing a group of anywhere from ten to fifty armed men, depending upon the source. Simms was an experienced field agent with a ten-year history of successful sanctions in the region — in other words, an assassin who did nothing but kill. His operational background was purely one of executions. No other kind of missions.
Simms had followed up on a tip about the location of the target’s base camp. He had checked in every four hours as required, but one and a half days into his trek he had gone dark. His tracking chip had placed him north of the Mekong river in an uninhabited stretch of jungle infamous for drug syndicates and smugglers. The chip had stopped transmitting at ten p.m. local time. Simms had never been heard from again. His body was found a week later near the Laos border in Thailand, badly decomposed and mostly eaten by the local animals. Final identification had only been possible through dental records.
That wasn’t particularly helpful.
Other than informing her that one of the CIA’s more experienced killers had made his final mistake.
She returned the file to the table and opened the second one.
This time two operatives, both from the most elite of the CIA’s wet teams, had been deployed when the Thai agent in charge had gotten wind that Hawker was involved with a network of human traffickers and a slavery syndicate that supplied one of the larger prostitution networks in Bangkok.
She read the account, which described a series of seemingly unrelated bits of intelligence describing a new gang in the Golden Triangle headed by a farang — a white devil rumored to feast on human hearts and dance in the moonlight covered with his victims’ blood. The rumors were that he was impossibly rich and had a hundred men armed with the latest weapons, and was a ghost that even the Myanmar military was terrified of.
Two men had gone in.
Never to be heard from again.
Both were seasoned combat veterans with extensive histories operating in the most dangerous environments on the planet. Africa. The Middle East. The Balkans.
They had gone into the jungle a week ago.
And disappeared without a trace three days later.
The detail of the report described a group in Bangkok that specialized in underage prostitutes and sadism, offering more extreme versions of the spectrum to an international clientele that traveled from all over the world to partake in the forbidden fruits it provided. The head of the organization was a man by the name of Lap Pu, no doubt an alias, who was almost as much of a phantom as the farang.
Pu was rumored to have a relationship with the white ghost, and acted as his eyes and ears in Thailand.
She read for another hour, but the Byzantine maze of relationships, rivalries and rumored allegiances was overwhelming and would require much more study if she was going to formulate any kind of coherent plan.
But one thing seemed obvious to her.
The trail began in Thailand. That was where Hawker had been based, so that was where his contacts would be. Find a weak link in his associates, and with any luck, they would lead her to him.
Chapter 9
After two hours of shopping, Jet was reasonably outfitted, and when she made it back to the house, she was glad she’d decided to get her own clothes. Even though she was as drip dry as they came, it was nice for things to fit correctly and not look awful.
She pushed the door open, toting three plastic clothes bags, and found herself face to face with Arthur, who was sitting in the living room sipping a diet soda through a straw — a requirement, given the state of his face.
“Ah, so you’re back. Did you find everything you need?”
“I got the necessities. What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping you have come up with some preliminary thoughts about our situation.”
“You mean the one where you kidnapped my daughter and are blackmailing me so I’ll kill someone for you?”
He ignored that.
“No, more the question of how to find our rogue agent, and what will be required to do so.”
She set the bags down and stared at him in disbelief.
“I just finished reading the last of the files before lunch. Are you kidding me?”
“You are rumored to be the best. I suppose I was overly optimistic…”
“That may be, but I’m not a magician. This could take weeks to plan. I don’t have a lot of information to go on. Other than some rumors of your man having gone native, the files are thin on supporting intelligence.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. We’ve actually received new satellite footage, but it isn’t going to be of much help. It’s such a large area. And there are caves, villages, and plenty of questionable encampments set up by the smugglers, any of which could be the target or a red herring.”
“I’ll need a day or two to think this one through, and then I’ll probably want to nose around on the ground in his old stomping grounds. Bangkok. I’ve never been there, so that will increase the difficulty level. Ideally you would have gotten all the information on where to find the target, and then I’d take it from there. This is a completely different situation. So, not only do I have to figure out how to get the diamonds back and take him out, but I also need to find him.” She fixed him with a cold stare. “I don’t have a magic wand or I’d bring Hannah back and make you disappear.”
“I’ll need forty-eight hours to get you an ID and put a cover in place.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll just need to give me back my Belgian passport and identity cards. And come up with a big wad of cash to spread around so I can get some answers over there.”
“Money’s not a problem.” He stood, looking around the small room, then moved to the door. “I have every confidence in you. But I don’t have unlimited time. Sooner the better is what I’m trying to convey.”
“This is the type of operation that would ordinarily take a month to think through. Assuming I had the kind of support I’m accustomed to. David was the best at what he did. But now he’s gone, and you’re handing me a black box and asking me to pull a rabbit out of a hat. Your last two attempts on this target failed. Have you considered that might have been a function of how ill-conceived they were?”
“Yes, I have. Which is why I brought you into this.” He waved a gloved hand dismissively. “You’ll figure it out. Just don’t take too long.”
“It’s like making a baby. Still takes nine months no matter what you do or say.”
He opened the door. “Point taken. Whenever you need to get in touch, call me,” he said, as he reached into his jacket for a cell phone and tossed it to her.
Her eyes remained fixed on him as she snatched it out of the air.
“Will do.”
Jet spent the rest of the day studying the reports, going over the satellite footage, trying to piece together a strategy. By nighttime she was worn out and seemed no closer to a breakthrough than when she’d started the day. The target had an armed encampment, but they didn’t know where, other than it was in the territory of a hostile regime that was notorious for being a drug production and smuggling center. And the warlords in the heroin business there were every bit as dangerous as the Myanmar military, if not more so.