“You going to buy the sat phone, or should I?”
“I’ll do it. I know where to go. But you should get a few burner cell phones and plan on chucking them after a single use. Don’t power them on until you need to use them.”
“I know the game.”
“All right, then.” He spoke to Lawan for another minute and then patted her shoulder with warm concern. It was a good sign that she didn’t shrink from his touch. Maybe there was hope.
“Well, while you’re out and about, we’re going to go shopping for some suitable jungle clothes. A girl’s got to have some basics. Panties, socks, couple of pairs of shoes, a backpack, ninja sword…” Jet said.
“Just don’t spoil her too rotten. She’s going to hate coming with me if you do.”
“Something tells me that I might not be the only one spoiling her over the next few days.” Jet had seen something tender in the way Matt talked to Lawan.
He merely waved as he turned the knob.
“Good luck,” Jet called, and then he was out the door.
Lawan regarded her with a serious look. Jet pulled on the front of her blouse and then pointed at the little girl.
“Yes?”
Lawan’s eyes lit up with understanding, and for the first time, she grinned.
Maybe there was hope, indeed.
Matt returned at five, carrying two backpacks and an elegant brushed aluminum briefcase. Jet insisted on showing him all of Lawan’s purchases, holding them up so he could approve. He was good-natured about it, but obviously impatient, and Jet got the hint and suggested to Lawan that she take a last shower before they left. The young girl nodded and padded to the bathroom. When the water was running, Matt slid the briefcase over to Jet. She went to her backpack, pulled the Beretta out and handed it to him along with the extra clip.
“I’ll trade you. You’ll probably need this more than I will.”
He slid it into his bag and then motioned at the briefcase with his head.
“Open it.”
“I’m almost afraid to. I’ve never seen ten million in diamonds before.”
“Go on.”
She unsnapped the latch and lifted the lid. Inside was a new Thai passport and driver’s license, four stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills, and two packages wrapped in brown paper.
“Wow. That’s more than I thought it would be based on the amount you said you were carrying around your neck. Which I still have three million of, by the way.”
“Keep those. I got another five million’ worth at the bank.”
“How much cash?”
“Two hundred grand.”
She nodded and picked up the passport.
“You’re now a member of the Thai diplomatic corps, Elyse Nguyen. Congratulations.” He had used the name they’d agreed upon — French first name, Vietnamese family name.
“I have a feeling my style of diplomacy may be a little different than they’re used to, but hey.”
“That’s a safe bet.”
She handed him a list scrawled on a piece of hotel stationery. “I need to see if your CIA contact can get me these once I’m in the States.”
He studied the items. “How do you know about these neurotoxins? They’re top secret.”
“The Mossad isn’t living in a cave, Matt. You should know there are no secrets.”
“I’ll see what she can do. You may need to have a specialized lab make them. If she can’t get her hands on any, I’m sure she’ll be able to get you the chemical recipe.”
“Fair enough. Then I’ll also need a lab that will moonlight for the right kind of money.”
“Consider the request made.”
“Can I check out the diamonds?”
“Sure.”
She lifted the smaller package first, then carefully peeled back the tape and unwrapped it. Inside was a plastic freezer bag with what looked to her like at least a hundred stones, starting at three carats. She opened the second, larger package and found more like four hundred in that freezer bag, all larger cuts, between four and seven carats.
“That looks like more than ten million, Matt.”
“It is. The larger package is fifty million. In case we need to go to plan B.”
She stared at him wordlessly, then folded the two packages back up and replaced them in the attache and lifted out the passport to inspect it.
“I thought we discussed buying fifty million of laboratory manufactured stones.”
“You run a big risk that he has them tested and figures it out. After giving it more thought, it isn’t worth taking the chance. So you now have sixty-three million dollars of diamonds in your possession.”
“It just seems like too much…”
He grinned and feigned outrage. “What, you mean I’m going to have to limp along now on only a hundred thirty-five million until you bring the fifty back? What will I do? How will I survive?”
“You’re hell-bent on doing it this way?”
“You want your daughter back. Hopefully, plan A will work out and you’ll never have to give him the diamonds, but if for some reason it doesn’t, you now have a solid plan B. Not to be casual about it, but we’re playing with house money. Whether it’s fifty or ten, there’s more than I could spend in ten lifetimes sitting in my safe deposit box, so to me it doesn’t matter. Believe it or not, I’m not a money guy. It’s never been a big priority for me. You don’t go into intelligence work to get rich,” he said, then added bitterly, “unless you’re planning to be in the drug business and sell poison to the world as your sideline. Like our friend.”
“I still go to Zurich and do the deal on the ten million?”
“Of course. I already set it up. You’ll meet them at their bank — they’ll have a private room with verification equipment — and remember that the value of the stones I use is wholesale, not retail, so don’t let them mislead you. Retail value would be triple that — I’ve horse traded these stones enough to know that the values the CIA used were the very bottom of the spectrum.” He pointed at the briefcase. “All of their contact info is on a note in your passport.” He slid a bank card to her, with a slip of paper wrapped around it. “That’s a card with your new name on it that will allow you to access the funds, up to a hundred thousand a day, from anywhere in the world. Between the two I deposited today and the ten you’ll get in Switzerland, you should be able to afford whatever you need to get the job done. Whatever you don’t use of the fifteen you now have, you keep. Consider it your fee for eliminating Arthur and his band of cockroaches. I sort of expect the fifty back…”
She nodded. “That’s more than generous.”
“Again, it’s play money. Just get your daughter back safe and erase Arthur and his gang. To me, it’s a bargain. I’d pay ten times that to have my life back and shut those bastards down once and for all.”
“Do you really think that I’ll need that much?”
“You’re going up against very powerful, very rich men. They routinely deal in billions. Trust me. Fifteen million total firepower is not overkill. You may find yourself having to buy your way into or out of some difficult situations. Specialized weapons. I have no idea. But I do know that I don’t want to hear about how you failed because you didn’t have adequate resources. As an example, to avoid any customs unpleasantness, you should charter private jets to get to Europe and then to the U.S. — it’s a completely different system from the airport cattle lines when you’re a diplomat on your own jet. That alone will run a few hundred grand, easy. And then you have to plan your getaway. That won’t be cheap. Not to mention that if you need to bribe anyone in the U.S., it could cost a few million for anything truly risky.”
“Fine. I’m not going to argue. I’ll bring back the fifty.”