Now he had two choices. He could let them know which cabin he and Alexandra occupied, which was not a good idea. Or he could make it hard on the men and leave the tracker somewhere on the train for them to find. Then they might think Jake had dropped it there and gotten off the train. That would make it much harder to find him.
Jake chose a third option. He got up and wandered back toward his cabin. When he saw a porter ahead, Jake bumped into the man and slipped the jump drive into the man’s pants pocket. Then Jake wandered back to his cabin and locked the door.
“Everything all right?” Alexandra asked.
“Yeah. The men from Singapore were waiting for us at the station.”
The train slowly pulled away from the terminal and immediately started to pick up speed.
“You want to throw the tracker out the window?” she asked. “Or just smash it.”
He smiled and told her how he had planted it on the porter. “That might have them running around the train for a while.”
Alexandra settled back into her bed. “Good. I need some more sleep.”
Jake got on his phone and called Kurt Jenkins on the outskirts of the city, where the train was still going slow through the suburbs on the way out of Kuala Lumpur. Jenkins wasn’t surprised to hear that Jake and Alexandra were on their way to Bangkok, since he knew that Remington had worked there years ago.
“What do you plan to do, Jake?” Jenkins asked him.
Standing next to the window and watching the slums of Kuala Lumpur slip by, Jake said, “I’m not sure. I was hired to find Bill Remington. I don’t have the authority to hold the man and wait for extradition.”
“I know,” Jenkins acknowledged. “And I know he has a lot of friends still in country.”
“What about our guns?”
“That shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll probably run drug dogs around suspicious-looking characters. Nobody is stupid enough to travel with guns.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
Jake hesitated to look at the lower bunk, where Alexandra slept soundly already. “Remington already knows I’m coming.”
“How?”
He told his old boss about the small GPS tracking device.
“That’s one of ours,” Jenkins said. “Our tech guys developed that two years ago.”
A thought came to Jake. “Is there any way to reprogram it for my own use?”
“Not really. You’d have to have the security code.”
“All right. Then I won’t try to pick the porter’s pocket to retrieve it.”
“Wait a minute,” Jenkins said. “If Remington already knows you’re coming, what makes you think he’ll be there waiting for you?”
Jenkins had a damn good point. “One reason. The Singapore banker is expected to make a cash delivery to Remington tomorrow afternoon.”
“Doesn’t Remington know the Agency froze his assets at that bank?”
“The banker told him that,” Jake answered. “But Remington was smart enough to stash a bunch of cash in a safe deposit box. The banker has been making regular milk runs from Singapore to Bangkok with just under ten grand each time. Now, if Remington is smart, knowing I was just at the bank, he’ll set up someone else to pick up the money.”
“Good point. He might also have a contingency to have the money delivered to a third country.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” Jake said. “And if I had to guess, I’d put my money on Cambodia. Remington worked there and they have no extradition with America.”
“Plus you could live like a king there with the kind of money Remington has acquired from the Chinese,” Jenkins reasoned.
“Okay. So, since Remington knows I’m coming, why don’t you make sure we have some Agency assets in place to run interference at the train station. Just in case those assholes jack us up and find the guns.”
Jenkins agreed, saying the station chief he had appointed was still in place there.
“One more thing,” Jake said, and then he hesitated and observed the suburbs giving way to small food plots lit only be the occasional house light. “Could you find out from the current director what he wants me to do with the man once I catch up with him?”
“Roger that.”
The two of them both clicked off the call. Jake glanced back at Alexandra sleeping. He considered taking off his clothes, but decided against it. Instead, he unzipped a side pouch on his backpack and pulled out his Glock. Then he crawled up into the top bunk and put the gun under his pillow. He wished he had a dollar for every time he slept with a gun.
Now, with the rocking of the train, sleep would come easy for him.
15
The train slowed as soon as it reached the sprawling outer limits of Bangkok. Jake and Alexandra were packed and ready to get off as soon as the train came to a stop. They had both slept better than at any time in the past few days. For Jake he had not slept that well since leaving his fishing resort in Costa Rica.
Jake had even ventured out a few hours ago to pick up some breakfast for them, a bag of pastries and black coffee. To his astonishment, one of the men from Singapore had been sitting in a back corner of the dining car, and he didn’t even look concerned or try to make a move on Jake. In the man’s defense, there were a lot of witnesses trying to grab food before the train reached Bangkok. But Jake didn’t think that’s what stopped the guy. Something was up.
Glancing out the window and observing the graffiti-riddled buildings pass by, Jake said, “I still don’t know why those two didn’t try to come for us last night.”
The two of them had discussed this since waking up.
Alexandra met him at the window. “I have no clue. But I’m guessing they were ordered to stand down.”
Jake turned and gazed into her eyes. “I tend to agree with you. I’m just not sure why. If I had to guess, I’d say Remington has something planned for us in Bangkok.”
The train slowed even more and Jake peered toward the front of the car, seeing the terminal ahead. He checked his watch and saw it was quarter after ten in the morning. The train was actually fifteen minutes early.
“You have your gun ready?” he asked her.
She reached down and patted her backpack. “Right inside this zipper.”
His was equally accessible. “Good. Let’s get going.”
When they got out to the passageway, others were already lined up with their bags. The train came to a stop and everyone shoved toward the exits on either side of their first class car.
Once they got to the platform, Jake immediately saw the two men from Singapore. One was smoking a cigarette and the other was on his phone. They both kept a respectable distance as they trailed Jake and Alexandra.
She smiled to Jake, having seen the two men also. The men weren’t even trying to hide.
Looking forward again, Jake noticed a number of police officers checking passports. And Kurt Jenkins had been right, the police had two dogs sniffing bags. It made sense. Bangkok was a huge drug corridor.
Jake and Alexandra both showed their passports together, showing them that they were a married couple from Canada. Nothing to worry about. The drug dog looked a little skeptical, but didn’t alert to their bags.
As soon as they got into the terminal building, a young man in khakis and a white traditional Thai button up shirt lifted his chin at Jake. He screamed of Agency complacency. The guy needed a lesson in blending in a little better, but that wouldn’t have been easy in any case. He was six feet tall with red hair and freckles.