Betrayal

Chapter 19

“Forget it. I’m not going to do it. That wasn’t our deal.” Jet’s voice was quiet, and yet had an edge to it. She peered absently around the internet cafe from her position in the glass internet phone booth.

“I’m afraid that circumstances have changed. This isn’t negotiable. Rob will accompany you and assist in whatever way you need, but he is going with you,” Arthur said.

“What part of ‘no’ are you having trouble with?” She could hear his breath coming in harsh rasps on the other end of the line.

“What part of ‘you’ll do as you’re told or never see your daughter again’ are you unclear about?”

Jet seethed. She’d been expecting this, waiting for it, but it still took all of her willpower to keep from hanging up and jumping on the first plane to the United States to hunt him down and kill him.

“We have a problem, Arthur. You’re breaking your word. That makes me think you’ll also break your word when the time comes to give me Hannah. I guess we could call this a crisis of confidence. And you really don’t want a crisis of confidence.”

“Look. I heard all about your run-in with the gunmen. I also know that it was Rob’s quick thinking — his decision to split up when you wanted to stay together — that was largely responsible for both of you getting away.”

“Ha! Is that what he told you? Please. I suppose it escaped you that I single-handedly dealt with both of the remaining shooters and the driver without big strong Rob to keep me from breaking a nail.”

“Be that as it may, you are both going to go into the jungle and bring me the target’s head. Do that and you will get your daughter back. There’s an easy way and a hard way to do this. I would strongly suggest you do it the easy way.”

“No. I’m not going to play ball any more. This is over now. I’ll figure out how to get my daughter back without you. I hope you sleep with one eye open because you’re going to need to,” she said, prepared to hang up.

“Stupid mistake. I’ll have you on every Interpol terminal in the world within five minutes. You want to play with me? Get ready to spend the rest of your short life in some hellhole of a jail being serial raped by the guards. While your daughter grows up never knowing you — maybe develops a drug problem, runs away, winds up working the streets. Push me and I’ll make it happen. Think I won’t? Try me.”

Jet took a few beats to slow down her racing thoughts. There were other ways of handling the situation besides going to war with Arthur. She’d believed he would back down, but he hadn’t, and now she was at the brink. Not a place she wanted to be.

“If you want the diamonds back and the target terminated, you’ll do it my way,” she said.

Arthur’s tone softened perceptibly. “I am doing it your way. Only you’ll have Rob with you. Look, you can use him to carry the gear for all I care. But take him. He may even prove helpful with the locals once you’re in the brush. Last time I checked, your Thai wasn’t going to win any awards.”

She realized that she had no negotiating power if he was willing to throw her under the bus to win a power struggle. Her strategy had depended upon him wanting the diamonds back more than he wanted to get his way. She’d just gotten an important lesson in how his mind worked.

“Fine. But you’re to instruct him that he answers to me, and that means if I tell him to do something, it’s an order. I don’t need someone who disobeys me whenever he thinks his opinion is superior. He did that when he split up, and that’s a dangerous trait. I won’t tolerate it. I’ll shoot him myself if he does it again. Do you read me?” she fumed.

“I do, and I’ll convey the message. Remember that he’s an experienced field operative in his own right. A lot of experience.”

“So were the two teams you sent in before me, right? They’re dead. Forgive me if I’m not bowled over by that hit rate.”

“Touche.”

“You sucked me into this because you need my expertise. If you thought you could have used your own people successfully, you would have. So don’t hamstring me with dead weight. I’m playing this to win. And I mean what I say about shooting him myself.”

“I understand.” Arthur paused, and she heard what passed for his lips smacking. “Then we have an agreement?”

“We do. But I want to reiterate what I said earlier. If you try to screw me, I will hunt you down. Nothing in the world will save you. I hope you believe me.”

“Oh, I do. Believe me I do.”

“I’ll call Rob after I call Edgar,” Jet concluded, then punched the off button and exited the booth, returning to the front counter of the internet cafe to pay for her time. She didn’t want to chance using cell phones to call him. She knew how easily a cell could be triangulated over a period of more than a minute. A cell would be fine with a calling card for short duration calls to Rob or Edgar, but she wasn’t going to chance it with Arthur. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

The sidewalks were filled with office workers going home for the evening as Edgar waited for Jet in his car in a parking lot near Nana. She’d called at five, as agreed, and they had arranged a meet for six-thirty, so she could get her kit. Street vendors held baskets of food aloft to the teeming multitudes, offering delicacies such as snake and fried, seasoned beetle — all for a nominal amount.

Jet’s knock on the passenger-side window caused him to start. He unlocked the door.

“Nice ride,” she said, surveying the nine-year-old Kia sedan’s fading interior as she slipped into the seat next to him. “Drive.”

“Where?”

“To the park. I’ll keep an eye out for any tail. I didn’t see any watchers on approach, but let’s be sure, shall we?”

Edgar eased out of the stall and paid the attendant, then pulled into the gridlocked traffic, the little Kia’s motor threatening to stall as he mistimed the clutch. The taxi he cut off honked a short, percussive toot. Edgar waved and shrugged. Jet studied him with a doubtful smirk, then resumed her watch in the side mirror. If someone had them under surveillance, they would have had their work cut out, unless they were doing so on foot.

Five minutes later, they’d advanced one block.

“We could probably crawl faster than we’ll get there in the car,” Edgar complained.

“Maybe so, but I have my reasons. Did you get everything?”

“Yes. It’s all in a duffle in the trunk. I have to admit that two of the items raised eyebrows. We don’t see a lot of call for those. Anyway, we had to go with the P90. I couldn’t get my hands on the MTAR in time. But I have one coming, by tomorrow, if he’s still around.”

“Big if.”

“I know.”

“Any more word on that?”

“Nothing new. He’s still at the condo as of now.”

“I’ll need a car when he bolts. And I might not have much time. Can you get me one that’s clean?”

“I already have one waiting.”

“No tracker on it — or in any of this gear, right?”

“Correct. Sort of would defeat the purpose at this point.”

She fiddled with the air-conditioning vent, pointing it at her face.

“Arthur convinced me to give Rob a chance. Tell him I’ll be calling him within the next few hours on his cell. Did he get his chip removed?”

“After we had our chat. He’s clean now. Although I think it’s more likely that they tracked one of your phones than the chip. By the way, I have Rob’s, along with yours. We had one of our assets on the police force go and collect it at the doctor’s. I presume you’ll want it in the car with Rob?”

“Correct. That way anyone tracking us will think we’re following Pu, which I think they probably expect at this point if the attack came from them. I would bet money they’re tracking the chips. If my instinct’s right, the other teams were dead before they ever left Bangkok.”

“I still don’t think they are, but this is your show.”

“That’s right. It is,” she said and left it at that.

They crawled along, tuk tuks and motorcycles roaring past them like swarms of metal locusts, vendors darting in and out of the endless rows of cars with every imaginable type of merchandise. The streets had converted into a giant moving market, which she found somehow fitting. She watched for any surveillance for another ten minutes and, finally satisfied that they were clean, patted Edgar’s leg.

“Pop the trunk. I’m going to walk.”

“What? Right here?”

“Yes. Pop it now. I’ll get in touch soon.”

With that, she opened the door and stepped out into traffic, quickly rounding the fender and pulling the black duffle bag out of the trunk. She slammed the lid closed and, without looking back, darted between a delivery truck and a taxi, then veered around a motor scooter, and was gone.