SHEPHERD AND KEUR were in a taxi on the way to Bangkok Bank when Shepherd’s cell phone rang. He took it out and answered it, but it kept ringing anyway.
“Not that one,” Keur prompted. “It’s the Nokia.”
“Right,” Shepherd nodded. “I need more coffee.”
He fished out the Nokia and pressed the answer button.
“Jack, it’s Kate. Can you talk?”
Shepherd’s eyes flicked involuntarily to Keur. They were trapped in traffic on Rajadamri Road right in front of what was left of the Four Seasons Hotel. It would probably take them another fifteen minutes or more to fight their way through the gridlock and cover the remaining five hundred yards to the Bangkok Bank Building. He didn’t see what choice he had.
“Go ahead.”
“Harvey left Dubai about forty minutes ago. They filed a flight plan for Bangkok. It says they’re landing at Don Mueang.”
Shepherd thought back to when they had stood on the top floor of that parking garage and Kate had pointed out Harvey parked outside what she said was a CIA facility at the old Don Mueang airport. Would the Agency really ship a planeload of arms into Bangkok and distribute them right out of their own facility? That seemed wildly unlikely. Not even the Agency was that arrogant.
He glanced at his watch: 8:15 A.M. It was a six-and-a-half hour flight to Thailand from Dubai. That meant the plane would arrive in Thailand somewhere around 2:00 P.M. local time, depending on whether they actually intended to land at Don Mueang or not. Just because they filed a flight plan for Don Mueang didn’t mean the plane was going there. And he would bet they weren’t. But wherever the plane was going, one thing at least was now absolutely clear. The clock had started.
He had less than six hours.
***
WHEN THEY GOT to Bangkok Bank, Keur flashed his badge at the security desk in the lobby and they took the elevator straight up to Tanit Chaiya’s office without being announced. Shepherd liked their chances a lot better that way.
“Don’t laugh,” he told Keur in the elevator, “but this guy looks just like Woody Allen.”
They brushed past Tanit’s secretary and pushed straight into his office. Tanit half rose from his desk, his heavy black glasses sagged to one side, and his mouth dropped open.
Keur looked at Shepherd and laughed out loud. “Goddamn,” he said, “the little shit really does look like Woody Allen.”
They took the two chairs facing Tanit’s desk without being asked to sit down. They didn’t say a word until Tanit sat back down, too. Then Keur took out his badge wallet, flipped it open, and held it up for Tanit to see.
“I am Special Agent Leonard Keur of the FBI,” he announced in his best television voice. “I have some questions for you.”
Shepherd thought Tanit looked less impressed than he had expected him to be.
“You have no authority here,” Tanit said.
“Where’s the rest of the money?” Shepherd asked, hoping to get Tanit’s full attention before the issue of authority took over the conversation.
“What money are you—”
“Cut the shit,” Keur snapped. “A little over six million dollars is missing from a series of wire transfers you arranged on Mr. Shepherd’s instructions. If you tell us what you did with it and where it is now, we’re out of your life and no one else needs to know about this. If you don’t, I am personally going to fuck you up, you worthless piece of crap.”
Tanit’s eyes opened wide and he looked at Shepherd. Time for the good cop to take the stage.
“I know you didn’t take the money, Tanit.”
Tanit quickly began shaking his head.
“But unless you tell us what happened to it, I’m not going to be able to convince him,” Shepherd went on, inclining his head toward Keur. “And he’s the one you have to convince.”
Tanit licked his lips anxiously. “You must understand that—”
“I must understand shit, you little turd,” Keur snapped. “Where’s the fucking money?”
Being the bad cop looked to Shepherd like a lot more fun than being the good cop. Especially the way Keur was playing it. Either he was a whiz at method acting or he had a lot of experience in the role.
“You have to understand,” Tanit said, his eyes shifting to Shepherd, “that I…”
“You what?” Shepherd prompted.
“I was just following my instructions.”
“I gave you your instructions. I didn’t tell you to—”
“Not my instructions from you,” Tanit said. “My instructions from General Kitnarok.”
Shepherd glanced at Keur, who smiled.
“What were those instructions?” he asked.
“To send six million United States dollars from the accounts to our Phuket branch before transferring the rest according to your instructions.”
“Whose account did it go into?”
“No one’s. It was to be converted into cash. Then we packed it into two suitcases and held it for collection.”
“Who collected it?”
Tanit hesitated, his eyes flicking rapidly back and forth from Keur to Shepherd.
“I don’t think—”
“Damn right you don’t think, you little shit,” Keur exploded. “If you don’t tell me—”
Shepherd waved Keur into silence.
“Who was it, Tanit?”
Tanit sighed and looked away.
“It was the wife,” he said after a moment. “It was General Kitnarok’s wife.”
“Sally Kitnarok?” Shepherd asked. “Are you sure?”
“I am sure of nothing,” Tanit shrugged. “I was told to send six million US dollars to our Phuket branch and that General Kitnarok’s wife would collect the money in cash when she wanted it.”
“US dollars?” Shepherd interrupted. “He wanted the cash in US dollars?”
“No,” Tanit said. “He wanted the cash in Thai baht.”
“Did Sally collect it? Personally?”
“So I am told.”
“Then Sally Kitnarok is in Phuket?”
“I have no idea where she is. I was informed she appeared at our Phuket branch and collected the money. That is all I know.”
“When did she collect it?”
“Two days ago.”
Tanit sighed heavily again and slumped in his chair.
Shepherd sighed, too.
Phuket, he thought to himself. Fucking Phuket.
He should have known that, in the end, it would all come down to fucking Phuket.
***
IT WAS MONTE Carlo that Somerset Maugham described as a sunny place for shady people, but he could just as easily have been talking about Phuket. An island resort off the southwest coast of Thailand about five hundred miles to the south of Bangkok, Phuket is set in the turquoise splendor of the Andaman Sea and soaked by sunshine nearly year-round. It is a glamorous, alluring vacation hideaway that has become justly famous among sailors, golfers, scuba divers, and social glitterati all over the world.
But Phuket has also attained a certain measure of fame among quite a different group: international criminals on the lam. The weather is good, the living is easy, the food is terrific, and the women are… well, Thai. Best of all, if the local police notice them at all, rascals on the run are generally offered the option of making a modest contribution to the local authorities to renew their invisibility. A lot of people seemed to think of Thailand as not much more than an asylum for the morally impaired anyway -- it’s the cuisine and the sex, the theory goes -- so what better place could there be for a scoundrel to lie low?
Every now and then a small piece would appear in the Bangkok Post about a German bank robber or an American con artist who had been discovered living quietly in Phuket and bundled off home for trial. These intermittent demonstrations of Thai cooperation with international law enforcement were very impressive, and it was doubtless a coincidence that they usually occurred just after the fugitive had exhausted the booty from his misdemeanors. Regardless, the total population of villains hiding out in Phuket never seemed to be significantly diminished by an occasional extradition in the name of international cooperation.
Speaking personally, Shepherd had a lousy history with Phuket. A couple of years back a former law partner from Washington had come to Shepherd and begged for his help. The fellow had been framed for embezzling tens of millions of dollars from a Philippine bank he thought he had been running but eventually discovered was merely a front for a worldwide network of crooks and criminals. He ended up hiding out in Phuket. Shepherd followed him there and found the missing money for the fellow easily enough. But it led to absolutely nothing good for either one of them.
Then, a year or so after that, an immensely wealthy and wildly infamous American who was on the lam from a variety of charges in the US also took refuge in Phuket. His name was Plato Karsarkis and the press dubbed him the world’s most famous fugitive. It was clear that Karsarkis had crossed the wrong people and the political smell from the charges against him was unmistakable. Plato wanted a presidential pardon and he thought Shepherd was just the man to get it for him. Reluctantly, Shepherd took on the case, but before it was resolved that one turned sour on him as well.
Two prominent clients in Phuket. Two prominent clients who, it has to be said, ended up somewhat less than fully satisfied with his services. Not a hell of a good track record for Jack Shepherd where Phuket was concerned.
***
KEUR STAYED SILENT until they were well outside the Bangkok Bank Building, but the minute they hit the sidewalk he blurted out the one question he wanted Shepherd to answer.
“Does that mean General Kitnarok is in Phuket, too?”
Shepherd thought about Sally and Charlie and how he had always admired the closeness of their partnership.
“If Sally’s there, Charlie is, too.”
“Any idea where?”
Shepherd wanted to tell Keur that Phuket was a big island and he had no idea at all where the Kitnaroks could be. But he did know. He knew exactly where they were.
Charlie had bought a house in Phuket about a year before. Of course, Charlie owned a lot of houses in a lot of places, some of which he had probably even forgotten he owned, which was why the significance of this particular house hadn’t occurred to Shepherd before. The legal owner of the Phuket house was a shell company in the British Virgin Islands. As far as Shepherd knew, nobody realized the house actually belonged to Charlie. Nobody, that is, except for him. He knew because he had handled the purchase for Charlie and he had set up the British Virgin Islands company that held the title.
It was an extraordinary house on a rise overlooking the Andaman Sea just south of Nai Thon Beach, a relatively isolated area on the northeast coast of the island only a few minutes from Phuket International Airport. Charlie had never spent a single night in the place as far as Shepherd knew, but there was a staff there that kept it ready for his use at a moment’s notice.
Shepherd knew a lot about that house because, as it happened, he also knew the seller. That had made the transaction easy for both sides, although it was not easy for him. He had hoped he would never have to think about that damned house again because it had belonged to his former client, Plato Karsarkis, the guy who wanted Shepherd to use his influence in Washington to score him a presidential pardon.
Now Charlie owned Plato’s former residence in Phuket.
And Shepherd had not the slightest doubt that Charlie was there right then.
Charlie was there. Sally was there. Six million dollars in cash converted into Thai baht was there. And within the next four hours, Shepherd would bet a white 737 would be unloading a cargo of arms and ammunition about ten minutes from there.
It all added up. He just didn’t like what it added up to.
“Come on, Jack,” Keur prompted. “We don’t have time for all this. Do you know where General Kitnarok is or don’t you?”
Shepherd took a deep breath and let it out again.
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I know where he is.”