“Give me a minute. Hold on.”
Jack heard the phone click. He wondered what Gavin was up to. Jack paced the living room floor, his eyes scanning for clues. He racked his brain. There was something needling him. He couldn’t put his finger on it. Gavin was right. He had been dealing with some real characters the last few days. First the Aussies, then the Chinese—the guards at the first warehouse, and then the hit team at the second. Not to mention the truck that slammed into his van—who the hell were they? If he had to guess, the Chinese drove that, too. According to Lian, the Aussies were just street punks, not operators. But they might have been sent by somebody, including the Chinese.
Or were the Chinese working for somebody else?
Something about the white Australians was bugging him. Most of the Caucasians he’d bumped into in Singapore were tourists; a few were businessmen. Jack scratched his head. But . . . wasn’t there somebody else?
Yeah. A blond guy, shouting into a phone. Where was he?
Jack shut his eyes tightly, trying to play the videotape in his head. It was dark, then a flash of light. That’s when he saw the blond shouting into a phone. That’s right—a van. A Toyota van. And sitting next to him, the Turk with the bushy unibrow, staring back at Jack. The night Jack drove to the warehouse, he passed the Toyota van on the way there, parked in the opposite direction.
Wait! The license plate. What was it? Jack rewound the tape. The lightning flashed, snapping the fleeting image like a photo in his mind. He saw it clearly. White letters on a black plate. A partial. SAM 00.
The phone clicked on.
“Jack, it’s Gerry Hendley on speakerphone.”
Oh, shit.
58
Hey, Gerry.”
“Don’t ‘Hey, Gerry’ me, Jack. What in the Sam Hill have you gotten yourself into?”
Great question, Jack said to himself. “You said to come down here and kick the tires. I guess the tires have been kicking back.”
“What’s this about Paul going missing?”
“Yeah, he’s not here, and he doesn’t have his phone.”
“You think he’s in trouble?”
Jack glanced down at the rubble. He lied. “Hard to say. But it’s not like him to leave his phone and not tell me where he’s going.”
“Do you want me to dispatch Dom and Midas over to you to lend a hand?”
“No point to it. They’re at least twenty-four hours away, and they can’t do anything more than Gavin and I can. Besides, the airport is shutting down until the storm passes.”
“We don’t want to call the Singapore police if we can help it. Senator Rhodes wants us to stay off the radar if at all possible. But Paul’s safety is more important than the mission.”
“Agreed. I still think it’s too early for that.”
“I’m going to call Mary Pat Foley. She has resources near you.”
Jack’s jaw clenched. Gerry was spinning this thing up. The CIA chief of station was located in the U.S. embassy across town. Jack was certain they had their hands full with all of the Chinese activity in Singapore. He hated to pull them off their work if he could solve the problem himself. He also needed to prove to Gerry that he could handle it. He still remembered the stinging rebuke he received from Gerry after the Prague mission went tits-up. He already felt as if Gerry was trying to sideline him with this gig. Jack worried about his future with The Campus if Gerry thought he couldn’t handle a white-side assignment, either.
“Give me an hour before you make that call, Gerry. I have an angle that Gavin and I can work. If it doesn’t, we’ll call in the cavalry for sure.”
“You’re the man in the field. It’s your call. But whatever you do, find Paul.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll turn you back over to Gavin now. Keep me posted.” Gerry’s line clicked off.
“Gavin?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, Jack?”
“What the hell?”
Gavin quailed at the tone in Jack’s voice. “Sorry. I was worried about Paul.”
“What else did you tell him?”
“You mean, about the Chinese spies and all of that? Nothing. I just said Paul’s gone missing.”
“Ready to get back to work?”
“Shoot.”
“It’s a long shot. I’ve got another partial plate for you. A Toyota van. Probably a rental, but maybe not. The first three letters are S, A, M, and the first two numbers are zero, zero.”
“Singapore plates use a three-letter, three-number combo. Shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Call me the minute you find something.”
“Okay.”
“Not Gerry. Not the Pope. Not the president of the San Diego Comic-Con. You call me. Understood?”
“Perfectly.” Gavin rang off.
Jack pocketed his phone and headed for Paul’s bedroom, hoping he might find a clue.
—
Jack walked through Paul’s bedroom, looking for clues of any kind as to his whereabouts. He had no idea what he hoped to find.
Jack yanked open drawers and closet doors. Everything was neat and orderly, perfectly stacked and hung in place. No hidden devices or ransom notes or bloody towels or KGB badges.
Crap.
Then he remembered the incident with Paul in the bathroom and the USB drive after the SPF trashed their place. Despite Paul’s assertion to the contrary, Jack had seen him pull the drive out of the shower-curtain rod. He didn’t really care why Paul had done that or why the drive was so important to him that he felt he had to hide it or that he lied about it. Paul seemed harmless enough, and not doing anything he wasn’t supposed to be doing.
Clearly, he was wrong.
Jack pulled the curtain rod down and removed both ends. He didn’t see anything blocking either end, and he tipped the rod up high enough that the USB drive or anything else Paul may have been hiding in there would have fallen out.
His phone rang in his pocket. Jack tossed the curtain rod to the floor and answered his phone.
“That was fast, even for you, Gav.”
“Don’t thank me yet. It’s a long shot, but I think I found the car. It’s a local rental, signed out for two weeks to a V. Levski, with a corporate address in Sofia, Bulgaria.”
“Bulgaria? That doesn’t make any sense.” Jack wondered if the Turk he saw with the blond man wasn’t actually a Bulgarian.
“I’m texting you the GPS coordinates where the car is located.”
“How did you find it?” Jack’s phone dinged as the text arrived.
“The rental agency uses Swiss cheese for a firewall. It wasn’t a problem to hack into their GPS locator. I’m sorry, but that’s all I’ve got. It’s probably a wild-goose chase.”
“It’s a lead, Gav. Thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
Jack rang off and dashed down the stairs, praying it was more than a lead. He remembered Paul’s phone and grabbed it off the kitchen counter. A message box indicated that Paul had missed three calls and a voice mail from Senator Rhodes. What the hell was that all about? He pocketed the phone, pulled on his soaking-wet boots, and dashed for the Audi TT parked in the driveway.
—
If the traffic was bad before, it was a pure hell now. Jack was surrounded by honking horns and red brake lights. Sheets of rain pummeled the Audi like a drummer on crack. His wiper blades couldn’t keep up. The windshield blurred with water as fast as the wipers slapped it away.
It took Jack twenty minutes to move a hundred yards on the busy three-lane PIE expressway. He used the downtime to plot an alternative route over side streets to avoid the stampede of cars heading for higher ground. Fortunately, the destination wasn’t too far away.
He took the first side street available and let the woman’s voice on his map program guide him the rest of the way, almost due west o
f his guesthouse. On a regular traffic day the journey was no more than fifteen minutes.
Five minutes from his destination, Jack’s phone rang. The caller ID read SEN. RHODES.
Strange.
He answered via the Audi’s streaming wireless Bluetooth. “Senator Rhodes. What can I do for you?”
“Jack, I’ve been trying to reach Paul. Is he with you?”
Yeah, I know. But why? “No. I’m trying to find him myself. Is there a problem?” In the close quarters of the Audi’s cabin, the pounding rain and squeegeeing wipers were deafening.
“I was just going to ask you the same thing. My God, it sounds like you’re in a machine shop.”
“Something like that.”
“Paul was supposed to call me this evening. I’ve tried calling his phone, but he doesn’t pick up. I’m worried about him.”
“Why?”
“You may not be aware that Paul struggles with alcohol. He says it’s under control, but that’s what every drunk says.”
Jack’s jaw clenched. He resented Rhodes calling Paul a drunk, even though it was true. “You know it was his wedding anniversary yesterday.”
“Oh, yes. Of course. I’d quite forgotten. Probably set him off. I need to speak to him immediately.”
“I’ll let him know when I find him.” There was a long pause on the other end. “Anything else on your mind, Senator?”
Finally, “Jack, I’m concerned that Paul might be in some hot water.”
“Why?”
“I can’t read you in on that. Let’s just say I asked him to do me a favor. If he doesn’t do this thing by midnight tonight, it’s a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“Just call me when you find him, will you? It’s extremely urgent.” Rhodes rang off.
Jack shook his head. What the hell was that all about?
59
Jack’s phone rang again. “Gav, I’m a minute out.”
“I know, I’m tracking you.”
“How?”
“Your phone.”
“Yeah, duh. What do you need?”
“Wanted to give you a heads-up. This isn’t a goose chase after all. These Bulgarians or whoever they are really are after Paul.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll patch you in.” Gavin punched a few buttons on his end. Jack heard voices speaking in German over the Audi’s car audio system.
“What am I listening to?”
“I hacked into the van’s onboard Safety Connect, Toyota’s version of OnStar. We’re listening to them live.”
“What are they saying?”
“They’re supposed to go in and grab Paul in the next five minutes.”
“You speak German?”
“I have streaming translation software. Ninety-two percent accurate. I think I’m hearing just two distinct voices.”
Jack shut off his headlights as he made his final turn off Geylang Road and onto the narrow one-lane where the van’s GPS signal was located. He was passing old two- and three-story buildings with crumbling colonial façades in fading pastel colors. The Geylang district was the seediest part of Singapore, but it was still a whole lot better than the nicer parts of some of the Third World shitholes he’d been to over the years.
“So where’s Paul?”
“The transcript says the Pink Lily.”
“Sounds like a whorehouse.”
“According to an Ohio soccer mom on TripAdvisor, you’re in Singapore’s red-light district. Room three thirty-one. About five hundred yards ahead.”
One of the German voices barked a command, followed by thunking sounds.
“What was that?” Jack asked.
“They’re out of the vehicle, heading for Paul!”
—
Jack snapped the lights back on and gunned the Audi’s 220-horsepower turbo. The all-wheel-drive Quattro transmission kept it from spinning out as the speedometer passed 100 kilometers per hour four seconds later. But the narrow street was crowded on both sides by parked cars. The Audi hit standing water and hydroplaned. Sparks exploded when his right side-view mirror sheared off. He jerked the wheel and the Audi’s front bumper crashed into a green plastic dumpster left in the street, launching a shower of garbage onto the sidewalk.
Jack slammed on his brakes, screeching to a halt in a spray of water behind the Toyota van parked across from the “hotel”—a pale pink three-story building with PINK LILY on its sign. The street-front door was pushed open.
Jack charged out of the Audi and through the rain toward the door, his boots splashing in the puddles. He bounded onto the stairs, taking three at a time. He used the banisters to round the corners faster, and hit the third-floor landing winded but furious. A glance right down the hallway yielded nothing, but a glance left showed an open door and there was the sound of crashing furniture.
Jack bolted for the open door. He arrived just as the unibrowed Bulgarian backhanded Paul across the face. The blond German turned in shock at Jack’s appearance and reached inside his coat pocket, but Jack was faster with his fist and he cracked the smaller man’s jaw with a straight-armed punch, sending him to the floor, out cold.
The Bulgarian turned as Jack’s blow landed on the German’s jaw. He crashed hard into Jack, knocking him against the wall, smashing a cheap picture frame with a blue-armed Vishnu smiling behind the glass. The big Bulgarian grabbed Jack by the lapel of his coat with his left hand and cocked his right arm back, aiming the biggest fist Jack had ever seen at his face. The thick, hairy knuckles launched like a meat hammer at Jack’s head, but Jack diverted the blow with a swipe of his left hand, sending the man’s fist into the wall with a sickening crunch.
The man still had Jack’s lapel bunched in his left fist, and his heavy right arm was pressed against Jack’s face, pinning his head against the wall. Too tied up to throw a decent punch, Jack reached for his front pants pocket and pulled out his weapon of last resort, driving the tip of the stainless-steel Zebra pen deep into the soft tissue of the big man’s lower jaw. The Bulgarian howled, clawing at the pen as he stumbled backward, his eyes wide with panic as Jack landed a kick to the side of his head, knocking him out.
“He’s bleeding out,” Paul said, rubbing the side of his reddened face.
Jack was still trying to catch his breath. He knelt close to the Bulgarian, careful not to put his knee in the pooling blood. “He’s dead.”
Jack pulled the pen out of the Bulgarian’s jaw and wiped it off on the man’s shirt. He saw Paul’s disgusted look. “Can’t leave evidence behind.” He stood.
Paul took a step back into the small kitchen opening to the postage stamp–sized living room. “Who the hell are you, Jack?”
Jack frown-smiled. “You know who I am. I came here to find you.” He fished around in his pocket and pulled out Paul’s phone. Tossed it to him as a peace offering. “Thought you might need this.”
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody sent me. Look, we need to get out of here.”
Paul fiddled with his phone. He didn’t look up. “What about him?”
Jack stepped over to the German, felt for a pulse. Couldn’t find one. He wasn’t completely surprised. It was a perfectly thrown punch, the momentum of his two-hundred-pound frame propelling his fist like a mortar round into the smaller man’s jaw. A half-step shorter jab and the man would still be breathing.
“He’s gone.” Jack reached into the man’s coat and pulled out a 9x18mm Makarov pistol. He showed it to Paul. “Soviet version of the Walther.”
Paul glanced up from his phone, puzzled. He pocketed it. “Looks familiar. Can I see it?”
“You know how to handle one?”
“My dad was a cop.” Paul took the small pistol in his beefy hands and cleared the chamber while Jack searched the Bulgarian, his back to Paul.
/>
Jack’s fingers gripped a pistol in the Bulgarian’s shoulder holster. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Why did Rhodes send you, Jack?”
“I told you, no one sent me—”
The pain exploding in the back of Jack’s skull cut his sentence short.
60
Jack blinked himself awake. His head throbbed, but his wrists burned like they were cut. It took him a moment to figure out they were tied behind his back. He was lying on his side, not far from the dead German.
Paul sat on a small, threadbare couch across from him, the Makarov pointed at Jack’s face.
“I’ll ask you again, why did Rhodes send you?”
“Damn it, Paul! I told you he didn’t.”
“Then why were you talking to him on your phone ten minutes ago?”
“He called me, looking for you.”
“That’s my point.”
Jack stretched his shoulders. “What did you tie my wrists with, piano wire?”
“Lamp cord. Last chance, Jack. Otherwise, I’m going to shoot you.”
“Goddamn it, Paul, who are you?”
“That’s what I asked you.”
Jack winced against the hammer clobbering his brain. “Yeah, Rhodes called me, looking for you. But I was already on my way to find you before he called.”
“Why?”
“You disappeared. I was worried about you.”
“How did you find me?”
“I didn’t. Gavin did.”
“So Gavin’s in on this, too?”
“In on what?”
Paul reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out Rhodes’s USB drive. “This.”
“What’s that?”
“You tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“You mean you won’t.”
“No. I can’t, because I don’t know what it is. Is that the one you had hidden in the shower-curtain rod?”
“How did you know?”
“I caught you fooling with it after the police raid, remember?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”