Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

We stand there on the sidewalk, parting the waters with throngs of pedestrians flowing around us as we watch the naked door across the street and debate what to do.

“Why don’t we go round back?” says Harry. “See what’s there.”

Looking at the door, not knowing what is inside, neither Joselyn nor I want to argue with him.

We walk down the sidewalk to the south, half a block closer to our hotel, and cross traffic where a narrow lane intersects Second Road on the other side.

It looks like more of an alley than anything else. But it must go somewhere. Cars and motorcycles are moving on it in both directions, so we follow it. A little farther on, maybe fifty yards, Joselyn stops. Harry and I keep walking.

“What about right there?”

Harry and I turn to look at her. She is pointing off to the left toward a narrow walkway between two buildings.

“It looks as if it might go through,” she says.

I take a peek. The walkway looks as if it passes between the buildings and widens out into a parking area behind the building with the green door.

“Let’s try it.” We start walking single file toward the narrow passage.

“Charlie One to Charlie Four, you got ’em?”

“No. This is Charlie Four. Give them a minute.” The agent was sitting in a restaurant next to the pharmacy just two shops down from the green door. He had a perfect view of the three Americans across the street. He watched them as they crossed over until they got too close to the sidewalk on this side where he couldn’t get an angle any longer. He was sure they were coming this way, heading for the entrance to the offices upstairs. If he panicked and raced out, he’d run right into them coming the other way.

“Charlie Four, do you have them?”

“No.”

“Where are they?”

“I don’t know. They could be hanging on the corner. Give ’em a couple more seconds.”

“Can you see them?”

“No, but I’m on it. Moving now.” Charlie Four tossed some Thai money at the waitress to pay for his iced tea, told her to keep the change, and hoofed it out onto the sidewalk. There was no sign of them at the corner. He looked south down Second Road against the direction of traffic. He couldn’t see them, though. The sidewalk was crowded. In running shoes and shorts, he’d have no difficulty catching up with them-if he only knew which way they went. “Got a problem here,” said Charlie Four. “Need help. They either went south on Second, in which case they’re probably headed back to their hotel. Or else they went down the side street. It’s Soi…” He looked for the street sign. There wasn’t one. “I’ll take the side street.”

“I got Second Road,” said Charlie Three.

Charlie Four turned left and headed down the narrow side street. There was no sign of the two men or the woman. Like everything else, the side soi s were getting crowded as people caught up in the rush hour looked for alternate routes.

There were cars and pedestrians, motorbikes and vendors with their pushcarts, all moving and jostling for space on the narrow side street. The agent caught a lift, jumped on the back of a moving baht bus, and tried to use the elevated height to see if he could find them in the crowd. The bus found an opening and headed down the street with the agent on the back, his eyes scanning the distance for the three Americans.

Liquida had no intention of going anywhere near the green door or the locked box upstairs. Nor did he want to take a chance on the company’s courier service, not now. One thing was certain; it was Bruno’s voice he had heard on the telephone message he picked up in Dubai. The question was whether the FBI had their hand up his ass playing puppet using the Chechen to try and hook Liquida and reel him in. If that’s what was happening, any deliveries from Bruno would be made by a courier with a government pension and a badge. Still, Liquida desperately needed the money that was in that drawer, assuming it was there.

He looked at his watch. It was after four. Traffic was beginning to thicken up out on Second Road. In a few minutes the street in front of his hotel would be a parking lot. He had things to do. He got up from the chair, slipped out one of the stilettos from the rolled cloth pack, and dropped his pants. He taped the long straight weapon to the inside of his left calf using a foot and a half of vet wrap. It was an area of the body that, unless police saw some bulge, they often didn’t frisk all that carefully. A piece of steel like the thin stiletto could easily slip by. He pulled his pants up and checked to make sure that nothing showed.

Then he grabbed a white canvas beach bag that was lying on the bed. The bag had two sturdy strap handles and was big enough to hold a couple of fair-sized phone books. He had purchased the bag earlier that day from an outdoor display on Beach Road, a place called Mike’s Department Store.

Liquida headed out of the room and down the stairs. He passed through the small lobby in front of the clerk at the desk and stepped out onto the sidewalk, which was teeming with pedestrians. He instantly lost himself in the sea of people moving quickly around the corner onto one of the side streets.

Ten feet farther on, two Thai teenage boys, motorbike taxi drivers, lay lounging on the long seats of their bikes while a third one sat perched in a low beach chair up on the sidewalk. They were all wearing worn and soiled green vests with the name of a local beer bar on the back. This was their turf, the corner where they hung out hoping to pick up fares. For a few baht they would give you a thin plastic helmet, let you hop on the back of their bike, and deliver you anywhere in the city. That is, if you could hang on and if you didn’t mind the occasional near-death experience.

The narrow walkway between the buildings delivered Harry, Joselyn, and me into the middle of a parking area directly behind the building with the green door. In the back was a small loading dock, and on the elevated concrete pad was a steel overhead door that was closed. Next to the loading dock was a set of cement stairs leading to a heavy steel door, only this time the door was open.

Harry and I look at each other. “Listen.” I turn to Joselyn. “Why don’t you stay here? If we’re not out in, say, ten minutes, go see if you can find a local Thai policeman and tell him where we are.”

“I got a better idea. Why don’t you stay here and I’ll go in?” Joselyn doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she takes off like a greyhound for the open door, Harry and me trailing along in her wake.

Inside the door is a large storage area, a stack of fifty-gallon drums against one wall and what looks like part of a motorized rack for hanging clothes in a commercial laundry. We don’t loiter. Instead, we pass quickly through another door and find ourselves in an open hallway. We move down the hall toward the front of the building; the smell of food, chicken broth and steamed noodles, fills the air.

“I’m gettin’ hungry,” says Harry.

“You want to stop and eat?” asks Joselyn.

“Not now, but when we’re done, yeah,” he says.

We reach the front of the building and end up at the foot of a staircase leading up to the second floor.

“According to the note, it’s upstairs, second floor, room 208,” I say.

Harry is already climbing, two steps at a time. We get to the top and start checking off the numbers on the doors. The place is a rabbit warren of small businesses, some white collar, others providing support services for some of the shops on the ground floor. We pass by one and see several women inside working sewing machines, stitching jackets and slacks, probably for the tailor’s shop downstairs. The next door is all the way open, swung back against the wall. I very nearly pass it when Joselyn taps me on the arm. She points to the open door, the numerals 208 reversed on the translucent glass on the upper panel of the open door.