Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

“I will keep this for now.”

When the agent turned around, he saw the uniformed Thai policeman standing there in front of him. He could tell this was no ordinary cop. The man was maybe five foot eight, tall for a Thai, and very fit. He was wearing a military-style five-point hat with a shiny visor. The starched uniform bore captain’s bars and looked as if it was molded to his body. “We will have that as well.” He took the handheld radio and handed both the cell phone and the radio to the officers standing behind him.

By now there was a good-size crowd forming out on the street in front of the green door, all jostling for position to see what was happening. Two police cars and a police pickup were parked on the road, blocking traffic in the first lane, their light bars flashing red, blue, and gold.

“Your friend tells me you are the one in charge.”

“Lucky me.”

The cop smiled. “Are you armed?”

“No.” The two agents inside the building had enough sense to lock up their. 40-caliber Glocks along with the extra clips and the fanny pack holsters in the embassy car before they radioed in and told the Pattaya police who they were and where they were located. Charlie One produced his FBI credentials and then handed over his passport.

The cop glanced at the ID and handed it to one of the other officers, who made notes while his boss looked at the passport. “I see. I take it then that you are assigned to the legal attache in Bangkok?”

“That’s correct.”

“And your friend here?”

“Same, same,” said Charlie One.

“You will find that I speak fluent English. Would you like to try Thai?”

“I’m sure that your English is better than my Thai,” said the agent.

The officer considered his options, which were now much more limited. The agents had diplomatic passports and hence diplomatic immunity. He could take them into custody, but to do so would cause a big stink. “Would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

Charlie One didn’t say anything.

The cop lowered the passport and tapped it against his thigh for a moment. “Are there any more of you?”

“Here, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“No,” said Charlie One. Of course, that all depended on how you defined the word here.

“Do you mind my asking why, if there are only two of you and you’re both standing here together, why do you need radios to communicate?”

“Certainly you can ask.” Charlie One had no intention of telling him anything, not now, not with the three Americans safely back in their hotel. The agent didn’t know much, but what little he knew he was fairly confident Washington would not want disclosed. Besides, the three Americans were running out of time. According to the information from bureau headquarters, they were scheduled to be back in D.C. in two days. They would either have to leave in the morning or catch a red-eye the following night. By then they would be somebody else’s problem.

“So I take it you’re not going to tell us anything?” said the officer.

“I’m sorry, but at the moment I’m not at liberty.”

“I see. Well…” The cop took a deep breath and stood there for a moment. “Since we can’t arrest you and since you’re not willing to cooperate, I suppose there’s not much we can do, is there?”

The agent didn’t want to rub it in. Instead he stood there trying to look sufficiently rebuked so as not to make the man feel bad. He was, in fact, sympathetic to the cop’s position. Guests in their country and brothers of the badge, they had needed help many times from the local authorities. The agent knew that it was inevitable that in time they would once again need the help of the Pattaya police.

“Do you mind telling me how long you have been on assignment in Thailand?” said the cop.

“Six years,” said the agent.

“Do you like your duty here?”

“Very much.”

“Then I would advise that in the future it would be wise to inform us before you do something like this again. Whatever it was you were doing.”

“Understood,” said the agent.

“Good,” said the cop. “I will take your radios. Kindly ask your other agents not to use them. You can inform your embassy that a report of this matter will be filed by my department with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If your ambassador wishes to get his radios back, he can check with the ministry.”

“I suspect they probably belong to you now,” said the agent.

The officer looked at them appraisingly. “Nice radios. You wouldn’t happen to have any vehicles around here, would you?”

The agent didn’t say a word.

The officer smiled at him. “In the meantime, try not to get in any more trouble.” He handed the passports and the FBI credentials back to the agent, turned, and said, “Give them back their cell phones.”

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in my underwear as Joselyn tries to clean the burn on my lower leg with a damp washcloth from the bathroom as Harry looks on.

“Two days, a lot of money, and a long trip, and we’ve got squat,” I tell them.

Harry is sitting in a chair in the corner. “How do we know the drawer was even the right one? I mean, just because the letters line up with a note you found in Costa Rica…”

“Puerto Rico,” I tell him. “Waters of Death, same address as on the note, and the only thing in that room that matches it is… Ow, that hurts!”

“Don’t be a wuss,” she says.

“Easy for you to say. It’s not your leg.”

“A few more inches, and it wouldn’t have been yours anymore either,” she says. “That bike did a pretty good job on you. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to look both ways?”

“Problem was I was looking the wrong way on a one-way street. Yeah, that’s clean enough,” I tell her. “Here, let me have the towel.”

“You should put something on that,” she says. “There’s a pharmacy across the street.”

“I’ll get something later.”

“You want to lose your leg, it’s up to you,” she says. “You sleep in the other bed tonight. I don’t want that bloody stump next to me.”

“It’s not bloody.”

“Look at the towel,” says Harry.

“Well, OK, so there’s a little blood. But it’s no stump.”

“Give it time,” says Joselyn.

“Listen, both of you, just leave me alone. I’ve got to think.”

“About what?” she asks.

“About that drawer and what might have been in it.”

“Yeah, well, good luck on that,” says Joselyn.

“We had her in our grasp,” says Harry.

“We never got that close to her,” I tell him.

“Of course not. Sherlock here thought it would be a good idea to let her get just a little farther ahead of us,” says Harry. “Then suddenly she and her bag take a ride on a rocket bike.”

“OK, so I screwed up.”

“Well, there you go. Admission,” says Joselyn. “The first step in every idiot’s recovery.”

“God, but you’re cruel,” I tell her.

“You’re not the one who got left behind in the dark room.”

“I thought you would be safer there.”

“Always thinking of me,” she says.

“I did leave a flashlight.”

“What can I say? Thank you. And if any words of mine ever cause you any real pain, would you like me to tell you how to ease the agony?”

“I’m afraid to ask.”

“Just stand up and run your lower leg into the side of a bed.”

Harry doubles over in laughter from his chair.

“OK, OK. I get it. You’re angry.”

“Not at all,” she says. “If I was angry, you would know it. This is my reaction to a minor annoyance.”

“God help me.”