Steve Martini - Trader of secrets

When the bellhop delivered the bill, Liquida paid with cash using a five-hundred-euro note. When the bellhop returned with the change, Liquida gave him a good tip.

He took a shower and packed the last few items into his luggage. Turning off the lights, he got ready to crawl into bed, then decided to get some fresh air by opening the window.

Liquida drew back the curtains and pulled the cord on the blinds. The traffic on Second Road had thinned considerably. Vehicles were now rolling freely over almost the entire road so that his attention was fixed on the animated motion rather than the one blocked lane on the far side. Liquida turned and took a step toward the bed before the image fully registered in his brain. When it did, the heat that erupted out to the tips of his ears made him feel as if the blood in his veins had become a cauldron of molten lava.

He whipped his head back toward the window. For several seconds he stood there slack-jawed, staring at the light bars on the two police cars and the pickup truck across the way.

They were parked blocking the number one lane on the other side of the road-directly in front of the green door, the entrance to the building where Liquida’s box was located.

There were cops everywhere, too many uniforms for Liquida to count. They crawled over the sidewalk in front of the shops on the other side of the street like ants. He watched as three more cops pulled up on motorbikes, parked them, and joined the growing crowd.

Liquida turned and did a double take on the beach bag near the foot of the bed. He pounced on it like a leopard, dumped all the currency on the bed, and began poring through it all over again, this time more carefully. In a panic, he ripped two of the bills in half before he realized that they were not actually glued together. A thousand euros gone, but Liquida didn’t care.

He very nearly grabbed his luggage and ran, leaving the money behind. But a thin seam of logic settled his nerves. He regrouped and began to think. If the euro banknotes housed a tracking device, the cops would already be at his door.

He scooped the money back into the bag and stepped toward the window again. He could see no indication that the cancer of lights and uniforms had spread to this side of the street. If the cops had a lead on him, it was possible they were just starting with their search. If he moved fast, he still had time.

Liquida threw on his clothes, keeping an eye on the spectacle across the street as he buttoned his shirt and buckled his belt. He slipped his feet into the loafers, not bothering with socks. His mind was working all the angles as he did it.

He picked up the phone next to the bed, checked the number, and called the driver who was scheduled to pick him up in the morning. When the man answered, Liquida identified himself by the name on his Spanish passport. He asked how much it would cost to take him to the airport in Bangkok immediately, tonight.

When the man quibbled and said he was already off work, Liquida offered to pay him an additional five thousand baht if the man picked him up in fifteen minutes. The driver told him he could be there in ten.

“Just one change,” said Liquida. “Pick me up at Beach Road, the intersection of Soi 13. You will see me. I will be at the corner on the sidewalk with my luggage. Good. See you there. Ten minutes.”

Liquida grabbed the white beach bag with the cash inside and stuffed it into the large suitcase. He was taking a chance. Customs generally limited the amount of cash transported across international boundaries to ten thousand dollars unless the funds were declared. Liquida couldn’t declare the money without explaining where it came from. He had no choice. He would have to run the gauntlet and hope they didn’t look in the bag when he arrived in Paris.

Once there he could use several bank accounts that he maintained in Europe and make deposits through ATM machines. If he spread the funds among several accounts, it would draw less attention. By the time he flew out of Paris, he would no longer be carrying large sums of cash.

He checked his watch, then grabbed the binoculars from the suitcase and took one last look out the window. Liquida couldn’t figure how the cops might have gotten onto him. It was possible that they simply stumbled on the drop box. If so, Liquida’s timing was impeccable. But he didn’t believe in either religion or chance.

He looked to see if either the woman from the bar or the taxi bike driver were among the throng of cops across the street. It was possible either one or the other might have taken his money and then called the police if they were suspicious. If they were being questioned, that would explain it.

He scanned the crowd, looking for the woman’s bright-colored dress. He didn’t see it. What he did see were two tall Westerners, what the Thais refer to as farangs. As he surveyed the crowd, the swirl of commotion, the two Caucasians seemed to be in the eye of the storm. One of them was talking to a Thai cop who looked to be in charge. Liquida didn’t have to wait long for confirmation. The cops handed documents back to the two men, what looked like passports and two blue credential cases, the kind used by Interpol, the police, and the FBI. Liquida had seen enough.

He pulled the cord on the blinds and stepped quickly across the room. He repacked the binoculars, grabbed his shaving kit from the bathroom, stashed it in his luggage, and dropped the room key on top of the nightstand. He zipped up the suitcase, grabbed the overnight bag, and stepped out the door, headed for the back stairs.

What does that give us?” says Harry. “We have ‘T’ for Trident; ‘S’ is storage. Presumably those are the locked drawers themselves, unless there’s another storage location we don’t know about. The first ‘C’ stands for courier and the last is communications. The courier I think we know. So what kind of communications you think they’re offering?”

“I’m guessing it’s probably the client messaging service, the other phone number on the label,” says Joselyn.

“I’m for calling it,” I tell her.

“Let’s do it,” says Harry.

I pick up the phone and dial. Joselyn is over my shoulder listening with her ear next to mine. She picks up a notepad and pencil from the nightstand. Two rings and a digital voice answers. “To collect or leave a message, enter the extension number followed by the pound sign. To delete or change messages left on any of your assigned extensions, enter your code.” I wait for a second and there is a beep.

I hang up.

“We need to know the extension number to leave or collect messages,” I say.

“Back where we started,” says Harry.

“Not necessarily.” I dial again. This time I wait for the beep and enter the five numbers printed on the back of the WOD label: 00088. Then I punch the pound sign. I wait a few seconds and the system hangs up on me. I try again, only this time I drop the three zeros. I get the same result. The system disconnects. I get a dial tone. I try a three-digit extension and a four-digit extension, dropping one of the zeros on the first call and two on the second. I strike out each time. “Now we’re back where we started,” I tell them.

“Let’s think about this. The instructions on the phone indicate more than one extension per client,” says Joselyn. “And Liquida would want more than one.”

“Why?” says Harry.

“Because he would need a separate extension for each of his clients. He’s not going to want client A listening to the messages he leaves for client B, or for that matter the messages they leave for him, not in his line of work.”

Joselyn is right. Liquida would want to keep it all straight. He would want to limit each message to as few ears as possible.