Simon carried the laptop to the snack bar in an adjacent room. He hadn’t eaten since morning. He was starving. He ordered a bowl of curry noodles and a hot chai. The food arrived and he took it to a table nearest the window. Outside it had begun to rain. Lightning strikes illuminated a dark canvas. The water fell in sheets, hard enough to obscure the other side of the highway. He thought of the girls he’d seen in the truck—was it only yesterday afternoon? He remembered that people like them were called “stateless.” Rightly or wrongly, he felt in a similarly unmoored condition. The police would be looking for him. It was only a matter of time before his name and his photograph were released.
Simon finished his food, then returned to the gaming room. There was no message from Arjit, no indication that the laptop was being controlled by someone ten thousand miles away. His thoughts went to Lucy and he considered calling the clinic. What could they tell him? As Harry Mason had said, it was in the Lord’s hands.
And Delphine?
She needed to know the truth about what had happened. That Rafael had been betrayed. That he was a victim of a conspiracy perpetrated by individuals who wanted the files he’d stolen from PetroSaud kept secret at all costs. He picked up the phone and realized that he no longer had her number, that he’d saved it to his real phone, the phone that right now was lying at the bottom of the Chao Phraya.
Or did he?
He opened his wallet and found a square of white paper folded into quarters slipped in with his business cards. It was the list of contacts Dickie Blackmon had included in the packet of information he’d thrown onto Simon’s desk.“I’m old school. Prefer things printed out. Don’t trust all that digital mumbo jumbo.”Delphine’s cellphone was listed at the bottom.
He tapped in the number. If Delphine had left on the seven a.m. flight for London, she would still be in the air. He didn’t like leaving a message, not with this type of information. Still, it was important she hear from him what had happened.
He hitSEND.
“Who is this?” a woman demanded, answering even before the first ring had ended.
“Delphine. It’s Simon.”
“Simon?” she asked, sounding confused.
“Simon Riske,” he stated. “I wasn’t expecting to reach you. I thought you were in the air.”
“Simon, of course. Connection in Hong Kong. Second leg’s delayed. Do you have him? Is he there with you? Put him on.”
“Are you with someone?”
“What do you mean? Where are you? Simon?”
“Something happened at the embassy. Rafa is dead. So are eight others. There was a gunman. Delphine, I’m sorry.”
“Dead…What are you saying? Where’s Adamson? He arranged everything. He said there would be no problems.”
“Adamson was killed, too. It was a setup. Colonel Tan was involved. He and others. They wanted the flash drive.”
“But you…you’re alive.”
“I have it, Delphine. I have the flash drive. I’m going to find out who did this.”
“Simon…you promised.”
“Delphine…”
“I have to go. Daddy’s calling. Oh God, this can’t be…My Rafa.”
The call ended.
Simon drew a breath, the weight of her words damning. He closed his eyes as the horror of the day swept over him. The gunfire, the blood, the shock of holding his friend’s dead body.
Simon was falling, tumbling, all sense of direction lost. A collage of images blinded him; blood, everywhere blood. Worse, the knowledge that he’d failed the one woman he’d ever truly loved. He grabbed the edge of the table with both hands, tortured by the images of Rafa’s wounds, unable to drive them away.
Not now.It wasn’t the time for guilt, for recrimination. Too much to do.
He stared at the screen, willing Arjit to get back to him. What kind of information had Rafa taken from his former employers? All Simon knew was that PetroSaud had helped a sovereign wealth fund defraud its investors. Rafa hadn’t gone into the details.
First things first. Simon had to get out of Thailand. He needed a new passport, a false one at that. But where to find one? He considered who he might call. Ben Sterling? Dickie Blackmon? He couldn’t bring either of them into this. What about his old buddies in Marseille? Did La Brise de Mer do business in Thailand? Of course they did. One word: heroin. But how to contact them? Jojo Matta? No, Jojo was a street soldier.Un petitvoyou.Not a planner. There was only one person Simon might contact. Il Padrone. Thecapo di tutti capi. Not going to happen.
Even with a false passport, he didn’t dare fly out of one of the country’s major airports. Customs and immigration agencies at nearly every major international airport around the world had been using facial recognition software for years. Reports varied as to its efficacy. Some claimed the recognition rate was greater than eighty percent, others, less than fifty. Either way, he’d have to disguise himself, and that didn’t include wearing a surgical mask.
