Paying Back Jack (6 page)

The traffic picked up, and in a few minutes Tracer turned into the Royal Garden Plaza and parked in the shopping mall's basement garage. He climbed out of the Mercedes and dragged an orange plastic traffic cone over to the side. Wiping his hands, he climbed back
into the car and pulled into the spot. He locked the car and then put the traffic cone behind it, crossed the parking lot, and pushed the elevator button for the first floor. When he emerged from the elevator, he hadn't walked more than twenty feet when he ran straight into two men in civilian dress who he knew from the look of were military; they were loitering outside an all-you-can-eat restaurant, studying the menu. They looked nineteen, twenty years old. About the same age he'd been when he'd enlisted, just in time to see action in the first Gulf War.

“You boys with Cobra Gold?” asked Tracer.

“Yes, sir,” they said at the same time. Just looking at Tracer they could see military written all over him.

Tracer smiled. “Thought so. Watch yourself in Pattaya.”

“We've been briefed about the situation, sir.”

“Then you'll be all right. Don't forget that when push comes to shove, lady boys are more boy than lady.”

“There's not a lot of lady in that boy,” said one of the marines, breaking into a smile. “We're here to assist you, sir.”

Whoever had come up with that password exchange knew a lot about Thailand. That would have been Mooney's doing. Tracer was no prophet, but like he always said, the blues gives a man insight into the human condition. Working with a guy like Mooney, it paid to know something about the human capacity for bending the rules. The men shook hands with him and, seeing Tracer's Marine Corps ring, exchanged a knowing glance. He wondered what Mooney had told them. His bet would be next to nothing. “A jarhead's head ain't a place to store knowledge,” Mooney had once said. “It's a place to store orders, one at a time.”

“Why don't I take you boys to dinner?” Tracer turned up the amps on his hundred-watt smile. “I know a place where they bring you a steak that just about defeats any man.”

On the walk to the restaurant one of the jarheads whispered into his cell phone, letting Mooney know everything was going according to plan.

They walked a couple hundred meters along Beach Road to a small restaurant. Once they were seated at the booth, one of the jar-heads asked Tracer about the first Gulf War. Bar girls talk about sex, bond traders about the market, soldiers about war.

“You boys done your tour in Iraq?”

They nodded, smiles coming off their faces.

“Then you know that no one who's been there wants to talk about it. But if you wanna talk about football, I'd put money on Michigan taking the conference this year. They got a quarterback who shifts downfield like Spider-Man.”

His companions looked disappointed, shifting their knives and forks around.

“Okay, I saw some shit, did some shit,” Tracer said. “Some I was proud of, other stuff I'd just as soon forget. You know what I'm saying?”

The two marines knew what Tracer was trying to say; they'd seen and done some shit themselves. When the steaks were delivered to the table, the meat was hanging over both sides of the plate. The conversation eased into college football, women, and bars. He told them about the dead woman he'd seen in the street. The jarheads listened as Tracer described the scene. “Shit happens,” said one of the men. “Civilians don't get it,” said the other.

Tracer paid the bill and left the two marines to find their own path to the yings. Not so much a path as a super highway with tollbooths as far as the eye could see. They'd learn that civilians in Pattaya have their own roadside ambushes.

The marines had arrived along with a couple of thousand American military personnel who were joining hands with the Thais and a handful of Singaporeans, Malaysians, and Indonesians to squeeze some discipline and toughness into the Cobra Gold exercise, the annual military training exercise run by the Thais and Americans. Live-fire exercises, find-the-terrorist exercises, training exercises; all designed to keep men in condition for their mission. Tracer and Jarrett had driven to Pattaya and hooked up with some lifters, Tracer's old friends from his time in the service, guys senior enough to come into town as part of the advance detail. There were other private security contractors like them mixing in, looking for recruits, talking about the situation in Baghdad and the bad old days of Desert Storm. That storm had left the desert and pretty much spread everywhere. That much everyone agreed on as they bought each other rounds of drinks and waited to crank up one more Cobra Gold exercise.

Jarrett had bowed out of the festivities because he had stuff to do on the job in Bangkok. That was Jarrett code that meant some
woman had got his attention. Tracer knew exactly who the woman was, some beekeeper's daughter. And the other reason had to do with securing a couple of weapons, including a .308 sniper's rifle—lightweight, good range, reliable, and efficient for work in a big city. There wasn't a better companion for a sniper in Bangkok. Jarrett had asked for that sniper rifle because he knew Mooney could deliver. He'd take the rifle out of inventory and not leave any record that it was gone.

Tracer checked the time. He'd bought his Rolex at the duty-free shop in Dubai on the way to Bangkok. He was proud of that watch. It made clocking the time a pleasure. Two hours had passed since he'd parked his car in the basement of the shopping mall. He walked along Beach Road. Crowds pushed down the narrow corridor, negotiating rows of parked motorcycles and vendor tables spilling onto the road, stacked with bikinis, brass knuckles, and switchblade knives. Tracer worked his way through the knots of tourists in sandals and shorts, picking at their sunburns and getting grabbed by Indian tailors moving as fast as sand-trap spiders.

He turned down a small soi rimmed with food stalls and restaurants, parked motorcycles, sleeping dogs, and yings squatting on plastic stools, using their hands to eat
som tam
and smoking cigarettes. He ignored a couple of young touts who stood in front of the go-go bars. They had short hair and sunglasses and looked like they worked out, playing the part of tough guy from some pirated movie they'd seen. Finally he reached the end of the narrow lane. He stopped in front of the bar with a red and green neon dragon breathing fire and walked in. It was one of those lonely bars that didn't bring in enough money to pay for a door tout and not much cash for the yings, either, who danced for drinks and the hope of an early bar fine. The ramshackle door and concrete step in front had all the indications of the kind of place Mooney would choose. That fact was soon enough established as Tracer pushed back the beaded curtain and glanced around.

Two yings leaned against chrome poles, looking at their nails and yawning. Over in the corner, Mooney sat erect, hands on the table, staring at the stage. Tracer shook his head, thinking the career sergeant looked more edgy than the last time he'd seen him under fire. He gave it a couple of minutes until Mooney saw him leaning against the back wall. It was no good sneaking up on a man like Mooney.
They'd done business before, during the Gulf War and afterwards, as if they were doomed to keep a fire alive that Mooney, if he had his way, would have doused a long time ago. Sometimes there's no choice in life, thought Tracer, and you keep on dealing with people you knew a long time ago because those are the only people you can trust. They both knew that Mooney was looking to take retirement from the army and be hired by Colonel Waters's private security company. That would have made them coworkers. Mooney caught his eye and waved him over.

Tracer sat down and ordered fresh orange juice in a tall glass with no ice. Mooney had been drinking Singha beer. A black man in a tailored shirt and trousers with expensive Italian shoes who drank fresh orange juice at the deadest bar in Pattaya was definitely a man who had some kind of official business. Still, Tracer played it cool with Mooney. History had taught him there was no other way, unless you wanted trouble.

“You look like a live-bait shop owner who just heard they're gonna dam the creek ten miles upriver,” said Tracer.

“It's the bullshit I don't like,” said Mooney. He lifted the Singha bottle and took a long swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Who does?”

“No one's cut an order on this thing. It's all verbal. They say, ‘Mooney, this is a stealth exercise. You're team leader.' Only they leave out the part that there ain't anyone else on the team. Unless it's you, and brother, you don't count as a player on my team. And Jarrett, he didn't even bother to show up. What the fuck is that?”

“You'll be coming over to the company soon enough. Think about the future.”

“You're talking to me like I talk to a bar girl,” said Mooney.

“We're all playing ball, Mooney. Jarrett, me, you. You are part of the team.”

“I've had Blackwater talking to me, too. Waters ain't the only game out there.”

“I know that. But you work with people you know. Whom do you know at Blackwater?”

Mooney drank again, draining the bottle. He waved the empty at a
dek-serve,
the Thai name for a ying who served customer drinks but
didn't dance, and she scurried away for a fresh beer. “I ask myself, ‘How is this building up any expertise if I'm working alone?' But I don't come up with any answer. You got one, Tracer?”

Tracer smiled, sipped the orange juice, knowing there was no point taking Mooney's bitching to heart. “Waters says it's because you're good. You're the man. You get the job done. No complications.”

Mooney shrugged. “Something like that.” Really, Mooney liked to hear that. He did get things done. Finding out how to move weapons, ammo, supplies, and men without paperwork was a lost art. Mooney was a craftsman.

“It's what you do.”

“Exactly what is it that I do?”

They both looked at the yings on the stage, who were practicing for a zombie audition.

“Hide stuff without anyone seeing you. I'd say that's a skill.”

“Not much of a skill around my wife.” Mooney had that married-to-the-Corps, married-to-the-old-lady-for-life look about him.

“Ain't any man who's any good at hiding shit from his wife. You know what I'm saying.”

Tracer got out his wallet to pay for his drink. Mooney took away his chit cup and waved off the money. “Take care of yourself. Don't forget one thing?”

Trace gave him a what-could-that-possibly-be look.

“Kate comes back undamaged in three days. Otherwise …”

“Man, there is no otherwise. We're gonna bring her back. Promise.”

Even in the dark bar, Tracer saw Mooney's eyes roll. Why do white boys always come up with names like Kate for their boats and airplanes? He didn't begin to have an answer.

A week earlier, Mooney had gotten a phone call from his old commanding officer, who'd given no details about the counter-intelligence operation Mooney was being asked to assist. Not that he expected any information about the mission; in fact, he didn't want to know. Knowledge was highly overrated in the military. Colonel Waters had called in a favor with a man still working inside and gotten Mooney assigned to the Cobra Gold exercise as a weapons specialist. Waters had been shuttling on the company's expense account that covered
Algeria to Zimbabwe and any other hot spot up or down the alphabet. If someone decided there was a place of interest vital to America, sooner or later Colonel Waters showed up to take a risk survey. That was what Logistic Risk Assessment Services, which everyone called LRAS, was on the books to do; the extra services provided were off the books. Waters worked on the extra services side of LRAS where, among other duties, he assembled his boots on the ground, recruited the right team of experts and briefed them on their off-the-book assignments.

Two years ago, a couple of MBAs, IT, and logistics specialists at LRAS had been brought in to manage, and the old team was put out to pasture. It was a purge passed off as a generational change. Waters had survived at LRAS but in the first few months after the internal coup, the new team had buried him under paperwork. It didn't take long for the new management to figure out that they needed Waters. By that time, Waters smiled and returned to his paperwork. He'd already put in place an inside group for the special operations assignments that were independent from the suits. Creating a secret team within the company had been his one small victory in the corporate wars.

A month before Cobra Gold, Tracer had been in Kabul when he'd gotten a call in the middle of the night. “I might have something for you and Jarrett. It's in Bangkok,” said Colonel Waters over a secure line. “You want it?” He'd given Tracer a name and hung up.

The next morning Tracer had told Jarrett about the phone call, but Jarrett had just shrugged. They were in a Humvee on the way to the airport, working a security detail for an assistant secretary of state who was seated in the back wearing a vest and helmet. He was going home.

“Bangkok,” Tracer said. “Our deal is we get ten days' leave. No pay deduction. We split forty grand. I told him I liked it but I'd ask you.”

“What's the job?”

“A bad guy needs taking down.”

Jarrett nodded his head. “That's what we do.”

Three days later they were in Bangkok inside a bar, yings dancing. Jarrett had blinked as he looked at the naked bodies. Every so often a flash of their position at the airport in Kabul cross-wired through
his consciousness. Tracer shook his head, let out a low whistle, and slapped his big hand against his thigh as one of the skinny yings smiled at Jarrett.

“You need a fat mama with some shakin' going on. That's what you need, Jarrett. A woman needs some meat stickin' to her bones.”

“Tracer, you ought to be living in Samoa.”