World of Trouble (9786167611136) (36 page)

“Bullshit, lady. Somebody is after me and I
want to know who it is. Don’t give me some academic horseshit about
protecting your sources.”

Liz said nothing at all for at least half a
minute. Shepherd knew he was about to find out how friendly they
really were.

“The story came from a guy at NIA,” she
eventually said. “But that’s all I’m going to tell you”

“You got this story about me from the
National Intelligence Agency?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it? Who gave you the story?”

“Jack, I’d like to help you, I really would,
but—”

“
Who the fuck was it, Liz?
”

In the silence, Shepherd could hear Liz
breathing on the other end of the phone. Maybe he had gone too far.
Maybe begging would have been a better tactic. Sometimes Shepherd
despaired at his lousy judgment about how to get women to do what
he wanted. He had no problem with men. With men he could be very
persuasive. But women? He thought he knew less about dealing with
them now than he had when he was about five and the only women in
his life were his mother and his kindergarten teacher. And he
hadn’t known shit about how to deal with
them
either.

But this time, for once, the cylinders
clicked down and the lock popped open.

“His name is Tammarat,” Liz said, “Tammarat
something-or-another.”

“
Tommy
? Tommy is the one who told you
that the cops are looking for me?”

“That’s right. You know Tommy?”

Oh yeah
, Shepherd thought to himself.
I know Tommy all right.

“Did Tommy tell you
why
the NIA was
looking for me?”

“He said you were running things here for
General Kitnarok.”

“And you believed that?”

“I know you work for Kitnarok, Jack.
Everybody knows that. We just don’t know for sure what you do for
him.”

“So you figured that fomenting revolution
might be as good a job description as any? Sort of like a Che
Guevara on an hourly rate?”

“If it’s not true, come on over here and I’ll
do an interview, Jack. I’ll give you a chance to tell your side of
the story.”

“Right. And have your buddies from NIA
waiting for me? Fat chance.”

“I wouldn’t do that, Jack.”

Shepherd knew Liz probably wouldn’t, but how
could he be sure about something like that anymore? There was a
time not very long ago when Shepherd would have said that he and
Tommy were friends, too. Or if not friends, at least acquaintances
who wouldn’t stab each other in the back. But the last time
Shepherd had seen Tommy, the little shit was in Dubai slinking off
Harvey right behind Robert Darling. And now he was apparently back
in Bangkok and planting stories with the press that Shepherd was
stirring up a civil war in Thailand.

“Keep that phone handy, Liz. I’ll think about
it.”

But Shepherd wasn’t going to think about it
very hard. It was time for him to figure out who his friends really
were.

And he wasn’t about to bet his butt that
The New York Times
was one of them.

“YOU GET MOST of that?” Shepherd asked Keur when he
hung up.

“I think so. What are going to do now?”

“Can you find out if Harvey is still on the
ground in Dubai?”

Keur glanced at his watch. He nodded. “I can
do that.”

Shepherd held out his hand. “Give me the
other two phones.”

“What are you going to do with them?”

“There’s not a lot of time left and I’ve got
to get back in the game. The place to start is with Kate. If I can
get a phone to her, I can tell her about Tommy and put an end to
this horseshit.”

“How are you going to do that, Jack?
Everybody is jumpy as hell right now. You can’t get close to
her.”

“Want to bet?”

***

SHEPHERD WAS SITTING at a table in the Marriott hotel
drinking a cup of coffee when Jello walked past the big front
windows. Jello was on his way to Bully’s Pub for lunch just as
Shepherd figured he would be. Jello ate at Bully’s Pub almost every
day. He parked at the Marriott, then walked next door to the pub
and had a Bully’s Burger and a Diet Coke while he read the paper.
Jello was a man of habit.

Shepherd was wearing sunglasses and a
baseball cap he had bought in the hotel shop. The cap was black and
had a large red and yellow beaded elephant on the front, and he had
tilted the brim down as far as he could without being obvious about
it. In other words, he looked pretty much like most of the other
dopy Western tourists in Thailand. Just another middle-aged white
guy trying to shake off last night’s hangover. No one gave him a
second look.

The prepaid Nokia rang and the number of the
phone Keur was using showed on the screen. Shepherd answered.

“The plane is still in Dubai,” Keur said.
“But Rachel says an application to lift the impoundment order has
been filed.”

“How long do I have?”

“You might get another twenty-four hours. But
that’s probably the most you can hope for. After that, the plane
will be able to take off.”

“Thanks,” Shepherd said and broke the
connection.

He dropped some money on the table and walked
out onto Sukhumvit Road. A hundred feet to the east, he pushed
through the doors into Bully’s.

The place was mostly empty. Jello was sitting
in a booth by himself all the way in the back. The seats were red
Naugahyde doing a lousy job of trying to look like leather and the
table was black plastic laminate with aluminum trim. Shepherd
walked over and slid into the booth opposite Jello. He took off his
sunglasses and hat and put them on the table.

“I got bored waiting for you to call me
back,” he said.

“What’s with the get up?”

“It’s a disguise.”

“No shit? Pretty lame if you ask me.”

“Good enough to fool you,” Shepherd said. “I
was sitting right in the window of the Marriott when you walked by.
You never even glanced at me.”

“Should have crossed your legs.”

Shepherd mimed a laugh.

“You going to tell me why you need a
disguise?” Jello asked.

“It appears that I’m a wanted man.”

A half smile appeared on Jello’s face. “Not
by me,” he said.

“I didn’t think so.”

Then Shepherd told Jello about the CNN report
and what Liz had told him about getting the story from Tommy.

“Huh,” Jello grunted. “I haven’t heard
anything about it.”

“You haven’t?”

Jello shook his head slowly.

“Doesn’t that strike you as funny?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”

“So it’s probably not true that the police
are looking for me?”

“Probably not.”

Then Shepherd told Jello about seeing Tommy
in Dubai coming off Harvey.

“So you think Tommy may be playing for the
other team?” Jello asked.

“I don’t know,” Shepherd said. “I’m not even
sure I know what the other team is anymore.”

Jello nodded and they both sat in silence
watching a basketball game flickering silently on a big flat-screen
TV above the bar.

“I need to talk to Kate,” Shepherd said after
the silence had stretched on for a while. “Now you know why.”

Jello didn’t say anything.

“She needs to know about Tommy. Then I’ve
also got to tell her…”

Shepherd trailed off.

“Yeah?” Jello asked.

“Forget it.”

Shepherd didn’t want to tell Jello that he
suspected a shipment of arms would be coming in on Harvey when it
was finally permitted to leave Dubai, arms that would be going to
Charlie’s red shirts. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jello, but he
needed to tell Kate first. When Kate knew about the arms shipment,
she could decide how to deal with it. Shepherd didn’t want to
preempt any of her options by starting to spread the word himself
in advance.

He took one of the Nokias out of his pocket.
He laid it on the table, put one finger on it, and pushed it across
to Jello.

“This is a clean phone. Can you get it to
Kate?”

Jello looked at Shepherd for a long moment,
but then he took the phone and dropped it into his shirt
pocket.

“When can you get it to her?” Shepherd
asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Today?”

“Maybe.”

“Tell her to call me as soon as she has the
phone. I have a clean phone as well. The number is already
programmed. It’s the only number in the directory.”

“You going to give me the rest?”

“I can’t. Not now. But I will. Or somebody
will.”

Jello just nodded. He didn’t argue.

“It’s a real shame,” he said, “that you don’t
have another of those—”

Shepherd pulled out a second Nokia and put it
on the table. Jello picked it up and smiled.

“You’re still pretty sharp, aren’t you, old
man,” he said.

“Anything else you want to say?”

“Yeah. One thing. I saw you right away when I
walked by the Marriott. You looked fucking ridiculous in that
hat.”

***

KEUR WENT OUT and bought some chicken and rice and a
half dozen bottles of Heineken from a street vendor and they ate in
the apartment that night and drank the beers while watching a
Celtics game on television. Shepherd didn’t have much of an
appetite and he didn’t much like watching basketball on television,
but he ate and watched anyway. It was something to do.

It was hard for Shepherd just to sit there
and wait for a phone to ring. Harvey would soon be in the air and
on its way back to Thailand. He had little doubt of that now. And
that would be the match to light the fuse that would blow this
shaky little country apart. Somehow he had to find Charlie before
that happened. And he didn’t have a damned clue where to start.
Worse, before he could even
begin
looking for Charlie, he
had to get that little shit Tommy off his back.

It was the third quarter the Nokia rang. He
looked at the screen, saw the number of the phone he had given
Jello, and answered.

“She has the phone.”

“When is she going to call?”

“I’ve got no idea if she
will
call
you. That’s up to her. She’s the prime minister. I’m just the
delivery boy.”

“Thanks, Jello. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t. If you can stop this, I’ll
owe
you
. We all will.”

Then he broke the connection without another
word.

The fourth quarter came. Somebody scored a
lot of points, but Shepherd didn’t care enough to register who it
was. There was less than a minute left in the game when the Nokia
rang again.

What could be more fitting?
Shepherd
thought.

“Jack?”

“It’s me, Kate. How are you?”

“What is this all about?”

No time for small talk. Yes, she was right
about that.

“Are the police looking for me?” Shepherd
asked.

“Not that I know of. Why would they be?”

“Then I need to see you. Alone. There are
people around you who are betraying you.”

“What are you talking about?”

More than anything, he wanted to trust Kate.
But he knew that might be naive and that was why he didn’t want to
tell her about Tommy over a telephone. He had to tell her in
person. He had to see her eyes at the moment he told her. That was
the only way he would know for sure. Was Tommy really acting on his
own, or was he just playing a role in a bigger game, one that
Shepherd couldn’t even begin to imagine? One in which he might be
as expendable as Tommy, or Adnan.

“I need to see you,” he repeated. “You need
to see me.”

“Can you find the apartment where we met
three days ago?” Kate asked.

Three days ago? Was that really only three
days ago?

“Yes,” he said. “I can find it.”

“There will be two men downstairs in the
lobby. Tell them your name is Cary Grant.”

“When?”

“An hour,” Kate said. And then she hung
up.

Shepherd hit the disconnect button on the
Nokia and put it back in his pocket.

“You want me to go with you?” Keur asked.

Shepherd shook his head.

“Think about it, Jack. Something very strange
is going on here and you’re walking right into the middle of
it.”

“I don’t think Kate—”

“Pull your head out of your ass, man. Just
because she’s a good-looking woman doesn’t mean she won’t have
somebody waiting there to take you down. You know too much.”

Shepherd did know a lot. That much was true.
But he still couldn’t work out what any of it actually meant.

He figured he had only two choices left. He
could run away. Or he could trust somebody. He was going to trust
Kate. It was just that simple. If he was wrong, he would pay
whatever the price for being wrong turned out to be.

“No,” he said, shaking his head again, “I’m
going alone.”

Keur shrugged. “I’ll bet that’s just what
Adnan said.”

“I’m going alone,” Shepherd repeated.

“Okay. I guess it’s your funeral.”

That was just an expression, of course. It
was a cliché, not a prediction.

At least Shepherd hoped it was.

***

HE HAD MORE trouble finding the apartment than he
thought he would. He located the rundown hotel just north of
Sathorn Road easily enough, but when he got out of the cab and
looked around, all of the apartment buildings near it looked alike
to him.

He walked a short way in one direction and
then back in the other, but nothing looked familiar and nothing
stood out. Bangkok was a hodgepodge of nondescript architecture, a
mass of cheaply built, cookie-cutter, look-alike apartment
buildings, and he had never hated them more than he did right at
that moment.

Just as he was wondering if he was going to
have to walk into the lobby of every building within half a mile
and announce
“I’m Carry Grant”
to anyone who happened to be
standing there, two pairs of headlights appeared at the top of the
narrow lane he had just crossed. Shepherd watched the little convoy
from the shadows until it turned into the parking area in front of
a building about fifty yards in front of him. When it did, he saw a
blue BMW trailed by a black SUV. The blue BMW looked familiar. At
least it looked familiar enough.