JET II - Betrayal (JET #2) (32 page)

“Not really. Unless you’re a nature nut or something.”

“I’m really not.”

“Then you thinking maybe you’ll buy yourself an island and hang out a hammock?” she asked.

“You make it sound like a pretty attractive proposition.”

“Right now, it sounds great. I envy you.”

“I’ll let you know what happens. You got the fifty in stones?”

“Of course.”

“Then you have a good reason to come back.”

She glanced at Hannah in the seat next to her, still asleep.

“I suppose I do.”

Chapter 37

Jet sat at a weathered table across from a heavyset Latino man, Hannah by her side, watching as he took a photo with the elaborate digital camera and then inspected it on his computer.

“Perfect. I can have the passport finished within two more days. It’ll pass cursory inspections, but you don’t want to use it anywhere they have an automated scanner. Those are typically linked to a central computer, and it will come up as an unrecognized number,” he advised.

“I need a few of those photos myself. Can you send them to this e-mail?” She handed him a piece of paper with a cutout e-mail account on it.

“You betcha. I’ll do it right now.” He moved his mouse around and typed in the address with excruciating slowness, then hit return. “Still not completely comfortable with these damned things. Technology. Although it’s made the business easier. Used to be a passport would take two weeks, not three days. But now you just press print and the machine does the work for you.” He shook his head. “But why a Mexican passport? Most of my customers want a U.S. one. If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I like Mexico.” She smiled sweetly.

“And the name on the passport?”

She’d thought about it a long time.

“Lawan Nguyen.”

“Spell it.”

She did.

“Good Mexican name. You sure you don’t want something like Maria Perez? Just saying…” He spread his hands wide, palms up.

“Nope.”

“Fine. Now to the mundane part of our transaction…” He looked at Jet expectantly.

She removed three thousand dollars from her purse and counted it, then sat back, studying the display cases on the walls filled with stamps and obscure currencies.

“And the balance when it’s done. Any problem with that?” he asked.

“No. I’ll be back in three days.”

She pushed back from the desk and stood, then held out her hand for Hannah, who joyfully grabbed it and slid off the chair. Hannah had decided that she hated strollers and was hell-bent on walking everywhere, her fierce determination to be independent reminiscent of her mother.

“What do you want to do now that your photo session is done, Hannah?” Jet asked.

Hannah pointed at the two-year-old Toyota Highlander she’d recently bought from a private party, parked twenty yards away in the Santa Ana sunshine. Hannah loved riding in the Highlander more than anything in the world, which was a good thing, because soon they would be doing a lot of driving.

The trip from Washington, D.C., had taken a week, and they’d slept at rest stops and campgrounds every night, avoiding the formalities of hotels. Once they’d made it to southern California, she’d put out feelers among the immigrant community and quickly found someone who could create good quality papers for her. If all went well, by the end of the week they would be in Mexico, where she planned to travel down the coast while she decided what to do next.

She placed Hannah into the child’s seat and buckled her in, then retrieved a cell phone from her purse and made a call.

“How’s it going?” Matt’s voice was slightly distorted from the sat phone.

“Good. I got the photos and will send them on within an hour. How long to get another passport for Hannah?”

“They said a week. Only a hundred grand, seeing as we’re return customers.”

“And that will be another genuine one – not one that could come back and bite us later?”

“Correct. Full citizenship. But no diplomatic immunity for a two-year-old, so keep her out of trouble.”

“Isn’t she covered under mine?” Jet asked.

“Of course. That was a joke.”

“Can you FedEx it whenever you have it?”

“Sure. Where?”

“I don’t know yet. Probably somewhere in Mexico.”

“Ah, Mexico. Make sure you stay away from the cartel hotspots.”

“Good thinking.” She paused. “What’s the latest?”

“From what my sources tell me, the heroin business is up for grabs now – there’s been no communication with the drug lords for a week, and the Russians and now the Yakuza are putting pressure on them to do a deal. I think it’s safe to say the CIA lost that round. My contact tells me that internally it’s a disaster – the associate director ran the day-to-day of the agency. So with him gone and Arthur gone missing, there’s a real vacuum. And it looks like they covered up Arthur’s death. Kind of figured they would. Hard to explain four dead agency gunmen and a high-ranking staffer bleeding out on the streets of Georgetown. My hunch is they had a cleanup team sanitizing the place within minutes of getting word.”

“Then the group still has some game.”

“Oh, sure, but only at the response level. Their top operational guys are now dead, so it’s going to cause complete mayhem with their members. Everyone will be jockeying for position, and while the infighting is going on, they’re losing the suppliers. That’s a death blow. Literally. They’ve got their hands full. Maybe now, they’ll have to return to doing their jobs instead of operating a global drug syndicate.”

“What about you?”

“Everything’s quiet. My bet is this ended with Arthur. There probably weren’t many in the group that were even told about the diamond theft. Arthur would have kept a tight lid on that while he tried to recover them so the others didn’t flip out and question his judgment. And anyone remaining will be scrambling to do damage control to salvage what they can of the network.” Something crackled on the line, then he continued. “Besides which, they have billions in hundred-dollar bills in cargo containers – so it was never really about the money. I think it was mostly a personal thing with Arthur because I put a crimp in his plans by taking the diamonds out of play, and because I worked for him.”

“I made a tape of Arthur admitting everything,” Jet said.

“Hold onto it. At some point, we may want to leak it to the press.”

“Think they’d use it?”

“Fifty-fifty. But I’m conflicted. I don’t want to hurt the country, and this would forever tarnish its standing in the eyes of the world. But on the flip side, I don’t want anything like it to ever happen again,” he reflected.

“Sounds like you’ve got some thinking to do.”

“About a lot of things.”

The pause stretched to an uncomfortable length.

“You keeping my diamonds safe?” he asked.

“You bet. The bag goes everywhere with me. Got a larger purse just to accommodate it. Heavy, though.”

“Got a gun?”

“Of course.”

“So you’re set,” Matt said.

“For the time being. I figure I’ll hit the road in a couple of days and never look back. And you?”

“I’ve been thinking about the island. I’m probably going to get a little surgery in Korea so I look different and then poke around on Ko Samui to see what property values are like.”

“Get something on the beach.”

“My thinking, exactly. Someplace big, so I can accommodate guests. Even if they have a kid.”

Another silence.

“She’s beautiful, Matt. Gorgeous.”

“I would expect nothing less, based on her DNA. You know, you’re a genuine Thai citizen now. Hannah soon will be, too. Maybe you should download some Thai MP3s and learn the language while you’re roaming through Mexico. And then come visit. Soon.”

“That’s not a bad idea, Matt. It occurred to me.”

They both hesitated. This wasn’t the right way to talk about what was on their minds.

“All right, then. I’ll call in another couple of days, before I head out. You think you’ll be in Korea?”

“Probably. If you’re not in any rush for the passport, I’d rather get my mug taken care of before I do anything else.”

“I can understand that. I can wait a week or two. Hey – don’t have them change too much.”

“I’m going to shoot for younger, richer and thinner.”

“I’d say you already have the rich part dialed.”

“Good point.”

Hannah squealed from the back seat, her way of complaining because they weren’t underway yet, and Jet started the car and pulled into traffic. She had some shopping to do before they headed south, and didn’t want to leave anything to the last minute.

She took side streets until she saw the distinctive outline of South Coast Plaza ahead, then pulled into the massive parking complex and found a slot near the main entrance. Hannah’s favorite coffee shop was on the second level, and she delighted in people-watching while Jet used the wireless internet.

The sun warmed their skin as they strolled in the balmy spring air, mother and daughter out for a day of consumerism. Jet caught a glimpse of herself in the glass-fronted doors and saw that for the first time in forever she had an unfamiliar look on her face. She peered at her reflection for a few seconds before she realized what it was.

She was happy.

Chapter 38

Once the 747 had arrived in Bangkok and they had sauntered through customs with hardly a glance, Jet flagged down a taxi and took a cab to the smaller airport, where a chartered plane was waiting for the short hop to Ko Samui island.

As the King Air turbo prop taxied to the end of the runway, Hannah pointed at all the surrounding planes, laughing at some joke known only to her. Jet smiled and turned to gaze at her, never tiring of her joy at discovering something new each passing moment.

The engines increased their revs, and soon they were pulling up into the sky, Jet putting her hands up into the air and Hannah mimicking her before they both exploded with peals of glee. Once they were at altitude, Hannah seemed fascinated by the water below them and proceeded to name everything she saw.

Mexico had been a relaxed three months, drifting from town to town with no particular agenda. Hannah hadn’t seemed to mind. She was a little trouper. But eventually, Jet tired of the gypsy lifestyle, and Matt’s regular invitation to visit his beach house, where he’d settled into an easy-going island lifestyle, had taken on an increasing allure.

She still had his diamonds safe in her purse and had become almost used to having fifty million dollars on her arm. How many times had she walked down the waterfront streets in Mazatlan or Puerto Vallarta, Hannah in tow, wondering what any of the locals would have thought if they’d known…

Being on the move constantly made her feel like she was living in a completely different world than those around her. Which was fine – but reality exerted a strong pull, and she now longed for something more intrinsic than what she’d grown used to.

Her frequent discussions with Matt had convinced Jet that, besides her obligation to return the stones to him, she was interested in exploring the spark that had ignited during their kiss. She’d thought about it many times and always came back to the same place – it was crazy, she hardly knew him, none of it made any sense. Which was all true. But she also knew how she felt, and she wanted to give that feeling a chance, and see if it was fleeting or something more substantial.

So she’d agreed to stop in over the next week and had booked flights that avoided the U.S. system, and had left the Highlander in a parking lot in Zihuatanejo and flown to Mexico City on their first leg to Bangkok – oddly enough, through Frankfurt on Lufthansa.

And suddenly, she was back in Thailand, with all its contradictions and clamor and charm.

The plane banked and began its descent, and then the wheels were bumping down the runway, and they were taxiing to the private terminal, which turned out to be little more than a hut. She liked the place already. A warm breeze tugged at their hair as they strolled along the tarmac and approached the surrounding booths, Hannah clutching her hand, pulling her forward in her eagerness to explore new wonders.

The transaction for the rental car took longer than expected, and then she remembered where she was. Things didn’t ever seem to go quite as planned in Thailand, and on an island, where the pace was even slower than usual, progress was likely to be glacial. Eventually, the always-smiling attendant directed them to a little red Nissan sedan, and after studying the map, they set off in search of Matt’s new digs.

The southern side of Ko Samui was more developed than Jet had imagined, and she saw many familiar franchise names and endless rows of beach hotels with endless groups of wandering tourists milling on the sidewalks. It seemed that the unspoiled paradise that Matt had described to her had been discovered, and developer money had moved in, bringing with it the madding crowds. It happened everywhere, she supposed; there was no escaping it.

They rounded the tip and drove north, where things became much more rustic, all jungle and lush greenery, with few complexes marring the natural beauty. She checked the map again and then spotted the turnoff the clerk had marked, laughing in broken English as he’d remarked, “You’re never lost on an island – just late!”

They weaved down the road towards the beach, where she could make out several compounds of newly constructed resort buildings, then turned right on the frontage road, crawling along as they admired the natural beauty of the flawless turquoise water and glistening sand. It was idyllic. Paradise found.

“Look, Mommy. Smoke,” Hannah called from the back seat, pointing to an area a quarter mile away where a black cloud hung lazily over the strand.

Jet’s throat tightened as they approached the site of the fire. They rolled past a gutted lot, the foundation the only thing remaining of the building, the ground scorched and still smoldering, natives ruminating the rubble as a uniformed police officer waved them by. She tried engaging him in halting Thai, asking what had happened, but he shook his head and motioned for her to continue down the road. Outwardly she was calm, but inside, her heart was sinking.