KILLING PLATO (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller) (21 page)

AFTER THE BLACK
Mercedes dropped me off I went straight upstairs to my office, locked the door, and picked up the telephone. I dialed a number, let it ring once, and hung up. That might not be the usual way to reach someone by telephone, but then I was calling Darcy Rice and there was absolutely nothing usual about her either.

Darcy had retired to Bangkok following a career with the US government doing things about which she was now professionally vague. A lot of people figured Darcy for CIA, certainly back when she was an active government employee and maybe even still, but I doubted that was true. I was pretty sure Darcy had spent her career with the National Security Agency. The NSA monitors and intercepts all sorts of communications, breaks encryption, tasks spy satellites, and engages in a whole range of technology-driven black arts that most people would dismiss as science fiction even if they somehow found out about them, which they wouldn’t anyway. That was exactly the sort of stuff Darcy seemed to know everything about, which was why I had made her for NSA right from our earliest conversations.

These days Darcy was like so many retired government types who had learned their trades in the Cold War. Now that peace had broken out, or at least the game had changed into something nobody understood anymore, she had taken her considerable experience and talents into private enterprise. Darcy ran a small company that operated out of a stylish if aging mansion in the oldest part of Bangkok, a place she had remodeled from dilapidated elegance into a high-tech marvel. She described her business as an information gathering and analysis consultancy, which was vague enough to cover most anything. What it actually was, of course, was a private intelligence agency.

At first I had been amazed an operation of such technological sophistication existed in a backwater like Bangkok, but the more Darcy and I had become friends and the more I learned about what she was doing, the more I understood Bangkok was a perfect place for her. Bangkok was where international criminals, law enforcement personnel, intelligence agencies, terrorists, drug runners, arms peddlers, and the inevitable collection of scam artists, hangers-on and wannabes mingled in teeming streets and grimy bars under an unspoken understanding. They could let down their guard in Bangkok. They could just hang around or even party a little without taking all the usual precautions since it was understood they would all leave each other alone while they were here. Even the Thai government didn’t much care what anyone did in Bangkok, as long as it didn’t involve them. The cantina in Star Wars was a run-of-the-mill saloon compared to the bars of Bangkok.

The moment I heard the warnings about the traps the NIA had supposedly built into the disk I had been given, I decided there was no way in hell I was going to touch the thing without talking to Darcy first. I gave her a little help with her projects from time to time and she paid me back by doing me favors when I needed them. I figured I needed one now.

Darcy was very careful about her own security, probably because she had so little difficulty shredding everyone else’s. The only way to reach her was by calling and hanging up. The call went to a computer somewhere and I didn’t have a clue what happened then although I figured it was something really cool. But Darcy always called me back right away so I didn’t really care.

After hearing the one ring and hanging up, I surveyed my desk and briefly examined the pile of mail Bun had left stacked on top of
The Wall Street Journal
. If I hadn’t had to move it off the newspaper, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. No one in Thailanne in Thd was foolish enough to use the postal service for anything that actually matters. Tossing the mail in the garbage, I swung my feet up on my desk and unfolded the
Journal
. I hadn’t even made it past page one before my direct line rang.

“Jack, baby,” Darcy purred when I answered. “You called?”

“You have my mobile number, don’t you?”

Darcy cut the connection without another word and a few seconds later my mobile beeped.

“Okay, baby,” Darcy said when I answered, “so what kind of shit are you in this time?”

“The usual, I guess. The brown kind.”

“You figure your phone is monitored?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Just because you’re talking on a GSM cell now, you’re not invulnerable.”

“I thought it was pretty solid,” I said.

“Depends on who you’re up against.”

“Everything always does, Darcy.”

“Uh-huh,” she said. “So, baby, enough of the happy talk, huh? Let’s have it.”

I told her about the disk Kathleeya had given me and about the security measures she claimed it contained. Darcy didn’t ask for any details of why I was riding around town chatting with the head of the National Intelligence Agency, nor did she ask me what was on the disk. Her standards of professional discretion ruled out both questions.

“So what do you think?” I asked. “About the disk.”

“Everybody underestimates the Thais when it comes to technology,” Darcy said. “Besides, stuff like that is pretty common now. You can buy off-the-shelf software that will prevent copying, printing, and emailing of any file just by pasting a transparent image over it. The part about the disk corrupting itself after a set period would be a little harder to do, but it’s probably a variation on the built-in detonation a lot of corporate users are putting into their email now.”

“You lost me.”

“It doesn’t really matter. If Kate told you your disk was rigged to corrupt itself, my guess is it’s true.”

“You call her Kate?” I asked. “So you know here pretty well?”

Darcy ignored my question.

“Just in general,” she asked me instead, “do you have any idea what type of files are on the disk?”

“Some text files, I think, or maybe PDFs. Nothing fancy that I know of. I asked the NIA for some stuff and they decided to give it to me, at least with all this security attached.”

“And you want to know if I can beat their security measures.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Why do you care, Jack? Why not just read whatever is on the disk and let it go at that? Why do you need to copy it?”

“If there’s something that I end up relying on, Darcy, I don’t want them to claim later that it never existed.”

“You think they’d do that?”

“Sure. Particularly if they have some purpose I don’t see right now for giving me tr givinghis stuff in the first place.”

Darcy made some little clucking noises with her tongue. “I imagine I can get past whatever they’ve put on your disk without too much trouble.”

“I thought you said they were good.”

“They are, baby,” she murmured. “But I’m better.”

I summoned up the required chuckle right on cue.

“You want me to bring the disk out to you?” I asked.

“Why don’t I send one of the boys over to pick it up now?” Darcy said. “Then come out for dinner tonight and I’ll tell you what we’ve got. How about that? Nata would love to see you, baby.”

Darcy didn’t have to dangle Nata as an incentive to me to come out to her place for dinner, although I guess it didn’t hurt. Nata was a stunningly beautiful Thai woman in her forties whose ex-husband had been a powerful and well-connected general until he ended up on the wrong side of some long-forgotten military coup. These days the former general was living in Copenhagen, and Nata was living in Bangkok, with Darcy. The two had been companions longer than I had known Darcy and I’d always assumed Nata had as much to do with Darcy’s choice of Bangkok for her retirement as did the relatively cheap real estate and nice people. Darcy would hardly be the first person I’d met who had upped stakes and moved to Bangkok for a woman.

“Don’t know why not,” I said. “Let me call Anita and see if she’s planned anything yet.”

There was an unmistakable beat of silence.

“Sure,” Darcy said, “bring her along if you like.”

I knew Darcy had never particularly cared for Anita. I wasn’t certain why that was and I had often wondered about it. I got a vague feeling Darcy was suspicious of Anita in some way, as if her radar had picked up something about Anita she didn’t like but didn’t think it appropriate to mention to me. Maybe it was more than that, or maybe it was less, but I hadn’t flat out asked Darcy about it and probably never would.

“Nah, probably not a good idea,” I said. “Anita would just get pissed off watching me flirt with you.”

Darcy gave a throaty chuckle and didn’t even offer the pretense of an argument.

“Okay, baby. I’ll have somebody in your office for the disk within a half hour. Why don’t you get here about seven. That okay with you?”

“Done deal,” I said.

After Darcy had hung up, I punched the speed dial for Chidlom Place, but Anita wasn’t home and the maid didn’t know where she was. I tried the speed dial for Anita’s cell phone, too, and ended up listening to her voice mail the way I had been doing a lot lately. I hung up without leaving a message.

I was a little annoyed I couldn’t reach Anita and then I was immediately annoyed with myself for being annoyed. I swore not to think about it anymore, picked up the
Journal
again, and kicked back to finish it while I waited for Darcy’s m
essenger.

I was never exactly sure how Darcy put people almost anywhere in Bangkok in such a short time since the local traffic was so awful it had attained legendary status. I had visions of dozens of nondescript-looking boys on motorcycles orbiting slowly in various parts of the city just waiting for Darcy to ask them to do something. Actually, maybe thaly, maybt
was
how it worked.

Less than fifteen minutes later there was a soft tapping on my office door. A polite young man in his early twenties wearing a dark and completely forgettable gray shirt and equally gray pants entered and
wai
ed deeply. I gave him the floppy disk in a padded envelope and he slipped it into a leather dispatch bag slung over his shoulder,
wai
ed again, and disappeared without having spoken a word.

WHEN THE BOY
had gone I glanced at my watch. It was only twelve-fifteen, but I was hungry and figured I probably deserved an early lunch anyway. Some comfort food seemed very much in order, which to an American abroad generally meant a cheeseburger, so I headed out Sukhumvit to a local joint called Bourbon Street popular with American expats.

The origins of Bourbon Street have been lost in the mists of Bangkok expatriate history, meaning they go back more than five years. There is a rumor that the place was originally opened by a retiring CIA station chief who loved his hometown of New Orleans but wasn’t all that anxious to move back to it since his wife lived there and he had found far more congenial companionship in Bangkok. Regardless, if Bangkok had a cop bar, it wasn’t the smoky little go-go joint down in Nana Plaza most people would imagine, it was Bourbon Street. On any given night you could find enough heavily armed DEA, FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and Diplomatic Security Service guys there to strike fear into a small country.

I turned off Sukhumvit into Washington Square and circled around an old-time movie theater that had found new life hosting a transvestite review for Japanese tourists. A snappily uniformed parking guard whistled me into a vacant space and ushered me out of my car with a salute so crisp it would have brought tears to the eyes of General Patton.

Inside, Bourbon Street was a cool, dim haven from the midday sun. One of the girls behind the bar started making a glass of iced tea as soon as she saw me come through the door and I grabbed an
International Herald Tribune
off the rack at the door and made my way to a table in the back. When a waitress brought me the iced tea, I ordered my cheeseburger with a side of onion rings. I was just opening the
IHT
when Bourbon Street’s owner wandered over and plunked himself down across from me.

“Hey, man,” he said as we shook hands. “How yawl doin’?”

Doug’s southern accent had remained so strong during the couple of decades he had lived in Thailand that I half suspected he practiced with tapes just to keep it sharp.

“Doing fine, pal,” I answered. “How’s business?”

“Business is great. Real great. A lot of new Yanks in town for some reason.”

“Really?”

I wasn’t particularly interested, but Doug was a convivial fellow and shooting the breeze with him for a few minutes was one of the attractions of hanging around Bourbon Street.

“Come to think of it, one of them was asking about you the other day,” he said.

Now
I was interested.

“Somebody was asking about me? Asking what?”

“Aw…nothing really. Just if I knew you. If you came in much. That kind of thing.”

“And that was it?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Doug nodded. “Well…actually he did ask one other thing that I thought was a little weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yeah, he asked if you came in alone or if you were with Anita most of the time.”

“Huh,” I said, not being able to think of anything else.

“He even asked if you ever came in with women. I mean other women. Other than Anita.”

“Who was this guy doing all this asking about me?’

“I don’t know,” Doug said. “Just a guy.”

“Did he know you?”

“No. Well…now that you mention it, I guess he did. He came over and shook my hand and said he really enjoyed the jambalaya. You know I’ve got my own crayfish farm now and—”

I interrupted Doug before he could get too far into his commercial.

“Did he tell you his name?” I asked

“He must have, Jack, but I just can’t remember. I hear so many names in this place.”

A woman who looked tired and didn’t smile much put a cheeseburger down in front of me along with a plate filled with onion rings. She took my nearly empty tea glass away and handed it over the bar where another woman refilled it.

“What did this guy look like?” I asked.

“Oh, hell…” Doug twisted his eyes toward the ceiling and seemed to think about it. “American, I guess. Average size. Wore glasses. Shoot, man, I don’t know how to describe people.”