Noble Lies (14 page)

He reached over and thumbed the switch on the lamp cord, remembering when the room stayed dark that the owner cut off the generator at midnight. He got up, slipped on his shorts and peered through a space on the wooden shutters. There was no one on the porch. Robin would have knocked, and Pim would have never come to his room at night. When they were at her apartment—a studio smaller than his bungalow, a street away from the F&A dive shop—he had told Erin where he was staying. She would be the kind of woman who'd show up in the middle of the night, knowing she wouldn't get sent away, so it could be her. But no, it would be Andy, his new knife-wielding friend, wanting him to come out and play. He was strapping the Velcro on his sandals when a third stone clattered on the porch. This time he'd keep the dive knife instead of tossing it away, hoping that Andy had brought the matching sheath with him as well.

Mark undid the hasp and eased the door open. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness in his bungalow but it was lighter outside, making it easier to see the grounds. The trees and bushes were shades of dark green, the flowers gray in the moonlight. He could see down the short row that made up the Lanta Merry Huts, the porches in a line, nothing moving. There were palm trees on either side of his bungalow but too narrow to hide behind, and while the hut was built on short stilts, it was too low to the ground to get under. He stepped off the porch and stood on the crushed shell path that led to the beach, listening. Other than the sound of the tide rolling back in, it was still. His eyes took in the darkness around him, stretching farther out with each pass, scanning the reception area, the picnic tables, the hammocks and lounge chairs, the beach.

And the bar.

There, alone on the center stool, a dark shape waved.

Mark took his time walking over, one eye on the lone figure, the other on the shadows all around him. The path widened as it reached the bar, and Mark stopped. The man was turned to face him, one elbow on the bar the other arm in his lap, his bare feet stretched out in the sand. It was dark, but Mark knew the face, and in a voice just above a whisper, Shawn Keller said, “I hear you're looking for me.”

Mark stepped to the bar and took a seat, leaving an empty stool between them. There were no bottles on the shelves, the stereo was gone and there were two padlocks on the fridge. He would have liked a drink. “My name is Mark Rohr. I'm here with your sister. She hired me to find you.”

No one spoke for a full minute, the sound of the waves slapping the beach louder in the silence. “My sister, huh?” Shawn said, his voice almost lost in the surf. “What's her name?”

“Robin,” Mark said. He could see Shawn nod his head but it was too dark to read his expression.

“She's here now?” Shawn motioned to the row of bungalows.

“Yeah. The hut next to mine.”

More nodding. “So she came looking for me.”

“She spotted you on CNN, some tsunami anniversary special. Your family thought you were dead.”

Shawn sighed but said nothing.

“Something else,” Mark said and waited until he saw Shawn's head turn his way. “Pim's with us.”

“Oh shit,” Shawn said, rolling his head back to look straight up at the night sky.

“I'm sure she's excited to see you again, too,” Mark said.

Shawn shook his head. “You don't have a fucking clue what's going on.”

“I know that your sister paid me to find you and I did. How it plays out between you is none of my business.”

“If Pim's with you,” Shawn said, ignoring the comment, “then that means Jarin's not far behind.”

It was Mark's turn to shake his head. “We lost them in Phuket.”

Shawn laughed. “You think you lost him.”

They fell silent again, Shawn looking up at the stars, Mark watching Shawn, planning how he'd do it, how he'd reach over, pull the man from the chair, clock him with a quick left, hold him down as he shouted for Robin and Pim, get it all over with. If he wanted to run off on his wife and sister, disappear, play dead, that was up to him. But before he'd go, Mark would see to it that he spent some quality time with his family. Mark focused on his breathing, slowing down, getting ready when Shawn looked at him. “I'm going to need your help.”

Mark let the words hang in the air, sensing something different now. “Go on.”

Shawn slid to the open stool between them, Mark watching him as he moved. “I need to meet with you tomorrow. Not here. There's a little fishing village about three miles south of here, right on the beach. Come early. Don't worry, I'll see you.” Shawn was closer now and Mark could see his eyes. They were clear and alert, no sign of the drugs that were everywhere in Thailand.

“What's this about?”

“You'll just have to trust me till then.”

Mark smiled. “Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical. I'm here with some people you already lied to. Give me a reason to trust you.”

“Put it this way. If we do this right, we don't screw this up,” Shawn said, his eyes locked on Mark's, “there's a good chance we'll all get off the island alive.”

 

Chapter Twenty two

   

Mark had been running for thirty minutes when he decided that it had to be something in his genes.

The last time he had run it had been six months ago in Dahab, the time before that in southern Turkey, and before that it was either Beirut or Oman, whichever place he had met that girl from Osaka. There was no logic behind it, no cultural explanation, but when he saw a long, open stretch of ocean beach, he just started running. His hip would bother him later and he'd walk with a limp for the rest of the day, but there wasn't much he could do. There was a beach and nobody on it so he had to run.

In Phuket there were tanners every few yards and there was something about seeing all those leathery-brown topless retirees that counteracted the otherwise overwhelming urge to kick off his sandals, pick a direction and go. But here, when he stepped out of his bungalow, stretching the early morning stiffness out of his muscles, and saw all that empty sand, that was it.

He ran close to the shoreline, staying to the wave-packed wet sand. It was easier than running in the deep dry sand and there was less chance he'd step on a buried beer bottle or rusty can. In the Corps he had run miles and miles every day, and when they were laid up in Saudi Arabia, bored out of their minds, waiting for the ball to drop, they'd run in the desert just for something to do, the sweat evaporating before it could wet their shirts. And he had run in Kuwait, too, but running was easy when you had somebody shooting at you.

The beach narrowed as he ran south. There were a few stray bungalows on this section and no bars so few tourists made it this far. Ahead, he could see some long-tails pulled up on the sand and a handful of tin-roofed plywood huts, with kids and mangy dogs playing in the low surf. He spotted Shawn sitting alone under a stand of palm trees and angled toward him, slowing to a walk.

“Admit it,” Shawn said as Mark stripped off his sweat-soaked tee shirt. “You didn't think I'd be here.”

“I had my doubts.”

“What made you decide to trust me?”

“Who said I do?”

“Ouch. Okay, then, why'd you let me go last night?”

“I didn't.” Mark sat down in the shade, his shirt over his lap. He leaned back on his hands and looked out to the sea. “I followed you back here, watched you go in that crappy bungalow up there.” He pointed over Shawn's head to the cluster of buildings up the beach. “You had a beer on the porch then went inside and fell asleep.”

Shawn's smile drooped.

“When you came back here and went to sleep,” Mark said, “I knew you weren't planning to run off. If you did you would have gotten started right away. So I figured you'd be here this morning. If it was just me and your sister, I would've kept you at the bar.”

Shawn chuckled. “Well, you would have tried.”

“Nah,” Mark said, without looking over. “I would have kept you there. But when you brought up Jarin I had to think about the kid.”

“Pim?” Shawn said. “Pim's no kid. She can take care of herself.”

Mark nodded, wanting to say something about how he should know, running off on her, leaving her behind, knowing damn well what would happen to her, but instead said, “I wasn't talking about Pim. I was talking about Ngern.”

“Who?”

“Her nephew. About ten or so.”

“She has a kid with her?”

“Yeah,” Mark said, enjoying this for some reason. “Him and Kiao. Her grandfather.”

Shawn fell backwards into the sand. “I don't believe this.” He stared up at the swaying palm fronds. “Why'd you let her bring them along?”

“Had to. Pim said she wouldn't take us to you if we didn't.”

Shawn hissed out a sigh. “She played you, Mark. She had no idea where I was.”

Mark shrugged his shoulders. “I'm sitting next to you, aren't I?” He was tempted to tell Shawn about the Thai cop, the one in the parking lot with the cryptic He She Drink message, but held off, waiting to see how this played out. For ten minutes, neither man said a word. Mark watched as a fisherman dropped the long propeller shaft off a beached long-tail, dragging it prop first up behind one of the huts where a hammer knocked out a steady metal on metal beat. Shawn broke their silence.

“What did Robin tell you about me?”

“She said that you used to have a problem with drugs but that you seem to have kicked it.”

“That's fair, I guess. She tell you why I was in Thailand?”

“She said that you liked to test yourself, go to places where drugs were cheap and easy to get to see if you can just say no.”

“Do you believe that?”

Mark shrugged. “It's not the stupidest thing I've ever heard.”

“But I bet it's close.” Shawn sat up, brushing the sand off his shoulders. “That's the way she sees the world. A series of temptations to say no to.”

“So there's no truth to it?”

“Some, I guess,” Shawn said. “But does anybody really know why they do the shit they do? I'm sure you've come up with a good reason why you're here that has nothing to do with the truth.”

Mark looked out at the waves hitting the shore. It wasn't a question so he didn't feel he needed to respond.

“Robin doesn't know what I'm up to. She thinks she does—she always thinks she does—but she doesn't.”

“Is that why you don't want to see her?”

Shawn shook his head. “No, I want to see her. But it's too dangerous right now.”

“Because of what you're really up to.”

Shawn grunted. “You've got no idea either.”

“Maybe not, but I've got a pretty good guess.”

“Let's hear it.”

“All right,” Mark said. “You don't use drugs but you know a lot of people who do. You've put your experiences as a user to work and set up shop here in Thailand, small stuff at first to meet expenses, moving up to bigger deals to get rich. But that meant doing business with Jarin. About a year ago you were in to him deep—money or product, it doesn't make a difference, you owed him a lot. When the tsunami hit, you saw a chance to disappear. Except he wasn't fooled. Now he's pissed and he's still looking for you. Sound right so far?”

“Not even close,” Shawn said.

“Jarin had Pim kidnapped and held her out as bait, assuming you'd do the honorable thing and try to rescue her.”

Shawn laughed. “Honorable? Try suicidal. Do you have any idea how hard that would be?”

It was Mark's turn to laugh. “Yes.”

“He wasn't expecting you. If I came anywhere near Phuket it would have been completely different; and she'd be dead now, and so would her family. Look, I know this sounds cold but she was better off without me.”

“I agree,” Mark said.

“Fuck you, okay?” Shawn said, no passion in his voice. “You got no idea what's going on.”

Mark turned his head to look at Shawn. “So tell me.”

Shawn raised his legs up and rested his elbows on his knees. He closed his eyes and took a loud, deep breath, letting it out in a long, silent whistle. “Ever hear of the IMP?”

“Should I have?”

“Not really. It's post nine-eleven. Back when all the good guys were on the same team. IMP is International Maritime Police.”

“Sounds impressive.”

“At least it's got that going for it. Looks good on paper, too. But it's UN so what do you expect.”

Mark had heard the UN was blamed for everything from Iraq to lite beer but assumed that there was enough blame to go around, and in Kuwait and Cyprus and Lebanon he had seen soldiers from the world's armies with only those stupid sky-blue helmets in common, directing traffic or watching as the real troops got the work done.

“I suppose it was somebody's brilliant idea,” Shawn continued. “Small teams, pretty much independent, supposed to protect the high seas by stopping the terrorists and pirates and jaywalkers before they got started, all covert and shit. What it is is two hundred lame-dick agents and sixty-four million square miles of ocean. No boats, no training, and no real authority. And zero help from the local governments. Still, they go around like they're on some mission to save the world.”

“Let me guess,” Mark said, still watching the waves. “You're in some sort of trouble with this IMP.”

“I'll say,” Shawn said, and laughed so loud the stray dogs by the water looked their way. “I'm in charge of the Thailand team.”

Mark tilted his head, looking over the top of his sunglasses, waiting for the punch line. Shawn stared down at his fingers, pulling fibrous strands from a piece of coconut husk.

“If we had the funding and the manpower, and if the people we did have were well trained and could be trusted not to sell us out, and if the governments weren't part of the problem in the first place, we might be able to do some good. We poke around here and there, try to stop what we can.” Shawn tossed the husk in the sand and met Mark's gaze. “It beats flipping burgers.”

“And you're telling me this because…?”

“Because I'm an idiot,” Shawn said without humor. “And because there's a ship coming up from Singapore, docking in Langkawi day after tomorrow, then going on to Chennai, up in India. East coast. We lost this ship about six months ago, just found it last week.”

“How do you lose a whole ship?” Mark said, trying to keep the growing interest out of his voice. “They gotta have those GPS things on them, find them anywhere in the world.”

“New ships, yeah, and big ones, definitely. But this is neither. It's under five thousand tons, built back in the early eighties. Should have been scrapped years ago. It's what they call a Death Ship. The owners keep them afloat, keep them insured, have them hauling worthless crap through rough waters hoping they go down. Ships like this, they disappear every day. I thought this one was lost off Madagascar, but I guess not.”

“Couldn't you just go after the owner, find out where the ship was supposed to be?”

“If they played by the rules, maybe, sure. But nobody does. Why do you think all these ships are registered out of Liberia and Somalia and shit? Nobody's watching what's going on. There's so many layers of ownership and holding companies and fronts. Hell, al-Qaeda owns ships and the US government can't figure out which ones.” Shawn ran his hands through his hair. “If people had any idea what it's like out there…”

Mark remembered catching snippets of some BBC broadcast, an oh-so-earnest interviewer tossing softball questions to a stern-faced admiral. There was a report from Spain about an oil tanker that had split in two a few years back, shots of the coastline knee-deep in sludge and frustrated investigators who couldn't uncover the ship's real owner. He didn't recall any mention about the IMP, surprised that he had remembered any of it at all. “What makes this ship so special?”

“Nothing. It's the crew we're interested in. I don't want to get into the details,” Shawn said, looking straight at Mark now, “but this is where you come in.”

Mark turned away and looked at the horizon. “Forget it.”

“I made some calls last night before I stopped by. You were a Marine in the Gulf War, got a Bronze Star and everything. This would be simple for you.”

“No thanks.” Mark stood and slapped the sand off his shorts.

Shawn looked up at him. “You don't really have a lot of choice here.”

Mark pulled his still-wet tee shirt over his head. “That so?”

“I made some calls last night—”

“Yeah, you said that already. You found out I was a Marine, so what?”

Shawn rose and stood next to him. He was taller than Mark but not by much, with shoulders that were just as wide. “I also found out that two of Jarin's men were killed up in Phuket. Oh, it wasn't in the papers, the police probably don't know too much about it either. Yet. But word gets out, you know how it is.”

“I wasn't there,” he lied, knowing that the place was covered in his prints.

“Mark, come on, you should know by now that that doesn't mean a thing here.”

Hands on his hips, Mark watched the waves break on the sand.

“I don't want to be a bastard,” Shawn said, “but I've got a job to do. And now,” he said as he smiled at Mark, “so do you.”