Page 46

Dimitry

Bangkok, Thailand

“ T his is your grand plan?” I glare at Paddy. “Send Pete into bars night after night, showing photos of Abby around? It’s been three nights, and we’ve got nothing.”

“It’s what any dumb Australian tourist would do if they came looking for their kid.

” He shrugs. “It might be slower than you’d like, but unless you fancy trying your luck with the local coppers, it’s the best we’ve got.

Besides, it was always going to take a night or two before word spread and we drew attention.

I guarantee you Pete will get a visit from the people you’re waiting on this evening. ”

I shift impatiently. We’re sitting in a small hole-in-the-wall noodle joint. The owner is a contact of Paddy’s who also happens to have a basement full of some serious weaponry. I’ve dropped a significant amount to buy most of it .

I don’t like the edgy vibe in the street, but knowing I’m strapped to the hilt makes me breathe at least a little bit easier.

Since my bratva ink isn’t subtle, I’m also wearing one of the ridiculous Hawaiian shirts Paddy insisted we all buy.

Mine is hot pink, with long sleeves that cover my arms. A white cotton singlet beneath it takes care of the more visible ink on my chest. Topped with a floppy canvas hat, very ugly dad shorts, and cheap sneakers, I look like an Ohio car salesman who got lost in transit.

At least the fucking clown outfit is baggy enough to hide the guns.

Luke sits beside me, watching the bar opposite.

It’s the third one Pete has gone into. So far, going by the audio we’re picking up from his hidden mike, he’s been offered a variety of sexual services ranging from blow jobs to a threesome involving two very beautiful transgender women.

Tame, compared to some of the offers he’s had over the last two nights.

Nobody has recognized the photo he’s shown around yet, although one bar girl did offer to put on a wig and dress like Abby if that would get him going.

I was a bit worried for a minute that encounter might end in violence, but so far, Pete has stuck to his gruff Australian character and politely declined.

“There.” Luke nudges me. “See those guys?” I follow where he’s pointing and see three Chinese men exiting a four-wheel drive with tinted windows.

“Triad.” I nod. Dressed in black silk, with dark glasses and visible weapons, they’re hardly subtle.

“Ha.” Paddy tilts his beer in my direction with a snide look. “Fucking told you so.”

“Let’s see what they do,” I mutter, ignoring him. There’s no doubt in my mind, after the last forty-eight hours, that Paddy is a lethal prick, not to mention a mad bastard, which never hurts in these kinds of situations .

He’s also a smart-mouthed pain in the ass.

The men enter the first bar Pete went to. It’s open fronted, so we get a clear view as they go talk to the girl he approached. They ask her a few questions, then, without warning, hit her hard across the face. I wince.

“They’re supposed to be knocking Pete around,” I say to Luke. “Not the girls.”

“Not much we can do, unfortunately.” He looks as grim as I feel. “Not without tipping our hand.”

I know he’s right.

I still don’t like it.

The triads leave the bar and go into the second one, heading straight for the trans girls who approached Pete. I watch as they pull her away from a customer and start asking questions.

Shit. We’re running out of time. “Any idea who these fuckers belong to?” I ask Paddy.

“Yep.” He nods. “I know the ink, at least. It belongs to Bangkok’s most powerful triad. They’re the main powder dealer in the city. We’ve definitely found our problem.”

Fuck.

“I’m looking for my daughter,” Pete is saying in my earpiece to another bar girl.

“She disappeared in Thailand a few years ago. I was hoping you might have seen her?” He holds up his phone with Abby’s picture, which has by now been circulated among hundreds of bar girls without so much as a glimmer of recognition.

The girl is already shaking her head. “I just start working here last month,” she says. Then she looks closer at the photograph and frowns. “I don’t know about long time ago,” she says. “But this girl, I see her maybe half hour ago, on my way to work.”

My heart lurches to a complete stop, then starts beating again, slowly. I’m already rising from my seat when Luke puts a hand on my arm. “Wait,” he murmurs.

“She go in hotel,” the girl says. “Quiet place.”

Pete slips her a roll of cash, and she gives him the hotel’s name and location.

“Who was she with?” Pete sounds increasingly urgent as he peels off more money, offering it to the girl, who’s starting to look uneasy. “How many?”

“I don’t know...” Her trails off, and I can see her looking around nervously as the triads walk down the sidewalk toward the open-air bar.

“Get him out of there,” I say, standing up, only to find Paddy already crossing the road.

“The hotel is half an hour from here, according to Google Maps.” I straddle my scooter as Luke climbs onto his. “We need to go now, before the triad guys clock that we’re with Pete.”

“Copy that.”

Luke and I turn into traffic.

Pete’s voice crackles indignantly in my ear. “Don’t you fucking dare go without me.”

“The triads have made you,” I snap. “Paddy will get you out of there. Just do what he says.”

“What are we looking at, Paddy?” Luke asks the question as we floor the scooters in between traffic.

“I dunno.” His Irish accent is calm over the comms. “But you’ll have barely a five-minute start once these fuckers talk to that bar girl.”

“Can you stall them?” I ask.

“Already on it,” he says agreeably.

A moment later, a deafening bang echoes down the street, followed by an enormous cloud of smoke and the sound of people screaming .

“Nice.” Luke’s voice crackles in my ear, and when I turn my head, the fucker is actually grinning.

“Pete? Are you okay?” I say into the mike.

“All good.” His voice comes down the line. “But stand by. That mad Irish bastard is setting another one off.” A moment later, I hear the faint sound of another explosion and smile darkly.

“You’re clear for now,” Paddy says calmly. “The triad boys are out of action. We’ll get moving, see if anyone is on our tail.”

“Right.” I lean forward over the scooter, willing the fucking thing to go faster, though it’s doing about as much as possible given the insane traffic. “Pete. Did the bar girl give you numbers? Any idea what we’re walking into?”

“No.” He sounds pissed. “Mr. Irish here blew shit up before she started talking.”

“Hotel you’re heading to has three entrances, according to Google,” Paddy says, ignoring the jibe. “It’s on a corner, so one from each road and one from the carpark. Carpark is out. You’ll need a pass to get into it, and it’s underground, so it will cut radio signal.”

I think quickly. “We need to find out what room she’s in without alerting the front desk. Luke, you hit the bellboy. Give him cash and a story, see if you can find out what room she’s in.”

“Copy that.” His answer comes instantly. “The lift upstairs won’t work without a room pass, though.”

We’re approaching a set of lights. “I’ll take the stairs,” I say, “and start searching floor by floor.” We pull up on the red, and I nod at Luke. “The hotel is on the next block. You take the north entrance.”

“Don’t forget to take the keys with you,” Luke says as the lights change and he peels off in the opposite direction. “These are top scooters, and they’ll be nicked in a hot minute on these streets. Meet point is Paddy’s apartment if we get split up.”

“Scrap that.” Paddy’s voice comes over the radio. “I’ll make sure we’re not being followed, then give you a meet point.”

“This is your plan?” Pete’s voice is incredulous. “Just walk right in? Seriously? We don’t know what you’re walking into—”

“And there’s no fucking time to find out,” I snap as I pull the scooter up on the sidewalk and kick the stand down, pocketing the keys. “Going in now.”

“Jesus,” I hear Pete mutter.

Yeah, well. Welcome to the shit show, Pete. In my experience, these things never go the way you want them to.

I wince as I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass windows. At least I look like a tourist.

The doors slide open, and I walk in, keeping my head down. Fortunately the front desk is busy, and there are enough people walking in and out to make my entrance unremarkable. I aim for the exit sign at the rear of the foyer, breathing a sigh of relief when the door opens onto a stairwell.

“ Sawasdee ,” I hear Luke greet the bellboy respectfully in Thai.

“I wonder if you might be able to help me find my sister? I can pay. This is what she looks like.” We all have a picture of Abby on our phones.

“Her friends think she was roofied in a bar by someone who is staying here,” he says.

“I’m so worried about her. Is there any chance you’ve seen her? ”

“Um.” The bellboy sounds nervous. “I think maybe you talk to front desk.”

I push open the door to the first floor and walk down the corridor as if I’m supposed to be there, keeping my eyes and ears open.

But there aren’t any doors with security standing outside, or the sounds of a struggle from within.

It also strikes me as an odd place for a criminal to pick.

It’s neither luxurious nor seriously run-down.

It looks like the kind of place accountants would pick for a fucking convention.

“She’s my sister, man.” Luke is still trying to persuade the bellboy, with increasingly large donations, from what I can make out. “I don’t want to give this guy a heads-up that I’m onto him. Here. Let me make it really worth your while.”

I leave the first floor and head to the second, glancing at the emergency fire plan as I go.

“There are twenty-six floors, Luke,” I mutter. “Stop fucking around.”

I step out of the stairwell and see a maid’s cart beside an open room. Bingo.

“ Sawasdee .” I smile at her, making the same prayer gesture I saw Paddy make earlier. “I was wondering if you could help me?” I show her Abby’s photo. “It’s my friend’s sister,” I say. “She was drugged in a bar nearby, and we think she was brought here.”

Best to stick to the same story.

“Oh, no!” The maid’s face is a picture of concern. I hand her a roll of notes, and she waves me away, frowning. “No, I don’t want money for this. Yes, I see your friend’s sister, in the elevator. She don’t look good.” She looks at me anxiously, and my heart leaps.

“Where?” I ask hoarsely. “Where is she?”

“Tenth floor. I help you on lift.” The maid leads the way to the elevator and swipes her card, her face creased in concern. “You want I call the police?”

“No.” Definitely fucking not. “I need to know she’s safe first, then we’ll go to the police.” I press the roll of cash into her hand, closing her fingers over it. “Please, don’t mention I was here. ”

“Room 1021.” Luke’s voice crackles in my ear. “And there are two men, you said?”

I hear the bellboy murmur agreement.

“Let’s go up together,” Luke says, to the bellboy, I imagine. I frown. There’s no way the bellboy play will work, though he’s better up here than down in the foyer, talking to the front desk.

The maid still looks worried. “Be careful,” she warns me as the elevator rises. “Men like this, dangerous.”

No shit.

But two is easy enough.

Too easy?

My stomach twists with tension.

“I’m parked by the north entrance.” Paddy’s voice crackles through the radio. “Best we get the fuck out of here as soon as you’ve got the girl. Daddy is taped up in the back seat.”

I grin. I bet Pete’s thrilled about that.

“Think you can take two by yourselves, boys?” Paddy says. “Or do you need a real man to come do the job for you?”

“Fuck off,” Luke and I mutter in unison.

“Ooh,” Paddy says. “Feisty.”

The maid looks at me curiously. She clearly heard the fuck off part of the exchange.

“I’m very worried about this man,” I say, smiling at her, and she nods.

My mind is spinning as I step out onto the tenth floor, the maid standing anxiously behind me. A moment later the elevator next to me dings, and Luke steps out. The bellboy and the maid exchange a nervous look.

“Maid or bellboy?” Luke asks in a low voice as we look down the corridor toward 1021. There’s nobody standing outside the door.

“Neither.” I smile at the maid. “When we are in position by the door,” I say, nodding at the fire emergency switch, “can you pull that? And you,” I say to the bellboy, “as soon as the alarm goes off, can you knock on the door and tell the men inside that they have to exit the building?” I take out another roll of cash and split it between the two of them.

The bellboy is visibly sweating. “I am not sure,” he says uneasily.

The maid glares at him and says something fierce in Thai which makes him look down miserably at the floor. She turns to me. “He pull switch,” she says. “I knock on door. Better if maid knock.”

I look at the bellboy skeptically. “Are you sure he’ll do it?”

The maid says something else in the same sharp tone, and the bellboy nods, looking even more ashamed. “He do,” she says.

“Thank you.” I hand her another roll of bills. “You are very kind.”

The bellboy sniffs as we pass him. I lean in close. “Don’t fuck up,” I warn him, “or we will come for you.” Looking utterly terrified, he nods.

Luke and I take up position on either side of the door. The maid, pale but surprisingly fierce-looking, stands just out of the way. Glancing down the corridor, I nod at the bellboy.

He pulls the red lever down, waits for the shriek of the alarm, then runs for the stairs without looking back.

Doors begin opening immediately, people pushing each other as they head for the stairs. They give Luke and me barely a glance.

The door to 1021 stays stubbornly closed.

We wait until the first rush is gone, then I nod at the maid.

“Do it.”