pilot used a shorter pole to steer the craft by moving the whole engine in whichever direction he want to go.
The boat’s pilot was all skin and bones, and hadn’t bothered straightening his hair after Daeng’s whistle had woken him up. But he was smiling as he pulled up to the dock, and seemed genuinely pleased to have customers as he gestured for them to get in.
Daeng instructed his man who’d driven the car to stay on shore, then he and Logan stepped onto the boat.
“Two choices,” Daeng said, as he took the plank seat behind Logan. “Up river or down.”
“This is your city. What do you think?”
“Up.”
“Then we go up.”
Daeng passed on the instructions to the pilot, and they motored out onto the river.
Though the Chao Phraya was quiet, it wasn’t silent. There were a few boats moving up and down it. Most were smaller crafts with people fishing off the sides. But there was one group of three gigantic black barges moving down the center of the waterway toward the ocean, their progress guided by a small but powerful tugboat. Logan could also see black patches moving along the surface at a steady pace. They looked to him like clumps of vegetation, but were too far away to know for sure.
Their pilot followed the curve of the shoreline, keeping them no more than a hundred feet from land. Daeng had been right. The riverfront was packed with structures that came right up to, and sometimes over, the water. The buildings were mainly more apartments, some of them with what amounted to metal stacks hanging off the backs.
If Bangkok had been in the U.S., developers would have long ago bought up all the property, torn down what was there, and turned it into high-priced real estate with shops and restaurants and five-star hotels. Logan could see a little of that happening here. There were a few hotels that boasted their own piers, and looked like they’d set you back plenty of Thai baht for a night’s stay. But these he could count on one hand. Mostly, it was basic apartment living. Nothing fancy at all.
As they trolled along, the two men watched the shore, focusing not so much on the buildings themselves as on any out-of-place movements.
“How far up do you think they could have gone?” Logan asked.
“Technically, they could have gone miles.”
“I assume there are multiple piers?”
“Dozens.”
Logan frowned. “Then wouldn’t it make sense that they’d choose a pier closer to their destination?”
“To me, it would.”
“So, if that were the case, they’ve got to be pretty close.”
“If that’s what they did.”
“Yeah. If,” Logan said. “But we have to narrow things down. We can’t cover everything before it starts getting busy again. So that’s as good a target as any.”
Daeng pointed further up the river. “There are a couple of piers over there, harder to get to from the land side. So let’s say they could have gone as far as four piers away. After that, if it were me, I would have started somewhere else.”
“Let’s make it five just to be safe,” Logan said, “then we’ll swing around and hit the other side.”
As Daeng let the pilot know the plan, a thought came to Logan.
He looked at Daeng, and nodded toward the pilot. “Do you think Sathorn Pier’s his home base? I mean, he was sleeping there.”
“Probably.”
“You think maybe he was around when the others got onto their boat?”
Daeng looked at him, surprised. “That’s an excellent question.” He talked with the pilot for nearly a minute, then said, “He wasn’t there, but he says his friend told him about a group of farang that had rented a boat ahead of time, and left the pier early yesterday afternoon. He says they headed this way.”
“Does he know where they went?”
Daeng shook his head.
“At least we know we’re going in the right direction,” Logan said.
“If he’s talking about the same group.”
Logan was silent for a moment. “We’re playing with a lot of ifs here.”
“I wasn’t going to point that out.”
They talked very little over the next several minutes. Twice they saw people sitting at the back of buildings, smoking cigarettes, but neither instance appeared suspicious.
Daeng pointed at a spot about a couple of hundred yards ahead. “That’s the fourth pier.”
Logan tried not to think about it, but it was clear his plan wasn’t working. Chances were they’d already passed the place. And if he couldn’t find them, how was he ever going to—