the material Rafa had stolen. He knew where it was, more or less, saved to a flash drive and hidden for safekeeping.
There was, however, a complication. PetroSaud had hired a cybersecurity firm to find what Rafa had stolen. Simon had employed similar firms. It was only a matter of time before they compiled a record of every keystroke Rafa had ever typed while an employee. Simon estimated another forty-eight hours before they had in their possession every email he’d sent, every spreadsheet he’d downloaded, and any document he’d read, commented on, or created. In the digital universe, every keystroke was immortal.
And something else.
Simon knew a little fact that Tan didn’t. Rafa had made good on his threat to Paul Malloy and sent the information to a journalist. Not all of it. A smattering. Enough to entice a reporter to look further. Simon knew of the reporter and her work. Rafa had chosen well. Tan wouldn’t take the news sitting down.
It was a race against time, the fuse lit, burning, as fuses do, too quickly.
The flash drive for Rafa’s life.
Simon dressed in dark pants and a black polo shirt, trading his loafers for a pair of crepe-soled shoes. He thought about room service—always slow—and instead scrounged in the minibar for his dinner, devouring a candy bar, some potato chips, before finding a banana and a mango in the fruit bowl. Still chewing, he accessed his map and typed in his destination. Four miles to the river, the Chao Phraya. Twenty minutes by car. More than an hour on foot.
First a call to the front desk.
“This is Mr. Riske, 1624. Could you send someone up to show me how to work the bedside control panel? I’m an idiot when it comes to these things. I just need to close the curtains.”
“Right away, sir.”
Two minutes. A knock at the door. Simon followed the hotelier around the room as she showed him how to adjust the temperature, turn on and off the lights, and, finally, how to close the drapes.
A one-hundred-baht tip. Three dollars. A polite bow, hands clasped in Thai fashion. “Khop khun.” Thank you.
“Good night.”
Simon counted to sixty, then left the room, walking in the opposite direction from the elevator bank and stopping at a set of double doors marked PRIVATE. Using the card key he’d lifted from the hotelier, he opened the door. Inside: an industrial washing machine, clothing hampers, trays of room service food, a housemaid eating a snack of oranges and crackers.
Simon nodded hello, putting his fingers to his lips—it was their secret—and summoned the service elevator. He had not failed to notice the silver BMW sliding into the hotel drive or the half-dozen men loitering in the lobby, all cut from the same cloth—dark suits, youngish, military haircuts—none wearing the silver pin sported by hotel employees. He’d have to have a word with Colonel Tan about his men’s tradecraft.
He took the elevator to the first underground floor and found himself at the employee entrance, the walls bare concrete, rows of lockers, staff coming and going. Halfway across the area, he turned off Vikram Singh’s software and removed the earpiece. He’d had enough of hearing how dark, hairy, and ugly he was. He passed through a set of steel doors into the parking garage. Up a ramp and he was outside. Into the night.
On the corner there was a gas station with a 7-Eleven. Beyond that, a busy intersection, traffic as congested at ten o’clock as at rush hour. To his right a cramped two-lane road, fair game for cars and pedestrians, bars and restaurants on both sides, neon galore. One of those streets in a city famous for them.
He set out, took one step, and turned his ankle in a hole in the sidewalk. He hopped up and down, wincing, but there was no damage. He told himself to be more careful. He looked up to see the silver BMW parked at the gas pump, the driver out of the car, turning to look at him. No more than ten feet separated the two.
Simon walked past him—no chance the driver knew what he looked like, not now, not when Simon was dressed differently—and crossed the street, swallowed by the foot traffic. He continued down Sukhumvit Road, one of the city’s main commercial thoroughfares. A sidelong glance. A reflection in a tailor shop’s window. The driver was following on foot, a stone’s throw back, phone to his ear. Calling reinforcements. Simon hated being wrong.