KILLING PLATO (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller) (28 page)

“You&rӀ>“squo;re not using email to communicate with Washington?” Now it was my turn to feel ambushed. “Not at all?”

CW shook his head. “If what your Thai spy buddies showed you were real intercepts rather than something they just made up, they weren’t intercepts from the United States Marshals Service. We ain’t hired killers, Slick. We’re just here to haul this asshole back to Washington and then he’s somebody else’s problem.”

“But then why not get the Thais to agree to extradition? Surely Washington could do that if they really wanted to.”

CW consulted a spot somewhere over my shoulder and seemed to think for a while before he answered. “We’d like to do it all nice and legal, Slick, but you’re a smart guy and you know how things work out here. The government of the United States of America isn’t gonna be pushed around by a bunch of third-world peckerwoods who’ve been bought and paid for.”

“So you’re going to kidnap Karsarkis. Is that about the size of it?”

“What do you expect me to do? Just stand around holding my dick in my hand?”

“Certainly not in Phuket. Not when there’re so many people here willing to hold it for you.”

CW didn’t laugh and he didn’t smile. He just pointed his forefinger at me.

“We’ll do what we have to do,” he said. “And don’t you forget it.”

Two guys came in and sat at a table not far away. They glanced over at us briefly but without any obvious interest. I made them for Irish. It’s hard for Irish guys to be inconspicuous at a beach resort, regardless of how hard they try. They were slim and hard-looking with reddish hair cut very short and skin so pale they both glowed like a pair of Japanese lanterns. I wondered if the men were part of Karsarkis’ IRA bodyguard or if they were just a couple of Paddy sex tourists recouping their strength for another run at the massage parlors.

“You think that’s right?” I asked CW. “You happy with that?”

“With what?’

“Kidnapping a man. Putting him in chains and dragging him out of the country with a gun to his head no matter what the Thais might have to say about it.”

CW shook his head very slowly at me while his eyes watched the Irishmen. “We don’t use chains.”

I noticed he didn’t mention anything about the gun-to-the-head part.

“I was exaggerating,” I said. “For effect. But I’d still like an answer to the question. Do you think it’s right?”

“Ah, put a sock in it, you little shit. Who the fuck do you think you are, sitting there all high and mighty and passing judgment on me? Do you have the slightest idea who we’re dealing with here? Do you know who Plato Karsarkis
is
, Slick?”

“I think so.”

“I
don’t
think so. He funnels his hot oil deals through all kinds of companies—”

“I know all about that,” I said.

“Oh, do you now?” CW looked at me with what seemed to be genuine curiosity. “Then where do you think the money from those deals actually goes, Slick? What do you think it pays for? When some bastards plant another nail bomb at an embassy or blow up another discoth&Ӏther disegrave;que, you just remember you had a nice civilized dinner one night with the man who gave them the money they needed to do it. You think about that and you tell me how you feel when you see kids lying on the ground with their arms and their legs blown off. You tell me then you know who Plato Karsarkis really is.”

I said nothing.

“Karsarkis is the motherfucking devil, Slick. I shit you not. He does business with arms dealers and terrorists; he launders money and passes it to people who shouldn’t have it; he bribes some people and kills the ones he can’t bribe. He’s everywhere, and he’s nowhere. He is a wisp of smoke, and when things go wrong, he’s gone.”

CW stuck his hand in front of my face and snapped his fingers.

“Like that.”

I almost slapped his hand away, but I didn’t.

“Did he kill Cynthia Kim?” I asked instead.

“I don’t care.” CW’s voice crackled like dry leaves. “If he didn’t, he killed a thousand others.”

I gazed out at the road and watched a middle-aged man roar by on a motorbike, two little children wedged on the seat between him and the handlebars.

“I’m taking Karsarkis back however I have to do it,” CW went on when I didn’t say anything. “I’m gonna jack that fucker up and then haul his ass back. After that somebody else can decide what to do with him.”

I said nothing.

“And as for you, my little friend, you better stay the hell out of my way. I can put your dick in the dirt anytime I want to. You got that,
boy
?”

I looked back at CW and caught him full in the eyes. Very slowly he turned his head away from me, moving it carefully, like a man with a bad headache who didn’t want to make it any worse.

“You don’t frighten me, CW.”

“Why not?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Because you’re a little man in a big game,” I said. “And you don’t even know what the game
is
. I like you, but the truth is you don’t matter here. You’re just an extra in somebody else’s big scene.”

A tired-looking old woman wit
h a leathery face shuffled over to the table carrying two slabs of barbequed ribs and dishes of coleslaw and beans. The edges of the slabs were crusty with blackened fat and the meat was deep red and moist-looking. CW and I sat in silence as the woman put the plates in front of us, then shuffled away again and returned a moment later with a bowl of sauce. It was deep mahogany in color with chunks of green jalapeños floating in it. She also brought a glass jar filled with toothpicks and two hand towels in plastic packets.

The ribs were so tender I didn’t even need a knife to separate them. I pulled the smallest one off the end of the rack and dipped it into the sauce, then chewed away the meat. I dropped the bone on the plate and glanced up at CW. He seemed to be concentrating on his food.

Neither of us talked much while we ate and the subject of Plato Karsarkis didn’t come up again. When we were finished, I paid the check.

After that, I drove CW back to Patong and left him at the Holiday Inn.

I SPENT THE
night aրt Panwaburi, the same hotel where Anita and I had stayed the last time we had been in Phuket. Maybe that wasn’t a good idea, but I did it anyway. The next morning I had coffee and toast from room service, then I got in the Cherokee and headed for Plato Karsarkis’ house. Karsarkis wasn’t expecting me—at least not as far as I knew—but there wasn’t anybody else left for me to annoy.

The day was so bright the air seemed almost white. The world was a cloud of light veined with streaks of blue. I couldn’t remember ever experiencing light that intense before. Although my sunglasses were as dark as pitch, the day scratched at my eyes like sandpaper.

Once through Phuket Town I punched it and made the turnoff from the main highway to Karsarkis’ estate in less than half an hour. Driving west on the two-lane asphalt I passed through the eerie, symmetrical ranks of rubber trees that had been my main landmark on my previous trip and a couple of miles later I turned onto the loose-packed gravel of the narrow track that led to Karsarkis’ gate.

As I took a curve around a grove of palm trees I was surprised to find a dark gray minivan blocking the road. I slowed to a crawl to slip by it and had just registered that the van looked to be American, perhaps a Chevrolet, when a man stepped out from in front of it and raised his right hand at me, palm out like a traffic cop.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t have pulled over, but the man was a westerner who looked vaguely familiar. He was dressed in some kind of khaki uniform. There were no insignia on it, at least none that I could see, but he had a holstered sidearm on his hip.

I lowered my window and the man walked slowly toward me with one hand resting casually on the butt of his pistol. He reminded me of a highway patrolman making a traffic stop, and that was when I realized why he looked so familiar. He was the man who had been with Marcus York at the Blue Lotus Pub in Patong the night CW and I had watched the
katoey
s boogieing down on Soi Crocodile.

He looked me over carefully. “You’re Jack Shepherd, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I’m—”

“I know who you are. I just don’t remember your name.”

“Chuck Parker,” he said. “Deputy United States Marshal.”

“Right.”

“Could you step out of the vehicle, sir?”

“What?”

“I asked if you’d step out of the vehicle, sir. We just need to have a quick word with you, and then you can be on your way.”

“I’m fine here,” I said. “Say whatever you want.”

Chuck Parker first looked surprised and then he looked confused. He didn’t seem accustomed to having people say they weren’t going to do whatever he told them to do. Now that someone had, he wasn’t all that certain what to do about it. His head swiveled back and forth on his fleshy neck as if he was searching for help. When I heard the open-handed slap against the Cherokee’s passenger door, I knew he had found it.

“Move it, asshole.” Marcus York slammed the door with his palm one more time for good measure. “Get out of the fucking car.”

From the first moment I had met York something made me wonder about him. I didn’t have the slightest idea what he was if he wasn’t really a marshal, but right at that moment itۀhat mome didn’t matter. Playing with Chuck Parker was one think, but looking into Marcus York’s hard black eyes right then left me with no doubt that playing with him would be quite another, regardless of who he might be. I opened the door and got out of the Cherokee.

“A rental?” Parker asked, looking it over.

“What?”

“I asked you if this was a rental, sir.” Parker gestured unnecessarily at the Cherokee.

“Yes,” I said, “it is. But why do you care one way or another?”

Parker didn’t answer. Instead he pointed to the gray minivan.

“Would you step over there please?”

I nodded my head and followed Parker. When he opened the van’s sliding door I saw the interior was bigger than I would have expected and was fitted out with all kinds of things. There were two upholstered benches at right angles and in front of them was a low table with storage space underneath. At the very rear of the minivan was a floor-to-ceiling rack of electronic equipment. I didn’t know what it actually was, but I doubted it was a stereo system.

Parker gestured for me to get inside and I did. I took the bench facing forward and Parker took the other one.

“You are on your way to see Plato Karsarkis, are you not?”

“I am,” I said.

“Are you armed, sir?”

“I’m sorry?”

“It’s a simple enough question. Are you armed?”

“Only with my sly wit.”

Parker nodded as gravely as if I’d given him a perfectly sensible answer. Since York hadn’t joined us in the minivan, I was just starting to wonder where he had gone when the obvious answer occurred to me. York was searching my Cherokee.

“Look,” I said to Parker, “when are you two Brylcreem buckaroos going to tell me what this is all about?”

“You think you’re a real funny guy, don’t you, sir? With the wisecracks and all that stuff?”

“People either love it or hate it. I’d say it’s about fifty-fifty. How about you, marshal? What’s your vote?”

Parker looked at me without expression. I thought he was about to say something, but then he seemed to think better of it. Instead he reached under the table, lifted up a metal case about the size of a cigar box, and unsnapped the top. Nested inside surrounded by a thick lining of white Styrofoam was something that looked like a tie clip.

“This is the transmitter we’d like you to wear while you’re up at Karsarkis’ place, sir. It has an effective range of about two miles and we think that—”

“Hang on,” I said holding up one hand. “Is this is some kind of a joke?”

Parker looked genuinely puzzled. “No, sir. It’s not a joke.”

“Then what on God’s green earth ever put it in your head that I might be willing to do anything remotely like that?”

Parker’s eyes shifted back and forth in confusion and his head wobbled slightly on his thick neck.

“CW said you’d be willing to cooperate. That you’d help us out, you being an American and all.”

“He did, did he?”

“Yes, sir. He did.”

“And what do you think, Parker? Do I seem to you to be a cooperative kind of guy?”

My question caused a momentary look of panic to slide across Parker’s face. Evidentially thinking wasn’t a big part of his job description.

Parker had produced the case from beneath the low table between us. While he wrestled with my question, I ran my eyes over the other storage compartments.

“What else you got down here?” I asked, yanking on the handle nearest my ankles.

A drawer glided smoothly out on silent rollers and inside in foam-rubber padded mounts were two M-16s with laser sights and built-in noise suppressors. I slid one of them out and worked the action. It was Teflon-coated to reduce noise. Very spiffy.

“Just imagine,” I said looking at Parker, “I’d always thought US Marshals carried six-shooters.”

York appeared in the minivan’s open doorway before Parker could say anything. He stood looking at me for a moment and then he reached out and jerked the M-16 out of my hands.

“Get out,” he said, gesturing with his head toward the ground next to him.

“My pleasure.”

I got up from the bench. In a half crouch to keep from hitting my head, I pushed myself out of the minivan.

“Find anything interesting in the Cherokee?” I asked York as I shouldered past him.

He turned, following me with his eyes.

I still couldn’t see York as a marshal. He had an air about him that was entirely different, a sense of knowing something I didn’t know, something that maybe
nobody
else knew; and knowing whatever it was gave him a pass from the rules that applied to the rest of us. But then that meant York must be . . . what? FBI? Secret Service? Military? CIA? None of those seemed exactly right to me either, but what else
was
there?

I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do next. Still, this was York and Parker’s party, so I figured I’d let them tell me.