Now Hazelton knew… a half-dozen Tanquerays at the lobby bar and three more at the restaurant — more than a pint of gin — this wasn’t even close to enough to washing away the stench of working for the North Koreans.
He’d balked tonight in the restaurant, refusing to give the docs to the gorgeous French spook, his cutout who would have taken them to the five travelers, probably lodged somewhere in the city. Then the French bitch had probably run off to tattletale to Duke Sharps, and now sixty-one-year-old Colin Hazelton found himself stinking drunk, staggering through a Third World back alley dodging whoever Sharps would send to find the dirty docs that Hazelton now held in a large money belt around his waist.
While he stumbled along he kept an eye out for any surveillance, but he didn’t really expect anyone on him for a day or two. He planned on walking a couple blocks through these back streets to the Kenh Doi, one of several brackish canals that ran through the city, tying his money belt around a loose brick, and then dropping the five sets of dirty documents into the water. From there he’d head to the airport, he’d be on the first plane back to the United States in the morning, and he’d wait to get fired by phone, no doubt by Duke himself.
He’d go back to flying planes for a living. At his age and with his lack of recent flying time he might be able to scrounge some work flying beat-up cargo props in the Third World. He’d die before he paid off his debt, but at least he wouldn’t be a bag man for the Asian Dr. Evil and his murdering minions.
Hazelton walked on. There had been a flurry of activity in the streets — this was District 8, full of French colonial architecture and active nightlife — but now he passed through the darkness in a commercial area near the canal. A restaurant worker carried garbage by him, and an old woman on a scooter putted through the alley.
As he made a left toward the water a pair of men on whisper-quiet black Ducati Diavel motorcycles rolled into the alleyway he just vacated, but he neither heard nor saw them, nor did he have any idea two more similar bikes were already positioned ahead of his route, and waiting for him to walk into their trap.
2
Jack Ryan, Jr., moved in the darkness, east on Pham The Hien. In front of him he saw Colin Hazelton appear from an alleyway across the street. Jack had expected him to turn to his left and head back to his hotel, but to his surprise the American in the white button-down shirt and loose necktie stepped into the road and began heading over toward Ryan’s side of the street.
Shit, thought Jack. He kept walking, looking away from Hazelton and taking care not to alter his gait. He wondered for a moment if he might have been burned, but Hazelton didn’t seem to pay any attention to him.
To Jack’s surprise Hazelton stepped onto the pavement forty yards in front of him, then entered another narrow, dark alleyway. This would lead him directly to the Kenh Doi, an east-west canal that served as the northern border for District 8, and from Jack’s study of the map of this district, there was nothing there but docks and houseboats and ramshackle apartment buildings.
Confused as to why the man wasn’t going back to his hotel, Jack decided he would walk on a few blocks and then try to move up a parallel alley.
Jack picked up the pace, took a second to orient himself with the map on his phone, and then he spoke over the net. “This is Ryan. I’ve got the subject. He’s moving north. Two blocks south of the water. Unless he’s got himself a dinghy tied up somewhere, then he’s going to run out of road here in a minute. I’m going to try to get ahead and see what he’s up to. I’ll move parallel to his—”
Jack stopped transmitting when, directly in front of him, two black Ducati bikes rolled out of the alley ahead and crossed the street. They were just a couple hundred feet behind Hazelton. Here in the quiet sector near the river they couldn’t hope to remain covert from a trained CIA veteran.
Nothing about this looked like a surveillance exercise by the men on the bikes.
“Ryan?” Ding called over the network. “Did you lose comms?”
“Negative, I’m here. But a pair of Ducatis are here, too, and they are definitely following Hazelton. Not sure where the others are. This looks too aggressive for surveillance. I think they are going to confront him.”
Driscoll spoke over the net now. “Unless they’ve got cars involved in the pursuit that we haven’t spotted yet, they aren’t planning on an abduction. This might be something worse.”
Jack confirmed, astonished that the stakes of this operation seemed to be rising with each moment. “Holy shit, this could be a hit.”
Ding broke into the conversation. “Hang on a second. Hazelton is supposed to be over here on a corporate intelligence job. His last op was for Microsoft. Nothing we’ve seen indicates he has any concerns about a lethal adversary. A hit would be one hell of an escalation.”
Jack saw the two other bikes now, entering Pham The Hien from the east and then racing past Ryan and separating. One turned into the alley that ran parallel to the east of Hazelton’s path; the other turned into the alley to the west, the one Ryan had planned on taking.
Jack passed the road Hazelton took. He just caught a glimpse of the first two bikers as they turned between a pair of long two-story warehouses that ran all the way to the water’s edge. He picked up the pace, thinking any confrontation would have to be soon, because Hazelton was running out of alley before the canal, and then he would have to retrace his steps back in this direction.
As he jogged to the corner to get a look between the buildings, he said, “I agree, Ding, but now four guys have him boxed in with nowhere to run. Something is about to go down.”
Now John Clark came over the line. “I’m getting the car in case we need to make a hasty exfil with Hazelton. Traffic is tight, though. It’s going to take me some time. Ding and Sam, get to Ryan’s poz on the double. Jack, you do not intervene, no matter what. You are unarmed.”
Jack replied softly now. He’d reached the corner and he was about to lean around to take a peek at what was going on. “Understood.”
Hazelton approached the Kenh Doi, a dense blackness fifty yards in front of him. There were a few twinkling lights of District 5 on the far bank, but there was also a group of warehouses there, without much going on at this time of the evening. And this stretch of canal, though nearly in the center of the city, had next to no boat traffic at night.
His plan had been to tear up the documents to the best of his ability and then drop them in the Kenh Doi. They would separate as they flowed downstream, and they would be rendered useless to the North Koreans.
But he knew that plan was shot now, because of the sound of finely tuned motorcycle engines behind him.
He understood the bikers were here for him. They made no secret of their presence. And they weren’t alone. He hadn’t seen any more followers, but the slow approach from the men behind him gave the distinct impression they were waiting for someone else to get into position.
Colin Hazelton was drunk, but he was still perceptive; after all, he had been doing this sort of thing for a very long time.
And just like that, his suspicions were confirmed. A pair of headlights appeared in front of him, one coming up the riverside path along the docks from the east, the other from the west. They turned in his direction and approached at a steady pace.