“Find out what’s to the west of here, tap into cameras, look into what we know about the Wild Tigers, see if they have property or known contacts in this direction. I need to know something in the next few minutes.”
Court read his GPS coordinates to Brewer, and she typed them into her computer.
“Jesus,” she muttered, overwhelmed with the unspecific nature of his request and the timeline attached to it. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I’m on a rented motorcycle. Can you find out if the government is working with the rental companies here to chip these things somehow so they can track them?”
To this Brewer was unequivocal. “You shouldn’t have rented a vehicle. We could have provided you with something clean.”
Court could hear typing over the connection to Langley. He assumed Brewer was already at work on his requests. “Thanks for the advice. I was in a rush last night, and I had to do this by the seat of my pants. Anyway, I wasn’t worried about anyone tracking me in the city; there are enough ways to melt away.”
“But now you’re leaving the city.”
“Right, and if I’m out here in the boonies and the police or intelligence services take an interest in me…”
Brewer interrupted. “I just instant-messaged our experts on HCMC, and they tell me we do not know if the rental companies are working with the government.”
“Some experts.”
Brewer did not respond to that, but she said, “I’ve got some information about your location. You are in the Mekong Delta, and the terrain around you is the same pretty much all the way to Cambodia. We know the Wild Tigers aren’t operating in Cambodia, so that puts a western endpoint on the search, but that doesn’t mean the Wild Tigers don’t have some property in the direction you are going. I’ve got analysts working on that right now.”
Court drove along for a few minutes more, then spoke aloud into his headset.
“Brewer, you still there?”
“Still here, still working.”
Court said, “Wanted to give you a heads-up. I’m dumping this bike.”
“Just like that? How are you going to continue to follow the Wild Tigers vehicle?”
“Probably better you don’t ask.”
As Court raced along the flat two-lane road he watched a man on a dirt bike ahead, coming in his direction from the right along an intersecting muddy track that ran alongside a canal. Court would pass by on the paved road before the man arrived at the intersection, unless Court slowed down.
Court did slow down, and he came to a stop at the intersection with the unpaved road. He began waving his arms at the approaching biker.
“Hey!”
Brewer was still on the line; Court knew this because he could hear her furiously typing in his ear.
She said, “Hey, what?”
“Not you. Hang on a second.” Court pulled the GPS unit off his handlebars and shoved it into his backpack.
The man on the dirt bike slowed and stopped, and the man turned off the engine, then removed his helmet. He appeared to be no more than eighteen, and he didn’t show any defensiveness in his actions.
Court quickly looked up at the BMW sedan, now farther away than at any point since he’d started tailing it.
To the kid he asked, “Do you speak English?”
The man shook his head. “Khong.” No.
Quickly Court reached into his shirt, then pulled a thousand U.S. dollars from his money belt. He held it up, then pointed to the man’s bike.
The kid looked confused. Court reached out, and the man took the bills.
Now Court climbed off his Suzuki street bike, motioned to the dirt bike, and stole a quick glance at the BMW, a half mile down the road in the light rain. When the young man did not get off the bike, Court pushed him once in the chest. The kid was now both confused and angry. He started to yell something at Court, but the American pulled his knife.
The kid got the message instantly, and he climbed off his bike. Court said, “I’m sorry, dude. No time to negotiate.” Almost as an afterthought he reached back into his money belt and grabbed a thick wad of Vietnamese currency. He shoved it into the young man’s hand, as well as the dollars, while keeping his knife at the low ready.
In seconds Court was on the dirt bike, a Honda XR250. He fired up the engine, looked down at the fuel gauge, and saw, to his relief, the needle resting over the three-quarters mark.
Court took off his black helmet and handed it to the kid. He then pointed to the white helmet in the kid’s hand. “I’ll trade you.”
Though he didn’t speak English, the young man held at knifepoint understood what was being asked of him. He handed over his helmet.
Court fit it on his head and, with another “sorry,” took off to the west with an open throttle, leaving the kid behind with the rented Suzuki and enough cash to buy himself a new motorcycle.
Court couldn’t see the BMW and the three police bikes anymore; they were somewhere far in the distance. He just leaned into the wind, accelerating to a dangerous speed on the wet road, and concentrated on his objective ahead, trying to catch up.
Suzanne Brewer had listened to the entire exchange with the young man.
She spoke into his ear. “You just mugged a guy. Stole his motorcycle.”
“Not how I see it.”
“How do you see it?”
“Colonel Dai just bought a used dirt bike in Vietnam. I was kind of the middleman.”
“Tell yourself whatever works, Violator.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Twenty minutes after opening the call with Brewer, Court was back behind the BMW and the three motorcycles. They were just three hundred yards ahead of him now, though Court strained to see them because of the light rain streaking across the visor of his helmet.
The good news was, for the moment anyway, there were few places for the motorcade to turn off and disappear. The terrain around this highway was predominantly fields and rice paddies, many of them flooded. Wide ponds covered in lily pads and canals filled with brown water were occasionally broken up by little villages and agricultural buildings. The traffic had decreased dramatically, and virtually all the roads leading away from the highway were unpaved.
As Court raced along through the rain he thought about calling Colonel Dai to find out what had happened in Saigon. Ultimately, however, he decided he’d wait. He didn’t want to reveal anything about where he was and what he was doing, because the last thing he needed was a mainland China paramilitary force whizzing by over his head in a helicopter, hitting the BMW, and fucking everything up for Court’s CIA operation.
No. Dai had hit the Wild Tigers HQ in Saigon against Court’s advice, so as far as he was concerned, Dai could sit and stew.
For an instant Court conceded that there was always a chance Fan was now dead back in the building on Nguyen Van Dau, and his entire one-man pursuit of the Wild Tigers motorcade was nothing but a fool’s errand.
But he told himself to trust his instincts, and he pressed on. Fan wasn’t in Saigon at the HQ; he was in the car ahead, or else he was wherever the car was going now.
Fan Jiang sat at a table with his interpreter in an otherwise bare room with high ceilings, peeling wallpaper, and mold growing down the walls. A laptop computer sat in front of him along with a wireless router, various computer peripherals, and several notepads, all of which were covered in Hanzi characters, written Mandarin, as well as English translations.
Yes, his work was in front of him now, but he wasn’t looking at it. Instead he looked at the door to the room.
He’d heard the vehicles pull up a few minutes earlier, and he’d gone to the third-floor window to look out, but he’d been surprised by a man walking by at ground level in the large field behind the villa. The man was armed with a submachine gun hanging from his shoulder, and when he saw Fan he motioned for him to step away from the window.