Crocker passed the time playing chess with Mancini and Akil, watching Mel Brooks’s High Anxiety for about the fifteenth time, discussing the pluses and minuses of some new handguns and sniper rifles with Cal, eating, drinking beer, snoozing. He was dying to do a workout by the time he felt the plane descend and saw the giant double hoops of the terminal rising from a vast expanse of vivid green marshland.
He loved the lushness of the tropics.
The high-tech, futuristic airport stood in striking contrast to the wild marshland. It contained huge halls with soaring metal arches lit with blue neon and white lights. As they waited in line for immigration, a young woman on a video screen on the wall explained that the terminal had been opened in 2006 and boasted the world’s tallest freestanding control tower (434 feet), the world’s fourth-largest single building terminal (over six million square feet), and handled approximately forty-eight million passengers a year.
“I feel like I’ve arrived on a friendlier planet,” Akil said as beautiful hostesses dressed in purple checked to make sure they had filled out the appropriate forms and were standing in the correct line.
After they passed through customs, the SEALs-turned-businessmen arrived in the baggage claim area, where they saw a medium-height white guy with a middleweight’s muscular body and a thick mop of black hair standing next to a nice-looking dark-skinned man holding a sign that read “Sonnex Petroleum.”
Akil nodded toward the sign and whispered, “Look, boss.”
“I see it.”
Sonnex Petroleum was the name of the shell company the six SEALs were allegedly working for. They were traveling as oil company executives and engineers. Crocker’s alias was Tom Mansfield, VP of exploration and research. What he really knew about oil exploration could fit on the head of a pin.
The taller of the two men introduced himself with a strong, confident handshake as Emile Anderson. Black Cell couldn’t do what it did without the help and support of local agents.
“Welcome,” he said to Crocker, full of nervous energy. “We’re on kind of a tight schedule, so as soon as you get your bags, we’ll take off into town to try to beat the traffic. Lieutenant Colonel Petsut of the Royal Thai Police is meeting you for dinner.”
“The sooner we get started, the better,” Crocker replied, looking down at his watch, which had adjusted automatically to the local time zone, 1652 hours.
He stood at Baggage Claim Station 3, surveying the international crowd-a polyglot of Asian, East Asian, European, young and old, dressed in business clothes and casual. The diversity reminded him of the movie Blade Runner, but here everything was clean, orderly, and efficient.
Including Anderson, who handed him a large manila envelope and said, “I’ve already prechecked you into your rooms. Your electronic room keys are in there, along with seven hundred bucks’ worth of baht to get you started. My friend Daw here will be your driver.”
“Hey, Daw. Nice to meet you, and much appreciated.”
The short man with the round pockmarked face smiled back with a serene look in his eyes.
“Anything you need, you tell Daw or you call me on this,” Anderson continued, handing Crocker a shiny new Samsung cell phone. “Both our numbers have been programmed into it, along with an emergency contact at the Station. Only use that in case of an emergency. Try to call one of us first. We’ll be at your disposal twenty-four/seven. You need anything, and I mean anything, call.”
“Thanks. What’s the exchange rate?” Crocker asked.
“A hundred baht is worth about three dollars and twenty-six cents.”
Large photos of a smiling King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her husband hung on the walls. The local people seemed amiable and gentle.
Within minutes the SEALs had packed their bags into the back of two Lexus SUVs and were racing down a modern, eight-lane expressway. Crocker sat in the passenger seat next to Anderson, who was driving 160 kilometers an hour, or approximately one hundred miles per hour.
“No speed limit?” Crocker asked.
“None that’s enforced,” Anderson replied with a grin that made his smashed-in nose stand out. “The freeways are F1 speed all the way.”
As he drove, he explained that Lieutenant Colonel Petsut of the RTP was a proud man who generally frowned on letting foreigners operate on his turf but was making an exception in this case because of the severity of what had happened, the international implications, and the deaths of American diplomats.
“But he’s only going to give you a small window to work in,” Emile Anderson said. “So you’ve got to respect boundaries.”
“In other words, you don’t want me to argue with him.”
“Like my daughter was taught in kindergarten: you get what you get, and you don’t complain.”
Crocker didn’t say that once the SEALs launched the op there would be no stopping them. And he understood that the cooperation of local authorities was an enormous asset.
The hotel was a modern six-story joint a few blocks from the Chao Phraya River and close to the busy night scene centered around Khao San Road. Anderson explained that many of the city’s attractions stood within walking distance-the National Museum, Grand Palace, Temple of the Emerald Buddha, and another spectacular gold-spired Buddhist temple called Wat Saket.
Mancini asked Anderson about Wat Phai Rong Wua, which he said was described as the “most bizarre tourist attraction on the planet” by a travel magazine he had read on the plane.
“If you’re into graphic scenes of people being tortured by demons and monsters with blood and entrails hanging out, you’ll love it,” Anderson answered.
“Manny loves entrails of all kinds,” Ritchie joked. “In fact, he was just telling me he wanted pig entrails for dinner.”
“I know a great little place where they serve them raw, grilled, or sautéed,” Anderson said, playing along as they passed through a cool caramel marble lobby decorated with tropical flowers.
Anderson left them there and said he’d be back to pick them up at seven.
“Cal, you still with us?” Ritchie asked as they rode the elevator up to the fourth floor.
“Yeah. Why?” Cal, their weapons expert and sniper, had a Polynesian face that seemed creased in a perpetual smile. He was an enigma to most men on the team because he rarely said anything and kept to himself. Crocker knew him to be laser focused and extremely dependable during missions, which is all he cared about.
“You haven’t said a freakin’ word since we left D.C.,” Ritchie said.
“That’s because he’s been sitting next to you, and he hates your guts,” Akil said.
Caclass="underline" “Not true.”
Electronic Asian music played over the elevator PA. “Sounds like a group of castrated gerbils,” Akil commented.
“It actually fits into a genre called K-pop,” Mancini said.
“What the fuck is that?” Ritchie asked.
“Electro pop-style music that originated in South Korea. Its best-known song is ‘Gangnam Style,’ by Psy. You’re familiar with that, right?”
“Of course.”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” Akil asked. “What do you do, stay up nights and just study random shit?”
Mancini ignored him.
Ritchie slapped Cal on the shoulder as they exited the elevator and started down the beige carpeted hallway. “So. What’s new?”
“Actually, I’ve been reading an interesting book.”
“Tell me about it.”
Cal reached into his backpack and pulled out a thick paperback entitled The Creature from Jekyll Island.
Ritchie looked at the cover and handed it back. “Who’s the creature?”
“The creature is the Federal Reserve System. According to this, the whole thing is a scam cooked up and run by some big banks. The system isn’t federal, and there aren’t any reserves.”