Page 45 of The Big Fix

“Bees?”

“You know what I mean!” Darius growled at me.

I did. Yes.

“You’re making it easy for them. You’re lucky that firefight in the street earlier didn’t bring out the military. Restrict your movements, lie low for a couple of days. When they do connect the dots, you’re going to have to make yourself scarce whether you have Owen or not.”

“You know that’s not an option I’m willing to entertain.”

“You’ll have to. The prime minister has broadened the powers of the NIA, as you recall.”

The NIA’s involvement complicated things, making it far more dangerous for us. Thailand’s chief intelligence agency had been awarded carte-blanche powers in case of threats to national stability or security.

“The death of an agent will certainly fall under the agency’s purview to investigate terror offenses,” Darius said, “so if this gets bigger, you will have to go home.”

“So what do you suggest I do?”

“Lower your body count for starters.”

“Are you talking about the boat now?”

“Yes, I’m talking about the boat.” He sounded annoyed. “Lower. Your. Profile.”

“I will do my best. I’m not trying to kill people.”

“Where have I heard that before?” Chris called over to me.

“Listen to me,” Darius said softly. “If you get a text from me that says go to ground, you get to ground immediately, you understand? They round you up, you’re not getting out, Jared.”

“I know.”

“You love Owen, I know that. We all know that, and if it were Efrem in Owen’s spot, I’d expect you all backing my play. But if you’re dead, if your team’s dead, then there’s no hope. You have to stay alive. All of you. I don’t want to lose you, but I don’t want to lose Dante or Chris either. I don’t have a lot of friends, so…yes?”

“Yes,” I agreed. “No one dies or we can’t save Owen.”

“I like this one-track-mind thing you’ve got going. Just follow directions.”

Darius Hawthorne was not a man to mince words. And his finality was not a thing to ever ignore.

“Now, put me on speaker so I can talk to everyone about escape plans and setting up dead drops to get you out of the country and over to Myanmar if needed. Also, someone has to get Nam and his family to a plane going to London in about seven hours. I have new passports and all the papers they’ll need ready for pickup, but they need an escort.”

I cleared my throat.

“Oh, fuck you, what?”

“We also need a cat carrier, an animal health certificate, and a ticket for Pickle.”

Long silence.

I never thought, in a million years, the words ticket for Pickle would ever come out of my mouth. “D?”

“Give me a minute. I need to process this.”

I bet he did.

As expected, I was broken the next morning. I had to roll sideways to get off the cot, and had to rise in stages. Normally, it wasn’t like this. And while it was true that I didn’t leap out of bed anymore, neither did I usually have to crawl.

Chris was on the porch, drinking coffee, and though it was already hot and humid outside, the breeze off the river helped.