16. Secrets

True to his word, Silo texted Kam later that morning, telling him where to meet. It’s in a park downtown, and there’s plenty of people, so they are unlikely to be heard. Or if they are heard, the likelihood of any passerby being interested enough to eavesdrop is lower than if they met somewhere else.

Talay is with him, and they’ve found a little patio table where no one else seemed to be interested in being, so they’ve claimed that. Talay seated at the table watching Silo pace. He notices the dark circles under Silo’s eyes, but chooses not to comment. He asks a question instead.

“So are we going to tell him all of it, or just pieces he needs to know?”

Silo glances down at Talay, eyebrows raised. “What do you think?”

“I think if you keep doing that to your eyebrows they’ll permanently disappear into your hairline.” Talay matches Silo’s expression, but his eyebrows don’t go up quite that high. “I also think my friend who is also my boss should stop hiding things from people he cares about.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning…I will do and say whatever my friend who also happens to be my boss tells me to do or say and I will like it, even though I think he’s an idiot.” Talay ducks and Silo’s swipes at his head. “What are you glaring for, isn’t that what you wanted to hear?”

“Did you find anything remotely helpful or were you too busy dating my sister?”

“You don’t trust your assistant? That hurts.”

“You’ll heal. Answer the damn question.”

Talay gestures to the manila envelope on the table in front of him. “Everything in here is plenty helpful, as you well know. And why can’t I date Em?”

“Never said you couldn’t.”

“You never said it out loud.” Talay hesitates. “She knows about everything, by the way.”

“Of course she does. Em can weasel anything she wants out of any person she wants to,” Silo finally sits down next to Talay, pointing at the envelope. “She probably helped you find all of this, right?”

“Some,” Talay has the grace to look a little uncomfortable. “Not all of it. When was the last time you slept?”

“I sleep.”

“Yeah, every time you go on vacation. Which was when, again?”

Silo’s face closes up. “I’m going back to Pattaya again this weekend.”

“Is it another Working Weekend?”

“Shut up. I need you to keep an eye on things here. Not just in the office—”

“I go to the restaurant with Em every night that she works,” Talay has read Silo’s mind, which is why he’s such a good assistant. “Kam’s there too. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a shitty liar?”

“Not to my face.”

The look on Silo’s face tells Talay to shut up, so Talay shuts up. True, he’s been spending a lot of time with Em, both at Gulf’s restaurant and away from it. But he’s also been spending a lot of time in the archives, just like Silo told him to. While the things that he’s found are helpful, and will probably answer a lot of questions, the information is not going to make anyone happy.

Least of all Kam.

“Silo—”

“We tell him all of it,” Now it’s Silo’s turn to read Talay’s mind, and he finally answers Talay’s original question. “But only if he asks.”

“You say that like you’re hoping he doesn’t.”

Silo doesn’t answer. He only lifts his eyebrows as Kam approaches them.

“You’re on time.”

“And you brought a friend.” Kam says. His expression is neutral, so Talay isn’t really sure how Kam feels about Silo not meeting him alone.

“Cappuccino?” Talay decides to take that as a greeting and jerks his head in the direction of the drink in Kam’s hand.

“Nope,” Kam shakes his head. “Crio.”

“You drink Crio Bru now?” Talay’s eyebrows are raised.

“It’s grown on me.” Kam has a whole thermos of the surprisingly delicious stuff. It even tastes good cold. “Tastes a little better with cream, but I can take it black too. I’m guessing you’re here because you know the question I asked Silo last night, about my dad..”

“You asked me a question about six hours ago,” Now it’s Silo’s turn to jab. “Nina’s not going to like this.”

“If I gave a shit what Nina thinks, I wouldn’t have called you.” Kam says. “You got answers for me or not? I already know it has something to do with one of Wolf’s old cases—”

“Khun Delagdo, not ‘Wolf’,” Talay corrects. “And it’s closed cases. But yes.”

“How?” Kam turns to Talay. “Bel’s dad died eight years ago. My dad’s been dead for six months. Are you telling me they really were killed by the same person?”

“It’s a possibility.” Talay hands the manila envelope over to Kam. “Silo sent me some files, so I dug around in the archives and found—things.”

Kam takes the photo he found last night out of his pocket and hands it to Talay. “Things like this?”

“Delgado,” The name pops out of Silo’s mouth without the honorific ‘Khun’. Talay is too busy staring.

“Yeah, that’s Bel’s dad,” Kam confirms, not too comfortable at the moment with using either the man’s surname or his code name. “With mine. You see what’s on the table between them?”

“You called me because you found this.” Silo taps the part of the photo where the USB is visible for emphasis, but everyone knows the statement is rhetorical.

“Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“That's why I told you to meet me here.” Silo doesn’t flinch under Kam’s glare. “Open the envelope first.”

Kam hesitates for just another minute, then picks up the envelope. It’s surprisingly heavy. He glances again at Silo and Talay. When neither of the men say anything, Kam opens the envelope and pulls out the contents. There are several sheaves of paper of varying sizes, each held together with binder clips.

“More reports.” Kam cocks an eyebrow. “These are supposed to be answers? ”

“Just read the top one.” Silo says. “Then we can talk.”

Kam picks up the top one.

And chokes.

It’s three sheets of paper, which makes it the smallest stack in the envelope. The top page has a photograph of a man in his late fifties, and the following written underneath the photo:

Date: XXXXXXX

File Number: XXXXXXX

Name: Manirat, R.

Date of Birth: XXXXXXXX

Occupation: Automotive Industry, General Manager, XXXXXXXX

Reports to: ——

“What the hell is this?” Kam’s voice comes through clenched teeth, and his hands are gripping the file so hard the paper is crumpling beneath his fingers. Silo and Talay exchange a glance.

“Your dad’s file,” Silo finally says. “For the work he did.”

“Your dad’s car restoration company,” Talay says, “was a front. I mean, it was a legitimate company—it is a legitimate company, but only partly.”

“A front for what?” Given the papers in his hands, Kam is pretty sure he knows what the answer is, but isn’t sure he wants to hear it.

“Passing information.” Silo says. “To both Thai and American Intelligence.”

Kam stares at him. “My dad was a spy.”

“The word is ‘courier,’ actually.” Talay corrects him. “Your dad would gather information, and then pass it on to Khun Delgado or our people, depending on who needed to hear it.”

“Gather information how?” Kam knows the answers are written in the rest of the papers in front of him, but he wants the answers to be spoken, not read.

“Going to certain places at certain times to get certain things from certain people.” Talay says.

“Huh?”

“Since he traveled internationally,” Silo clarifies. “He could also pass along—let’s call them packages—to people who needed them. That could very well be what got him killed.”

“Because my dad found out something he shouldn’t.”

Talay reaches forward and unclips another one of the stacks of paper, spreading the contents across the table. “That, or more likely, he crossed someone he shouldn’t.”

It’s more photos, but these are different. They’re in black and white, rather than color. The images are blurred, as though they have been copied and digitized from the original and whoever did it has no idea what they were doing. At the top of each photo has a red stamp, which must be important.

The photos are of men, all seemingly taken without their knowledge. Some have been taken from the waist up, some full body shots; some taken from behind, some taken profile. There are only one or two taken head on with their faces to the camera, but these faces are in the bottoms of the photos, as though whoever had the camera wanted to take a picture of a tree or the building the man was standing near instead.

Kam flips through all of the photos once before asking the inevitable question. “Who are they?”

“Dangerous People,” Silo capitalizes both words. “Or they were, before we tracked them down. Some are out of the country, some jailed, some dead, but we found them all because of your dad.”

“All except one,” Talay adds. “Apparently.”

“Are you going to get fired for telling me all of this?”

“Only if you make the information we told you public,” Talay says. “ “We don’t know who it is, but this person—or people— hate loose ends.”

“Nina and Bel have targets on their backs, I know that. So—”

Silo leans forward, his face deadly serious. “Not two loose ends, Kam. Three. Whoever it is wants to kill Bel, Nina, and you.”

The buzzing in Kam’s head is turning into a roar.“But I know even less about this than Bel does.”

“We know that.” Talay says. “But they don’t, and since they’ve already tried to attack Nina a second time, they’ll try again with you and with Bel, and this time it won’t look like an accident.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Kam’s brain is still trying to process all the information that has recently been dumped inside it. A spy. His dad had been a spy, and that’s what had got him killed. Not some random accident. Someone had murdered him. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Before either Silo or Talay can answer, Kam’s phone buzzes.

BEL: Got tired of hanging around the house, so I went to your dealership instead. There’s some guy waiting in your office who says he knows you. Says his name is Kit?

Kam slides the phone back in his pocket and gathers up the manila envelope and its contents. “I have to go.”

“Kam,” Silo looks like there’s a million things he wants to say, but all that comes out is, “watch your back.”

Kam nods, and goes back to his car. The drive over to his dealership isn’t long enough for his brain to finish processing everything, but he has calmed down enough to start reassembling the scattered puzzle pieces in his head.

Certain things from That Night are starting to make sense.

The phone call.

The conversation.

The sounds he’d heard.

Because his dad was a spy.

So now the target that was on Bel’s back is on Kam’s, too.

And very possibly it will be on someone else’s very soon.

Kam pulls into the dealership parking lot, and glances again at the manila envelope on the seat beside him. He’ll tell Bel about all of this, but not until everything that is circling in his head has fallen into place. Which will hopefully be tonight.

His phone buzzes again, and this time it’s not a standard text message. It’s from LINE:

KITKAT: It’s a weekday. Shouldn’t you be in your office?

Kam gets out of the car and goes straight up to his office. Usually, the room is empty. Today, it’s occupied by someone who has taken the liberty of entering unannounced.

Who is currently sitting in his chair.

At his desk.

Wearing a moronic grin.

“What’s up, little bro. You miss me?”

"17. Blindsided" 

read from beginning "1. Phone Calls in the Dark"