“I know. He’s one of the best. That’s why I hired him.”
“So there’s more, then.”
Miguel cleared his throat, and I turned to him, his tanned face and the deep lines there speaking to a life well-lived. Handsome man with chiseled features. I noted then that his hair was going white, not gray. There was a dusting at his temples and in his eyebrows, beard, and mustache. I was aging myself, silver and white being my new color palette, my black hair completely gone to the ravages of time. There was no salt-and-pepper thing happening with me.
Miguel said, “I sent a member of my security team to his hotel when he didn’t show up for work again and his bodyguard failed to report in. I didn’t want to overreact. Thailand’s generally a safe country. Owen’s a young guy, handsome, funny, so I’m sure he’s made friends at work and when he goes out. He’s come in late a few times after a long night out. But as things stand, even though he hasn’t checked in, we’re not ready to call in the dogs to run him down.”
It made sense. Out partying was not a reason to worry. And yet, they seemed to be doing exactly that.
“We’ve pinged his phone and have only been able to triangulate an approximate position. It’s showing up in a location in Soi Cowboy.”
Bangkok’s most prominent red-light districts—Soi Cowboy, Nana Plaza, Patpong, and Soi Twilight—were all adjacent to one another in the center of the city. It was a rough area, yes, but Owen wasn’t some defenseless lamb. Owen was trained in taekwondo and other disciplines, he could grapple with the best of them, and he carried a gun he knew how to use. Yes, he was a tech guy, but he was more hard-core than most of his friends; not to mention, he was a smart traveler, had excellent situational awareness, and simply would not put himself in a precarious position, no matter how pretty the other guy was.
“Is the bodyguard one of yours or hired local talent?”
“One of ours,” Miguel answered. “He’s got five years with us, complete pro. Former SEAL, FBI terrorism unit. He wouldn’t go dark. Not willingly.”
“So if they’ve run afoul of something, it’s likely they’re together.”
“I think that’s reasonable, yes,” Miguel replied, no-nonsense. He didn’t talk around things. He was Army, like me, and we didn’t do that with each other.
“Who have you called?”
“Our person at the consulate first, then the embassy, but it’s only been about forty-eight hours, and unless we have reasonable belief that a crime has occurred, which we don’t, there’s nothing they can or will do.”
Of course not.
I turned to Aaron. “Tell me about the Bangkok project.”
“It’s by the book, completely boring stuff. Nothing remotely interesting. Owen and Maggie and their team assessed the network infrastructure before the acquisition, and now he’s supposed to be implementing what we have on paper.”
“Have there been any problems? Has anyone taken a too-close interest?”
“We’ve had two attempted break-ins. There has been some vandalism, but it’s par for the course in Bangkok, or anywhere for that matter. Apart from that, everything’s been normal.”
I glanced at Miguel, not because I didn’t trust Aaron Sutter, but because he might not want to share with me any horrors he knew about. But Miguel gave me a slight nod, which validated what his boss had said. Whatever the issue, it had nothing to do with the project.
The problem was, Owen wasn’t talking to me, and now the bodyguard was MIA as well. Those two things combined were concerning.
“I have a person at State who can help with the apathy at the consulate,” I told Aaron. “And I would like to see your threat assessment and everything you have on your business partners on this project. I’d like to be particularly sure that none of your people have any organized-crime connections.”
Aaron squinted at me, his eyes narrowing to a line of bright blue. “There was no assessment, Jared. Owen and his team are there to get the infrastructure up and running. It’s a month of work, tops, and then they’re going home. That’s it. In and out.”
There was silence while I digested the implications.
“Don’t do that,” Miguel told Aaron, who shrugged and leaned back in his chair. Miguel glanced at me. “He’s giving you the usual company line because he’s the CEO and he should, all right?”
I nodded.
“Before you go ballistic, because I would too if I were you, all reasonable threats were vetted because that’s what we do. We check and double-check because erring on the side of caution is always the best course of action.”
Of course he’d checked. This was Miguel Romero, not some pencil pusher just checking off paperwork.
“A threat assessment is always survival 101, so we ran through the scenarios and vetted everyone on the project.”
I nodded. “Yeah, when I talked to Maggie Tomlin before she and Owen left, she said that—wait, have you spoken to her?”
“You know I have,” Miguel assured me. “She hasn’t heard from him either, and she’s been blowing up my phone for updates.”
“Yeah,” I husked, “Maggie’s crazy about him.”
“We’re all crazy about him,” Miguel admitted. “He’s a great guy.”
I appreciated hearing that, but something in his tone bothered me. It was as if he was placating me, saying nice things to keep me calm. As if I needed to be managed. As if I, somehow, needed him to reassure me that everyone liked Owen, and therefore, he certainly wasn’t in any real danger. “I know he’s great,” I said, scowling at him. “What the hell?”
“Sorry,” Miguel muttered. “I don’t mean it like—listen, my people are looking for him, but he’s only been gone a short time, so again, that’s why we haven’t escalated anything. Honestly, we don’t even know what this is yet.”
It was my turn to lean forward in my chair. “I know, but I do need to call in the dogs. My dogs. And respectfully, I know you haven’t done it because you don’t want to rock the boat with your investors.”
“That’s not—”
“You’re not being fair,” Aaron interrupted, and I saw the anger on his face. “I—we—would never purposely sacrifice a member of our team for optics. That’s not how we do business at Sutter.”
I took a deep breath. “You came to me for a reason.”
“No, we—”
“I mean,” I said, talking over him, “you came to me because there’s only so much you can do.” I turned to Miguel. “You would have to assemble a team and get them to Bangkok. Come on. You know you want me to take care of this.”
He shook his head.
“Yes,” I insisted. “It takes care of your PR problem—as in, you don’t even have one anymore—and you don’t have the manpower.”
“I assure you,” Miguel argued, his eyes flat, “I do have the manpower.”
“You’d have to hire people. Contractors. And then you’d have to get them to Thailand. Don’t be ridiculous. Let me take this over for you, and more importantly, for me.”