Chasing Tomorrow

He knew there would be no way out.

TIFFANY JOY HAD BEEN waiting at the table for over forty minutes when the champagne and note arrived.

She smiled. About time.

She waited until the waiter had opened the bottle, poured her a glass and left before she opened the note. When she read it, the smile dissolved on her lips.

The General is dead. I paid your check. Get out of Bangkok now or they will kill you too. Don’t pack. Your friend. T.B.

T.B.

Thomas Bowers.

Tiffany Joy got up from the table and started running.

JEFF STEVENS WAS AT the boarding gate, about to board Qantas flight 22 8419 to London via Dubai, when a Thai police officer pulled him roughly to one side.

“Is there a problem?”

The officer said nothing. Snatching Jeff’s carry-on out of his hand, he unzipped it and pulled out a Bubble Wrapped package.

Jeff’s palms began to sweat.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a statue,” said Jeff. “A gift for a friend of mine.”

“Really?” The guard made a gesture. Three of his colleagues approached. In addition to their handguns, each one had a vicious Alsatian dog straining at the end of a leather leash. The dogs went nuts as they approached Jeff, barking wildly and baring their teeth.

“Passport!” the first officer barked.

Jeff handed it over. What the hell was happening?

“Are you familiar with the drug laws in this country, Mr. Bowers?”

“Of course I am,” said Jeff. He could barely hear himself over the dogs. He’d heard the stories of innocent travelers having bags of heroin planted on them, of course, but he’d been so careful. For obvious reasons, his bag had nev

er left his sight for a second. Unless someone at security . . .

The policeman tore off the Bubble Wrap and held the statue of Entemena high above his head. “Maybe the gift for your friend is inside, hmm?”

Jeff’s heart stopped. He’s going to smash it! He’s going to shatter two thousand years of history. “NO!”

Without thinking, he lunged for the statue.

Three pistols were instantly raised and pointed at his head. Jeff closed his eyes and waited for the sound of shattering stone. Instead he heard a man shriek in agony. Opening his eyes, he saw that one of the dogs had leaped onto the man standing next to him and sunk its formidable jaws into the poor guy’s crotch. A melee ensued, with much barking and screaming and waving of firearms. Eventually a plastic bag containing a small amount of white powder was produced from somewhere inside the man’s pants.

The first policeman calmly handed the statue back to Jeff.

“Sorry, sir. Our mistake. We hope you enjoyed your stay in Thailand.”

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, JEFF finally exhaled as the Airbus A380 soared and juddered its way into the sky.

Reaching down, he stuck his hand into the bag at his feet and touched the statue lovingly.

That was close. Too close.

He thought about Francine, the Frenchwoman on the E&O. It was she who’d tried to steal the Entemena while both Jeff and the general were at the Kwai. Jeff recognized her from a job he and Tracy had tried to pull years ago in Paris. He was sure she was on the train with the same intention as he had. She’d beaten them to the punch in France—a lovely Dutch still life, if Jeff remembered rightly. But not this time. Once the general was distracted by dear, sweet little Minami on the Japanese raft, his outrage had gotten the better of him. It had been preposterously easy to switch his backpack for the one Jeff had brought with him, packed with a worthless fake statue, as sold in museum gift shops all over Europe.