Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

He grinned, hoping to coax a smile from her, but she didn’t offer one, and Paul began to worry about her in a way he never had before.

42

Singapore, Malaysia, June 30

TWENTY-EIGHT HOURS AFTER being freed from the NSA’s clutches, Kurt and Joe landed in Singapore. They’d boarded a flight at Dulles, gladly paid through the nose for first-class tickets, and literally flew to the other side of the world.

A trip to the hotel to unpack and a call to an old friend who’d helped him years back had left Kurt with nothing to do but get some sleep. As it turned out, he was too damn tired to make it off the couch and fell asleep right there.

His two-hour nap ended when the phone rang in the darkness.

Startled awake as if he’d been jabbed with a cattle prod, Kurt lunged for the phone. He grabbed it as he tumbled off the couch, picking up the receiver just in time to prevent it from going to the message system.

“The White Rajah,” a voice he didn’t recognize said.

“What?” Kurt asked.

“You are Kurt Austin?”

“Yes.”

“I was told to call you,” the voice said. “And to explain where you will find what you’re looking for. The White Rajah.”

“Wait,” Kurt said. “What is the—”

The phone line went dead, and a dial tone soon followed. Kurt placed the receiver back on the cradle and leaned against the front of the couch.

“Where am I?” he mumbled to himself.

He remembered flying, changing planes at LAX, and then part of the next flight. He remembered checking in at the hotel. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Singapore.”

He looked around. The room was utterly dark except for a clock radio between the beds opposite him. The clock read 7:17 p.m. It felt like three in the morning.

Kurt stood awkwardly and pounded on the door to the adjoining room.

“Get up,” he grumbled to Joe. “Time to go to work.”

The door opened seconds later. Joe stood there, clean-shaven, hair gelled, wearing an Armani shirt and white linen slacks.

Kurt stared at him dumbfounded. “Don’t you sleep?”

“The night calls me,” Joe said, smiling. “Who am I to refuse?”

“Yeah, well, somebody else called me,” Kurt said. “So while I shower, you find out what on earth the White Rajah is. I’m guessing it’s a hotel or a bar or a street.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

Kurt nodded. “Someone’s going to meet us there,” he said.

“Who?”

“That’s the thing,” Kurt said. “I don’t have any idea.”

FORTY MINUTES LATER, looking refreshed and like a more conservative version of Joe, Kurt Austin marched into the friendly confines of the White Rajah, a restaurant and bar that had once been an old English gentlemen’s club in the Victorian era, when the English had a substantial influence on the island of Malaysia.

Kurt wandered through several large rooms with exquisitely carved mahogany paneling, hand-blown glass-block skylights, and overstuffed leather chairs and couches that looked as if Churchill himself might have once sat on them.

Instead of bridge tournaments between retired members of the British East India Company and captains of industry smoking pipes and thick cigars, he saw the young and wealthy of Singapore dining on oysters and knocking back expensive drinks.