20: Bangkok

For the nine-hour duration of the flight to Bangkok Katie had become Olivia Staley, a nineteen-year-old student at the University of Melbourne who was flying to Thailand to meet up with two other students for a spontaneous mid-term long weekend. She'd spotted Zach sitting in the departure lounge and had stayed as far away as possible so he couldn't spot her. Business class boarded first, so she watched him show his boarding pass and walk down the tunnel before she approached the queue herself. She was in economy, stuck somewhere near the tail, which meant it was unlikely that Zach would have any reason to see her. She'd had to pass him to get to her seat, but he'd been engrossed in getting something out of the overhead locker and hadn't given her a second look.

The main problem was that nine hours was a long time to be stuck on an aeroplane and Katie had left in a hurry, so all she had to entertain herself were three fashion magazines she'd picked up in the departure lounge and her iPod. The in-flight entertainment system had a variety of films to watch, but most of them were dubbed into Thai with terrible English subtitles that she couldn't be bothered reading. Getting fed up of reading while the overweight man next to her shifted around and absorbed more of her seat, she rested her head on the seatback and wondered why undercover work was always so boring.

The flight left at four, which meant it landed in Bangkok at one in the morning, Australian time. George knew that whatever happened, Katie would contact ASIS first and not him, but he still couldn't sleep and spent a restless couple of hours using an online flight tracker to see where she was. Alice came in, looking exhausted, when she realised he was still up.

"I managed to speak to the travel agency today and told them Katie's off sick tomorrow, which should give us time to dye her hair back to its original colour."

"Sounds good."

"Anyway, I'm going to get to bed. I've been at work all day and the tiredness is catching up with me. Wake me if you need me."

As one o'clock came and went there was no word from Katie and George began to wonder if something had gone wrong. He had the CHERUB emergency number open in case he heard the worst, but he hoped he wouldn't have to ring it.

The flight landed in Bangkok without much ceremony and Katie was quick off the mark, grabbing her backpack from the overhead locker and dashing towards the front of the plane. It would be easy to lose Zach in the maze of the airport so she wanted to be somewhere she could keep an eye on him.

She kept her distance as they walked through the airport, staying behind him with her hair partially covering her face. If he was catching a connecting flight he wouldn't have to clear immigration, which would make her life easier since she wouldn't have to try and stick to a dodgy Australian accent during questioning by the Thai border force. To her relief he followed the signs to the departure lounge instead of going towards immigration, so she joined the small group of fellow passengers going in that direction and wished her backpack had wheels so she wouldn't have to carry it everywhere.

Zach stopped to buy a newspaper and browse some of the shops, which gave her the opportunity to grab a giant coffee from a stand and drink half of it as soon as it was cool enough. She'd been up early to go to work and wished Zach would get on with boarding his next flight. The only problem was, he could be stopping over for anything from an hour to thirteen.

George fell asleep once there was nothing to watch on the screen, so when he woke up to is phone ringing at half five in the morning he was still fully dressed and his mouth tasted extremely weird.

"Hello?" he said without reading the display through his half-closed eyes that were still getting used to the light.

"Brian?"

"Chelsea?" George asked, recognising Katie's voice but sticking to their undercover identities in case she was being overheard.

"Listen, I can't get through to our Australian friends and the departure lounge is absolutely deserted so I can't be sure that someone won't hear me."

"Understood. What's the situation?" George said, slipping into the professional manner he was supposed to use during operations.

Katie paused before answering. "I still have no idea which flight he's boarding, but he's met up with some people who I think he's meeting for the first time. I've got a few pictures but they're low-quality. I'm also dying for the loo but I can't go anywhere unless he moves first."

George couldn't help but laugh at the desperation in Katie's voice. "Think they're the suppliers?"

"Could be, but they won't be doing any business here where there's cameras and police everywhere. Listen, I'll email you and our Australian friends the pictures, but could you ring them and try and wake someone up? I need to know they're looking out for me."

"No problem," George replied.

"Okay, I'll speak soon."

"Take care," George said, but as he reached for the large red button to end the call, he heard Katie saying something urgently and he slapped the phone back to his ear.

"... he's moving, at long last. Looks like… they're heading for gates 100 to 150, so… okay, it's some place called N-A-Y space P-R-I space T-A-W. Never heard of it."

George's laptop was still on from the flight tracker and he'd searched for the place in an instant. "Apparently it's the capital of Burma."

"Tell ASIS immediately. I'll see you soon."

Katie hung up the phone and George pressed the speed dial for ASIS's Melbourne headquarters, feeling a surge of adrenaline even though he was sitting in his bed and badly needed to clean his teeth.

"ASIS? It's George," he said as soon as someone answered the phone.

"George? It's Linda, has something happened?"

"Hot off the press; Zach's going to the capital of Burma, some place called-"

"Nay Pri Taw?"

"That's the one."

"Brilliant. We'll get on it."

The flight that Zach was boarding wasn't on the airport's commercial schedule and Katie guessed it was a private jet, so she took down as many details about it as she could and forwarded them to ASIS. It departed on time at quarter to three in the morning local time, leaving Katie in a departure lounge that was deserted other than a few forlorn looking Chinese workers.

She bought another coffee after going to the loo and taking a long-overdue wee, then used the wi-fi on her phone to try and find the fastest route home. She'd always fancied visiting Thailand, but using a shaky passport wasn't the best way to do it and she felt safer moving on than trying to clear immigration. The fastest route involved a trip to Shanghai and then Kuala Lumpur, which would take ages but, since she wasn't paying, it was better than waiting in a departure lounge for fifteen hours for the next flight back to Melbourne.

Resigned to her fate, Katie headed to the ticket desk to buy her flights, hoping there was enough money in her bank account to pay for them.

George got up and went to school as normal the next day, wondering if all the excitement of the mission was over. ASIS had plenty of incriminating evidence about Zach and would be moving in to make an arrest before long, which meant that the only thing left for him to do was enjoy his last days in Australia before they headed back to campus. Riley was absent from school for some reason and George didn't really have any other friends at school, so he sat by himself most of the morning before getting bored and catching the train home when he decided that an afternoon of geography and woodwork didn't suit him. Katie had sent him a text letting him know she'd arrived in Shanghai so he typed out a reply that she'd get when she landed in Malaysia that evening, feeling a pang of jealousy that she'd at least been able to do something interesting for the mission.

He spent a lazy afternoon in the pool, soaking up the summer sun and swimming as many lengths as he could be bothered with before climbing onto a pool lounger and nodding off until Alice got home from work.

"How's it going, sport?" she asked, nudging him awake. "Have you heard from Chelsea?"

"My phone's inside," George replied, rubbing some sleep out of one eye.

"She says caught her flight to Melbourne just fine and she'll arrive somewhere around one in the morning, so she's getting a taxi back here," Alice told him. "You'd better check your phone in case there's anything important she's only told you."

Alice was exceptionally bright and George was sure she suspected that he and Katie were more than a couple of kids doing the government a favour, but revealing the existence of CHERUB campus to anyone not security-cleared was a sure-fire way to find yourself getting the boot, so George just grabbed his towel and headed indoors, feeling refreshed from his nap.

There was a recent text from Katie telling him she was about to board her final flight, but since then he'd had three messages and a missed call from ASIS. The messages were telling him to ring them, so he found the number he'd been given and dialled it.

"Hi George, we've got a bit of a situation down here," Dawn said when the phone was passed to her. "Got a minute?"

George pushed his bedroom door shut and sat on the bed. "Yeah, go ahead."

"Our boffins have just finished analyzing all of the documents we have relating to Zach and there's one missing."

"Missing?" George repeated. "How do you mean?"

"I don't understand all the financial stuff they keep going on about, but the simple version is that for most of our charges to stick, we need to prove that Zach paid some money or something. Without it, we might be able to convince the court, but with it we definitely can."

"That's great, but where do you think it might be?"

He heard Dawn let out a sigh. "We don't know. It's crucial that we have this document as soon as possible, since Zach could up and run at any time, or even just destroy it, especially if he has any suspicions about being investigated. Linda and I will come over tonight as soon as Katie's back to give you a briefing."

"Won't it look suspicious if you turn up in the middle of the night?" George asked.

"Maybe, but time isn't on our side. Let Alice know, will you?"

"No problem," George said, before saying goodbye and ending the call. It looked like the excitement was back in the mission, and he paused for a second to punch the air before typing out a quick text to Katie to let her know the situation. As soon as it was sent his phone buzzed to let him know he had another text, and for a moment he thought it was from Katie, but the name on the display was 'Riley Kurjak'. It was a text explaining that Riley had been down with a summer cold that morning but was feeling better, which put to rest any thoughts George had about Zach fleeing the country without telling anyone. He replied, saying he'd bunked off school since it was boring otherwise, before sliding his phone into the pocket of his shorts and throwing on a t-shirt so he'd look decent for dinner.