the job look like a robbery. “I think we’ll probably have to get up close to ’em,” Vamvakias noted. “You know what I mean? To make sure it gets done.” Among the weapons that Hunter had sug- gested, they settled on German-made MP7 machine guns, with the power to pierce some bulletproof vests. “That’ll guarantee what- ever gets in that kill zone goes down,” Vamvakias said. The Co- lombians would then help them get out of the country. “I’m glad you’re going to be part of the extraction stuff,” Vamvakias told them. “The job’s not the headache, it’s getting in and out.”

On September 24, 2013, everything was in place for both mis- sions. The meth was set to leave the Philippines by container, and Lim and Peralta convened at a hotel in Phuket to await its arrival. “All the main players are now on the ground,” Stammers emailed Le Roux, as he, Shackels, and Adrian Valkovic—a member of a local motorcycle club who had signed on as the “deputy ground commander” for the meth shipment, handling security—sat down for a final planning session. “Standing by for meet coordinates and time.”

The coordinates never came. Instead, heavily armed comman- dos from Thailand’s Narcotics Suppression Bureau swept in a few hours later and arrested the five men.

Meanwhile Hunter was at Le Roux’s nearby Loch Palm villa, awaiting updates on the Liberia assassination job. He was alone and unarmed when a dozen officers from the NSB arrived, led by the deputy police commissioner. They handcuffed him and led him outside, then sat him on the ground by the front door while police officials posed for photos beside him. In images that would soon run in newspapers around the world, Hunter appeared almost expressionless, staring into the cameras with his hands handcuffed be- hind his back. He was dressed in cargo shorts and a T-shirt with a SPRINGFIELD UNATHLETIC DEPT logo and an image of a drooling Homer Simpson asleep on a couch.

Five thousand miles away, Soborski and Filter were picked up