Killing Rain Part 9

I nodded. "When you put it that way, I'm not so sure, either."

He gave me a medium-wattage grin. "Well, tell me what you want, anyway."

"She's coming to Bangkok. I told her I would meet her outside of customs. If she puts people there to antic.i.p.ate me, you can spot them."

"Okay . . ."

"We'll take a taxi from the international terminal to the domestic. You'll be tailing us, so you should have some opportunities to tell if we're followed. If I'm clean, we'll go through security on the domestic side. I'll have two tickets for p.h.u.ket, which is where Delilah and I are going, and you'll have a ticket for somewhere else. That way you'll be able to get through security, too, and you'll have another chance in the boarding area to confirm that we're alone."

"p.h.u.ket, huh? Hope you talked to your travel agent. There are still a few places that aren't back on line after the tsunami."

"I know."

"Or you could go to Ko Chang, it's in the Gulf of Thailand and they didn't get hit at all. Plus it's less built up and only about a four-hour drive from Bangkok."

"I know. I want to fly. We'll be harder to follow that way."

"Ah, that's a good point. Well, p.h.u.ket sure is nice, anyway. Where are you planning on staying?"

I balked for a second out of habit, then said, "Amanpuri."

"Hoo-ah! Paradise on earth! Stayed there once and saw Mick Jagger. My kind of place, although I believe I do slightly prefer the beach at the Chedi next door. I won't need one of the villas or anything like that. Just a pavilion ought to be fine. With an ocean view, of course. No sense being in paradise if you can't see the water."

"No, I don't think . . ."

"Hey, how am I going to watch your back if I'm not there? She could call her people once you arrive, and you'd be all on your own."

"I can take care of myself."

"Then why are you asking me for my help?"

"Look, I don't know if I can get another room there. I was lucky to get the one on such short notice."

"Come on, man, you know their bookings are off because tourists think the tsunami damage is worse than it really is. All on account of them CNN camera crews going in and asking the locals, 'Can you take us to a scene of appropriately picturesque destruction that'll increase our ratings back home?' And then their viewers think, 's.h.i.t, that's the whole island, I better just go to Hawaii instead.' But you and me, we know better, don't we?"

I didn't see any room for negotiation in his expression. I sighed. "All right. But this woman is sharp, understand? She notices what goes on around her and she remembers faces. If you stay in sniper mode, you'll be fine. But if you slip, she'll make you in a heartbeat. And that could multiply our problems."

He grinned. "I promise to behave."

I looked at him. A part of me was shaking its head, thinking, Nothing good can come of this.

But I only said, "All right."

"Well, I'm glad to be getting an all-expenses-paid trip to Amanpuri, but I still don't like it, partner. Mixing business and pleasure like this ain't smart. It's apt to leave you confused. And you getting killed would be a p.i.s.s-poor way to clarify the confusion."

I took another sip of my cappuccino. "There's some risk, but there's a reward, too. If I don't meet her, I'll blow a chance to learn what the Israelis know, what they might be planning."

"Yeah, son, but that ain't the only reward that's on your mind here."

"No, it's not."

"All right, you're a grownup, I'm not going to tell you what time to go to bed or who to take there. I hope she's worth it, though."

I nodded. A breeze picked up, and for a moment, the terrace was actually chilly. I wondered about the wisdom of what I was doing, and about the fairness of involving Dox.

The stars, which had been briefly visible, were gone now, reclaimed by the polluted sky. I looked out at the lights of the city. The meal over, I no longer had the pleasant sense of being above it all, removed from it. Rather, I felt that I was right in the middle of something, probably more than I knew.

EIGHT.

HILGER SAT at his desk in his eighty-eighth-floor office at the International Finance Center. Two IFC was one of the newest buildings on Hong Kong and, at 1,362 feet, the tallest. He had to admit, he really liked the place. It wasn't just the views, the amenities, the feeling of being on top of the world, detached, all-powerful, untouchable. The building was also the perfect cover. The lease itself was so breathtakingly expensive that it was inconceivable that a government or any other nonprofit could be footing the bill for it. And, indeed, Uncle Sam wasn't paying for Hilger's lease, or for any other aspect of his operation. These days, Uncle Sam pretty much left Hilger alone, enjoying the quality of his intelligence but preferring not to know too much about how he came by it. All of which suited Hilger just fine.

The room was done in natural oak and off-white wool Berber carpet. The desktop supported only a few items: a brushed nickel Leonardo Marelli halogen reading light; a Bang & Olufsen Beocom 2500 telephone, with CIA-issue Secure Telephone Unit circuitry installed; and an anodized aluminum Macintosh thirty-inch flat panel display with a wireless keyboard and mouse. The overall look, which he had put to good effect with numerous clients, was solidity, focus, money, connections. The view, of the skysc.r.a.pers of Central and Victoria Harbor, was part of the impression, and Hilger liked it a lot. Tonight, to minimize reflection and reveal the glowing cityscape without, he had the room illuminated only by the desk light. Gazing out at the view soothed Hilger's mind, helped him figure things out. Which was good, because at the moment there was a lot of figuring to be done.

The situation wasn't entirely positive, certainly, but things were still fixable. Yes, he'd lost two men, but he'd lost men before and understood that losing men, perhaps losing his own life, was part of any mission. It was the mission that mattered, the operation. The operation had to succeed and he would ensure that it did.

He took things backward. The goal: protect the operation. Which meant: ending the threat to Manny, who was a critical part of the operation. How to do that? Easy enough. Find out who had been behind the hit and who had tried to carry it out, and then, insofar as possible, eliminate both.

The problem was doing it all under pressure. After meeting Manny in Kowloon that morning, he had returned to his office. There was a message waiting for him from someone in his network who was currently stationed at Langley. Hilger had called him. The man had offered a heads-up: the news that Calver and Gibbons had been gunned down in Manila had reached the top immediately. Manila Station had liaised with the Metro Manila police, who had checked the dead bodyguard's records and learned that his only client was one Manheim Lavi, Known Major Sc.u.mbag. Lavi was currently unreachable, but the inference was that the bodyguard had died protecting, and that the two dead ex-spooks had been mixed up with, said Known Major Sc.u.mbag. The burning question, his man had said, was: What were Calver and Gibbons doing with the Sc.u.mbag, and who else was involved? Hilger knew he had to tie up all the loose ends before someone grabbed hold of them and unraveled the whole f.u.c.king thing.

Well, on the first front, finding out who had tried to carry out the hit, he had managed to move quickly. From the description Manny provided, Hilger had immediately suspected John Rain, who he knew had done the Belghazi job at Kwai Chung in Hong Kong last year. Hilger had been against that op, and had even tried to have Rain killed to stop it. Rain had proven a hard man to deter, though, and he'd gotten to Belghazi anyway. Which, strangely enough, turned out to have been all right: that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Belghazi had been trying to move radiological missiles right under Hilger's nose. If Rain hadn't wound up doing the job, Hilger would have had to do it himself.

What a mess that had been, though. Some of the a.s.sets he'd been so carefully cultivating had suspected he'd been involved. If it hadn't been for Manny, he doubted he would have been able to regain their trust. And then there was the heat from the CIA, which wanted to know exactly what the h.e.l.l his involvement had been and why none of the proper paperwork had been filled out. There, too, outside intervention had made the difference. His National Security Council contact had effectively bought off the Director of Central Intelligence by telling the DCI the Agency could take carte blanche public credit for stopping a terrorist operation at Kwai Chung. It had all been in the news the next day, with the heroes of the CIA, the DCI foremost among them, standing squarely in the adulatory spotlight. And there had been some side benefit, too: because the National Security Council spoke in the name of the President, the fact that the NSC had intervened aggressively on Hilger's behalf told the DCI that Hilger was protected, all the way to the top. The DCI, the DDO, and pretty much everyone else who mattered in the Directorate of Operations left him alone after that.

But there was a new DCI now, this guy Goss, and with all the firings and resignations, all the people who had been intimidated were now gone. The good news was that Goss didn't have a clue, at least not yet. He had so many things he was trying to get under control that Hilger could probably fly under his radar for a while. If there were another slip, though, or if Goss took it into his head to a.s.sert himself by getting in Hilger's face, things could get messy again. Yeah, maybe he'd be able to call in another round of favors and get the mess cleaned up, but he preferred not to have a showdown with the new management so soon. Even if Hilger won, there would be grudges after. Hunters don't like to be interrupted in the act of pouncing on their prey.

Rain's involvement suggested that the CIA had ordered the hit, as it had with Belghazi. The thought was almost sickening. If those idiots had any idea what Hilger was up to, of what in three short years he had managed to accomplish, they would know to get out of his way and leave him alone. Leave him alone, h.e.l.l, if they had any sense of proportion they would f.u.c.king genuflect.

He drummed his fingers along the edge of the blond wooden desktop and watched the lighted barges inching like water bugs along the dark surface of the harbor a quarter mile below. He didn't know why his men believed in him, exactly, but they did. They always had. He sensed that, at just south of forty years old, he had become a sort of father figure to them. It would be too much to say that they worshipped him, but his opinion of them mattered hugely, as did his understanding, his forgiveness, for the things their work required them to do. He'd never had anyone like himself in his own life, but he understood the power, and the responsibility, of the position. He could pat a man on the back, sometimes literally, and tell him that it was all right, that he had done the right thing, that the images and the smells, the fears and the doubts, the corrosive effects of conscience, all these were in fact part of the man's n.o.bility for not having taken the easy, the common path of shying away from what needed to be done. And because no one could ever know of their quiet heroics, of the anonymous sacrifices they made, because there would never be medals or ticker-tape parades or the thanks of a grateful nation, his understanding and, when necessary, his forgiveness were all his men had to comfort them. It wasn't enough to remove the weight, true, but it was enough to lighten it. Sometimes he wished he had someone he could turn to in a like manner, but he didn't, and he supposed this was part of the burden of leadership, to bear the doubts, and the hard memories, alone.

Manny had said there had been another man, a big white guy. That wasn't much to go on by itself, but Hilger had more. There had been a sniper at Kwai Chung. Maybe it had been Rain, but Hilger knew that Rain had no sniping background, and the gunman at Kwai Chung had been a pro. He'd taken the heads off those two Transdniester bagmen from far enough away so that no one had even heard the shots. That didn't feel like Rain, who worked from close up. Hilger couldn't be sure, but he suspected the shooter had been a CIA contractor called Dox. Hilger, through an intermediary, had tried to hire Dox to eliminate Rain and save Belghazi. Afterward, he wondered if the d.a.m.n ex-Marine had decided to work with Rain instead of against him. He knew they had "served" together in Afghanistan, helping the Muj chase out the Red Army. He'd expected Dox's mercenary instincts to be more powerful than any sense of comradeship the man might still feel from that shared conflict, but it seemed in that respect Hilger had misjudged.

He had his own files on both these men, complete with photographs. The photo of Rain was out of date, but Hilger had used some Agency software to update it. He'd shown the photos to Manny before Manny returned to Manila, and Manny had given him a positive ID on both.

So far, so good. But who had been behind the hit was proving more difficult to divine. The CIA had been his first guess, but he hadn't been able to find out anything there. Of course, his inquiries had to be somewhat oblique, lest someone connect him through Manny to the men who had died in Manila, but he had his sources, and all of them had come up blank. The CIA might have wanted Manny dead, but it seemed they hadn't tried to bring it about.

Who, then? Manny hadn't wanted to face it, but, as they'd discussed the day before, the list was anything but short. The problem was that Rain had no known connections with any of the primary suspects. He had a history with the j.a.panese Liberal Democratic Party and of course with the Agency, the latter dating all the way back to Vietnam, but he wasn't known to work with anyone else. That didn't mean there weren't any other clients, of course; Rain was a freelancer, a mercenary. But expanding a client base in Rain's line of work isn't easy. You can't just hang out a shingle, or take out a few ads. New clients come slowly, if at all.

Well, there was a fairly straightforward way to get to the bottom of this. All he had to do was ask Rain or Dox. They might not want to tell him, true, but they'd be inclined to believe him when he said that he understood they were just contractors, that he had no personal beef with them nor any professional reason to want them removed. h.e.l.l, after he'd cleared this whole thing up, he'd be happy to have them on his team.

What would make it sound appealing was that it was very nearly true. It would be true, in fact, except they'd killed Calver and Gibbons, which did indeed make things personal. And they had scared Manny's boy, ruining any chance that Manny might want to just let bygones be bygones, as well.

All he needed to do was get to them. A clean s.n.a.t.c.h, the back of an unmarked, un.o.btrusive van. A reasonable, man-to-man conversation, if possible. Electrified alligator clips attached to their scrota, if not. Either way, he would get the information he wanted.

He took a deep breath. Yes, he needed someone who could s.n.a.t.c.h them, then interrogate them. And who knew the region well enough to be able to make it all happen quickly.

There were several men he could have chosen, but one name stood out: Mitch.e.l.l William Winters. The man was an expert. He had trained with the famed FBI Hostage Rescue Team and rendered more than his share of bad guys. And he had worked in Asia, doing security consulting for companies that needed such a.s.sistance in the region. Winters was into martial arts-Hilger remembered hearing about kali or something like that in the Philippines and Thai boxing in Bangkok. He didn't particularly care about the karate stuff-Hilger's choice of martial art was a SIG P229, concealed in a belly band carry, and he had yet to meet the Long Dong Do master who could block a bullet from it-but the experience in Asia would be critical.

And Winters had another plus: Hilger knew he was a graduate of an off-the-books CIA hostile interrogation program. The program was ostensibly designed to teach operators to resist torture, but it was well known in the community that, in doing so, the program taught torture itself, and that this was its true purpose. Some people took to the course material more readily than others. Winters, Hilger knew, had a knack.

The sky was beginning to grow light behind Central off to his right. He consulted his directory, then picked up the phone.

NINE.

AFTER DINNER, Dox insisted on heading over to the go-go bars in Patpong. I wasn't happy about it, but I supposed I would just have to accept that the man was large enough to contain mult.i.tudes: lethal and loud; cultured and crude; profound and party-going. And what he had said earlier, about having been doing fine on his own, was of course true. Maybe I was being unfair to him. I decided I would try to trust him more. The thought was strange and uncomfortable, but it felt like the right thing to do.

I stopped by an Internet cafe to check on Delilah's plans. There was a message waiting from her: she was coming in on the Air France flight, and would be arriving in Bangkok the following afternoon at 4:35. All right. I made the necessary reservations for Dox, went back to the Sukhothai, took a hot bath in the excellent tub, got in bed, and slept.

But my sleep was restless. I dreamed that I was a little boy again, in the apartment where I had grown up, and that something was chasing me there from room to room. I called for my parents, but no one came, and I was terrified at being alone. My father had kept a katana, the j.a.panese long sword, which had belonged, he said, to his great-grandfather, on a ceremonial stand in my parents' bedroom, and I ran in there and slammed the door behind me. Then I went to grab the katana, but instead of one, there were two, and I couldn't choose which to pick up. I froze. My mind was shouting, Just pick one! Either one! but I couldn't move. And then the door started to open . . .

I woke and sprang off the bed into a crouch. I remained like that for a long time, catching my breath, feeling the sweat dry on my body, trying to shake off the dream and come back to myself. Finally I straightened, used the toilet, then took another bath.

But this one didn't help me sleep at all. I lay in bed for a long time afterward, thinking. It bothered me that I'd frozen again, even in a dream. Two swords within easy reach-an embarra.s.sment of riches if you're in danger, you would think. And yet I couldn't choose either one. If I hadn't awoken, whatever had been pursuing me in the dream would have killed me.

DOX AND I went to the airport early the next afternoon to give ourselves time to establish a countersurveillance route and walk it through. We were using the commo gear from Manila. If Dox had to warn me of anything, he could do it at a distance and right in my ear. This would give us a better range of options than if he had been trying to protect me from afar without contact.

The area outside customs was crowded with people waiting for arrivals: families, Thai and expat; hotel car drivers in white livery; greasy-haired backpackers in sandals with adventure-seeking friends coming in from Europe and Australia. No one set off my radar, but the area was too crowded to be sure. If there were trouble, I expected it would look Israeli. After all, part of the reason Delilah's people had brought me in to begin with was their lack of Asian resources. The "lack" was relative, of course: through both the gemstone trade and the underground arms market to groups like the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Israel does have contacts in Thailand. Still, if they wanted to move quickly enough to take advantage of any intel Delilah might have supplied them, I didn't think they'd be able to outsource. None of which is to say I ignored people who didn't fit the profile, but it does help to keep certain guidelines in mind as you go.

I set up far to the right of the exit, where I would be able to see her as she emerged from customs but where she would have to look hard for me. Dox was positioned a few meters behind me and to my left, and when I casually checked in his direction, it took me a second to spot him, even though I knew him and I knew where to look. He really did have that sniper's knack for disappearing into the background.

There were two possibilities: first, they would have someone pre-positioned outside of customs, where I had told Delilah I would meet her, along with when. Second, they would have someone on the plane with her, who would have to follow her if his presence were going to serve any purpose. Of the two, I thought the second the more likely, as well as the easier to deal with. More likely, because their probable lack of Asian resources would prevent them from getting someone in place that quickly; easier, because whoever it was would have to be close to Delilah coming off the plane and would have a hard time staying submerged once I started moving her. Either way, I wasn't unduly worried about someone making a move inside the airport. The levels of surveillance, security, and control over ingress and egress involved would make an airport job almost impossible to pull off cleanly.

The plane arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule, with nothing noticeably out of place in the crowd beforehand. I saw Delilah immediately as she came through. She was wearing a navy pantsuit and brown pumps, her long blond hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. A crocodile carry-on was slung across her left shoulder, the bag resting comfortably against her opposite hip. The surface brand was looks, money, confidence, style. There was a lot more to her than just that, I knew, but she wore that outward persona well.

I reached into my pocket and turned off the commo gear, then turned on the mini bug detector Harry had made for me in Tokyo and that I've relied on since. The former would have set off the latter, and I wanted to make sure Delilah wasn't wearing a transmitter.

She looked around, saw me, and smiled. I felt something going on down south, like a slumbering dog stirring in response to an enticing aroma, and I thought, Down, boy. Don't embarra.s.s me.

She walked over and put the bag down, then leaned in and kissed me lightly on the mouth. I put my arms around her and pulled her close. She smelled the way she did the first time I'd kissed her, clean and fresh and with a tantalizing trace of some perfume I couldn't name. The warmth of her, the feel of her against me, her scent, it all seemed to ease in under my clothes, and in the crowded airport the embrace was suddenly private, focused, almost naked in its intimacy.

She pulled her head back and looked at me, one hand resting against the back of my neck, the other dropping gently to my chest. The dog was coming fully awake now. Another minute and the d.a.m.ned thing would sit up and beg. I eased away and looked at her.

She smiled, her cobalt eyes alight with good humor. "I guess this is when I'm supposed to ask, 'Is that a gun in your pocket . . .' "

I felt myself blush. "No, I'm definitely just glad to see you."

She laughed. "Where are we going?"

The bug detector slumbered peacefully in my pocket. She wasn't wired. I struck a casual pose, my hands in my pockets. I switched the bug detector off and powered the commo gear on. I heard a slight hiss in my ear ca.n.a.l where the flesh-colored unit was inserted.

"A little place I know in p.h.u.ket," I said.

"Wonderful! I've heard it's beautiful, but have never been. How are things there, after the tsunami?"

"The place we're going is elevated from the beach and did fine. Actually, most of the island is recovering nicely. How much time do you have?"

"Three days. Maybe longer. You?"

"I don't know. I'm waiting for something. I hope it'll take at least a few days to materialize."

"Well, let's not waste any time. Where do we go?"

"The other terminal. Our flight leaves in an hour."

I eschewed the shuttle bus, instead choosing a route that required a walk through the terminal and a descent to the level below us. She knew what I was doing but didn't comment on it. On the level below, I flagged down a cab and had it take us to the domestic terminal. A minute after we had pulled away from the curb, I heard Dox in my ear: "All right, so far, so good. It doesn't look like anyone's trying to stay with you. If they are, they're sure not being obvious. I'll head over and see if we see any familiar faces."

The cab pulled up in front of the domestic terminal. I paid the driver, got out, and held the door for Delilah, checking behind and around us while I did. She saw what I was doing-I wasn't trying to be subtle, and she would have spotted it anyway-and again, she didn't comment. I logged her failure to protest as a possible source of concern. In Rio, we had moved past the point where I was treating her as a potential threat, and I knew that my willingness to relax my guard had been important to her. That my mistrust had apparently resumed should have been the source of insult, and, I knew from experience with her occasional temper, of anger. Unless, of course, she was aware of the reasons behind the resurgence and was misguidedly trying to lull me.

We went inside the terminal and headed down to gate eight. A few minutes later, Dox moved in, keeping to the periphery. I heard him again in my ear: "Okay, partner, there is no way you were followed over here. Also I don't see anyone here who was waiting outside international arrivals. So unless someone knew where you were headed and got here before us, you are in the clear. I think the next point of concern will be our destination. She might make a call or something, tell her people where you are after you've arrived. That way they wouldn't have to give themselves away trying to follow you. If I was her, sorry, if I were her, I know you're sensitive about that, and I had bad intentions, that's the way I'd do it."

Enough, I thought. It's not as though I hadn't already worked this all through myself. In fact, Dox and I had already discussed it all. He was feeling awfully talkative.

Delilah and I made some small talk about the flight. She had flown first cla.s.s and had slept the whole way, and was refreshed and ready for an evening in a tropical paradise. But Dox kept jabbering, and with Delilah right there next to me, I had no way of telling him to knock it off.

"And d.a.m.n, man, I have got to tell you, that is one fine-looking woman! Why didn't you say so? I would have understood right away why you wanted to see her. h.e.l.l, I'd have tried to see her myself. I would have done your countersurveillance for free, partner, if I'd known she was going to be the subject, you wouldn't even have had to pay for my vacation. Well, too late now, a deal's a deal."

He stopped, and I thought, Thank G.o.d. But a moment later it started up again: "And here I thought you'd been leading a lonely life with nothing but your tired right hand for comfort! I judged you wrong, man, and I'm big enough to admit it, too. From now on, you're my hero, I'm taking all my romance cues from you."

Once we were on the plane I knew I was safe, at least temporarily, and I took the earpiece out, satisfied to think that Dox would now be talking only to himself.

Delilah and I caught up some more. The conversation was largely small talk, but I was probing, as well. So far I had two pieces of data, and both pointed to a problem: the timing of her call, and her failure to react to my obvious security moves. The jury wasn't in yet, but the evidence was piling up. It bothered me, at some level, that it had come to this. In Rio it had been good, it really had. I should have just been able to deal with it-she was a professional, and business is business-but yeah, it was bothering me.

G.o.d, she was beautiful, though. You could see why she was so effective in her work. There was something about her, an aura, a magnetism, that I'd never encountered in anyone else.

And despite my suspicions, it felt good to be with her. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the data would start to acc.u.mulate in a more favorable direction.

The approach and landing were smooth, and a hotel car was waiting outside arrivals to take us to Amanpuri. The sun was getting low in the sky as we drove along p.h.u.ket's two-lane, narrow roads toward the resort. I knew what she must be thinking: This is it? It's actually not that much. But we were still somewhat inland. The island's beauty doesn't really unfold until you hit the coast. At which time, I knew, her diminishing expectations would make Amanpuri that much more breathtaking.

We pulled in off the resort's winding, gated drive just as the sun was setting behind the steep, Thai-style rooflines of the bungalows and pavilions and the Andaman Sea beyond them. Palm trees swayed in silhouette to a gentle ocean breeze. A teak terrace flowed from the edge of the driveway to a long, black-bottomed pool, its surface like polished onyx against the darkening sky. In the tenuous golden light, we might have been looking at a movie set.

A porter opened the car door and we got out. "Welcome to Amanpuri," he said, pressing his palms together under his chin and bowing his head in a formal wai, the Thai att.i.tude of greeting and grat.i.tude.

Delilah looked around, then at me. Her mouth was slightly agape.