Killing Rain aka One Last Kill

TWELVE

DELILAH WAITED AN HOUR to make sure that Rain and Dox had sufficient time to depart, then called Gil on his cell phone.

He answered on the first ring, and she imagined him as she always did at this stage in an operation, sitting alone in a dim hotel room, needing neither food nor other sustenance, the cell phone placed on a table or desk in front of him, silently and patiently waiting for the unit to ring so that he could venture wraith-like into the world and do what he was best at.

“Ken,” she heard him say in Hebrew. Yes.

“It’s me,” she answered. There was no response. Ignoring what she interpreted as one of his little power games, she went on. “Our friend left this morning. Packed his bags and took off.”

There was a pause, then he said, “Shit. Where are you?”

“Phuket.”

“Why didn’t you call sooner?”

“I never had a chance. I was with him the whole time.”

“Doesn’t he sleep?”

“Do you?”

There was a pause, no doubt while he tried to think of a good response. When he couldn’t, he said, “So he took you to Phuket.”

She caught the innuendo and felt a surge of anger. “You know how it is, Gil,” she said. “Some men just have the right touch with women. They know how to get what they want.”

As soon as it was out, she regretted it. Mostly, her deep-seated need not to take shit served her well, but this time it was going to hinder her. She wanted information from Gil. To get it, she had to manage him, manipulate him, not react by reflex to his constant, petty provocations. Yes, she was counterpunching, but he was still making her fight his kind of fight. The way to win was to change the game entirely.

Gil was silent on the other end of the phone, and she considered the possibility that her comment had actually wounded him. The thought softened her anger, made her feel more generous. She sensed that this feeling might be useful.

She considered. Maybe what Gil needed was just a victory in their constant verbal sparring. Maybe it would restore his sense of manhood, allow him to behave in some way other than trying to hurt her. She’d often thought that this was what the government needed to do with the Palestinians. After all, it was only after the Yom Kippur War, after giving Israel a bloody nose, that Egypt had been willing to make peace. Maybe Gil was the same. And maybe, if he found himself enjoying an unfamiliar position of success and power, he might be generous, or anyway careless, with information. Yes, that was the way to play it. Let him win.

After a moment he asked, “Well, what happened?”

“I think he got suspicious.”

“Any idea about where he’s gone?”

“No.”

“Shit,” he said again.

Shit, sure. For Gil, not being able to kill someone he had fixed in his sights must have felt like coitus interruptus.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“Bangkok.”

She had expected that. She had told them she was traveling to Bangkok to meet Rain. Gil would have wanted to be as close as possible so he could move quickly.

“I have to pass through Bangkok to get wherever I’m going next,” she said. “Why don’t we meet there and I’ll brief you?” And then, as though she had only just thought of it and hadn’t actually been planning this, she added, “Or you could come here. It’s beautiful and I don’t know when either of us will have another chance.”

There was a long pause. Then he said, “It’s better if you come here.”

The pause told her he had been tempted by her suggestion of Phuket as the venue, perhaps by the way she had subtly conjoined the two of them with her use of the plural pronoun. The reply itself told her he was suspicious; otherwise, the temptation would have prevailed.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll catch the next flight and call you when I arrive. It should be just a few hours, if that.”

“Okay,” he said, and hung up.

She nodded. An unfamiliar place, just the two of them, far from the people they knew… all an ideal environment for getting someone to relax and open up. She had seen it many times before. Hell, John had just used it on her.

She had the hotel car take her to the airport and was able to get a Thai Air flight that left less than an hour later. She called Gil when she arrived at Bangkok airport. He asked her if she could get to the Oriental Hotel and meet him on the restaurant veranda, overlooking the river. She told him she would be there within an hour.

The midday traffic wasn’t too awful, and the ride took less than forty minutes. The moment she saw the hotel, she understood why Gil had chosen it. A classic colonial structure, it sprawled across a city block and would have entrances and exits all over. Guests could leave via cab, tuk-tuk, or some sort of river taxi adjacent to the hotel entrance. And the security, though subtle, was everywhere, in the form of surveillance cameras and guards with earpieces. All of which would make it hard to establish a choke point for an ambush, hard to carry out the ambush without being captured on videotape, and hard to follow someone out of the hotel without staying unacceptably close. Gil wasn’t just suspicious; he was downright worried that she had gone over to the other side.

For a moment, she felt the familiar indignant anger rising. Then she realized: He’s not entirely off the mark.

She walked through the lobby and out onto the veranda. Gil was leaning on the balcony as though in appreciation of the tourist-perfect river scene beyond. But he checked his back within a moment of her arrival and saw her. He straightened and nodded. As she approached, she saw him look behind her, then to his flanks. He was wearing an untucked, short-sleeved, button-down shirt, like most of the other tourists here. The difference being that, in Gil’s case, the casual local attire would make it easier for him to conceal the pistol Delilah knew he carried. Gil was right-handed, and, with the shirt out, he probably had the gun on his right hip, which she judged to be the appropriate compromise here between concealment and access. Not that her take on all this was particularly relevant at the moment-this was Gil, after all, and, even if he was an asshole, they were on the same side-but such assessments had become second nature to her, and went on in the background regardless of whom she was meeting.

“Nice place,” she said, ignoring his obvious suspicions.

He nodded and said nothing. He was coiled tight, she could feel it. She would have to find a way to calm him down.

“What do you want to do?” she asked. “Stay here? Go somewhere else?”

He looked at her for a long moment, then shrugged. “We can stay here.”

“Good. I’m hungry.”

They ate at the Verandah Restaurant overlooking the river. It was a beautiful scene, and she was able to take in all of it because Gil took the seat that put his back to the water. Having her back to the door wasn’t her favorite way to sit, but many of her targets had some security consciousness and she was used to the disadvantage. Call it an occupational hazard.

They ordered khao phad goong-they were in Bangkok, after all, and might as well take advantage of the local cuisine-and talked. She explained how things had gone with Rain since she had first met him at the airport in Bangkok. She let Gil ask the questions. At first, he indulged himself with some periodic innuendo. She had anticipated this, and planned to ignore it, but after a few annoying jabs she found herself saying, “Look, can we just be professional about this?” That seemed to sober him, and she realized that her reaction, more genuine than the gambit she had originally planned, had been the better choice. From then on, he kept the bullshit in check, and she answered his questions as forthrightly as he would expect. She wanted this to feel more like a debriefing than a briefing. That would be more comfortable for him. It would make him feel in charge.

He glanced around frequently. To an outsider, it would have looked like he was enjoying his exotic surroundings, trying to take it all in. Or perhaps that he was waiting for someone, looking up from time to time to see if the other party had arrived. But she knew where it was coming from. And she didn’t like that it wasn’t going away. She decided to call him on it.

“Am I making you nervous?” she asked, during one of his perimeter checks, with a friendly, slightly amused smile.

He looked at her. “No.”

Her smile broadened, but its gentleness remained. “I thought for a moment that you didn’t trust me.”

“I don’t trust anyone.”

That, she suspected, was the sad truth.

“But me, in particular,” she said, as though this was something she regretted.

“It’s not personal.”

“Are you sure?” Her tone had just the right mixture of sadness and uncertainty.

He shook his head, afraid or unwilling to go there. “What would have tipped him off?” he asked.

She recognized that the gambit hadn’t succeeded. It was all right, she would keep playing it by ear. She shrugged. “He’s naturally paranoid. Up until my suggestion of a private beach, he’d been in charge of the arrangements. Someone else proposing the time and place…”

“You shouldn’t have been in such a hurry. That’s what spooked him.”

Ordinarily, that kind of comment would cause her to go for the jugular. That’s what Gil was expecting, and prepared to deal with. But she’d sparred with him enough today. If he wanted to push hard, she would just step out of the way. Let’s see him keep his balance then.

“I know,” she said, looking down as though this was a difficult admission, as though he had worn her out. “I’m sorry. I should have been more subtle with him. It’s my fault.”

There was a pause while Gil digested this. Then he said, “It’s not like you, that’s all. Your instincts are usually good.”

Ostensibly a compliment, but really a way of demonstrating that it was his purview and prerogative to judge. And therefore, again, a comment that would ordinarily set her off.

She smiled wanly, as though both appreciative of his expression of confidence and embarrassed by what had precipitated it, then looked away.

After a moment, he said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find another way.”

Her earlier realization that she had hurt him had softened her, and now her apparent surrender was having the same effect on him. Good.

She looked at him and said, “Thanks.”

He shook his head and looked away as though embarrassed by her gratitude. She saw her opening and said, “Gil. Why are you always so… hostile to me?”

His expression was of someone trying to look perplexed and not quite pulling it off. “Hostile to you? I’m not hostile.”

“Come on, you know you are. I can feel it all the time.”

He shook his head again. “Look, I’ve got a job to do and I’m serious about it. I don’t always have time to be diplomatic. Some people don’t understand that.”

Sure, that’s part of it, she thought, respecting his instinct for offering up something that wasn’t untrue, but simply half true.

She offered a self-conscious laugh. “Okay, maybe I’m being too sensitive.”

“You’ve got a hard job, too,” he offered. “I know that.”

She looked down, as though his kindness had touched some deep part of her psyche, as though she wanted to tell him something more, but didn’t know how to find the words. She noted that he hadn’t done one of his visual scans in almost a minute.

They were halfway to a connection. She knew he would be finding the prospect attractive, and wouldn’t want her to pull back from it now.

“I’ll put up another message on the bulletin board,” she said. “Tell him I’m offended that he would leave me like that. Maybe I can get him to meet me again.”

Gil nodded. She sensed that he would have preferred to stay on a less operational track. That he might unconsciously be willing to jump through a few hoops to get back to it.

“Or maybe we could get a lead from the CIA,” she went on. “They’re looking for him, too. Have they made any inquiries with us?”

“No.”

“No? I would have thought they might check with friendly intelligence services.”

“Not yet.”

She nodded, then said, “You know, I was thinking about something. It’ll sound strange, but… Are we sure those men were CIA?”

He nodded, probably enjoying the feeling of having information that she lacked, enjoying being in a position where she would have to ask him. “We’re sure,” he said.

“Because, you know how the Americans are. It would be hard for them to run a guy like Lavi. If Congress found out, someone could get in trouble.”

Gil laughed. Making fun of CIA fecklessness was like fishing in a barrel. And the joke had reminded him subtly that, c’mon, Gil, we’re not like that. We’re on the same team.

“Look,” he said. “About a year ago, when we first got suspicious about what Lavi might be up to, I led the team that monitored him with spot surveillance and electronically. We saw him meet more than once with an American who I knew in the first Gulf War as Jim Huxton, but who now seems to go by Jim Hilger. At the time, Hilger was with America’s Third Special Forces. The two Americans who Rain killed in Manila were part of Hilger’s unit. After the war they all left the military to work for the CIA.”

She was surprised that his ties went back so far. “You… worked with them?”

He nodded. “Targeting Hussein’s mobile SCUD missile launchers. I don’t know what else they were up to. They certainly didn’t tell us about it.”

She considered. “They told you they were going into the CIA?”

He shrugged. “You know. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. But Hilger’s behavior with Lavi confirms it, not that any confirmation was necessary. We’ve got electronic intercepts. Hilger has a CIA cryptonym: ‘Top Dog.’ You want to know the crypt they gave Lavi?”

She nodded.

“ ‘Jew-boy,’ ” he said.

“Wow.”

He shrugged again. “That’s how we know.”

“Do we know what those men were doing with Lavi in Manila?”

“We don’t. We didn’t know they were going to be there, obviously, or we would have warned Rain off.”

“What do you think the Agency was getting from Lavi?”

“I don’t know. Whatever it was, they weren’t sharing it with us. If they were, we might have decided Lavi was more useful alive than dead, at least for a while. As it is, the government just wants people like Lavi…” He waved a hand as though throwing something away, disposing of it.

“So someone else can take his place,” she said, with a genuinely sad smile.

“You know how it is. Disrupt and deprive is the name of the game. Taking out Lavi will disrupt networks that rely on him. And deprive them of his expertise.”

She nodded. Now was the moment to return the conversation to its more personal flavor. She would oblige him, but not in the way he was hoping.

“Remember that time in Vienna?” she asked, looking at him.

He returned her look but didn’t answer. She knew he wanted to say “yes” to get her to continue, but that he was afraid that uttering the word would be to confess to something he didn’t want to acknowledge.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to. But I can’t. With colleagues, I have to have distance. Otherwise I would lose my mind. Can you understand?”

He nodded uncomfortably. What else could he do?

“I admire you for what you do,” she went on. “I know it must be difficult. I just… just wanted to tell you that.”

The subtext was, there are so many other things I would like to say. Feeling admired, even desired, couldn’t help but soften him. Or fail to distract him from the more substantive inquiries she had just made.

“It’s okay,” he said, and gave her a fleeting and hesitant smile.

She had gotten him to agree that nothing was going to happen this time. And to hope, by implication, that there might be a time in the future.

She gave him a smile of her own. Men were so easy.

THIRTEEN

BACK IN BANGKOK, Dox and I checked into the Grand Hyatt Erawan on Ratchadamri. It wasn’t as discreet a hotel as the Sukhothai, but I’m not usually comfortable using the same place twice in a row. What it lacked in low-key charm, though, the Erawan made up for operationally: it offered multiple entrances and exits on two floors and a significant security infrastructure in the form of guards and cameras. Ordinarily, surveillance and security are a hindrance to me and I try to avoid them. But this time, I wanted to be someplace that would offer obstacles to anyone who might think to visit me unexpectedly. Not that anyone knew where I was, but I always sleep better with multiple layers in place. And if one of those layers takes the form of 300-thread count cotton sheets… well, there aren’t so many perks to this profession. I take them when I can.

There was nothing to do now but wait, and I let Dox talk me into another evening on the town. I had enjoyed our meal together a few nights before, enjoyed it much more than the usual solitary night in a hotel room, and he didn’t have too hard a time persuading me. This time, though, I got to choose the venue.

I headed down to the lobby to meet him at eight o’clock as we had agreed. He was early again, and again looked very much the local expat in an untucked, short-sleeved, cream-colored linen shirt and jeans. He seemed to be absorbed in a book. As I got closer I noticed the title: Beyond Good and Evil.

“You’re reading Nietzsche?” I asked, incredulous.

He looked at me. “Well, sure, why not?”

I struggled for a moment, concerned that whatever I said next would be insulting. “Well, it’s just…”

He smiled. “I know, I know, everybody thinks a southern boy can’t be intellectual. Well, my father worked for a big pharmaceutical company, and I grew up in Germany, where he was posted. I studied old Friedrich in school, and I liked him. All that stuff about the will to power and all. When I read it now, it comforts me.”

“Who’da thunk it,” I said, imitating his twang.

He laughed. “Hey, how did you even recognize what I was reading, cowboy? That’s more than I would have expected.”

I shrugged. “When I was a kid, I always seemed to be on the wrong side of one gang or another. I found the best place to hide was the library. They never thought to look for me there. Eventually I got bored and started reading the books. I never stopped.”

“Never stopped getting on the wrong side of gangs?”

I laughed. “It seems that way, doesn’t it. Never stopped reading, is what I meant.”

“So that’s where you get some of those big words you like to use. I found myself wondering from time to time. Plus you never seem put off by my own extensive vocabulary. Even a word like ‘perineum,’ it seems like second nature to you.”

“It’s good of you to say.”

He closed the book and stood up. “Well, where are we off to tonight? Discotheque? Massage parlor?”

“I was thinking more along the lines of taking in a fight at Lumpini, then maybe a bar. An adult bar.”

“Sure, I love to see a little Thai boxing. Not sure about the adult bar, though… Is it like an adult video? I like those a lot.”

“You might be disappointed, then. But you should still give it a try.”

He grinned. “ ’Course I’ll give it a try. Hell, I’m a tri-sexual, partner, I’ll try anything once.”

We took the stairs to the basement, then exited through the Amarin Plaza shopping mall. Out on the street, Dox started to flag down a cab.

“Wait,” I said. “Let’s move around a little first.”

“Move around… Look, man, is that really necessary? We did a route on the way to the hotel earlier. We know we’re clean.”

“Just because you were clean before doesn’t mean you’re clean now. You took a shower yesterday, right? Does that mean you don’t need one today?”

“Yeah, but…”

“There are ways to track someone other than physically following them. Think about what Delilah said. We’ve got some motivated people looking for us. Let’s not make it easy for them.”

He sighed. “All right, all right. I just don’t want to miss the fights, is all.”

We walked to Chit Lom station and took the sky train one stop to Phloen Chit. We waited on the platform until all the passengers had cleared, then got back on and rode back to Siam. We took the elevator down to the street level, then ducked across one of the sois to Henri Dunant, where we caught a cab.

Dox looked at his watch. “Satisfied now? We’re going to miss half the fights.”

“The good fights start at nine.”

He looked at me. “You know Thailand better than you’ve been letting on, partner?”

I shrugged. “I’ve spent some time here. Not lately, though, and not like you.”

“You’re a mysterious man, Mr. Rain.”

I winced slightly at the mention of my name. All right, I know I’m paranoid, as Harry used to tell me: the name wouldn’t mean a thing to the cabdriver, who had picked us up utterly at random and who doubtless spoke no English regardless. But what was the upside of using a name? If your paranoia doesn’t cost you anything, I figure, why not indulge it? It’s worked for me so far.

But I let it go. I was learning that with Dox, as perhaps in all things, I had to pick my battles.

The cab ride to Lumpini stadium took ten minutes. We bought ringside seats for fifteen hundred baht apiece and went inside.

Muay Thai, or Thai boxing, is Thailand’s indigenous form of pugilism. The contestants wear gloves, and in this and a few other respects the art is superficially similar to Western boxing. But Thai boxers also legally and enthusiastically fight with their feet, knees, elbows, and heads, even from grappling tie-ups that Western referees would immediately separate. The feel of a match is different, too, with none of the trash-talking that has come to dominate so many American sports. Instead, Thai boxers warm up together in the ring, largely ignoring each other as they perform the wai khru dances by which they pay homage to their teachers, and they fight to music, a blood-maddening mix of clarinet, drums, and cymbals. During my years in Japan I worked with an ex-fighter who had come to the Kodokan to study judo. We taught each other many things, and I came away with a lot of respect for the ferocity and effectiveness of this fighting system.

The stadium was purely functional: three tiers of seats, pitted concrete floors, stark incandescent lights shining murderously into the ring. The air reeked of accumulated years of sweat and liniment. The second tier of seats was the most crowded, and the most uniformly Thai, as this was where the hard-core betting went on, and each solid shin kick or roundhouse was greeted from that section with a chorus of cries that had as much to do with commerce as with bloodlust.

We caught the last three fights of the evening. As always I was impressed with the skill and heart these men brought to the ring, and this time I found myself a little envious, too. When I was their age I had been at least that quick, and my speed had pulled me through any number of unpleasant close encounters. But my reflexes, though still good, and despite a careful diet, supplement, and exercise regimen, weren’t the same anymore. I touched the knife in my pocket, and thought, Well, that’s what toys are for. Along with evolving tactics.

Dox was characteristically boisterous, hollering enthusiastically during the fights and even getting up to offer some congratulations in Thai to the winners as they left the ring. I would have preferred it if he had been able to keep a lower profile, but I recognized that this would be impossible for him. I reminded myself that, if I wanted this fledgling partnership to go anywhere, I would have to try to accept Dox more or less as he was.

When the last match had ended, we headed outside. Dox said, “Well, the night is young. Are we going to hit that ‘adult bar’?”

I nodded. “Yeah, if you’re not too tired.”

He grinned. “I’m good if you are. Let’s get a cab.”

He saw my expression and said, “Oh, man, not again…”

“Just down the street. We’ll walk along Lumpini Park. We can get a cab from there. It’ll be easier, there are fewer people.”

“Along Lumpini Park? There won’t be any people.”

“Well, that’s even better. No competition at all.”

He sighed and nodded, and I realized with an odd sense of gratitude that he was doing the same sort of “if I want this thing to work” calculus that I was.

We walked, then found a cab. It took only a few minutes to get to the place I had in mind: Brown Sugar, Bangkok’s best jazz club.

The club was on Soi Sarasin, opposite the northwest corner of giant Lumpini Park. It announced its presence quietly and with confidence: a simple green awning with white lettering that proclaimed “Brown Sugar-The Finest Jazz Restaurant.” A redbrick façade and a lacquered wooden doorway, the door propped open, inviting. A window with rows of glass shelving displaying odds and ends-a ceramic bourbon decanter sporting a map of Kentucky, an antique martini mixer, a collection of tiny glass bottles, twin coffee canisters, a demitasse, ceramic soldiers in Napoleonic garb. A few wooden tables and chairs along the sidewalk in front, illuminated only by whatever light escaped from the club inside.

I was gratified to find the place still thriving. It was bracketed to the right by an alley and to the left by a cluster of neon-lit bars with names like Bar D and The Room and Café Noir. Unlike Brown Sugar, which had a classic-some might say rundown-feel to it, the others all looked new. I had a feeling that none of the upstarts would be here a year from now. Brown Sugar might be older, but it had what it takes to go the distance.

We got out of the cab, crossed the street, and went inside. A sign by the door said the band playing was called Anodard. Anodard turned out to be two guitars, sax, keyboards, drums, and a pretty female vocalist. They were doing a nice cover of Brenda Russell’s “Baby Eyes,” and the main room, a cramped, low-ceilinged space that could hold probably thirty people on a good night, was about three-quarters full. The décor was exactly as it should be: dim lighting, a bare ceiling, worn tables and floor, fading jazz memorabilia on the walls. I hoped no one would ever think to give the place a face-lift. We took a table on the right side of the bar, with a view of the band. Brown Sugar’s only real failing is its unimaginative selection of single malts, but I made do with a Glenlivet eighteen-year-old. Dox ordered a Stoli rocks. We settled back, sipped our drinks, and listened to the music. It turned out to be more pop than jazz, but Anodard was good and that was the main thing.

It was a little odd to take in live music with a companion. Usually I go to a club alone, coming and going quietly and unobtrusively and without having to worry about whether anyone was enjoying the experience as much as I. About a half hour in, when the band took a break, I said to Dox, “Well? What do you think?”

He frowned as though in concentration. “Well, it’s taking me a little getting used to. Most of the Bangkok establishments with which I’m acquainted have girls dancing on tabletops and wearing numbers on their bikini bottoms. But I can see the appeal.”

I nodded. “All right, there’s hope for you.”

“And that singer is sexy, too.”

“Faint hope.”

He laughed. “You know, partner, that Delilah’s a classy lady. I don’t know what she’s doing with a reprobate like you.”

“I don’t know, either.”

He gave me a smile that was half leer. “Looks like she smacked you up pretty good there. Didn’t know you liked that kind of thing.”

I glanced around for the waitress.

“I like it when a lady isn’t afraid to get passionate,” he went on in a thoughtful tone, apparently unperturbed by my lack of response. “Damn, just thinking about it is turning me on.”

“Feel free not to share,” I said.

“Oh come on, we’re partners and friends and we’re here in the great state of Bangkok, land of smiles! We can let our hair down a little.”

“Dox, your hair’s never been up.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Anyway, I think your lady is going to help us. I’ve got a good feeling about her.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You can’t always go on a feeling.”

“Well, partner, lacking your well-developed sense of universal paranoia, I’m often left with nothing more than my gut to fall back on. And it’s served me well so far, seeing as I’m even here to talk about it.”

I was surprised to find that his words stung a little. Ever since we’d left Phuket, I’d been half-consciously playing scenarios through my head, testing my hope that Delilah was being straight with us. I thought she was. I just wished I could have Dox’s simple confidence.

“We’ll see,” was all I said.

The waitress came by, and we ordered another round. Periodically a new couple or group would drift in from outside. I was pleased to see Dox checking the door each time this happened. In professionals this should be a quick, unobtrusive reflex, performed as unconsciously as breathing. You always want to know who’s joining you, to maintain your sense of the crowd.

At one point, I looked up to see a striking Thai girl enter the club. She was wearing a pewter silk jacquard blouse, sleeveless and with a mandarin collar, a clingy black silk skirt, cut just above the knee, and strappy, open-toe stilettos. Her makeup was perfect, and her hair was done in a neat chignon that accentuated her perfect posture and confident gait. Drop earrings that looked like jade gleamed under each ear.

She sat down at the bar like royalty on a throne and looked around the club. Dox nudged me and said, “You see that girl who just came in?”

I nodded, wondering whether I’d been giving Dox too much credit for what I thought were perimeter checks. It looked like the more likely explanation might be excessive horniness.

The woman saw Dox and smiled. He smiled back.

Great, I thought. Here we go.

“You see that, man?” he asked. “She smiled at me.”

I looked back at him. “She’s probably a prostitute, Dox. She smiles at everyone. Especially Westerners who she assumes have money to buy her jade earrings.”

“Partner, I don’t care how she makes her living. She might freelance a little, who could blame her? That ain’t the point. The point is, she likes me. I can tell.”

“She likes your money.”

“She might like that, too, and I might even tip her, as a show of my appreciation and just to help her out generally. But I wouldn’t be attracted to her if she didn’t want me for me. Watch, you’ll see.”

He looked over again and gave her a long smile. She smiled back, then said something to the bartender and got up. She started heading in our direction.

Dox looked at me. “What did I tell you?”

The confidence she displayed in brazenly approaching Dox told me I’d been right in suspecting she was a prostitute. But it occurred to me that her presence here was a little odd. The high-end hookers tended to troll dance clubs and bars like Spasso at the Grand Hyatt, not authentic, out-of-the-way dives like Brown Sugar. Well, she might not have been having any luck in one of the places next door, and might have drifted in here for the music, or for the hell of it. Still, as it always does in response to something out of place, my alertness bumped up a notch. Although I had already been keeping a routine, low-level awareness of what was going on in the room, I glanced around just to confirm that nothing else was wrong. Everything seemed okay.

The girl came over to our table. I checked her hands. Right hand empty, left holding a tiny black evening bag, probably weighed down by no more than a cell phone, lipstick, and a mirror. I didn’t pick up any danger signals. But my sense that something was out of place wasn’t entirely placated, and I remained watchful.

She glanced at me, then at Dox. “Hi,” she said, in a voice that was both sweet and slightly husky. “My name is Tiara.” She had a heavy Thai accent.

“Well, hello, Tiara,” Dox said, offering her an enormous grin. “I’m Bob, and this here is Richard. But most people call him Dick.” He glanced at me and his grin broadened.

The girl held out her hand to Dox, who shook it. She offered it to me. I caught her fingers and gave them a gentle squeeze. Her fingertips were smooth, with no calluses. As she withdrew from my grasp I glanced at her hand. Her fingers were long and perfectly manicured, and the light caught her polished nails as though they were little jewels.

“Would you like to join Dick and me for a drink?” Dox asked.

The girl offered a radiant smile and made some microscopic adjustment to her hair. “Yes, very much,” she said. I expected this kind of conversation would be all that was comfortable for her in English. This, and maybe, “Oh, you so big dick! Oh, you make me come so much!” and the other such Shakespearean phrases of the trade.

I got up and offered her my chair, adjacent to Dox’s, facing the bandstand. “Here,” I said. “I just need to use the men’s room. You and Bob get acquainted and I’ll be right back.”

The girl nodded and took my seat. Dox grinned and said, “Well, thank you, Dick.”

In fact, I wasn’t particularly in need of the restroom. I just wanted a chance to scan the room from other vantage points. To observe our table the way someone else might be observing it. It would make me feel better.

Brown Sugar has two back rooms, and I checked each of these. Both were occupied by groups of middle-aged Thais talking, eating, and laughing lustily. The other tables were filled by unremarkable twenty- and thirty-somethings, foreign and Thai. No one set off my radar. But something was still bothering me. Not a lot, but it was there.

Maybe you’re just jumpy. You’re not used to being out in the open with company, with someone approaching you uninvited.

Maybe. I used the men’s room and returned to the table. Dox and the girl each had a fresh drink. They were holding hands and murmuring to each other. Well, it looked as though I was going to finish up the evening on my own, after all.

I walked over to her left and said, “You know, I’m actually feeling a little tired.”

The girl glanced up and back at me. From this angle, the high collar of her dress pulled away slightly from her neck. Beneath her smooth skin I saw the slight bulge of the cricothyroid cartilage-the Adam’s apple.

I’ll be damned, I thought. All at once I understood what had been making me twitchy. I had to stifle a laugh.

“Oh come on, Dick, it ain’t past your bedtime. Stick around, you might even have some fun.”

Oh, I’m going to have some fun, I thought. I’m sure of that.

I smiled at him, trying to stop short of the shit-eating grin my mood was suddenly demanding. “Well, okay. Maybe just for another song or two.”

“There you go,” Dox said. He gestured to the chair across from him. “Have a seat. Tiara and I are drinking Stolis. You want another one of those whiskeys?”

“Why not?” I said. Dox signaled the waitress and magnanimously ordered everyone another round. He and Tiara leaned close again and went back to murmuring.

Oh, this was going to be good. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve something so beautiful, but here it was. And it could only get better.

The drinks came. I enjoyed mine in silence, my focus alternating between the bar, the room, and my distracted drinking companions. The girl’s arm had disappeared beneath the table. From the angle of their bodies, I recognized that her hand was, at a minimum, on Dox’s thigh. Possibly it had come to rest somewhere farther north.

The girl whispered something to him. Dox nodded. The girl smiled at me, got up, excused herself, and headed toward the restroom.

Dox took a last gulp from his drink and leaned across the table. His face was flushed. “Well, partner, you know I’m going to miss you, but duty calls.”

I smiled. “I understand completely. You’re going to make her very happy, I can see that.”

“Well, I reckon she’s going to make me happy, too. Did you see her, man? When was the last time you saw something so fine? A little flat-chested, it’s true, but that doesn’t bother me a bit. I’m sure her other charms will make up for it.”

“Oh, definitely. I’m sure she’s otherwise… very well equipped.” Keeping my voice even wasn’t easy. One hitch, one chuckle, and I knew I’d be lost in a hurricane-force laughing fit.

“Thanks for your understanding, man. It’s time for this young lady to have the experience of a lifetime. It’ll be nothing but disappointment for her after tonight, but that’s the price of a love-filled evening with Dox.”

I nodded. I knew if I tried to speak I’d be done.

He must have misinterpreted my silence. “Shit, man, there’s no need for you to spend the night alone. You’re not a bad-looking guy, and the ladies won’t know about your deficiencies until it’s too late, anyway. You could meet someone if you wanted to.”

Part of me, a bigger part than I cared to admit, wanted to let him go through with it. And I would have paid almost anything to be there at the moment of truth. But he was a good friend. Hell, he’d saved my life. I couldn’t do it to him, even if he did deserve it.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “Dox. She’s a katoey.”

Katoey, or “lady-boy,” has a range of meanings, from a guy who likes to dress in drag from time to time all the way to a man who has had transgender surgery and is now effectively a woman. They can be found all over Thailand and are generally accepted, if sometimes difficult to spot, within the society. Regardless of the differences, what they all have in common is that presumably Dox wouldn’t want to sleep with one.

He scowled slightly and cocked his head. “Now that’s not like you, man. Don’t go trying to spoil my night just because you haven’t gotten one of your own.”

“You didn’t notice her hands? They’re just a little big for her frame, don’t you think? And did you get a look at her Adam’s apple? Women don’t have Adam’s apples, and she’s wearing that high collar to conceal it.”

Some of the color drained from his face. “Don’t fuck with me,” he said.

I shook my head and stifled a laugh. “I’m not.”

The girl walked back from the restroom as though on cue. Dox stood and turned to her. “Honey,” he said, “Dick over here thinks… he thinks…”

I smiled gently and said to her, “I just didn’t want there to be a misunderstanding. Bob didn’t know you’re a katoey.”

She smiled back, then looked at Dox, her eyes wide. “You no like katoey?”

Dox lost a little more color. “I… I…” he stammered.

“Me, I think you know,” she said. “So I no say.”

“No, I didn’t know!” he said, his voice anguished.

“Most men, no problem. When it dark…”

“I ain’t like that.”

She smiled. “Please, honey? I like you.”

Dox’s expression was about halfway to physical illness. “Look,” he said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but could you just go?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you for drinks with me.”

“You’re welcome,” Dox said, his tone the quintessence of forlornness.

She got up and left the club, no doubt disappointed that her investment of time had yielded so little. Dox looked gut-shot.

He slumped into his chair and looked at me. “When did you spot that stuff about her hands and her neck? You let that go on for an awfully long time there, partner.”

“Dox, I thought you knew. It was so obvious.”

“It was not obvious. No, sir.”

“You sure you don’t want to take her back to the hotel? If you hurry…”

“Hell, yes, I’m sure.”

“Because, c’mon, you had to know. At some level.”

“No, I didn’t know at any level, not until you told me.”

“Really? I mean, you pointed out that she was a little flat-chested. And I don’t know how you could have missed the hands and the Adam’s apple. Dox, she might as well have been wearing a sign.”

“No, she was definitely not wearing a sign, man. Although I think she ought to.”

I smiled. “Maybe you would have enjoyed it.”

“Stop it.”

“I mean, if she’d only given you a blow job, you would never even have known. You’d just think it was the best head you’d ever gotten. It would have become one of your most cherished memories.” I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. “You never would have stopped telling me about it.”

“Do you want another drink?” he asked. “I think I need one.”

“How many, Dox? That’s the question. How many times before.”

He signaled the waitress for two more, then shuddered. “Damn, that was a near thing. I’d thank you, if you’d stepped in a little sooner and were enjoying yourself a little less.”

“Enjoying?”

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny.” He drained his Stoli and shuddered again.

I thought about going on, something about how, with all his local expertise, he had still almost unintentionally gone off with a lady-boy. Or presumably unintentionally. But he looked so glum that I decided to give it a rest.

The band started up again. A few minutes later, Dox leaned over to me and said, “If you don’t mind, I’m ready to try something different. You’re welcome to join me, but I don’t know that where I’m going is apt to be your kind of place.”

“Topless girls with numbers attached to their bikini bottoms?”

“I’d say that’s likely, yes.”

“Good. If they’re undressed, you’ll have a better chance of making sure… you know.”

He scowled. “Are you coming?”

“No, I’d better let you go alone. I wouldn’t want to interfere with a man’s quest to recover his masculinity. On the other hand, who’s going to warn you if you run into another…”

“I’ll be fine alone, you Yankee degenerate.”

I smiled and held out my hand. “All right then. We’ll talk in the morning?”

“In the morning,” he said, and we shook. He got up, tossed a few hundred baht on the table, and headed for the door.

I chuckled to myself. It was going to be good to have something in my arsenal that I could bring up anytime Dox gave me grief.

I chuckled again, a little more softly. It was odd that she’d been in here, though. She seemed to have been on the make, and Brown Sugar was the wrong place for that. Sure, she could have come here to enjoy the music, to take a break, whatever, but the way she’d been looking around right away, the way she’d immediately zeroed in on Dox…

Maybe that was opportunistic.

Didn’t feel opportunistic. It felt focused.

I chewed on that. Then, in a sort of semiconscious shorthand that was more suddenly present in its entirety than deduced piece by piece, I realized:

If someone wanted to get to you and Dox, the first thing he’d look to do would be to separate you. To do that, if he were smart, he would employ some means that could distract, at least temporarily, your sensitivity to disparities in the local environment. Give you something you could focus on. A katoey, for example. Make you say, that’s what was bothering me-she’s not really a woman! Or, if you didn’t spot it, and one of you went off with her… boom, there you go, you’ve found your way to divide us.

Maybe it would have been easier, more straightforward, to use a real woman as the bait. But a katoey would have certain advantages. A lady-boy could take better care of himself in a scrape. And he’d be used to acting, to passing himself off as something he wasn’t, to fooling people, lulling them.

I felt the blood draining from my face, my heart begin to pound as an adrenaline dump kicked in. If Dox had still been at the table, he would have laughed at me. I didn’t care. There were certain things I would try to change about myself to accommodate our partnership. The way I go with my gut would never be one of them.

I stood up and walked briskly to the door, as fast as I could move without being obvious. I was hoping I was wrong, but I knew I was right.

FOURTEEN

FOR AN INSTANT after exiting the bar, I didn’t focus on any one particular thing. I let it all in: the placement of the sidewalk tables and patrons, the parked cars, the pedestrians.

Movement straight in front of me: a muscular Thai man in a black tee-shirt, mid-twenties, leaning against a cab at the curb, coming to his feet. “You need taxi?” he asked, in a thick Thai accent. He started moving toward me. “I give you ride. Use meter. Very good.”

His hands were empty and he was still more than three meters away. I did a quick scan for Dox. He had walked out less than half a minute before me; he might still be in the area. I didn’t see him. But I didn’t have time to look further, or to worry about what might have happened to him.

I checked my flanks.

Left flank: Caucasian male, late forties, alone at one of the sidewalk tables.

Right flank: two Thai men, mid-twenties and in shape like the first guy, watching me with a certain intensity, and getting up smoothly from their table.

Would any of this ever stand up in court? Your Honor, my partner left after an encounter with a lady-boy. I stepped outside. Someone asked me if I needed a cab, and the men to my right were watching me with “that look,” if you know what I mean. That’s why I killed them all.

Of course it wouldn’t stand up. But one of the things that separates people like me from live civilians and dead operators is an absolute ability and an absolute willingness to act decisively on evidence that in polite society would get you laughed at and that in court would get you thrown in jail. When you know, you know. You don’t wait for more evidence. You act. If you act wrong, you live with the consequences. You act wrong the other way, you don’t live at all.

The man in front of me was now two meters away. “You need taxi?” he asked again. His right hand was out, motioning in a “Come this way” gesture.

“Sure,” I said. I stepped toward him as though I intended to move past him on his right. He smiled, a smile that was supposed to look friendly but that to me was at least half-predatory.

I smiled myself, an “Aren’t you kind to help me, I’m so clueless” kind of smile. He nodded, reassured that this was going to be easy.

But it wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t going to be easy at all.

Just before I pulled alongside him, I snatched his right wrist in my left hand and fed his arm over to my right. I hooked his tricep and dragged him past me. My weight on his arm pulled him forward, and as I circled clockwise behind him, I saw his mouth dropping open in surprise. Apparently my reaction wasn’t part of the rehearsal.

I reached around his waist with my left hand and caught his right wrist. I cinched him in close and he grunted as some of the breath was driven from his lungs. We were both facing the bar now. The two men who had gotten up were two meters away to our left. I saw their faces hardening. Their hands were empty and I realized this was supposed to be a snatch, not a kill. Otherwise they would have had weapons and would already have used them.

I sucked in a breath and bellowed, “Dox!” in the loudest voice I could muster, half to warn him if he was there, half to call for his help.

The two men to the left started to charge forward.

The guy I was holding took a wider stance and dropped his weight to create a more stable base, and I realized from the reaction he was trained. He tried to snap a head butt back at me, but my face was too far to the right and pressed up close against his shoulder. I reached down to my right front pocket where the knife was clipped in place. In one motion I cleared it, opened it, and thrust it forward from behind his spread legs into his perineum and balls.

There’s a certain pitch of human scream that’s impossible to ignore, that drills directly into the most primitive parts of the brain. The kind that makes your hair stand up, your scrotum retract, your feet freeze dead in their tracks. That’s the scream that tore loose from this guy when my knife hit home, and it was exactly the scream I wanted. His partners moving in from the left were involuntarily stopped by it. Their conscious minds were thinking, What the fuck was that? Their unconscious minds were shouting, Who cares what it was! Run! They both pulled up short about a meter away from me.

I didn’t wait for them to get the circuits clear. I shoved the man I’d been holding into them and turned to my right, ready to bug out. But another Thai man was coming from that direction, fast enough to have already closed the distance. He must have moved out from the alley to the right of the bar. The scream that had frozen his comrades hadn’t had the same effect on him. Either he was very brave, very stupid, or very hard of hearing. Regardless of the explanation, he was now in my way.

I had already flipped the knife around in my hand to a reverse grip so that the blade was concealed along my wrist and lower forearm. Even so, Mr. Hearing Impaired must not have been paying proper attention, or he would have put two and two together: I was holding something in my hand, something that had just caused his partner to shriek like the eunuch he now was, and that something was probably sharp and pointy. Or the explanation for his failure to hesitate as his comrades had was indeed stupidity, because there is nothing quite so stupid as showing up for a knife fight unarmed.

He paused a meter in front of me and raised his fists as though we were about to box. I noted, half-consciously, scars around his eyebrows and the bump of a previously broken nose, and realized, Muay Thai, these guys are Thai boxers.

I detected a slight shift in his weight, a grounding of the left leg, and then his right shin was whipping in toward my left thigh. Thai boxing shin kicks can hit like baseball bats, and if I hadn’t seen it coming and so hadn’t had a fraction of a second to prepare, he would have blasted my leg out from under me and then I would have been fighting three men, or maybe more, from the ground.

But I had that fraction of a second. I used it to move closer, just inside the sweet spot of the kick, and to drop my weight so my hip would take the main impact. I caught his leg as it hit, wrapping my left arm around his calf. He reacted instantly: he grabbed my head, braced himself on the captured leg, and leaped upward and toward me, his left knee coming around for my face, just as he had doubtless done countless times in the ring.

But they don’t let knives in the ring. The sport wouldn’t be the same if they did.

I raised my right arm and turtled my head in. The knee hit my forearm. It hurt, especially with the bruises Delilah had given me, but it beat a broken jaw. He started to return to the ground. I moved the knife out from along my forearm so that I was gripping it ice pick style, edge in, and plunged it into his right inner thigh where it connected to the pelvis. In the heat of the moment and pumped full of adrenaline, he seemed not to notice what had happened. But then I ripped down and back, tearing open his femoral artery and a lot of other real estate, too, and that seemed to get his attention. He howled and jerked convulsively away from me. I swept his good leg out from under him in modified ouchi-gari, a judo throw, and let him go as he fell, not wanting to take a chance on getting tangled up with him on the ground.

I turned back to the other two guys, and was gratified to see them backing away. There was no doubt now that a knife was in play, and no doubt that it was being used by someone for more than just show. Apparently this was all more trouble than they wanted or had been led to expect. They turned and ran.

I looked the other way. The white guy who had been sitting outside the bar had stood up. “Are you all right?” he asked, in American-accented English.

I glanced all around. The people who had been sitting at the other tables outside were frozen in place, in shock. The men on the ground were moaning and writhing. From the wounds I had given them and the amount of blood spreading out on the pavement, I expected they would be dead in just a few more seconds.

“I saw everything,” the white guy was saying. He started moving toward me. “They attacked you. It was self-defense. I’m a lawyer, I can help.”

I thought, crazily, Great, just what I need, a lawyer.

And then something came into focus. Maybe it was intuition. Maybe it was my unconscious sifting data that was invisible to my conscious mind, items like the way he’d been sitting at that table, with his feet firmly on the ground as though ready for quick action; or his position, in what had been one of my blind spots as I exited the bar; or his calm and forthcoming expression of concern just now, when all the other onlookers were frozen or fleeing.

He never gave off the vibe, none at all. I’d even overlooked him to start with. Maybe that was part of the plan: I was looking for more Thais, not a white guy. Maybe it was just that, whoever Perry Mason here was, he was definitely very good.

He continued to move toward me. His hands were empty… or was that something in his left? I wasn’t sure. I shouted, “Stop right there!”

He shook his head and said, “What are you talking about? I just want to help.” And kept moving in.

When you tell someone who’s moving toward you to come no closer, with the appropriate air of gravity and command in your voice, and particularly when that air is augmented by the presence of a knife with which you’ve just killed two people, and the guy keeps coming anyway, you are not dealing with someone who needs a light for a cigarette, or directions, or the time of day, or whatever else was his ostensible excuse for invading your space. You are dealing with someone intent on taking something that you would prefer not to part with, up to and including your life, and his failure to heed your command is more than adequate proof of this, and of how you must now handle it.

I did a quick perimeter check. Other than the shocked onlookers, some of whom were now coming to their senses and scurrying away, it looked like it was just the two of us. I started to move toward him.

Suddenly, Perry Mason changed his tune. He started backing up. But it wasn’t a retreat, just a tactical pause. Because, as he moved smoothly backward, his free hand dropped equally smoothly to his right front pocket and pulled free a folding knife. It was opening even as it cleared his pants, and I could tell from the liquid ease with which he withdrew it that this man was no knife dilettante, but rather someone who had trained long, hard, and seriously to develop the proficiency and confidence I had just witnessed.

I paused. I wasn’t sure if the display was to warn me off, or if he intended to close. Maybe killing me was the backup plan if snatching me didn’t work out. No way to know. Regardless, I didn’t want to fight him. I just wanted to get away. I would have been happy to kill him to make that happen, but obviously if he was armed, killing him might no longer be the easiest means of exit here.

He started circling, moving closer. His footwork was smooth and balanced. He was just inside the distance that I would have judged safe for turning and running. I moved with him, conscious of my flanks in case the two who had run off reconsidered. I held my knife in my right hand with a saber grip, close to my waist, with my left hand open and partially extended to block and trap if we closed. If we did, I didn’t know if I would make it. What I did know is that he surely would not.

I heard a voice booming from behind me. “Partner, get down!”

It was Dox. I dropped into a squat, keeping the knife close to my body, and glanced over to see the giant sniper moving in with a wooden chair raised over his head. I ducked down lower. He lunged forward and let the chair go like it was an F-14 being catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier.

When a man of Dox’s size and strength throws a chair, there are many places you might want to be. In front of the chair is not one of them. In this sense, Perry Mason was unlucky. The chair caught him full in the chest and blasted him to the ground.

Dox and I were on him in an instant. Dox grabbed his knife and something else, whatever it was that I thought I had seen in his left hand, both of which had clattered onto the sidewalk next to him. I knelt across his chest and almost cut his throat to finish him, but then I saw that he was already helpless. He was grunting and starting to cough blood.

I did another perimeter check. Still okay. Returning my eyes to Perry Mason, I said to Dox, “Quick, give me a hand.”

Dox knelt next to me. I saw that he was scanning the street and sidewalk, and I was gratified to know that, this time, the behavior had nothing to do with sex and everything to do with survival.

“What do you want to do with him?” he asked.

I inclined my head in the direction of the alley, about twenty feet away. “Pull him over there. The dark.”

We grabbed him under the arms and hauled him up and over. He tried to resist, but the chair had broken him up inside and he didn’t have much fight in him.

There were no streetlights over this stretch of sidewalk, as is the case throughout most of Bangkok’s lesser thoroughfares, and once we had moved off to the side of Brown Sugar we were enveloped by darkness. In the alley, just in from the sidewalk, someone had parked a white Toyota van. The sliding door on the van’s passenger side was open, facing the clubs to the left. I saw this and instantly understood that their plan had been to drag me into the vehicle, then drive away and interrogate me at their leisure.

We shoved Perry Mason up against the front passenger-side door and patted him down. He had a Fred Perrin La Griffe with a two-inch spear point blade hanging from a neck sheath-obviously backup for the folder. I cut the neck cord and Dox pocketed the knife and rig. In his front pants pocket, we found a Toyota car key and a magnetic key card for the Holiday Inn Silom Bangkok. I pressed the “open” button on the car key and the van chirped in response. Yeah, the vehicle was definitely his. Beyond all this, and a Casio G-Shock wristwatch, he was traveling sterile.

I pocketed the keys and looked in his eyes. Blood was flowing steadily from the sides of his mouth. He was still conscious, though, still with us. Good.

“How did you find us?” I asked.

He shook his head and looked away.

Dox grabbed his face and forced him to look at me. “How did you find us?” I said again.

He gritted his teeth and remained silent.

I reached down and started probing his abdomen. He winced when I got to his ribs. Either they were broken, or there was some damage underneath, or both. I pressed hard and he grunted.

“We can do this easy or we can do it hard,” I said. “Answer a few questions and we’ll be gone. That’s all there is to it.”

He looked away again. He was trying to focus on something else, to let his imagination carry him away from here.

I knew the technique. There are ways of resisting interrogation. I’ve been schooled in them, and so, I had a feeling, had this guy. What they teach you is that you have to accept that you are in a position you can’t survive. Your life is over. There will be some hours of pain first, yes. Your body is going to be broken and ruined. But then death will deliver you. Concentrate on that coming deliverance, let your imagination go forth to meet it, and use the anticipation of that impending rendezvous to hold out for as long as you can. If you can do this, you can detach yourself from what’s happening to your body and make your mind much harder to reach.

I had to interrupt his reverie. Shake his confidence that his acceptance of death had put him in paradoxical control of the situation. Shock him out of his assumption that we were playing a binary game of live or die, life or death, with no other possibilities in between.

I pulled out my folder with my right hand and flipped it open. I grabbed his face with my left and forced him to look at me.

“No matter what happens here,” I said to him, “you are not going to die. We’re not going to kill you. You are going to live.”

I pressed the knife against his cheek, so that the point was resting just below the bottom edge of his left eye. “But if you don’t answer my questions,” I said, “I’m going to blind you. One eye, then the other. Now. How did you find us?”

The guy didn’t answer, but I could tell from his increased respiration that I had his attention, that I had hauled him back some distance from the relatively safe place to which he had tried to flee.

“Your choice,” I said, and started slowly driving the knife upward.

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to jerk away. Dox shoved his head against the side of the van and I kept the knife slowly going north.

The guy’s breathing worsened, approaching the cadences of panic. His eyeball was moving upward ahead of the knife. Another millimeter and it would reach the limits of its give and be skewered.

“Cell phone,” he said suddenly, panting. “We tracked a cell phone.”

I paused the knife but didn’t lower it. “Whose cell phone?”

“His. Dox’s.”

Goddamnit, I thought, I told him to keep that fucking thing off. Then: Not now. Deal with that later.

Dox said, “Hey, asshole, how do you know my name?”

I shot him a murderous shut the fuck up this is my show glance, then looked back at Perry Mason. “How did you get the number?”

“I don’t know. It was just given to me.”

Bullshit it was just given to you. “If I have to ask you again, you lose this eye.”

There was a pause, then he said, “I don’t know for sure. I was told it came from some Russian outfit.”

I knew Dox had done some work with the Russians not so long ago. I glanced at him, my eyebrows raised. He gave me a yeah, I guess that’s possible shrug in return.

All right. I had deliberately started with a question about tools and tactics, something this guy could give up without feeling he was compromising his integrity. This would warm him up, help him rationalize his responses to the tougher inquiries that would follow. We’d started with how, and that had gone well. What I really wanted to talk about was who. But I sensed he still wasn’t ready for that, not even at the cost of his eyes. As a bridge between what we had accomplished and what still remained to be done, I decided to use why.

“Why are you coming after us?” I asked.

He paused, then said, “You tried to take out an asset in Manila.”

“What asset?” His neck was stretched taut with his efforts to stay ahead of the pressure of the knife. “Lavi,” he said. “Manheim Lavi.”

“Why? Retaliation?”

I already knew the answer to that one: information, not retaliation. If it had been simple retaliation they were after, they would have just tried to kill Dox and me. They wouldn’t have bothered hiring a bunch of locals to grab us and stuff us into the back of a van. But I wanted to keep him talking just a little more before we got down to brass tacks.

“Information,” he said. “We needed to know who was behind the hit so we could straighten things out.”

“What do you mean, ‘straighten things out’?”

“We have to protect our people. If there’s a threat, we deal with the threat.”

We were running out of time. The patrons in front of the club might discover some misplaced courage and decide to interfere. And certainly the police would be here soon.

Okay, here we go. “Who is ‘we’?” I asked.

He shook his head. I pushed the knife up a fraction and he cried out.

“Last time, and then you lose this eye. Who is we?”

He started to hyperventilate. He’d been standing on the very tips of his toes and his legs were trembling. But he wasn’t answering my question.

I didn’t want to do it-not out of any misplaced squeamishness, but because once you start hurting the subject, you start to lose your leverage. Fear is the ultimate motivator, but what you’re afraid of is by definition the thing that hasn’t happened yet. Once the thing has happened, you’re not afraid of it anymore. Once I’d taken out an eye, the loss of that eye would no longer be a threat. It would be one less thing the fear of which would motivate him.

But if you threaten and then fail to act, your subsequent threats lack credibility. It’s not pretty, but that’s the way a high-pressure interrogation works.

It occurred to me that there was one more problem. Whoever was behind this guy, if he were found sans an eye or two, they would know he had died after being interrogated. They could then be expected to change their plans, their security, to protect whatever their man might have compromised under duress. And, although in fact he had compromised very little, we had his hotel room key now. That presented some interesting possibilities I would have preferred not to foreclose.

Damn, it was a dilemma. But before I had a chance to resolve it, Perry Mason started to scream. Not so much in pain, or even to call for aid, but in outrage and desperation.

Dox slammed his hand over the man’s mouth, but the screaming decided it for me. We were exposed here, and too much time had gone by since the start of the incident. It was past time for us to bug out.

I looked at Dox. He nodded and I thought he understood. I took a half step back and kneed the guy in the groin. The screaming was displaced by a grunt and his body tried to double forward, but Dox was holding him too tightly. I changed my grip on the knife so that I was holding it ice pick style, blade in, and plunged it into his upper left pectoral, just below the clavicle. I ripped down and across, lacerating the subclavian artery.

I pulled Dox aside. The man spilled to his knees. He let out a long, agonized groan and pitched forward, but managed to get his arms out and caught himself before his head hit the pavement. There wasn’t much blood-the artery was transected, and the bleeding would be mostly into his chest and lungs-but there was no question that he would be unconscious in seconds, and dead shortly after that. I stepped in and slashed him twice across the forearms and he collapsed onto his face. He lay there, moaning and writhing.

I saw that I’d gotten blood on my hands-from his mouth or his chest, I didn’t know. I pulled a handkerchief from my back pocket and cleaned up the best I could. I handed the handkerchief to Dox and gestured for him to do the same. His eyes were wide and he seemed a little stunned, but he used the handkerchief. We’d be more thorough later.

One more thing. I glanced inside the open sliding door and saw what I was looking for: cell phone tracking equipment, strapped with duct tape to one of the back seats. Other than the equipment, the interior was clean. I used the handkerchief to open the van’s passenger door, then to pop the glove compartment, hoping to find registration or some other clue to Perry Mason’s identity. There was a first aid kit inside. I opened it, and saw vials of atropine and naloxone, and syringes. Interesting. But no registration, nothing to identify the people who had rented the van.

“Come on,” I said to Dox, who had been uncharacteristically quiet for the last minute or so. “We need to get out of here.”

We walked briskly across the street to the Lumpini Park side, where it was comfortingly dark. I glanced back at the sidewalk in front of the bars as we moved. The patrons had all gone inside. The two men on the sidewalk weren’t moving. We cut over to a sub-soi paralleling Ratchadamri, then started walking south and looking for a cab. Under the reflected glow of a collapsing storefront sign, I paused and looked at Dox, who still hadn’t said a word in a record-breakingly long time. “Hey,” I said quietly. “Look at me. Am I okay? Do I have any blood on me? Anything?”

He looked me up and down, then shook his head. “No. You’re okay.”

I gave him a once-over, as well, and nodded. “You are, too.”

He didn’t say anything in response. I never thought I’d be concerned that Dox was being too quiet, but it wasn’t like him.

“You all right?” I asked.

He closed his eyes, took two deep breaths, leaned forward, and vomited.

I looked around us. There weren’t any pedestrians on this section of road. Even if there had been a few, I doubted they’d be overly interested. It wouldn’t be the first time anyone had seen a farang who’d had a bit too much to drink.

When he was done, he wiped his mouth and straightened. “Damn, that’s embarrassing,” he said.

We started moving again. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him.

“That’s never happened to me, man, never.”

“It can happen to anyone.”

“Did it ever happen to you?”

I paused, then admitted, “No. But I don’t know that’s something to be proud of.”

“I just didn’t know you were going to do that, stab him like that. If I’d known, I could have gotten ready.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t warn you without warning him.”

“Why’d you slash his arms, man? I saw where you cut him, he was already dead for sure.”

“I wanted it to look like he went down fighting, not being interrogated. If his people think he was interrogated, they’ll assume he gave up information. I want to keep them in the dark.”

“So if he was fighting…”

“Then he would have defensive wounds on his forearms.”

“Oh. All right. Glad you weren’t just being sadistic. Is that why you didn’t take out his eye?”

“That’s why.”

“Would you have?”

I paused, then said, “Yeah.”

“Damn. I was afraid you were going to.”

I could tell Dox didn’t have much experience with hostile interrogations. I thought he ought to count himself lucky for that.

A cab came by and we flagged it down. I told the driver to take us to Chong Nonsi sky train station.

As we drove away and it began to seem as though we’d made it, the enormity of what had just happened started to settle in. Yeah, Dox had helped me out, but his stupidity had caused the problem in the first place. I had told him about the damn phone. Told him specifically. Why couldn’t he listen? What was so hard about turning off a cell phone? I tried not to say anything, thinking it pointless at the moment, but then it started coming out anyway.

“What did I tell you about that fucking phone?” I whispered. “What did I tell you?”

He looked at me, his expression darkening. “Look, man, I am absolutely not in the mood.”

“There’s equipment that can triangulate on a cell phone. They had it in that van. It’s accurate to about twenty-five feet. Tiara, the lady-boy who liked you for yourself? Her job was probably to go to the adjacent bars to help narrow it down.”

“How was I supposed to know that? You didn’t know either, not until after.”

“Is it on now? Is it still on?”

He blanched and squirmed forward in his seat to reach into his pocket. He pulled out his phone, flipped it open, and pressed a button. It issued its cheery farewell melody and powered off.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you leave that thing on?”

“Look, man, I’ve got clients, okay? There are people who need to reach me.”

“Not when we’re operational!” I paused, then said, “Clients, my ass. It was a girl, wasn’t it? Or girls.”

His nostrils flared. “What if it was?”

“You just opened a tunnel-sized hole in our security, while we’re operational, when we know we’ve got people looking for us, to get laid!”

“You know, not everyone enjoys your well-developed sense of solitude, partner. I like a little companionship from time to time, yeah.”

“They can use voice mail!”

“All right, I get the point! I made a mistake, I admit it, okay? What more do you want from me?”

I started to say something, then got a grip on myself. He was right, there was no point in playing I-told-you-so. And then I felt bad. He had just saved my ass back there with that chair.

I closed my eyes and exhaled. “I’m sorry. Shit like what just happened makes me cranky, okay? Usually there’s no one around for me to take it out on.”

There was a pause. Then he said, “I’m sorry, too. It was a dumb mistake. You were right.”

“What happened, anyway? Where did you go? I thought something had happened to you.”

He grinned, obviously coming back to himself. “Is that your way of telling me you care? ’Cause it gives me a warm feeling, it really does.”

I looked at him. “I think I liked it better when you were puking.”

He chuckled. “I just walked across the street to Lumpini to take a leak. I heard you shout, but it still took me a minute to cut off the stream and get Nessie put away.”

Before I could think better of it, I asked, “ ‘Nessie’?”

“You know, the Loch Ness Monster. I had a girlfriend once who named my…”

“I get it, I get it.”

“Anyway, I came running as fast as I could. Why’d you follow me out, anyway?”

I told him about the feeling I’d gotten about “Tiara” being a set-up.

“Damn, son,” he said, “you are good. I have to admit, that whole thing went right by me. I promise I’ll never call you paranoid again.”

The cab pulled up in front of Chong Nonsi station. We got out and watched it pull away. “You see a sewer?” I asked, looking around. “We need to dump the knives. And the handkerchief.”

“Dump them?”

“Yeah. We don’t want to be carrying anything that would connect us with a recent multiple homicide, do we?”

“Partner, I’ll have you know that the knives in question are a Benchmade AFCK and a Fred Perrin La Griffe. These are high-quality instruments of destruction and not so easy to come by. It would be wasteful in the extreme to ‘dump’ them.”

I looked at him. “It would be ‘wasteful in the extreme’ to have the prosecution use them as evidence of why we should spend the rest of our lives in a Thai prison.”

“All right, I understand where you’re coming from. Tell you what, how about if I sterilize them? Alcohol, bleach, whatever. You tell me how and I’ll do it. Plus you can have either one you want.”

I paused for a moment. If we cleaned them, I supposed, the risk would be manageable. It would have been safer, more thorough, to get rid of them entirely, but maybe this was one of the many battles with Dox that wasn’t worth fighting.

I said, “I’ll take the La Griffe.”

He looked crestfallen. “Shit, man, I want the La Griffe. It ’s so cool.”

I rolled my eyes. “All right, whatever. I’ll take the AFCK.”

He brightened. “Thanks, partner. You’re a good man.”

“Since you’re feeling so magnanimous,” I said, “let’s keep moving for a while. I want to do a few more things to break the connection between us and what just happened in front of the club.”

He shook his head. “I don’t have a problem with that.”

See? You get a little by giving a little, I thought.

We found a street sewer that worked nicely for the handkerchief and the knife I had used on Perry Mason and friends. As I was dumping them in, Dox said, “Wait, there’s this, too.” He reached into a pocket. “Here. I think it’s some kind of hypodermic.”

I looked at it and nodded. “That’s exactly what it is.”

The device was flesh-colored and looked vaguely like a plastic joy-buzzer. Where the button would be on a joy-buzzer, though, was a short, thick needle, maybe 16-gauge. The needle was covered in some kind of wax that was hard enough to protect the user from an accidental stick, but soft enough to give way under strong pressure. The back of it was sticky, and I realized it had been adhered to Perry Mason’s palm as he approached me.

“Slick,” I said, musing. “I’ve never seen something like this before. It must be custom. Look.” I stuck it to my palm and turned my hand upward so he could see it. “I thought what was going on back there was supposed to be a snatch. I was right. The four Thai guys grab me. The white guy moves in and hits me in the leg with an open-hand strike, or just grabs me and squeezes, whatever. Then what’s in this thing-I’m betting a veterinary anesthetic, something with fentanyl, droperidol, whatever-gets injected, just like a snakebite. They’ve probably got a dose in here that could put down a Clydesdale. I’m unconscious in seconds and they drag me into the van. Yeah, that’s why they had the atropine and naloxone in the glove compartment-to immediately reverse cardiac and respiratory suppression, make sure they don’t accidentally lose the patient. That was the plan, anyway.”

“What about me?”

I thought for a minute. “I’m not sure. But I would guess I was the main target. First they want to separate us. If they can pick me up, they could always deal with you later. Remember, they were tracking your cell phone.”

“I doubt that you’ll let me forget.”

“Or if you’d actually gone off with Tiara, they’d have that. She probably would have suggested her apartment, told you she had a hot roommate and they had this fantasy about a threesome with a big, strong, white man. Not that you would fall for something like that.”

“No, not me, I’m immune to that kind of thing.”

“If you go to the apartment, you get ambushed there. If you take her back to your hotel room instead, she makes a call and lets them know where to go and how to proceed.”

“Who were they all, do you think?”

I considered for a moment. “I don’t know. The Thais were tough, but they weren’t professionals. They felt like street muscle. The white guy, though, he was impressive. He was an operator, and I guarantee you this wasn’t the first time he’d done a snatch.”

“Company man, you think?”

“Definitely a possibility. But then why the Thais?”

He shrugged. “Maybe he was working on the fly. Didn’t have time to assemble a proper team.”

“Yeah, could be that.”

I looked at the syringe for another moment, then slipped it into my shirt pocket, needle-side out. “We’re keeping the knives,” I said. “I guess this might come in handy, too.”

We went up the stairs, bought tickets, then headed to the platform. Dox said, “Where are we going, anyway?”

“To his hotel. The Silom Holiday Inn. He had a room key on him. I took it.”

“What, are we going to try every door in the hotel? I know that place. It used to be the Crowne Plaza. They probably have seven hundred rooms.”

I thought about Perry Mason. About the lack of identifying pocket litter, even in the van. About how smooth his approach had been, and how confident he’d been when we faced off.

He was a careful man, I could see that. A survivor. Yeah, look at his everyday carry, the quality knives, the Casio G-Shock watch. He was a good Boy Scout. He minded the details, looked for small advantages.

The kind of guy who knew to park a van so that the cargo could be loaded from the side it was being carried in from, because doing so would save a few seconds if he had to bug out. That kind of guy.

The kind who would insist on a hotel room on a low floor and next to a stairwell for the same reason.

“How many floors is the hotel?” I asked.

“I don’t know exactly. It’s got two towers. One is maybe fifteen floors, the other about twenty-five.”

“You want to bet that this guy’s room will be on one of the first five floors and adjacent to a stairwell? Figure two stairwells per tower, three rooms either right next to or directly across from each stairwell. Total of sixty doors to check. Fewer if we’re lucky.”

He grinned. “No, I wouldn’t take that bet.”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t, either. Let’s go.”

FIFTEEN

WE RODE THE SKY TRAIN two exits to Surasak and got off. As we walked the short distance to the hotel, I said, “We don’t know for sure that the room is empty. So when we get the right door, we need to go in fast and hard, surprise anyone who might be in there, overwhelm them. Okay?”

“Okay. Who goes first?”

“I’ll go first. You back me up.”

“Don’t I always?”

“When you’re not trying to make it with a katoey, yeah.”

“Hey, man…”

“Hang on a minute, there’s a drugstore. You speak a little Thai, right?”

“Yeah, some.”

“We need a few supplies to clean the knives. And our hands, too. Bleach and alcohol.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Get a toothbrush, too. And some rubber gloves. Four pairs.”

“Four pairs of rubber gloves? Shit, man, they’re going to think I’m some kind of deviant.”

“Dox, if the shoe fits…”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m going.”

Dox went into the drugstore and came out a few minutes later carrying a plastic grocery bag. When we were in sight of the hotel, I said, “All right. Let me go ahead. You wait one minute and follow me in. It’s better if the two of us aren’t seen together. Meet me on the first floor-not the lobby, the one above it-by the elevators.”

“Which tower?”

“What are they called?”

“I don’t remember.”

I thought for a moment. “Whichever one is closest to the lobby entrance where we’re going in. Worst case, you go to the wrong one, you don’t see me, you adjust.”

“All right, sounds like a plan.”

I went in and headed straight for the elevators, just another hotel guest tired from an evening of carousing in nearby Patpong and heading to his room to sleep it off. There was a security guy in front of the elevator bank, but he did nothing more than return my nod of greeting and let me pass. I noted a camera in front of the elevators, and hoped there wouldn’t be more of them.

I took the elevator to the seventh floor. I got out and glanced around. No cameras. Excellent. If this had been The Four Seasons or The Oriental or one of the other high-end hotels in town, we would have had a problem. With cameras in the corridors, you can only try two or three doors before security understands what’s happening and comes running. But the Holiday Inn didn’t have quite that level of service.

I took the stairs down to the first floor and waited. Dox showed up a minute later, emerging directly from the elevator. It would have been smarter if he’d gone to a different floor and walked down as I had, just in case anyone on the lobby level was watching where the elevator was going, but okay, not such a big deal. Certainly not worth mentioning right now.

We started by the stairwell nearest the elevators and worked our way up. Each floor took less than a minute. No luck going up. On five, we walked over to the second stairwell and started down again. On the third floor we found what we were looking for: to the right of the stairwell, room 316. I slid the card in and the reader lit up in green. I turned the handle, shoved the door open, and burst inside.

It was a simple room, not a suite. The lights were on in the main room, straight ahead; the bathroom, to the right, was dark. If anyone was in here, it was unlikely he’d be sitting in a dark bathroom, and I checked the main room first. It was empty. The fact that the door opened at all-that the interior dead bolt wasn’t engaged-was encouraging, of course. If someone security conscious had been in the room, he would have engaged the dead bolt. And the fact that there had been no sounds of someone being startled, no reactive movement anywhere, that was good, too. Still, I had to be sure. I checked the bathroom. Empty. I even checked the closet and under the bed, something that, but for his recent chagrin, would doubtless have elicited some comment from Dox. Nothing. We were in.

We pulled on the gloves and started looking around. Unfortunately, the room was as clean as the van. There was a change of clothes in one of the dresser drawers, an empty suitcase against a wall. Some toiletries in the bathroom. Other than that, nothing.

Dox was checking the closet. “Safe’s locked,” I heard him say.

I walked over. Yeah, there it was, a typical hotel unit. I tried it and it was indeed locked.

“Told you,” he said. “Well, you had a damn good idea about getting into the room, I’ll give you that. But I’m no safecracker, and I doubt you are, either. I think we’ve reached a dead end.”

“Maybe,” I said, looking at the safe. “Maybe not.”

I walked over to the desk, picked up the phone, and hit the button for room service. Dox looked at me quizzically, but didn’t say anything.

The phone rang once, then someone picked up. “Yes, Mr. Winters, how may I help you?” the voice on the other end said.

“Huh?” I said, looking at Dox. “You’ve got me down as Mr. Winters?”

“Uh, yes, sir, ‘Mr. Mitchell William Winters’ is what we have on the list. Are you not Mr. Winters?”

“Winters! I thought you said Vintners. I must be losing my hearing. Sorry about that.”

“No trouble at all, Mr. Winters. How may I help you?”

“Well, I was hoping you could tell me what sort of exercise equipment you have down there.”

“Exercise equipment, sir?”

“Yes, you know, stationary bicycles, weights, a sauna, that sort of thing.”

“Ah, you must want the fitness center, sir. This is room service.”

“Room service? Good God, I’m losing my mind along with my hearing. I’m so sorry to have disturbed you.”

“Not at all, sir. But the fitness center is closed now. It will reopen at six o’clock in the morning, and someone will be able to assist you then. In the meantime, if you like, you can access it with your room key.”

“I see. Well, that’s very helpful. Thank you very much.”

I hung up and turned to Dox. “Mitchell William Winters,” I said. “Or at least that’s the name he’s checked in under.”

He nodded. “Okay, but now what? ‘Open sesame’ to the safe?”

“No, I thought it would be better if you call down to the front desk and tell them you’ve forgotten the PIN you used to lock it.”

“Me? You want me to do that?”

I looked at him. “Do I look like ‘Mitchell William Winters’ to you?”

He shrugged. “Well no, now that you mention it, you don’t. But you don’t look like a John Rain, either.”

“That’s not the point. My real name could be Winters, it still wouldn’t matter. We just don’t want to provoke any questions, or make anything look out of order.”

“I know, I know, just keeping you on your toes is all. You sure no one on the staff would recognize this guy?”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t worry about that. I don’t think he was the kind of guy who wanted to be noticed, or who would have done anything that would get him noticed.” I might have added, unlike someone we know, but that would have been counterproductive.

I glanced at my watch. It was past midnight. I wanted to get this over with and be out of here.

“Look, they won’t ask for ID,” I said. “The fact that you’re calling from the room is all the security they’ll think they need.”

“Sounds like you’ve done this before, partner.”

“And even if they ask for ID, you tell them everything is in the safe.”

“Yeah, and after that?”

I struggled not to get exasperated. Working alone definitely had a few advantages.

“You improvise,” I said. “Weren’t you a Marine?”

He looked at me. “Hell, yes, son.” He started to pick up the phone.

“Wait, wait. Get out of your clothes first. Put on one of the hotel robes. Turn on the shower as though you’re about to get in it, or better yet as though you’ve got a guest in there-it’ll make them want to leave faster.”

He grinned. “Ordinarily, partner, seeing me half-naked makes people want to stick around.”

“You can call Tiara when we’re done.”

His grin turned into a frown.

“You want to make it look like you own the room,” I told him. “This is your room, they’re here to help you, but at your invitation, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. What, have they got a master PIN or something?”

I nodded. “It’s what they use if a guest forgets his personal PIN, or dies in the room, or whatever. Theoretically, only the manager knows it.”

“Okay, then.”

“And whoever they send up, don’t let him look inside the safe. He probably won’t, he’ll probably be discreet, but be ready and don’t give him a chance. Winters might have a gun in there, who knows, and we don’t want that kind of attention.”

“Yeah, good point.”

“One more thing. Ask him if he can tell you what PIN you used. Usually the safes are configured so that the person using the master can view the last twelve PINs that have been input.”

“But if we’ve already got the safe open…”

“We’ll still want to close it up using the same PIN. If someone checks later, we don’t want it to look like someone else was in here and got in the safe.”

“You’re a thorough man, Mr. Rain. I like that about you.” He started to undress. I walked into the bathroom, turned on the shower, and got him a robe.

Once he was changed, I handed him the phone and pressed the button for the front desk. He explained the problem, said yes twice, thanked them, and hung up.

“Okay,” he said, “they’re on their way up to open Mr. Winters’s safe.”

“Your safe.”

He frowned. “Look, man, I ain’t stupid, all right? I understand.”

“Listen, Dox, I don’t tell you how to snipe because you’re the best at it and I’ve got nothing to teach you there. But on these things, I’m telling you, you have to get in the right mindset or little signs will come to the surface and give you away.”

He flushed slightly. “All right, all right. I don’t mean to be sensitive. Just get off that Tiara stuff, all right?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

For a second, his frown started to deepen. Then he laughed.

“Yeah, I guess I’m just asking too much there,” he said.

“Give me your gloves,” I said. “And try to touch as little as possible while they’re off.”

He removed the gloves and handed them to me.

I held out my hand. “You’re a good man, Mr. Winters.”

He smiled and we shook.

“Oh, and the knives. I’ll clean them up in the bathroom while you take care of the safe.”

He pulled the knives out of his pants and handed them to me. I went into the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

It took only a few minutes to take care of the knives. I disassembled them and used the alcohol first. Quick scrub with the toothbrush. Soapy water. Rinse. Repeat with bleach. I did my hands when I was done, then turned off the sink, put on a fresh pair of gloves, wiped everything down, and reassembled the knives.

The door chimed. I heard Dox walk over to open it.

“Thanks for coming up,” I heard him say. “I was just about to jump in the shower and uh, I wouldn’t have been able to relax in there worrying about forgetting the combination to the safe and all.”

I rolled my eyes. Dox was as deadly a sniper as I’ve ever known, but we’d have to work on smoothing out some of the rough edges.

I heard them move past my position. There was a bit of muffled conversation. Then they were on their way back to the door. Dox said, “Thank you again, thank you,” and I heard the door close.

A moment later he opened the bathroom door. “You can come out now,” he said.

“Any problems?”

“Nope. I think the robe helped, like you said. You know, you’re pretty good at this stuff, actually. Hey, maybe we should raid the minibar. This is the opportunity of a lifetime.”

“Was he able to give you the PIN Winters used?”

He nodded. “Eight-eight-seven-one.”

“Good. Nice work. What did you touch?”

“Just three things. The door handle, the bathroom door handle, and the safe.”

“Okay,” I said, handing him a fresh pair of gloves. “The alcohol and bleach are in the bathroom. Wash your hands with one, rinse, then use the other. You had Winters’s blood on you, too. Then put the gloves on. I’ll wipe down the places you touched.”

I grabbed a hand towel and took care of the surfaces he had mentioned, then joined him in the bathroom and did the sink when he was finished there. He pulled on the gloves again and I put the supplies, including the hand towel, into the bag in which we’d brought them. I set the bag down in front of the door so it would be impossible to forget.

We walked over to the safe, which was now open. There were three items inside. A wallet. A passport. And a Treo 650 smart-phone.

Dox pulled on his clothes while I checked the items. First, the passport. It was U.S.-issued, and indeed for Mitchell William Winters. Then the wallet, which contained credit cards and an Indonesian driver’s license with a Jakarta address, also for Mr. Winters. In the billfold, there were Indonesian rupiah, U.S. dollars, Thai baht, and Hong Kong dollars.

Back to the passport. Mr. Winters was quite the traveler. He had stamps from all over the world, most recently Thailand, of course.

The Treo was what I was most looking forward to. I picked it up and turned it on. The screen lit up, asking for a password.

Dox said, “Shit.”

I considered for a moment, then keyed in eight-eight-seven-one.

The screen changed to the home menu. We were in.

“Hot damn, nice going, man!” Dox said, clapping me on the back. “Shame on old Mr. Winters, using the same password in different places.”

I looked at him and raised my eyebrows. “Do you use different passwords for all your different devices?” I asked.

“Well, uh…”

“No one does. In the never-ending battle between security and convenience, convenience always wins.”

“I guess that’s true.”

I smiled. “Of course, now you know better. Remember: security is like a chain. It’s only as strong as its weakest link.”

We started going through the Treo-contacts, appointments, memos. There was a lot in the device.

“This is taking too long,” I said. “Let’s put the passport and wallet back in the safe. We’ll take the Treo with us. It’s possible someone will know it’s gone, but I think it’ll be worth that risk.”

“Works for me.”

“You leave ahead of me. Don’t go out the same way you came in-you don’t want that security guard to see you leaving shortly after he saw you come in. Meet me in twenty minutes on the Surawong side of Patpong Two.”

He grinned. “Sure, I know Patpong.”

“I know you do. But we’re just going there to find an Internet café. Don’t get distracted.”

“I was afraid you might say that. Why an Internet café?”

“Just a feeling. We might want to follow up on some of what we find in the Treo. We could do this from the laptop at the hotel, but I like to do my surfing anonymously.”

He grinned. “Me, too. You never know when the government is going to crack down on us pornography hounds.”

Dox went ahead. I put the passport and wallet back in the safe and relocked it. I gave the room a last once-over to make sure we hadn’t disturbed anything. It all looked good.

I checked through the peephole. All clear. I opened the door with my shirt and took the stairs down. I used a side exit, then walked down the sois paralleling Silom into Patpong.

SIXTEEN

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, we were sitting in an Internet bar off Surawang, going through the Treo. The date book was interesting. It had an entry for a meeting at 19:00 the following day. The entry read: TD, JB, VBM @ CC.

“Code,” I said, musing.

“Gee, you think?” Dox asked.

I ignored him. “Let’s see what else is in here,” I said.

There were a few dozen names in the contact list. I knew only one of them. Jim Hilger.

“Look at this,” I said, pointing to it.

“Hilger,” Dox said. “The guy from Hong Kong? The CIA NOC?”

“Yeah, Mr. Non-Official Cover. The one who skimmed two million dollars from what Belghazi was paying those Transdniester types who we thought were Russians.”

“That was supposed to be our money, partner. I’ve been hoping to run into this feller so we could have a good honest talk about it.”

I nodded and went to the memos section. There was only one entry: the confirmation number for an open-ended electronic ticket from Bangkok to Hong Kong.

“Looks like our friend Winters was planning on a visit to Hong Kong,” I said, indicating the entry. “There’s this ticket. And he had Hong Kong dollars in his wallet.”

“Hilger’s based in Hong Kong, ain’t he? Or he was when we took out Belghazi.”

“Yeah, I’m thinking the same thing.” I went back to the calendar entry, but still couldn’t make sense of Winters’s code. I looked at it for about a full minute, but nothing came.

“How does it work?” Dox asked. “If you stare at it long enough, does it suddenly reveal its secrets?”

I sighed. “No, probably not. But… ‘at CC’… and he’s going to be in Hong Kong…”

I spun around to the keyboard and brought up Google. I keyed in “Hong Kong CC.”

I got entries for Hong Kong Correspondence Chess. The Hong Kong Computer Center. The Hong Kong Cricket Club. The Hong Kong Cat Club.

“Ah-ha, the old rendezvous at the Hong Kong Cat Club,” Dox said. “Those devils, we should have known.”

I could tell that, if Dox and I were going to keep working together, ignoring him was a survival skill I would have to develop. “Hong Kong Cricket Club,” I said. “Hong Kong Cat Club. Hong Kong… China Club.”

“China Club?”

I nodded. “It’s a private club with a five-star restaurant at the top of the old Bank of China building in Central. They’ve got one in Beijing now, too, and in Singapore.”

“We didn’t get a hit for that, though.”

“Yeah.” I keyed in “China Club Hong Kong” and hit “enter.” I got about three million hits, none for what I was looking for.

“You sure about this place?” Dox asked.

“It’s exclusive. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t have a website and I doubt they advertise.” I keyed in a number of variations on what I was looking for until I came up with a phone number. I picked up my cell phone, turned it on, and input the number.

The phone on the other end rang once, then again. A woman’s voice answered: “Good evening, China Club. How may I assist you?”

“Restaurant reservations,” I said.

“My pleasure,” the voice said.

I waited a moment, then a man’s voice said, “China Club Restaurant. How may I assist you?”

“I’d like to confirm a reservation,” I said. “Jim Hilger. Tomorrow.”

There was a pause, then the voice said, “Yes, sir, seven o’clock tomorrow evening, private dining room, party of four.”

“Thank you so much,” I said, smiling.

I hung up and looked at Dox. “Dinner tomorrow night at the China Club, party of four, private dining room. I think they must have forgotten to invite us.”

He grinned. “Well, maybe we ought to just join them anyway.”

“I’m beginning to think we should.”

“Do we know who else will be there?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t ask that. They probably wouldn’t have known, and anyway the question would have seemed odd.”

“Well, it was a near thing back there in front of Brown Sugar,” he said, “but now that I think about it, it might have loosened things up for us, given us the break we’re looking for. Nothing like a little serendipity to make a man feel all is right in the universe.”

The massive adrenaline surge that had helped me survive Brown Sugar and its aftermath was ebbing, but I could still feel its effects. Getting to sleep tonight was going to be a bitch.

“So it looks like Hilger was behind Winters,” I said. “For a while there, I was concerned it was the Israelis.”

“You think Delilah would set us up? I don’t believe that. Plus she doesn’t know my number.”

“Oh, you didn’t get around to giving it to her?”

“Stop it. That wouldn’t be right.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face and thought. “Even before we found that Treo entry, I doubted it was the Israelis. Although if some Russians have your number, I suppose there are a lot of other players who might have gotten ahold of it, the Israelis included. But Delilah only just found out about you. I don’t see how the Israelis could have gotten your number that quickly. Plus, they’re relatively weak in Asia, which is part of the reason they wanted me to do Manny in the first place. I doubt they have the technical means, on the ground, immediately deployable, to track a cell phone in Bangkok.”

He nodded. “All right, so we can rule out the Israelites, I agree.”

“Now let’s assume that Winters was hooked up with Hilger. It sure looks that way-we’ve got the entry in the Treo, the Hong Kong connection, the dinner reservation. We think that Hilger is CIA. Does that mean that all this is coming from the CIA?”

“Not necessarily. Hilger might be with the CIA, but he’s not synonymous with the CIA.”

“Correct. But the Agency has your phone number, don’t they?”

“They do, yeah, they’ve been a client. Never thought that would be a problem before.”

“Does the Agency know about the work you’ve done for the Russians?”

“I never told them about it. When I’m not leaving my cell phone on and trying to have my way with the lady-boys, I can actually be fairly discreet.”

I chuckled. “Well, the Agency might know anyway. They’re spies, after all. Winters might have told us he got the number from the Russians to hide the CIA’s involvement.”

“Or he might really have gotten it from Ivan.”

“Yeah. No way for us to know, not yet. But whoever Winters was with, they had access to some pretty sophisticated equipment. They had to be able to track your cell phone to Bangkok, which would mean access to the carriers, and they had to pinpoint it at Brown Sugar, which required sophisticated equipment and know-how. Also, they moved fast. We arrived in Bangkok from Manila only two days ago, so they were able to get everything in place in”-I glanced at my watch-“a little over sixty hours. Pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, but on the other hand, you said those Thai guys weren’t pros.”

“No, they weren’t. They were outsourced-hell, two of them ran off as soon as they started taking fire.”

“Guess the money wasn’t worth it.”

“Exactly. Now, if the snatch had been a CIA op, I would have expected an integrated group from the Agency’s paramilitary branch. They’ve got the operators, and they can move fast if they want to.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me again. How do we know Hilger is CIA?”

“We don’t for sure. But two people implied that he was-Kanezaki, and the late Charles Crawley the third.”

Crawley was the Agency staffer who had tried to hire Dox to take me out. Dox warned me. After which I had what the government likes to call a “full and frank discussion” with Mr. Crawley, uninvited, in his suburban Virginia apartment. He had told me about a Hong Kong NOC, but wouldn’t give up the NOC’s name. The way Hilger had shown up afterward had left me in no doubt.

“Well, if Hilger’s CIA,” Dox said, “and he was behind Brown Sugar, why did he send a bunch of locals instead of the A-team?”

“He didn’t send a bunch of locals. He sent Winters. Winters assembled the local team.”

“I see what you’re saying. That’s the right way to look at it.”

I looked at him. “So the question…”

“Is, ‘Who is Old Man Winters?’ ”

“Right. Was Winters Agency, or not? Right now, I’m guessing not. Which would tell us a lot about what Hilger is really up to.”

I turned to the monitor and Googled “Mitchell William Winters.” We got no hits.

Dox said, “It seems that Mr. Winters has spent some time flying under the radar.”

“It does. Hang on a minute.”

I went to the bulletin board I used with Tatsu. There was a message waiting from him: the two dead men were named Scott Calver and David Gibbons. That tracked with what Kanezaki had told me. They were both ex-military, Third Special Forces. First Gulf War vets, honorable discharges. After that they entered the State Department Foreign Service, with postings to Amman, Karachi, and Riyadh.

Except for proper names, the message was in Japanese. I translated for Dox. He said, “So they left the Third Special Forces to become diplomats. Now there’s a believable career path.”

“Yeah,” I said. “At one point, they were Agency. But the message says they left in 2003. Looks like Kanezaki was being straight when he described them as ‘ex-company.’ ”

I glanced back at the screen. Tatsu’s post said the two men had left the government to join “Gird Enterprises.” I read it to Dox.

“What do you make of that?” he asked.

“A company, I’m guessing. My contact says he has no further information on it, but…”

I Googled “Gird Enterprises” and “Gird Enterprise.” Nada.

I went back to Tatsu’s post. At the bottom, there was an additional paragraph.

When you have a chance, there is something of a personal nature I would like to discuss with you. It’s not related to the matter at hand. Will you be in Japan soon? Perhaps we could get together for tea and our small talk, which I confess I quite miss. I hope you are well. Please be careful.

I wondered what the personal matter might be, and hoped that Tatsu and his family were all right. I typed in a message:

I need information on Jim Hilger, American resident in Hong Kong, reportedly a CIA NOC. There’s a connection with a man named Mitchell William Winters, probably residing in Jakarta, probably with a U.S. military special operations background, probably with experience in Thailand. Possible connection of both to “Gird Enterprises.”

And I would very much like to see you for tea and to discuss the personal matter you mention. I hope you and your family are well. Thank you for all your help, and please take care.

“What about Kanezaki?” Dox asked.

I went to that bulletin board. There was a message waiting:

I’m still looking into things, but running into a lot of interference and have to be careful. Anything more you can give me could help.

I typed in, What can you tell me about “Gird Enterprises”? Apparently the two departed men left the government for something by that name. I closed the two bulletin boards and reflexively purged the browser.

“Let’s see if there’s anything in the news,” I said.

I Googled a few variations on “Shooting in Manila Shopping Mall CIA.” And came up with a very interesting headline, from the Washington Post: “Two Slain Americans Reported to Be CIA Officers.”

“Shit, look at that,” Dox said.

We read the article. Apparently, “sources” were claiming that the two dead men were CIA. A CIA spokesman, citing Agency policy, refused to either confirm or deny the affiliations of the men.

We were quiet for a moment. Dox said, “Kanezaki said they were ex-spooks.”

I nodded. “He did.”

“Well, I’d have to call this a discrepancy.”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe your lady found out something that might shed some light on the situation. Why don’t you give her a call?”

I thought for a moment. For all the reasons Dox and I had just discussed, I didn’t think Delilah could have been involved in what had happened in front of Brown Sugar. What was bothering me was that I was hoping she hadn’t been involved. I realized this was dangerous: it used to be that I would just do the math and accept the results. I didn’t hope one way or the other or have any other particular feelings about it. Now I was emotionally invested in the outcome. That made me wonder whether I could trust myself not to skew the data.

I’d have to figure that one out as we went along. If I could.

I called her. There were three rings, then she answered. “Allo?”

“It’s me. Okay to talk?”

“Okay to talk. I was just going to post you something.”

“Where are you?”

“Bangkok.”

“So am I. Can you meet?”

“No. Gil is here. I have to be careful. And so do you.”

“He’s here?” I asked.

She must have heard something in my voice. Or else she had just come to know me well enough to know what I was thinking. Either way, she said, “Don’t even think it.”

I didn’t answer. I don’t like the feeling of being hunted. I tend to take it personally.

“Don’t even think it,” she said again. “If something happens to him, you will make an enemy of me. I promise.”

All right, Gil was on her team. I needed to remember that.

“I understand,” I said. “I’ll just keep a low profile.”

“Good.”

“Any new info?”

“Yes. It sounds like those men really were CIA. Gil knew them in the first Gulf War. They were all part of the same unit, headed by a man named Jim Huxton, now Jim Hilger.”

Hilger again. Okay.

“What else?”

“Hilger was observed in multiple meetings with Lavi. And he uses CIA cryptonyms. Hilger is ‘Top Dog.’ Lavi is ‘Jew-boy.’ ”

“Well, that’s not very politically correct, is it?”

She chuckled.

“I’m serious. You think you could use a crypt like that at a U.S. government agency? Christ, the Transportation Security Administration can’t even do an extra check on a Saudi chanting verses from the Koran and mumbling ‘Allahu Akbar’ as he boards a plane, you think the CIA can call an asset ‘Jew-boy’?”

“That’s a good point.”

I picked up the Treo and looked at the date book. “TD” and “JB” suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

“What about ‘VBM’?” I asked.

“ ‘VBM’?”

“Yes, probably another crypt.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to me. Gil didn’t mention it. Just the two I told you. Why?”

“I’m not sure. Anyway, the two you got were helpful. Thanks.”

“Helpful, how?”

I paused and considered. My sense was that she could be useful, maybe even necessary, but I wanted a chance to think about it before I asked.

“You sure you can’t meet?” I asked.

“It’s not a good idea. I don’t want Gil to get more suspicious than he already is.”

“How much time are you spending with him?”

There was a pause. She said, “Are you jealous?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

“That’s nice. I like that.”

Damn, I really would have liked to see her. Oh, well. The good news was that her demurral made me trust her. If she’d said no, then allowed me to persuade her, I would have smelled a set-up. Delilah wasn’t the wishy-washy type.

“My information is that those guys weren’t spooks,” I said. “They were ex-spooks. Most recently with an outfit called ‘Gird Enterprises.’ That mean anything to you?”

“It doesn’t. Did you try Google?”

For a moment I was easily able to understand why Dox sometimes got annoyed with me for asking questions that to him must have seemed obvious. “Of course,” I said. “There’s nothing.”

“I’ll look into it,” she said. “You sure about those guys, though?”

“Not sure, no. But I’ve got two independent sources, one of them in the organization itself, and their information tracks. My guess is that your people have it wrong, although I don’t know why.”

“I don’t know what more I can do on that one. I’ve already asked. If I press further, they’ll know something’s up.”

There was a pause. “How long will you be in Bangkok?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’m supposed to post something on our bulletin board about how I’m angry and hurt that you took off, that I want to see you again. I can probably wait a couple days or so to see if you’ll contact me.”

“Then let me check on a few things, use the information you gave me. I’ll be in touch.”

“Don’t keep me out of this. I’m in too deeply already.”

She had good antennae. “I won’t keep you out,” I said.

I imagined her thinking, Like hell. But what could she say.

“I’ll be in touch,” I told her.

There was a pause. She said, “You better be.” And clicked off.

I briefed Dox on the cryptonyms and everything else.

“Hilger, Manny, the dear departed Mr. Winters, and the mysterious Mr. VBM,” he said. “Damn, partner, sounds like Hong Kong is going to be the place to be.”

“Yeah, but if we go there, are we taking on the whole CIA? Or something else?”

“Well, let’s consider. We’ve got the Israelites telling us one thing, and Kanezaki and your Japanese contact telling us something different. Whose information do you trust more?”

I shrugged. “Kanezaki’s in the best position to know.”

“I agree with that, as long as he’s playing it straight.”

“Plus we’ve got the independent confirmation.”

“Agreed again. So what could have led the Israelites astray?”

I thought for a minute. “One, someone could be lying. Two, and more likely, I think, someone’s just made a mistake. Which isn’t so hard to imagine. I mean, Delilah said that Gil knew Hilger and the other two guys when they joined the Company. Then, during surveillance, Gil saw Hilger with Manny. He naturally assumes Hilger is still with the Agency and that Manny is an asset. When the two guys get killed while meeting with Manny, it reinforces the existing assumption that they were active-duty CIA. No one thinks to ask, Have these people moved on to something else? And they can’t make too many inquiries because the whole thing is so sensitive. Plus, there’s this media leak we just saw in the Washington Post. They might have seen that, too. More reinforcement of a mistaken assumption.”

He nodded for a long moment, as though thinking. Then he said, “You know, maybe we’re being too limited with this either/or perspective we’ve adopted.”

I looked at him, intrigued.

“I mean, look at us,” he went on. “Are we CIA? No, not really, we’re contractors. But the CIA uses us from time to time. And it ain’t just us. Hell, these days you’ve got Halliburton and Blackwater and DynCorp and Vinnell and Kroll-Crucible… these outfits are springing up all over, and it can be hard to tell where the government ends and the private sector begins.”

“That’s true,” I said.

“Plus you’ve got the government turning everybody into a bounty hunter by offering twenty-five million for Osama’s scrawny ass.”

“Capitalism at work,” I said. “Supply and demand.”

“I know. Hell, when I was watching us shock and awe the Iraqis on CNN when we first went in, I kept expecting the announcer to say, ‘This sortie brought to you by Kellogg’s Rice Krispies,’ or something like that. It just ain’t as clear as it used to be.”

I nodded. “You know who is the third largest contributor of forces to the coalition there, after the U.S. and the Brits?”

“Private contractors, son, no doubt about it. We’re the wave of the future. Ought to form a union.”

I nodded. “The U.S. doesn’t go out of its way to advertise it, but yeah.”

“Well, that’s what I’m talking about.”

He rubbed his chin as though considering something.

“But on balance,” he went on, “I don’t think we’re dealing with Uncle Sam here. Not with the Thais, not with the Jew-boy thing. And like you said, Christians In Action has a fairly dismal record of being able to run really bad guys like Manny. Plus your Japanese contact, plus Kanezaki, both say those guys in Manila were ex-spooks, not current. That’s independent confirmation, far as we know.”

“What about that Washington Post report?”

He shrugged. “Some reporter, fishing. Making the same mistake the Israelites made.”

I nodded. “Can’t disagree with any of that.”

“Plus Hilger did abscond with that two million dollars from Kwai Chung.”

“I’m not sure which way that cuts. He could still be government, just dirty.”

“That’s kind of what I’m getting at. What I think is, Hilger is Agency, but he’s wandered a tad off the reservation.”

I considered. “That would be a very interesting possibility.”

“Damn straight it’s interesting. If I’m right, and the news gets out, the Agency would likely disown Hilger like the wayward child he is. I’ve seen it happen.”

“He would be vulnerable to that, it’s true.”

“So you agree with what I’m saying?”

“I do.”

“Think we ought to go to Hong Kong?”

I looked at him. “I think we ought to leave in the morning. Bangkok’s feeling a little hot after Brown Sugar, anyway.”

I checked a few sites and found a Thai Air flight leaving at 8:00 that morning. I looked at my watch-less than seven hours away. Good. I wanted us out of the country before Hilger got news of what had happened to his man Winters, or at least before he had a chance to react to it. I reserved a seat for me, then one on an 8:25 Cathay Pacific flight for Dox. It would be more secure for us to travel separately. To be doubly sure, I used one of the backup false identities we were traveling under just in case Hilger had thought to put a customs hit on our names. I booked rooms for us in a couple of big, anonymous hotels-the InterContinental on Kowloon for Dox and the Shangri-La on Hong Kong Island for me.

“Glad to see we’re going deluxe,” Dox said, as I made the reservations.

“The China Club is members only,” I said. “We need hotels that can get their guests in.”

“Hey, I’m not complaining.”

“We’re going to need some clothes, too,” I said. “The club is formal. There ought to be a tailor right in the InterContinental shopping arcade who can get a suit ready for you while you wait. If not, ask the concierge for a recommendation.”

He smiled. “I love Hong Kong. Fastest place on earth.”

“Just tell the tailor you want something dark and conservative, a suit,” I said. “Let him do the rest. He’ll pick a tie for you, too.”

“Hey, man, don’t you trust my sense of style?”

I thought it best not to answer. I finished up on the computer, then purged the browser again.

Dox said, “One thing occurs to me. If Winters is supposed to show up for dinner at the China Club and he doesn’t, Hilger’s going to be concerned. Or maybe Winters was supposed to check in beforehand, and when he doesn’t, Hilger might change his plans. Wasn’t that what you were worried about, why you tried to make it look like the man hadn’t died being interrogated?”

I nodded. “We’ll have to take that into account. But the fact that the meeting place was already decided is encouraging. It would have been more secure for Hilger to have just told people the general venue, and waited until the last moment to give the exact location. My guess is that VBM, whoever he is, isn’t all that reachable. Or there are some other limitations on their ability to communicate in real time. And you have to figure this meeting is related to what happened in Manila. They’ve already been disrupted there once. I doubt they’d want to cancel again just because someone didn’t show up or failed to check in. I may be wrong, and if I am we’re going to find out, but I have a feeling their dinner’s on.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll buy that. What’s the general plan?”

I started envisioning things, figuring out what more we’d need and how we were going to get it.

“Manny and Hilger,” I said. “We take them both out. Manny satisfies the Israeli contract. We get paid. As for Hilger, either he’s not CIA at all, or he is and he’s off the reservation, but either way he gets disowned postmortem. At which point, the Israelis realize that they don’t have a problem with the Agency. It gets everyone off our backs.”

“You know, though, even if the government disowns Hilger, someone might be interested in avenging him. That kind of thing has been known to happen.”

I shrugged. “I’m willing to take that chance. No matter what, Hilger is where the direct pressure is coming from right now, even more than from the Israelis. I don’t see a better way of relieving that pressure than eliminating its source.”

“Seems reasonable to me.”

Part of me wondered how I had wandered along to a point where calmly proposing that we kill two men, one of whom might be CIA, would indeed seem reasonable. I would have to ponder that in my leisure time.

“And,” I said, “since, as far as I can tell, the reason they wanted relatively ‘natural’ causes for Manny in the first place was their mistaken assumption that he was a CIA asset, we no longer have to be overly constrained in our methods.”

Dox nodded. “That makes me feel better. Where I was brought up, gentlemen just shot each other. It’s more comfortable for me.”

I nodded, then for the second time in as many minutes realized that there were people in the world who might find this kind of conversation strange, who might even be put off by it. I wondered where the new perspective was coming from. I really would have to think about that later.

“The thing is,” I said, “I don’t think we’re going to have guns.”

His face fell a little. “No guns?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think even Kanezaki could get us what we’d need on this short notice. I’m not sure it would be wise to ask just now, regardless. And my Japanese contact could help us if we were in Tokyo. For Hong Kong… not with these time constraints.”

“Well, that sucks. I was kind of picturing myself up on a rooftop with the dreaded M-40A3 and matching AN/PVS-10 nightscope. It would have been so civilized.”

I nodded. “That, or I could have just burst into their private room with a forty-five while they were enjoying the Peking duck. But maybe…”

He looked at me. “You’re thinking something devious there, partner, I can tell.”

I smiled. “I’m thinking about Hilger. He was armed last year at Kwai Chung.”

“Armed and dangerous,” he said, nodding. “That boy was a one-man killing machine. Had his primary in a waist holster or belly band, if I’m remembering correctly, and a backup on his ankle.”

“Think that was a one-time thing?”

“Hell, no. A guy like that, carry for him is routine. He’d feel naked without it.”

“And even if it’s not routine, we know he carries when he’s operational.”

“Like tomorrow night, for example.”

“For example.”

He stroked his chin and grinned. “Old Manny might be carrying, too. I would be, after what almost happened to him in Manila.”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

“Nice of them, to bring the guns for us.”

I nodded. “All I need to do is get to one of them alone, from behind. Say, in a restroom.”

Dox cleared his throat. “You’re not worried about, you know, that when you see Manny like you did the last time…”

I shook my head, and felt something shift inside me like a block of frozen granite. “No,” I said. “I’m not worried at all.”