Requiem for an Assassin

18

DELILAH ARRIVED at LAX at a little before four in the afternoon California time. It was almost one in the morning now in Paris, but she’d napped on the flight and didn’t feel tired at all. Flying west was easy. It was the trip back that could be a little rough.

She was carrying only a shoulder bag, a dark brown Bottega Veneta in classic woven leather, and was in a cab less than twenty minutes after touching down. She told the driver, a twentysomething with a nice smile who she guessed was from West Africa, to take her to the Beverly Wilshire, although the reservation she’d made was in fact at the Bel-Air. Unlikely anyone was waiting at the airport to try to follow her, but she wanted a chance to confirm anyway before going on to her true destination.

“And let’s stay on Sepulveda to Jefferson Boulevard,” she added.

“Are you sure, miss? The four-oh-five would be faster.”

She knew that, which was exactly why she wanted to go through the city. In L.A. freeway traffic, it would be impossible to know whether anyone was following them; there could be fifty cars between the cab and a tail. The city route, by contrast, would have fewer cars and more local traffic. Every time the cab turned, Delilah would be able to check behind to see if anyone had stayed with them. A few instances of a car going the same way could be a coincidence. All the way from the airport to Beverly Hills would be a different matter.

“I’d just like to see the city,” Delilah said.

The driver furrowed his brow and smiled. “Of course, of course. You…live in L.A.?”

Delilah understood what he was thinking. She obviously knew the city well, but if she lived here, why would she want to take the scenic route? And with her looks, he was wondering if she was a celebrity he couldn’t quite place. Her clothes fit the celebrity theory, too: a classic Burberry trench coat, open now in the relative warmth of the southern California afternoon; a cream-colored, scoop-necked cashmere sweater, set off by a long, gold Faraone Mennella chain-link necklace; chocolate brown, platform-heeled boots worn over slim-cut jeans. She got that quizzical “Is she a celebrity?” look a lot. It neither gratified nor displeased her, but was occasionally something she could use.

“I’ve spent time here,” she said, glancing behind as they turned onto Sepulveda, marking the cars that followed them.

“Oh, of course,” the driver said, and she knew he would take the glance behind them as alertness for paparazzi, or, if not that, then wariness about being followed to an assignation with her lover. The second interpretation, she realized, wasn’t so much inaccurate as it was incomplete.

She thought of John on the way, and Dox. She was worried about both of them: Dox, for obvious reasons; Rain, because she knew that precisely because he was hell-bent on helping his friend, his judgment was likely to be impaired. Look at the way he had blundered into surveillance last year when he’d gone to see Midori and their child. Delilah had tried to warn him then, too, and he had ignored her. She wondered what it was about men that wed them more to a way of doing things than to achieving their ostensible goals. She loved them, loved nothing more, but she had to admit the world would be a better place if it were run by women.

By the time they got to the Beverly Wilshire, she knew she was clean. Still, she wanted to do a foot route to be absolutely sure. She freshened up in a restroom, then strolled through Beverly Hills as the sun set, using a variety of countersurveillance moves to make certain she was alone. After an hour, she was satisfied, and found another cab.

When she had checked the bulletin board before leaving Paris and learned that Rain was in L.A., she immediately thought of the Bel-Air, her favorite hotel in southern California. She’d stayed there twice, and loved it: a luxurious but low-key oasis of pink stucco Mission-style buildings, improbably secluded in the heart of the city among acres of flower and herb gardens, quietly trickling fountains, and the canopies of ancient trees. The hotel had been popular with stars since opening in 1946 because it was so serene, secure, and, of course, discreet. She had posted John the name and location, and the name she would be using. Just say you’re with Laure Kupfer, she had written, and they’ll check you in. Then she had called the hotel, paid in advance for the Garden Suite, and explained that they should give a key to a Mr. Ken, who might arrive before she did and ask to be let into her room.

The cab let her out on the quiet, residential street that fronted the property. She crossed a covered stone bridge to the main building within and was instantly enveloped by the beauty of the place. Water trickled somewhere in the dark beneath the bridge; to one side, the twisting branches of ancient sycamores were illuminated by spotlights from below. She caught the scent of orange blossoms and basil and suddenly realized she was ravenous.

The check-in area was furnished like a comfortable, tasteful living room, all upholstered furniture, landscape paintings in gilded frames, unostentatious objets d’art. The light was just right, not too bright, not too dim, and the room had a welcoming hush to it, along with a faint scent of wood and cut flowers. A fire crackled in an open fireplace.

Delilah walked over to the front desk and told them she was Laure Kupfer. Of course, Ms. Kupfer, welcome, they told her. Mr. Ken had already arrived; would she like to be escorted to the Garden Suite? She thanked them and told them no, she would rather just stroll over alone.

She walked along a porticoed terrace, her footfalls echoing quietly. She heard the sounds of conversation and quiet laughter from a few people dining under the heat lamps on the patio outside the restaurant, but other than that, Delilah enjoyed the delicious sense that she had the place to herself.

She came to the Garden Suite, unlocked the door, and stepped into the living room. The lights were on, but she didn’t see Rain. “John?” she called out.

There was no answer. A fire was burning in the stone fireplace, and she caught a faint, pleasant trace of smoke in the air. A thick contemporary Oriental rug with a floral design was spread across the expansive Saltillo-tiled floor. The upholstered chairs and couch arranged around a wooden coffee table at the center of the rug were all empty: not a newspaper, not a tossed-aside jacket, not an empty glass. Other than the lights and the fire, in fact, there was no sign that anyone had been using the room.

Suddenly, she was concerned. Rain had sophisticated enemies, and look what had happened to Dox. What if someone had…

Then she told herself she was being ridiculous. The hotel’s security was designed to protect Hollywood glitterati. They were safe here. And even if his judgment were off, Rain was still the most thorough, cautious, paranoid tactician she’d ever known. He was just out-taking a swim, or using the gym, or maybe strolling in one of the gardens.

She walked into the bedroom, scanning reflexively. Still no sign of him-no clothes lying around, not even an impression in the bedspread where he might have been sitting. Ah, there, on one of the dressers-a bottle of 1971 Glenmorangie. A good single malt, that was John. She glanced inside the walk-in closet, and saw a navy cashmere blazer on a hanger, and a pair of Camper loafers she recognized as his tucked neatly into a corner. She smiled. She knew there were women who would kill to have a man so neat, but it could be a little spooky at times. It was in Rain’s nature to move, and to live, without leaving sign.

She walked into the enormous bathroom with its soft white tile and mirrors and sensible light, and found a few toiletries in a drawer. And then, next to one of the sinks, a note. Okay. She picked it up.

On the grounds, the note read. Back by 7:00.

She looked at her watch. It was 6:15 now. She was mildly annoyed that he wasn’t waiting for her, and wondered what he was doing. She recognized the note itself was a concession: he didn’t like revealing anything that might enable someone to anticipate him, whether it was a restaurant reservation or a simple note describing his whereabouts. The vague reference was a compromise, but because she knew him, she could probably fill in the blanks, as he knew.

She guessed a workout. The gym was right around the corner. If he wasn’t there, she would just wait for him here. She peeked out at the private patio-half security habit, half curiosity-and liked what she saw: a hot tub sunken among the flagstones, rising steam illuminated by an underwater light; a pair of chaise longues, surrounded by ferns and hibiscus flowers; a high brick wall surrounding it all. She imagined the hot tub with John later and it gave her a little shiver. She took a quick shower and went out to find him.

The gym was a large former cottage that had been gutted, carpeted, and outfitted with the latest equipment. It had a high ceiling and large windows. Delilah glanced inside, and immediately saw Rain. He was in a corner, barefoot, in shorts and a tee-shirt, doing squats. She watched, fascinated. She knew he worked out and he’d told her a bit about his solo routines, but she’d never seen him. He was going fast now, squat, stand, squat, stand, occasionally brushing a wet strand of hair back from his eyes. She didn’t know how many he’d done before she started watching, but she counted two hundred and fifty, and then fifty more where at the end of every rep he leaped into the air.

He paused for a moment, and she sensed he was going to scan the windows. She stepped to the side and waited for a moment so he wouldn’t see her. She wanted to keep watching.

After a few seconds, she looked back inside. Rain was doing handstand push-ups, freestanding, not against the wall. Slowly this time: up, down onto his forehead, hold, then up again. She counted ten, and then he dropped over into a back bridge and did fifty more push-ups, inverted. A dark line of sweat ran down the front of his tee-shirt.

He flipped over and stood, and Delilah moved out of the way again. When she looked back inside, he was hanging from the horizontal bar of one of the machines, his hands spaced widely. She looked more closely…was he using just his fingertips? Yes, he was. He did twenty pull-ups, then dropped down and shadowboxed in front of the mirror. No, it wasn’t just shadow boxing, she realized; he was incorporating other elements, ripping and grappling movements she recognized, like some kind of customized karate kata. As he circled around, she caught a glimpse of his face. His eyes were closed, and she was surprised, even disconcerted, at the intensity of his expression. This was no dance for him, she knew; the movements were techniques he could use, had used, to kill. She wondered what, or whom, he was picturing right then that would produce such mimed ferocity, and imagined it must be Hilger.

She knew there was a dark skein of intensity deep in Rain’s nature, something that only rarely revealed itself at the surface. It was a quality that intrigued her, and, she had to admit, was part of what attracted her to him, but he never let her see it, and her only previous glimpses had been brief and inadvertent. She wondered why he was letting himself cut loose like this now, in a room with so many windows. It must have been the sense of privacy the hotel grounds fostered. Then she realized she had probably posed the wrong question: maybe he wasn’t letting himself. Maybe right now he couldn’t help it. Regardless, this was the longest she’d ever watched him unbeknownst, and it fascinated and excited her in equal measure.

After five minutes of the drills, Rain started stretching, and Delilah knew he was warming down. She eased away from the window and returned to the room.

A short while later, sitting in front of the fireplace, the lights turned low, she heard the key in the lock. She stood and watched the door open a crack, then swing wider when Rain saw it was her.

“Hey,” he said, looking her over. He was pumped from the workout and she liked the way the tee-shirt clung to him.

“Hey,” she said, smiling. She had planned on giving him a hard time about not being there when she arrived, but now she was just glad to see him.

He bolted the door, then walked over and kissed her lightly. She reached around for the back of his head, holding him there, prolonging the greeting, letting it turn into something more.

He raised his glistening arms like a doctor prepping for surgery. “I’m all wet,” he said.

She let out a little laugh. “Me, too. But I’m starving…why don’t you shower and we’ll get something to eat?”

They decided on the low-key lounge rather than the more formal dining room, and sat adjacent to each other at a corner table amid dark paneling, low light, and a wood fire. He looked good to her after a week away, casual in faded jeans, a checked oxford cloth shirt, and the cashmere blazer, his dark hair still wet from the shower. Delilah ordered filet of beef with Stilton; Rain, roast chicken with polenta, and they shared terrine of foie gras and a lobster corn custard. Rain chose a bottle of ’89 Lynch-Bages Bordeaux, and while they ate and drank, she asked him questions, and worked to sift through the responses.

“What does Hilger want?” she asked, quietly. “Why is he doing this?”

For almost a minute, Rain was silent, rolling the stem of his wineglass through his fingers, his eyes on the liquid inside. Just as Delilah thought he wasn’t going to answer, he said, “He wants me to do three jobs.”

There was no need to ask what the jobs would consist of. And she knew he wouldn’t tell her the details. In fact, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

Again he was silent for a long time. Then he said, “If I don’t do the jobs, Hilger will kill Dox. If I do the jobs, he’ll kill Dox as soon as I’m done.”

“Not just that. He might…”

“Yes, he’ll probably be using one of the jobs as a setup to take me out, too. I know. That’s why I have to find out where Dox is being held, and free him. There’s no other way he’s coming out of this alive.”

She couldn’t disagree with his assessment. She said, “You’re playing for time, then.”

Rain nodded. “Time, and information. Part of the reason I wanted to see Hilger in person was to make him move. Tracking someone who’s frozen is hard. Moving, he’ll leave a trail.”

“Has he?”

“So far, only fragments. I know he’s got Dox on a boat, and on one of our calls they were in Jakarta. He’s probably moving among various Indonesian islands, and maybe ports in nearby countries. I’m trying to narrow it down.”

She knew not to ask him whether he had already done one of the jobs. Her gut told her he had. And still it hadn’t been enough. He was going to have to do it again. God.

She took a sip of wine, thinking. “And you’re sure Dox is…”

He nodded. “I’ve spoken to him twice. The first time, Hilger did something to him to make him scream. He screamed for a long time.”

From the flatness of his tone and the stillness of his expression, he might have been describing something he’d read about in the news, not the overheard torture of a friend. What was it costing him, to recall and relate a memory like that one with such dispassion?

She took his hand and looked at him. “I’m sorry, John.”

He shook his head slightly, his eyes still on his wineglass.

“Hey,” she said. With her other hand, she reached for his chin, and gently steered his face toward hers. He met her eyes, and the flatness she saw in his actually made her flinch. She’d seen eyes like that before, on Gil, her colleague, the frighteningly efficient killer who had died in Hong Kong. But Gil’s eyes were like that all the time; it was all there was to him. It was worse to see the look on John, whom she knew so much better, whom she cared about so intimately.

He blinked, then suddenly was back, his eyes alive again. He swallowed and looked away. “You, uh, you want dessert?” he asked, glancing around for the waiter.

They finished with a Grand Marnier soufflé accompanied by glasses of an ’85 Graham’s Port, followed by French-press coffee. That look she’d seen didn’t return, but nor could she say he was being himself. It was almost as though someone was doing a good imitation of him, but the persona wasn’t quite natural, with some acting, some effort showing through it. But why? What was he hiding?

Back at the suite, Rain poured them each a healthy measure of the Glenmorangie. The fire had burned low, and she sat on the couch, the lights off, watching him kneel in the glow of the embers, moving coals, adding logs, getting it going again. After a little while, there was a good blaze, and she thought he would join her. But he didn’t. He stayed where he was, kneeling almost formally, one hand under the whiskey glass, the other on its side, watching the flames, his back to her.

“You going to come sit with me?” she asked.

After a moment, he came wordlessly to the couch and sat down a few inches away.

“What is it?” she asked, after a moment.

“I’ve just got a lot to think about.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He took a swallow of whiskey. “I don’t know how to.”

She looked at him. “Maybe that’s the problem.”

He returned the look, his eyes narrowing. “No. The problem is the problem. Not my disinclination to discuss it.”

“So you know how to, but don’t want to.”

For an instant, his face contorted in anger. He swallowed and seemed to get it under control. “What difference does it make?” he said.

“It makes a lot of difference. How is about you. Not wanting to is about me.”

He flushed and looked away, and she realized she was pushing too hard, no matter the truth of her words. She could be enormously patient and subtle when she was eliciting information from a target, but she had a habit of reverting to a more primitive, more deep-seated self with Rain. She cared too much about him; that was the problem. Her feelings made her forget herself. They brought forth all her default settings, the bad along with the good.

A little more tactical, girl, she thought. Not just for you. For him, too.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It just…scares me when you keep everything bottled up. It makes me feel insecure. I’m not used to feeling that way.”

He finished his Glenmorangie. Ordinarily, he savored a good single malt. Gulping it down like this, especially after a bottle of wine and a glass of port, wasn’t like him. “What do you mean?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Just…there are parts of you that you don’t let me see. And sometimes I feel like they’re the most important parts.” She was being tactical now, yes, but she wasn’t lying, either.

He refilled his glass and topped off hers. They sat quietly for a while, Delilah sipping her whiskey, Rain drinking his down, the light from the fire playing on the walls.

“I don’t know why you want to be with me,” he said, staring into the flames.

“Why do you say that?”

He kept looking away from her. “Because of what I am.”

“What are you?”

“You know.”

“I don’t. I only know how I feel about you.”

He shook his head as though saying No, you’re missing the point, then looked at her, his lips pursed, struggling with what he was trying to say. This time, what she saw in his eyes was utterly different from what she’d seen in the bar. She had never seen it before in him and wasn’t entirely sure what it was. But if she had to attach a word to it, the word would be…pleading.

“I’m…a…killer!” he whispered emphatically, as though simultaneously ashamed at the admission and bewildered that she couldn’t understand the point.

He looked away again. “Look at me,” he said, his voice rising. “I can’t stop. The most I can do is take breaks from the life, like an addict falling on and off the wagon. But it always finds me again. And you know why? Because it is me. It’s what I am.”

He drained the rest of his whiskey and slammed the empty glass down on the coffee table, then stood and started pacing, his head swiveling, his hands clenching. He was so wound up it looked like his body was fighting itself, the muscles bunched and writhing under the clothes.

She got up and intercepted him. He stopped in front of her and stood there, breathing hard, his hands balled into fists. No wonder he was working out the way he was. If he didn’t burn some of this off, it was going to consume him.

“Hey,” she said, trying to get him to meet her eyes. “Hey. I know you. As well as I’ve ever known anyone, maybe better. Don’t tell me you’re only that one thing.”

He laughed harshly. “What else matters?”

She took his face in her hands and steered it so that he was looking into her eyes. “You,” she said. “What you decide. That’s what matters.”

“I’m talking about what I am.”

She shook her head. “What you choose is what matters. Not the things you’ve done, or your abilities, or the training you’ve had, or even your inclinations. You can atone for all the rest, but your choices are what make you who you are.”

“You don’t understand…”

“I do. You’re not Gil. Don’t reduce yourself to that one thing. Find a way to be more than that. You have been, I’ve watched it happening in Paris.”

“I was fooling myself in Paris. And I guess you, too.”

“No, you’re fooling yourself now, or trying to. You’re in a bad situation and you’re terribly worried about your friend. Don’t let that…”

“I can’t!” he shouted. “I can’t be both. I have to be a certain way, or…or…”

“To save Dox, yes, you have to be that way, I understand,” she said, staying with him. “And you will. But that’s situational. It doesn’t define what you are. Don’t let it.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and drew his lips back from his teeth as though the agony he felt were physical. “I don’t know how,” he whispered.

“By the choices you make.”

He shook his head violently. “I don’t have a choice.”

“I know, and for the moment, you’re doing what you have to do. But the moment is going to pass. It’s a situation, it isn’t you.”

He looked up at the ceiling, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts, the muscles in his neck tight cords. He was fighting something, tears, terror, she didn’t know what.

“I…” he said, and then the word was choked off. He shook his head and took hold of her wrists as though preparing to cast her aside, and she sensed that whatever battle was raging inside him, he was losing it.

“Stay with me, John,” she said, trying to get him to look at her again. “Stay with me, please…”

And then he had her face in his hands and he was kissing her, ferociously, desperately, ravening her as though she was the only connection keeping him from being sucked away into some nameless horror. She kissed him back, hard, her mouth open, her hands in his hair, letting him feel her, take whatever he needed from her, making him know with her mouth and her hands and her body that she was there and she wasn’t going to let him go.

He backed her into the bedroom, his hands still on her face, his mouth not leaving hers for an instant. The feel of her jeans rubbing against her as she moved was suddenly maddening, electric, and she realized with a start that she was close to coming from nothing more than the way he was kissing her and the friction of a tight pair of jeans. For a moment, she forgot where they were, she wanted him to just keep kissing her like that, keep moving her like that, yes, just that way…

The back of her thighs bumped against the side of the bed. She was barely thinking now, she just wanted him naked, his skin against her, his weight on her, all of him inside her. He broke the kiss to lift her sweater over her head and was back before he had even tossed it aside, his tongue, his teeth, the taste of whiskey and his own taste, too. She managed to get his belt open, then his pants. She reached inside, and when she felt how hard he was, it excited her even more. She squeezed and felt his breath catch.

She pushed the jacket off his shoulders and tugged it down over his arms, then got his shirt off and threw it aside, never once letting him stop kissing her. He pushed her back on the bed and stepped out of his pants. She realized her bra was gone, she hadn’t even been aware of his doing it. Her groin ached and she was panting. Without thinking, she put her hand on herself, over her jeans, and rubbed. “Hurry,” she said.

Then he was naked, leaning over her, unbuttoning her jeans. He hooked his fingers inside the waistband and peeled the jeans and her panties down over her legs and flung them away. She scrambled back on the bed, spreading her legs and raising her knees, and Rain moved on top of her. She took hold to guide him and she was so wet that he didn’t stop or even slow but buried himself inside her with one violent stroke. She gasped with the mixed pleasure and pain of it and he moved back and thrust again and this time she cried out because she was coming, her back arching, her body shuddering, her hands moving involuntarily to his ass to pull him deeper, deeper. She felt his arms go under hers and he took her face hard in both hands and spread her legs wider with his thighs, his weight on her now, holding her, pinning her to the bed, kissing her hard again, fucking her like some primitive natural force she’d conjured but could now no longer control. He was moaning in her mouth, she could hear it and feel it both, and his movements grew faster, more brutal, and she felt another orgasm welling up from the depths of her. He groaned and squeezed his eyes shut and hammered at her harder than ever, as though enraged, or enraptured, or punishing an enemy he didn’t know how else to kill. Then the groan grew wilder and his body tensed and she felt him coming and she came, too, a shock wave of pleasure reverberating from her groin to her toes, her breasts, her fingertips, her mouth where he was kissing her still.

Slowly, gingerly, she settled back onto the bed, gasping as though she had just surfaced from the deep. Rain dropped his head next to hers and took some weight onto his elbows. She heard him mumble something, she didn’t know what, and she smiled through near delirium.

He remained like that for a few moments, the only movement the gradually slowing rise and fall of his breathing. Then he rolled off her onto his back, but close this time, so their bodies were touching, not the way it had been on the couch. They lay there, and she imagined a pair of shipwreck survivors who had just washed up exhausted onto a beach.

He came to his side to face her and put a hand on her belly. A line of sweat was trickling down his forehead, and she wiped it away with a finger.

“You okay?” he asked.

She smiled. “Okay?”

“I didn’t mean to be so…rough.”

She laughed. “I think you did.”

He dropped his eyes and a little color crept into his cheeks. “Well…”

He looked so appealing to her right then. The tousled hair…the sweat…the sudden shyness after a bout of demonic lovemaking. “Sometimes you’re a little rough, John,” she said, tracing the contours of his face with her fingertips. “It’s part of you. It’s part of what I…like about you.”

Good God, in the raw, dazed honesty of the moment, she had almost said, “What I love about you.” She had been close before to giving voice to those feelings, but had always pulled back out of fear of his reaction.

“Come sit with me in the hot tub,” she said.

He looked at her, sidelong. “I don’t know if I can move.”

She smiled and punched him on the shoulder. “If I can, you can.”

They switched off the patio lights and entered the water slowly, wincing from the heat at first, then enduring, and finally surrendering to it. They sat immersed in the near dark, steam rising into the cool air around them.

“It’s good here, isn’t it?” Delilah said. In the dim light, she could see his eyes, but not make out his expression.

He didn’t answer for a while. He was looking past her, and just as she thought she would take a chance and ask him what he was thinking, he said, “How will I know?”

“Know what?”

“How to make the right choice. Because I never have before.”

She reached through the water and took his hand. “I think you made a good one a few minutes ago. That’s a start.”