Killing Rain (18 page)

Watching him sleep, she felt a surge of gratitude so strong it brought tears to her eyes. She wanted to wake him with a kiss, hold his face in her hands and look in his eyes and thank him, really thank him, so that he could understand how much that trust, which not even the men she worked with extended to her, was worth. She smiled faintly at the ridiculous urge and waited for it to pass.

He was a strange man in many ways, and she found his strangeness appealing. Sometimes what she saw in his eyes reminded her of what had settled into her parents’ after her brother had been killed in Lebanon. She found herself moved by that look, and by the way he would force it away if he saw her watching too closely. Once she had asked him if there had ever been a child. He told
her no. She hadn’t pressed, sensing that whatever equivalent events could produce that expression had to be approached gradually and obliquely, if at all.

She knew the odds were against them, but she didn’t want to think about that now. She thought instead about how, when things were fixed, they would make up for how they had almost been set against each other. They’d been together in Macau, Hong Kong, now Thailand. All his territory. And, of course, Rio, which was somewhat of a neutral corner. She found herself wanting to take him to Europe, which felt like home now even more than Israel. Maybe Barcelona, or the Amalfi Coast. Somewhere he had never been, somewhere their time together would be fresh and unburdened by memory.

She watched him. She had never known a man who slept so silently. It was almost unnerving, that someone could be stealthy even in his sleep.

After a long time, she joined him.

I
WOKE UP EARLY
the next morning. Delilah was still sleeping. I got out of bed and padded silently over to the living area, sliding shut the teak doors that divided it from the sleeping area behind me. I picked up my cell phone and inserted one of the spare SIM cards I had purchased in Bangkok, effectively giving the phone a new identity. Then I went into the toilet stall, closed the door behind me, and turned the unit on. I needed to make two calls, and for the moment I wanted to keep them private. Ordinarily I prefer not to use a cell phone from a fixed location, but with the new SIM card the unit would be sterile. And the conversations would be brief.

First Tatsu, my old friend and nemesis at the Keisatsu-cho, the Japanese FBI. Tatsu owed me a lifetime of favors for having taken
out Murakami, a
yakuza
assassin he’d wanted dealt with extrajudicially, and it was time for me to call one of those favors in.

His cell rang only once. Then I heard his voice. Never one to waste words or even syllables, he said only,
“Hai.”

“Hello, old friend,” I said in Japanese.

There was a pause, and I imagined a rare smile. “Hello,” he said. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long.”

“Are you in town?”

“No.”

“Then you are calling for information.”

“Yes.”

“What do you need?”

“Four days ago there was a shootout in a Manila shopping mall. I want to know everything you can tell me about the men who died there.”

Tatsu would be wondering whether I’d been involved, but he knew there would be no point in asking. “All right,” he said.

“Thank you.”

“Everything is good?” he asked.

“The usual.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

I chuckled. “Thank you, my friend.”

“Call me if you’re ever in town. We can make small talk.”

I smiled. Tatsu was congenitally incapable of small talk, something I used to rib him over.

“We’ll do that,” I said.

“Jaa.”
Well then.

“Jaa.”
I hung up.

The next call, I knew, would be more problematic. Higher risk, but also higher reward.

I punched in the number and waited while the call went through. I told myself that, if the men in Manila really had been
CIA, I was in a world of shit anyway and the call couldn’t do much to worsen my position. If they weren’t, though, a call to the CIA itself would be my best chance of finding out.

This time, too, the phone was answered promptly with a curt
“Hai.”
I smiled, wondering briefly whether Tatsu was mentoring this young man. I suspected he was.

Tomohisa Kanezaki was a third-generation Japanese American and rising star at CIA Tokyo Station. We had found ourselves involved in several of the same off-the-books projects over the last couple years, and, as was the case with Tatsu, we had managed to work out what seemed to be a mutually beneficial modus vivendi. It was time to test the limits of that ambiguous relationship.

“Hey,” I said to him in English, knowing he would recognize the greeting and my voice.

There was a pause, then he said in English, “I’ve been wondering when you would get in touch.”

“Here I am.”

“Looking for work?”

“Have you got any?”

“Not like we did. The post–nine-eleven urgency is beginning to fade. For a while there, we were really in a take-no-prisoners mindset, but that’s going now. Shit, if we were the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, we’d call what we’ve got now a ‘catch and release’ program.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“I’m sorry to say it.”

“I’m not looking for work anyway.”

“No?”

“No. I’m staying out of that business. It’s too dangerous.”

He laughed.

“I need a favor,” I said.

“Sure.”

“I heard there was a shooting recently. In a Manila shopping mall.”

There was a pause, then he said, “I heard the same thing.”

Shit. I couldn’t imagine he would have heard about the shooting if the CIA weren’t in some way involved. Maybe I shouldn’t have called him. Well, too late now.

“You know anything about the deceased?” I asked. “I heard they were company men.”

There was another pause. Then: “They were ex-company.”

Ex-company. Interesting.

“You know what they were doing there?” I asked.

“I don’t.”

“I think I might know something. If I tell you, can you see what you can find out?”

“I’ll do what I can.”

Not exactly a binding promise, but I’d take what I could get.

“They were there for a meeting with a guy named Manheim Lavi. Israeli national, resident of South Africa. Check your files, you’ll find out who he is.”

There was a pause. “How do you know this?” he asked.

It was only reflex. He knew I wouldn’t answer.

“Check your files,” I said again.

“I know who Manny is.”

I should have realized. When we were last in touch, Kanezaki had been responsible for a number of antiterrorism initiatives in Southeast Asia. If he knew his brief, and of course he did, Manny would be very much on his radar screen.

“All right. Any ideas about why some ex-company guys would be meeting with him in Manila?”

“All I know is that they were named Calver and Gibbons. They retired from the Agency two years ago. They were with NE Division—the Middle East. I didn’t know them while they
were here, but enough people did to make their deaths pretty big news. Everybody’s talking about it.”

“If you can find out more, I’d like to know. Who they reported to when they were with the government, what they were up to lately. That kind of thing.”

There was a pause. “Tell me you weren’t involved in this,” he said.

“I told you, I’m not doing this stuff anymore.”

“Yeah? What are you doing instead?”

“I’m thinking about the greeting card industry.”

“That’s funny. You going to wear a shoe phone?”

I smiled. “Anything you can tell me, I’d be grateful.”

“You know where to look,” he said. Meaning the bulletin board.

“Thanks.”

“And don’t forget. This isn’t a one-way street. I’m taking a lot of chances here. I expect good information in return.”

“Of course.” I clicked off and shut the unit down.

I pulled on a pair of shorts and did my daily two hundred and fifty Hindu push-ups, five hundred Hindu squats, several minutes of neck bridges, front and back, and a variety of other bodyweight calisthenics and stretches. What you can get done with nothing more than a floor, your bodyweight, and gravity in thirty minutes of nonstop activity would put the fitness equipment industry out of business if people caught on.

When I was done, I got in the shower. I lathered up to shave and winced when I touched my cheek. I checked in the mirrored surface of the shower door and saw that my cheek was bruised. Then I noticed that my forearms were black and blue, too. Damn, I was lucky that bag hadn’t been filled with something heavier. And that I’d turned my face away from her head butt in time.

Delilah joined me just as I finished shaving. She looked at my cheek and said, “Ouch.”

I looked at her. “Don’t worry, I accept your apology.”

She gave me an odd look—half smile, half glare. “You deserved it,” she said. “And then some.”

I decided to respond to the smile, not the glare. I put my arms around her and pulled her close.

Some time passed before I got to finish showering. This time was slower, and a lot more tender. Thank God.

Afterward, Delilah stayed in the shower. I changed into jeans and an olive polo shirt and packed my bags.

I sat on the couch and waited for her. When she was done, she walked out into the suite naked. No makeup, wet hair. She looked great. I wished I could have had more time with her. Well, maybe there would be another chance. If we were lucky.

She pulled on a pair of navy silk shorts and a cream linen blouse. She sat next to me and brushed some wet hair back from her face.

“I’ve got some preliminary information,” I told her.

She raised her eyebrows, and I went on. “I have a contact at the Agency. According to him, those men weren’t active duty. They were retired.”

She frowned. “What did you expect? You called the CIA, and your questions confirmed your guilt. Your contact reacted by lulling you, telling you there’s less to worry about than you first thought. That’s exactly what you would expect him to say.”

She had a devious mind. Probably she thought I was telling her this so she would feed it to Gil and company, maybe get them to rethink. She was discounting the information accordingly.

I shook my head. “I’ve known this guy for a while. I don’t think he would play it that way.”

“Let’s hope not.”

“Check on your end. We’ll see if we can resolve the apparent discrepancy. If we can find proof, or something like proof, maybe your people will get them to change their assessment before things turn really ugly.”

She nodded slowly as though considering, then said, “I meant to tell you—I saw a big man, sandy-colored hair, outside the arrivals area in Bangkok and then again after dinner here. Did you notice him?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head automatically as though it was no big deal and probably just a coincidence. Damn, she’d caught me by surprise there.

She nodded. “I thought it was odd that he was at the airport in Bangkok at the same time we were, and then here afterward, but that he wasn’t on our flight.”

“Maybe he was waiting for someone and they caught a later flight.”

She looked at me. “I’m surprised I spotted an incongruity and you didn’t. I know you’re attuned to the environment.”

Fuck.
I knew she had me. Still, I struggled for a moment longer. I said, “I guess I’m not as sharp as I used to be.” Given the less than adroit way I had just handled her probe, my words rang worryingly true.

“If you didn’t know him and you hadn’t noticed, I would have expected you to be more alarmed to learn of his presence,” she said, relentless.

I didn’t say anything. Dox was blown. There was nothing I could do.

“Who is he?” she asked.

I sighed. “My partner.”

She nodded as though she had already known, as indeed she had. “He was with you in Manila?”

I shrugged. There was nothing to say.

“You might as well call him, then. We should talk.”

I realized I had never been with Dox in front of civilized company. The prospect made me uncomfortable.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said.

But she misunderstood my reticence. “It would be more efficient for us to put our heads together.”

For the second time in as many days, I thought,
Nothing good can come of this.

And for the second time I found myself saying, “All right.”

I took out my cell phone and called him. He answered immediately. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Peachy,” I said, the code word to tell him that everything was indeed okay, that I wasn’t under duress. “But my friend noticed you at the airport, and again here. She’d like to meet you.”