Don Winslow - Satori

“I’m glad.”

She checked her image in the mirror, then, satisfied, stood up. Nicholai got up, then held her tight. She accepted the embrace, then broke it and held him at arm’s length. “I have to get back.”

“The film,” Nicholai said. “How does it end?”

Her laugh was enchanting.

The heroine watches them kill her lover, she told him.

NICHOLAI WAS EMBARRASSED about sneaking back down the stairway, but he understood Solange’s concern – Bao Dai would not make a complacent cuckold and he would take it out on her, not him.

He walked down the street to the Sporting Bar.

Haverford was already there, sipping on a cold beer. A small paper shopping bag was set on the empty chair beside him.

Nicholai sat down at the next table and both men looked out onto the street.

“You’re the talk of the town,” Haverford said.

“So I hear.”

“Bad idea for a man in your position,” Haverford said. “As a general rule, by the way, and understanding that you’re relatively new at this sort of thing, a ‘secret agent’ should try to avoid celebrity.”

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.” He turned to look directly into Haverford’s eyes. “Diamond brought Solange here.”

Haverford didn’t know. Surprise – and perhaps anger – showed in his eyes.

“He’s tracking you down,” Haverford said.

“Because…”

“You went off the radar, Nicholai,” Haverford said. “Because you know things that would be extremely -”

“I wasn’t intended to survive the Temple of the Green Truth, was I?” Nicholai asked. “Diamond arranged for me to be killed there.”

Nicholai would have thought it impossible, but Haverford actually looked ashamed. “It wasn’t me, Nicholai.”

“But the Chinese rescued me. Why?”

“You tell me,” Haverford answered. “You brought the weapons down here, didn’t you? You came to Saigon before you even knew that Solange was -”

“But you were here,” Nicholai said. “You knew.”

“I surmised,” Haverford corrected. “I didn’t know if you were alive or dead -”

“Odd, you’re the second person to say that to me today.”

“-but I did my best to enter the very interesting mind of Nicholai Hel,” Haverford said. “I sat at the go-kang and played your side. This was your only move, Nicholai.”

Haverford touched the bag sitting on the empty chair. “It’s in the bag, so to speak,” he said. “A Costa Rican passport under the name of Francisco Duarte, and the home addresses of your intended victims. Go now, go quickly, forget about Solange -”

“You’re full of advice today.”

“My parting gift,” Haverford said, standing up.

“What about Diamond?”

“I’ll take care of him,” Haverford said. “I have to fight a little intra-office battle, but I’ll win. You have your freedom, Nicholai. Enjoy it. Sayonara, Hel-san.”

He walked away down the street.

Nicholai picked up the bag and looked inside. As promised, there was the passport and, more important, the home addresses of the men who had tortured him in Tokyo, including Diamond, in what seemed like a lifetime ago.

He ordered a beer and enjoyed it in the oppressive heat. The temperature was in triple digits and it was as humid as a shower. The air was heavy, and the monsoon would break any day now. He hoped not to see it, that he and Solange would be on a flight out by then. Perhaps to some sunny, dry place.

It was tempting to think that they could go back to Japan. His deck of new identities might allow it, but he knew that the country had sadly changed and would never again be what it was. Japan was Americanized now, and he didn’t wish to experience it.

Besides, there was a little matter to settle – three of them, actually -in America itself before he could decide on a place to settle. But Solange would want someplace to be while he was away.

Maybe France, maybe somewhere in the Basque country.

After all, he thought, I speak the language.

Nicholai finished his drink, paid the tab, and walked back out onto the street. He had gone only a couple of blocks when he heard the car come up behind him.

The Renault motor sputtered as the car slowed down to match his pace. Nicholai didn’t glance back – he knew they were coming for him and it wouldn’t help to signal them that he was aware. A quick glance into a shop window told him that it was a blue Renault with a driver and two passengers.

Nicholai kept walking. Would they really attempt to snatch him here? In the late afternoon on Rue Catinat? And would it be a beating, an assassination, or a kidnapping? He brought the Paris Match up to his chest, out of their view, and, flexing his forearms, rolled it into a tight cylinder.

Then he saw the two men coming toward him.

One of them made a crucial mistake – he let his own eyes meet Nicholai’s. Then his eyes shifted focus, over Nicholai’s shoulders, and Nicholai knew that the men in the Renault were now on the sidewalk behind him.

So either it’s going to be knives – if it’s an assassination – or it’s a kidnapping, because the car was still keeping pace instead of just letting the men out and roaring off. Nicholai didn’t wait to find out.

He took care of the men behind him first. Swinging the rolled-up magazine as if he was digging an oar into the water, he struck the first assailant in the crotch, then pivoted and swung the magazine like a cricket bat and struck the second man in the neck. Both went down – the first in agony, the second unconscious before he hit the sidewalk.

Nicholai went into a deep squatting horse-stance and thrust the magazine back over his shoulder, striking the next man in the eye, dislodging the orb from its socket. The fourth man reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder. Nicholai dropped the magazine, trapped the man’s hand on top of his own shoulder, and then spun, breaking the arm and spinning him to the ground.

Then he ran.

He sprinted onto a side street that went off to the right from Catinat. The car followed him, bullets zipping as the driver attempted to steer through traffic and shoot at the same time. Pedestrians screamed, fell to the ground, and ducked into doorways, trying to get out of harm’s way as bullets flew and Nicholai pushed through the crowd.

Racing ahead of him, the car crashed onto the sidewalk in front of him.

The driver steadied his pistol on the bottom of the open window and lined up his shot. Nicholai dove to the ground and then rolled until he came up under the driver’s door. The shooter shifted the gun back and forth, trying to relocate his target.

Nicholai reached up, grabbed the shooter’s wrist and yanked it down, breaking the arm at the elbow, then pushed up, slamming the pistol butt into the man’s face. Then he sprang up, grabbed the stunned man by the hair, and slammed his face down onto the window ledge. He opened the door, pulled the man out onto the sidewalk, and got in himself.

A second car roared up the street.

A man leaned out the passenger window, blasting a Thompson.

Nicholai flattened out on the seats as the bullets shattered the windshield and sprayed glass all over him. Grabbing the pistol in one hand, he reached out with the other, opened the passenger door, and fell out onto the sidewalk. With the riddled car as a screen, he belly-crawled along the street, then looked up to see a startled messenger on a motor scooter stopped in front of him.

“Sorry,” Nicholai said as he lunged and knocked the man off the scooter.

He hopped on and raced off.

The driver saw him and came after him.

Nicholai leaned as low as he could over the scooter’s handlebars as the bullets zipped over his head. Police klaxons howled over the shouts and cries of bystanders as he weaved in and out of traffic, the pursuing car hot behind him.