Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

Then he was gone, and Hilger was back on the line. “We’ll use the bulletin board,” he said.

From the suddenness with which he’d grabbed the phone, I gathered he was concerned Dox might tell me something more, something useful. But what?

“No,” I told him. “What you’ve got to tell me, you can tell me to my face.”

“No. We do it my way, or…”

“Or you can fuck off.” And with that, I pressed the “End call” button.

Or rather, the iceman did. The iceman knew that if I didn’t establish some measure of control early on, I’d always be reacting, always trying to recover, every step of the way, until finally, no matter how desperate my efforts, or feverish my hope, Dox would be dead, and probably I along with him.

I looked at the Grande Taille again, watching the second hand’s smooth sweep. I could feel my heart beating steadily, my pulse rate just a little above normal. I was inside myself, suspended somewhere only I could recognize, disconnected, severed from events.

I watched the second hand’s slow sweep. One circuit. Two. Another. The street was gone. My focus was no larger than the movement on the watch face.

The second hand was beginning its fifth rotation when the phone buzzed. I saw Dox’s number on the screen and pressed “Answer.”

Hilger said, “You’re lucky your number got stored in this phone’s caller ID just now. Otherwise your friend would already be dead. Now listen, there’s something I want you to hear.”

In the background, Dox started screaming. I held the phone far from my ear and looked at the watch again.

Whatever they were doing, they did it for ten seconds. Then the screaming stopped. Hilger said, “I hope you won’t do that to him again.”

“Where do you want to meet?” I said, my voice as flat as a hockey rink and twice as cold.

“We’re not going to meet. I told you, the bulletin board. It’s nonnegotiable.”

“Then we have nothing to negotiate.”

There was a pause. He said, “You want to hear him scream again?”

“You can make him scream all you want. You want me to work for you, you’ll give me the assignment in person. I want to look in your eyes when you tell me. I’ll know from that how much I can trust you to let him go when this is done.”

There was another pause, longer this time. I could feel him considering, weighing the odds. He was thinking, I’d ask for the same thing. And I’d be looking for a way to take a run at me, sure. But that’s a dead end…hit me while my men have Dox, and Dox dies, too. Besides, if I choose the time and place, I can control the situation.

Of course, there was another possibility: Hilger’s reticence was feigned. He didn’t want me to kill anyone; he had grabbed Dox simply to flush me into the open so he could kill me. In which case, by insisting on a meeting, I was giving him exactly what he wanted.

But I would have to take the chance. Dox had saved my life twice. Playing it safe now would be no way to return the favor. Because if I didn’t keep Hilger moving, if I couldn’t get him to depart from his game plan, I would always be one step behind on this thing, all the way to its bitter end.

“ Hong Kong,” he said.

Hong Kong was his territory. He could control it too well. But I wanted an Asian background. It would make it easier for me to blend, and harder for him. I said, “ Tokyo.”

“No good,” he said, knowing he would be at as least as much of a disadvantage in Tokyo as I would be in Hong Kong. “ Bangkok.”

We were getting closer. But not long ago he’d fielded a team in Bangkok on short notice, a team that had very nearly gotten to Dox and me after we’d spoiled one of his ops. I knew he had reach there. It wouldn’t do.

I needed a place that was familiar to me, but where he was unlikely to have much local capability. Something inside me spoke up, and before I could think more about it, I said, “ Saigon.”

There was a pause. He said, “When?”

“The night after tomorrow.”

“I can’t make it that fast. For Vietnam, I’ll need a visa.”

I know, I thought. And that’ll give me one more datapoint I can use to track you. “One of the services can get you one in a day,” I said.

“What about you?”

I’d be traveling under a Japanese passport, which doesn’t require a visa. But Hilger didn’t need to know that. Better to let him think I was going to arrive the day of our meeting. That way, not only would I have time to reconnoiter, but he wouldn’t know I’d had time.

“I can get one in a day,” I said. “Keep Dox’s phone with you, and I’ll keep this one. The bulletin board will be backup. We’ll meet somewhere public, somewhere we can trust each other not to misbehave.”

“I trust you. Because if there’s a problem, the screaming you just heard is going to sound like music by comparison.”

I clenched my jaw and exhaled. “Careful how you use that leverage, Hilger. Right now, it’s the only thing keeping you alive.”

“Maybe. But you’re what’s keeping Dox alive. If you step out of line, you’ll kill him.”

“Put him on again.”

“After the first job. Assuming there aren’t any problems.” I started to protest, but he had already clicked off.

I walked in the direction of the place de la République, where I knew there was a travel agency. My survival paranoia felt like a brewing riot, and I didn’t want to be on the Internet searching for and purchasing flights to Saigon so soon after being tagged in Paris. Better to have the transaction done on a closed system.

From what I knew of Hilger and the number of government officials he had in his pocket, I guessed he might have access to customs information. If he knew what flight I was coming in on, it would be too easy for him to have a team waiting at the airport in Saigon. In fact, the safer alternative would be to fly to Hanoi and arrive in Saigon by some land connection. But there was no time for that. So the best I could do was to avoid leaving directly from Paris. That would at least obscure my arrival time.

There was a flight from Frankfurt at 7:20 that evening, with a change in Bangkok that would put me into Saigon at 3:25 the following afternoon, and of course my pick of flights on other airlines from Paris to Frankfurt. The woman who helped me was a little confused about why I wouldn’t want to just fly nonstop from Paris on Air France. Miles, I told her. I wanted to be able to upgrade to first. But damn, I didn’t have my frequent flyer number with me… I would take care of it later, directly with the airline. I booked the flight for Taro Yamada, the name on the passport I would be using and the Japanese equivalent of John Smith. Yamada was currently my most solid alter ego, fully nurtured into a mature identity, including driver’s license, credit cards, bank accounts, and the other indicia of unremarkable citizenship.

I hadn’t been to Saigon in over three decades, and I knew there would be a lot to learn, and not much time to learn it. Well, I could pick up a guidebook at the airport and read it on the plane. With that, plus the time I’d already spent there, plus the extra day I’d have on Hilger, I’d have an advantage.

I was actually in my apartment packing a bag-a few changes of clothes, a little less than ten thousand dollars in cash-when I realized I was supposed to meet Delilah for a drink in Montparnasse. Shit. I thought for a moment. Call her on her mobile? And tell her what?

I checked my watch. With just a carry-on, I could meet her and still make my plane. I went out to boulevard Henri IV and caught a cab.

Now that the logistics were taken care of, I was gripped by a creeping unease, entirely separate from the fear I felt for Dox. Maybe Vietnam was a bad idea. Saigon offered security advantages, yes, but for me it would also be a land of unburied memories, of a world that could never be forgotten, only, perhaps, left behind. I wondered why the iceman would want to go back there, what he was trying to accomplish in doing so.