Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

Yeah, but Delilah knows you, better than anyone. She would understand.

Bullshit. No one ever understands. They say they do, but they don’t.

I kept heading south, the windows down, the sunroof open, the wind in my hair. The road narrowed in Big Sur, the traffic thinning, the stores and houses and other signs of people slowly evaporating as I drove. Soon the land was mostly quiet meadows and conifered hills, scalloped cliffs that wended along the Pacific, in and out, back and forth, each curve in the road revealing some new, spectacular vista. I watched the ocean sparkling a thousand feet below and felt I was driving along the edge of the earth, through some intensely private and stoical place, beyond civilization’s purview, beyond any notion of redemption or regret, a place that existed only for itself, that neither welcomed nor opposed nor held in any regard at all the fragile creatures who intermittently passed through in awe of it.

San Simeon. Pismo Beach. Santa Barbara. The sun set over the water as I drove, yellow, then pink, then finally a long red band at the horizon, fading to indigo. I wondered if Delilah had ever driven this route, and imagined what it would be like to have her here with me, watching as daylight yielded to a giant vault of stars. I tried to push away the thought, but the feeling persisted.

I drove on in the dark. Absent the distraction of the sunlit scenery, my mind began to wander, not to good places. I thought of Jannick, and all I had taken from him. I reminded myself that I had no choice, that it was either him or Dox. I thought of Hilger, and regret and ambivalence were eclipsed by hatred and cold rage.

First Dox, I reminded myself. Then Hilger. Just be patient. That’s what’s going to make this work for you.

I stopped in Santa Monica and checked the bulletin boards. Nothing from Kanezaki. A short message from Hilger: Call me at 08:00 GMT.

Eight o’clock Greenwich Mean Time…that would be midnight in California. Damn, it was almost eight out here already. A few more hours, and I would have missed the time for the call. I thought about skipping it entirely, telling him I hadn’t gotten the message until too late, giving Kanezaki more time to work the data. But I decided not to. If Kanezaki hadn’t found anything by now, he wasn’t going to, at least not without more information. A call to Hilger might shake something loose. And besides, I wanted to check in on Dox, to see if he was okay.

I thought for a moment. Hilger’s message was left at five o’clock that evening California time. I had posted at nine o’clock that morning, which would have been midnight or later throughout most of Asia. I imagined Hilger going to sleep sometime before I posted the message, receiving it and responding in the evening my time…morning his. A reasonably safe bet, then, that he was still in Asia somewhere, on a boat as Dox had said. It wasn’t much, but the more pieces I had, the better I’d be able to recognize and exploit each one of them, until hopefully, finally, they’d all add up to a breakthrough.

I called Kanezaki from a pay phone. “Heads up,” I told him. “There’s going to be a call at oh-eight-hundred GMT. Less than four hours from now. If you have a way to track the signal, that’s your moment. I’ll keep him on for as long as I can.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “If our man is careful enough to keep the phone off the rest of the time, I doubt he’d be stupid enough to call from an insecure location.”

Kanezaki had grown a lot since I’d first met him, but he still had an annoying tendency to try to show his smarts by stating the obvious. “Of course he wouldn’t,” I told him. “But it’ll be one more piece of data to work with. I’d rather know where he places the call than not know, wouldn’t you?”

There was a slight pause while he absorbed the rebuke. Then he said, “You’re right.”

“What about the guy I posted about? Any leads on that?”

“No.”

“The government venture-capital backing? You don’t think that’s a coincidence, do you?”

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence, but I haven’t turned it into anything workable yet, either.”

“All right, then. Oh-eight-hundred GMT. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

I had a burrito and a fruit smoothie at a place on the pier, then killed time by strolling, loosening up after the long drive. I went to a pay phone at exactly midnight and made the call.

One ring, then Hilger’s voice: “Yeah.”

I noted that he picked up directly. Maybe he’d made his point about the strength of his numbers last time, and didn’t feel the need to repeat it.

“It’s done,” I said.

“I know. Nice work. You complained about five days, but in the end you only needed two.”

Maybe he already knew about Jannick. Maybe he was bluffing to impress me with his omniscience. It didn’t really matter.

“Let me talk to Dox,” I said.

There was a short pause, and then I heard the big sniper’s baritone, tinny through the speakerphone. “Dox here.”

“How are you doing?”

“Bored. This is one of the dullest groups of nitwits I’ve ever been forced to spend time with. It’s a dark day to be a Marine.”

He was telling me they weren’t leaving him alone, that there was someone with him at all times. With a little luck, they’d notice only the insult, and not the substance it concealed. But why the mention of the Marines?

I heard static, then Hilger’s voice again. “All right, you heard him, he’s fine.”

That was the second time he’d grabbed the phone in a hurry. The Marines…was that what Dox was going to say when Hilger had grabbed the phone from him last time? And what did he mean by it now? Hilger was former Army. But what about the people with him? Did Dox know one of them from his Marine days? Or did he have some other way of knowing one of them was a jarhead?

Why did Hilger keep cutting me off so fast? I had a sudden, uncomfortable thought. Far-fetched, maybe, but…

“Put him on again,” I said.

“No.”

“Put him on. You can listen, I just want to make sure it’s him and not one of your people imitating his voice.”

There was a pause, then I heard Dox’s voice. “Yeah.”

“What’s your favorite hotel in Bangkok?”

“What?”

“Your favorite hotel in Bangkok.”

“What is this? You don’t think it’s me?”

“They’re only letting me talk to you for a second at a time and your accent is too easy to imitate.”

“What accent?”

“Tell me.”

“If they hear my answer, I won’t be able to go there after this. And that would be a tragedy.”

It had to be Dox. No one else could be so obstreperous. But still.

“The name, goddamnit.”

“Look, I like the place because of the mirrors in the bathrooms. I tried to tell you about a threesome I had in one, all right? With two lovely Thai ladies. And you cut me off ’cause you didn’t want to hear.”

I let out a long breath. It was him all right. The hotel was the Sukothai, and yeah, I had cut him off the time he tried to tell me the story.

I heard the phone being moved, then Hilger’s voice. “Satisfied?” he asked.

“All right,” I said. “I’ve held up my end. Now let him go.”

“You’re not done. There are two more.”

Well, it was worth a try.

“Give me the particulars, then,” I said.

“Not yet. You’re a little ahead of schedule.”

“We’re doing this on a schedule?”

“The person’s not in position yet. As soon as he is, I’ll upload the information you need.”

On the one hand, I liked the extra time. On the other hand, once again, I hated the idea that Hilger would be able to follow me by my efforts to track his target. I hoped Kanezaki would find something to help me short-circuit the whole thing.