Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin

“Good. The blond guy was probably traveling sterile. But I have a strong feeling he was driving something, probably a van, that’s still parked on the street. If the cops were to find it, they might be able to associate it with a name. If we get a name, we can find out who applied for that visa to a certain Asian country recently. You following me?”

“Of course,” he said again.

I realized I was being too didactic. He wasn’t green anymore, and he’d never been stupid.

“You haven’t had time to think about this yet,” I said. “I have. That’s the only reason I’m asking.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and I imagined a reluctant smile on the other end of the phone.

“Anyway. If we have a name and visa application for Mr. Blond, we’ll be awfully close to our friend.”

“Understood.”

I paused, thinking there were other things. Christ, I needed to sleep.

“What about those secondary effects we talked about?” I asked. “You know, the family.”

“Almost done. I should have something later this morning.”

“All right, great. One other thing that occurs to me. I have a feeling our friend knew the second guy on the list. They served in the same theater of operations, you’ll see that. I don’t know what it means, exactly, but…my gut tells me it’s significant. Part of the nexus we’re trying to establish.”

“All right, good. I’ll follow up on that. What’s next?”

“I’m going to send a message to our friend to set up another call. I’ll slow things down as best as I can, but if I don’t push to do the call quickly, he’ll smell a setup. So my guess is, if you can come up with a breakthrough about his location, we need it within forty-eight hours. No, less than that. Because I’m going to have to travel to wherever he is.”

“Why don’t you leave now?”

“I don’t know where…”

“You don’t need to know, at least not exactly. We know he’s on a boat, still probably within reasonable proximity to the last place he called from. Get going now, you’ll be that much closer when we have his position. Wait in a hub city, a place nearby with a lot of flight connections. It’ll save time.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I’m tired, I should have seen that.”

“Yeah, well, apparently nobody’s perfect.”

I laughed, glad to see he was counterpunching. “All right, I’ll set up that call and then catch a plane. I’m going to need a few items from you, though.”

“Let me guess. Something from Santa.”

“Right. Same kind of toys he brought down the chimney last year, minus the tranq gun. You remember, or do you want me to post it?”

The “toys” I was talking about included a suppressed pistol with infrared laser and night sights, spare magazine, a hundred rounds of hollow point, a tactical thigh rig for carry, and night-vision goggles. I might have some refinements once I knew the terrain-assuming we learned the terrain in advance-but it paid to get him moving on the fundamentals now.

“I remember,” he said.

“Smaller this time, too, more concealable. I’m probably going to be operating in an urban environment. Body armor, too. And a medical kit. I don’t know what kind of shape my buddy’s going to be in.”

“Got it.”

I thought for another moment, feeling I was missing something. Then I realized.

“Papers,” I said. “I doubt my buddy’s been traveling with a passport, and wherever he is, most likely he’s going to have to clear customs in a country he hasn’t officially entered.”

“I can take care of that.”

“Good, good. All right, as soon as you have anything on those family members or anything else, post it. And I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear from our friend.”

“Okay. Good luck.”

I checked online. The only nonstop flight I could find from the East Coast to Southeast Asia was on Singapore Air, Newark to Singapore Changi, leaving at eleven o’clock that night, arriving in Singapore eighteen hours, forty minutes later, at 6:40 A.M. local time. Long flight, but it would save time compared to changing planes on the West Coast or in Tokyo or Hong Kong. Besides, the way I felt just then, if I could snag a first-class seat, I could probably sleep the entire way. And Singapore would put me within an hour flight, two at most, of the likely radius of Hilger’s boat.

I called the airline on the way back to the hotel. I was in luck-first class was available that evening. At over twelve grand for a round-trip ticket, I was surprised they sold any at all. I didn’t know about their other customers, but for me the extra comfort would be worth the expense. In my line of work, the difference between arriving exhausted from a nineteen-hour flight and arriving well rested could easily turn out to be a life-or-death thing.

I checked out of the hotel and found another Internet café, where I left Hilger a message:

If you were hoping to hear from Mr. Blond, you might have to wait for a while. He wasn’t doing well last time I saw him.

You have one chance to live through this. Let Dox go. Now.

I hoped it was the right message. I thought it would engage him the way I wanted, but I couldn’t be sure. It was possible he’d double down: kill Dox, come at me with everything he had, try to finish the game that way.

But I didn’t worry about it. Not really. I was too tired, for one thing. For another, I wasn’t in charge. The iceman was running this show now, and the word worry had never been part of his lexicon. After all, to worry, at a minimum you have to care.

HILGER SAT ON THE FLYBRIDGE, flanked by Pancho and Guthrie. They’d made port in Singapore the day before and were docked now in a berth at the Republic of Singapore Yacht Club. It was past one in the morning, though still hot and humid, and the other seventy boats berthed around them were all silent, rising and falling on the harbor swells as though breathing in their sleep.

Demeere had called fifteen minutes earlier, just before noon New York time. He’d spotted Rain at the Mott Street apartment. No surprise there; they’d known Rain was in New York from the bulletin board access, just as they’d known he was in California before that and Paris originally. So far, so good.

Accinelli had shown up five minutes later. Demeere told them Rain had followed Accinelli in, and they all knew that meant the man was as good as dead. Demeere was setting out to intercept Rain, and would take him when he left the apartment. He told them he would check in again right after, and then he clicked off.

That had been fifteen minutes ago, a very long fifteen minutes. Hilger imagined the sequence: Demeere had called just as Rain went in. Rain would be inside for, at most, five minutes. Demeere wouldn’t fuck around when he came out, he’d engage him immediately and be done with it. A one-minute walk back to the van, drive off, call from a few blocks away. It was hard to imagine a way for the whole thing to take more than ten minutes.

Another fifteen minutes went by. No one said a word. Hilger thought about calling Demeere, but didn’t want to risk it. Demeere would have purged his mobile phone before going out. If something had happened to him and Hilger called him now, the call would remain in the log. Not likely anyone could do anything with the number, but Hilger wasn’t going to take the risk. Besides, if Demeere were able to call, he would have already.

Hilger turned to Pancho. “Can you access New York City police band through the satellite?”

Pancho nodded. “It’ll take a little doing, but yeah.”

“All right. Let’s see if we can learn anything that way.”

Pancho disappeared. Guthrie and Hilger remained silent.