Barry Eisler - Killing Rain aka One Last Kill

“My pleasure,” the voice said.

I waited a moment, then a man’s voice said, “China Club Restaurant. How may I assist you?”

“I’d like to confirm a reservation,” I said. “Jim Hilger. Tomorrow.”

There was a pause, then the voice said, “Yes, sir, seven o’clock tomorrow evening, private dining room, party of four.”

“Thank you so much,” I said, smiling.

I hung up and looked at Dox. “Dinner tomorrow night at the China Club, party of four, private dining room. I think they must have forgotten to invite us.”

He grinned. “Well, maybe we ought to just join them anyway.”

“I’m beginning to think we should.”

“Do we know who else will be there?”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t ask that. They probably wouldn’t have known, and anyway the question would have seemed odd.”

“Well, it was a near thing back there in front of Brown Sugar,” he said, “but now that I think about it, it might have loosened things up for us, given us the break we’re looking for. Nothing like a little serendipity to make a man feel all is right in the universe.”

The massive adrenaline surge that had helped me survive Brown Sugar and its aftermath was ebbing, but I could still feel its effects. Getting to sleep tonight was going to be a bitch.

“So it looks like Hilger was behind Winters,” I said. “For a while there, I was concerned it was the Israelis.”

“You think Delilah would set us up? I don’t believe that. Plus she doesn’t know my number.”

“Oh, you didn’t get around to giving it to her?”

“Stop it. That wouldn’t be right.”

I scrubbed a hand over my face and thought. “Even before we found that Treo entry, I doubted it was the Israelis. Although if some Russians have your number, I suppose there are a lot of other players who might have gotten ahold of it, the Israelis included. But Delilah only just found out about you. I don’t see how the Israelis could have gotten your number that quickly. Plus, they’re relatively weak in Asia, which is part of the reason they wanted me to do Manny in the first place. I doubt they have the technical means, on the ground, immediately deployable, to track a cell phone in Bangkok.”

He nodded. “All right, so we can rule out the Israelites, I agree.”

“Now let’s assume that Winters was hooked up with Hilger. It sure looks that way-we’ve got the entry in the Treo, the Hong Kong connection, the dinner reservation. We think that Hilger is CIA. Does that mean that all this is coming from the CIA?”

“Not necessarily. Hilger might be with the CIA, but he’s not synonymous with the CIA.”

“Correct. But the Agency has your phone number, don’t they?”

“They do, yeah, they’ve been a client. Never thought that would be a problem before.”

“Does the Agency know about the work you’ve done for the Russians?”

“I never told them about it. When I’m not leaving my cell phone on and trying to have my way with the lady-boys, I can actually be fairly discreet.”

I chuckled. “Well, the Agency might know anyway. They’re spies, after all. Winters might have told us he got the number from the Russians to hide the CIA’s involvement.”

“Or he might really have gotten it from Ivan.”

“Yeah. No way for us to know, not yet. But whoever Winters was with, they had access to some pretty sophisticated equipment. They had to be able to track your cell phone to Bangkok, which would mean access to the carriers, and they had to pinpoint it at Brown Sugar, which required sophisticated equipment and know-how. Also, they moved fast. We arrived in Bangkok from Manila only two days ago, so they were able to get everything in place in”-I glanced at my watch-“a little over sixty hours. Pretty impressive.”

“Yeah, but on the other hand, you said those Thai guys weren’t pros.”

“No, they weren’t. They were outsourced-hell, two of them ran off as soon as they started taking fire.”

“Guess the money wasn’t worth it.”

“Exactly. Now, if the snatch had been a CIA op, I would have expected an integrated group from the Agency’s paramilitary branch. They’ve got the operators, and they can move fast if they want to.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me again. How do we know Hilger is CIA?”

“We don’t for sure. But two people implied that he was-Kanezaki, and the late Charles Crawley the third.”

Crawley was the Agency staffer who had tried to hire Dox to take me out. Dox warned me. After which I had what the government likes to call a “full and frank discussion” with Mr. Crawley, uninvited, in his suburban Virginia apartment. He had told me about a Hong Kong NOC, but wouldn’t give up the NOC’s name. The way Hilger had shown up afterward had left me in no doubt.

“Well, if Hilger’s CIA,” Dox said, “and he was behind Brown Sugar, why did he send a bunch of locals instead of the A-team?”

“He didn’t send a bunch of locals. He sent Winters. Winters assembled the local team.”

“I see what you’re saying. That’s the right way to look at it.”

I looked at him. “So the question…”

“Is, ‘Who is Old Man Winters?’ ”

“Right. Was Winters Agency, or not? Right now, I’m guessing not. Which would tell us a lot about what Hilger is really up to.”

I turned to the monitor and Googled “Mitchell William Winters.” We got no hits.

Dox said, “It seems that Mr. Winters has spent some time flying under the radar.”

“It does. Hang on a minute.”

I went to the bulletin board I used with Tatsu. There was a message waiting from him: the two dead men were named Scott Calver and David Gibbons. That tracked with what Kanezaki had told me. They were both ex-military, Third Special Forces. First Gulf War vets, honorable discharges. After that they entered the State Department Foreign Service, with postings to Amman, Karachi, and Riyadh.

Except for proper names, the message was in Japanese. I translated for Dox. He said, “So they left the Third Special Forces to become diplomats. Now there’s a believable career path.”

“Yeah,” I said. “At one point, they were Agency. But the message says they left in 2003. Looks like Kanezaki was being straight when he described them as ‘ex-company.’ ”

I glanced back at the screen. Tatsu’s post said the two men had left the government to join “Gird Enterprises.” I read it to Dox.

“What do you make of that?” he asked.

“A company, I’m guessing. My contact says he has no further information on it, but…”

I Googled “Gird Enterprises” and “Gird Enterprise.” Nada.

I went back to Tatsu’s post. At the bottom, there was an additional paragraph.

When you have a chance, there is something of a personal nature I would like to discuss with you. It’s not related to the matter at hand. Will you be in Japan soon? Perhaps we could get together for tea and our small talk, which I confess I quite miss. I hope you are well. Please be careful.

I wondered what the personal matter might be, and hoped that Tatsu and his family were all right. I typed in a message:

I need information on Jim Hilger, American resident in Hong Kong, reportedly a CIA NOC. There’s a connection with a man named Mitchell William Winters, probably residing in Jakarta, probably with a U.S. military special operations background, probably with experience in Thailand. Possible connection of both to “Gird Enterprises.”

And I would very much like to see you for tea and to discuss the personal matter you mention. I hope you and your family are well. Thank you for all your help, and please take care.

“What about Kanezaki?” Dox asked.