Barry Eisler - Rain Storm aka Choke Point

“Twenty-five thousand is a lot of money,” I said, flipping the card around in my fingers.

She stared at me.

“You were never tempted to take it?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Not even with everything you’ve invested in the restaurant? That kind of cash would be a big help.”

“You think I’m going to give you up?” she asked, her voice rising. “For money?”

I shrugged. “You never told me about any of this. Until I pressed you.”

“I was afraid to tell you.”

“And you kept the card. A keepsake? Souvenir?”

There was a pause. She said, “Fuck you, then.”

I told myself I should have seen this coming.

I told myself it was all right, that I wasn’t disappointed, that it was better this way.

I wondered in a detached way whether it was all part of some cosmic punishment for Crazy Jake, the blood brother I had killed in Vietnam. Or perhaps for the other things I’ve done. To be periodically tantalized by the hope of something real, something good, always knowing at the same time that it was all going to turn to dust.

Maybe she didn’t tell them anything. Maybe they nailed you some other way.

Then why didn’t she say anything to you? And why did she keep that card?

I had convinced myself that, in Rio, I had become safe enough to see her. I realized now that I’d been wrong. The disease I carried was still communicable.

And still potentially fatal. Because, even if I could trust her to stay quiet, the Agency was watching her. She had become a focal point, a nexus, just like Harry had been. And Harry had wound up dead. I didn’t want that to happen to her.

Well, now for the hard part. You don’t have to like it , a boot camp instructor had once told me. You just have to do it .

I looked at her for a long moment. Her eyes were angry, but I saw hope in them, too. Hope that I would put my arms around her and pull her close, apologize, say I’d just been startled, that I’d been out of line.

I got up and looked into those beautiful green eyes, now widening with surprise, with hurt. I wondered if she could see the sadness in mine.

“Goodbye, Naomi,” I said.

I left. I told myself again that I wasn’t disappointed, that I wasn’t even terribly surprised. I learned a long time ago not to trust, that faith is to life what sticking your chin out is to boxing. I told myself it was good to get some further confirmation of the essential accuracy of my worldview.

I took extra precautions to ensure I wasn’t being followed. Then I went to a quiet beach near Grumari and sat alone and looked out at the water.

Don’t blame Naomi , I thought. Anyone would have given you up .

Not Midori , was the reply. And then I thought, No, you’re just trying to turn her into something too good to be true, something impossible .

But maybe she really was that good, and now I was just trying to dampen it, debase it, cheapen the consequence of what I’d lost.

I guess you can never really know , I thought. But then how do you decide ?

Doesn’t matter how it gets decided. Just that you do the deciding.

I shook my head in wonder. Midori was still throwing me off, all these months later and half a world away. Making me doubt myself, my judgments.

What does that tell you?

That one I didn’t answer. I already knew.

I sat and thought for a long time. About my life in Rio. About how Naomi had come into it, and how she was then suddenly gone. About what I ought to do now.

A breeze kicked up along the sand. I felt empty. The breeze might have been blowing straight through me.

I supposed I could just leave it all behind me. Bolt for the exit again, go somewhere new, invent another Yamada.

I shook my head, knowing I wasn’t ready for that, not so soon after the last time. The thought of doing it all again felt like nothing but dread.

Which made the conclusion that followed suspect, a possible rationalization. The conclusion went like this: It would be better to know what they want, anyway. To take the initiative, rather than passively waiting for whatever they have in mind .

All right then. I left the beach, and called Kanezaki from a pay phone. There was a decent chance they would track the call to Rio, but they obviously already knew I was here.

The phone rang twice. “Yeah,” I heard him say. He sounded groggy.

It was early afternoon in Rio, and Tokyo was twelve hours ahead. “Hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, recognizing my voice. “I had to get up to answer the phone, anyway.”

I was surprised to hear myself chuckle. “Tell me what you want.”

“Can we meet?”

“I’m in Rio for a few more days,” I told him. “After that I won’t be reachable.”

“All right, I’ll meet you in Rio.”

“Glad I was able to provide you with the excuse.”

There was a pause. “Where and when?”

“Have you got a GSM phone, something you use when you travel?” Unlike Japanese cell phones, a GSM unit would work in Brazil and most of the rest of the world.

“I do.”

“All right. Give me the number.”

He did. I wrote it down, then said, “I’ll call you on this number the day after tomorrow, when you’re in town.”

“All right.”

I hung up.

Two days later, I called him. He was staying at the Arpoador Inn on the Rua Francisco Otaviano in Ipanema, an inexpensive hotel located right on Ipanema’s famous beach.

“How are we going to do this?” he asked.

“Have a cab take you to Cristo Redentor , Christ the Redeemer,” I told him. “From there, head southwest on foot along the road through the Parque Nacional da Tijuca, the national park. I’ll find you in there. Start out from the statue in one hour.”

“All right.”

An hour later I had made myself comfortable on a trail overlooking the road through the national park, about a kilometer from the statue. Kanezaki appeared on time. I watched him pass my position, waited to ensure that he was alone, then cut down to the road and caught up with him from behind.

“Kanezaki,” I said.

He spun, startled to hear my voice so close. “Shit,” he said, perhaps a little embarrassed.

I smiled. He looked a little older than he had the last time I had seen him, leaner, more seasoned. The wire-rimmed glasses no longer made him look bookish. Instead, they gave his face… focus, somehow. Precision.

The bug detector was silent. I patted him down, took his cell phone for safekeeping, and nodded my head toward the trail from which I had just descended. “This way,” I said.

I led him back to a secondary road in the park, where we walked until we found a cab. A few deft countersurveillance maneuvers later, we were comfortably ensconced in the Confeitaria Colombo, a coffee shop founded in 1894 that, but for the tropical atmosphere and the surrounding sounds of animated Portuguese, can convey the illusion of an afternoon in Vienna. I used English to order a basic espresso, not wanting Kanezaki to see any more of my familiarity with the local terrain, and he followed suit.

“We want your help again,” he told me, as soon as the espressos had arrived and the waitress had moved off. Right to the point. Like Tatsu. I knew there was a relationship there, each believing the other to be a source, with Tatsu’s view being the more accurate. I wondered if Kanezaki was emulating the older, more experienced man.

“Like you wanted it last time?” I asked, my eyebrows arched slightly in mild disdain.

He shrugged. “You know I was in the dark about all that as much as you were. This time it’s straightforward. And sanctioned.”