Barry Eisler - Rain Storm aka Choke Point

But your lizard brain doesn’t always know best. It tends to focus on short-term considerations, and doesn’t always adequately account for the value of unpredictability, of deception, of surprise. Of taking a short-term risk for a longer-term gain.

The hour-long ferry ride felt long. Maintaining a razor-edge readiness is exhausting, and, once the mad minute is over, the body badly wants to rest and recuperate. I tried to clear my mind, to take myself down a few levels-enough to recover, but not so much that I would be less than ready for whatever I might encounter on Macau.

With about twenty minutes to go, the cell phone rang. I looked down at it and saw that the incoming number was the same as the one last dialed. Almost certainly the Macau contact, then, checking in, wanting to know what had happened. I ignored the call.

We arrived at the Macau Ferry Terminal and I walked out into the arrivals lobby. The lobby was too crowded for me to know whether I had a welcoming committee. That was okay, though. One of the advantages of Macau is that you can access the city from the first floor of the ferry terminal-either by foot on the sidewalks, or by taxi-or you can go to the second floor and use the extensive series of causeways. If you’re waiting for someone at the ferry terminal, therefore, you have to be just outside the arrivals area, ready to move out or up, depending on the route taken by your quarry. So even though I couldn’t spot a pursuer yet, it would be easy for me to flush him if he was there.

I took the escalator to the second floor, where I paused in front of one of the ATMs as though withdrawing some cash-a common enough maneuver for visitors heading for the casinos. I glanced back at the escalator I had just used, and saw an Arab coming up it. The big bastard, the bearded giant I’d noticed that morning. The shades and expensive jacket looked familiar at this point. Christ, they might as well have worn uniforms. Hi, my name’s Abdul, I’ll be your assassin today.

They must have gotten nervous when the Hong Kong team had failed to check in, and put this guy back in position to be on the safe side. That, or he’d been waiting here all day. It didn’t matter. He’d seen me. His next move would be to telephone his Macau partners, if he hadn’t already. Which would be the end of the surprise I wanted to share with them all. I would have to improvise.

If he was surprised to see me, and I imagined he was, he didn’t show it. He looked around, his demeanor casual, a simple tourist just arrived in Macau and taking in the wonders of the ferry terminal.

Why didn’t they call me first ? I knew he’d be wondering. They were supposed to call me when he was on his way back, just as I called them to alert them that he was coming .

Because dead people don’t use phones, pal. You’ll see in a minute.

I walked out onto the open-air plaza in front of the entrance to the second floor and walked a few meters toward the causeway. Then I stopped and looked behind me.

He had just come through the doors on the right side of the plaza and was starting to raise his cell phone to his face when I turned back. When he saw me, he lowered the cell phone and stopped as though suddenly interested in the nonexistent view.

I nodded my head at him and gave a small wave of acknowledgment, the gesture communicating, Oh there you are, good . I started walking over.

His head turtled in a fraction and his body tensed in the internationally approved reaction to being spotted on surveillance. It’s hard to describe, but it looks a little like what a gowned patient does when the doctor picks up a long instrument and advises, This might be a little uncomfortable . He looked around, then back to me, doing a decent imitation of someone wondering, Huh? Was that me you were waving to? Do we know each other ?

I walked straight up to him and said in a low voice, “Good, you’re here. They told me you’d be waiting on the first floor, by arrivals, but I didn’t see you.”

He shook his head. His lips twitched, but no sound came out.

“There’s been a mistake,” I said. “I’m not the guy you want.”

His lips twitched some more.

Shit , I thought, he doesn’t understand you. Hadn’t counted on that .

“You speak English, right?” I said. “They told me we could use English.”

“Yes, yes,” he stammered. “I speak English.”

I glanced quickly left and right as though suddenly nervous, then back at him, my eyes narrowed in sudden concern. “You’re the right guy, right? They told me someone would be waiting for me.”

“Yes, yes,” he said again. “I am the right guy.”

So many “yeses” in a row. We’d established the proper momentum.

A group of three Hong Kong Chinese emerged from the terminal. I watched them walk past us as though I was concerned that they might hear us, then said, “Let’s talk over there.” I gestured to the external wall of the terminal, where we could stand without being seen from inside the building. I walked the few steps over and waited. A moment later, he followed.

Damn, if I could maneuver him just a little more, get him to a slightly quieter place, I might even manage to interrogate him. That would be ideal, but also far riskier than the relatively straightforward approach I had in mind. I considered for a moment, then decided it wouldn’t be worth it.

“From the look on your face,” I said, “I’m getting the feeling that you haven’t heard.”

“Heard what? I’m sorry, I’m not understanding you.”

The Hong Kong group was now out of earshot and still walking away. The plaza was momentarily empty.

“Yes, I can see that,” I said. “All right, let’s just go back to the hotel. We’ll straighten everything out there.”

That sounded harmless enough. His compatriots would be positioned at the hotel. They could explain to him what the hell was going on. Besides, he was half a head taller than me, and probably outweighed me by forty or fifty pounds. What did he have to worry about?

He nodded.

“Okay, let’s go,” I said. I moved as though to walk off toward the causeway, then turned back to him. “Good God, is that bird shit on your shoulder?” I asked, staring as though in disbelief.

“Hmm?” he said, his gaze automatically going to the spot I had indicated.

That’s the trouble with wearing four-thousand-dollar cashmere jackets. You panic at the littlest things.

As he turned his face back toward me, I shot my left hand behind his neck and snapped his head forward and down. At the same instant, I swept my right arm past his neck and around it, encircling it clockwise, bringing my right forearm under his chin and catching it with my left hand. The back of his head was now pinned against my chest. I tried to arch back, but the bastard was so big and strong that I couldn’t get the leverage I needed.

I felt his hands on my waist, groping, trying frantically to push me away. All the muscles of his neck had popped into sharp and cablelike relief. We struggled like that for a long couple of seconds. Twice I tried to shoot in with my hips, but that was exactly the movement he was in mortal fear of at the moment and I couldn’t get past his massive arms.

Okay, change of plans . I took a long step back, jerking him forward and down. He lost tactile contact with my hips and flailed with his arms, trying desperately to reacquire me. Too late. I dropped to my back under him and arched into a throw. There was a moment of structural resistance, and it seemed that the musculature of his neck bulged out even larger. Then I felt his neck snap and his body was sailing over me, suddenly limp and lifeless.

I twisted to my right and he hit the concrete past me and to the side with a thud that felt like a small earthquake. I let go and scrambled to my feet. He was on his back, his head canted crazily to one side, his tongue protruding, the limbs twitching from some last, random surge of electrical signals to the muscles.