by Barry Eisler
The bike was incredibly light and responsive, and she realized that her own was going to feel forever clunky after experiencing this one. She wondered for a moment whether that was some kind of metaphor for her life, whether being part of this op was going to make everything that came before it seem pale and mundane. Certainly her non-date with Dave the trumpeter felt improbable now, even absurd. Then she thought of Ali and wished more than anything she could just go back, to when everything was routine and normal, and she’d taken it all for granted.
She crossed Woodside Road, cut behind a place called Roberts Market, and made a right on Mountain Home Road. She saw a sign about horse crossings alongside another for bicycles, with an all-caps notice in the middle admonishing SHARE THE ROAD, and again she gave Tom mental props for knowing his operational environment.
She came to the corner of Manzanita and made a left past a house with its own stables. She pedaled harder, and the Trek practically leapt forward underneath her, the trees pressed close to the sides of the road whizzing by. She was glad she was in decent biking shape. With this level of equipment, it might have looked odd if she weren’t pushing it.
She passed another house with a stable, came around a gentle curve, and there, just ahead of the stop sign at Sand Hill Road, the man Evie had described, sitting on a bridge, eating a sandwich held in a brown paper bag. Another bicyclist, a guy in top-level gear like hers, turned right off Sand Hill onto Manzanita and rode past. The man watched him go by, then glanced at Maya going the other way, seeming not particularly interested in either.
Maya was relieved at the momentary distraction. She knew her cover for status was solid, but still it was good to see people just like her in the area. It was fine to be a fish in the water, but even better to swim in a school.
She turned right on Sand Hill and dropped a gear as she started heading uphill, her heart beating harder. In fifteen minutes or so, she would be at Wunderlich Park, where Delilah, Dox, Larison, and Livia were waiting. Her own role had been easy, and now it was done. The hard part was about to begin.
chapter
sixty-nine
LIVIA
Livia jogged down the side of Sand Hill, keeping to the left and going against traffic. About fifty yards away she saw Rain come around a curve, running toward her on the same side of the road. Rain was wearing black 2XU compression tights and a sleeveless compression top and looked, as far as Livia could tell, like any other prosperous local serious about keeping in shape. He had grumbled uncharacteristically about the superhero-tight clothes, but Kanezaki had argued that the point was threefold: come across as a serious runner, look like you’re not doing anything to avoid being noticed, and wear something under which it would be nearly impossible to conceal a weapon. All of which Rain reluctantly agreed was well calculated to help get him close enough to remove the target silently.
Naturally, as soon as Rain was suited up, Carl had taken advantage by declaiming, “Very attractive apparel, if I may say so, and shows off your package to full advantage, such as it is.” To which Rain had responded only with an infinitely patient look. Maybe Rain’s discomfort was about the near certainty that Carl was going to rib him. But more likely, Livia thought, it had to do with not being able to hide. Something about Rain always seemed exceptionally balanced and mobile, as though he could move instantly in any direction while being difficult to be moved by someone else. Livia recognized the characteristic as the result of decades of classical martial arts training. But though his clothes seemed high-quality and fit well—Delilah’s influence?—Livia hadn’t understood the kind of shape Rain was in until the running outfit left him no way to conceal it. And she realized this was something he must have preferred the world not to know, because an adversary’s ignorance would be Rain’s advantage.
Livia’s role was backup, so she was dressed somewhat differently: standard ankle-length tights, yes, but more importantly a Lululemon oversized sweatshirt voluminous enough to conceal the Glock in a bellyband holster, and the SoMiCo Vaari, the other half of her everyday carry, in a small-of-the-back sheath. It wouldn’t matter if anyone noticed her. If they did, it would be because Rain’s attack had failed, at which point no one would have to suspect she was concealing weapons under the sweatshirt. She would be offering them all the proof they could imagine, and more.
She picked up her pace to make sure Rain didn’t get to Manzanita too far ahead of her. They were working off maps, not the actual terrain, and there had been no time or opportunity for practice runs. In fact, they were getting uncomfortably close to three o’clock and the next video release. So there was going to be a lot of adjusting on the fly.
Rain reached Manzanita and turned right. He must have seen her coming—she was only thirty feet away when he turned—but he gave no sign of it. She felt nothing from him, no recognition, no awareness. Of course it made sense that he would ignore her, but still, somehow the totality of it, the absence of anything, surprised her.
She rounded the corner and saw the man sitting on the bridge, holding a brown paper bag as Evie and Maya had described. Rain had slowed his pace slightly. Was he breathing more heavily? Maybe. But she doubted it was from exertion. More to appear winded, and therefore less of a potential threat.
Rain was fifteen feet from the man now; Livia was twenty feet behind him. The man glanced past Rain at Livia. He seemed uninterested. But the contrast with Rain was impossible to miss. The man seemed uninterested. With Rain, there was nothing at all.
Ten feet. The man glanced to his right. The street was otherwise empty, but still he must have decided he didn’t like the pattern of two ostensible runners closing in on him from Sand Hill, the first on his side of the street, the second angled off on the other. He stood, his hand drifting toward the small of his back.
Rain’s pace and posture remained unchanged. Livia wanted to shout a warning to him—the man was going for a weapon. She reached into the bellyband and gripped the Glock.
Rain had pulled abreast of the man. She thought he was going to go right by. Instead, he shot out his right hand and clapped the man hard on the left shoulder, shoving him to the side. The man braced against the impact, and instantly Rain caught the fabric of the man’s sleeve and yanked him in the opposite direction, his right foot arcing in and blasting the man’s legs out from under him in deashi-barai, a judo foot sweep. Livia knew the move well and in fact favored it herself, but in competition no real accuracy was involved beyond taking your opponent to the mat. Rain was more precise, steering the man’s head into the concrete wall he’d been sitting on. The man’s skull connected with a resounding crack! and the gun he’d been trying to draw went flying through the air. Instantly Rain encircled the man’s neck front to back, locked his arms, and arched violently away. There was another loud crack! and the man went limp. Before he could fall Rain shoved him back onto the wall, pushed him over it, and then vaulted lightly after him.
Despite all her experience with killing, Livia was awed. Carl had told her about Rain, about what he was capable of, and though she had been impressed by his self-control, his tactical acumen, and his ability to cohere and lead a team, she’d never seen him take direct action. The only other time she had witnessed anything like it was a freak who had attacked her in a hotel room when she’d been in college. A complete lack of warning signs was therefore something she associated with sociopaths. It didn’t horrify her to see it in Rain. On the contrary, she instantly understood it as a form of power, the same way jiu-jitsu itself had struck her when she’d first seen it as a terrified junior high student beset by bullies at school and sexual abuse at home.
She scooped up the gun, stepped off the road, and dropped down behind the bridge wall into the culvert. Rain was going through the man’s pockets. “Did he make you?” he said.
He was as matter-of-fact as though nothing had happened. Her awe increased. “What do you mean?” she said.
“Something tipped him. He went for his gun.”
“I di
dn’t think you saw his hand moving.”
“I saw.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that now. I reached for mine. He might have reacted to that. Sorry.”
“No harm done.” He pulled a cellphone from one of the man’s pockets. “Nothing on him but this. It’s turned off. Probably a burner. We’ll leave it. You picked up the gun?”
“Yeah. SIG P320. Don’t worry, I’ll wipe it down and leave it.”
They had considered wearing gloves, but decided it wasn’t cold enough and that they would look more innocent without anything that could be interpreted as an attempt to prevent fingerprints.
Rain glanced at her. “I really do micromanage, don’t I?”
In response, she offered a gentle shrug.
He nodded. “Don’t let Dox see the SIG. He’ll insist one of us keep it. He likes trophies.” He used the man’s sweatshirt to wipe the cellphone.
Livia looked at the man. His face was contorted and his neck was bent at an impossible angle. She and Rain had once talked about Rain’s ability to shape-shift, to inhabit a legend so well he would go unnoticed against whatever background he was operating in. However he had acquired this related ability, she wanted him to teach her.
“How do you do that?” she said.
He shrugged. “It’s just a neck crank.”
She sensed he knew she was asking about something else. “That’s not what I mean. You didn’t show anything. Anything. The way you’re not showing it even now.”
He didn’t respond.
She knew he was reluctant, and that her intensity probably wasn’t the right way to persuade him. But she badly wanted to know. “Will you teach me?”
He started to say something, then stopped and looked away. After a moment, he said, “If you want.”
She heard several vehicles pass on Sand Hill. One turned onto Manzanita, but the sound wasn’t right, and they stayed put.
A minute later, she heard the rumbling of multiple wheels turning off Sand Hill. The rumbling stopped just ahead of the bridge. Livia glanced around the side of the concrete wall and saw the truck and the horse trailer.
The back doors opened, and Carl, Diaz, and Kanezaki jumped out. They were wearing tactical street clothes: cargo pants, chest rigs under zip-down jackets, light boots, gloves. All in woodland colors, and with body armor underneath. Diaz had insisted on coming, and when Livia couldn’t talk her out of it, she’d made sure Diaz was carrying. A Glock 19, simple to operate. They’d gone over the basics, just in case.
Diaz and Kanezaki vaulted over the side of the bridge. Carl tossed a pair of duffels to Rain and Livia, then shouldered a third and came over himself. Evie, who was behind the wheel of the truck, drove off.
Carl set down his duffel and glanced at the body on the ground. “Well, that had to hurt. Maybe better to move him under the culvert. Little less visible. Tom, give me a hand?”
“Sentry?” Kanezaki said.
Rain said nothing, but the question—which could as easily have been stated, You sure you didn’t just kill some innocent bystander?—pissed off Livia. “Yes,” she said. “But if you have any doubts, how about next time you take care of it yourself?”
Rain looked at her, and she thought she detected the trace of a smile.
There was a pause, then Kanezaki said, “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry.”
Rain unzipped one of the bags—the same clothes and equipment the others were wearing. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And no, no intel on him. Just a burner, turned off.”
Carl and Kanezaki dragged the body under the overpass, where to see it a passerby would have to come down from the road. Then Carl unzipped the second bag, pulled out Livia’s armored vest, and started helping her into it. “You know,” he said to Rain, “spandex becomes you. I don’t know why you don’t dress this way more often.”
Rain chuckled, and Livia could tell Kanezaki’s faux pas had been forgotten. “Maybe I do,” Rain said. “Just not around you.”
Carl laughed. “Well, at least now I know what to get you for Christmas.”
Livia glanced at the third bag. “Rifle?”
Carl smiled. “HK762A1, OSS suppressor, Leupold scope, twenty-round mags. Be still, my beating heart. And Manus has a suppressed HK UMP in nine-millimeter with thirty-round mags. Just in case. I didn’t like the way we were outgunned at that Lake Tapps house.” He glanced at Kanezaki. “We get to keep the toys when we’re done, right?”
Kanezaki shook his head. “Delilah has to return the Porsche, and you and Manus have to return the HKs.”
Carl patted the bag. “Hopefully unused. But we’ll see.”
Livia glanced at her watch. “Less than an hour until three,” she said. “Starting to get a little tight.”
“Just about good to go,” Carl said. “Should be plenty of time.”
Livia knew there should be—if things went smoothly. But nothing had gone smoothly yet.
They each affixed wireless earpieces, about the size of a pair of AirPods and connected to belt-mounted radios. Kanezaki had explained that the range would be enough for their purposes, but with less risk of being tracked than a cellphone.
“I hate these earpieces,” Carl said. “They’re so snug you can’t get ’em out without a damn screwdriver.”
“Everyone online?” Rain said, and one by one they checked in. “Delilah and Larison,” he said. “You’re in position?”
“We are,” Livia heard Delilah say. “When you’re ready, just say go.”
“Five minutes,” Rain said. “Tom, did you confirm—”
“Of course,” Kanezaki said. “Other than the guards and Grimble himself, no cellphones on the property. Which tracks with the intel—no gardeners allowed except when Grimble is off the compound.”
Rain glanced at Livia and gave her a small smile, as if to say, Okay, I micromanage. She gave him one back to indicate that she didn’t mind at all.
When they were done suiting up, one by one they came out from behind the wall, crossed the street, and eased into the trees. First Rain, then Kanezaki, then Livia, then Diaz, then Carl. Livia looked around and saw no houses or other signs of habitation. Whoever owned the land here, it was sprawling enough to feel they were in the middle of a forest. “Stay close,” she said to Diaz.
After a few minutes, they came to the edge of the tree line and stopped. Beyond it, Livia could see a long, curving stone road, beside which was perched an elaborate complex of wooden structures, some with tiled roofs and others of thatch, the corners upturned in the traditional Japanese style. And beyond that, an expansive garden with arrangements of granite boulders of various sizes, carefully raked sand, and moss-covered hillocks, all of it winding along the edge of an enormous pond crossed by several delicately arched bridges and buttressed at the far end by a waterfall. The only sounds were of the water and the birds in the surrounding trees. Given what had just happened, and what they were here for, the utter serenity of the place was suddenly surreal.
“Did we take a wrong turn?” Carl whispered. “’Cause I think this must be the set of a damn samurai movie. Hey, the security people won’t be carrying swords, will they?”
“If they are,” Rain said, “you can just shoot them. Like Indiana Jones, remember?”
Carl smiled. “Hey, a movie reference! How’d you know?”
Rain looked at him. “That one I saw. Delilah, Larison, we’re in position. Ready?”
“Been ready,” Larison said in the earpiece. “Just waiting for your friend to finish obsessing about swords and samurai.”
“You have no idea of my trauma,” Carl whispered. “If I’d picked up one rock fewer—”
“Enough,” Rain said. “Delilah. Larison. Go.”
chapter
seventy
DELILAH
Delilah drove the Porsche along Mountain Home Road, the sky hard blue behind a canopy of autumn colors, the gray pavement dappled in alternating sunshine and shade. The engine was growling, and she could f
eel the car practically begging to be unleashed, but a GT4 looked like it was racing even parked at the curb, and she had to keep to the speed limit. Still, what a waste.
She was wearing a vintage Diane von Furstenberg wrap dress: clingy fabric, open plunging neckline, and a skirt that would naturally fall open to expose a good amount of leg, especially while getting in and out of the car. High-heeled boots, gold hoop earrings, and most importantly a gold necklace to draw the eye to the décolletage. The whole thing was a throwback to the ’70s, but it was in again. And besides, Delilah always liked vintage, which was why she had packed the outfit in Paris.
The road curved to the right and she slowed. There it was, on the left, a break in the thick foliage and the beginning of a stone driveway. Grimble’s Japanese Shangri-la. She downshifted and turned in. Ten meters down, on the left, was the guardhouse, itself looking like something straight out of ancient Kyoto. And just beyond it, a closed electronic gate.
She stopped alongside the guardhouse, cut the engine, and got out, shouldering the Shinola leather market tote she was carrying. A middle-aged guy she made immediately as a former cop looked her up and down through the window, barely even noticing the Porsche. “Can I help you?” he said.
He seemed in no way alarmed—the Porsche, the clothes, and the fact that she was an attractive woman all tapping into a preexisting understanding of how the world worked. But she needed to get him out of the booth and away from the video feeds inside it.