by Barry Eisler
I thought of Musashi’s Go Rin No Sho, the Book of Five Rings, which I’ve read many times. In his recounting of his over sixty sword duels, and of the half-dozen large-scale battles in which he participated, Musashi had never expressed doubt about the morality of his actions. He seemed to take it as a given that men fought, killed, and died, and I doubted he gave much more thought to any of this than he did to the fact that men breathed and ate and slept. The one was as natural, and immutable, as the other. What mattered was one’s proficiency.
Somehow, Musashi had found a way to put down his sword as he got older. By the time he was in his late fifties, he spent most of his time teaching, painting, meditating, practicing tea, and writing poetry. And writing his profound book, of course. Eventually, he even managed to die in his bed. I didn’t find that notion at all unappealing. I just didn’t know how I was going to get there if I didn’t find a way to get out of this business.
When people take stock of their lives, I wondered, how do they go about it? From where do they derive their satisfaction, their sense of purpose? Sitting there, alone in that dark room, I tried to find some way to sum up my own existence, to justify who I am. And all I could come up with was:
You’re a killer.
I rested my head in my hands. I couldn’t think of anything else. Killing is all I’ve ever really been good at. Killing, and, I suppose, surviving.
But maybe . . . maybe I was missing the point. My nature might be immutable, but the causes to which I lent that nature, that was still for me to decide. And then it occurred to me: the dream I’d had, the one about the two katana. That’s what the dream had been about.
Regardless of the other services in which it might be employed, a sword is fundamentally a killing instrument. Yeah, you might use it as a doorjamb or as a letter opener, but that’s not what it’s designed for. It’s not what the sword, in its soul, longs to do. But its inherent nature isn’t what makes the sword good or bad; rather, the sword’s morality is determined by the use to which it is put. There is katsujinken, the sword that gives life, or weapon of justice; and setsuninto, the sword that takes life, or weapon of oppression. In the dream, some nameless thing had almost caught me because of my inability to decide. I couldn’t afford to keep making that mistake in my life.
Could I become katsujinken? Was that the answer? Killing Belghazi in Hong Kong a year earlier had prevented the transfer of radiologically tipped missiles to groups that wanted to detonate them in metropolitan areas. Didn’t my act there save countless lives? And couldn’t something like that . . . offset the other things I’ve done?
The notion was both appealing and frightening: appealing, because it hinted at the possibility of redemption; frightening, because it also acknowledged the certainty that, one way or the other, eventually I would be judged.
I chuckled ruefully. Katsujinken and redemption . . . I was going to continue trying to reconcile East and West until the attempt finally killed me.
I thought about Manny. He was like Belghazi, wasn’t he? A lot of good would come from his death.
And his little boy will be marooned in grief for years to follow.
I thought of the delicate way Dox had asked me if I was afraid I might freeze again, and of the simple confidence with which he took me at my word when I told him he needn’t worry.
And suddenly the feeling of being frozen, stuck in some nameless purgatory between competing worldviews, began to seem like the worst possibility of all. This was the wrong time to be a philosopher, to be afflicted with doubts. I didn’t care what the price was. I didn’t care whether it was right or wrong. I was going to finish what I started.
I felt the familiar mental bulkheads sliding shut, sealing off my emotions, focusing me only on the essentials of what needed to be done and how I would do it. Some bloodless, disconnected part of myself, turning the knobs and dials and making sure that things happened as they needed to. Whatever it was, this feeling, it has served me well countless times in my life. I don’t know if other people have it, but it’s part of my core, part of what makes me who and what I am. But this time, as those partitions moved into place, the part of me being closed off behind them wondered whether this wasn’t some further transgression, some further sin. To have been so close to what felt like a difficult epiphany, and to deliberately turn away from it . . .
I sat back in the chair and let my gaze unfocus. I started thinking about how we could do it the way it needed to be done.
I’d been to the China Club once, and knew the general layout. It was on the top three floors of the old Bank of China building in Central. The elevators stopped at thirteen; the next two floors were accessible only by internal staircases.
I’d need to arrive early, use a pretext for getting in. Maybe I’d be doing advance work for some Japanese corporate titan, checking the place out to see if the boss wanted to shell out all those yen for a membership. The ploy was good. I’d used it before, and it usually brought out the host’s deepest desires to show his place off and answer all my innocent questions.
The problem was that Manny knew my face now. I could ameliorate some of that with light disguise, which I assumed I’d have to use anyway because of the high likelihood of security cameras at the building’s perimeter and possibly inside. I’m also good at just fading into the background when I need to. But Hilger, who I sensed was a significantly harder target than Manny, would also know my face, as well as Dox’s. The CIA had photos of us both, as I’d learned during the Belghazi op a year earlier, and Hilger would have studied them closely, the same way I would have. Getting into the building wouldn’t be too difficult. But once we were inside, our ability to move might be curtailed.
I sat and thought more. I could get there early, and probably find a place to hide. A bathroom, a closet, whatever. Dox would arrive later. We might be able to use cameras, as we had at the Peninsula in Manila, and Dox could monitor them and signal me with the commo gear when it was time to move. But where could we position him so he wouldn’t be noticed? I pictured him, sitting alone at the China Club’s renowned Long March Bar. The Long March Bar was for entertaining and impressing clients. Anyone sitting by himself for more than a few minutes would stick out. It wasn’t going to work.
Of course, if he weren’t alone, it would be a little more doable. If he were with, say, an attractive European executive.
I pictured Dox in a Hong Kong–tailored, conservative suit, across from Delilah, probably in a chic but tasteful pantsuit. Dox could be a local corporate expat; Delilah would be the smart European advertising executive trying to land an account with him. That’s the kind of deal that got done at the China Club every night. They’d look completely at home.
What the hell, I couldn’t sleep anyway. I got up, turned on one of the reading lights, and picked up the cell phone. I slipped in a new SIM card and powered it up, then called Delilah. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey,” I said. “Hope I’m not waking you.”
“You’re not. I’m still jet-lagged.”
“Okay time to talk?”
“It’s fine. I’m just sitting in my room.”
I thought about asking her again if she wanted to meet. It seemed like such a waste, with both of us in the same city. Hell, for all I knew, she was in the same hotel, maybe in the room right next to me.
I supposed she was right, though. It would have been stupid to meet now, with Gil watching her. If she had to lose him, she might only get one chance, and I wanted that chance to be the China Club. Also, part of me, maybe not the most mature part, didn’t like the idea of being rejected a third time, even if the rejections were for sound reasons and not at all personal.
“I think I’ve got an opportunity to wrap this whole thing up tomorrow,” I said. “Finish what I started.”
There was a pause. She said, “Okay.”
“But I could use your help. If that’s a problem, I’ll understand. This isn’t your mess.”
She chuckled soft
ly. “If only that were true.”
“All right. If you want to help clean things up, can you get to Hong Kong tomorrow?”
There was another pause. “I already told Gil that I would stick around Bangkok for a few days in case you contacted me. I don’t know how I could explain my sudden urge to travel.”
I thought for a moment. “Tell him I contacted you. That I apologized for bugging out on you and asked if you could join me in Hong Kong.”
“If I tell him that, he’s going to go out there, too, just like he came to Bangkok. To be closer to wherever you resurface so he can get to you right away. And he’s suspicious of me now. He’s going to want to stay close.”
“Can you manage all that?”
I could feel her weighing the pros and cons. She said, “Probably.”
“Can you get a flight out first thing in the morning?”
“Of course.”
“Okay. Do it. Check the bulletin board when you get there. Or I’ll call you again.”
She was quiet for a moment, and I thought, Meet me tonight. Just ask me.
But she didn’t. She said, “Okay. I’ll be there.”
I thanked her and hung up.
I powered down the cell phone, turned off the light, and sat down in the chair again. I crossed my legs under me and watched the city lights through the window until one by one, almost imperceptibly, they started to go out.
I thought about Delilah, so near and yet so far.
I hoped I could trust her. I supposed I needed to. But none of that was what worried me.
What worried me was how much I wanted to.
EIGHTEEN
HILGER FINALLY FINISHED UP the day’s financial work—certain aspects of which constituted his cover in Hong Kong; others of which had more to do with his real business, his real mission. With everything that had been going on lately, it hadn’t been easy to stay on top of it all.
He stood up from his desk and stretched, then checked his watch. Shit, two in the morning. He had to get home and get some sleep. He had a big day tomorrow.
The phone rang. He sat back down. The caller ID readout indicated a blocked number, which, he hoped, meant it was Winters calling with good news. He’d been wondering what had been taking so long.
Instead, it was Demeere, another man from his network who had gone to Thailand to help Winters interrogate Rain. Before Hilger had a moment to consider why it was Demeere calling rather than Winters, the team leader, Demeere said, “Bad news.”
“All right,” Hilger said, his voice calm.
“Winters and the Thais tried to take Rain outside a club in Pathumwan. Rain got away. Winters is dead. So are two of the Thais.”
For once, Hilger’s calm came slightly unstuck. He said, “Shit.” He tried to think of something else to say, but there was nothing, so he said it again. “Shit.”
Winters was a pro, and Hilger had assumed the man would avoid any unnecessary risks. Worst case, he had expected they might not be able to find Rain, or that Rain might get away when they moved in on him. He hadn’t expected casualties. Certainly not Winters.
“What about Dox?” he asked, regaining his focus.
“He got away, too. Two of the Thais briefed me.”
“Do the Thais represent a liability at this point?”
“No. They don’t know enough to matter.”
Hilger thought for a moment, then said, “How did it go down?”
“Apparently Rain saw it coming. He reacted before they were properly in position.”
If Rain had seen Winters coming, he must be damn near psychic. That, or the Thais had slipped somehow. You couldn’t expect them to own up to something like that. They were just local muscle, after all. Contractors. With Calver and Gibbons dead from that goat-rope in Manila, Hilger hadn’t been able to field a full, professional team.
“How did Winters die?” Hilger asked.
“Rain had a knife.”
Hilger frowned. All that kali stuff . . . Winters was supposed to be an expert with blades. “He beat Winters, with a knife?” he asked, thinking that something was wrong with the story.
“Dox threw a chair at him, it seems. It knocked him down.”
Well, that would do it. “And then?”
“The Thais said Rain and Dox jumped on him and started stabbing him. There was nothing they could do and they ran away.”
Hilger believed they ran away, all right. He just wondered exactly when in the sequence it had actually happened.
“Were you able to confirm any of this?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got a contact in the embassy who was able to check with the Thai police. Winters had broken ribs and was killed by a knife wound in the chest. He had defensive wounds on his arms.”
Even in the midst of his anger and sorrow over Winters, Hilger felt a sense of relief that the man had died on his feet. Winters knew a lot, and it would have been a problem if Rain and Dox had managed to interrogate him. Not that Winters had been any sort of pushover—it would have taken a lot to separate him from any information he was intent on keeping—but this way, Hilger didn’t have to deal with any doubts at all.
“What do the police make of it?” he asked.
“They think it was a bad drug deal. Winters was traveling sterile. No problem there.”
Damn, Winters had been a good man. Thorough. Losing him was a blow.
Hilger realized he was going to have to call Winters’s sister, Elizabeth Shannon. Winters hadn’t been married; his sister was his next of kin. Hilger had dated her after the war. She was married now, with a family, but they had stayed friendly. Goddamnit, he was dreading that call. He hated Rain for forcing him to make it.
“What’s next?” Demeere asked.
Hilger thought for a moment about telling the man to come to Hong Kong for the meeting with VBM, but then decided not to. It would have been useful to have him there to take Winters’s place, but he judged it more important to keep someone on Rain and Dox. He wanted them dead.
“Try to reacquire Rain and Dox,” Hilger told him. “And use your discretion, but I would advise against trying to render them again. We’ve lost too many people already, and I don’t see how we could do it anyway without a full team in place. If you can find them and the opportunity is there, just take them the fuck out.”
“Roger that,” Demeere said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Hilger hung up. Christ, the op was coming apart. But he had to find a way to fix it. It had taken him two years to set up this meeting with VBM. And it wasn’t just the time he’d invested. It was the things he’d been forced to do to make it possible. Those things were going to haunt him forever, and if there was a God out there, Hilger knew one day there was going to be some explaining to do.
He put his elbows on his desk, closed his eyes, and rested his forehead against his fingertips. Yeah, he’d made some hard calls along the way, calls that no one should have to make. Having to take out that guy in Amman, an American, with a family, hadn’t been easy. And having to sit on information that he knew would have saved lives in Bali, in Jakarta, and elsewhere . . . well he was going to have to live with all of that, too.
But a lot of good was coming from it, and that was the thing to focus on. You had to look at the big picture. Were the Brits wrong not to evacuate Coventry when they discovered the Nazis were going to bomb it? If the city had been evacuated, the Nazis would have known their Enigma code had been compromised, and the whole Allied war effort would have been jeopardized. The people of Coventry had to be sacrificed so that others might live. It wasn’t pretty when you said it out loud, but that’s what had happened. The difference was, today the politicians didn’t have the balls to make those decisions. So the hard work had devolved to men like himself.
It was funny, he thought, that democracy couldn’t survive if it tried to adhere top to bottom to its own ideals. He knew that it was men like himself, working behind the scenes, on their own, doing what no one else could face, who mad
e democracy function, who saved it from the knowledge of its own inherent hypocrisy, who kept it sleeping untroubled at night.
The irony was, Rain was a man who might understand all this. Didn’t the Japanese even have a name for it? Honne and tatemae—real truth, and societal façade? English could use a couple of words like that. Their absence from America’s lexicon was revealing: not only couldn’t we appreciate the necessity, we couldn’t even acknowledge the concept.
Rain. He imagined how good it was going to feel when he received confirmation that the man was dead. He was surprised at the intensity of the feeling. Ordinarily, these things weren’t personal for him. But three good men were down, and now he had to make that call to Elizabeth Shannon . . . not to mention the pressure all this was putting on his entire operation.
Yeah, he wanted him dead, all right. And Dox, too. He wondered if maybe he would have a chance to do it himself.
NINETEEN
THE FLIGHT TO HONG KONG the next morning was uneventful. After the restless night I’d just had, I was glad to sleep through most of it. I arrived at Hong Kong International feeling relaxed and refreshed and caught a cab to the Shangri-La.
I checked in, then called Dox on the prepaid unit he was carrying. He was in a cab, on his way to Kowloon.
“Stop at the bug-out point first, take care of that,” I said. “No sense in both of us being there at the same time. Then check in and get the clothes you need.”
“Will do.”
The bug-out point was a coffee shop near the Man Mo temple on Hollywood Road. When you go operational, or otherwise commit an act that the authorities are apt to frown upon if you’re caught, it’s wise to choose a backup meeting place to use if it becomes inconvenient to return to your hotel, and to preposition certain necessary items there: cash, for one thing; and a spare passport, for another, if you’re lucky or connected enough to know how to come by such things. You typically want a place that’s accessible at all hours and that offers many appropriate hiding spots: the underside of a counter or a bookshelf, the back of a bathroom cabinet, that sort of thing. Whether the op goes well or poorly, your things need to be in place for only a few hours. If the op goes really poorly, you’ve got bigger problems than someone stumbling across the stash you’ve taped to, say, the underside of a toilet in an all-night diner.