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53832c1
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I felt like Schrodinger's cat. She would come, or not come. She would take me in, or throw me out. She would forgive me, or tell me to fuck off. And in that narrow, purgatorial space, a feeling crept in, a kind of mourning for my younger self and all his terrible choices, and a wish that I could somehow tell him what I knew now and help him for both our sakes to get it right, and a grief that such a thing was impossible, the young man's bli..
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Barry Eisler |
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b85a07a
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If there was one thing Snake knew about people, it was that once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They'd screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what.
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Barry Eisler |
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15e52dd
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Pardon me, but the drop-down menu of my mind just offered up so many enticing possibilities that for a moment my brain froze.
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Barry Eisler |
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fa9033e
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Sometimes you need the anesthesia. Because what you learn about yourself when fear finally overtakes you isn't pretty. You understand that the person you thought of as yourself, your immutable, indivisible self, is just an overlay, fragile and frail. Fear strips away the facade. And having to see what lies beneath, and accept it, makes you different from everyone who hasn't been similarly forged. You've been aged; they remain neophytes. You..
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Barry Eisler |
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8815e94
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One possibility, sure." "What are the others? He's retired, isn't he?" Larison"
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Barry Eisler |
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00ecf04
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client?" "I asked the same question. Hort wouldn't tell me. For your ears only. But if you want to share, I'm a good listener." I said"
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Barry Eisler |
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e80f059
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Treat
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Barry Eisler |
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cda4a22
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Taliskers.
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Barry Eisler |
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a2e4aee
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The walls flickered in the candlelight. The room felt close and warm, like an underground sanctuary.
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Barry Eisler |
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11a115d
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It's a science. There are people out there who are experts at getting others to do tomorrow what was unthinkable today.
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Barry Eisler |
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0326566
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I was impressed, although unsurprised. She was obviously in the habit of thinking operationally, and was as matter-of-fact about it as she was effective. I'd already concluded she was trained. To that assessment I now added a probable minimum of several years of field experience.
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Barry Eisler |
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b178893
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Three guys just tried to kill me in Hong Kong." "What?" "Three guys just tried to kill me in Hong Kong." "I heard you. Are you serious?" I didn't detect anything in his voice, but it was hard to tell over the phone. And he was smoother now than when I'd first met him. "You think I make this shit up to amuse you?" I said."
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Barry Eisler |
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c7fd9c8
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I headed back to Shun Tak to catch the next ferry to Macau. I tried not to think too much about what I was about to do. Charging an ambush is counterinstinctive: when your lizard brain identifies the direction the threat is coming from, it wants you to run away. 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..
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Barry Eisler |
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30b21bc
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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 looke..
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Barry Eisler |
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f0842ed
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When I was about a meter away and beyond the range of his peripheral vision, I took a deep step in, dropped into a squat just behind him, and wrapped my arms tourniquet-tight around his legs just above the knees. I felt his body go rigid, heard him suck in a breath. In my adrenalized, slow-motion vision, I logged every detail: the height of the guardrail; rust marks on the metal; chewing gum ground black into the cement tiles from which his..
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Barry Eisler |
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f2fd1f6
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Two people, Chinese civilians, were heading toward me. Shit. I averted my eyes and changed my posture, dropping my shoulders, adopting a more rolling gait, giving them a persona to remember, a persona that wasn't mine. I felt them looking at me closely as I passed. They might have seen what had happened; if they had, they would be in mild denial about it and trying to come up with some other explanation for the evidence of their senses, wha..
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Barry Eisler |
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263d87a
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but the truth was, his apology meant nothing to her. In her mind, behavior was the truth, not words.
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Barry Eisler |
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d3239a8
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It might be beneficial for him occasionally to be reminded that I work for myself. That he was a stagehand, not one of the actors.
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Barry Eisler |
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5a953c6
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He laughed at that, which was good. I needed him to understand who was in charge, but didn't want to beat him down too hard. His goodwill, his naive sense of fairness, was a potential asset, and not something to toss away needlessly.
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Barry Eisler |
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43675d8
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The room was large, and largely empty. The pace would pick up later in the evening. For now, the action comprised just a few lonely souls. They seemed lost in the expanse of the room, their play joyless, desultory, as though they'd been looking for a livelier party and found themselves stuck with this one instead.
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Barry Eisler |
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988c181
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She's a bargirl. You don't know where her loyalties lie. That one was unconvincing. No one had directed her against me--I was the one who had been pursuing her. She hadn't needed to warn me about the bugs. My gut told me she wasn't dissembling.
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Barry Eisler |
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65185a1
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I spotted Delilah instantly. She was one of a handful of people quietly attending the room's lone baccarat table, and the only non-Asian in sight. She was dressed plainly, in black pants and a black, shoulderless top. Her hair was pulled back and I saw no signs of makeup or jewelry. If she'd been trying to downplay her looks, though, she hadn't been notably successful. I checked the usual hotspots and saw nothing that set off any alarms. So..
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Barry Eisler |
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a1f2d48
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At the outset of the second of these Hong Kong excursions, I noticed an Arab standing in the lobby of the Macau Mandarin Oriental as we moved through it. He was new, not one of Belghazi's bodyguards. I noted his presence and position, but of course gave no sign that he had even registered in my consciousness. He, however, was not similarly discreet. In the instant in which my gaze moved over his face, I saw he was looking at me intently, al..
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Barry Eisler |
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fc4203f
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You don't just childproof your guns," was how he put it. "You also gun-proof your child."
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Barry Eisler |
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b85c0b7
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I noted he had no place to conceal a weapon or transmitter. I wondered whether the attire had been chosen deliberately, to reassure me. Dox liked to play the hick, and a lot of people bought the act, but I knew he could be subtle when he wanted to be.
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Barry Eisler |
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34c3ebc
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But she was also uneasy. She remembered when she'd been in college and had come across the Nietzsche quote: Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster.
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Barry Eisler |
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fa18fda
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Three meters. I felt a fresh adrenaline dump in my torso, my limbs. His partners must have seen his face. Their shoulders tensed, their heads began to turn. Two meters. The guy to my right was closest. He was turning to his left, toward whatever had made his partner start to bug out. I saw the left side of his face as he came around, everything moving slowly through my adrenalized vision.
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Barry Eisler |
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e9901e9
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When I was ready, I eased in beside him. Immediately I felt my muscles trying to shrink back from the heat, and knew that in a moment they would give up their fruitless struggle and surrender to delirious relaxation.
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Barry Eisler |
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fb9b85f
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I told myself it was all right, I wasn't disappointed, 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 it was all going to turn to dust.
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Barry Eisler |
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790a4a6
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Immediately the sounds of the street below grew detached, distant, the meaningless echoes of urban voices whose urgent notes reached but held no sway over the park-like necropolis within. From where I stood, the cemetery seemed to have no end. It stretched out before me, a city in its own right, its myriad markers windowless tenements in miniature, laid out in still symmetry, long boulevards of the dead.
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Barry Eisler |
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724e444
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He smiled. "What's going on?" "Why does something have to be going on? Maybe I just missed you." He gave me an uncharacteristically streetwise look. I had a feeling I knew where he'd picked it up. "Yeah, I missed you, too." I wasn't looking forward to the turn the conversation would take when I brought up Yukiko, and felt no hurry to get there. A waitress came by. Harry ordered a coffee and some carrot cake."
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Barry Eisler |
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782c730
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Open your eyes, you idiot, I wanted to say. This woman is a shark. She's from a different world, a different species. There's something way fucking wrong here. Instead: "Harry, my gut tends to be pretty good about these things."
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Barry Eisler |
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149d131
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He shrugged. "Maybe you're afraid I won't help you anymore. You said it yourself: 'You can't live with one foot in daylight and the other in shadows.' Maybe you're afraid I'll move into the daylight and leave you behind." I felt a wave of angry indignation and willed it back. "Let me tell you something, kid," I said. "In a very short while, I plan to be living in the daylight myself. I won't need your 'help' after that. So even if I were th..
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Barry Eisler |
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43d4e5e
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We were quiet for a moment. Then I said, "Look, I've got an idea of what you feel for this woman, okay? I saw her. She's a head-turner." "She's more than that," he said softly. The dumb, sappy bastard. His only hope with that ice bitch would be that she'd recognize how helpless he was and have some scruples about whatever it was she was up to. I wouldn't count on it, though. "The point is," I said, "it doesn't give me any pleasure to give y..
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Barry Eisler |
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efc7cf8
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Her English, though accented, was idiomatic. She would have learned it young enough to pick up the idiom, but not quite young enough to eradicate the accent.
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Barry Eisler |
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dc28b23
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Naomi, you think this is all an accident? It's a science. There are people out there who are experts at getting others to do tomorrow what was unthinkable today.
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Barry Eisler |
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128a3db
|
Yukiko walked over, her mouth stretching into a feline grin at the sight of Murakami. Naomi followed a moment later. She was wearing another elegant black cocktail dress, this one silk, fitted at the waist but loose above it. The diamond bracelet glittered on her left wrist as before. She saw me, and her expression started to break into a smile that aborted itself when her eyes shifted from my face to Murakami's. She must have known him, an..
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Barry Eisler |
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f59fdba
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I considered. As Tatsu noted, if word got out, the efficacy of the camera network would be compromised. But there was more.
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Barry Eisler |
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ed8e4d8
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I can't tell you. But we know." She took a sip of caipirinha. "Just trust me." I laughed. She retracted her head in mock indignation. "But I trusted you. I got you out of his suite, didn't I?" "When you thought I had a videotape. That's not trust, it's duress."
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Barry Eisler |
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4e81e67
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I finished eating and motioned to the waiter that I was ready for the check. I looked around the restaurant one last time. The office party had broken up. The Americans remained, the white noise of their conversation warm and enthusiastic. The couple was still there, the young man's posture steadfastly earnest, the girl continuing to parry with quiet laughter.
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Barry Eisler |
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e887500
|
I reached the end of the street and turned right. There they were, about twelve meters away. The Japanese guy had his left side to me. He was talking to the American. The American was facing me, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He was holding a lighter at waist level, flicking it, trying to get it going. I forced myself to keep my pace casual, just another pedestrian. My heart began to beat harder. I could feel it pounding in my chest, behi..
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Barry Eisler |
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14f2070
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A bodyguard. Sounded possible. The guy hadn't recognized me, I'd seen that. He was probably here just for protection and surveillance tag team. Or he could have been the triggerman. The Agency relies on contractor cutouts for its wetwork, people like me. He might have been one of them.
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Barry Eisler |
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c4f277e
|
Goddamn it, I thought, at the mention of her name. I just couldn't get clear of these people. They were like cancer. You think you've cut it out, it always comes back.
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Barry Eisler |
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96fb156
|
The teeming scene in front of the station made familiar Tokyo look deserted by comparison. The street stretching out before me between rows of crumbling low-rises and slumped office buildings looked like a river of people gushing through a ravine. Cars jerked through congested intersections, pedestrians flowing around them like T cells attacking a virus.
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Barry Eisler |