Killing Rain

Time for me to go.
    “You take the attaché,” I said, setting it on the table and discreetly removing the items I would need. “Everyone carries a bag in Hong Kong and you have to look the part. The commo gear, the laptop, everything is inside.”

    “What about you?”
    I eased my hips forward and started slipping the items I’d removed from the attaché into my front pockets. “I’ll find something on the way. Something the right size for adhesive-backed, wireless audio and video transmitters.”
    He grinned. “What the well-dressed man is carrying these days, I understand.”
    I looked at him, trying to decide, then said, “I think you’re going to have to lose the goatee. It’s too noticeable.”
    He looked at me as though I’d suggested a vasectomy. “Son, I’ve been wearing this goatee for over twenty years.”
    “That’s my point. If Hilger has file photos, and I’m sure he does, the trademark goatee will be front center. The suit and the beautiful lady by your side are helpful, but losing the facial hair would be better.”
    “Well, the suit is a new look, it’s true, but I’ve been known to have a beautiful lady by my side from time to time,” he said. “So that part’s not exactly a disguise for me.” He rubbed the beard. “Damn, I feel like Samson here on the chopping block.” He turned to Delilah. “Well, your name is Delilah.”
    She smiled. “I think you’ll look great without it.”
    “Really?”
    She nodded. “You’ve got good bones. Why hide them?”
    Dox smiled and looked at me. “Someone get me a razor!” he said. Then he turned back to Delilah. “You know, I’ve never considered myself the marrying type. But if you ever get tired of my partner here, I believe I’d like to propose to you.”
    She laughed.
    “Did I say something funny?” Dox asked.
    “All right, I’ve got to go,” I said, standing up. “You should get there in, say, forty-five minutes, before the bar fills up. And before Hilger and company arrive.”

    They stood and we all shook hands again, staying in our roles. I went downstairs, took a cab to the Mandarin Oriental, then crossed the street and ducked into a luggage store. They were selling a number of high-quality, but essentially boring business bags . . . and one mahogany-colored, lid-over, Tanner Krolle attaché. Expensive, I thought, playing with the latches, which clicked open with the quiet assurance of a bank vault or the door on a Rolls-Royce, but life is short . . .
    Five minutes later, I was circling the old Bank of China building, attaché in hand. At over half a century of age, the Art Deco–influenced building was, by Hong Kong standards, ancient. At fifteen stories, it was also a pygmy, and with the steel-masted HSBC headquarters looming to its right and the fountain-like, fiber optic–controlled light show of the Cheung Kong Center rising up behind it, it had the air of a structure that has been granted some miraculous reprieve from the engines of progress that must have demolished its contemporaries to make room for the behemoths that now surrounded it. A condemned man, still dignified, but now living on borrowed time.
    I noted all points of ingress and egress, the direction of traffic, the presence of cameras. There was a single entrance in use, on the western side, along a short, single-lane street that was all that separated the building from its giant neighbors. On the other side of the street, directly across from the building’s entrance, was a large industrial dumpster that would make for good cover and concealment if for some reason I needed it. Four elevators, two security cameras, center. One bored-looking guard behind a desk, right. A stairwell and fire door, left. An office worker emerged from the stairwell as I approached, and as the door eased closed behind him, I noted he wasn’t holding a swipe card or other key. The stairwell doors were accessible from the interior, then, at least on the ground floor. To be expected, it’s true—you can’t very well lock people in if there’s a fire—but it’s good to have confirmation.

    I stepped onto one of the elevators, running a hand along my slicked hair as I did so to obscure my face while I checked for more cameras. There it was, a ceiling-mounted dome model. I pressed the button with a knuckle and kept my head down on the trip up. I reminded myself of who I was and why I was here: Watanabe, an advance man examining the China Club on behalf of certain