Killing Rain

right,” she said, wondering what was coming.
    “Recently we used a contractor for a job in Manila. A part-Japanese fellow named John Rain.”
    She didn’t hesitate. “Yes, I brokered that introduction.”
    She wondered for a moment why the director was playing dumb with her. If the problem were serious enough to warrant his presence at this meeting, he would have been fully briefed on all the details, including Delilah’s early involvement. He must have been testing her, looking for opportunities to gauge her reactions.
    “Yes, of course,” he went on. “You met Rain in Macau. The Belghazi op.”
    “Yes.”
    “Everything we were able to learn about this man, including your own evaluation, indicated that he was extremely reliable.”
    Including your own evaluation.
    Something had gone wrong, and she was going to take some heat for it.
    “Yes,” she said again, sensing that it would be better to say less.
    He paused to take a sip of tea, and she recognized that he was attempting to draw her out with his silence. She resisted the urge to speak and instead took a sip of tea herself. After a moment, he went on.
    “The man Rain was hired to remove is named Manheim Lavi. He goes by ‘Manny.’ An Israeli national, currently residing in South Africa. He has contacts in the Philippines, and, it now seems, a second family there. Recently we learned that he had turned traitor. He has been sharing bomb-making expertise—extensive expertise—with our enemies.”
    The director wouldn’t be telling her any of this if she didn’t need to know. Nothing formal was being said, but she was being brought in on the op. He had mentioned her “evaluation” to let her know she was partly to blame for whatever the problem was; the information he was now sharing was to inform her she would be responsible for the problem’s resolution.
    She looked at Gil. “Why did you use a contractor? Why outsource the operation?”
    “Manny is connected,” Gil replied. “We believe he’s a CIA asset. The CIA doesn’t take kindly to ‘friendly’ intelligence services erasing its people.”
    “So instead you brought in a contractor who screwed something up?”
    Gil’s eyes narrowed slightly, and she smiled at him to let him know he had definitely just received a “Fuck you” for talking down to her. And her response served another purpose: it indicated to the director that, although she knew Rain, she had no interest in downplaying whatever his screwup had been or in otherwise protecting him.
    “You told us he would be reliable,” Gil said, and she was gratified by the touch of petulance in his voice.
    The director waved a hand like a father dismissing a squabble among children at the dinner table. “It doesn’t matter how we got here. What matters is what we do next.”
    Everyone was quiet for a moment, and the director continued. “Rain tried to hit Manny in a restroom in a Manila shopping mall. Manny got away, but Rain killed three other people. A bodyguard.” He paused and looked at her. “And two CIA officers.”
    He paused to let it sink in. Delilah said nothing, but thought, Oh my God.
    She asked, “Can the CIA connect the mess to us?”
    “That,” the director said, “is the question.”
    “Here’s what we know,” Boaz said. “Rain called in yesterday to brief us. He told us he had followed Manny and his family into a Manila shopping mall. Manny was with a woman and a boy. When the woman and the boy seemed to leave the scene, Rain anticipated that Manny would use the restroom, and moved there ahead of him to wait. Manny came in, but then the boy showed up. When Rain saw the boy, he hesitated.”
    “Apparently, Rain won’t harm women or children,” Gil added.
    Delilah looked at him. “Do you have a problem with that?”
    “It depends on how badly he’s screwed things up.”
    Delilah turned back to Boaz. “And then?”
    “Then the bodyguard burst in. Rain thinks Manny hit a panic button. Rain disarmed the guard just as the two CIA men arrived. Rain didn’t know who they were, and still doesn’t, so far as we know. But they were armed, too.”
    Gil said, “Rain managed to kill everyone but Manny.”
    Delilah looked at him. “The boy?”
    Gil shrugged as though this was irrelevant. “Not the boy, either.”
    She looked at Boaz again. “How good a look did Manny and the boy get at Rain?”
    “Rain says he’s not sure.”
    Gil added, “That’s bullshit. How could this have gone down without