Killing Rain

Winters had another plus: Hilger knew he was a graduate of an off-the-books CIA hostile interrogation program. The program was ostensibly designed to teach operators to resist torture, but it was well known in the community that, in doing so, the program taught torture itself, and that this was its true purpose. Some people took to the course material more readily than others. Winters, Hilger knew, had a knack.
    The sky was beginning to grow light behind Central off to his right. He consulted his directory, then picked up the phone.
    NINE
    AFTER DINNER
    , Dox insisted on heading over to the go-go bars in Patpong. I wasn’t happy about it, but I supposed I would just have to accept that the man was large enough to contain multitudes: lethal and loud; cultured and crude; profound and party-going. And what he had said earlier, about having been doing fine on his own, was of course true. Maybe I was being unfair to him. I decided I would try to trust him more. The thought was strange and uncomfortable, but it felt like the right thing to do.
    I stopped by an Internet café to check on Delilah’s plans. There was a message waiting from her: she was coming in on the Air France flight, and would be arriving in Bangkok the following afternoon at 4:35. All right. I made the necessary reservations for Dox, went back to the Sukhothai, took a hot bath in the excellent tub, got in bed, and slept.
    But my sleep was restless. I dreamed that I was a little boy again, in the apartment where I had grown up, and that something was chasing me there from room to room. I called for my parents, but no one came, and I was terrified at being alone. My father had kept a katana, the Japanese long sword, which had belonged, he said, to his great-grandfather, on a ceremonial stand in my parents’ bedroom, and I ran in there and slammed the door behind me. Then I went to grab the katana, but instead of one, there were two, and I couldn’t choose which to pick up. I froze. My mind was shouting, Just pick one! Either one! but I couldn’t move. And then the door started to open . . .
    I woke and sprang off the bed into a crouch. I remained like that for a long time, catching my breath, feeling the sweat dry on my body, trying to shake off the dream and come back to myself. Finally I straightened, used the toilet, then took another bath.
    But this one didn’t help me sleep at all. I lay in bed for a long time afterward, thinking. It bothered me that I’d frozen again, even in a dream. Two swords within easy reach—an embarrassment of riches if you’re in danger, you would think. And yet I couldn’t choose either one. If I hadn’t awoken, whatever had been pursuing me in the dream would have killed me.
    DOX AND I went to the airport early the next afternoon to give ourselves time to establish a countersurveillance route and walk it through. We were using the commo gear from Manila. If Dox had to warn me of anything, he could do it at a distance and right in my ear. This would give us a better range of options than if he had been trying to protect me from afar without contact.
    The area outside customs was crowded with people waiting for arrivals: families, Thai and expat; hotel car drivers in white livery; greasy-haired backpackers in sandals with adventure-seeking friends coming in from Europe and Australia. No one set off my radar, but the area was too crowded to be sure. If there were trouble, I expected it would look Israeli. After all, part of the reason Delilah’s people had brought me in to begin with was their lack of Asian resources. The “lack” was relative, of course: through both the gemstone trade and the underground arms market to groups like the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, Israel does have contacts in Thailand. Still, if they wanted to move quickly enough to take advantage of any intel Delilah might have supplied them, I didn’t think they’d be able to outsource. None of which is to say I ignored people who didn’t fit the profile, but it does help to keep certain guidelines in mind as you go.
    I set up far to the right of the exit, where I would be able to see her as she emerged from customs but where she would have to look hard for me. Dox was positioned a few meters behind me and to my left, and when I casually checked in his direction, it took me a second to spot him, even though I knew him and I knew where to look. He really did have that sniper’s knack for disappearing into the background.
    There were two