Killing Rain

about what Lavi might be up to, I led the team that monitored him with spot surveillance and electronically. We saw him meet more than once with an American who I knew in the first
    Gulf War as Jim Huxton, but who now seems to go by Jim Hilger. At the time, Hilger was with America’s Third Special Forces. The two Americans who Rain killed in Manila were part of Hilger’s unit. After the war they all left the military to work for the CIA.”
    She was surprised that his ties went back so far. “You . . . worked with them?”
    He nodded. “Targeting Hussein’s mobile SCUD missile launchers. I don’t know what else they were up to. They certainly didn’t tell us about it.”
    She considered. “They told you they were going into the CIA?”
    He shrugged. “You know. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. But Hilger’s behavior with Lavi confirms it, not that any confirmation was necessary. We’ve got electronic intercepts. Hilger has a CIA cryptonym: ‘Top Dog.’ You want to know the crypt they gave Lavi?”
    She nodded.
    “ ‘Jew-boy,’ ” he said.
    “Wow.”
    He shrugged again. “That’s how we know.”
    “Do we know what those men were doing with Lavi in Manila?”
    “We don’t. We didn’t know they were going to be there, obviously, or we would have warned Rain off.”
    “What do you think the Agency was getting from Lavi?”
    “I don’t know. Whatever it was, they weren’t sharing it with us. If they were, we might have decided Lavi was more useful alive than dead, at least for a while. As it is, the government just wants people like Lavi . . .” He waved a hand as though throwing something away, disposing of it.
    “So someone else can take his place,” she said, with a genuinely sad smile.
    “You know how it is. Disrupt and deprive is the name of the game. Taking out Lavi will disrupt networks that rely on him. And deprive them of his expertise.”
    She nodded. Now was the moment to return the conversation to its more personal flavor. She would oblige him, but not in the way he was hoping.
    “Remember that time in Vienna?” she asked, looking at him.
    He returned her look but didn’t answer. She knew he wanted to say “yes” to get her to continue, but that he was afraid that uttering the word would be to confess to something he didn’t want to acknowledge.
    “It’s not that I didn’t want to. But I can’t. With colleagues, I have to have distance. Otherwise I would lose my mind. Can you understand?”
    He nodded uncomfortably. What else could he do?
    “I admire you for what you do,” she went on. “I know it must be difficult. I just . . . just wanted to tell you that.”
    The subtext was, there are so many other things I would like to say. Feeling admired, even desired, couldn’t help but soften him. Or fail to distract him from the more substantive inquiries she had just made.
    “It’s okay,” he said, and gave her a fleeting and hesitant smile.
    She had gotten him to agree that nothing was going to happen this time. And to hope, by implication, that there might be a time in the future.
    She gave him a smile of her own. Men were so easy.
    THIRTEEN
    BACK IN BANGKOK
    , Dox and I checked into the Grand Hyatt Erawan on Ratchadamri. It wasn’t as discreet a hotel as the Sukhothai, but I’m not usually comfortable using the same place twice in a row. What it lacked in low-key charm, though, the Erawan made up for operationally: it offered multiple entrances and exits on two floors and a significant security infrastructure in the form of guards and cameras. Ordinarily, surveillance and security are a hindrance to me and I try to avoid them. But this time, I wanted to be someplace that would offer obstacles to anyone who might think to visit me unexpectedly. Not that anyone knew where I was, but I always sleep better with multiple layers in place. And if one of those layers takes the form of 300-thread count cotton sheets . . . well, there aren’t so many perks to this profession. I take them when I can.
    There was nothing to do now but wait, and I let Dox talk me into another evening on the town. I had enjoyed our meal together a few nights before, enjoyed it much more than the usual solitary night in a hotel room, and he didn’t have too hard a time persuading me. This time, though, I got to choose the venue.
    I headed down to the lobby to meet him at eight o’clock as we had agreed. He was early again, and again looked very much the local expat in an untucked, short-sleeved,