RainStorm

anyway?
    Please, I can't tell you something like that. I've told you everything
    else, I really have!"
    I had thought that, by this point, we'd have enough momentum
    to get over this kind of bump. Apparently I'd been mistaken.
    "Do you think, if he were in your shoes, he'd die before giving
    up your name?" I asked. "Because that's what you're choosing to do."
    "I don't know what he'd do. I can't... I just can't tell you another
    officer's name. I'm sorry, I can't."
    "Two things," I said. "First, I'm eighty percent certain I know
    who he is, and just want the confirmation." This was a lie, of
    course, but I wanted to make it easier for Crawley to rationalize if
    rationalizing was what it was going to take. "Second, I'm only interested
    in him because he can get me close to Belghazi. So, in not
    telling me the name, you're choosing to die to protect Belghazi,
    not to protect Agency personnel."
    He closed his eyes, and tears began leaking out. "I'm sorry," he
    said, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."
    Shit, his hope, real or false, was fading. My leverage would be
    fading with it.
    "The operator you went to," I asked, fishing now. "To have me
    removed. He goes by the name of Dox. Is he the NOC?"
    He didn't answer. He just continued to shake his head and
    silently weep. His reaction told me nothing.
    "I'll give you one more chance," I said. "The NOC's name. Live
    or die, it's up to you."
    He didn't answer, and I realized that at some level he might not
    even have heard me. He had made his decision and had already
    accepted the consequences. I could have tried some sort of crude
    torture, but was reluctant to do so. The benefits of information extracted
    by torture are usually minimal. The costs to the psyche tend
    to be significant.
    Still, the next part wasn't going to be pleasant. I'd talked with
    him now, interacted with him, witnessed his tears and his fear and
    his misguided loyalty. All guaranteed to slice through decades of
    suddenly soft emotional callus and remind me that it was another
    human being whose life I was about to take.
    But I didn't have much choice. I couldn't very well leave him
    alive after this encounter. He would warn Belghazi, warn the NOC
    in Hong Kong. And I'd mentioned Delilah, too. If he told Belghazi
    about her, she'd be dead that very night.
    I wondered briefly if I'd mentioned her name to him to force
    my own hand, to clarify that, by sparing his life, I'd be ending hers.
    I reminded myself that he had tried to have me killed. That,
    given the opportunity, he would certainly do so again.
    Don't think.Just do it.
    I felt a valve closing over my empathy like a watertight bulkhead.
    The bulkhead would open later, I knew, as the pressure built
    behind it, but it would hold long enough for me to finish the matter
    at hand.
    I picked up the stun gun and jolted him again. He jerked violently
    from the shock, but the pillow kept him from marking his head. After
    about ten seconds I released the trigger and set the unit aside.
    I sat him up and got behind him. I hooked my legs over his,
    wrapped my arms around his neck in a hadaka-jime strangle, and
    dropped back to the plastic-covered floor so that my body was under
    his. I put the strangle in carefully, using just enough pressure to
    close off the carotids, but not enough to damage his trachea or to
    cause any bruising. He didn't make a sound and he was unconscious
    within seconds. I held him that way for several minutes, until
    unconsciousness had deepened into death.
    I got up and dragged him to the living room closet. The plastic
    was practically frictionless on the carpet and made the job easier.
    I laid him down under the dowel in the storage closet and went
    back to the living room. I like to clean up as I go along--one step,
    one cleanup. Repeat. Makes it easier not to forget anything. I
    picked up the duct tape, then noticed something: a swath in the
    carpet where the fibers had all been pulled in the same direction by
    his plastic-assisted passage. I walked back and forth along the swath
    until it had been eradicated.
    I went back to the closet, dropped the duct tape, and cut the
    plastic off him with the box cutter. I noticed that his boxers were
    damp--he'd pissed himself as he'd lost consciousness and died. Not
    uncommon. It was lucky he had just used the toilet or I might have
    had a more considerable mess to deal with.
    I opened the folding doors near the entrance and turned on the
    washing machine. I added some detergent, then walked