RainStorm

recruiting officer?"
    He looked at me. "The NOC."
    I thought for a moment. I didn't see Dox in that role. He was a
    shooter, not a recruiter. But I couldn't be sure.
    "So the NOC has the relationship with the port employee," I
    said. "He tells Belghazi, 'Hey, you can ship through Hong Kong,
    I've got the local connections to make sure it all goes smoothly.' A
    little service from your friendly neighborhood CIA officer in exchange
    for information on WMD precursors or whatever."
    He nodded. "That sounds about right."
    "What does the port guy do, do you think?"
    "I'm not sure. I've been doing a ton of research on container
    shipping, though, and my guess is that this guy provides the physical
    access, shows Belghazi and the buyer or seller the merchandise
    in one of the containers, then takes care of the necessary EDI information
    to conceal the true origins and nature of the container
    cargo in question."
    '"EDI?"'
    "Electronic Data Interchange. Kwai Chung is the most heavily computerized container shipping terminal in the world. If the
    port guy has access to the EDI system and the physical containers,
    presumably he could change the necessary identification codes,
    country/size/type codes, etcetera, and ensure that the cargo in the
    container gets sent to wherever Belghazi wants it to go."
    I thought for a moment. "Where is Belghazi now?"
    "Still in Macau." He looked at me. "You learn anything new
    about the woman? The blonde?"
    Delilah. Well, there had been that message, advising me that the
    wait was almost over. But of course it wouldn't do to mention any
    of that to Kanezaki.
    "Nothing," I said. "You?"
    He shook his head.
    "What about Belghazi?" I asked. "Any calls from Terminal
    Nine?"
    "Not yet."
    "All right, then, we might still have a shot at him." Without
    pausing, making the request sound as smooth and obvious as possible, I said, "I'll need the names and particulars of the NOC and the
    access agent."
    He shook his head. "No. No way."
    Well, that didn't work. I looked at him. "Are you having second thoughts about this op?"
    He shook his head again.
    "Because you know now that there are people in your organization
    who find Belghazi useful, who want him to stay healthy."
    He shrugged. "I don't know what game they're playing. I have
    my mandate, and my mandate is to have him removed. And knowing
    who he is, that mandate makes sense to me. If someone wants
    to disabuse me, they'll damn well have to be explicit about it."
    "Good. I thought you were wavering there for a second."
    "It's not wavering. It's just--"
    "Look, I can't get to Belghazi directly anymore, okay? He's seen
    my face, he knows he's being hunted, he'll be taking extra precautions.
    My only realistic hope of getting close is through a third
    party. Like one of the ones you just mentioned."
    "I understand what you're saying. But I can't give you the name
    of a CIA officer--especially a NOC--or the name of an asset. I've
    crossed a lot of lines with you, it's true, but I'm not crossing that
    one."
    I could tell by his voice and his expression--and by recent experience
    with Crawley, who had refused to talk even in extremis-- that he wasn't going to tell me what I wanted to know. It would be
    useless to ask about Dox. Even if I asked, I wouldn't be able to trust
    his answer.
    I thought for a moment, and it occurred to me that there might
    still be a way to do Belghazi, even without the information
    Kanezaki was determined to hold back. It might involve calling off
    the wait that Delilah was counting on, but business is business.
    "All right, let's go back to the beginning," I said. "What's the
    purpose of the 'natural causes' requirement with regard to Belghazi,
    anyway?"
    He shrugged. "Well, originally, I was told that it had to look
    natural because Belghazi has protectors in other intelligence services.
    But now--"
    "Now it seems that the more important objective was to avoid
    offending protectors in your intelligence service."
    "Yeah, I know. Life at the CIA is funny that way."
    "I told you the right hand and the left aren't exactly working in
    perfect harmony with you guys."
    "I didn't disagree."
    "And now, it seems, the right hand has learned that the left has
    taken a contract out on Belghazi."
    He nodded. "So it seems."
    "But they haven't complained to you. They haven't gone through
    channels. You've suggested they're afraid to do that."
    "What are you getting at?"
    I shrugged. "Maybe you were being overly strict in your interpretation
    of