RainStorm

working.
    Dox had been as excited as a kid with a new toy. He took the rifle
    over to the deserted south side of Hong Kong to take it through
    its paces. I joined him with the Tokarev and the commo gear. Everything
    was working fine. I was careful not to give him the opportunity
    to get downrange of me with the rifle. I still didn't trust him.
    I was checking the bulletin board every hour, but no word from
    Kanezaki. Not the first day. Not the second.
    On the evening of the second day, there was a message waiting
    for me: "He's on the way. Call me!"
    I wondered if he'd thought to try Dox's cell phone first. Maybe
    I'd been wrong, and he hadn't figured out that this had become a
    joint operation.
    I called him. He picked up immediately. "Moshi moshi," he said,
    "It's me."
    "You got the message."
    "Of course."
    " 'Of course.' How was I supposed to know, if you didn't call to
    confirm? I wish you would just use a damn cell phone. I really do."
    "Do we have to have this conversation again?"
    There was a pause, and I wondered whether he was smiling.
    "No, we don't," he said.
    "I'll call you when it's done."
    There was another pause, then he said, "Ki o nuku na yo." Be
    careful.
    I smiled. "Arigatou." I hung up.
    I picked up Dox and we drove to Kwai Chung. We parked the
    van in the parking lot of a nearby residential high-rise, reachable on
    foot from the hills overlooking the terminal entry gate. Each of us
    had a key to the van. If something went awry and only one of us
    made it back to the van, he'd still be able to drive away. We reviewed
    our plans one last time and separated to take up our positions.
    Dox was about thirty meters south of the gate, about a hundred
    and fifty meters distant and at maybe seventy meters elevation. I
    was thirty meters north, and much closer to the road. Dox would
    be doing the distance work; I would do the spotting, then follow
    up at close range. I was lying in a concrete-lined drainage culvert,
    which would provide cover from Dox's position in case I'd been
    wrong about him. But this was still dangerous. He was a sniper,
    more than capable of stealthily achieving a new position.
    At a little after two o'clock, I saw a dark sedan coming down
    Cheung Li road. I raised the binoculars--a gorgeous, mechanically
    stabilized Zeiss 20x60 unit with anti-reflective lenses--and looked
    through them. The approaching car was a Lexus IS 430. Two Caucasians
    in front. The back looked empty, but the car's interior was
    too dark to be sure.
    I had been half-expecting to see Delilah in the car, although I
    knew the possibility was remote. She might not even know this
    meeting was going down tonight. And her role, as I understood it,
    was such that Belghazi would want to keep her separate from his
    business transactions. Most of all, I knew she was too specialized
    and valuable an operator to risk in an operation like a straightforward
    terrorist takedown.
    "That him?" I heard Dox's voice clearly through the earpiece.
    "I'm not sure yet," I said. "Too much glare on the windows
    from the streetlights, not enough light in the car. Hold on."
    The car continued past my position. The driver-side backseat
    was empty. I couldn't be sure about the passenger side.
    "Still no ID," I said. "Hold on."
    The car pulled into the turnaround in front of the entrance,
    swung around so that it was facing the street, then backed up to
    within a couple of meters of the gate. The engine cut out. I
    watched through the binoculars, trying to imagine what this was,
    to understand why they weren't going inside.
    The front doors opened and two men got out. They looked
    Slavic to me: broad cheekbones, wheat-colored hair crew cut, white
    skin shining unhealthily in the light cast by the shipping facility behind
    them. They seemed uncomfortable in their dark suits, neither
    of which fit particularly -well, and each was wearing a bright red
    tie. Ex-military, maybe, men unaccustomed to any uniform that
    wasn't battle dress and choosing their ties in overreaction to a previous
    lifetime of nothing but olive drab. I decided to think of them
    as Russians. They looked around after exiting the car, and I thought
    their looks had the feel of an attempt at orientation. They certainly
    weren't locals.
    "Looks like a drug deal in the making," I heard Dox say, and he
    was right, it did have that sort of illicit feel to it. I had expected them
    to drive into the container port, but it looked like the party was going
    to happen outside it. Which