RainStorm

listened to five cliches, including something about
    shackled envelopes. I'm waiting for you to actually say something."
    He flushed, but then nodded and even managed a chuckle. I
    smiled at his composure. He had matured since I had last seen him.
    "Okay," he said. "Remember that Predator drone that took out
    Abu Ali and five other Qaeda members with a Hellfire missile in
    Yemen in November 2002? That was one of ours."
    "That's what was in the papers," I said.
    "Well, what's not in the papers is the full extent of this kind of
    clandestine activity. The Agency has won a tug-of-war with the
    Pentagon over who's responsible for these things. The Pentagon
    tried, but they can't move fast enough to act on the intelligence we
    produce. So we've been tasked with the action ourselves. And we're
    doing it."
    I waited for him to go on.
    "So now we have a new mandate: no more Nine-Elevens. No
    more sneak attacks. We've been charged with doing whatever it
    takes--and I mean whatever--to disrupt the international terrorist
    infrastructure: the financiers, the arms brokers, the go-betweens."
    I nodded. "You want me for the 'whatever' part."
    "Of course," he said, almost impatiently, and this time I was sure
    he'd gotten the habit from Tatsu, who had a way of uttering those
    two syllables as though barely managing to avoid instead saying, Are
    you always this obtuse?
    He took a sip from his cup. "Look, some of the individuals in
    question enjoy a lot of political protection. Some of them, in fact,
    are technically U.S. citizens."
    " 'Technically'?"
    He shrugged. "They could be classified as enemy combatants."
    I closed my eyes and shook my head.
    "What?" he asked.
    I smiled. "Just thinking about the way the end justifies the means."
    "Sometimes it does."
    "Their end, or only yours?"
    "Let's save the philosophical discussion," he said. "The point is,
    even post Nine-Eleven, even in the current, security-minded climate,
    it wouldn't do to just take some of these people out. Certainly
    not with a Hellfire missile. Better if their demise were to
    look . . . you know, natural."
    "Assuming that I were interested, and I'm not, what would be
    in it for me?"
    "You're not interested? You're going to a lot of trouble to meet me, for someone who's not interested."
    A year ago my protestation would have flustered him. Now he
    was counter punching Good for him.
    "It's no trouble. I was here because of a woman. When I found
    out she was working for you, I had to break things off. So here I
    am, killing a few days before heading home."
    If he was surprised to learn that I knew about his connection
    with Naomi, he didn't show it. He looked at me and said, "Some
    people think Rio is your home."
    I returned his stare, and something in my eyes made him drop
    his gaze. "If you want to play fishing games with me, Kanezaki," I
    said, "you're just wasting time. But if I think your I-took a course at Langley on verbal manipulation-techniques
    bullshit contains an
    element of threat, I'll take you out before you even have a chance
    to beg me not to."
    I felt fear flow off him in a cold ripple. I knew what he had just
    seen in his mind's eye: the way I had broken his bodyguard's neck,
    an act that would have looked as casual to Kanezaki as unzipping to
    take a leak. Which is exactly the way I had wanted him to see it.
    And remember it.
    "The money could set you up well," he said, after a moment.
    "I'm already set," I answered, which was a lie, unfortunately.
    We were both quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Look, I'm
    not doing any verbal manipulation here. Or at least no more than
    you'd expect. And I'm definitely not threatening you. I'm just
    telling you that we could really use your help to accomplish something
    important, and that you could make a lot of money in the
    process."
    I suppressed a grin. It was nicely done.
    "Tell me who and how much," I said. "And we'll see if there's
    anything worth discussing after that."
    The target was Belghazi, of course. The first of many, Kanezaki
    told me, if I was interested. Two hundred thousand U.S. a pop,
    delivered any way I wanted, fifty thousand upfront, the rest upon
    successful completion. On expenses I'd be out of pocket, which
    minimized paperwork--and paper trails--for the bean-counting
    set, a rule we wound up having to change somewhat given the
    sums I needed to operate in the VIP rooms of the Lisboa. The only
    catch was that it absolutely had to look natural.
    It was about what I would have guessed.