RainStorm

disturb you."
    "Not at all, sir. Have a pleasant day."
    I hung up. Mr. Nuchi, then. Who liked French cigarettes.
    But no other clues. Nothing even to confirm my suspicion that
    this guy was a pro, and possibly a rival. Well, there were other ways
    I might learn more.
    I pulled an adhesive-backed transmitter from one of my pockets,
    peeled off the tape cover, and secured it in a suitably recessed
    spot along the bottom edge of one of the dressers. The unit was
    battery-operated and sound-activated. With luck, it would get a
    good enough feed for me to understand any conversation it picked
    up. But even short of that, it would help me figure out when
    Karate was coming and going, and therefore make it easier for me
    to learn more by following him.
    I walked back to the door, used the SoldierVision to confirm
    that the hallway was clear, and left. The whole thing had taken
    about four minutes.
    belghazi arrived early that evening. I was enjoying a cocktail
    with Keiko in the lobby, where I had a view of the registration
    desk, and made him in an instant. He was swarthy, the legacy of an
    Algerian mother, and his hair, which had been long and unruly in
    the CIA file photo, was now shaved close to the scalp. I put him at
    about six feet and a hundred and eighty-five pounds. Dense, muscular
    build. He was wearing an expensive-looking blue suit, from
    the cut maybe Brioni or Kiton, and a white shirt open at the collar.
    In his left hand he gripped the handle of what looked like a
    computer briefcase, something in black leather, and I caught a flash
    of gold chain encircling his wrist. But despite the clothes, the accessories,
    the jewelry, there was no element of fussiness about him.
    On the contrary: his presence was relaxed, and powerful. He looked
    like the kind of man who wouldn't have to raise his voice when
    speaking to his subordinates, who would command the attention of
    strangers with only a look or a gesture. Someone who wouldn't
    need to threaten violence to get what he wanted, if only because
    the hint of it would always be there, in the set of his posture, the
    look in his eyes, the tone of his voice.
    Even if I hadn't had access to the file photo, the long distance
    feel I had developed for this guy from his bio would have been
    enough for me to make him. Belghazi, first name Achille, had been
    born of a French army officer stationed in Algeria during France's
    'pacification" efforts there, and of a young Algerian woman whom
    the officer brought back to Paris but did not take as his wife. Illegitimate
    status hadn't seemed to slow Belghazi down, though,
    and he had excelled in school, both academically and athletically,
    making a name for himself afterward as a photojournalism His fluent
    Arabic had made him a natural for covering conflicts in the
    Arab world: the Palestinian refugee camps, the Mujahideen in
    Afghanistan, the first Gulf war. Playing on his contacts among the
    combatants, and on those he developed at the same time among
    foreign military and intelligence services, Belghazi had become a
    conduit for small arms deliveries to various Middle Eastern hot
    spots. His operation had grown organically as his supply-side and
    customer-side contacts broadened and deepened. His latest efforts
    were concentrated in Southeast Asia, where various emerging fundamentalist
    and separatist groups within the region's sizeable Muslim
    populations provided a growing customer base. He was known
    to have a taste for the finer things, too, along "with a serious gambling
    habit.
    He was with two large men, also in suits and similarly swarthy,
    whom I made as bodyguards. One of them started a visual security
    sweep, but Belghazi didn't rely on him. Instead, he did his own
    evaluation of the room and its occupants. I watched in my peripheral
    vision and, when I saw that he was finished and had turned his
    attention to the front desk, I looked over again.
    A striking blonde had just come through the front doors. She
    was wearing a black pants suit and pumps. Practical, but classy.
    What you'd see on a traveler carrying a first-class ticket. She was
    tall, too, maybe five-nine, five-ten, with long legs that looked good
    even in pants, and a ripe, voluptuous body. A porter followed her
    in, gripping a pair of large Vuitton bags. He paused near her and
    leaned forward to ask something. She raised a hand to indicate that
    he should wait, then started her own visual sweep of the room. I
    hadn't expected that, and quickly