RainStorm

small advantage later. Besides,
    I didn't think they'd move against me in a public place, if a move
    was what this was about. Macau is a peninsula, after all, and they'd
    want a venue that would enable them to slip away. So I stayed with
    the front entrance, where we caught a taxi for the brief ride to the
    Macau Ferry Terminal.
    We arrived and got out of the cab. I didn't see anything in front
    of the building that set off my radar. The lobby of the first floor,
    likewise. But the place to pick someone up here would be the second
    floor, where passengers boarded. If you wanted to know
    whether someone was traveling to Hong Kong, the departure
    lounge would be the only real choke point in the complex.
    And that's exactly where I saw the second guy, another Arab, this
    one a bearded giant with a linebacker's physique. He was wearing an
    expensive-looking jacket and shades and standing off to the side of
    one of the ATMs in the lobby, the machine offering both cover for
    action and a clear view of the departure area. Again, I offered no
    sign that I had noticed anything out of the ordinary.
    The Arabs stuck out sufficiently to make me wonder for a
    moment whether they might have been deliberate distractions-- decoys to mask the other, in this case Asian, players. Possible, I decided,
    but not likely. No one else was setting off my radar. And
    flying all these guys in from wherever would have been an expensive
    and time-consuming way to gain the marginal advantage of
    distraction they might offer. No, I sensed instead that the momentary
    problem I faced was probably no deeper than what was immediately
    apparent. Sure, these guys knew they stuck out. They just
    didn't give me enough credit to understand that I would find their
    sticking out highly relevant, and to act appropriately. They didn't
    grasp the critical fact of how I would interpret their relative conspicuousness.
    Shame on them.
    The ferry ride to Hong Kong lasted an hour. There were no
    Middle Eastern types on board, or anyone else who rubbed me the
    wrong way.
    We presented our passports to the customs authorities at the
    Shun Tak terminal in Hong Kong, then moved into the main
    lobby outside the arrivals gate.
    I spotted the third one immediately. Another Arab, long hair,
    mustache, navy suit, white shirt open at the collar, stylish-looking
    pair of shades. Unlike the majority of the people waiting here to
    greet passengers from Macau, who were standing right in front of
    the arrivals exit, he was leaning casually against the railing at the
    back of the open-air center of the lobby. Apparently, my new friend
    was afraid to get too close, afraid he'd get spotted. In trying to find
    a less conspicuous position, though, he'd only made himself stand
    out more.
    We took the down escalator at the front of the lobby. On the
    floor below, we had to walk around to the opposite side, then turn
    one hundred eighty degrees to catch the next escalator down. As
    we made the turn, I saw our pursuer, 'who I now thought of as
    Sunglasses, riding the escalator we had just used.
    I paused to take a look in the window of a cigar store before
    catching the second escalator down. I moved so that Keiko was facing
    me, her back to the window.
    "Keiko," I said in Japanese, "do me a favor. Take a look behind
    us. Just glance around, okay? Don't let your eyes linger on any one
    person. Tell me what you see."
    She looked past me and shrugged. "I don't know, lots of people.
    What am I supposed to be looking for?"
    "Do you see a foreigner? Arabic-looking guy? Don't stare, just
    take a quick peek, then look at other people, look at the stores.
    You're just bored waiting for me to finish -window-shopping and
    you're looking around, okay?"
    "What's going on?" she asked, and I heard some concern in her
    voice.
    I shook my head and smiled. "Nothing to worry about." I
    stepped into her field of vision to make her stop scoping the lobby,
    then placed my hand on her lower back and started moving her
    along -with the pressure of my palm. "Okay, don't look back. Just
    tell me what you saw."
    "There was an Arabic man in a suit."
    "What was he doing?"
    "Talking on a cell phone. I think he was watching us, but he
    looked away when he saw me looking around. Do you know him?"
    "Sort of. It's a little hard to explain."
    What did Ian Fleming say? Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence,
    three times is enemy action. And I don't believe in waiting
    for even that much evidence. It was past time to