RainStorm

bailed out. But which embassy? Whose?
    I went to the next guy, knowing this was taking too long, hating
    the risk. Another Brioni jacket, along with a gold Jaeger-LeCoultre
    watch. But that was all.
    The third guy had a cell phone clipped to his belt. Yeah, that
    was him, the one Keiko and I had passed at Shun Tak terminal.
    Sunglasses. I pulled the phone free and opened his jacket. More
    Brioni. More empty pockets, save for the shades from which he had
    derived his short-lived nickname. The pants pockets were empty, too.
    I looked up, then behind me. The corridors were packed with
    fleeing people. A stampede panic tends to feed on itself long after
    the originating cause is gone. Probably most of these people didn't
    even know what they were running from, hadn't seen or heard
    anything. My escape routes weren't going to open up anytime soon.
    Elevator, I thought. I ducked into the loading area and pressed
    the down button with a knuckle. I stood there for an agonizingly
    long time, feeling exposed, until the damn thing finally arrived.
    The doors opened. I stepped inside, hit the ground floor and
    "close" buttons. The doors slid shut and the elevator lurched
    downward.
    I pulled the baseball cap out of my pocket and jammed it down
    onto my head. I pocketed the cell phone, slid the gun into my
    waistband, and shrugged off the blazer, exposing the white shirt
    underneath. In the immediate aftermath, witnesses would remember
    only gross details--color of the clothes, presence of a necktie,
    that sort of thing. The new hat and disappeared jacket would be
    enough to get me out of here. I pulled out the shirttails and let
    them fall over the gun.
    The elevator doors opened. It was calmer down here, but there
    was an unusual agitation in the crowd and it was clear that something
    had happened. I moved down one of the corridors, easing
    past shoppers who were looking behind me, searching to see what
    was going on back there. My pace was deliberate but not attention-getting.
    I kept my face down and didn't meet anyone's eyes.
    By the time I had reached the entrance where we had first come
    in, the collective rhythm of the people around me was normal, just
    food shoppers absorbed in the serious business of picking out the freshest fish or the most delectable cut of meat. I moved past them
    and into the street.
    I folded the jacket and slipped the gun inside it, wiping it down
    as I walked, making sure I covered all the surfaces. I did it by feel.
    Barrel. Trigger guard. Trigger. Butt.
    Fingerprints were only part of the problem, of course. When
    you're stressed, you sweat. Sweat contains DNA. Likewise for microscopic
    dead skin cells, which, like sweat, can adhere to metal. If
    you're unlucky enough to get picked up as a
    suspect, it's inconvenient
    to have to explain why your DNA is all over the murder
    weapon. The dead men's clothes, which I had touched while
    searching them, were less of a problem. They wouldn't take prints,
    and I probably hadn't handled them sufficiently to leave a material
    amount of sweat or skin cells behind.
    I turned into an alley choked with overflowing plastic garbage
    containers. An aluminum leader ran down the side of one of the
    alley walls and into an open drain beneath. I moved the leader out
    of the way and dropped the gun into the drain, seeing a satisfying
    splash as I did so. I checked behind me--all clear. I committed the
    batteries to the same final resting place, wiping each with the socks
    as I did so, then moved the leader back into position and walked
    on. Unlikely that the gun or batteries would ever be discovered
    where I had left them. Even if they were found, the water would
    probably wash away any trace DNA. And even if DNA were present,
    they'd need me in custody as a suspect to get a match. A good,
    layered defense.
    There was still a potential problem with witnesses, of course. I
    didn't stick out here the way the Arabs had, but I didn't exactly fit
    in, either. It's hard to explain the clues, but they would be enough
    for the Sham Shui Po locals to spot, and perhaps to remember. My
    clothes were wrong, for one thing. I had been dressed for a day of
    lunch and shopping in Central, not for the hive-like back alleys of
    my current environs. The locals here were dressed more casually.
    And what they were wearing fit differently, usually not that well.
    Like the area itself, the colors on their clothes were slightly dulled.
    These people weren't getting their delicates dry