RainStorm

cleaned, starched,
    and returned on hangers. They weren't laundering their things in
    Tide with Bleach and Extra Stain Removing Agents and Advanced
    Whiteners, or drying them on the gentle cycle in microprocessor-controlled
    driers. They hung their things on lines, where they
    would evaporate into the polluted air around. These and other differences
    would tell. Whether "witnesses would be able to articulate
    them, I couldn't say. So I needed to take every possible measure to
    ensure that it wouldn't matter if they could.
    I turned a corner, balled up the jacket, and stuffed it deep into
    a ripe pile of refuse in a metal container. I unbuttoned the shirt I
    was wearing and gave it a similar burial. I was now wearing only
    pants and a tee-shirt, and looked a little more at home.
    I made a few aggressive moves to ensure that I wasn't being followed,
    then took the MTR to Mong Kok, where I found a drugstore.
    I bought soap, rubbing alcohol, hair gel, and a comb. Next
    stop, a public restroom, reeking of what might have been decades-old
    urine, where I shitcanned the baseball cap and changed my appearance
    a little more by slicking my hair. I used the alcohol and
    soap to remove any traces of gunpowder residue that could show up
    on my hands under UV light. By the time I walked out of the lavatory,
    I was starting to feel like I had things reasonably well covered.
    I bought a cheap shirt from a street vendor, then found a coffee
    shop where I could spend a few minutes collecting myself. I ordered
    a tapioca tea and took a seat at an empty table.
    My first reaction, as always, was a giddy elation. I might have
    died, but didn't, I was still here. Even if you've been through numerous
    deadly encounters, in the aftermath you want to laugh out
    loud, or jump around, shout, do something to proclaim your aliveness.
    With an effort, I maintained a placid exterior and waited for
    these familiar urges to pass. When they had, I reviewed the steps I
    had just taken to erase the connection between myself and the dead
    Arabs, and found them satisfactory. And then I began to think ahead.
    Three down. That was good. Whoever was coming after me, I
    had just significantly degraded their forces, degraded their ability
    and perhaps also their will to fight. The paymasters must not have
    had ready access to local resources. If they had, they wouldn't have
    sent a bunch of obvious out-of-towners. Now, when word got
    back that the last three guys who signed up for this particular mission
    had all wound up extremely dead as a result, they might have
    a harder time recruiting new volunteers.
    My satisfaction wasn't solely professional, of course. The fuckers
    had been trying to kill me.
    I took out the cell phone. Christ, I'd forgotten to turn it off
    while I moved. Shame on me. Getting sloppy. All right, let's see if
    I'd just created a problem for myself.
    The unit was an Ericsson, the T230. It had a SIM card, meaning
    it was a GSM model, usable pretty much everywhere but Japan
    and Korea, which employ a unique cell phone standard. I examined
    it for transmitters and didn't find any. I thought for a minute. Did
    the T230 incorporate emergency services location technology? I
    tend to read almost compulsively to stay on top of such developments,
    but even so things slip through the cracks. No, the T230
    wasn't that new a model. I was okay on that score, too.
    Still, I knew that some intelligence services had refined their
    cell phone tracking capabilities to the point where they could place
    a live cell phone to within about twenty feet of its actual location.
    Any worries on that score? Probably not. Whoever was coming after
    me had limited local resources. I doubted they would have the
    contacts or expertise that tracking the phone would require.
    Under the circumstances, I decided it would be worth hanging
    onto the unit, and leaving it powered on. It could be interesting to
    see who might call in.
    I checked the stored numbers. The interface was in Arabic, but
    the functions were standardized and I was able to navigate it without
    a problem.
    The call log was full--he hadn't thought, or hadn't had time, to
    purge it. I didn't see any numbers I recognized. But the guy I'd
    taken it from had been talking to someone when I spotted him at
    Shun Tak station. Unless he'd made or received ten calls in the interim,
    there would be a record inside the phone of the numbers
    he'd dialed and of those that had dialed him. I had a feeling that
    some of