RainStorm

off my shoes, as well, and followed her into the room. I'd
    left the lights on low so that their reflection against the floor-to-ceiling
    window glass wouldn't obscure the view of the harbor and
    the lights of the Hong Kong skyline beyond it, but still I saw her
    logging the room details before appreciating the panorama outside.
    I couldn't help smiling at that. A civilian would never have paused
    before taking in that spectacular scenery.
    She glanced over at the coffee table. "Laphroaig?" she asked.
    "The thirty-year-old," I said, nodding. "You know it?"
    She nodded back. "My favorite. I like it even better than the
    forty. That sherry finish--divine."
    Not bad, I thought. I wondered what else she would know. She
    was obviously adept when it came to languages, clothes, spycraft.
    And now whiskey. Food? Wine? Poetry? Tantric sexual techniques?
    I tried not to speculate too much on that last one.
    "Can I get you a glass?"
    "I'd love one. Just a drop of water."
    I poured us each a healthy measure in the crystal tumblers,
    adding a drop of water to hers as she had requested. I handed her
    her glass, raised mine, and said, "L'Chaim," smiling into her eyes as
    I did so.
    She paused, looking at me. "I'm sorry?"
    I smiled innocently. '"To life,' right? Isn't that the custom in
    Israel?"
    For one second I thought she looked angry, and then she
    smiled. "Kanpai," she said, and we both laughed.
    It was a good recovery. But that pause, and the momentary reaction
    that had followed, seemed telling.
    We sat by the coffee table. Delilah took the couch with her back
    to the wall, her right side to the window. I took the stuffed chair
    next to the couch. My back was to the wall next to the window, so
    I didn't have the view. But I preferred to look at her, anyway.
    We sipped for a moment in silence. She was right--the thirty-year-old,
    finished in sherry casks, mingles ocean tang and sherry
    sweetness like no other whiskey, offering a nose and taste unparalleled
    even among Laphroaig's other outstanding bottlings.
    After a minute or two she asked, "How much do you know
    about me?"
    "Not a lot. Mostly speculation. Probably about what you know
    about me."
    "You think I'm Israeli?"
    "Aren't you?"
    She smiled. The smile said: Come on, you can do better than that.
    I shrugged. "Yeah, you're right. Beautiful woman, speaks Arabic,
    knows how to handle herself and then some, trying to set up a
    guy who supports various Islamic fundamentalist groups ... I don't
    know what I could have been thinking."
    "Is that really all you're going on?"
    "What else would there be?"
    She took a sip of the Laphroaig and paused as though considering.
    Then she said, "No one works completely alone. Even if it's
    just the people who are paying you, there's always someone you can
    go to for information. If you share your theories about who I am with
    whomever you work for, it could make things dangerous for me."
    I hadn't even considered that. I tend to focus only on whether a
    given action might create danger for me. Selfish, I suppose. But I'm
    alive because of it.
    "We're both professionals," she went on. "We do what we have
    to. If you need information, you'll seek it out. But what you learn
    might buy you little. It could cost me a great deal."
    "Why don't you just level with me, then," I said. "Tell me what
    I need to know."
    "What more do you need?" she asked, looking at me. "We've
    already learned too much by accident. We understand each other's
    objectives, and we understand the situation we're in. The more you
    push, the more you compromise my ability to carry out my mission.
    And the more dangerous you make it for me personally. The
    people I work with recognize all this. At some point, they may decide
    to overrule me when I tell them not to try to remove you."
    I put down my glass and stood up. "Delilah," I said, my voice
    dropping an octave the way it does when I feel I'm seconds away
    from having to take decisive action, "we're here to try to find a way
    to coexist. Don't make me decide that you're a threat."
    "Or what?" she said, looking up at me.
    I didn't answer. She put her glass down, too, then stood and
    faced me. "Will you break my neck? Most men couldn't--I'm not
    so delicate, you know--but I know you could."
    She took a step closer. I felt an adrenaline surge and couldn't put
    it in the right context. A second ago I'd reacted to her the way I reflexively
    do when something suddenly reveals itself as dangerous,
    but now ... I wasn't sure.