RainStorm

problem. We would have just tag-teamed
    him in, knowing that if one of us got spotted, the other
    would fall into place after. But this time I didn't have that luxury. All
    I had was instinct and experience, and these were telling me that the
    tunnel move was a feint, an attempt to draw a follower into the tunnel,
    weed him out of the crowd, then turn around and catch him.
    So I moved past the passageway on the right, hiding in the shadows
    of one of the avenue's stunted palm trees, hoping I was right.
    Fifteen seconds went by. Thirty.
    If I had been wrong, this was my last chance to try to cross
    the street. If I waited until he had emerged, he would see me
    coming.
    Just another second, just another second, c'mon, asshole, where
    are you . . .
    Boom, there he was, moving up the vertical side of the H, still
    on my side of the street. I let out a long, quiet breath.
    He strolled another hundred meters along the Avenida da
    Amizade, then cut right. I did the same, in time to see him turn
    left, down a scooter-choked alley walled in by office buildings to
    either side. I fell in behind him, window unit air conditioners
    buzzing like insects in the dark around us.
    Three minutes later we arrived at the Lisboa. I followed him in,
    wondering whether he was hoping to use its many entrances and
    exits as part of a pre-planned surveillance detection route. If so,
    he'd made a mistake. The Lisboa was too crowded at night; a pursuer
    could stay close in here without your ever knowing it. Even if
    he'd had a team positioned for counter surveillance, the nighttime
    crowds would present insurmountable opportunities for concealment.
    Maybe he'd designed this route during the day, when the hotel
    was less crowded? If so, he'd made an amateur mistake. Times of
    day, days of the week, changes of season, changes of temperature-- all can make for an environment dramatically different from the
    one you originally reconnoitered.
    I moved in closer and stayed with him, knowing that if he
    snaked off into the crowded, multi-level hive of the casino I might
    easily lose him. But he avoided the gaming area, strolling instead in a slow, clockwise loop around the ground floor's shopping arcade,
    where clusters of prostitutes from nearby Guangdong province circled
    like hungry fish in a spherical aquarium. We moved with
    them, past gamblers flush with fresh winnings, whom the girls eyed
    with bold invitation, eager to retrieve a few floating scraps from the
    casino food chain; past middle-aged men from Hong Kong and
    Taiwan with sagging bodies and febrile eyes, their postures rigid,
    caught in some grim purgatory between sexual urgency and commercial
    calculation; past security guards, inured to the charms of
    the girls' bare legs and bold decolletage and interested only in
    keeping them moving, circling, forever swimming through the
    murk of the endless Lisboa night.
    Karate left the building through a secondary exit. I still wasn't
    sure what he had hoped to accomplish by going inside. The shopping
    arcade, like the hotel itself, was too crowded for meaningful
    surveillance detection. Maybe he had planned this part of the route
    poorly, as I had initially speculated. Or maybe he had simply been
    window-shopping in anticipation of indulging himself later that night. Not impossible: even professionals occasionally slip, or pause
    to fulfill some human need.
    His subsequent behavior supported the "indulgence" hypothesis:
    after the Lisboa, I didn't spot him doing anything further to check
    his back. He must have satisfied himself with the provocative tunnel
    stunt. It wasn't an ineffective move, actually, and probably would
    have been enough to flush someone else. Hell, it would have flushed
    me, if my instincts had been a little less sharp or if I hadn't done my
    three weeks of homework.
    He continued northwest on the Avenida Henrique. The street
    was straight, dark, and heavily trafficked, and I was able to follow
    him from far back. My eyes roved constantly, searching the hot
    spots, the places I would have set up counter surveillance or an ambush.
    Nothing set off my radar.
    At Senado Square, the area's main pedestrian shopping commons,
    he turned right. The square would be crowded, even at this
    evening hour, and I increased my pace to ensure that I wouldn't
    lose him. There he was, moving up the undulating lines of black
    and white tile, to the left of the illuminated vertical jets of the
    square's central fountain, along the low,