RainStorm

stupid, despite the appearance he cultivated, and I
    knew he'd be looking for signs of a weapon. Adequate concealment
    on my body was possible, of course, but would make for an
    unacceptably time-consuming deployment. Better to have the element
    of surprise. Likewise, it would have been sensible to wear
    some extra clothing, with a running suit or something similar between
    the outer and inner layers, which I could quickly peel off afterward if things got messy. But I knew this was also something
    Dox would spot. There was a compromise, though. I purchased a
    dark nylon jacket and a carton of baby wipes, which I stashed under
    a trashcan in a public restroom not far from where I had emplaced
    the knife. If I had to deal with Dox and got bloody in the
    process, I could duck into the restroom and quickly make myself
    presentable again.
    I continued east on the causeway, then into the International Financial
    Center, which houses a large shopping mall. I wandered
    around until I had found a suitable set-up: a third-floor vantage
    point overlooking a second-floor bookseller called Dymock's. From
    the third floor I could monitor not only the entrance to the bookstore,
    but the nearby second-floor entrance to the mall and the approaches
    to my position, as well. If I saw something I didn't like, I
    could disappear in any one of a number of directions.
    I called Dox from a pay phone.
    "Moshi moshi," he said, in his thick drawl.
    I wondered briefly whether I was giving Dox too much credit
    in thinking that his hayseed thing was only an act.
    "Still ogling those girls?" I asked.
    "Them and some new ones," he said, his voice booming with
    good cheer. "There's enough of me for all of 'em."
    "Meet me in the Dymock's bookstore in the IFC shopping mall."
    "The what? I don't . . ."
    "Save the hillbilly stuff for someone who cares," I interrupted.
    "The International Financial Center shopping mall. Second floor.
    At Hong Kong station on the MTR. It should take you less than
    fifteen minutes to get there. Longer than that and I'm gone."
    "All right, all right, no need to get unpleasant about it, I'm on
    my way."
    "I'll be watching along the way, Dox. If you're not alone, I'm
    going to take it personally."
    "I know, I know."
    He did know, too. We'd worked together. He'd seen what I
    could do.
    I hung up, went back to my position, and waited.
    I didn't know the details, of course, but then I didn't really need
    to. Dox knew I was in Hong Kong because that's where I'd placed
    the call to Kanezaki. Somehow he'd created that photograph of
    me. He'd known me before and had seen me recently; maybe he
    had worked with a technician the way a witness works with a police
    sketch artist. Or maybe they had a military-era photo and had
    digitized it to account for the effects of plastic surgery and the intervening
    decades. Regardless, Dox would have taken the photo
    around to hotels on Hong Kong and Kowloon. He knew me, so he
    would start with the best and work his way down. That's why he
    knew I was at a hotel, but didn't know which one.
    I realized he'd probably been to the Peninsula, too, but I had left
    there in too much of a hurry to bother with a formal checkout.
    Maybe he would have flashed some sort of government ID, U.S.
    Customs requesting a favor, something like that. Or maybe he even
    had local liaison. Sure, the Ritz manager had said something about
    this being a "police matter." Maybe the Agency had asked the local
    gendarmerie for assistance. Great.
    I shook my head a little sadly. Staying at high-end hotels when
    I'm moving around is one of the few luxuries I have. Now I saw
    that the habit had become a liability. I would have to jettison it.
    I tried not to take it personally. Dox, Kanezaki, they had their
    reasons. They were just doing their jobs.
    Well, if it got to be too much, I would just do mine. No hard
    feelings, guys. You know how it is.
    Ten minutes later I watched him enter the shopping mall through
    the second-floor entrance to my right. For the moment, he seemed
    to be alone. If he was with anyone, they were hanging back beyond
    the entrance.
    As he went to turn into the bookstore I called to him. "Dox. Up
    here."
    He looked up and smiled. "Hey there."
    "Use the escalator to your right," I told him. "Hurry."
    He did. While he moved, I waited to see whether anyone came
    in the entrance behind him, trying to keep up. No one did.
    When he reached the top of the escalator, I started moving.
    "Turn left," I said. "Just