“I don’t trust anyone.”
That, she suspected, was the sad truth.
“But me, in particular,” she said, as though this was something she regretted.
“It’s not personal.”
“Are you sure?” Her tone had just the right mixture of sadness and uncertainty.
He shook his head, afraid or unwilling to go there. “What would have tipped him off?” he asked.
She recognized that the gambit hadn’t succeeded. It was all right, she would keep playing it by ear. She shrugged. “He’s naturally paranoid. Up until my suggestion of a private beach, he’d been in charge of the arrangements. Someone else proposing the time and place…”
“You shouldn’t have been in such a hurry. That’s what spooked him.”
Ordinarily, that kind of comment would cause her to go for the jugular. That’s what Gil was expecting, and prepared to deal with. But she’d sparred with him enough today. If he wanted to push hard, she would just step out of the way. Let’s see him keep his balance then.
“I know,” she said, looking down as though this was a difficult admission, as though he had worn her out. “I’m sorry. I should have been more subtle with him. It’s my fault.”
There was a pause while Gil digested this. Then he said, “It’s not like you, that’s all. Your instincts are usually good.”
Ostensibly a compliment, but really a way of demonstrating that it was his purview and prerogative to judge. And therefore, again, a comment that would ordinarily set her off.
She smiled wanly, as though both appreciative of his expression of confidence and embarrassed by what had precipitated it, then looked away.
After a moment, he said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find another way.”
Her earlier realization that she had hurt him had softened her, and now her apparent surrender was having the same effect on him. Good.
She looked at him and said, “Thanks.”
He shook his head and looked away as though embarrassed by her gratitude. She saw her opening and said, “Gil. Why are you always so… hostile to me?”
His expression was of someone trying to look perplexed and not quite pulling it off. “Hostile to you? I’m not hostile.”
“Come on, you know you are. I can feel it all the time.”
He shook his head again. “Look, I’ve got a job to do and I’m serious about it. I don’t always have time to be diplomatic. Some people don’t understand that.”
Sure, that’s part of it, she thought, respecting his instinct for offering up something that wasn’t untrue, but simply half true.
She offered a self-conscious laugh. “Okay, maybe I’m being too sensitive.”
“You’ve got a hard job, too,” he offered. “I know that.”
She looked down, as though his kindness had touched some deep part of her psyche, as though she wanted to tell him something more, but didn’t know how to find the words. She noted that he hadn’t done one of his visual scans in almost a minute.
They were halfway to a connection. She knew he would be finding the prospect attractive, and wouldn’t want her to pull back from it now.
“I’ll put up another message on the bulletin board,” she said. “Tell him I’m offended that he would leave me like that. Maybe I can get him to meet me again.”
Gil nodded. She sensed that he would have preferred to stay on a less operational track. That he might unconsciously be willing to jump through a few hoops to get back to it.
“Or maybe we could get a lead from the CIA,” she went on. “They’re looking for him, too. Have they made any inquiries with us?”
“No.”
“No? I would have thought they might check with friendly intelligence services.”
“Not yet.”
She nodded, then said, “You know, I was thinking about something. It’ll sound strange, but… Are we sure those men were CIA?”
He nodded, probably enjoying the feeling of having information that she lacked, enjoying being in a position where she would have to ask him. “We’re sure,” he said.
“Because, you know how the Americans are. It would be hard for them to run a guy like Lavi. If Congress found out, someone could get in trouble.”
Gil laughed. Making fun of CIA fecklessness was like fishing in a barrel. And the joke had reminded him subtly that, c’mon, Gil, we’re not like that. We’re on the same team.
“Look,” he said. “About a year ago, when we first got suspicious about what Lavi might be up to, I led the team that monitored him with spot surveillance and electronically. We saw him meet more than once with an American who I knew in the first Gulf War as Jim Huxton, but who now seems to go by Jim Hilger. At the time, Hilger was with America’s Third Special Forces. The two Americans who Rain killed in Manila were part of Hilger’s unit. After the war they all left the military to work for the CIA.”
She was surprised that his ties went back so far. “You… worked with them?”
He nodded. “Targeting Hussein’s mobile SCUD missile launchers. I don’t know what else they were up to. They certainly didn’t tell us about it.”
She considered. “They told you they were going into the CIA?”
He shrugged. “You know. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. But Hilger’s behavior with Lavi confirms it, not that any confirmation was necessary. We’ve got electronic intercepts. Hilger has a CIA cryptonym: ‘Top Dog.’ You want to know the crypt they gave Lavi?”
She nodded.
“ ‘Jew-boy,’ ” he said.
“Wow.”
He shrugged again. “That’s how we know.”
“Do we know what those men were doing with Lavi in Manila?”
“We don’t. We didn’t know they were going to be there, obviously, or we would have warned Rain off.”
“What do you think the Agency was getting from Lavi?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, they weren’t sharing it with us. If they were, we might have decided Lavi was more useful alive than dead, at least for a while. As it is, the government just wants people like Lavi…” He waved a hand as though throwing something away, disposing of it.
“So someone else can take his place,” she said, with a genuinely sad smile.
“You know how it is. Disrupt and deprive is the name of the game. Taking out Lavi will disrupt networks that rely on him. And deprive them of his expertise.”
She nodded. Now was the moment to return the conversation to its more personal flavor. She would oblige him, but not in the way he was hoping.
“Remember that time in Vienna?” she asked, looking at him.
He returned her look but didn’t answer. She knew he wanted to say “yes” to get her to continue, but that he was afraid that uttering the word would be to confess to something he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. But I can’t. With colleagues, I have to have distance. Otherwise I would lose my mind. Can you understand?”
He nodded uncomfortably. What else could he do?
“I admire you for what you do,” she went on. “I know it must be difficult. I just… just wanted to tell you that.”
The subtext was, there are so many other things I would like to say. Feeling admired, even desired, couldn’t help but soften him. Or fail to distract him from the more substantive inquiries she had just made.
“It’s okay,” he said, and gave her a fleeting and hesitant smile.
She had gotten him to agree that nothing was going to happen this time. And to hope, by implication, that there might be a time in the future.
She gave him a smile of her own. Men were so easy.
THIRTEEN
BACK IN BANGKOK, Dox and I checked into the Grand Hyatt Erawan on Ratchadamri. It wasn’t as discreet a hotel as the Sukhothai, but I’m not usually comfortable using the same place twice in a row. What it lacked in low-key charm, though, the Erawan made up for operationally: it offered multiple entrances and exits on two floors and a significant security infrastructure in the form of guards and cameras. Ordinarily, surveillance and security are a hindrance to me and I try to avoid them. But this time, I wanted to be someplace that would offer obstacles to anyone who might think to visit me unexpectedly. Not that anyone knew where I was, but I always sleep better with multiple layers in place. And if one of those layers takes the form of 300-thread count cotton sheets… well, there aren’t so many perks to this profession. I take them when I can.