The Last Assassin

'I remember.'

'Well, it looks like, the last time I was with her, which was before I met you, we didn't… we weren't that careful. So it seems…'

'Oh, merde…'

'So it seems there's a child. A boy.'

There was a long pause. I sat there, my heart still kicking, wondering which way this was going to go.

Delilah said, 'She contacted you?'

I shook my head. 'I have a friend in Japanese intelligence. He got hold of some surveillance photos of the woman and the child, taken by my enemies. These people don't know how to find me, so they're hoping I'll reappear in the woman's life. They're watching her for that.'

'Is she in danger?'

'No. I don't think so.'

'What's her name?'

I paused, but I didn't want it to seem as if I was holding anything back. 'Midori.'

'Pretty name.'

'Yeah.'

'These people… they're hoping you'll hear about the child? And that hearing will make you go to Midori?'

'It looks like that, yes.'

'What are you going to do?'

'I don't know.'

'I think you do. Otherwise, you wouldn't have brought it up.'

I rubbed my temples and thought. 'I'm not even sure the child is mine. But I have to know. You can understand that, can't you?'

There was another long pause. Her hand was still on my thigh, but it felt like an afterthought now.

After a moment, she said, 'I can. But from what you've said, right now, Midori and the boy aren't in any danger. If you go to them, you might put them in danger, and yourself, too.' She paused, then added, 'But you know that.'

'Yeah.'

She took her hand off my leg. 'Well, it's not as though I was expecting us to figure out our crazy situation in just a few days together. It was going to take time no matter what. So you should do what you have to.'

I looked at her. 'I'm sorry.'

She shook her head. 'It's not your fault.' Then she laughed. 'Things are never easy for us, are they?'

'Should I not have told you? We don't have much time together, and I didn't want to ruin it.'

'You didn't ruin anything. I'm glad you told me. It was respectful.'

'What do we do now?'

'We enjoy the time we have together. Like always.'

But I didn't want it to be like always. I wanted it to be more than that, and so, I was beginning to understand, did she.

I wanted to tell her all that. But I didn't. I just said, 'Thank you.'

She shook her head and smiled. 'I'm going to take a bath. You want to join me?'

I looked at her, still wanting to say more, still not knowing how.

'A bath would be good,' I said.

Later, Delilah lay next to Rain in the dark. Pale light from a half-moon shone through one of the windows, and she watched him sleep in that almost spookily silent way of his. Most people would be wired all night after a run-in like the one they'd had earlier – she was – but Rain had dropped off almost immediately after they got in bed.

He could be so gentle with her when it was just the two of them that it was hard to remember what he was capable of. But she'd seen his other side before, first on Macau, then in Hong Kong, and she'd felt it surface again tonight in the Barri Gòtic. She wouldn't have told him, but she'd interceded with those drunken Brits in part because she was afraid of what Rain might do if she didn't. She'd noticed him palm something from his front pocket during the confrontation, and assumed it was a knife. She'd hurt that guy badly tonight, it was true. But she was pretty sure Rain would have killed him.

Before going to bed, they'd made love again in the bath. She was glad of that, and took it as a good sign. They had a new situation to deal with, true, as it seemed they always did, but it didn't affect their fundamental chemistry. She hoped it wasn't the situations that were fueling the chemistry. She'd had affairs like that, where it was the illicitness, or the danger, or some similar thrill that kept the thing going. She didn't want that with Rain. She wanted something more stable. Something…

She smiled. The word that had come to her, and that she didn't want to say, was lasting.

She'd been aware of these feelings before meeting him here, but she hadn't fully acknowledged them. She'd been afraid to. But now that she was faced with the prospect of losing him, of another woman who'd thrown a trump card down on the. table, she couldn't hide from her hopes, either.

She realized she was thinking in Hebrew, and that was strange. French was her default setting for matters of the heart. The one exception was Dov, and she realized with a pang that somewhere along the line Rain must have come to occupy a similar place in her consciousness, the place where she kept her first language, her first love, perhaps her first self.

She watched him. It was good with this man lying next to her, it really was. It wasn't what she had with Dov, but how could it be? She had known Dov before she was formed, when she was guileless, even defenseless. When she was just a girl, in fact. That girl was long gone, so how could she expect a love like hers?

But there were elements of what she had with Rain that she hadn't had with Dov, or with anyone. She and Rain were of the same world. Each understood the other's habits and didn't judge the other's past. They recognized and accepted the weight they each carried from the things they'd done. Both knew that weight irrevocably separated them from civilian society, and at the same time brought them together like some secret sign.

On top of all of which, she couldn't deny, was some astonishing personal chemistry, and the sex that went along with it.

But she didn't think it was love, exactly. It was more like… the possibility of love. She wondered for a moment what the difference was, or whether she would ever even know the difference, but she didn't want to think about that now.

She doubted he was seeing things clearly, and that concerned her. His tradecraft was superb, but as far as she knew he'd never before had to use it when he was this emotionally involved. He could screw up. He could get killed. And for what?

He was taking a risk in going to see Midori and the child. He'd acknowledged as much. And a man like Rain would never take a risk like that unless there was something serious he was hoping to gain from it.

She considered for a moment. What do men do when they're facing a hard decision? They defer it by trying to collect more data. Maybe that's all he was up to. But it hurt to know there was even a decision to make.

She tried always to be realistic, to keep her hopes in check. She knew she had no future in her organization. They used her for the things she was good at, but would never trust her with real power. And she'd long ago accepted that, after the things she'd done, she could never have a normal life. She could never have a family. She could never let someone get that close.

Except… Rain had been getting that close. Which was why what he'd told her tonight hurt. Worse than hurt. It ached in a place she couldn't describe, a place she hadn't even known was part of her.

Their reservation was for a week, but she didn't know now how long he was going to stay. She realized this could be their last time together. Even their last night.

Maybe the child wasn't his. That was possible; he'd said so. Or the woman would otherwise reject him. Or something else would happen to make this turn out the way she wanted it to.

She watched him sleep, and was surprised at how possessive she suddenly felt. And threatened. And angry.

She wasn't helpless, of course. There were things she could do to create the right outcome.

She'd gotten a little more information from Rain in the bath. Not much – just that he was going to New York. But combined with the name he'd mentioned, and a few other details she remembered from Hong Kong, it ought to be enough. She'd be looking for a Japanese female, first name Midori, who emigrated to the U.S. from Japan in the last three years, was currently residing in New York, and who gave birth to a boy, probably in New York, in the last eighteen months. Her organization had found people before with a lot less to go on than that.