“What about ‘VBM’?” I asked.
“ ‘VBM’?”
“Yes, probably another crypt.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to me. Gil didn’t mention it. Just the two I told you. Why?”
“I’m not sure. Anyway, the two you got were helpful. Thanks.”
“Helpful, how?”
I paused and considered. My sense was that she could be useful, maybe even necessary, but I wanted a chance to think about it before I asked.
“You sure you can’t meet?” I asked.
“It’s not a good idea. I don’t want Gil to get more suspicious than he already is.”
“How much time are you spending with him?”
There was a pause. She said, “Are you jealous?”
“Yeah, I think I am.”
“That’s nice. I like that.”
Damn, I really would have liked to see her. Oh, well. The good news was that her demurral made me trust her. If she’d said no, then allowed me to persuade her, I would have smelled a set-up. Delilah wasn’t the wishy-washy type.
“My information is that those guys weren’t spooks,” I said. “They were ex-spooks. Most recently with an outfit called ‘Gird Enterprises.’ That mean anything to you?”
“It doesn’t. Did you try Google?”
For a moment I was easily able to understand why Dox sometimes got annoyed with me for asking questions that to him must have seemed obvious. “Of course,” I said. “There’s nothing.”
“I’ll look into it,” she said. “You sure about those guys, though?”
“Not sure, no. But I’ve got two independent sources, one of them in the organization itself, and their information tracks. My guess is that your people have it wrong, although I don’t know why.”
“I don’t know what more I can do on that one. I’ve already asked. If I press further, they’ll know something’s up.”
There was a pause. “How long will you be in Bangkok?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I’m supposed to post something on our bulletin board about how I’m angry and hurt that you took off, that I want to see you again. I can probably wait a couple days or so to see if you’ll contact me.”
“Then let me check on a few things, use the information you gave me. I’ll be in touch.”
“Don’t keep me out of this. I’m in too deeply already.”
She had good antennae. “I won’t keep you out,” I said.
I imagined her thinking, Like hell. But what could she say.
“I’ll be in touch,” I told her.
There was a pause. She said, “You better be.” And clicked off.
I briefed Dox on the cryptonyms and everything else.
“Hilger, Manny, the dear departed Mr. Winters, and the mysterious Mr. VBM,” he said. “Damn, partner, sounds like Hong Kong is going to be the place to be.”
“Yeah, but if we go there, are we taking on the whole CIA? Or something else?”
“Well, let’s consider. We’ve got the Israelites telling us one thing, and Kanezaki and your Japanese contact telling us something different. Whose information do you trust more?”
I shrugged. “Kanezaki’s in the best position to know.”
“I agree with that, as long as he’s playing it straight.”
“Plus we’ve got the independent confirmation.”
“Agreed again. So what could have led the Israelites astray?”
I thought for a minute. “One, someone could be lying. Two, and more likely, I think, someone’s just made a mistake. Which isn’t so hard to imagine. I mean, Delilah said that Gil knew Hilger and the other two guys when they joined the Company. Then, during surveillance, Gil saw Hilger with Manny. He naturally assumes Hilger is still with the Agency and that Manny is an asset. When the two guys get killed while meeting with Manny, it reinforces the existing assumption that they were active-duty CIA. No one thinks to ask, Have these people moved on to something else? And they can’t make too many inquiries because the whole thing is so sensitive. Plus, there’s this media leak we just saw in the Washington Post. They might have seen that, too. More reinforcement of a mistaken assumption.”
He nodded for a long moment, as though thinking. Then he said, “You know, maybe we’re being too limited with this either/or perspective we’ve adopted.”
I looked at him, intrigued.
“I mean, look at us,” he went on. “Are we CIA? No, not really, we’re contractors. But the CIA uses us from time to time. And it ain’t just us. Hell, these days you’ve got Halliburton and Blackwater and DynCorp and Vinnell and Kroll-Crucible… these outfits are springing up all over, and it can be hard to tell where the government ends and the private sector begins.”
“That’s true,” I said.
“Plus you’ve got the government turning everybody into a bounty hunter by offering twenty-five million for Osama’s scrawny ass.”
“Capitalism at work,” I said. “Supply and demand.”
“I know. Hell, when I was watching us shock and awe the Iraqis on CNN when we first went in, I kept expecting the announcer to say, ‘This sortie brought to you by Kellogg’s Rice Krispies,’ or something like that. It just ain’t as clear as it used to be.”
I nodded. “You know who is the third largest contributor of forces to the coalition there, after the U.S. and the Brits?”
“Private contractors, son, no doubt about it. We’re the wave of the future. Ought to form a union.”
I nodded. “The U.S. doesn’t go out of its way to advertise it, but yeah.”
“Well, that’s what I’m talking about.”
He rubbed his chin as though considering something.
“But on balance,” he went on, “I don’t think we’re dealing with Uncle Sam here. Not with the Thais, not with the Jew-boy thing. And like you said, Christians In Action has a fairly dismal record of being able to run really bad guys like Manny. Plus your Japanese contact, plus Kanezaki, both say those guys in Manila were ex-spooks, not current. That’s independent confirmation, far as we know.”
“What about that Washington Post report?”
He shrugged. “Some reporter, fishing. Making the same mistake the Israelites made.”
I nodded. “Can’t disagree with any of that.”
“Plus Hilger did abscond with that two million dollars from Kwai Chung.”
“I’m not sure which way that cuts. He could still be government, just dirty.”
“That’s kind of what I’m getting at. What I think is, Hilger is Agency, but he’s wandered a tad off the reservation.”
I considered. “That would be a very interesting possibility.”
“Damn straight it’s interesting. If I’m right, and the news gets out, the Agency would likely disown Hilger like the wayward child he is. I’ve seen it happen.”
“He would be vulnerable to that, it’s true.”
“So you agree with what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
“Think we ought to go to Hong Kong?”
I looked at him. “I think we ought to leave in the morning. Bangkok’s feeling a little hot after Brown Sugar, anyway.”
I checked a few sites and found a Thai Air flight leaving at 8:00 that morning. I looked at my watch-less than seven hours away. Good. I wanted us out of the country before Hilger got news of what had happened to his man Winters, or at least before he had a chance to react to it. I reserved a seat for me, then one on an 8:25 Cathay Pacific flight for Dox. It would be more secure for us to travel separately. To be doubly sure, I used one of the backup false identities we were traveling under just in case Hilger had thought to put a customs hit on our names. I booked rooms for us in a couple of big, anonymous hotels-the InterContinental on Kowloon for Dox and the Shangri-La on Hong Kong Island for me.
“Glad to see we’re going deluxe,” Dox said, as I made the reservations.
“The China Club is members only,” I said. “We need hotels that can get their guests in.”