The City of Life, the local tourist board liked to call it. It seemed a fair description to me. At least for the moment.
PART TWO
This world-to what may I liken it? To autumn fields lit dimly in the dusk by lightning flashes.
MINAMOTO-NO-SHITAGO, nobleman, scholar, poet
6
I CALLED THE Hong Kong Peninsula from a pay phone and reserved a Deluxe Harbour View room. I like the Peninsula because it occupies an entire city block in Kowloon’s Tsim Sha Tsui district, has five separate entrances, multiple elevators, and more internal staircases than you can count. Not an easy place to set up an ambush.
Also, it’s one of the best hotels in Hong Kong. And hey, it had been a rough day. A little luxury along with the usual dose of security didn’t seem objectionable.
I could imagine what Harry would have said: You trying to impress her?
Nah. It’s just about the security, I would have told him.
He would have known not to believe that. It made me miss him, and for a moment I felt bleak.
I made my circuitous way to the hotel and checked in. I paid for the room with a credit card under the name of Toshio Okabe, a sufficiently backstopped identity I use from time to time for just such transactions. A porter escorted me to room 2311. The room was on the south side of the new tower and, as promised, had a stunning view of Hong Kong across the harbor.
I shaved in the shower, then soaked for twenty minutes in the oversized tub. I’d been forced to stay mostly at more anonymous, downmarket properties to protect myself since leaving Tokyo two years earlier, and damn if a Deluxe Harbour View room at the Peninsula didn’t feel good.
I changed into a pair of charcoal gabardine trousers, a fine cotton mock turtleneck of the same color, and a pair of dark brown suede split-toe lace-ups and matching belt. Then I spent a half hour refamiliarizing myself with the hotel layout-the placement of the internal staircases and which ones could be accessed without a staff key; the positions of the numerous security cameras; the movements of security personnel. When I had decided on how I would arrange to meet Delilah while continuing to ensure my own safety, I went out.
I stopped at an Internet café. There was a message waiting from Kanezaki on the bulletin board. Six guys matching the descriptions of the ones I’d taken out had left from Riyadh for Hong Kong two days earlier. Plus, the Saudi embassy in Hong Kong was involved in the investigation of the recent deaths in Hong Kong and Macau. And Delilah had mentioned that the guy she had overheard had a Saudi accent. Apparently, she’d been telling the truth, at least about that. It looked like my erstwhile friends had indeed been Saudi. A connection with half-Algerian, Arabic-speaking Belghazi seemed likely under the circumstances. What I didn’t know was why. Or how.
The last part of the message said, “Checking on the phone numbers and on the woman. Nothing yet. Will be in touch.”
I typed, “Follow up on the Saudi connection to our friend. Monitor Riyadh to Hong Kong air traffic for movement of similar teams.” Not likely that they could have put together another unit so quickly, but it couldn’t hurt to be watching for one.
I uploaded the message, purged the browser, and left.
I thought about Delilah. European, I’d been thinking, although I hadn’t been able to place the slight accent. I’d been half-assuming, pending further information, that she was French. Partly it was her appearance, her dress, her manner. Partly it was her involvement with Belghazi, who, when he wasn’t moving around, was said to be based in Paris. Even her Arabic could fit the theory: France has a substantial Algerian population, and there is a long and violent history between the two countries. The French intelligence services, domestic and foreign, would have well-funded programs in Arabic. Delilah might have been one of their graduates.
But there was another possibility, of course, one I was beginning to think was increasingly likely. I decided to look for a way to test it.
I bought a prepaid cell phone from a wireless store, to be used later. I dropped it in a pocket, then used a pay phone to call Delilah.
“The Peninsula,” I told her. “Room five-forty-four.” I wasn’t ready to tell her the correct room number, or even the correct floor. Not with all the reasons she had for wanting to see me off. We would do this sensibly.
“Thirty minutes,” she said, and hung up.
There was a liquor store near the phone. On impulse, I went inside. I found a bottle of thirty-year-old Laphroaig for twenty-five hundred Hong Kong dollars-about three hundred U.S. Extortionate. But what the hell. I stopped at an HMV music store and picked up a few CDs. Lynne Arriale, Live at Montreux. Eva Cassidy, Live at Blues Alley. Bill Evans Trio, Sunday at the Village Vanguard. All the next best thing to being there.
I went back to my room at the Peninsula and took two crystal tumblers and a bucket of ice from over the minibar. I set them down on the coffee table with the Laphroaig, along with a bottle of mineral water. I popped the CDs into the room’s multidisk player and chose “random” and “repeat.” A moment later, the music started coming through a pair of speakers to either side of the television. I paused for a minute, and listened to Eva Cassidy doing “Autumn Leaves,” the lyrics and the melody the more poignant by virtue of the singer’s untimely death. The song’s melancholy notes seemed to clarify, and somehow to frame, my feelings about Delilah-part pleasant anticipation at seeing her again, part deadly concern at her possible role in what had recently come at me in Hong Kong and Macau.
I used the room’s speakerphone to call the prepaid cell phone I had just bought, picked up the call, and left, closing the door behind me. I plugged a wire-line earpiece into the cell phone and listened. The music was soft but audible. As long as I could hear it in the background, I would know the connection was good.
I took the stairs down to the fifth floor. Room 544 was at the end of a hallway, with the entrance to an internal staircase opposite and about three meters ahead of it. I waited inside the doors that led to the staircase, where I could see the room through a glass panel. If anyone had managed to listen in on my call to Delilah, which was unlikely, or if she had decided to inform her people of my whereabouts, which I deemed less unlikely, I would see them coming from here. If they tried to use the staircase, as I had, I would hear them. And, if for some reason that I had completely missed, someone tried to get into my room while I was out, I would know it through the cell phone. Layers. Always layers.
Delilah arrived fifteen minutes later. As she passed my position, I checked the direction she had come from to ensure that she was alone. When I saw that she was, I opened the door and said, “Delilah. Over here.”
She turned and looked at me. She didn’t seem particularly surprised, and I wasn’t surprised at that. She was familiar with my habits and wouldn’t have expected me to just be waiting at the appointed place at the appointed time.
I held the door open as she walked past me. Harry’s detector was in my pocket, sleeping peacefully, the batteries fully juiced from an earlier daily charging. She wasn’t wired.
I led her along various stairways and internal corridors back to the room, listening in on the earpiece while we moved. All I heard from my room were the quiet notes of Lynne Arriale. Neither of us spoke along the way. We encountered no surprises.
I unlocked the door to the room and we went inside. “Sorry about the procedures,” I said, removing the earpiece. I turned off the cell phone and left it by the door.