“He gets greedy. And meanwhile he’s learning Belghazi’s plans-who he’s meeting with, where and when.”
“Maybe even… how much?” I said, raising my eyebrows slightly.
He nodded. “Yeah, he might learn that, too.”
“He’s the bodyguard, he accompanies Belghazi everywhere, including on those trips to Kwai Chung Container Terminal Nine. As the money is changing hands-”
“He shoots Belghazi, maybe a few other people, grabs the cash, hightails it.”
“See? You can’t trust anyone these days, not even your own bodyguards. And the way it goes down, both the bodyguard and the money are missing. It’s obvious what happened and who did it. No uncomfortable questions for anyone else.”
“What happens to the bodyguard?”
I shrugged. “I doubt he would be found afterward. I would expect him to just… disappear.”
“And the money?”
I smiled. “I doubt that would get found, either.”
He shook his head. “You’re a devious bastard.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t think I meant it as a compliment.”
“So? It goes down the way I just described, that’s natural enough for our purposes?”
There was a pause, then he said, “It’s not what we agreed on.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, finding myself a little tired of his “this is a difficult concession” reflex.
“We didn’t agree on my getting ratted out by your own people, either,” I said, feeling like a rug merchant. “Under the circumstances, I ought to charge you double the original price. In fact, I think I will.”
“Okay, I see your point.”
“All right, then? What I’ve proposed, it’s natural enough?”
He paused for a moment, then nodded. “It’s natural enough.”
I STILL HAD my doubts about Dox, about his role in this. About who the NOC was. But I knew I couldn’t do Belghazi alone anymore. Delilah had been right about that. To make this work, I needed help, and I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. And I couldn’t just walk away, either. Belghazi had too much incentive to stay after me until he was sure I was gone for good.
And keeping Dox close would give me an opportunity to test him, maybe answer my questions indirectly. If I saw something I didn’t like, I could always abort, reevaluate, come up with a new plan.
I called him on his cell phone. “Hello,” he said, and it felt strangely good to hear his booming voice. He’s all right, I told myself, and maybe he was.
“Are you still around?” I asked.
There was a pause, during which I imagined him grinning. I heard him say, “Depends on what you mean by ‘around.’ I’m in the area again, if that’s what you mean.”
“How soon can you be back in the same place we met last time?”
Another pause. “I can be there tomorrow, if you need me.”
“I do. Same time as last time?”
“I’ll see you then.”
I hung up and, out of habit, wiped down the phone. Then I went to an Internet café for a bit of research on Hong Kong container shipping.
THE NEXT MORNING I caught a plane to Hong Kong. I sat in a coffee shop overlooking the restaurant where Dox and I had last eaten. He showed up an hour later, alone. I waited ten minutes, then went to join him.
“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” he told me, as I sat down.
“I missed you,” I said.
He laughed. “You take care of our friend Mr. Crawley?”
I looked at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He laughed again. “All right, all right, I was just asking. May he rest in peace.”
A waitress came over. “You know what you want?” I asked him.
“Can you get me some more of that caterpillar soup?”
“Glad you’ve developed a taste for it.”
“Well, the taste is all right, sure. But it’s the effects I really admire. Last time we ate here, that night, I showed two Thai ladies what love with Dox is all about. By the time the sun came up they were practically begging for mercy.”
“I’m sure they were.”
I ordered the food and looked at him. “How are your sniping skills?” I asked.
He scowled as though offended. “Shoot, partner, now you’ve gone and hurt my feelings, asking a question like that. You know marine snipers are the best in the world.”
“What I mean is, you’ve been staying in shape?”
He smiled. “Well, let’s just say that our friends at Christians In Action didn’t hire me exclusively for my charm, considerable though it is.”
“Do you have access to a rifle?”
“ ‘Access’? Last job I did, I wanted to try out the new M-40A3. I had one waiting for me the next day, with a matching ANPVS-10 night scope, no questions asked.”
“How’d you like it?”
“Liked it a lot. It’s a little heavier than the M-40A1, but I like the adjustable cheek piece and the recoil pad on the butt stock.”
“You used it in field conditions?”
He smiled. “With an M118LR round, chambered in 7.62mm. Drilled a certain malefactor through the eye in the middle of the night at four hundred yards. Nothing like seeing the pink mist to make a sniper feel alive, I’ll tell you. Although in the night scope, it was more green than pink.”
I nodded, satisfied. I’d seen some of Dox’s exploits in Afghanistan. I knew he might enjoy exaggerating his prowess with women, but when it came to sniping, he was as good as he said.
“I’ve been on a job that’s gotten more difficult as it’s progressed,” I said. “To finish it, I’m going to need help. If you’re interested, I’ll split the fee with you-two hundred thousand U.S., one hundred thousand each.”
“Two hundred thousand? They’re paying you that much? Shit, I’ve been getting shortchanged. I need to have a talk with that damn Kanezaki.”
“Plus there might be some additional cash involved, although I don’t think we’ll know how much until the time comes.”
“Well, I’m interested, all right. Tell me more.”
I told him what he needed to know about Belghazi, the NOC, and the Hong Kong container port connection. He didn’t react in any way that would have indicated prior knowledge or involvement, but you can’t prove a negative, as they say.
“Well, first thing is, I need to see the terrain,” he told me. “You say there’s only one entrance to the terminal, that’s where we’re going to hit them, that’s good. But can I get in and out of position without being seen? Will I have concealment? Can I shoot undetected? Will there be a clear line of sight to the target?”
I nodded and pulled out a sheaf of papers from inside my jacket. “These are printouts from the company that runs Container Terminal Nine,” I told him. “They ought to be a good start.”
I handed the papers to him and he started shuffling through them. “My gracious,” he said, pausing at one of the pages, “is this a map of the terminal?”
I smiled. “It’s amazing what you can get on the Web.”
He nodded. “Well this is a nice head start, that’s for sure. But I still need to do a walk-through.”
“I’ve already rented a van. We’ll drive over as soon as you’ve fortified yourself with the caterpillars.”
“It might be less conspicuous if I do the reconnoitering by myself.”
“Yeah, you’re right, they get a lot of enormous, goateed white guys sniffing around Kwai Chung. I’m sure you’ll blend right in.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s a persuasive point you make there, partner.”
KWAI CHUNG and its massive container port are located in the New Territories, a name conferred by the British when they “leased” the area in 1898 and unchanged even after the transfer back to China almost a century later. Although its rolling hills are now obscured by ferroconcrete forests of residential skyscrapers, there’s a timelessness about the place, a slower pace than is to be found on Hong Kong Island a few kilometers to the south, as though the area is gradually emerging from a long agrarian sleep and still suffused with the dreams of what it saw there.