That felt right. It’s how I would have done it. Which meant Dox was still okay.
Probably.
I rubbed my eyes. Now that the adrenaline surge was depleted, the inevitable parasympathetic backlash was kicking in. My mind felt dull, and I badly wanted to sleep.
How to handle this. That was the only other thing I needed to figure out now. If I did things right, Dox still had a chance. If I fucked it up, he was done.
One way or the other, I needed to contact Hilger. I had to keep him moving, keep trying to generate new datapoints until there were enough for a breakthrough.
How. How.
I could pretend everything went fine. Accinelli is dead, apparently of an embolism. Let me talk to Dox. Give me the particulars on the third target.
But no, that would unsettle him. He’d learn soon enough about Mr. Blond. He might already suspect the worst, because his man sure as hell hadn’t reported in since I’d last seen him. He’d know I was gaming him somehow if I didn’t acknowledge what had happened.
Play it straight, then. Accuse him, threaten him, fly off the handle. That’s what he’d be expecting, what he’d be ready for. If I gave him the predictable stimulus, he’d give me the predictable response.
Which would be…what? I wasn’t sure. Some form of denying everything, stalling for time, finding a way to get at me again. He didn’t know I’d seen Mr. Blond in Saigon-if he did, he would have sent someone else to ambush me in New York-so he would probably believe he could bluff his way through.
I’d insist on talking to Dox again, of course. And if Hilger wouldn’t let me? Well, that would mean only one thing. And I would spend the rest of my life finding a way to make him pay for it.
I drove to the Great Neck Public Library and posted an update to Kanezaki. Then I called him from a pay phone. It wasn’t yet five in the morning there. Well, he was going to start his day early.
The phone rang only once, then I heard his voice: “Yeah.”
“What, do you sleep with that thing on your pillow?”
“Sometimes.”
“You need to check the bulletin board right away. All the particulars for the second person on the list are there now. But he’s already been taken care of. Things are moving fast.”
“Already been…you did it again. You waited to tell me.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you now. Remember the blond guy in the photos I sent you?”
“Of course. I haven’t been able to find out anything.”
“You’ll be able to now. He had a bad accident in New York City not two hours ago.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah, our friend sent him to anticipate me. I got lucky.”
“Our friend…that means…”
“Right. There’s no number three on the list. Or rather, I was number three.”
“What about…”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m hoping he’s still okay. He’s our friend’s leverage, remember? I’m going to set up another call to find out. But we’ll get to that in a minute. Are you up now? Are you listening?”
“Of course,” he said, sounding as though my question might have offended his dignity.
“Good. The blond guy was probably traveling sterile. But I have a strong feeling he was driving something, probably a van, that’s still parked on the street. If the cops were to find it, they might be able to associate it with a name. If we get a name, we can find out who applied for that visa to a certain Asian country recently. You following me?”
“Of course,” he said again.
I realized I was being too didactic. He wasn’t green anymore, and he’d never been stupid.
“You haven’t had time to think about this yet,” I said. “I have. That’s the only reason I’m asking.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and I imagined a reluctant smile on the other end of the phone.
“Anyway. If we have a name and visa application for Mr. Blond, we’ll be awfully close to our friend.”
“Understood.”
I paused, thinking there were other things. Christ, I needed to sleep.
“What about those secondary effects we talked about?” I asked. “You know, the family.”
“Almost done. I should have something later this morning.”
“All right, great. One other thing that occurs to me. I have a feeling our friend knew the second guy on the list. They served in the same theater of operations, you’ll see that. I don’t know what it means, exactly, but…my gut tells me it’s significant. Part of the nexus we’re trying to establish.”
“All right, good. I’ll follow up on that. What’s next?”
“I’m going to send a message to our friend to set up another call. I’ll slow things down as best as I can, but if I don’t push to do the call quickly, he’ll smell a setup. So my guess is, if you can come up with a breakthrough about his location, we need it within forty-eight hours. No, less than that. Because I’m going to have to travel to wherever he is.”
“Why don’t you leave now?”
“I don’t know where…”
“You don’t need to know, at least not exactly. We know he’s on a boat, still probably within reasonable proximity to the last place he called from. Get going now, you’ll be that much closer when we have his position. Wait in a hub city, a place nearby with a lot of flight connections. It’ll save time.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m tired, I should have seen that.”
“Yeah, well, apparently nobody’s perfect.”
I laughed, glad to see he was counterpunching. “All right, I’ll set up that call and then catch a plane. I’m going to need a few items from you, though.”
“Let me guess. Something from Santa.”
“Right. Same kind of toys he brought down the chimney last year, minus the tranq gun. You remember, or do you want me to post it?”
The “toys” I was talking about included a suppressed pistol with infrared laser and night sights, spare magazine, a hundred rounds of hollow point, a tactical thigh rig for carry, and night-vision goggles. I might have some refinements once I knew the terrain-assuming we learned the terrain in advance-but it paid to get him moving on the fundamentals now.
“I remember,” he said.
“Smaller this time, too, more concealable. I’m probably going to be operating in an urban environment. Body armor, too. And a medical kit. I don’t know what kind of shape my buddy’s going to be in.”
“Got it.”
I thought for another moment, feeling I was missing something. Then I realized.
“Papers,” I said. “I doubt my buddy’s been traveling with a passport, and wherever he is, most likely he’s going to have to clear customs in a country he hasn’t officially entered.”
“I can take care of that.”
“Good, good. All right, as soon as you have anything on those family members or anything else, post it. And I’ll be in touch as soon as I hear from our friend.”
“Okay. Good luck.”
I checked online. The only nonstop flight I could find from the East Coast to Southeast Asia was on Singapore Air, Newark to Singapore Changi, leaving at eleven o’clock that night, arriving in Singapore eighteen hours, forty minutes later, at 6:40 A.M. local time. Long flight, but it would save time compared to changing planes on the West Coast or in Tokyo or Hong Kong. Besides, the way I felt just then, if I could snag a first-class seat, I could probably sleep the entire way. And Singapore would put me within an hour flight, two at most, of the likely radius of Hilger’s boat.
I called the airline on the way back to the hotel. I was in luck-first class was available that evening. At over twelve grand for a round-trip ticket, I was surprised they sold any at all. I didn’t know about their other customers, but for me the extra comfort would be worth the expense. In my line of work, the difference between arriving exhausted from a nineteen-hour flight and arriving well rested could easily turn out to be a life-or-death thing.