Killing Rain Part 3

There's another type, too, as intimate, if not more so, with violence as the first, but better aware of the scent they now carry and more inclined and better able to conceal it. This type, which includes your average undercover operator, is harder to detect, but is often noticeable anyway not so much by the presence of a particular vibe as by the absence of any vibe at all. These people have become aware of the danger signals they put out and have reacted, or in a sense overreacted, by retracting everything. Within the energy of a given social environment, these men show up as an absence, a missing something, like gray in a color canvas, or a black hole against a tableau of stars.

The third type is the hardest to pick up, and is probably unrecognizable to the first two and certainly to civilians. It, too, includes men who have been forged in violence, but who also are natural camouflage artists, chameleons. These men hide their predator's mark not so much by trying to retract the vibe, but by concealing it behind a new persona that they recognize in civilians and then imitate and project like a hologram. I know this type because I call it my own.

But even the third type is detectable sometimes, at certain moments, if you know what to look for. I find it impossible to articulate just what gives the chameleons away. Sometimes it's something in the eyes, something that doesn't fit with the clothes, the gait, the speech patterns. Sometimes it's something that feels like a ripple at the edge of the persona, a not-quite-perfect fit in the facade. Whatever it is, it's something the intuitive mind can flag, but that remains too subtle for the conscious mind to label. And as I sat in the food court, troubled by my thoughts, something must have surfaced in my expression, and it was this the man coming toward me must have keyed on and felt worth examining more closely.

Operators don't let people move in from their blind side, so if I didn't turn or otherwise let him know I was aware of his approach, it might help persuade him to ignore whatever had caught his attention, to conclude that I was a civilian after all. He might then simply move on after taking a sniff. Or, if he got too close and forced me to act, he would be less likely to be properly prepared for what he encountered.

"How close?" I asked, without moving my lips. I picked up a packet of sugar, tore it open, and started pouring it into the coffee cup. If you're trying not to be spotted, it helps to do mundane things, and, if possible, to think mundane thoughts. Don't ask me why, but it does.

"Eight yards. Seven. Six . . ."

"Hands?"

"Still empty. Four yards."

At four yards, I should have heard his footfalls. Either he was naturally stealthy, or he was deliberately approaching quietly. Either way, I knew I was dealing with something more than typical rent-a-cop security.

"Three yards. He's stopped, next to a big old potted plant for partial concealment. Hands are still empty. I don't think he knows what to make of you, but I don't think he wants to be friends, either."

I busied myself swirling sugar into the coffee with a wooden stirrer, thinking, Hmmm, I hope this tastes good, I prefer my coffee black, well, this coffee was fairly bitter anyway, maybe it's an arabica, yeah, dark-roasted, I wonder what country it's from . . .

I heard Dox's voice again: "All right, he's heading off. Must have decided you weren't interesting after all."

I took a sip of the coffee. Actually, with the sugar it was pretty good. "I'm not," I said.

I heard him laugh.

When the bodyguard had moved off, I got up and walked away, shuffling like a typical j.a.panese sarariman. I sensed him watching me go, knowing that he would take my exit as further confirmation that I didn't present a threat.

But at the far end of the food court, with the arcade between us, I ducked into the restroom. The room was rectangular, about five meters by six, with the entrance on one of the short ends. Three urinals along one long side; two stalls on the other, sinks against the connecting wall. Two Filipino teenagers were zipping up when I came in and left a moment later.

I went into the corner stall and closed the door.

"I'm in," I said. "Tell me when he's moving."

"Roger that."

I waited ten minutes. Then: "They're getting up. Looks like he's saying good-bye to the woman and the boy. Yeah, they're heading down the escalator."

They were splitting up. Good.

"Bodyguard's staying, though. No surprise there."

"No, no surprise."

A moment pa.s.sed. Then: "He's coming toward your position. I think your hunch was good."

I felt another adrenaline wave roll in, bigger than the first. "With the bodyguard?"

"No, he's hanging back. Okay, our man is walking down the corridor to the restroom right now. Ten more seconds and he's inside."

"Good."

I heard the bathroom door open. I took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled all of it through my mouth, its pa.s.sage smooth and silent in counterpart to the thudding of my heart.

I looked through the gap alongside the stall door and saw Manny. He walked over to a urinal. His back was to me.

I opened the stall door. I took two silent steps forward.

Dox, in my ear: "s.h.i.+t, partner, the woman and the boy are back. The boy's heading toward you. Must have told his mom he needs to take a leak."

s.h.i.+t. s.h.i.+t.

I started back into the stall. I heard no sound, but adrenaline was closing down my hearing and there must have been some noise of which I was unaware, because Manny turned his head and looked at me.

In the moment before the kill, I never look at the target's face. My gaze tends to focus on the torso, the movement of shoulders, hips, and hands. Doing so offers the advantage of spotting defensive movement, and of avoiding having to see the target's eyes, his expression, his f.u.c.king humanity.

But this time I looked. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe it was misplaced instinct, something that would have been n.o.ble in other circ.u.mstances, a desire to face the consequences of my deeds. Regardless, I looked.

Our eyes met. In his I saw earnestness, perhaps some surprise. No recognition. Not yet any fear.

The door opened. It was the boy.

And then I froze.

There's no other way to put it. My thoughts were clear. Likewise, my perception. But I couldn't move my body. I seemed rooted to the spot. I thought, absurdly, Move! Move!

Nothing happened.

I felt beads of sweat popping out on my forehead. Still I couldn't move.

Manny looked at me, his surprise fading into concern, then to fear, then to resolution. He pulled himself back into his pants, and his right hand dipped into his front pants pocket. The word knife! flashed in my mind, but still my limbs were locked.

But it must have been some sort of panic b.u.t.ton, not a knife. Because a second later, I heard Dox in my ear: "s.h.i.+t, partner, something's up. The bodyguard's heading in fast."

I couldn't answer. I heard him say, "Are you there, man? Say something!" Then, "f.u.c.k, I don't know if you can hear me, but I guess you can't answer. All right, I'm coming in."

Manny started backing toward the door. He turned and swept the boy up in his arms. A moment later, the door flew open and the bodyguard burst inside, nearly running into the two of them. He saw my face and pulled up short, recognizing me, realizing he'd been wrong to dismiss me earlier, knowing now that he should have listened to his gut.

He shoved Manny and the boy to his right and reached behind and under his own jacket. Sweat was running down my face but I still couldn't move a muscle.

The door burst inward again and Dox barreled into the room. The bodyguard turned, his gun coming out.

And then, finally, when I saw that he was going to get the drop on Dox, my paralysis broke. Roaring something unintelligible, I took two steps forward and grabbed the gun with both hands as it came out and around. My decades of gripping and twisting the judo and jujitsu gi have given me abnormal hand strength, and once I had gotten ahold of the guard's gun I knew it was mine. I twisted hard, keeping the muzzle pointed away from me and Dox. The guard cried out and his hand gave. The gun went off as I took it away from him, the small room suddenly reverberating with the report.

Dox slung an arm around the guard's neck from behind and yanked him off his feet. The man's hands flew to Dox's ma.s.sive forearm and his feet kicked wildly. Manny and the boy slipped past them. I looked for a shot at Manny, but Dox and the guard were in the way. Manny yanked the door open and he and the boy spilled out of the room.

Dox transitioned to hadaka jime, a sleeper hold, and the guard's struggles intensified, his body twisting and his legs churning the air.

The door crashed inward again. Two men, both Caucasian, burst into the room. Both had guns drawn.

"Down!" I shouted at Dox. But he was still struggling with the bodyguard. Still, he did the next best thing: he spun, pulling the guard in front of him like a s.h.i.+eld.

Both men dropped to one knee, reducing the size of the target they offered, the smoothness of the move demonstrating training and experience. Dox and the bodyguard were between us-in what was about to become the crossfire.

A crazy thought zigged through my brain: How the f.u.c.k are they getting these guns in here?

His considerable muscles no doubt supercharged with adrenaline, Dox dropped one hand to the back of the guard's belt and heaved him into the two men. He used the force of the throw to hurl himself to the floor in the other direction.

Both men tried to get clear of the oncoming ma.s.s of the bodyguard. Only one succeeded-the one nearest the door, who jerked away just in time. His partner took the impact. But in avoiding the bodyguard, the first man had been forced to momentarily give up his focus. And in that moment, I put two rounds into his chest.

The other man was on his back now, he and the bodyguard hairballed up against the wall. He was trying to reacquire me, but too late. I swiveled and squeezed off two more shots. The first hit the bodyguard in the back of the neck. The second caught the downed man in the shoulder, jerking him partway around. He recovered, started bringing the gun toward me again.

No way, s.h.i.+tbird, it is not your turn now. You don't get a turn.

I moved in, keeping the gunsight on him, and pressed the trigger back twice more. The first shot caught him in the sternum, the second in the face. I tracked to the bodyguard-Pause. Breathe. Aim-and put one in the back of his head, then a final one in the head of the man I'd shot in the chest.

The room was suddenly, eerily quiet. My ears were ringing. The air was acrid with gunsmoke.

Dox was looking up at me from the floor. His eyes were wide. "d.a.m.n, man, where did you learn to shoot like that?"

I stepped over to the bodyguard and felt along his belt. There, a spare magazine. I pulled it free, ejected the current magazine, and popped in the new one. I stuck the gun in the back of my pants where it would be concealed by my s.h.i.+rttail. The used magazine went into my pocket. There was no time to wipe these items down and otherwise ensure that none of my DNA or anything else incriminating had adhered to them. Besides, from where we were to where we needed to get, the gun and the rounds left in the first magazine might prove handy.

"Come on," I said, myself again. I would think about what had happened to me later. "We've only got a few seconds. Follow my lead now."

"Your lead?" he asked, coming to his feet.

I struggled not to get impatient. It seemed so obvious to me. "Look, some nutcase was in here shooting up the place. Security guards are going to be converging any second. We're running from it, same as anyone would."

"Okay, you're persuading me now."

We each pulled a hat from a pocket. Mine was a baseball cap; Dox's was for fis.h.i.+ng. Witnesses tend to remember gross details only, such as s.h.i.+rt color or the presence of a hat, and elementary precautions like ours can save a lot of grief later.

We moved to the door. "Ready?" I asked.

"Right behind you, partner."

I looked at him. He was grinning.

"G.o.dd.a.m.nit," I said, "we were the victims, remember? You need to look scared."

"Man, I am scared!"

"Try to show it better," I growled.

"f.u.c.k, man, I'm telling you this is how I look when I'm scared!"

Our eyes locked for a moment. His grin didn't budge.

I shook my head and said, "Here we go."

I opened the door. The corridor was clear. No sign of Manny or the boy. Just outside the corridor, though, the mood among the dining crowd had clearly been disrupted. The people with good sense and experience with the sound of indoor gunfire were wisely heading down the escalators. The curious, the deniers, and the simply stupid were lined up and gawking. For their benefit, I turned my head back toward the bathroom and shouted, "They're shooting in there! Somebody call a guard!"

I heard Dox add, "I'm scared! I'm scared!"

An unhelpful thought flashed through my mind-My partner is insane-but I kept moving. My quick scan of the crowd hadn't revealed my biggest concern-that individual or handful of individuals you will always encounter in a crisis who, sometimes by instinct but more often by experience, are not fleeing and not in denial, but instead calmly watching and evaluating, and perhaps looking for an opportunity to intervene. Ordinarily, these people simply make better than average witnesses later on, although sometimes they can access some deep-seated protective impulse and actually attack. I kept my head down and avoided anyone's eyes, and we joined the crowds hurrying down the escalator. In my peripheral vision, I saw two white-s.h.i.+rted security guards heading up opposite us. Neither had drawn his gun; they weren't sure what the trouble was and weren't yet taking it fully seriously.

On the second floor, the crowd was less agitated but still distracted. People were looking around, trying to figure out what had happened, what was the disturbance, whether they needed to do anything or if they could just get back to their shopping.

We moved laterally, heading in the direction of the next set of down escalators. As we walked, we each automatically removed the hats, then, one at a time, pulled off and balled up our outer s.h.i.+rts, which were navy blue. Underneath we both wore a second s.h.i.+rt, in cream-typical Filipino attire.

"We need to split up," I said. "Big white guy, Asian guy, that's about as much as people are going to remember, but it's enough to ID us right now."

"Yeah, I know."

"Go straight to the airport. I'll get the gear from the hotel. We'll meet at the backup in Bangkok."

"You saved my life back there, partner. You really did."

"Bulls.h.i.+t."

"That bodyguard would have drilled me clean if you hadn't gotten to him first. I saw his eyes, and he meant business."

I shook my head. There was no time to explain. And I still didn't understand what had happened to me in there.

"Think those guys were Agency?" he asked. "They sure got there fast and they moved like pros."

The agitation was behind us now; the next set of escalators, and the exits below, just a few meters away.

"That's one of the things we need to find out," I said. "But first we have to get out of Manila. I doubt Manny is going to report this to the authorities-it would mean too much attention for him. But I don't want to stick around waiting to find out."

We reached the escalators and paused for a moment.

"You go down here," I said. "I want to lose the gun and the mag. I'll drop them in a toilet tank in one of the bathrooms. With a little luck I can find some bleach or other cleaning supplies in a janitor's cart and douse them first."

He grinned like a schoolboy about to brag of a prank or some other exploit. "I guess I need to break my date with the girl at the concession stand," he said.

In the craziness of the moment, half of me wanted to laugh. The other half wanted to strangle him. I looked at him for a moment, shaking my head, and in the instant before I walked away his grin actually broadened.

FOUR.