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“I’m going to meet him at the airport now,” I said. “You coming?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t have my passport.”
I didn’t say anything. I was still pissed that she had called Gil. I was trying to let it go.
“Anyway,” she said, “I need to brief my people on what just happened here. There are going to be a lot of questions.”
“You going to be able to weather it?”
“I’m not sure. Al-Jib dead will certainly help. That is a major victory, major. If he’d gotten away, I don’t know what would have happened.”
She was talking unusually fast. I noticed that her hands were trembling.
“You okay?” I asked, looking at her.
She nodded. I saw her eyes were filling up.
“You never…” I started to say. I paused, then went on. “That was your first time, wasn’t it.”
She nodded again and her tears spilled over. She started to shake.
My anger dissipated. I put my arm around her and pulled her close. “You did the right thing,” I said. “Just like they trained you. You’ll be okay.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I should be happy, I should be exulting that he’s dead. I mean, I was exulting, right after. But now…”
I kissed the top of her head. “Your mind knows what’s what. It’ll just take a little while for your gut to catch up. You’ll see.”
She wiped her face and looked at me. “I was so afraid he was going to get away. I wanted you to shoot him. When he had that gun to my head, I thought I was going to die and all I cared about was that you shoot him first, so I would know.”
I nodded. “When you’re certain you’re going to die, and you don’t, it stays with you for a long time after. Sometime I’ll have to tell you about what happened to me outside of Kwai Chung last year.”
“You never did tell me that whole story.”
“Well, are you going to give me the chance?”
She laughed a little and touched my cheek. “Let’s meet somewhere. I don’t want it to end like this. I want… I want that to look forward to.”
I shrugged. “I’ve got your number. And we’ve got the bulletin board.”
She smiled. “We’ll always have the bulletin board.”
I laughed. “Well, it’s not Paris, but we’ll figure something out.”
Her hand slipped around to the back of my neck and caressed me there, absently, gently. It felt good.
“Thank you for trusting me,” she said. “I wanted to say that to you in Phuket, but I didn’t. I wanted to tell you… how much it means to me.”
How someone could smell so good after chasing a terrorist a quarter mile, almost dying in his grasp, and then killing him, was a mystery I knew I would always savor.
“Sounds like trusting you in Phuket wasn’t the brightest move I’ve ever made,” I said.
She looked at me, her eyes fierce. “Yes, it was. And as for calling Gil tonight…”
I shook my head. “I understand why you did it.”
“I had to. I told him it was Al-Jib, not you, that you were helping us. But he didn’t believe me about you. And when I saw him take a shot at you…”
I realized I was touching her leg. I started to say, “I know, I heard you,” but she pulled me in and kissed me.
I stopped talking. The kiss went from zero to sixty in about two nanoseconds. Where we were sitting, it was very dark.
What the hell, it wasn’t like Dox had never kept me waiting.
I TOOK THE Airport Express train from Kowloon station and called Dox when I arrived. He was already there. We met on the departures level, in front of United Airlines. He was still in his suit, an attaché in each hand.
He gri
“No, I was just blowing the ballast to chase after Al-Jib. I’m glad to have it back. Traveling without luggage can be conspicuous.”
“And we all know how much you hate to be conspicuous,” he said, staring at my neck.
I said, “What?”
His grin achieved galactic proportions. “Partner, I believe that’s lipstick on your collar. You’ve been a bad boy. And here we are, in the middle of an operation and everything. Next thing I know, you’ll be leaving your cell phone on and trying to hump a katoey into submission and committing similar such indiscretions. If you keep this up, people are going to start suspecting you’re human, and the unpleasant burden of explaining otherwise will fall entirely to me.”
My hand wandered up to my collar. “I… I just…”
“You don’t have to explain. Combat will do that to a man, I know. Bet you didn’t even need the Viagra this time, either.”
“No, I just thought of Tiara.”
He laughed. “That’s good, you got me there, man! Damn, you’re always going to have that over me. Hey, you think the Israelites will pay us, after all this?”
“I’d say they’d better. And then some.”
“I’m sure Delilah will strenuously advocate our cause. She’s a nice lady.”
“I don’t know what her position is going to be now. They’re going to ask her a lot of questions.”
“Well, if things don’t work out for her with her people, as far as I’m concerned she’s always welcome to join our happy band of freelancers. Like I said, we’re the wave of the future. The nation-states of the world are just going to outsource all their defense needs so they can watch more television, you’ll see.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think Delilah would be comfortable as a freelancer. It’s not who she is.”
“Well, hopefully she won’t ever have to face that decision. It ain’t a happy moment in a soldier’s life, as you know.”
“No, it’s not,” I said.
“Well? Where to, from here?”
“I’ve got some business in Tokyo. On the way over here, I made a reservation on an Asiana flight that goes through Seoul. It leaves at…” I looked at my watch. “Oh-dark-thirty. Two hours.”
“What about Rio? You still hanging your hat there?”
“Mostly. I’ll probably head back after Tokyo.”
“Maybe I’ll come visit you there. Them Brazilian girls… man, don’t even get me started.”
“I try not to.”
He laughed.
“Yeah, come on down,” I said. “It would be good to see you. We can go to another adult bar.”
He laughed again. “I’d like that. I really would.”
We were quiet for a moment. I said, “What about you? Where are you heading?”
“Go
I nodded, trying to imagine it. I lost my parents so many years earlier that the simple concept of visiting the folks, of visiting anyone, is almost alien. But maybe I could find a way.
I said, “They’ve got a good son.”
He beamed. “They do. And I’m lucky to have them, too.” He glanced at his watch. “Got a Cathay Pacific flight that leaves for L.A. at twenty-three thirty-five. So I’d better beat feet.”
I held out my hand.
He looked at me and said, “Son, just because I was recently nearly inducted as a new member of the Accidental Katoey Love Association doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to show your feelings for me.”
Oh God, I thought. But then there I was, hugging the big bastard in the middle of the airport.