jiu-jitsu academy, where I’d trained obsessively for the year I’d lived in Rio. No one at either club knew my name, but if someone from either happened to be training in Paris, I didn’t want to deal with questions about what I was doing here or where I was living.
There’s a cost/benefit equation in all decisions, though, and my need to train was strong enough to outweigh the risks involved. It wasn’t just a question of keeping my skills sharp, although that was part of it. Like my nocturnal excursions, training soothed an anxious part of me. So I worked out five afternoons a week at a place called the RD Sporting Club, on the boulevard Saint-Denis near the Saint-Martin canal. The club had a variety of equipment—mats, gloves, bags—and plenty of tough partners to train with. And I was glad for the opportunity to use my French, too.
Every day, usually after a workout, I would stop by an Internet café, always a different one, to check the bulletin board I used with Dox. We weren’t in touch that often, but I liked the routine. I’d done something similar for a long time with Midori before our rupture, at which point I’d shut that board down. I realized afterward that I missed the possibility of a message, that I had grown used to living with the pleasure of a small quotidian hope.
I almost hated to admit it, because Dox’s boisterousness, wise-cracking, and willingness to wing it on tradecraft drove me crazy, but he was now as close a friend as I’d ever had. I hadn’t much cared for him when we’d first met, in Afghanistan. He was damn capable in the field, but his constant antics and outsized personality grated on me. Then, a few years ago, some elements in the CIA had tried to draw on the Afghan connection in sending Dox after me in Rio. Instead, the two of us wound up working together. The partnership was of necessity at first, and I distrusted him. But at Kwai Chung harbor in Hong Kong, he’d walked away from a bag with five million dollars in it to save my life. With that one remarkable act, he’d blasted through my defenses and altered my whole worldview. I still struggled with the aftermath. Would I have done the same for him? Today I wouldn’t hesitate, but at the time…no, I had to admit, at the time I wouldn’t have. I didn’t trust anyone back then, didn’t think anyone was worthy of trust. I believed in preemptive betrayal. There was a line I heard in a movie once: “Hell, I’ll kill a man in a fair fight…or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight.” That was me. There was nothing wrong with betrayal, just with letting the other guy beat you to it. But Dox had changed my view. The only person I could think of who had affected me as profoundly was Delilah.
One day, on one of these forays to an Internet café, I saw there was a message waiting from the big sniper. I smiled and opened it, expecting nothing more than a report on the weather in Bali and maybe a hint of some fresh sexual conquest. The usual, from Dox.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The message said, We got to your friend near his villa on Bali. He’s with us, and for now he’s okay. But if we haven’t heard from you within twenty-four hours from posting this message, we can’t guarantee his continued comfort.
I felt the blood draining from my face, an adrenaline dump in my gut. There was no way it was a joke. Dox liked to give me a hard time, but this would be crossing a line. I looked up from the terminal and glanced around, instinctively, uselessly, then looked back at the message. There was a phone number—Dox’s mobile. That was all.
The message had been left at 2:00 A.M . Greenwich Mean Time. That was 3:00 A.M . in Paris. So…shit, over twelve hours ago. Less than twelve to go.
I purged and closed the browser, then walked outside. Cars shot along the boulevard de Magenta, dead leaves skittering in their backwash. Pedestrians dodged me, intent on their destinations, heads down against the chill
There’s a cost/benefit equation in all decisions, though, and my need to train was strong enough to outweigh the risks involved. It wasn’t just a question of keeping my skills sharp, although that was part of it. Like my nocturnal excursions, training soothed an anxious part of me. So I worked out five afternoons a week at a place called the RD Sporting Club, on the boulevard Saint-Denis near the Saint-Martin canal. The club had a variety of equipment—mats, gloves, bags—and plenty of tough partners to train with. And I was glad for the opportunity to use my French, too.
Every day, usually after a workout, I would stop by an Internet café, always a different one, to check the bulletin board I used with Dox. We weren’t in touch that often, but I liked the routine. I’d done something similar for a long time with Midori before our rupture, at which point I’d shut that board down. I realized afterward that I missed the possibility of a message, that I had grown used to living with the pleasure of a small quotidian hope.
I almost hated to admit it, because Dox’s boisterousness, wise-cracking, and willingness to wing it on tradecraft drove me crazy, but he was now as close a friend as I’d ever had. I hadn’t much cared for him when we’d first met, in Afghanistan. He was damn capable in the field, but his constant antics and outsized personality grated on me. Then, a few years ago, some elements in the CIA had tried to draw on the Afghan connection in sending Dox after me in Rio. Instead, the two of us wound up working together. The partnership was of necessity at first, and I distrusted him. But at Kwai Chung harbor in Hong Kong, he’d walked away from a bag with five million dollars in it to save my life. With that one remarkable act, he’d blasted through my defenses and altered my whole worldview. I still struggled with the aftermath. Would I have done the same for him? Today I wouldn’t hesitate, but at the time…no, I had to admit, at the time I wouldn’t have. I didn’t trust anyone back then, didn’t think anyone was worthy of trust. I believed in preemptive betrayal. There was a line I heard in a movie once: “Hell, I’ll kill a man in a fair fight…or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight.” That was me. There was nothing wrong with betrayal, just with letting the other guy beat you to it. But Dox had changed my view. The only person I could think of who had affected me as profoundly was Delilah.
One day, on one of these forays to an Internet café, I saw there was a message waiting from the big sniper. I smiled and opened it, expecting nothing more than a report on the weather in Bali and maybe a hint of some fresh sexual conquest. The usual, from Dox.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. The message said, We got to your friend near his villa on Bali. He’s with us, and for now he’s okay. But if we haven’t heard from you within twenty-four hours from posting this message, we can’t guarantee his continued comfort.
I felt the blood draining from my face, an adrenaline dump in my gut. There was no way it was a joke. Dox liked to give me a hard time, but this would be crossing a line. I looked up from the terminal and glanced around, instinctively, uselessly, then looked back at the message. There was a phone number—Dox’s mobile. That was all.
The message had been left at 2:00 A.M . Greenwich Mean Time. That was 3:00 A.M . in Paris. So…shit, over twelve hours ago. Less than twelve to go.
I purged and closed the browser, then walked outside. Cars shot along the boulevard de Magenta, dead leaves skittering in their backwash. Pedestrians dodged me, intent on their destinations, heads down against the chill
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