Killing Rain by Barry Eisler Page A

behind this?”
    Manny leaned back and shrugged. “How should I know? It could have been anyone.”
    “ ‘Anyone’ doesn’t help me narrow it down.”
    “Who do you think?”
    “Manny, I have my own ideas, but I doubt anyone is in a better position to say than you are. Are you holding something back from me? That’s going to make my job harder.”
    Manny shook his head. “I’m not holding anything back. I just don’t know. It could have been the Mossad, I suppose. They might not like my choice of friends, the fucking hypocrites.”
    Hilger had already thought of the Israelis. They were at the top of his short list. “Who else?” he asked.
    Manny looked at him. “The CIA, of course.”
    Hilger nodded. “My contacts there are already looking into that. Any others? Maybe BIN?”
    “BIN?”
    “The Badan. Indonesian intelligence. They’ve had a lot of problems—Bali, the Jakarta Marriott, the Australian embassy . . .”
    “BIN, yes. Maybe. Maybe.”
    Hilger realized that Manny wasn’t going to be helpful here. He was the kind of man who was uncomfortable acknowledging that he had real enemies—which, given his activities, was almostfunny. It seemed that this was the first time Manny had come face-to-face with the reality that someone really, truly, wanted him dead and was actively trying to make it so. It would take Manny a while to adjust to the reality of that. In the meantime, Hilger would just have to investigate on his own. Well, he was used to doing things alone. Sometimes it was the only way to get the job done.
    Hilger decided to return to the previous line of questioning, on which Manny was more useful. “You say the Asian saw you and seemed to freeze,” he said. “Could it have been your son that he saw?”
    Manny scowled. “I think it was me.”
    Hilger wondered about Manny’s recollection. He didn’t expect it to be particularly accurate in any event; he knew that memories of traumatic incidents rarely are. Also, Manny probably wanted to believe that the men who had come after him were vicious, subhuman killers. This would make Manny feel virtuous by comparison. That one of these men might have hesitated at the sight of a child wouldn’t fit with this view, would detract from the accompanying sense of comparative righteousness, and would likely be rejected. The mind of a man like Manny had so many ways of unconsciously pleasuring itself. You had to be careful.
    “Still,” Hilger said, “I find it odd that the man seemed to hesitate at all, regardless of the reasons. Hesitation tends to be an affliction of the inexperienced.”
    Manny scowled. “Maybe these men were inexperienced.”
    “Inexperienced men wouldn’t have been able to drop your bodyguard and my people with him. They were all dispatched with tight shots, headshots. Take my word for it, the shooters were not inexperienced.”
    “Then why? Why did he hesitate?”
    Hilger shook his head. “I don’t know yet.”
    “My son is traumatized,” Manny said. “He and his mother have gone to stay with her relatives in the provinces.”
    “I can arrange for extra protection.”
    “They’re okay where they are. But I need a new bodyguard.”
    This was the closest thing Hilger had heard to an expression of sorrow about one of the men who had given his life in the course of saving Manny’s. Me, me, me, Hilger thought. It wasn’t just Manny. It was the state of the fucking world.
    “Otherwise,” Manny went on, “I can’t continue to help you.”
    Hilger sighed. Manny was always making poorly timed, even unnecessary, threats.
    “I’ve already taken care of it,” Hilger said.
    “And the men who tried to kill me?”
    “My people will find them.”
    Manny clenched his jaw and said, “Find them soon. You’re not my only friend, you know.”
    Another silly threat. Hilger had seen it coming. He said, “Manny, I know you have many friends. Has any of them been as reliable as I have?”
    Manny was silent for a moment, then