Read Online Requiem for an Assassin by Barry Eisler - Free Book Online Page A

Now listen, there’s something I want you to hear.”
    In the background, Dox started screaming. I held the phone far from my ear and looked at the watch again.
    Whatever they were doing, they did it for ten seconds. Then the screaming stopped. Hilger said, “I hope you won’t do that to him again.”
    “Where do you want to meet?” I said, my voice as flat as a hockey rink and twice as cold.
    “We’re not going to meet. I told you, the bulletin board. It’s nonnegotiable.”
    “Then we have nothing to negotiate.”
    There was a pause. He said, “You want to hear him scream again?”
    “You can make him scream all you want. You want me to work for you, you’ll give me the assignment in person. I want to look in your eyes when you tell me. I’ll know from that how much I can trust you to let him go when this is done.”
    There was another pause, longer this time. I could feel him considering, weighing the odds. He was thinking, I’d ask for the same thing. And I’d be looking for a way to take a run at me, sure. But that’s a dead end…hit me while my men have Dox, and Dox dies, too. Besides, if I choose the time and place, I can control the situation.
    Of course, there was another possibility: Hilger’s reticence was feigned. He didn’t want me to kill anyone; he had grabbed Dox simply to flush me into the open so he could kill me. In which case, by insisting on a meeting, I was giving him exactly what he wanted.
    But I would have to take the chance. Dox had saved my life twice. Playing it safe now would be no way to return the favor. Because if I didn’t keep Hilger moving, if I couldn’t get him to depart from his game plan, I would always be one step behind on this thing, all the way to its bitter end.
    “Hong Kong,” he said.
    Hong Kong was his territory. He could control it too well. But I wanted an Asian background. It would make it easier for me to blend, and harder for him. I said, “Tokyo.”
    “No good,” he said, knowing he would be at as least as much of a disadvantage in Tokyo as I would be in Hong Kong. “Bangkok.”
    We were getting closer. But not long ago he’d fielded a team in Bangkok on short notice, a team that had very nearly gotten to Dox and me after we’d spoiled one of his ops. I knew he had reach there. It wouldn’t do.
    I needed a place that was familiar to me, but where he was unlikely to have much local capability. Something inside me spoke up, and before I could think more about it, I said, “Saigon.”
    There was a pause. He said, “When?”
    “The night after tomorrow.”
    “I can’t make it that fast. For Vietnam, I’ll need a visa.”
    I know, I thought. And that’ll give me one more datapoint I can use to track you. “One of the services can get you one in a day,” I said.
    “What about you?”
    I’d be traveling under a Japanese passport, which doesn’t require a visa. But Hilger didn’t need to know that. Better to let him think I was going to arrive the day of our meeting. That way, not only would I have time to reconnoiter, but he wouldn’t know I’d had time.
    “I can get one in a day,” I said. “Keep Dox’s phone with you, and I’ll keep this one. The bulletin board will be backup. We’ll meet somewhere public, somewhere we can trust each other not to misbehave.”
    “I trust you. Because if there’s a problem, the screaming you just heard is going to sound like music by comparison.”
    I clenched my jaw and exhaled. “Careful how you use that leverage, Hilger. Right now, it’s the only thing keeping you alive.”
    “Maybe. But you’re what’s keeping Dox alive. If you step out of line, you’ll kill him.”
    “Put him on again.”
    “After the first job. Assuming there aren’t any problems.” I started to protest, but he had already clicked off.
    I walked in the direction of the place de la République, where I knew there was a travel agency. My survival paranoia felt like a brewing riot, and I didn’t want to be on the