Two Songs This Archangel Sings

9

Loan Ka's son and I were alone on the highway-until a car, traveling at high speed, shot by us and quickly disappeared into the darkness up ahead. The car had sped by too fast for me even to identify the make, much less note the license plate number, but it was enough to make me suspicious-and sufficiently nervous to ease the Beretta surreptitiously out of its shoulder holster and hold it in my hand, next to my right leg.

We reached the airport without incident, but I was still suspicious. I asked Jimmy to take a turn through the parking area collectively used by the car rental agencies for returns, and almost immediately spotted a dark blue, late model Ford; the license plate number matched the one on the slip of paper Loan Ka had handed to me. Whatever else my shadow might be, he was a clever fellow; after seeing me leave the hotel with my bags, he'd preceded me to the airport and would be accompanying me on my flight back to New York. Cute. At the least, I hoped it meant Loan Ka and his family would be safe.

The "red eye" flight from Seattle to New York was less than half full, and I was the last passenger to get on. The best candidate for the man who was tracking me was sitting by himself in the window seat over the left wing. He was big, all right, and even though he was seated and slumped forward slightly as he read a magazine, I estimated his height to be at least six feet five or six inches. Not certain what, if anything, I wanted to do next, I squatted down in the aisle and pretended to tie my shoelace while I thought about it.

I decided that there was no way the man could know that I was aware he was following me. It was some advantage, but so minuscule as to be virtually worthless. Since I couldn't very well follow him while he was supposed to be following me, I was left in an almost totally passive position while he controlled all the options-including that of perfunctorily blowing me away if his marching orders were abruptly changed. I'd never liked passive positions and, as risky and uncertain a move as it might be, I decided to gamble for more while I had the opportunity, to see what would happen, or what I might discover, if I put a sharper edge on the situation.

"Mind if I sit here?" I asked as I dropped into the empty seat next to the big man. "I get airsick if I don't sit over the wing."

The man lowered his magazine and casually studied me with khaki-colored eyes that were so pale as to seem almost white; they were cold eyes, startling and chilling, and I had the distinct impression that they were mocking this feeble effort on my part to challenge and outwit him. Now that I was actually sitting next to him, I could see that he was more than just big-as a premiere NFL running back is more than just big, with enormous shoulders and torso narrowing down to a slim waist and hips, heavily muscled thighs that seemed to bulge even inside the pants of the finely tailored gray, three-piece suit he was wearing. He would be enormously strong, I thought, and — even more dangerous for me, since it would negate the one real physical advantage I had-quick, despite his looming size. He was certainly capable of much more than just following a man; if he was a killer, he would be a good one, and his body would be all the weapon he needed.

"Not at all," the pale-eyed man replied easily. "Would you prefer to sit here by the window?"

"No, thanks," I answered, managing what I hoped was a smile on a face that felt like rapidly setting concrete. "I also get airsick if I can see the ground."

The man grunted amiably, then turned his attention back to his magazine-a month-old issue of Sports Illustrated.

I didn't like anything I saw or sensed. It's sometimes possible, I'd learned from past experience, to extract a surprising amount of information about a person in a brief period of time just by being in close physical proximity and engaging the person in some light conversation-the reason I was sitting where I was. Hands, clothes, mannerisms, reactions, choice of reading material, a piece of paper sticking out of a pocket, an accent, choice of words or topics of conversation, even odors-all can merge together to form a composite picture of a person which, while blurry and incomplete at best, can nonetheless provide valuable clues to character and, sometimes, be a predictor of behavior. Not this time.

What I was getting from this man was nothing; too much of nothing.

He had not reacted at all to my sudden appearance. The winter eyes had revealed nothing but keen intelligence and-perhaps-a hint of bemusement behind a thick scrim of control. I put his age at around thirty-five. His hair was a light brown, cut short. To me he looked more European or American than Oriental-but then, only one of Loan Ka's informants had suggested that the man might be Asiatic. He had a rather triangular face, with a high, broad forehead tapering into shallow cheekbones, thin lips, and a surprisingly narrow chin for such a big man.

He was slumped in his seat, leaning to his left at an awkward angle, as if favoring a stiff neck or sore back. He held the magazine with his fingertips, and when he turned the pages it was with quick, nervous movements. His legs were crossed, and he would occasionally tap his right foot nervously against a brown cowhide attache case he had placed on the floor by his seat. The image he projected was of a well-dressed and, despite his size, slightly effeminate businessman or accountant.

But "projected" was the key word, and I had the distinctly unnerving feeling that the man was playing games with me, enjoying a private joke at my expense. Of course, I had to take into account the possibility that he was a slightly effeminate businessman or accountant, and not the man who had been following me. But the blue Ford had been parked at the airport, and my seatmate was the only fellow passenger who came even close to fitting the description Loan Ka had given me.

I recalled the many conversations Veil and I had had regarding the ninja art of "psychological disguise"-meaning, in the case of the ninja, that a person did not have to be truly terrible to be truly terrifying, and vice versa. The point, always, was to lull and coax your enemy, or quarry, into perceiving you as you wanted him to perceive you. What and who you really are, Veil had always said, was nowhere nearly as important as what others thought you were. This was the axiom that the ninja used to create a desired reality from illusion.

It was a set of skills I had, of necessity, used all my life, without ever having a label for what I was doing. Now I suspected that these same skills were being used against me in an attempt to disarm and beguile.

I knew I had made a mistake in confronting this man. I had hoped at least to shake him, to gauge him as an opponent, and, if I got lucky, perhaps to learn something that would be useful to me in my search for Veil. But in trying to inflate my small advantage, I had seen it blow up in my face; I was the one who was shaken, thoroughly intimidated by the man's physical size and psychological control. All I had accomplished with my stunt was to drive my tracker even deeper into the deadly shadows at my back.

Responding to a very real sensation of queasiness in the pit of my stomach, I indulged in a little psychological disguise of my own; I removed the airsickness bag from the pouch on the back of the seat in front of me and cradled it in my lap, then closed my eyes and pretended to fall asleep. I felt like the village idiot.