Authors: Barry Eisler
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Thrillers, #Espionage, #Suspense
Finally it subsided. I stood for a moment, sucking air, then wiped my face, spat, and got back in the car. The driver asked me if I was all right. I nodded. It was the climate, I said. You’d think I’d be used to it, but I’m not.
I had him take me to the airport. I didn’t know where I would go from there. Wherever it was, I knew that everything I’ve done, it would all be coming with me.
John Rain’s fans seem to think he keeps getting better (I, of course, prefer the phrase “even better”) as he goes along. To the extent this is so, I owe much to the advice and other support I continue to receive from a number of good people. My thanks to:
My agents, Nat Sobel and Judith Weber of Sobel Weber Associates, and my editor, David Highfill at Putnam, for helping me find the true notes and eliminate the false ones.
Michael Barson (master of Yubiwaza), Dan Harvey, and Megan Millenky at Putnam, for doing such an amazing job of getting out the word on John Rain.
Dexter Domingo, for giving me multiple insider’s tours of Manila; Yannette Edwards, for her suggestion that Rain should
visit the Philippines, which jump-started the entire book; and Doug and Susan Patteson, for getting Rain better acquainted with Manila and other Southeast Asian environs, for otherwise drawing on their extensive experience in the region to help me refine not just the locales, but the entire story, and for their insights into all things Rain.
Jim Dunn, who came to know and love Bangkok during his service in the Vietnam War, for sharing his historical perspective on the city and refreshing Rain’s recollections thereby; David Gibbons, for sharing his extensive knowledge of Thailand and for being the best guide an author could ever ask for through Bangkok and Phuket; novelist Christopher G. Moore, for sharing his insights about life in Bangkok and Thai culture; novelist Marcus Wynne, for sharing his experiences with Bangkok, knives, and the Special Ops community; and Bangkokbob—whoever you are,
www.bangkokbob.net
is a wonderful resource.
Massad Ayoob of the Lethal Force Institute, for sharing his awe-inspiring knowledge of and experience with firearms tools and tactics, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Tony Blauer, for again sharing with Rain his profound knowledge of the psychology, physiology, and tactics of violence.
The dreaded Carl, who thank God is still out there, for teaching me so much, for being the inspiration behind Dox, and for sharing his thoughts about “catch and release” programs.
Again and always, sensei Koichiro Fukasawa of Wasabi Communications, a singular window on everything Japan and Japanese, for years of insight, humor, and friendship, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Matt Furey, for providing the Combat Conditioning bodyweight exercises that Rain uses in this book to stay in top shape (and that his author uses, too).
Lori Kupfer, for years of friendship, for continued insights
into what sophisticated, sexy women like Delilah wear and how they think, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Janelle McCuen, Miss Creative Force, for making sure that Rain knows his telephoto lenses.
Matt Powers, for once again ensuring that Rain knows his wines, for leading the good fight against “like” and “you know,” and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
Evan Rosen, M.D. Ph.D., and Peter Zimetbaum, M.D., for once again offering (reluctant) expert advice on some of the killing techniques in this book, and for helpful comments on the manuscript. Actually, I don’t think the advice is so reluctant anymore. I think they’re starting to enjoy it.
Ernie Tibaldi, a thirty-one-year veteran agent of the FBI, for continuing to generously share his encyclopedic knowledge of law enforcement and personal safety issues, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
William Scott Wilson, for
The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi
, a book that represents a significant part of John Rain’s emerging philosophy.
The extraordinarily eclectic group of philosophers, badasses (mostly retired), and deviants who hang out at Marc Mac Young’s and Dianna Gordon’s
www.nononsenseselfdefense.com
. The amount I’ve learned from you all is hard to put in words, and you’re all great company during those long lonely nights of approaching deadlines, too. In particular, thanks to Dave Bean, for sharing his knowledge of firearms and for steering me to backstory sources for various aspects of this book; Jack “Spook” Finch, Mr. Lawsey, Lawsey himself, veteran of the Vietnam War’s Easter Offensive, Operation Just Cause, Operation Desert Storm, and Silver Star awardee, for sharing his experiences with “the cost of it,” for making Rain a Kimber man, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Frank “Pancho” Garza, ex-Marine, for showing by
his example what it’s like to be one of the toughest hombres out there and yet with a heart as soft as beaver fur; Dianna “Mrs. Velociraptor” Gordon, for “defending my readers” by helping me hone everything from punctuation to backstory to character, and for teaching Dox to be a gentleman around Delilah; Montie Guthrie, for sharing his knowledge of and experience with firearm tools and tactics, for teaching Rain that “nothing good can come of this,” and that, for the bad guy, “it is never your turn,” and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Drew Anderson, Wim “Chimpy” Demeere, Ed Fanning, Michael “Mama Duck” Johnson, and David Organ, for sharing their thoughts on invisibility in crowds; Marc “Animal” Mac Young, the Tiresius of civilization and the street, for deepening my understanding of urban survival tactics, how crowds react to violence, how operators carry themselves, how Klingons decloak and Predators conceal themselves, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Slugg, for sharing his insights on what permits men to do bad things for good purposes and how they live with it after, on how high-pressure interrogations are conducted and resisted, for demonstrating by his presence how a big man can disappear, and for helpful comments on the manuscript; Tristan Sutrisno, former Army Special Forces, Vietnam veteran, and keeper of the dreaded Nessie, for sharing his experience with combat and killing and on living with it after. A special thank you to Terry Trahan, a man who has seen the darkness and now lives in the light, for sharing the experiences that inspired this story, for getting me up to speed on knives and related matters, and for helpful comments on the manuscript.
My friends at Café Borrone in Menlo Park, California, for serving the best breakfasts—and especially coffee—that any writer could ask for.
Naomi Andrews and Dan Levin, Eve Bridberg, Vivian Brown, Alan Eisler, Judy Eisler, Shari Gersten and David Rosenblatt,
Tom Hayes, novelist Joe Konrath, Owen and Sandy Rennert, Ted Schlein, Hank Shiffman, and Caryn Wiseman, for helpful comments on the manuscript and many valuable suggestions and insights along the way.
Most of all, to my wife, Laura, for more than I can put in words. And the research on the “love scenes” was great, too.
ContentsThe Manila, Bangkok, Phuket, Hong Kong, Kowloon, Tokyo, and Batangas locales that appear in this book are described, as always, as I have found them. The backstory on A. Q. Khan and the CIA is real.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s Imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is
http://www.penguinputnam.com