The fourth watcher

paramecia swarm through the rain in front of his eyes. He grabs his wallet, turns back to the ATM, pushes in a card, and then reaches down and flicks off the safety on the Glock. He keys in his PIN, waits, snatches the ten thousand baht from the machine’s jaws, and pockets it, along with his card. Then he walks straight across the sidewalk and into the street. A truck is lumbering past, and Rafferty slants past it as it roars by, then darts behind it and runs alongside for a quarter of a block before peeling off and crossing the rest of the way to the sidewalk. He slows to a quick walk without looking back.

Half a block past Patpong, the sidewalk borders a construction site for a building that has been going up for years. Hiding it from the sidewalk is an ugly fence of rippled metal. It has an opening in it just wide enough for one person to slip through, and Rafferty snags his shirt as he squeezes through it. He finds himself in an expanse of mud, liberally pockmarked by puddles too wide to jump: red-brown mud and the slate gray sky framed on the surface of the standing water. The skeleton of the building stretches skyward to disappear into the rain and mist. The floors and the elevator shafts are in place. Rafferty thinks briefly about the elevator and then dismisses it. All they’ll have to do is wait at the bottom.

He needs them closer.

He hears the corrugated fence creak as the two of them force their way through the opening.

Work on the site has been called on account of the rain, but in a small trailer all the way across the site a light gleams through the falling water. The door is on the far side, and he heads for it, his feet slipping in the mud. It seems to take much longer to reach it than it should, and his back feels like it’s six feet wide and painted bright orange, but eventually he is there, and he circles around, climbs the first two of the four steps leading to the trailer, and tries the door.

It opens. The light inside is a leathery yellow, an incandescent bulb in a lampshade the color of parchment. No one home.

Moving quickly, he climbs the last two steps, leaving muddy footprints on them, and plants his boots on the floor. The trailer sags slightly beneath him. He moves left, all the way to a door, which he opens. It’s a bathroom. He leaves the door ajar and then pulls off his shoes and backtracks, avoiding his footprints. At the top of the stairs, he jumps. The mud underfoot is amazingly cold.

He figures they will split up and come around both sides of the trailer, so he drops to his belly and slithers beneath its center, pulling himself along on his elbows until he is facing back the way he came. In a moment he sees their boots approaching.

They pause in front of the trailer and hold a whispered conversation. The one on the right-the thinner one, Rafferty guesses-is in charge. He has the last word. They do as Rafferty expected, one going left and the other right. Silently, Rafferty pulls himself around 180 degrees so he is looking at the side of the trailer where the door is.

The two pairs of boots trudge through the mud, pausing cautiously at the trailer’s corners, approach the steps, and stop. They are probably listening. Then one of them disappears behind the steps, followed by the other. Rafferty can no longer see their feet.

But he can hear them. More whispering, followed by the sound of one pair of boots climbing the steps. The door opens, hard and fast. An instant later the other follows.

Rafferty is out from under the trailer in two seconds flat, clawing at the gun. It is in his hand as he steps through the door and realizes immediately that he has made a mistake.

The fat one is to his left, in front of the bathroom door. He turns in surprise as the trailer dips beneath Rafferty’s weight, glances at the gun, and brings his hands up, but he’s not the one Rafferty is thinking about as the door creaks behind him. A point of ice touches the back of his neck.

“Put the gun on the desk,” the man behind him says in Thai. The fat one smiles. He has a merry smile.

“Or what?” Rafferty says, not moving.

“Or I’ll shoot you. It’s not what I’m supposed to do, but right now your gun is all I’m thinking about.”

“How about this? How about you give me your gun, or I shoot your friend.”

“That’s his problem,” says the man behind him. The fat one’s smile slips a notch.

“Shoot me and Chu will kill you.”

“Chu’s not here,” says the fat one. “You are.”

Moving slowly, Rafferty puts his gun on the work desk to his right. “Now what?”

“Now is a little awkward,” says the man behind him. “Why didn’t you just let us follow you? Why did you have to make fools of us?”

“With all due respect,” Rafferty says, “I just put my gun down, and you didn’t. I think that makes me the fool.”

“It’s a problem,” says the fat one, not entirely unsympathetically. “You spotted us, you pulled us into this place. Our superiors won’t be happy.”

“Why don’t we just keep it to ourselves?” Rafferty says. “Go somewhere, get dry, maybe have a cup of coffee.”

“You’re joking,” says the one behind him. He prods Rafferty’s neck with the gun. “Take three steps forward.”

“I’ll buy,” Rafferty says. Once he has moved, there will be no way he can reach the gun.

“You shouldn’t have embarrassed us,” says the fat one.

Another prod. “I said move.”

“Oh, come on. There’s got to be a way-”

“Now.”

Rafferty steps forward, and as he does so, he sees the fat one reach behind himself, sees his hand come back with the long knife in it.

The fat one shrugs an apology and starts to move in, and Rafferty balances on the balls of his feet, ready to leap forward. Then the man behind Rafferty gasps, and the cold spot of the gun barrel disappears. The fat one backs up hastily, fast enough to bang his back on the bathroom door.

Rafferty turns, sees the arm around the thin one’s throat, the gun at his temple, and behind him the cold, calm eyes of Leung.

34

You Have Thirty-One Left

'She needs her medicine,” Rose says. “She should have told us that at the house,” says the man with the gun.

Noi moans again, this time at a higher pitch. Her eyes are clamped closed, her face sheened with sweat that glues her bangs to her forehead. Her arms are drawn in as though she is chilled, and bent at acute angles, bringing the knotted hands to the level of her heart. Fine vertical lines edge her mouth. Rose had piled up ten or twelve empty burlap sacks to make a bed for her, but Noi has twisted herself halfway off them, so that her legs are bare against the cold concrete floor.

“Are you human?” Rose says. “Look at her. She’s in pain you can’t even imagine.”

“Probably not,” the man says. “Although that hot water hurt.” He looks at an irregular red patch on his forearm.

“I can go get it,” Miaow says. “I can take a taxi.”

“Listen to you,” the man says. The rain rattles on the tin roof like a handful of tacks. In places water has seeped in beneath the walls. The man is sitting on a wooden packing crate, the gun dangling lazily between spread knees. A dozen cigarette butts lie at his feet, folded over and smashed flat in a light snowfall of ash.

“I can go now,” Miaow says. She stands up, and the gun comes to life, the barrel lifting six inches, a snake poising to strike.

“No you can’t,” the man says. “Sit down or I’ll shoot you.”

“You will not,” Miaow says. “I’m a little girl.”

“And I’ve got one at home,” the man says. He hitches up his left trouser leg to preserve the crease and gives