Free Killing Rain by Barry Eisler

‘prime suspect’ to ‘proven culprit.’ ”
    The room was silent for a moment. The director looked at Delilah and sighed. “You understand what’s at stake here?” he asked.
    She nodded.
    “Not just your career,” he went on. “Not just theirs.” He glanced at Boaz, then Gil, letting the comment sink in, then back to her. “Not just mine. We would only be the first casualties. The government would quickly and rightly sacrifice us to try to contain the damage. But if the damage couldn’t be contained . . .there’s no telling. It could affect billions of dollars in aid from the United States. Not to mention arms deliveries. Access to satellite imagery and other intelligence cooperation. Do you understand? This is not an organization problem. It’s a geopolitical problem. We have to get it under control.”
    “I understand,” she said.
    He nodded as though satisfied, then said, “Tell me, how well do you know this man?”
    She should have seen this coming. Now she understood.
    She shrugged. “Our paths crossed in Macau. Some people”—she looked at Gil—“wanted to take him out there because he was after Belghazi and might have killed him before we acquired what we were after. I argued there were better ways to manage him.”
    “You were wrong,” Gil said. “It’s true things turned out well, but that was all luck. Rain might have killed Belghazi before we had what we needed.”
    “I was managing him,” Delilah said, and immediately realized her mistake in letting Gil goad her.
    “You spent time with him, then?” the director asked.
    She shrugged again. “I told you, yes. I persuaded him to stand down for a while, for long enough. Then we tracked him to Rio. I traveled there and made the pitch. Boaz and Gil took it from there. This is all in the file.”
    “How did you contact him at the time, again?” Gil asked.
    Fuck Gil and his games. “Did you not review the file?” she asked, with an innocent smile.
    He clenched his jaw and tried to recover. “It was an electronic bulletin board, wasn’t it?”
    “Are you asking because you don’t remember? It’s not like you to forget details, Gil. Usually you remember everything.”
    His jaw clenched again. She knew he would be hating her forone-upping him in front of the director, especially in this insinuating way, and at the moment the knowledge was deeply satisfying.
    “Can you contact him now?” Gil asked, abandoning his losing game.
    “I don’t know. I suppose so, if he’s kept the bulletin board and still checks it.”
    Gil started to say something, but the director held up a hand. “Delilah. Do you know this man in any way not reflected in the file?”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. Although of course she did, but damned if she would answer the question without at least having him endure the discomfort of asking it.
    “Did you ever have a . . . personal relationship?”
    She paused, then said, “I’m not going to answer that.”
    In her peripheral vision, she saw both admiration and sympathy in Boaz’s eyes. In Gil’s she saw surprise that she would doom herself this way, something he would never have had the integrity to do himself. Poor Gil. He didn’t understand that her advantage in this game was that, for her, the stakes were so much lower. Gil was moving up in management. He wanted a career here. She knew that was impossible for her. In just a few years, she would be too old to do what she did, and then they would give her a desk job or a training position and she would be bypassed, ignored, and forgotten. Under the circumstances, what did she have to lose?
    The director drummed his fingers on the table, then said, “I’m not asking you for personal reasons. I’m asking you professionally. Because the information will affect the way we proceed in a very serious matter.”
    Delilah looked him in the eyes. “I’m still not going to answer. I’m not going to let you cross that line today. If I do,