Free Satori by Don Winslow

softly, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
    “And I with you.” His words surprised him as much as the actual emotion, something he had not felt for years, something he had taught himself never to feel again. It had been his experience that anyone he loved went away, usually through the portal of death.
    “Je t’aime; je t’aime; je t’aime.”
    “Je t’aime aussi,” Nicholai said, delighted to hear the “tu.” “But what are we going to do about it?”
    “Nothing.” She sighed, her breath warm and moist on his skin. “There is nothing to do about it except to love each other while we have each other.”
    They went into the bedroom to do just that.
    Nicholai got up while she was still sleeping, went into the kitchen, and found a can of green tea hidden in the back of a cupboard. There is no reason, he thought as the water heated, that Michel Guibert could not have developed a taste for excellent green tea during his years in Hong Kong.
    When the water boiled he poured it into the pot, waited a minute, then stepped outside and poured it onto the ground. He repeated the process, then poured the water in for the third time and let it sit, recalling the old and wise Chinese adage regarding the steeping of tea: The first time, it’s water; the second time, it’s garbage; the third time, it’s tea.
    Nicholai waited impatiently, then poured the tea into a small cup and sipped. Excellent, he thought. Refreshing in a way that coffee, no matter how good, could never be. He took the tea out into the garden, sat on one of the stone benches, and listened to the water gurgle down the rocks.
    Just last night, he thought, I killed two men here and now there is not a trace, as if it never happened. And in a sense it didn’t, in a true Buddhist sense this life is just a dream, a samsara of false perceptions that we are somehow separate from any other being or entities. In killing those men I died myself; in my surviving they live in me. I fulfilled their karma, and they mine. It will be the same with Voroshenin.
    The Russian’s karmic consequence had been a long time coming.
    Over thirty years.
    Nicholai wondered if Voroshenin even remembered, or if he did, even cared. Probably not, Nicholai decided.
    Do you even want to go through with this? he asked himself.
    True, the Americans are offering me a vast sum of money, a passport, and my freedom, but the temptation is to go in and wake Solange, pack a few things, and run where they cannot find us.
    But where, he asked himself, would that be?
    You have no passport, no papers, no money. Where and how far could you run if you couldn’t get out of Japan? And in this closed, tight society, where could two round-eyes hide? And for how long? A few weeks, at the most optimistic assessment. And then what? Now that you know the identity of the target, the Americans would have to terminate you.
    And Solange, too.
    They’ll believe you talked to her, told her everything. While it is usually true that what you don’t know can kill you, in the topsy-turvy world in which I now exist, what you do know can kill you just as easily. If Solange knew the identity of my target, she could be in serious danger.
    So there you are, he thought. She is a hostage to your actions.
    I cannot allow another person I love to die.
    I couldn’t bear it.
    But can you do it all? he asked himself. Assassinate Voroshenin and still have a life with Solange? Is it too much to ask in this world?
    Perhaps, he thought.
    But he decided to try.
    Solange came out of the bedroom and into the garden. Her hair was charmingly tousled, her eyes heavy and still sleepy.
    Nicholai put the file on his lap and closed it.
    “We are keeping secrets?” she asked. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to know.”
    She lit cigarettes and handed him one. “I don’t care about whatever men’s business you and Haverford are cooking up. In the end, there is only food, wine, sex, and babies. That’s all anyone really cares