He did not know, or wish to know, where they had been tonight—only that they had left shortly before ten, and stayed out for some three odd hours. He did not know their positions with UpLink, though that information could be easily obtained from departmental sources. He did not even know with absolute certainty why he had been instructed to maintain a constant watch over them.

Kilana kept his eyes on his role in the plot and let its other players worry about theirs. It was what he’d been told to do. It was also what was very much safest for him.

Kilana palmed his mouse, moved the cursor to the toolbar of his Internet Service Provider’s browser and clicked FILE ➞ ARCHIVE ➞ SAVE. When the dialogue box opened to request a file name, Kilana typed in the word hibou, followed by the number twelve.

Hibou is the French word for “owl.”

Now Kilana clicked again, and the hidden camera’s real-time images of the men were stored as a high-resolution, compressed audio/video DivX file on his database. He then took a rewritable DVD from the rack on his desk, slipped it into the computer’s burner drive, and returned to the toolbar.

Several mouse clicks later, he had merged the night’s dozen hibou surveillance files from the hallway outside the Rio de Gabao’s luxury suites into a single large file on the disk. Also on the disk were separate files from inside the suites themselves, designated faucon—“falcon” in French. These included an exceedingly interesting video of Tara Cullen—suite 5—as she showered and prepared for bed, which Kilana had given a number of successive replays, watching it for his personal enjoyment while a freshly lighted cigarette burned down to a charred, unsmoked stub in his ashtray.

With the files copied, Kilana removed the disk from the drive tray, put it into a jewel case, and turned off his computer. Then he rose, made a perfunctory attempt at smoothing down his rumpled, sagging uniform, abandoned all hope of it, and left the office, snapping out the lights as he went through the door.

In the parking lot, a courier waited in the shadows near Kilana’s automobile. The police commander knew this man’s face but not his identity. More willing ignorance; it was well within Kilana’s power to learn everything about him, from his grandmother’s maiden name to his favorite pissing hole.

Passing the jewel case to the courier without a word, Commander Kilana watched him leave the parking area on foot and then disappear into the night.

After a few moments, he got into his car and drove home, ousting from his mind an intrusive guess about the DVD’s eventual destination.

Yes, the less he knew the better.

Except, perhaps, when it came to the beautiful occupant of luxury suite 5 at the Rio de Gabao Hotel.

SIX - CALIFORNIA GABON, AFRICA

SIX

CALIFORNIA GABON, AFRICA