THREE: Hunter of Hunters

THREE

Hunter of Hunters

When Paul Ward had first realized what the confused Interpol e-mail was about, he’d felt as if the entire Petronas Towers complex were about to topple into the streets of Kuala Lumpur. But the towers were fine. Only his program had collapsed.

Jesus God, he screamed silently, they were like roaches. He had cleared them out of the whole continent, sanitized it. And now, instead of cleaning out his office in Kuala, preparing for departure to the States and the start of the endgame against them, he was racing through the streets of Bangkok in this clanking old embassy Caddy.

Paul Ward was dealing with one smart breed of animal. How smart, he had just plain not understood, not until now.

He pressed himself against the seat of the limo, instinctively keeping his face in shadow. It was always possible that they knew him, he thought, that they would recognize him. He watched the people thronging the streets and wondered if Bangkok, or any city, would look the same if its inhabitants knew that predators a thousand times more dangerous than the tiger or the shark might be walking just behind them.

The damned thing of it was, he’d even run his traditional victory celebration, with all the traditional goodies, stolen in all the innovative ways that his crew could come up with. There had been a couple of cases of Veuve Clicquot borrowed from the Sûreté outpost in Ho Chi Minh City, a couple of cases of beluga borrowed from the KGB in New Delhi, and a whole bunch of dancing girls who came to the crinkle of the dollar—counterfeits made in Myanmar and borrowed from Pakistani intelligence by the redoubtable Joe P. Lo, who could steal venom from a cobra.

They’d been saying good-bye to the General East Asia Pest Control Company. Good-bye and good riddance to their ironically named front organization. This had been a miserable, exacting, assignment, and an extremely dangerous one. Will Kennert, Addie St. John, Lee Hong Quo, Al Sanchez—these were just a few who’d died fighting the vampires.

If he hadn’t needed to be totally and completely centered for the task ahead, he would have told the driver to stop at a bar. He’d go in and suck sacred Stolichnaya like a Russki at the nipple of his still. He’d get a massage that lasted all night. Masseuses in relays. Every sin he could think of and—thanks to being in good old Bang-yer-cock—some he probably couldn’t.

“Goddamnit!” he suddenly said aloud.

“Sir!”

The driver didn’t know that he talked to himself. Why would he? People didn’t know Paul Ward, not even embassy people. They weren’t supposed to. “Sorry, son.”