Satori - Don Winslow [49]
But given that you do not prefer to die, he thought as he turned north toward Beihai Park, you must then consider how you are going to dispatch Voroshenin and get out of that box, never mind the building.
The theater will be dark, with the bright lights focused on the stage, so that was an advantage. Then there is the noise. Beijing Opera, with its drums, gongs, and shrill vocalizations, seemed to the uninitiated a migraine-inducing cacophony that would easily drown out the sound of Voroshenin’s dying. (Although Nicholai hoped to reduce that anyway with an efficient strike.)
He entered the park and then decided to give his followers the gift of a little variety by taking the west instead of the east path around the lake. It’s the least that I can do, he thought, for getting them up so early, and there is no scheduled dead drop on the bridge anyway.
But, he thought, what if I can kill Voroshenin without anyone noticing at all? Then I could simply get up and walk out, followed only by my Chinese handlers, whom I could then leave behind in the hutongs of Xuanwu before disappearing into the mosque.
Is it possible? he asked himself as he jogged along the lake’s edge.
Of course it is, he thought, hearing the voice of General Kishikawa. Never consider the possibility of success—consider only the impossibility of failure.
Hai, Kishikawa-sama.
He reviewed the dozens of methods that naked kill offered to dispatch an opponent from close range without undue fuss. Then he sorted them into categories based on his potential situation — sitting to the right of Voroshenin, to the left, behind him, or, a bit more difficult, if he were separated by a seat with a guard or another guest between him and his target.
Difficult, yes, but not impossible.
Only failure is impossible.
Unthinkable.
As he rounded the northern edge of the lake, Nicholai broke into a sprint to break up the boredom but mostly to see what sort of speed the Greyhound really had. It might come to that — a footrace to create space and time to lose the man in Xuanwu.
The Greyhound lived up his moniker. He accepted Nicholai’s challenge and stayed with him for the first minute or so, but then Nicholai took it up another notch, gained ground again, and noted that the Greyhound couldn’t catch up.
So it is possible, Nicholai thought as he slowed down so as not to cause his followers any undue alarm.
It is possible to do this thing and live.
Back at the hotel, he stripped off his sweaty clothes, took a quick bath in water that could only achieve tepid, dressed, and went downstairs for a spare breakfast of warm soy milk and pickled vegetables. He had been eating too much and too richly, his body felt consequently dull and slow.
Chen arrived a few minutes later. He sat down, barked an order for tea, and looked at Nicholai unhappily.
“You like to exercise,” he accused, dropping all pretense that his guest was not under constant surveillance.
“Is that a problem?”
“It is self-indulgent.”
“I had thought quite the opposite.”
Chen’s mug of tea arrived at the table. “It is self-indulgent,” he explained, “in the sense that it uses up the people’s resources that could be better spent elsewhere.”
“Such as lounging around the lobby?” Nicholai asked, wondering why it was so much fun to bait Chen.
“My men are very busy,” Chen said. “They have a lot to do.”
“Comrade Chen, I agree with you completely,” Nicholai said. “It is a total waste of precious time and resources for your men to follow me about —”
“They are not ‘following’ you,” Chen huffed, “they are ‘protecting’ you.”
“Certainly it is a waste of resources to offer protection in the new people’s society,” Nicholai observed blandly, “where crime is an anachronism that has been relegated to the imperialist past.”
“They protect you,” Chen insisted,