Slaton had one immediate objective: avoid drawing attention while he came up with a plan.
He had left his wallet, containing his ID and money, in Thomas’s van. What seemed a sound precaution at the time had proved an egregious error. The voice of an old Mossad instructor pinballed in the back of his mind: Always, always carry cash.
What else had he screwed up?
Only hours ago everything had been going to script. Now he was badly injured, and his only in-country help, Thomas, had tried to kill him. That, above all else, turned the op on its head. He thought back to his first meeting with Thomas, the van ride to Macau. Slaton had sensed the man had training, yet he’d taken it as a positive. Trusted that others had vetted him. One more mistake.
If that wasn’t enough, the backing he’d enjoyed from the world’s most capable intelligence agency was now off the table. He recalled his sat-phone losing its signal in the final critical moments. At the time he’d written it off to a technical glitch, never considering that the connection was being jammed or intentionally disabled. Now that seemed a near certainly, and the phone was destroyed anyway.
Slaton thought back to the two shots he’d taken from the balcony. He’d put Zhao down with the first, and then had Li in his sight. Then, for reasons he couldn’t quantify, he’d hesitated. Even more inexplicably, he’d deliberately pushed the second shot wide at the last instant. Why?
No immediate answer came, and he forced it away. Now wasn’t the time for mission eulogies or analysis.
Tonight was all about survival.
There had been no time to procure a safe house—a standard contingency on most missions—so finding a place to hole up became the highest priority. He kept moving, keeping to alleys wherever possible, and tried to imitate a normal stride when forced to walk in the open. Slaton was sweating despite the cool rain, his heart racing from the combination of shock and exertion. He stopped once to lean on a bus stop bench, but started moving again when a police car appeared up the street. He was nearing the center of Sheung Wan, which took him away from known threats, and hopefully closer to opportunities for recovery.
The rain was abating, but thanks to the storm the streets were uncrowded and the traffic was light. The sounds of the city were lost to the rush of rain through gutters. Slaton crossed a quiet street, tucking his chin low as people did in inclement weather. He ducked into an alley on the far side, little more than a walking path between two buildings. On both sides he saw service doors for various small businesses; the floors above appeared to be apartments. He studied the doors, a few of which were labeled in both English and Cantonese. A hair salon, a coffee shop, a convenience store. All were presumably closed this time of night. Slaton tried the doors but found them locked tight. None would have been an ideal refuge, but he had to find something. A wave of nausea struck, and he paused to let it pass, holding onto a doorknob for support.
He moved toward the next street and paused at the top of the alley. This block looked different than the one behind him. Instead of grocery stores and electronics shops, he saw massage parlors and cheap hotels. Neon signs, in every imaginable hue, blinked and beckoned, as if sin was a holiday to be celebrated. Lone men stopped to chat with girls in alcoves. A woman in a tight black dress and spiked heels talked animatedly to what looked like a hotel proprietor, and on the wall behind them prices were listed like a coffee shop menu. Slaton had stumbled into Sheung Wan’s dark heart, and he felt its arrhythmia.
He knew little about prostitution in Hong Kong, aside from the fact that it was legal. The CCP would never promote red light districts, but it was an institution that had been here far longer than communism, and would, invariably, outlast the glorious leader of the moment. Like most places these days, he supposed assignations were arranged online, consummated in cheap hourly rooms. Slaton studied the sidewalks carefully. Like the rest of the city, he saw a smattering of Western faces. Everyone seemed to move cautiously, slouching and wary. All of which was good. He would not stand out.
A pair of jagged voices suddenly seized his attention. One was male, loud and accusative. The other female, low and pleading. Slaton tracked the sounds to an opposing alley, across the street and to the right. A woman had her back to a mildewed wall. Three men faced her in a crescent formation. The man in the middle, the tallest of the three, was wearing a long black jacket. From across the street Slaton saw a gold chain around his neck that would have anchored a boat. The other two men were a few steps back. Both stood still and rigid, twin bastions at the entrance of a fort.
The girl’s shoulders were pressed against the wall as chain man put a bony finger to her chest, just above her bosom. She was wearing a short skirt and tight low-cut blouse. Her features were Asian, although perhaps not Chinese. Her black hair was tinged with streaks of magenta, and even from across the street her red lips glinted in the light.
Slaton shifted to his right, deeper into the shadows. The twisting motion brought an electric jolt down his right leg. He steadied himself against a brick wall, and the pain ebbed. He looked at his shirt and saw blood—the puncture wound bleeding again. His right leg was trembling.
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, his situation was increasingly dire. His condition was worsening, and after the stormwater bath, infection of his wounds seemed a virtual lock. Slaton didn’t just need a first aid kit—he was going to need a doctor, meds, a place to rest. A place where no one would alert the authorities.
Bottom line—he had to get someone on his side.
With his options narrowing, and time critical, he looked across the street and strategized a way to get it all.