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was the type to hold a grudge. Yeah, this was probably about Rain, too, otherwise why didn’t they just kill him outright in front of the Bintang? Why run all the extra risks of a snatch? Well, whatever, he’d find out who did it and what they wanted soon enough.
    He was furious at himself for being stupid enough to get nailed like this. He’d waited too long, that was his first mistake. He hadn’t checked his perimeter until the blond guy asked for his help, when he should have checked it from within the store, or, failing that, then as soon as he’d stepped outside. Dumb, just fucking dumb. If he’d seen those guys standing around in their helmets, he would have gone to code red with an extra two seconds to spare, before they’d even gotten a chance to move on him, and that would have made all the difference.
    And he shouldn’t have gone for the knife immediately when he saw something was off—that was reflex, to reach for a weapon, but there it was the wrong reflex. He should have moved first, moved off the X, the killing spot, made them react, chase after him, whatever. He would have had plenty of time to get to the knife, and hold on to it, after that. Wasn’t that one of the things John was always telling him? Move. Never give them a stationary target. Sometimes he felt like Rain was lecturing him and bristled at it, but he had to admit the man knew what he was talking about.
    He wondered how they had traced him. Well, there were a lot of ways they might have learned he was in Ubud, if they had enough resources. From there, they probably deployed a watcher at every grocery store in town, knowing he would have to show eventually. When he did, someone used a radio or a mobile phone to alert the others, and they converged on the Bintang while he was inside. When was the last time he’d been there? Four days earlier…no, five. So they’d probably been in town close to a week. Had he seen anyone who set off his radar? No, but there were always tourists passing through Ubud, and besides, if these guys were in helmets and on motorcycles, they would have been damn near impossible to spot.
    At least one of them must have been driving a van. They’d injected him with fentanyl or Rohypnol, something like that, that was the sting in his neck. Shove him into the van after knocking him out, and they’re off before anyone could intervene or even be sure what was happening. Change vehicles somewhere close by, then head for the coast where they’d moored the boat. Which pretty much brought things up to date.
    He took a deep breath. All right, he’d fucked up. Hard to argue about it at this point. But there was no use beating up on himself—he had a feeling someone else would be taking care of that, and more, soon enough. Being demoralized would only make it harder for him to keep his shit wired tight.
    And he could keep it tight, he knew that. It wasn’t how far you fell, it was how high you bounced—his dad had once told him that and he’d never forgotten it. If he could survive sniper school, he could survive anything. He could certainly survive this, whatever it was. He just had to remember who he was and what he was made of. He had to hold that close and not let them separate him from it.
    He waited a long time, silently telling himself jokes he liked. That one he’d told Rain about the bear was great. The guy didn’t like to laugh much, which made it all the more satisfying to get to him. When Dox got out of this, he’d be sure to tell Rain the one about kabunga. That would be apt, under the circumstances.
    He reminded himself from time to time that the waiting was part of it, part of how they hoped to wear him down, with uncertainty about everything, who had taken him, what this was about, where he was, what might happen next, when it might happen. He’d been trained to resist interrogation, and knowing what to expect was half the battle. He was pleasantly surprised, even bolstered, to realize the training