by Barry Eisler
But he hadn’t gotten further than that, because Snake jellied his nose with a headbutt, then popped a knee into his balls, then just danced around him, nailing him at will, pounding him to the ground like a lumberjack chopping down a redwood. Boyton was so fucked up from the beating that command placed him in Fitness Training Company, a.k.a. Fat Camp, for rehab. The drill sergeant who witnessed the whole thing wrote it up as a training accident. And everyone started calling him Snake, because he’d hit that headbutt fast as a cobra.
But Boomer . . . Boomer had grown up in a different world. Prep schools, quarterback of the football team, champion wrestler, and with two generations of admirals before him—Bradley Michael Kane Sr. and Bradley Michael Kane Jr., making Boomer Bradley Michael Kane III. Snake thought having a III after your name was actually pretty hilarious, and luckily Boomer didn’t mind his giving him a hard time over it. And for all the privilege Boomer was embarrassed about, he was as tough and mean in combat as anyone, even Snake. He’d gotten the nickname in high school because of how hard he’d hit when the football team was playing defense, and it had stuck in the military because of his tendency to blow shit up first and ask questions later. They were a good team. Flexible, mean, fearless. And they had each other’s backs. Compared to that, why would Snake give a shit about the man’s childhood—his or anyone else’s?
Maybe what embarrassed Boomer was that his old man, and the family money and connections, provided a kind of safety net. But why not? Where Snake grew up, there weren’t any safety nets—hell, there wasn’t any safety, and people tended to settle their problems directly. Certainly no one had ever asked many questions about where young Snake was getting all the bruises and black eyes. But in Boomer’s world, people complained and gossiped and sometimes even pressed charges. So as far as Snake was concerned, Boomer was lucky his old man had been able to buy the silence of a few girls Boomer had done. Or threaten them into it, what difference did it make? But then Noreen had gone public all these years later, and now Boomer was worried about the other two on top of it.
Well, he wouldn’t have to worry for long.
6
Strangeland set their coffees on the table, shed her jacket, and sat facing Livia. “Okay,” she said. “Tell me about the chief.”
Livia took a sip of her coffee and nodded her appreciation. She’d been drinking coffee with milk and turbinado sugar since her step-uncle, Rick, had first made her a cup, all the way back when she was a teenager living with the secret of abuse. The combination would always be the taste of the lifeline that Rick, a Portland cop, had subsequently provided her. And a reminder of what she had to live up to.
“For one thing,” Livia said, “she thinks I know more about those dead snipers across the Duwamish than I’m letting on.”
“She press you on that?”
“No. Just probed, then dropped it.”
“Dropped it for now, you mean.”
“Yeah.”
Strangeland sipped her coffee. “I told you at the time, the amount of evidence you had on hand to prove you weren’t there when those snipers were shot—multiple eyewits, credit-card receipts, surveillance-camera footage, cellphone data—might strike someone like Chief Best as so good it had to be planned.”
Livia didn’t respond. She had known Strangeland would press that point. It seemed the time was at hand.
“And even beyond all that,” Strangeland continued, “there’s the question of whether you’re just supernaturally lucky, or whether it’s more like you have some kind of guardian angel. Some serious off-the-books firepower you can call on when the shit hits the fan.”
Again Livia didn’t respond. The least-worst move was just to wait.
Strangeland took another sip of coffee. “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you had all that proof you weren’t there. But I don’t believe in luck. At least not supernatural levels. So, putting myself in the chief’s shoes, I gotta figure you have someone watching your back. Someone good enough to anticipate those two snipers, punch their tickets, and walk away clean.”
Livia nodded. “I know how it looks,” she said, having gamed out this conversation in advance. “But there’s another possibility.”
Strangeland raised her eyebrows.
“We might never be able to prove it in court,” Livia went on, “but you and I both know those snipers were sent by Oliver Graham and OGE.”
“Sure. Working with Arrington at the FBI, trying to cover up the Secret Service child-pornography ring you uncovered.”
“Yes. So, look. You know how bureaucracies work. Half the time, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. Or the left hand knows, or finds out about something, and doesn’t like it. There are always factions. And in an organization like OGE, where the factions are all former spooks and Special Forces, they’re probably going to do more than just send out interdepartmental memos or whatever when they’re not getting their way.”
“You’re saying the OGE right hand sent those snipers to kill you, and the OGE left hand sent someone else to kill them?”
“Not saying it. Just speculating.”
Strangeland didn’t respond. She didn’t even sip her coffee. She just sat and watched Livia, letting the silence work on her the way the lieutenant would let it work on a suspect.
When it became clear Livia wasn’t going to be drawn out, Strangeland drummed her fingers on the table and said, “Is that also your explanation for Oliver Graham getting kidnapped and assassinated in Paris? Factions?”
Livia shook her head. “LT, I really don’t know.”
“Because, just putting myself in the chief’s shoes again, it might start to look like people who come at you—even exceptionally powerful people, capable people—wind up dead. So I don’t know. Maybe Chief Best will be mollified by your exculpatory evidence regarding the snipers. But she might wonder whether you have that kind of evidence regarding Oliver Graham, too. She might even hope you don’t.”
Livia kept her composure. Having gamed this out from the lieutenant’s perspective helped. But only so much.
“In fact,” Strangeland said, “she might even wonder where you were while you were on administrative leave during the FIT investigation. She might, for example, wonder whether you were in Paris when Graham was killed there. Did she ask you that?”
Livia kept her face expressionless. “No.”
“Well, if you were in Paris, and if you were traveling under your own passport, you better hope Best doesn’t know someone in CBP who can check immigration records for her.”
Livia didn’t know whether Best had a friend in Customs and Border Protection. Either way, she couldn’t decide whether she should be reassured about Strangeland not asking about Paris, or concerned.
They were quiet for a moment. Livia said, “I didn’t kill Graham.”
Which was technically true—an exceptionally lethal former black-ops soldier named Larison was the one who had pulled the trigger—but Livia had been there, and she’d been part of it. And having seen the child-torture videos Graham had been trying to conceal and exploit, she certainly would have done it herself if Larison hadn’t.
“Yeah,” Strangeland said, way too good a cop to be deflected by something as weak as that. “But you didn’t kill those snipers, either.”
They were quiet again, sipping their coffees. A young guy, an office-worker type with a security keycard dangling from a neck lanyard, sat in the chair where Little had hidden the phone. Of course.
Strangeland said, “One more thing you might want to hope the chief doesn’t look into.”
Livia was cool under pressure. Cold, even. She’d developed the trait over a lifetime: as a state-champion high-school wrestler; as an Olympic alternate with the US judo team in college; as a survivor, a cop, a killer.
But she could feel the lieutenant’s probes, and her pauses were beginning to have an effect. She understood the pressures: suspects almost always knew better than to talk, but they told themselves
that silence made them look guilty, and so they talked anyway, and talking made them talk more, inconsistencies prompting even more inconsistencies in an attempt to fix what should never have been broken to begin with, until finally the lies unraveled and the truth spilled out.
She reminded herself of who she was. The lieutenant could make whatever she wanted of her silence. What mattered was not damning herself with words.
Strangeland was looking at her. Livia raised her eyebrows questioningly. Strangeland waited another moment, perhaps in recognition of Livia’s cool, then nodded.
“You better hope she doesn’t start looking into where else you’ve been in the last year or so. Like, say, Thailand, while you were trying to decide whether to join B. D. Little’s international anti-trafficking task force. Or what might have happened while you were in Bangkok and just after. If she does, she might find out about a shootout and an explosion at the Rot Fai Night Market. A dead trafficking kingpin named Rithisak Sorm who was apparently burned alive. Another named Leekpai. About a half-dozen dead Royal Thai police, one of whom also seems to have been burned alive. And a war between Thai and Ukrainian trafficking gangs that’s still going on.”
Livia nodded. She shouldn’t have been surprised at how much the lieutenant knew. In a weird way, it was almost a relief.
Of course, that, too, was part of being a good interrogator. Making the suspect believe you knew more than you really did. That you knew everything. That therefore there would be no harm in confirming a few trivial details.
Livia dropped her head and looked at the table. No matter what happened, she wasn’t going to help anyone make a case against her. Ever.
“LT,” she said, “I’m not sure what you’re getting at. I wish you’d just tell me.”
This time, Strangeland didn’t wait. She just sighed and said, “I’m telling you that pretty much anything I can put together, so can the chief. The difference is, knowing you were in Thailand, it occurred to me to check the Bangkok Post online and see if anything interesting might have happened while you were in town. If the chief doesn’t know you were there, she won’t make that connection. We’ll see.”
Livia didn’t look up. She’d worked so hard and been so careful. But still it felt like it was all closing in around her.
“The other difference,” Strangeland went on, “is that I’m your friend. I have your back. And I love you, Livia. I love the cop you are and the person you are. You quote me on that, I’ll deny saying it. And it won’t show up in your fitness reports. But you’re an officer worth protecting, and I’m damn well going to try to protect you. I don’t need to know everything about you. I don’t want to know. What matters, I already do know.”
Livia looked at her, and realized instantly it was a mistake. Pressure she could take. Cruelty she could endure. But kindness always undid her. She looked away and blinked back the tears.
“But the chief,” Strangeland said, pretending not to have noticed Livia’s reaction. “That’s another thing entirely. You’re one of her officers. Her subordinates. In the world as she understands it, she has more power than you. She has power over you. And yet you’ve got some sort of mysterious connections, or capabilities, most people could only dream of. That’s not going to make Chief Best happy for you. It’s going to make her fear you. Cops don’t like mysteries generally. But the mystery you present to the chief . . . she’s not going to just accept it. She’s not going to let it alone. She’s going to look to take you down.”
Livia blew out a long breath. Then another. When she felt composed again, she looked at Strangeland. “What does that mean for the people who have my back?”
Strangeland smiled. “I told you. Best and I already have our issues.”
“Yeah, but this is going to make it worse.”
“Well, you’re not wrong about that.”
“What can I do?”
Strangeland shrugged. “You make it sound like it must be something complicated. But it’s actually pretty simple. You take it easy for a while. Just be a cop. Be just a cop, you understand what I’m saying? No more exotic travel destinations. No more officer-involveds. No more bodies near your apartment. Just make cases. Speak for your victims. Put rapists in prison, where they belong. That’s all you have to do. Nothing else. Meaning just that. Nothing. Else. Rope-a-dope for long enough and even Best will get tired. You follow?”
Livia nodded. “Thanks, LT.”
“Don’t thank me. This isn’t just for you. People know I’m a fan. Meaning heat for you becomes heat for me. And I don’t like heat. It’s why I moved out here, where it’s rainy and cold ten months out of the year.”
Livia smiled. “I thought you moved out here for Mia.” Mia was Strangeland’s wife, a trauma surgeon Livia had met while staying at their house after the martial-arts-academy attack.
“Yeah, well, maybe that too. But you get my meaning.”
“Completely.”
“You told me after Thailand you’d exorcised your demons. Was that maybe a little optimistic?”
Livia looked away. “Maybe.”
“Then get help if you need it. A department shrink if you feel comfortable going that route. Outside the department otherwise. I’d say talk to me, but that’s obviously not going to happen.”
Livia looked at her. “I wouldn’t do that to you, LT.”
“Yeah, I know. I guess I appreciate it. Or at least where it’s coming from. Anyway. Keep your cards close. If you get pressed, play it the way you just played it with me. It doesn’t matter what Best knows, only what she can prove. Now give me a minute—I need to use the ladies’ room, and then we ought to get back.”
Strangeland grabbed her jacket and walked off. As soon as she was inside the restroom, Livia got up and walked over to the guy in Little’s chair, who was texting on a cellphone.
“Excuse me,” Livia said.
The guy looked up and gave her a weirdly knowing smile. “I thought I saw you noticing me,” he said. “And I won’t lie, I noticed you back.”
“I’m flattered,” Livia said, thinking Why is nothing ever simple? “But it wasn’t you I was noticing. It was the chair. I was sitting here earlier, and I think I might have lost my cellphone in the cushions. You mind if I have a quick look?”
The smile broadened. “I will if you give me your number.”
Livia briefly considered dragging him out of the chair and throwing him into a table. But she had to do this smoothly. She didn’t want Strangeland to see another anomaly. Maybe she should just come back later. Of course, the longer she waited, the greater the chance that someone might stumble across Little’s phone.
“Let me look first,” Livia said. “Make it fast and we’ll see.”
The guy came leisurely to his feet, then turned and started digging under the seat cushion. “Hmm, not finding anything,” he said.
Livia edged a shoulder in front of him, dropped her level, and pivoted her hips. The guy went stumbling backward. “May I?” she said, as sweetly as she could.
“Well, sure,” the guy said from behind her, obviously confused about how the little Asian woman had moved him so far and with no apparent effort. “I mean, you don’t have to get pushy.”
Livia pulled the seat cushion off the chair. Immediately she saw a clamshell unit wedged under the back cushion. She grabbed it, stuffed the seat cushion back in place, shoved the burner into a jacket pocket, and zipped the pocket closed. She turned and gestured to the chair.
“All yours,” she said.
The guy looked at her, his expression uncertain. Part of him had probably decided he didn’t want her number after all. Another part was probably telling him that if he didn’t insist, he was being a pussy or whatever. After all, didn’t he have a right to ask for her number? And hadn’t they made a deal on top of it?
“So . . . you going to give me your number?” the guy said, the dumb in him winning out over whatever smart there might have been.
Livia glanced at the name on the keycar
d hanging from his neck. “Trust me, Bryce,” she said. “You don’t want it. Thanks for helping me find my phone. You have a good day.”
She looked up. Strangeland had come out of the restroom and was watching. Shit.
Livia headed over to where she was standing. “What was that about?” Strangeland asked, eyeing the guy.
Livia kept moving, and Strangeland turned to follow. “Nothing. Bored guy, hitting on me.”
Strangeland chuckled. “You must get that constantly. I’ll tell you, it’s one of the advantages of getting old. They leave you alone.”
“LT, you’re not that old.”
Strangeland chuckled again. “Yeah, I was never that young, either. Not as young as you.”
Back at headquarters, Livia tried to concentrate on paperwork. She’d go out again in a bit to call Little. Too soon after getting back from a quick coffee run would present another anomaly.
But she was having trouble focusing. She was too concerned about what Best might be up to. About how much Strangeland seemed to know, and how knowing it was putting the lieutenant in a compromising position.
Most of all, about what the hell Little wanted.
7
Snake hung back at the edge of the Whole Foods parking garage, placing a few food items he’d picked from the trash into a shopping bag as though this was the most important task in the world. The dirty hoodie, jeans, and boots he was wearing were versatile: near a work site, they might say day laborer; in a park or near a trail, they indicated hiker; picking through trash, they could only mean homeless.
Of course, Snake wasn’t relying on just the hood to obscure his features. He never went anywhere without some additional items for disguise—facial hair, prosthetic nose, eyeglasses, you name it. A little makeup like that, a hoodie, a bunch of sweatshirts under a jacket to add thirty pounds, a pebble in your boot to change your gait . . . and your own mother could walk right past you and not even realize it.