All the Devils

by Barry Eisler

  “Why didn’t Kane’s men just kill Sherrie Dobbs themselves?” she said.

  “Like I said, they wanted Snake, too. If he’s going to kill her first, why not let him? Either way, they follow him—”

  And it hit her. “That’s it! Follow him how?”

  He shook his head for a moment, not getting it. Then his eyes widened. “You think—”

  “A transmitter,” she said, firing up the sat phone. “Why not? They were monitoring him with a camera, why wouldn’t they have affixed something to his car, too? They know he’s experienced and dangerous, they wouldn’t want to have to follow too closely. That’s what was bugging me—why just pistols, against a man like Snake? Why not assault rifles and armor-piercing ammunition? After all, Kane can get his people a fucking drone if he wants to. Why go in so light?”

  “They wanted it to be low-key. And they knew they could. Because—”

  “Because they’d be tracking him from a distance—see where he stopped, and when. Pick their moment. How could we not have seen it earlier? They’d be crazy not to use a transmitter. There must be one on his car right now!”

  She got a signal and punched in Kanezaki’s number. Per his habit, he picked up right away. Thank God.

  “Tom, listen, it’s Livia. It’s an emergency. A woman named Sherrie Dobbs has been kidnapped. It’s related to the drone you helped me with. I can’t go into details now because there’s no time, but I’ll tell you everything I know later. All of it. The man who took her is driving a car I’m pretty sure someone affixed a transmitter to. Can you track it? Please.”

  There was a long pause. Please, she thought. Please.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Do you have any idea what kind of transmitter?”

  She closed her eyes, willing away despair. “No.”

  “Do you know when it went live? Or where it was when it did?”

  “I can get you an approximate time when it was placed on the vehicle. And an exact location, and an exact time when the vehicle started moving. Would that be enough?”

  “Maybe,” he said again, and she wanted to scream that she didn’t want maybe, she wanted fucking yes.

  She gave him the information. “Let me see what I can do,” he said.

  Livia closed her eyes again. “You have to find that transmitter, Tom. He’s going to kill her. She’s got a husband, she’s pregnant, and her only crime is that she was raped twenty years ago by a man who doesn’t want anyone to hear about it today.”

  “Boomer Kane?”

  She opened her eyes. “How do you—”

  And then she realized. Fallon was part of Kanezaki’s network.

  “Don’t be mad at him,” he said. “If I’m not in the know, I can’t be very helpful. Think about that, next time you want to hold out on me. Now let me see what I can do about this transmitter.”

  35

  Snake headed east on Route 89, surrounded by nothing but sagebrush and mesas and endless blue sky like he was in the middle of a cowboy movie. But he didn’t give a shit about the scenery. This stretch of road was a choke point, and if the cops made a lucky guess, he might run into a roadblock at the other end of it. Once he made it past Page, they wouldn’t be able to track him, but until then, he was going to be nervous. Nervous, hell, he was mildly freaked out, and if the car hadn’t been equipped with cruise control, he probably would have been speeding. Because what the hell was that back at the hotel parking lot?

  The Asian woman had been a cop, no question. Cop voice, cop commands. With the Kanab police? Possible, but he doubted it. Something about that woman seemed like the big time. When Snake had looked in her eyes, he wasn’t sure if the bitch was going to arrest him, or smile and grease him where he stood. He didn’t think the locals would have been half as confident throwing down on him, though in fairness, the guy outside Sherrie Dobbs’s house had been no cupcake.

  And then, just as Snake had been getting ready to go for the Ruger and shoot it out, someone had yelled for the woman to get down. Lydia? Livia? Snake hadn’t quite caught the name. But a second later, the woman was taking fire from her rear, and then returning it. Snake hadn’t known what the fuck was going on, he just finished stuffing Sherrie Dobbs in the trunk and got the fuck out of Dodge.

  But if the woman was a cop, trying to arrest Snake and save Sherrie Dobbs, and if it was her partner who warned her about the threat from her rear, who were the others? It had been a lot of shooting, more than Snake could keep track of, especially focused as he was on saving his own ass. He thought at least two shooters, though possibly three. They hadn’t been cops, that was for sure. No commands at all, just a straight-up ambush. But who were they there for? And who sent them?

  Well, they’d been shooting at the woman and her partner, but that didn’t mean those two were the primary targets. It seemed more likely that the primary target had been Snake, but then the other two had wandered into the picture.

  Okay, but why Snake? Not to stop him from taking Sherrie Dobbs. The cop in front of her house had been for that. That parking-lot shooting team . . . they’d been waiting for him to show up. But they hadn’t ambushed him there. It was only when the woman cop got there and tried to arrest him that they moved in.

  Meaning they hadn’t wanted him arrested. They’d wanted him to drive off. With Sherrie Dobbs.

  Jesus, his wrist was throbbing. What the hell, did that cop have bionic hands? Snake looked at his shirtsleeve, and was surprised to see it was a little damp. He pushed it back and holy shit, his arm wasn’t just bruised like it had gotten caught in a car door or something, the bruise was actually oozing. The guy had squeezed so hard it was like he’d given Snake an arm hickey. Must have been one of those freaks who sat around all day squeezing a rubber ball or something.

  Anyway. Those three at the hotel were going to follow him. Presumably because they were planning to kill him. Your basic find, fix, and finish operation.

  So who would want him to successfully abduct Sherrie Dobbs, and then kill him after?

  Boomer?

  No. Not after all they’d been through together. All they’d shared. It wasn’t possible.

  You sure about that?

  Well, reasonably sure.

  He ever try to help you out when you were in Leavenworth, on a fall that could as easily have been his, too? On top of which, almost seven years you were in the joint and he was living it up as a congressman. Maybe a senator next. With a rich family and a father who’s the fucking vice president. You don’t think guys have been thrown under the bus by a former friend for a lot less than that?

  Yeah, but if Boomer wanted to kill him after Snake had finished cleaning up Boomer’s three high-school messes, why wouldn’t he do it when they met that night at the Salton Sea? Snake was bringing Sherrie Dobbs right to him. All Boomer would have to do was say, Thanks, brother, and here’s a bullet in the back of your head for your troubles. Row the bodies out on the water, goodbye for good. God knows they’d done exactly that with enough girls when something had gone wrong.

  Too squeamish, Boomer? Couldn’t pull the trigger yourself on your own blood brother?

  Maybe, although “squeamish” was about the last word he’d ever associate with Boomer.

  But no, he was losing sight of something. Someone—maybe Sherrie Dobbs, maybe someone else, maybe both—had understood the Noreen Prentis–Hope Jordan pattern. Figured out Sherrie was on deck. That had to be why that cop had been in front of Dobbs’s house. And it had to be why the Asian woman and her partner had been in town, too.

  And if cops could figure out Sherrie Dobbs was some kind of focal point, why couldn’t someone else?

  Okay, that made sense. But why kill Snake? What had he ever done? He was just cleaning up Boomer’s mess. Who would object to that?

  Unless it was the kind of thing where after the fact someone might look at Snake as a potential liability. A loose thread, so to speak. Which took him back to Boomer.

  He decided he’d be careful about what he to
ld Boomer over the phone. That was good practice anyway, but even beyond communication security, Boomer sure had been upset about the way Snake had done Hope Jordan. So hearing about the cop in front of Sherrie Dobbs’s house and the woman cop and her partner and the three shooters . . . well, it would all just freak Boomer out, wouldn’t it? Maybe so badly he’d even take a rain check on tonight. Which really wouldn’t be fair, after all the trouble Snake was going to in picking up Sherrie and delivering her.

  It occurred to him that Boomer hadn’t said anything about the woman being so pregnant it looked like the baby might drop in the trunk of Snake’s car. He hoped that wouldn’t happen. He had never done it to a pregnant woman before. He wondered what it would be like.

  One thing was for sure. The adult diapers he’d brought for the woman were going to be too small. Well, they had adhesive strips, he could just stick two together. He and Sherrie had a long ride ahead of them. Couldn’t very well have her messing up the trunk.

  He wondered again whether Boomer was in the dark about those shooters. If he’d had anything to do with it, better for Snake to play dumb.

  But damn it, it just didn’t make sense. Boomer knew he could trust him. Snake had done nearly seven years and never said a goddamn word about anything or anyone.

  Boomer’s father?

  The thought just popped into his head. He wasn’t sure why. He started to think, No.

  But . . . the guy was the vice president. You could see how a man like that would want someone to clean up Boomer’s messes . . . and then want that someone cleaned up himself.

  But shit, how would Admiral Kane even know about Snake? They’d never met. And the way Boomer talked about his old man, when he talked about him at all, it sure didn’t sound like they were close. It was hard to imagine Boomer saying, Hey, Dad, ever tell you about my good buddy Snake? Yeah, we share the same hobby, it’s a hoot.

  Well, someone had sent those shooters. And the only realistic reason they could have been there was because they were keyed on Snake and intent on following him.

  Wait a minute. Following how, exactly?

  He felt a rush of fear. And started looking for a place to pull over.

  36

  Livia briefed Little. And then there was nothing to do but wait. And hope.

  “Snake,” she said. “You said he didn’t kill Dobbs at the house because he’s a rapist. Because he wanted her for later.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But what was the plan, then? Disappear her, like Noreen Prentis? Because taking her from her house was never going to be explainable as an ‘ordinary’ crime, like Hope Jordan, even if he’d done it without leaving fingerprints. On top of which, he sees a cop in front of the house and still makes his play? Murders the cop, steals the cop’s cruiser, backs it up into the house, and abducts Sherrie Dobbs . . .”

  She stopped, trying to reason it through. Little watched her, saying nothing.

  And then she realized. That persistent feeling she’d had earlier, that there was something she was missing. Suddenly she could see it. Not all of it. But an opening, at least. A doorway into the dark.

  “It’s not a plan,” she said. “That’s the wrong word. I mean, Snake and Boomer would think of it as a plan, but silencing these women isn’t all that’s motivating them.”

  “Like I said, they’re rapists.”

  “Yes, but what I mean is . . . there are serial rapists I’ve caught because they engage in signature crimes. One guy who always used the same brand of surgical tubing to tie his victims’ wrists. Another who would force his victims into identical humiliating poses and make them say the same words while raping them. Others who kept trophies—car keys, panties, jewelry—even though the trophies were a risk, even though the trophies in fact became key aspects of the prosecutor’s case. And the thing is, rapists know these signatures are a vulnerability. And yet they engage in the behavior anyway. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  Little shook his head. “Like I said. A lot of these people have sick fetishes, even beyond the rape itself. They can’t help themselves. The kink is too much fun, even if it’s dangerous. Or maybe sometimes even because it is dangerous.”

  “Right. Like that song Grace Jordan told me about. ‘Good Times Roll,’ by the Cars.”

  “Boomer’s rape soundtrack.”

  “Exactly. When he was in high school, that was Boomer’s signature. He didn’t just make every one of the girls listen to it. He put it in his yearbook. It was that important to him.”

  “But that was high school. Before he was trained in special operations, renditions, that kind of thing.”

  “Rapists improve their MO, yes. But the signature rarely changes. Like you said, they can’t help themselves.”

  Little took off his glasses and scrubbed a hand over his face. She realized again how tired he looked. And drawn. It occurred to her that in all the time they’d spent together, she’d barely seen him eat.

  She thought of the way Snake had been touching Sherrie Dobbs. Almost as though he was concerned for her. Cared about her. Felt some connection with her.

  “Noreen Prentis, they disappeared,” Livia said. “That fits the pattern. The signature—if the disappearances are a signature.”

  “Agreed.”

  “But not Hope Jordan. Her body was found. Along with her murdered son.”

  “True,” Little said, “but these crimes are different. The primary objective is silencing these women. Snake still wants to have his fun, sure, but that becomes more a parameter.”

  “I think it’s a little more than a parameter, given the way he just abducted Sherrie Dobbs. What he risked to do it.”

  Little shook his head. “I don’t follow.”

  “What about Iraq?” she said. “They weren’t abducting those girls. Or murdering them. There’s no way Snake would have been court-martialed for a sexual offense—and a lesser one, at that—if the crimes had also included kidnapping and murder.”

  Little shrugged. “Crimes of opportunity. In Iraq, they didn’t have to abduct their victims. They could just take them to another room to ‘interrogate’ them while the family is held at gunpoint separately. Poor girls were probably terrified to say anything to anyone afterward, too, out of shame, and fear of retribution.”

  Yes, she thought. She knew that shame well. And the fear. Fred Lone had loved instilling both.

  “But then abduction itself isn’t the kink we’re looking for,” she said. “Because in Iraq, Boomer and Snake were fine without it.”

  Little frowned. “You’re saying—”

  The sat phone buzzed. She pressed the answer key and snapped the phone up to her ear. “Yes.”

  “I have coordinates,” Kanezaki said. “You ready?”

  She felt a flood of relief so strong that for a moment it made her unsteady on her feet. “Get the Arizona Highway Patrol on the phone,” she said to Little. Then to Kanezaki, “Go.”

  “It’s an abandoned mobile-home park on Lake Powell, just over the Utah border in Arizona. Green Haven Estates, Green Haven two words. Bit of slick marketing there, given that the place is apparently derelict and in the middle of the desert.”

  She tried to suppress her excitement and only partially succeeded. She’d been right in thinking Snake would have a place in mind where he could wait out a dragnet. She repeated the information so Little could hear it, then said to Kanezaki, “And the coordinates?”

  Kanezaki gave her the coordinates. She repeated the information again, and Little fed it to the Arizona state dispatcher.

  “What about a satellite?” she said to Kanezaki. “Can you . . . do you have something you can use to see the place in real time?”

  “We have that capability, yes. But I can’t access it without getting asked a lot of questions I’m pretty sure neither of us wants to answer. And regardless, by the time I could get a bird in position, I think you’d already have people on the scene.”

  Okay, it had been a long shot, but worth as
king. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Don’t thank me. Next time, just tell me.”

  “Yeah, I get that.”

  “And if anyone asks how you came up with the location—”

  “I’ll tell them it was a lucky guess. I know you’d deny it regardless. But seriously—thank you.”

  “I hope you get her back. Let me know, okay?”

  She felt tears wanting to come and shook the feeling away. She cleared her throat. “You’re a good man, Tom.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Dox always says. Right after I’ve done something I’ll regret.”

  “You won’t regret this. I’ll keep you posted.” She clicked off.

  Little said, “Arizona Highway Patrol Division just sent units from Page. Should be on the scene in under ten minutes.”

  Livia nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Hang in there, Sherrie, she thought. They’re coming. They’re coming.

  “Tell me again,” Little said. “What we were talking about a minute ago.”

  She tried to get back on track. She was so distracted by the thought of the Arizona troopers taking down Snake and rescuing Sherrie Dobbs that for a moment she couldn’t.

  “I was saying . . . what if we’ve been looking at it backward? We’ve been assuming the disappearances are the point. A signature as much as an MO. But they weren’t the point in Iraq. Because . . .”

  She paused, imagining Sherrie Dobbs again.

  Come on, come on . . .

  “For all these years,” she said, “you’ve been thinking about the men who took Presley, right?”

  He nodded. “Every day.”

  “Even when they were faceless, you fantasized about killing them? Torturing them?”

  He clenched his jaw for a moment. “Every day.”

  “Of course you did. But you see, for some rapists, that’s not an artifact. It’s the whole point. Some serial rapists are also serial murderers, yes. But others don’t kill. Or they kill only rarely. Only when something goes wrong.”