by Barry Eisler
“Fuck you. I have a case against those traffickers. I’m going to have them arrested. And I’ll find a way to have them prosecuted.”
She knew she wasn’t being tactical. She knew she was showing too much. She didn’t care. And she couldn’t have reined it in regardless.
Smith looked down. “Detective Lone.” She seemed to be struggling for words. “Livia.”
“Detective Lone.”
She nodded. “Detective Lone. My understanding . . . there is some exposure here for everyone who participated in this operation.”
“What does that mean?”
“The videos being posted as bona fides themselves could be the basis for prosecution.”
Livia shook her head as though to clear it. She felt buffeted by currents she hadn’t sensed and couldn’t see.
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “You just can’t.”
“Let it go, Detective Lone. Just let it go. Keep doing your good work in all the other ways you do it. There are some fights you just can’t win.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t fight.”
“It does if you want to live to fight another day.”
Livia wanted to stride over and sweep Agent Smith’s ass to the floor. But that would have solved nothing. Beyond which, she recognized on some level that the woman wasn’t threatening her. Not even warning. Advising, if anything. Maybe even trying to signal a sympathy Livia was resisting because being the object of sympathy was abhorrent to her.
She looked down for a moment and took a deep breath. Then another. When she felt calmer, she looked up. “I’d like to speak with your superior. Whoever made the decision to pull the plug. Or I could have my lieutenant make the call, if she would be the right pay grade. Hell, if you prefer, we’ll get Seattle’s chief of police on the phone.”
Agent Smith shook her head. “You can have anyone call anyone at the Bureau. I’m just telling you, you’ll be wasting your time. Or worse.” She inclined her head toward Trahan. “Terry and I have to be back in Washington ASAP. We’re leaving on a red-eye. Tonight.”
Trahan looked at Livia and shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Livia.”
Livia stared at both of them, knowing she’d lost but determined to make this just a round, not the fight.
She picked up the laptop. Fuck them. If they wanted to prosecute her, let them try.
“You’re both cowards,” she said, and walked out.
chapter
seven
RAIN
Larison wasn’t able to shed much light on the identity of my mystery caller. “Hort knows everyone,” he told me. “You know that. You thought the guy was a former officer of some type? Colonel or higher? Well, that narrows it down to about a hundred and seventy possibilities. You want more, you’re going to have to ask Hort.”
“I already did.”
“Well, maybe you didn’t ask him the right way.”
I’d seen Larison in action. No one would ever want to be on the wrong end of what he considered the right way.
“Here’s the question,” I said. “Why is Horton protecting this guy?”
“No. The question is, Who is Hort more afraid of? This guy? Or us?”
“Oh, it’s ‘us’ now?”
“Up to you. I told you after what you did for me I’d have your back. You think I say that kind of thing lightly?”
All I’d done was show him trust when the smart thing would have been to kill him. Still, having once been on the other end of that equation—with Dox—I knew it could be mind blowing.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think that.”
“Then say the word and we’ll pay Hort a visit. Make sure he’s got the right fear priorities.”
chapter
eight
LIVIA
Livia headed from the loft to Lake Union Park and strode along the water, her footfalls reverberating against the wooden planks of the walkway. The rain had stopped, but the sky was still gray, the air cold and wet, and the park nearly empty.
She was seething, and she knew that until she got past it she wouldn’t be able to think tactically. The worst part was, so much of it was her fault. She should have been clearer in telling Trahan to keep quiet about the Secret Service angle until she and he had learned more. Maybe he would have gone around her anyway, but at least she wouldn’t have been left with the feeling that the shutdown was her fault.
And Smith’s threat—that if Livia didn’t stand down, she herself might face prosecution—was making her positively apoplectic. Not just because of the insane injustice of it. But because she hadn’t seen it coming. Sure, the woman seemed to take no joy in what she’d said. But someone had foreseen how Livia might resist, and had prepared a counter accordingly. If this were a judo match, Livia would already be down by points and fighting off her back. All because of an entry she hadn’t anticipated and a throw she hadn’t blocked.
She paused to tighten her ponytail against the wind, then started walking again, needing to burn off the rage. A flock of pigeons took flight as she approached, alighting on the grass to her right. For a moment she thought of Nason, who she had called “little bird” when they were girls because of Nason’s uncanny ability to imitate the songs of forest birds. She had gotten better at disconnecting those sorts of thoughts from an immediate emotional response, but this morning the echo of little bird in her mind produced a strong surge of guilt and grief, and she had to work for a moment to push it away.
What she needed was information. Insight into who was really behind the shutdown of the Child’s Play operation, and why. She didn’t know anyone at the Bureau well enough to reach out. But maybe . . . maybe B. D. Little at Homeland Security Investigations could help. Especially with the Secret Service angle, because since 2003, the Secret Service had been part of Homeland Security.
She didn’t trust him. He’d used her in Thailand, dangling a chance for her to go after the men who had trafficked and assaulted her and Nason. And then telling her afterward that he knew she had killed every one of them—the traffickers and the US senator the traffickers had been working with. But he understood. He had his own tragedy. A teenage daughter. He’d shown Livia a faded photo of a beautiful black girl—a radiant smile, arms tight around her beaming father’s neck—abducted and disappeared a decade earlier. He had as much motivation as Livia to eliminate predators, he’d claimed. Whatever it took. All he wanted was a partner.
A lot of what he knew he wouldn’t be able to prove. And he’d assured her he would never pressure her. But circumstances changed. Just like people.
She kept walking, the cold and the exertion slowly clearing her head. She came to a collection of wooden houseboats swaying and creaking in their moorings, and walked faster. She didn’t like boats. Or ports. Or cargo containers, even the ones safely across the river from her loft in Georgetown. Nearly two decades later, the smell of curry still made her sick. She’d taken all the psych courses in college and knew about stimulus generalization. But understanding the phenomenon scarcely lessened its impact.
It would be safer not to contact Little, no doubt. But now she had five monsters in her sights. She could protect herself, or she could protect the children those monsters would continue to prey on if they weren’t taken down.
When she felt sufficiently calm, she stopped. The walk had warmed her, and she unzipped the collar of her fleece. The cold air was bracing on the skin of her throat. She looked out across the lake. The rusted relics of Gas Works Park were just visible on the northern shore. Behind her, she could hear the dull cacophony of construction at a half dozen South Lake Union building sites. A cluster of ducklings approached on the water to her left, their mother glancing at Livia and then leading the small ones farther into the lake, away from Livia.
She sighed and took out her cellphone. One ring. Then the friendly baritone: “Livia Lone. You must have felt me thinking of you.”
Little liked games, and she’d been expecting his voicemail, or at least a delay. He really
must have been hoping to hear from her.
“I need your help,” she said. “But I’m not going to promise anything in return.”
There was a pause. She knew how pleased he must have been that she needed him, and she hated it.
“All right,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t ask. Fair enough?”
Fair enough. Cops used the phrase all the time on gullible suspects. Just help me out here, so I can make a good impression for you with the prosecutor, fair enough?
She hoped she wasn’t being the gullible one now.
She told him about the Child’s Play op. The Secret Service angle. The shutdown. All of it.
“Ass-covering assholes,” he said when she was done. His outrage seemed genuine. But of course he knew what she’d want to hear.
“Can you find out where the pressure is coming from?” she asked.
“Maybe. But, much as I’d like to think otherwise, I doubt I have nearly enough juice to restart your operation. The Bureau doesn’t take kindly to interference from DHS.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to know who at the Secret Service is part of a child-torture pornography ring. Who at DHS or the Bureau or both is protecting them. And why.”
“What are you going to do with that kind of information?”
She’d expected him to press. Fine, let him. “Get me the information, and we’ll discuss it.”
“That’s my girl.”
“I am not your fucking girl.”
“Look, it’s just a figure of—”
“Forget it. Forget I asked. This is stupid.”
She clicked off. Then stood there in agony, waiting for him to call back, fearing she’d miscalculated, sensing that she hadn’t been calculating at all, that she’d just reacted viscerally to the notion of someone being in control of her. She was horrified that she could default so quickly to protecting herself and forgetting, even if only momentarily, the other stakes.
Call back, she thought, staring at the phone, hating how much she needed him. Call back.
A minute went by. Another.
The phone buzzed. Little. She let out a huge sigh of relief and forced herself to let it buzz a second time. A third.
She clicked “Answer” and held the phone to her ear, saying nothing.
“I didn’t mean it the way you took it,” he said. “I just meant I’m glad we’re working together. We want the same thing, you know that.”
She realized how lucky she’d been. If he hadn’t blinked first, she would have had to go crawling back, with even less leverage than she’d initially surrendered by reaching out to him. As it was, though, she’d demonstrated that she was willing to walk away.
“I’m not doing this for you,” she said. “I’m doing it despite you.”
“I’m just glad you’re doing it.”
I’ll bet you are, she thought.
“Find out what I’m up against,” she said. “And we’ll go from there.”
She retrieved her Jeep from the lot where she’d parked it and drove back to headquarters, wondering what to tell her lieutenant, Donna Strangeland, about the Child’s Play operation shutdown. A Brooklyn transplant with a regional accent wildly incongruous in Seattle, Strangeland was a good cop, a straight shooter, and as much of a friend as Livia could reasonably expect from someone she reported to. Even so, this situation was fraught enough to make Livia want to go slowly, to see what she could learn from Little before looping in the lieutenant.
But no, she would have to tell Strangeland eventually, and it would look odd if she waited. In fact, Strangeland, who had an uncanny knack for knowing everything, would probably have learned already—whether directly from Agent Smith or otherwise. Besides, whoever was behind the shutdown knew Livia was going to react. It was why Smith had come prepared with her warning, or whatever it had been. If Livia didn’t tell Strangeland, someone might wonder whether she was up to something else. Better to make it look like she was complaining through channels as expected.
She parked in the underground garage and took the stairs to the sixth floor. She didn’t like enclosed spaces, and besides, eschewing the elevator meant an automatic half mile or so of stair walking every day. It was a good supplement to her formal workouts.
Strangeland was at her desk, a lieutenant-level pile of paperwork in front of her. The door was open, as was Strangeland’s custom. She looked up over her reading glasses when she saw Livia standing in the doorway.
Livia cracked a knuckle. “You got a minute?”
Strangeland leaned back, pulled off the glasses, and motioned to the seat on the other side of the desk. One of the things Livia had learned from the lieutenant was the power of silence. Even when you knew the technique, it could make you want to talk.
Livia closed the door and sat. “The Child’s Play operation. It got shut down.”
Strangeland looked at her for a long beat, and Livia knew this was the first she’d heard.
“What do you mean?”
Livia told her everything—other than her call to Little. Strangeland didn’t trust Little—partly because she didn’t want to lose Livia to the Feds, and partly because she just had good instincts—and for the moment, Livia saw no upside to letting her know they were back in touch.
Strangeland listened intently, as she always did, sometimes grunting or nodding in encouragement, occasionally requesting an additional fact or a clarification. So much of being a good interrogator was just knowing how to actively listen to someone, and Strangeland was among the best.
When Livia was done, Strangeland glanced off to the side and drummed her fingers together for a moment. Then she looked at Livia again. “It is beyond fucked up that I’m hearing this from you, and not direct from the Bureau. Or down from the chief.”
“What do you think it means?”
“That someone didn’t want us to know the operation was being shut down until after it was an accomplished fact.”
“And what do you think that means?”
Strangeland gave her a tight smile, maybe in recognition that Livia was using open-ended questions and subtly appealing to Strangeland’s ego—techniques she had learned from the lieutenant herself.
“My guess?” she said. “This is coming from way above our pay grades. Director of the Bureau, maybe. Or the Justice Department. Or Homeland Security, which would certainly want to protect the Secret Service. Especially after all the scandals over there, it would be natural for someone to decide they couldn’t afford another.”
“Scandals?”
“Yeah, a few years ago. Multiple revelations about strippers and sex workers and the president’s security detail, a couple drunk agents driving their vehicle into a White House barrier . . . then some of the higher-ups got caught trying to undercut the congressman investigating, by leaking information about him to the press. And then another prostitute thing and the vice president’s detail. So yeah, pretty easy to imagine someone over there deciding the organization couldn’t afford another black eye.”
“I didn’t know about that.”
Strangeland smiled. “Because it didn’t involve kids. But now maybe it does. Anyway, whatever channels the shutdown order went through, they were all too scared to do anything other than click their heels. Otherwise, someone would have called me, even if just to ask what the hell was going on. The Feds sometimes treat us like we’re peons, okay. But a fait accompli shutdown . . . that’s a lot.”
“What do we do?”
“Probably get ready to eat a shit sandwich. But let me make a few phone calls. See if I can get some sense of what this is all about, beyond the obvious. Any progress on our park rapist?”
Livia told her about the lead in Connecticut, her developing sense of what they were dealing with, her belief that the man liked to operate in the rain.
“If that’s so,” Strangeland said, “we’re going to have a real problem in Seattle.”
“The rain se
ems necessary, but not sufficient. I don’t have enough data yet to be sure, but it looks like he doesn’t go hunting more than once a week. He likes to lie low in between.”
“A careful man.”
“Apparently.”
Strangeland nodded. “Well, the psychos can be careful, too. Unfortunate combination, though. But you’ll get him, Livia. If anyone can, it’s you.”
Coming from someone else, it would have been flattery. From the lieutenant, it meant something.
“Thanks, LT.”
“On this other thing, I’ll let you know what I learn.”
Livia got up to go.
“Oh,” Strangeland said. “If you have any contacts of your own, you might want to reach out. These people aren’t confining themselves to proper channels. I don’t see why we need to, either.”
Livia nodded, uneasy. Did Strangeland know she’d already reached out to Little, or recognize that she would? Was this her oblique way of telling Livia she’d better not keep things to herself?
As always, the lieutenant’s nearly psychic intuition both impressed Livia . . . and concerned her. The trail of rapists Livia had killed was geographically disparate, her preparations were always methodical, and her methods were informed by her knowledge of forensics and detective work. But still, she knew that a lot of what protected her was what people like Trahan called “security through obscurity”—security that was the result of nobody looking.
If that changed—if someone ever noticed a commonality among those dead rapists—it would be bad. And if the person who noticed had the kind of cop intuition of Lieutenant Strangeland, it could be catastrophic.
Not for the first time, she wondered whether she should try to find a way to tame the dragon inside her. To accept that some rapists would always plead down, or draw an incompetent prosecutor, or otherwise get lucky and avoid justice for what they had done.
And not for the first time, she didn’t think she could.
chapter
nine
LIVIA
Livia spent the rest of the day at her cubicle, querying databases, making phone calls—and finding no new leads on the park rapist.