The Killer Collective

by Barry Eisler

  She reached over and squeezed his knee—a major display of affection for her, he knew—while keeping her eyes on the road. “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “I told you, I’m fine. What about you? You went to your loft?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any problems?”

  “No problems. Whatever problems there were, you already took care of them.”

  Seeing that she was safe, he was suddenly angry at her. “Well, you were lucky, then. What the hell do you need that was so important that you risked walking into an ambush for it?”

  She glanced at him and frowned. “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what? How do you think I was feeling, hiding in the underbrush after you hung up on me, imagining you walking into who knows what?”

  “Probably the way I was feeling when I didn’t hear from you, and was picking up reports of shots fired.”

  That set him back, though not in a bad way. “Is that your way of telling me you care?”

  She glanced at him again, and he couldn’t tell if she was pissed, or trying not to smile. Maybe both.

  “Anyway,” he said. “If that old philosopher hadn’t distracted me, I would have been beside myself.”

  “What old philosopher?”

  “Ah, never mind.”

  “Did someone see you?”

  “Hell yes, someone saw me. The eponymous Bob of Bob’s Automotive Repair and I are practically friends now. Plus a bunch of workmen who watched me strolling by before that. And oh, of course, the old philosopher I got to chatting with while I was waiting for you just now.”

  She nodded. “That’s why you couldn’t go to my loft. It’s one thing for the police to have a description. It’s another to have video to show witnesses.”

  He considered. Ordinarily, he’d be all over that kind of thing, wouldn’t even have to give it a thought. He realized, not for the first time, that concern for her was making him forget himself. He had to watch that. He wouldn’t be much use to her if he were dead. Though the thought that she might miss him did give him a warm feeling.

  “You’re right,” he said. “But shit, are those bodies I left going to be a problem for you? I mean, under the circumstances, it’s obvious it had something to do with you, right? Two dead guys, a sniper rifle, line of sight across the river to your domicile. Shit, I hadn’t thought of it until just now, but aren’t you going to be some kind of suspect?”

  “When the shots were fired, I was in a place called the Hangar Café, less than a mile from my loft. I’m there all the time and know the owner, Justin. I used a credit card. And I’m now logged and time-stamped five minutes later by the cameras around my building. I couldn’t have had anything to do with the shooting. At least not directly.”

  He smiled. “You thought all this through in advance, didn’t you?”

  She glanced at him. “What do you think?”

  “I hope that didn’t come across as condescending. I meant it as sincere admiration.”

  “Just being careful. But you’re right, Seattle PD is going to make those bodies as part of whoever’s trying to assassinate me.”

  “Is that good or bad?”

  “I’m not sure. Good, I guess, because right now I’m being investigated as part of an officer-involved, and at this point it’s going to be pretty unequivocal that it was clean self-defense. But bad because . . . I just don’t want this attention.”

  “You know, most of your major police-detective types might have said ‘Bad, because it means for sure some capable people are intent on killing me.’”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  He didn’t press, but he’d only been half joking. It was odd that she was concerned more about attention than about being killed.

  “Anyway,” he said after a moment, “I hope what you got from your place was worth all the gray hairs you caused me.”

  She nodded. “It was.”

  “Would it be overly intrusive of me to inquire as to what might be more important than my generally youthful hair color?”

  “The laptop I was using in connection with the Child’s Play investigation. And a case. A serial rapist from out of town. He works parks. Twice in Seattle in the last few weeks, and another one is coming. Probably next time it rains. There’s a pattern, and I’m close to figuring out a way to preempt him. My notes were in the loft.”

  Part of him wanted to say, You went back there. You risked your life. For some notes.

  But on the other hand, it fit everything he knew about her. Everything he sensed, anyway. And everything he admired.

  So instead he just said, “You know if I can, it would be my pleasure to help with that.”

  She glanced at him again, nodded once, then looked back to the road. He had the sense she was suddenly fighting tears. It was one of the things that moved him so much about her. She was one of the toughest women—one of the toughest people—he’d ever known. But she felt things so deeply, too, and it was a lot closer to the surface than he thought most people would realize.

  “Okay,” he said. “You ready to go on a trip?”

  She glanced at him and gave him a small smile. “Where are we heading?”

  “Well, the friend I told you about—John Rain’s his name, by the way, though he prefers it not to be mentioned even in encrypted phone calls, he’s paranoid that way—he’s currently in the DC area. Along with some friends I think you ought to meet. Plus Kanezaki’s out there, too, and he’s ready to help. All in all, I can’t think of a safer group for you to be with.”

  He hoped it was true. He wanted to believe it was. But as good as he knew John and he and all the rest were, they didn’t have the resources to bring down planes or send helicopter gunships or move trained snipers around on the board like they were no more than pawns. Dox had been through some shit before, some hellacious shit, in fact, but this felt worse to him. Maybe because of what OGE was capable of. Maybe because this time, the target wasn’t him.

  Well, whatever they were capable of, he hoped it was worth dying for. Because he was going to kill a whole lot of people before he let anything happen to Labee.

  chapter

  twenty-six

  RAIN

  The night after the three of us had braced Treven, there were two slow knocks on our motel-room door, followed by three fast ones. Horton and Larison took up positions behind the double beds, guns drawn. I had the slightly less enviable task of standing alongside the door. “Who is it?” I called out.

  “Who the hell do you think it is?” came the unmistakable Texas twang. “You tell someone else to stop by at midnight and knock like that?”

  I turned and glanced at Horton and Larison. They both nodded.

  I opened the door and there he was, holding a cardboard box and wearing a big grin, a wary-looking midthirties Asian woman beside him.

  The woman keyed instantly on Horton and Larison and the guns. She tensed.

  “It’s all right,” Dox said. “These are my friends. They’re being careful, same as we would. They’re just less charming, that’s all.”

  They came in and I closed and locked the door behind them. Horton and Larison stood and lowered the guns.

  “Well, John Rain,” Dox said, still grinning. He set down the box and straightened. “Come on, bring it here.”

  He gave me one of his bear hugs, which I’d become accustomed to but which I didn’t think I’d ever enjoy quite the way he did.

  “And Larison,” he said, walking over. “I won’t lie to you, back in the day I never thought I’d say this, but it sure is fine to see you.”

  Larison got a hug, too, and even hugged back, albeit patting Dox awkwardly and saying, “All right, all right,” when it had gone on too long.

  “And Colonel,” Dox said, shaking Horton’s hand. “Lot of water under the bridge. Glad to find us standing on the same side of the stream for a change, if I may indulge an extended metaphor.”

  “It’s a pleasure to see you, son,” Horton said. “As f
ar as I’m concerned, that water’s all behind us now.”

  “That’s gracious of you to say, sir, given everything that happened.”

  Horton nodded. “Why don’t we just call it the Late Unpleasantness, and focus on the future instead? Life is short. Let’s find a way to make it longer.”

  “Amen to that,” Dox said. He gestured to the woman. “Everyone, this is my friend Livia Lone. Livia, this is John Rain, Daniel Larison, and Colonel Scott Horton, retired. Not that you’d know it.” He gestured to each of us in sync with the introductions. “The kind of people you want on your side when you’ve gotten on the wrong side of someone else. And gentlemen, I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you, because I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t true, that the same applies to Livia.”

  There was a round of handshakes and pleasantries, all feeling hesitant, watchful, wary.

  “Okay,” Dox said. “Livia and I brought in some wings and a couple six-packs of Dos Equis from a restaurant up the road. Figured y’all might not be getting out much and could use the grub. Hey, what is this place, anyway? The woman at the front desk told me it’s a lake to cool a nuclear reactor—say what?”

  Horton, who had suggested we meet here, filled him in. The place was called Lake Anna Lodge, located on the lake for which it was named. Apparently in 1972, the government built a dam on the North Anna River to create a reservoir to cool the nuclear reactors it was planning for the area. A few small towns grew up around the eastern shore, which was open to the public for swimming, boating, and fishing. The public side became known as the “cold side” because the private “hot side” was warmed by the reactors the water circulated to cool. And because the fish preferred the warmer waters, authorized users of the private side got the better fishing grounds.

  It interested me that Horton knew so much of the local history and lore. It was obvious he loved the area. And it was obvious, too, that he sensed the feeling was somehow reciprocated. I wondered what that would be like. The closest I could imagine was Tokyo. But that love had never been requited.

  “Hmm,” Dox said. “Better fishing for the fancy folks? There’s a metaphor in there, I think.” He pulled a six-pack from the cardboard box. Horton and Larison each took a beer. Livia declined. So did I.

  “Too tired?” Dox said to me after draining half of his. “What have y’all been doing, sleeping in shifts?”

  “Of course,” I said. In fact, because we were all still wired from the attack at Horton’s place, and probably even now not quite trustful enough of each other to do more than doze off in the same room, I doubted either Horton or Larison had slept any better than I had, shift or no.

  “All right, don’t worry, Livia and I will be doing the same. And she waited out back while I paid for a room. Yes, in cash.” He turned to Livia. “John’s paranoid and a micromanager besides. It saves time if I can preempt his inquiries. Hey, hope y’all did the same, with just one of you checking in and going out for supplies.”

  “That would be me,” Larison said.

  Since Horton was black and I was mixed Asian, Larison would be the least noticeable among us, and was therefore our designated public face.

  “Ah,” Dox said, “that explains how you wound up with this quiet room around back, facing the woods and not the road. I did the same.”

  “What are you driving?” I said, so I’d know which cars in the lot were ours and which might be a problem.

  He grinned. “Had a feeling you might ask. We rented a passenger van in case we need room for all of us. Red Nissan, parked nose-out at the end of the lot. Good to go?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s get caught up on what seems to be our mutual problem—Oliver Graham and OGE. Then I need to pass out for a while. I left paradise a day and a half ago, killed two men in Seattle today, and have had nothing but a little airplane sleep before or since.”

  Even for Dox, this was a lot of chatter. I wondered if he was doing it to make Livia more comfortable. She was notably quiet. But not out of nervousness, I sensed—more some sort of native reserve. There was something about her that seemed at home with silence, with watching and listening rather than performing and talking. I wondered how she and Dox could get along, and then I smiled, because I supposed the same might have been asked of him and me.

  Over wings and beer for the other three and water for Livia and me, we briefed each other on everything. Unfortunately, at the end of it, we still didn’t know much more than we had at the outset. OGE was protecting something, most likely some sort of child-pornography ring at the Secret Service. It also seemed likely that OGE was operating on behalf of someone else—maybe the Secret Service, maybe Homeland Security, maybe the FBI, maybe some combination. While of course, at this point, being motivated also to conceal their own involvement. The resources they had expended in trying to silence anyone who knew about the ring or OGE’s part in the cover-up suggested a high degree of motivation, and a low probability that attrition alone would get Graham to stand down.

  Livia told us she was waiting to hear from a source within Homeland Security Investigations who she trusted at least enough for intel. The last time she’d spoken to him was before leaving Seattle, when she briefed him about Graham and the snipers. He told her he was looking into something. That was good, because so far we hadn’t gotten anything from Kanezaki. And though Horton was convinced Treven was going to come around, I thought he was being excessively optimistic.

  “My cellphone’s off and in a Faraday case,” Livia said, “so I don’t know if my contact has been trying to reach me.” She looked at Dox. “What about your satellite phone?”

  Dox looked at me, anticipating the objection. “It’s scrambled,” he said. “Encrypted. Graham can throw a helicopter at us, yeah, but he doesn’t have a damn AWACS plane, okay? And driving fifty miles to find a fast-food place with a Wi-Fi connection has its own risks, at this point chiefly that I’ll fall asleep at the wheel. Things could be moving fast, and we need intel. Let’s get it.”

  I’d learned a long time ago working with Dox that there were times in a partnership when you had to give a little. It seemed like this was one of those times. I nodded.

  “Shit, don’t look so glum,” Dox said. He handed the phone to Livia, who walked over to the window to get a signal.

  “We’ve been lucky so far,” Dox went on. “Livia getting ambushed at her self-defense place, that helicopter attack at the colonel’s house, and the sniper team I outflanked in Seattle. But Graham’s got more resources than we do, and sooner or later, one of these attacks is going to get through. We need good intel, and you know it.”

  “I’m not arguing,” I said.

  “You were arguing with your eyes.”

  “I’m allowed to argue with my eyes.”

  He laughed. “I guess that’s true. And when Livia’s through, one of us should ping our intel friend, K. Not just to see if there’s any new intel. Livia’s got her duty weapon and I see some others have managed not to leave home without, but I myself am feeling distinctly underdressed at the moment without a proper firearm. K. won’t be happy about it, ’cause I had to toss the one he got for me in Seattle before flying out here. But I’ll find a way to make it up to him.”

  Horton said, “I should check my voicemail. I think you’re all wrong about Ben. He’s struggling with his conscience, like he always has. But he’ll get it right.”

  Larison said, “I doubt it.”

  “You better hope you’re wrong,” Horton said. “Because we need all the help we can get.”

  chapter

  twenty-seven

  LIVIA

  Hey,” Livia said as soon as Little picked up. “It’s me.”

  “Livia. Damn it, I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  It sounded like something was wrong. She pressed the phone tighter to her ear and pushed back a ripple of anxiety. “I’ve been traveling. Is everything all right?”

  “I know you’ve been traveling. You
flew from Seattle to Washington Dulles.”

  The ripple turned into a small wave. She glanced at the men. They were all listening intently—Rain in particular.

  “How do you know that?”

  “ICE records. Which anyone at Homeland Security can instantly access. What are you doing out here?”

  “Following leads.”

  “Never going to trust me, are you?”

  “No more than I have to.”

  There was a pause, and she sensed he was tamping down his frustration with her. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  “I suppose it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I have information for you. Where can we meet?”

  “Better over the phone.”

  She noticed Rain was looking at her closely. The man was obviously agitated by the idea that her contact had proposed meeting in person.

  “Forgive me, Livia, I’ve about had it with your bullshit. I’ve gone out on a major limb for you, I’ve uncovered information critical to what you’re up against, and I’m done with you disrespecting me and calling all the shots. And think hard about hanging up on me again, because this time I will not be calling back.”

  Shit. On the one hand, she didn’t think meeting him would be a problem. But she knew it would be for Rain, and maybe for the others. And regardless, she hated that Little had taken her measure and was calling her bluff. Hated feeling he was in control of her.

  “I’ll call you back in five minutes,” she said.

  “Fine.”

  She clicked off, trying to find some satisfaction in not having capitulated, and in his acquiescence to her refusal to give him an immediate response.

  But it was just a salve. She knew he had won. She tried to focus on the substance, which was his assurance that he had valuable information.

  She looked at Rain, knowing he would be the one with the strongest objections. “He says he has information,” she said. “I have to meet him.”