The Killer Collective

by Barry Eisler

  But Rain didn’t respond. Carl did. He said, “Why would that be necessary? I told you, the phone’s encrypted. Anything he can say in person, he can say over the phone.”

  “There’s no time to get into my whole history with him right now. His information has always been solid before. I trust him enough to meet him.”

  “All right,” Carl said. “It’s your call. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to be there with you. Can’t hurt to have someone watching your back.”

  Even as tense as she was, she couldn’t help appreciating how carefully he’d phrased it. She didn’t know if it was conscious or if he just had great intuition, but Carl knew not to tell her what she needed to do, and when he screwed up he always found an instant way to fix it. And maybe on some level his approach was manipulative, but what mattered most was the way it made her feel. Like he understood her, without ever having to be heavy-handed about it.

  Rain shook his head. “I don’t like meetings generally. I especially don’t like ones that are unnecessary and proposed by someone else.”

  “No one else has to come,” Livia said. “I’ll hear what he has to say and share it with all of you. But whether I meet with him isn’t up to you. It’s not a negotiation.”

  Rain raised his eyebrows, apparently a little taken aback. That was fine. So many men had a way of just assuming they were in charge. She’d learned the most efficient way to disabuse them was clearly and up front.

  Rain started to respond, but Carl cut him off. “Hang on, everyone, hang on. Let’s not start throwing down and fucking up our teamwork before it even gets started. We all have the same problem and the same objectives. But being different people, we’ll occasionally differ on tactics. That’s not a bad thing—it’s good. It means we can put our heads together, pressure check each other’s ideas, and do things smarter together than we could alone.”

  Larison was looking at Carl and smiling, and Livia had the sense he’d seen Carl smooth over some rough patches before—and that he appreciated it, or was amused by it, or both.

  Carl looked at Livia. “Now, Livia says she trusts her contact’s intel and his intentions. And because she’s the only one in a position to say, it’s only logical that we would trust her judgment on that. But at the same time, Livia, there’s no reason for you not to go into this meeting in a way that’s calculated to mitigate whatever risks might be in play. Does that make sense?”

  She didn’t like it—she knew all about creating a framework that sounded reasonable to a suspect but that was in fact designed to box him in. But she didn’t see a way to argue with Carl’s proposal, so she gave him a reluctant nod.

  Carl turned to Rain. “And John, I don’t know anyone better than you at setting up a meeting in such a way that the good guys walk away from it as healthy as when they went in. Can you help with that?”

  Rain gave a nod that looked as reluctant as Livia’s felt.

  Carl looked at Horton. “And Colonel, you seem to have a lot of expertise about the local terrain. Maybe you could suggest a venue we could control, maybe where John and the inimitable Mr. Larison could set up countersurveillance, that kind of thing?”

  Horton smiled, obviously recognizing what Carl was up to. “The Lake Anna State Park right here would be ideal. There’s an overflow parking lot at the trailhead. And a campground a half mile up the trail. This time of year, in the middle of the week, it’ll all be empty.” He looked at Rain with an Over to you expression.

  Rain looked at Horton, then at Carl, and Livia had the sense that he was exasperated but didn’t see a way out. A control freak? Maybe. Well, it took one to know one.

  “All right,” Rain said after a moment. “Livia, if you tell your contact to meet you at the campground, Larison and I could position ourselves at the trailhead. See when he arrives and whether anyone follows him in.”

  Carl smiled. “Say, that’s a good idea.”

  Rain shot him a look. “Don’t gild the lily.”

  Carl’s smile broadened. “It’s not that. It’s just that I love it when a plan comes together.”

  “Here’s what you tell him,” Horton said. “The meeting will be in the parking lot at Cooper Vineyards at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, two hours before they open. Town of Louisa, Virginia. When he gets there, you can call again and give him the actual location, which will be the state park twenty minutes away. He’ll enter the park and follow Cabin Road to the overflow lot. At which point, he gets out and follows Fisherman’s Trail. It’s all well marked. And the area is heavily forested. Plenty of places for John and Daniel to set up along the route early. Dox and I can accompany you to the meeting itself.”

  “There’s one more thing,” Livia said. “Carl, my contact said he knew I’d flown to DC because of ICE records. Which means he could track you, too. Last-minute ticket, that kind of thing. It could put us together.”

  Larison said, “Carl?”

  Carl looked at him, then at the others. “No one else gets to call me that.”

  Livia couldn’t tell if he was joking or not. And no one else asked.

  “Anyway,” Carl said after a moment, “I’m currently traveling with ersatz identification, courtesy of Christians In Action. And yeah, for someone clever enough and with enough to go on, that layer could be breached, too. But I don’t care. I’m wanted for plenty of nefarious things by even more nefarious people. Being a known associate of yours would be the least of my offenses. And as for you, if anyone ever asks, you can just deny that you know me. You sure wouldn’t be the first.”

  That was a relief. Though she hoped she hadn’t screwed up, calling him Carl in front of the others. She realized she should have picked up on how he had switched to Livia when they were no longer alone.

  She called Little and told him the plan. She was expecting some pushback, or at least a comment about her paranoia, but there was none. Apparently he hadn’t been completely confident she was going to give in, and had no desire to push things any further than he already had.

  “One more call,” Livia said when they were done. “My lieutenant. She told me to get out of town, but those men Carl took care of outside my apartment . . . I need to know what’s going on. And just to let her know I’m okay.”

  She called Strangeland. As soon as the lieutenant heard her voice, she said, “Jesus, Livia, where are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. I got out of town, like you said.”

  “There were two shooters across the river from your loft this morning. Snipers, from the look of the scene. Both shot to death. Livia, please. If you had something to do with this, tell me. Someone is obviously after you in connection with this Child’s Play thing, and it’ll look like another case of clear self-defense. But not if you run from it. You have to come clean.”

  “LT, I was on my way out of town when I heard the reports about shots fired. But I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Please tell me you can prove that.”

  “I was at the Hangar Café, talking to Justin, the owner. I paid with a credit card. I went to my loft from there to pick up a few things. A half dozen workers in the building saw me there. And there are cameras, too. And then I drove to the airport. I had my phone with me, so all this would be further corroborated by cellphone-tower records. If the shots I heard about are the ones that happened across the river, it would have been impossible for me to be there. So yes, I can prove I wasn’t involved.”

  There was a long pause. “Let me tell you a couple things, Livia. First, that much proof—multiple eyewits, credit-card receipts, surveillance-camera footage, cellphone data—might strike some people as so good it had to be planned. Second, next time someone brings this up—someone like Detective Phelps or Chief Best—you should act a little more surprised and concerned. You know, along the lines of ‘What? Snipers across the river from my loft, shot to death? Good God.’ That kind of thing.”

  Livia didn’t answer. She realized that with everything else going on, she had focused too m
uch on the proof and not enough on the performance.

  “That said,” Strangeland continued, “I’m glad you’re all right. I’m not even going to ask you where you are. In fact, it’s probably better if I don’t know.”

  Livia smiled, relieved. “Any news from Phelps?”

  “Some. He was noncommittal about slowing down his investigation, but I think he’s okay with it. The theory now is that there was a third party at the martial-arts academy—a driver, because all the vehicles we checked in the neighborhood have been accounted for.”

  Livia had wondered about that. If the attackers had driven their own car, it would have been left somewhere nearby, maybe with evidence inside it.

  “Bad luck,” Livia said.

  “Yeah. The good news is, video from the parking lot corroborates your story.”

  At this point, the officer-involved aspects of what she was up against felt remote. Still, Strangeland was right. It was good news.

  “As for DNA matches,” Strangeland went on, “the DOD database came up empty. But that doesn’t prove anything, because military personnel can request destruction of their samples upon leaving the service. Here’s something that feels relevant, though. We’re getting all kinds of static from the Bureau about access to the IAFIS. Usually we’re able to cut a few paperwork corners there for a priority case. Not this time. This time, they’re making us dot every i and cross every t.”

  The IAFIS was the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, a huge database of criminal and civil prints maintained by the Bureau.

  Livia considered. “So the likely inference—”

  “Is that your attackers are in the system. And the Bureau knows it. And the Bureau doesn’t want us to know. Which suggests that whoever else might be involved in trying to suppress this Child’s Play thing, the Bureau is part of it.”

  “Well, that’s reassuring.”

  “Yeah, I’m having trouble processing it, too. We’ve got detectives working the South Park snipers now, and my guess is there’s no car there, either, and that they’re going to run up against the same bureaucratic nonsense from the Bureau. But you never know. Maybe we’ll get lucky on the DOD database—people leave the military all the time and don’t bother or forget to request destruction of their samples. Or they request it, and the DOD never gets around to it, or loses the paperwork, or whatever. What about you, any progress on your end?”

  From the careful way the lieutenant was phrasing it, Livia again sensed she might be concerned about what she said over the phone. Maybe they were all getting paranoid. Well, not without reason.

  “I think so,” Livia said. “I’ll know more tomorrow morning. Can you cover for me a little while longer?”

  “Well, you’re still on administrative leave. Phelps is going to want to interview you about those dead snipers, but I can get him to focus on the physical evidence for now. And the chief . . . I think she’ll give you a little time, too. I mean, two runs at you at known locations is two too many. I don’t think anyone could reasonably dispute that you need to lay low for a little while.”

  It was nothing but good news, really. But the attention all this was bringing made Livia feel sick. With enough angles to investigate, Phelps could stumble across something.

  Stop. You’re okay. You know every gap in the building’s camera coverage. You’ve never been picked up coming or going at night. You leave your cellphone in the loft. There’s nothing for Phelps to investigate and there’s nothing for him to stumble across.

  She knew it was true. But the feeling persisted.

  “Thanks, LT.”

  “Do I need to tell you to keep me posted?”

  “No.”

  “Can I reach you?”

  “I’m keeping my phone off. But I’ll check in.”

  “Good. Don’t make me wait too long. I’ve got enough gray hair as it is.” She clicked off.

  Livia handed the phone back to Carl. He said, “Everything copacetic at the office?”

  She looked at the phone as though to confirm the call was done. In fact, she needed a moment. Strangeland’s confidence in her, the risks she was willing to run . . . it was all producing a roiling mess of emotion she couldn’t deal with right now.

  She managed to push it away and handed the phone to Carl. “Copacetic enough.”

  Carl nodded. “And now, if nobody objects, I’m going to call Mr. K. Maybe he’s got something we can work with. And even if not, if I wind up in another gunfight I intend to be properly armed. John, I assume you feel the same?”

  Rain nodded.

  “And Colonel, any suggestions for another appropriate venue?”

  “I’d say the Lake Anna Winery, in Spotsylvania, Virginia. All the wineries are quiet this time of year, especially in the morning.”

  Carl punched some numbers into the phone and walked over to the window for reception. “Hey there,” he said after a moment. A pause, then, “Yeah, everything’s fine. I’m here with John now. The bad news, though, is that the hardware you provided me is now at the bottom of a river the name of which I can’t pronounce. The good news is, it saved my life, and reduced the opposition’s numbers by two.” Another pause. “Yeah, I’ll tell you all about it, plus a few other things I’ve learned. But why don’t we do it in person for a change? Since we’re in your neck of the woods and all.” A pause. “Oh, we’re in some trouble all right, you don’t have to be a CIA officer to know that. Which is why I’d be grateful for a couple more of what you were kind enough to lend me last time. Now, let me save you the trouble of telling me how hard it’ll all be. I really do need the help and I really will make it up to you. I mean, hell, if you don’t want to know everything we learn about a child-pornography ring operating out of the Secret Service and a cover-up that involves a downed commercial liner, that’s fine, we won’t burden you with the knowledge.” Another pause. “Okay then. How about in the parking lot of a place called the Lake Anna Winery, in Spotsylvania, Virginia? Straight shot down Ninety-Five for you, and if we do it at sunup, you won’t even hit any traffic.” A pause. “Hah, consideration is my middle name. Thanks, amigo. I appreciate it, no shit.”

  He clicked off. “All right, we’re set.”

  Horton said, “One more call to make. My voicemail. Let me see if Ben checked in.”

  Carl glanced at Rain and, seeing no objection, handed the phone to Horton.

  Livia was intrigued by their dynamic. On the one hand, Carl was freewheeling and obviously delighted in tweaking Rain. On the other hand, on at least some issues, he seemed implicitly to defer to Rain’s judgment. Whatever their relationship, they’d obviously known each other a long time, and had developed a sense of when to push and when to back off.

  She wondered why Carl hadn’t mentioned that Rain was part Asian. It wasn’t relevant, exactly. But she hadn’t been expecting it, either. She wondered if he had grown up in the States. His English was native. But there was something about him that seemed . . . not quite at ease. Which made her wonder if he was an outsider, like her.

  Larison said, “Treven’s a dead end.”

  “Who’s Treven?” Livia asked.

  “Someone I’ve worked with,” Horton said, walking to the window and punching in numbers. “Who I trained, just as I trained Daniel here. And who I think wants to come in from the cold.”

  After a moment listening, he smiled. “He called me. Just like I told you damn cynics he would.”

  He started to input a number. Rain said, “You mind putting it on speakerphone? It’ll be more efficient.”

  Livia thought Horton would object to being the only one Rain challenged about a private conversation. She certainly would have.

  But Horton finessed the issue. “That’s a good idea,” he said. “And a good practice for everyone going forward.”

  He finished inputting the number. A ring, then a man’s voice: “Yeah.”

  “I got your message, son,” Horton said.

  There was a long pause. Treven s
aid, “Are the others there?”

  “They are.”

  Another pause. “Graham’s going to be in Paris two days from now. He knows you’re after him. He put me in charge of his personal security because I know your faces and I know your moves. That’s your opening, if you want it.”

  “Yeah?” Larison said. “What caused your sudden conversion?”

  Livia wasn’t surprised by the reaction. Whoever Treven was, Larison had already made his antipathy clear. It seemed there was some sort of history there—maybe professional jealousy, given that Horton said he had trained them both, maybe something else. Beyond which, of the four men, Larison struck her as having the most attitude. There was something about him that radiated danger, like a coiled snake, and she wondered how Carl had come to trust him.

  “You don’t want the intel?” Treven said. “Fine. Handle Graham on your own.”

  “It occurs to me,” Carl said. “Perhaps speakerphone might be less efficient than advertised.”

  “Dox?” Treven said.

  “That’s right. How are you, Treven?”

  “I’m fine. Now, if you or anyone else has something to say to me, say it. I’ve got things to do.”

  “I think what Daniel meant,” Horton said, looking intently at Larison, “is, thank you.”

  “No,” Larison said, “that’s not what I meant. A couple of days ago, Treven, you were saying we had nothing more to talk about. That if you saw any of us again, it was going to get lethal. So I’m asking you. What changed your mind? And do me a favor, don’t act like my question offends your honor or some other bullshit like that. In my position, you’d want to know the same. Or you would if you had half a brain.”

  “Yeah,” Carl said. “Ixnay on the eakerphonespay.”

  “My reasons are none of your business,” Treven said. “I’ll have details soon. You want me to share them? Ask. Not interested? Not my problem.”

  He clicked off.

  Horton looked at Larison. “Damn it, Daniel—”

  “Come on, Hort,” Larison said. “You know I’m right.”

  “It was a fair question,” Carl said. “But I can think of a few different ways you might have put it.”