by Barry Eisler
PRAISE FOR BARRY EISLER
The Killer Collective
“Impossibly cool.”
—Entertainment Weekly
“As usual with an Eisler novel, the plot is full of twists, the prose is muscular, and the action unfolds at a torrid pace. The result is another page-turner from one of the better thriller writers since James Grady published Six Days of the Condor in 1974.”
—Associated Press
“In this crackling-good thriller from bestseller Eisler, Seattle PD sex crimes detective Livia Lone, assassin John Rain, and former Marine sniper Dox form a testy alliance to combat a vile conspiracy involving corrupt and toxic government agencies . . . The feisty interplay among these killer elites is as irresistible as if one combined the Justice League with the Avengers, swapping out the superhero uniforms for cutting-edge weaponry and scintillating spycraft. By the satisfying conclusion, the world has been scrubbed a bit cleaner of perfidy. This is delightfully brutal fun.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Vicarious pleasure for anyone wanting to see the scum of the world get its due.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Eisler does a great job of creating individual personalities and tics with this group of uniquely trained professionals. A solid recommendation for fans of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon.”
—Library Journal
“Riveting . . . Barry Eisler pulls off an Avengers-like feat . . .”
—The Mercury News
“Eisler turns the heat up like never before to deliver a fun, fast-paced thriller that’s tailor-made for fans of nonstop action.”
—The Real Book Spy
“The fun of Eisler’s super thriller is in the excitement, the chase, and the survival. The Killer Collective binds it together into a blazing adventure of espionage escape fiction, perfect to start the new year.”
—New York Journal of Books
“Eisler’s The Killer Collective packs a punch like a sniper’s rifle. A solid grounding in up-to-the-minute technology and current affairs makes this a hot read for thriller lovers.”
—Authorlink
“A heart-pounding home run . . . Eisler has created a more literary version of The Expendables—the movie series that brought together Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, and other action heroes . . .”
—It’s Either Sadness or Euphoria
“Demonstrating the extraordinary expertise in the art of espionage and special operations—including surveillance detection, cover, elicitation, operational site selection, and more—that his fans and fellow practitioners have come to venerate, Eisler delivers another brilliant, fast-paced thriller, full of well-developed characters who remind me of the special operations and intelligence officers with whom I served and in some cases against whom I worked. For a retired senior CIA Clandestine Services officer still nostalgic for his espionage operations of bygone years, Eisler’s thrillers full of intrigue, adventure, and suspense are a most welcome opportunity to get as close as is now possible to the real thing.”
—Daniel N. Hoffman, retired Clandestine Services officer and former CIA Chief of Station
The Livia Lone Series
“An absolutely first-rate thriller . . . Emotionally true at each beat.”
—New York Times Book Review
“An explosive thriller that plunges into the sewer of human smuggling . . . Filled with raw power, [Livia Lone] may be the darkest thriller of the year.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Readers may be reminded of Stieg Larsson’s beloved Lisbeth Salander when they meet Livia Lone, and will be totally riveted by the story of this woman on a mission to right the wrongs in her past.”
—Bookish
“You won’t be able to tear yourself away as the story accelerates into a Tarantino-worthy climax and when you’re left gasping in the wake of its gut-wrenching vigilante justice, you’ll belatedly realize you learned a lot about a social travesty that gets far too little attention . . . Livia Lone is a harrowing tale with a conscience.”
—Chicago Review of Books
ALSO BY BARRY EISLER
A Clean Kill in Tokyo (previously published as Rain Fall)
A Lonely Resurrection (previously published as Hard Rain)
Winner Take All (previously published as Rain Storm)
Redemption Games (previously published as Killing Rain)
Extremis (previously published as The Last Assassin)
The Killer Ascendant (previously published as Requiem for an Assassin)
Fault Line
Inside Out
The Detachment
Graveyard of Memories
The God’s Eye View
Livia Lone
Zero Sum
The Night Trade
The Killer Collective
All the Devils
Short Works
“The Lost Coast”
“Paris Is a Bitch”
“The Khmer Kill”
“London Twist”
Essays
“The Ass Is a Poor Receptacle for the Head: Why Democrats Suck at Communication, and How They Could Improve”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2021 by Barry Eisler
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542005616 (hardcover)
ISBN-10: 1542005612 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 9781542005593 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 1542005590 (paperback)
Cover design by Rex Bonomelli
First edition
For Dan, Kim, Jerron, and Nathan
Contents
Start Reading
prologue MANUS
ONE WEEK EARLIER
chapter one HOBBS
chapter two LIVIA
chapter three HOBBS
chapter four LIVIA
chapter five HOBBS
chapter six KANEZAKI
chapter seven KANEZAKI
chapter eight DOX
chapter nine LARISON
chapter ten DOX
chapter eleven MANUS
chapter twelve DOX
chapter thirteen MANUS
chapter fourteen DOX
chapter fifteen LARISON
chapter sixteen DOX
chapter seventeen DIAZ
chapter eighteen RISPEL
chapter nineteen LIVIA
chapter twenty DIAZ
chapter twenty-one MANUS
chapter twenty-two LIVIA
chapter twenty-three DELILAH
chapter twenty-four DUNLOP
chapter twenty-five LIVIA
chapter twenty-six LIVIA
chapter twenty-seven RISPEL
chapter twenty-eight SCHRADER
chapter twenty-nine KANEZAKI
chapter thirty RISPEL
chapter thirty-one DOX
chapter thirty-two DOX
chapter thirty-three LARISON
chapter thirty-four DOX
chapter thirty-five HOBBS
chapter thirty-six EVIE
chapter thirty-eight RAIN
chapter thirty-nine LIVIA
chapter forty SLOAT
chapter forty-one MANUS
chapter forty-two DELILAH
chapter forty-three LARISON
chapter forty-four EVIE
chapter forty-five RAIN
chapter forty-six EVIE
chapter forty-seven LIVIA
chapter forty-eight RAIN
chapter forty-nine EVIE
chapter fifty MAYA
chapter fifty-one DEVEREAUX
chapter fifty-two MANUS
chapter fifty-three DOX
chapter fifty-four LARISON
chapter fifty-five DOX
chapter fifty-six LIVIA
chapter fifty-seven RISPEL
chapter fifty-eight LIVIA
chapter fifty-nine RAIN
chapter sixty LIVIA
chapter sixty-one RAIN
chapter sixty-two RISPEL
chapter sixty-three DEVEREAUX
chapter sixty-four KANEZAKI
chapter sixty-five DOX
chapter sixty-six DELILAH
chapter sixty-seven EVIE
chapter sixty-eight MAYA
chapter sixty-nine LIVIA
chapter seventy DELILAH
chapter seventy-one RAIN
chapter seventy-two RAIN
chapter seventy-three DIAZ
chapter seventy-four MANUS
chapter seventy-five RAIN
chapter seventy-six RISPEL
chapter seventy-seven LIVIA
chapter seventy-eight LARISON
chapter seventy-nine DELILAH
chapter eighty MANUS
chapter eighty-one DOX
chapter eighty-two RISPEL
chapter eighty-three DOX
chapter eighty-four LIVIA
chapter eighty-five LARISON
chapter eighty-six DOX
chapter eighty-seven RAIN
Acknowledgments
Notes
About the Author
The object of power is power.
—George Orwell
prologue
MANUS
Marvin Manus walked up a steep flight of stairs in Seattle’s Freeway Park, his breath fogging in the damp morning air. He didn’t know why they called it a “park.” There were trees and grass, yes, and a series of artificial waterfalls, too, but the heart of it was sheer blocks of concrete, arranged like a scale model of windowless, doorless buildings, all of it as dull and gray as the autumn sky. It reminded him of the juvenile facility they’d put him in after what he did to his father. Like someone had taken the prison walls and tried to refashion them into art.
He’d read there had been problems with street crime here, and he could understand why. For one thing, he knew that places like this echoed. So you could hear a potential victim coming from a long way off. There were multiple vantage points from which to assess the victim’s suitability. And with all the mazelike concrete walls, the victim would have nowhere to go other than forward or back.
He paused and looked around. He could see a good deal of the labyrinth, but still there were numerous blind turns. It really was well designed for criminals, and he was surprised the woman would use it for her runs even in the morning. Maybe she liked all the stairs.
He pushed the thought away and started climbing again. Beyond what the woman looked like, he didn’t want to know anything about her.
In his previous life, details about an assignment hadn’t bothered him. He’d believed in Director Anders. He did what the director asked, to whomever the director needed it done. But then the director had wanted him to surveil an NSA specialist named Evelyn Gallagher. Evie. Who had a deaf son, Dash. Manus had met them, as he was supposed to. The director had then told him to do more. And Manus . . . couldn’t.
At the top of the stairs was a wall where the steps turned left. Amid the smell of damp concrete and mold and moss, Manus caught a whiff of body odor. By reflex, he dropped his hand to the Cold Steel Espada clipped to his front pocket, and moved to the right to create more space between himself and whatever might be beyond the ambit of his vision.
He reached the landing and glanced left. An old homeless man in a tattered down vest was sitting on a folded blanket, his back to the concrete wall. Had Manus not been at the far right of the stairs, he might have run into the man. It was a bad place to sit—too easy to startle someone coming up the stairs. And there were people in the world who, when startled, reacted badly.
As Manus moved past, the man said something, but he had a scraggly beard that covered too much of his mouth for Manus to see what he said. Probably asking for loose change. Manus would have given him some, but most people ignored such pleas, and Manus didn’t want to do anything that was likelier to be remembered than to be forgotten or overlooked.
He kept moving. The sky had gotten darker and he smelled a coming rain.
At the next landing was another homeless man, this one younger and standing with a shoulder to the wall. The bladed stance could have been tactical, and Manus gave the man more attention than he had the one who’d been sitting. He read the man’s lips—Spare a few bucks?—and shook his head once in response. The man frowned and spoke again: Fuck you anyway. Manus met his eyes. The man looked away and said nothing more.
Manus was used to the reaction. It wasn’t just his size. When he looked at someone who might be trouble, he didn’t feel anything. If the person didn’t want to be a problem, Manus would keep going. If the person wanted to be a problem, Manus would go to work. Most people, when he looked at them, understood. Usually they preferred the first option.
He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Hadn’t looked at people this way in a long time. He didn’t like it. And he didn’t like how easily he had slipped back into it. But what choice did he have? They’d told him if he didn’t do what they wanted, they would tell Dash everything. About what Manus was. About the things he’d done. And even if all that had been before, how would a fourteen-year-old boy understand the difference?
Evie knew, of course. She’d known a lot even before he told her all of it, on that night he’d come undone by Dash’s trust and Evie’s gentleness. He’d signed good night to Dash, returning the boy’s hug, something that had become natural for Manus after months of it being more one-way, and waited while the boy climbed into the loft the two of them had built together. Evie watched, smiling, then walked to the loft, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed her son good night. She’d followed Manus out, turning off the light and closing the door behind them.
There was a chair in her small bedroom, and Manus sank into it, staring at the floor, gripped by a sadness he couldn’t name, as though he was grieving about something that hadn’t even happened.
Evie knelt in front of him and touched his knee. He looked up.
I love the way you are with him, she’d signed. And the way he is with you.
At those words, Manus began to cry. He tried to stop himself, but it only got worse. Evie, her expression alarmed, signed What is it?
You don’t know the things I’ve done.
Yes, I do.
No, you don’t.
And then he’d told her. Told her everything. As though some part of him was trying to warn her, save her, drive her away.
She’d listened. When he was done, when it had all come out of him, she said, You’re not that person anymore.
Then who am I?
You’re the man Dash and I love.
Which dissolved him into another spasm of sobbing.
Evie hadn’t said anything more. She stood, turned off the light, and pulled Manus to the bed. Manus hadn’t understood why—they never turned the lights all the way off. They liked to see each other, and besides, without any light they couldn’t sign and he couldn’t read her lips. But then he realized that was the point, they were done with words. Words didn’t matter.
They made
love in the dark, Evie on her back underneath him, and when it was done, he cried again and she held him. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and afterward never spoke of what he’d told her.
After that, there was nothing more important to Manus than being worthy of the way Evie trusted him. Wanted him.
Loved him.
And Dash even more. Both of them had been deaf from childhood—Dash, from meningitis; Manus, from a beating at the hands of his father. But the feeling between them was more than that. The boy’s father had never learned sign. Even before the divorce, Evie had told Manus, the relationship had been strained. Dash needed a father. And Manus . . .
He didn’t know what he needed. Not a son, exactly. But someone . . . someone he could teach the good things he knew. The three of them were living together now, in a modern saltbox Manus had built on land they’d bought near Emmitsburg, in Maryland just south of the Pennsylvania border. Evie was done with NSA. The new director had offered her an early pension, the implicit quid pro quo being that she would forget what she knew about his predecessor’s rogue spying and assassination programs, the former of which had built on Evie’s video surveillance and facial recognition work, and the latter of which had involved Manus. And Evie had taken it, both to signal her agreement to their terms and to discourage them from seeking some other means of obtaining her silence.
Dash had helped build the house—on weekends, holidays, and all during the summer vacation before eighth grade. Manus was proud of how fast Dash had caught on, and how well they’d worked together. And grateful that Evie had entrusted him with making sure Dash knew how to use Manus’s tools safely. Once, when Dash was running a length of plywood through the table saw, Manus had caught Evie looking on, her arms folded across her chest, her expression worried. He had signed, He’s okay. And she had nodded and signed, I know.
In the end, maybe it didn’t matter what the bond was built on. What mattered was . . . Dash believed in him, in what he wanted to believe about himself. All he knew was that the way Dash looked at him . . . he needed to be what Dash saw.
So he didn’t have a choice. He would do what they wanted. The problem was, once they learned they could get him to do this, they would make him do other things, too.
Which meant that taking care of this woman would only buy him time. For what, he wasn’t sure. An opportunity. An opening. Something.