The Chaos Kind

by Barry Eisler

  “Are you in danger?”

  She remembered what the man had said: You need to watch your back. I think it’s about that big case of yours.

  “I don’t . . . I don’t think so. I don’t think anyone else is here.”

  “Okay. We’re sending a patrol car now. Wait for them, but only if you’re sure you’re safe.”

  “I’m fine. Just . . . please, hurry.”

  She clicked off and stared again at the bodies and the blood, still trying to convince herself she was seeing something other than what it obviously was. Were those guns on the ground? Yes. She’d been right. A gunfight. A big one. Gangs? Seattle had its share. But as soon as she considered it, she knew it was her mind, looking for another way to deny what she didn’t want to accept.

  You need to stay clear of that park. And anywhere else people might expect you.

  On impulse, she speed-dialed Livia. Her hands were still shaking. But her mind was suddenly clear.

  I’m coming for you, Schrader, she thought. You just fucked with the wrong prosecutor.

  chapter

  eighteen

  RISPEL

  Devereaux was shouting so loudly that Rispel had to hold the secure-line receiver away from her ear.

  “This was not a complicated op!” he barked. “You couldn’t have had more complete intel. How could you have fucked this up?”

  Rispel deliberately glanced around her office: one wall, a second, a third. It was a technique she used when she needed to slow things down. Absent that discipline, she might have felt too keenly her shock at the indignity of Devereaux addressing her as though she were some green recruit. She might have given in to the temptation to shout back.

  But if there was one thing she had learned in this man’s world, it was the danger of doing anything that could be disparaged as “emotional.” Men could shout, they could rant, they could even cry, and they were just being assertive, or passionate, or caring. But for women, the same behaviors were bitchy. Or unhinged. Or worst of all, weak.

  “The intel wasn’t complete,” she said. “It was—”

  “I didn’t say it was complete! Intel is never complete. I said it couldn’t have been more complete.”

  Along with the shock, she felt irritation now, struggling to get a foothold. The interruption. The pedanticism. And the condescension.

  “Which is why I used two teams,” she said. “We couldn’t be sure—”

  “Does Diaz suspect? How could she not? She was on her way to the park for her morning jog and two teams of operators get wiped out there?”

  Her irritation secured the foothold it had been trying for. She knew she should try to dislodge it. But she was beginning to not want to.

  “She wasn’t there when it happened,” she said, managing not to raise her voice. “And the team was sterile, of course. Even their fingerprints were wiped from military databases. There’s no way anyone can connect them to anyone.”

  “Jesus Christ, Lisa, do you really not understand? They might as well have been carrying business cards saying ‘Private Military Contractor’! Fine, no one can prove who they were, but what do you think Diaz is going to guess? And if she winds up with additional security as a result, or she moves up the indictment against Schrader, or who the hell knows what, what excuses are you going to come up with then?”

  She’d heard Devereaux talk this way to subordinates before. He was known, after all, for kissing up and kicking down. But during all the years he had mentored her, he’d always treated her like a favored child. And to have him turn on her like this . . . She was surprised at how much it hurt.

  Surprised, and angry.

  “I’m not offering excuses,” she said. “I’m trying to engage in a constructive conversation intended to redress the matter at hand. But if that’s less important to you than berating me, by all means, go right ahead.”

  That shut him the hell up. Which felt so good she realized it had been what she was after.

  Don’t let him make you stupid.

  “I’m not interested in a conversation,” he said after a moment. “I’m interested in hearing you tell me exactly how you’re going to rectify the most grievous personal fuckup I’ve witnessed in thirty years in intelligence. And I hope you have something compelling to tell me, Lisa. I really do. Because if this thing doesn’t get unfucked, and fast, you are going to be facing a long line of people, all with pay grades even higher than mine, looking to take your scalp.”

  Did he not understand she would recognize the framing? They were taught as recruits never to threaten openly. Instead, they were taught to pose as the target’s protector and ally. Even if the target understands the subterfuge, the training went, he’ll still feel respected that you offered a fig leaf rather than a naked display of your power over him.

  And then she realized: Of course he understands.

  The shock, and hurt, and anger, were all suddenly underscored with fear. Had Devereaux really . . . turned on her like this? So quickly? So decisively?

  “Help me,” he went on. “Help me help you. Because I don’t know who else is going to.”

  Got it the first time, you prick.

  In fact, she did have a backup plan. Already assembled and ready to go. She almost blurted it out, and then was ashamed of the reflex, recognizing it as a vestige of the past, when she’d been new and Devereaux had taken her under his wing. Well, it was natural for adult children to revert to old patterns in the presence of their parents. But natural wasn’t the same as desirable. Or useful.

  And besides. Something was suddenly telling her there would be no advantage to cluing him in about the backup plan. That in fact there could be opportunities lost. And other potential downsides.

  “I’m putting together the facts of what happened,” she said. “It’s complicated by the exceptional compartmentalization. I need to understand how Kanezaki’s sniper contractor wound up in the park—he should have had no knowledge of the location, or of what was planned there. And I need to understand who his partner was. And how and why they were talking to Manus when the plan was for the contractor to kill him.”

  “How much does Kanezaki know?”

  “That’s another thing I’m trying to determine. Why don’t I get back to it, all right? And then I’ll get back to you.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Lisa, you better have a hell of a Plan B.”

  He hung up. After a moment, she did the same.

  She didn’t want to believe it. She could feel herself trying not to. But how could she not have seen it coming? It was almost funny: the plan had been to dispose of Manus after he’d completed his job. And now they were going to throw her under the bus for failing to complete hers.

  All those times Devereaux had told her how the intelligence community needed more women. More diversity. A three-hundred-sixty-degree optic, he liked to say. How are a bunch of incestuous old white guys going to achieve that?

  And she’d actually believed him. Because she agreed, of course, and because it was so flattering to find herself the vessel by which all women would advance in the ranks of the IC.

  God. The things she had done. At the black site in Thailand. To prove she was as tough as any of them. No, tougher. She’d needed sleeping pills ever since.

  She replayed the conversation in her mind. Devereaux had been angry, yes. But now . . . What she’d initially thought was only anger felt more like . . . fear. She realized she’d been so hurt and afraid herself that she’d initially misinterpreted it.

  Fear of what, though?

  Well, the videos, certainly. When she’d asked who was on them, he had said only People we know. Schrader’s been at this for years. The threat, it seemed, wasn’t to any particular individual. It had to be wider than that. How else could it justify the deletion of an assistant US Attorney?

  But the fact that the threat was widespread didn’t ipso facto mean—

  He’s on those tapes.

  The instant the thought blossomed in her mind
, it felt right. Even obvious. The insight had the kind of clarity she experienced only when a faulty assumption, suddenly swept away, had been occluding it.

  Of course. That’s why he’s so afraid. And trying so hard to conceal it with anger.

  How many assets had she known who, hands-over-heart, had protested that they were spying for America only out of political conviction, when in fact it was the money, or the excitement, or the promises of resettlement for them and their families? Or any one of a dozen other personal reasons, including fear of what CIA could do to them if they refused to cooperate?

  Devereaux could protest all he wanted about how this was really about protecting the club. And maybe on some level, it even was. But what he was really trying to protect was himself.

  She could see now the precariousness of her position. She had understood she was to function as a cutout, yes. In the course of a long career, she’d become accustomed to that. But there was a thin line between cutout . . . and fall guy.

  Devious little bastards, she thought.

  And then she smiled at the irony. They were trying to exploit a woman to clean up a mess that was caused by, and that by definition was only a threat to, other men.

  She remembered something her father, before his untimely heart attack himself a career CIA man, had told her when she was a girl: If you want to get something you never had before, you have to do something you’ve never done before.

  She thought about everything Devereaux had told her. About how Schrader had used the videos only once before this, and both times only as a get-out-of-jail-free card.

  But if the videos included footage of men like Devereaux . . . if they included footage of Devereaux . . . then for all these years, Schrader was in possession of assets that he was vastly underutilizing.

  What a waste, to make so little use of something with so much potential power. It was like keeping a race car forever in the garage.

  But race cars weren’t built for garages. They were built for drivers.

  She’d been right to refrain from mentioning the backup. Devereaux wanted a Plan B? He had no idea.

  chapter

  nineteen

  LIVIA

  Livia was on her way into the morning briefing at headquarters when her cellphone buzzed. She saw it was Diaz and immediately felt uneasy that Alondra would be calling at such an early hour. She peeled off toward the elevators and raised the phone to her ear.

  “Hey. Everything okay?”

  “I’m okay,” Diaz said. “I’m okay.”

  That sounded not okay at all. Beyond which, Alondra’s voice was breathless and shaky.

  The elevator doors opened, and Livia’s lieutenant, Donna Strangeland, emerged with her trademark giant coffee thermos. “Hey,” she said in her outsized Brooklyn transplant accent. “You’re going the wrong way. Big shooting this morning in Freeway Park. Come on.”

  “Be right there,” Livia said. And then, when Strangeland was safely out of earshot, “What’s going on?”

  “I was on my way to Freeway Park for my morning run. I thought I heard gunshots, and . . . there are bodies. I think six.”

  The corridor seemed suddenly ten degrees colder. “You’re in the park now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you call 911?”

  “Yes. They’re sending a car. Or cars.”

  “Are there people around?”

  “A couple now, yeah. I think they called 911, too. Now they’re just . . . staring. Taking pictures with their phones.”

  “That’s good. With that many dead, I doubt any who got away would be coming back. Plus there are witnesses now. You should be okay.”

  “I don’t think this was gangs.”

  “What, then?”

  “There was this guy. I was going up the stairs, after I’d heard the shooting. He told me not to go in the park. Because there were people there who were planning to hurt me. And he called me by name. ‘Ms. Diaz.’ I mean, he also called me ma’am, but he knew my name. I’m sure of it.”

  No. It’s not possible.

  “He called you ma’am?”

  “Yes. So what?”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “He said it was about ‘that big case of yours.’ What else could that be but Schrader?”

  “I don’t know. What else did he say?”

  “He told me . . . I need to watch my back. And not go anywhere where people might expect me. He was with two other men, or at least two . . . I didn’t get a good look at any of them. They were big, though, I could see that. And the one who warned me had an accent.”

  Livia closed her eyes. “What kind of accent?”

  “I think Southern. Maybe Texas. I’m not sure.”

  Without thinking, Livia said, “When the detectives take your statement, leave that detail out.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Just don’t mention it. You can always remember it later.”

  There was a pause. Diaz said, “Do you know something about this?”

  “No. But I know some people I can ask. Just trust me for now, okay?”

  “Okay. Can you come?”

  “I’m on my way into the morning briefing and my lieutenant just saw me. I don’t want to advertise that we’re in touch about this and I don’t want to make up an excuse. Just forget that you called me for now. I should be there in an hour at most. Okay?”

  “Okay. Just come as soon as you can. I swear, if Schrader was behind this . . .”

  “We’ll find out. Stay cool. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She clicked off and headed back toward the conference room. She badly wanted to call Carl, but she couldn’t do that from her regular phone. And besides, whatever his involvement in what had happened at the park, the conversation was bound to be fraught. She knew he’d been waiting for her to call him again. But she hadn’t. One month had become two, and then three, and then six, and she was just too . . . afraid.

  It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t.

  It felt like him, though. The accent. The ma’am. The chivalry.

  But if it was him, he’d protected Alondra. Warned her. And he would have useful information. He could help Livia get to the bottom of this, and make sure Schrader and any coconspirators got what they deserved. If Carl was involved, it was good news, not bad.

  So why was she so enraged?

  chapter

  twenty

  DIAZ

  A guard unlocked the door and Diaz walked into the SeaTac Federal Detention Center interrogation room. She’d called ahead and Schrader was already there, sitting in one of the room’s two chairs, his wrists manacled to the rectangular table.

  The guard walked out and pulled the door closed, and for a moment the painted cinder-block walls echoed with a metallic clang. Everything echoed in these places. The doors, the gates, the locks . . . the constant, background exclamation points. She secretly hated all of it.

  At least the FDCs didn’t smell like the local jails. Though as bad as decades of accreted sweat and urine could be, the federal devotion to unlimited ammonia and bleach was only a marginal improvement.

  She pulled the second chair away from the table and sat. Schrader’s chair was bolted to the floor and his ankles were manacled to it. You own the room, they’d taught her. Make sure the subject feels it.

  She made him wait for a moment—you never know what a prisoner might say. But Schrader offered nothing. He just sat there, watching her, his expression perplexed. The orange jumpsuit, which could make the hard cases look even harder, on Schrader was more like a clown costume. And the missing hairpiece—a constant in the society magazine photos, but confiscated upon his arrest—was worse. Without it, he looked older. Exhausted. Exposed.

  “Surprised to see me?” Diaz said.

  He did look surprised, but not in the way she’d expected. He shook his head. “My lawyer told you. I’m not going to plead. And where is she, anyway? Isn’t she supposed to be here if you’re talking to me?”<
br />
  She had hoped he wouldn’t ask. A request for a lawyer turned a gray-area conversation into something black-letter inadmissible. Well, there was no one else in the room. Not even any cameras. And besides, she hadn’t come for a confession. She just needed to confront him. Stare him down.

  “We already have you on child trafficking,” she said. “Racketeering. Sex with underage girls, at least some of whom were drugged when they were assaulted. So why not add conspiracy to commit murder? I guess you figured you had nothing to lose.”

  “What?”

  He really did look surprised. And worried. But not in that Shit, they’re on to me way she’d learned to spot. This was something else.

  “Come on, Andrew. Six people are dead in Freeway Park. Six people who were waiting for me. You going to tell me you didn’t know anything about that?”

  He shook his head, his mouth hanging open. Shit, she thought. He really doesn’t know.

  He didn’t just look surprised, though. He looked . . . scared.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “You really think murdering me is going to get you out of here? I just gave an interview at Freeway Park in front of a battalion of television reporters. It’s going to be nonstop speculation about what happened in the park and your potential involvement. You had some support before, I’ll admit it. Your money. Your connections. But I’m untouchable now, do you understand that? Got any ideas for what that means for you?”

  Did he lose some color at that? Yes, he did. Good.

  “I didn’t do anything,” he whined. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything about this.”

  It sounded like some sort of self-comfort mantra. She sensed an opening and decided to press it.

  “You know what happened at New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center on the night Epstein died? Two out of three cameras malfunctioned. The third was pointed in the wrong direction. What video they did have was subsequently accidentally deleted. Oh, and two guards forgot to check on the prisoner the entire night. What do you make of all that?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”