by Barry Eisler
“You want to know what all the beefed-up video outside your cell and the rotating guard checks cost the state? You want to know how many of the higher-ups have pressured me to get rid of it all because they say it’s too expensive and you’re not worth it?”
Framed as a question, it wasn’t a lie. But the truth was, no one had pressured her. The precautions were coming from FDC management as much as they were from Diaz.
The room was cool, but beads of sweat had sprung out on Schrader’s scalp. “I didn’t do anything,” he said again. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. They know that. They know that.”
Damn it, what was he talking about?
“No, Andrew,” she said. “They obviously don’t know that. And unless you want the Bureau of Prisons to remove all the extra safeguards I’ve fought to have installed for your protection, you better help me out here.”
“They wouldn’t hurt me,” he said. “They wouldn’t.”
He was wobbling. She could feel it. One more solid punch.
She stood. “It looks like we’re going to find out.” She turned and smacked her palm against the door. “Guard! We’re done here.”
The guard’s face appeared behind the glass square.
“Wait!” Schrader said.
She kept her back to him. “Like hell. You’ve wasted enough of my time.”
“Tell them . . . if anything happens to me . . .”
There was a loud metallic clack as the guard turned the lock. The door opened.
“Just wait!” Schrader said again.
Diaz glanced back at him, then at the guard. “Give us a minute.”
The guard seemed to be resisting the urge to roll his eyes. But he left, locking the door behind him.
Diaz turned back to Schrader but stayed on her feet. “If anything happens to you, what?”
Schrader stared at her, his expression both frightened and petulant. “They know. They know what will happen.”
“You said you want me to tell them something.”
“They already know.”
“They do? That’s great. Then you don’t need all the protection. We’ll remove the cameras. The extra guards. You’ll be fine.”
“If something happens to me, it all comes out. They know. They know.”
“What comes out?”
“All of it.”
“All of what?”
“They know.”
“Who knows?”
“All of them.”
“I don’t have time for games.” She turned back toward the door.
He pounded the table. His manacles clanked. “Wait!” he said again.
She turned to him. “Last chance, Andrew.”
“The things they’re saying about me,” he said, his eyes pleading. “It’s not . . . it isn’t fair. They all know it isn’t fair.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Everyone. Everyone in the videos.”
chapter
twenty-one
MANUS
Manus, Dox, and Larison had parked the van in the lot of a Puyallup Costco, forty-five minutes south of Seattle. Dox and Larison were in the back seats facing forward; Manus sat on his backpack facing them on top of the folded-down middle seats. Manus was fine with the arrangement. He needed to see their faces to understand them. And tactically, it was better to have them both in sight.
While they’d waited for Larison to get the van, Dox had made a call. He stayed facing Manus while he spoke. Manus wasn’t sure, but he sensed it was out of courtesy, so Manus could read his lips. Most hearing people forgot to do that. Manus wondered if this guy had spent time with deaf people. If not, he had good instincts.
“I’ll make it quick,” Dox had said. “On the one hand, things went well. We made contact and established rapport.” At this, he smiled at Manus. “On the other hand, while we were there, six operators showed up and tried to gun us down. They’re all dead now. You’ll be seeing it on the news soon enough.”
A pause, then, “No, we’re all fine. Together. Getting the hell out of Dodge, and when we’re safe we’ll debrief. I’m going to destroy this burner now. I’ll call you on one of the backups later on. I sure hope you’ll have some insights about what the hell just happened.”
At that, he’d stomped the phone to bits and tossed the fragments into the Dumpster. He looked at Manus and said, “We’re good? Not going to try to kill each other, at least for now?”
It was a strange question. Why would the man trust any such assurance from Manus? Manus wouldn’t trust it from him. But the straightforwardness didn’t feel devious. It felt . . . straightforward. He couldn’t think of any other way to answer, so he simply said, “We’re good.”
“Great. Then pardon me while I get the shakes. ’Cause that was a very near thing back there.”
At which point, as promised, he started trembling. After a minute of breathing deeply in and out, he held up his hands. When he seemed satisfied they were steady enough, he said, “That doesn’t happen to you?”
“It depends.”
Dox smiled. “Okay, good. We’ve only just met, and I wouldn’t want you thinking less of me.”
Manus couldn’t tell if he was joking. Why would Manus think less of him? The man was obviously competent. Shaking was just what your body did after you’d been scared. There had been times Manus was so scared he’d pissed himself. That was just something your body did, too.
Dox nodded toward Manus’s pack and said, “You got any extra clothes in there? There’s enough blood on you for me to smell it.”
It was true—Manus could smell it, too. He changed into his spare shirt and pants, returning Dox’s courtesies by moving slowly and emptying out the pack rather than letting his hands disappear inside it. He hadn’t liked getting undressed in front of Dox. It wasn’t that he was modest. It was the temporary helplessness of having his boots off, the Espada momentarily out of reach.
The feeling was more reflex than anything else, though. He didn’t sense that Dox was a threat anymore. In fact, Manus thought the man might be . . . okay. Like a dog that could be dangerous but that was more inclined to be friendly. As long as you didn’t give it a reason not to be.
When he was dressed again, he stuffed the bloody clothes into a contractor’s bag he had brought in case of a contingency like this one. He’d get rid of them somewhere far away.
While they’d waited, Dox had asked about his hearing. “If you don’t mind my saying,” he said, “you don’t sound like you were born deaf. What happened?”
Somehow, the frankness of the question didn’t seem rude or presumptuous. In fact, it reminded Manus of Dash, and how unaffected he was about not being able to hear.
“An accident,” Manus had responded, to which Dox once again showed courtesy by simply nodding and asking no further questions.
The other one, though. Larison. He reminded Manus of some of the boys at the juvenile prison. The mean ones. The ones who the only way to get them to leave you alone was to hurt them so badly they would never forget it.
And sometimes, even that wasn’t enough. Sometimes Manus had needed to do more than just hurt them. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that with this Larison. But if it did, it did.
They wolfed down sandwiches Larison had brought in from the Costco. Manus was glad for the food. Dox had been right. A fight always made you hungry.
Dox briefed him on what he and Larison knew, leaving out the name of their CIA contact. The omission was fine. Manus would have been surprised if Dox had shared the name, and in fact would have distrusted that level of openness.
The problem was, they didn’t know much. Or at least claimed not to. CIA Director Lisa Rispel had coordinated the attempted hit on Manus. The reasonable inference was that Rispel was also behind the planned hit on Diaz.
“But on whose orders?” Manus asked. “What’s Rispel’s interest?”
“We’re not sure,” Dox said. “We’re speculating that it’s related to the arrest of this guy Andrew Schrader. D
iaz is the prosecutor behind it.”
“Who’s Schrader?”
“Some big-time hedge-fund manager and political donor. Lots of low friends in high places. Diaz is making a case against him for trafficking underage girls. So either the interference with Diaz is a favor to a friend, or it’s more they’re afraid of being associated with a guy whose hobby is raping children.”
Something must have shown in Manus’s face, because Dox looked at him and said, “Any of that mean anything to you?”
During his first week in the juvenile prison, three older boys had raped Manus. He killed two of them and crippled the third. That helped. But still.
Manus looked at him. “I don’t like rapists.”
Dox waited a beat, then nodded. Manus had said so little. Had Dox . . . understood?
“Anyhow,” Dox went on, “maybe they’re afraid Schrader would offer information about other powerful people in exchange for a reduced sentence. Whatever the explanation, Schrader is likely why they want Diaz gone. She’s the one carrying the football, and without her playing, the game’s over.”
Manus considered, then said, “Why not kill Schrader?”
Dox frowned. “You mean, why don’t we kill him? As a way of protecting Diaz?”
“No. I mean, why wouldn’t they kill Schrader? If your speculation is right, Schrader dead would solve their problems permanently. Diaz might be carrying the football. But Schrader is the football.”
Dox glanced at Larison, then back to Manus. “Well, that’s a good question. I should have thought to ask it myself. I mean, he’s in custody . . .”
Larison turned to Dox and said something. Manus couldn’t see his face.
“Hey,” Manus said. “You need to look at me. Even when you’re talking to him.”
Larison turned back to him. “I don’t need to do anything.”
Manus wasn’t worried. He’d seen Larison adjust his carry for quicker access when they sat. But he knew he could have the Espada open and its seven-and-a-half-inch blade through the man’s xiphoid process and into his diaphragm before the gun would be in play. Action beats reaction.
“I can’t understand you if I can’t see your face. So when you turn away it means either you’re hiding something, or you’re a rude asshole. Which one?”
Manus watched. Any tiny tell—a narrowing of the eyes, a thinning of the lips, a subtle shift of the hips—and Manus would kill him.
A beat went by. Larison stared into Manus’s eyes. Manus couldn’t tell what the man was thinking. He couldn’t even tell if he was afraid.
And then Larison surprised him by laughing. He leaned back—which was fine with Manus, as it made access to the pistol more difficult—and said, “Maybe both. But okay. Point taken.”
Manus relaxed a little. Consciously or unconsciously, had the man been testing him? If so, it seemed Manus had passed.
“What I was saying,” Larison went on, facing Manus now, “is that custody could cut either way. Depending on where they’re holding him, what the security arrangements are, who the guards are, etc. Maybe it would be easy to get to him. Maybe it would be hard. If it’s hard, they look at Diaz as an acceptable Plan B.”
Manus nodded. He didn’t like Larison, but the man wasn’t stupid.
“And there’s another possibility,” Larison added. “Schrader might have something on his ‘friends.’ With a dead-man switch set to release the compromising material if anything happens to him.”
That also made sense to Manus. And the confidence with which Larison had suggested the possibility made Manus wonder whether the man had ever employed a dead-man setup himself.
“It might not matter,” Dox said. “Maybe they can’t get to Schrader, maybe they just won’t take the risk. Either way, it’s Diaz they’re focused on. But look, Mr. Manus—”
“Manus is fine.”
Dox nodded. “Manus then. The thing is, my partner can be a little more direct than I am, but he was right when he said the reason we were sent to talk to you instead of killing you, or trying to kill you—in fairness, who can really say how it might have turned out, though I’m sure we all would have acquitted ourselves heroically no matter the results—is because our handler didn’t like what Rispel was up to here and was hoping you could shed some light on it. But now it seems we’re all in deeper water than we’d anticipated, and in it together, too. So whatever you can tell us about who approached you, when, what they said, all that . . . Well, in my experience we could kill a lot more bad guys if we share information instead of siloing it.”
Manus waited. Dox was obviously a talker, but it seemed he also knew when to shut up. And Larison, too, had enough sense, or discipline, not to be drawn in by silence.
After a few more seconds, Manus said, “There were two of them. I don’t know who they were. They felt like former military to me. Contractors. They knew a lot about me. About my life. They told me if I didn’t take the Diaz job, they would . . . do something to hurt people I care about.”
It was strange. He hadn’t once felt anything from Larison other than menace. But for an instant, something shifted in the man’s expression. His jaw tightened, or his eyes narrowed. It was too subtle for Manus to be sure. But . . . something.
He’d planned to stop there but found himself adding, “I haven’t done these things in a long time. And I knew once they saw they could pressure me into one job, they would try to pressure me into others. I was trying to buy myself time.”
Dox said, “Time for what?”
Manus looked at Larison.
Larison said, “Time to kill whoever’s behind this.”
Manus nodded.
“Your people,” Larison said. “Are they in danger now?”
Manus had already been over and over that. He couldn’t see any advantage for anyone in moving against Evie or Dash. It would get them nothing, other than Manus’s implacable rage. Still, it was hard not to worry.
“I don’t think so,” Manus said. “And I can’t . . . If I tried to warn them, I don’t think it would help. It would only be . . . upsetting.”
Larison nodded. “That’s good. Back to Plan A, then. Kill whoever’s behind this.”
Manus wasn’t sure why Larison would care. And maybe he didn’t. But at least he understood.
“So Diaz was too high-profile,” Larison went on. “You were supposed to be a one-off. Disposable.”
Manus nodded again. “I was worried about that, too. They were guarding their information tightly. They never gave me a name. Only a description. They told me the woman liked to run in the park, and I should wait there early every morning. They gave me a burner and said they would text me photos when she was on her way to me. Several different ones, distance and telephoto, all taken just before being sent.”
“To make confirmation easier and more reliable,” Dox said. “You see the clothes she’s wearing, whether her hair was up or down, everything. They were supposed to do the same thing for us with you, though I suppose that’s been overtaken by events.”
“What about the cellphone?” Larison said. “You weren’t nervous they were tracking you?”
“They’d tracked me already. Besides, they knew I would be in the park every morning. So I wasn’t worried about them doing anything before I killed Diaz. That’s what confused me when I saw the two of you. I knew something was off, but it was too early. Plus you were holding hands. That was smart.”
“My idea,” Dox said. “Just saying.”
“I knew it was high-profile,” Manus added. “They told me they wanted it to look like she’d fallen. Or was mugged. Not like an assassination.”
Dox looked at Larison and nodded, then turned back to Manus. “Yeah, we figured it would be that way. Our guy tracked her cellphone, too, and we decided that for natural, the park was the best option.”
Manus tried to imagine a different explanation, but there was nothing that made sense. It felt like Dox was telling the truth. “That was smart, too,” he said.
&nb
sp; “If we’re so smart,” Larison said, “why do we keep pissing off the wrong people?”
Dox laughed. “You know why. You just enjoy it.”
Larison looked as though he was going to protest, then just shrugged.
“The person who sent you to stop me,” Manus said. “Can he tell us more?”
“I hope so,” Dox said. “I’ll get details when we’re done here and safely away.”
Larison looked at Dox, then seemed to remember himself and looked back at Manus. “What about ‘She who must not be named’?”
Dox scowled. “Stop that.”
“You know you were going to see her anyway. And Diaz is a prosecutor. Your lady might know something about this. And she’s sure as hell going to hear about what happened in the park this morning. What’s she going to make of it when Diaz describes the chivalrous Texan who warned her of danger in the park?”
Dox shook his head and looked genuinely pained. “I do want to see her. But the whole point of this was to keep her out of it.”
“Well, you’re batting five hundred.”
Dox nodded. “All right. Shit, I hope I’m not rationalizing.”
“And there’s someone else we should call. In case whatever we’re up against is even bigger than we think it is. Which is probably the case.”
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
“Rain.”
chapter
twenty-two
LIVIA
The morning briefing was excruciatingly long. All Livia could think about was how badly she wanted to call Carl and debrief Diaz. Her anxiety was made worse when one of the detectives, Suzanne Moore, showed everyone a live television interview she had pulled up on her cellphone—Diaz, talking to a gaggle of reporters. Diaz hadn’t mentioned the Texas accent, thank God. But she did recount the rest—three big men, one of whom had warned her by name that this was about her case.
Livia couldn’t deny that the impromptu press conference was a clever move. Anyone hoping to bury the Schrader prosecution by killing the prosecutor would know that any subsequent attempt would have the opposite effect. With luck, Alondra was now untouchable. Which probably meant Schrader himself was at increased risk. Among the many things Livia urgently wanted to discuss with Alondra was how to increase Schrader’s protection.