by Barry Eisler
“Do we need that laptop?” Kanezaki said. “Or can we access your system from any computer?”
Grimble shuddered. “Access. Andrew asked me to design this system because he thought it would be safe. And he would be safe. But he’s not safe now. And I’m not safe. And you’re not safe.”
“We’re going to do it differently,” Kanezaki said. “We’re going to blur the girls’ faces.”
“Tom,” Evie said. “Running a facial-recognition program on all those copies of videos . . . It’s a nontrivial task. It would take days.”
Diaz noticed the use of the conditional would. Evie didn’t like the plan. And the truth was, Diaz was suddenly having her doubts, as well.
“You reset it,” Kanezaki said. “We have time.”
Evie glanced at Maya. “That girl was killed. Ali. And someone tried to kill Dash and me. Or take us, for who knows what. And they almost killed Alondra.”
“I know,” Kanezaki said. “But that was all before.”
“If we walk out of here with access to his system,” Evie said, “we’re all going to be a target.”
Kanezaki shook his head. “We’re already a target.”
Evie looked at Grimble. “Is this laptop the only instance of your file format? Does everything come here to be transcoded?”
Grimble shook his head. “Three cloud backups. Decrypt and transcode. Long key. Donkey, monkey.”
“So a total of four transcoders?” Evie said. “This laptop, plus the three cloud backups?”
Grimble nodded.
Evie looked at Rain. “If we destroy the laptop and the three backups, the underlying data can never be transcoded.”
“No,” Kanezaki said. “That’s a bad idea. Rispel, Devereaux, Hobbs . . . They wouldn’t even know we destroyed it. It would gain us nothing.”
“Rispel’s already around,” Larison said. “Or whoever positioned that sentry on Manzanita. They’re going to ask Grimble here what happened.”
“Why would anyone believe him?” Kanezaki said.
Larison glanced at Grimble, then back to Kanezaki. “Let’s just say he has an honest face.”
Grimble said, “Face, place, grace.”
“My point,” Larison said. “And by the way, this is taking too fucking long.”
“Livia,” Kanezaki said. “Alondra. Don’t you want to prosecute?”
Diaz didn’t like it. Kanezaki was a spy. Why would he be concerned about prosecution? “Why do you care?” she said.
“We all have something we want from the videos,” Kanezaki said. “I thought we came up with a good way for us all to get it.”
“We’ve been over this,” Larison said. “Good luck prosecuting the attorney general or whoever else.”
“They’re not all going to be that high up,” Kanezaki said. “Some of them can be prosecuted.”
“That’s the plan now?” Larison said. “Make it about ‘a few bad apples,’ like those poor dopes at Abu Ghraib? Do the work of the higher-ups for them? Sorry, Kanezaki, I’m not buying your bullshit. I’m not sure even you are.”
“Livia?” Diaz said. “What do you think?”
There was a long beat. Livia said, “I want to know what men are on those videos. I want them punished.”
“Exactly,” Kanezaki said.
Livia shook her head. “But not if there’s a chance of someone else getting their hands on them. And using them. Rape videos live on the Internet forever. This one time . . . we can save these girls from that.”
She looked at Diaz and added, “We can’t win every round.”
Diaz thought, I love this woman. “I know,” she said. “But we’ll never stop fighting.”
“I don’t want those girls to get hurt,” Kanezaki said. “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. But if we control those videos . . . do you understand how much good we could do?”
“Tom,” Maya said. “You don’t want those videos. It’s like the One Ring.”
“The what?” Kanezaki said.
Maya looked at Larison.
“The Lord of the Rings,” Larison said. “It’s an allegory about power. And how power corrupts.”
“‘When things are in danger,’” Maya said, “‘someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’”
Larison smiled. “‘The Ring must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.’”
Kanezaki shook his head. “Are we seriously going to make this decision based on The Lord of the Rings?” He looked at Rain. “John. Talk some sense into these people.”
Everyone looked at Rain. Diaz couldn’t have articulated why, but she thought there was something sad in his eyes.
Rain glanced around the room, then back at Kanezaki. “I told you before you remind me of Tatsu.”
“Yes,” Kanezaki said.
Rain sighed. “He would have wanted those videos, too. No doubt. No matter the risks.”
“I know,” Kanezaki said.
Rain nodded. “And he would have been making a mistake.”
Kanezaki’s lips moved as though he was trying to come up with something to say. But nothing came out.
“Tatsu was a good man,” Rain went on. “But he wasn’t perfect, Tom. You can be better. He would have wanted you to be better.”
Diaz didn’t know who Tatsu was, but she knew a strong closing argument when she heard one. And so, apparently, did Kanezaki. His shoulders slumped and he said, “Shit.”
Rain looked at Maya. “What do we need to do?”
Maya gave Grimble an appreciative nod. “Constantine stored the video files in the cloud in a unique file format. Without the transcoder, the videos are just a pile of incomprehensible bits. It’s like . . . if we were talking about DVDs, the DVDs would still exist, but there’s no DVD player. So you couldn’t watch a movie. You’d just see a bunch of ones and zeroes.”
Rain gave her a tight smile. “I appreciate your explanations. There would be no way to turn those ones and zeroes back into a movie? Grimble couldn’t make a new transcoder?”
Maya shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. So no. If you destroy the transcoder and keys, and the backups, it’s over.”
“What about the passcode?” Larison said. “Are there other copies? Or just the one stenciled inside that mask?”
“Backups,” Grimble said. “Backups, backups, backups.”
Larison shrugged. Diaz had the chilling sense that Rain and Larison had been flirting with the necessity or desirability of killing Grimble so no one else could use him to access the system. He was lucky he had architected the system the way he had. Or that he was clever enough to lie.
“How long will it take?” Rain said.
Maya shrugged. “Ten minutes. Less, if Constantine helps me.”
Diaz had turned down the volume on her earpiece so she didn’t have to hear the conversation in Grimble’s office in stereo. But suddenly she heard a loud rasping, like feedback from a microphone that’s been mishandled or dropped.
“This is Lisa Rispel,” came a loud voice. “And the lovely woman who a moment ago had this mic attached to her lapel now has the muzzle of a gun pressed to her head.”
chapter
seventy-four
MANUS
Manus and Delilah had identified a route off the property that would avoid the main entrance and the approach from Manzanita. It was level ground, with adequate space between trees, and marked off only by a wooden fence supported by posts eight feet apart. Manus tested the strength of the fence by leaning against it. It wasn’t much. Hit it hard between the posts with the truck, and they would blast right through. The Porsche could follow. They might surprise a few people by driving across the adjacent properties, but they would be gone before anyone could process it. And if anyone’s security cameras picked up a license plate, it wouldn’t matter. Kanezaki had supplied fakes. The man was more than competent with logistics.
He straightened and turned. And saw Delilah,
a man’s fist entangled in her hair, the muzzle of a gun pressed against her head. And five other men fanned out, all with suppressed pistols pointing at him. Too many to have any chance of taking out before they dropped him. And even if he could have gotten to cover, it wouldn’t have helped Delilah.
A woman stepped forward, early fifties, hair back, jeans and a dark fleece. Rispel.
She gave Manus a cool smile. “Hello, Marvin. I’m only here for the videos. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”
It was a weird echo of what Larison had said to him in Freeway Park just a few days earlier, which now felt like months ago. The difference was, when Larison said it, Manus had somehow known it was true.
How had they made it past the cameras Maya was monitoring? They must have found a way to hack the system and loop in previous footage. Probably they had been planning to do something like that with Grimble’s guards and had wound up doing it to Maya and the team, instead. And whether by luck or skill, they had approached from the southeast, where the trees would conceal them from Dox.
Delilah held Manus’s gaze. He couldn’t read her expression. One of the men removed her Glock. Rispel pulled out Delilah’s earpiece and ripped off her lapel mic. Two of the men approached Manus from his flanks and took the HK machine pistol and the Espada. One of them checked Manus’s ears and lapel. A moment later, Rispel said, “Of course he doesn’t have any commo gear. He’s deaf.”
Rispel held Delilah’s earpiece to her own ear and the mic under her mouth. “This is Lisa Rispel,” she said. “And the lovely woman who a moment ago had this mic attached to her lapel now has the muzzle of a gun pressed to her head. I want you to come out, slowly, one by one, each with your hands up. None of this is personal. All I want is the videos and then we can go our separate ways.”
chapter
seventy-five
RAIN
There was an adrenaline dump, but no fear. Instead, what Rain felt were bulkheads, long disused but apparently still well oiled, sliding into place, shutting off his feelings, leaving only a cold clarity.
He pulled the radio out of his pocket and muted the microphone. “Maya. Can you put a new administrator password on Grimble’s laptop? Just nod or shake, I don’t want your mic to pick it up.”
She looked at him, obviously still shocked from what they had all heard in their earpieces. And the failure of her camera hack.
“They must have gotten into the camera system themselves,” Rain said. “Injected a loop into the network, something like that. It doesn’t matter now. Can you do a new password?”
She nodded.
“Get the laptop out of the safe and do it.”
Maya disconnected the laptop, took it from the safe, and started working the keyboard.
Rain looked around. Livia and Larison had their guns out and had angled off so they could see more of what was outside the window. Kanezaki had his gun out, too, and was looking at Rain for instructions. Evie had pulled Dash close and was signing to him. Diaz was looking at Rain, like Kanezaki apparently waiting for guidance. Grimble was staring at the ceiling.
“Everyone stay cool,” Rain said. “That’s what gets us through this. Okay?”
Evie, Dash, Diaz, Kanezaki, and Maya all nodded. Livia and Larison scanned—window, door, and back. Grimble seemed to have no sense that anything new was happening.
Diaz pulled out her radio and muted the mic. She said, “But how do they know which structure we’re in?”
“I don’t think they do,” Rain said. “They probably tracked Grimble’s phone to the residence, like we did, with the rest as guesswork. Or saw Delilah and Larison close by. It doesn’t matter now.”
“I know you can hear me,” Rispel said. “You really don’t want to keep me waiting.”
“Diaz,” he said, “put that Noh mask back on the wall.” He would have preferred to smash the mask to bits, but that only would have drawn attention to it and interfered with the appearance of ignorance they needed to claim. They could have put it in the safe, but then there would be the empty hook on the wall and the remaining two masks, uncentered. Obviously Grimble was sharper about computers than he was about where to hide a passcode, but nothing to be done about that now.
“I’m going to give you a three count,” Rispel said. “Let’s hope I don’t get to the end of it.”
“Livia,” Rain said. “Under this building is something called an ennoshita. It’s a kind of crawl space, part of traditional Japanese architecture. This one looked tight to me, but I think if you prone out you can squeeze through.”
“Three,” Rispel said.
“It’s concealed by lattices but they should be removable,” Rain said. “Go out the window and make your way forward through the space. If we lose contact, use your judgment.”
Livia nodded and went to the window.
“Two,” Rispel said. “One—”
Rain unmuted the mic. “How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“Who am I speaking to?” Rispel said.
“My name is Rain.” He didn’t care what they talked about. He just wanted to give Maya time to lock anyone else out of Grimble’s laptop. And Livia time to get under the structure.
“John Rain?”
He heard Dox in his ear. “John, I switched to only your channel. Rispel can’t hear me. I can’t see her from here. You need to get her and whoever she’s with to move north on the pathway, past the trees. Probably no more than fifty feet. Let me know if you understand.”
“John Rain?” Rispel said again.
“Yes,” Rain said. And then, for Dox’s benefit, “Is this going to be like one of those action movie standoffs?”
“I hope not,” Rispel said. “You know, I’ve heard conflicting things about you. That you’re retired. That you’re not even real.”
“Roger that,” Dox said. “Put ’em in my sights and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“People exaggerate,” Rain said. “I’ve heard a few things about you, too.”
“I can assure you, everything you’ve heard about me is true. Now, please do come out as I’ve instructed.”
“I said, how do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t. But think about it. The fact that this woman and Mr. Manus are still alive should be evidence both of my good intentions and of my good faith.”
Or that you want to disarm us so you can mow everyone down without bullets flying in your direction.
“Come out,” Rispel said. “You can see for yourself, and then you can tell the rest of your people to join you. You see? Good faith.”
She’d snowed Maya, so she must have had impressive technical support. And a skilled team of gunfighters, too, to have gotten the drop on both Manus and Delilah. But there were gaps in her intel. She didn’t know Delilah’s name. She seemed to be surprised at Rain’s presence. Most of all, she didn’t know Dox was part of the team. Or at least they didn’t know he was positioned somewhere with a rifle. If they had, they would have been afraid to be anywhere outside.
Maya waved and gave Rain a thumbs-up.
Rain nodded. “Okay,” he said to Rispel. “I’m coming out.”
chapter
seventy-six
RISPEL
Rispel glanced to her sides—a reflex, like checking the chamber in a gun you already knew was loaded. Three men left, three right—a semicircle, branches forward, Rispel at the center, the outermost man to her left holding Manus and the outermost to her right holding the blonde woman. All Special Operations Group veterans. And a seventh person, alongside Rispel, a woman from the technical branch named Fiona, who had uncovered Maya’s tracks inside Guardian Angel. The shooters in the organization were all still men, it seemed. But Rispel didn’t mind. Brains were more important than brawn.
Fiona had hacked Grimble’s camera network and looped in previous footage. The original plan had been to take control of the network itself, but it seemed someone had already done that. Credit to Fiona f
or implementing a creative solution on the fly. Rispel wouldn’t be able to use Grimble’s cameras as her eyes, but at least she was aware of the deficit. The other group would think they could see, while in fact they couldn’t. Better to be blind than to have your eyes deceive you.
Had Dutch been able to spare more men, Rispel would have taken them. Still, six operators were probably enough, especially given their skills and experience. The problem was, she couldn’t be sure how many she’d be up against. Kanezaki, of course. And Maya. But they weren’t shooters. The wild cards were the sniper Dox and the other man the Freeway Park team had spotted. She had suspected Manus would be in the mix, and she’d been right. There was the blonde woman. And now it turned out this man Rain was involved. Rispel had to give Kanezaki credit—he knew how to build a private network. What a waste.
She’d heard stories about Rain that sounded like urban legends, including that he was some sort of martial arts master. Maybe he was the one who had broken the neck of her sentry. Which turned out to be not such a bad thing, as the sentry’s failure to check in had alerted Rispel to the fact that Kanezaki was inside Grimble’s compound. She had considered going in at the Mountain Home main entrance, and then decided Kanezaki would be more likely to expect that. She’d told the driver of the Sprinter to let them off on Manzanita, and to wait down the road from the main entrance, either for her signal or for her arrival.
The door to one of the structures opened. An Asian man came out, hands up as Rispel had instructed. Rain. In one hand he was holding a laptop; with the other, he pulled the door closed behind him. He walked down the short set of stairs, his eyes moving from side to side. He saw the blonde woman, who one of Rispel’s men was still holding with a gun pressed to the side of her head. Rain didn’t react to that, or to the sight of Manus in similar straits, or to the four men who were pointing suppressed machine pistols at him. His eyes just kept moving, as dispassionately as though he were crossing the street and checking first for traffic. Rispel considered herself a good reader of people, but she couldn’t work out what was going through the man’s head. It wasn’t that he seemed calm. He seemed almost . . . past calm. As though what was happening here had happened long ago and was already over.