by Barry Eisler
If there’s shooting, you have to run. That might be your only opportunity to make it to the truck. Do you understand? Because he’ll try to hit me first.
Dash signed, I understand.
Manus nodded. Good boy. I want you to stay behind me.
I’m not afraid.
I know you’re not. You’re brave. But I still want you behind me, okay? Evie, you too.
They started walking to the pickup. Manus kept Evie and Dash to his left and casually scanned the tree line while they moved. There were a number of fat trees and some boulders, too. Delgado could have been behind any of them.
Manus hoped he was playing it right. He didn’t think Delgado would be much of a shot. The man seemed to prefer knives, and Manus had never known him to fire a gun. He’d received no military or intelligence training. Even if he’d managed to replace the gun Manus had taken from him in the reservoir the night before, the new one would be unfamiliar to him. So on balance, Manus’s chances of getting hit seemed low. But knowing all that wasn’t quite the same as wearing body armor, either.
He kept glancing over at the tree line. He knew what he’d smelled. But he detected no movement. Where the hell—
All at once he realized his mistake. Stupid. So stupid. He was so tired, so overwrought, that he’d missed the incredibly obvious.
His own truck.
The smell was coming from the right, from the tree line, that’s what had thrown him. What had stopped him from thinking clearly.
They were thirty feet away. He moved in front of Evie and Dash and stopped. His hand swept to the Force Pro—
Too late. Delgado popped up from the truck bed, a pistol extended. He was proned out, most of his body covered by one of the long panels. Had Manus been alone, he would have instantly moved offline while laying down fire. With Evie and Dash behind him, that wasn’t an option. He let his hand drift back to his side.
Delgado smiled. His face was a mess—swollen, bruised, a strip of angry red where the hair plugs had once been.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, looking at Evie. “I told you I’d see you soon.”
Manus felt Evie putting Dash behind her, then moving in closer herself. She put her left hand on his shoulder. For comfort, he thought—but then he felt her other hand on the butt of the Force Pro, easing it out of its holster.
“How’d you like the cologne?” Delgado said. “I sprinkled it in the trees. Just for you. I knew you’d smell it, you fucking freak.”
Manus held up his hands as though in surrender and started walking forward. “I like the new hairline,” he said. “More handsome than ever. Thomas Delgado, ladies’ man.”
Twenty feet. Still too far for an inexperienced shooter juiced on adrenaline to reliably hit the mark. He kept moving slowly forward.
Delgado laughed. “Yeah, that’s it. Get it all out now. I want to hear everything you have to say in that goofy voice of yours. Christ, you have no idea how stupid you sound when you talk. Like a lobotomy case or something.”
Twelve feet. “Really? Have you known a lot of lobotomy cases?” Just keep him talking, he thought. Engaged.
“None like you, freak, I’ll say that. That’s close enough, by the way. And keep those hands up.”
He stopped. They were ten feet away. They weren’t going to get any closer.
“What’s the problem?” Delgado said, looking at Evie. “You scared, sweetheart? About what I’m going to do to you and your little boy as soon as I’m done splattering your boyfriend’s brains all over both of you? Hmm?”
Manus felt Evie tensing. Delgado seemed to sense it, too. Manus needed to distract him somehow, with something.
An image came to him. It was funny. He started laughing.
Delgado looked at him suspiciously. Manus laughed harder.
“Okay, dimwit. What’s the joke? Make it good, it’s going to be your last.”
“Those hair plugs Evie ripped out of your head. Do you think they’re growing on the forest floor?”
Delgado’s face darkened. It was now or never.
Evie stepped to the right and brought up the Force Pro in a two-handed grip, just as Manus had showed her. Manus heard a faint pop as she fired. The round caught Delgado in the shoulder and spun him back. Evie walked forward and kept firing, too rapidly to place her shots. A few went high, a few went low, and the rest hit the truck panel, which probably stopped the rounds. The pop pop pop Manus could hear abruptly ended, and he realized she had emptied the magazine.
He sprinted in and vaulted onto the truck bed. Delgado brought up his gun and Manus swatted it aside so hard he felt Delgado’s wrist crack. The gun flew past Manus’s field of vision. Delgado tried to stand and Manus blasted a knee into his face. Delgado was knocked back and slammed his head against the edge of the panel. Manus saw his eyes lose focus. He grabbed him by the lapels, hauled him up, and hurled him into the air.
Delgado hit the ground with a thud Manus could feel all the way through the truck tires. He unlatched the toolbox and pulled free the Berserker, then leaped out of the truck bed alongside Delgado. But Evie was already there, one hand gripping the back of Delgado’s collar and hauling his limp upper torso off the ground, the other holding the muzzle of Delgado’s gun against the side of his head. Her face was a mask of fury and determination.
“I told you,” she panted. “The next time I saw you. I told you.”
Dash was watching, his fists curled against his cheeks, his eyes wide with horror. Manus said, “Evie, no. No! Take care of Dash.”
She blinked and looked up at him.
“Not in front of your boy. Give me the gun. Walk out of here. Walk out. I’ll pick you up along the way.”
She blinked again, then looked at the gun as though not understanding how it had wound up in her hand. She released Delgado’s collar and he collapsed. Then she handed the gun to Manus.
“The keys,” he said.
Evie gently removed them from Dash’s pocket and gave them to Manus.
“My gun?”
She glanced around, her expression confused, then pointed. “There. I . . . must have dropped it.”
Delgado managed to get to his knees. He was panting and snorting. Blood ran from the ruination that had once been his nose.
Evie looked at the Berserker as though noticing it for the first time. “You did kill those Turks,” she said. “It was you.”
Manus didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure what connection she was making. He would think about it later.
Evie took Dash by the hand and they started jogging up the road. Manus circled around Delgado so he could keep him in his field of vision while he watched them go. Within a minute, they were over the bridge and he could no longer see them.
Delgado looked up at him. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’ll always be a freak.”
Manus smiled. “You know what, Delgado? There’s something I always wanted to say to you.”
“Yeah? And what’s that?”
The smile widened. “This.”
He stretched and brought his arm high, as though the Berserker were a tennis racket about to deliver a blistering serve, then brought it down with all his strength. The blade cleaved Delgado’s head in two. A fountain of blood erupted from within his riven skull, and Manus leaped back to avoid the spray. Delgado’s body twitched and jerked for an instant, and then folded up and collapsed, all useless joints and truncated nerve endings.
Manus retrieved the Force Pro, swapped in a fresh magazine, and reholstered the weapon. He wiped the Berserker in the grass, placed it and Delgado’s gun in the truck toolbox, and headed out. A moment later, he pulled up alongside Evie and Dash. They got in, Dash in the middle. The boy was crying hard. Manus extended an arm and rubbed his back as he drove. He didn’t know where he was going, and Evie didn’t ask him. He supposed she was in shock. Maybe he was, too.
Twenty minutes later, he started to get the shakes. He couldn’t remember the last time that had happened to him. He pulled int
o the parking area at Black Hill Regional Park and waited for it to pass.
Dash had stopped crying. You okay, Mr. Manus? he signed.
Manus nodded. I will be. How about you?
I don’t know. Who was that man?
He was a bad man. He was going to hurt your mother. And maybe you, too.
And you stopped him?
Yes. We don’t have to worry about him anymore. Ever.
Was there really a scavenger hunt?
Evie stroked his hair. Not a real one, honey. But . . . a kind of one. It’s a long story.
I want to hear it.
I’ll tell you. But only if Mr. Manus promises to help. He knows parts I don’t.
Dash looked at Manus, his eyes questioning. Manus raised his hands, but found no words. He looked at Evie for help. But all she signed was Well?
That feeling of being amputated, marooned, seemed to slacken. Only a little, but a little was enough.
I’ll try, he found himself signing.
Dash gave him a hesitant smile and a thumbs-up. Then he turned to Evie. Can we go home?
Evie nodded and looked at Manus. Yes. Let’s do that. I’m ready.
Manus drove slowly and carefully. He didn’t think anyone was watching. But he knew he could never be sure.
EPILOGUE . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . .
Remar and two aides strode down the corridor of the Hart Senate Office Building, flanked by a four-man security detail, their footfalls along the long carpeted floor the muffled drumbeat of a large and purposeful group of visitors. Remar had never needed, or wanted, an entourage before, but apparently being appointed by the president to the office of director of the National Security Agency had its rewards. Or its burdens. Regardless of his personal feelings, today he knew it was important to look the part. He would be testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in turn would recommend to the full Senate that his appointment either be confirmed or shot down. He was reasonably confident things would go smoothly, but saw no reason to leave anything to chance, either.
From beyond the railing to their left, one floor down on the ground level of the eight-story atrium, came the muted cacophony of platoons of cynical lobbyists, exhausted staffers, high school field trippers craning their necks to better take in the wonder of finding themselves surrounded by the marble-clad walls of the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body. They passed the flag-draped entrance to the Senate Committee on Ethics and a long line of ceiling security cameras, then stopped outside 219, the secure room where the committee met to discuss classified matters. Remar checked his watch. Perfect. There was another hearing in 219 that morning, scheduled to finish just before Remar’s began, and Remar wanted to be there when it ended.
After a few minutes, the doors opened with a slight hiss of escaping, pressurized air. Ryan Hamilton walked out beside Betsy Leed, the editor of the Intercept. A second woman, older than either, was in tow. Remar recognized the second woman as the paper’s lawyer. He was struck by the irony that the reporters felt they needed a lawyer while he didn’t. And by how the committee was willing to hear Hamilton’s testimony only in secret.
They saw Remar and pulled up short. The two women looked at him with cold implacability; Hamilton, with hatred.
For a moment, they all stood and eyed each other, like a scene from the OK Corral. Hamilton was wearing a cheap-looking gray suit that hung loosely from his shoulders. Under it, a white shirt too large for his neck and swallowing the knot of a blue tie. He’d lost weight following his abduction, and hadn’t yet managed to gain it back. Well, according to the transcripts Remar had seen of Hamilton’s sessions with his therapist, loss of appetite was common after an ordeal like his. So were Hamilton’s vivid nightmares—nightmares involving details of his abduction he preferred not be made public. Understandably so.
“Ryan,” Remar said. “You’re looking well. I’m glad.”
“Fuck you,” Hamilton shot back. The lawyer touched his arm, but he shook it off.
“I’m sorry there hasn’t been more progress in locating the deaf man you say abducted you. I can assure you, NSA has been offering all its resources to the FBI and Interpol.”
Hamilton drew back his lips as though to spit. “You people make me sick.”
Remar nodded gravely. “I understand how you feel. For what it’s worth, I want to personally thank you for helping to expose the abuses former director Anders was committing. As well as I thought I knew him, in the end I was as shocked as you must have been.”
“Really?” Hamilton said. “You think we’re shocked to learn the government is lying? And worse?”
“No, you’re right. Of course not. But speaking as a citizen, I’m glad the press has been doing its part in maintaining the vital balance between our nation’s liberty and its security. In fact, I think your coverage of this God’s Eye program former director Anders was running has been superb, and I’m grateful for it.”
“Ah, the former director,” Leed said. “I’m guessing you haven’t been any more successful in finding his killers than you have been in finding Mr. Hamilton’s kidnapper?”
Remar dipped his head and touched the eye patch. He’d sensed how Manus would handle the knowledge of the director’s betrayal. And while he hadn’t told Manus what to do, he hadn’t told him not to, either. The outcome was good, he knew. Cleaner. Simpler. But still.
“I wish I had better news in that regard,” he said, after a moment. “But no. The working theory is that it was a revenge operation, carried out by elements of the terror cell responsible for the DC bombing.”
“That was an inside job,” Hamilton said. “And you know it.”
“I know there are people who believe that. There are also people who say the same about 9/11. Of course, if you have proof—an unimpeachable source, that kind of thing—I’m sure you’ll be covering it.”
He waited for a moment, watching them closely.
“You’re right about that,” Leed said. “There’s lots more to come.”
She said it with confidence, but Remar knew it was a bluff. If they’d had anything, Hamilton, who was running hotter than the other two, would have blurted it out then and there.
Besides, Gallagher had taken the severance Remar had offered. He wasn’t even bothering to have her watched. He knew she would do nothing to put her son at risk. And even if she did, so what? The word of a disgruntled former employee against a decorated war hero and soon-to-be four-star general? And Manus would never say anything, either. He was even more implicated than Gallagher. And, it was plain, was as intent on protecting her as she was on protecting her son. He hadn’t checked in since the C&O Canal, but that was okay. Remar had no desire to press him. Live and let live.
“I’ll look forward to your continued reporting,” he said. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, it seems I have a confirmation hearing to attend.”
Hamilton frowned as though getting ready to say something, but Leed touched his arm. “Ryan. Why don’t we write another of those articles the general seems to enjoy so much?”
Hamilton nodded and allowed himself to be led off, his eyes still glowing with fury.
Remar’s men looked at him for guidance. He nodded sympathetically and said, “He’s been through a lot.”
He patted the fruit salad on the breast of his army service uniform, gave the jacket tails a brisk tug, and strode into the hearing.
The nineteen members of the committee were waiting for him, arrayed around a red, velvet-draped, U-shaped platform raised several feet above the long wooden table where he and his aides took their seats.
“General,” Senator McQueen said, after the room had been secured. His amplified voice echoed off the high ceiling, giving it a disembodied feel, and not for the first time in a setting like this one, Remar imagined the Wizard of Oz. “Welcome. I’m sure the rest of the committee is looking forward to this hearing as much as I am. Despite all the conspiracy theories we’ve been hearing about lately, I
’m confident the entire process of your confirmation will be a smooth one.”
Remar dipped his head modestly. “Thank you, Senator. I’m looking forward to answering all your questions and dispelling what myths I can.”
The remainder of the hearing was as scripted as its opening. A lot of talk about more oversight, a beefed-up FISA court, maybe a “privacy advocate,” whatever the hell that would be. Though as a marketing concept, Remar had to admit, the idea had its merits. The president himself would appoint whomever he wanted in the role, but people would hear the nomenclature, believe their privacy was being advocated, and tune out all the troubling details.
“And we’ll need proof that this ‘God’s Eye’ has been dismantled,” one of the more liberal members of the committee opined.
“Of course, Senator. As you know, that’s already under way.”
“Now just one minute,” Senator McQueen interjected. “We all know former director Anders was abusing God’s Eye. But we also know the program prevented numerous terror attacks. Saved countless lives. Were there excesses? Of course there were. But those were Anders’s excesses. We’ll fix the program. Ensure there’s better oversight. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bathwater.”
There were murmurs of disagreement and assent. The liberal senator spoke up again. “This kind of program is too dangerous to exist. I want it dismantled, not cleaned up.”
Remar thought about the “privacy advocate” and was struck by sudden inspiration.
“Well, Senator,” he said, “there is a successor program. Much less intrusive, much greater oversight. I expect it to be equally effective against the terrorist threat.”
“Yes?” the senator said. “And what is this program called?”
Remar smiled. “We’re calling it Guardian Angel.”
The senators collectively leaned back in their plush chairs, nodding sagely, and a low purr of contentment echoed in the room.
That was the way it worked in the modern world. Remar hadn’t designed the machine; his job now was simply to run it, and he intended to do his job sensibly and well. Because, in the end, God’s Eye was more than just a name. It was a way of life, and people had gotten used to it.