The Detachment

by Barry Eisler

  It was a little sad, actually. He respected Rain. Felt in some ways the man was even a kindred spirit—another self-contained, lethal loner, professionally paranoid, personally aloof.

  But what difference did any of that make? In his position, sentiment was a weakness, and in his line of work, weaknesses got you killed.

  Still, he was surprised to feel an uncharacteristic sense of regret at the thought of taking out Rain and the others. He wondered if it was a sign of aging, or whether it might be some last, twitching vestige of a conscience he’d long since left for dead. What if it was? He’d read his Thoreau in high school. How did it go again? Something like, What’s the point of having a conscience, if you don’t listen to it?

  But Thoreau had never been a soldier. And if there was one thing he’d learned from Hort, it was that the mission came before the man. The mission. And the current mission couldn’t be more clear: eliminate Hort and recover the diamonds. Protect Nico. Protect himself.

  As for the rest…well, it was a rare mission that didn’t involve collateral damage. You didn’t welcome it, but you couldn’t shrink from it, either. In the end, he supposed, all men do what they have to.

  The trick was living with it afterward. But he’d had plenty of practice with that.

  I arrived in D.C. on an Amtrak train from New York, having flown to JFK from Munich. I preferred not to use obvious routes to or from the places I might be expected. Dox, Larison, and Treven had traveled somewhat less circuitously, and had therefore arrived ahead of me, but that was their risk, not mine.

  The meeting was at the downtown Capital Hilton, a large and appropriately anonymous conference hotel Dox had recommended and where he’d made a room reservation. I had the cab drop me off at the Hay Adams, across from the White House, instead, thinking I’d walk the few blocks to the Hilton rather than give the driver a chance to note my actual destination. But instead of heading straight to the meeting, I succumbed to a strange urge to join the throng of tourists milling along the tall iron security fence at the edge of the expansive front lawn.

  I strolled over, my pores opening immediately in the afternoon humidity. It was a cloudy day, but somehow the absence of sun exacerbated the heat, which felt like it was radiating from everything rather than from some single, identifiable source. Even the squirrels in Lafayette Square seemed listless, lethargic, as motionless as the nearby humans slouching on park benches and sweating under the useless foliage in rolled shirt-sleeves and loosened ties.

  As I exited the park, I was immediately struck by how fortified the area was. Pennsylvania Avenue had been shut down to automobile traffic, presumably out of fear of truck bombs. There were steel vehicle traps through which delivery trucks had to pass for inspection; multiple guard posts; swarms of uniformed cops and military personnel patrolling on foot, on bicycles, and in cars. The windows of the far-off building itself stared insensate through the thick iron bars separating the grounds from the citizenry, as blank and impenetrable as the tactical shades of the scores of men guarding them. What had once been a residence and office was now, in essence, a bunker.

  I moved on, heading southwest in the beginning of a long loop that would give me ample opportunities to confirm I wasn’t being followed before arriving at the Hilton. Outside the garrisoned grounds of the White House, the city was unremarkable, even bland. The streets were wide and straight; the architecture unimaginative; the ambiance, nonexistent. I noted that, along with London and New York, Washington seemed one of the few remaining cities where men were determined to wear jackets and ties even in the summer. The difference being that in London and New York, the men knew how to dress. But what they lacked in sartorial sense, Washington’s office workers made up for with a certain bounce in their gait. I wondered what might account for their perkiness, and decided it was proximity to power. After all, a dog wags its tail even when it’s begging for a scrap, not only when it receives one.

  I had called Horton from the airport and briefed him on what happened in Vienna. As with Shorrock, he’d already heard. He told me the money had been deposited and proposed that we meet to discuss the next assignment. But I saw no upside to a face-to-face. We still had the communications gear he’d given me in L.A. I’d ditched the cyanide, and didn’t think I’d need a replacement. So I declined, telling him to use a secure site I’d set up, instead.

  I paused in another park, fished the iPad out of my shoulder bag, and found a public Wi-Fi network. I checked the bank account and confirmed deposit of the three hundred thousand. Then I checked the secure site to see if Horton had uploaded the target file.

  He had. I opened it and saw the name. I would have recognized it even if it hadn’t been immediately followed by her title:

  Diane Schmalz. U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

  No, I thought, shaking my head at the screen. Not a chance.

  He was ignoring my rules about women and children. Maybe he thought I wasn’t serious, that the money would matter more. If so, he was wrong. I’d lived by my rules for a long time, and even the one deviation hadn’t really been an exception, because I did it for personal reasons, not as part of a job. I wasn’t going to change now.

  But what if killing her saves thousands?

  No. I didn’t care. If there’s one thing I know as well as I know killing, it’s how subornment works. One baby step at a time. The art of getting someone to cross a line he doesn’t even see until he looks back and realizes it’s already impossibly far behind him.

  I glanced through the file. Photographs. Home addresses, both in D.C. and a weekend place in western Maryland. Schedule. No observed security consciousness and no protection, because no Supreme Court Justice had ever been assassinated.

  But it didn’t make sense. I’d never had much interest in what passes for justice in America, but I knew Schmalz’s name, and I knew she had a reputation as one of the court’s last guardians of civil liberties. It was hard to imagine her being part of a plot to end those liberties. If anything, I would have expected her to be on the other side.

  I scanned down and saw that Horton must have anticipated my concern. He had written:

  When the president declares his assumption of emergency powers, he’ll be sued. There are four authoritarian Justices who will back him. The other four might or might not. Schmalz would absolutely oppose him, leading to a possible five-four defeat. Not necessarily fatal to their plans, but certainly it would be a major public relations setback not to secure the Supreme Court’s blessing along with that of Congress.

  Schmalz’s son is a lawyer, married with three small children. He is a closeted homosexual and the plotters have graphic photographic and video evidence of his infidelities. He has also twice threatened suicide, and received therapy and other treatment afterward. Schmalz understands that were her son’s homosexuality revealed, it would destroy his family and career, devastate her grandchildren, and likely cause this unstable man to take his own life. She will do what’s she’s told to prevent all this.

  But not if she passes away beforehand.

  I reread the relevant paragraphs and felt an uncharacteristic anger taking hold of me. One of my rules has always been no acts against non-principals. Meaning no deaths of non-principals primarily, but still, I’ve never liked the idea of solving a problem with Person A by going after Person B. Kill Schmalz? If I really wanted to do something good in the world, I thought, I ought to go after the people who were threatening to ruin her son and grandchildren just to secure a favorable vote.

  I wondered why Horton didn’t do something arguably less extreme. Find some way to out the son in advance and defuse the blackmail bomb by preempting it? Maybe he thought that would tip his hand to the plotters in a way that a kindly-looking grandmother’s peaceful demise in her sleep wouldn’t.

  But I didn’t care. I didn’t like the smell of this thing anymore, or where it seemed to be taking me. The others could do what they wanted. I was out.

  I exited the site and purged the browser,
then found a payphone, called the Hilton, and asked for James Hendricks, the name Dox had told me he would check in under. “We on?” I said.

  “Gang’s all here, partner. Twelve-thirty-four.”

  That meant they were in room 901. My habit with Dox was to use a simple code when mentioning exact dates, times, room numbers and the like. We just added three to each digit. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t be all that difficult to crack, but one more layer of defense never hurt anyone.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said, then hung up and unobtrusively wiped down the handset with a handkerchief. Being in the belly of the beast was making me twitchy.

  I headed over to the Hilton. The lobby was crowded, apparently due to the annual convention of something called The American Constitution Society. I couldn’t help smiling a little. If you only knew.

  I took the elevator to the tenth floor, then the stairs down to nine. I emerged into the middle of a narrow corridor about a hundred meters long. I looked left, and at the far end saw two men in suits and shades who looked like bodyguards waiting outside a VIP’s room. Not so unusual, and easily explained by the convention downstairs or by one of the nearby embassies. Still, I wasn’t sorry to see from a sign that 901 was to the right. I walked to the end of the corridor, made a left, and found the room. I knocked once and the door opened instantly—Treven. He must have been watching through the peephole. I nodded in acknowledgement and walked in. Dox and Larison were sitting across from each other on the room’s twin beds, eating sandwiches. I heard Treven latching the door behind me.

  “You hungry?” Dox said, holding up an Au Bon Pain bag. “We got tuna, turkey, and roast beef.”

  On the beds alongside them were a couple of pistols. A Wilson Combat, which must have been Dox’s; a Glock that I assumed was Larison’s. I wondered if Treven was carrying, too. Seeing the guns gave me mixed feelings. In general, better to be armed, yes, but I didn’t know Larison or Treven well enough to like the feeling of their carrying firearms around me.

  “Where’d you get the hardware?” I said. “The underground redneck railroad again?”

  Dox grinned. “This time, just a gun show in Chantilly. You know, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Picked out a Wilson for you, too. These hombres here like their Glocks, but you know me.”

  He handed me a Tactical Supergrade Compact and two spare magazines. I put the magazines in my front pockets, then checked the load and secured the gun in my waistband. It felt good. If Larison and Treven were going to be carrying, I was glad I was, too.

  “Sandwich?” Dox asked.

  “No, I’m good,” I said. “You eat, I’ll talk.”

  I sat down next to Dox. Treven hesitated, then did the same next to Larison, across from me. I briefed them all on what had happened in Vienna. Then I told them who the next target was. And told them I was out, and why.

  “I don’t get it,” Dox said, when I was done. “I mean, who cares if her son is gay? I thought we were living in the twenty-first century. Hell, I love gay men. If they stick to loving each other, it just means more ladies for me.”

  “It’s not that he’s gay,” I said. “It’s that he’s closeted. That’s the exploitable aspect. Although I agree it’s a shame.”

  Larison and Treven hadn’t said anything yet. I was surprised they were being so quiet.

  “Anyway,” Dox said, “I’m not exactly okay with euthanizing a little old lady. But even more than that…damn, a Supreme Court Justice? I mean, we’re already practically making history here with some of the targets we just took down. But being the first to rack up a Supreme? I’m starting to feel like we might be growing bullseyes on our backs, and I don’t think I like it.”

  “I don’t care one way or the other,” Larison said. “You know why I’m in this. But if you feel like we’re growing targets on our backs, congratulations, it means you’re starting to wake up.”

  I looked at Treven. “You want this?” I said. “Do it yourself and it’s a two-million dollar payday.”

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Larison said, looking at Treven. “It’s a setup. This whole fucking thing is a setup. Go out on your own and you’ll be the first one to get picked off.”

  A long moment went by. Treven said, “Whether you’re in this for the money, or whether it’s because you want to save a lot of lives, the calculus is the same. A false flag terror attack is still a terror attack. Innocent people die either way. If removing one more player makes the difference, I’ll do it, with or without the rest of you.”

  “A player?” Dox said. “Have you ever seen a picture of this woman? She looks like my grandma. I’m not holding a damn pillow over her face, no sir. Give me nightmares for the rest of my life.”

  I didn’t like Treven’s response. It struck me as the product of bluster, not of thought. I wondered why he’d be so touchy. Had he been feeling left out? Jealous that he hadn’t been at the center of things with Shorrock and Finch? It seemed silly that someone so capable and experienced could also be so adolescent. If I could have been paid either way and stayed at the periphery, I would have been glad to.

  But it was all the same to me. “Here,” I said, firing up the iPad and accessing the secure site. I input my pass code, then saw a message from Kanezaki: Call me ASAP.

  I deleted the message and handed the iPad to Treven. “Hold on,” I said. “Looks like we might have some new information about Horton.” I popped the batteries in my phone, turned it on, and called Kanezaki.

  He picked up instantly. “Did you do Jack Finch?” he said.

  I was taken aback but didn’t show it. “What are you talking about?” I saw the others glance over.

  “Stop playing with me. The president is about to announce his replacement. Colonel Horton.”

  My stomach lurched. “Finch’s replacement is…Horton?” I said. Larison was nodding as though he already knew.

  “That’s not all. Shorrock, the guy you say died in Las Vegas because of an ironic act of God? He was giving secret testimony to Congress about abuses within the National Counterterrorism Center. He was just a civilian manager, he wouldn’t know an op if one snuck up and bit him on the ass, the last guy in the world to want to run, or to be able to run, a false flag attack. But you know who’s replacing him?”

  I felt sick. “No.”

  “The number two guy there, Dan Gillmor. And Gillmor’s no civilian appointee. He’s former JSOC, one of Horton’s guys. Been part of the military/intelligence/corporate/security complex his entire life. And he’s a fanatic. Knights of Malta like James Jesus Angleton and William Casey, crusader challenge coins—”

  “Crusader challenge coins?”

  “Some of these guys, like Erik Prince, think what we’re doing in the Middle East is a holy war, a new Crusades. It’s a network of zealots. And this one is now perfectly positioned to run the groups Horton told you were being used for these impending false flag attacks. Now his interfering boss is out of the way, and he’s number one. He can do anything he wants without having to explain himself to some meddling civilian.”

  I didn’t say anything. There was so much to process, I couldn’t sort it all through.

  Dox, Larison, and Treven were all watching me, their sandwiches forgotten. I’d said little, but my expression and posture must have told them everything.

  “Did you do it?” Kanezaki said. “Shorrock? Finch? Was it you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Jesus Christ, John. You’re not preventing a coup. You just cleared the way to one.”

  Still I didn’t answer. I was struggling to connect the dots. Larison was right. I’d been an idiot. An idiot.

  “Do you get it?” Kanezaki said. “Horton isn’t trying to stop this thing. He’s one of the plotters. He mixed a lot of truth into his lies just to—”

  “Stop,” I said. “Let me think.”

  Dox said, “What’s going on?”

  I held up a hand, palm out, and said to Kanezaki, “
This announcement about Horton’s new position. When is it scheduled to happen?”

  “I don’t know. But the word is, soon.”

  “What about Gillmor? When will that be announced?”

  “The same.”

  I put my thumb over the phone’s microphone and looked over at the others. My mind was racing but I kept my voice calm. “Schmalz is a setup. We need to get out of here. Get ready. Just trying to learn a little more, then I’ll fill you in and we’ll talk about how to bug out.”

  The three of them stood. There was an electric feeling building in the room that I didn’t like.

  I moved my thumb and said to Kanezaki, “Anything else?”

  “Yes. Why are you asking about the timing? Of the announcement about Horton and Gillmor.”

  “If the announcements are any time soon, Horton didn’t care that I could hear of them before doing the third target. That means the third target was a setup.”

  “Third target…there’s another? Who?”

  “Diane Schmalz.”

  “The Supreme Court Justice? Are you fucking insane?”

  “Relax. I was already going to turn it down. But he never expected me to do it in the first place. It was just a ploy to get me to Washington.”

  “Shit. You’re in Washington now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You need to get out of the city. D.C. is the last place you want Horton hunting for you. Especially now, he has local resources that can lock down that place like he’s closing the door on a closet.”