by Barry Eisler
He looked out at the faces of the people assembled before him, then pivoted and walked toward the White House, his head high, his posture erect. There was another moment of stunned silence, then the reporters leaped to their feet and began shouting a cacophony of questions. For a single second, the president looked utterly flustered. Then he, too, turned and strode back toward the White House.
We all stared at the television. Finally, Dox broke the silence.
“What the fucking fuck?” he said.
I got up and turned off the television, having no desire to listen to the inevitable feeble-minded cable news commentary. I turned and looked at Larison, Treven, and Dox. “What the hell was that?”
Dox nodded. “Is it just me, or did that sound to anyone else like a man running for high office?”
“It did,” I said. “But what office? If they get what they want, I don’t think these guys are planning on holding an election any time soon. And, by any time soon, I mean ‘ever.’”
No one spoke. I said, “I mean, did that sound like a guy who’s trying to launch a coup? Who had the president’s counterterrorism advisor killed so he could take the dead man’s position?”
“You think we could have been wrong?” Dox said. “About what Horton was really up to? About who sent those unfortunates after us in D.C.?”
“But who else could have known we were there?” I said. “Unless Horton had told someone, someone who…I don’t know, had his own reasons for wanting us taken out.”
“No,” Treven said. “Hort would never have breached operational security unless he wanted us removed.”
Larison inclined his head toward Kei, who was sitting on one of the beds, one wrist flex-tied to a bedpost. “And besides,” he said, “what about the two men who were trying to protect her?”
“Could someone else have sent them to make it look like Horton had?” I said, thinking aloud.
Larison shook his head. “That’s getting a little far-fetched, I think. Parsimony suggests we’re right about Hort’s goals. But I agree, his tactics are…surprising. On the other hand, Hort never does what you’re expecting him to do. He always has an angle. The question is, what’s his angle here? You think he thinks this will save her?”
Dox glanced at Kei. “She’s not going to actually need saving, all right? We just need her father to think she will.”
It was a stupid thing to say in front of Kei. Yes, it was true, but we were counting on her fear that we might harm her to make her more cooperative. But he’d said it, and she’d heard it. Arguing with him wouldn’t change that.
Larison looked at Dox. “It doesn’t matter what we might or might not do to his daughter. It’s Hort’s perspective that matters. And I promise you, he doesn’t doubt me.”
There was a slight emphasis on the last word. To defuse another confrontation, I said, “We’ve demanded two things. The diamonds, and that he call off the dogs. The question is, how does his stunt pertain to any of that?”
“It doesn’t,” Treven said. “It has no impact on the first, and prevents him from doing the second. So my guess? The stunt was already in the works. It has nothing to do with his daughter. It’s about something else.”
That sounded right. “Okay,” I said. “But what?”
No one said anything. Dox turned to Kei. “Darlin’, if you have any insights into what that was all about just now on the TV, this would be a great time to share them.”
She didn’t respond at first, and I realized that seeing her father, whether because of what he had done, or just because of her circumstances, had affected her. She was trying to master her emotions.
“Maybe you’re just missing something incredibly obvious,” she said, after a moment. “My father’s an honorable man.”
Dox smiled sadly. “Well, respectfully, you don’t know him the way we do.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t know him the way I do.”
We were all quiet again. I checked the secure site. There was a message from Horton.
“He’s coming,” I said. “Tonight, with the diamonds. Expects to arrive at LAX around eight o’clock on a private jet. Says he can’t risk commercial because of the diamonds. The TSA is going apeshit, everything’s being hand-searched. Says he’ll meet us anywhere we want.”
“He gave you his itinerary?” Treven said.
I nodded. No one had to point out the significance. Either Horton was trying, pretty obviously, to lure us into a trap. Or he was telling us we could kill him without resistance, if we’d just let his daughter go.
But it had to be the second one. He knew we wouldn’t expose ourselves more than necessary. Only one of us would show up for the diamonds. The rest would be somewhere else, holding a decidedly non-metaphorical gun to his daughter’s head.
“He told me his announcement would set our minds at ease,” Larison said. “What are we missing? I don’t see it.”
No one responded. I didn’t think we were going to figure it out. We’d just have to ask Horton. And then I realized.
“We’re not supposed to see it,” I said. “He wants a chance to talk to us. Whoever goes to pick up the diamonds, Horton wants it to involve a conversation, not just an exchange of a bag.”
“What does that get him?” Dox said.
I looked at Kei. “I don’t know. But we need to decide who’s going to meet him.”
Dox stood. “Hell, I’ll do it.”
I wondered if it was a bluff. I knew he felt protective of Kei, and was worried about Larison.
“No,” I said. “I want Horton to feel that special tingling sensation you can only fully appreciate when you wonder whether a former Marine sniper is watching you through a scope right that very second.”
“I can’t,” Larison said. “Much as I’d like to. Of the four of us, the one Hort fears most is me. Because he knows, with me, it’s personal. If you want to ensure compliance, you want him to picture his daughter, alone and helpless with me.”
I didn’t particularly care for the thought of Larison alone with Kei, but I couldn’t disagree with his assessment.
Treven said, “I’ll go.”
The truth was, I would have preferred to handle it myself. I didn’t trust Treven. He’d been exceptionally quiet on the subway in L.A. when we’d first discussed going after Horton, and he’d been right at the Capital Hilton, when he’d accused me of suspecting he had a hand in our being set up about the cyanide. But I had no way of knowing, and besides, I didn’t want another confrontation. Whatever the relationship between the four of us, it plainly hadn’t yet evolved to the point where disagreements could be settled without the possibility of a firefight.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t unduly concerned that Treven might abscond with the diamonds. A hundred million dollars is a lot of money, true. But you wouldn’t live long to spend it if Larison, Dox, and I were after you. Better to settle for an already galactic twenty-five million and live to enjoy it, too. I imagined Larison had performed the same calculus and had arrived at the same conclusion.
“You’ll have to do a hell of an SDR,” I said. “We don’t know—”
He held up a hand. “How he tracked us in Washington. I know. Satellites, drones, surveillance cameras, etc. I’ll be careful.”
I nodded again, recognizing I was micromanaging, unable, it seemed, not to.
“He’ll want to know when his daughter will be released,” Larison said. “Tell him only after we’ve had the diamonds certified by an expert. If he thinks he’s going to hand off another bag full of plastic, I’m going to make him pay.”
“The diamonds are only half of it,” Dox said. “How’s he going to call off the heat now that he’s just a civilian? And how would we even know, one way or the other?”
I realized Larison didn’t care about heat. He only wanted the diamonds. That wasn’t an entirely new development, but still, it made me uneasy. I sensed I was going to have to do something about him, something extreme. But I didn’t know what. Or mayb
e I just didn’t want to face it.
I looked at Treven. “Horton’s going to give you assurances regarding the heat. We just don’t know what form those assurances will take. Let’s assume for the moment they’ll be worth something, because if they weren’t, he’d be putting his daughter at greater risk. So whatever he says, you just tell him you’ll pass the information along to the rest of us, and we’ll get back to him.”
“He’s not going to like that,” Treven said.
Larison smiled. “He’s going to hate it. But he’ll have no choice. He’s not going to risk sending you back to us empty-handed.”
Then he looked at Dox and said, “Not as long as I’m here, anyway.”
Treven sat in a corner of the vast, ornate waiting room of Los Angeles’ Union Station, waiting for Hort. The Glock was concealed in an unzipped black hip pouch on the large, mahogany-and-leather chair next to him, but he wasn’t expecting any immediate trouble. Even if Hort hadn’t just left the government and resigned his commission, his options were fairly limited. Bring in a team for a snatch? They’d have to drag Treven out through the station, assuming they survived the preceding firefight. A straight-up hit? That would get Hort nothing, except maybe a dead daughter. No, the most likely scenario—next to Hort trying nothing at all, given the way they had him by the balls—was that Hort would have forces hanging back and hoping to follow Treven to wherever Kei was being held. Which is why they’d told Hort via the secure site the meeting would be at Union Station. With its multiple levels and points of ingress and egress; its numerous train, subway, and bus lines; and its proximity to three highways and countless surface roads, it would take an army to properly cover the place.
He’d been a little surprised when Rain had agreed to let him be the one to meet Hort. The man had good instincts, and had zeroed in on Treven at the Capital Hilton. But he never had anything firm to go with, and probably had decided he would just have to keep his suspicions in reserve. For the time being, anyway.
He watched all manner of people coming and going along the tiled floors and through the huge archways, the sounds of their cell phone conversations swallowed up amid the high, beamed ceiling and art deco chandeliers, and periodically drowned out by announcements about the importance of being watchful and immediately reporting any suspicious activity. There was a tension in the air that reminded him of the immediate aftermath of 9/11: people hurrying more than normal, as though passage through a train station had become the equivalent of a lethal game of musical chairs; expressions pinched and suspicious and fearful; eyes darting, trying to read faces to which their owners previously had always been happily oblivious. There were cops positioned everywhere, and a half dozen soldiers patrolling in Army Combat Uniforms, their M-16s held ready. Not Hort’s men, though. These were reservists, and to an operator like Treven, the difference between a part-timer and a JSOC black ops vet was the difference between a kid playing touch football and an NFL pro. Hort’s guys were invisible right up until the moment they were pulling a bag over your head or putting a bullet in your brain. These guys were nothing more than security theater. Their purpose was to look butch, and reassure a jittery public that Something Was Being Done, and Treven supposed they were ably carrying out the role.
Hort showed up at a little past nine o’clock. He was dressed in civilian clothes—khaki pants, a green polo shirt—and carrying a blue nylon gym bag. His face was uncharacteristically drawn, borderline exhausted. He looked like a man who’d lost big, and was now terrified of losing everything else on top of it.
He walked slowly through the waiting area, his head tracking left and right, and then saw Treven. As he walked over, Treven wrapped his fingers around the grip of the Glock and kept his thumb on the exterior of the hip pouch. He could fire right through the thing, if necessary, and the gun would remain concealed until he did. He scanned the room and saw no one suspicious coming in behind Hort, or from elsewhere.
Hort stopped a few feet away. He didn’t sit and Treven didn’t stand.
“I’m glad it’s you,” Hort said.
Treven scanned the room again. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because that hotel thing was the second time you’ve tried to have me killed. I was an idiot to tell you what Larison was planning. He was right. I should have just helped take you out.”
“Those men weren’t there for you. You’re the one who told me where I could find you, remember? I know you’re the only one I can trust. You know what that means to me, after all that’s happened between us? Do you have any idea how grateful I am that you would give me a second chance?”
It was more or less what he’d been expecting. Which made the fact that he was tempted to believe it doubly irritating. “You have what we asked for?” he said.
Hort tossed the gym bag onto the chair next to Treven. “It’s all in there. Just a nylon bag, too, no room for tracking devices, though I expect you’ll want to check anyway.”
“We’ll check the contents, too. With an expert.”
“That’s understandable. Still, I assure you, the contents are what you have asked for. And now, I’m going to offer one more thing, and ask for one more favor.”
“What?”
“If you want to take me to one of the canyon drives, or the national forest, or to some other quiet place, I will kneel and look off into the distance and you can put a bullet in the back of my head. All you have to do is say the word.”
“Is that the offer, or the favor?”
Hort smiled tightly. “That’s the offer. The favor is, hear me out first. And, no matter what you decide, please. Let my little girl go.”
His voice cracked on the last word. Treven couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen Hort other than confident, competent, always in control. It felt like what they’d done had broken him, and despite everything, Treven was suddenly ashamed.
But he couldn’t afford to indulge that feeling, much less to show it. “That’s two favors,” he said.
“I don’t care how you count them. And I don’t care what you do to me. I have never begged anyone for anything in my life, and I am begging you. Just let her go.”
Treven gestured with his head. “Let me see your ankles. And turn around.”
Hort complied. He wasn’t carrying a firearm.
Treven looked around the room. Still no problems. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Maybe to one of those quiet places you mentioned. You can say whatever you want me to hear on the way.”
They walked through the station and down to the Red Line subway. Treven kept them on the platform while a train roared in and then squealed out. When its departing passengers had moved off, and the two of them were alone for a moment, Treven switched on a bug detector Rain had given him. No response.
“You carrying a mobile phone?” he asked.
Hort nodded. “Yes, but I’ve removed the battery. I thought you might ask.”
All right, then. Either Hort was clean, or he was carrying a device he would switch on later. To counter that possibility, Treven would turn the detector on again when they were alone.
Another train came and went, leaving the platform momentarily empty again, and this time Treven was sure no one was following them, at least through visual contact. They waited again and then got on the next train. It was about half full, everyone looking like a civilian, albeit a tense one. Treven had Hort sit a few seats forward and facing the same direction so he could go through the gym bag without having to worry about Hort trying to disarm him while he was distracted. Not that disarming him would do any good, but it was best to deny an enemy both motive and opportunity.
As the car sped along, swaying in the close confines of the tunnel, he unzipped the bag. Thousands of small, pale stones, some yellowish, some light gray, most of them translucent white. He dug his hand in and moved it around carefully. Nothing other than the stones. He felt thoroughly along the handles o
f the bag and its seams. No telltale bulges or wires. No transmitters. It was a just a bag. Okay.
At the Vermont/Beverly stop, he had them step out and wait on the platform again. No question, unless Hort had enough people with him to blanket every train on the Red Line, they were clean. They got back on the next train. They rode it to North Hollywood, the end of the line, got off, and walked to Chandler Boulevard, where earlier Treven had parked another stolen car. This one was a dark blue Honda Accord sedan, one of the bestselling and therefore most common cars in America, which a harried housewife had been foolish enough to leave with the key in the ignition while she ran for just a minute into a Culver City dry cleaner carrying a load of shirts.
He gave Hort the key. “You drive,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
It was hard to imagine Hort still had access to the kind of domestic surveillance apparatus he might have been able to call into play before his resignation. Besides, unlike the others, Treven knew Hort hadn’t used that apparatus in fixing them at the Capital Hilton—he had simple human intelligence from Treven to thank for that. Also, it was night, meaning the birds would have a harder time tracking them. Even so, he had Hort drive an extensive surveillance detection run that incorporated the kinds of overpass and garage maneuvers they’d used to obscure their movements after snatching Kei. Rain’s bug detector remained silent as they drove.
They finished on Lake Hollywood Drive, a lonely, serpentine section of the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Reservoir. When they came to a curve partly concealed by scrub bushes and some dried-out trees, Treven told Hort to pull off the road and park. Ordinarily, Treven wouldn’t have liked the spot for a meeting like this because there was always the chance of a cop driving by. But doubtless Los Angeles law enforcement was more focused on protecting critical infrastructure just now than they were on rousting horny kids parked in the Hills.