by Barry Eisler
Yeah, he’d been right about Alex’s guts, or rather his lack of them. But he wasn’t sorry he’d stacked the deck in his own favor just in case. What was that saying? The stupidest last words ever spoken are “You don’t have the guts.” No sense taking that kind of chance.
The real chance he’d taken was putting his hands on Alex in the first place. Because when Ben was that angry, starting was a hell of a lot easier than stopping. Already, he couldn’t remember all of it. Alex had accused him of killing Katie, he’d finally said it out loud, just what Ben had known he’d been thinking for all these years. Ben heard the words and then … what had he done? There was a red mist, and then he was choking him, wasn’t he? Yeah, choking him.
Choking? Say it. You were killing him. You knew it. You felt it. You wanted it.
But he’d stopped himself. He didn’t know how, but he had stopped. That had to count for something.
He walked into the hospital emergency room and filled out a form using a fake name and ID. He was lucky—no emergency cases ahead of him. They sat him down right away and went to work on his forehead.
Unbelievable. He’d been through two firefights in as many days— plus the thing in Istanbul a few days earlier, why not count that, too?— and he’d walked away from all of it without a scratch. It took his brother, who apparently couldn’t tell the difference between a Glock 26 and a fucking rock, to do him some damage.
He almost laughed at the thought. Despite how pissed he was, he had to give Alex credit for showing some balls. At least he’d fought back. And he’d tried to use the gun, even though Ben had seen him reaching from a mile away and easily stopped him.
Five stitches and two ibuprofen later, he walked out of the hospital and picked up his car where he’d left it the night before. He thought about what he wanted to do. No new orders, and after Istanbul, he didn’t expect to receive any for another couple of weeks at least. Maybe go to Bragg, use the range, stay sharp. Or fly to Cabo for a few days. Yeah, Cabo, do some diving, lie around on the beach, see what happens. That would be good.
He would just swing south on the way out. To see if he could find that Volvo. Not for Alex—fuck him. Just to satisfy his own curiosity, that was all.
Forty minutes later he was cruising the quiet morning streets of Ladera. It took him a long time to find the guy’s car—a silver S80. He’d parked in a clever place, Dos Loma Vista Drive, only a half mile from Alex’s house as the crow flies, but several miles away by car. The guy had clearly studied a topographical map and understood that with the night-vision goggles he could easily hump the short distance to Alex’s house by cutting through yards, while keeping the car in a place where even someone searching for it wouldn’t immediately think to look.
When Ben saw the Volvo’s lights blink in response to the key remote, he parked and got out. Dos Loma Vista was a heavily wooded cul-de-sac. No one was around. No one was going to see him.
He checked the underside of the car for IEDs. It was clear. Then he examined one of the back doors. If someone had booby-trapped the car, most likely it was the driver’s door that would be wired, but they’d out-thought him once already, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. The back door was okay. He got in the car and did a quick search. The inside of the car was empty. No registration, not even any rental-agency materials. There was just one thing, in the glove compartment. A cell phone.
Gotcha.
Ben pocketed the phone and paused to write down the vehicle identification number from the dash under the windshield. Unlikely it would lead to anything other than the legend the guy had used to rent the car, but you never knew.
He drove away in his own car and parked in the Ladera shopping center. The phone was a Samsung T219, an entry-level model, probably a throwaway He checked the log. There was a single incoming call entry—a 650 area code. Local. The call had come in just fifteen minutes earlier. Nothing else. The guy must have purged the phone before leaving the car for Alex’s. Smart. But he couldn’t stop someone from trying him after.
Ben pressed the Return Call button and raised the phone to his ear. There were two rings on the other end, then a man’s voice: “I called you, just like you said. I still haven’t seen him.”
Ben’s heart kicked harder. Goddamn it, the voice was familiar. But he couldn’t place it.
“I know you called,” he said, keeping his voice at a near whisper to disguise it.
“Where are you? Why are you talking so quietly?”
“I’m in a public place. I don’t want anyone to hear. Where are you?”
“I’m at the office, where do you think? He’s not here.”
Son of a bitch. The office. That’s why he knew the voice.
It was Osborne.
Thinking fast, improvising, Ben said, “There was a minor problem. I need to meet you.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Go out to the parking lot and stand by your car. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
There was a pause. Osborne said, “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“You will once you meet me and hear what just happened. Five minutes. We’ll iron this out fast and you’ll be good to go.”
He clicked off, not giving Osborne a chance to reply. Ben had been making up the whole thing as he went, and had probably stumbled into a half dozen incongruities, maybe more. Right now, Osborne’s unconscious was telling him something wasn’t kosher. The trick was to make him feel under pressure, to give him no time to listen to that little voice telling him something was off. And if he did listen, if he did realize something was wrong, Ben didn’t want him to have a chance to call in reinforcements. Five minutes was perfect both ways.
He took 280 to Page Mill and pulled into the Sullivan, Greenwald parking lot. If Osborne wasn’t waiting, he’d get to him another way, it wasn’t a problem.
But there he was, standing next to a shiny black Mercedes sedan, looking nervously left and right, absurd in his T-shirt and cowboy boots. Ben pulled into the spot next to him. Osborne watched him, his expression completely confused. Before he had a chance to process any of it, Ben was out of the car, the Glock in his hand. Osborne saw the gun and his eyes bulged.
“Don’t say anything,” Ben said. “Just unlock your car and get in the driver’s seat. Do that, and I’ll assume you want to talk to me. Don’t do it, and I’ll assume you want to be dead right there.”
“I … I …” Osborne stammered.
Ben pointed the Glock directly at his groin. “Shut up and unlock the car.”
Osborne took out his keys and pressed a button. There was a chirp and the lights flashed. Ben got in the back on the passenger side. He slid past a child’s booster seat and sat directly behind Osborne.
“Now drive,” Ben said. “Be smart, and this will be just a talk. Fuck with me and I’ll kill you. Do we understand each other?”
Osborne said, “Where do you want me to go?”
“Right on Page Mill, toward 280.”
They pulled out of the parking lot and onto Page Mill. Osborne said, “What’s this all about?”
“I’ll ask the questions. You just drive. Make a left on Coyote Hill Road.”
“Coyote … why do you want to go someplace where there are no people? Why can’t we just talk while I drive?”
Good instincts, Ben thought. And a smart question. Ben would never let someone take him to a secondary crime scene. Whatever the bad guy was going to do to you, it would be a hundred times worse when he had you someplace isolated.
“Do what I tell you, or I’ll put a nine-millimeter round through the base of your skull. Your brain will blow up, but there’ll be hardly any blood. I’ll buckle you into the passenger seat and drive your corpse back to your law firm in the carpool lane. Sound good?”
“Fine, fine, Coyote Hill Road.”
A minute later, Osborne was turning as Ben had instructed him. “That dirt road,” Ben said, indicating a brown depression, lined by trees, that cut through the green hills
to Deer Creek Road and some office complexes on the other side. “Turn onto it.”
Osborne complied. They rolled a little way down the dirt road, and when they were out of view of Coyote Hill, Ben said, “Stop. Kill the engine.”
“What do you want with me?” Osborne said.
Ben pushed the child seat onto the floor and slid across to the passenger side so he could see Osborne’s face. “I want to know your angle on Obsidian,” he said.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The invention Alex patented.”
“Yeah, I know what it is, I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ben considered. There were two possibilities here. One, Osborne was running this whole thing with some impressive mercenary connections. Two, the outsiders were running him. But which was it? Osborne had to feel Ben knew more than he really did, that’s what would get him talking, and to create that illusion, Ben needed to start out in the right general direction. Based on Osborne’s responses, Ben’s guesses would get increasingly specific. The whole act was an illusion, a lot like what fortune-tellers do to gull credulous customers, and just as for fortunetellers, the key was to establish credibility, the appearance of knowledge and even omniscience, right at the beginning.
Osborne was afraid, that much was obvious. And yeah, he was being held at gunpoint, but his fear felt like something else.
“How’d they get to you?” Ben said.
“Nobody got to me. I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ben smiled. He could see in Osborne’s eyes, from the sudden beads of perspiration on his brow, that the question had terrified him. Okay, he wasn’t running this thing. Someone had something on him. But what?
He glanced at the child seat on the floor. Had they threatened his family? No. Osborne’s fear didn’t feel righteous to him. It felt like something laced with … shame.
What did Ben know about him? He’d met him briefly. He’d been in his office for a few minutes. Alex had said something about Thailand, hadn’t he? And there had been a photograph, too. Osborne and some Thai dignitary.
“It was Thailand, wasn’t it?” Ben said, taking a chance, knowing if he was wrong Osborne would see he was fishing and make it hard to reestablish the proper momentum.
But he wasn’t wrong. Osborne blinked rapidly and said, “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Yes it does, Ben thought. That nervous blink is better than a polygraph.
“Photographs?” Ben said. “Video? What was it?”
Osborne shook his head, saying nothing. His eyelids were going so fast it was exhausting to watch. Ben could actually smell the fear coming off him, a vinegary smell that filled the car’s interior.
The car seat, Ben thought. Guy with a family. A reputation. A position in the community.
And a taste for something in Thailand. Prostitutes? Could be that. Lady boys? Kids? In Bangkok, you could get anything you wanted.
Well, it didn’t really matter. He knew enough to work him now.
“There’s something you need to realize,” Ben said. “The people who’ve been blackmailing you are my enemies, too. Have you figured out yet what I do to my enemies?”
Osborne didn’t say anything, and Ben went on. “So tell me what I need to know, and the people who’ve gotten into your life will go away. Permanently. Don’t tell me, and I’ll assume you’re still trying to have my brother killed. Which would make you … my enemy.”
“That’s not true!” Osborne said. “I don’t want Alex killed. I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Tell me, then. Convince me.”
Osborne looked down. After a moment, he said, “A few months ago—”
“Don’t look away. Let me see your eyes.”
Osborne looked at him, his face twisting with fear and fury.
That’s right, asshole. You feel it? You’re hooked up to a human lie de tector.
“A few months ago, I was leaving the office one night. There was a man waiting by my car. He called to me by name. ‘David,’ he said. ‘Good to see you.’ But I had no idea who he was. He … handed me a manila envelope. He said he had something he didn’t want anyone to know about. That he could make sure no one would know.”
“What was in the envelope?”
There was a long pause. Osborne licked his lips and said, “Photographs.”
“Photographs of what?”
“Photographs from Thailand.”
Okay, good enough. Ben was getting the picture now. Someone learns about Obsidian. Leave aside how for the moment; he knew from his conversation with Alex there were multiple possibilities there. The someone wants to vacuum the invention up. What are the nodes you have to hit? The inventor, the lawyer, the patent guy. The patent office. The patent filing system. The law firm.
“What did they want from you?” Ben asked.
“They wanted to know how they could get rid of Obsidian. I told them they couldn’t, it was in the government’s PAIR system, for God’s sake, but they told me not to worry about that. How could they get rid of it at Sullivan, Greenwald? They wanted to know how our filing system worked, passcodes, backup copies, everything.”
“And you told them.”
“I … had to.”
It made sense. They knew from the application that Alex was handling the patent. But for the information they needed to be sure of making the invention disappear, they needed an inside guy.
So how did they learn they could exploit this guy? Start with the firm’s Web site. You get a list of partners and associates there, bios for all of them. You identify the likely prospects based on public information. You want married people, people with families, people with pressure points. Get a few national security letters issued, and get into their lives: tap their phones, examine their credit card statements, monitor their e-mail. Who’s cheating on his taxes? Who has a mistress? Who’s a closet homosexual? Who’s set up a practice that requires frequent trips to one of the world’s premier sex cities?
Now get into Sabre or one of the other online reservation systems to find out when he’s traveling. What hotel? The guy’s a partner in a major law firm, he’s going to be at one of the three or four best in the city. Black bag job on his room. Pinhole camera. Hidden video. Or follow him on his way to somewhere else. Get the proof. Show it to him. Make him feel what it would be like if his wife saw these pictures. Or if the video wound up on YouTube, the URL e-mailed to everyone in his address book. You’re holding his life in your hands now, his reputation, everything. You own him.
“Who was the guy whose cell phone you called this morning?”
“That’s him. The same guy who was waiting for me in the parking lot that night.”
“He have a name?”
“He told me to call him Atrios.”
“Okay. Why were you calling Atrios this morning?”
“He called me yesterday. He was looking for Alex.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That Alex had been in that morning, but I hadn’t seen him since. He told me to call him if that changed, and that I should check in periodically regardless.”
That checked out with what he’d said on the phone earlier, and with what Ben had run into in Alex’s backyard. But who was Atrios? Who was he working for?
“Atrios,” Ben said. “How did you communicate with him?”
“I have his cell phone number. That’s all.”
Ben thought about what he could do with that. Trace it back to the owner, sure, but Atrios had clearly been a pro and there was virtually no chance he had registered the phone, or rented a car, under a name that would mean anything. Damn it, it looked like killing the guy had closed off his only avenue of information. Not that he’d had a lot of choice at the time, but still.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it. It was dark. He thought, What the hell? His pocket buzzed again.
Son of a bitch. Atrios’s cell.
He pulled out the phone he took from the Volvo and looked at the display. It was a 202 area code. D.C.
“I’m going to answer this,” Ben said. “Grip the steering wheel, look straight ahead, keep your mouth shut.”
Osborne complied. Ben clicked the Answer Call button and raised the phone to his ear. “It’s done,” he said, in the same low voice he had used with Osborne earlier.
“Why the hell haven’t you checked in?” the voice on the other end responded.
Ben had been prepared to improvise in a dozen different directions. But he hadn’t been prepared for this. He froze, suddenly having no idea what to do or say.
The gravelly baritone … the rich Georgia coastal accent …
“Hort,” Ben said. “What the hell?”
There was a pause. Hort said, “Who is this?”
“It’s Ben.”
Another pause. “Ben? What the hell are you doing, son?”
“Hort, what’s going on here? Who was Atrios? Is my brother the target of someone’s op? Am I?”
“Your brother … who’s your brother? Oh, Jesus Christ almighty, are you talking about the lawyer?”
Ben desperately tried to sort through the bullshit. Was Hort playing dumb? What were the chances …
“What happened to Atrios?” Hort said. “How did you get this phone?”
“Atrios is gone.”
“Oh, damn. You … oh, damn, Ben, you have no idea of the mess you’re making.”
“What mess? I’m in the middle of a mess. I’m trying to clean it up.”
“Listen to me. You are to stand down. Immediately. Do you understand? Stand down.”
“Stand down from what?”
“Are you still in San Francisco?”
Alarm bells went off in Ben’s mind.
“Yeah, I’m still here.”
“So am I. We need to meet.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m running the op you’ve been fucking up.”
“Your op has been targeting my brother.”
“I think I understand that now. I didn’t before. We need to straighten it out. Jesus Christ almighty.”
“What do you want me to do?”