by Barry Eisler
Nicely played, I thought. I waited to see how Dox would respond.
“We did some work for your dad,” Dox said. “Not the kind of work I’m going to discuss with you. And then, to hide the fact that we did the work, he hired some people to do the same kind of work on us. You follow? You really want to know more?”
“Yes,” she said. “I do. And you don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”
“Well, it’s not—”
“It’s not a matter of fear,” I said. “Like Dox said, the less you know, the better for you. And for your father.”
She looked at him. “Your name is Dox?”
“I told you,” I said, “your father already knows who we are. We’re not trying to keep our identities secret from you.”
“Then what’s your name?” she said.
She really was smart. She was doing what she could to glean information that at some point might be operationally useful. And she was also establishing rapport, making herself seem human and making her captors feel human, which in itself might create tactical opportunities for her, or, at a minimum, make it more emotionally difficult for us to harm her.
“You can call me Rain,” I said. “But enough questions for now, okay? We’re tired. We’ll have plenty of time to talk more later, if you want.”
I had a feeling Dox might have liked to protest, but he must have thought better of it.
I was a little concerned about Kei. She had a natural interrogator’s personality—smart, likeable, unthreatening, and inquisitive under the guise of sincere interest. Dox was obviously being careful in response to her inquiries, but I wondered how he might comport himself in my absence. He obviously wanted her to like him. Partly to make her comfortable, partly to assuage his guilt, and partly because, after all, she was gorgeous, and he just couldn’t help himself.
We flex-tied one of Kei’s wrists to a bedpost and passed a couple hours silently, Dox watching her while I catnapped on the floor. I was awakened by a knock.
Dox and I took out our guns and approached the door. “Yes?” I said.
“It’s us,” I heard Larison say.
I had previously placed a strip of duct tape over the peephole to prevent anyone on the other side of the door from knowing by the blockage of light that someone was looking through it. I put my face up close and removed the duct tape. Larison and Treven, as advertised.
I moved the dresser, then let them in and bolted the door behind them. “Any trouble?” I said.
Treven shook his head. “No. Ditched those guys, ditched the van, no problems.”
If Kei wondered whom he was referring to by “those guys,” she didn’t ask.
“All right then,” I said. “If everything’s good to go, it’s time to call Horton.”
Larison looked at Kei and smiled. “Yes, it is.”
It was a long time before Larison was ready to call Hort. He didn’t know how they’d been tracked in D.C.—satellite, surveillance cameras, drone aircraft, whatever—and he needed to be certain it wasn’t going to happen again. So he ramped up his already stringent procedures, spending hours in buses, taxis, malls, and on the subway, making sure he wasn’t just flushing out possible foot and vehicular surveillance, but also that he was obscuring his movements against more remote potential watchers, as well.
He was glad he’d managed to persuade the others that their only move was to take Kei hostage. It had the benefit of being true, of course, but he had his own, additional reasons for wanting Kei as leverage against Hort: he recognized that the value of his threat to release the torture tapes was diminishing.
Larison had long understood that America’s political elites insisted on counter-terror policies like disappearances, torture, drone strikes, and invasions because the elites perversely benefited from the increased terror the policies inevitably produced. He understood the policies weren’t a response to the threat, but were rather the cause of the threat, and that this was by design. A frightened populace was a controllable populace. Endless war and metastasizing security procedures meant enormous profits for the corporations the politicians served. In this sense, the possible publication of graphic videos of American servicemen torturing screaming Muslim prisoners had always been, from the perspective of America’s elites, as much a promise as a threat.
Still, in ordinary times, people would have reacted to videos of gruesome torture with disgust and horror. In the most emotionally irrefutable way, the tapes would implicate various establishment players, and the reputations of the men who had ordered the barbarism in the videos would have been sullied; their careers, derailed. And that highly personal threat had outweighed the government’s institutional interest in finding ways to increase the danger of terrorism—at least enough for the government to agree to cough up a hundred million dollars worth of uncut diamonds.
But everything had changed now. America was under attack, and who would object to what was on the tapes now? Object, hell—they’d clamor for more. The people who had ordered what was shown on the tapes wouldn’t be censured. They’d be heroes.
And that, in essence, was the problem. Circumstances were now eroding the value of the cards he held, so much so that he wondered whether neutralizing the extortion value of the tapes was the purpose of the attacks. Well, even if it wasn’t the primary purpose, it must have occurred to somebody. And regardless, the effect was the same. The value of his assets was declining, and he knew he needed new ones. Hort’s daughter was one. The daughter, and what she would lead to.
Eventually, he made his way to the graffitied roll-down storefronts and cracked cinderblock walls and peeling real estate lease signs of the blighted industrial district. For a while, he wandered among the jobless, solitary men who gravitated to the area, casualties of a hollowed-out economy. He liked the cover they gave him, liked that no one knew them or cared about them or could tell one from the other, liked knowing that as he made himself complicit among them, the world’s callousness and indifference would envelop him, as well.
He paused with his back to the brick façade of a recycling center and looked around. The skyscrapers of the downtown jutted up into a faded blue sky a mile or so behind him. Absent those distant monoliths, he might have been almost anywhere. An old mill town, a dying burg in the rust belt. There was no panic buying here. There was nothing to buy, and no money to use to buy it. It was the last place politicians would ever care about, the last place security forces would ever be sent to protect. He felt anonymous. He felt secure.
He took out Kei’s phone, popped in the battery, and fired it up. He had a number for Hort, but he assumed Hort would have a separate, clean phone exclusively for personal use. He checked Kei’s speed dial entries and immediately saw one called “Dad.” The number wasn’t the one he had, so yes, a separate, personal phone.
He brought up the photos he had taken in the van and keyed the entry for “Dad,” enjoying the feeling of invading Hort’s privacy this way. He waited while the photos uploaded, then called Hort.
One ring, then, “Hey sweet girl, I was just about to open those photos you sent me. How are you?”
“Your sweet girl’s fine,” Larison said. “For now.”
There was a long pause. Larison relished the silence. Could there have been a more pristine way for Hort to convey his sudden shock, and violation, and helplessness? His confusion and impotent rage and, soon enough, his despair?
“I swear to almighty God—”
Larison cut him off. “Look at the photos. She’s alive. For now. The guys you sent to protect her, not so much.”
There was another pause during which Larison assumed Hort was checking the photos. Then Hort said, “Let her go. Just let her go. She didn’t do anything to you—”
“You did something to me.”
“Yes. And this is between you and me, and no one else.”
“It must be killing you, Hort. To know, right now, that you’re the one who taught me to identify the target’s most vulnerable area. And
to attack him there. And you showed me how, remember? You got to me through Nico.”
“That’s right, I did. You know what’ll happen to him if anything happens to my daughter?”
Larison laughed. “You’ve already pointed a gun at him, Hort. Now you’re threatening to point another? What are you going to do, have his nieces raped and his nephews killed and the other shit you threatened before, twice over?”
“It doesn’t matter. If anything happens to her, I will never, ever stop until I’ve found you. And yes, I will start with your man Nico, and every goddamned member of his extended family, one at a time and saving Nico for last so he can know what happened and who was the cause of the deaths of everyone he loved and the ruination of his entire life. I’ll see to it all personally.”
“You’re missing something really important, Hort. You know what it is? I. Don’t. Care. So go ahead. Hang up. Go after Nico right now. Try me.”
Silence. Then: “Tell me what you want.”
“I want my diamonds.”
“What else?”
“A guarantee that the dogs you’ve sicced on us are called off.”
“And you’ll let my daughter go?”
“Yes.”
“Unharmed?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then.”
“How?”
“I’ll bring you the diamonds myself. And I’ll make an announcement tomorrow that I believe will set your mind at ease on the other thing.”
“What announcement?”
“I can’t tell you now. But you’ll be able to watch it on television. I’ll make the announcement and immediately fly to L.A. I can meet you tomorrow night, if you like.”
Despite everything, Larison couldn’t help being touched by the man’s devotion. He must have known he would be coming here to die.
But then he wondered if he was giving Hort’s humanity too much credit. Hort was a clever bastard, and had outplayed Larison before. He’d have to be careful. Consider every angle. Look at the whole thing from Hort’s perspective, and see if he could detect any weaknesses in his own position.
“You might be able to track us,” Larison said. “We’ve been careful, but you got to us at the Hilton, so maybe you’ll find a way again. The difference is, this time, I’ll be with Mimi. You breach that door, you better be sure you can put a bullet in my brain in less than one second. Because that’s how long it’ll take me to put one in hers.”
“Nobody’s going to be breaching any doors,” Hort said. “I just want her safe. I don’t care about the rest, you were right. You can have whatever you want, as long as you let her go.”
Larison considered. It was hard to imagine Hort was going to risk his daughter over the diamonds. The question was, would he call off the dogs. And how would Larison know, one way or the other?
But as he thought about it, he realized it might not even matter. Once he had the diamonds, and Hort was dead, and Rain, Treven, and Dox were all dead, too, let the government try to track him. They’d be wasting their time. Because they’d be looking for a ghost.
The next morning, the five of us clustered around the television in the motel room. The president was making an announcement from the Rose Garden, and we assumed Horton would have something to do with it.
We’d dragged in the futons and done the night in shifts. Kei slept on one bed; the rest of us used the futons and sleeping bags and the remaining bed, with at least one of us awake at all times. Larison seemed not to sleep much, and when he did, he moaned occasionally and once had cried out. I had my own difficult nights, and therefore my own sense of what horrors might haunt him in his dreams.
Kei had been cooperative. In the presence of all four of us, she had been less talkative, recognizing, perhaps, that we might be easier to manipulate in ones and twos than we would be en masse. I was glad for the respite. I didn’t want her to get to Dox.
At nine o’clock our time, noon in Washington, two men strode out of the White House—the president, in the usual dark suit; and Horton, purposeful in his Army Service Uniform, the full fruit salad resplendent on his chest. They walked toward the assembled press corps, then Horton stood back while the president took the lectern.
“Good afternoon,” the president said. “I have two brief announcements.
“First, given the recent series of unprecedented attacks on the American homeland and an ongoing state of emergency, I have, as Commander in Chief, ordered National Guard units to key positions in American cities. These Guard units will liaise with and reinforce local law enforcement to ensure we have the maximum possible on-the-ground ability to detect, defuse, and defend against further attacks. And, should the worst happen, to assist in providing critical care to first responders.
“Second, I’m pleased to announce that the position of the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, opened by the tragic death of Tim Shorrock, has been filled. For security reasons, the name of Tim’s replacement will be classified.”
I wondered about that. Shorrock’s name hadn’t been classified. Maybe it was just a reaction to current events. Or the usual governmental reflex toward more secrecy. Or both.
“However,” the president continued, “my new counterterrorism advisor is right here beside me. I’m grateful to have the advice and assistance of Colonel Scott Horton as my administration combats the continued terrorist threat. Colonel Horton has a long and distinguished career in serving and protecting our nation, and his considerable national security experience will be an invaluable asset as he joins my cabinet. Please direct any questions you have to Colonel Horton.”
The president stepped back. A few reporters shouted questions, but the president ignored them. Horton stepped forward and took the lectern.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he said, surveying the crowd. “I will be brief.”
Maybe it was the solemnity of Horton’s expression—itself, I suspected, the product of the heavy knowledge of his daughter’s predicament. Maybe it was his erect military bearing, or his baritone, or that cultured southern accent. Whatever it was, even through the television, I could sense the collective attention of the press corps focusing, cohering, anticipating.
“As the president just told us,” Horton said, “even as we speak, National Guard units have been deployed to major American cities. The president also spoke of a state of emergency. And while I believe he is correct to use this term, I also believe his application was mistaken. You see, the emergency we currently face is far less from any terrorist threat than it is from our government’s overreaction to that threat.”
I thought, What the fuck? And couldn’t process anything beyond that.
There was silence among the reporters. They were staring at Horton, their bodies seemingly frozen. No one was taking notes. I looked at the president, who was standing a few paces behind Horton and to the side. His face was a mask of poorly concealed shock and rage.
“After all,” Horton went on, “in America, what is a federal government-declared ‘state of emergency’? There is no constitutional basis for such a concept. What does it consist of? When does it end? And while these questions would be problematical enough were they merely rhetorical, they do have answers. I can tell you that today, in the corridors of power in this country, men are seriously contemplating and even planning for the suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law. Our so-called ‘state of emergency’ is intended to act as a bridge to that suspension and that imposition.”
The onlookers in the Rose Garden were still completely silent. On our end, even Dox was apparently at a loss for words.
“Today,” Horton went on, “I would like to ask of all Americans a simple question. If the terrorists told us they would go on with these attacks until we tore up the Constitution and surrendered our liberties, what would we say? I submit to you that we would rightly tell them they could go to hell. And yet, we’re willing to do these very things as long as we believe it’s of our own volition. In the end, t
hough, what’s the difference? Either way, the Constitution is destroyed. Either way, our cherished liberties, which our forefathers have fought and died for, which I and members of my family all the way back to the Civil War have fought and died for, are cashed in and gone for good.”
Still total silence, bordering on shock, coming through the television.
“I have therefore wrestled with the president’s invitation to serve his administration. I ask myself, what should I do? Anyone who tells you that proximity to power, especially during a crisis, is not tempting, is a liar. So the temptation, naturally, is to serve. And why not? After all, I have served my country my entire adult life. The problem, I have come to realize, is that today, I cannot serve our nation by serving the president. Today, service to one would be antithetical to the other. The service the president requires of me could and doubtless will be capably fulfilled by someone else. What’s needed instead, and needed urgently, is an example, and I hope others will follow mine.”
He paused. No one moved. The attention of everyone, there and in our motel room, was riveted on Horton.
“Therefore,” he said, “I must resign my position in this administration and my commission in the United States Army, effective immediately. And I encourage all service personnel who are asked to destroy the Constitution in the diabolical guise of saving it to follow my example. I encourage all Americans, of every stripe, to resist the government’s current attempt to pervert and subvert the constitutional guarantee that our government can only be of, by, and for the people. And I encourage all people who cherish their safety more than their liberty to move to North Korea, where they can live in a society more closely aligned to their preferences than the one we have created here in the United States of America.”
He paused, then said, “It may be that none will heed my call. I am at peace with that. Because I’ll be damned—I will be damned—if I allow any group of cave-dwelling, hate-filled, fanatical losers who have nothing more to offer the world than cowardly attacks on innocent civilians, to coerce me into surrendering the liberties I cherish, that I love, and that I am determined to bequeath to my children just as my parents bequeathed them to me.”