by Barry Eisler
“Hah. Fourteen and sixteen.”
Rain shook his head. It was hard to believe it was that long ago.
He sighed. “What do you want me to do?”
“Whatever it takes to keep Maya safe.”
“Look, I don’t know what that would entail, but I can’t even get there until—”
“I have a Gulfstream waiting for you right now. Check the secure site.”
“Wait a second.”
He muted the phone and looked at Delilah. “Remember you once told me that my attachment to the finer things—good jazz, good coffee, good whisky—was a substitute? A salve for my lack of attachment to people?”
She didn’t respond, which made him think this might be the right approach.
“You said, ‘If you live only for yourself, dying is an especially scary proposition.’ You know, at the time, I resisted the notion. I did. Dismissed it as sentiment. But now I see you were right.”
Still she didn’t respond. Okay, maybe he was using the wrong approach.
“If I were in trouble,” he said, “and I needed you, you’d be there, wouldn’t you?”
She glared at him. “You ask as though this is some kind of hypothetical.”
Okay, the other approach was better.
“No, you’re right. It’s not. You have been. I know. And you know it’s the same in the other direction. But . . . I can’t say no to this. I don’t have many people. I never thought I was going to have any, didn’t think I needed any, but somehow I wound up with these few. And I want my time with you, and my peace with you, and everything we have together. Our life together. But if something happens to one of these people, and I could have prevented it and didn’t, I’m not going to have any peace.”
“And if you try to help, and something happens to you, what peace will I have?”
He looked at her. He loved her. He really did. It was so improbable. So precious.
And so fragile.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
She shook her head. Started to say something. Shook her head again.
Finally, she sighed. “Tell him you’re coming.”
He looked at her, not knowing how to respond.
“And that I’m coming with you, you idiot.”
He felt a surge of love, and gratitude, and relief. “Delilah—”
“And tell him that if he gets you killed? I’m going to kill him.”
chapter
thirty-nine
LIVIA
Livia hoped no one was trying to reach her. After what had happened at the Four Seasons, her unavailability wouldn’t look good. But if she checked in, there might be questions she wasn’t ready to answer. She decided to hold off.
Carl had used fake credentials to get a room at the Motel 6 in Issaquah, about twenty minutes east of Seattle. Livia had recommended the place because it was outside the city and the rooms had exterior doors, which would allow the six of them to file in without having to go past a front desk. They’d driven separately—Manus and Larison in the van; the rest in Livia’s Jeep. Hamilton was badly freaked out, and being with Diaz, an adversary but at least a familiar face, seemed to be reassuring her somewhat. The two of them were sitting next to each other now on one of the double beds, across from Livia and Carl. Manus had pulled over a chair and sat perpendicular so he could read lips. And Larison was keeping watch through the curtains.
“I don’t understand,” Hamilton said, even though Livia had already explained. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know anything.”
“Yes, you do,” Diaz said. “You know about the videos. We know you met with the AG.”
Hamilton looked at her, plainly surprised. “How—” she said, then stopped herself.
“Your client told me,” Diaz said. “Now you need to stop thinking about confidentiality and attorney-client privilege and all that bullshit. Right now. And start thinking like someone who wants to stay alive. Do you understand?”
“Are you threatening me?” Hamilton said.
Diaz threw up her hands. “Are you really this stupid? I’m not your adversary. We’re past that. We need to help each other.”
After a moment, Hamilton said, “All right. I met with Hobbs. Andrew . . . He told me Hobbs would be receptive.”
“Why?” Livia said. She hadn’t minded Diaz softening Hamilton up, but she wanted to manage the Q&A herself.
“Presumably . . . ,” Hamilton started to say, then stopped. She glanced around at each of them. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who you people are. I mean, this is completely insane. What are we, in some kind of Motel 6 safe house? Look, even if we’re not adversaries, okay, but why should I tell you anything?”
“It’s up to you,” Larison said from his spot by the window. “In fact, you can leave right now. But the next time you’re enjoying a dandelion salad or whatever in your favorite restaurant, and a pair of gunmen ghost up from behind to punch your ticket, we won’t be there to bail you out. You like your odds without us? Take them. Personally, I don’t give a shit.”
Livia glanced at Larison. It wasn’t the first time the men in this group hadn’t followed her lead in eliciting information.
Larison shrugged. “Just my two cents.”
Manus glanced back at Larison, then at Livia. She realized he hadn’t been able to follow the exchange, and summarized for him. Then she looked at Hamilton. “Why would Schrader believe Hobbs would be receptive to a message about those videos?”
There was a pause. Hamilton said, “Presumably because Hobbs brokered the South Carolina non-prosecution agreement six years ago.”
Livia glanced at Diaz. “Did you know about this?”
“No,” Diaz said, staring at Hamilton. “There’s an NPA from the district in South Carolina? From when Hobbs was US Attorney there?”
Hamilton nodded. “They didn’t clear it with main Justice.”
“Why not?” Livia said.
“Because,” Diaz said, still staring at Hamilton, “main Justice might not have cleared it.”
Hamilton nodded again. “That was our thinking at the time.”
Livia felt a vortex of rage spiraling up inside her. She tried to tamp it down, and couldn’t. “They had him six years ago, and you got him released? With videos? Of other men raping teenaged girls?”
“I’m not the judge,” Hamilton said. “There’s a system, okay? How I feel personally can’t enter into it. Every person accused of a crime is entitled by the Sixth Amendment to the assistance of—”
“To the assistance of a lawyer,” Livia said. “Not to blackmail videos that are themselves evidence of other crimes being committed by other powerful men. How many girls have been raped, all over the country, because of you?”
“That’s a fair question,” Carl said. “Very fair. But could I respectfully suggest that for the moment we might do better to focus on solving the immediate problem at hand, which is stopping the people who seem intent on killing all of us?”
Livia knew he was right. But she wasn’t done with Hamilton. Or Schrader. No matter how this thing turned out.
“I don’t know if I should say anything more,” Hamilton said. “If you’re accusing me of a crime, or . . . Look, Detective Lone, you’re a cop. And Alondra, you’re part of the Justice Department. I don’t know how you’re mixed up with these people. I don’t think I want to know.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Larison said from by the window. “I trust you. I know you would never compromise anyone in this room. Ever.” He smiled at her. “Isn’t that right?”
Hamilton nodded quickly. “Yes.”
“Great,” Larison said. “Now how about if you go on telling Livia everything you know, just so no one starts to think maybe you’re playing for the wrong team.”
Everyone was silent for a minute. Larison looked at Livia. “Sorry.”
She didn’t like it. On the other hand, that bone-chilling smile had its uses. She summarized again for Manus.
“If I may,” Carl said to Li
via.
She looked at him and nodded, not minding the interjection. She trusted his instincts. And unlike the case with some of the others, also trusted his ability to mesh his own efforts with hers rather than just going his own way.
He leaned forward, toward Hamilton. “You said Schrader told you Hobbs would be receptive now because he was receptive when he was the US Attorney in South Carolina.”
Hamilton nodded.
“All right,” Carl went on. “But why was Hobbs receptive back then?”
No one said anything.
Carl leaned back. “I mean, I suppose it could be anything. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Mr. Guardian of American Justice and Values makes a personal appearance in those videos. You sure your client didn’t say anything about that?”
“No,” Hamilton said. “He didn’t.”
“Did he give you any specifics at all?”
“No.”
“Well, what did he tell you?”
Hamilton looked at Livia. “He told me he had designed the system so that if anything happened to him, the videos would be uploaded.”
Diaz nodded. “He told me the same.”
“There’s more,” Hamilton said. “The system . . . He has to operate it himself. It’s not like a normal account, where you can log in from anywhere if you know the URL, the username, and a password.”
“What do you mean?” Livia said. “Operate it himself how?”
“He has keypads in his houses. Look, I’m not technical, I don’t know the details.”
“Okay,” Livia said, suppressing her excitement. “But what did you tell Hobbs about the system?”
“Why does that even matter?”
“Because,” Carl said, “there’s a substantial likelihood that right now, your client is being tortured for information about this system you say he set up. And it would be handy for us to have some idea of what he might be telling his torturers, and what they might then do about it.”
“The initial plan was to kill me,” Diaz said. “In Freeway Park this morning. Without me to spearhead the indictment, the whole thing would have fallen apart. Schrader would have walked.”
“But when that didn’t work,” Livia said, “they shifted to some kind of alternative plan involving Schrader himself. Given that Schrader was the secondary plan and not the primary, we’ve been operating on the assumption that Schrader told someone about the dead-man switch. It sounds like that person was Hobbs, through you.”
Hamilton nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay,” Livia said. “But now it sounds like they can’t stop the system without going to one of Schrader’s houses. Is that right?”
“Yes,” Hamilton said. “But it’s more than that. Andrew said he has to personally reset it.”
“Biometrics,” Carl said. “That would be my guess. Although I hope for Schrader’s sake he didn’t rely on just a fingerprint reader. Otherwise, they’re not going to escort him to one of his nice houses. Just his hands in a bucket of ice.”
Hamilton lost some color. “No, it’s more than just fingerprints. Andrew said there’s something about a voice-stress analyzer, too. To make sure he’s not being coerced.”
“Whoever has your client,” Larison said, “you better hope they’re invested in keeping those videos suppressed. Because if what they want is for the videos to be released, all they have to do now is snuff him and let his system do its automated thing.”
Livia had been thinking along the same lines. “It’s possible,” she said. “But they didn’t need to break him out of jail for that.”
She summarized for Manus. He said, “I think Larison is onto something.”
Everyone looked at Manus. He’d been quiet for so long.
“Rispel wanted me to kill you,” he said to Diaz. “And wanted Dox and Larison to kill me after. So that Schrader could go free, the way he did six years ago. When that didn’t work, they broke him out of jail. But being let out, and being broken out, aren’t the same thing. The second one doesn’t take the pressure off him. He can’t enjoy his houses, his lifestyle, his rape parties. It’s not what he wants. It’s not what Hamilton was playing for when as his lawyer she tried to make a deal with the attorney general.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment, digesting that.
“In other words,” Manus went on, “the first plan was to give him what he wanted. The second is to get someone else . . . what they wanted.”
Livia nodded, thinking Manus might have made a good cop. “We know it was Rispel who hired you,” she said. “You think someone else broke Schrader out of prison?”
“It’s a different plan,” Manus said. “With a different objective. That could mean a different party. Or it could mean Rispel changed her mind. She was playing for one thing, and then decided to play for something else.”
It was a sound framework. What they needed were more inputs.
“Okay,” Livia said. “If the current plan is to cause an automatic upload, Schrader is probably dead already. If the plan is different . . . getting control of the videos for blackmail, something like that . . . they’re going to have to take Schrader to one of his houses. Ms. Hamilton, do you know where those houses are?”
“You can call me Sharon.”
“I’ll call you Ms. Hamilton.”
Hamilton looked taken aback. It would never stop amazing Livia. The collaborators. The enablers. The familiars. They never felt culpable.
After a moment, Hamilton said, “Yes. My firm sets up the entities through which the real estate is purchased and held.”
“How many houses are we talking about?”
“Six. The Bainbridge Island compound here in Washington State, which is the primary residence. The others are in Los Angeles, New Mexico, Aspen, Wyoming, and New York.”
Livia looked at Carl. “We don’t have the resources. Not even with . . .” She had almost said Rain, but even after Larison’s admonition to Hamilton, thought first names would be safer. “Not even with John. The houses are a good lead, but we need more information.”
Carl took out a cellphone and popped in a battery. “Can you fire up that satellite hotspot?” he said to Larison. “Virgin burner, no SIM card, Wi-Fi connection. Unless there’s an AWACS plane overhead, no one can geolocate, so nothing to worry about, we’re good to go.”
A few configurations later, Dox had the phone to his ear. “Tom,” he said. “Glad I’m able to reach you. We got some more intel, and we’re hoping you can make it a little more actionable.”
He briefed Kanezaki. When he was done, he said, “You all right? You sound a little . . . not yourself.”
Livia watched as he listened for a moment. His lips were pursed, and Livia tried not to worry. “Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. But I’m glad John’s going to be able to help out.” A pause. “No, I think following the recent unpleasantness, and given the obvious resources of who we seem to be up against, no one’s going to be leaving a phone on. But I’ll check the secure site every chance I get. All right. Let me know what you find. And give my best to John and Delilah. Oh, and tell her I tried to keep John out of this. I love her, but I think she’s apt to be peeved.”
He clicked off and powered down the phone. “There’s a young officer who works for Tom,” he said. “Someone tried to kill her this evening in DC. But they made a mistake and killed the wrong girl. Now Tom’s afraid to go home to see his own family. Thinks Rispel is behind the hit, and is going to make a run at him, too. John and Delilah are coming, and Tom’s going to hand off his officer to them to make sure she’s safe.”
Manus looked grim. Carl said, “You thinking about your people?”
Manus nodded.
“For what it’s worth,” Carl said, “Tom’s not worried about anyone deliberately trying to hurt his family. Mostly he’s worried about another mistake. He wants to be far away from the people he cares about in case someone takes a shot at him and misses. Plus right now he’s not hugely inclined to show up at places where he might be expec
ted.”
Livia didn’t know Manus, but she didn’t think he was going to buy that. She turned to Carl. “Can Manus use your satellite hotspot to check in with them?”
“Any of us can,” Carl said. He looked at Manus. “Would that help?”
Manus nodded.
“Okay,” Carl said. “Just make sure your phone’s cell reception is off. Connect it through the satellite hotspot like I just did.”
Livia knew these guys all understood cellphone security—even better than she did. Even so, the use of phones made her nervous. She said, “Let’s clear out right after, all right? I think we’ve been here long enough.”
“Agreed,” Carl said. “I’ll tell you, I don’t like the order of battle right now. We need to shake up the board, and good. Because when order is your enemy, chaos is your friend.”
chapter
forty
SLOAT
Sloat sensed that the latest round had gone on long enough. “Okay,” he said. “Unwrap him.”
Tyson set down the watering can. Two gallons, lime-green plastic, $4.97 at Walmart. He began undoing the towel. Taupe, also purchased from Walmart, $3.97 with “upgraded softness,” a feature doubtless lost on Schrader. Not that Sloat blamed him.
The instant the towel was off, Schrader puked up a bolus of water. He managed to turn his head, but because he was tilted backward over the bathtub, a lot of it had nowhere to go but over his face. He drew in a huge, convulsing breath, then puked again. Tyson glanced at Sloat, his expression concerned.
“He’s fine,” Sloat said. Tyson was new to waterboarding, but for Sloat it had gotten routine. He’d long ago lost count of how many detainees he’d done. Twenty? At least that many. Maybe thirty. The reactions tended to be similar. Crying, vomiting, pants-pissing. As long as you knew when to unwrap the towel, there wasn’t a lot to it.
The materials were pretty simple, too. The watering can and towel, of course. Restraints, for which Sloat favored hook-and-loop cable ties. An adult diaper was a good idea, because no one could be subjected to more than a few sessions without losing bladder control, and sometimes more. The only big-ticket item, if you could call it that, was a plywood board. Which Sloat liked to deploy with the low end over a bathtub and the high end propped on a dresser or chair. He’d used all the purpose-built stuff at the black sites, but it was no better. The do-it-yourself worked just as well.
