by Barry Eisler
Evie nodded. “Could be. Someone who could architect something like this. Someone Schrader knew and trusted . . .”
“Who’s Grimble?” Rain said.
“Constantine Grimble,” Maya said. “They met when Schrader was just a trust-fund baby and Grimble was a prodigy at MIT. Grimble’s on the spectrum, and a lot of people think Schrader exploited him, because Schrader got all the fame, but who knows? They both got rich, or in Schrader’s case richer, and celebrity seemed to be Schrader’s thing a lot more than it was Grimble’s.”
“Where’s Grimble now?” Rain said.
“I don’t know,” Maya said. “He’s supposed to be a recluse. With some kind of hobby he’s really into, toy soldiers or something like that.” She looked at Evie. “Do you know where he lives?”
Evie shook her head. “No. He gave a talk at NSA once, but for the most part he stays out of the public eye.”
Rain looked at her. “Is he still close with Schrader?”
“I don’t know,” Evie said. “But I’ve never heard about any kind of rift. And when people asked him at his presentation, he was complimentary. Maya’s right, by the way. I talked to him at length. He’s definitely on the spectrum.”
“How so?” Rain said.
Evie blew out a breath. “He doesn’t look in people’s eyes, for one thing. His presentation was fine, maybe because it was all about math, and that’s comfortable for him, but he stared at the ceiling the whole time. And when I talked to him afterward, there were tics, some echolalia.”
“Echolalia?”
“Repeated words. And instead of looking at the ceiling, he never took his eyes off my chest. And it wasn’t . . . like, sometimes you’ll catch a man doing that, and okay, he realizes he got busted, he’ll look away. Or sometimes it’ll be an asshole who’ll keep stealing glances because he thinks he has the right. But Grimble . . . he just didn’t seem to know better. Didn’t realize he was being rude, or committing a faux pas, or whatever. On the one hand, we were engaging as peers about some pretty high-level applied math. On the other hand, it was though he was talking to a pair of breasts, not a person.”
Rain nodded, wondering whether what he was thinking was too much of a long shot.
“Look,” Evie said, “I think I see where you’re going. But remember, even if Grimble architected Schrader’s video system, the dead-man switch, all that . . . there’s still the biometrics. And the passcode, which would be Schrader’s.”
“Unless . . . ,” Maya said.
Evie looked at her. “Good point.”
Rain looked from one to the other. “What?”
“Unless he created a back door,” Evie said.
“Would he have?” Rain said.
“I would have,” Maya said. “Any hacker would.”
Evie nodded. “That’s right. Or if not a back door, he might have just kept a spare set of keys.”
Rain wondered whether they had both decided to dumb down the references for his benefit. If they had, it probably wasn’t a bad idea. “Then it sounds like Grimble could be the solution,” he said.
Delilah looked at Maya and Evie. “You found out where Rispel was holding Schrader. Can you find Grimble? And determine the extent to which he might have helped design Schrader’s system?”
Evie said, “There’s almost nothing Guardian Angel can’t find. And I’ve never seen anyone use it like Maya.”
Maya smiled. “Thanks.”
Delilah looked at Rain. “All right. Assume Evie and Maya can find him. And that we’re confident he’s the architect. We can ask for his help. But what if he says no?”
“We’re not going to ask,” Rain said. “Larison is.”
chapter
sixty-two
RISPEL
Rispel sat at her desk, the late afternoon sun slanting through the windows.
Schrader’s house had been yet another disaster in what was turning out to be the most cursed op she’d ever been involved in. Four more contractors killed. And Schrader, dead. Police reports said there were signs he’d received medical attention. Had he given Kanezaki’s people the keys to his system before he died? Shown them how it worked?
Apparently not. Because according to her technical team, someone had just finished remotely querying Guardian Angel. The subject of the queries was one Constantine Grimble. Who, it turned out, was a close associate of Schrader’s, and the apparent brains behind their former partnership.
It had to be Maya. Meaning it had to be Kanezaki.
The queries had started broadly and become increasingly focused. Grimble himself, to start with. Then credit card use. Cellphone calls, incoming and outgoing, of which there seemed to be few. Cellphone movements going back years, with trips to Schrader’s various properties, and more recently, little movement at all. Then a house, apparently some sort of Japanese-style mansion, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Then schematics for the house. Details about its alarm system and other security.
Whatever Schrader had given up before he died, Kanezaki believed Grimble was part of it. Why else the extensive use of Guardian Angel? Why else the obvious preparations for a visit?
She decided it was time for a visit of her own. And this time, she wouldn’t be sending a detachment of contractors. This time, she would personally lead an in-house team from Special Operations Group. The same type of team she had run at the black sites.
No more screwups. She’d risked too much, and there would be too much payback from Devereaux if she failed. She was going to get the keys to those videos. And when she had them, all the Devereauxs of the world would be on their knees before her, begging for her favor.
Or for her mercy.
Of course, the videos would be useless against Kanezaki. He wasn’t involved. He was too junior. And too much of a boy scout.
Well. There were other ways of dealing with him. Maybe she couldn’t make him useful. But she didn’t have to let him linger as a threat, either.
chapter
sixty-three
DEVEREAUX
It was early evening, and Devereaux was about to crack the seal on a fresh bottle of Mylanta when he got the call he’d been waiting for: Dutch, the head of CIA’s Special Operations Group, the Agency’s blandly named paramilitary wing. Well, wing wasn’t really the right word anymore. Since 9/11 and the advent of the drone program, the operations tail had been wagging the intel dog. Once upon a time, Devereaux had harbored some misgivings about that. Now all he cared about was having people loyal to him in the right positions.
“You wanted a heads-up about Rispel,” Dutch said. The man, a legend in CIA’s wars going back to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, had a peculiar way of talking, the end of each word bitten off just before being enunciated. Dutch didn’t know it, but he had a lot of behind-the-back imitators. Or maybe he did know and simply didn’t care.
“That’s right,” Devereaux said. “You have something?”
“She just requisitioned a six-man team and a Jeppesen jet. Dulles to San Jose, California.”
It was exactly the kind of thing he’d been waiting for. But what did it mean?
“Anything else?”
“She gave my guys the schematics for a compound in Silicon Valley. Owned by some Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous character named Constantine Grimble. You want me to find out more?”
Devereaux smiled. “I want you to find out everything.”
chapter
sixty-four
KANEZAKI
Kanezaki was outside the terminal at Leesburg Executive Airport, standing in the shadows behind one of the portico’s concrete support poles. If Rispel had anticipated him, he wanted some cover and concealment. But he’d have to be careful about announcing himself to Rain and the rest. They weren’t a crew you wanted to surprise.
He saw a car pull in at the far end of the lot. The area was otherwise empty—the airport was closed for the night. His heart kicked up a notch, and for the dozenth time in the last half hour, he squeeze
d the grip of the HK Mark 23 he was holding inside his coat.
The car hit a dip and the headlights bounced. A moment later, it passed one of the parking lot’s streetlights, and he caught a glimpse of the driver—a stunning blonde who must have been Delilah. And there, in the passenger seat, Rain. He relaxed his grip on the HK, took his hands out of his coat, and walked out from behind the support pole so they would have plenty of time to see him.
The car pulled up to the curb in front of him and stopped. The front passenger window went down. Rain looked at him. “Not that it isn’t good to see you, Tom, but what are you doing here?”
Kanezaki glanced in back and saw Maya, holding a little dog, plus a few faces he didn’t recognize. “Do I really need to tell you?”
Rain sighed. “Why didn’t you give us a heads-up?”
“You might have said no.”
“I might still say it.”
Kanezaki laughed. “Also better to keep communications at a minimum. Not risk giving away my location unless it’s really necessary. Just in case.” He leaned down so he could see Delilah. “The car’s fine there. And leave the keys inside. I’ve got someone coming to take care of it.”
An extremely solid-looking man got out of the back. The car seemed to rise appreciably on its shock absorbers once he was out. Kanezaki straightened. “You must be Manus,” he said.
The man nodded. “Kanezaki?”
Kanezaki gave him a nod in return.
Manus scanned the area, then looked at him. “You sent Dox? And Larison?”
Unlike Larison, who radiated danger, there was something about Manus that was as still as a bomb. Kanezaki felt nervous at the question, and how Manus might mean it. But he didn’t see a way to avoid answering. So he simply said, “Yes.”
There was a long, silent beat. Manus extended his hand. “Thank you,” he said.
They shook. Kanezaki said, “I’m glad everything worked well.”
Rain got out and did a perimeter check. It was reassuring—both substantively, and because some things, it seemed, would never change. Nor should they.
Rain held out his hand. They shook. Then Rain surprised him by offering a bow. Rain didn’t ordinarily express the Japanese half of his background, even though he’d grown up in Japan and was far more “both” than half of anything. Kanezaki had always wondered whether the reticence was some way of denying Kanezaki’s own heritage. Kanezaki was ethnic Japanese, but as a nisei, he’d been born in America and identified fully as American. And compared to Rain’s native Japanese fluency, his own language skills were a joke.
“You know,” Rain said, “the older you get, the more you remind me of Tatsu.”
Kanezaki was surprised to find himself a little choked up by that. “Thanks,” he managed to say.
Delilah came around the car from the driver’s side. “Hello, Tom.”
Kanezaki smiled. “Delilah. At last we meet.”
She kissed him on both cheeks. “I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. Though I always imagined different circumstances.”
He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
She waved a hand as though dismissing the problem. “My fault. By now, I should know better. You know, John talks about you a lot.”
“Really?” Kanezaki said. “I didn’t know he talked a lot about anything.”
She laughed. “We’ll have to work on your elicitation skills.”
He smiled. “I think you might have skills I don’t.”
He saw Maya getting out on the other side of the car, still holding the dog. Two more people emerged on his side—a pretty brunette, and a teenaged boy, lanky but filling out. Evie and her son, Dash.
“You must be Tom,” Evie said.
He nodded. “Hello, Evie.”
They shook hands. “Marvin told me what happened,” she said. “Thank you.”
He nodded but didn’t feel he deserved their gratitude. He hadn’t been trying to save Manus—or, to the extent he had, it was subordinate to his desire to protect Diaz. And even that was a function of the imperative of intelligence—of learning more, understanding more, knowing more.
Dash held out his hand and gave Kanezaki’s a firm shake. Kanezaki looked at Evie. “You sure you want to do this?” he said. “It’s a long trip, and—”
“We stick together,” Evie said. She put her hand on Dash’s shoulder. Manus did the same from the other side. Dash put his arms around both their backs.
Maya came around the back of the car. When he’d talked to her earlier, after Rain and Delilah had picked her up, she’d sounded shell-shocked. Even beaten. She looked tired now. But also . . . determined.
“You all right?” he said.
She looked at him. “Let’s get these motherfuckers.” Her dog barked, and she added, “Yeah, boy, that’s right.”
Kanezaki nodded. “We will. But you’ve already given us all the critical intel. On where they were holding Schrader, on how to get to Grimble. On Grimble’s interests, habits, everything. You don’t have to—”
“Tom. I’m going.”
Rain looked at him. “You don’t have to go, either. You have two kids, Tom.”
Kanezaki shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding. I caused this.” He looked at Maya. “All of it.”
“No,” Delilah said. “Rispel caused it. And Devereaux. And Hobbs. And Schrader. They caused all of it. And dragged us in. Now let’s finish it. Okay?”
Rain looked at her, his expression unlike anything Kanezaki had seen in him before. Gratitude? Protectiveness? Love? All those, and more. He realized he had gotten to know Rain over time. But only in a relatively narrow range of circumstances. No wonder Delilah had joked about Rain’s being talkative with her. When it was just the two of them, he was probably a different person. He was happy for them. But not quite happy enough to wish they weren’t here.
“I got your shopping list,” Kanezaki said, looking from one of them to the next. “Most of what you asked for is already on the plane. There’s enough firepower and ammunition to lay siege to the Alamo. Commo’s also good to go. But let me ask . . . is anyone here into bicycling?”
“I am,” Maya said. “On weekends, I bike to work.”
Dash seemed to have missed what Kanezaki had said, and Evie was signing to him. After a moment, he turned to Kanezaki. “I have a trail bike.”
“Are you asking for the reason I think you’re asking?” Rain said.
“Probably,” Kanezaki said. “Grimble lives in a town called Woodside. I’ve attended a lot of conferences and other meetings in Silicon Valley, and they take their biking seriously. Daily waves of pelotons, not just on weekends, but on weekdays, too. For reconnaissance, it would be low-profile.”
Evie glanced at Dash, obviously not liking the idea of his being involved even at the periphery. Well, she was his mother. It would be up to her.
“Another thing about Woodside,” he went on. “It’s home to numerous horse farms and riding trails. You see people on horseback all the time. So . . . anyone here know how to ride?”
“Yes,” Evie said. “It’s been a while, but yes. But . . . we’re going to land at, what, five in the morning California time?”
Kanezaki nodded. “More or less.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “And you’re going to have a horse waiting for us?”
“I have people I can call,” he said. “Whether they can deliver, I don’t know. I’ll need your shoe size and some other measurements regardless. But look, somehow Rispel knew Maya has been helping me. Someone made a run at you and Dash, almost certainly as a way of getting leverage over Manus. And the Seattle team had to fight their way through an ambush at Schrader’s house. Rispel’s been anticipating our moves. So we need to assume that when we get near Grimble’s, there could be a welcoming party. If there is, I want to make sure we spot them before they spot us. And whatever they might be expecting, I doubt it’s someone out horseback riding.”
“I get it,” Evie said. “But how are you
getting ahold of this stuff? Because—”
“I had the same thought,” Kanezaki said. “Outside of what you and Maya have done using Guardian Angel, it’s all through my own networks. Nothing via CIA or any other official channels.”
Ten minutes later, they were airborne, the cabin dimmed, the urban lights of Northern Virginia disappearing below them, the darkness of Shenandoah National Park and Monongahela National Forest coming into view. Maya stayed glued to her laptop, pillaging Guardian Angel for anything that might be useful about Grimble. But ten minutes after takeoff, Kanezaki watched while one after the other the rest of them grabbed pillows and blankets, reclined their seats, and dropped off—the aftermath, Kanezaki knew, of adrenaline and parasympathetic backlash. Napoleon had observed that the greatest danger occurs at the moment of victory, and Kanezaki was glad they had this interregnum to rest and recover.
He would have liked to join them. But the cross-country flight was his last chance to deal with logistics and matériel. And while he had an extensive network of suppliers of arms and related gear, and private jet owners, and safe house operators, and doctors, requisitioning bicycles and especially horses, particularly in the middle of the night, was definitely going to be a novel experience.
Beyond which, for the moment, he was too keyed up to sleep anyway. He’d failed to anticipate Rispel’s ruthlessness or her resourcefulness, and as a result, Ali was dead. It could have been Maya; it could have been any of them. Going forward, he wouldn’t allow himself to miss anything. He couldn’t.
And there was something else. He wanted those videos. Preventing them from falling into Rispel’s hands would feel like a stalemate, one achieved at great cost. Gaining control over them himself would be victory.
He’d always understood that knowledge is power, and he had sought knowledge accordingly. But the most powerful knowledge of all was knowledge you had—and that others lacked. Which was to say, knowledge was power only when it was your knowledge. What gave you power over others was their ignorance. Asymmetrical knowledge, otherwise known as intelligence. And he was in the intelligence business.
