The Chaos Kind

by Barry Eisler

Evie said, “Here we go.” She typed a string of code into a box and hit the Enter key. Immediately a message appeared: New log-in credentials.

  “The system itself chose the new credentials,” Maya said. “Minimum of sixty characters, lower case, upper case, numerals, symbols. Uncrackable.”

  “Watch,” Evie said. She entered Grimble’s username and passcode. The screen flashed: Invalid credentials.

  “So that’s it,” Maya said. “The only remaining instance of Grimble’s decoder is this laptop. Destroy the laptop, and the ring is thrown back into the fires of Mordor.”

  Manus opened his Espada. Dox saw it and flinched. Rain gave him a small caught you smile, and Dox said, “Yeah, yeah, let’s see how you deal with the psychological aftermath of a ferocious attack by Zatōichi the not-so-blind swordsman.”

  “A tale that will live in legends,” Larison said.

  “I’m sure it was very ferocious,” Rain added.

  Dox scowled. “Excuse me, but some of us are interested in the matter at hand.”

  Manus glanced at Maya. “What parts of the laptop need to be destroyed?”

  Maya shrugged. “If you really want to be thorough, hard drive, memory cards, and CPU.”

  “Where are they?” Manus said.

  “Let me,” Kanezaki said. He placed the laptop on the floor, then pointed. “Hard drive,” he said.

  Manus nodded, flipped the Espada around so he was holding it like an ice pick, and slammed the point through the area Kanezaki had indicated, several times in a widening pattern. The blade punched through the metal easily. Margarita whinnied and Diaz stroked her, saying, “Easy, girl. Easy.”

  “Memory cards?” Manus asked. Kanezaki pointed and Manus repeated the process. Then again for the CPU. By the time Manus was done, the laptop had so many holes in it that it looked vaguely like a cheese grater.

  They were all quiet then, the moment somehow anticlimactic. They had protected the girls in the videos, and themselves, too. Rispel and Devereaux were dead. And yet. Maybe it was Livia’s influence, and now possibly also Diaz’s, but Rain had the sense that everyone was afflicted by a gnawing feeling of justice left undone, of having been coerced by circumstances into protecting unknown people who were deserving only of punishment.

  Kanezaki looked particularly glum. Rain understood. Though he was new to it himself, he’d discovered that doing the right thing could be like that. He patted Kanezaki on the back. “Did you know Tatsu believed in an afterlife?”

  Kanezaki looked at him. “He did?”

  Rain nodded. “At the end, he told me he’d always thought the son he’d lost as an infant was waiting for him. And that he was glad they were going to be together again.”

  They were quiet for a moment, and Rain went on. “I don’t believe in that kind of thing myself. But if I did . . . I’d say you made Tatsu proud today.”

  Kanezaki put his hand on Rain’s shoulder and looked away. After a moment, he said, “Thanks.”

  “What’s going to happen?” Diaz said. “I mean . . . the CIA director, and the director of National Intelligence, and all those other people, too, dead on Grimble’s property?”

  Rain might have answered himself. But then Dox or whoever would have teased him for micromanaging. And they would have been right. He looked at Kanezaki and raised his eyebrows.

  Kanezaki nodded, then looked at Diaz. “Devereaux was already working overtime to plant stories about Russian disinformation. It wouldn’t be hard for a ‘senior intelligence official offering information only on background’ to build on that.”

  “Do us a favor while you’re blaming it all on the Russians,” Dox said. “Don’t start an accidental nuclear war?”

  Kanezaki chuckled. “Don’t worry. No one wants that, and no one is going to want any of this to be front-page news for longer than absolutely necessary. Especially with all the QAnon types trying to make hay of it.”

  Maya was holding Frodo again, and Rain had the sense that the girl was feeling the weight of everything she’d just been through. Larison must have noticed, too, because he went over. Larison held out his hand, and Frodo licked it.

  “Thinking about Ali?” Larison said.

  Maya looked down. “Can’t help it.”

  Larison nodded. “‘Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two.’”

  Rain assumed it was a line from The Lord of the Rings. A good line.

  When Maya looked up, her eyes were wet. “Tom told me you were scary,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t know you.”

  Larison glanced at Kanezaki, then back to Maya. “Oh, he does. He just doesn’t know everything.”

  “Does he know whether you’re a hugger?” Maya said.

  Larison gave a small, surprised laugh. “I’m not generally, no. But someone seems to have made me a convert.”

  Dox smiled and said, “It’s all right, he converted me to the intrinsic delights of hand-holding.”

  Maya laughed. She hugged Larison, and Larison hugged her back.

  Delilah moved over to where Livia was standing. “I heard what you said in the office,” she said. “I . . . I don’t like these men getting away with it, either.”

  Rain hoped Livia would recognize that was Delilah’s way of apologizing for not always thinking the best of Livia. They were both proud, sometimes to a fault. Not that Rain could judge.

  Livia nodded. “Thanks, Delilah. I never meant to drag you or John into this.”

  “I don’t like them getting away with it, either,” Larison said. “But we know one of the men in the videos. Hobbs. We’re pretty sure he’s the one who got this whole thing rolling. And speaking just for myself, I don’t like the loose end he represents for us personally.” He glanced at Diaz and added, “I like to consider all the possibilities.”

  Diaz nodded grimly, and Rain wondered what the woman might have done in the world if she hadn’t become a prosecutor. Well, it was rarely too late. For better or worse.

  Livia looked at Larison. “I’m in.”

  Dox said, “Me, too.” He smiled at Livia and added, “And not just as a way of getting your attention.”

  Livia flushed. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Dox’s smile broadened. “Later sounds nice.”

  Kanezaki said, “Whatever you need from Guardian Angel, it’s yours.”

  Maya looked at him and said, “Don’t leave me out.”

  Kanezaki smiled. “I’d be an idiot to leave you out of anything.”

  Rain saw Delilah watching him. He knew she wouldn’t try to stop him. He looked at her, then at the rest of them. He shook his head. “Sorry. I’m out.”

  There was a beat. Then Larison said, “Nothing to be sorry for. We’ve got this. Besides. You’re retired. Which makes you the smartest one here.”

  Rain looked at Delilah again. “Or the luckiest.”

  Manus said nothing, and Rain hoped he would leave Hobbs to the others. Larison, and Dox, and Livia, and Tom . . . On some level, they were all addicted to the life. Rain thought Manus was different. And looking at Dash, he sensed he was right.

  “Tom,” Delilah said. “When do you need to have that Porsche back?”

  Kanezaki checked his watch and blew out a breath. “I was supposed to have it back already. Margarita, too. And I’ve got the plane waiting—don’t you two need to get back to Paris? I think you were having a drink when we . . . interrupted you.”

  Larison said, “That was my fault.”

  “Mine,” Dox said.

  “No interruption at all,” Delilah said. “But if we have just a little time . . .”

  She turned to Dash and mimed holding a steering wheel. “Come with me in the Porsche?”

  Dash’s face lit up and he glanced eagerly at Evie.

  Evie looked at Delilah and said, “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be at the airport,” Rain said. “It’ll be good to be back.”

  Delilah nodded. “Come on,” she said to Dash. “Let’s go for that ride.”
<
br />   Delilah and Dash left the trailer. A moment later, the Porsche growled to life, and the two of them were gone. The rest of the team headed out in the truck.

  Rain meant it when he said it would be good to be back. He and Delilah had built a life in Paris, and Kamakura, and he wanted that life. All of it. However much of it there would be.

  She was so insightful, on so many matters. But he knew now she’d been wrong about one important thing. When she’d told him that it was danger, or the edge, or some other such attachment he was afraid to lose.

  That wasn’t it. Maybe once upon a time, but not anymore.

  It was the people he was afraid to lose. And determined to protect. And if he had to face danger to that end, then he would face it willingly. No matter what.

  But until then, all he really wanted was to find that elusive peace Delilah had mentioned. And keep it.

  For at least a little while. For as long as he could.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to:

  The Legislative Drafting Institute for Child Protection—an organization that does work Livia would be proud of, and that deserves your support.

  https://ldicp.org

  And a particularly easy and effective way to support the LDICP is through AmazonSmile. It’s simple to sign up and have Amazon donate 0.5 percent of your purchases to the LDICP (or other charity of your choice).

  http://barryeisler.blogspot.com/2018/11/if-you-buy-from-amazon-do-it-at.html

  Paul Draker and Dan Levin, for helping design the whole Schrader/Grimble system. I’m famously nontechnical, so if I got anything wrong here, it would be despite Paul’s and Dan’s patient efforts.

  Former Federal Air Marshal Montie Guthrie, for the concept of a “reloader” as explained in chapter 9.

  Nurse Practitioner Lindsay Harris and Dr. Peter Zimetbaum, for information on beta blockers and related drugs, and on how to treat a tension pneumothorax.

  Mike Killman, who knows as much about how to treat an injury as he does about how to cause one, and who gives the most discursive-yet-essential editorial feedback a writer could ever ask for (and store away to use next time).

  Lori Kupfer, for always knowing how to dress Delilah to kill, and for so uncannily getting in her head, too.

  Rory Miller, for feedback about Diaz’s freeze in the park, a scene that is itself based on what I’ve learned from Rory’s work.

  AUSA Daniel Velez, for background on assistant US Attorneys, federal detention centers, and federal law enforcement generally.

  To the extent I get violence right in my fiction, I have many great instructors to thank, including Massad Ayoob, Tony Blauer, Alain Burrese, Loren Christensen, Wim Demeere, Dave Grossman, Tim Larkin, Marc MacYoung, Rory Miller, Clint Overland, Peyton Quinn, and Terry Trahan. I highly recommend their superb books and courses for anyone who wants to be safer in the world, or just to create more realistic violence on the page:

  http://www.massadayoobgroup.com

  https://blauerspear.com

  http://yourwarriorsedge.com/about-alain-burrese

  http://www.lorenchristensen.com

  http://www.wimsblog.com

  http://www.killology.com

  http://www.targetfocustraining.com

  https://www.nononsenseselfdefense.com

  http://www.chirontraining.com

  http://moderncombatandsurvival.com/author/peyton-quinn

  https://conflictresearchgroupintl.com/terry-trahan/

  https://mastersofmayhem.info

  Thanks as always to the extraordinarily eclectic group of “foodies with a violence problem” who hang out at Marc “Animal” MacYoung and Dianna Gordon MacYoung’s No Nonsense Self-Defense, for good humor, good fellowship, and a ton of insights, particularly regarding the real costs of violence.

  Sometimes I listen to a particular album a lot while writing a book. This time, it was a playlist consisting of the soundtrack to Motherless Brooklyn (loved the movie and the book); Frank Morgan’s Mood Indigo (which I think I learned about from Michael Connelly); and the song “In a Sentimental Mood,” by Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, which I first came across in Alex Gibney’s documentary Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Cool Place, and which has haunted me ever since.

  For everyone who’s been waiting for this book, thanks for being so patient. I wanted to get it done sooner, but . . . it was an interesting year.

  Thanks to Naomi Andrews, Phyllis DeBlanche, Wim Demeere, Alan Eisler, Emma Eisler, Judith Eisler, Ben Grossblatt, Mike Killman, Lori Kupfer, Dan Levin, Maya Levin, Liz Pearsons, Laura Rennert, Ken Rosenberg, Ted Schlein, Hannah Streetman, and Paige Terlip for terrific feedback on the manuscript, and to Laura for doing so much to help me write it. I love you, babe.

  Notes

  prologue

  The Story of Seattle’s Freeway Park.

  https://www.seattleweekly.com/news/navigating-the-maze-that-is-freeway-park/

  Manus’s everyday carry—the Cold Steel Espada. Naturally, I bought one for research purposes, and I’m not too proud to admit that the first thing I did with it was screw up and cut myself badly enough to need stitches.

  https://www.coldsteel.com/xl-espada-s35vn-62ma

  Manus’s, Evie’s, and Dash’s story is told in The God’s Eye View.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XT47SOK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i16

  chapter two

  How to Not Get Slammed in the Guard.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC4W9dB7DM0

  Marc MacYoung using a cut of meat to demonstrate how much damage a knife can do, at 37:00, but the whole video is worth watching.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQNeXMlSMOw

  For a discussion of “my weapons don’t work” dreams, where they come from, and how to overcome them, see generally Dave Grossman’s On Killing and Dave Grossman’s and Loren Christensen’s On Combat.

  https://www.amazon.com/Dave-Grossman/e/B001H6MBBM

  Livia’s backstory is told in the first Livia book, the eponymous (always looking for an opportunity to use that word) Livia Lone.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01DYC113A/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i14

  chapter three

  Journalist Julie Brown has done dogged work breaking and covering various aspects of the Jeffrey Epstein matter for the Miami Herald. See for example “Perversion of Justice.”

  https://www.miamiherald.com/topics/jeffrey-epstein

  Fascinating article about how Epstein collected people, rumors he had blackmail tapes, the banality of the global elite, and much more, by a reporter who called all two thousand people in Epstein’s black book.

  https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/i-called-everyone-in-jeffrey-epsteins-little-black-book/

  chapter four

  The ambush Livia recalls happened in The Killer Collective.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DL1Y4GV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i8

  chapter five

  More on General Motors’ surveillance of Ralph Nader and the company’s attempt to discredit Nader’s exposés of safety failings in GM cars.

  https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/gm-investigation-of-ralph-nader/

  chapter seven

  The story of Guardian Angel, called God’s Eye before the government got wise about how to make it sound benign, is told in The God’s Eye View.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00XT47SOK/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i16

  Maya makes her first appearance in The Night Trade.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L9XXDCC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

  chapter eight

  The stepwells of India—photos and more.

  http://www.walkthroughindia.com/walkthroughs/10-ancient-popular-stepwells-india/

  So-called “incidental” collection.

  https://www.eff.org/pages/Incidental-collection

  More on “loveint.”

  https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/09/loveint-on-his-first-day-of-work-
nsa-employee-spied-on-ex-girlfriend/

  Dox and Rain in Brazil (and Hong Kong and Macau) is a story told in Winner Take All.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M4LHQ96/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4

  Dox’s recollection of those false-flag terror attacks, and how Larison joined their band of brothers, is of course a reference to The Detachment.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005CDHZS0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i7

  Dox’s original pursuit of the former Khmer Rouge child trafficker Sorm is told in the short story The Khmer Kill.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008674IA2/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i18

  And the story of Dox and Livia’s first encounters, in Cambodia and Thailand, is told in The Night Trade.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01LZ1MXK3/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i10

  chapter nine

  The notorious sumo fight takes place in Extremis.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M4LHQBE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i5

  chapter ten

  A cool video—the making of a belt knife.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBAHAhQsGLY&app=desktop

  Dox is understandably phobic about swords due to an incident that occurred in The Night Trade.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L9XXDCC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3

  chapter fourteen

  “But only God can make a tree.”

  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/12744/trees

  An example of an acoustic gunshot detection system.

  https://www.shotspotter.com

  chapter seventeen

  Livia’s teachings on the freeze and how to break it are courtesy of Rory Miller, primarily from Rory’s book Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected (for which I was proud to write the foreword).

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0182WEMGA/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1

  chapter twenty

  Another of the global elite accused of child trafficking, racketeering, and drugging victims before assaulting them—and avoiding accountability for decades.

  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/15/peter-nygard-canadian-fashion-mogul-arrested

  Camera malfunctions, etc. on the night Jeffrey Epstein died in jail.