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The Chaos Kind

Page 38

by Barry Eisler


  https://www.reuters.com/article/us-people-jeffrey-epstein-cameras/fbi-studies-two-broken-cameras-outside-cell-where-epstein-died-source-idUSKCN1VI2LC

  https://www.npr.org/2020/01/09/795004811/video-outside-cell-during-jeffrey-epsteins-first-suicide-attempt-no-longer-exist

  chapter twenty-three

  For more on amaeru, the best source I know is Takeo Doi’s The Anatomy of Dependence. As with so many other Japanese concepts, I think it’s a mistake to approach amaeru as a uniquely Eastern thing. It’s probably more a human thing. But it’s also true that as with other aspects of Japanese culture, such as mono no aware, amaeru is relatively important in Japan—important enough to merit nomenclature we in the West lack.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anatomy_of_Dependence

  For another interesting example of “The West has it, too, it’s just not as central,” consider the Japanese writing system of kanji (a word that literally means “Chinese characters” because Japan adopted the system from China). Kanji are symbols with both sound and meaning. If that sounds confusing, just think of the symbols above the numbers on your keyboard—@, #, $, %, etc. Unlike letters, which have only a sound and no independent meaning, the keyboard symbols have both. And now you understand the fundamentals of kanji! The big difference is that while English has only a few such symbols, peripheral to the writing system, Japanese has thousands, and they are the system’s foundation.

  Delilah and John’s first encounter, when Delilah was with Mossad and Rain was freelancing for the CIA, is in Winner Take All.

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

  Delilah and John’s breakup is told in the short story “Paris Is a Bitch.”

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004XQVKR4/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i17

  And their reunion is part of The Killer Collective.

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

  chapter thirty-one

  Andrew Vachss on why child prostitute is an abhorrent and inaccurate term, and why the accurate nomenclature is prostituted child.

  https://www.randomhouse.com/knopf/authors/vachss/qna.html

  chapter thirty-two

  For a nice cinematic example of a witness check (and a subtle draw), go to 3:55 in the jazz bar scene in Collateral.

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

  And another nice one (more an Is anyone here going to be trouble? check, but the principle is the same), from this clip of Lonesome Dove, at 0:45.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBG2IxzEn7g

  chapter thirty-five

  Regarding a “club” of insiders owning and running everything, as usual, George Carlin said it best: “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”

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

  chapter thirty-eight

  Maybe Delilah isn’t being completely fair in blaming Livia. But then again, she never claimed to be no freakin’ monument to justice.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7yK8cuP1Bw

  The infamous bear joke is told in Extremis. Blame Dox, not me.

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

  chapter thirty-nine

  For “When order is your enemy, chaos is your friend,” Dox is indebted to John Kirakou’s The Reluctant Spy: My Secret Life in the CIA’s War on Terror.

  https://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Spy-Secret-Life-Terror-ebook/dp/B0036S4BMG/ref=sr_1_3

  It’s interesting to speculate whether even satellite hotspots and all the rest would be enough to counter the determined surveillance efforts of a nation-state adversary like NSA. It may be that real-time anonymous electronic communication has become functionally impossible, requiring a resort to slower, old-fashioned methods. If so, note that “impossible” isn’t necessarily the goal; “slow and laborious” might be enough. More:

  http://barryeisler.blogspot.com/2013/08/david-miranda-and-preclusion-of-privacy.html

  chapter forty-two

  The story of Jim Hilger rendering Dox is in The Killer Ascendant.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00M4LHQ8M/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2

  chapter forty-seven

  As usual, I wish I were inventing Livia’s points about the long-term consequences to victims of having images of their abuse online. But she’s just describing reality.

  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/28/us/child-sex-abuse.html

  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/09/us/internet-child-sex-abuse.html

  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html

  chapter fifty-four

  “The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping. There is another world beneath it—the real world.”

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ih3tTprwY04

  Dox saves the day with Cleavon Little in The Detachment.

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

  chapter fifty-five

  Seattle’s Jungle.

  https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/inside-the-grim-world-of-the-jungle-the-caves-sleeping-in-shifts-and-eyeball-eating-rats/

  The humiliation of a three-wheeled motorcycle occurred in The Killer Collective.

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

  chapter fifty-six

  The crime Livia helped B. D. Little solve is part of All The Devils.

  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07L9XXDCC/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1

  Dox suffers the indignity of a rear-of-the-seat motorcycle ride in The Night Trade.

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

  chapter sixty

  Andrew Vachss on why transcender is a better term than survivor.

  http://vachss.com/transcender.html

  chapter sixty-four

  For GOT fans—power is power.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab6GyR_5N6c

  chapter sixty-five

  A bit more on the actual house that inspired the Constantine Grimble compound.

  https://www.airfloor.com/project/residential-larry-ellison-woodside-home/

  https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/The-Villa-That-Oracle-Built-Ellison-proceeds-2938199.php#photo-2257649

  chapter sixty-seven

  By serendipity, after finishing the first draft, I came across this photo of Manzanita Way in PUNCH magazine. Definitely conveys the atmosphere.

  http://www.journalgraphicsdigitalpublications.com/epubs/punch-jan21/viewer/desktop/#page/34

  A good surveillance/countersurveillance primer, particularly on the concepts of cover for action and cover for status.

  https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/watching-watchers

  chapter sixty-nine

  More on the Vaari and Maija Soderholm, one of Livia’s mentors.

  http://www.somico-knives.com/about-us.html

  chapter seventy-three

  Abu Ghraib. It’s never the policy, always just “a few bad apples.”

  https://layeredonionz.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/president-bush-blames-a-few-bad-apples-for-abu-ghraib-torture/

  chapter seventy-six

  I always try to depict things as accurately and compellingly as I can. And when I was writing this chapter, I wanted to listen to a helicopter to help ensure I wasn’t just phoning it in from memory. I found this video with a simple search for “sound of a helicopter.” Sometimes I hate the Internet. But other times I really love it.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8BAckZBQZc

  About the Author

  Photo © 2007 Naomi Brookner

  New York Times bestselling author Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and start-up executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan Judo Institute
along the way. Eisler’s award-winning thrillers have been included in numerous Best Of lists, have been translated into nearly twenty languages, and include the #1 bestsellers The Detachment, Livia Lone, The Night Trade, and The Killer Collective. Eisler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and, when he’s not writing novels, blogs about national security and the media. For more information, visit www.barryeisler.com.

 

 

 


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