Fault Line

by Barry Eisler

  “What happened?” Alex asked.

  “Just drive. Nice and slowly. Through Menlo, then over to 280. I’ll tell you more as we go.”

  Sarah turned and looked at him. “There’s blood on your face,” she said.

  Shit, must have been from when he head-butted Ivan. Ben looked in the rearview and used some spit to wipe it away.

  “Not your blood,” Sarah said.

  Ben smiled, feeling giddiness starting to kick in, knowing he had about ten seconds before he got the shakes.

  “That’s the best kind,” he said.

  “What the hell happened?” Alex asked again.

  They were coming up on a do-it-yourself car wash on Oak Grove. “Pull into the car wash,” Ben said, “and pop the trunk. I need to get out for a minute.”

  Alex pulled into one of the bays. Ben jumped out and took the car’s real plates out of the trunk. He used them to replace the set he had stolen and put on the car before first going to see Alex at the Four Seasons. He put the stolen set in his bag and took out an unused gun, another Glock 17. He would ditch the tainted gun and the plates later, when the girl wasn’t around to know where.

  He got back in and Alex drove off. “You changed the license plates?” Sarah asked.

  “Had to. People in that neighborhood would have heard gunshots. I’m sure plenty of them were looking out their windows. A few of them might have noticed you picking me up, even though that was a few blocks from where the shots were fired. A very few might even have written down some of the license plate number. No reason for us to take a chance like that.”

  “Shots fired?” Alex said. “Jesus, Ben!”

  Sarah said, “Where did you get the plates?”

  “I borrowed them.”

  Alex turned to look at him. His eyes were wide. “Did you … I mean, you shot someone?”

  “Eyes on the road, Alex. Do your job. Let me do mine.”

  Alex faced front and said, “I don’t believe this. I don’t believe this is happening.”

  “There were two of them, amigo,” Ben said. “Waiting in a stolen car parked right next to yours. You think they were there to wish you Happy Birthday?”

  “But you just saw them, how could you possibly know—”

  “Alex. Stop talking and drive the fucking car.”

  That shut him up. The prick. Not even an inkling that maybe he could say something like, Wow, Ben, thank you for taking care of the two guys who if you hadn’t been here would already have killed me. I appreciate it.

  “Where are we going?” Sarah asked.

  “The city,” Ben said. “We’re going to stay at a hotel for a little while. You two are going to do your thing with the technology. And I’m going to follow up on what I just learned.”

  “What did you just learn?” Sarah asked.

  Ben hesitated. He still didn’t trust her. The Russian guys didn’t feel like government to him. Government guys wouldn’t have had wallets on them, they would have been operating sterile. And they would have been sharper about their positioning near Alex’s car. They wouldn’t have let Ben get as close as he had.

  His guess was they were Russian mafia. Which meant either that the Russian mob was after Alex’s technology or, more likely, that the mob was being used by someone else as a cutout. It wouldn’t be the first time. Look at the way the CIA had used the mob to go after Castro in the sixties. It certainly wasn’t unthinkable that the Iranian government would contract out a job to Russian gangsters. The two countries did enough sub-rosa work together. He’d just seen it firsthand in Istanbul.

  And he had another problem now, too, which he should have considered more carefully earlier. The girl, whom he didn’t even know, whom Alex had forced him to bring along, was now a material witness to a double homicide. True, she didn’t actually see him pull the trigger, and he’d been careful not to confirm any of Alex’s hysterical allegations, but the information she did have could be plenty damaging.

  But he had to tell them something. Otherwise, they’d be groping in the dark when they tried to get inside the technology. And he wanted the girl to understand that the threat she faced wasn’t something the police could protect her from. He had to discourage her from the temptation, which he knew would arise repeatedly, to default to good, civilian behavior, implicating him in the process.

  “I heard them talking,” Ben said. “They were Russian. Can you think of any reason the Russians would want Obsidian?”

  Sarah said, “Russians? Russians are mixed up in this?”

  Ben nodded. “Sounds like the two of you treed a bad one.”

  Alex said, “What do you mean?”

  “I see two possibilities. One, they were FSB. That’s the new KGB. Which would mean the people who want you dead are the Russian government.”

  Sarah glanced back at him. “What’s the other possibility?”

  “They were Russian mafia.”

  “Great,” Alex said, shaking his head but at least keeping his eyes on the road. “The people who want us dead are either the KGB or the Russian mob.”

  “I doubt your problem would be with the Russian mob directly,” Ben said. “My guess is, someone gave them a contract. Could be the FSB. Could be someone else. So again, can you think of any reason the Russian government would want Obsidian?”

  They were all quiet for a moment. Alex said, “None particular to Russia.”

  “Well, keep the connection in mind as a new data point. I’m going to check with my people and see if I can’t learn more about who they were working with. Or working for.”

  19 RITUAL

  They drove in silence through Menlo Park, onto Sand Hill Road, and then onto 280. Ben watched the rolling green hills pass, the sky above hard blue and studded with bright white clouds. It was surreal.

  He rarely had to deal with the aftermath of a job. Ordinarily he just walked away, instantly severing the connection with what was left behind. But now he had … all of this. The crazy thing was, a part of him was enjoying it. Maybe it was the giddy aftereffects of what had just happened, but the whole situation was a hell of a challenge, and he’d managed it pretty well so far.

  They passed Crystal Springs Reservoir, a stretch of sparkling blue. Ben had chosen 280 over 101 because its slightly more meandering route would give him more time to think on the way to the city. But he was glad now for the views, as well. He’d forgotten how beautiful a highway this was. Even when he had been a kid here, 101 had been an eyesore— an unending stretch of billboards and sound walls and industrial buildings backed up ass-forward to the very edge of the highway.

  “Why the city?” Sarah asked. “Why not an airport hotel? That would be anonymous, right? And there are dozens up and down 101.”

  “You just said why,” Ben told her.

  “Because it’s the first thing I thought of?”

  “That’s right. It’s the first thing someone will key on if they start widening their search.”

  There was a second, more important reason, but Ben didn’t mention it. San Francisco would give him better opportunities to test the girl and surprise anyone who acted on the information he was going to feed her.

  “I don’t know about anyone else,” Alex said, “but I haven’t had breakfast. Can we stop somewhere for a cup of coffee, maybe a muffin?”

  “Whatever you want,” Ben said.

  “I know a place,” Sarah said. “Ritual Coffee Roasters, on Valencia, in the Mission. Take the San Jose Avenue exit, then bear left on—”

  “I know how to get to the Mission,” Alex said. “Just tell me the cross street.”

  “Between Twenty-first and Twenty-second.”

  Ben didn’t like that Sarah had just selected the place they were going, but he couldn’t find a tactical reason to object. She didn’t have a cell phone. She couldn’t warn anyone of anything. So unless Ritual Coffee Roasters was in fact a front for some diabolical organization of which Sarah was a secret member, they would probably be okay there.

&
nbsp; Briefly.

  Ben noticed the place first from the crowd in front of it—a line stretching twenty feet out of the store, mostly twentysomething hipsters with facial hair or piercings or both. Overhead was a red sign punctuated by the white outline of a coffee cup with a star above it that reminded Ben vaguely of the flag of communist China. It took them ten minutes to find a place to park because the street was jam-packed and Ben refused to let Alex park the car illegally, even if they were just running inside. He would rather eat a bullet than have the time and place of his vehicle logged by a bored city cop issuing a parking ticket.

  Ben looked around while they stood in line. The neighborhood was funky: two- and three-story buildings in green and yellow and pink façades; stores with names like Lost Weekend Video and Aquarius Records and Beadissimo; ethnic restaurants and bodegas cheek by jowl with a foreign-car repair shop, a coin-operated laundry, an “environmentally friendly” dry cleaner, whatever that meant.

  “They better serve some damn good coffee,” Ben said.

  “It’s worth it,” Sarah said. “You’ll see.”

  The line moved faster than he had expected. It was loud inside— music with a heavy beat throbbing through ceiling speakers; the hum of fifty conversations from scattered tables and couches and stools along the bar; the thump and steam of espresso being pulled by hand. Every third person was using a laptop, all of them Macs, and there were a lot of different hair colors, including fuchsia and magenta. Overall the place was a little hip for Ben’s tastes, but he had to admit there was nothing self-conscious about it all and the smell of roasting coffee made up for any shortcomings he found in the ambience.

  One of the baristas, a twentysomething white guy with a full beard and a Panama hat, smiled in their direction. “Hey, Sarah,” he said, and Ben thought, Goddamn it, she’s known here?

  “Hey, Gabe,” Sarah said. “The usual.”

  “Two of these in one day? Someone’s gonna have to talk you down.” Gabe glanced at Ben and Alex. “Your friends … ?”

  Alex ordered a latte and a muffin; Ben, suppressing his anger, got something called the Guatemalan Cup of Excellence. Alex pulled out his wallet and Ben made sure he paid cash.

  They waited at the end of the bar. “What did I just tell you about going to places where you’re known?” Ben said. “The manager of the Four Seasons, now this … you guys are unbelievable.”

  Sarah raised a hand to her ear and then pointed to the ceiling, indicating the music. “Sorry?”

  He put his mouth close to her ear and repeated himself.

  “Oh, shit,” she said. “Sorry, you’re right.”

  Christ, he thought. How could people be so stupid?

  They waited. The barista put the coffees on the counter. Ben went to reach past Sarah for his and she flinched. And then he realized.

  She was afraid of him. She could pin him to what police would prosecute as a double homicide, and she was afraid of what he might do now. She took them here so she would have witnesses.

  He was simultaneously impressed by her thinking and appalled at what lay behind it. When had he reached the point where a girl, someone who in all likelihood had done nothing wrong, looked at him and feared for her life?

  A Delta guy he had known in Mogadishu once told him that you can tell the kind of warrior you are by the way the people you’re sworn to protect react to you. Are they reassured by your presence, or are they afraid?

  Jesus.

  He took a sip of coffee and nodded appreciatively. “It’s good.”

  “Yeah.”

  He waved a hand in no particular direction. “You, uh, you live around here?”

  “This is my neighborhood place,” she said, stirring sugar into her coffee.

  Right, got that the first time.

  “You don’t mind the commute?”

  She looked at him, and he could feel her trying to make up her mind. “It’s not so bad,” she said, after a moment. “A straight shot down 280. It’s worth it, to live in San Francisco. Didn’t you grow up here?”

  “Not in the city,” he said, looking around. Very unlikely anyone would know about, or key on, the place she bought her coffee. But he wasn’t going to rule it out, either. “The Peninsula. Portola Valley.”

  “Yeah, but this is still your city, right?”

  “I haven’t been here in a long time,” he said, and looked away. The truth was, being in the city was making him uncomfortable, though he couldn’t articulate exactly why. Not an operational thing … something else. He pushed the feeling away, thinking he would examine it later.

  They sat in back, where the music was quieter, on a couple of black leather sofas next to a mound of 150-pound burlap coffee bags and a giant roasting machine. There was a back door, open, and Ben looked through it before sitting. It led to a courtyard filled with bicycles, presumably the employees’, some potted plants, and assorted bric-a-brac, all surrounded by a fence. You could get over the fence fast enough, coming in or getting out. He would keep an eye on it.

  “Where are we going to stay?” Alex asked.

  Ben had been trying to work that out. He wanted something big enough to be anonymous, but not so big that it would have a lobby bustling with conventioneers, where someone could easily set up for an ambush. Not that it would come to that, most likely, but he’d learned the easy way in training and the hard way in combat that a good defense is always layered.

  The other requirement was, he wanted to be in a part of the city he knew. Which narrowed things down more or less to North Beach, a neighborhood of mostly low buildings painted in light colors that dated back to 1906, when much of the city had been rebuilt after the devastating earthquake and ensuing fire of that year. The area had once actually been a beach, but landfill had long since extended the city northeast into the bay and now only the name served as a reminder of the area’s past. It was where he and his friends had gone on weekends when they were in high school, sneaking into Little Italy bars that were lax about checking ID, chowing down on late-night dim sum in adjacent Chinatown, reveling in the neon tackiness of the girlie bars and adult bookshops. The neighborhood had probably changed a lot since then, but at least he would know its broad contours. That would give him an advantage.

  “What about that place in North Beach?” he said. “Corner of Broadway and Columbus. Something Motor Inn, if it’s still there. Blue building, lot of glass?”

  “You’re not serious,” Sarah said.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s a total pit, that’s what’s wrong with it. You’d have to be desperate.”

  “Have you not gotten the memo? You are desperate.”

  “I’m not that desperate.”

  Alex said, “What about the Four Seasons?”

  Ben didn’t even know there was a Four Seasons in the city. It must be new. “Where is it?” he asked.

  “South of Market,” Sarah said.

  Ben shook his head. It was too far for his purposes. “No good. Alex just stayed at a Four Seasons. I don’t want any patterns.”

  “All right,” Alex said. “The Ritz-Carlton.”

  “Jesus, the two of you have expensive tastes. You ought to write a book. Five-star-hotel safe houses. You don’t know the manager there, do you?”

  “No, I’ve never stayed there.”

  Actually, the Ritz-Carlton would work. It was on the edge of Chinatown, a half mile from the heart of North Beach.

  They drove over. While Alex and Sarah waited in the marble-floored, Oriental-carpeted lobby, Ben used a credit card registered to one of the legends he traveled under to reserve two connected rooms on the fourth floor. He asked for two key cards to each room, and gave Sarah only one.

  “I’ll pay you back,” Alex told him.

  “Yes, you will,” Ben said.

  The rooms were deluxe—high ceilings, luxurious drapes, patterned carpets, elegant furniture. Nice views of Coit Tower and the bay, too.

  “Here’s the deal,” Ben to
ld them. “Alex and I will stay in this room. Sarah, you have the room next door. I’m going out for a few supplies and to run down the names of the Russians. You two get moving on Obsidian.”

  Sarah said, “I’m going to have to get some clothes at some point.”

  “We’ll take care of that later,” Ben said. “Let’s see what kind of progress we make today.”

  “Give me ten minutes,” Sarah said to Alex, and went through the connecting door to her room.

  As soon as the door was closed, Ben said, “I don’t trust her.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody knew where those missing files were kept.”

  “Yeah, but you said yourself—”

  “It’s a question of probabilities. We need to be very careful with her.”

  “Ben, you sound … paranoid.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. Listen. I’m going to have a look around the area. While I’m out, keep the door locked and the privacy sign on. If someone knocks, do not answer.”

  “What if they don’t go away?”

  Ben reached around and freed his backup from its holster. He stood up and showed Alex the gun. “Have you ever used one of these?”

  Alex’s eyes went wide. “No.”

  “It’s very simple. This is a Glock 26. Nine-millimeter, which is a relatively small round but also relatively quiet. Although to you, it would sound like a cannon. There’s no safety you need to worry about. There’s already a round in the chamber. Point it at the target and squeeze the trigger. Keep it in your pocket and don’t play with it. That’s it.”

  Alex nodded, looking uncomfortable. The sad truth was, by the time Alex got his balls sufficiently in an uproar to use the gun, it would probably be too late. Training was at least as much about mental and emotional readiness as it was about physical skill. But what else could he do? He couldn’t leave Alex naked.

  “Keep your finger off the trigger and out of the trigger guard until you’re ready to shoot,” Ben said. “Don’t ever point the gun at something unless you’re ready to shoot it. You’ll be fine.”