Surveillance (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 3)

by Reece Hirsch

  Chris complied, and when Corbin had the phone, he spoke directly to Rajiv. “Hello, friend. Who am I speaking with, Josh or Rajiv?”

  Corbin waited for an answer that didn’t come, then continued. “It doesn’t really matter. I know what you’ve done, and I’m deeply disappointed. When I’m done here, you’re next.”

  Corbin pointed at Zoey. “Take out the earbuds and hand over your phone.” Once he had them, Corbin hurled them over the railing.

  “I can’t believe this has taken as long as it has,” Corbin said. “This should have all ended that morning in San Francisco.”

  “Becky Martinez and Ira Rogers didn’t deserve to die,” Zoey said.

  “And all for the sake of protecting the secrecy of some government program,” Chris added.

  Corbin waved the gun at them in a dismissive gesture. “If you think you’re going to engage me in some justification of the surveillance state, you’ve got the wrong guy. I really don’t care.”

  “What happened to Ian?” Chris already knew about Ian’s betrayal, but Corbin didn’t know that. Their only hope was to buy precious time.

  Corbin smiled. “Ian’s the one who told us where you were. We couldn’t promise him freedom, because even he wouldn’t have believed that. But in my line of work you can always count on one axiom of human behavior—a coward will always choose life. People tend to be fairly predictable in the face of death. I find it oddly comforting.”

  Something moved behind Corbin, coming their way. A pale, hunched man.

  Ian.

  He’d just come out of a bathroom door some ten yards behind Corbin, and in his right hand he held a gun. Even from a distance Chris could see the tremor in Ian’s hand. He must have heard them talking outside the door and been steeling himself to make his move; the gun was probably the one that had belonged to the cartel assassin.

  Chris knew that if he stared, Corbin would follow his eyes and spot Ian. It took all of his discipline to look back to Corbin.

  Too late. He’d given Ian away.

  Corbin spun, firing a shot and hitting Ian in the chest.

  Ian dropped the gun, and it clattered in front of him on the walkway.

  They say that time slows down in terrible moments like this, but it all transpired in what felt like nanoseconds. It was only later, when Chris reconstructed the events, that he realized that his memory had been recording everything at high shutter speed, each horrible image preserved and available for access whether he wanted it or not.

  Ian looked curiously down at his chest as if he could feel the wound but not see it. Then his glazed eyes focused on Corbin.

  “Speak of the devil,” Corbin said.

  Ian took a slow, tentative step toward Corbin.

  Corbin fired again, striking Ian once more in the chest and jerking him back and to one side.

  Ian lowered his head, then looked up, his eyes swimming into focus and drawing a bead on Corbin with some kind of final resolve. He took another slow, staggering step toward Corbin. Corbin looked surprised, and possibly amused, by Ian’s stiff-legged zombie dance. But unarmed, Ian posed no threat.

  Until he created one.

  Ian lurched forward like a flailing drunk, arms outstretched toward Corbin. But before he reached his killer, he executed a surprisingly nimble little bit of soccer footwork, kicking his pistol to the side—and directly to Zoey.

  Corbin fired again, putting a third bullet into Ian’s chest. But that didn’t stop Ian from falling forward into Corbin and throwing his arms around him like a boxer trying to stay upright with one final clinch.

  Ian’s hands managed to grasp Corbin’s arms for a moment before they went limp and he crumpled. That moment was enough for Zoey, who picked up the gun, leveled it at Corbin with a two-handed grip, and fired three shots in quick succession.

  The gunshots were startlingly loud.

  In the equally startling silence that followed, Chris, Zoey, and Corbin all stared at one another, with Ian sprawled on the concrete between them. Something irrevocable had just happened, but none of them seemed certain what it was or what was happening next. Chris couldn’t even tell whether Zoey’s bullets had found their target. But then Corbin delicately touched his hand to his chest as if crossing himself. The hand came back red.

  “Well, that was unexpected,” Corbin said. He collapsed to his knees and then fell forward on his face, his right hand still gripping his gun.

  Chris stepped forward quickly, put a foot on Corbin’s wrist, and picked up the gun, then turned him over and searched for other weapons. Corbin’s eyelids fluttered once, then closed for good.

  Zoey knelt over Ian, trying to apply pressure to his wounds with her hands. When Chris joined her, Ian still appeared to be conscious, but barely.

  “I’m sorry,” Ian gasped through teeth smeared with blood. “Corbin was right.”

  Chris shook his head. “Not when it counted.”

  Chris waited for an acknowledgment, but none came.

  Zoey lifted Ian’s wrist, checked for a pulse, then looked away.

  “I think we need to get out of here,” Chris said, glancing up at the closest CCTV camera mounted overhead. “If Josh and Rajiv can see us, then others probably can too. Someone else is probably on the way.”

  “Do you think Corbin was here alone?”

  “I think so. They probably figured that he was more than enough to do the job. But it won’t take them long to send someone else.”

  Chris stood and took Zoey’s hand, pulling her up. She was unsteady on her feet at first, staring at her hands, which were covered in Ian’s blood. By the time she had her sea legs, Chris’s hands were bloodied too.

  “We can’t walk out of here looking like this,” Chris said, pointing to the restroom that Ian had emerged from.

  They went inside and quickly rinsed their hands. Chris was nauseated by the pink swirl of Ian’s blood on the white porcelain. Even though Ian had betrayed them, Chris was hit hard by his loss. There had been a weakness to Ian, but it was an ordinary weakness. Chris recognized just how far Ian had to bring himself to get to that place where he could attempt to face down Corbin, a professional killer. In the end Ian had been the person that Ian had always hoped that he was, if only for a few minutes. Most people never even get to have those few minutes.

  When they emerged from the restroom, they were cleaned up enough that they wouldn’t be stopped by the first security guard or policía that spotted them. They descended the ramp, heading for street level. Now everyone in the stadium had either heard the gunshots or learned by word of mouth that something bad was happening. The panicked crowds surged to the exits, and Chris and Zoey were caught up in the human torrent.

  An open space had been created in the crowd up ahead. As they passed, Chris’s heart sank when he saw the body of Michael Hazlitt on a stretcher in the middle of the walkway.

  Chris pushed his way to the perimeter of the circle of onlookers surrounding Hazlitt. A paramedic with a severe haircut and a more severe demeanor was attending to the FBI agent, applying a compress to his stomach wound. As Chris broke into the circle around Hazlitt, the woman raised a hand and said something peremptory in Spanish.

  “I know him,” Hazlitt said, pointing at Chris. “Por favor.”

  The woman grudgingly acceded to Hazlitt’s request, tolerating Chris’s presence as she continued her work.

  Hazlitt twisted up the corner of his mouth into a grimacing smile. “Before you say anything, Bruen, I want to inform you that you’re under arrest.”

  “Let’s agree to disagree there.” Chris nodded at the woman. “Looks like you’re in good hands.”

  “Yeah, Olivia here knows what she’s doing. You and Doucet should get out of here. I can’t protect you, and there seems to be no shortage of people who want to see you two dead.”

  Chris and Zoey exchanged glances. Sarcasm aside, both knew that Hazlitt was right.

  “One thing before you go,” Hazlitt said.

  “Sure, wha
t is it?” Chris said.

  “I want you to know that when this is over, I’m leaving the agency.”

  “Probably not a bad time to retire.”

  “Oh, I’m not retiring. I’m going into private practice. And I intend to earn a plum salary from Bruen & Associates.”

  “And this is your job application?”

  “I figured I might as well take the opportunity while I had your full attention.”

  “I don’t know if there will ever be a Bruen & Associates, but if there is, we’ll talk. Have you noticed that just about every time I see you, you end up taking a bullet?”

  “Yeah, that’s going to have to stop if we’re going to be partners.”

  “Who said anything about partnership?”

  The crowd rippled as two policía made their way toward them.

  “We can negotiate terms later,” Hazlitt said. “Right now you’d better go.”

  And they went.

  47

  Chris thought it fitting to meet Sam Reston at last at Red’s Java House, the place where he had gone with Ian on the day that all of his troubles began.

  When he arrived, Reston was already there, sipping a cup of coffee on the open back patio in the looming shadow of the Bay Bridge. Reston was watching the waters of the bay lapping against the pylons on a cloudy day as the seagulls swirled restlessly overhead, pitched about by a chill wind.

  After being inundated with Reston’s image thanks to twenty-four-hour cable news, Chris expected someone bigger, more charismatic. Apparently, the television camera added more than just the requisite twenty pounds. Reston had sandy hair that had gone mostly gray and a thickening middle. His face, which he was trying to hide under the low brim of a baseball cap, was pleasant, not quite handsome, but strangely inexpressive. Chris figured that must be the by-product of a career in the clandestine services and the constant effort to maintain your secrets while uncovering everyone else’s.

  Through the email exchange preceding this meeting, Chris learned that Reston had arrived at San Francisco International Airport the day before after being granted passage on a Russian diplomatic transport plane. Given the international attention focused on Reston after his YouTube declaration, the Russians did not want to be seen detaining him. Before returning to the United States, though, Reston had worked with the Washington Post to produce a front-page series of articles that had been published the week before, telling the full story of the Working Group and its Skeleton Key program. After slipping quietly into the country on the diplomatic transport, this was to be Sam’s first public appearance in the United States.

  “Sam?”

  Reston’s coffee cup rattled on its saucer. “Oh, hello. I forgot that you’d be able to recognize me.”

  “I guess just about everyone recognizes you now,” Chris said. “I want to start by thanking you for saving my life. And Zoey’s.”

  “That was Rajiv and Josh. They were the ones who got you out of that stadium.”

  “But you inspired them to do it.”

  Sam warmed his hands on the coffee cup. “When I first met those guys, I thought they were the most arrogant, obnoxious punks I’d ever met. But they grew on me.”

  “Do you know what’s happening with them?”

  “They managed to get out of the country before they could be arrested. If Corbin hadn’t been killed at the stadium, he would have made sure that they never left the Working Group’s offices. But Corbin was the first one to realize what they were up to. By the time others figured it out, Josh and Rajiv were on a beach in a country with no extradition treaty.”

  “Please don’t tell me where they are.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Did you get what you wanted out of this?”

  “Well, I told the story that I wanted to tell. I thought the Washington Post did a good job with the coverage. Some people believed what I had to say; others will never believe it no matter how much documentation I produce. Seems like nothing is just true anymore. It’s either right true or left true. It’s Fox or it’s MSNBC.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” Chris said. “You accomplished something. There’s a congressional committee being convened to investigate the Working Group, confirm its existence, drag it out into the light of day.”

  “I’m not particularly confident that they’re going to get anything done. When push comes to shove, no politician wants to look soft on national security. The Working Group will reconfigure, retreat, give itself a new name, and carry on with its business. You know, the NSA’s bulk data collection was never an anomaly. It’s part of a long tradition in the US.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The US intelligence services have always tapped into telecommunications in the name of national security. It goes back to World War I and the NSA’s predecessor, the Black Chamber. It convinced Western Union and the rest of the cable companies to permit access to telegrams. During World War II, it was called Operation Shamrock, and President Eisenhower helped convince the cable companies to play ball.”

  “Do you regret what you did?”

  Reston took a while to respond. “No,” he said finally. “It was the right thing to do. And I sleep better now.”

  Chris looked around the coffee shop to see if anyone had recognized Reston yet. It was then that he noticed a strangely familiar face. In the front room of the diner sat a man in a gray windbreaker whom Chris was certain he’d seen walking by earlier on Mission Street, heading in the opposite direction.

  The man in the windbreaker cast a glance at another man, in a Giants sweatshirt, eating a cheeseburger at the counter. The man in the sweatshirt looked Chris’s way and when he caught his gaze kept panning out to the bay.

  “Have you noticed anyone following you?” he asked Sam.

  “I’ve had that sense, but I haven’t actually spotted anybody. Of course, I assume that they’re watching every move I make. That’s what they do, right?”

  “Do you have a dollar?”

  “Yeah, didn’t you bring your wallet?”

  “No, it’s not that. I’d like you to pay me a dollar.”

  Sam furrowed his brow and stared at Chris for a moment, then slid a dollar bill across the table. “There, I’ll play. What was the dollar for?”

  “You’ve just engaged me as your attorney.”

  “Do I need an attorney?”

  “You will in about a minute,” Chris said, eyeing the men in the front room. “Maybe less.”

  The man in the windbreaker stood and stretched, then nodded to the man at the counter. The man at the counter also stood, and they advanced on Sam. They had their FBI badges out before they were halfway across the room.

  “Sam Reston, you’re under arrest,” the agent in the windbreaker said. “Please put your hands behind your back.”

  Although he said “please,” there was nothing courteous about him. He was one of those guys who walked around with his chin jutting out, hoping that someone would be foolhardy enough to take a swing.

  Sam didn’t seem all that surprised by the ambush. He stood and didn’t resist as the agent cuffed him.

  “You really think handcuffs are necessary here?” Chris asked.

  “This is none of your business, so I advise you to walk away.”

  “It actually is my business. I’m his attorney.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Chris Bruen.”

  “Oh, right. Of course you are. It’s none of my business, but you’re probably just about the last person that he needs on his side.”

  “You’re right, it’s none of your business,” Chris said. “What are the charges?”

  “Disclosure of classified materials. Treason. There’s more, it’s a long list, and you can get all that information at the station.”

  The agents read Sam his Miranda rights and began leading him out of the diner.

  “Don’t say anything until I’m with you,” Chris said.

  Sam nodded, surprisingly calm.
r />   Chris followed Sam and the agents out onto the sidewalk and watched as Sam was pushed inside a boxy black sedan that might as well have had the FBI seal on its side. Sam stared at him impassively from the window as the car pulled away.

  It had taken longer than expected, but Bruen & Associates finally had its first new client.

  48

  Six weeks later, when Bruen & Associates opened for the second time in the redbrick building on Howard Street, it might have seemed to an outsider that the young law firm was picking up precisely where it left off. But in fact everything had changed.

  Chris arrived at the office at 6:45 a.m., easing his car into a parking space in the adjacent garage. The display for the car’s navigation system had been glitchy all morning. He tapped the touch screen, and the street map of the South of Market area returned after a burst of white static.

  Chris set down a box of files on the front step of the office. Until now he and Zoey had been conducting Sam Reston’s defense from their apartment while they waited for the offices to be ready. He unlocked the front door, turned off the security system, and stood in the same doorway that he and Ian Ayres had used to flee from Corbin and his team of killers. The walls had been riddled with bullets, but now they were pristine, with one exception.

  Chris had asked that the repair crew leave a single bullet hole in the front doorframe as a reminder. He reached up and put his finger in the pockmark and winced. The walls had been repaired with new plaster and paint, but in other ways the wounds remained fresh.

  He had wanted to be the first to arrive at the office so that he could contemplate for a moment what had transpired and what was to come. Chris knew that once the first wave of calls, emails, and new clients descended on the office, he would be swept up in the endless churn of the legal practice. He would never forget Becky Martinez, Ira Rogers, and Ian Ayres, but he also knew that over time he would become distracted, and the feeling of loss would fade a bit. And that was probably a good thing.

  In the quiet of this first morning in the new office, he didn’t want anything to fade. He wanted to remember them, and he wanted to hang on to the anger he felt about what had happened. It might just prove useful in the next stage of his legal career.