Inside Out

11. Rough Men

Three hours after leaving McGlade, Ben and Paula were on a flight to Costa Rica. Hort had arranged for a small jet to take them from Orlando International. Ben didn’t ask and Hort wouldn’t have told him, but Ben suspected the jet was part of the Jeppesen/Boeing-supported civilian fleet used to render and transport war-on-terror detainees through a series of black site prisons.

Ben had never been to Costa Rica and hated the idea of a hot landing in a place he didn’t know and didn’t have time to reconnoiter. Ordinarily, he would arrive in a place several weeks before the actual action to thoroughly familiarize himself with the terrain. No chance for that this time around, but he’d bought a guidebook in Orlando and was perusing it on the plane. Far from ideal, but it was a start. And he’d picked up some sneakers and a Tommy Bahama short-sleeved button-down shirt and cargo shorts that he figured would blend better than the faux-FBI outfit he’d worn to visit Marcy Wheeler. Paula was still in her navy pantsuit, and he figured she was most comfortable looking professional and governmental. Fine for her, but he generally liked to look like whatever would be least noticed in the environment at hand.

He’d called Hort after leaving McGlade’s office. Lanier’s credentials checked out: FBI special agent, joined the Bureau out of SMU right after 9/11, currently working out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C. -same as one Dan Froomkin. Known for being a maverick and a pain in the ass, but also for getting results. Hort agreed with Ben’s assessment that her threat to kick up a public fuss about Ben’s visit to Larison’s wife wasn’t a bluff. Meaning for the time being, it was best to keep her close.

“Now, listen,” Hort had told him. “Maybe Costa Rica will turn out to be a dead end. But if it’s something, if Larison has someone he cares about there, if part of his plan is to disappear with her afterward to a private island or who knows what, and he figures out you’re keying on that someone, he’ll feel cornered. You’d be threatening his op, his girlfriend, everything. This is personal to him. So you watch yourself, son. I told you, you’re good, but you’re not in his league. Not yet.”

The “not yet” removed the sting. “I’ll be careful.”

“Good. And hang on for a minute… okay, while we’ve been talking, I got a printout of Larison’s travel records from the ICE database. Looks like he did travel to Costa Rica, spring of 2005. Flight from Tegucigalpa, where he was TDY at the time. But nothing in April 2007.”

“He traveled that first time under his own name?”

“Yes, and it fits. Say something happened while he was there that first time, he met someone. After that, he wouldn’t want to keep going back under his own name. With one data point, there’s no pattern, nothing for anyone to look for. He had no way of knowing he’d get placed in Costa Rica through something else. Now, you say this McGlade claims Larison killed someone on one of these trips?”

“That’s what he told us, yeah. The one where Larison traveled from Miami on April 17.”

“Okay, that would be an Airbus A320, hundred and fifty seats. Figure two-thirds full, half the passengers women… my guess is, we’ll have to sift through something like forty or fifty names before we spot the one that isn’t like the others. Once we know what legend he was traveling under that day, we can cross-reference, see if he’s been using it for something else. This is promising. Good work, son.”

Ben was annoyed at himself for needing the man’s approval. He wondered if Larison had been this way, or if that was something an operator grew out of. Maybe that’s what Hort meant about him becoming like Larison, if he kept developing this way. He wondered.

Hort had also checked up on Taibbi. Vietnam combat veteran, three tours with the 82nd Airborne, and an LRRP-long-range reconnaissance patrol. Meaning he was self-reliant, understood stealth, and would be handy with a variety of close-range weapons. A conviction in 1982 on arms-trafficking charges. Pleaded guilty, served three years, moved to Costa Rica in 1987, and hadn’t had a problem with the law since then. According to his current passport and cellphone records, he was presently in Jacó, and Ben could reasonably expect to find him at his bar.

He looked at Paula. She was asleep in the seat facing his, her head dipped forward. The cabin was aglow with the sun setting ahead of them and her face was obscured by shadow.

He watched her, enjoying the opportunity to do so unobserved. He liked her hair, liked that she kept it short and natural. Though with her face, he supposed she could do pretty much anything she wanted with her hair and things would be just fine.

He wondered what it must be like for her at the Bureau, a black woman, clearly smarter and more capable than most of the people she had to answer to. Did she have to work twice as hard as her peers? Did she use her sex appeal, or did she try to suppress it? She didn’t wear a ring. Was she single? Did she date? Were guys intimidated about going out with a government agent? Did she ever have a thing for someone at work, and have to fight to try to hide it?

He rotated his neck, cracking the joints, still watching her. What would she be like in bed? Would the professional façade be so important she couldn’t ever let it go? Or could she allow someone to see her naked, not just literally, but figuratively, too?

She said no one ever saw her coming. If it was true, he decided, it was also a shame. He decided Paula coming would be a very fine thing to see.

And then he thought of Sarah and was immediately ashamed of himself. But what could he really share with her? He never felt so alive as he did when he was hunting. Not a politically correct thing to admit, probably, and Sarah would have found it repellant, but wasn’t it true for everyone? That everyone loved to do the things they were good at? Yeah, he wasn’t the smoothest guy in the world, and sure, he had some development ahead of him, but Hort was right, there was nothing he was suited for like ops. He’d survived shit that would have killed most men, most good men, even, and he’d survived it because he was better. How could he not enjoy-how could he not exult in-what he did, what he was? And who was Sarah, or anyone else, to judge him for that?

What was that saying? People sleep soundly in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm them. Something like that, anyway.

Well, he was one of those rough men. And he wasn’t going to change that, not for Sarah, not for anyone. And fuck anyone who had a problem with it.

12. A Massive Deductible

Ulrich could no longer see the K Street traffic below him. It was dark outside, and his windows were now effectively mirrors. It was too late to make any more phone calls, and he was too agitated to get any work done anyway, but still he lingered. His two sons were in college and his home life had long since settled into a sexless kiss hello, followed by a perfunctory recitation of the minutiae of the day, followed by the sounds of the television in the next room, followed by sleep. He and his wife had become strangers, bound mostly by past and progeny, acquaintances who continued to share the same space merely out of habit, the result of some long-ago momentum that itself was slowly dying, as, he supposed, were they.

Not that it had been so terribly different even before the boys had left for school. He was the vice president’s special assistant back when the vice president had been the secretary of defense, and after that he’d served as the Defense Department’s general counsel. Cynthia had put her foot down about the hours after Timmy, their second, had been born, and Ulrich had joined a law firm to placate her. The money was better but the work was boring, and he’d missed being on the inside. So returning as the new vice president’s chief of staff when his old boss was tapped as the president’s understudy was impossible to resist. Cynthia had put up a few pro forma arguments, but she knew not to fight the battle she couldn’t win.

So for eight years he’d arrived at his sons’ basketball games only in the last quarter, if at all, and the family had maintained the fiction that dad was mostly home for dinner by moving the meal hour to eight, then to nine… and even then, more often than not, he’d had to call with an apology and another useless promise that everyone knew he’d break next time, too. Mostly by the time he’d get home in the evening the boys had been asleep, and often he was gone again the next morning by the time they woke. Weekends he tried to be around. But with two active war theaters and so many initiatives to keep the country safe… it was just all-consuming. How would he have explained it to his family if there had been another attack on his watch? They told him they understood and he hoped it was true. And Cynthia, whatever resentments she might once have harbored over his absences, seemed to have long since let them go. He was grateful to her for that. But none of it changed the fact that his children had grown up and left the house, and he’d barely been around to see any of it. And nothing would ever bring that time back for him, or give him a chance to relive what he’d missed. Nothing.

He tried to let it go. Ruminating about the past, happily or otherwise, wasn’t a luxury he could afford just now. It was the future he needed to worry about. He tried running worst-case scenarios in his mind. Ordinarily, this kind of exercise would calm him. This time, though, the scenarios were exceptionally horrific. If Clements screwed the pooch on the tapes, and if Ulrich’s backup failed, too, he was going to be left with not much more than the gobbledygook Condi Rice had been caught stammering in response to those little Stanford shits. What was it again? The president instructed us that nothing we would do would be outside of our obligations, legal obligations, under the Convention Against Torture… and by the way, I didn’t authorize anything. I conveyed the authorization of the administration to the agency. That they had policy authorization subject to the Justice Department’s clearance… so, by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture. People laughed at her at the time. But what else could she say? She had to say something.

Yeah, it was feeble enough when Rice said it. In Ulrich’s case, it wouldn’t work at all. Because his name-his signature, for God’s sake-was all over the authorizations.

He heard the chime of incoming email and checked the message. Damn, this was good. Daniel Larison, former JSOC operator. The name sounded familiar… one of the people they’d suspected when the tapes first went missing? But hadn’t that guy been dead? He’d look into it, figure out the discrepancy. He tried not to hope, but maybe, just maybe they actually had a shot at getting this genie back in the bottle.

At the bottom of the message, he noticed an attachment. It was a photo of a blond guy, mid- or early thirties. The guy’s eyes were closed, but even so, somehow there was a hard look about him. Ulrich thought for a moment, then moved the photo into a new email-Who is this? One of yours?-and forwarded it to Clements. He’d send the rest of the information after he heard back. These days he trusted the CIA less than ever.

He blew out a long breath. It was going to be a long five days. Well, with a little luck, or a lot of luck, more likely, maybe this could be resolved more quickly.

He opened his office safe, removed an encrypted thumb drive, and popped it into his computer. He was like a home owner with a raging fire bearing down on his house. It made sense to take a fresh look at his insurance policy.

On the thumb drive were unredacted copies of the Office of Legal Counsel memos, the secret opinions the administration had made the Justice Department draw up to legalize enhanced interrogation techniques. Everyone involved understood that worst case, no matter what else happened, the memos would give them legal cover: Senator, we were just doing what the Justice Department told us was legal. The CIA certainly understood the game. They’d had it played on them not long before: Senator, we were just following the CIA’s intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hell, if you were in Washington and didn’t know this was the way the game was played, it meant it was being played on you.

But Ulrich understood the memos would serve an additional purpose, one most people didn’t recognize. Ulrich was familiar with the concept of “force drift,” which was basically the notion that when you set a fifty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit, you did so knowing that in fact people would drive at seventy, instead. So when he had instructed the Justice Department to create the memos, he knew two things. First, that no matter what the memos authorized, looked at properly, the authorizations could be construed as limitations. Second, that no matter what the limitations were, men in the field would exceed them. And when they did, and should those excesses come to light, Ulrich could shape the narrative away from The administration authorized torture, toward Field personnel exceeded the administration’s clear legal limits.

The plan had worked nicely to contain the damage from the Abu Ghraib photos. The question was, would it also work now, if the interrogation videos came to light?

He considered. There was an unwritten rule of American politics: the sacrifice had to be commensurate with the scandal. For Abu Ghraib, it had been enough to sacrifice a few enlisted personnel. Watergate, on the other hand, had required the resignation of a president. And the rule had an important corollary: the more the politician could invoke national security as a justification, the more the impact of the scandal could be blunted. That’s why Clinton’s blow job almost killed him, while war crimes accusations were so easy to deflect.

The question was, where along that continuum would the tapes land him? He could play the national security card, certainly. It wasn’t as though he had much else. But the Caspers… it was hard to see how even national security was going to get him around that. Yeah, the tapes alone would be a God-almighty fire, but the Caspers… the Caspers would dump gasoline onto the blaze. Against a conflagration like that, a few enlisted personnel or some field agents would be a pretty puny firebreak. Something bigger would be required. And why not him? After all, his name would be at the center of the interrogation program. He would be a big enough sacrifice to sate the public, but not too big to cause undue discomfort. Certainly the public would prefer the sacrifice of a high-level facilitator to, say, the trial of a former president and vice president, and because they would prefer it, it would be easy for everyone who might otherwise be vulnerable to make it so.

Yeah, they would come after him. And he’d make an appealing villain, too, like Jack Abramoff in his black fedora. He could imagine the descriptions already, how he’d “traded on his government service” to become a “lobbyist fat cat”… and the way his enemies would ply the media with not-for-attribution tales about his periodic outbursts at idiots, his judgment… Yeah, he knew the way it would be played. He’d played it that way dozens of times himself. Of course, knowing how the game was played and being able to defend yourself when you had become the game’s object were two different things.

He pulled the thumb drive and put it back in his safe. Well, he’d checked his insurance policy, only to discover a massive deductible. Only to realize he was the deductible.

But that was okay. He had the one other policy, the ultimate policy. The audiotapes that thank God he’d had the sense to make that morning at Arlington National-and other times, too.

But he’d play that card only if he had to. Only if he’d run out of every other option.

His secure line buzzed and he snatched up the phone. “Ulrich.”

“Okay to talk?” It was Clements.

“Go.”

“The photo you sent. His name is Ben Treven. He’s an army guy.”

“So not one of yours?”

“Definitely not.”

Ulrich should have known the guy wasn’t Agency. If he’d been Agency, he would have been bringing up the rear, not closing in on the target.

He stared at the photo on his screen. “You think he’s one of Horton’s?”

“Hard to say. His MOS is classified. Even just the photo took some doing to match. I could try to find out, but asking would reveal that we know.”

“Well, it really doesn’t matter what he is. He wasn’t part of the original program, he’s answering to I don’t know whom, and it looks like he’s already five steps ahead of you in finding whoever is trying to leverage those tapes. Now, listen. I’ve got other information to forward you. How fast can you get your Ground Branch team to San Jose, Costa Rica?”

There was a slight pause. “Four hours, if that. Where are you getting this information?”

“Don’t worry about that-the information is solid, that’s all you need to know.”

“No, that’s not-”

“I don’t know what name Treven is traveling under, but now that you know what he’s looking for, you should be able to anticipate him. Find out what he knows and who he’s working for, get him out of the way, and find those fucking tapes.”

There was another pause. Clements said, “Let me clarify something for you, Ulrich. You don’t give me orders anymore. You’re just a lobbyist now. The only reason I’m even talking to you is out of courtesy.”

“Yeah?” Ulrich said, his voice rising, some dark part of his mind suddenly joyous at the prospect of having someone to bully, to dominate. “Well, let me clarify something for you. You’re talking to me because you need me to run political interference for you, which I have. And because without the information I just gave you, you couldn’t find your own ass with both hands and a flashlight. And because if someone smarter than you doesn’t tell you what you need to do, you’re going to be in newspaper headlines in less than five days and in a prison cell not long after that. You got it? Are we clarified now?”

Silence on the other end of the line. Ulrich slammed down the receiver, stood, and paced back and forth for a minute, concentrating on his breathing, trying to calm himself. He knew he shouldn’t have snapped at Clements: it would chafe worse now than in the days when one of his tirades had been backed by the power of the office of the vice president, and so was apt to be counterproductive. But damn, it had felt good to be in charge again, giving orders and not suffering idiots, if only for a moment.

He went back to his desk and forwarded Clements the information he would need. He hoped he was making the right call. Treven was obviously cleverer than the CIA, and so logically stood a better chance of recovering the tapes. The question was, what would he do with them if he did? Ulrich decided he couldn’t take that chance. He didn’t trust the CIA, but at least he understood their motives.

JSOC just felt like a wild card. He’d deal with them accordingly.

13. The Sound Was Always the Same

Larison shot bolt upright on the mattress, his body slicked with sweat, the awful screams still ringing in his ears. His heart was pounding combat hard and he was practically hyperventilating.

A dream. Calm down, it was just one of the dreams.

He grimaced. God, if he could only take a pill. Anything to dull the sound of those screams, to obscure the terrorized faces behind them.

He realized he was gripping the Glock. Must have snatched it up without realizing as he woke. A protective reflex, useless now. Against the dreams, the gun wasn’t even a talisman.

He could still hear it. A naked man, strapped to a table, eyes bulging in panic, past words, past screaming, just making… that sound. He was awake now, but he knew it would be hours before the echoes would fade from his brain.

He got up, turned on a light, and started pacing. He kept the Glock in one hand and compulsively touched surfaces with the other-dresser, walls, a lamp shade-pressing, patting, poking, anything to remind himself he was awake, he wasn’t in the dream anymore.

People didn’t know. They didn’t know that sound, the sound a man made when you took him past the point he could endure. Every man made the sound, and it was always the same. It started with bluster. Then there would be begging. Then bawling and babbling. Childlike sobbing, shrieks for mercy. And finally, when everything had been tried, every remaining human effort and desperate stratagem and fervent hope, and all of it had failed, there would be nothing but that sound, that wordless, keening wail, the melody of a soul being snuffed, a psyche cracking open, the birth cries of an animal devolving from a man. And no matter how many times you heard it, it never pierced you less. The hair on the back of your neck would stand up no less, your scrotum would retract no less, your nausea afterward would subside no sooner. Once you heard the sound, you could live to a hundred and you would never, ever get it out of your ears.

And God help you if you were the one who did what produced it.

And all that bullshit about how it was for a good reason. As though a reason would have made any difference, as though a reason could do anything to make you forget even one single moment of it. It was worse than the stink of blood and the slime of viscera. You could acclimate to killing. Torture was different.

He slowed his pacing, breathing deliberately, in and out, through his nose. He could feel his heart rate beginning to slow. Okay. Okay. He was okay.

If he could only sleep.

He remembered one guy, one of the Caspers, they called him Bugs, for Bugs Bunny, because he had these big, protruding ears. They’d run a routine on Bugs: sleep deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, beatings. They buried him alive in a box. The box is what broke him. Afterward, just seeing his captors approaching his cage, he would scuttle into a corner and fetal up and start making the sound. It was some Pavlovian thing. No one thought he was acting. No actor could make that sound.

And the Pavlovian thing worked in reverse, too. Just seeing Bugs scuttle off and hear him start making the sound… it was like someone pressing the nausea button in Larison’s brain. He’d come to hate Bugs for the way he felt about himself. As though Larison’s own agony had been Bugs’s fault. And Jesus, what he’d done to the guy as a result. Jesus.

He’d tried to rationalize it all by telling himself it was to save lives, prevent attacks. But they never got anything useful. And so much of what they were being tasked with wasn’t even about attacks. It was about whether there’d been a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He remembered the first time they’d issued him a list of Saddam-AQ questions. He’d done it. It wasn’t as though he’d been in the habit of thinking much then, it was easier to just do what he was told. But afterward he wondered what the hell he’d just done. He’d just endured the sound again, and for what… to provide someone political cover? That was his job now? That’s what he was being used for?

And if they would use him for that, what else would they use him for? And what would they do when they were done using him?

Despite his fearful secret, somehow he’d always believed the military would do right by him. He’d given the army everything, endured horrible things, the kind of things you could never utter, not even to other men who had done them, too. Things that made him wonder whether there was a God, that made him fear some inevitable reckoning he sensed but couldn’t name. He needed to believe the military would reciprocate, that in return for his sacrifice they would support and protect him.

Then Abu Ghraib happened. He saw the way the brass and the politicians closed ranks to blame the enlisted personnel. He remembered reading an article by a guy named Jonathan Turley, about how the rank and file always got scapegoated, about the abdication of command responsibility. He started to think about what he was doing, and about what the politicians would do if it leaked. Graner, England… how was he any different? He’d be the perfect fall guy, especially for the Caspers.

He didn’t want to accept it. He wanted to believe what he was doing was different, that he was different, and that anyway it would never leak, it was too closely held. But he knew that was all bullshit. Nothing was more important in combat than avoiding denial and engaging reality, and the habit of combat helped open his eyes to political reality, too. Eventually it would all come out. They’d need a fall guy then. The fall guy would be him.

Once he realized it, he could see it clearly. They’d talk about his temper, which ironically was why they’d had him working the Caspers in the first place. They’d call him a steroid freak. They’d dig for other dirt. If they discovered his secret, they’d crucify him with it. Rogue. Sadist. Nutcase. Homo. They’d say he volunteered for this detail so he could be alone with detainees, so he could work out his twisted fantasies on naked, helpless men. And then, to prevent him from talking, to prevent him from revealing what he knew about the Caspers and taking everyone else down with him, one morning he’d be found hanging in his cell.

Yeah, that’s the way it would happen. If he let them.

So he found a way to not let them. A way to protect himself, bring down the hypocrites who were going to set him up, and create a new life for himself-and for Nico-all at the same time.

His heart rate had returned to normal. He turned off the light and lay back down on the mattress. He kept the Glock in his hand.

All he had to do now was stick to the plan. After that, Costa Rica. Costa Rica was where the dreams would stop.

He just had to get there.

14. Projection

At some point during the flight, Ben nodded off. He was still recovering from three near-sleepless nights in the Manila city jail and a lot of time zone shifts after, and he was glad for the chance to get a little shut-eye.

When he woke, Paula was looking at him the way he’d been at her earlier. “What?” he said, scrunching up his face and blinking. “Was I drooling?”

She cocked an eyebrow and gave him a bored look. “Not that I noticed.”

He saw she was holding an iPhone, like his. “You like it?” he asked, gesturing with his head.

“Love it. Does just about everything but shoot bullets.”

He laughed. “iBullets. Maybe one day.”

He looked out the window. The sun was low in the sky. He checked his watch. Damn, he’d been asleep for almost an hour. They didn’t have far to go.

“So how’d you get into this line of work?” he asked, sitting up and cracking his neck.

“What, you mean a nice girl like me?”

“I don’t think you’re nice.”

“Oh, but I am.”

“All right, a nice girl like you, then.”

She looked at him for a long moment. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and he thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer. But then she said, “Nine-eleven happened during my senior year of college. I was planning to go to grad school for an M.A. in psychology-psychology was my undergraduate major-but I decided to do something to make a difference, instead.”

“How’s that working out for you?”

“Making a difference?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s hard, sometimes. Getting anything done in this bureaucracy is like trying to swim in molasses. But I’ve found ways.”

“You work in the D.C. headquarters building?”

“I do. Do you know it?”

“Visited on a school field trip when I was a kid.”

“You grew up in the area?”

“For a while. Among other places.”

“But you know Washington.”

He remembered a family excursion to the city when Alex had still been in a stroller. The five of them had stayed in a single room in a cheap hotel off Dupont Circle. Alex wanted to start at the zoo. Katie wanted the ballet. Ben wanted the war memorials. Their dad wanted the Smithsonian. Their mom had tried to negotiate the resulting hairball. It had rained the entire weekend and even Katie couldn’t stop the fights. Ben had been back maybe a half dozen times since then, never staying for longer than he had to.

“I know it well enough to know I’d rather be somewhere else,” he said.

“And where is that?”

“Why, you thinking about visiting me?”

“Just making conversation.”

Her questions were innocuous enough, but they were making him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to tell her too much. Harmless details could sometimes be assembled into a meaningful mosaic.

“How about you?” he said. “Why the FBI? Why not CIA, or the military?”

“Because I believe in law and order. Plus I don’t like violence. Law enforcement’s about breaking the cycle of violence.”

He briefly wished someone had told that to the Manila cops who’d exhausted themselves beating the crap out of him. With every passing hour, the memory of those four days felt increasingly bizarre and improbable. But still, every time he thought of it, the cops cuffing him and later whaling on him, the heat and stink of the prison, the feeling of being swallowed up by some huge, insentient beast, cut off from anyone who knew him, anyone who cared-

“And you?” she said.

“What about me?”

“Why the military?”

“Military? I don’t know anything about the military.”

“My ass, you don’t,” she said, shaking her head.

He liked the thought of her ass, which he’d had a few opportunities to appreciate during their unlikely time together. He smiled to let her know.

She cocked an eyebrow and gave him the bored look again. “My God, you’re really just fourteen years old, aren’t you?”

“It feels like sixteen, actually, but I could be off by a little.”

“Actually, I think fourteen is generous.”

He smiled. “I thought you said before you didn’t have time to flirt with me.”

She snorted. “What makes you think I’m flirting with you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“I certainly am not.”

“Yeah, you are. Otherwise you wouldn’t have denied it so fast.”

“Oh, dear. Romeo here can’t go wrong. When a woman says she’s interested, she’s interested. When she says she’s not interested, she’s still interested. Did you know that grandiosity and megalomania are primary characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder?”

“Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

“So, are you married?”

She squinted at him. “Are you for real?”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, thank goodness. For a moment there, I thought you had subpoena power or something.”

“Well?”

“Let’s just keep this professional, all right? I don’t think we need to start getting to know each other’s personal lives and all that.”

“Suit yourself. You’re the one who was flirting.”

“Please.”

“So you’re not married.”

“No, I’m not married.”

“Why not?”

“What are you, my grandmother?”

“Does she ask you that?”

“All the time. But she has an excuse. She’s senile.”

“Do you date?”

She laughed. “What is this, twenty questions? Why are you asking me this bullshit? Seriously.”

“I’m interested in you.”

“You’re not interested in anyone but yourself. You’ve got that written all over you.”

She seemed to mean it, and because it wasn’t the first time he’d heard such a thing, the comment bothered him enough to make him want to ask what she meant. But he knew if he did, he’d lose the initiative. Initiative toward what, he wasn’t really sure.

“I’m just wondering what it’s like to be a young, attractive, female FBI agent who’s smarter and got more moxie than most of the men around her.”

“Oh, is that me? Smarter and with more moxie?”

“Don’t forget the attractive part.”

“Yes, I heard that, too.”

“So, are they intimidated by you? Do they hit on you?”

“You know what you’re doing right now?”

“What?”

“It’s called projection. Do you know what that is?”

“I think I’ve heard of it.”

“You’ve heard of it, but you don’t recognize it. It’s when you attribute to others a behavior you sense but can’t face in yourself.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“Of course it is. You’re intimidated by me and it’s making you uncomfortable. You deal with the discomfort by being sexually passive-aggressive with me. Hitting on me, that is, which makes you feel dominant. But rather than recognize any of that and deal with it like an adult, you suggest that it’s other people who must do what you yourself are doing right this very minute.”

Ben puffed up his cheeks and blew out a breath. “That’s a pretty sophisticated analysis.”

She looked at him, and once again he was struck by an incongruous gentleness in her eyes. “It’s actually pretty simple,” she said. “You’re hurting inside, Ben or whatever your name really is. That’s where all the adolescent bluster comes from. You don’t want anyone to see what’s really going on in there, so you act like a jerk to push them away. I expect it works really well for you, too.”

After everything that had happened with Alex, that one stung. He thought of Hort, stripping him bare with his commentary in that filthy prison. A few rejoinders came to mind, but because he sensed that maybe she was right, they all made him feel pathetic.

“I guess it does,” he said.

But she didn’t catch that he wasn’t sparring anymore. “Now listen,” she said, “we’re busy now, we have a job to do. But you know what? When this is over?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“When this is over, I want you to make a little time for yourself and look up some of the disorders we’ve been talking about. Projection, for example. Maybe you can get some insight.”

He didn’t answer. He’d had about as much insight as he could handle.

15. Breaking the Cycle of Violence

Ben and Paula landed at Quepos, a small airport on the Pacific coast with an open-air pavilion handling both departures and arrivals. Hort had taken care of customs, and they hadn’t needed to transit through San Jose.

At the curb, a young, fit-looking brown-skinned guy in shorts, a polo shirt, and shades was leaning against a dark green van. Ben and Paula walked over.

“Where are you heading?” the guy asked.

“Up the coast,” Ben responded, using the bona fides Hort had provided. “Hoping to see some crocodiles.”

The guy nodded, handed Ben a set of keys, and walked off without another word. Paula watched him go. “We don’t have to sign for anything?”

“I guess not.”

“If I didn’t already know you’re a spook, that’s pretty much the proof. If you were FBI, we’d be waiting in a rent-a-car line now.”

Ben smiled and opened the driver-side door. Paula rolled her eyes and moved around to the passenger side. “I know, I know, the man’s got to drive,” she said. “What does this thing do, shoot Hellfire missiles? Turn into a boat?”

“No, but if it’s what I’m expecting, in back it’s got one-way glass on the windows, a couple of comfortable swivel seats, and even a portable toilet. Perfect for all your mobile surveillance needs.”

Paula entered the coordinates for Taibbi’s bar in Jacó on her iPhone. As soon as they were clear of the airport, Ben reached under his seat and pulled out the Glock 23 that was waiting for him there. Better this way than taking a chance on trying to bring one directly, in case Hort hadn’t managed to handle customs.

“Well, that’s handy,” Paula said. “I don’t suppose you’d like to share.”

“Check under your seat.”

Paula did. There was a Glock waiting for her, too.

“Now that’s the kind of interagency cooperation I’m talking about,” she said, smiling and checking the load.

“I don’t want you walking around unarmed. But don’t point it at me, okay? Once was enough.”

“Well, that would be ungrateful of me, wouldn’t it?” she said, and Ben noted that she hadn’t actually agreed. Not that it would have mattered anyway. They weren’t exactly on their way to a lifelong friendship, but he was pretty sure they were past the point where they’d be throwing down on each other.

They headed north up the coast, the sun setting to their left, the road shifting from one lane to two and then back again as it twisted past jungle and plantation and rickety roadside town. Occasionally they would crest a hill and catch a glimpse of the ocean, its surface scored with gold and pink as the sun slipped away beyond it, but mostly the route felt more tunnel than road, a passage sealed off in all directions but forward and back by the indifferent, impenetrable green of the rain forest all around.

When they passed a sign telling them they were ten kilometers from Jacó, Paula said, “Now listen. I know you like to be the driver, I know you like to be in charge. But let’s not go into Taibbi’s place bristling with attitude, okay? If we have to ratchet things up, we’ll ratchet things up. But let’s start sweet. Which means I’ll do the talking, okay?”

Ben chuckled. “Was that sweet when you told McGlade you were going to climb up his ass and chew your way out?”

“It’s what was called for at the moment. But I started nicely and evaluated him first.”

“Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great line. I’m going to use it myself first chance I get.”

“Do we understand each other? You’re too much of a hard-ass all the time, and I don’t want you getting in people’s faces and antagonizing them unnecessarily. We won’t get any cooperation that way. You have to know when to use sugar and when to use spice. You’re all spice.”

“All right, whatever. If you want to take the lead, it’s fine with me. All I care about is the results.”

“I don’t think that’s true, but okay.”

“What do you mean, it’s not true?”

“I mean, when someone uses a hammer for every job he’s presented with, he’s not just trying to do the job.”

He glanced over. “What’s he doing, then?”

She looked at him. “He’s enjoying the hammer.”

Ben didn’t answer. Like a few of her earlier observations, like what Hort had told him in the Manila city jail, the latest comment chafed, and he knew that must mean there was something to it. But not something he was inclined to consider at the moment.

By the time they pulled into Jacó, the last light had leached from the sky. They rolled along the main drag, two potholed lanes hemmed in on either side by low-slung buildings, some new, others ramshackle. There were open-air restaurants and dim nightclubs, souvenir shops and cheap hotels, construction sites and vacant lots and everywhere palm trees, swaying as though to silent music in the murky dark.

“There it is,” Paula said, pointing to an enormous illuminated sign for Bottle Bar, the name they’d gotten from McGlade.

“I know,” Ben said, watching three curvaceous Latina prostitutes going inside. “Just want to get a feel for the street before we go in.”

He continued down the strip. Small knots of tourists, some Tico, others foreign, wandered the sidewalks and zigzagged back and forth across the street, not aimlessly, exactly, but more with the air of people who would know what they were looking for only when they found it. The contours of the town changed somewhat as they drove, but overall, Jacó was a fractal, each part possessing and revealing the character of the whole. Which was, obviously, the bartering of pleasure-surf and sun by day, booze and sex at night. Burgos Street in Manila, Pattaya in Thailand, Orchard Tower in Singapore… they all looked different, and they all felt depressingly the same.

They drove back toward Bottle Bar and parked a little way down the street. Paula started to get out. “Wait,” Ben said. “Let’s just watch for a minute.”

“Why?”

“Because you never know what you might learn.”

A group of five pudgy white guys approached the entrance. A security guy in a black Bottle Bar T-shirt stood up and waved a wand over them, but perfunctorily, just their waists and shoulders. The guy reached out and patted a pocket here and there after wanding it, probably to confirm that what had set off the detector was just a cellphone.

“See that?” Ben said. “We can’t just go in there with shoulder-holstered Glocks.”

“All right, fine, we’ll leave the guns in the van.”

Ben shook his head. Even on his own time, he didn’t like to go unarmed. When he was operational, there was just no way. “Not yet,” he said. “Let’s just keep watching for a minute.”

They did. “Look,” he said. “They’re not wanding the girls.”

It was true. Another collection of prostitutes, black, Latina, and mulatto, went right past the security guy, who nodded and didn’t even stand up.

“He probably knows those girls,” Paula said. “They’re probably there every night.”

“Maybe.” He looked at her.

She frowned. “What?”

“We need to get you a costume change.”

She looked at him, not understanding. Then her eyes narrowed as his meaning became clear. “No. No, that’s ridiculous.”

“It makes perfect sense. Have you seen even one nonprofessional woman go in there in the last ten minutes? Civilian women don’t go to places like Bottle Bar-it’s not that kind of joint. The system is, the hookers get in free and the bar charges the men a cover for the privilege of paying for overpriced beer while they take their time deciding which girl they want to take home that night.”

“I see you know a lot about places like this.”

“I know enough to tell you you can’t just march in there in your FBI pantsuit. You look all wrong. You’ll draw attention and at a minimum they’ll wand you. It won’t work.”

“So you want me to dress up like a sex worker, is that it?”

“Well, you’ve got the body for it, from what I can tell.”

She looked at him. “You’re repulsive.”

He sighed, realizing something. “You’ve never worked undercover before, have you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re used to people taking you seriously because you’re the FBI. You’re used to relying on the badge to get what you want. But you’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. You don’t have automatic authority out here. You need to learn to blend, to use stealth.”

“Stealth? All I’ve seen you use since the moment I met you is force.”

“The point is, if your sweet-talk routine falls flat, and if no one here gives a shit that you’re with the big bad Bureau, force might be all we have to fall back on. We’re going to be on unfamiliar ground, with a guy who I gather from McGlade and otherwise is no cupcake, in a place that deals with enough troublemakers to justify a metal detector at the door and probably more security inside. I don’t want to go into an environment like that without a gun if I don’t have to, and if all we have to do to slip one inside is dress you like a streetwalker, it seems like a pretty small price to me.”

She glared at him for a long moment, then said, “Fine.”

They got out and walked to an open-air souvenir shop down the street. Along the way they were approached twice by scrawny locals offering weed and Ecstasy. Each time Ben shook his head and the dealers peeled off.

In the shop, amid!Pura Vida! T-shirts and Imperial Beer baseball caps and postcards of beach sunsets and surfers carving waves, they selected a black sarong and a red halter top. Ben looked at the halter Paula was holding, checked the sizes, and grabbed another one, one size down. He held it out. Paula looked at him as though he was offering her a turd.

“I won’t even be able to breathe,” she said.

“And no bra.”

“Are you trying to be funny?”

He wasn’t. Maybe, on another occasion, he would have been enjoying the whole thing, but he wasn’t in that mode now. He didn’t know what was inside that bar and whatever it was, he wanted to be carrying when he found it.

“I’m being one hundred percent professional when I tell you there’s going to be a direct correlation between the doorman’s eagerness to examine you with his eyes and his failure to examine you with the metal detector.”

She looked at him for a long moment, as though trying to detect some glint of humor or mockery in his eyes. When she saw none, she said, “All right, then,” and took the smaller halter into the changing room.

A few minutes later, she emerged, and despite himself, Ben’s mouth dropped open a little. He could tell before that she had a good body, but… damn.

“How’s this working for you?” she asked, smiling and stepping unusually close.

“It’s… you look good. For the role, I mean.”

She stepped closer. “You sure there’s nothing else I need to do, just to make sure I’m properly in character?”

He hadn’t noticed earlier that she’d been wearing perfume, but he could smell it now, and as much as the revealing clothes, maybe even more, it stirred his awareness of her as female. He’d contemplated her sexually from the moment they’d driven off from Kissimmee together, of course-she was an attractive woman, and some level of sexual contemplation of attractive women was a reflex for him. But it had been more of an intellectual thing initially, driven partly by curiosity, partly by antagonism. Seeing so much of her actual skin, her body revealed in the ridiculously tight halter and clinging sarong, smelling her perfume from how close she was standing… there was nothing intellectual about it.

She stepped so close he was sure he could feel the heat from her body. She put a palm on his chest, and he was acutely aware of its warmth and slight pressure. “What, nothing to say? That’s not like you.”

“What do you want me to say?” he said, horrified to feel himself getting hard and searching for some way to regain control.

She looked into his eyes. “Anything you like,” she whispered. “Whatever it is you want.”

He swallowed. “Come on, knock it off. We’ve got something to do.”

He took hold of her hand. She allowed him to remove it from his chest, but as soon as he’d done so, she replaced it, this time on his hip. Tilting her head back so that she was still looking into his eyes, she stepped all the way in and pressed her breasts and pelvis against him. His lungs wanted to suck in a breath and he barely managed to refuse them.

She shifted slightly, and the feeling of her breasts moving against him, separated only by a pair of inconsequential pieces of fabric, the friction of her crotch against his hard-on…

“Oooh,” she cooed. “Feels like you have something nice down there.”

Within the severely curtailed drop-down menu of his mind, he recognized a possible option. Call and raise. See how far she would go with this before she blinked.

And was suddenly certain she wouldn’t blink. Not for anything.

She wet her lips with her tongue and moved her hand around to his ass. He grabbed her wrist and stepped away. “Okay, enough,” he said. “You’ve made your point.”

“My point? What’s my point?”

He blew out a long breath. “I don’t even know, but I’m sure you’ve made it.”

And suddenly the coquette was gone, vanished, and he was looking at Paula again. “The point,” she said, “is don’t assume I can’t work a cover.”

She was right. Just because she didn’t know the details of playing a role didn’t mean she didn’t have an instinct for it. She’d fooled him outside Marcy Wheeler’s house, and again now.

And damn, he was blushing, he could feel it. “Big mistake,” he said. “Clearly.”

“Now let’s go talk to Taibbi.”

They found a shadowy place under a palm in an empty lot. Paula put her gun in her purse and slung it over her shoulder so the bag rested against her ass and the strap pressed diagonally across her cleavage. The look concealed the bag and its unusual weight, and also further accentuated her breasts, something a moment earlier Ben would have sworn impossible. They waited until they saw another group of prostitutes approaching from down the sidewalk. Paula fell in behind them as they passed and joined them at the entrance. The security guy waved them through with professional indifference, though he did take a long moment to look Paula up and down in a way that had nothing to do with his job description. All right, good to go.

Ben concealed his own Glock in the grass at the base of the palm. He judged the risk of someone breaking into the van greater than that of someone stumbling across the gun here, and besides, if things went hairy inside and one of them made it out, the quicker the access, the better. He also left behind the SureFire LX2 LumaMax flashlight he carried. It was a little longer than the width of a man’s hand and as thick as a thumb, with a length of duct tape wrapped around its middle to make it easier to hold in the teeth. Useful for a variety of tasks, not all of them involving illumination, and a little too recognizable as special ops everyday carry by anyone with an eye for such things. He took the souvenir shop bag they’d put her jacket and pants in and moved off.

He imagined himself as just another horndog tourist, liberated from the strictures of work and church and family and on the cusp of a night of memorable Jacó debauchery. With the scent of Paula’s perfume lingering in his nostrils and the feel of her breasts still vaguely electric against his torso, getting the vibe right wasn’t too much of a stretch.

The doorman wanded his waist, shoulders, and the souvenir shop bag he was carrying, patted the cellphone in his back pocket, and waved him in. Ben pushed open the door and a pretty woman pointed to a sign in English and Spanish-cover charge for men two thousand colones, or four dollars U.S. Ben gave her the money in colones and she taped a fluorescent paper bracelet to his wrist, a pass to show he’d paid if he came back later and wanted to pick another girl.

The place was a long rectangle, with an island bar up front and a second bar against the left side farther back. The lighting was low-just a collection of small blue and red bulbs dangling from a black ceiling, plus the glow of a half dozen wall-mounted flat-screen monitors all displaying the same soccer game, all inaudible over the thumping house music. Ben estimated the crowd at about thirty, but the place looked like it could accommodate ten times that, assuming local fire codes were interpreted with the appropriate leeway. Well, it was early still, and places like Bottle Bar didn’t really get going until a bit later in the evening. He noted an alarmed emergency exit on the right, and had a feeling there would be another in back.

He moved inside, keeping the island bar to his left, avoiding the bold eyes of the hookers. He spotted Paula at the end of the bar and walked over.

“You come here often?” he asked, raising his voice over the music, his eyes sweeping the area behind her.

“Yes, it’s my favorite place. Give me my clothes now, okay? I think we’re more likely to get some cooperation from Taibbi if I look like the Bureau than if I look like a Jacó streetwalker.”

“No problem. Just step in close first and slide the barrel of the Glock into the back of my pants, okay?”

“I’ll hang on to the gun, thanks.”

“I don’t want to argue about this,” he said, suppressing a little surge of irritation. “I’m sure you’re a good shot, but you probably expend as much ammunition in a year on the range as I do on an average day. And I won’t even ask how many gunfights you’ve been in. You’re trained for law enforcement, Paula, not combat shooting. So do me a favor. For both our sakes. Give me the gun. And I’ll give you your clothes.”

She glared at him, and he was suddenly unsure whether having her stick a gun in his pants was such a hot idea. But then she was stepping in close, standing on her toes, her breath warm against his ear, one hand under his shirt on his abdomen, the cold gun metal on the skin of his back, and she slid her front hand around and eased his pants back and he felt the barrel of the gun slide into his waistband.

“You’re lucky I don’t shoot your ass off,” she said. She took the bag with her clothes and moved off to find the bathroom.

Ben watched her go. He adjusted the Glock, then did another circuit of the bar. He counted a total of six security guys, including the one with the portable metal detector out front, all in Bottle Bar T-shirts. Three of them were behind the island bar, working alongside an equal number of petite Ticas, and didn’t look like much, though probably they could be mobilized if there were a problem that required a show of force. And probably the number of security personnel, like the number of bartenders, would increase as the hour grew later and the bar more raucous.

He walked. Rear emergency exit-check. Next to it, a black curtain with a sign next to it that said Privado. Presumably Taibbi’s office. And if there had been any doubt, the muscleman in dreadlocks and the black Bottle Bar T-shirt sitting on a stool next to the curtain would be an important clue. Okay. He stood a little ways off and watched the scene in the bar and waited. He thought of the last bar he’d been in, the one in Manila. But it was different now. He was operational. If violence was called for, he’d use it purposefully.

Or at least for the right purpose.

After a few minutes, Paula appeared. She was back in her regular clothes.

“I think I’m going to miss that outfit,” Ben said.

“I’m sure you will.”

“I should have taken a picture.”

“Yeah, you should have. Because that’s the last you’ll be seeing of it.”

“You ready?”

“Let’s go.”

They strolled over to Dreadlocks. The guy watched their approach and didn’t get up. Ben wasn’t impressed. If he’d been Dreadlocks and seen himself walking over, he’d damn sure be on his feet before the threat had closed the distance.

Paula said, “Hello there. Do you speak English? ¿Habla mejor Español?”

Dreadlocks looked at her and said in American-accented English, “What do you want?”

“Oh, thank you. My Spanish is so rusty. We’re here to see Mr. Taibbi.”

“Is he expecting you?”

“I don’t believe so, no. But I’m sure he’ll want to talk to us anyway. We have some information about Harry McGlade.”

Dreadlocks looked at her for a moment longer, shifted his eyes to Ben, then shrugged. He got up, parted the curtain, and disappeared behind it. Ben heard a door open and close.

A minute later, Dreadlocks appeared from behind the curtain. He stood closer to Ben and Paula than he needed to, crossed his massive arms across his chest, and said, “He’s not here.”

Ben looked at him. “You had to go back there to figure that out?”

“Guess I did.”

“When’s he coming back?”

“Don’t know. Maybe never. Main thing is, he’s not here. Now you need to not be here, too. You understand?”

“Of course we do,” Paula started to say. “It’s just-”

Ben cut her off. “Actually, I don’t. I can be a little slow about that kind of thing. Maybe you can explain it to me.”

Ben could tell by a dozen tiny signals the guy wasn’t a fighter, just someone who’d gotten used to intimidating people with his size and demeanor. Some guys like that, when they realized they’d treed a bad one, would find a lame way to back off and save face. But Ben didn’t see any of that kind of recognition in Dreadlocks’s eyes. Well, every would-be hard-ass fucks with the wrong guy eventually. Looked like Ben was going to be this one’s first.

Dreadlocks looked at Ben and frowned. Ben thought of something one of his instructors had once taught him, something he’d already known from innumerable street fights as a kid. But he liked his instructor’s formulation anyway:

When faced with violence, make sure you hit first, soon, early, and often.

Didn’t look like Dreadlocks had received that particular memo. Well, it was never too late to learn.

Dreadlocks uncrossed his arms and stepped in closer. Ben knew the stance was supposed to look confident, and he supposed it did. But it was also extremely stupid. It left the guy’s whole body open to attack.

“I’m gonna ask you-”

Ben didn’t wait for the rest of the question. He threw a hand forward like a guy pitching a softball. There was a nice, satisfying impact as his palm connected with Dreadlocks’s package. Dreadlocks made an oomph sound and doubled forward, his eyes bulging. Ben spread his fingers, raked in everything in the neighborhood, and squeezed extremely hard. The sound Dreadlocks was making changed to huuunnnnhh, and his face turned as scarlet and stricken as that of a man having a coronary. He wrapped his hands around Ben’s wrist but Ben didn’t let up for a second.

Ben looked around to make sure Dreadlocks didn’t have plain-clothes backup and that they hadn’t drawn the attention of any of the uniformed security up front. He didn’t see anyone. They were lucky the bar was relatively quiet at this hour, the security posture accordingly relaxed.

“I’m sorry, what did you want to ask me?”

“Hnnnnuuuunnnnnhhhhh,” Dreadlocks said, grimacing.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak hnuh. But let me ask you something. Answer in English, okay? Is Taibbi here?”

“He’s… here…,” Dreadlocks said, sounding like a human steam kettle.

“Good, I thought so. Now, in a second, I’m going to let you go. You try asking me any more questions after that, I’m not going to be so easy on you. Okay?”

“Okay,” Dreadlocks wheezed.

Ben let go and Dreadlocks dropped to his knees, clutching himself and making retching noises. Ben stepped past him through the curtain. Paula caught up and said, “What the hell was that?”

Ben glanced at her. “Just trying to break the cycle of violence.”

“You call that breaking the cycle of violence?”

“Well, there’s no more violence, is there?”

“How are we going to get any cooperation after that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t usually think that far ahead.”

Ben swung open the door and stepped into a small, rectangular room, only slightly better lit than the bar outside, Paula just behind him. A man was sitting in an enormous leather chair facing the door, leaning back, his legs up on a wooden desk, tooled-up cowboy boots crossed at the ankles. He had a head of shaggy gray hair and small, strikingly blue eyes set back deeply under a craggy, protruding brow. He didn’t flinch when Ben and Paula walked in. Instead, he pulled a few leaves off a plug of chewing tobacco in a pouch and casually eased them up between his gums and cheek. He closed the pouch and tossed it onto the desk. Then he slowly worked the wad into place with his tongue, watching them silently.

Taibbi, Ben thought. In his experience, any man who could be as relaxed as this one when two strangers barged into his office had a weapon within arm’s reach. If the guy’s hands went under the desk or into a drawer or anywhere else, Ben was ready to upend the desk and dump it on him.

“Who are you?” Taibbi said after a moment, in a deep Texas drawl.

Ben looked at him. “Friends of Harry McGlade.”

“Harry McGlade doesn’t have friends.”

Ben realized that was probably true. “Acquaintances might be a better word.”

Taibbi squinted. “All right, Harry McGlade’s acquaintances. What the fuck do you want?”

Ben said, “Information.”

Taibbi cocked his head and regarded them for a long moment, as though trying to figure out how two people this stupid could also draw breath. “Well, sure, absolutely, just ask whatever you want, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

Paula said, “We were hoping if we ask nicely, Mr. Taibbi.”

Taibbi spit a wad of tobacco juice into a cup. “The way you asked my bouncer?”

Either Taibbi was just coming to the logical conclusion, or he’d overheard the confrontation. Either way, it didn’t matter. Ben said, “He started it.”

Paula looked at him disgustedly, like he was the world’s biggest child. Ben looked back and shrugged.

Taibbi said, “He’s supposed to start it. He’s the bouncer.”

Paula was still looking at him, and Ben could almost see fumes coming out of her ears. He thought, all right, all right.

He glanced at Taibbi. “Well… I regret the misunderstanding.”

Taibbi smiled. “No, you don’t regret it. But you will.”

Ben was about to kick the desk over and straighten the clown out, but Paula said, “We really do apologize for what happened. My name is Special Agent Paula Lanier, FBI. We’re investigating a homicide, and have reason to believe you may be a material witness.”

Ben saw Taibbi’s pupils dilate from a little adrenaline dump. Either the guy had reason to be generally antsy about the FBI, or he was specifically nervous about what Paula had asked him. Or both.

Taibbi looked at Paula, then Ben, then back. He squirted tobacco juice into his cup. “Show me your credentials.”

Paula reached into her purse, pulled out her ID, and put it on Taibbi’s desk. He put his feet down, picked it up, squinted at it wordlessly, then handed it back. He looked at Ben. “And you?” he said.

Ben would have preferred to refuse, but he could tell from Taibbi’s demeanor that if the guy got the idea he was faced with other than legitimate law enforcement, he wasn’t going to tell them shit. He hadn’t said anything when examining Paula’s ID. It was a good bet that he’d read and return Ben’s silently, as well.

Ben handed him the Dan Froomkin ID. Paula glanced at it as it changed hands. Whatever she saw, she said nothing. The main thing now was that Taibbi feel a little cooperation would be in his interest.

The bet paid off. Taibbi looked, squinted, and handed it back. Ben slipped the ID into his pocket and said, “Now, what were you saying, about how we might regret something?”

There were footsteps behind them. Ben spun, ready to draw down. It was Dreadlocks, still somewhat hunched over, and two other guys in black T-shirts.

“It’s fine, Bobby,” Taibbi said. “We’re fine. All of you, go on back out to the bar.”

Dreadlocks Bobby gave Ben what he must have thought was a menacing look and turned to go.

Ben said, “Hnnnnunnnh.”

Dreadlocks’s face reddened. “Motherfucker,” he growled.

“Thanks, Bobby,” Taibbi said. “We’ll talk later.”

Dreadlocks limped out, the other two security guys just behind him. Taibbi said, “Okay, apology accepted. Now, what’s this about a murder?”

Ben was about to respond, but Paula beat him to it. “Our acquaintance, Mr. McGlade, explained to us how he retained you to follow the subject of an investigation of his, one Daniel Larison, whom Mr. McGlade had traced to San Jose. Mr. McGlade informs us that Mr. Larison murdered an associate of yours. We’d like to learn more about that.”

Taibbi was silent for a long moment. He drummed his fingers along the desk. Ben watched his hands.

He looked at Ben, then back to Paula. “Mr. McGlade told you that, did he?”

Paula nodded. “Yes, he did.”

Taibbi squirted a brown stream into his cup. “Well, McGlade is a grade-A scumbag. If I had time, I’d get on a plane, fly out to Orlando, and personally put a boot straight up his ass.”

“I can’t say we found his company particularly pleasant, either,” Paula said. “Now, I’d be very grateful for anything you could tell us about Larison. Our investigation doesn’t otherwise concern you, your bar, or any of your affairs. Even if we were to see something untoward here, narcotics, for example, or any other illicit thing, we’d be too focused on the information you give us to care, or even to remember.”

Taibbi leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles on the desk again. “Like you guys have any jurisdiction here in Jacó anyway. Please.”

Paula smiled, and Ben wondered if Taibbi, who seemed to have good instincts, would recognize just how dangerous her smile could be. “Oh, Mr. Taibbi,” she said, in her most honeyed voice, “I hope a smart man like you would know better than that. There’s jurisdiction, and then there’s jurisdiction. It’s the second kind that can really bite you on the ass. Especially if you give someone a reason.”

Taibbi looked at her for a long moment. Ben could tell the man was tough. But he could also tell he was smart. He knew what Taibbi would do.

“Well,” Taibbi said, with a grudging smile, “I don’t see any reason we can’t have a conversation. Just about some hypotheticals. Nothing that really happened. And off the record, of course.”

Paula returned his smile. “That’s all we’re asking.”

Taibbi scrunched up his face, worked his chew around from inside his cheek, and spat it into his cup. He got up and sauntered over to a bureau. “What’s your poison?”

Ben thought it extremely unlikely the man would try to drop two FBI agents in his own bar. Still, he watched him closely, ready to draw and use the desk for cover if Taibbi did anything the least bit froggy.

“We’re on duty,” Paula said. “But thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Taibbi said. He pulled the stopper out of a decanter and poured a large measure of what looked like whiskey into a glass. “How about you, tough guy?” he said, looking over his shoulder. “You look like a whiskey guy to me.”

“Nah, milk’s more my speed.”

Taibbi chuckled. He picked up his glass, took a swallow, and let out a long breath. He turned his back to the bureau and leaned against it, looking Ben up and down. “The FBI must have been short on decent wiseasses when they hired you.”

“Yes, sir,” Paula said, shooting eye daggers at Ben. “That’s about right. Now, those hypotheticals you were going to tell us about?”

Taibbi took another swallow. “What’s the worst thing that happens if you get made on surveillance?”

Ben looked at him. “Depends on the target.”

Taibbi’s eyes narrowed. “‘Target,’ huh? Not ‘subject’?”

Ben thought, shit. Paula said, “My associate here did some other things before joining the Bureau. You might have noticed that.”

My associate, Ben thought. She didn’t know what name Taibbi had seen on the ID, so she didn’t use one. She was good. At the moment, he had to admit, better than he was.

“Did he now?” Taibbi said.

“Well?” Ben said. “What’s the worst thing?”

Taibbi rolled the glass between his palms. “In my experience? You’re embarrassed. Maybe you blow the case.”

Ben waited.

“So you understand, that’s all we were expecting. That was the limit of our downside. McGlade told us this guy was surveillance conscious, sure, but that’s like saying someone with the fucking Ebola virus is feeling a little under the weather. It doesn’t exactly prepare you for what you’re about to face.”

He took another swallow of whiskey, and Ben was fascinated to see the way real tension was creeping into his expression and posture. The man didn’t like what he was remembering.

“We followed Larison from the airport. He took the bus and we used a four-person tag team. All we needed to do was track him to his mistress’s place, if there was a mistress, get a photo, email it to McGlade, back at the bar by midnight. Easy money for an evening’s work. Well, let me tell you about our easy money. We’d been rotating the point to keep Larison from getting a fix on anyone. My guy Carlos went first, and rotated out when Larison changed buses in San Jose. By the time we’d tracked Larison to Barrio Dent, a suburb on the east side of downtown, Carlos was on point for the third time. We’d been careful as hell, but Larison must have made Carlos anyway. I had visual contact with Carlos, he had the eye on Larison. All of a sudden, Carlos stops under a streetlight, looks confused. Looks left, looks right. I’m thinking, fuck, Larison slipped him. We blew it.”

He took a swallow of whiskey and let out a long breath.

“And just as I’m thinking that, Larison appears out of the dark like a fucking apparition. I know how that sounds, and I don’t care. I’m telling you, the man was gone, and then he was there. He did something, it looked like, just touched Carlos lightly from behind, and then he was gone again, like fucking vapor. Carlos starts staggering around, clutching his neck, there was this slurping sound. I ran over. Fucking blood like I’ve never seen-and I promise you, I’ve seen blood-blood is geysering out of Carlos’s neck, just shooting out all around his hands and between his fingers. Larison must have used a punch knife or something, you got that? Something sharp as a razor. Opened Carlos up like a fucking beer can, he knew exactly where to put the cut. Jesus, I’m telling you, I never saw anything like it. Carlos went down and bled out in ten seconds. I had blood inside my shoes, my socks were soaked from standing in it.”

He took another swallow of whiskey and shuddered. “Hypothetically, that is.”

Ben had no doubt Taibbi was telling the truth. First, because unless he had natural Oscar potential as an actor, he couldn’t have feigned what Ben had just seen. Second, because Ben understood Larison. He knew the training. The reflexes. The mind-set.

Ben said, “Why didn’t you go after him?”

“What, that night? I told you, we might as well have been chasing the humidity under that streetlight.”

“No, another time. You’d traced him to Barrio Dent. And you’re local. You could have found him.”

Taibbi’s expression was grim. “Maybe one of us did.”

Ben and Paula said nothing. Taibbi finished what was in his glass and refilled it.

“Yeah, Carlos had a brother, they were both part of my crew. The brother’s name was Juan. Juan was a tough little bastard, and he worshipped his big brother. He was out of his mind from what Larison did. It was all, ‘Let’s get that motherfucker’ this, and ‘Let’s get him’ that. I told him we needed to keep cool heads and cut our losses. That this guy was out of our league and we’d gotten off lightly, see? I’ve been around long enough I can make that kind of call. But Juan was young and stupid.”

“And it was his brother,” Ben said, thinking of Alex.

“Yeah, it was his brother. Hard to let that go. Well, he stormed off, telling us how we were pussies and cowards and could all go to hell. Which I’m sure we all will, eventually, it’s just Juan found a way to get himself there first.”

“What happened?” Ben asked.

“Don’t know what happened. My guess is, Juan went back to Barrio Dent looking for Larison. Somehow, he found him. Maybe he got lucky, if you can call it that. They found his body in a sewer in Los Yoses, another little suburb adjacent to Barrio Dent. Skull crushed from behind. Larison must have come up behind him, just like he did Carlos. Only difference was, Juan’s wallet was missing, so the police wrote it off as a robbery. Juan wasn’t exactly an honest citizen, by the way, so it’s not like the police knocked themselves out trying to figure out what happened to him.”

“His wallet was gone?” Ben said, imagining Larison.

“Yeah. I figured it was Larison’s way of making it look like a robbery instead of an execution. Less interesting that way to the gendarmerie.”

“You say the brothers were named Carlos and Juan?” Paula said.

“That’s right. Carlos and Juan Cole.”

“The deaths occurred in Barrio Dent and Los Yoses?”

“Yeah, like I said.”

“Close to each other?”

“Maybe two kilometers apart.”

“Can you tell us where precisely?”

“He did Carlos across the street from a restaurant called La Trattoria in Barrio Dent. Just north of the Citibank on the central avenue leading from San Jose to the suburbs. You can’t miss it, there’s only a single streetlight, the rest of the street is dark. That’s why Larison chose it.”

Ben knew that’s why Larison chose it. He’d spotted the tail and then led them into an ambush.

“And Juan?” Paula said.

“Around the corner from a restaurant called Spoon in Los Yoses. One block southeast from the restaurant. The corner with the sewer.”

“Any other contact with Larison after that?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me? Let me tell you something. I think you can surmise that I don’t have a whole lot of rules in my life. But I’ve got one: you don’t fuck with the angel of death.”

“Angel of death?” Ben said.

Taibbi looked at him, squinting slightly as though trying to decide something. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about, amigo. I can tell you do.”

He took a swallow of whiskey, then looked into the glass. “I served in Vietnam, and I’ve known some pretty tough customers along the way. But I’ve known only three men who I’d call death personified. One was a guy named Jake, and he’s long dead. Another, went by the name of Jasper, is supposed to be in business for himself now, and believe me, you don’t want to be the subject of that business. The last was a part-Japanese guy named Rain, and no one knows what happened to him. Larison is in that league. He killed Carlos about as casually as I spit tobacco. And Juan, too. Snuffed them out and then evaporated like some evil fucking mist. Like I told Juan before he went and threw his life away, we were lucky. With a guy like Larison, it could have been worse.”

Paula said, “So you never saw him again.”

“No. And I sure as hell haven’t been looking.”

She said, “You don’t know what he was doing here?”

“I don’t know if he was on holiday, or he had a mistress, or if he wanted to go hiking in the fucking rain forest. I don’t know how long he was here or whether he’s ever been back. I don’t know anything more than what I just told you. And I don’t really want to, either.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Ben said, “I want to know something.”

“What?”

“Why’d you tell us all this?”

Taibbi glanced at Paula. “Because your partner asked so nicely, remember?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Taibbi took a swallow of whiskey. “I told you, I don’t want to cross paths with Larison again. But that doesn’t mean I want him to live happily ever after, either. So whatever you’re planning to do with him, I figure now it’s your risk, and maybe my reward. That’s a division of labor I can live with.”

Paula frowned. “What do you mean, ‘whatever we’re planning to do with him’?”

Taibbi laughed. “What I mean is, if you’re FBI, I’m Doris Day.” He nodded at Paula. “You, maybe.” Then he looked at Ben. “But you? No way.”

“Yeah?” Ben said. “What am I?”

“I don’t know, exactly. But I’ll tell you what you look like. You look like him.”

16. Not a Comforting Thought

In the van on the way to San Jose, Paula was fuming in the passenger seat. “I told you I was going to take the lead. Why can’t you listen?”

“We got what we wanted, didn’t we?”

“Despite you, not because. Every time you open your damned mouth, you antagonize people.”

“Yeah, and then you got to do your sweet southern girl routine. Isn’t that what you guys call ‘good cop, bad cop’?”

“That’s right, ‘you guys.’ That was an FBI ID you showed Taibbi, wasn’t it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I want to know who the hell you’re with.”

“That doesn’t make any difference, either.”

“Then why won’t you tell me?”

“Because it doesn’t make any difference.”

“It’s all personal for you, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You say it’s the job, but it’s not. You’d already gotten past that bouncer, but no, you had to make fun of him afterward, also. And Drew-you’d already disarmed and disabled him, why’d you have to sass him, too? Does the sass help you get the job done?”

He frowned. It was like Hort again, asking him why he went to that Burgos bar.

“Look, a Zen monk can’t do what I do, okay? Not that you would know.”

“Oh, those are the only two possibilities? Zen monk, and you?”

He didn’t answer. He’d never longed to be working alone as much as he did right then.

They drove for a while in silence. Ben said, “Did you catch what Taibbi said about the wallet?”

“Of course I caught it.”

“I mean, what did you make of it?”

“Just what Taibbi said. Larison was trying to make the second killing look like a robbery.”

“Wrong. Larison didn’t give a shit what the second killing looked like. He’d already vanished like a ghost and no one was going to connect him to the body whether the guy died of blunt trauma or a heart attack or was abducted by aliens.”

“Why, then?”

“Because once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.”

“Will you please stop talking in riddles?”

“Put yourself in Larison’s shoes. You arrive at the airport. You’re good-you’re the best, in fact-so you remember faces, especially ones that belong to anyone who puts out any kind of operational vibe, no matter how slight. At the airport, you log dozens of faces, knowing most of them, probably all, will turn out to be false positives. The ones you see now are happenstance. Then, a half hour, a bus change, and five miles later, one of those faces pops up again behind you. The guy definitely has the vibe. Okay, that’s twice-coincidence, maybe. Now you get to Barrio Dent-long way from the airport, small part of the city-and you see the guy again. That’s enemy action.”

“Tell me again how you’ve never been in the military.”

“So now Larison knows for sure he’s been followed. But he’s got no reason to think there’s any way he could have been followed from the States. In other words, he’s not being followed because he’s Larison. He’s being followed because he’s something generic.”

“You mean, like a tourist.”

“Exactly. He figures that he drew the attention of a gang whose MO is to follow a tourist from the airport, hit him over the head when he’s alone or somewhere dark, and make off with his bag, his wallet, his passport, his watch. It happens. And the pattern fits what Larison realizes is in his wake. So he decides to disrupt the pattern.”

“All right, that’s Carlos. Then what?”

“Then what, I think, could be our break.”

“How?”

“Larison was in town for a few days, maybe longer. Say he was shacking up with his mistress. They’re going out a lot, enjoying the local nightlife, the restaurants and bars. Carlos’s brother Juan knows Larison had business in Barrio Dent or nearby because that’s where they tracked him to. He knows it’s a long shot, but he’s obsessed and he’s got nothing else to go on anyway. So one night, he cases every watering hole in Barrio Dent, Los Yoses, and San Pedro. They’re all right next to each other and none is particularly big. I read it in the guidebook. Systematically, one by one, starting in Barrio Dent, go back to the beginning, repeat. If he doesn’t get bingo the first night, he does it again the next.”

“Okay, one night, like Taibbi said, he gets lucky.”

“Yeah, although again, lucky might not be quite the right word. He spots Larison and his lady, say, having dinner. Now, he thinks he’s being a cool customer and that no way Larison’s going to make him. Even after what happened to his brother, he doesn’t get what he’s up against. Like Taibbi said, he’s young and hotheaded.”

“And Larison made him.”

“Right. And I’ll give you good odds, too, that Juan was liquored up when he found Larison the second time, so he’d be sloppy and radiating all his inner badassedness. So Larison spots the problem and says to his girlfriend, excuse me, I need to step outside-a smoke, a little air, whatever. Wait here, babe, I’ll be right back. He walks outside, and dumb young Juan follows him. Larison leads him along a little, then doubles back on him, just like he did to Carlos. He doesn’t have time or the opportunity to interrogate him, but he wants to know who are these guys who’ve been following him. So he does him, takes his wallet, puts him in the nearest sewer so he won’t be found until later, and is back inside without even breaking a sweat.”

“Taibbi said Juan’s skull was caved in. How did Larison do that? With some table linen he borrowed from the restaurant?”

Ben reached into his pocket and pulled out the SureFire flashlight. He handed it to Paula. “Feel the bezel, around the glass. That’s Mil-Spec hard-anodized aluminum. Now hold it in your hand like a hammer, with the bezel protruding at the bottom of your fist. Now imagine smashing it into the back of someone’s head with an overhand blow. What do you weigh, a hundred twenty, a hundred twenty-five pounds? You could put a hole in someone’s skull that way. A guy like Larison could do an entire lobotomy.”

She handed the SureFire back to him. “Larison would carry something like this?”

“Like this, or an ASP tactical baton. Or he picked up a rock. It doesn’t matter.”

“How would you know what a guy like Larison carries?”

Ben ignored the probe. “The point is, he does it, takes the wallet, and sees the guy he just killed is named Juan Cole. He would have checked the papers after he did Carlos, so now he knows he’s dealing with brothers. Taibbi suggested these guys were petty criminals, they probably have records, and the papers would have said as much. So Larison’s working hypothesis becomes, two brothers, or maybe a gang of which two brothers were a part, followed him from the airport hoping to mug him. He killed one brother, the other decided he wanted revenge, Larison killed him, too.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, Taibbi was smart to steer clear-guy’s a survivor type, you can tell. Anyway, after he did Juan, Larison would watch his back even more carefully than usual just to make sure the rest of the gang, if there was a rest of the gang, wasn’t on his ass. Nothing happens, though, and anyway he’s only in San Jose sporadically. And all this was three years ago. So at some point, he figures these were the only two guys he had to worry about. And he doesn’t have to worry about them anymore.”

“What did Taibbi mean when he said ‘whatever you’re planning to do’ with Larison?”

Ben glanced at her, then back to the road. “He meant, what do you think happens to someone who tries to read the angel of death his rights?”

“What are you going to do if we find him, then?”

“I’m not going to wind up like Carlos and Juan, I’ll tell you that.”

“What are you supposed to do?”

“All I’m supposed to do is find Larison. So if we tree him, I hope you’re not going to try to arrest him, okay? You bring that mind-set to the job, you’ll be at a lethal disadvantage. And I don’t want to fill out the paperwork.”

“I’m touched that you care, really.”

They drove in silence for a few minutes.

Paula said, “Where’d you get that ID?”

Ben glanced at her, then back to the road. “You knew there were other alphabet soup agencies involved in this. You said so yourself.”

“I want to know which one you’re with.”

“I told you, forget about it.”

“You’re some kind of assassin, aren’t you?”

“I’m just here to find Larison,” he said again. The weird thing was, it was the truth. So why did it feel like a lie?

“Taibbi said you looked like Larison. What did he mean by that?”

Ben looked at his watch. “Why don’t you tell me what our next move is. You know, don’t you?”

“Are you talking down to me?”

“Not that I was aware of. But I can if you’d like.”

“Our next move is, we canvass restaurants and bars around the sewer where Juan’s body was found. Larison couldn’t have moved him far-the body would be heavy, for one thing. He wouldn’t have time, or concealment, for another. So wherever Juan was found, Larison was nearby that night. If we show his picture in a few places, and if Larison’s been back or if he was a regular, we might just catch a break.”

Ben nodded. “How’s your Spanish?”

“I can get by. You?”

Ben’s Farsi was fluent, his Arabic decent, and his Spanish high school rusty. “I think we’ll need to rely on you in that department,” he said. “And by the way, it’s not just that Larison must have been close by to where he did Juan. It’s also that, when he killed Carlos, it wasn’t in a place that mattered to him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d already spotted the surveillance. He wasn’t going to lead them all the way to his correct address. He’d either get off the bus early, or ride it well past his actual destination. Barrio Dent comes up before Los Yoses on the way from the airport. My guess is, Larison’s real destination that night was Los Yoses, or maybe the next stop, San Pedro, or maybe somewhere farther east. He got off in Barrio Dent to make sure the killing wouldn’t be too close to a place he was connected with. The second time, he wouldn’t have that luxury. He wasn’t being followed, he’d been discovered. It’s a whole different dynamic.”

“So you think the fact that both killings happened near a restaurant is a coincidence.”

“I think the first one was a coincidence. The second one, maybe not. Anyway, most of the streets in San Jose don’t have names. People use restaurants and other landmarks to describe locations. That’s all Taibbi was doing.”

“How do you know that?”

“Read it in a guidebook on the plane.”

“Well, that was a good idea.”

Ben nodded. He didn’t mention that reading extensively about a place before going operational was ordinarily only the beginning of area familiarization, and that not having had time to do more than read this time made him feel like he was groping and stumbling in the dark.

“So you think his girlfriend lives in Los Yoses?” Paula said.

“Or farther east. But not Barrio Dent. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten off the bus there. Now, tell me this. You think he’d still be dining out a hundred yards away from where he put Juan in a sewer?”

“From what Taibbi told us, I don’t think we’re dealing with someone who gets indigestion from murder.”

“What about tactically? He’d practically be returning to the scene of the crime.”

“Yes, but like you said, he’s only in San Jose sporadically. A month, or six months after the murder, he knows the case is closed. Juan was some sort of street criminal. I can pretty much guarantee that if they didn’t have a suspect within seventy-two hours of the crime, they dropped the file into a cold cases basement drawer. Which would be like dropping it into the Bermuda Triangle. And Larison would know that.”

Ben nodded, glad she wasn’t asking any more assassin questions.

He ran it all through his mind again, and felt pretty sure they were looking at it the right way. And although canvassing restaurants was going to be a long shot, it wouldn’t be any longer than what Juan Cole was up against when he’d gone looking for Larison.

Which was not a comforting thought at all.

17. His Friend Nico

The drive from Jacó took three hours. The road zigzagged up through the jungle and then down again, the diffused glow of the moon behind the clouds from time to time silhouetting mountains in the distance. Here and there they passed the odd roadside soda selling tacos or a bodega advertising fresh mangoes and avocados, and the light from these tiny and invariably empty establishments would shine in the distance like a promise of permanence and then fade away behind them, leaving nothing but the headlights pushing feebly against the dark again, the jungle close on either side, the van feeling small, enclosed, improbable, a bathysphere exploring an accidental canal along some ocean’s lightless floor.

They passed the time talking about pistols, loads, and their favored carries. For someone who took a dim view of violence, Ben had to admit, Paula knew her hardware. Paula used the iPhone to find a hotel in San Jose -the InterContinental, in Escazú-and to confirm there were vacancies. Ben told her not to make a reservation. The hotel wasn’t going to sell out its remaining rooms this late, and he saw no advantage to possibly alerting someone to where he would be spending the night. Not that anyone was looking, but… he just had this weird feeling, like there were forces moving around and beneath him, forces he could sense but not understand, and the feeling was keeping his usual low-grade combat paranoia at a healthy simmer.

They arrived in Barrio Dent at close to eleven. The iPhone’s GPS function took them straight to La Trattoria, where Taibbi said Carlos had been killed.

Ben parked the van and they stepped out into the sultry night air. There was an audible whoosh of traffic from the central avenue a block away, but other than that the neighborhood was quiet, its colonial houses decaying in stoic dignity beneath the swaying palm trees.

A streetlight across from the restaurant cast a sickly yellow cone of light on the crumbling sidewalk beneath it. Outside the illuminated pall, the street was cloaked in shadow. Ben stood at the edge of the light and glanced around.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “He got off the bus on the central avenue, took a couple turns, walked past this light… yeah, he could have come at Carlos from anywhere in the dark, and disappeared as easily. Okay.”

They walked back to the van. “What does that tell us?” Paula said.

“Maybe not much. I just need to get in his head.”

“Is it working?”

Ben nodded, imagining what Carlos would have looked like spotlighted under that streetlight. “Plug in the coordinates for that restaurant Spoon, will you? Let’s see if we can figure out what happened there.”

Paula did. It wasn’t much more than a kilometer. They drove the short distance, parked just down the street from the restaurant, and walked over. Spoon was on the corner of two reasonably busy streets, cars parked on both sides, an auto body repair place across from it, the neighborhood a weird mixture of small restaurants and light industry, overgrown lots behind rusting chain-link fences, high-tension wires clinging to low buildings, plaster façades giving over to creeping mold feasting nonstop in the incessant tropical moisture.

Ben looked inside the restaurant. A neighborhood joint, brightly lit, cacti in the windows, plastic chairs and vinyl booths, locals talking and laughing over what looked like desserts and coffee. He could hear eighties American pop playing incongruously from inside. Windows ran the length of the place on both streets it was facing, and Ben was on the verge of deciding this wasn’t where Juan Cole had seen Larison-he wouldn’t have needed to go inside-when he saw there was a back room that wasn’t visible from the windows. So he would have gone inside to check. Okay, Spoon was a possible.

He turned and watched the street for a moment, imagining Larison inside with his girlfriend. Juan Cole pops his head in, you spot him, but he doesn’t spot you spotting him. What do you do? You make the decision. You come up with an excuse and get up. You go outside, and…

He looked around. Not the street facing the entrance. Too busy. You’d make a right, instead, toward what looked like a more residential part of the neighborhood. Yeah, that felt right. And according to Taibbi, it was where they’d found Juan Cole.

He walked down the cracked sidewalk, Paula just behind him. As soon as he was beyond the light cast through the restaurant window, he was enveloped in darkness. It felt right. So right he was nearly convinced this was exactly how it had gone down.

The block was short. He passed a rust-colored, two-story apartment building on the right, its windows, like all the others he’d seen in San Jose, barred. Then a windowless wall. The sidewalk curved right onto the cross street, and on instinct, Ben followed it rather than crossing the street, and bam, there it was, he saw exactly what Larison had done. There was a staircase and an entranceway immediately to his right. Larison had ducked into it the second he’d turned the corner. If he had any street sense at all, Juan Cole would have realized what had happened just an instant after turning the corner and seeing that Larison was gone, but in that instant Larison had already stepped out from the shadows and broken open the back of Cole’s head. An instant could be a hell of a long time against a guy like Larison.

He looked around. Taibbi had said southeast corner, right? That meant across the street. Ben waited for a car to pass, its headlights momentarily cutting through the darkness, then crossed over.

Yeah, there it was. A corner sewer, the cement lip eaten away by time and humidity and lack of repair. It would have taken Larison all of five seconds to drag Cole across the street and shove him inside. If Cole hadn’t been a big man, he would have fit easily enough. If he had been big… Ben knelt, took hold of the metal grate, and lifted it. It came free easily.

Yeah, brain him, take his wallet, wait for any cars to pass, drag him, dump him… he wouldn’t have been gone longer than three minutes. People left for longer than that when they got up to take a leak.

“I think it was in Spoon,” Ben said, standing up.

“Where Cole saw Larison?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?”

Ben shook his head. “Just a feeling. Let’s go see if anyone in that restaurant recognizes Larison.”

They walked back to Spoon and went inside. It was lively with laughter and conversation and the sounds of Billy Idol playing through speakers in the ceiling. Yeah, a neighborhood place. The crowd-about twenty men and women, ages ranging from mid-twenties up to maybe fifty-felt like they belonged there, like they were regulars. Just a neighborhood dessert place, good when you’re tired after a night out, but not quite ready for the night to be over.

The host, a smiling man with a belly and a handlebar mustache, walked over with a couple of menus.

“¿Cuantas personas?” he asked. How many?

Paula smiled and responded in Spanish while she showed her credentials. Ben was able to make out most of it: We’re looking for a regular customer of yours, we’d be grateful if you could help us find him. He’s not in trouble, we just need to ask him a few questions.

“Your Spanish is very good,” the host said in English, returning her smile and wiping his hands on his apron. “But if you like, maybe English is better?”

Paula laughed. “Oh, my goodness, thank you for saving me from embarrassing myself. Yes, please, English, if that’s okay.”

The host’s smile broadened. “All right. How can I help?”

Ben had to admit this was the right time for Paula to take the lead. When she wasn’t busting balls, there was something so… soft about her. It was disarming. Maybe that’s what she’d meant about people not seeing her coming.

Paula took out her phone and showed the host a photo of Larison.

“Sure, I know him,” the man said.

Ben’s heart kicked up a notch. He wanted to jump in, but reminded himself that Paula was doing fine, better than fine. He kept his mouth shut.

“You know him how, sir?”

“He’s a regular. Well, not a regular, exactly. He comes in a few times a week, or two weeks, and then he’s gone for a while. But he always comes back. He’s a good customer.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe… a month ago? Two months?”

Ben felt a little clench in his stomach, that twist of combat excitement. That was it. The first solid evidence they had that Larison was alive. And if he was alive, he had to be the one behind this thing.

“Is he… alone, when he comes here?” Paula asked.

“No, he comes with his… friend. Nico.”

From the slight delay between the “his” and the “friend,” and slight stress on the latter word, Ben realized instantly. He thought, Holy shit. He thought of Larison’s wife, Marcy. No wonder she couldn’t let Larison’s Costa Rica excursions go. Did she know? Did she suspect?

And was Larison the father of their son? And if not, did he-

“This Nico,” Paula said, “do you have any way you could put us in touch with him?”

“No, not really. He comes in a few times a month.”

“Do you know his last name, sir?”

“I… no, I don’t.”

Ben sensed the questions were now making the man nervous, and that his memory would start to deteriorate as a result.

“When was the last time Nico dined here?” Paula asked.

“Maybe… sometime in the last month? We have a lot of customers.”

“I’m sure you do, sir. Does he pay with a credit card?”

“I think so, yes. Sometimes.”

Bingo. Unless the guy was mistaken and Nico paid only with cash, Ben was sure he now had enough for Hort to take to the NSA, whose supercomputers would triangulate on the name Nico and regular appearances at Spoon in Los Yoses. Ben doubted they’d get even one false positive.

And whatever Larison’s relationship with this guy, it was long-standing, and ongoing. If Nico didn’t lead them to Larison, it was hard to imagine what would.

18. Jumpy’s Not My Style

Back in the van, on the way to the InterContinental, Paula said, “It’s him. He’s not dead.”

Ben nodded. “Sure looks that way.”

“What’s our next step?”

Ben almost pointed out that after tonight, “our” was likely not going to be applicable. Instead, he said, “We report in and try to get some sleep. And we’re going to be staying in the same room, okay?”

“Say what?”

“Look, why would a man and woman with next to no luggage be checking into a hotel together without a reservation at near midnight? A spontaneous business convention? You want to appear to be what people expect you are, that’s how you avoid getting noticed. So I want you to get back in that sarong and halter. Put your jacket over it. It’ll look like you’re a prostitute I met at a bar who’s wearing a cover-up to be presentable in the lobby of a nice hotel.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “And just how far do you expect we’ll have to go in performing our roles?”

“Don’t get your hopes up. This is just for public consumption.”

“My hopes. You really are something. Anyway, why don’t we just check in separately and solve the problem that way?”

“Because I don’t trust you. I don’t want you off in your own room, talking to I don’t know who and doing I don’t know what.”

“You don’t trust me. My God, you have nerve.”

“Also, it would be natural for a married man arriving at a hotel with a prostitute to wear a baseball cap with the visor pulled low to obscure his features. Never know when you might run into a business acquaintance coming out of the bar. And to keep his head down a bit so his face doesn’t get picked up by security cameras. To be reticent about meeting the eyes of any staff he encountered. And you should do the same. Keep the jacket open, show some cleavage. No one’s going to look at your face.”

“Why are we worried about all this?”

“It’s just better not to be remembered or recorded now. You never know what’s going to happen later.”

Escazú was on the west side of the city. They drove through San Jose ’s crumbling but vital center, and after a few minutes found themselves passing every conceivable western chain restaurant and retailer. Escazú was obviously an upscale enclave of Americana, right down to the ritzy-looking shopping center across the street from the hotel.

They parked in the lot rather than taking advantage of the valet. Anyone who noticed them walking in without bags would assume they were already checked in. If they thought otherwise… well, a man and a woman shacking up for the night away from their spouses could be expected to be discreet. Along with the baseball cap and averted eyes, the parking lot rather than the valet fit the pattern, which was what Ben wanted.

They walked into a bright, air-conditioned lobby-stone floors, a ceiling open all the way to the fifth floor, piano music playing from hidden speakers. The bar was off to the left, and it sounded lively. On the right, three receptionists stood behind a dark wood-and-marble counter.

They strolled over to the nearest of the three, a young Tico in a navy suit. “We need a room for the night,” Ben said, his voice quiet, slightly conspiratorial.

“Certainly,” the man said. “We have king-bedded rooms, twin-bedded rooms…”

“Twin beds would be fine,” Paula said.

Ben’s face betrayed nothing. But inside, he wanted to smack her for being so stupid.

The receptionist worked the keyboard. “I’m sorry, the only rooms we have available now feature a single king-sized bed.”

“A king-sized bed would be fine,” Ben said calmly. If Paula uttered one single word of protest, he was going to find something and gag her with it.

“Very good, sir,” the receptionist said. “And how many keys will you require?”

Simultaneously, Ben said, “One,” and Paula said, “Two.”

Ben stared at Paula and said, “One,” the single syllable sounding like a growl.

Paula stared back but didn’t respond.

“And what credit card will you be using?”

“I’ll just use cash.”

“All right. And we’ll require some form of ID. A passport, or…”

Ben pulled out his wallet and put three hundred U.S. on the counter.

“I’d just be more comfortable if there were no record of the transaction,” he said. “And please, keep the change.”

The receptionist looked down at the money for a moment. He produced a magnetic key in a paper sleeve and handed it to Ben with a gracious smile.

“Your room number is here,” he said, gesturing to the sleeve. “The elevator is just past the bar. Enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you,” Ben said, glancing at the card. Room 535. “I’m sure we will.”

They walked over to the elevator. As soon as the doors had closed and Ben had inserted the room card and pressed the button for five, he said, “What were you thinking?”

She looked at him. “What’s your problem this time?”

“My problem is, what do you think we look like? We’re supposed to be a horny couple shacking up here to have sex. And you’re asking for a room with separate beds. You can have the goddamned bed, I’m happy to sleep on the floor.”

“I don’t see that my request was incommensurate with-”

“With two people who came here to fuck?”

“Maybe you snore. Maybe you thrash in your sleep. There are a lot of reasons two people might want to sleep in separate beds after they make love.”

“Yeah? Not in my experience.”

“Well, if you can find girlfriends so patient they can tolerate your personality generally, I expect they might be able to tolerate you in other ways, too.”

“Yeah, well likewise, I can think of all kinds of reasons a guy might want to get up and go home after he was done fucking you. But that’s not the point. The point is, most people who come to a hotel to have sex prefer to do it in the same bed. What you did was a mistake. Mistakes like that get you noticed. Getting noticed gets you killed.”

Paula took a deep breath as though to answer, but stopped when the doors opened. There was no way anyone could have anticipated them here, but out of habit, Ben swept the area with his eyes before moving out of the elevator. They walked down the corridor and Ben let them into the room.

As soon as he had double-locked the door, Paula said, “And you’re lecturing me about getting noticed? The first thing you did in Taibbi’s bar was practically castrate his bouncer. And then every chance you got to get in Taibbi’s face, too, you did. Yeah, that’s you, Mr. Invisible.”

Ben walked past her into the room. Marble bathroom on the right. King bed in the room past it; dresser, flat-screen television, desk on the left. He glanced out the window at two massive, kidney-shaped pools in the courtyard below, then pulled shut the curtains and turned to her. “We’ve been over this already. When I need to be direct, I’m direct. When I need to be invisible, I’m invisible. If you don’t know the difference, you’re a goddamned amateur.”

Her lips were pressed tightly together and she was breathing so hard her nostrils were flaring. Ben realized he needed to back off. Not that what he was saying wasn’t true, but true didn’t mean it was helpful.

“Look, you’re smart in a lot of ways, I can see that. And you’ve got good instincts, you know how to play a role. But you need to use your head, too. Why can’t you be smart enough to see this isn’t your ordinary investigation? That right now you’re operating outside the world you’re accustomed to? Did you not hear Taibbi when he was talking about what happened to his men? When was the last time you were investigating someone who could ghost up behind you, sever your carotid, and walk away from the arterial spray before your body even hits the floor? I’ll tell you when the last time was. Never. Otherwise you’d be dead. And Larison is only half of it. We don’t even know who else is after him, or whether they might take an interest in us, too. Do you get it? You’re smart and you’re good at what you do, but right now you are out of your league and if you want to stay alive, you need to listen to me when I talk to you.”

“You are so condescending, it makes me want to wipe the smugness right off your face.”

“Is that how you break the cycle of violence?”

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. “I hate that I’ve let you make me this angry. You’re not worth it.”

He knew he shouldn’t respond, but he couldn’t help it. “If I’m not worth it, why are you angry?”

She opened her eyes. “Exactly. I’m going to take a bath. Do you need the bathroom first?”

“Yeah, actually, I do.”

“Fine. And when you’re out? I do expect you to sleep on the floor.”

“With pleasure,” he said, walking past her.

He closed the door, took a leak, and furiously brushed his teeth with the toothbrush and toothpaste the hotel had provided. If she had a problem using the same toothbrush, she could just go without, he didn’t give a shit.

She’d been stupid in the lobby. But…

What was the point of unloading on her like that? He could have just pointed out her error. She wasn’t thick, she would have gotten it.

Was he trying to get back at her for some of the things she’d said in the van on the way from Jacó? That crap about how he took things personally, that the job alone couldn’t justify the way he piled on… it had stung. Which, of course, meant there was probably something to it.

And wasn’t the thing she’d criticized him for exactly what he’d just done to her? If his goal was to explain operational behavior, he could have just explained it. What did insulting her have to do with that?

And if explaining hadn’t been the point, what was?

You wanted to hurt her. Because she hurt you. She challenged you, so you had to put her in her place.

Was that really it? Because, when he put it like that, it sounded so pathetic.

He spat and rinsed his mouth, then looked at himself in the mirror. He wondered if anyone ever looked in the mirror and saw an angry, thin-skinned, petty reflection staring back.

Probably not.

Well, maybe this was part of what Hort had been telling him about. Getting greater self-control. Because how could you have greater self-control if you didn’t have greater self-awareness?

All right, fine. But what if you wound up not liking the self you were becoming aware of?

He didn’t want to think about that.

He washed his hands, soaked a washcloth, and wiped his face and eyes. That sense of unseen forces, and now all this thinking about his own behavior and what might lie behind it… he didn’t like it. He thought maybe it was better before, when he just did what he was told and acted the way he wanted and fuck anyone who had a problem with it. It had all been working out pretty well, hadn’t it?

Sure. And your daughter thinks you’re dead.

“Come on,” he said, out loud. “It was supposed to be a rhetorical question.”

He chuckled, but without much mirth. Now he was talking to himself. He’d think a question, and a voice in his head was actually answering. And then he’d responded to the voice. What was he going to do, start having conversations with himself?

He needed a vacation. He needed something. That shit with Obsidian, and then the Manila city jail… he was just stressed out, that was all. Who wouldn’t be?

You wouldn’t be. Not before.

“Will you knock that shit off?” he said, out loud again.

He opened the door and walked wordlessly past Paula. “Everything all right in there?” she said.

“Yeah, what do you mean?”

“Sounded like you were talking to someone.”

“I don’t…” He shook his head and laughed. “I was being an asshole a few minutes ago. I’m sorry.”

She looked at him, and he had no idea what she was thinking. After a moment, she said, “Forget about it,” and then went into the bathroom.

When he heard the bath water running, he called Hort and briefed him on everything that had happened. He assumed she was doing something similar on her end, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

“Nico, huh?” Hort said.

“Yeah, Nico. What do you think that’s all about?”

Hort laughed. “You mean could a hard-ass operator like Larison also be a swish?”

Ben felt a little embarrassed. “Well… yeah.”

Hort laughed again. “Of course he could. And he wouldn’t be the only one, either.”

“You’re shitting me. There are gays in the unit?”

“Of course there are. And personally, I don’t care. All I give a damn about for any soldier is soldiering. Who a man wants to sleep with couldn’t matter less to me.”

Ben thought for a moment. He supposed what Hort was saying was true. He’d just never considered it before. It was hard to imagine any of the men he worked with could be gay, let alone an operator like Larison.

“It fits, though,” Hort said.

“What does?”

“Larison living a secret life. You asked about his motives, remember?”

“Being gay is a motive?”

“Not being gay as such. But having to live in the closet? Knowing you’ll face a discharge if anyone finds out, despite all your heroism in the field, despite the personal costs of what you’ve endured, despite how many American lives you’ve repeatedly saved? Look at what happened to Dan Choi, for God’s sake. The man was an Arab linguist, too. You know how badly we need those? I’ll tell you, we can make a terrorist talk, but we can’t get him to talk in English. And the army got rid of Choi anyway, just for being gay, a good man who wanted to serve his nation. It would take a better man than I am not to develop a grudge about that. And keeping that kind of secret, living a double life, especially with the kinds of pressures men like us already have to bear up under… I told you, I saw the signs. I guess I just didn’t know how bad it was.”

“Well, what do we do about this guy Nico? He’s our connection.”

“I need to get his coordinates to the NSA. We’ve got enough now to figure out who he is, where he lives and works, all his particulars. If we’re really lucky, we’ll uncover something linked directly to Larison. Even if not, it sounds like this guy could be our big break. Good work, son.”

Ben felt that embarrassing flush of pride he always got when Hort praised his performance. He said, “Assume we get Nico’s particulars. What do we do then? Snatch him, exchange him for the tapes?”

There was a pause. “I don’t know yet. That decision is likely to be made above our pay grade.”

Ben was intrigued, both by the pause and by the reference to “our” pay grade, as though the two of them were not just on the same team on this, but also somehow equal.

“Okay,” Ben said.

“You should know,” Hort said. “There’s also been some discussion about his wife and son.”

“You mean a snatch?”

“That’s what I mean.”

It wasn’t his place to say, and he almost didn’t. But the thought of taking a kid, and the wife, too, Marcy… it just made him queasy. It wouldn’t be right.

“I don’t know, Hort. Snatching a kid? I mean, come on.”

“I agree. And I’ve made the argument that it would be worse than immoral-it would be tactically stupid. From everything you’ve learned, I think we can assume the wife and son wouldn’t even be a pressure point. Larison didn’t provide for them, the woman said it wasn’t a happy marriage-”

“Marcy. Her name is Marcy Wheeler.”

“I know. And after what you’ve learned about Larison, I’m wondering whether the boy is even his. Anyway, the bottom line is, Larison cared about them so much he faked his death and disappeared. I doubt he’d lose a whole lot of sleep if someone were threatening them now.”

Okay, that was good. Didn’t sound like anyone was particularly inclined to go after Larison’s family. Probably just the kind of pseudo tough-guy talk he imagined suits liked to pleasure themselves with. And Hort certainly wasn’t for it.

“What do you want me to do in the meantime?” Ben said.

“There’s nothing you really can do, except sit tight. How’s that FBI agent, Lanier? She giving you any trouble?”

“All kinds of trouble. But nothing I can’t handle.”

“Well, let’s see what we learn about this guy Nico and what the powers that be want to do after that. After tonight, it might make sense to shake her loose.”

“Roger that.”

There was another pause. Ben said, “Is everything… are we getting some kind of interference on this?”

Hort said, “Why do you ask?” and oddly, Ben imagined him smiling.

“I don’t know. Just… I was thinking about what’s on those tapes. A lot of people must be sweating.”

“They are. And I’ll tell you about people who are sweating. The sweat gets in their eyes, makes it hard for them to see clearly.”

“Anything I need to worry about?”

“Worrying is my job. Your job is to get some sleep now. I might be calling you in just a few hours with an update.”

“Okay.”

“Again, good work, son. What you’ve done might have cracked this thing wide open. I’m proud to say I work with you.”

Coming from Hort, this was extreme praise. Ben was simultaneously touched that he would say it, and also concerned about what was going on in the background that could be making him feel, what? Sentimental? Or like he needed an ally?

“Well,” Ben said, thinking of Obsidian, “there are still a few things you and I need to work on. But… thank you.”

“Just get some sleep now. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

Hort clicked off. His parting words were of course a simple statement of fact, but they were also somehow ominous.

Ben thought about just getting in bed and telling Paula they could either share or she could sleep on the damn floor. But that feeling of unseen forces was still torquing up his paranoia. The hell with it. He grabbed an extra blanket from the closet, folded it into a sleeping pallet, and placed it along the wall on the hinged side of the door. He grabbed a pillow from the bed and tossed it onto the pallet. Yeah, he’d sleep better this way. Because if anyone breached the room, the bed would be the initial focus. It would be interesting to see Paula sweet-talk her way out of that particular cycle of violence.

And then he felt bad. Yeah, she was driving him crazy. But he didn’t want anything to happen to her, either. If the room were breached, that bed would be the initial big red X. She thought no one ever saw her coming? She didn’t know some of the guys he worked with. In night vision goggles, she’d show up just fine.

Paula emerged from the bathroom wearing a hotel robe, beads of water clinging to her face and neck. She looked good.

Ben sighed. “I know I’m wasting my breath, but it probably wouldn’t be the worst idea to drag the mattress on the floor and put it up against the door. A bed is just too easy to key on when you breach a room.”

“Are you expecting company tonight?”

“If I were expecting it, I wouldn’t be here. It’s just some extra insurance, that’s all. This thing is big. And a little weird, somehow. Can’t you feel that?”

“Well, it’s definitely a little weird. My team is being treated in an Orlando hospital for injuries inflicted by the man with whom I’m spending the night in a San Jose hotel. Whose identity, I might add, remains a mystery. So yes, you could say it’s out of the ordinary.”

“If you want to move the mattress, I’ll help you.”

“It’s fine where it is. But thank you.”

Ben nodded and looked away. He was surprised at how much he wished he could get through to her. But he didn’t see how. “Well, if you’re done with the bathroom,” he said, “I’m going to take a shower.”

“Feel free.”

He walked to the bathroom and paused at the door. “I’m going to leave it open, okay?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, with the water running, I won’t be able to hear what’s going on outside the door. I can deal with not seeing or not hearing, but not both. So no peeking. Unless you want to.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “Either you are a certified paranoid, or an incorrigible exhibitionist.”

“Well, I’m not an exhibitionist, as far as I know.”

He paused, trying to find the right words. “I know you think I’m a prick, and you’re probably right. But I can tell you this: my radar’s pretty good. It’s saved my ass more times than I can count, and right now, it’s telling me that something is… going on with these tapes that we can’t see. It’s making me jumpy. And if you were smart, you’d be jumpy, too.”

“Jumpy’s not my style.”

He nodded, and for a moment felt unaccountably sad. “Yeah? Well, it probably wasn’t Carlos or Juan Cole’s, either.”

19. I Will Burn You

Ulrich paced in his office, tugging on his beard, continually fighting the urge to pick up the secure line and call Clements one more time. He’d heard from his contact and there was a lot of news, but he couldn’t make full sense of it without Clements’s input. He’d sent two emails and left three messages and the son of a bitch still hadn’t gotten back to him. It was maddening. Back in the day Ulrich could have had an admin raise Clements on the phone inside a minute anytime, day or night, and Ulrich wouldn’t even bother picking up the phone until he’d been told Clements was already on the line, waiting for him.

He didn’t like it, and the disrespect, the not-so-subtle suggestion that somewhere along the line, someone had cut Ulrich’s balls off, was the least of it. They weren’t isolating him for payback, and they weren’t doing it for sport. They were doing it for a reason. And he was beginning to sense what the reason was.

He considered the facts. First, that muckraker Seymour Hersh had reported about an assassination ring operating out of the Office of the Vice President. Hersh claimed the program had been run through JSOC, which meant the leak had come from one of the other participants-CIA or NSA. And then there were the leaks about the illegal surveillance program, all pointing again to the OVP. And then the leaks about the OVP’s plan to override the Fourth Amendment and use active-duty military to arrest U.S. citizens on American soil.

Then, on top of all this, the new DCI suddenly decides to brief Congress on a CIA assassination program that he claimed never went operational anyway, telling them, in effect, that there was an assassination ring, but it was someone else’s. That last stunt suggested to Ulrich the other leaks were coming from the Agency, too. It all felt coordinated to him. The question was, coordinated to what end?

God, he could actually feel their machinations, could practically see them scuttling into crevices like cockroaches from a light. They were creating a framework for something, he could tell that much, and the Office of the Vice President was at the center of it. Who was the head of the illegal surveillance program? The OVP. Who was in charge of assassinations? The OVP. Who wanted to send the military into American suburbs? The OVP. Associate the OVP with enough scary things, and when the next scary thing was revealed, it would only be natural for everyone to assume, to want to believe, that it was all the OVP’s doing, too. At this point, the new revelation could be anything: child molestation, malnourishment in Africa, global fucking warming… it wouldn’t matter because the people had been primed to believe the bad stuff always came from the OVP.

Yeah, the hard part was creating the receptivity, getting the public to want to believe something without them actually realizing they wanted to believe it. After that, it was easy to just realize it for them.

So he recognized the setup-recognized it because he’d created ones like it himself so many times before. The question was, what was the punch line? And was the joke going to be on him?

It had to be the tapes. But how?

He continued his pacing. For any kind of executive action, the public understood the beast had both a head and a tail-that there was management, but also labor. So what the Agency was saying, the narrative they were creating, was… management was the Office of the Vice President; and whoever the labor was, it wasn’t us, it was someone else.

The tapes, the tapes… if the tapes got out, the news would be all Caspers, all the time. At which point, someone would feed the media a big, juicy chunk to connect the Caspers to the OVP. That was it, the Caspers would be the punch line, and the OVP, which was responsible for everything else, must have been responsible for the Caspers, too. But what was the evidence, the dot that would connect the other dots, the information they would slot into the expectations they’d already created? What did they have on him that wouldn’t also lead back to them? There must have been something with his return address on it. What would it-

He stopped, the blood suddenly draining from his face, his chest constricting. The return address. Jesus Christ, no.

His hands were shaking and it took him three tries to open his wall safe. He took out the encrypted thumb drive and fired it up on his computer.

They’d told him they needed to set something up to take care of the Caspers. At the time, he thought it was brilliant, he’d never heard of anything like it. It sounded so good, in fact, that he’d actually conceived of it as a kind of pilot program. If it worked with the Caspers, there was no reason not to expand it to resolve other difficult situations, as well. So he’d signed off on the creation of a dummy corporation… Jesus, what had he been thinking? At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to him. The corporate fronts were routine for a dozen different purposes-safe houses, air transport of rendered detainees… Hell, half the program was conducted through corporate false fronts. He was signing off on them every day-but now, now…

What was the name of the company? Eco, Ecology, something like that? He scrolled through memos and correspondence and findings… and there it was. Ecologia. A European company that had pioneered the concept of “ecological burials.” And Ulrich had signed off on the creation of the dummy corporation that had purchased two of their units. Christ, he might as well have just filled out the purchase orders himself.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could see it clearly now, not just what they were doing, but the way it would all play out. They’d fingered him. They’d created the narrative, exposing one by one all the different elements of the program, each time demonstrating how that element emanated from the OVP. He knew from experience that once a narrative had achieved this much momentum, this much weight in the mainstream media and the mind of the public, it was impossible to squelch it. From here, it was only going to get worse. The other players would recognize Ulrich was vulnerable, that he’d been positioned to serve as the personification of the entire thing, the poster child for the program, and they’d realize then that it was in their interest to pile on. There would be more finger-pointing, more anonymous leaks. It would be a perfect storm: the public wanting a villain; the mainstream media wanting a fall guy to protect the powerful; the potentially culpable firmament doing everything in its collective power to deliver the villain the public was clamoring for. It would be a kind of mass cleansing, cathartic for everyone involved, a ritual stoning of a symbolic individual to bury the broader sin.

And what could he argue in response? That he was only following orders? Laughable in its own right, and worse considering how motivated people would be to not hear it. Everyone but the lunatic left understood that presidents and vice presidents, sitting or former, were above the law, that the notion of trying them was simply absurd. Lieutenants, though, aides-de-camp, were a more vulnerable class. Sure, he’d have some colorable legal arguments, but those would be useless in a trial by media. He hated to admit it, but he’d really underestimated the spooks. In the end, they’d outmaneuvered him.

Or maybe not. He still had one thing that could turn this around. His final insurance policy. His suicide bomb. All he had to do was-

The secure line buzzed. He snatched up the receiver. “Ulrich.”

“Clements. Okay to talk?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“There’s a lot going on. Okay to talk?”

“Yes, for Christ’s sake, go.”

“We know who the blackmailer is. A former JSOC ISA operator, Daniel Larison.”

Ulrich had gotten that much from his contact an hour earlier. But he didn’t see any advantage in acknowledging that to this self-important moron who wouldn’t even return his calls.

“JSOC?” he said, pretending he was grappling with new information on the fly. “Horton must have known. That’s how he got ahead of us. But wait a minute. Larison? Wasn’t he one of the people who had access, but we ruled him out because-”

“Because we thought he died in Pakistan. That’s what he wanted us to think, to divert our attention elsewhere while the trail to him went cold.”

“He’s alive?”

“Very much so. Also very gay, and with a civilian lover in San Jose, Costa Rica.”

“A lover… this must be why that guy Treven was on his way to San Jose.”

“He’s the one who developed the intel.”

The pretense part was done. Now he had real questions to ask. “How the hell did JSOC get involved in this? Horton sent Treven? How did he explain his man’s presence to the national security adviser?”

Clements sighed. “He was filing UNODIR reports along the way. The national security adviser never even saw them, just like Horton knew he wouldn’t. They were complete CYA. And what’s he going to do now, reprimand Horton after the results this guy Treven got?”

UNODIR meant “unless otherwise directed.” You filed a report at the last possible minute, knowing that, by the time it was seen, whatever you were up to would be a fait accompli. Essentially, a ballsy way for gaining retroactive permission. Or, if whatever you were up to failed, for getting court-martialed. Horton had played it well.

“I told you,” Ulrich said, “we don’t want JSOC getting those tapes.”

“Understood.”

“Well, what’s the plan?”

“Don’t know yet. We’ve got an interagency meeting in three hours. I’m going to recommend we threaten the lover’s family, use them as leverage. With luck, that’ll bring Larison out in the open.”

Leverage. Yeah, that made sense. Sometimes it was all people understood.

“You there?” Clements said.

“Yeah, I’m here. Now listen. I know what you’re up to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think I’m your Plan B, I’m going to be your fall guy if something goes wrong, if those tapes get out. And you’ve been taking steps to make it happen. But there’s something I want you to hear. Listen carefully.”

He clicked the play button on his recorder and gave Clements a few key moments from that long-ago Arlington National Cemetery meeting. When he felt Clements had heard enough, he hit stop.

“Now you understand,” he said, his voice supremely calm. “If the tapes come out, we all go down. Not just me. All of us.”

There was a long pause. Clements said, “You’re crazy.”

“And that’s only one of many. So back off.”

“Back off… I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Listen to yourself. Look at what you’re doing. You’ve created… tapes about the tapes? This problem wasn’t convoluted enough?”

“Another thing. There are copies. If something happens to me, someone I trust has instructions to release those copies.”

“Someone… someone else knows about all this? You’ve lost your mind.”

“Don’t push me, Clements. I will burn you. I will fucking burn you.”

Silence on the line. It felt good. It felt… subservient.

“So just do your job and recover those tapes. And you better keep me in the loop while you’re at it.”

He clicked off, feeling good, feeling in control again. Leverage. In the end, it was all you really needed. That, and the balls to put it to use.

20. An Interesting Day in San Jose

Ben was only half asleep when he heard his phone buzz. He picked it up in the dark by feel and saw that it was Hort. “Yeah,” he said, keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing Paula. Though he was pretty sure she’d be awake and listening regardless.

“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Hort said.

Ben glanced at the screen. It was just past six in the morning local time. “That’s okay. It wasn’t that beautiful.”

“Well, we’ve got an interesting situation here.”

“Interesting good, or interesting bad?”

“Bad. I’m being overruled by a bunch of goddamn amoebas.”

It was unusual in the extreme for Hort to comment on how decisions were made or how he received his orders. All of that had always been a black box to Ben, and now Hort was opening it, at least a crack, and letting him see inside it. It was both enticing and discomfiting.

And then he thought of Marcy and her son, and felt suddenly sick.

“What does that mean?”

“It means, first, we got everything on this Nico you uncovered. Nico Velez. He’s an architect. Lives, works, and was born in San Jose. His parents still live in the city, and so do his two sisters and his three nieces and nephews. He’s openly gay and he’s a complete civilian.”

Paula’s phone buzzed. She picked up instantly, confirming for Ben that she had indeed been awake and listening. “Lanier,” she said, simultaneously swinging her legs off the bed and heading toward the bathroom. In the semidarkness, Ben caught a glimpse of white panties and a matching camisole. She clicked on the bathroom light and closed the door behind her.

“Hey, the FBI woman just got a call, too,” Ben said. “Are they in on this now?”

“A lot of different players have been offering their input, yeah. Makes sense she’d be getting a call about now.”

“Anyway, so we know who Nico is.”

“That’s right. And it gets better. We isolated the alias Larison traveled under when he flew to San Jose on April 17, 2007. He’s used it six times since then. So we can put him in San Jose at least eight times.”

“But probably more than that, because he’d be traveling under other aliases, too.”

“Exactly. So whatever’s going on between Larison and Nico, it’s long-term, and it’s serious. This is not some casual hookup we’re talking about.”

“Does this mean no one’s talking about Marcy Wheeler and her son anymore?”

“It means that, yeah.”

Well, that was good. “So what’s the problem?”

“The same problem it always is, again and again and again. Stupidity and arrogance.”

“I’m not following you.”

Hort sighed. “I know. I’m not making myself clear. It’s been a long, frustrating night.”

“You’ve been up all night?”

“Yeah, arguing with the Neanderthals.”

Again, Ben was intrigued by Hort’s openness. He didn’t even know who the Neanderthals were. JSOC? NSC? Justice?

“Well, what’s the plan?”

There was a pause. “The plan is for you to stand down.”

“Stand down? But we’re so close.”

“You know it and I know it. But the powers that be think they know better.”

“What are they going to do?”

“They’re flying in a Ground Branch team right now.”

“Ground Branch? Why?”

“They want Larison to think they’re going to snatch Nico.”

“To bring Larison into the open?”

“That’s the idea. Snatch Larison, get him to spill his guts, recover the tapes, and call it a day.”

“That’s not going to work.”

“That’s right it’s not going to work. You tell me why.”

Ben thought for a moment, imagining Larison, putting himself in the man’s position, assessing the same threats, gaming out the same countermeasures. “Because… Larison would have planned for this. He said he’s got the tapes on some kind of electronic dead-man trigger. He’s not going to give that up, even under duress, because he knows that wouldn’t stop the duress.”

“I agree. They’re going to torture him to prove a negative-that there are no more copies of the tapes. No matter what he gives up, they can’t know he’s given up everything, so they get their doctors to keep him alive, and the torture never ends, ever. Larison knows what he’s in for if he’s caught. So what does he do?”

“He sets the dead man to a short fuse.”

“That’s right. He knows the only thing that could deliver him from his agony is having the tapes published. So by snatching him-”

“They might as well just publish the tapes themselves.”

“Good. Now, tell me this. How would you handle the situation if you were in charge?”

Ben had worked with Hort long enough to know when Hort was grooming him for some new skill set. But this was different. These were management-style questions, not tactical. Again, he was both confused and intrigued.

“I’d… leave Nico and his family alone. And when Larison called in, I’d tell him everything we’d found out. I’d tell him the bad news is, we know who he is, we know about Nico, we know everything. And if those tapes ever get released, we take it out on Nico and his family.”

“Good again. And what would be the good news?”

Ben thought. “I’d give him a bonus, I guess. Not a hundred million, that’s crazy, and maybe Larison would try to use it to resettle the family and eliminate our leverage. But something. A million, five million, something to show goodwill and no hard feelings. You know, enjoy the money, enjoy your life and your good health, and as long as those tapes never get revealed, it’s all live and let live. It’s not foolproof, but I think it’s the best we could do under the circumstances.”

There was a pause. Hort said, “Remember how I told you in, say, ten years, you could be as good as Larison?”

“Yeah.”

“I was wrong. I think you’re going to be better, and it’s not going to take that long. You’re already smarter, more in control of yourself, than the people who are jerking our chains.”

Ben was as intrigued by the reference to “our” chains as he was by Hort’s hints regarding the people who were jerking them. And as much as he wanted to believe Hort’s praise was deserved, he wondered whether there was something behind it, something he couldn’t yet see.

“I told them,” Hort said. “I told them we could not control this thing one hundred percent. That we need to work the odds. As long as there’s even a five percent chance the tapes could be released, we can’t move against Larison. And as long as there’s even a five percent chance of retribution against Nico and his family, Larison can’t release the tapes. Both sides indulge in a little strategic ambiguity while in fact standing down. That’s the best way for us to get what we say we really want, which is for those tapes not to be released.”

“What do you mean, ‘what we say we really want’?”

“Look, if they really just wanted the tapes, I already told them their best course of action. The problem is, they don’t just want the tapes. They also want Larison. They’re scared and they’re angry, and even though they don’t know it and won’t admit it, part of what’s driving them is the urge to subdue the author of their pain and strap him to a table and exercise dominion over his body, mind, and soul. They need to feel like they’re in control again, and just having the tapes out there with the lowest probability of release isn’t going to help with that.”

“But torturing Larison will.”

Hort sighed. “I want you to remember something, son. Remember it and never forget.”

“Okay.”

“There are going to be times when you will be tempted to use what the New York Times in their chickenshit way calls ‘harsh interrogation techniques.’ You can call it whatever you want, you and I know what it means, and so does everybody else.”

“Okay.”

“A good ops man understands his real objectives, knows the right objectives, and chooses his means accordingly. So when you feel that temptation, you never forget that when you resort to those tactics, your motives are at least as much about the means as they are about the ends.”

“I don’t follow.”

“People always say they’re torturing to get the information. But there are a lot of ways better than torture to get information. So you don’t torture just because you want the information. You torture because you want to torture. I didn’t know this when I was your age. I know better now, and I don’t want you to make the mistakes I’ve made. Not just for tactical reasons, either. I don’t want your soul to have to bear it. I’ve seen what that does to a man. And I don’t want you to make the same mistakes these assholes keep making, again and again and again, and never learning from them. So promise me.”

Damn, he’d never heard Hort so agitated. He felt like he was starting to get a better sense of those unseen forces at work, that Hort was opening a window and letting him see inside. “I promise,” he said.

“Good. Now, Larison’s supposed to call in to the DCI thirty minutes from now. He’s expecting to get a status update about the diamonds. Instead, someone is going to tell him the diamonds aren’t coming and that if he doesn’t immediately hand over the tapes, Nico’s family is going to start getting smaller.”

“What good would it do if he turned something over anyway? He could have made a hundred copies.”

“That’s not the point. They’re just trying to bait him into going to San Jose.”

“You think it’ll work?”

There was a pause. “I think he’ll come. But if he does, he’ll be ready. And these Ground Branch guys, going up against a cornered, desperate man like Larison… they’re not going to get him. They’re going to get killed.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to observe. Whatever happens, it’s going to be hairy. Maybe you’ll be able to see something or learn something that’ll keep us in the game after this play is over. But you need to stay to the sidelines. These guys don’t know you, and they could be trigger-happy.”

“What about Lanier?”

“Your FBI friend?”

“I wouldn’t call her my friend.”

“Can you lose her?”

“I don’t know. She’s pretty tenacious.”

“Well, you’ll have to lose her or manage her, one or the other. You don’t want her in your way.”

Ben wasn’t sure which would be easier. “Okay,” he said.

“Larison should be calling in shortly. I’ll let you know how it goes. If this plan of theirs works out, I’d say you can expect him to arrive in Costa Rica in anywhere from the next six to twenty-four hours. It’s going to be an interesting day in San Jose.”

21. Caught in the Crossfire

Ulrich was just heading into Trinity Methodist with his wife when he saw Clements standing by the entrance. Christ, were they watching him now? And was this their way of letting him know they were watching?

No, he was probably just being paranoid. And even if they were watching, so what? Did they really think they could intimidate him? He had the recordings, and God help them if they pushed him.

“You go ahead,” he said to his wife. “I just need to make a quick call.”

She smiled understandingly and went inside. She knew he viewed church attendance mostly as a matter of keeping up appearances, both in the community and, just in case, with the Almighty. More often than not, the pre-church calls he made lasted longer than just a minute.

He raised his mobile to his ear and walked back out to the sidewalk, nodding at a few incoming parishioners along the way. By the time he reached the parking lot, he heard Clements just behind him. He dropped the mobile back into his pocket.

Clements fell in alongside him. “I tried you at the office, but-”

“What, are you watching me now?”

“Please. It’s pretty easy to know where someone goes to church.”

Clements’s denial did nothing to ease his suspicions. But it didn’t matter. The audiotapes were all the protection he needed. “What is it?”

Clements glanced down at Ulrich’s hands. “You taping this conversation?”

“I’ve got more than enough already. We’re already at mutual assured destruction, Clements. I don’t need more warheads.”

Ulrich waited, giving Clements time to absorb the truth of Ulrich’s words. After a moment, Clements said in a low voice, “The national security adviser just ordered JSOC to stand down. Larison called in this morning, we told him we know who he is, we know everything, that if he doesn’t cough up the tapes, his lover and his lover’s family are fucked, one at a time. We think he’s on his way to Costa Rica right now.”

Ulrich looked at him. “Your guys are there?”

“On their way. The national security adviser made clear this is CIA’s op. Horton didn’t like it, but he doesn’t have the resources right now anyway.”

“And you do? For a snatch?”

There was a pause. “Yes and no. No, Ground Branch doesn’t have a snatch team in theater. But we were able to scramble a private team. Blackwater.”

“Blackwater? We don’t want contractors getting hold of those tapes. Are you crazy?”

“What were our alternatives? You want JSOC running the op?”

Shit. Clements had a point. “You trust those guys?”

“More than I trust Horton.”

Another good point. “What about Horton’s guy? The one in the photo. Treven.”

“Like I said, he’s been ordered to stand down.”

“You really think Horton is just going to tell his man to walk away?”

Clements stroked his chin. “I see what you’re saying. Well, I have two Ground Branch guys there now per what we discussed previously. They’re not equipped for a snatch, and two is too few anyway, but you’re right, it wouldn’t hurt to have them keep looking for Treven.”

“Good. And even more important, make sure the contractors have the photo. If Treven shows up at the snatch point, they should assume he’s there to interfere. And you know, it’s not like they’d be expecting him, so it would be understandable if he accidentally got caught in the crossfire.”

“You’re right. I’ll make sure the Blackwater operators know who to look for.”

“And the Ground Branch guys. And what to do if they see him.”

Clements nodded and turned to walk away. “They’ll know.”

22. Big and Bad

Paula came out of the bathroom, obviously done with her call. Ben said, “How’s the Bureau today?”

She looked at him. “They say my role here is done.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m supposed to return to Washington.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

“You know it’s a bad thing. It means that’s it for the law. The assassins are going to take over now.”

Ben sighed. She was so earnest with the law-and-order shit.

“Look,” he said, “for what it’s worth, I’ve been ordered to stand down, too.”

“You have not.”

“Yeah, I have.”

“What about Larison?”

“He’s someone else’s problem now.”

“You can just care, and then not care, like flipping a light switch?”

“You’re assuming I cared to begin with.”

“You know, I’ll bet a lot of people believe you when you tell them something like that. I’ll bet there are times when you even believe yourself.”

“Look, it’s too early in the morning for you to psychoanalyze me, okay? Why don’t you just fly back to Washington, and next time I’m in town, we can have a drink.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t drink?”

“I don’t think I’m just flying back to Washington with my wings clipped. And I don’t think you are, either.”

Ben didn’t answer. It felt like it was her move.

“You’re not, are you?”

He sighed. “I’m supposed to observe.”

“You’re not a very good liar.”

“Actually, I’m an accomplished liar. It just that this time, I’m not lying.”

“Tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know, exactly. All I know is my team is out, and some other team has been brought in. My coach doesn’t think the new team understands the game and is going to lose. Badly. He wants me to be on hand.”

“In case they need a pinch hitter?”

“Just to observe.”

“Well, that sounds good to me.”

“Look-”

“Don’t even start. I’m not going to just walk away. So we can do this separately and trip each other up, or we can keep coordinating.”

“I don’t know that our coordination has been all that coordinated.”

“We’ve gotten this far.”

Ben knew he could lose her easily enough. But he didn’t know what her people knew. If they’d briefed her on Nico’s particulars, losing her wouldn’t help. She’d just be waiting wherever he arrived.

“Let’s get some breakfast,” he said. “I don’t know when we’ll get another chance. It feels like something big and bad is on the way, and I want to be in position when it arrives.”

23. One Way or the Other

Larison waited in front of the gate at JFK for his flight to San Salvador, his eyes moving from the announcements board to the faces of the people swirling through the area and then back again. He wanted desperately to fly directly to San Jose International, but if they had the resources to watch airports, that would be the one they’d key on. From San Salvador he could catch a nonstop to one of the smaller towns-Limón or Tamarindo or Quepos-and then finish the journey by train or bus. Or better yet, by motorcycle.

He was still shaky. He’d called from a Jersey City motel room, expecting the conversation to be brief and one-sided, expecting them to be meek, even if it was just playacting while they tried to buy themselves time. He was going to be in complete control. So he’d never really recovered from the first words they said to him:

Hello, Daniel Larison.

He’d made it through the call. He listened wordlessly as they explained how they would send contractors to rape Nico’s nieces and nephews and mutilate his parents and sisters and brothers-in-law; and then, when the happiness, the coherence, the sanity of Nico’s family had been torn and broken and shattered, they would explain to Nico why it had all happened. Because of the man Nico was seeing, who wasn’t who he said he was. Who did a stupid thing to antagonize powerful people, who kept on doing it even after he’d been warned of the consequences to Nico and his family.

When they stopped talking, Larison had paused for a moment to demonstrate his composure. When he spoke, his voice was calm, emotionless, the same voice he would have used had he not heard a single word they’d just uttered. He said, I’ll call again on Friday with instructions on how to deliver the diamonds. If you don’t deliver, I will release the tapes. And anything that happens to Nico or his family will seem mild after what I will do to you and yours.

Then he had hung up. For a long moment he stood still, his eyes unfocused, his heart hammering. Then his legs buckled and he collapsed and curled up on the floor on his side and sobbed uncontrollably for almost ten minutes. He knew he had to move-triangulating on a cloned satellite call was almost impossible, but it was almost impossible that they’d identified him so quickly, too. But he couldn’t move. Shame and horror and self-pity and fear and grief had simply overwhelmed him.

Finally, it subsided. He picked himself up, staggered to the sink, and splashed cold water on his face. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, his eyes red, his cheeks dripping and unshaven, his teeth bared, his nostrils flaring with his agitated breathing. He looked like a nightmare.

Then be a nightmare.

Yes, that was it. Make them pay. Make them pay for everything.

But first, he had to move. That lesson had been drilled into him from the start: No matter what you were hit with, no matter the pain or shock or confusion, never stop moving. Never give them a stationary target.

A corollary lesson was that when you’re ambushed, your best chance of prevailing almost always involved a simple strategy:

Attack back.

They’d be expecting that, of course. In fact, as the shock of the call wore off, to be replaced by a seething determination, he began to understand they were baiting him, hoping he would be provoked.

What he would do, therefore, wouldn’t be a surprise. How he would do it would be everything.

He checked his watch. He tried not to imagine what it would be like to be impossibly rich. He could have chartered a jet, he could have been on the ground in San Jose in three hours. Instead, he was glued to this seat in an airport, waiting for the interminable minutes to pass.

The worst part was that he couldn’t figure out what the vulnerability had been. It was distracting him, his mind wouldn’t let it go, he kept going over every aspect of his preparations and his movements and he couldn’t identify a single thing he’d done wrong. The only thing he could remotely come up with was those two brothers, the ones who’d been tailing him and who he’d assumed had just been petty criminals. Maybe they’d been more than that… but even if so, who were they, and how had they been tailing him in the first place? He’d been so careful not to create patterns, but somewhere, he must have done something, he just couldn’t understand what. Maybe the NSA had capabilities beyond even what he’d known of? Maybe he’d made some small mistake, and their supercomputers had unraveled everything from that?

He checked his watch again. He’d always prided himself on the supernatural calm he could summon before combat, but it wasn’t working for him now. He’d imagined a dozen ways this might have ended badly. All of them were unpleasant, but he’d been prepared, he could have faced it. What he’d never imagined was that they’d get to him through Nico.

He scrubbed a hand across his face. He was so exhausted. The announcements and the beeping from the goddamned golf carts… it was all so loud and cacophonous, his head was beginning to pound from it. The dreams were killing him, too; he’d had no idea how bad it was going to be without the pills. It wasn’t getting better, either-in fact, every night was worse than the one before. What had he been thinking, what monumental hubris had caused him to believe he could take on the entire fucking government and walk away from it clean? It was never going to work, he could see that now. Was it some kind of dramatic stand he was taking, Ahab slashing at the back of the whale even as it carried him down to drown in the dark and the deep? What the hell had he been trying to do?

If he was going to die anyway, he should release the tapes right now. All he had to do was log on to one of the sites he’d created, enter a password and then a command, and it would be done. Or fail to log in for a preset interval, that would do it, too. Would they really hurt Nico after that?

He decided they might. He couldn’t take that chance. And besides, maybe, maybe, maybe he could turn this around. Regain the momentum. Show them who they were fucking with.

The main thing was that the tapes would be released, one way or the other. He focused on that, thinking, one way or the other, one way or the other, until he started to feel a little calmer. One way or the other. That was pretty much the only thing still keeping him going in the face of the suffocating knowledge that he’d screwed up and probably doomed Nico and rendered all his own most ardent hopes into pathetic, childish fantasies. Knowing that the tapes would get out, one way or the other.

That, and imagining what he was going to do to the people who would be waiting for him in San Jose.

24. He’ll Come from Here

Ben and Paula fueled up with an enormous buffet breakfast in the InterContinental’s restaurant-omelettes, exotic fruits, and several cups of Costa Rica ’s justifiably famous coffee. Ben had a feeling the rest of the day would be nothing but granola bars, and wanted to make sure they had plenty to run on, through the night if necessary.

When they were done, they headed over to Nico’s residence. Ben had briefed Paula on their cover for action-the story they would tell if anyone questioned their presence. They were Americans thinking about becoming part of the large Costa Rican expat community and were examining possible neighborhoods. They’d only break out the FBI credentials if it became necessary. Better to try something less remarkable first.

Both the residence and office were in Los Yoses, about a kilometer from Spoon, each within walking distance of the other. It all fit: the regular appearances at Spoon, and Juan Cole’s “luck” in finding Larison there; Larison getting off the bus early in Barrio Dent to draw his pursuers away from the real locus of his interest in San Jose.

They started with a drive-by of the residence, a condominium on a narrow two-lane street just south of the main thoroughfare. The condo, gated, fronted with palm trees, and obviously deluxe, was eight stories tall and looked new. Everything else on the street was low-slung and slightly ramshackle. Directly across the street from the condo was an enormous construction site-from the size of it, the future home of another fancy collection of condos.

The street was on a short block open at both ends and with no turnoffs in the middle-the horizontal bar in an H. Ideally, that meant two sentries at each of the two possible access points-each end of the horizontal. The sentries’ job would be to warn the primary snatch team of the target’s approach. The reason for two was security in case of opposition. One sentry you could do. Finishing off two before either got a warning off was far more difficult, so the preference was always to use two on whatever point of access the target might use. The primary team would have line of sight to the building entrance or other X where they intended to actually do the snatch. If the snatch was clean, the sentries would move out fore and aft as the primary team left the scene with the target secured. If the primary team encountered opposition, the sentries could close with flanking fire.

Larison would know all this, just as Ben did. So the question was, what would I do if I were him? And the best way to answer that, Ben knew, was to look at the street as Larison knew it-as someone who had repeatedly walked it.

They parked on the main thoroughfare about a kilometer away and got out, baseball caps pulled low over sunglasses against the inevitable security camera tapes police would be examining if there were violence in the area. The sky was uniformly gray, the air heavy with humidity and the weight of impending rain. Despite Los Yoses’s urban density, they were surrounded by the cries of birds and the buzz of tropical insects. By the time they reached the condo, they were both sweating.

Ben looked up and down the street. You wouldn’t want to approach from either end. You might be able to drop both sentries, but probably not before they got off a warning to their counterparts opposite and to the primary team. No, the way to achieve maximum surprise here was to initially bypass the sentries. Start from the inside and work your way out.

He crossed to the opposite side of the street and stood in front of the construction site, his back to the front of Nico’s building. Paula came up alongside him.

“What do you think?” she said.

He looked around the site. It sloped steeply from where they stood all the way down to the opposite block. So far, the only completed work was a foundation and a couple of skeletal concrete floors. But that, along with the foliage around it, would provide a lot of concealment. The downside was the uphill approach, the possibility of being pinned down from above by anyone who spotted you. But in Ben’s mind, the concealment was the key. That, and the lack of any better alternatives.

“I think he’ll come from here,” Ben said. “That’s what I’d do.”

“So where do we wait?”

“I want to see the office before I decide that. But if we set up here, I’m thinking we’ll park on Nico’s street. Not at the end, where Larison would be looking for sentries; not in front of the building, where he’d be looking for the primary team. In between, in an operational dead zone, with line of sight to where the primary team would set up and maybe to the sentries, too. And to where we expect Larison to emerge.”

They walked over to the office. It was a small gray building on a cul-de-sac, a sign in gold lettering on the front advertising Gomez and Golindo, Architects. Apparently Nico Velez wasn’t a name partner. That they used English rather than Spanish on the shingle suggested a foreign clientele-or perhaps that English had some cachet in Costa Rican architectural circles. Neither of these details was likely to be operationally useful, but Ben logged them regardless, just in case.

The one-way street simplified things somewhat for a snatch team, requiring only two sentries instead of four. But still…

They walked to the end of the cul-de-sac. Amid the collection of modest apartments and single-family houses, some converted to professional use, there was a patch of thick grass and trees that led to a highway access ramp. Would Larison approach from there? It was either that or the street. Like everything else Ben had seen in San Jose, the buildings were all mini-fortresses, the windows and driveways gated and barred against crime, razor wire strung along potential access points. And many of the properties had yapping dogs patrolling within. No, Larison’s only two realistic options here were stealth through the trees or an open approach from the street.

“I think he’s going to start with the condo,” Ben said.

“Why?”

“He wouldn’t like the alternatives here. They’re more obvious, and there are fewer of them. Plus he’d know the terrain better around the condo. Presumably that’s where he stays when he’s visiting Nico. Maybe he’s seen the office, but I doubt he’s spent much time here.”

“Makes sense.”

Ben looked at his watch. It was past noon. Unlikely Larison could make it here so soon after this morning’s call-unless he were here already, which Ben seriously doubted. Running an op from the city of his secret lover would offer nothing but downside. Besides, Hort had said the emails and sat calls were coming from North America. No, Larison wasn’t here. But he could be arriving soon. And likewise the snatch teams.

“Time to get in position,” he said. “We might have a long wait.”

25. Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are

Larison flew into Limón airport, on the Carribean coast, and at a shop nearby rented a motorcycle-a Kawasaki KX250F dirt bike. A little smaller than he would have liked for the drive to Los Yoses, but perfect for dodging traffic and jumping curbs and avoiding potholes once he was inside the city. It was an older version of the same bike Nico kept at his condo, which Larison used to get around the city while he was in town and Nico was at work. Obviously, he couldn’t access Nico’s bike now, but this one would more than do. Especially with the flip-up helmet, which nicely concealed his face.

The ride in took less than three hours. In a park at San Pedro, just east of Los Yoses, he stopped, his shirt soaked with sweat, his skin covered with a fine coating of road grit. He removed his helmet and wiped his face with a sleeve. It was getting near dusk and he had to hurry now. He knew the terrain but the opposition would have better tools, including night vision gear, and he didn’t want to cede a single unnecessary advantage.

There was an outhouse in the park that was serviced less frequently than good hygiene might be thought to require. So it was very unlikely anyone would have been inclined to squeeze underneath the structure, the back of which was raised on wooden stilts about a foot off the dirt, and grope in the dark miasma along the beams supporting the floor. As Larison did now. It took him only a moment to retrieve his stash and squirm back out-a moment short enough, in fact, to enable him to hold his breath during the entire excursion, which was the best way to get in and out of the passage in question without vomiting en route. In Larison’s experience, a good hide always provided disincentives for casual exploration, outhouses therefore often providing prime possibilities.

Outside, he looked around to confirm he was unobserved, then unwrapped the package he had retrieved. Inside was an HK USP Compact Tactical, known in the community as the CT, for counterterrorism, plus spare magazines and VBR-B.45 armor-piercing ammunition. The gun was small, powerful, accurate, and durable as hell. Perfect for storing under outhouses like this one and of course in backup locations, as well, and perfect, too, for causing extreme mayhem after retrieving it.

He loaded up three magazines from the package, popped one into the gun, racked the slide, and placed everything into the fanny pack he was wearing under his shirt, the contents riding just below his belly. He left the top open. He took the other items from the package-currency, false identification, an Emerson Super Commander folding knife-and pocketed all of it. Good to go. Just one more thing.

There was a variety of synthetic opioids used for snatches. The most popular was called sufentanil, and it was about ten times more potent than its analogue, fentanyl, which the Russians had aerosolized and used in the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis. Typically, the drug would be delivered via an air-rifle-fired dart, with a medical team standing by to immediately administer first aid, including breathing assistance and opioid antagonists, as soon as the target dropped. Teams tended to err on the side of too large a dose for fast action, which meant swift application of the antidote was critical.

But the medics wouldn’t have to worry about Larison. Since he’d set this thing in motion, he’d been orally self-administering naltrexone, another opioid antagonist, used for detoxifying heroin addicts. The only side effect was anxiety and some enhanced receptivity to pain, because opioid antagonists blocked the action of endorphins, the brain’s natural opiates. A small price to pay, under the circumstances.

The naltrexone would probably have been sufficient, but if they hit him with a big enough dose of tranquilizer, maybe not. Better not to take a chance. He opened his backpack, unwrapped a syringe from the medical kit inside it, measured off a dose of naloxone-a related antagonist, used for heroin overdoses and, not coincidentally, post-tranquilizer snatch-victim revivals-and injected it intramuscularly into his thigh, grimacing from the naltrexone-enhanced pain. He tossed away the syringe, blew out a long breath, and pulled his helmet back onto his sweat-slicked head.

He’d already gamed the whole thing out, but he went through the plan again one more time anyway. If they had the manpower, they’d cover both Nico’s condominium and his office. The condo was on a residential through street. Lots of parking on both sides of the street, plenty of places to set up. But they wouldn’t know which direction Larison would be moving in from, so they’d need a spotter at each end of the street or, ideally, two spotters on each end to reduce the chances of a sentry getting taken out and exposing the primary team to a surprise attack. The primary team would be three men: one with flex-cuffs, one with a hood, one with a gun. So that was seven possibles at the condo.

The office was on a cul-de-sac, so they’d only have to cover one end of the street. That meant a probable maximum of five men.

If they had the manpower, they’d field full teams at both locations. If they could only cover one… it was impossible to know for sure, but he guessed the condo. They’d see the construction site on the lot across the street and figure he would use it for an unexpected approach. And in fact, he was tempted to do so. He was reasonably confident that with his superior skills, and knowing the terrain as he did, he would spot the opposition before it spotted him. But he had a better idea. Something a little less predictable, and therefore substantially more lethal.

He was mildly concerned that in the midst of the coming mayhem he could actually run into Nico. But he recognized this was mostly just superstition. He’d have his helmet on for most of the op. The chances of Nico being right there on the street for any of it were slim.

He rode the Kawasaki over to Nico’s street, the late afternoon air blowing inside his shirt and cooling his wet skin, the buzz of the bike’s engine loud in his ears. His heart was beating hard, but his mind was calm, clear, and purposeful. It was the way he always felt in the instant before an op went critical, like a well-oiled killing machine inside had taken the wheel and he was just along for the ride.

He turned onto the street and immediately spotted a white van at the entrance-the sentries. His heart kicked harder. They were here. It was on.

He rode up the street, the 250 cc engine buzzing, knowing the sentries would have already alerted the primary team. They couldn’t have recognized him through the helmet, but a heads-up would be SOP. The primary team would move in for a closer look. Larison would give them one.

He parked the bike between two cars and killed the engine. He swung his leg over the side and engaged the kickstand. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Then he removed the helmet, set it on the seat, and started walking toward the entrance of the condo. His face twisted into a smile and he thought, Come out, come out, wherever you are, motherfuckers.

26. The Element of Surprise

Ben and Paula watched the motorcyclist pull up and park not ten yards from the entrance to Nico’s condominium. They were in the van on the other side of the street, about twenty-five yards away, on the crest of a slight slope in the street. Any farther and they would have lost line of sight to the entrance.

“That’s him,” Ben said, watching the guy kill the engine.

“You’re sure?” Paula said.

Ben nodded. He couldn’t have explained how he knew, but he knew. Larison had decided not to come up through the construction site. Smart. He must have realized the route would be too foreseeable, and Ben mentally kicked himself for earlier assuming Larison would do the predictable unpredictable thing. But others, it seemed, had made the same mistake Ben made, and were now committed to it. Three hours earlier, Ben and Paula had watched through the one-way glass at the back of the van as various hard-looking foreigners cased the street by ones and twos. None of them had set up in front of the condo entrance, which suggested to Ben they’d decided Larison was going to approach through the construction site and were waiting for him there. Larison, it seemed, was one step ahead of them.

But why the street? The sentries would have made him instantly, and even if they weren’t sure it was Larison they were seeing through the visor of the helmet, they would have alerted the primary team to be safe. Larison had lost the element of surprise.

So what surprise was he planning?

The motorcyclist got off the bike and removed the helmet as though he had all the time in the world. He set it down on the bike’s seat, ran his fingers through his wet hair, and dried his hands on his jeans.

“Oh, my God,” Paula said. “You were right.”

Ben moved from one side of the van to the other, looking through the one-way glass. He didn’t see anyone approaching yet, but they would be. Any second.

“What the hell’s he doing?” he said.

27. Head Shots

Larison stood a few yards down from the entrance to Nico’s condo, facing the building. His eyes were open but he wasn’t focusing on their input. All his concentration was focused through his ears. He tuned out the birds and the insects, the sounds of distant traffic. It was stealth he was listening for. And he would hear it soon enough.

He turned and walked slowly toward the entrance. He knew he wouldn’t reach it.

He didn’t. He heard the soft pop of a CO₂ cartridge from somewhere behind him. At the same instant there was a slap/sting sensation on the right side of his neck. His hand flew to the spot, found the dart, and ripped it away despite the barbed tip. It was already too late, of course; the dart had a small explosive charge that had instantly pumped the tranquilizer into him upon impact. Ripping it out was useless. But it’s what Larison had seen countless rendition targets do before, and it was important that he mimic them precisely now.

He wobbled, then dropped to one knee, leaning forward, the way tranquilized targets always did, his right hand already inside the fanny pack. He closed his eyes and listened.

Three sets of footsteps, approaching fast: two from the flanks, one directly behind. The ones to the flanks would have flex-cuffs and a hood. The one in the middle would have a gun out to provide cover.

The sounds of the footsteps changed as they went from gravel to sidewalk, then to the street. Twenty-five feet. Twenty. Fifteen.

In a single motion, he stood, spun, and brought up the HK in a two-handed grip. The guy in the middle had just enough time to widen his eyes before Larison blew the top of his head off. He tracked left-bam! Tracked right-bam! Three down, all head shots.

He heard a car coming fast from his right. He moved between two parked cars and confirmed it was the white van he’d seen parked at the end of the street when he came in. He waited until it was forty feet away, then stepped out into the road, brought up the HK, and put a round through the windshield into the driver’s face. The van swerved wildly and slammed into a parked car ten feet from Larison’s position on the other side of the street. Larison crossed over, moved past the van, and approached it from behind on the passenger side, the HK up at chin level. A dazed-looking operator covered in his partner’s blood and brain matter was struggling with the door, which must have been jammed. He saw Larison and tried to bring up a gun, but the angle was all wrong and the timing useless. Larison shot him in the head.

He walked quickly across the street, mounted the Kawasaki, fired it up, pulled on the helmet, and raced down the street toward where he knew the other sentries would be. Even if the first set hadn’t contacted them already, they would have heard the gunshots, would have known something had gone badly wrong. They’d be trying to raise their comrades on cellphones right now. He noted another van, a green one, on his right as he rode, but it was in the wrong position to have been of any use operationally and he judged it just a civilian coincidence.

There it was, at the end of the street, another white van, parked on the right, facing away from him. He scanned the other parked cars and potential hot spots to ensure he wasn’t missing anything. He wasn’t. The van was the target.

He gunned the engine so they would hear him coming, then swerved between two parked cars, jumped the curb, and raced up the sidewalk to the passenger side of the van. He saw the passenger’s reflection in the sideview. The man had heard the whine of the Kawasaki’s engine and naturally assumed Larison was coming up the street, not the sidewalk. So, sadly for him, he was now facing the wrong way.

Larison pulled up to the window. The guy’s ears must have had just enough time to send an urgent corrective message to his brain-threat on right, not on left-because his head started to turn in the instant before Larison put an armor-piercing round into the back of it.

The driver was amazingly quick. In the moment during which Larison was focused on his partner, he managed to open the door and jump out onto the street. Larison stepped back, judged the angle, and fired twice through the van. He heard a cry from the other side and circled carefully around the front. The guy was splayed out on his back in a growing pool of blood, a gun on the ground beside him, his legs kicking feebly as though to propel him from the scene of his own destruction. Larison checked his flanks-clear-stepped out from behind the cover of the van’s engine block, and approached him, the HK up.

“Please,” the guy whispered. “Please.”

Larison smiled and shot him in the face.

He went back to the bike, reloaded, and roared off.

Seven down, he thought. Five to go.

He wished there were more.

28. Shaken Up

The whole thing happened so fast that Ben didn’t have time to figure out what to do. In the space of a half minute, he watched Larison appear, drop five men, and disappear again. Ben could have gotten out of the van after the first three and engaged Larison from behind, but his orders were strictly to observe, and besides, the point, if anything, was to snatch Larison, not to kill him. Still, it was appalling to have to be a spectator to so much killing, to be helpless to do anything about it.

Paula was stunned by the mayhem. She watched it all with one hand over her mouth, the other around the butt of the Glock in her lap, muttering, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.”

When Larison mounted up and roared off toward the other end of the street, Ben knew the two men waiting there were already dead. A moment later, the same.45 caliber gunshots he’d already heard confirmed it.

Ben started to pull out his phone to call Hort. And then he realized.

Larison wasn’t done. He was heading toward Nico’s office. Hoping to find more prey.

Someone had to warn those guys. He could call Hort-

Who would have to call the national security adviser, who would have to call the CIA, who would have to call the field director, who would have to call the snatch team in front of Nico’s office, whose bodies, by then, would already be cooling.

Fuck it.

He opened the back door. “Drive to Nico’s office,” he said. “Right now. I’ll get there faster on foot.”

“What the hell-”

“He’s going to take out the second team. I’ve got to warn them.”

He sprinted down the street, the Glock out, his eyes scanning the hot spots. He passed another van, a bloody body splayed out in the street beside it. People were looking out windows and coming to doorsteps. He pulled the baseball cap lower and ran.

He cut across corners and between parked cars and it took him less than two minutes to cover the distance to Nico’s office cul-de-sac. Fifty yards out, he heard two more.45 caliber shots.

He burst onto the street just in time to see Larison pumping another white van full of bullets. Larison was standing on the passenger side, just behind the door, the angle obviously calculated to make shooting maximally difficult for the people inside. Two shots, a third. Then he calmly walked to the back of the van and emptied a half dozen more rounds into it in a pattern that no one hiding inside could have avoided.

Ben sprinted down behind a parked car. He hoped it would provide cover. He had a feeling Larison was using AP rounds.

Larison looked left and right. He took a fresh magazine from a fanny pack or belly band and swapped it into his gun. Ben had the shot. All his instincts, all his experience, told him to take it.

He ground his teeth together and fought warring impulses. He could end this thing right now. Right here. But wouldn’t that mean the tapes, set to a dead-man trigger, would be released? Wasn’t that exactly what he was supposed to prevent?

Larison picked up his bike and mounted it. He rode past Ben. And looked directly at him.

Somehow, even through the visor obscuring Larison’s face, Ben thought he felt a kind of… recognition pass between them. He still had the shot. Larison must have known it. But he didn’t react. He just looked at Ben, and then rode away.

A second later, Paula came barreling down the street, going right past Larison. She must have missed Ben crouching between the cars because she went by him. Shit. He ran out after her.

She turned around in the cul-de-sac. Her window was down. “Here,” Ben called. She nodded and stopped. Ben went around the back of the van and saw her pushing the passenger door open as he came up the side. He would have preferred to drive, but if they encountered opposition, for the moment it would be better for Paula to drive and for Ben to shoot.

There was a squeal of tires from the opening of the street. Ben gripped the side of the door and watched a brown sedan rapidly approaching. Cops? he thought. It would have been a pretty fast arrival. And that kind of bad luck twice in a row, first Manila, now here… he didn’t believe it.

“Keep your head down,” he said. He could see a passenger and a driver, both Caucasian, both wearing shades. No one in back.

The car stopped ten feet in front of them. The driver and passenger, both in poplin suits, stepped out. Their hands were empty. Ben scanned the area. He saw faces in gated windows and people coming to their doors. But no other immediate threats.

“Paula Lanier?” the passenger asked, moving toward the driver side of the van.

Paula looked at him. “Who are you?”

Ben didn’t like the whole thing from the beginning, and he was liking it less by the second. The way the car was blocking them. The fact that whoever these guys were, they wanted to have a conversation of some sort at the scene of a recent multiple homicide. The way the passenger had called out Paula’s name, which felt like an attempt to lull her by establishing false familiarity. And now they were engaging in a flanking maneuver. Five more feet, and the passenger would disappear from Ben’s view. Meanwhile, the driver was continuing to advance on Ben.

He didn’t think these things consciously, but rather realized them in a kind of instanteous mental shorthand. Nor did he consciously weigh a decision. Rather, he simply understood what needed to be done. And did it.

He moved up from the side of the van, tacking right so he could keep the driver and passenger in a single line of vision. “Stop moving,” he called out, loudly and in a flat tone that would have made an attack dog pause. He put the Glock’s sights on the driver’s face. “Now.”

But the passenger didn’t stop. And the driver said, “Relax, fella, we’re here to help. Diplomatic Security. Here, let me show you ID.”

The guy started to reach inside his jacket. Under more relaxed circumstances, Ben might have asked, What part of “stop moving” don’t you understand? As it was, he shot the guy instead. A neat hole magically appeared in the guy’s forehead. His body twitched once and slid to the ground.

The other guy lurched toward the driver side of the van. Ben sprinted forward to prevent him from getting to cover, the Glock at chin level in a two-handed grip. As he angled around the front of the van, he saw the guy had gotten his gun out. Too late. Ben nailed him with another head shot. Blood and brain matter sprayed the side of the van and the guy tipped over to the ground.

Ben ran up to the door and yanked it open. Paula’s mouth was hanging open in shock. Her face was flecked with red and gray. He knew she wasn’t going to be able to drive. Not now.

“Move,” Ben said. “Passenger seat. Go.”

She complied. He stepped over the dead guy, jumped into the seat, engaged the transmission, and swerved around the sedan. The sedan’s front bumper clipped the open door and slammed it shut as they squealed around it.

“What… what the fuck…,” Paula spluttered.

Ben drove. They could figure out what the fuck later.

“What did you just do? They said… they said they were-”

“What they said was bullshit.”

“How can you be so sure? You killed them.”

“You’re goddamned right I killed them. You think Diplomatic Security doesn’t know enough to stop moving when a guy pointing a gun point-blank at their faces tells them to? You think DS is so inept that not only don’t they stop, they reach for something unseen? There’s not a cop or a DS in the world that stupid.”

“That’s it? You decided to kill them… based on that?”

Ben shot onto the highway and headed west. He slowed his speed to normal.

“Actually, no, there were a dozen things. The way they stopped. The way they approached. The way they used your name. And why wouldn’t anyone have had the sense to tell us they were coming? You don’t send in a B-team like that without a heads-up to the A. It’s guaranteed to cause friendly fire.”

“They knew me!”

He glanced at her. “Did you know them?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“Then they didn’t know you. They knew your name. I’m sure they had a photograph. The rest was artifice to help them get close.”

“But how could you really know-”

“Look, I don’t tell you how to dust for fingerprints, okay? So don’t tell me how a couple operators get close to their targets before drilling them with head shots. If you’d waited a second longer for the proof you want, you’d be dead now.”

“Then who were they?”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m starting to think they could be anyone. That’s the problem with those damned tapes.”

He thought. Could Hort have set him up? He still didn’t trust him, not after Obsidian. But why would he? Hort was getting overruled back in Washington, and Ben was his only set of eyes and ears on the ground. What possible gain would there be for Hort?

Besides, if it had been Hort, why would that guy have used Paula’s name and not Ben’s? It was Ben they needed to lull more than Paula. He was the greater tactical threat. If Hort had sent them, he would have told them as much.

And it was more than that. So soon after the emotional whipsaw of Obsidian and Manila, Ben didn’t want to believe it could have been Hort. Some things, he decided, just had to be determined by your gut. And his gut told him it wasn’t Hort.

Which didn’t answer the question of who it had been. Backup for the snatch teams? What would have been the point? And why would they have asked for Paula? CIA? FBI? He just didn’t know.

About the only thing going well for them at the moment-beyond the welcome fact that they were still alive-was that it was getting dark and starting to rain. The cars on the highway were becoming indistinct, their headlights on, their wipers pumping. Still, a van was far from impossible to spot. Fourteen people shot to death in a quiet San Jose suburb, probably a dozen witnesses describing the vehicle leaving the scene, possibly noting that a white man and black woman had been inside it. An unusual combination, one the staff at the InterContinental might remember, even if they couldn’t describe the faces of the man or woman in question. He knew he’d been careful about keeping his head down in the lobby and elevator of the hotel, where the cameras were. He hoped Paula had been, too.

He pulled off the highway into a strip mall full of cantinas and bodegas. “Where are we going?” Paula said.

“We need a vehicle change. Police will be looking for this van. I don’t want to be driving it when they find it.”

“I am the police,” Paula said, shaking her head as though in disbelief.

“Not here, you’re not. Not now.”

He drove down the parking lot until he saw what he was looking for-an early nineties Ford Taurus. He pulled up next to it and stopped.

“Take the wheel,” he said. “I’m going to hot-wire that Taurus, and you need to follow me when I’ve got it going. We don’t want to leave the van right here for the police to find when they get a stolen-vehicle report. We’ll leave it a couple miles away and then drive the Taurus.”

Paula nodded meekly, and he wondered whether she was going into shock.

“You okay?”

She nodded again.

“You going to be sick? That’s normal. It’s okay.” She shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m just… I’ve just never…”

“I know. We’re going to get you someplace quiet. You can clean up. And we’ll talk. Okay?”

She nodded again.

“Just follow me now. It won’t be long.”

He got out and was happy to find the car unlocked. Not exactly a model chop shops were salivating over. He could have broken a window easily enough, but someone driving with a window down in the rain is sufficiently abnormal to draw law enforcement attention. Unbroken was better.

He got in the car, closed the door behind him, slid the seat back as far as it went, and took out his tools: the SureFire mini-light; a key ring from which a number of handy items dangled, including two screwdriver bits, flat point and Phillips head; a Benchmade 9051SBK folding knife; a short strip of duct tape from around the mini-light. An old drill sergeant had once told him a soldier with thousand-mile-an-hour tape and a few other small items was a wonder to behold, and Ben had since found it to be true.

He got down under the steering wheel, holding the duct-tape-wrapped SureFire between his teeth, and used the Phillips head screwdriver to remove the steering wheel access cover. He found the primary power supply wire and the electrical circuit wire, used the Benchmade to strip about an inch of insulation off each, and twisted them together. He stripped a half inch of insulation off the ignition wire and touched it to the wires he’d connected a moment before. The engine kicked over. He pumped the gas pedal with his hand and the engine caught. He wrapped the duct tape around the connected primary power and electrical circuit wires, put his tools back in his pockets, sat up, and nodded to Paula. He turned on the headlights and pulled out, watching Paula follow in the rearview mirror.

This time he drove southeast, in case anyone had reported a green van fleeing west on the highway from the crime scene. Ten minutes later, he spotted another shopping mall from the road and pulled off the highway. Paula pulled in next to him. He left the engine running, got out, and opened the driver side of the van.

“We need to wipe it down,” he said. “We might not get everything, but it’s better than nothing.”

There was a canister of bleach wipes in back intended for this very purpose. They spent a few minutes going over everything they’d touched. When they were done, they got out. They left everything unlocked, the driver-side door open, and the keys in the ignition. With luck, someone would steal it, contaminate it, and drive it far away.

“It’s okay,” Paula said, walking around to the driver side of the Taurus. “I can drive.”

“I know you can. But you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t shaken up by what just happened, okay? And it’s also human not to realize it until later.”

“You’re not shaken up?”

“I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You haven’t. Come on, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. You can drive tomorrow if you want. Let me take over for now.”

She looked at him as though trying to gauge his intent, then nodded and went around to the other side. They pulled away and Ben took out his phone.

Hort picked up on the first ring. “What happened?”

“Larison killed them. Showed up on a motorcycle and dropped all seven in front of the condo. They put a tranquilizer round in his neck, it didn’t do shit. What is the guy, a vampire?”

“A tranquilizer… goddamn, he must have dosed himself with an antagonist. Damn.”

“Plus five more in front of the office.”

“I told them. I told them.”

Ben heard only anger in Hort’s voice. Nothing that indicated he’d known about the two guys in the brown sedan.

“I had the shot,” Ben said. “I could have taken him out. Not in time to save anyone, but still.”

“Your orders were only to observe. Technically, you weren’t even supposed to be there.”

“I did. I’m just… saying.”

“I understand how you feel. But if you’d dropped him, the dead-man trigger would probably have published the tapes already. You did the right thing.”

“I tried to get to the second team. I couldn’t reach them in time.”

“I’m sorry, son.”

“There’s something else. As we were pulling away from the office, a car pulled up. Brown sedan, I didn’t get the make, not that it would matter. Two guys got out. Caucasian. American, from the accents. They knew Lanier’s name. It was a hit.”

There was a pause. “A hit? You sure they weren’t Ground Branch, part of the snatch team?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. They’re not. I didn’t have time to check for ID, and I doubt they would have been carrying any. But you need to find out who those guys were and who’s coming after Paula and me.”

“Roger that. How’s Lanier?”

Ben glanced over. “She’s okay.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No, we’re good. Unloaded the van, we’re going to find somewhere to bunk down for the night.”

“Good. Get some rest. Stay safe. I’m going to find out what I can and get back to you.”

“What’s our next move? Larison’s still out there.”

“I know. And maybe now, these idiots will listen to me when I tell them how this needs to be handled. Before we lose any more people.”

29. Doubt

Larison rode hard to the southeast, rain splattering against his visor and soaking his shirt. He’d dosed himself with Benzedrine to counter the post-combat parasympathetic backlash and felt like he could ride forever. With light evening traffic and breaks at a minimum, he would reach the Panamanian border in about five hours. The weather was slowing him down for the moment, but the wind was blowing north and he could see breaks in the clouds ahead of him. With luck, he’d be riding out of it soon.

He wasn’t worried about CIA opposition-he knew they’d thrown everything they had at him in Los Yoses and all of it was gone now. It would take them time to regroup. But the carnage in the capital was outlandish enough to possibly lead to a heavier than usual police presence at airports. Safer, for now, to leave the country by land. He’d stop late tonight, find a place to stay, shower, shave, buy some fresh clothes in the morning, and cross the border looking presentable instead of like the half-mad, juiced-up death machine he felt like now.

His working theory was that the two teams were CIA Ground Branch. He hadn’t recognized any of them from ISA selection, and he’d been around long enough to have known at least a few faces if ISA had indeed been part of the op. Or maybe they were contractors. It didn’t matter. If they were CIA, the opposition was now thinned by an even dozen. If they were contractors, it meant the CIA was hurting for operators in the first place and had to reach out to the private sector. Either way, he’d bought a little time.

The one thing he wasn’t sure of was the guy he’d seen outside Nico’s office, crouched between two parked cars, a pistol steadied against the hood of one of them. He’d looked vaguely familiar, but he was wearing a baseball cap and shades and Larison couldn’t be sure. Someone he’d reviewed during selection? Maybe. But if the guy was ISA, why hadn’t he taken the shot? Larison had been wide open, and the guy had just watched him go by. Was he afraid of the dead-man trigger on the tapes? He ought to have been. But who was he, and what was he doing there?

An hour outside San Jose, he stopped at a gas station and refilled the bike. And then, shivering under a dripping corrugated awning, his wet skin broken out in gooseflesh, he called Nico at the condo. The phone rang twice, then Nico picked up.

“Aló?”

Larison spoke in English. “Nicky, it’s me, Daniel.”

“Daniel? What… why are you calling?”

Larison almost never called him on the phone. Everything was by an anonymous email account, which Larison accessed only from random places. And never any proper names or identifying details.

“I… heard something on the news. A big shooting in San Jose.” He felt a little catch in his throat and paused. “I was worried about you.”

“Yeah, there were these crazy shootings right outside my condo and my office! I was in the office, we thought it was firecrackers at first. But when we looked outside, there were these people shooting at each other. But I’m fine. The police think it was drug traffickers. Crazy, huh?”

Larison swallowed and closed his eyes. God, he wished he could just be there right now. The door locked… the jazz Nico liked playing softly… the smell of the apartment that was coffee and the old couch and Nico himself… the living room lit only by the light of Nico’s desk lamp. Larison liked to watch him while he worked. He liked the purposefulness of it, and the innocence of the task. Sometimes Nico would look up and catch Larison watching, and his face would open up in that beautiful, boyish smile.

“Daniel?”

“I’m here.”

“When can you come to see me?”

A tear slipped down Larison’s face. “Soon.”

“How soon?”

“I’m… working on something big right now. The thing I told you about before, it’s almost done now. When it’s over, I’ll come to you.”

“But you sound sad.”

“I just have a lot going on. I’ll explain more soon.”

“Okay.”

“Nicky?”

“Yes?”

“If this thing I’m working on doesn’t go well, you might… hear some bad things about me.”

There was a pause. “I don’t understand.”

“I can’t explain now. But no matter what you hear, I don’t want you ever to doubt, it scares me that you would doubt…”

“Daniel, what is it?”

Larison blinked hard to clear his eyes. “I love you. Promise me you won’t doubt that.”

“I never would. I love you, too.”

Larison blew out a long breath. “Thank you.”

“I wish you would say it more often.”

“I know. I’m going to. I will.”

“But what-”

“I have to go. I’ll call soon, okay?”

“I miss you.”

“I miss you, too. Bye.”

He clicked off, turned off the sat phone, and zipped it up in the backpack. Then he dropped to a squat, put his face in his hands, and let himself cry hard for a minute. When it was out, when he felt purged, he got on the bike and rode back into the rain.

30. Bad Idea

Ben and Paula stopped at a place called Villas Rio Mar in Dominical, on the central Pacific coast. Paula had found it on the iPhone. The place had separate bungalows, which would enable one of them to check in and the other to slip inside unnoticed afterward. Probably this far from San Jose it didn’t matter, but Ben didn’t want the staff to see a white man and a black woman checking into a hotel together. Just in case anyone had reported their general description after the shootings in Los Yoses. And besides that, though they’d done what they could to clean the gore off Paula’s face and hair, she still looked like hell.

Ben checked in while Paula waited in the car. He explained to the nice woman at the counter that his bags were in the trunk, that he’d get them later because of the rain. Yes, it was a late reservation-turned out the place where he’d been planning to stay was sold out. So glad they had a room at this hour. And did they take cash? Wonderful. He paid in advance for three nights. It wasn’t the kind of place anyone stayed at just overnight, and he didn’t want to do anything more unusual than he already had. He’d come up with another story tomorrow, when he checked out.

He walked across the grounds to the room just to make sure there was no one around and that he could slip Paula inside unnoticed. It was all clear. Either they didn’t have many guests that night or the rain was keeping people inside, or both. There wasn’t a lot of illumination, either-mostly just footlights along the paths connecting the thatch-roofed bungalows, all of it surrounded by impressively dense rain forest.

The room was clean and bright, with absurdly cheerful bedspreads depicting blue night skies and yellow moons and stars. He’d gotten a double this time, and was glad he wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. Two beds, a small desk, and a chair. More than enough. He found a side path that bypassed reception, propped open the gate, and went back out to the car.

“We’re good,” he said. “Follow me.”

He took her inside and locked the door behind them. Under the bright lights of the room, she looked at herself in the mirror. She still had flecks of brain in her hair. She closed her eyes and grimaced.

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said.

“Good idea.”

She pinched two spots on her shirt, pulled it away from her body, and looked at the stains. “And can you… is there a gift shop, or something? Can you get me something to wear?”

“No problem.”

She gave him a faint smile. “Not another halter, okay?”

He returned the smile and nodded. “I’m going to grab something to eat, too. Do you…”

“No. I don’t want to eat.”

“No problem. I’ll bring something anyway, okay? You might change your mind later.”

She looked down at herself. “That’s hard to imagine.”

“I know. But just in case.”

The restaurant was closed, but the bar was open, and the bartender told him they could put together a plate of this and that. “Dos,” Ben said. “Estoy muerto de hambre.” Make it two. I’m starving.

While the bar put together the food, he went to the gift shop next to reception. They didn’t have much in the way of clothes-mostly bathing suits and surfing regalia-but he found a blue sundress he thought would do the trick. They could worry about getting her something else tomorrow. He bought the dress, along with a short-sleeved button-down shirt for himself.

He picked up the food from the bar along with two bottles of Imperial beer and went back to the room. From the sound of it, Paula was still in the shower. He sat on the floor with his back against the bed and wolfed down an enormous plate of chicken, rice, and beans, all covered with a tangy sauce he’d never tasted before, and polished it off with a beer. It was delicious.

When he finished, she was still in the shower. He knocked on the door and said, “Paula? You all right?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m… I’ll be out in a minute.”

“I got you something to wear.”

“Just leave it out there. There’s a hotel robe.”

“Okay.”

A few minutes later, she came out in a white terry cloth robe. Her hair was wet and her face looked raw. Ben understood instantly. She’d been in there scrubbing under the hottest water she could stand.

“You all right?” he asked again.

She shook her head. “I’m never going to get that smell off me. Blood, and… it was brain, wasn’t it?”

“It’s just in your head now. It’s not on you anymore. And it’ll fade, I promise.”

She nodded and stood there uncertainly. “Come on, sit down,” he said. “See if you can eat something. It’ll make you feel better.”

She sat next to him, holding the bathrobe close as she did, and he pulled the plastic wrap off the remaining plate of food. She took a hesitant bite, then another. “Damn,” she said. “That’s pretty good.”

She started digging in and he popped the cap off the other Imperial. He was glad she was eating. They hadn’t had anything in over fourteen hours, and he knew from experience that no matter what was going on in your mind, you had to tend to your body.

“Okay if I put your contaminated clothes in a laundry bag?” he said. “We’re going to need to get rid of them.”

“Please. I don’t want to look at them again. I’d burn them if I could.”

He found a plastic laundry bag in a drawer and went into the bathroom. Her clothes were in a pile on the floor. He picked them up and dropped them in the bag. Nothing had come off on the floor. The blood was dry. He dropped the bag in front of the room door so they couldn’t forget it when they left and sat down next to her again. She’d eaten about half the food and finished the beer.

“I can’t eat any more,” she said. “Thank you. That was good.”

“No problem.”

“Why are you being so nice to me now?”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. Usually you’re an asshole.”

“That’s just a cover. Underneath, I’m really a very caring person.”

She laughed. “Seriously.”

He shook his head. “That’s a hard thing, what happened to you today.”

“But you’re used to it.”

He shrugged. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean you are. Or that you should be.”

“So you’re going to stop being nice tomorrow?”

“You won’t be over it tomorrow.”

“When will I?”

“I don’t know. It’s different for different people.”

“How was it for you?”

He paused, remembering. “At the time?”

“Yes.”

“It was so chaotic, I didn’t even have time to think. But… exhilarating.”

“Will you tell me about it?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t think I’m going to fall asleep anytime soon.”

“It was Somalia. The battle of Mogadishu. Did you see the movie Black Hawk Down? Or read Mark Bowden’s book?”

“I saw the movie.”

“Well, that’s what it was. Bowden did a good job. So did Ridley Scott. No one had time to think. It was just a nonstop firefight.”

“But afterward.”

“Like I said, exhilarated. And devastated, because I lost friends.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Comes with the territory.”

“Stop being such a hard case.”

“I’m not. It was a long time ago. I don’t like thinking about it. Anyway, it was different for me.”

“How?”

“I was trained. I was prepared. You haven’t had any of that. You’ve never seen anyone die before, have you?”

“My mother.”

“I mean killed.”

“No.”

“Well, seeing a dozen or so people shot to death in front of your eyes is shocking even if you’ve been prepared for it.”

She nodded and didn’t answer.

He got up and squeezed her shoulder gently. “Going to take a shower. Be back in a few.”

He brushed his teeth, then took a scalding shower, soaping up and scrubbing off the day’s sweat and grime, the hot water loosening up his muscles and accessing the fatigue underneath. Post-combat parasympathetic backlash was a bitch, and he was coming down from an entire day fueled by adrenaline. His mind was still on fire from all that had happened, but his body was starting to get the upper hand.

He pulled on a hotel robe when he was done, turned off the light, and went back out into the bedroom. Paula had turned off all the lights but the little one on the desk. She was lying on her side on one of the beds and Ben thought she must have fallen asleep.

He walked around to the side of the bed to see if her eyes were closed and was surprised to find her awake, her face streaked with tears that shone amid the shadows.

“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

She didn’t answer.

He squatted down next to the bed and put his hand on her arm. “What is it?”

She shook her head. “I just don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

He didn’t know what to say. He tried, “You’re doing fine.”

“I mean, I’m a law enforcement officer. Fourteen people were killed today. I saw you kill two of them. And I’m not doing anything about it.”

“There’s nothing to be done.”

“I don’t know what my role is anymore.”

“You’re doing a good job. I didn’t mean it cruelly before when I said you’re out of your element. You’re law enforcement, and you just got dropped into a combat zone. You’re trying to learn your way.”

She nodded and a fresh flow of tears ran silently down her face.

He squeezed her arm. “Paula.”

She didn’t answer.

He got up and walked around to the other side of the bed, then lay down next to her. He stroked her arm.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said. “I can’t get it out of my head.”

“I know.”

“His… his brains…”

Her voice rose on the last word and then choked off. She curled up and shook with silent tears.

“Shh,” he whispered. “I know. I know.”

A sob caught in her throat and she cried harder.

“That’s it,” he said. “Let it out. Let it out. That’s what I do, when I can’t take it anymore.”

She coughed out a laugh through her tears. “You do not.”

“Of course I do. All soldiers are crybabies, because we deal with so much shit. We just don’t tell anyone. It’s bad for our image.”

He realized he’d acknowledged he was a soldier, but decided it didn’t matter.

She laughed again, then cried harder. He put his arm around her, took her hand, and pulled her close. “Shh,” he said again. “It’s okay.”

She gripped his hand and pressed back into him. He was suddenly acutely aware of the feel of her ass through the material of the robe.

Oh, fuck, this wasn’t good. He didn’t want to let her go-it would have been awkward, and anyway he seemed to be making her feel better, but…

She shifted slightly, and the feel of her body moving against him was like a current of electricity against his skin.

Post-combat hard-on, he thought. That’s all it is. Should have seen that coming. Don’t be stupid now.

She shifted her hand to the back of his and pulled him closer, pressing his forearm across her breasts. A shock wave of lust coursed through him.

Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid…

She moved his hand lower. “Please,” she whispered.

“Paula…,” he said, his mouth close to her ear.

“I just… I need to feel something. Please.”

Somehow his hand had slipped under her robe. She pressed it tightly against her breasts. Her skin was warm and smooth. He could feel her heart pounding.

“You’re upset,” he said, his voice low, his throat thick. “I don’t know if… I don’t think we should…”

He stopped, not sure what he was saying, feeling like he was babbling. His hand moved. He felt a hard nipple against his palm. He wanted her so much it made him groan.

“No,” he said, panting. “No, no, this is a bad idea. A bad idea.” Somehow he pried his hands off her and sat up. “Paula, no.”

She sat up and turned to him. The robe had opened partly, and in his peripheral vision he could see the muscles of her neck, her breasts contoured in shadow, the skin smooth and dark against the white terry cloth. He was massively hard and knew he’d never done anything as difficult as not reaching out and tearing the robe off her and throwing her back on the bed and-

“Fuck you, then,” she said.

He shook his head, not comprehending. “What?”

She slapped him. Hard. His head rocked back and he saw a white flash behind his eyes. He was so stunned by it that she managed to slap him again before he could do anything to stop her, another powerful, stinging shot from the opposite side. A red haze misted his vision and he felt his scalp tighten with anger. She drew back her arm again, her hand balled into a fist this time, and as the punch came forward, he snaked an arm inside and deflected it. He pushed her onto her back and straddled her. She twisted an arm free and punched him in the mouth. She couldn’t get any leverage behind the blow but it smashed his lips into his teeth and hurt like hell.

“Bitch,” he said, turning his head and spitting blood. She tried to hit him again and he caught her wrists and pinned them to the bed next to her head.

She struggled and kicked. He slid down onto her thighs to control her legs and looked down at her breasts. He couldn’t think anymore. He lowered his head and took a nipple into his mouth. She sucked in a breath and her pelvis arched and he almost let her go but then thought no way, he wasn’t going to let her hit him again.

“Fuck you,” she said again. “Fuck you.”

He moved his head to her other breast and she moaned, and the sound of her own pleasure seemed to incite her.

“You want this, don’t you?” he said, past caring about the consequences. “All right. You win.”

He let go of her wrists and she hit him in the mouth again. There was a shock of pain and his head rocked back. He grabbed her wrists again and pressed his body down onto hers.

“You want to play?” he said. “Fine. Fine with me.”

He slid his right hand under her waist and fed her right wrist into it. She struggled and tried to bite his ear, missing it and scoring her teeth against his scalp instead. He sat up and jerked her arm around, turning her over onto her stomach.

He sat on her thighs and with one hand pinned her arms behind her back. She kicked and struggled underneath him. He pulled the belt off his robe, slipped it under her top wrist, pulled it around, and yanked it tight with his teeth and free hand. He tied it off in a square knot, then wrapped it around her other wrist and repeated the operation so that her bound wrists were side by side.

He slid lower over her legs and tore her robe out of the way. She grunted and tried to twist loose.

He lay down on top of her and pushed his knees between hers. Then he sat up and spread her legs with his own. Her ass was a ripe, dark peach, the shadow between her legs maddening, beckoning. She turned her head and looked back at him and again said, “Fuck you.”

He didn’t answer. He put his weight on her bound wrists with one hand and with the other began to touch her. She was completely wet. He eased a finger inside her and she groaned.

His heart was slamming away in his chest like a battering ram. Panting, feeling like he’d lost his mind, he flipped her over onto her back. He got his knees between hers again and spread her legs. He bent to kiss her. She jerked her head to the side and again said, “Fuck you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that’s right.”

He moved lower and took a nipple into his mouth again and touched her with his fingers and the sound of her moaning made him insane.

He slid lower. He got an arm under one of her thighs and forced her legs farther apart. Then he put his mouth against her belly and bit her, the way she’d tried to bite him. She cried out, and before the cry was done he’d slipped his other arm under her so that her thighs rested on his shoulders, and he pushed his mouth against her so she could feel his lips and his teeth and his breath, and he slipped his tongue inside her. She gasped and the sound of it made him dizzy, the sound and her taste and how hot and wet she was against his mouth and face. He moved one hand up and rolled a thumb around her nipple. With the other, he started touching her with his fingers in time with his tongue.

She groaned. His lips hurt and his heart was pounding and he was so hard it ached.

He glanced up at her. She was watching him, panting, her head off the pillow, the muscles of her neck straining. Her body was slick with sweat.

He paused and put his fourth finger in his mouth, coating it with his spit and her juices. He lowered his head and started up again. He kept his eyes on hers. He slid his slicked finger slowly into her ass.

Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. He felt her muscles clench. He worked her with his mouth and fingers. He didn’t take his eyes off her.

Her panting grew faster, deeper. A low sound came from her throat. He kept going, out of his mind with the need to fuck her.

The sound deepened and rose and changed into a drawn-out cry. She squeezed his head with her thighs and pushed her pelvis into his face and shuddered and arched and cried out. Her back arched farther, and farther still, and then suddenly all the tension in her was gone and she collapsed back to the bed. There was no sound but her breathing.

He brought his arms around and moved up between her legs.

“Kiss me.”

She didn’t answer. He took her face roughly in his hands and looked in her eyes and pressed himself against her. She struggled but there was nothing she could do, she was too wet and too tied up and he was holding her too tightly. He pushed forward and moved a little inside her and somehow made himself stop. She grimaced and pushed back against him and he slid in a little farther. He watched her, their faces an inch apart.

She groaned again, her mouth open, her head tilted back. He eased away, then clenched his stomach and ass and drove his hips forward and buried himself inside her. She cried out and he pressed his swollen lips down on hers. She groaned into his mouth and he held her face in his hands and spread her legs wider with his thighs and he fucked her, long and deep and desperately hard, and he forgot where they were and why they were here and what had happened that day and he fucked her, and when she started kissing him hungrily and hard and fucking him back it was too much, he couldn’t stop, and there was nothing else in the world but her face in his hands and her body pinned beneath him and he gripped her harder and cried out into her mouth and he came, he came and she sucked on his tongue and it went on and on until he had spent himself inside her.

When it was over, his exhaustion was so sudden and complete that he felt momentarily unsteady. He pushed himself away from her slightly, his breathing ragged, and looked into her eyes.

“Damn,” he managed to say.

Her breathing was as rough as his. She said, “Untie me.”

He touched a hand to his swollen lips. “Not if you’re going to hit me again.”

“I think I’m done with that.”

“What the hell got into you?”

“I don’t know.”

He turned her on her side and untied her wrists, then lay down facing her. “Were you trying to provoke me?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I liked it.”

“Yeah, I could tell that.”

“Why, though?”

“I was just… mad. You were being so nice, it made me lower my guard. And I could tell you wanted to, and I told you I needed you to, and then suddenly you got all high-minded on me… it just really made me angry.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. You know I wanted to. I just thought it was a bad idea.”

“Well, you changed your mind pretty fast.”

“Maybe it was all that talk earlier about interagency cooperation.”

She laughed. “Yeah, we’re a model for the way Uncle Sam should function. ‘Make love, not war.’”

He ran his hand gently along her face and the side of her head.

“I like your hair. The way it feels.”

“You’ve never been with a black woman before, have you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re not supposed to touch a black woman’s hair.”

He thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it… I did get that vibe a few times here and there.”

“They were straightened, right?”

“Yeah. You know, not like yours.”

“You can touch it if it’s natural. It’s the straightened and hair extensions and wigs that can get you in trouble.”

He eased his hand around to the back of her head. “I like yours better.”

“You wouldn’t believe what it takes to make black hair straight. I don’t have time for it. Besides, I’d rather just be myself.”

They were quiet for a moment. He said, “So… I guess we can sleep in the same bed tonight?”

She laughed again. “I guess so.”

“Good. Because I’m so tired, I’m going to pass out.”

“That sounds good.”

“Tell me something first.”

“What?”

“Why wouldn’t you kiss me?”

There was a pause. She said, “It was too intimate. I wanted you to fuck me, not make love to me.”

He’d never thought of it that way. “Does that mean you won’t kiss me now?”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“You’ve got some pretty finely parsed notions about what separates a good idea from a bad one.”

There was another pause. She touched his cheek with a hand and kissed him, long and tenderly. His lips hurt but it was delicious anyway.

She broke the kiss and looked at him. He said, “Was that so bad?”

She shook her head. “It was okay. But it was the first part I really wanted.”

31. Squeaky Clean

Ulrich checked his watch for probably the tenth time in an hour. Almost ten o’clock. He needed to go home and get some sleep. But he’d become so afraid of being away from the secure phone that he was hurrying back to his desk even from bathroom breaks. Anyway, it wasn’t like he was going to sleep even if he left. All he could do these days was toss and turn until the sun rose and he could get up and come into the office without it being so early he would seem deranged or obsessed.

The secure line buzzed. He jumped and then snatched up the receiver.

“Ulrich.”

“Clements. Okay to talk?”

“I’ll tell you if it isn’t, okay? What is it?”

“We have a problem.”

Ulrich flinched. If Clements had been a doctor, “problem” would doubtless be his favorite way of informing patients they had inoperable brain cancer.

He closed his eyes. “Tell me.”

“We lost everybody. Twelve Blackwater contractors, two Ground Branch operators. They’re all dead.”

Ulrich shook his head. It was unbelievable. This was just… this couldn’t be happening to him.

“What about Larison?”

“We’re pretty sure he’s not among the dead.”

“Why just ‘pretty sure’?”

“Because there are no survivors. There’s no one to report in. So all I can tell you right now is the math. We sent twelve contractors and two operators. Costa Rican media is reporting fourteen dead. Yeah, it’s possible one of the dead is Larison or one of them is Treven, but if that were the case, it would mean at least one of our guys was still alive. And if one of our guys were alive, he would have reported in by now. So I think it’s a pretty safe assumption that Larison killed all of them, or that he killed the Blackwater snatch teams and Treven killed the two Ground Branch.”

Ulrich dropped his glasses on the desk and scrubbed a hand across his face. “What about the tapes?”

“No sign of release. Yet.”

“What’s our next move?”

“We don’t have one. The op has been turned over to JSOC.”

Ulrich didn’t respond. It was really almost funny. How just when you thought things couldn’t possibly get worse, they always found a way.

“You there?” Clements said.

“How did this happen?”

“The national security adviser was furious when I told him the snatch teams were Blackwater. ‘You deceived me, you told me they were Ground Branch, blah, blah, blah.’ I told him it didn’t matter, that the Blackwater guys were all former government, anyway. I mean, he was only pissed because the op failed. If it had worked, he wouldn’t have cared if we’d hired goddamn al Qaeda to do it. And I told him so.”

It was actually amusing, imagining Clements growing some balls that way. “Very diplomatic of you.”

“It didn’t matter what I said. His mind was already made up. At which point, Horton made his move. And now he’s the national security adviser’s best friend.”

“For all we know, Horton’s people took out the snatch teams. So Horton could go back to the national security adviser, say I told you so, and take over the op.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s done.”

“Fine. What does he propose?”

“That we give Larison the diamonds.”

Ulrich laughed. “That’s his plan? That’s what he proposed? That we just capitulate to this pyscho’s demands and call it a day? That’s ingenious. I can’t believe no one else thought of it.”

“Yeah, well, the national security adviser seems to like it. We’ve got an interagency meeting in his office first thing to thrash out the details.”

Ulrich tried to think of anything he’d seen that had spiraled this far out of control and still been righted in the end. Nothing came to mind.

“Well,” he said, “I guess we just have to hope that Horton knows what the hell he’s doing. And maybe he does. It’s not like he’s squeaky clean on all this. After all, he’s the one who took care of the Caspers.”