Inside Out (25 page)

“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.”

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.

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?”