Killfile (16 page)

She leans in, with the same half smirk, and I kiss her.

M
OST OF THE
time, I try to concentrate on the physical, to screen out the rush of emotions that surges forward with sex. This is where we are still closest to being animals, where we can reliably blot out our thoughts, where we can try to respond only to the basic facts of hard and wet and warmth and comfort.

But with Kelsey, it's different. She's already inside, has already seen the cracks in my defenses. And she does not care.

She doesn't have to ask me anything. I know what she wants the second she wants it. I can feel her get close, and I know just what it will take to push her over the edge. We form a circle together, her excitement feeding mine, over and over, locked into the rhythms of each other's body, shuddering to a finish, and then starting again. Again and again and again.

Honestly, sex with a telepath is pretty great. If you ever meet me, you should try it.

“
P
ROFESSIONAL GAMBLER.
Y
OU'D
know what cards everyone was holding.”

“God, no. The times I've been inside a casino, it's like rats scratching their way out of my brain.”

Kelsey lies with her head on my shoulder, one arm and one leg thrown over me. We're on the mattress, huddled together for warmth under the thin sheets. The store's air-conditioning is brutal. She's trying to come up with a new career for me, new ways for me to use my talent that don't end with me hiding inside a dying mall.

“You could be a police officer. You'd always know exactly who did the crime. Hundred percent solve rate.”

“Most of the time, the cops already know who did the crime. It's the guy standing there crying over the corpse with a bloody steak knife. Anyway, I thought the idea was to get away from people shooting at me.”

“All right, then. Therapist. You could find out what's really bothering people. Give them exactly the advice they need. You could probably even undo their problems yourself. Go inside their minds and find the clogs and fix them up. Like a plumber.”

I laugh at that. “I think plumbers make more money than therapists. And either way, it's not enough.”

“Because you need the money for your own island.”

“Exactly.”

She props herself up a little so she can look at my face. “Is it that bad?”

My voice is a little tight when I answer. “You think I was faking before?”

“No, no,” she says quickly. “I'm asking if it's always that bad. If there's no other way to handle it.”

I search for the right words. Come up empty. “It's that bad. Yes.”

“Is running off to a deserted island really the best idea you've got?”

Good question. One I've asked myself many, many times. “The drugs won't work forever,” I tell her. “I've already got a high tolerance for painkillers. The standard antimigraine meds might as well be sugar pills to me now. I've seen the end of this curve with other guys, and it always leads to me with a needle, looking for a vein.”

“Have you tried anything else?”

“I'm open to suggestions.”

“Meditation?”

“Doesn't work,” I tell her. “The quieter my mind becomes, the louder everyone else's thoughts get. It's like that right now.”

“Really?”

I nod. “Aside from you, the closest person is a homeless guy camped out at the bus shelter at the edge of the parking lot, about a thousand yards away. Ordinarily, he'd be way out of my reach. He's asleep. If he was awake, I'd probably be screaming about the black helicopters and the Bilderbergers and itching the staph infection he's got on both arms.”

“Jesus Christ,” she says. “So why haven't you just stolen enough money to buy your own island already?”

She's laughing, but she's not joking. Not entirely. Even someone like Kelsey, with her healthy respect for the rules and love of structure, knows that pain can push you outside the lines of what's good and proper. And she's already seen me break a half dozen laws and commandments, including the big one about killing.

Sloan asked me something similar. It makes sense. It's like the Vegas-act question. If someone can do what I do, why not just take anything I want? I ask myself sometimes.

Sometimes it's good to remind myself of the reasons by saying them out loud.

“It doesn't work like that. You've tried separating rich people from their money before, right?” I ask.

“Oh my God, yes,” she says, and I get a quick montage of all the moments when she's had to persuade Sloan's clients and partners to write checks, to make an investment or pay their debts; it's like climbing a mountain every time, even when Sloan was doubling their money.

“So you know. It's like the old joke: a rich man doesn't get that way
by reaching for his wallet all the time. It goes against almost everything in their nature. They don't give away their money without a really good reason. And even then it's a struggle. So I could push and prod, and I might fool their brains into accepting some bullshit excuse to write me a check. For a while. But it wouldn't last. Eventually people always go back to who they are. They do what they want to do. They'd recognize that something was wrong. They'd start making noises, asking around with other people who know me. They'd talk to each other, and pretty soon I'd have a price on my head. I already told your boss: I don't want to live that way.”

Kelsey takes an exaggerated look around the store. “Yeah, this definitely seems like the safer alternative.”

She has a point. “There are degrees of risk,” I say. But that's not the whole reason, and she knows it. I'm not sure why, but I decide to tell her the rest.

“Anyway. What would you call someone who does that? Who worms his way into someone's trust and takes a chunk out of their lives?”

It jumps into her head:

.

“Right,” I say. “My whole life, everything I ever got, someone was always sure to tell me that it wasn't really mine. There was always some foster parent or social worker or church volunteer who would remind me that my whole life depended on them. My food, my clothes, whatever I had—the money always came from the state or some charity or someone else's pocket. They were so
happy
when they told me, too. I could feel it. Sometimes they wanted me to know how generous they were being. Or they wanted me to seem more grateful than I was. But most of the time, they wanted me to know I was draining the blood right out of their veins. That whatever I got, they could rip it back at any moment. So now I don't take what I don't earn. I do my job, and I get paid for my services. And nobody can ever tell me I don't deserve it.”

An awkward silence. She picks up on my discomfort and changes the subject. Which is kind of her.

“Well, at least now I know you didn't ensorcell me into jumping into bed with you,” she says.

“‘Ensorcell'? Is that even a word?”

“Pretty sure. I read it in a book about witches having a lot of sex with vampires.”

“How appropriate.”

“Thank you, by the way,” she says.

“For what?”

“For not asking. Every guy always wants to know.”

“I think it was pretty obvious.”

“Don't get overconfident. There's always room for improvement.”

“I'm willing to put in the hours if you are.”

She laughs again, sits up, and stretches. I see the muscles moving under her flawless skin, feel the animal contentment purring through her body, and share in it for a moment.

Then she turns and sees her clothes—literally the only thing she owns right now—crumpled on the cheap carpeting, and the reality hits her again. How far away she is from home, how far away she is from her actual life. It's like a wave that threatens to swamp her with fear and loneliness.

She shakes it off, almost physically, then turns to me.

“This was fun and all, but now I've got to ask: What's the plan?”

I hate to admit it, but I've run out of ideas. So I've got to do something I never thought I'd do again.

I'm going to call Cantrell.

I'm not
exactly sur
e
when I joined the private sector. One day I checked the bank account where I direct-deposited my paychecks. The money just sat there most of the time. I traveled in government transports and ate in army mess halls. My clothes came from uniform stores, and a packet of spending cash was always included in the kit for any mission. But this time, when I checked my bank's website, I noticed that my account had more money than I expected. A lot more. I looked at the last few transactions, and discovered that my paychecks were no longer coming from the government, but from a private company called Global Travel, LLC. And they were much bigger.

I asked Cantrell about this the next time I saw him. He gave me his usual smile and said, “You complaining?”

We'd turned into a private military contractor somewhere along the line—or, more accurately, mercenaries. I'd done three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq by then. Suddenly I was officially a civilian again.

Other than that, nothing really changed.

We were still backstopped by U.S. soldiers. We still used the CIA's jets wherever we went, or hitched a ride on military transports. And
our security clearances still got us into every base, government building, and top-secret black site.

The main difference was that I was now free to go back to the States whenever I wasn't on a mission. I began commuting to the War on Terror.

A lot of the money budgeted for fighting bin Laden and other bad guys went in big crates direct to the Middle East, but there was still plenty left over for salaries and contracts. Cantrell secured us brand-new office space in Crystal City, Virginia, in a corporate park filled with CIA front companies. I found an apartment near Dupont Circle, at the center of a cluster of trendy spots populated by hipsters and young professionals.

I did my best to rejoin the outside world. I studied civilian life like I was reading a mission brief for hostile territory. I learned how to wear a suit instead of a uniform. I began to drink decent whiskey instead of whatever was cheapest on the shelf. And at night, I went out to a lot of places where I faked polite conversation with people while pretending I didn't know exactly what was going on behind their eyes.

One night I was at an embassy party that Cantrell insisted I attend. It was filled with old, very rich men who talked quietly in small groups, dividing up the globe between dirty jokes. Most of the women were escorts, but there was a small group of civilians: interns, think-tankers, and policy wonks who stuck close to the food trays. They were making the Ivy League equivalent of minimum wage, but they all had big plans. This was the ground level for the New World Order, and they intended to gnaw their way to the top.

That's where I met Whitney. She was a low-level staffer in the State Department, but already eyeing her path over to Defense or the White House, where the real power flowed. I assembled a quick picture of her from inside her head: perfectly dull home life back in Michigan,
father a big political donor, leveraging her intellect and her sharp good looks into one job after another with a machinelike precision.

She'd had a few drinks, but her first impression of me still came through crisp and clear. Deep tan and buzz-cut hair screamed ex-military. Good suit said private contractor, high-dollar salary. The cheap wrinkle-free shirt underneath said I wasn't quite sure how to spend it yet. The word that kept bouncing around in her brain was

.

I've rarely met anyone so focused outside of a firefight. Even reading her mind didn't quite prepare me for how fast she made decisions. Within minutes of walking over to me, she'd already mapped out the dark corner of the party where she would allow me to lift her dress and pull down her underwear. She had plans for me, and not just for the night.

Who could say no to someone like that?

Within a month, we were living together. We were a new-model DC power couple, each with our own security clearances and classified briefing books on our bedside tables. The fact that we didn't actually like each other very much didn't come up that often.

I was still flying back and forth from the Middle East every couple of weeks. She had her own seventy-hour schedule at work as she and her colleagues planned where to send people like me for the next battle.

Whitney put up with what she called my James Bond lifestyle, and I pretended not to notice the cyclonic rages that could sweep through her at a moment's notice. Unhappy with her hair, she would throw her brush so hard it would break the mirror. I learned to budget for things like new dishes and minor household repairs. She screamed over the phone at everyone—subordinates, bosses, friends, her parents—with a scorched-earth intensity that had them babbling apologies. Being
on the receiving end of one of her rants could trigger a migraine that would last for days.

I kept my talent from her. I justified it because it was classified. But in truth, I didn't think she'd understand or believe me. And to be totally honest, I just didn't trust her.

Occasionally, I'd catch a glimpse of a fumbled encounter in her mind, usually on the office couch with her boss or a coworker. She thought of it as tension relief when she couldn't get to the gym, and stomped any residual guilt under her heel until it quit whimpering. In return, I slept with her girlfriends, who liked her even less than I did. One of the advantages of reading minds is knowing exactly how much you can get away with.

I figured it was as close to normal as someone like me was going to get.

I
GOT THE
call at home.

“Son, you know I hate to drag you back into the shit,” Cantrell lied, making it sound almost sincere. “But we got a big one. High-value prisoner with beaucoup secrets stashed in his head.”

“What, you finally got Osama?” I joked.

This was long before SEAL Team Six killed bin Laden, back when he was still the bogeyman of the Western world, haunting us all with the occasional message from a hidden cavern somewhere. This was when he was still the most wanted man on the planet.

There was a pause, and I could tell Cantrell was deciding how much he could reveal, even on a secure line.

“No,” he said. “But they say they got someone who knows where to find him. They think they got Osama's boyfriend.”

It was common knowledge in the business that bin Laden was a pedophile with a thing for underage boys. It was the kind of rumor that probably got started as a bad joke, but then took on a life of its own. In Afghanistan, there's an old—and seriously fucked-up—tradition of using dancing boys as entertainment at tribal celebrations, the same way a bunch of drunken frat boys will hire a stripper for a bachelor party. The practice, called
bacha bazi,
gained new life under the Taliban after it came into power, with the boys—as young as ten or eleven—used as sexual party favors by the warlords.

In other words, about what you'd expect from a group that stones women to death for being raped and shoots little girls in the head when they try to learn to read.

Osama was rumored to be a big fan of
bacha bazi,
even taking his favorite boy toy into the caves of Tora Bora with him when the U.S. bombing started.

But it was just a rumor. There was never any hard intel.

Until we got Prisoner #7461. His given name was Fahran.

Cantrell laid out the whole story for me on the plane ride out of Reagan, on our way to Afghanistan.

They picked him up with a bunch of Taliban hard-liners in Nuristan province. Our guys were out on a presence patrol, reminding the locals of the military might of the United States, when the hard-liners attacked. Most of them retreated into the hills right away. But a group of seven were cut off and surrendered.

Fahran was the youngest of the bunch, and one of the U.S. troops—who'd picked up a lot of Pashto in his tours—overheard his friends insulting him. They referred to Fahran as a veteran
bacha
. And then they said something about his boyfriend coming to rescue him from the satanic Americans: the great Osama bin Laden. The soldier
knew the rumors as well as anyone in Afghanistan, so he reported it up the chain of command.

The guys in black uniforms with no rank showed up. They were skeptical at first, but they questioned the other hard-liners. Every one of them gave the same answers. How Fahran had spoken of being bin Laden's favorite, how he had accompanied Osama everywhere—even to the Saudi's most recent hiding places.

So they threw a hood over Fahran's head. Before nightfall, he was in a cell.

But the little dancing boy turned out to be harder than everyone else in his crew. From what Cantrell told me, they'd done their best already. They'd worked on him around the clock, using all the standard tricks in the interrogation manual.

Nothing.

The kid knew where to find bin Laden. But he wouldn't talk.

Which was why they had paid Cantrell's insanely high contractor's fee and had me shipped over on the company's jet.

To Bagram.