The Detachment (37 page)

He was afraid of being weak. And he was afraid that failing to do the tactically sound thing here was the weakest move of all.

The trick would be to not think about it. Get back to the motel, get the Glock, wait for the moment, see the opportunity, act to exploit it. Yes, like that. No thinking. Just pattern recognition, and reflex, and done.

And not just Treven, Rain, and Dox. Kei, too. No one left who knew anything about him, or who could tie him to anything, or had any way to track him.

Except Hort, of course. But Larison would clip that loose end in short order, too. And then he’d be done. Free of all these entanglements. Free.

He didn’t have to like it. He just had to do it.

T
reven and Dox waited at the motel with Kei. Kei was sitting on one bed; Dox, on the other; Treven, increasingly antsy because Rain and Larison had been gone so long, pacing in what little space the room afforded.

Treven hated waiting. When he was alone, he could wait patiently for days, even for weeks. But this was different. The whole operation was shot through with problems. Larison was acting increasingly unstable. There had been several near blow-ups among them, any one of which, had it gone critical, would have been fatal. And then there was Hort, suddenly scrambling all the pieces on the board with his stunt at the White House.

He hoped he’d done the right thing in letting the man live. He told himself it was logical, but part of him wasn’t buying that, part of him knew it was emotional. Treven looked at Larison and Rain and Dox and didn’t want to be like them. He needed some line he wouldn’t cross, some sense of command authority and unit loyalty. Something that would represent the difference between a soldier with a conscience and a killer under contract. Wherever that thin line was, he knew he was dancing right along the edge of it now. Killing his commander would push him over forever.

But his decision gnawed at him anyway. Hort was dangerous. He might have been tracking them right at that very moment through means none of them fully appreciated. Sure, the others assumed Hort had found them in Washington via satellites and surveillance cameras and all the rest because they didn’t know Treven had simply tipped the man off, but that didn’t mean the satellites and surveillance cameras didn’t exist. And sure, Hort had made his big speech and stepped down, and so presumably had lost his official access. But he still had friends in high places, and low ones, too. It was Hort himself who had schooled Treven in Sun Tsu:
When strong, feign weakness. When weak, feign strength.
Hort had certainly acted weak in the car last night, and the more Treven thought about it, the more nervous it made him.

Dox was making him nervous now, too. The big sniper was sitting with his back against the headboard and his legs stretched out on the bed. His eyes were closed and he held his Wilson Combat in his lap, as serene as a sleeping toddler and the gun a favorite stuffed animal. The man had at least as much patience as Treven, it was obvious from the stillness with which he sat while they waited. It made sense—it would be a piss-poor sniper who couldn’t wait out a target—and, ordinarily, Treven would have admired and even been reassured by the trait. But now, it was making him feel like the source of Dox’s apparent serenity was some secret knowledge Treven himself lacked.

Dox, his eyes still closed, said, “What’s on your mind, son?”

Christ, did the guy read minds, too? “What do you mean?”

Dox opened his eyes. “Well, either you’re trying to wear out the carpet in our luxury suite here, or something’s making you antsy.”

“It’s nothing. I just don’t like waiting.”

“I thought you ISA studs could outwait a rock. You trying to disabuse me?”

Treven chuckled. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s all right. I’m feeling antsy myself.”

Treven looked at him. Propped serenely on the bed, he looked about as antsy as a statue.

“That’s how you act when you’re antsy?”

Dox grinned. “Oh, yeah. My blood pressure’s way up at the moment. When I’m feeling relaxed, I’m practically invisible.”

Treven couldn’t tell if he was serious or joking. “Well, what’s bugging you?”

“Your friend, to be honest.”

“Larison?”

Dox nodded and turned to Kei, who, though she hadn’t said or done anything different since they started talking, somehow seemed to be following their conversation with interest.

“Darlin’,” he said, “would you mind wearing the headphones for a few minutes? Nothing special, just the dreaded OpSec, which is what we badasses call operational security.”

“I don’t mind listening,” Kei said.

Dox smiled a little sadly. “I know you don’t. Would you trust me, though?”

Amazingly, Kei nodded as though she indeed did trust him. Dox, Treven decided, just had a way with people. Those kids in the minivan at the Capital Hilton had practically fallen in love with him inside five minutes. And now, he’d somehow gotten a woman who he’d helped kidnap to apparently believe he had her best interests at heart. Treven wished he knew the trick. He would have liked to be able to do it himself.

Dox got up and put the headphones on Kei, then walked over to Treven. “Let me ask you something,” he said quietly. “How well do you know that hombre?”

Treven wondered where he was going with this. “Not that well. I tracked him down in Costa Rica for Hort, and then we wound up working together on this fucked-up op.”

“Then you don’t really know him.”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m just trying to get a handle on him. I’m usually good at reading people, but when I try to read Larison, it’s like the pages are blank. That, or it’s too dark to see them.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

“What do you think he’s thinking right now?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean, if you were him, and you just found out the diamonds are real, and Horton is now a civilian, and you don’t give a shit about schoolchildren being murdered, what do you do?”

Treven didn’t answer. He’d been half-consciously grappling with the same question.

Dox waited, then said, “Do you just take your cut of the diamonds and walk away?”

“I don’t know.”

“Cause that’s a lot of loose ends you’re leaving behind.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“And that’s just the cold-hearted calculus of the cold-hearted operator I’m trying to imagine. It could be even worse.”

“How?”

“You think Larison has any…secrets?”

Treven was suddenly and profoundly aware that, this whole time, he’d been wrongly assuming Dox was a little bit dull. And, equally suddenly and profoundly, that he’d been completely, dangerously wrong about that. He wondered how many people had come to the same realization in the moment before Dox put out their lights forever. He supposed he should count himself lucky, for having learned the lesson so cheaply.

“Secrets?” he said, hoping his expression hadn’t betrayed anything.

Dox looked at him, the hillbilly gone, the expression more akin to that of a human polygraph. “Secrets,” Dox said again. “Because, if he had any, and he had reason to believe that we might know or even suspect those secrets, I’m a little concerned about what conclusions he might draw.”

Treven didn’t answer. He thought Dox was right, but wasn’t sure about the implications of acknowledging it.

“I think you know what I’m talking about,” Dox said. “And that’s why you’re not answering. You think I’m wrong?”

Treven shook his head. “No.”

“Well, we can handle Larison. One way or the other. But one thing I cannot abide is what he might do to this girl here. If those diamonds are legit, we don’t need her anymore. And we’ve put her through enough. I say we let her go. What do you say to that?”

“Just let her go?”

Dox nodded. “Right now. Before the angel of death gets back here and starts trying to implement whatever conclusions he might have arrived at during this morning’s absence.”

Treven thought. He didn’t want to be a party to the girl’s death anymore than Dox did. But it was also dangerous to do this kind of thing without even an attempt at consensus.

“Look,” he said, “even if I agreed with you, and I’m not saying I don’t, we can’t just let her walk out of here right now. Rain and Larison aren’t back yet, and we have to assume she’d go straight to the police.”

“She doesn’t even know where she is,” Dox said. “I could take her out blindfolded, drop her off wherever, and drive away, and that would be that.”

“Are you that sure she couldn’t find her way back here? There are sounds, smells…some identifying thing we missed in this room. Or a sense of the turns you make and the distances you go. She’s smart. I can see that, and so can you.”

“All right then, what would you say if I drove her someplace and waited for you all to call me? I could let her go then, with plenty of time for all of us to vamoose.”

“What if the diamonds aren’t real? We don’t know yet.”

“What if they’re not? Look at her. You going to put a bullet in her head? Or watch while Larison does?”

Treven didn’t answer.

“Of course you’re not,” Dox said. “And you should be proud and relieved that you couldn’t—that your parents didn’t raise someone who could. Now, this has gone on long enough. If Horton has called our bluff, I say so be it. We’ve got other things to do, like stopping a group of ruthless zealots from massacring a bunch of schoolchildren in the name of the greater good.”

The reference to his parents, both long gone, hit home. For a moment, Treven wondered whether Dox had deliberately seemed to suggest the impractical idea that they let Kei go immediately because he knew it would get Treven to object on practical, and therefore persuadable, grounds. He realized Dox must have been waiting for the right moment to initiate this whole conversation. He’d probably been hoping Treven would give him an opening, and, when he sensed they were likely running out of time, he’d found one himself. Treven felt like an idiot for having thought the man was dull. If there was a dull one in the room, it was himself.

“Christ,” he said. “Larison’s going to get back here and go postal. And Rain might, too.”

“Rain’ll be just fine. I know him. As for Larison, well, he’s unarmed for the moment. I recommend we keep him that way, until we’re sure he’s had time to properly adjust to our new circumstances.”

Treven thought for a moment. “If the diamonds are real,” he said, “I think Larison will get over this. I think.”

Dox nodded as though already knowing where Treven was going. And approving of it.

“But if they’re not real,” Treven said, “and he feels like Hort fucked him again, and we were complicit, we’re going to have to kill him. Because if we don’t, he’ll kill us.”

Dox nodded again, and again Treven had the uncomfortable sense that he’d been guided along to his conclusions by exceptionally deft hands.

But that didn’t change the essential accuracy of the conclusions themselves. “All right,” he said. “Get her out of here. You better hurry. They could be back soon.”

Dox looked at him, then held out his hand. “Ben Treven, I’m glad to know you’re one of the good guys.”

Treven shook his hand. “I wouldn’t go that far. Now go.”

Rain and Larison got back about an hour after Dox had left with Kei. Treven unlocked the door and let them in with his left hand. In his right, he held the Glock.

They came in and he locked the door behind them. They glanced around the room and at the open bathroom door. Treven braced himself.

“Where’s the girl?” Larison said.

“With Dox,” Treven said.

“Oh, shit,” Rain said, putting his fingers to his temples like a man struggling with a migraine. “I knew this was going to happen.”

“Knew what was going to happen?” Larison said. He turned to Treven. “Where are they?”

Rain said, “He took her, didn’t he?”

Treven nodded.

Larison’s face darkened. “Took her? What the fuck is going on?”

Treven looked at Larison. “I’ll tell you the truth. He thought you were going to come back here and kill her. And you know what? I agreed with him.”

“What if I was?” Larison said. “Hort was supposed to call off the dogs. Instead, he neutered himself. He broke the deal. That means he pays the price.”

“Are the diamonds real?” Treven said.

Rain nodded. “They’re real.”

“Good,” Treven said, still looking at Larison. “That’s more than enough. We’re not going to kill some innocent girl because of your grudge against her father. I don’t care what you call it. That’s what it is.”

Rain said, “All right, let’s be practical for a minute. We can all kill each other afterward, if we still want to. What did you work out with Dox?”

“I’m supposed to call him when you two are back,” Treven said. “And then the four of us are supposed to meet at some café you like in Beverly Hills.”

“Shit,” Rain said, “we just came from Beverly Hills. What café? Urth?”

“That’s the one. The guy is pretty particular about his food.”

“He has one of the cell phones?”

“Yes.”

“All right, call him. But best to use a payphone. No sense blowing more than one of the phones.”