Daniel Suarez - Kill Decision

He hung up and just stared.

Odin nodded. “How are things, Mordecai?”

His office manager frowned. “There’s been some mistake. Mister James is-”

“Get out, Maggie.” When she didn’t hop to it, he shooed her out with ringed fingers. “Now! And close the door.”

She nodded and obeyed, her face taut with humiliation.

McKinney kept her eyes on the man. He was in his mid-twenties, reasonably good-looking, but with the oily presence of a gold-chain salesman in a bad part of town. He wore a denim shirt with embroidery on the chest pockets. His fingers held several rings of similar design. Though he was still young, his hair was thinning, a situation he compensated for with Isaac Asimov-style muttonchop sideburns. He was still staring at Odin with utter incomprehension.

Odin dropped into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “No hello?”

“Thanks for using my real name, asshole. I see you got rid of that bin Laden beard of yours. I barely recognized you. Why the fuck are you here?”

Odin motioned for McKinney to take a seat next to him. “So what is it now-Ryan James? That’s pretty bland for a guy like you.” Odin gestured in their host’s direction. “Professor, this used to be the far more interesting Mordecai Elijah Evans-a very talented member of a U.S. Cyber Command worm squad-part of the Joint Functional Component Command for Network Warfare. Mort here was their pet black-hat. On a short leash under the threat of-what was it again, Mort? — sixty-five years and a two-million-dollar fine?”

“I paid my debt to society.”

“But not your debt to me.”

“You don’t- You’d better not be here for me, Odin. One phone call, and you go away. I have friends now. Powerful, official friends.”

“I need your talents.”

“I don’t work for DOD anymore. I got my package, motherfucker. Legal pardon. A new life.” He gestured to the office. “I’m a legitimate businessman.”

Odin nodded appreciatively. “Yes, very lifelike.”

Evans sneered back at the sarcasm with an intense nasal imitation of Odin’s voice. “Mmm… vera lifelike. Fuck you. I’m not the same person I was back then.”

“Not the same name maybe, but I don’t think you’ve changed. You forget how much I know about you.”

“Leave, or I make a call.”

Odin spoke to McKinney, keeping his eyes on Evans. “Morty here sold zero-day exploits to international criminal gangs-helped advanced technology escape to parts unknown. What we’re dealing with right now might be because of him.”

“I got my deal. They need people like me, Odin. It’s that simple. Door kickers like you are replaceable-or should I say disposable? I am not.” He frowned. “How did you get in, anyway?”

“I kicked the door in.”

“Look, this is all moot. You can’t twist my arm anymore. I’m part of the system now. The system wants you to leave.” He swept his arm dramatically to point at the door. “So leave.”

“I need information. You’re going to help me get it.”

Evans just laughed. “Are you deaf? I’ve got powerful allies, and I don’t work for you.” He put his hand over the multiline phone system on his desk. “One more word, and I make the call.”

Odin leaned forward and produced a black automatic pistol from the waistband at the small of his back. He held it up for Evans to clearly see. McKinney noticed a short exposed barrel with threads at the end of its blocky body. The words USP Tactical were engraved in letters large enough to read on its side.

Evans just frowned at it. “What, are you kidding me?”

Odin produced a metal cylinder from his pocket and proceeded to screw it onto the end of the barrel.

Evans laughed. “I feel insulted by this posturing.”

McKinney grabbed Odin’s shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”

Odin finished screwing on the suppressor. “I’m doing what’s necessary, Professor. I assure you, there’s no other means to secure Mordecai’s cooperation.”

“But you’re making me party to a- I don’t think we need this person so badly that we need to resort to this.”

“Listen to the lady, Odin.”

Odin shook his head but kept looking at Evans. “Mort, would you cooperate under any circumstances other than the threat of physical force?”

Evans chuckled and ruefully shook his head. “You know, I’m going to have to say no to that-in fact, I’m going to say no to physical force as well.” He picked up the handset of his desk phone. “If I disappeared-all these witnesses. Too many cameras. They’d track you down. It would be suicide to lay a finger on me.”

Odin chambered a round. “Good thing I don’t give a shit.”

“Well, you care about your team. The man can get to them to get to you.”

“My team’s all dead. Betrayed by someone inside the system. The same system you now belong to, apparently.”

Evans’s smile started to fade.

“And if you check around, I think you’ll find they’re already hunting for me. Killing you would have no effect whatsoever on my afternoon, much less my life.”

McKinney could see the change in Evans’s face-the first time he’d shown any regard whatsoever for Odin. She watched, feeling bad for being a party to threatening this man she’d never met, and tried not to react to Odin’s lie.

Evans had gone pale. “Who’s your pretty friend, Odin?” Evans grinned weakly.

“You call her ‘Professor.’”

Evans extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Professor.”

McKinney nodded and shook his clammy hand.

Evans didn’t let go immediately but instead studied her hand. “Not an operator.” He pointed toward Odin but spoke to McKinney. “See that callus on Odin’s gun hand? You get that firing fifty thousand rounds a year. The training acclimates you to gunfire. And the screams of innocents.”

Odin still held the pistol aimed toward the drop ceiling.

Evans kept a wary eye on Odin. “Professor, do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”

McKinney couldn’t help but glance with concern at Odin.

“You remember that shopkeeper in Dushanbe, Odin? How he pleaded for his life, and you just double-tapped him in front of his kid. So glad I could help you locate him. Makes me proud to be an American.”

Odin remained emotionless. “If you were so disturbed, why’d you take his cigarettes?”

“Because they were French cigarettes.” Evans was starting to perspire. “In your experience, Professor, what usually happens to witnesses when heartless guys like this get what they want? See, I think they kill witnesses to cover their tracks. That’s what I think.”

McKinney cast an impatient look at Odin and motioned for him to put the gun down. “Mr. Evans, we just need information. If you help us, I promise you that I won’t let Odin harm you.”

Evans laughed. “Oh, you won’t let him harm me. I’d like to see that. What sort of information?”

McKinney cast Odin another look and kept the floor. “Communications records.”

He looked back and forth between them, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, we’re doing this the hard way: What sort of communication records?”

McKinney hesitated. “We need access to historical data-we want to find out who in the intelligence sector might have been searching for drone attack victims just before they were killed.”

Evans cast an incredulous look at Odin. “Is she for real?”

Odin nodded.

Evans turned back to McKinney. “Ah. Right. Let me just hook you up…”

“Mr. Evans-”

“No, let me just confirm this: You want to eavesdrop on the eavesdroppers-have I got that right? Which pretty much means you need root access to whatever the NSA developed Project ThinThread into, not to mention AT amp;T’s Aurora database-quite possibly the biggest data store on earth.”