Barry Eisler - The Detachment

Hort showed up at a little past nine o’clock. He was dressed in civilian clothes-khaki pants, a green polo shirt-and carrying a blue nylon gym bag. His face was uncharacteristically drawn, borderline exhausted. He looked like a man who’d lost big, and was now terrified of losing everything else on top of it.

He walked slowly through the waiting area, his head tracking left and right, and then saw Treven. As he walked over, Treven wrapped his fingers around the grip of the Glock and kept his thumb on the exterior of the hip pouch. He could fire right through the thing, if necessary, and the gun would remain concealed until he did. He scanned the room and saw no one suspicious coming in behind Hort, or from elsewhere.

Hort stopped a few feet away. He didn’t sit and Treven didn’t stand.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Hort said.

Treven scanned the room again. “You shouldn’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because that hotel thing was the second time you’ve tried to have me killed. I was an idiot to tell you what Larison was planning. He was right. I should have just helped take you out.”

“Those men weren’t there for you. You’re the one who told me where I could find you, remember? I know you’re the only one I can trust. You know what that means to me, after all that’s happened between us? Do you have any idea how grateful I am that you would give me a second chance?”

It was more or less what he’d been expecting. Which made the fact that he was tempted to believe it doubly irritating. “You have what we asked for?” he said.

Hort tossed the gym bag onto the chair next to Treven. “It’s all in there. Just a nylon bag, too, no room for tracking devices, though I expect you’ll want to check anyway.”

“We’ll check the contents, too. With an expert.”

“That’s understandable. Still, I assure you, the contents are what you have asked for. And now, I’m going to offer one more thing, and ask for one more favor.”

“What?”

“If you want to take me to one of the canyon drives, or the national forest, or to some other quiet place, I will kneel and look off into the distance and you can put a bullet in the back of my head. All you have to do is say the word.”

“Is that the offer, or the favor?”

Hort smiled tightly. “That’s the offer. The favor is, hear me out first. And, no matter what you decide, please. Let my little girl go.”

His voice cracked on the last word. Treven couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen Hort other than confident, competent, always in control. It felt like what they’d done had broken him, and despite everything, Treven was suddenly ashamed.

But he couldn’t afford to indulge that feeling, much less to show it. “That’s two favors,” he said.

“I don’t care how you count them. And I don’t care what you do to me. I have never begged anyone for anything in my life, and I am begging you. Just let her go.”

Treven gestured with his head. “Let me see your ankles. And turn around.”

Hort complied. He wasn’t carrying a firearm.

Treven looked around the room. Still no problems. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Maybe to one of those quiet places you mentioned. You can say whatever you want me to hear on the way.”

They walked through the station and down to the Red Line subway. Treven kept them on the platform while a train roared in and then squealed out. When its departing passengers had moved off, and the two of them were alone for a moment, Treven switched on a bug detector Rain had given him. No response.

“You carrying a mobile phone?” he asked.

Hort nodded. “Yes, but I’ve removed the battery. I thought you might ask.”

All right, then. Either Hort was clean, or he was carrying a device he would switch on later. To counter that possibility, Treven would turn the detector on again when they were alone.

Another train came and went, leaving the platform momentarily empty again, and this time Treven was sure no one was following them, at least through visual contact. They waited again and then got on the next train. It was about half full, everyone looking like a civilian, albeit a tense one. Treven had Hort sit a few seats forward and facing the same direction so he could go through the gym bag without having to worry about Hort trying to disarm him while he was distracted. Not that disarming him would do any good, but it was best to deny an enemy both motive and opportunity.

As the car sped along, swaying in the close confines of the tunnel, he unzipped the bag. Thousands of small, pale stones, some yellowish, some light gray, most of them translucent white. He dug his hand in and moved it around carefully. Nothing other than the stones. He felt thoroughly along the handles of the bag and its seams. No telltale bulges or wires. No transmitters. It was a just a bag. Okay.

At the Vermont/Beverly stop, he had them step out and wait on the platform again. No question, unless Hort had enough people with him to blanket every train on the Red Line, they were clean. They got back on the next train. They rode it to North Hollywood, the end of the line, got off, and walked to Chandler Boulevard, where earlier Treven had parked another stolen car. This one was a dark blue Honda Accord sedan, one of the bestselling and therefore most common cars in America, which a harried housewife had been foolish enough to leave with the key in the ignition while she ran for just a minute into a Culver City dry cleaner carrying a load of shirts.

He gave Hort the key. “You drive,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

It was hard to imagine Hort still had access to the kind of domestic surveillance apparatus he might have been able to call into play before his resignation. Besides, unlike the others, Treven knew Hort hadn’t used that apparatus in fixing them at the Capital Hilton-he had simple human intelligence from Treven to thank for that. Also, it was night, meaning the birds would have a harder time tracking them. Even so, he had Hort drive an extensive surveillance detection run that incorporated the kinds of overpass and garage maneuvers they’d used to obscure their movements after snatching Kei. Rain’s bug detector remained silent as they drove.

They finished on Lake Hollywood Drive, a lonely, serpentine section of the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Reservoir. When they came to a curve partly concealed by scrub bushes and some dried-out trees, Treven told Hort to pull off the road and park. Ordinarily, Treven wouldn’t have liked the spot for a meeting like this because there was always the chance of a cop driving by. But doubtless Los Angeles law enforcement was more focused on protecting critical infrastructure just now than they were on rousting horny kids parked in the Hills.

Hort cut the lights and the ignition and looked out through the driver-side window. “Not a bad spot to dump a body,” he said. “I do hope you’ll hear me out first.”

“I’m listening.”

“You mind if I have a cigar?”

Treven squeezed the grip of the Glock, reassured by its familiar heft. “Whatever you like.”

Hort thumbed the switch for the driver-side window, then eased a canister and a cigar guillotine from his front pants pocket. He unscrewed the canister, slid out a cigar, and expertly clipped one end with the guillotine. He tossed the clipped end through the open window, put the cut end in his mouth, slid a wooden match out of the canister, popped it with a thumbnail, waited a moment, then slowly lit the end of the cigar, rotating it methodically to get it going evenly. When he was satisfied, he waved the match out and held it until it was cold before tossing it, too, out the window.