Barry Eisler - The Detachment

There was a long and tense silence. Then, reluctantly, Larison slid his Glock back in his waistband. Dox, watching Larison unblinkingly, slowly did the same.

I motioned Larison over to the bathroom. “Give us a minute,” I said to Dox.

We went inside and I closed the door behind us. “Look,” I said quietly. “He’s got a soft spot for girls, and when you scare her like that, it presses his buttons.”

“That’s his problem.”

“All right. But you’re a professional. What’s the upside for you? What are you getting out of it?”

He didn’t answer.

“My point is, it’s not like you. We’ve spent a decent amount of time together at this point-two hits, a cross-country drive, a snatch-and you’re always in control. What’s got you running so hot now?”

He looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You want to talk?”

He laughed. “You trying to be my shrink?”

“I’m trying to be your friend.”

“Well, don’t.”

I looked at him. “How many people do you know who would understand the shit you’ve done? And how it weighs on you?”

Again, he didn’t answer.

“Look,” I said, “do what you want. But you have to stop running so hot. It’s making Dox jumpy, and it’s starting to make me jumpy. If I can help, let me help, but either way, we all need you cool. I need you cool. Like you usually are. Okay?”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Okay.”

We went out and returned to waiting. No one waved any more guns. I was going to have to do something about Larison, and I didn’t know what. Shake him? Shoot him? How could I get through to him? I thought, if I ever work with a team again, just kill me, and then had to stifle a crazy laugh because, with this team, that was exactly the problem.

At nearly one in the morning, there was a soft knock at the door. All of us stood, save Kei, who still had one wrist flex-tied to a bedpost. All the guns came out again. Larison was looking at Kei; Dox was looking at Larison. I checked the peephole. It was Treven.

“Easy,” I said to Larison and Dox. “It’s him.”

I opened the door and Treven came in. He was holding a gym bag. That was encouraging. I locked the door behind him.

“You get the diamonds?” Larison said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Don’t brief us yet.” I gestured to Kei. “Dox, could you put the headphones on her?”

We’d picked up a pair of over-the-ear headphones and a radio so we could talk in her presence without being overheard. Dox put the headphones on himself, adjusted the radio volume to his satisfaction, and then slipped the headphones onto Kei’s head and over her ears. She bore it well, her expression neutral but not blank; her posture, resigned but not beaten.

“Right here,” Treven said, holding up the bag.

Larison nodded. I didn’t like how eager he looked. “Did you do him?” he said.

There was a pause. Treven said, “No.”

Larison’s mouth dropped open. “What?”

“I’m not going to lie to you,” Treven said. “I could have. But based on what he told me, I think it would have been a mistake to do it right now.”

“Goddamn it,” Larison said, “Hort always has a line of shit. Always. When the hell are you going to figure that out?”

Treven looked at him. “You know,” he said, “I’m getting a little tired of you.”

I thought, Christ, here we go again.

“Listen,” I said, in my best command voice. “We’re all a little strung out. You’re professionals, you know the signs and you know the causes. We’ve been going balls-out for a week now, Las Vegas to Vienna, back to the East Coast, gun fights, three days non-stop driving in a portable sauna all the way to California, worrying about satellites and drones and however the hell Horton tracked us in D.C….no privacy, no breaks, and barely any sleep. It’s amazing we haven’t killed each other yet. But let’s not kill each other now, okay? We need to dial it down. Or we’re all going to die.”

No one spoke. Either the moment had passed, or Dox was going to have to do another movie impression. Or we were all going to shoot each other. One of the three, anyway.

Finally, Larison said, “What did he say?”

Treven looked at me and said, “You were right about the schools.”

We all listened quietly while he briefed us. When he was done, Larison said, “You can’t really believe him. Don’t you see what he’s doing?”

I looked at Treven. “He told you where and when the school attack is supposed to go down?”

Treven nodded. “Lincoln, Nebraska. Smack in the middle of the country. Three days from now, on the first day back from summer vacation. Some kind of back-to-school assembly that morning in the auditorium, apparently. This guy Gillmor is running a team of four guys. Hort says they’re going to show up with machine pistols and just hose the room down. Nothing fancy, not a lot of logistics, just pure horror and destruction tailor-made for cable news.”

“Exactly,” Larison said. “It’s another setup. We’re supposed to show up with our hair on fire exactly when and where Hort tells us to. This time, he’ll have snipers positioned in vehicles all around the school. He fixes us, finishes us, goes home and has a beer.”

“There’s one more thing,” Treven said. “They’re going to hit the building with drone-fired Hellfire missiles while the shooters are inside.”

“What’s the point?” Dox said. “Kill the shooters?”

“Yes,” Treven said. “Just like Hort was trying to kill us after we did Shorrock and Finch. And also increase the destruction. But don’t you see? If we try to stop this, we won’t all be fixable in the same place at the same time. Some of us would have to take out the shooters. Someone else would have to take out the drone, or find the ground team operating it.”

“So Hort fixes us in two places instead of one,” Larison said. “It’s the same bullshit, and you’re falling for it. Again.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Dox said to Larison. “What if Horton’s telling the truth? A bunch of children are going to be slaughtered, and we’ll be part of it.”

Larison looked incredulous. “Part of it how?”

“We took out Shorrock and Finch,” Dox said. “We helped set this in motion.”

“Not our fault,” Larison said. “We thought we were stopping it, remember?”

“You didn’t care if we stopped it, started it, or fucked it in the ass,” Dox said. “You just wanted your damn diamonds.”

For just an instant, Larison’s expression twisted. I read it as, What did you mean by that? I sensed him fight to not glance at Treven, who shook his head the tiniest fraction, as if to say, I didn’t tell them.

Hort’s words flashed in my mind:

He’s a man who has too much to keep hidden. A man in turmoil.

I wasn’t sure how I knew. It was all preconscious, nothing I could articulate. But I knew. Larison was gay. Treven knew, and Larison knew Treven knew, his secret.

It was over in an instant. I didn’t think Dox had spotted it, and I suspected Treven and Larison would have been confident neither Dox nor I had noticed anything, either. I didn’t even know what it meant, exactly. Was this what was stressing Larison out? Why would Dox or I even care?

But Larison cared. That was clear. It was a secret, and he wanted to keep it that way.

“It doesn’t matter what I wanted,” Larison said, fully in control again. “What matters is that whatever these people might or might not be planning at a school or anywhere else, it has nothing to do with us. Even beyond the fact that you can bet it’s an ambush. And even if we survived it, you want to do something that would help put Hort back in power? We’re lucky he’s defanged for the moment. You want him coming after us again? Because he would. His motives haven’t changed, only his means.”