Barry Eisler - The Detachment

“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.”