Barry Eisler - The Detachment

“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 cafe you like in Beverly Hills.”

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

“You want me to change the location?”

“No, I don’t want to say anything about where we’re meeting on an open line. Urth is fine. We paid up for the room?”

“We’re paid up.”

“What’s Dox driving?”

“The Honda I boosted.”

“Then the truck’s still here?”

Treven nodded his head toward the bed stand. “Keys are right there.”

“All right. There’s a payphone on the northwest corner of Lincoln and Pico. Call Dox, tell him we’ll meet him as planned as soon as we can.”

“Where’s my gun?” Larison said.

“Top dresser drawer,” Treven said. “Yours and his.” He waited a moment, but Larison didn’t move for the dresser. That was good. If he had, Treven was going to shoot him right then and there. He wondered if Larison understood that.

“We’ll pull the truck around in about fifteen minutes,” Rain said. He seemed to know exactly what was going on, and Treven wondered what he had planned. Talk to Larison? Kill him? He couldn’t read Rain much better than he could read Larison.

Whichever it was, he hoped Rain knew what he was doing. He nodded and went out.

Larison wanted to go to the dresser and get the Glock. He wasn’t even sure what he was going to do with it, but he felt so outplayed and so boxed in that he just needed to be holding a weapon. It was like this sometimes when he woke from one of the dreams, arms shaking and heart hammering and torso slicked with sweat, and the only thing that could bring him down was the feel of a weapon in one hand and solid objects, totems of the waking world, under the other. But Rain was standing between him and the dresser, and he didn’t know what Rain would do if he made a move. Would Rain try to stop him? Larison had sixty pounds on the man, maybe more, but he’d watched Rain take out those contractors in Tokyo and they were even bigger than Larison. Anyway, even if he could beat Rain hand-to-hand, there wouldn’t be much value to reaching the gun if he got to it with a broken arm, or worse. He decided the safer course was to stand down, for now.

Rain was watching him, and Larison had the sense the man knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Well?” Rain said. “What are we going to do?”

“What do you mean?” he said, telling himself he was playing for time.

“What would you say if I told you about a four-man team, three of whom independently came to the same conclusion about the fourth member?”

Larison didn’t answer.

“In case I’m not being clear,” Rain went on, “the conclusion I’m referring to is that you were going to come back here and punch that girl’s ticket.”

“So what?”

“Were we right?”

“What difference does it make?”

“In a way, none. Because when you have three people out of four thinking the worst of you, there’s a problem even if the three people are mistaken. And that problem is you.”

Larison didn’t answer. Christ, if he only had that gun. Just the feel of it in his hand. To hold all this shit at bay.

Rain watched him. “You want to know what Treven didn’t say?”

Again, Larison didn’t answer. The dresser was eight feet away. Could Rain really stop him?

“He didn’t say the other thing we were all thinking. Which is that you weren’t just going to punch Kei’s ticket. You were going to try to punch everyone’s.”

Larison gritted his teeth. He’d never felt so exposed. They knew too much about him. They’d seen through him. Somehow he’d faltered. It was all out in the open now. All of it.

“Were we wrong?” Rain asked.

Larison looked at him. “Stop fucking around. You want to finish this, let’s finish it.”

“What do you think I’m trying to do?”

“You’re trying to fuck with my head, and I don’t like it.”

Rain walked over to the dresser.

Larison, distracted by his own inner turmoil, was slow to react. He said, “Don’t!” But in the time it took him to get the word out, Rain had already opened the drawer. Rain glanced back at him, then reached in and came out with the Glock.

Larison watched, fascinated. A weird placidity settled over him. He tried to think of something to say. Nothing came out. There was a moment of weakness in his knees, but he thought that was relief more than fear. Yes, relief.

Rain checked the load in the Glock. He held the gun and looked at Larison. His expression was grimly purposeful.

Larison smiled. It seemed important to let Rain know he wasn’t afraid. That, on some level, he was even complicit.

Rain tossed him the gun. Larison was so astonished he almost couldn’t react. At the last instant, he got his hands up and caught it. He stood staring at it for a moment in shock.

“What a waste,” Rain said. “Overall, we’ve been a pretty solid detachment. We’ve survived two ambushes and a hunt by the national security state; we’ve scored a hundred million dollars; our biggest enemy just neutered himself, as you put it…and we’re going to cash all that in because we just can’t help killing each other. Does that make sense to you?”

Larison blinked. Was Rain fucking with him? He could tell by the Glock’s weight the magazine was full. Still, he racked the slide to be sure. A bullet ejected. Larison caught it in the air and looked at it. Standard nine-millimeter round. The gun was loaded.

“What are you doing?” Larison said. He was holding the gun, but he felt suddenly terrified.

“I’m doing for you what Dox once did for me. The thing I told you about in Vienna-Kwai Chung.”

“You told me he saved your life.”

“That was the obvious part. He also proved to me I could trust somebody. Of the two, I think the second had the more lasting effect.”

Larison tried to think of something to say and couldn’t access the words.

“How do you think Horton wants it?” Rain said. “You think he wants you killing everyone who might know your secrets? Or trusting people to watch your back?”

Larison looked at him. He wanted to ask what Rain meant by “secrets.” But to ask would be to reveal. And besides, he could sense, on some deep, unexplainable level, that Rain…already knew. The same way he could sense that he also didn’t care.