David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

“But these men haven't done what bin Laden did, ”Rita argued.

“Neither had bin Laden before he did it. But we did know that he was some kind of threat, on some level, possibly huge. Our problem was that we had a failure of imagination. And it cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars, and we're not through yet. Believe me, these men have every bit as much potential to assault this country as bin Laden did. Some of them have even more. They wouldn't do it the way he did it. They know we're watching for that. But they'll come up with something different.

“You need to understand, there's no failure of imagination in their minds. Look at what Luquin has come up with. And what he's doing to you isn't even his objective. It's just something he's doing to get his hands around a huge sum of money on his way to something bigger. He's financing something, and we don't know what the hell it is. But we're worried about it.”

Burden looked down at the floor, his hands still clasped, forearms on his knees. His face, though impassive, nevertheless conveyed the strain he must have felt as time pressed in upon him.

“This is… hard to believe, ”Rita said.

Burden looked up. “Is it as hard to believe as Charlie Thrush's death? Or what that deputy told you just an hour ago?”

Titus said, “How do we know we can believe this?”

Then he saw something in Burden's face, an inkling, really, a slight intimation, of a hard passion stripped of the civility and of the world that had been ripped away from Titus three nights before. In the flick of an instant he glimpsed that unmentionable thing that a cultivated society allows to live at its core as long as it doesn't step into the full light, as long as it is silent and protects us from those unspeakable things that live even deeper in the darkness than it does.

“You want all of your questions answered? ”Burden asked. “Listen to me, I've spent eighteen years in this business, and I've had to make a hell of a lot of morally confusing decisions. But they've never given me all the answers. Ever. Only God gets all the answers.”

Burden simply looked at them, and Titus could feel him trying to understand how they were taking this. Then Burden said:

“I'm not going to say we're engaged in a war here. It's not that easy to define, and it oversimplifies what we're facing. But we do have enemies who threaten us, who have to be engaged in a defensive struggle. And that struggle shares in some of war's demons: People die, people make sacrifices, make hard decisions, do hard things. And if we survive, we have to live with what we saw and what we did, and what we allowed others to do on our behalf. It's the price we pay… even if we didn't have any choice in the matter at all.”

Titus glanced at Rita, and he could clearly see the strain in her face. This had blindsided her, caught her off guard even more than it had Titus.

“We can't send this struggle away to be dealt with elsewhere by other people, ”Burden went on. “When something like this comes to your doorstep, you have to deal with it on your doorstep. And you have to deal with the moral decisions that killing always involves. Life doesn't give us clarity of foresight. We work with what we've got. It's a human dilemma.”

Before Titus could speak, Rita stood from where she had been sitting beside him on the arm of his chair. He watched her as if he were seeing her anew, loving her profile, loving the way her thick, buttery hair was gathered hastily behind her neck, always so practical. She put both hands on her hips, wrists up, and looked at both men.

“All of this is just so ridiculously horrific, isn't it, ”she said. “I can't stop thinking of Louise, and of Carla's poor girls. Going to sleep at night will never be the same again for any of them.”

Titus didn't know what she was going to say, but he knew in his gut where she was going with it.

“Can you possibly imagine what those two… deaths must've been like, ”she said, looking at Titus now. “I have to say I've thought of it. In spite of my repulsion at the idea of it, I've been drawn to thinking of it. Can we possibly imagine the… odd… horror of their last moments?” Pause. “What are we to think of that?”

She put her hands together and pressed her forefingers to her lips as she thought a moment. Then she wiped back a few floating tendrils from her temples.

“We're not bad people, Titus. If we do this, then we do it, and we don't look back. I know that I've been dragging my feet, and that's made it hard for both of you. But if what he's telling us is the truth

… we don't have any choice in this. This really is bigger than us, larger than our own selfinterests, larger than our fears.”

She turned and focused on Burden. “We don't know what… we're doing here. We're caught in a terrible place. If Titus is willing to trust you on this, then I will, too. ”She paused. “But so help me God, if you turn out not to be who you say you are, as wild as this sounds, I'll see to it that you regret what you're doing to us.”

Rita and Burden stared at each other in silence. It was a moment that at once cleared the air and then suddenly filled it again with new tensions.

Titus stood up. “Let's just get the hell on with it, ”he said.

Burden looked up at him. “Titus, none of this ever happened. This is your own consent to silence.”

“Understood, ”Titus said. Rita swallowed and nodded.

Burden hesitated, then decided not to belabor it.

“Okay, then, ”he said, “that's settled. Now, first thing: It's time you two had a conversation in your bedroom for the benefit of the listening devices we left active in there. Titus, we need for Luquin to believe that he's achieved the effect he was wanting to achieve with you by keeping the pressure on you. This is especially true since you pissed him off last night.

“You need to tell Rita that after learning of Carla's death, you want to get this ordeal over with as quickly as possible. To prevent any more deaths, you're going to give Luquin all of the money he's asking for. Forget the delayed releases, you say. You're going to start putting through big chunks of his ransom demand to Cavatino as quickly as your attorney can arrange it with your banker and your broker. Tomorrow. Or the next day. As soon as possible.”

“But what if I can't deliver on that?”

“All you're saying is that you're going to speed up the original schedule he'd given you. ”Burden checked his watch. “That conversation needs to happen within the hour. One last thing, ”he said, looking at Titus. “In your meeting with Luquin last night, you gave him a pretty hard time. That took guts. But in any other circumstances, that would've gotten you killed. And that confrontational stance has a pretty stiff downside to it.

“It's my fault, ”he added quickly. “I should've covered this with you, but it got past me. The fact is, pissing him off wasn't what we wanted to do. The upshot of the meeting should've been that you were intimidated by your confrontation with him. He needed to have walked away from there thinking that he had you completely under his control. But in light of the effect you had on him, I think we ought to bring in some bodyguards to stay here with Rita. You may have to leave again. She may need company.”

Neither Titus nor Rita said anything for a moment. They were both having the same thought, but Rita came out with it first.

“But… isn't that… wouldn't that be the same thing as Titus removing the surveillance? When they see bodyguards coming in here… won't that give Luquin another excuse to kill someone else?”

She was looking at Burden, but it was Titus who spoke up.

“Do it, ”he said to Burden. “And do it fast.”