Barry Eisler - Inside out

"What else?" he asked, reminding himself to use the kind of open-ended questions they'd taught him at the Farm were best for general elicitation.

She laughed. "What else were you expecting? That's got to be more than you were hoping for right there."

He was half impressed, half irritated by her spunk. He wondered what she'd been like as Larison's wife. A handful, that much was clear.

He looked at her. "If you think of anything else, will you call me?"

She smiled, a faint, sad movement at the corners of her mouth. "If you learn anything else, will you do the same?"

Why not, he thought. She's still in pain over this. You can call her, tell her anything you want, and make her feel better.

"If I learn something that would be personally helpful to you," he said, "then yes, I'll try to find a way to let you know. Off the record." It felt good to say it. It wasn't even a lie exactly.

"I just want to know about Costa Rica. You understand?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Was he seeing someone there."

"Got it."

She closed her eyes and shook her head. "I doubt it. That's a very hard thing not to know about the man you were married to. If you're decent, you won't even put what you find in your report."

"I don't… I'll try not to."

She looked at him and nodded gravely, as though grateful for his gesture and doubtful of its worth. "Well, if you happen to come back here and want to fill me in in person, that would be fine."

He nodded, wondering whether he'd been wrong after all about her initial interest. "I can't promise anything," he said. "But… I think that would be nice." Again, he wasn't exactly lying.

She walked him to the door. He opened it and took a quick glance through the crack-first right, then sweeping left as he opened it wider. Everything looked all right. The gardener and his truck were gone. Other than that, nothing had changed since he'd arrived.

"My husband used to do that," she said from behind him, her voice cold.

He stepped out onto the stoop and glanced back at her. "Well, I don't want to wind up like him."

Even before the words were out, he realized it sounded harsher than he'd intended. As he tried to think of a way to soften it, she said, "Don't, then," and closed the door between them.

The Easy Way Ben walked down the steps, scanning the street. The information about Costa Rica sounded promising. He would check with Horton ops in South America, and if they could eliminate business, he would assume Larison had been traveling for personal reasons instead. A lover? The wife certainly seemed to think so.

And he'd follow up with McGlade, the investigator. Guy had to have been mildly brain damaged to try to tail someone like Larison, but he'd at least had the sense to figure out at some point the job wasn't worth the per diem.

Marcy. He had to admit, even beyond operational necessity, he was intrigued. She was a strange combination of savvy and honesty, openness and mystery. He wanted to do right by her, if he could. Not because he was interested in her. Or at least, not only because of that. It was something about the way she'd watched her son. That… sadness he'd seen in her face when the bus had pulled away. Initially it had made him think uncomfortably about Ami, but now it was summoning images of his own childhood, the breakfasts his mother would serve her three kids and her slightly absentminded engineer husband. Happy breakfasts, mostly, even though Ben had little patience for little brother Alex. Or at least they'd been happy until Katie's accident. Happiness had fled the Treven household after that, with Ben close on its heels.

Forty yards from his car, he noticed another one parked behind it, a brown Taurus that hadn't been there before. His heart rate kicked up a notch and his alertness level moved from orange into red. He slowed, watching the car, aware of the weight of the Glock.

Thirty yards out, the passenger-side door opened. A big white guy with close-cropped hair in a suit a lot like his started to get out. The driver-side door opened, too, and a black guy emerged, as big as his partner and also in a dark, forgettable suit. Ben slowed more, his readiness now completely at condition red, his heart pounding, his limbs suddenly suffused with adrenaline. They started walking toward him, their hands empty. He sensed, without having to consciously articulate it, that this wasn't a hit. If it had been, they wouldn't have moved on him while he was this far away.

Ben's head tracked left to right and he scanned his flanks to confirm the primary threat wasn't just a setup-a trained response burned by combat into reflex. A petite young black woman with a short afro, shapely and well-dressed in navy slacks and a matching sleeveless blouse, was walking along the sidewalk toward them. Her vibe was civilian and he sensed no connection to the two men. He judged her not part of the threat.

Ten yards. Ben watched their hands and shoulders, not their eyes. If anyone's arm even twitched, he would have the Glock out and they'd have to skip the pleasantries.

Five yards. "Excuse me, sir," the black guy said. "We need to ask you a few questions."

Ben checked his flanks again. The black woman was watching them, but with no more than normal curiosity. When she saw Ben looking, she glanced away, just another civilian recognizing possible trouble and not wanting it to recognize her back.

Three yards. "Who's 'we'?" Ben asked.

"FBI," the white guy said. "You need to come with us."

They stopped, close enough to try to grab him now, if they were that stupid.

"Nah, I don't feel like going anywhere right now," Ben said. "Better just ask me here."

"Look," the black guy said, his hand easing his jacket back, thumb first. "We can do this the easy way-"

Ben didn't give him a chance to finish the move, or even the sentence. He shot an open-hand jab into the guy's throat, catching his trachea in the web between his thumb and forefinger, feeling the cartilage shift unnaturally behind the blow. The guy's teeth slammed shut and his head snapped forward.

The other guy started to shuffle back to create distance, his hand going for something under his jacket. But he was on the wrong end of the action-reaction equation. Ben caught him by the lapels and smashed his forehead into his face. He felt the guy's nose break. He took a half step back and shot a knee into the guy's balls.

He turned back to the black guy, who was clutching his throat with his left hand and groping under his jacket with his right, his eyes bulging. Ben closed the distance, caught the guy's right sleeve, and yanked him past in the kind of arm drag he'd once favored as a high school wrestler. He hoisted him from behind, rotated him over an upraised knee, and slammed him facedown into the sidewalk.

The white guy was on his knees, his face a bloody mask. He snaked a jerky arm inside his jacket. Ben took a long step over and kicked him in the face. The force of the kick lifted the guy's supporting arm clean off the sidewalk and he dropped the gun he'd been fumbling for. Ben swept it up-a Glock 23, just like his. He checked the load. Good to go.

He tracked back to the black guy, aiming the Glock with a two-handed grip. No movement. Track back to the white guy. Same.

He stepped over to the black guy and bent to take his gun and check for ID.

A voice came from behind him, feminine, sweetly southern-accented but with steel underneath. "Put the weapon down, sir. Now. Or you're dead right there."

He looked up. Son of a bitch, the black woman. She'd taken cover behind a parked car and was pointing a pistol at his face.

"I'll be damned," he said, slowly lowering the Glock. "You're with these guys. I didn't spot that."

"Drop. The weapon. Now."