Killfile (3 page)

I feel Keith behind me, suddenly interested, an attack dog straining at his leash. David, the other security guy, is on alert too, but without the bloodlust. They step away from their posts at the door.

“I've asked Keith and David to beat you stupid and dump you off the highway,” Gaines says.

Keith's mind is suddenly all sunshine and rainbows. David limbers up, not exactly happy, but willing to follow orders.

Gaines smiles again. “So all you have to do, Mr. Smith, is keep them from crippling you right here on the carpet. Then I'll be convinced.”

Keith rushes me first. Waves of glee dance all around him. He's been looking for an excuse to punch someone in the head all day.

He doesn't care that I haven't turned to face him. Fighting fair doesn't get a lot of emphasis in combat training.

David is a step behind. He's still more ambivalent, but I can see the moves he's planning. He's a good, efficient brawler.

Keith's fist comes up to clobber me. I see the back of my head through his eyes.

All right, then. Here's the Vegas act.

I hit Keith with the physical memory of double-port chemo nausea from a late-stage cancer patient. His equilibrium shorts out, and his knees buckle. He's suddenly folded in half on the cowskin rug, retching up the power-protein smoothie he had for breakfast.

I'll pay for that later, but it's worth it.

David wasn't nearly as anxious to slaughter me, so I go a little
easier on him. I only blank the visual input from his eyes to his occipital lobes. He's effectively blind in an instant. He screams as I step aside, and he runs into the wall hard enough to bounce.

They're both out of the game. I turn back to Gaines. I feel a stab of fear inside his mind.

“Now you're trying to remember the last time you fired that Glock at the range,” I tell him. “And how many bullets are still loaded. And you're especially curious to find out if you can get it out of the drawer before I do anything else.”

I take a step forward. He flinches back in his chair.

“I admit, I'm a little curious myself.”

A side door to the office opens. An older man stands there in a white shirt and khakis. I knew he was there. He was listening to my audition the entire time.

“That's enough, Mr. Smith,” he says. “I believe Lawrence is convinced now.”

I'm looking at Gaines's boss. Who also happens to be the thirteenth richest man in America.

“I'm sorry for the trouble,” Everett Sloan says. “By way of apology, I hope you'll allow me to take you to lunch.”

M
Y STEAK IS
big enough to fall over the lip of the plate. Which is actually fine by me. Vegetarians can have their clean arteries. Humans are smart because a bunch of primates on the African savannah developed a taste for raw flesh, and the amino acids in their bellies went straight to their heads and built bigger brains. Two million years later, there's me, reading minds and downing megaloads of protein to refuel. Evolution in action.

Sloan sits across from me at the table, drinking coffee. We have an acre of space in the back of the restaurant, all to ourselves. I'm not sure if this is because Sloan wants it this way, or if this is just the standard lunch hour in South Dakota.

Even so, I pick up the angst as the waitress follows an argument between two friends on Facebook, the boredom of the manager, the stoic acceptance of the cook in the back as he adds another burn to the layers of scar tissue on his right hand.

Keith was still dry-heaving when we left, so Sloan drove us here himself. His hands were steady on the wheel. I know he's in his seventies, but he looks at least a couple of decades younger and stands straight and tall. One of the benefits of having a billion dollars is that time doesn't leave the same marks on you as it does other people.

When I decided to go private, I memorized the names and faces of all the people on the Forbes 500. Future clients, I hoped. Sloan stood out. He's not the richest man on the list, but he might well be the smartest. And yes, I'm including Gates. Forget the software geeks who have gotten rich off stock options because they came up with a new way for teenagers to take nude selfies. Sloan is an actual, honest-to-God genius. He was still a college student at Stanford when he was recruited by the NSA to break Soviet codes in the Cold War. He went to grad school after that, supplementing his meager salary as a teaching assistant by playing poker in backroom card games. Then he found that some of his equations could actually predict the movements of the stock market. He took his paycheck to Vegas and won a poker tournament. He used the prize money to start his own investment firm. Within a year, he was a multimillionaire.

Now he manages about $20 billion in assets, and there are people who'd sell their own daughters for the chance to give him their money.

I've never encountered a mind like his before. Even this close, I couldn't tell you what he's thinking. He's running calculations and modeling outcomes way ahead of anything I can fathom, much faster than I've ever experienced. It's like a wall of ice—cold, flawless, and perfectly smooth. Most of my attempts to read him just slide right off.

“I hope you'll forgive Lawrence,” he says. “He tends to be overprotective.”

I saw that clearly in the office when Sloan appeared. Gaines's fear wasn't for himself. It was for the old man. He didn't really believe in my talent, but he wanted to protect Sloan just in case he was wrong.

When Sloan and I left, his fear was a bright spark in his head, because now he believes. But Sloan ordered him to stay, so he stayed.

“I've had worse job interviews,” I say.

“It didn't appear to be very pleasant for Keith or David either.”

“I didn't tell them to attack me.”

“No, no, I don't blame you for defending yourself. I'm mainly curious how you were able to do that.”

“Have you ever heard of the Kadaitcha?”

He shakes his head. I finish another chunk of steak, then continue. “In some Australian aboriginal tribes, they have a guy who is sort of a cross between a witch doctor and a hit man. That's the Kadaitcha. He's responsible for the tribe's magic, and for enforcing the tribe's laws. There are only a few things a member of the tribe can do to be sentenced to death, but if that happens, then the Kadaitcha carries out the sentence.”

Sloan waits patiently for me to get to the point.

“Here's the thing. He doesn't use anything like what we'd consider a weapon. Instead, he carries a sharpened bone. Sometimes from an animal. Usually from a human. A little longer than a pencil. And he points it at the offender. According to the tribe's beliefs, the Kadaitcha
sends a spirit out of the pointing bone—like a spear of thought—into the other person. A couple of days later, a week at the most, the offender drops dead. He believes so completely in the spirit and the power of the bone that he actually loses the will to live. He convinces himself that he's dying. What I do, it's a lot like that.”

“But nobody in that room believed you had that ability.”

“That's what makes me different. I don't need anyone else to believe in me. I can implant the memory of a trauma directly. Your security men were in pain. They were experiencing a physical reality, based on what their minds were telling them.”

“So did you break my bodyguards?”

“They'll be fine,” I tell him. “It's like any other bad memory. It passes with time.”

“And there are no permanent effects?”

“Hopefully just a strong aversion to picking a fight with me in the future.”

He considers that for a moment. “You're fairly open about all of this, considering we only just met.”

“It's only a trade secret if someone else can do it.” What I don't tell him is what that little trick costs me. I can put the idea of a broken leg or a stab wound into another person, but their response echoes in my head as well—so I always get a percentage of the pain I inflict on anyone else.

“But where does it come from?” Sloan says. He really wants to understand. There's a lot of the true scientist in him. He wants to know.

“Psychosomatic implant, delivered through quantum entanglement of consciousness,” I say.

And then I restrain a laugh, because for the first time, I detect a hint of confusion in Sloan's brilliant mind. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” he asks.

I shrug and smile. “Hell if I know. It's a term I heard someone use
once when he was talking about me. It was his theory. I'm not sure I can explain it.”

Sloan frowns, just a little. “You don't have any idea why you can do what you do. And you're satisfied to leave it at that? You've never looked any further?”

After the Vegas act, this is what everyone wants. They want an answer. They want to know why. And I can't help them. I grappled with the question for years, wondered what made me different, what set me apart from everyone else. Until I decided it didn't matter.

“I've lived with it my whole life,” I tell Sloan. “Do you wonder why your legs work? Or your eyes? Somebody told you something about your nervous system once, back in school, and you accepted it. But it doesn't change how you walk or see. This is what I am. I can't change it. So I might as well use it.”

He considers me for a moment. “Remarkable,” he says. “You know, a man with your talents could make a lot more money doing other things.”

When one of the richest men in the world wants to give you financial advice, you listen. “Like what?”

“Blackmail, for starters. You could make a fortune.”

“Blackmailers end up with a target on their backs. And it's never a good idea to piss off the people in your tax bracket, Mr. Sloan. Just ask your friend Tom Eckert.”

“From what I saw, you can defend yourself.”

“I'd rather not live like that.”

“Well, if you find blackmail distasteful, why don't you just steal? Pick account numbers or insider secrets out of people's skulls, then use what you find to make yourself rich.”

“What makes you think I don't?” I say. “You have a lot of valuable information. Why would you let someone like me this close to you?”

He shakes his head. “You're not that sort of person.”

“You're sure about that?”

“I am. Forgive me if this sounds arrogant, but I'm in the business of knowing more than other people.”

“Your assistant had a few gaps in his knowledge.”

“True. But everything Lawrence knows about you is not everything I know about you. I knew how he would react to you. I wanted to find out how you'd react to him.”

“Did I pass the test?”

“It confirmed what I already suspected. I've read your file. It shouldn't surprise you to hear that I have contacts in the government, both from my days in the NSA and from the people who depend on me to make them richer. So believe me when I say: I know everything you did while working for the CIA. I know how you came to them. I know why you left too. That's why I don't feel particularly unsafe with you, Mr. Smith. I know you have a conscience. But perhaps more important than that, I know you have a price. And I know that I can meet it.”

I don't say anything. I'd forgotten what it feels like to be surprised. It's almost terrifying.

“How are the headaches?” he asks.

Another surprise. And proof that Sloan really has read my file. Or at least part of it. “Good days and bad,” I admit.

“I can give you some respite from them. A place you can go without people. A sanctuary of your own. No other thoughts, no other interference. Just quiet.”

He takes out his phone and taps the screen. Then he shows me a map of a small chunk of green in the middle of a field of blue.

“This is Ward Island, located in Davis Bay off the coast of Washington. Thirteen acres. Zero population. There's a fully equipped house there. Twelve thousand square feet, three master bedrooms,
wine cellar, wet bar. Solar panels, dedicated broadband cable to the mainland, plus satellite backup if you need it. It's easily accessible by boat. At the moment, it's vacant. I own it.”

“You're offering me an island?”

“A ninety-nine-year lease, actually. It would revert to my heirs afterward. Obviously, neither of us would be around to see that happen. But for the rest of your natural life, it would be yours. You can have servants on the island, paid for by me, or, if you prefer, you can simply have supplies dropped off and a cleaning crew on a regular basis. You can come and go as you please for your work, but in between your jobs, complete isolation. A retreat from the world, anytime you want it, with thirty nautical miles between you and the next living human.”

I look at the little green shape on the screen for a moment longer. No people. No endless chattering stream of complaints and pains and idiocies.

“That's quite a fee,” I say. “I'm listening.”

I finally get something concrete from Sloan. A feeling of satisfaction. Once again, it confirms for him that everything has a price. It's not so much that he believes in money as a supreme power above all else, but it restores his faith that everything can be quantified. He lives in a world of absolute limits and measures, and he knows he's found mine: a home of my own, quiet and secure against the constant noise invading my head.

The offer alone is enough to buy my loyalty; he really is a very smart man.

Sloan checks his watch, a vintage 18-karat gold Hamilton Pulsar.

“Then I should probably tell you why I wanted to meet you,” he says.

“E
LI
P
RESTON
,” S
LOAN
says. “You've heard of him.”

“At this point, who hasn't?”

Sloan smiles. “He's been making a lot of noise, that's true.”