The Detachment (33 page)

“We’ll check the contents, too. With an expert.”

“That’s understandable. Still, I assure you, the contents are what you have asked for. And now, I’m going to offer one more thing, and ask for one more favor.”

“What?”

“If you want to take me to one of the canyon drives, or the national forest, or to some other quiet place, I will kneel and look off into the distance and you can put a bullet in the back of my head. All you have to do is say the word.”

“Is that the offer, or the favor?”

Hort smiled tightly. “That’s the offer. The favor is, hear me out first. And, no matter what you decide, please. Let my little girl go.”

His voice cracked on the last word. Treven couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen Hort other than confident, competent, always in control. It felt like what they’d done had broken him, and despite everything, Treven was suddenly ashamed.

But he couldn’t afford to indulge that feeling, much less to show it. “That’s two favors,” he said.

“I don’t care how you count them. And I don’t care what you do to me. I have never begged anyone for anything in my life, and I am begging you. Just let her go.”

Treven gestured with his head. “Let me see your ankles. And turn around.”

Hort complied. He wasn’t carrying a firearm.

Treven looked around the room. Still no problems. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Maybe to one of those quiet places you mentioned. You can say whatever you want me to hear on the way.”

They walked through the station and down to the Red Line subway. Treven kept them on the platform while a train roared in and then squealed out. When its departing passengers had moved off, and the two of them were alone for a moment, Treven switched on a bug detector Rain had given him. No response.

“You carrying a mobile phone?” he asked.

Hort nodded. “Yes, but I’ve removed the battery. I thought you might ask.”

All right, then. Either Hort was clean, or he was carrying a device he would switch on later. To counter that possibility, Treven would turn the detector on again when they were alone.

Another train came and went, leaving the platform momentarily empty again, and this time Treven was sure no one was following them, at least through visual contact. They waited again and then got on the next train. It was about half full, everyone looking like a civilian, albeit a tense one. Treven had Hort sit a few seats forward and facing the same direction so he could go through the gym bag without having to worry about Hort trying to disarm him while he was distracted. Not that disarming him would do any good, but it was best to deny an enemy both motive and opportunity.

As the car sped along, swaying in the close confines of the tunnel, he unzipped the bag. Thousands of small, pale stones, some yellowish, some light gray, most of them translucent white. He dug his hand in and moved it around carefully. Nothing other than the stones. He felt thoroughly along the handles of the bag and its seams. No telltale bulges or wires. No transmitters. It was a just a bag. Okay.

At the Vermont/Beverly stop, he had them step out and wait on the platform again. No question, unless Hort had enough people with him to blanket every train on the Red Line, they were clean. They got back on the next train. They rode it to North Hollywood, the end of the line, got off, and walked to Chandler Boulevard, where earlier Treven had parked another stolen car. This one was a dark blue Honda Accord sedan, one of the bestselling and therefore most common cars in America, which a harried housewife had been foolish enough to leave with the key in the ignition while she ran for just a minute into a Culver City dry cleaner carrying a load of shirts.

He gave Hort the key. “You drive,” he said.

“Where are we going?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

It was hard to imagine Hort still had access to the kind of domestic surveillance apparatus he might have been able to call into play before his resignation. Besides, unlike the others, Treven knew Hort hadn’t used that apparatus in fixing them at the Capital Hilton—he had simple human intelligence from Treven to thank for that. Also, it was night, meaning the birds would have a harder time tracking them. Even so, he had Hort drive an extensive surveillance detection run that incorporated the kinds of overpass and garage maneuvers they’d used to obscure their movements after snatching Kei. Rain’s bug detector remained silent as they drove.

They finished on Lake Hollywood Drive, a lonely, serpentine section of the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Reservoir. When they came to a curve partly concealed by scrub bushes and some dried-out trees, Treven told Hort to pull off the road and park. Ordinarily, Treven wouldn’t have liked the spot for a meeting like this because there was always the chance of a cop driving by. But doubtless Los Angeles law enforcement was more focused on protecting critical infrastructure just now than they were on rousting horny kids parked in the Hills.

Hort cut the lights and the ignition and looked out through the driver-side window. “Not a bad spot to dump a body,” he said. “I do hope you’ll hear me out first.”

“I’m listening.”

“You mind if I have a cigar?”

Treven squeezed the grip of the Glock, reassured by its familiar heft. “Whatever you like.”

Hort thumbed the switch for the driver-side window, then eased a canister and a cigar guillotine from his front pants pocket. He unscrewed the canister, slid out a cigar, and expertly clipped one end with the guillotine. He tossed the clipped end through the open window, put the cut end in his mouth, slid a wooden match out of the canister, popped it with a thumbnail, waited a moment, then slowly lit the end of the cigar, rotating it methodically to get it going evenly. When he was satisfied, he waved the match out and held it until it was cold before tossing it, too, out the window.

“Cuban Montecristo,” he said, settling back in the car seat. “Forgive me, I only have the one.”

Treven kept the Glock on him. “Enjoy it.”

The implication was clear and there was no need to say it.
It’s probably your last.

Hort blew out a cloud of the sweet-smelling smoke. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m behind these false flag attacks. That I’m part of it.”

“You’re going to tell me you’re not?”

“Not in the way you think.”

Treven’s eyes were adjusting to the dark. A gibbous moon was rising, its pale light glowing down on the road surface and reflecting on the reservoir below them. “Explain, then.”

“Did Rain brief you on what I told him this coup is supposed to be all about?”

“Yes.”

“What did he tell you?”

“The system is broken. The plotters wanted a pretext for seizing power so they could fix everything and then give it back. You thought the whole thing was insane, and wanted us to take out key personnel to stop it.”

“I’d call that an accurate summary.”

“But then we found out the personnel you had us take out weren’t part of the coup. They were opposed to it.”

“That is also accurate.”

“Then what the hell are you doing, Hort? Whose side are you on?”

Hort sighed. “The plotters are correct in believing the system is broken. They are also correct in believing that without immediate and radical surgery, the patient will surely die. But they are incorrect in believing a coup is what’s required. A coup would kill the patient in the name of saving her. What is required is something slightly different.”

“What?”

Hort looked at him. “An attempted coup.”

Treven didn’t respond. He tried to take what he already understood and sort it through the new framework Hort had just suggested. “You’re saying…you wanted the coup to start?”

Hort nodded. “And then to stop. And to be exposed for what it really was.”

“Why? What does that accomplish?”

“Maybe nothing. In which case, the republic shrivels and dies more or less on schedule, just as it was going to anyway. But maybe, maybe…people wake up.”

“To what?”

“To how close they were to losing everything they ought to cherish but have in fact come to take for granted. Did you watch my little speech at the White House?”

“Yeah.”

“When I talked about how we would never surrender our liberties if terrorists were explicitly demanding we do so? That’s the truth. You know that, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I was giving the country a little preview there. Shaping the battlefield.”

“I don’t follow.”

Hort drew on the cigar, held the smoke in his mouth, then slowly blew it out through the window. “The republic is being bled dry by a national security complex so grotesque and metastasized even Dwight Eisenhower wouldn’t have recognized it in his worst nightmares and most dire predictions. People are okay with this state of affairs because they don’t sense something is being taken from them. But if this country’s oligarchy is exposed for what it really is, and for what it’s really doing, there’s a chance people would fight back. A chance. You understand?”

Treven thought. “You’re saying even if someone would willingly give something up, he’ll fight to preserve it if he thinks someone is trying to steal it.”

“Precisely.”

“Then why did you resign?”

“Because, when this thing is snuffed out, the disgusted and disillusioned masses will need a hero. Someone of unimpeachable character and battle-hardened judgment. Someone who has demonstrated by his actions and his sacrifices that he is a selfless servant of the nation who cannot be seduced by power or anything else.”

Not for the first time, Treven realized Hort was accustomed to operating at levels of manipulation, deceit, and strategy that Treven found alien. He didn’t know whether to feel envious, or relieved.

“That speech,” he said. “Dox said it sounded like you were running for office.”

“In a sense, I was.”

“What office?”

“If things go well, a blue ribbon commission will be formed to investigate the causes of the attempted coup, identify the plotters, and recommend changes to ensure such a thing can never happen again. I will be the head of that commission. And I will ensure that its work is in the best interests of the nation.”

Treven squeezed the grip of the Glock as though reminding himself it was still there. “But…you said you wanted the coup to be exposed for what it really was.”

Hort chuckled grimly. “Well…for what it almost really was.”

“What does that mean?”

“Following the recent string of attacks, it’s important the citizenry believes an insatiably greedy oligarchy was to blame. Even though the truth is, most of the oligarchy is pleased with the status quo and wouldn’t want to change it. The main thing is that people understand how close they came to losing everything. And that they never know I was involved in steering the course of events.”

“Because then you wouldn’t be able to steer anymore.”

“That’s right. And if I couldn’t, then this whole thing might go haywire. The coup could become permanent. At a minimum, the innocent could be punished along with the guilty.”

“But you are guilty.”

“Yes, I am. I have the blood of countless Americans on my hands now. I slaughtered them, men, women, and children, no matter that it was for a larger purpose, and if there is a hell, I will rightly burn there forever.”

He drew on the cigar and held the smoke for a moment as though trying to calm himself. Then he blew it forcefully out through the window.

“But while I am alive, I am determined to ensure their sacrifice was not in vain. And for that, I need your help. Because you have put me in an untenable position.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I wasn’t planning on resigning my position and making my speech quite so soon. I needed that position in order to continue to steer things in their proper direction. But then you people went and kidnapped my daughter and forced my hand.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“What I’m talking about is, Dan Gillmor, the new head of the National Counterterrorism Center, who has been running the jihadist groups behind the attacks, is not yet satisfied that the country has been driven sufficiently insane for it to accept a suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law. He has one more attack in mind. Which he believes will provide him with the blank check he craves.”

Treven felt the blood drain from his face. “A school.”

Hort looked at him. “Yes, that’s right. A mass casualty attack on an elementary school. With that, the president will be able to do anything he wants, and the rest of the government and the people will encourage him to do so. The coup will become a fait accompli. I will no longer be able to stop it.”

Treven was so angry he could have shot him. “Goddamn it, Hort, what the fuck were you thinking?”

“It doesn’t matter what I was thinking. What matters is where we are.”

“Bullshit. Why did you have to resign now?”

“Because I could not have disappeared to Los Angeles on the very day the president made me his counterterrorism advisor if I hadn’t. Because I believe there is only a slim chance I will be leaving this meeting alive, and coming out here to die without first having set the example I needed to set would not have been productive.”

“So you’re risking the lives of, what, dozens of school children? Scores? On top of all the people you’ve already killed? To save your own daughter?”

There was no response.

“You know what we should do, Hort? We should put a bullet in her head so you can know what it’s going to be like for all the parents that you’ve done the same thing to. The same. Fucking. Thing.”

The interior of the car was silent. A lone cricket chirped outside.

“Please don’t do that,” Hort said quietly.

“The only reason I won’t is because I’m not like you.”

“I know that, and I’m grateful. But Larison is. Please, don’t let him.”

“Larison can do what he wants.” He wasn’t sure whether he meant it, or whether in his anger he was just trying to torment Hort.

“Listen to me. I have given you the diamonds. You can kill me now, if that’s what you want. Put me in the trunk and drive me to wherever Larison is so he can piss on my body, I believe he would enjoy that. But if you care about your country, let me live just a little while longer. There’s no one else who intends to put things right. And no else in a position to do so.”