After about a half hour, Larison had walked down the hot sand and stood with his feet in the cool, clear water. He watched Nico surfing in, glad to see he was heading right in his direction.
Nico rode in about twenty feet from the beach, then slowly sank into the water as the wave’s force depleted. He picked up his board and waded over to Larison, smiling, rivulets of water running down his skin, his chest and shoulders broken out in gooseflesh.
“You like to surf?” he asked in Spanish-accented English.
Larison was surprised. When he didn’t want to be spotted as an American, he was adept at projecting something else, and thought he had been. “How do you know I speak English?” he asked.
The smile broadened. “You seem so happy. I think maybe you’ve never been here before.”
Larison should have been irritated or on guard that this guy had made him. But he wasn’t. In fact, for reasons that just then he didn’t really understand, he felt secretly glad.
“Well, you’re right about that,” he said.
“So? You like to surf?”
Larison smiled. “I like surfers.”
A blush appeared behind Nico’s tan cheeks, a blush Larison found surprisingly disarming, even endearing.
They had dinner that night, then made love in Larison’s hotel room. Larison was ordinarily aggressive in bed, and usually attracted men who sensed the conflicted rage in him and wanted to be on the receiving end of it. But Nico brought out something different in him, something much more gentle, even tender. They’d spent the next two days and nights together, and Larison had concocted an excuse to delay his return to Honduras for two days more. He would have tried to stay even longer, but Nico had to return to San Jose, where he had a small architectural practice. They drove back to the capital city together in Nico’s old Jetta. As they sat in the idling car at the curb of the airport passenger drop-off, there were a dozen things Larison wanted to say, none of which he could find the courage to articulate.
“Do you want to see me again?” Nico asked, as Larison hesitated, his hand on the door handle.
“Yes,” Larison said, meeting his eyes and then looking away, both hopeful and terribly afraid of what might be said next.
“I want to see you, too.”
Larison looked at him again, hoping Nico would see how much his words meant, and understand why Larison couldn’t answer.
“You’re married, aren’t you?” Nico said.
Larison looked away, ashamed but also strangely grateful for Nico’s ability to read him, to understand what other people could never see.
He wanted to lie. Instead he found himself nodding, unable to meet Nico’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” he heard Nico say. “I thought so. I’m glad you told me.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Of course it is,” Nico said, without a trace of sarcasm or condescension.
“Can we… let’s just see what happens. I want to see you again. This feels different.” He couldn’t believe what he was saying. He swallowed. “Special.”
“I’m out, you know. Everyone knows I’m gay-my family, my firm. I don’t really want to go back to halfway in the closet, you know?”
Larison nodded, his mind a roiling mass of emotions. He’d never had this kind of conversation before, with anyone. He’d never even imagined having it. He never would have dared.
“But I would do that,” Nico said. “For you.”
Larison looked at him. He couldn’t speak. He felt an excitement that was becoming indistinguishable from panic.
And just then, in that mad moment, gripped by impossible hope, Larison felt something bloom in his mind. An idea-no, not even an idea, just a possibility, a possibility he’d never considered before but whose contours he was immediately able to recognize.
“Give me some time,” he heard himself saying. “There are some things I can do… to find a way out of what I’m in. Can you do that? Can you be patient?”
Nico smiled shyly and said, “For you, Dan,” and Larison was immediately glad he’d told Nico his real first name. Ordinarily he wouldn’t do that, but from the first instant there had been something about Nico that had made Larison want to be honest with him. About the things he could be, anyway.
He took Nico’s card but didn’t embrace him. He knew Nico wanted him to, but also knew Nico sensed that he was already melting back into his public self and that any contact in that guise would be unacceptable.
After that, he was able to find a way to visit Costa Rica at least twice a year, sometimes as many as four. He traveled only under legends he himself had developed. He was extremely paranoid about communication, creating an encrypted email account for each of them under false identities and instructing Nico how to use it without establishing any possible connection to either of them. The security procedures were unfamiliar to Nico, but he understood Larison’s fanaticism to be an outgrowth of his fear of being outed, and was always exceptionally careful as a result. In fact, Nico displayed an aptitude and even eagerness for some of the security tools of the trade, which gratified Larison not only for the obvious substantive reasons, but also because he knew it was a sign of Nico’s devotion and desire to please him, as well.
Of course, meeting repeatedly in Costa Rica and staying in Nico’s apartment was suboptimal from a security standpoint, but Larison didn’t have the money to fly both of them to neutral locations or to pay for hotels. It was all he could do to conceal from Marcy the money he was diverting from his military salary for coach travel to Costa Rica. More than that would have risked causing suspicions.
But now they would be able to travel anywhere, live anywhere. He’d come to love Costa Rica and what it represented, but he thought it would be wise to move on, at least for a while, when this thing was done. He’d asked Nico before about someplace new-Barcelona, maybe, or Buenos Aires. Nico had been reluctant because his practice was based in San Jose. So Larison had told him he was working on something big, a sale of his company that would set them both up for life. Larison would finally leave his wife, buy them land somewhere, and Nico could design the house while he worked on establishing a new practice. How did that sound? Nico said it sounded wonderful, though Larison sensed he didn’t really believe it could be true. Well, he’d see soon enough.
The sun was now completely blotted out by looming office buildings and darkness was seeping into the sky. He came to a Hilton hotel and decided it would do as well as any other. He walked in, hoping he’d be able to sleep a little better this time than last.
PART TWO
The people in government who made mistakes or who acted in ways that seemed reasonable at the time but now seem inappropriate have been held publicly accountable by severe criticism, suffering enormous reputational and, in some instances, financial losses. Little will be achieved by further retribution.
JACK GOLDSMITH, FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT’S OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL
That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.
JON MEACHAM, NEWSWEEK
If you’re going to punish people for condoning torture, you’d better include the American citizenry itself.
MICHAEL KINSLEY, THE WASHINGTON POST