But he’d play that card only if he had to. Only if he’d run out of every other option.
His secure line buzzed and he snatched up the phone. “Ulrich.”
“Okay to talk?” It was Clements.
“Go.”
“The photo you sent. His name is Ben Treven. He’s an army guy.”
“So not one of yours?”
“Definitely not.”
Ulrich should have known the guy wasn’t Agency. If he’d been Agency, he would have been bringing up the rear, not closing in on the target.
He stared at the photo on his screen. “You think he’s one of Horton’s?”
“Hard to say. His MOS is classified. Even just the photo took some doing to match. I could try to find out, but asking would reveal that we know.”
“Well, it really doesn’t matter what he is. He wasn’t part of the original program, he’s answering to I don’t know whom, and it looks like he’s already five steps ahead of you in finding whoever is trying to leverage those tapes. Now, listen. I’ve got other information to forward you. How fast can you get your Ground Branch team to San Jose, Costa Rica?”
There was a slight pause. “Four hours, if that. Where are you getting this information?”
“Don’t worry about that-the information is solid, that’s all you need to know.”
“No, that’s not-”
“I don’t know what name Treven is traveling under, but now that you know what he’s looking for, you should be able to anticipate him. Find out what he knows and who he’s working for, get him out of the way, and find those fucking tapes.”
There was another pause. Clements said, “Let me clarify something for you, Ulrich. You don’t give me orders anymore. You’re just a lobbyist now. The only reason I’m even talking to you is out of courtesy.”
“Yeah?” Ulrich said, his voice rising, some dark part of his mind suddenly joyous at the prospect of having someone to bully, to dominate. “Well, let me clarify something for you. You’re talking to me because you need me to run political interference for you, which I have. And because without the information I just gave you, you couldn’t find your own ass with both hands and a flashlight. And because if someone smarter than you doesn’t tell you what you need to do, you’re going to be in newspaper headlines in less than five days and in a prison cell not long after that. You got it? Are we clarified now?”
Silence on the other end of the line. Ulrich slammed down the receiver, stood, and paced back and forth for a minute, concentrating on his breathing, trying to calm himself. He knew he shouldn’t have snapped at Clements: it would chafe worse now than in the days when one of his tirades had been backed by the power of the office of the vice president, and so was apt to be counterproductive. But damn, it had felt good to be in charge again, giving orders and not suffering idiots, if only for a moment.
He went back to his desk and forwarded Clements the information he would need. He hoped he was making the right call. Treven was obviously cleverer than the CIA, and so logically stood a better chance of recovering the tapes. The question was, what would he do with them if he did? Ulrich decided he couldn’t take that chance. He didn’t trust the CIA, but at least he understood their motives.
JSOC just felt like a wild card. He’d deal with them accordingly.
13. The Sound Was Always the Same
Larison shot bolt upright on the mattress, his body slicked with sweat, the awful screams still ringing in his ears. His heart was pounding combat hard and he was practically hyperventilating.
A dream. Calm down, it was just one of the dreams.
He grimaced. God, if he could only take a pill. Anything to dull the sound of those screams, to obscure the terrorized faces behind them.
He realized he was gripping the Glock. Must have snatched it up without realizing as he woke. A protective reflex, useless now. Against the dreams, the gun wasn’t even a talisman.
He could still hear it. A naked man, strapped to a table, eyes bulging in panic, past words, past screaming, just making… that sound. He was awake now, but he knew it would be hours before the echoes would fade from his brain.
He got up, turned on a light, and started pacing. He kept the Glock in one hand and compulsively touched surfaces with the other-dresser, walls, a lamp shade-pressing, patting, poking, anything to remind himself he was awake, he wasn’t in the dream anymore.
People didn’t know. They didn’t know that sound, the sound a man made when you took him past the point he could endure. Every man made the sound, and it was always the same. It started with bluster. Then there would be begging. Then bawling and babbling. Childlike sobbing, shrieks for mercy. And finally, when everything had been tried, every remaining human effort and desperate stratagem and fervent hope, and all of it had failed, there would be nothing but that sound, that wordless, keening wail, the melody of a soul being snuffed, a psyche cracking open, the birth cries of an animal devolving from a man. And no matter how many times you heard it, it never pierced you less. The hair on the back of your neck would stand up no less, your scrotum would retract no less, your nausea afterward would subside no sooner. Once you heard the sound, you could live to a hundred and you would never, ever get it out of your ears.
And God help you if you were the one who did what produced it.
And all that bullshit about how it was for a good reason. As though a reason would have made any difference, as though a reason could do anything to make you forget even one single moment of it. It was worse than the stink of blood and the slime of viscera. You could acclimate to killing. Torture was different.
He slowed his pacing, breathing deliberately, in and out, through his nose. He could feel his heart rate beginning to slow. Okay. Okay. He was okay.
If he could only sleep.
He remembered one guy, one of the Caspers, they called him Bugs, for Bugs Bunny, because he had these big, protruding ears. They’d run a routine on Bugs: sleep deprivation, hypothermia, stress positions, beatings. They buried him alive in a box. The box is what broke him. Afterward, just seeing his captors approaching his cage, he would scuttle into a corner and fetal up and start making the sound. It was some Pavlovian thing. No one thought he was acting. No actor could make that sound.
And the Pavlovian thing worked in reverse, too. Just seeing Bugs scuttle off and hear him start making the sound… it was like someone pressing the nausea button in Larison’s brain. He’d come to hate Bugs for the way he felt about himself. As though Larison’s own agony had been Bugs’s fault. And Jesus, what he’d done to the guy as a result. Jesus.
He’d tried to rationalize it all by telling himself it was to save lives, prevent attacks. But they never got anything useful. And so much of what they were being tasked with wasn’t even about attacks. It was about whether there’d been a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He remembered the first time they’d issued him a list of Saddam-AQ questions. He’d done it. It wasn’t as though he’d been in the habit of thinking much then, it was easier to just do what he was told. But afterward he wondered what the hell he’d just done. He’d just endured the sound again, and for what… to provide someone political cover? That was his job now? That’s what he was being used for?
And if they would use him for that, what else would they use him for? And what would they do when they were done using him?
Despite his fearful secret, somehow he’d always believed the military would do right by him. He’d given the army everything, endured horrible things, the kind of things you could never utter, not even to other men who had done them, too. Things that made him wonder whether there was a God, that made him fear some inevitable reckoning he sensed but couldn’t name. He needed to believe the military would reciprocate, that in return for his sacrifice they would support and protect him.