The pretense part was done. Now he had real questions to ask. “How the hell did JSOC get involved in this? Horton sent Treven? How did he explain his man’s presence to the national security adviser?”
Clements sighed. “He was filing UNODIR reports along the way. The national security adviser never even saw them, just like Horton knew he wouldn’t. They were complete CYA. And what’s he going to do now, reprimand Horton after the results this guy Treven got?”
UNODIR meant “unless otherwise directed.” You filed a report at the last possible minute, knowing that, by the time it was seen, whatever you were up to would be a fait accompli. Essentially, a ballsy way for gaining retroactive permission. Or, if whatever you were up to failed, for getting court-martialed. Horton had played it well.
“I told you,” Ulrich said, “we don’t want JSOC getting those tapes.”
“Understood.”
“Well, what’s the plan?”
“Don’t know yet. We’ve got an interagency meeting in three hours. I’m going to recommend we threaten the lover’s family, use them as leverage. With luck, that’ll bring Larison out in the open.”
Leverage. Yeah, that made sense. Sometimes it was all people understood.
“You there?” Clements said.
“Yeah, I’m here. Now listen. I know what you’re up to.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You think I’m your Plan B, I’m going to be your fall guy if something goes wrong, if those tapes get out. And you’ve been taking steps to make it happen. But there’s something I want you to hear. Listen carefully.”
He clicked the play button on his recorder and gave Clements a few key moments from that long-ago Arlington National Cemetery meeting. When he felt Clements had heard enough, he hit stop.
“Now you understand,” he said, his voice supremely calm. “If the tapes come out, we all go down. Not just me. All of us.”
There was a long pause. Clements said, “You’re crazy.”
“And that’s only one of many. So back off.”
“Back off… I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Listen to yourself. Look at what you’re doing. You’ve created… tapes about the tapes? This problem wasn’t convoluted enough?”
“Another thing. There are copies. If something happens to me, someone I trust has instructions to release those copies.”
“Someone… someone else knows about all this? You’ve lost your mind.”
“Don’t push me, Clements. I will burn you. I will fucking burn you.”
Silence on the line. It felt good. It felt… subservient.
“So just do your job and recover those tapes. And you better keep me in the loop while you’re at it.”
He clicked off, feeling good, feeling in control again. Leverage. In the end, it was all you really needed. That, and the balls to put it to use.
20. An Interesting Day in San Jose
Ben was only half asleep when he heard his phone buzz. He picked it up in the dark by feel and saw that it was Hort. “Yeah,” he said, keeping his voice low to avoid disturbing Paula. Though he was pretty sure she’d be awake and listening regardless.
“Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep,” Hort said.
Ben glanced at the screen. It was just past six in the morning local time. “That’s okay. It wasn’t that beautiful.”
“Well, we’ve got an interesting situation here.”
“Interesting good, or interesting bad?”
“Bad. I’m being overruled by a bunch of goddamn amoebas.”
It was unusual in the extreme for Hort to comment on how decisions were made or how he received his orders. All of that had always been a black box to Ben, and now Hort was opening it, at least a crack, and letting him see inside it. It was both enticing and discomfiting.
And then he thought of Marcy and her son, and felt suddenly sick.
“What does that mean?”
“It means, first, we got everything on this Nico you uncovered. Nico Velez. He’s an architect. Lives, works, and was born in San Jose. His parents still live in the city, and so do his two sisters and his three nieces and nephews. He’s openly gay and he’s a complete civilian.”
Paula’s phone buzzed. She picked up instantly, confirming for Ben that she had indeed been awake and listening. “Lanier,” she said, simultaneously swinging her legs off the bed and heading toward the bathroom. In the semidarkness, Ben caught a glimpse of white panties and a matching camisole. She clicked on the bathroom light and closed the door behind her.
“Hey, the FBI woman just got a call, too,” Ben said. “Are they in on this now?”
“A lot of different players have been offering their input, yeah. Makes sense she’d be getting a call about now.”
“Anyway, so we know who Nico is.”
“That’s right. And it gets better. We isolated the alias Larison traveled under when he flew to San Jose on April 17, 2007. He’s used it six times since then. So we can put him in San Jose at least eight times.”
“But probably more than that, because he’d be traveling under other aliases, too.”
“Exactly. So whatever’s going on between Larison and Nico, it’s long-term, and it’s serious. This is not some casual hookup we’re talking about.”
“Does this mean no one’s talking about Marcy Wheeler and her son anymore?”
“It means that, yeah.”
Well, that was good. “So what’s the problem?”
“The same problem it always is, again and again and again. Stupidity and arrogance.”
“I’m not following you.”
Hort sighed. “I know. I’m not making myself clear. It’s been a long, frustrating night.”
“You’ve been up all night?”
“Yeah, arguing with the Neanderthals.”
Again, Ben was intrigued by Hort’s openness. He didn’t even know who the Neanderthals were. JSOC? NSC? Justice?
“Well, what’s the plan?”
There was a pause. “The plan is for you to stand down.”
“Stand down? But we’re so close.”
“You know it and I know it. But the powers that be think they know better.”
“What are they going to do?”
“They’re flying in a Ground Branch team right now.”
“Ground Branch? Why?”
“They want Larison to think they’re going to snatch Nico.”
“To bring Larison into the open?”
“That’s the idea. Snatch Larison, get him to spill his guts, recover the tapes, and call it a day.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“That’s right it’s not going to work. You tell me why.”
Ben thought for a moment, imagining Larison, putting himself in the man’s position, assessing the same threats, gaming out the same countermeasures. “Because… Larison would have planned for this. He said he’s got the tapes on some kind of electronic dead-man trigger. He’s not going to give that up, even under duress, because he knows that wouldn’t stop the duress.”
“I agree. They’re going to torture him to prove a negative-that there are no more copies of the tapes. No matter what he gives up, they can’t know he’s given up everything, so they get their doctors to keep him alive, and the torture never ends, ever. Larison knows what he’s in for if he’s caught. So what does he do?”
“He sets the dead man to a short fuse.”
“That’s right. He knows the only thing that could deliver him from his agony is having the tapes published. So by snatching him-”
“They might as well just publish the tapes themselves.”
“Good. Now, tell me this. How would you handle the situation if you were in charge?”
Ben had worked with Hort long enough to know when Hort was grooming him for some new skill set. But this was different. These were management-style questions, not tactical. Again, he was both confused and intrigued.
“I’d… leave Nico and his family alone. And when Larison called in, I’d tell him everything we’d found out. I’d tell him the bad news is, we know who he is, we know about Nico, we know everything. And if those tapes ever get released, we take it out on Nico and his family.”