“I understand,” the national security adviser said. “I’m going to turn this meeting over now to our new point man on the operation. I think you know him. Colonel?”
“How are you doing, son?” Hort said. Paula mouthed, Your boss? And Ben, feeling he had no choice, figuring she pretty much knew who he was at this point anyway, nodded.
There was a pause. Larison said, “Hort?”
“It’s me.”
“I had a feeling they’d bring you in.”
“Well, I wish they’d brought me in earlier. This thing would have been handled better.”
“All I want to hear is that you have the diamonds. If you do, we’ll keep talking. If you don’t, you’re wasting my time.”
“We have them.”
“Where are they?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where are you holding them? What city?”
“They’re here in Washington.”
“Good. I’ll call again in twenty-four hours and tell you how you’ll deliver them. You’ll use a single courier. I think you understand what will happen if you deviate from my instructions.”
“You made your point in Costa Rica, son. Loud and clear.”
“Twenty-four hours. You’ll want to have a jet ready.”
There was a click, then a dial tone, then silence.
The national security adviser said, “What do you think?”
“I think this is another opportunity,” a third voice said. “We can pick him up at the point of exchange.” It must have been Clements.
“I’m sorry,” Hort said, “can you tell me how that’s different from your previous plan? The one that cost fourteen lives and put Larison on a hair trigger. Literally, most likely, if we’re talking about his dead-man switch.”
“He got lucky.”
“You got lucky. Lucky he didn’t just uncork and release those tapes. In case you haven’t noticed, the man is not exactly stable.”
“We don’t even know if there is a dead-man switch. He could be bluffing.”
“He’s not bluffing. I know him. And right now, I guarantee you he’s got the switch set to dangerously short intervals. When he picks up the diamonds, he’ll probably have it down to about fifteen minutes. Your plan is to take him, secure him, revive him, elicit accurate intel, and disarm the switch in under fifteen minutes?”
“Better that way than just handing over the diamonds and hoping for the best.”
“‘That way’ is a fantasy, and the only thing a fantasy is good for is jerking off.”
Paula covered her mouth to suppress a giggle and Ben gave her a yeah, that’s my boss shrug. It was weird, and a little intoxicating, to be listening in on such a high-level conversation. And to have made Paula party to it.
“Where are you going to get the men, anyway?” Hort said. “You going to go back to Blackwater? And what are you going to do if the information Larison gives you doesn’t disarm the trigger, but instead sets it off? How are you going to know, until you see the footage from those tapes on the Al Jazeera nightly news and every American network?”
There was silence for a moment. Clements said, “What you’re proposing means we’ll have those tapes hanging over the head of the U.S. government forever. And eventually, they’re going to come out.”
“Maybe. But everything you’ve tried is guaranteed to make them come out. Besides, Larison is going to have something hanging over his head, too. Nico. And his family. Like I said before, we have nuclear parity now. Mutual assured destruction. Which wasn’t pleasant for anyone back in the day, true, but it managed to keep the peace.”
The national security adviser said, “I have to say, I don’t like the idea of his getting away clean.”
“Sir,” Hort said, “you can always pick him up later if that’s what you choose to do. I’d advise against it even later for the same reasons I’m advising against it now, but you could if you wanted to. What you can’t do is try to pick him up now, with that dead-man switch set to the kind of interval I know he’s programmed it for. Give him the diamonds, let him walk away and calm down. Eventually, having to worry about resetting that trigger every hour is going to get to be too much of a risk and too much of a pain in the ass. He’ll adjust it to every twenty-four hours, or every forty-eight. If you pick him up then, there’s a chance. Right now, there just isn’t.”
There was a long silence. The national security adviser said, “Have a jet ready tomorrow. With the diamonds.”
Hort said, “Yes, sir.” Ben heard the sounds of papers being shuffled, people getting up, and then the line went dead. He hit the end call button.
“I can’t believe they’re just going to give him the diamonds,” Paula said. “Blackmail, murder… they’re just going to pretend none of this ever even happened?”
Ben shrugged. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to get the hell out of Costa Rica. Just in case local law enforcement is looking for me in connection with what happened in Los Yoses yesterday.”
“But Larison-”
“Larison’s gone already. Probably crossed the border somewhere while we slept. I know this is hard for you to accept, Paula, but this isn’t a criminal investigation. It never was. My best guess? Even in the Bureau, there are people who recognize it’s not a criminal investigation, and they’re leaking to people in the CIA, people who are very committed to stopping a criminal investigation. And to stopping you, if you insist on trying to conduct one. That’s not a place you want to be.”
“This really just… sucks.”
“On the one hand. On the other hand, no one’s talking assassinations anymore, right? The powers that be have decided to resort to diplomacy.”
She shook her head and grimaced. “I don’t know what the hell the powers that be are doing. I really don’t.”
34. Courier
They drove north on the coastal road toward the airport in Quepos. Fifteen minutes into the drive, Ben’s phone buzzed.
“All right,” Hort said. “You heard.”
“Yeah.”
“So you know, somebody’s going to need to hand over those diamonds tomorrow. I want it to be you.”
Ben was surprised. “Me?”
“You know anyone better?”
“No, I’m game. I just… you know, it’s not what I usually do.”
“Well, none of this is usual. I need you to get to Washington ASAP. We don’t know what Larison is planning for tomorrow. We’ll have a jet ready, but beyond that, all we can really expect is that he’ll be issuing instructions step-by-step to keep us scrambling.”
“In case anyone tries to grab him again.”
“Exactly. Although his primary defense against a snatch is still his dead-man setup. Where are you now?”
“About an hour from Quepos.”
“The jet will be waiting for you there. It’ll take you to Washington National. Give the FBI agent a lift if she wants it, but get clear of her after that. Stay in the area tonight, and be ready to roll by 0700 tomorrow.”
“Roger that.”
He clicked off. Paula said, “So you’re going to be the courier.”
Ben glanced over. He hadn’t said that much on the call, but it had been enough. “Looks like it.”
“You okay with that?”
He shrugged. “Is there a reason not to be?”
“Well, some people might consider Larison to be a pretty dangerous character, for one.”
Of all the reasons Ben might have been concerned, danger just wasn’t one of them. He thought about saying something about how danger was part of the business, but decided it would sound cheesy. Or that she would just accuse him of being a hard-ass again.
“I’ll be careful,” he said.
“I could go with you.”
“Actually, you can’t. Larison said it has to be a single courier.”
“Did he really say that?”