It was amazing. Even over Larison, even after everything that had happened, Hort just had that power. “Yeah. It’s part of what made him suspect you. He said no one else could have pulled this off-taking the tapes, faking your death, all of it.”
Larison’s smile faded. For a moment, he looked almost wistful.
“I don’t know about the best. But I was up there.”
“Still are, from what I can see.”
“Thanks.”
“Not sure it’s a compliment, given what I’ve seen you do with it.”
“You talking about Los Yoses?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think they were going to do to me?”
“Well, it’s not like you’ve given people a lot of choices.”
Larison glanced left, then right, then behind. “People always have choices. They say they don’t to enable themselves to do what they wanted to do anyway.”
“You sound like Hort.”
“Hort said that?”
“Something like that.”
“Well, maybe he’s learning from his mistakes, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“How’d you do it, anyway? I saw them hit you with the tranq.”
“Opioid antagonist.”
“Nicely done.” He couldn’t deny it.
Larison nodded. “You know who they were?”
“Blackwater, supposedly.”
“Contractors? For me? Who sent them?”
“The Agency, from what I hear.”
“Shit, I thought they’d at least care enough to send the best.”
Ben laughed, and Larison joined him. It was bizarre, but there they were, driving along, possibly on the brink of gunplay, cracking up.
“There were two more,” Ben said, when the laughter had faded. “After you left.”
“Who?”
“Ground Branch, supposedly. But I don’t think they were there for you. They were setting up for a hit-on an FBI agent who’s been investigating this thing, or on me, or on both of us. I didn’t have time to clarify all the details.”
“Yeah, the Agency wouldn’t want anyone else to get the tapes. You dropped them?”
“Yeah.”
“Good for you.”
They drove in silence for a minute. Ben said, “You miss it?”
“The unit?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would I miss being lied to and used and manipulated? And set up and discarded, when they were through with me?”
“So you miss it.”
They both laughed again.
Ben said, “Why’d you do it?”
“Take the tapes?”
“And everything else.”
“Long story.”
“Well, we’re just driving along. Shooting the shit.”
Larison chuckled. “I saw what they were going to do to me. I did it to them first.”
“Sound tactics.”
“I wish there’d been another way. But they didn’t give me a choice.”
“You said people always have choices.”
Larison checked the surroundings again. Ben had been doing the same. Normal traffic, no apparent tails.
“I guess I did. All right, maybe it was my fault. Maybe I was the one who foreclosed all the choices. Maybe I was stupid along the way to get in that position, to get in so deep I couldn’t find my way back, only out.”
Ben wanted to ask more, but Larison seemed to be getting agitated, and generally speaking, Ben preferred not to agitate proven deadly people carrying HKs in the passenger seat next to him.
“You want to know something?” Larison said. “I like you. You remind me of me. When I was young and stupid.”
“I don’t know, man. You’re the one who’s got the whole U.S. government for an enemy now. How smart is that?”
“You think Uncle Sam’s your friend, is that it? You think your loyalty is a two-way street?”
Ben thought about Obsidian, about what Hort had done. “Not exactly, but-”
“You don’t even know what this is about, do you?”
“What, the tapes?”
“It’s what’s on the tapes.”
“You mean the interrogations. Torture.”
Larison shook his head. “Hort hasn’t told you, then. No, of course he hasn’t. Likes to keep people in the dark. ‘Need to know’ and all that.”
“Hasn’t told me what?”
“You really want to know?”
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Because only a few people in the world know. And you’ve seen what they’re willing to do to prevent anyone else from finding out. You really want that knowledge? You really want people suspecting you have it?”
It was weird. Not so long ago, he honestly wouldn’t have cared. He might even have thought Larison was trying to distract him with irrelevancies.
But now… he did want to know. He wanted to know what all these people had died for.
“Tell me,” he said.
“All right. But tell me something first.”
“If I can.”
“How’d you track me to Costa Rica?”
Ben hesitated. And decided he couldn’t imagine Larison retaliating against Marcy, or doing anything else that would hurt his own son.
“Your wife. Or ex-wife. She suspected you were having an affair. Hired a private investigator.”
Larison was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “I’ll be damned. Marcy… I never saw that coming. You know, you look everywhere for the possible threat, and you miss the one right under your nose. Damn. So that’s it. Those two guys in San Jose-”
“Working for the PI.”
“I checked them out after the fact. They had records. So I figured it was just random street crime.”
Ben nodded. “It made sense. You had no way of knowing.”
“Well, you figured it out. What, did you interview Marcy?”
“I did.”
“And she put you in touch with the PI…”
“Right.”
They were quiet for a moment, and Ben knew Larison was reviewing everything, analyzing events through clarified hindsight, piecing it all together, understanding step-by-step how Ben had gotten to him.
“Marcy,” he said, shaking his head. “Should’ve seen that coming.”
Ben didn’t like the direction that comment might lead in. “If you think about it, it actually worked out pretty well.”
“How?”
“If the government didn’t have something on you, they wouldn’t have trusted you with the money. They would have just kept coming at you until they got you or killed you or the tapes were released. But the way it is, now that they know about your… connection in Costa Rica, Hort was able to persuade them. He called it mutual assured destruction.”
There was a pause. Larison said, “Hort has a point. As usual.”
“Don’t you even want to know how your wife is? And your son?”
“He’s not my son.”
“So then… so your wife…”
“You mean, did she know about me?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I would have said no. But I also would have said no if you’d asked if she might have hired a PI to follow me.”
“I’m sorry, man.”
“Don’t be. I can’t blame Marcy. I was living a lie, and she was bearing the brunt of it. In the end, we’re all only human.”
Ben nodded, reassessing what he thought he’d known, wondering about Marcy.
“All right, I told you. Now you tell me. What’s this all about?”
There was a long pause. Larison said, “The Caspers.”
“Caspers?”
“Ask Hort. Ask him about Ecologia.”
“What does-”
“And if Hort won’t tell you, ask David Ulrich.”
“Who?”
“The former vice president’s chief of staff. According to U.S. News & World Report, ‘The Most Powerful Man You’ve Never Heard Of.’ Or ‘The Hidden Power,’ is how the New Yorker put it. Currently a K Street lobbyist, naturally. He knows even more than Hort. He knows everything. And hasn’t suffered from any of it. I was going to make him suffer. But now my hands are tied.”
“The Caspers. Ecologia.”
“Yes. That’s what’s really going on here. That’s what’s really got everybody’s panties in a wad.”
“I don’t know what those things are. You’re not telling me anything.”