“I’m giving you the tools to find out. Who do you think you’re really working for? King and country, or just the king?”
“What does-”
“You have to be careful now. What do you think will happen after you’ve done what they asked of you, and they decide you’re some kind of threat?”
“I’m not a threat.”
“Maybe not before, but you are now. Because of what I told you. Just wanting information makes you a threat. You want to know how they’ll hang you out to dry before they hang you literally? I’ve seen it done. I don’t even know you, and I can tell you how they’ll set you up before they knock you down.”
Ben wanted to believe Larison was just bullshitting him, but somehow… it didn’t feel like bullshit.
“Here,” Larison said, “I’ll tell you first what Hort told you about me. I’m a psycho case, right? Anger management. Combat stress. Steroid abuse. Did he tell you I’m gay?”
“He didn’t.”
“Then he was hoping you’d find out for yourself. Conclusions you come to yourself are more persuasive. Didn’t they teach you that at the Farm?”
“I don’t think he knew.”
“He knew. If he didn’t tell you, it’s only because he knew you’d find out some other way.”
“I don’t see what that even has to do with it.”
“No? You’re going to honestly tell me it doesn’t make me suspect? Alien? A freak? You need all that, if you’re going to hunt someone. Hort was just providing it. Probably doesn’t even think of it as deception, or even as manipulation. He’s just giving you the tools you need to carry out a job. You think anyone we ever tortured and killed in the big, bad war on terror was white and Christian? It doesn’t work that way. You can’t do that shit to your own kind. They have to be turned into the Other first. Dehumanized. You and I… we’re like prisoners being set against each other by the guards. If you can’t see that, you’re nothing but a tool.”
A month earlier, Ben would have laughed at something like that, thought it was demented. But now…
“You said you’d tell me how they’d set me up.”
“Easy. You got in a lot of fights growing up, didn’t you?”
The truth is, the description was an understatement. “Maybe. What about it?”
“On the one hand, nothing. Everyone in the unit got in fights as a kid. There’s a correlation between childhood fights and subsequent combat capability, that’s all. But to the public? It becomes ‘history of disciplinary problems and violence.’”
“I cheated on tests, too. Hopefully they won’t nail me with that.”
“You been in any fights lately? Bar brawls, anything like that?”
Ben didn’t answer. But with Manila so fresh in his mind, he knew his silence was answer enough.
“Yeah, I thought so. Now you have ‘anger management issues.’ ‘Inability to control violent temper.’ I’m guessing you’re divorced, am I right?”
Again, Ben didn’t answer.
“That would be ‘inability to form lasting social bonds.’ Likewise if you’re at all estranged from any kids you have. And if you ever really uncorked and got in trouble with local law enforcement, they’ll use that to crucify you. They love to mention when someone’s been arrested. Who needs a conviction? An arrest is just as good.”
Ben tried telling himself it was like a fortune-teller’s trick, that these things applied to everyone, that Larison could have done the same with anybody. But he didn’t believe it. He thought of Manila… of Ami, of the jail. He’d never imagined how those things could be woven into a narrative by someone else. And was the narrative even untrue?
“Ever downloaded porn? ‘Deviant.’ Any solitary hobbies? ‘Loner.’ Talked to an army shrink? ‘Psychiatric patient.’ Look what the brass did to Graner and the rest after Abu Ghraib. Look at what the Bureau did to that guy Steven Hatfill, or to Bruce Ivins, when they needed to convince the public they’d found the anthrax villain. You think any of those people thought they were vulnerable? You need to wake up, my friend. You need to understand the way the system works.”
“You make it sound like there’s some kind of conspiracy.”
Larison laughed. “Conspiracy? How can there be a conspiracy when everyone is complicit?”
Ben wanted to dismiss what Larison had told him as nothing but a paranoid rant. But he couldn’t. At least not until he’d learned about the Caspers. And Ecologia.
“All right,” Larison said. “We’re going to split up now. Find a place to pull over.”
Leaving it up to Ben was smart. Larison had chosen the general direction, so he knew Ben wasn’t driving him into a setup. He’d know that if he were to choose a specific spot to stop on top of it, it would make Ben twitchy.
Ben drove for a few minutes more, then saw a sign announcing National Memorial Park Cemetery. He pulled off onto an access road and went through a gated opening in a brick wall. Inside was an expanse of trees and rolling lawns that but for scores of scattered headstones could have stood in for an ordinary public park. He followed a looping drive and pulled over. They sat in the long shadows of some nearby trees, watching each other.
“Time for us to get out of the car,” Larison said. “How do you want to do it?”
This was more deference than Ben had been expecting. “Why are you asking me?”
“You’re not going to kill me.”
“I already told you that.”
“It doesn’t matter what you told me. Now I know.”
“How?”
“I just do. How do you want to do this?”
“I’ll go first.”
“Fine.”
Ben eased his little finger off the barrel of the Glock and used it to open the door. He got out, stood, and transferred the gun to his right hand. He kept it trained on Larison. Other than the sound of passing cars on the nearby highway, the cemetery was silent.
Larison opened the passenger-side door and stepped out, taking the backpack with him. He tossed it onto the driver’s side of the hood. It landed with a dull thunk. They stood there, watching each other.
Larison nodded toward the bag. “Open it.”
Ben unzipped the bag. He couldn’t resist a peek. Just a bunch of whitish, yellowish stones, really. Hard to believe it was worth a hundred million. And everything else it had cost.
He turned the bag toward Larison and held it open. “Okay?”
Larison nodded. “Zip it up again.”
Ben did. He slid it across the hood. Larison picked it up and put it on the passenger seat.
“We’re done?” Ben said.
Larison closed the door. “Unless you want me to drop you off somewhere.”
“No offense, but I think I’d rather walk.”
Larison laughed. “No offense taken.”
Larison walked around the front of the car. Ben took a step back. He didn’t think Larison had any intention of trying to disarm him, but why take a chance.
Larison stood by the open driver side. He held the door, and for a second, he seemed unsteady.
“You all right?” Ben said. “You look… tired.”
Larison blinked. “I don’t sleep well.”
They were silent for a moment. Larison looked back at the road they’d come in on. “You don’t have to worry about them suborning you,” he said. “They get you to suborn yourself.”
“I’m not following you.”
Larison held out his hand. “Let’s hope you don’t.”
Ben hesitated, then transferred the Glock to his left. They shook.
Larison got in the car. He looked off into the distance at something Ben couldn’t see.
“That sound,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t imagine. Don’t let them do that to you.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose and sighed. “God, I wish I could sleep.”
He blew out a long breath, put the car in gear, and drove off.
Ben stood in the shadows of the swaying trees after Larison was gone. He thought, Caspers. Then, Ecologia.
He clicked on the phone and saw he had reception again. No doubt, Larison had been carrying a jammer. He brought up a map and found a Metro station-West Falls Church-less than a two-mile walk from where he stood.