I had to keep reminding myself that this was an old recording. It just made me realize how much the world had changed in a relatively short time.
“In Cy’s world, what you end up with is a radical Islamic alliance with nuclear weapons lined up against Western nations with nuclear weapons.”
“Armageddon.”
“Yes, because, unlike the Soviets, religious jihadists are not afraid to die. There is nothing keeping their fingers off the buttons. Mass mutual destruction becomes a real possibility.”
“But LBJ’s theory never proved out.” That was Lyle, arguing on behalf of sanity. “We pulled out of Vietnam, and the balance of power never shifted.”
“True believers are not swayed by facts or historical precedents, and Cyrus is a true believer. He always was. Always will be. The more he learned about the threat, the louder he yelled. The louder he yelled, the more the powers that be wanted to shut him down. Eventually, they pushed him out.”
“Then he didn’t resign from the CIA.” Lyle’s tone suggested he’d suspected as much all along.
“That’s why he started the business. He needed to regain control. Cyrus is big on control, and he had no problem finding fellow travelers to go with him. We had military officers, intelligence officers, special-ops types, force protection, people from some of these other security companies.”
“Is that why you did it?”
“I was tired of the military. Cy was my best friend and my mentor, and I wanted to make some money.”
I reached over and paused the tape, because a light had gone on in my brain, and I needed to look at what it was showing me. The voice on this tape was Tony Blackmon’s. It was a tape of Lyle interviewing Cyrus’s dead partner, the man who had started Blackthorne with him. The man who had probably known him best. Whatever he said had instant credibility, and what he’d said on this tape must have been what Thorne was so intent on keeping a secret. He had killed Lyle’s son to keep it that way. Now he wanted to kill Kraft.
I pressed play. Blackmon continued.
“For a long time, it was just about getting the company up and running, but once we got going, for Cy it became all about the ideology. Everything that happened in the escalating pattern of violence and aggression-Khobar Towers, the Cole, the embassies in Africa-he took each one as evidence that the country was defended by morons, and if he, Cyrus Thorne, didn’t do something, we were going to have the big fireball.”
“Nuclear attack?”
“Right. It’s the Thorne Mushroom-Cloud Defense. He can justify any behavior at all by invoking the image of that mushroom rising up over Washington or Manhattan. It’s handy, because there’s hardly anything Americans wouldn’t do to stop that from happening.”
I put the article and everything else aside to give my full attention to the tape.
“What sorts of things did he do?”
“He started sourcing bigger and riskier jobs. High-risk protection stuff that gave us access to diplomats and heads of state in the Middle East. Cy had contacts all over the world from his CIA officer days, so it wasn’t hard. He also jumped on assignments in hot spots like Kosovo. It was great for business, but he was pushing the envelope more and more.”
“In what way?”
“If we got called in on a kidnapping case down in Colombia, we’d get the victim released, but the kidnappers would all end up dead at the scene. Then we had to start finding ways to bury expenses, because we were going out on our own missions.”
“You’re saying Blackthorne initiated missions without being hired by a client.”
“That’s right. Isn’t that what I just said?”
“I’m just being clear for the recording. You’re saying Blackthorne became a vigilante organization disguised as a legitimate contractor.” Blackmon didn’t respond, so he went on. “Did you participate?”
“I can tell you right now, a lot of the things we were doing, they were things that needed to be done. People who needed to be dead. A Syrian gun runner selling weapons used against our troops. An Afghan war lord who sells drugs and on the side buys little boys to fondle and rape. A Palestinian telling a bunch of kids they’ve been chosen by Allah to have the great honor of strapping on some C4 and blowing themselves up.”
Blackmon had to stop and take a rest here. I pictured him walking away from Lyle, trying to gather himself, and then coming back.
“The world is better off without these people, and if we had more of that kind of clear thinking in government, we wouldn’t have half the problems we have today.”
“You don’t consider it murder?”
“It was murder. I am a murderer. But it was murder that needed to be done.”
I didn’t know if the long pause here meant Lyle was taking notes or trying to form a question. “If you believe in what he’s doing, why are you talking to me?”
“Because the more we did, the more Cy wanted to do. He wanted more influence. He started taking money under the table from donors with foreign business interests, and those interests had to be protected. There were certain countries and governments that were more favorable to what we were doing, and their interests had to be considered. The decisions got more complicated, and pretty soon it wasn’t about right and wrong.” There was a real sense of loss in Blackmon’s voice. Whether it was for his friend’s loss of purpose or because he would miss going out and killing people once the article was published, it was hard to say. “Cy had created the thing he hated most.”
“Thorne created his own politically driven bureaucracy.”
Blackmon must have nodded, because Lyle told him he had to speak for the tape.
“That’s what happened. I was ready to bail, but then nine-eleven happened.” The silence that followed went on so long I checked to see if we’d come to the end of the tape. We hadn’t, and eventually Blackmon began again. “Watching those towers fall…it did something to him.”
“It did something to a lot of us.”
“Cy felt responsible.”
“Why?”
“Because he saw it coming, and he wasn’t able to convince anyone. Because he felt like part of the failure, part of the useless and fucked-up government that had let things get to that point. He started taking a lot of black-bag jobs. Covert stuff. Illegal.”
“Like what?”
“Political assassinations, kidnappings, torture-various other forms of violent persuasion aimed at targets of his choosing. Encouraging coups, training and arming insurgents, passing along classified information to where it’s most needed.”
“Where does he get access to classified intelligence?”
“You have to remember the core of the company was all ex-military, ex-CIA or DIA or NSA. We all had high-level clearance, and we all have friends who still do. There are a lot of people inside the intelligence community who believe the U.S. intelligence machine is inadequate to the job of defending the country.”
“You have moles?”
“We get help here and there. Don’t ask me for names. I’m not compromising those people. They’re trying to do right. Most of us are trying to do right. But the jobs got bigger and riskier and harder to manage, and civilians started getting in the way. Cy’s view is that everyone is a soldier in this war.”
“Much like the radical Muslim point of view.”
“That’s what I keep telling him. ‘Cy, you’re no different from the people we’re hunting.’ He doesn’t like to hear that. He considers himself a patriot, the country’s last best chance. The hell of it is, he might be right. But when you start killing citizens, that’s when I get off the train.”