'A throw-down to the new administration. The word was, the newbies were going to investigate the tapes' destruction more seriously than the previous one was inclined to. So the message was, 'This is much worse than you think. Investigate and you'll never get anything done on the economy, or health care, or global warming, or jack shit. An investigation will go in a hundred directions you don't want. It'll eat you alive.''
'I don't get it. In the end, what did they think was going to happen? Were they hoping the tapes really were destroyed?'
'That's exactly what they were hoping. And it wasn't a bad working theory, if you think about it. Someone should have destroyed those tapes-can you imagine what would happen if they got out?'
'Why the hell make tapes in the first place? Are they crazy over there?'
Hort shrugged. 'The signal-to-noise ratio wasn't great on the information they were getting from the program. Truth is, most of the people we were picking up, we weren't even sure who they were. Informants were accusing people we'd never heard of, dirt-poor Pakistani farmers turning in some Arab just because they didn't like him or didn't want to pay him the money they owed. Settle a grudge by accusing your enemy of terrorism and collect a bounty at the same time-who could resist that? And with the methods the CIA was using, fabrication was a problem. So they tried to develop a mosaic, cross-referencing everything they extracted in the interrogations. Fabrication is random; the overlaps have more credibility, that was the theory. So every new bit of intel extracted meant they could look at previous intel in a new light. For that, they needed records, something they could go back to.'
'Yeah, records. Transcripts. Not video. Not if you don't want to get crucified on CNN.'
'Transcripts miss things. They needed to be able to examine the totality of circumstances: when did the subject say what he said, what was being done to him at the time, what were his facial expressions at that moment, his body language, were there other indices of fabrication? They were trying to mine every bit of value from the information they managed to extract. That was the whole point of the program. The tapes were a key part of it. And there was supposed to be an element of intimidation, too. You know, 'What are your tough-guy terrorist friends going to think when they see this video of you crying and begging like a baby?''
Ben had heard corridor talk about the program. Most of it sounded pretty stupid to him, but that was true for a lot of Agency initiatives and it wasn't his problem. Until now, anyway.
He cleared his ears again. 'These tapes… were there copies?'
'No. One set of originals, and that's what the blackmailer has.'
'Even so, do we know that whoever took them and whoever is using them are the same? If they've been brokered, every middleman in the chain would have made copies.'
'My gut tells me they haven't been passed around. First, because in all these years, no one's heard a peep about these tapes being circulated. Second, if you're smart enough to steal the tapes, you're smart enough not to broker them. The risks are similar, but the real payoff only comes when you hit up Uncle Sam. Who else is going to come up with a hundred million dollars in diamonds?'
Ben couldn't find any fault in Hort's reasoning. 'All right. What do we have to go on about the blackmailer?'
'So far, nothing. Initial call placed from a cloned sat phone. Communication through an anonymous private email account established at the caller's instruction after that. We traced the points of access, of course. They're all over the eastern United States. We've tried to triangulate. No luck. No tie-in with surveillance cameras outside an Internet cafe, nothing like that. The people we're dealing with are good, no question.'
'So working backward from the blackmail doesn't get us anything. What about from the initial theft? Assuming we're dealing with the same person or group.'
Hort nodded slowly. 'There, I think I might have a lead or two.'
Something in Hort's tone, and in his use of 'I' instead of 'we,' contained a world of subterranean meaning. Ben paused, knowing Hort wanted him to figure it out.
'You haven't told the CIA.'
Hort looked at Ben and nodded again, obviously pleased. 'Go on.'
'You don't trust them?'
Hort snorted. 'You could say that. Right now they're running around like a bunch of hyperactive retards. They're going to fuck this up if we let them. So we're not going to let them.'
Ben thought for a moment, sensing he was missing something, not sure of what it was. 'Is it just the CIA? Who else knows about this?'
Hort smiled. 'The DCI contacted the Justice Department. Federal blackmail case, standard operating procedure.'
'And if the FBI recovers those tapes…'
'Exactly. Their goal will be prosecution. They'll preserve the tapes as criminal evidence. Eventually, they'll leak. And you've got Abu Ghraib all over again, multiplied by about a thousand. You put those tapes on Al Jazeera, forget about just guaranteeing al Qaeda's monthly recruitment numbers-it'll ignite the whole Muslim world.'
'Oh, man.'
'So now we have three overlapping investigations. The CIA, which caused this monumental goat-fuck to start with. The Justice Department, which if they recover the tapes will, with all their good intentions and by-the-book behavior, wind up doing the same damage the blackmailer is threatening.'
'And me.'
'I'd call that us. But yes.'
Ben nodded. He couldn't deny, he liked the sound of the plural better. 'Us, then.'
He thought for a minute. The whole thing had been so smoothly delivered. But there was something missing at the center of it. Something obvious.
'Why?' he said.
'I told you, I can't trust the others.'
'No, I'm asking you why not one of the other guys in the unit. Why'd you come to me?'
'Well, for starters, I had to get you out of a hellhole in Manila.'
'The real reason.'
Hort sighed. 'I'm dealing with manpower issues right now, that's why. Most of the ISA is tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Among the ones who aren't, two are recovering from injuries you inflicted when you met up with them in California. And another operator you might remember, Atrios, isn't reporting in again, ever.'
Ben was glad Hort hadn't tried to bullshit him about how special he was. The truth was, there wasn't a man in the unit who wasn't in some way the best.
He thought again. There was something nagging at him… and then he realized.
'This whole time, we've been talking about 'the blackmailer.' Singular. You used it. And you didn't correct me when I did.'
Hort smiled. 'Is that right?'
'You know who it is.'
Hort's smile broadened. 'Just don't forget who trained you, son, all right?'
Ben felt an absurd flush of pride and tried to ignore it. 'Who?'
'A good man with a lot of demons, demons that finally got the better of him. His name is Daniel Larison. You never knew him, but he was part of the unit. One of the originals, in fact. He was one of the few people who had access to the tapes.'
'So why isn't everyone looking for him now?'
'Because he died in the bombing attack on Prime Minister Bhutto in Karachi on October 18, 2007.'
There was a long pause. 'He faked his death?'
'I believe he did. He had contacts in Pakistan's ISI and he could have had foreknowledge of the attack.'
'And not warned anyone?'
'I told you, the man has demons.'
'Damn. How many people died in that attack?'
'About a hundred and forty, and three times that burned and maimed. Larison was in Karachi on temporary duty. Shortly before the attack, he reported he was going to meet a contact at Bhutto's rally. But that might have been deception, and he could have left the country under a false passport after. The bomb was big enough to make it impossible to identify all the remains, one of which was assumed to be Larison's based on knowledge of
