But wasn't she indicating now that she didn't want to know? Didn't that change 'Goodbye, Agent whatever your name is and whoever you are.'
She closed the door in his face.
He stood there for a long moment, telling himself to ring the bell, get it out, finish what he'd come here for.
He didn't. Instead, he walked back to the car, feeling slightly ill. He wondered whether he'd proven something. If so, he wished he knew what it was.
He drove back to the airport in Orlando.
He had some tough decisions to make. Decide wrong one way, and he could take the fall for Ulrich. Decide wrong the other way, and he could spend the rest of his life anesthetizing himself like Paula. Or looking for some crazy Hail Mary way out, like Larison.
It seemed like the safest alternative was to do what Hort had asked. Track down the men he wanted. It would buy him time. After all, Hort couldn't monitor everything that happened in the field. He might learn something, the way he had from Larison. Speaking of whom, he could track him down, too. He'd done it before. He could do it again. There was no telling who else Hort had screwed along the way. Put together a few disgruntled former soldiers, and Hort could wind up on the wrong end of a fragging. With Clements and the CIA and the rest of the damn oligarchs or whatever they called themselves alongside him.
He hoped he was making the right decision. Hort said he knew people. Would he have seen this coming? Would he have known this was the way Ben would perceive the situation, the way he would persuade himself he still had free will even as he was doing Hort's bidding?
He didn't know. He'd have to be careful.
You come a certain distance, you can't just turn around.
Yeah, he could see that now. He couldn't just walk away. He was too deep inside. But that didn't mean he couldn't find a way out.
But should he? There was a lot of damage you could do from the inside, if that's what you wanted.
He smiled grimly. Yeah, if damage was the objective, inside could be awfully goddamned good.
