Mission, a formerly down-and-out neighborhood in south San Francisco that was now as fat and happy as the rest of the city.
Fisher figured he’d start with freelance work for guys he knew at Kroll and Brinker. Jobs that were too small for them, too messy, that pushed the limits of the legal. He wouldn’t mind those jobs. In fact, he’d like them. He took out ads on late-night local cable and posted on Craigslist and waited for the calls to come in. But with the economy lousy, business was slower than he’d expected. After a couple months, he wondered if he might wind up at GE after all.
Then this gig dropped into his lap. He was sitting in his office, trying to think of ways to get his name out, when his cell phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the caller ID. He answered anyway. He always answered. Couldn’t afford to piss off any potential customers. He’d probably work for his exes, if they’d hire him. Ex number one, anyway. Number two was a real piece of work.
“Jack? It’s Vince. Heatley.”
Fisher had gotten into a small-time poker game, mostly dollar-ante stud, with a bunch of retired FBI agents. Vince Heatley was a regular, former special-agent-in-charge of the San Jose office, now running security for George Lucas. Heatley was a solid guy, tightassed for Fisher’s taste but no worse than the average Fed. He usually lost a little but didn’t seem to mind. Which probably meant he had money.
“Free for a drink? ” Heatley said.
“If you’re buying,” Fisher said. And wished he hadn’t. He sounded desperate.
“Meet me at the Four Seasons.”
OVER A COUPLE OF BEERS, Heatley outlined the deal.
“Ever heard of Rajiv Jyoti? ”
Fisher shook his head.
“He’s a VC,” Vince said.
“He’s Vietnamese? Sounds Indian.”
“You really are new in town. No, a venture capitalist. You know, they invest in tech companies, start-ups. Rajiv was early in Google. He’s worth maybe a billion now, a billion-two. Depends on the day.”
“Nice.”
“He’s looking for a new head of security. And he loves ex-govs. FBI, military. He’d probably get hard just at the idea of a CIA op.”
“What happened to the guy who was working for him? ”
“Gone to work for Larry Ellison. The CEO of a company called Oracle.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Fisher said, though he hadn’t.
“Ellison’s richer than Rajiv. Heck”—only Mormons and FBI agents said heck instead of hell, Fisher thought —“Ellison’s richer than just about everybody. Point is, Rajiv’s friends with George, and he’s been bitching to George about needing a new guy. George asked me if I had any ideas. I thought of you. You seem solid, and I know your business — I mean, I know the economy isn’t great.”
“Personal security.” Not exactly what Fisher had imagined when he quit Langley.
“You might like it. Someone like Lucas, these
The job sounded less and less appealing. “What’s he like?” Fisher said.
“These guys all have egos, but from what I see he’s low-key, better than average. You wouldn’t have to live at his house, anything like that.”
Fisher sipped his beer. “I’ll think about it.”
“Before you say no, the money’s great. Rajiv told George he was paying his old guy two and a quarter a year. Now he figures he’s got to up that. I think for you, if he likes you, he might go to two-seven-five.”
“Two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.” The rent on Fisher’s office was five grand a month, every month. And the electricity, and the insurance, and the phone. And the alimony. Never forget the alimony. His exes sure didn’t. Suddenly, working for a venture capitalist didn’t seem so bad. “You think he’ll like me? ”
Heatley coughed into his hand. “Before I called you, I checked in with a couple guys I know at your shop.”
“You backgrounded me? Guess I’m not surprised.”
“Anyway, I don’t think you should have any problems. So? Interested?”
“Maybe,” Fisher said. “Long as I don’t have to walk the dog.”
AND HE DIDN’ T. Jyoti was all right. Not exactly a bundle of laughs but quiet and even-tempered. He spent most of his time tapping away on his iPhone. Plus, the job came with a few perks. Billionaires hung together. Fisher went to a party on Ellison’s yacht,
The work wasn’t tough, either. So far, Jyoti had called Fisher at home only twice. Once on Halloween, when kids egged the gate of his mansion in Sea Cliff. The second time after his wife’s poodle escaped. No kidnapping, no extortion, not even any stealing by the housekeepers.
Fisher’s biggest complaint was that the job was too easy. He hated being bored. He figured he’d work for Jyoti another year or two, until he’d saved a couple hundred grand and the economy turned up, then go back out on his own. Or maybe work for Halliburton someplace like Nigeria, for a couple of years. Though his wife would have a fit. Not that it mattered. He’d never been too good at listening to women.
But Jyoti did have some quirks. The most annoying was his insistence that Fisher come to Sea Cliff every morning to pick him up for the drive to his office in Atherton, in Silicon Valley, twenty miles south of San Francisco. Jyoti said he liked the certainty of knowing that Fisher would be outside his house every morning. He said the drive would give them a chance to talk over the day’s security arrangements. Fisher knew the truth. The truth was that Jyoti liked having a former CIA agent drive him to work.
So Fisher was a chauffeur. And that didn’t bother him.
Okay, maybe it did. A bit. But for two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars a year, plus medical and dental and a one-hundred-thousand-dollar hybrid, he would suck it up.
Sometimes he wondered what the guys from 673—his old unit — would make of his new gig. They knew he was in San Francisco. He’d even told a couple of them he was working for a billionaire, though he’d made the job more interesting than it really was, hinting he had gotten into high-stakes corporate espionage.
And here he was, at 7:05, parked outside Jyoti’s front gate. Ten minutes early. Jyoti was precise. If he said 7:15, he meant 7:15. He expected the people who worked for him to be precise as well. Fisher didn’t mind. He’d never needed much sleep. He got up at 5:15 and was out of the house by 6:00 to head over the Bay Bridge and into San Francisco. Assuming he didn’t hit any accidents, he usually had time to stop for a smoothie and a coffee — no bacon and eggs for him, not anymore.
Of course, by the time he reached the mansion, the smoothie and the coffee had to be gone. Jyoti didn’t like food in the car, especially not in the morning. He liked what he called a “sterile environment.” No crumbs, no newspapers, no radio except NPR on low. Nothing except a bottle of chilled Fiji water in the center console. After eight months with the guy, Fisher had reached the considered opinion that Jyoti was kind of a puss. Still. Two hundred seventy-five thousand dollars.
IN FRONT OF THE GATE of Jyoti’s mansion, Fisher cut the engine. “Global warming, Jack,” Jyoti had said. “We must conserve where we can.” Fisher had restrained himself from pointing out that Jyoti could save even more gas by trading in the six-thousand-pound Lexus for a smaller ride to work. Billionaires didn’t appreciate backtalk.
Jyoti had one other quirk. He insisted that Fisher be armed. So Fisher dusted off his old Glock and got himself a concealed-weapons permit. Even Berkeley could hardly deny that a former CIA agent might have a legitimate need for protection.
Jyoti’s mansion sat on two acres in Sea Cliff, probably the most exclusive neighborhood in San Francisco. It
