It was bold of him to show up without protection, especially after losing two men in Tokyo. But I supposed he’d put himself in my position, and knew I wouldn’t take a chance on killing him before at least learning more.
I was carrying a full spectrum portable bug detector in my pocket-all transmitter frequencies and mobile phone frequencies within five feet. It had been vibrating silently since his arrival.
“I need you to turn off your phone,” I said. “And take out the battery.” He could have called someone before arriving, someone who could be recording our conversation now. Or he could have the phone itself set to a dictation function. And if it wasn’t a phone setting off the detector, it must have been a transmitter.
“Of course,” he said. Because he didn’t ask me to do the same, and because my phone was turned off, I assumed the detector he must have been carrying, which would have been set to ignore his own phone, was quiet. He took out his phone, powered it down, removed the battery, and placed the empty unit on the table. The vibrating in my pocket stopped.
He leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, his fingers laced together. “Well, you’ll be unsurprised to learn it’s about a job. One requiring your unique set of skills.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do, but all right, I’ll spell it out. That’s why we’re here, after all.”
He ordered a full breakfast-a Blvd Omelet, with mushrooms and black truffles; orange juice; a pot of coffee. I wondered how much of it had to do with appetite, and how much to demonstrate how relaxed he was.
When the waiter had moved off, he said, “Does the name Tim Shorrock mean anything to you?”
The name was familiar, but for the moment, I couldn’t place it. “Should it?”
He shrugged. “It depends on how closely you follow these things. He’s not the most prominent player in the Beltway establishment, but he is the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center.”
The information clicked with the name’s familiarity, and I felt a small adrenaline surge as I realized what Horton wanted. Without even thinking, I shook my head and said, “No.”
There was a pause. He said, “No, you don’t want the job?”
“No one would want it. It’s too difficult and it’s too dangerous.”
A detached part of my mind registered that I was objecting on practical grounds, not on principle. If I hadn’t known better, I might have thought my response wasn’t so much a refusal as it was a negotiating gambit.
“Look, we’ve both come all this way. If you’re not in too much of a hurry, why don’t you just hear me out?”
His point was completely reasonable. And yet I sensed danger within it. Why?
The rejoinder felt weak. Kanezaki and Dox, always chuckling at me when I said I wanted out. Were they right? Did they know me better than I knew myself?
The waiter brought over Horton’s beverages and departed. Horton stirred some cream into his coffee and said, “The National Counterterrorism Center focuses primarily on analysis and coordination, but Shorrock has been developing an ops capability. You see, prior to nine-eleven, al Qaeda wasn’t able to recruit Muslim Americans, but that’s changed.”
“You’re talking about the Fort Hood shootings?”
“And the attempted Northwest Air bombing, the attempted Times Square bombing, the planned D.C. Metro bombing, the planned Portland bombing…all the work of American Muslims.”
I laughed. “You mean after a decade of two open wars, a dozen covert ones, predator strikes, torture, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, hysteria about mosques…American Muslims are getting susceptible to calls for revenge? It’s shocking.”
He took a sip of coffee, then set the cup down. “I wish I could share your levity. But the problem is getting worse.”
“What does this have to do with Shorrock?”
“His men are involved with several domestic cells. Theoretically, Shorrock is supposed to penetrate a cell just deeply enough to gather evidence sufficient for criminal prosecution. In fact, he is now running these cells for real. You follow?”
“Shorrock’s a secret radical?”
“Shorrock is planning a series of false flag attacks on America.”
I didn’t like where this was going. “Why?”
He looked at me. “To provide an emotional and political pretext for the suspension of the Constitution.”
“You’re talking about a coup,” I said, my tone doubtful. “In America.”
“A coup against the Constitution, yes. You don’t think it can happen here? Do yourself a favor. Even if you don’t want the job. Google COINTELPRO, or Operation Mockingbird, oh, and especially Operation Northwoods. You might also look into Operation Ajax, Operation Gladio, Operation Mongoose, and the so-called Strategy of Tension. And those are just the ones that have leaked. There are others. Unless you think the Reichstag Fire and the Gleiwitz incident and the Russian apartment bombings were unique to their respective times and places and could never happen elsewhere, least of all in America. But you don’t strike me as that naive.”
“Was nine-eleven an inside job, too?”
“It wasn’t, though the way it’s been exploited, it might as well have been. But are you arguing that because not all cataclysms occur behind a false flag, that none of them do?”
The waiter brought over the omelet and Horton started in on it. I wondered how much of what he was telling me was true. And why, if it were true, I would even consider getting involved.
“You want some?” he said, chewing and gesturing to the omelet. “It’s delicious.”
“Why are you coming to me for this?”
He swallowed and nodded as though expecting the question. “The plotters are prominent individuals in politics, the military, corporations, and the media. They can’t just be killed or otherwise obviously removed, or the factions they represent would sense a threat and retaliate. I need their misfortunes to look natural for as long as possible, so we can do maximum damage to the plot before opposition can coalesce.”
I didn’t care for his premature use of
“Some of the targets have significant security details, meaning you’ll need a team. That’s where your man Dox comes in, along with my men, Larison and Treven. This job could actually stand for a larger detachment, but size entails risks, too. I think the four of you can manage.”
“I don’t buy it. You don’t have the manpower in the ISA?”
“The manpower? Sure. The expertise? My friend, you’re being too modest. There are people who say you pushed a man in front of a moving Tokyo train in such a manner that a dozen bystanders didn’t see it, that even the security cameras didn’t pick it up.”
I didn’t see any advantage to correcting him, but the target in question had actually committed suicide with no assistance from me, and I was as surprised as everyone else standing on the platform when it happened. But my employer at the time believed it had been my doing and was awed. Funny, how legends get started.
“What do you have on Treven and Larison?”
“That’s between them and me.”
“Are they even part of the ISA?”
“They’re status is…”
“Deniable?”
“I suppose you could put it that way.”
“I hear ‘deniable’ and think, ‘hung out to dry if it comes to that.’”
He nodded. “Then don’t let it come to that.”
“And you want me to run this,” I said. “Not one of your guys.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“You’ve got the most experience with this kind of thing. You know what you’re doing, and the other men will
