I reread the relevant paragraphs and felt an uncharacteristic anger taking hold of me. One of my rules has always been no acts against non-principals. Meaning no deaths of non-principals primarily, but still, I’ve never liked the idea of solving a problem with Person A by going after Person B. Kill Schmalz? If I really wanted to do something good in the world, I thought, I ought to go after the people who were threatening to ruin her son and grandchildren just to secure a favorable vote.
I wondered why Horton didn’t do something arguably less extreme. Find some way to out the son in advance and defuse the blackmail bomb by preempting it? Maybe he thought that would tip his hand to the plotters in a way that a kindly-looking grandmother’s peaceful demise in her sleep wouldn’t.
But I didn’t care. I didn’t like the smell of this thing anymore, or where it seemed to be taking me. The others could do what they wanted. I was out.
I exited the site and purged the browser, then found a payphone, called the Hilton, and asked for James Hendricks, the name Dox had told me he would check in under. “We on?” I said.
“Gang’s all here, partner. Twelve-thirty-four.”
That meant they were in room 901. My habit with Dox was to use a simple code when mentioning exact dates, times, room numbers and the like. We just added three to each digit. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t be all that difficult to crack, but one more layer of defense never hurt anyone.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said, then hung up and unobtrusively wiped down the handset with a handkerchief. Being in the belly of the beast was making me twitchy.
I headed over to the Hilton. The lobby was crowded, apparently due to the annual convention of something called The American Constitution Society. I couldn’t help smiling a little.
I took the elevator to the tenth floor, then the stairs down to nine. I emerged into the middle of a narrow corridor about a hundred meters long. I looked left, and at the far end saw two men in suits and shades who looked like bodyguards waiting outside a VIP’s room. Not so unusual, and easily explained by the convention downstairs or by one of the nearby embassies. Still, I wasn’t sorry to see from a sign that 901 was to the right. I walked to the end of the corridor, made a left, and found the room. I knocked once and the door opened instantly-Treven. He must have been watching through the peephole. I nodded in acknowledgement and walked in. Dox and Larison were sitting across from each other on the room’s twin beds, eating sandwiches. I heard Treven latching the door behind me.
“You hungry?” Dox said, holding up an Au Bon Pain bag. “We got tuna, turkey, and roast beef.”
On the beds alongside them were a couple of pistols. A Wilson Combat, which must have been Dox’s; a Glock that I assumed was Larison’s. I wondered if Treven was carrying, too. Seeing the guns gave me mixed feelings. In general, better to be armed, yes, but I didn’t know Larison or Treven well enough to like the feeling of their carrying firearms around me.
“Where’d you get the hardware?” I said. “The underground redneck railroad again?”
Dox grinned. “This time, just a gun show in Chantilly. You know, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Picked out a Wilson for you, too. These hombres here like their Glocks, but you know me.”
He handed me a Tactical Supergrade Compact and two spare magazines. I put the magazines in my front pockets, then checked the load and secured the gun in my waistband. It felt good. If Larison and Treven were going to be carrying, I was glad I was, too.
“Sandwich?” Dox asked.
“No, I’m good,” I said. “You eat, I’ll talk.”
I sat down next to Dox. Treven hesitated, then did the same next to Larison, across from me. I briefed them all on what had happened in Vienna. Then I told them who the next target was. And told them I was out, and why.
“I don’t get it,” Dox said, when I was done. “I mean, who cares if her son is gay? I thought we were living in the twenty-first century. Hell, I love gay men. If they stick to loving each other, it just means more ladies for me.”
“It’s not that he’s gay,” I said. “It’s that he’s closeted. That’s the exploitable aspect. Although I agree it’s a shame.”
Larison and Treven hadn’t said anything yet. I was surprised they were being so quiet.
“Anyway,” Dox said, “I’m not exactly okay with euthanizing a little old lady. But even more than that…damn, a Supreme Court Justice? I mean, we’re already practically making history here with some of the targets we just took down. But being the first to rack up a Supreme? I’m starting to feel like we might be growing bullseyes on our backs, and I don’t think I like it.”
“I don’t care one way or the other,” Larison said. “You know why I’m in this. But if you feel like we’re growing targets on our backs, congratulations, it means you’re starting to wake up.”
I looked at Treven. “You want this?” I said. “Do it yourself and it’s a two-million dollar payday.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Larison said, looking at Treven. “It’s a setup. This whole fucking thing is a setup. Go out on your own and you’ll be the first one to get picked off.”
A long moment went by. Treven said, “Whether you’re in this for the money, or whether it’s because you want to save a lot of lives, the calculus is the same. A false flag terror attack is still a terror attack. Innocent people die either way. If removing one more player makes the difference, I’ll do it, with or without the rest of you.”
“A player?” Dox said. “Have you ever seen a picture of this woman? She looks like my grandma. I’m not holding a damn pillow over her face, no sir. Give me nightmares for the rest of my life.”
I didn’t like Treven’s response. It struck me as the product of bluster, not of thought. I wondered why he’d be so touchy. Had he been feeling left out? Jealous that he hadn’t been at the center of things with Shorrock and Finch? It seemed silly that someone so capable and experienced could also be so adolescent. If I could have been paid either way and stayed at the periphery, I would have been glad to.
But it was all the same to me. “Here,” I said, firing up the iPad and accessing the secure site. I input my pass code, then saw a message from Kanezaki:
I deleted the message and handed the iPad to Treven. “Hold on,” I said. “Looks like we might have some new information about Horton.” I popped the batteries in my phone, turned it on, and called Kanezaki.
He picked up instantly. “Did you do Jack Finch?” he said.
I was taken aback but didn’t show it. “What are you talking about?” I saw the others glance over.
“Stop playing with me. The president is about to announce his replacement. Colonel Horton.”
My stomach lurched. “Finch’s replacement is…Horton?” I said. Larison was nodding as though he already knew.
“That’s not all. Shorrock, the guy you say died in Las Vegas because of an ironic act of God? He was giving secret testimony to Congress about abuses within the National Counterterrorism Center. He was just a civilian manager, he wouldn’t know an op if one snuck up and bit him on the ass, the last guy in the world to want to run, or to be able to run, a false flag attack. But you know who’s replacing him?”
I felt sick. “No.”
“The number two guy there, Dan Gillmor. And Gillmor’s no civilian appointee. He’s former JSOC, one of Horton’s guys. Been part of the military/intelligence/corporate/security complex his entire life. And he’s a fanatic. Knights of Malta like James Jesus Angleton and William Casey, crusader challenge coins-”
“Crusader challenge coins?”
“Some of these guys, like Erik Prince, think what we’re doing in the Middle East is a holy war, a new Crusades. It’s a network of zealots. And this one is now perfectly positioned to run the groups Horton told you were being used for these impending false flag attacks. Now his interfering boss is out of the way, and he’s number one. He can do anything he wants without having to explain himself to some meddling civilian.”
I didn’t say anything. There was so much to process, I couldn’t sort it all through.
Dox, Larison, and Treven were all watching me, their sandwiches forgotten. I’d said little, but my expression
