should I do? Anyone who tells you that proximity to power, especially during a crisis, is not tempting, is a liar. So the temptation, naturally, is to serve. And why not? After all, I have served my country my entire adult life. The problem, I have come to realize, is that today, I cannot serve our nation by serving the president. Today, service to one would be antithetical to the other. The service the president requires of me could and doubtless will be capably fulfilled by someone else. What’s needed instead, and needed urgently, is an example, and I hope others will follow mine.”
He paused. No one moved. The attention of everyone, there and in our motel room, was riveted on Horton.
“Therefore,” he said, “I must resign my position in this administration and my commission in the United States Army, effective immediately. And I encourage all service personnel who are asked to destroy the Constitution in the diabolical guise of saving it to follow my example. I encourage all Americans, of every stripe, to resist the government’s current attempt to pervert and subvert the constitutional guarantee that our government can only be of, by, and for the people. And I encourage all people who cherish their safety more than their liberty to move to North Korea, where they can live in a society more closely aligned to their preferences than the one we have created here in the United States of America.”
He paused, then said, “It may be that none will heed my call. I am at peace with that. Because I’ll be damned-I will be damned-if I allow any group of cave-dwelling, hate-filled, fanatical losers who have nothing more to offer the world than cowardly attacks on innocent civilians, to coerce me into surrendering the liberties I cherish, that I love, and that I am determined to bequeath to my children just as my parents bequeathed them to me.”
He looked out at the faces of the people assembled before him, then pivoted and walked toward the White House, his head high, his posture erect. There was another moment of stunned silence, then the reporters leaped to their feet and began shouting a cacophony of questions. For a single second, the president looked utterly flustered. Then he, too, turned and strode back toward the White House.
We all stared at the television. Finally, Dox broke the silence.
“What the fucking fuck?” he said.
I got up and turned off the television, having no desire to listen to the inevitable feeble-minded cable news commentary. I turned and looked at Larison, Treven, and Dox. “What the hell was that?”
Dox nodded. “Is it just me, or did that sound to anyone else like a man running for high office?”
“It did,” I said. “But what office? If they get what they want, I don’t think these guys are planning on holding an election any time soon. And, by any time soon, I mean ‘ever.’”
No one spoke. I said, “I mean, did that sound like a guy who’s trying to launch a coup? Who had the president’s counterterrorism advisor killed so he could take the dead man’s position?”
“You think we could have been wrong?” Dox said. “About what Horton was really up to? About who sent those unfortunates after us in D.C.?”
“But who else could have known we were there?” I said. “Unless Horton had told someone, someone who…I don’t know, had his own reasons for wanting us taken out.”
“No,” Treven said. “Hort would never have breached operational security unless he wanted us removed.”
Larison inclined his head toward Kei, who was sitting on one of the beds, one wrist flex-tied to a bedpost. “And besides,” he said, “what about the two men who were trying to protect her?”
“Could someone else have sent them to make it look like Horton had?” I said, thinking aloud.
Larison shook his head. “That’s getting a little far-fetched, I think. Parsimony suggests we’re right about Hort’s goals. But I agree, his tactics are…surprising. On the other hand, Hort never does what you’re expecting him to do. He always has an angle. The question is, what’s his angle here? You think he thinks this will save her?”
Dox glanced at Kei. “She’s not going to actually need saving, all right? We just need her father to think she will.”
It was a stupid thing to say in front of Kei. Yes, it was true, but we were counting on her fear that we might harm her to make her more cooperative. But he’d said it, and she’d heard it. Arguing with him wouldn’t change that.
Larison looked at Dox. “It doesn’t matter what we might or might not do to his daughter. It’s Hort’s perspective that matters. And I promise you, he doesn’t doubt me.”
There was a slight emphasis on the last word. To defuse another confrontation, I said, “We’ve demanded two things. The diamonds, and that he call off the dogs. The question is, how does his stunt pertain to any of that?”
“It doesn’t,” Treven said. “It has no impact on the first, and prevents him from doing the second. So my guess? The stunt was already in the works. It has nothing to do with his daughter. It’s about something else.”
That sounded right. “Okay,” I said. “But what?”
No one said anything. Dox turned to Kei. “Darlin’, if you have any insights into what that was all about just now on the TV, this would be a great time to share them.”
She didn’t respond at first, and I realized that seeing her father, whether because of what he had done, or just because of her circumstances, had affected her. She was trying to master her emotions.
“Maybe you’re just missing something incredibly obvious,” she said, after a moment. “My father’s an honorable man.”
Dox smiled sadly. “Well, respectfully, you don’t know him the way we do.”
“No,” she said. “You don’t know him the way I do.”
We were all quiet again. I checked the secure site. There was a message from Horton.
“He’s coming,” I said. “Tonight, with the diamonds. Expects to arrive at LAX around eight o’clock on a private jet. Says he can’t risk commercial because of the diamonds. The TSA is going apeshit, everything’s being hand- searched. Says he’ll meet us anywhere we want.”
“He gave you his itinerary?” Treven said.
I nodded. No one had to point out the significance. Either Horton was trying, pretty obviously, to lure us into a trap. Or he was telling us we could kill him without resistance, if we’d just let his daughter go.
But it had to be the second one. He knew we wouldn’t expose ourselves more than necessary. Only one of us would show up for the diamonds. The rest would be somewhere else, holding a decidedly non-metaphorical gun to his daughter’s head.
“He told me his announcement would set our minds at ease,” Larison said. “What are we missing? I don’t see it.”
No one responded. I didn’t think we were going to figure it out. We’d just have to ask Horton. And then I realized.
“We’re not supposed to see it,” I said. “He wants a chance to talk to us. Whoever goes to pick up the diamonds, Horton wants it to involve a conversation, not just an exchange of a bag.”
“What does that get him?” Dox said.
I looked at Kei. “I don’t know. But we need to decide who’s going to meet him.”
Dox stood. “Hell, I’ll do it.”
I wondered if it was a bluff. I knew he felt protective of Kei, and was worried about Larison.
“No,” I said. “I want Horton to feel that special tingling sensation you can only fully appreciate when you wonder whether a former Marine sniper is watching you through a scope right that very second.”
“I can’t,” Larison said. “Much as I’d like to. Of the four of us, the one Hort fears most is me. Because he knows, with me, it’s personal. If you want to ensure compliance, you want him to picture his daughter, alone and helpless with me.”
I didn’t particularly care for the thought of Larison alone with Kei, but I couldn’t disagree with his assessment.
Treven said, “I’ll go.”
The truth was, I would have preferred to handle it myself. I didn’t trust Treven. He’d been exceptionally quiet on the subway in L.A. when we’d first discussed going after Horton, and he’d been right at the Capital Hilton, when he’d accused me of suspecting he had a hand in our being set up about the cyanide. But I had no way of knowing, and besides, I didn’t want another confrontation. Whatever the relationship between the four of us, it plainly hadn’t yet evolved to the point where disagreements could be settled without the possibility of a
