firefight.
Strangely enough, I wasn’t unduly concerned that Treven might abscond with the diamonds. A hundred million dollars is a lot of money, true. But you wouldn’t live long to spend it if Larison, Dox, and I were after you. Better to settle for an already galactic twenty-five million and live to enjoy it, too. I imagined Larison had performed the same calculus and had arrived at the same conclusion.
“You’ll have to do a hell of an SDR,” I said. “We don’t know-”
He held up a hand. “How he tracked us in Washington. I know. Satellites, drones, surveillance cameras, etc. I’ll be careful.”
I nodded again, recognizing I was micromanaging, unable, it seemed, not to.
“He’ll want to know when his daughter will be released,” Larison said. “Tell him only after we’ve had the diamonds certified by an expert. If he thinks he’s going to hand off another bag full of plastic, I’m going to make him pay.”
“The diamonds are only half of it,” Dox said. “How’s he going to call off the heat now that he’s just a civilian? And how would we even know, one way or the other?”
I realized Larison didn’t care about heat. He only wanted the diamonds. That wasn’t an entirely new development, but still, it made me uneasy. I sensed I was going to have to do something about him, something extreme. But I didn’t know what. Or maybe I just didn’t want to face it.
I looked at Treven. “Horton’s going to give you assurances regarding the heat. We just don’t know what form those assurances will take. Let’s assume for the moment they’ll be worth something, because if they weren’t, he’d be putting his daughter at greater risk. So whatever he says, you just tell him you’ll pass the information along to the rest of us, and we’ll get back to him.”
“He’s not going to like that,” Treven said.
Larison smiled. “He’s going to hate it. But he’ll have no choice. He’s not going to risk sending you back to us empty-handed.”
Then he looked at Dox and said, “Not as long as I’m here, anyway.”
Treven sat in a corner of the vast, ornate waiting room of Los Angeles’ Union Station, waiting for Hort. The Glock was concealed in an unzipped black hip pouch on the large, mahogany-and-leather chair next to him, but he wasn’t expecting any immediate trouble. Even if Hort hadn’t just left the government and resigned his commission, his options were fairly limited. Bring in a team for a snatch? They’d have to drag Treven out through the station, assuming they survived the preceding firefight. A straight-up hit? That would get Hort nothing, except maybe a dead daughter. No, the most likely scenario-next to Hort trying nothing at all, given the way they had him by the balls-was that Hort would have forces hanging back and hoping to follow Treven to wherever Kei was being held. Which is why they’d told Hort via the secure site the meeting would be at Union Station. With its multiple levels and points of ingress and egress; its numerous train, subway, and bus lines; and its proximity to three highways and countless surface roads, it would take an army to properly cover the place.
He’d been a little surprised when Rain had agreed to let him be the one to meet Hort. The man had good instincts, and had zeroed in on Treven at the Capital Hilton. But he never had anything firm to go with, and probably had decided he would just have to keep his suspicions in reserve. For the time being, anyway.
He watched all manner of people coming and going along the tiled floors and through the huge archways, the sounds of their cell phone conversations swallowed up amid the high, beamed ceiling and art deco chandeliers, and periodically drowned out by announcements about the importance of being watchful and immediately reporting any suspicious activity. There was a tension in the air that reminded him of the immediate aftermath of 9/11: people hurrying more than normal, as though passage through a train station had become the equivalent of a lethal game of musical chairs; expressions pinched and suspicious and fearful; eyes darting, trying to read faces to which their owners previously had always been happily oblivious. There were cops positioned everywhere, and a half dozen soldiers patrolling in Army Combat Uniforms, their M-16s held ready. Not Hort’s men, though. These were reservists, and to an operator like Treven, the difference between a part-timer and a JSOC black ops vet was the difference between a kid playing touch football and an NFL pro. Hort’s guys were invisible right up until the moment they were pulling a bag over your head or putting a bullet in your brain. These guys were nothing more than security theater. Their purpose was to look butch, and reassure a jittery public that Something Was Being Done, and Treven supposed they were ably carrying out the role.
Hort showed up at a little past nine o’clock. He was dressed in civilian clothes-khaki pants, a green polo shirt-and carrying a blue nylon gym bag. His face was uncharacteristically drawn, borderline exhausted. He looked like a man who’d lost big, and was now terrified of losing everything else on top of it.
He walked slowly through the waiting area, his head tracking left and right, and then saw Treven. As he walked over, Treven wrapped his fingers around the grip of the Glock and kept his thumb on the exterior of the hip pouch. He could fire right through the thing, if necessary, and the gun would remain concealed until he did. He scanned the room and saw no one suspicious coming in behind Hort, or from elsewhere.
Hort stopped a few feet away. He didn’t sit and Treven didn’t stand.
“I’m glad it’s you,” Hort said.
Treven scanned the room again. “You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?”
“Because that hotel thing was the second time you’ve tried to have me killed. I was an idiot to tell you what Larison was planning. He was right. I should have just helped take you out.”
“Those men weren’t there for you. You’re the one who told me where I could find you, remember? I know you’re the only one I can trust. You know what that means to me, after all that’s happened between us? Do you have any idea how grateful I am that you would give me a second chance?”
It was more or less what he’d been expecting. Which made the fact that he was tempted to believe it doubly irritating. “You have what we asked for?” he said.
Hort tossed the gym bag onto the chair next to Treven. “It’s all in there. Just a nylon bag, too, no room for tracking devices, though I expect you’ll want to check anyway.”
“We’ll check the contents, too. With an expert.”
“That’s understandable. Still, I assure you, the contents are what you have asked for. And now, I’m going to offer one more thing, and ask for one more favor.”
“What?”
“If you want to take me to one of the canyon drives, or the national forest, or to some other quiet place, I will kneel and look off into the distance and you can put a bullet in the back of my head. All you have to do is say the word.”
“Is that the offer, or the favor?”
Hort smiled tightly. “That’s the offer. The favor is, hear me out first. And, no matter what you decide, please. Let my little girl go.”
His voice cracked on the last word. Treven couldn’t believe it. He’d never seen Hort other than confident, competent, always in control. It felt like what they’d done had broken him, and despite everything, Treven was suddenly ashamed.
But he couldn’t afford to indulge that feeling, much less to show it. “That’s two favors,” he said.
“I don’t care how you count them. And I don’t care what you do to me. I have never begged anyone for anything in my life, and I am begging you. Just let her go.”
Treven gestured with his head. “Let me see your ankles. And turn around.”
Hort complied. He wasn’t carrying a firearm.
Treven looked around the room. Still no problems. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Maybe to one of those quiet places you mentioned. You can say whatever you want me to hear on the way.”
They walked through the station and down to the Red Line subway. Treven kept them on the platform while a train roared in and then squealed out. When its departing passengers had moved off, and the two of them were
