alone for a moment, Treven switched on a bug detector Rain had given him. No response.
“You carrying a mobile phone?” he asked.
Hort nodded. “Yes, but I’ve removed the battery. I thought you might ask.”
All right, then. Either Hort was clean, or he was carrying a device he would switch on later. To counter that possibility, Treven would turn the detector on again when they were alone.
Another train came and went, leaving the platform momentarily empty again, and this time Treven was sure no one was following them, at least through visual contact. They waited again and then got on the next train. It was about half full, everyone looking like a civilian, albeit a tense one. Treven had Hort sit a few seats forward and facing the same direction so he could go through the gym bag without having to worry about Hort trying to disarm him while he was distracted. Not that disarming him would do any good, but it was best to deny an enemy both motive and opportunity.
As the car sped along, swaying in the close confines of the tunnel, he unzipped the bag. Thousands of small, pale stones, some yellowish, some light gray, most of them translucent white. He dug his hand in and moved it around carefully. Nothing other than the stones. He felt thoroughly along the handles of the bag and its seams. No telltale bulges or wires. No transmitters. It was a just a bag. Okay.
At the Vermont/Beverly stop, he had them step out and wait on the platform again. No question, unless Hort had enough people with him to blanket every train on the Red Line, they were clean. They got back on the next train. They rode it to North Hollywood, the end of the line, got off, and walked to Chandler Boulevard, where earlier Treven had parked another stolen car. This one was a dark blue Honda Accord sedan, one of the bestselling and therefore most common cars in America, which a harried housewife had been foolish enough to leave with the key in the ignition while she ran for just a minute into a Culver City dry cleaner carrying a load of shirts.
He gave Hort the key. “You drive,” he said.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ll tell you on the way.”
It was hard to imagine Hort still had access to the kind of domestic surveillance apparatus he might have been able to call into play before his resignation. Besides, unlike the others, Treven knew Hort hadn’t used that apparatus in fixing them at the Capital Hilton-he had simple human intelligence from Treven to thank for that. Also, it was night, meaning the birds would have a harder time tracking them. Even so, he had Hort drive an extensive surveillance detection run that incorporated the kinds of overpass and garage maneuvers they’d used to obscure their movements after snatching Kei. Rain’s bug detector remained silent as they drove.
They finished on Lake Hollywood Drive, a lonely, serpentine section of the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Reservoir. When they came to a curve partly concealed by scrub bushes and some dried-out trees, Treven told Hort to pull off the road and park. Ordinarily, Treven wouldn’t have liked the spot for a meeting like this because there was always the chance of a cop driving by. But doubtless Los Angeles law enforcement was more focused on protecting critical infrastructure just now than they were on rousting horny kids parked in the Hills.
Hort cut the lights and the ignition and looked out through the driver-side window. “Not a bad spot to dump a body,” he said. “I do hope you’ll hear me out first.”
“I’m listening.”
“You mind if I have a cigar?”
Treven squeezed the grip of the Glock, reassured by its familiar heft. “Whatever you like.”
Hort thumbed the switch for the driver-side window, then eased a canister and a cigar guillotine from his front pants pocket. He unscrewed the canister, slid out a cigar, and expertly clipped one end with the guillotine. He tossed the clipped end through the open window, put the cut end in his mouth, slid a wooden match out of the canister, popped it with a thumbnail, waited a moment, then slowly lit the end of the cigar, rotating it methodically to get it going evenly. When he was satisfied, he waved the match out and held it until it was cold before tossing it, too, out the window.
“Cuban Montecristo,” he said, settling back in the car seat. “Forgive me, I only have the one.”
Treven kept the Glock on him. “Enjoy it.”
The implication was clear and there was no need to say it.
Hort blew out a cloud of the sweet-smelling smoke. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking I’m behind these false flag attacks. That I’m part of it.”
“You’re going to tell me you’re not?”
“Not in the way you think.”
Treven’s eyes were adjusting to the dark. A gibbous moon was rising, its pale light glowing down on the road surface and reflecting on the reservoir below them. “Explain, then.”
“Did Rain brief you on what I told him this coup is supposed to be all about?”
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you?”
“The system is broken. The plotters wanted a pretext for seizing power so they could fix everything and then give it back. You thought the whole thing was insane, and wanted us to take out key personnel to stop it.”
“I’d call that an accurate summary.”
“But then we found out the personnel you had us take out weren’t part of the coup. They were opposed to it.”
“That is also accurate.”
“Then what the hell are you doing, Hort? Whose side are you on?”
Hort sighed. “The plotters are correct in believing the system is broken. They are also correct in believing that without immediate and radical surgery, the patient will surely die. But they are incorrect in believing a coup is what’s required. A coup would kill the patient in the name of saving her. What is required is something slightly different.”
“What?”
Hort looked at him. “An attempted coup.”
Treven didn’t respond. He tried to take what he already understood and sort it through the new framework Hort had just suggested. “You’re saying…you wanted the coup to start?”
Hort nodded. “And then to stop. And to be exposed for what it really was.”
“Why? What does that accomplish?”
“Maybe nothing. In which case, the republic shrivels and dies more or less on schedule, just as it was going to anyway. But maybe, maybe…people wake up.”
“To what?”
“To how close they were to losing everything they ought to cherish but have in fact come to take for granted. Did you watch my little speech at the White House?”
“Yeah.”
“When I talked about how we would never surrender our liberties if terrorists were explicitly demanding we do so? That’s the truth. You know that, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I was giving the country a little preview there. Shaping the battlefield.”
“I don’t follow.”
Hort drew on the cigar, held the smoke in his mouth, then slowly blew it out through the window. “The republic is being bled dry by a national security complex so grotesque and metastasized even Dwight Eisenhower wouldn’t have recognized it in his worst nightmares and most dire predictions. People are okay with this state of affairs because they don’t sense something is being taken from them. But if this country’s oligarchy is exposed for what it really is, and for what it’s really doing, there’s a chance people would fight back. A chance. You understand?”
Treven thought. “You’re saying even if someone would willingly give something up, he’ll fight to preserve it if he thinks someone is trying to steal it.”
“Precisely.”
“Then why did you resign?”
