immediately able to recognize.
'Give me some time,' he heard himself saying. 'There are some things I can do… to find a way out of what I'm in. Can you do that? Can you be patient?'
Nico smiled shyly and said, 'For you, Dan,' and Larison was immediately glad he'd told Nico his real first name. Ordinarily he wouldn't do that, but from the first instant there had been something about Nico that had made Larison want to be honest with him. About the things he could be, anyway.
He took Nico's card but didn't embrace him. He knew Nico wanted him to, but also knew Nico sensed that he was already melting back into his public self and that any contact in that guise would be unacceptable.
After that, he was able to find a way to visit Costa Rica at least twice a year, sometimes as many as four. He traveled only under legends he himself had developed. He was extremely paranoid about communication, creating an encrypted email account for each of them under false identities and instructing Nico how to use it without establishing any possible connection to either of them. The security procedures were unfamiliar to Nico, but he understood Larison's fanaticism to be an outgrowth of his fear of being outed, and was always exceptionally careful as a result. In fact, Nico displayed an aptitude and even eagerness for some of the security tools of the trade, which gratified Larison not only for the obvious substantive reasons, but also because he knew it was a sign of Nico's devotion and desire to please him, as well.
Of course, meeting repeatedly in Costa Rica and staying in Nico's apartment was suboptimal from a security standpoint, but Larison didn't have the money to fly both of them to neutral locations or to pay for hotels. It was all he could do to conceal from Marcy the money he was diverting from his military salary for coach travel to Costa Rica. More than that would have risked causing suspicions.
But now they would be able to travel anywhere, live anywhere. He'd come to love Costa Rica and what it represented, but he thought it would be wise to move on, at least for a while, when this thing was done. He'd asked Nico before about someplace new-Barcelona, maybe, or Buenos Aires. Nico had been reluctant because his practice was based in San Jose. So Larison had told him he was working on something big, a sale of his company that would set them both up for life. Larison would finally leave his wife, buy them land somewhere, and Nico could design the house while he worked on establishing a new practice. How did that sound? Nico said it sounded wonderful, though Larison sensed he didn't really believe it could be true. Well, he'd see soon enough.
The sun was now completely blotted out by looming office buildings and darkness was seeping into the sky. He came to a Hilton hotel and decided it would do as well as any other. He walked in, hoping he'd be able to sleep a little better this time than last.
PART TWO
The people in government who made mistakes or who acted in ways that seemed reasonable at the time but now seem inappropriate have been held publicly accountable by severe criticism, suffering enormous reputational and, in some instances, financial losses. Little will be achieved by further retribution. JACK GOLDSMITH, FORMER ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL That is not to say presidents and vice presidents are always above the law; there could be instances in which such a prosecution is appropriate, but based on what we know, this is not such a case.
If you're going to punish people for condoning torture, you'd better include the American citizenry itself.
11
Rough Men Three hours after leaving McGlade, Ben and Paula were on a flight to Costa Rica. Hort had arranged for a small jet to take them from Orlando International. Ben didn't ask and Hort wouldn't have told him, but Ben suspected the jet was part of the Jeppesen/Boeing-supported civilian fleet used to render and transport war-on-terror detainees through a series of black site prisons.
Ben had never been to Costa Rica and hated the idea of a hot landing in a place he didn't know and didn't have time to reconnoiter. Ordinarily, he would arrive in a place several weeks before the actual action to thoroughly familiarize himself with the terrain. No chance for that this time around, but he'd bought a guidebook in Orlando and was perusing it on the plane. Far from ideal, but it was a start. And he'd picked up some sneakers and a Tommy Bahama short-sleeved button-down shirt and cargo shorts that he figured would blend better than the faux-FBI outfit he'd worn to visit Marcy Wheeler. Paula was still in her navy pantsuit, and he figured she was most comfortable looking professional and governmental. Fine for her, but he generally liked to look like whatever would be least noticed in the environment at hand.
He'd called Hort after leaving McGlade's office. Lanier's credentials checked out: FBI special agent, joined the Bureau out of SMU right after 9/11, currently working out of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in Washington, D.C.- same as one Dan Froomkin. Known for being a maverick and a pain in the ass, but also for getting results. Hort agreed with Ben's assessment that her threat to kick up a public fuss about Ben's visit to Larison's wife wasn't a bluff. Meaning for the time being, it was best to keep her close.
'Now, listen,' Hort had told him. 'Maybe Costa Rica will turn out to be a dead end. But if it's something, if Larison has someone he cares about there, if part of his plan is to disappear with her afterward to a private island or who knows what, and he figures out you're keying on that someone, he'll feel cornered. You'd be threatening his op, his girlfriend, everything. This is personal to him. So you watch yourself, son. I told you, you're good, but you're not in his league. Not yet.'
The 'not yet' removed the sting. 'I'll be careful.'
'Good. And hang on for a minute… okay, while we've been talking, I got a printout of Larison's travel records from the ICE database. Looks like he did travel to Costa Rica, spring of 2005. Flight from Tegucigalpa, where he was TDY at the time. But nothing in April 2007.'
'He traveled that first time under his own name?'
'Yes, and it fits. Say something happened while he was there that first time, he met someone. After that, he wouldn't want to keep going back under his own name. With one data point, there's no pattern, nothing for anyone to look for. He had no way of knowing he'd get placed in Costa Rica through something else. Now, you say this McGlade claims Larison killed someone on one of these trips?'
'That's what he told us, yeah. The one where Larison traveled from Miami on April 17.'
'Okay, that would be an Airbus A320, hundred and fifty seats. Figure two-thirds full, half the passengers women… my guess is, we'll have to sift through something like forty or fifty names before we spot the one that isn't like the others. Once we know what legend he was traveling under that day, we can cross-reference, see if he's been using it for something else. This is promising. Good work, son.'
Ben was annoyed at himself for needing the man's approval. He wondered if Larison had been this way, or if that was something an operator grew out of. Maybe that's what Hort meant about him becoming like Larison, if he kept developing this way. He wondered.
Hort had also checked up on Taibbi. Vietnam combat veteran, three tours with the 82nd Airborne, and an LRRP-long-range reconnaissance patrol. Meaning he was self-reliant, understood stealth, and would be handy with a variety of close-range weapons. A conviction in 1982 on arms-trafficking charges. Pleaded guilty, served three years, moved to Costa Rica in 1987, and hadn't had a problem with the law since then. According to his current passport and cellphone records, he was presently in Jaco, and Ben could reasonably expect to find him at his bar.
He looked at Paula. She was asleep in the seat facing his, her head dipped forward. The cabin was aglow with the sun setting ahead of them and her face was obscured by shadow.
