The Detachment - Barry Eisler [0]
The Detachment is a work of fiction. Certain incidents described in the book are based on actual recent and historical events, but other than well-known public figures referred to by name, all the characters are products of the author’s imagination and are not construed as real, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental. Neither the publisher nor author can be held liable for any third-party material referenced in the book.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN: 978-1-61218-944-4
To novelists J.A. Konrath and M.J. Rose,
for seeing the way and blazing the trail.
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
—Theodore Roosevelt
We’re entering an era of the educated establishment, in which government acts to create a stable—and often oligarchic—framework for capitalist endeavor.
—David Brooks
My view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.
—Chairman of the House Banking Committee Spencer Bachus
All governments lie.
—I.F. Stone
Contents
part one
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
chapter four
chapter five
chapter six
chapter seven
chapter eight
chapter nine
chapter ten
chapter eleven
chapter twelve
chapter thirteen
part two
chapter fourteen
chapter fifteen
chapter sixteen
chapter seventeen
chapter eighteen
part three
chapter nineteen
chapter twenty
chapter twenty-one
chapter twenty-two
chapter twenty-three
chapter twenty-four
chapter twenty-five
chapter twenty-six
chapter twenty-seven
chapter twenty-eight
chapter twenty-nine
chapter thirty
chapter thirty-one
chapter thirty-two
chapter thirty-three
author’s note
acknowledgments
sources
also by barry eisler
recommended reading
About the Author
…of course, we can always get lucky. Stunning events from outside can providentially awaken the enterprise from its growing torpor, and demonstrate the need for reversal, as the devastating Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 so effectively aroused the U.S. from its soothing dreams of permanent neutrality.
—Michael Ledeen
The only chance we have as a country right now is for Osama bin Laden to deploy and detonate a major weapon in the United States.
—Michael Scheurer, former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden Unit
The government in a revolution is the despotism of liberty against tyranny.
—Robespierre
I hadn’t killed anyone in almost four years. But all good things come to an end, eventually.
It was good to be living in Tokyo again. The face of the city had changed, as it continuously does, and the great Touhoku quake and tsunami continued to make their presence known in the form of dimmed lights and weakened summer air conditioning, along with an atmosphere newly balanced between anxiety and determination, but in its eternal, essential energy, Tokyo is immutable. Yes, during my sojourn in safer climes, there had occurred an unfortunate profusion of Starbucks and Dean & Delucas, along with their innumerable imitators, but the havens that mattered remained impervious to this latest infestation. There was still jazz at Body & Soul in Minami Aoyama, where no seat is too far from the stage for a quiet word of thanks to the band members at the end of the evening; coffee at Café de l’Ambre in Ginza, where even as he nears his hundredth birthday, proprietor Sekiguchi-sensei arrives daily to roast his own beans, as he has for the last six decades; a tipple at Campbelltoun Loch in Yurakucho, where, if you can secure one of the eight seats in his hidden basement establishment, owner and bartender Nakamura-san will recommend one of his rare bottlings to help melt away,