The Detachment - Barry Eisler [64]
I wondered why Horton didn’t do something arguably less extreme. Find some way to out the son in advance and defuse the blackmail bomb by preempting it? Maybe he thought that would tip his hand to the plotters in a way that a kindly-looking grandmother’s peaceful demise in her sleep wouldn’t.
But I didn’t care. I didn’t like the smell of this thing anymore, or where it seemed to be taking me. The others could do what they wanted. I was out.
I exited the site and purged the browser, then found a payphone, called the Hilton, and asked for James Hendricks, the name Dox had told me he would check in under. “We on?” I said.
“Gang’s all here, partner. Twelve-thirty-four.”
That meant they were in room 901. My habit with Dox was to use a simple code when mentioning exact dates, times, room numbers and the like. We just added three to each digit. It wasn’t much and wouldn’t be all that difficult to crack, but one more layer of defense never hurt anyone.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I said, then hung up and unobtrusively wiped down the handset with a handkerchief. Being in the belly of the beast was making me twitchy.
I headed over to the Hilton. The lobby was crowded, apparently due to the annual convention of something called The American Constitution Society. I couldn’t help smiling a little. If you only knew.
I took the elevator to the tenth floor, then the stairs down to nine. I emerged into the middle of a narrow corridor about a hundred meters long. I looked left, and at the far end saw two men in suits and shades who looked like bodyguards waiting outside a VIP’s room. Not so unusual, and easily explained by the convention downstairs or by one of the nearby embassies. Still, I wasn’t sorry to see from a sign that 901 was to the right. I walked to the end of the corridor, made a left, and found the room. I knocked once and the door opened instantly—Treven. He must have been watching through the peephole. I nodded in acknowledgement and walked in. Dox and Larison were sitting across from each other on the room’s twin beds, eating sandwiches. I heard Treven latching the door behind me.
“You hungry?” Dox said, holding up an Au Bon Pain bag. “We got tuna, turkey, and roast beef.”
On the beds alongside them were a couple of pistols. A Wilson Combat, which must have been Dox’s; a Glock that I assumed was Larison’s. I wondered if Treven was carrying, too. Seeing the guns gave me mixed feelings. In general, better to be armed, yes, but I didn’t know Larison or Treven well enough to like the feeling of their carrying firearms around me.
“Where’d you get the hardware?” I said. “The underground redneck railroad again?”
Dox grinned. “This time, just a gun show in Chantilly. You know, better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. Picked out a Wilson for you, too. These hombres here like their Glocks, but you know me.”
He handed me a Tactical Supergrade Compact and two spare magazines. I put the magazines in my front pockets, then checked the load and secured the gun in my waistband. It felt good. If Larison and Treven were going to be carrying, I was glad I was, too.
“Sandwich?” Dox asked.
“No, I’m good,” I said. “You eat, I’ll talk.”
I sat down next to Dox. Treven hesitated, then did the same next to Larison, across from me. I briefed them all on what had happened in Vienna. Then I told them who the next target was. And told them I was out, and why.
“I don’t get it,” Dox said, when I was done. “I mean, who cares if her son is gay? I thought we were living in the twenty-first century. Hell, I love gay men. If they stick to loving each other, it just means more ladies for me.”
“It’s not that he’s gay,” I said. “It’s that he’s closeted. That’s the exploitable aspect. Although I agree it’s a shame.”
Larison and Treven hadn’t said anything yet. I was surprised they were being so