The God's Eye View (28 page)

You couldn’t see how they tracked you to the Rockville mail drop, either
, she thought.
And Hamilton couldn’t see how you tracked him to that Ankara hotel. Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

She hesitated, then signed,
Do you . . . do you carry a gun?

He nodded.

Did you shoot someone before? Outside my building?

He looked down for a moment, then signed,
There are a lot of people after you. You should know how to use a gun.

She didn’t disagree. But he certainly hadn’t answered her question.

Or maybe he had.

All right
, she signed.
Show me how.

He reached behind his waist and came back with a huge, black pistol. He ejected the magazine and pulled back the slide. A bullet popped out and tumbled to the bed. He handed her the gun.

She hefted it, then set it down so she could sign.
It’s heavy.

Check that it’s unloaded.

What? You just unloaded it.

Always check for yourself.

He showed her how.
The weight is good, by the way. It compensates for kick.

She nodded.
Where’s the safety?

I keep it uncocked. The first trigger pull cocks the gun, which means a long pull. That itself is a kind of safety. After the first shot, the gun cocks automatically. So subsequent trigger pulls are short and easy. All you have to do to fire is aim and pull the trigger. The first pull will be long. After that
,
all it takes is a very light squeeze. But think of it as pressing more than pulling or squeezing. It’ll keep your hand steadier.

He showed her how to hold it—two hands and a tight grip—and how to aim by lining up the sights.

I’ll take you to the range sometime
, he signed.
And Dash, if you like.

She gave him a smile and nod she hoped looked real.
It’s late. I need to send Hamilton’s editor a message
.

He nodded.
I’ll keep watch.

I’ll bet you will
, she thought. And then signed,
No, why don’t you sleep for a while? I’ll keep watch, and when I get tired, I’ll wake you.

He looked at her for a long moment. She couldn’t read his expression. Then he signed,
Are you sure?

Yes. I’m too keyed up right now
,
anyway.

He reloaded and reholstered the gun, then went back to the bedroom.

She used Tor to go to the
Intercept
website, then accessed SecureDrop and wrote out a long message to Betsy Leed. She hoped it sounded less crazy to the
Intercept
editor than it did to her.

CHAPTER
. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .
42

A
nders paced in his office, rubbing his hands, trying to manage his agitation. He was practically sleeping at Fort Meade these days. And just when he thought he’d gotten things under control, this. Some anomalies in his text communications with Delgado. Anomalies he’d tested, with results that made him even more suspicious. He’d geolocated on Delgado’s phone, and then, on a hunch, on Manus’s and Gallagher’s, as well. The three of them appeared to be together, which made no sense, and heading toward Gallagher’s apartment. He’d sent a team to investigate. The team had failed to check in. He’d sent another team, which reported that the first team had been annihilated. The second team cleaned up the mess and retrieved three cell phones from Gallagher’s apartment. No sign of anyone. Anders had worked backward to last known locations, and saw Manus converging on the Triadelphia Reservoir, where geolocation records indicated Delgado had been holding Gallagher. Anders had sent Remar, and he’d found Delgado, handcuffed to the steering wheel of his van, bloody and raving. Anders had spoken to him briefly, and he said he had the thumb drive. So thank God for that. But the first drive, the one Manus had taken from Hamilton, had been a decoy. This one could be, too. Anders needed to examine the drive. And debrief Delgado. Remar was bringing him in now. But it felt like it was taking forever.

After fifteen long minutes, there was a knock on the door. Remar opened it and Delgado stormed past him into the office. Anders stopped and stared. Delgado’s face was a mess—bruised, swollen, the nose obviously broken, a bloody scalp wound where the hair plugs had once rested, his mouth a crimson disaster. It looked like Remar had administered a certain degree of first aid—there were iodine stains on the cuts, and a dressing over one cheek—but he was going to need more than just that. He was going to need a plastic surgeon.

“What the hell happened?” Anders said. Remar started to ease out, and Anders said, “No, stay.” Remar closed the door and stood next to it as though fearing Delgado might run.

Delgado started pacing. “That fucking Manus,” he said, his speech slightly slurred from his injuries. “That’s what happened. How many times have I told you you couldn’t trust that guy? How many? Did you know he was fucking Gallagher? Did you?”

Somehow, Delgado’s distress made Anders feel calmer. “I know a great many things, Thomas. I share them only when operationally necessary.”

“Oh, really? Did you not think it might be operationally necessary to let me know Manus just might have a fucking thing for this chick? That he might not like the idea of her being, I don’t know, abducted, raped, and murdered in an unsolved crime? Did you not realize any of that?”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Well, fuck me sideways, maybe you should have! The guy just shows up outside the Sprinter, totally violating the plan, what the hell am I supposed to do? I knew something was hinky, too, I knew it. I had my gun out and was going to call you. But that deaf cocksucker is fast.”

Anders knew he ought to indulge the man, let him rant for a few minutes, but he couldn’t wait. “Where is the thumb drive?”

“Right. That.” Delgado reached into a pants pocket and handed it over.

Anders dashed around to the other side of his desk, not even trying to conceal his eagerness. It took less than ten seconds to confirm it wasn’t encrypted.

And that there was nothing on it.

He stood there, arms crossed, squeezing his biceps, his head hanging, for a moment feeling completely defeated.

Remar said, “No go?”

Anders shook his head and looked at Delgado. “How did you get this? Be specific.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you. The woman said she’d hidden it behind the toilet of the ladies’ room in the nursing home where she keeps her father. Manus went to check it out while I held her. A little while later, he shows up at the Sprinter, says he found it just where she said it would be.”

Remar said, “Hamilton might have sent two decoys, not just one. Although—”

“Yes,” Anders said, “agreed it’s not likely. The FedEx shipment felt like a head fake, intended to distract from the snail-mail shipment. If so, there would be nothing to gain by snail-mailing a second decoy. Meaning that, presumably, the snail-mail shipment was the real drive.”

“All right,” Remar said, “Gallagher herself might have planted a decoy. But—”

“Agreed again,” Anders said, finding some small comfort in the familiar back-and-forth analysis that had long since become a kind of shorthand with Remar. “Thomas, you texted me that you and Manus took Gallagher easily outside the supermarket. No signs of surveillance consciousness, no indications of paranoia of any kind, is that correct?”

“Correct.”

“Right,” Remar said. “Difficult to imagine she’d be so sanguine, and yet have taken precautions elaborate enough to include planting a decoy drive. Okay, then, the third possibility. Manus took the real
drive, or maybe he failed to find it, and provided this fake one, instead.”

Anders nodded. Of course, there was a fourth possibility—that Delgado was the one providing the fake drives. But this seemed the most unlikely scenario of all. It was impossible to imagine a motive for Delgado, for one thing, while, as Delgado himself had pointed out, Manus’s motive was obvious. Beyond which, there was the fact of Delgado’s condition, and his unfortunate detention in the van. Not to mention the four bodies outside Gallagher’s apartment.

No, the most likely explanation was that Manus was simply torn between his loyalty to Anders and his newfound infatuation with Gallagher. Anders had sensed this dynamic earlier, of course, when Manus had failed to fully report on what had happened with the woman. But he thought Manus had come to his senses. Well, either Anders had been played, or Manus was ambivalent and acting inconsistently as a result. It didn’t really matter. The problem was the same either way. Manus had become unreliable.

But there was something . . . something that didn’t quite fit.

“You said you had a gun on him,” Anders said, thinking out loud.

“Yeah, that’s right. I shouldn’t have let him inside the Sprinter. Not enough space. And like I said, he’s fast. He took it away from me.”

“That’s interesting.”

“Interesting how?”

“Well, I’ve never known a man who pulled a gun on Marvin Manus and lived to tell about it. Indeed, after his run-in with you, Manus killed four men I sent to Gallagher’s apartment.”

“What? I told you. He’s a complete psycho.”

“What I’m wondering is, why didn’t he kill you?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll tell you this. Not killing me? Worst mistake that freak ever made. Look at my fucking face. Jesus, it hurts. And his girlfriend, too. She got in a few cheap shots after I was handcuffed.”

Anders considered. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that Manus has no compunction about killing. Killing is practically a default setting for him. On top of which, as I’m sure you’re aware, you’ve given him ample reason over time to feel some . . . animosity toward you. And yet he didn’t kill you tonight. He could have, clearly, but he didn’t.”

Delgado touched a swollen lip and winced. “What are you saying, I was somehow in on this? You think I
let
Manus do this?”

“No. Not at all. I’m just trying to make sense of Manus’s behavior.”

“Yeah, well, good luck with that. You might as well try to figure out a rabid dog. What’s the point? You just put the damn thing down.”

Anders suspected that in fact Delgado would torture such a dog first, but saw nothing to be gained by pointing it out.

“No,” he said after a moment. “Manus isn’t a rabid dog. But”—he glanced at Remar—“I’ve heard him compared to an abused one. One who is exceptionally loyal to the only master who’s ever been good to him.”

“Honestly? My head feels like there’s a brass band playing inside it and I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“What I’m saying is, Manus didn’t refrain from killing you because he likes you. He refrained from killing you because he knows I like you. Well, value you.”

“Thanks. I feel very appreciated.”

“Manus knows how much I value your services, Thomas. Hurting you would be hurting me. And Manus would never hurt me. Which is why he didn’t hurt you.”

“Seriously? Look at me. You don’t think this hurts?”

“I once saw Marvin Manus tear a man’s ear off and tell him, ‘This is the only warning you get.’ Think about that. Tearing a man’s ear off, a mere warning.”

“Great. So you already knew he’s a psycho.”

“You see, from Manus’s perspective, he didn’t hurt you. He wanted to kill you, I have no doubt of that. But he didn’t.”

“What’s the point?”

“He’s doing what he has to right now, but also trying to minimize the damage. He doesn’t want to burn bridges. Because . . . he wants the bridges to be intact. So he can cross back over. In fact . . . I believe in sparing your life, Manus was sending me a message.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a message for him. He’s a dead man.”

Remar said, “What message?”

“He’s telling us he’s still on-side.”

Delgado groaned. “You have got to be kidding.”

“Think about it. What happened tonight? He rescued Gallagher. He beat you severely. He killed four men outside her apartment. And now he’s on the run with her and her little boy. How could she do other than trust him now? He’s telling us to give him a little space. He’s still intent on that thumb drive. And he plans to give it to us—if we agree to his terms.”

Remar said, “Which are?”

“Obviously that we leave Gallagher alone. Presumably in exchange for her promise to forget any of this ever happened.”

Remar’s expression was unreadable. “Do you think that could work?”

“No,” Delgado said, “it couldn’t work. Because I’m going to kill that bitch. And that psycho.”

“What matters,” Anders said, rubbing his hands, “isn’t whether it could work. What matters is whether Manus believes it could work. Clearly he does.”

“So you get him to turn over the drive . . .” Remar said.

Anders nodded. “In exchange for a promise. A promise we have no intention of honoring.”

Delgado nodded. “That sounds more like it. Just tell me when and where.”

“Thomas, respectfully, you’re injured. And you’ve seen how formidable Manus is. We’re not looking for a fair fight here. What we need is overwhelmingly superior firepower.”

“Wait a minute—” Delgado started to say.

Remar cut him off. “We’re shorthanded after what happened outside Gallagher’s apartment, but I can get a detachment of contractors from Jones.”

“Oh, come on,” Delgado said. “Don’t deal me out on this. This is bullshit.”

“You can have Gallagher,” Anders said. “But we can’t take chances with Manus. Surely you can see that.”

Anders glanced at Remar. If the man had a problem with what Anders had just promised Delgado, he wanted to hear about it now, rather than letting it fester. But Remar was impassive.

There was a long pause while Delgado gritted his teeth and rubbed his head. “All right. Fair enough. I want to watch, though, okay? I want to see him go down. You owe me that much.”

Anders nodded. “Try to get some rest. General Remar and I are going to locate Manus and Gallagher. I’ll contact you as soon as we have.”