35. Mirror

Ben slipped in the Bluetooth earpiece, opened the iPhone navigation function, and followed Route 1 north to I-66. He checked his mirrors, but in the late afternoon rush hour traffic, there was no way to spot surveillance. It was entirely possible Larison could have ghosted up behind or alongside him and snuck a peek in the car. But Ben had a feeling he hadn’t. No, if Ben had been Larison, he’d have planned a route involving increasingly quiet streets and residential neighborhoods with multiple points of ingress and egress-the kind of route that reveals a tail by winnowing him out of traffic and forcing him to stay close-and set up there. A standard surveillance detection route, in fact, the only difference being that this time, the person trying to spot the tail would be not the driver, but someone running countersurveillance from a static location.

On the other hand, he’d thought he knew what Larison would do in Los Yoses. And hadn’t even been close.

The iPhone buzzed. Ben accepted the call through the earpiece. “Yeah.”

“Go north on Glebe Road. Then west on Sixteenth Street North, past the hospital. Then right on George Mason.”

Ben input George Mason into the phone. A map came up. It was what he expected: the street cut through a residential area and offered multiple outlets leading to a half dozen major arteries. If someone were following him, they’d have to reveal themselves there. Probably Larison was set up nearby, watching.

“I’m turning onto Glebe now.”

“Just keep going.”

Several cars took the exit behind him. He marked the makes and colors as he drove past several blocks of brick and stone houses and well-kept lawns. The hospital came up on his right, multiple buildings along an entire block, surrounded by parking lots. He made a right on George Mason and continued past the west side of the hospital. Two of the cars that had followed him off the highway turned with him-a black Cadillac and a blue Toyota behind it. Nothing definitive-Glebe and George Mason were both busy streets, and it would have been surprising if no one else had turned off onto them from 66. As for Larison, he could have been watching from anywhere inside. Or from one of the cars parked along the street. Or from behind a tree. There was no way to know.

“Okay, I’m on George Mason now.”

“Make a left on Twentieth Street. Then zigzag over to Nineteenth. Left, right, left, right.”

“Doing it now.”

The Cadillac continued straight on George Mason. The Toyota made a left behind Ben. Still nothing definitive-the western sun was reflecting off the Toyota’s window and Ben couldn’t see inside, but someone who lived in this neighborhood might have followed the same route. Still, suspicious enough to warrant some simple countermeasures.

“Got a possible problem here,” Ben said. “I’m alone, per your instructions. But if that’s not you in the blue Toyota, I think someone’s following me.”

“It’s not me.”

“Okay, I’ll go around the block and see what he does.”

Ben made a right on Greenbrier, then a right on Patrick Henry. The Toyota stayed with him. He could make out a driver and a passenger, both in shades. He made a right again, back onto George Mason. The Toyota stayed with him.

“Okay, it’s official,” he said. “The blue Toyota is a tail. Looks like two men in the car. I’m telling you so you’ll know I didn’t put them there. Also, from the route I just drove, they know I’m aware of them now.”

“How did they follow you?”

Ben wished he knew. He thought of Hort again, but it just didn’t make sense. A tracking device in the car, then? Satellites? And who were the guys behind him, anyway? Blackwater? Ground Branch?

“I have no idea,” he said. “I’m just the courier. I was told to follow your instructions and that’s what I’m doing.”

There was a pause. Larison said, “Is your navigation system up?”

“Yes.”

“Head west again. You see the high school at Washington Boulevard and McKinley?”

Ben dragged the phone’s touch screen to the right. “I see it.”

“The parking lot behind it?”

“Yes.”

“Turn into the parking lot from Madison and circle around it.”

“All right.”

Ben drove and the Toyota stayed with him. Even if he’d known who was behind him, and he didn’t, he wouldn’t have liked the idea of the parking lot. There was no way to know where Larison might be waiting inside or along the way, and the man seemed to have a penchant for high-caliber, armor-piercing ammunition. Overall, though, Ben judged it unlikely that Larison would try to greet him with a bullet. He’d want to first confirm that the courier actually had the diamonds. It was post-confirmation when things were maximally likely to become unpleasant.

As for the occupants of the Toyota, of course, that was a little harder to say. He patted the Glock in the shoulder holster and drove.

He headed south on Madison and turned into the parking lot per Larison’s instructions. The lot was a rectangle, bordered by a chain-link fence, with the entrance and exit on one of the short sides. It had four rows-two along each of the long sides and two up the middle-and might have held fifty cars full, though there were only a half dozen at the moment. Ben drove along, the Glock in his hand now, his head swiveling, scanning for Larison. The Toyota pulled in behind him.

He passed a white pickup parked to his right. No occupants. He checked left. Right. Forward. Nothing. He checked the rearview-

Larison, in jeans and a windbreaker and a baseball cap, popping up from the bed of the pickup like a deadly jack-in-the-box-

Shit, shit, shit-

Pointing a pistol at the Toyota, two-handed grip-

Ben’s head snapped left, snapped right, looking for a way to turn, trying to determine whether, how to engage-

Bam! Bam!

He checked the rearview. Damn it, whatever he was going to do, he was already too late. Larison had put two rounds through the windshield. The Toyota veered to the right and crashed through the chain-link fence into a tree. Larison dashed up behind it, the gun up at chin level. A shot came from inside the car, blowing out the driver-side window. But the guy must have been aiming over his shoulder and the shot went wild. Larison fired again, came closer, and fired twice more.

It was like Costa Rica again. Every reflex, every self-preservation instinct Ben had was screaming, Get out of the car, engage. But he couldn’t. Larison’s dead-man trigger was protecting him like a bulletproof vest.

Ben peeled around the far end of the lot, his tires screeching, and got the car pointed north, toward Larison, keeping one of the parked cars between them. He reached across and opened the passenger-side door. If Larison tried to circle behind him the way Ben had seen him do to so many deceased-immediately-thereafter people already, Ben would be out the passenger side and laying down fire in a heartbeat.

But Larison didn’t try to maneuver. Keeping his gun on Ben, he walked calmly over and went around the front of the car. Ben tracked him with the Glock, his finger firm against the trigger, but didn’t fire.

Larison leaned over and looked into the open passenger-side door. He was carrying an HK, Ben noted. The Mark 23. Forty-five caliber, maybe the same he’d used in Costa Rica. Up close, Ben could see dark circles under his eyes.

“Hand over the gun,” Larison said, pointing the HK at Ben.

Ben had known men in his professional life who naturally radiated quiet danger. It was nothing they said, and nothing they did, at least not overtly. You could just feel it about them, that they were capable, competent killers. It’s what Taibbi had been talking about, with those soldiers he’d mentioned. Ben had thought the guy was being melodramatic when he called Larison the angel of death. But he got it now. The man just exuded lethality, a kind of uncomplicated readiness to kill. Combined with everything Hort had told him and everything he’d seen, it was intimidating. So it took a certain level of discipline and determination for him to respond as he did.