Inside Outt

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 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 2
    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.
                                —Jon Meacham,
Newsweek
    If you’re going to punish people for condoning torture, you’d better include the American citizenry itself.
                                —Michael Kinsley,
The Washington Post

CHAPTER 11
Rough Men
    T hree 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