Inside Outt

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.
    “Sorry, that’s not going to happen.”
    Larison didn’t respond. He just looked at Ben, his eyes as flat and emotionless as mirrored sunglasses. Ben had never been faced with this much immediate danger while simultaneously being prohibited from engaging it. All his instincts were screaming,
Shoot! Shoot!
He gritted his teeth and his hand shook.
    Larison squinted slightly. “You were the one in Los Yoses, weren’t you?”
    Ben nodded.
    “Why didn’t you take the shot?”
    “Same reason I’m not taking it now. The diamonds are in that backpack. Just take it and go.”
    Larison looked down at the bag. Then he got in the car and pulled the door shut. “Drive.”
    Ben thought,
What the hell?
    They sat there, mirror images, each pointing a pistol at the other.
    Another few seconds, and Ben would either have to shoot the guy or leap out of the car and bolt for cover. What he couldn’t do was endure the tension of neither.
    “You want me to drive?” he said. “Holster that fucking HK and wedge your hands palms down under your thighs. Deep under.”
    “You’re not paying proper attention.”
    “No,
you’re
not paying proper attention,” Ben said, struggling to ignore the
Shoot! Shoot!
alarms screaming in his mind. “You know I’m not going to kill you. If I’d wanted to, I could have in Los Yoses. Or again just now. But there’s nothing preventing you from trying to kill me. Except this gun. Which is why I’ll be holding on to it and you’ll be putting yours away. Otherwise, we can just sit here until the police show up to investigate reports of gunshots. Or you can take the diamonds and go. It’s your call.”
    There was a long, tense pause. Larison swiveled and looked through the rear window. He did the same to his right. Then he slid the HK inside his windbreaker. He looked at Ben, and Ben could swear the man was suppressing a smile.
    “Drive,” he said.
    Larison hadn’t sat on his hands, but Ben hadn’t really been expecting that much and decided he could live without it. The truth was, he wasn’t much more eager to be sitting there when the police showed up than he imagined Larison would be. He switched the Glock to his left hand and hit the gas. If Larison lunged at him, he could grapple with his right and shoot with his left.
    “Where are we going?” Ben said.
    “Get on Lee Highway. Head west.”
    That made sense. Not a neighborhood street where they would stand out; not an Interstate where suspects in a shooting might expect to be fleeing. Just enough traffic for them to blend while they drifted in the direction of the Beltway, and from there, to anywhere.
    “You can have the car if you want,” Ben said, checking the rearview, making sure no one was behind them. “You really need me driving you?”
    “I need you to confirm you have what you’re supposed to have.”
    “The diamonds are in that backpack, right at your feet. You can see for yourself.”
    “I’ll let you take care of that.”
    Ben got it. Larison was afraid of a nerve spray or a dye pack. He didn’t want to open the backpack himself. Smart. He looked at his phone and saw it had no signal. Larison must have been carrying a jammer, something that would take out the phone, GPS, and anything else anyone might have used to track the car. Again, smart.
    They got on Lee Highway and headed west. Ben was paying the bare minimum of attention to driving. Most of his concentration was on Larison, whose hands had been resting on his knees since Ben had driven off. He knew what Ben would make of it if his hands went anywhere else, or if Larison made any sudden movement at all, for that matter. The good news was, that meant if he
did
move, Ben wouldn’t have to waste any time trying to interpret his intentions. The