The Detachment

what?”
    “Were we right?”
    “What difference does it make?”
    “In a way, none. Because when you have three people out of four thinking the worst of you, there’s a problem even if the three people are mistaken. And that problem is you.”
    Larison didn’t answer. Christ, if he only had that gun. Just the feel of it in his hand. To hold all this shit at bay.
    Rain watched him. “You want to know what Treven didn’t say?”
    Again, Larison didn’t answer. The dresser was eight feet away. Could Rain really stop him?
    “He didn’t say the other thing we were all thinking. Which is that you weren’t just going to punch Kei’s ticket. You were going to try to punch everyone’s.”
    Larison gritted his teeth. He’d never felt so exposed. They knew too much about him. They’d seen through him. Somehow he’d faltered. It was all out in the open now. All of it.
    “Were we wrong?” Rain asked.
    Larison looked at him. “Stop fucking around. You want to finish this, let’s finish it.”
    “What do you think I’m trying to do?”
    “You’re trying to fuck with my head, and I don’t like it.”
    Rain walked over to the dresser.
    Larison, distracted by his own inner turmoil, was slow to react. He said, “Don’t!” But in the time it took him to get the word out, Rain had already opened the drawer. Rain glanced back at him, then reached in and came out with the Glock.
    Larison watched, fascinated. A weird placidity settled over him. He tried to think of something to say. Nothing came out. There was a moment of weakness in his knees, but he thought that was relief more than fear. Yes, relief.
    Rain checked the load in the Glock. He held the gun and looked at Larison. His expression was grimly purposeful.
    Larison smiled. It seemed important to let Rain know he wasn’t afraid. That, on some level, he was even complicit.
    Rain tossed him the gun. Larison was so astonished he almost couldn’t react. At the last instant, he got his hands up and caught it. He stood staring at it for a moment in shock.
    “What a waste,” Rain said. “Overall, we’ve been a pretty solid detachment. We’ve survived two ambushes and a hunt by the national security state; we’ve scored a hundred million dollars; our biggest enemy just neutered himself, as you put it…and we’re going to cash all that in because we just can’t help killing each other. Does that make sense to you?”
    Larison blinked. Was Rain fucking with him? He could tell by the Glock’s weight the magazine was full. Still, he racked the slide to be sure. A bullet ejected. Larison caught it in the air and looked at it. Standard nine-millimeter round. The gun was loaded.
    “What are you doing?” Larison said. He was holding the gun, but he felt suddenly terrified.
    “I’m doing for you what Dox once did for me. The thing I told you about in Vienna—Kwai Chung.”
    “You told me he saved your life.”
    “That was the obvious part. He also proved to me I could trust somebody. Of the two, I think the second had the more lasting effect.”
    Larison tried to think of something to say and couldn’t access the words.
    “How do you think Horton wants it?” Rain said. “You think he wants you killing everyone who might know your secrets? Or trusting people to watch your back?”
    Larison looked at him. He wanted to ask what Rain meant by “secrets.” But to ask would be to reveal. And besides, he could sense, on some deep, unexplainable level, that Rain…already knew. The same way he could sense that he also didn’t care.
    “What about the others?” he heard himself say. Christ, it sounded so weak. So pleading.
    “Dox expects people to act honorably,” Rain said. “If you let him down in that regard, he also believes the honorable thing is to track you down and shoot you. But he does like to give people the benefit of the doubt.”
    “I can’t figure him out.”
    “He grows on you. Anyway, you think Dox or Treven cares about you as anything other than a friend or a foe? Each of us just pocketed more money than we can ever spend. The trick now is to live to enjoy it. And we have a better chance of doing that watching each other’s backs than we do trying to preemptively kill each other. Isn’t that what you told me in Vienna you wished you had? Someone who really had your back? Well, how are you going to get that if you reflexively kill people because you’re terrified of trusting them?”
    Larison blew out a long breath. Then