The Detachment

pushed a man in front of a moving Tokyo train in such a manner that a dozen bystanders didn’t see it, that even the security cameras didn’t pick it up.”
    I didn’t see any advantage to correcting him, but the target in question had actually committed suicide with no assistance from me, and I was as surprised as everyone else standing on the platform when it happened. But my employer at the time believed it had been my doing and was awed. Funny, how legends get started.
    “What do you have on Treven and Larison?”
    “That’s between them and me.”
    “Are they even part of the ISA?”
    “They’re status is…”
    “Deniable?”
    “I suppose you could put it that way.”
    “I hear ‘deniable’ and think, ‘hung out to dry if it comes to that.’”
    He nodded. “Then don’t let it come to that.”
    “And you want me to run this,” I said. “Not one of your guys.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Why?”
    “You’ve got the most experience with this kind of thing. You know what you’re doing, and the other men will respect you. Plus they’re accustomed to following orders. You’re not. No disrespect.”
    I looked at him, considering. He really thought I was going to do this. “Plus,” he said, “Larison, while a capable soldier, needs guidance.”
    I sensed beneath the simple sentence a great deal of meaning. “What kind of guidance?”
    “Discipline, for one. He’s like a gun—you want to make sure he’s always pointed in the right direction.”
    “I don’t follow you.”
    “Let’s just say…he’s a man who has too much to keep hidden. A man in turmoil.”
    First Larison, trying to show me there was distance between him and Horton. And now Horton, doing the same. I might have said something, but didn’t want to give away to one the possible maneuvering of the other.
    “Why are you telling me so much?” I asked.
    “You wouldn’t take the job if I didn’t.”
    “I’m not taking the job either way.”
    I expected him to say, Then why are you listening? But he didn’t. He’d know I’d be asking that question of myself, and answering it more convincingly than he could.
    “Let me ask you something,” he said. “What’s been relentlessly drilled into the heads of the American citizenry since nine-eleven, and following every attack and attempted attack since then?”
    I glanced over at the restaurant entrance. “I don’t know. That they hate your freedoms, I guess.”
    “Close. That we have to give up our freedoms. Every time there’s an attack or attempted attack, the government claims that to keep America safe, it needs more power and that the citizenry has to give up more freedom. Hell, by now, if the terrorists ever did hate us for our freedoms, they’d hate us a lot less. But they don’t. They hate us more. Meanwhile, Americans are being taught that if their country is attacked, it’s because they haven’t given up enough freedom, and all they have to do is give up a little more. Some determined individuals have recognized the situation is ripe for exploitation, and they’re on the verge of doing something about it.”
    We sat in silence for a few minutes while he worked on his omelet. Dox kept a watchful eye on us, his left hand resting on the table, his right out of view.
    When the plates had been cleared and we were down to just coffee, I said, “Here’s the problem. Let’s say everything you’ve told me is true. You still couldn’t pay me enough to take out the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.”
    I wondered why I was still acting as though we were negotiating, rather than just telling him outright I had no interest under any circumstances. Was I really considering this? I wondered again whether Dox and Kanezaki were right about me, whether all my protestations about wanting out of the life were bullshit. But then why would I have pushed Delilah so hard to leave?
    Horton was looking at me—a little critically, I thought. “You don’t care?” he said.
    I shrugged. “It has nothing to do with me.”
    “Nothing to do with you? What’s your country?”
    “Are you talking about my passports?”
    “I’m talking about your allegiances.”
    “I don’t pledge allegiance to anyone who doesn’t pledge it back.”
    “Let me ask you this, then. How many people have you killed?”
    “More than I’ll ever remember.”
    “Then what’s one more?”
    I looked at him. “If he’s a threat? Nothing.”
    He nodded. “I understand.