The Detachment

called and told me Shorrock’s party was breaking up. He was heading toward his room, flanked by the bodyguards, and there was nothing more to be done that night, his last at the convention. Dox would monitor him until he was asleep via the camera I’d emplaced, and barring anything new, we would try for one more shot at him in the gym in the morning. But if that didn’t pan out, in the absence of some fresh intel regarding his subsequent movements, a stop at a church, for example, as Dox had been hoping, we were done.
    I headed back to my room and opened the drapes, then sat silently in the reflected lights of the Strip outside and below.
    It was dispiriting. I’ve never failed to complete a job, and I was disturbed at the sudden prospect of blowing this one. It was, I had to admit, nothing high-minded. Just the old and simple obsession with finishing what I’d started and doing it exceptionally well. Not a pretty motivation, no doubt, but at that moment, at least an honest one.
    I ran through an increasingly wild set of scenarios, feeling the temptation to try something higher-risk. But that was Vegas talking, encouraging me to redeem my losses with increasingly reckless spins of the wheel. I’ve lasted a long time by not being stupid. It wasn’t a good time to start.
    I sat for a long time in the disconsolate glow, waiting for the feel of being on the hunt, the sharp adrenaline edge, to subside. I was tired but I knew I couldn’t sleep. I had just decided to boil the tension out of myself in the room’s generous bathtub when my mobile buzzed—Dox. I snatched it up and said, “Tell me he’s going to church in the morning and I’ll buy you a bottle of Bombay Sapphire.”
    “Oh, he’s going to need to go to church, but I don’t know if he will.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Well, partner, I am watching our friend, whose daily workouts have obviously gifted him with a level of stamina to which you can only aspire, banging the hell out of a call girl even as we speak.”
    “You’re shitting me.”
    “No, sir. She arrived ten minutes ago, but I didn’t call you because I heard a knock but couldn’t see what was happening—they must have started in the corridor or in the extra bathroom, and the camera feed’s only of the main room of the suite. But he’s got her on the couch now, and oh yeah, oh, look at that, he’s turning her over, a little doggy-style, I like this man’s proclivities! Tell me, partner, why is it so hilarious to watch other people fucking?”
    I didn’t answer. My mind was racing. There had to be a way we could use this. There had to be.
    “Hot damn, look at him go! I am proud, proud to know that our great nation is being steered by men of such exceptional energy and passion. Not to mention rectitude.”
    Rectitude. That was it.
    “We’ve got him,” I said. “This is our chance.”
    “I don’t see what you mean. Right now, the man couldn’t be more un-alone.”
    “No, but he’ll be alone soon. I want you to keep watching—”
    “Yes, sir, I love my work.”
    “—and the second she leaves, buzz me, then meet me on the casino floor. There’s a phone bank, just to the right of Blush nightclub when you’re facing the entrance. The second she leaves, understand?”
    “Understood,” he said, his tone suddenly all business.
    I clicked off and took three slow, deep breaths, forcing myself to pause, to think it through from every angle. If I missed even just one variable, we would blow the whole thing. But there was a chance. Dox had been joking about rectitude, but rectitude, or more accurately, the threatened loss of its façade, was what we suddenly stood to exploit. I thought about the shame this married, church-going, top-secret-SCI-cleared intelligence official would fear if word—if a damn celebrity porn video, from what Dox was describing—got out. And I thought about how, of all the emotions, it’s shame that most craves solitude, the very solitude we now required.
    I imagined an approach, and quickly realized that with just a little luck, I wouldn’t even need the cyanide. I decided to do it the old-fashioned way—more difficult, but also more certain. I closed my eyes and began to picture every step, every variable, every when/then possibility.
    When I was done visualizing all of it, I took a roll of sports tape from my toiletry kit and wrapped my forearms and wrists, all the way down to the first joint on my thumbs. Then I pulled on a