The Detachment

Journalism
We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.
—Sydney Schanberg

W e found a suitable-looking place called the Rest Haven Motel. It was a little ways off the Pier on a mixed commercial and residential street, a small, one-story building bleached by the Santa Monica sun, with a private parking lot in back and a second, detached unit of rooms with its own entrance. Quiet, but also close enough to the traffic and bustle of the intersection of Pico Boulevard and Lincoln Boulevard for us not to have to worry about standing out. Dox backed the truck in so Larison and Treven could slip out of the cargo area unnoticed, and paid cash for a room in the separate unit. Then we drifted in one-by-one. We all looked like hell—unshowered, unshaven, unkempt. Like people in trouble. Like men on the run.
    We pulled the two twin mattresses onto the floor, then spent a few luxurious hours alternating in the tiny bathroom showering and shaving, and cat-napping on the mattresses and the box springs. Next, we examined the room for anything Kei might later use to identify where she’d been held. We policed up some matches and a motel pen; various placards advertising motel services and area attractions; and pulled a plastic insert with an address and phone number off the room phone. We would discard it all later, far from the motel. Finally, we got down to business.
    The first thing we needed was commo. I’d examined the mobile phones Horton had given us and had found no tracking devices, but something had enabled him to fix us at the Capital Hilton, and we’d dumped his phones all the way back in Culpeper just to be sure. We needed new ones, and I tasked Dox, who had a forged ID he claimed was ice-cold, with procuring us four prepaids from multiple vendors. Larison and Treven’s job was to fix Mimi Kei. We didn’t know where she lived, so the starting point would be the UCLA Film School website and the school itself. I gave myself the glory job of finding a coin-operated laundry and washing our clothes. We were all wearing our last clean ones.
    Before we set out, Larison used the motel’s free Wi-Fi and the iPad to access Mimi Kei’s Facebook page. She was beautiful—a half-black, half-Asian mix, early twenties, dark hair in ringlets down to her shoulders. Full lips and a vivacious smile. Larison had been right about the photos with Horton: the hard, professional countenance was completely absent, replaced by that of a beaming father.
    “Interesting that she doesn’t identify him in the captions,” I said. “Just ‘my dad.’”
    Larison nodded. “I’m sure he’s explained to her that she needs to be discreet about who her father is. It’s not like he’s the president, but he has some capable enemies. I’m guessing that’s why her page is so privacy protected, too. Unusual for a grad student doing her best to network in the movie world.”
    Treven said, “We shouldn’t assume she’s just a clueless civilian. If Hort taught her some things about watching her back, he would have taught her others. It’s not impossible he’s even told her to be extra careful right now.”
    I looked at him. “That’s a good point. And now you’ve got me wondering…”
    I thought for a minute, then said, “We know Horton’s concerned about Kei’s safety. So what does he have in place to protect her?”
    “No one knows about her,” Larison said.
    “I don’t know about ‘no one,’” I said, “but yes. Horton’s protecting her, essentially, by making her an unknown. There’s a name for that, isn’t there?”
    Treven nodded. “Security through obscurity.”
    “Exactly,” I said. “Security through obscurity. Which can be a useful supplement to other forms of security, but would a man like Horton rely on it entirely? Rely on it to protect his daughter?”
    “I see what you’re saying,” Dox said. “Maybe he’d rely on it in ordinary times, but now isn’t ordinary. He’s involved in false flag attacks and a planned coup, which is crazy enough, but on top of it all, he showed his hand when he made a run at us in D.C. He’s got to be worried about his daughter now.”
    “Good,” I said. “Now, put yourself in his head. He tells himself it’s probably fine, no one has a way of even knowing about Kei, but still. What does he do?”
    “He calls her,” Treven said. “Tells her to be careful.”
    “Does she