The Detachment

listen?”
    Treven shook his head. “Film school student, far from his world? No. Not in a meaningful way. And even if she listened, he’d know she wouldn’t have the skills to really act on the warning.”
    “Agreed. So now what does he do?”
    Larison said, “He sends men. To watch her.”
    I nodded. “Does he tell her he sent men?”
    Treven said, “No. He doesn’t want to scare her.”
    “Right,” I said. “Meaning they’re not functioning as bodyguards protecting a witting client. They need to hang back. So what are they doing right now?”
    Larison said, “They’re figuring out what we would be doing. Where we would approach her. How. And they’re watching for that.”
    I nodded. “And now we’re watching for them.”
    There was nothing more to be said. Maybe we were giving Horton too much credit. Or maybe he deserved the credit but, after D.C., lacked the resources. Either way, we would assume the presence of opposition. And approach Kei accordingly.
    Treven and Larison headed out. They took one room key; I kept the other. My job would likely take the least time, so I’d get back to the room first and could let the others in after.
    I found a coin-operated laundry place on Lincoln less than a quarter mile from the motel. A woman in a headscarf was folding her clothes next to one of the driers. The other patrons kept glancing at her and away. They barely noticed me.
    I threw the clothes in a couple of machines and, while I waited for them to cycle through, used the place’s Wi-Fi to check the secure site. There was a message from Kanezaki:
    The D.C. area is on lock-down. All the spokespeople are giving the “Everything’s under control, don’t panic folks” routine, but behind the scenes, it’s a five-alarm freak-out. And they’re looking for you. The assumption is that you’re somewhere in the city, so that’s good. I hope you’re very far away.
    The president is scheduled to give a big speech and announcement any day now. I don’t know what it’s going to be. I do know that a couple more attacks, and the country’s going to go completely insane. It feels like we’re at a tipping point.
    We need a way to get to Horton. Call me.
    I wrote him back: We’re working on something. Should know in a day or so. Will call then.
    When the laundry was done, I carried it back to the motel and waited in the room. Dox was the first to arrive. Grinning as usual, he dropped two large paper grocery bags on one of the beds, reached inside one of them, and extracted four mobile phones and four wire-line earpieces.
    “Mission accomplished,” he said. “Bought ’em from three different vendors with two different sets of ID, so they should be untraceable for as long as we’re likely to need ’em. No word from Larison and Treven?”
    I shook my head. “Not yet. What else have you got in the bags?”
    He reached inside and started removing the contents. “Exotic fruit salads, greens salads, various tasty wraps, some protein smoothies, the usual. Plus a six-pack of Red Bulls because, I don’t know about you, but I’m a bit peaked from our recent sojourn.”
    I picked up one of the fruit salads. “Very thoughtful of you.”
    “Well, with you on laundry detail, figured it was the least I could do. Did you bleach my whites and get my colors extra bright?”
    I chuckled. “I think you’re going to have to settle for, it all at least smells clean.”
    “Let me ask you something,” he said. “A little off topic. So, we snatch Mimi Kei. And tell old Horton we’re fixing to do harm to his daughter’s personage if he doesn’t play ball with the diamonds and otherwise. But what if we’re wrong about him? What if he doesn’t back down? How far are we willing to go? I mean, do we mail him a finger? An ear? What do we do?”
    I nodded. “I know. I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
    “I don’t mean to sound like I’m going soft on you, but I have some acquaintance with what it’s like to be held hostage, ‘hostage’ in this case meaning waterboarding, shocks to my legendary genitals, and threats to remove said legendary genitals with sharp instruments if a certain someone didn’t comply with my captors’ demands. Any of that ring a bell with you?”
    He was talking about Hilger, who’d held Dox hoping to get to me. It hadn’t gone as Hilger had planned, but Dox suffered anyway.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I know what you mean.”
    “I’m just telling you, between the two of us, that