The Detachment

trying to launch a coup? Who had the president’s counterterrorism advisor killed so he could take the dead man’s position?”
    “You think we could have been wrong?” Dox said. “About what Horton was really up to? About who sent those unfortunates after us in D.C.?”
    “But who else could have known we were there?” I said. “Unless Horton had told someone, someone who…I don’t know, had his own reasons for wanting us taken out.”
    “No,” Treven said. “Hort would never have breached operational security unless he wanted us removed.”
    Larison inclined his head toward Kei, who was sitting on one of the beds, one wrist flex-tied to a bedpost. “And besides,” he said, “what about the two men who were trying to protect her?”
    “Could someone else have sent them to make it look like Horton had?” I said, thinking aloud.
    Larison shook his head. “That’s getting a little far-fetched, I think. Parsimony suggests we’re right about Hort’s goals. But I agree, his tactics are…surprising. On the other hand, Hort never does what you’re expecting him to do. He always has an angle. The question is, what’s his angle here? You think he thinks this will save her?”
    Dox glanced at Kei. “She’s not going to actually need saving, all right? We just need her father to think she will.”
    It was a stupid thing to say in front of Kei. Yes, it was true, but we were counting on her fear that we might harm her to make her more cooperative. But he’d said it, and she’d heard it. Arguing with him wouldn’t change that.
    Larison looked at Dox. “It doesn’t matter what we might or might not do to his daughter. It’s Hort’s perspective that matters. And I promise you, he doesn’t doubt me.”
    There was a slight emphasis on the last word. To defuse another confrontation, I said, “We’ve demanded two things. The diamonds, and that he call off the dogs. The question is, how does his stunt pertain to any of that?”
    “It doesn’t,” Treven said. “It has no impact on the first, and prevents him from doing the second. So my guess? The stunt was already in the works. It has nothing to do with his daughter. It’s about something else.”
    That sounded right. “Okay,” I said. “But what?”
    No one said anything. Dox turned to Kei. “Darlin’, if you have any insights into what that was all about just now on the TV, this would be a great time to share them.”
    She didn’t respond at first, and I realized that seeing her father, whether because of what he had done, or just because of her circumstances, had affected her. She was trying to master her emotions.
    “Maybe you’re just missing something incredibly obvious,” she said, after a moment. “My father’s an honorable man.”
    Dox smiled sadly. “Well, respectfully, you don’t know him the way we do.”
    “No,” she said. “You don’t know him the way I do.”
    We were all quiet again. I checked the secure site. There was a message from Horton.
    “He’s coming,” I said. “Tonight, with the diamonds. Expects to arrive at LAX around eight o’clock on a private jet. Says he can’t risk commercial because of the diamonds. The TSA is going apeshit, everything’s being hand-searched. Says he’ll meet us anywhere we want.”
    “He gave you his itinerary?” Treven said.
    I nodded. No one had to point out the significance. Either Horton was trying, pretty obviously, to lure us into a trap. Or he was telling us we could kill him without resistance, if we’d just let his daughter go.
    But it had to be the second one. He knew we wouldn’t expose ourselves more than necessary. Only one of us would show up for the diamonds. The rest would be somewhere else, holding a decidedly non-metaphorical gun to his daughter’s head.
    “He told me his announcement would set our minds at ease,” Larison said. “What are we missing? I don’t see it.”
    No one responded. I didn’t think we were going to figure it out. We’d just have to ask Horton. And then I realized.
    “We’re not supposed to see it,” I said. “He wants a chance to talk to us. Whoever goes to pick up the diamonds, Horton wants it to involve a conversation, not just an exchange of a bag.”
    “What does that get him?” Dox said.
    I looked at Kei. “I don’t know. But we need to decide who’s going to meet him.”
    Dox stood. “Hell, I’ll do it.”
    I wondered if it was a bluff. I knew he felt protective of Kei, and was worried about