The Detachment

anything in my life, and I am begging you. Just let her go.”
    Treven gestured with his head. “Let me see your ankles. And turn around.”
    Hort complied. He wasn’t carrying a firearm.
    Treven looked around the room. Still no problems. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”
    “Where?”
    “Maybe to one of those quiet places you mentioned. You can say whatever you want me to hear on the way.”
    They walked through the station and down to the Red Line subway. Treven kept them on the platform while a train roared in and then squealed out. When its departing passengers had moved off, and the two of them were alone for a moment, Treven switched on a bug detector Rain had given him. No response.
    “You carrying a mobile phone?” he asked.
    Hort nodded. “Yes, but I’ve removed the battery. I thought you might ask.”
    All right, then. Either Hort was clean, or he was carrying a device he would switch on later. To counter that possibility, Treven would turn the detector on again when they were alone.
    Another train came and went, leaving the platform momentarily empty again, and this time Treven was sure no one was following them, at least through visual contact. They waited again and then got on the next train. It was about half full, everyone looking like a civilian, albeit a tense one. Treven had Hort sit a few seats forward and facing the same direction so he could go through the gym bag without having to worry about Hort trying to disarm him while he was distracted. Not that disarming him would do any good, but it was best to deny an enemy both motive and opportunity.
    As the car sped along, swaying in the close confines of the tunnel, he unzipped the bag. Thousands of small, pale stones, some yellowish, some light gray, most of them translucent white. He dug his hand in and moved it around carefully. Nothing other than the stones. He felt thoroughly along the handles of the bag and its seams. No telltale bulges or wires. No transmitters. It was a just a bag. Okay.
    At the Vermont/Beverly stop, he had them step out and wait on the platform again. No question, unless Hort had enough people with him to blanket every train on the Red Line, they were clean. They got back on the next train. They rode it to North Hollywood, the end of the line, got off, and walked to Chandler Boulevard, where earlier Treven had parked another stolen car. This one was a dark blue Honda Accord sedan, one of the bestselling and therefore most common cars in America, which a harried housewife had been foolish enough to leave with the key in the ignition while she ran for just a minute into a Culver City dry cleaner carrying a load of shirts.
    He gave Hort the key. “You drive,” he said.
    “Where are we going?”
    “I’ll tell you on the way.”
    It was hard to imagine Hort still had access to the kind of domestic surveillance apparatus he might have been able to call into play before his resignation. Besides, unlike the others, Treven knew Hort hadn’t used that apparatus in fixing them at the Capital Hilton—he had simple human intelligence from Treven to thank for that. Also, it was night, meaning the birds would have a harder time tracking them. Even so, he had Hort drive an extensive surveillance detection run that incorporated the kinds of overpass and garage maneuvers they’d used to obscure their movements after snatching Kei. Rain’s bug detector remained silent as they drove.
    They finished on Lake Hollywood Drive, a lonely, serpentine section of the Hollywood Hills overlooking the Hollywood Reservoir. When they came to a curve partly concealed by scrub bushes and some dried-out trees, Treven told Hort to pull off the road and park. Ordinarily, Treven wouldn’t have liked the spot for a meeting like this because there was always the chance of a cop driving by. But doubtless Los Angeles law enforcement was more focused on protecting critical infrastructure just now than they were on rousting horny kids parked in the Hills.
    Hort cut the lights and the ignition and looked out through the driver-side window. “Not a bad spot to dump a body,” he said. “I do hope you’ll hear me out first.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “You mind if I have a cigar?”
    Treven squeezed the grip of the Glock, reassured by its familiar heft. “Whatever you like.”
    Hort thumbed the switch for the driver-side window, then eased a canister and a cigar guillotine from his front pants pocket. He unscrewed the canister, slid out a