The Hanged Man's Song

answered, a little cocky and maybe a little wary: “Yes?”
    “Senator Krause, this is Bill Clinton.” Some of the fear leaked into my voice, and that little show of weakness pissed me off.
    Krause picked up on it, of course; that’s what politicians do. “We have your friend,” Krause said, in the congenial voice of a man who’s looking at four aces. “We think it would be best if you came in now. If you come in, we are prepared—” He was either reading a written statement, or he’d memorized the speech.
    I cut in, not quite shouting: “Shut up, motherfucker. Shut up. Listen to this: Every half hour that my friend is held, I’m going to dump another congressman or senator. I’m going to do the first three right now. Right now. No bargaining. But it’s not quite free of charge, asshole. When I do each one, I will call that guy’s office, and I will tell them that their disgrace was organized by you. You and your information surveillance office. I will send them proof. After the first three are done, which should be in a couple of hours, I will give you a chance to free my friend, if you haven’t already. If you haven’t, I’ll start doing more of them. If you don’t release herat all, a good chunk of Congress will be down the drain by this evening, and they’ll all know who to blame. Someplace along the way, I’ll do you. Good-bye.”
    “ W ait — ”
    I hung up and left, to look for a few clean phones and a new wi-fi site.
    >>> KRAUSE was a negotiator, like all people in his job. Therefore, no negotiation. The choice had to be stark: release LuEllen, or face ruin. If I let him negotiate, he might talk himself into the proposition that sooner or later I’d cave in. And I wouldn’t—I’d never cave.
    LuEllen and I had talked about this possibility, in somewhat different contexts. Giving them two people, instead of one, never made sense. That was behind all the talk of whether LuEllen should have left the current job, the hunt for the laptop. There hadn’t been any desperate need for her to stay on, but she had stayed, for too long, because she’d been enjoying herself. That was a mistake, but there was no point in compounding it.
    To get her back, I had to keep the pressure on Krause. I could do that, I thought, with the photo file from the first laptop. The question was, could I push Krause over the edge before they got something definitive on LuEllen?
    >>> IN THE meantime, I found another phone and called John.
    “They got LuEllen—the government did, Krause,” I told him.“I’m trying to get her back, but we might need a railroad out of the country.”
    “I can give you Mexico if you need it.”
    “Get something set up. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” I told him, briefly, about the ambush in the park.
    “Forgive me for saying it, but you don’t sound all that smart.”
    “We didn’t think they’d stop everyone in the park,” I snapped back. Then: “Sorry. You’re right. I think that’s another reason I’m so pissed. I feel stupid.”
    “But you don’t think they got Carp.”
    “I don’t think so, but I don’t know. Just something about the way he went into it. I think he knew more about the park than they did. I’ll find out soon enough.”
    “If LuEllen ditched her ID like she said, and they haven’t found it, then I don’t know what they could do,” John said. This was the law-office John. “What can they charge her with? If she’s tough enough to keep her mouth shut, they won’t know who she is, or what she does. What can they do with her?”
    “Stick a cattle prod somewhere and keep asking questions. These are intelligence guys, and they’re desperate,” I said.
    “You don’t think she’s tough enough?”
    “Not tough enough forever. Nobody is. But I think she’s tough enough to hang on until I get her out. And I will.”
    “Call me when you know,” John said.
    >>> EXCEPT for clients who were buying my polling software, I never paid much attention to elective politics. Politicians alwaysseemed about as differentiated as Daffy and Donald, the Ducks, and you have to ask yourself, would you send Daffy Duck to Washington to set policy on medical care or nuclear waste? I just hope I’m dead before the entire unholy scheme—created by politicians, lawyers, and our new class of media courtiers—blows up in our faces.
    End of rant. I personally knew nothing at all about the three victims I picked to hammer Krause. All I knew was that