Chapter Ten

Blue Linen

She shivered in the cold blast of the AC and rubbed her arms under her jacket. It took two steps to arrive in the heat of the warehouse, warming, soon sweltering. She opened her phone. No signal. Then a deluge of text from Bronwyn: Just call me. Jesus. I don’t know what I did—

She toggled to Childs’s number. He picked up on the first ring.

“I’m with him. El Capataz. And he has something big,” she said. “You remember that walk-in, the lawyer tight with the Aryan Brotherhood? He was all spooked to talk to us because he knew about all those murders in Chula Vista? Same thing here.”

“Okay, okay,” Childs said. “Hold on.”

The sound of him shuffling down the hall to the corner break room with the funny smell. Windowless, something horrendous in the drain back there. Where no one ate, a good place to talk.

“He’s nervous, thinks he’s in trouble, but I don’t have any evidence of that per se. If we cool him out, I bet he goes back inside and we get the works. Even now, he’s dying to tell me something. But he won’t until he gets to the States. I’m thinking if we get him on the phone with someone in the Southern District DA’s office—”

“You gotta get out of there,” he cut in. “Like, now.”

“That’s what I’m saying! We gotta move on this.”

“No. I’m talking about you. You need to leave.”

“What? Why?”

“They know you’re there.”

“They who? I just got here.”

“Dufrese said DC called. State Department.”

“What? DC? How the hell—?”

“Cromer was chewing Dufresne’s ass about you a few minutes ago. Then Dufresne comes out, pissed, yelling at me. Did I know you were in Mexico? The fuck kind of partner am I? For a second I thought we might have to throw down.”

“This is really weird, Russ.”

“Much worse than just weird,” Childs said.

“No, I mean, it’s shady as hell that anyone knows I’m down here.”

“I didn’t tell.”

“I know—it’s gotta be TILLER, Russ. Somebody created that file two days ago. I’m the only one who looked at it. And now everyone from DC to LA knows I’m down here?” The line was silent. “Russell?”

“Look, whatever’s going on ain’t good. You gotta come back.”

She saw the sense of it, but also wondered how it’d make a difference at this point.

“Stop being such an MP for a minute. It’s too late for me to get out of trouble.”

“You’re already in deep shit as it is over Oscar. Now this? Cut bait.”

He was right. But she knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Look, do me a favor. Reach out to the San Antonio office—”

A racket of voices from somewhere in the warehouse.

“Diane, I can’t. I’m sorry I told you to go down, but Dufresne and Cromer—”

Something was going on.

“Hold on,” she said.

“You have to listen to me,” Childs said.

She took the phone away from her ear to hear the voices. Men. Growing closer. Her hackles rose and she looked around, half wondering if she should go see who it was, other half wondering if she should hide.

“Shit, someone’s here,” she hissed.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. The cartel? What do I do?”

“What the fuck, Diane? You get out of there! Just leave!”

“Okay, okay, I’ll call you later.”

She hung up, jammed her phone in her back pocket as two men rounded the corner. They halted, silhouettes against the daylight of the big bay doors, she couldn’t make them out, couldn’t see if they were narcos or policía, and her stomach dropped when they stepped forward because they were Americans.

The one in front wore an off-the-rack navy-blue suit with a red tie, and she could tell, even from her remove, that he was a paunchy blue-blooded middle Ivy.

Right.

DC.

He looked almost apologetic.

She could see something stronger than irritation on the other one’s face. Not quite anger, something more like anguish. He wore a blue linen short-sleeve shirt and tailored pants. Dark aviators. He tapped an unlit smoke against his thigh, letting the cigarette pay out between his fingers like a nail.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

Blue Linen hung a few steps back as Middle Ivy approached. This felt prearranged.

“We’re from the embassy, Agent Harbaugh.”

“You know who I am.” She said it plain, matter-of-fact.

Blue Linen kept fiddling the cigarette against his leg, flipping it, tapping his fingers flush again. She fingered him for the one lurking on TILLER. What did he want with Gustavo?

“You have ID?” she asked.

“I’m the special assistant to the ambassador,” Middle Ivy said.

He reached into his jacket, pulled out his lanyard ID badge for her to inspect. She took it from his hand, the thing still around his neck. John Robert Quincey, special assistant to the American ambassador to Mexico, sure enough. He even gave her that Foggy Bottom down-the-nose look. She knew these guys. Carrying on like the upper crust of government. Even as voices on a speakerphone they oozed the arrogance of an elect, like they were endowed by the presidential line of succession with a special status.

“I assume this is legit,” she said, letting the lanyard fall against his chest. “I’ve never seen one. And you,” she said to Blue Linen, “you’re what, human resources?”

“Department of Blow Me,” he said.

“Coming in a little hot, this one,” she said to Quincey. “What’s so code red to get State on the scene?”

Blue Linen sucked his teeth impatiently like he had a powerful toothache and looked past her, over her head. She had a powerful urge to kick him in the nuts.

“He’s back there, Quincey,” Blue Linen said, pointing behind her to the heavy door.

“We’ll take it from here,” Quincey said.

“Take what from here?”

“Fucking Acuña,” Blue Linen barked.

Yes, his balls. They were in need of a swift kick.

“He called me,” she said to Blue Linen.

A blur of light-blue shirt, steel-gray pants, sunglasses, as he strode right over to her. Somehow she managed to stand her ground in the midst of his jawline level with her eyes. His shoulders. The volatile nearness of him. His withering contempt.

“Oh, I bet the piece of shit did,” he said. “But the only relevant factors are: (a) this is Mexico and (b) State has jurisdiction and (c) State says fuck you. Oh, and fucking (d) I don’t like saying the same goddamn thing over and over, so (e) beat it, bitch, because (f) he’s my asset now.”

She exaggerated her open-mouth shock into a cartoonish, mocking O as if to say Ooooooh, what a big meanie you are! but thinking, Asset? That’s intelligence parlance—

Fuuuuck.

“Asset?” She stepped back, looked at Quincey. “So this one’s CIA, then?”

“Has he left? Did you fucking fuck this?” Blue Linen asked.

“Who are you? What’s your goddamn name?” she asked.

Nothing. Stone face. Shaking his head, pinching the bridge of his nose under those aviators.

“Ian Carver,” Quincey said to her. “I assure you he is with the ambassador’s office.”

“Ambassador’s office, my ass.” She said to this Ian Carver. “You went fishing in TILLER. Saw me in there, didn’t you? Flagged me for travel notifications? You fucking followed me here!”

“Quincey,” he growled.

“It would be best if you returned home, Agent Harbaugh,” Quincey said.

“The fuck are you two to order me around?” she barked.

“Bitch,” Carver said, “this is the chain, or as much as you’ve ever seen of it. Quincey ranks you, ranks most everyone in this country but for the ambassador, who, if you don’t know, is the legal arm of the president of the United States.”

“Let’s ask the US attorney for the Southern District of Texas about that.”

She took out her phone. Carver ripped it out of her hand as soon as she entered the passcode.

“Hey, what the fuck!”

She lunged for it and then he had his hand on her neck, firm and with an astonishing ease, like it was commonplace for him to wrangle someone like this. She tried to knock his hand away, and he gripped her trachea hard. She tried to pull in a breath, but her throat couldn’t catch it. He thumbed through her phone, calm as someone waiting for dry cleaning.

A grinding, panicked sound escaped her, and then a surge of adrenaline quickened through her and she launched a fist into his underarm and wrenched herself out of his grip. She coughed and turned aside so he wouldn’t see her gag.

“Please, Agent Harbaugh,” Quincey said, without terrific sincerity.

“I don’t have time for this!” Carver bellowed at no one, clicking through her phone, reading messages.

Blue tossed the phone back at her. It fumbled out of her fingers, clattered to the floor. She snatched it up. She clocked the annoyed look Quincey shot at him. Carver picked the cigarette up off the floor, where he must have dropped it. Resumed tapping it against his thigh.

When she looked up at Quincey again, his mouth had fallen open. He looked at her like she was bleeding from the ears. Then she realized he wasn’t looking at her at all. He was looking past her. As was Carver.

She turned around, still holding her sore neck. The door was open. Gustavo stood before them. He had no coat, and his shirt sleeves were unbuttoned, the stiff cuffs hanging oddly open, large and starched like cardboard takeout containers. She didn’t see the gun until he put it up to his head.

“I am leaving with her.” He wagged the pistol by his ear. “Or I leave alone, like this.”

BAGRAM AFB, PARWAN PROVINCE, AFGHANISTAN
MARCH 19, 2004, 19:07
POLYGRAPHER:	I’ve started recording, Operative Carver. Are you ready?
CARVER:	I guess.
POLYGRAPHER:	You guess?
CARVER:	Shipley didn’t administer these in the field. I only had a couple during training at the Farm.
POLYGRAPHER:	And after you were at Tora Bora.
CARVER:	Yeah, that’s when the Company first came calling.
POLYGRAPHER:	You were the tip of the spear at Tora Bora.
CARVER:	Fifth Special Forces went in right after the daisy-cutters.
POLYGRAPHER:	Something happen there that made you want to quit the army?
CARVER:	More like what didn’t happen.
POLYGRAPHER:	Catching UBL.
CARVER:	We warned the brass the back door to Pakistan was wide open. General Franks had eight hundred Army Rangers just shitting in diesel drums and sipping cocoa. We couldn’t even get them to drop Gator mines into Pakistan, it was fucking derelict—this is what you wanted to talk about? Ancient history?
POLYGRAPHER:	You tried out for the SEALs in 1998.
CARVER:	More ancient history, huh?
POLYGRAPHER:	You didn’t make it.
CARVER:	I did not.
POLYGRAPHER:	Why?
CARVER:	They’re the best of the best. Statistically, pretty much nobody makes it.
POLYGRAPHER:	Guys with your scores do. Was it a medical issue?
CARVER:	No.
POLYGRAPHER:	Psych?
CARVER:	Fuck no. Are you trying to catch me in some kind of lie? About this of all things?
POLYGRAPHER:	About this of all things I’m just trying to get an answer. Why didn’t you make the cut, Operative Carver?
CARVER:	They hold a fucking vote. Every week, anyone still in the running picks four guys. Two they want in battle with them. And two . . .
POLYGRAPHER:	And two who . . .
CARVER:	They hope’ll wash out. They didn’t want me. The other guys didn’t. Which is lucky for you.
POLYGRAPHER:	Why is that?
CARVER:	Because no one quits the SEALs to join the CIA.