Inside Out by Barry Eisler Page B

walked over. “Drew,” she said. “Goddamn it, Drew, talk to me.” She looked at Ben. “If you killed him, I swear to God you’re going down.”
    Drew wheezed, then broke into a coughing fit. He rolled to his side, his hands on his throat.
    “Well, he’s breathing,” Ben said. “What were you saying there, chief? Something about, what, doing this the easy way? Well, you were right, it was easy.”
    “Shut up,” the woman said. “Drew. Look at me. Can you drive?”
    Drew sat up and massaged his throat. Ben didn’t think the guy looked good to drive. He looked good to puke.
    But Drew managed a nod.
    “Then go.”
    Drew wheezed. “That’s not—”
    “Just go. I’ll interview this guy and fill you in later.”
    She stood up and holstered her gun. “All right,” she said. “Let’s go.”
    “Go? Where are we going?”
    “Wherever you like. A coffee shop. A park. Somewhere we can talk.”
    “I don’t think—”
    “Just shut up and drive your car, okay? Before I get sorry I didn’t shoot you.”

8
No One Ever Sees Me Coming
    They found a Starbucks in the direction of Orlando. At the counter, Ben told the girl at the register, “Just a black coffee. Tall.” Then he walked off and found a table that put his back to the wall.
    A minute later the black woman set a couple of coffees on the table and joined him. She looked miffed, whether at having to buy and bring him his coffee or being stuck with her back to the door or both, he didn’t know. It was satisfying either way.
    “Who are you?” the woman said.
    He picked up the coffee and took a sip. “It’s not going to work that way.”
    “What way is that?”
    “The way where you ask the questions.”
    “Look, if I wanted to—”
    “But you don’t want to. Otherwise you would have already.”
    She drummed her fingers along the table. He couldn’t help noticing how attractive she was. That great skin; close-cropped, natural black hair; full lips; perfect teeth. Maybe that’s why he’d instantly written her off as a potential threat when he’d first spotted her. Stupid.
    She opened her purse and took out an ID. The ID read,
Special Agent Paula Lanier, Federal Bureau of Investigation
, along with a photo.
    Ben looked up from the ID. “Well, Paula, it’s good to meet you.”
    “Sorry I can’t say the same. And now it’s your turn.”
    Ben didn’t want to get into specifics. The Froomkin identity was backstopped, but someone within the FBI itself could debunk it easily enough.
    “Why don’t you just call me Ben,” he said.
    “All right, Ben, who are you with?”
    “With?”
    “Stop messing around with me, okay? I want to know who you are and what you were doing at Marcy Wheeler’s house. And I want to know whatever she told you.”
    He took another sip of coffee. “That’s a lot to ask, on short acquaintance.”
    “It’s not, really. Not when you consider that you can tell me here, or I can arrest you right now and we can conduct the interview at the Orlando field office instead.”
    “Is this the hard way or the easy way again? It didn’t work out well for Bob and Drew back there. You sure you want to go down that road, too?”
    “I’m the one who had the drop on you, remember?”
    “Then why haven’t you just arrested me?”
    “Because I’d rather do this off the record for now.”
    “Why?”
    “Look, I know who you are. Or what, anyway. You’ve got spook written all over you.”
    Ben couldn’t help smiling. “I could say the same about you, you know.”
    She cocked an eyebrow. “Funny. I know you’re CIA. Could have been DIA, maybe, but I know they’re not involved in this thing.”
    Interesting that she would assume that. Well, Hort told him the CIA would be conducting its own off-the-books investigation, trying to beat the FBI to the tapes. Looked like the Bureau was aware of the problem, too.
    He felt a momentary unease. These missing tapes were big. Maybe the biggest thing he’d ever worked on. A lot of