The Detachment by Barry Eisler Page B

do in a situation like this is get an escort. They don’t care what you do or what you talk about as long as they’re being paid, and if they notice you watching your back or doing anything tactical, they usually attribute it to the fact that you’re married and afraid of being seen.”
    “Works for me,” Treven said. “I’ve done it myself.”
    Larison nodded. “It’s a good idea.”
    There was the sound of a keycard sliding into the door lock, and a moment later Dox walked in. He was grinning.
    “Well, the cyanide works,” he said, holding up the canister.
    For an instant, I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Then it hit me. I said, “You didn’t.”
    Dox nodded. “I did. If I had to listen to that thing for one more minute, I was going postal, I swear. This way, it was two birds with one stone. The cyanide works, and we get to enjoy the sounds of silence.”
    I shook my head and sighed, thinking I should have seen it coming.
    “Oh, come on,” Dox said. “Tell me you didn’t think of it yourself.”
    Treven said, “I wish I had.”
    We all laughed at that, and maybe the laughter was good. Nothing brought a team together better than shared laughter—well, shared fighting, maybe, but bar fights were a younger man’s game, and anyway we couldn’t afford the attention. But the momentary sense of camaraderie struck me as likely to be just that: momentary. Nothing more than a lull, a veneer temporarily obscuring differences that might soon impel each of us to very different sides of a board, the contours of which I sensed but couldn’t yet discern.

T reven benchpressed a hundred eighty pounds at a dead weight station in the spacious Wynn fitness center, taking his time, going easy. He could have put another hundred on the bar, but that kind of weight would have been conspicuous, and besides, he was only here in case Shorrock showed up, not for a real workout. Shorrock was scheduled to check in that day, with the keynote tomorrow, and though check-in was at three, it wasn’t inconceivable he’d arrive earlier. So Treven had started in at the gym at noon, doing nothing other than the length of his workout to distinguish himself from the other guests who’d been coming and going. It had been nearly two hours already, and no sign of Shorrock. It was about time for him to move on and let Dox, who was on deck, take over. It was silly, but he’d been hoping he’d be the one to make the initial contact. He wasn’t used to feeling like the junior member of a team, and although it embarrassed him to admit it, he wanted a chance to prove himself.
    They’d been here for three days now, and knew the public layout of the hotel well enough to be employees. They’d been over every inch of the property—every bar, every restaurant, every club, every store, every men’s room. The parking garages, the pools, the perimeter. Everything. They were as ready as they could be on short notice and given the other constraints they were operating under. All they needed now was a little break, something they could leverage into something bigger.
    He set the bar back on the rack and walked over to the mats to stretch. He hoped he was doing the right thing, taking out Shorrock. He’d always been fine knowing the military would disown him if he ever blew an op, but at least he’d always been able to comfortably assume his actions had been sanctioned by the proper chain of command. This one was different. The president had an assassination list, true—in fact, its existence had recently leaked, along with the fact that among its targets were American citizens. None of which was news to anyone in the ISA, but it wasn’t like the president had called him personally. Treven didn’t know where Hort’s orders had come from, or whether there had been orders at all. But what was he supposed to do? The kind of shit the military used him for was so deniable he hadn’t received written orders in longer than he could