Kill Decision(114)
“But you’re making me party to a— I don’t think we need this person so badly that we need to resort to this.”
“Listen to the lady, Odin.”
Odin shook his head but kept looking at Evans. “Mort, would you cooperate under any circumstances other than the threat of physical force?”
Evans chuckled and ruefully shook his head. “You know, I’m going to have to say no to that—in fact, I’m going to say no to physical force as well.” He picked up the handset of his desk phone. “If I disappeared—all these witnesses. Too many cameras. They’d track you down. It would be suicide to lay a finger on me.”
Odin chambered a round. “Good thing I don’t give a shit.”
“Well, you care about your team. The man can get to them to get to you.”
“My team’s all dead. Betrayed by someone inside the system. The same system you now belong to, apparently.”
Evans’s smile started to fade.
“And if you check around, I think you’ll find they’re already hunting for me. Killing you would have no effect whatsoever on my afternoon, much less my life.”
McKinney could see the change in Evans’s face—the first time he’d shown any regard whatsoever for Odin. She watched, feeling bad for being a party to threatening this man she’d never met, and tried not to react to Odin’s lie.
Evans had gone pale. “Who’s your pretty friend, Odin?” Evans grinned weakly.
“You call her ‘Professor.’”
Evans extended his hand. “Good to meet you, Professor.”
McKinney nodded and shook his clammy hand.
Evans didn’t let go immediately but instead studied her hand. “Not an operator.” He pointed toward Odin but spoke to McKinney. “See that callus on Odin’s gun hand? You get that firing fifty thousand rounds a year. The training acclimates you to gunfire. And the screams of innocents.”
Odin still held the pistol aimed toward the drop ceiling.
Evans kept a wary eye on Odin. “Professor, do you have any idea how many people he’s killed?”
McKinney couldn’t help but glance with concern at Odin.
“You remember that shopkeeper in Dushanbe, Odin? How he pleaded for his life, and you just double-tapped him in front of his kid. So glad I could help you locate him. Makes me proud to be an American.”
Odin remained emotionless. “If you were so disturbed, why’d you take his cigarettes?”
“Because they were French cigarettes.” Evans was starting to perspire. “In your experience, Professor, what usually happens to witnesses when heartless guys like this get what they want? See, I think they kill witnesses to cover their tracks. That’s what I think.”
McKinney cast an impatient look at Odin and motioned for him to put the gun down. “Mr. Evans, we just need information. If you help us, I promise you that I won’t let Odin harm you.”
Evans laughed. “Oh, you won’t let him harm me. I’d like to see that. What sort of information?”
McKinney cast Odin another look and kept the floor. “Communications records.”
He looked back and forth between them, and then let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay, we’re doing this the hard way: What sort of communication records?”
McKinney hesitated. “We need access to historical data—we want to find out who in the intelligence sector might have been searching for drone attack victims just before they were killed.”
Evans cast an incredulous look at Odin. “Is she for real?”
Odin nodded.
Evans turned back to McKinney. “Ah. Right. Let me just hook you up. . . .”
“Mr. Evans—”
“No, let me just confirm this: You want to eavesdrop on the eavesdroppers—have I got that right? Which pretty much means you need root access to whatever the NSA developed Project ThinThread into, not to mention AT&T’s Aurora database—quite possibly the biggest data store on earth.”
McKinney held up her hands. “Look, I know that—”
“No problem. I figure we can knock this out in a few minutes.”
Odin interjected. “Mort, this is no joke. My mission is to identify whoever’s behind the drone attacks—and when we got close, somebody inside the system sent drones after us.”
Evans just rubbed his temples and closed his eyes. “I’m not hearing this.”
“Someone in the establishment might be behind the drones. I need to find out who.”
“Fuck! Why the hell did you come down here? Goddammit, man! I finally have my life together.”
Odin leveled the pistol at Evans. “I guess we’re through, then. . . .”