The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(112)

“Tom,” Maya said. “You don’t want those videos. It’s like the One Ring.”

“The what?” Kanezaki said.

Maya looked at Larison.

“The Lord of the Rings,” Larison said. “It’s an allegory about power. And how power corrupts.”

“‘When things are in danger,’” Maya said, “‘someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’”

Larison smiled. “‘The Ring must be taken deep into Mordor and cast back into the fiery chasm from whence it came.’”

Kanezaki shook his head. “Are we seriously going to make this decision based on The Lord of the Rings?” He looked at Rain. “John. Talk some sense into these people.”

Everyone looked at Rain. Diaz couldn’t have articulated why, but she thought there was something sad in his eyes.

Rain glanced around the room, then back at Kanezaki. “I told you before you remind me of Tatsu.”

“Yes,” Kanezaki said.

Rain sighed. “He would have wanted those videos, too. No doubt. No matter the risks.”

“I know,” Kanezaki said.

Rain nodded. “And he would have been making a mistake.”

Kanezaki’s lips moved as though he was trying to come up with something to say. But nothing came out.

“Tatsu was a good man,” Rain went on. “But he wasn’t perfect, Tom. You can be better. He would have wanted you to be better.”

Diaz didn’t know who Tatsu was, but she knew a strong closing argument when she heard one. And so, apparently, did Kanezaki. His shoulders slumped and he said, “Shit.”

Rain looked at Maya. “What do we need to do?”

Maya gave Grimble an appreciative nod. “Constantine stored the video files in the cloud in a unique file format. Without the transcoder, the videos are just a pile of incomprehensible bits. It’s like . . . if we were talking about DVDs, the DVDs would still exist, but there’s no DVD player. So you couldn’t watch a movie. You’d just see a bunch of ones and zeroes.”

Rain gave her a tight smile. “I appreciate your explanations. There would be no way to turn those ones and zeroes back into a movie? Grimble couldn’t make a new transcoder?”

Maya shook her head. “It doesn’t work like that. So no. If you destroy the transcoder and keys, and the backups, it’s over.”

“What about the passcode?” Larison said. “Are there other copies? Or just the one stenciled inside that mask?”

“Backups,” Grimble said. “Backups, backups, backups.”

Larison shrugged. Diaz had the chilling sense that Rain and Larison had been flirting with the necessity or desirability of killing Grimble so no one else could use him to access the system. He was lucky he had architected the system the way he had. Or that he was clever enough to lie.

“How long will it take?” Rain said.

Maya shrugged. “Ten minutes. Less, if Constantine helps me.”

Diaz had turned down the volume on her earpiece so she didn’t have to hear the conversation in Grimble’s office in stereo. But suddenly she heard a loud rasping, like feedback from a microphone that’s been mishandled or dropped.

“This is Lisa Rispel,” came a loud voice. “And the lovely woman who a moment ago had this mic attached to her lapel now has the muzzle of a gun pressed to her head.”





chapter

seventy-four





MANUS


Manus and Delilah had identified a route off the property that would avoid the main entrance and the approach from Manzanita. It was level ground, with adequate space between trees, and marked off only by a wooden fence supported by posts eight feet apart. Manus tested the strength of the fence by leaning against it. It wasn’t much. Hit it hard between the posts with the truck, and they would blast right through. The Porsche could follow. They might surprise a few people by driving across the adjacent properties, but they would be gone before anyone could process it. And if anyone’s security cameras picked up a license plate, it wouldn’t matter. Kanezaki had supplied fakes. The man was more than competent with logistics.

He straightened and turned. And saw Delilah, a man’s fist entangled in her hair, the muzzle of a gun pressed against her head. And five other men fanned out, all with suppressed pistols pointing at him. Too many to have any chance of taking out before they dropped him. And even if he could have gotten to cover, it wouldn’t have helped Delilah.

A woman stepped forward, early fifties, hair back, jeans and a dark fleece. Rispel.

She gave Manus a cool smile. “Hello, Marvin. I’m only here for the videos. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead already.”

It was a weird echo of what Larison had said to him in Freeway Park just a few days earlier, which now felt like months ago. The difference was, when Larison said it, Manus had somehow known it was true.

How had they made it past the cameras Maya was monitoring? They must have found a way to hack the system and loop in previous footage. Probably they had been planning to do something like that with Grimble’s guards and had wound up doing it to Maya and the team, instead. And whether by luck or skill, they had approached from the southeast, where the trees would conceal them from Dox.