The Chaos Kind (John Rain #11)(45)

He looked back to his phone. There was something printed below the photo. It said, The next transmission won’t be an empty photo. It will be video! With people in it. And it won’t be released just to you. Live and let live. With a little smiley face at the end.

No, he thought. Lord, no. It was perfectly horrible. And somehow, the smiley face made it worse.

Devereaux turned away. Hobbs thought he was trying to shield his expression. But then the man doubled over and vomited.

For whatever reason, it was comforting to know it wasn’t just him. That his suspicions about Devereaux had been right. And that, for whatever it was worth, Devereaux at least wouldn’t be able to judge him.

Devereaux stood and wiped his chin. His security detail had closed in, and Devereaux waved them away.

“I didn’t know,” he said. “I thought . . . they told me she was eighteen.”

Hobbs knew it was the truth. Because they’d told him the same thing. Or had they? Had he just assumed? It didn’t matter. He was afraid to answer.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Devereaux said. “I saw your face. You got one, too.”

Hobbs was too rattled to deny it.

“Is the president really part of this?” Devereaux said. “And his predecessor?”

Hobbs felt a renewed wave of panic. “Of course he is.”

“Stop lying to me, you grubby little prick.”

Hobbs realized it didn’t matter anymore. “I had to,” he said. “You wouldn’t have helped me.”

“I’m helping you now.”

“I didn’t know before . . . that you had a personal stake in this, too.”

“You made it all up. The president. Both parties. ‘It isn’t about the players, it’s about the whole game.’”

“The president isn’t involved. Or his predecessor. As far as I know. But the rest is true. You think you and I are the only ones implicated?”

They were quiet for a moment. Hobbs said, “What are we going to do?”

Devereaux spat. “I don’t know.”

They walked in silence again, past the protesters, past the skeletal trees. Hobbs heard a police siren in the distance, then a helicopter overhead. The chants of the protesters faded behind them. Somehow, the shadows were comforting. He wished he could just keep walking. In the dark. Where no one could see him.

“I’m thinking,” Devereaux said. “Rispel might have a point. All of this . . . It does have the classic signs of a Russian active-measures campaign. Fake news, disseminated by our adversaries.”

Hobbs felt a stirring of hope. He didn’t give a damn that it was horseshit. It was the kind of thing the media would eat up and disseminate, and for the moment that was all that mattered. “And if something comes out about the . . . blackmail?”

“You mean kompromat. Another hallmark of Kremlin active measures.”

The buzzwords would do the job, all right. Everyone knew the best disinformation campaigns in the world were American ones masquerading as Russian, and the con would never get old. But still.

“Kompromat,” Hobbs said. “Fine. Maybe we can mitigate. But how do we get back on offense?”

Devereaux nodded. “I . . . suggested a contractor to Rispel. Someone named Manus. I thought he would be deniable. And disposable. But I think . . . Rispel may have turned him.”

Hobbs was horrified. How off course had this thing gotten? And how were they going to straighten it back out?

“What are you telling me?” he said. “Rispel is playing a separate game?”

“Maybe.”

Hobbs said nothing. He thought it might be his turn to puke. He breathed deeply for a moment, the cold air calming him somewhat. After a moment, he said, “Then what the hell do we do?”

Devereaux paused, then nodded as though confirming an internal judgment call. He looked at Hobbs. “Manus has people he cares about. Maybe . . . maybe there’s a way we can get him back onside.”





chapter

thirty-six





EVIE


Evie was grading tests in her office while she waited for Dash. Cross-country practice wasn’t over yet, but the light outside was already fading. Autumn was always a sad time of year for her—the days so short, and still getting shorter.

But whenever she was feeling blue, she reminded herself of all there was to be thankful for. And there really was a lot. First was Dash, of course. Her beautiful boy had become a handsome teenager, with athletic gifts he had inherited from his father more than from her, thank God. He was only in eighth grade but had made the high school cross-country team. The coach wanted him for the 101 weight class on the high school team when wrestling season started, too. And while baseball was his favorite, and Evie knew there was a good chance he’d make that team a year early, too, Dash was nervous. She didn’t think that was a bad thing. Of course, after the meningitis, the deafness, and the divorce, she wanted everything to come easily for him. But she knew it was better that he had to work for it, that he didn’t take anything for granted.

And while teaching high school math at Dash’s school and computer science at Mount St. Mary’s wasn’t as cutting-edge as what she had been doing at NSA, she was relieved to be clear of her former employer. What had happened there, what Anders and his goon, Delgado, had tried to do to her, still gave her occasional nightmares.