“Jesus,” Diaz said.
“Yeah, it’s a powerful tool, no doubt. But Kanezaki has a young tech whiz—Maya, the one whose friend got killed last night—who built some kind of back door into the system, so Kanezaki could see what other people were searching for, and particularly what searches were getting deleted in violation of what passes for the law these days. That’s how he uncovered the plot to take you out, and how he knew to send Larison and me in to foil it.”
Diaz shook her head. “I can’t believe this shit goes on.”
“I know, it’s a lot to get your head around. But like Blade said, ‘The world you live in is just a sugar-coated topping.’”
Diaz looked at him, obviously not getting the reference.
“A movie,” Larison said. “Wesley Snipes. Telling a human about vampires.”
Dox smiled. “This is one of the reasons I like partnering with you, amigo. John never gets my cinematic references. I mean, you were the only one in the room who was with me that time when I did Cleavon Little. If you hadn’t laughed, we’d probably all be dead right now.”
“It was pretty funny.”
“Thank you.”
“You want to finish explaining how Kanezaki got this intel?”
“Right. Well, Maya got back into the system remotely. I don’t know all the details, but according to Kanezaki, using Guardian Angel to maximum effect is as much an art as it is a science, and he says Maya is quite the artist. She used cellphone data, satellite imagery, Bayesian probability, and who knows what else. Apparently Evie helped—she was some kind of tech wizard at NSA. But the gist of it is, they have three guys holding Schrader right now in a house just twenty miles from here. And the question is, what do we do about it?”
“Why do we need to do anything?” Larison said. He knew the question might come across as aggressive. He didn’t care. He liked to test people. If they folded from a little pushing, what would they do when they were being shot at?
Livia looked at him. “What do you propose instead?”
“I’m not sure I’m proposing anything. They’ll torture Schrader, and either they’ll get what they want from him, or they won’t. Either way, it plays out and the storm passes. I mean, Diaz isn’t in danger anymore. That was only when she was going to prosecute Schrader.”
“I don’t want this to be about me,” Diaz said.
“Fine,” Larison said. “We can make it about me.”
“Nobody’s keeping you here,” Livia said.
Not for the first time, Larison admired her balls. “I never said otherwise. But here’s the way I see it. If you call the marshals and they recover Schrader, we’re right back where we started, with Diaz a target. And maybe all the publicity about Schrader’s release and recapture will offer some protection in that regard, but maybe it won’t. Or we can just do nothing. Schrader’s the focus now. The people holding him will either get control of the videos, or the videos will be uploaded. And Schrader is toast either way. Why do we care?”
Diaz looked at him. “You don’t care about powerful men trafficking children?”
That annoyed him. “What, are you going to try to shame me now? You know what these two are about to pitch, right? The three of us go to this house, kick down some doors, get in a gunfight, and drag Schrader out, sirens howling behind us.” He looked at Dox and Livia. “Is that about right?”
“Hopefully absent the sirens,” Dox said. “With surprise and violence of action, I think we could be in and out faster than that.”
“Oh, well, that’s great. Count me in, then. These things always work according to plan. I mean, look at how it went in the park yesterday.”