“This is what you want,” Rain said, still holding the laptop aloft. “You can have it. Like you said, no one else has to get hurt.”
Rispel’s men had flex-ties with them, and she considered the merits of securing Rain’s wrists behind his back. She decided it would be unnecessary. If the rest of Kanezaki’s people saw her using restraints, they might doubt her protestations of good faith. They might refuse to cooperate. They might even resist. She needed them to believe that all she wanted was the key to Grimble’s video system, and that as soon as she had it, they would all be free to go back to their lives. Martial arts were fine, but she had six men, after all. Armed with machine pistols. Disarming Kanezaki’s people would be enough.
She glanced at the man on her left. “Tony.”
Tony moved behind Rain and patted him down, then walked back alongside Rispel. “He’s clean.”
“Fiona,” Rispel said.
Fiona walked forward, took the laptop from Rain, and walked back to Rispel. She opened the unit, glanced at it, then looked at Rain. “It’s password protected,” she said.
“I know,” Rain said. “Apparently, the credentials are in another building in the complex.”
Rispel was immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“I don’t know,” Rain said. “Security, I guess. Grimble told us his passcode is long and complicated, and he keeps it separate from the transcoder for the videos, which is on the laptop.”
Rispel considered. “Where’s Dox?”
“He’s not here.”
Rispel wasn’t buying it. And though she couldn’t prove otherwise, she’d learned at the black sites that one of the keys to interrogation was pretending to know more than you really did.
“Bullshit,” she said. “We picked him up on Grimble’s camera network.”
“I don’t know who you picked up,” Rain said, “but it wasn’t Dox. I guess so much for good faith and all that.”
He said it confidently and readily, and she didn’t detect any deception. Still, he was obviously a hard man to read. “Then where is he?” she said.
“You’ll have to ask Kanezaki. He’s the one who put together this crew. Look, my contract has a force majeure clause. I get paid either way. So take the laptop. Get the log-in credentials. It doesn’t matter to me.”
That wasn’t so difficult to believe, based on his evident lack of interest in the two hostages, and in what Rispel had heard about his past.
She realized he was still wearing his commo gear. She should have thought to have one of her men remove it so the rest of Rain’s people couldn’t hear what they had just discussed. Well, no harm done. And he had to tell them to come out regardless.
“We’ll see,” she said. “Have your people come out. One by one, hands up, just like you did. Tell them anyone still inside at the end of the exercise gets a bullet.”
“You’re wearing the commo gear you took off the woman,” Rain said. “They can hear you.”
“I want them to hear it from you.”
“It’s not up to me.”
“Tell them anyway. And while you’re at it, tell them I’ll have you shot, too. Hopefully they won’t be as callous about you as you seem to be about them.”
“All right,” Rain said. “You heard her. I’d suggest you all come out.”
The door opened. A pretty Latina was first. Rispel recognized her from file photos. Diaz. Tony searched her, then moved her over near Manus. Next was a large and dangerous-looking man Rispel thought fit the description of Dox’s partner from Freeway Park. Then a woman and a teenaged boy, who broke the rules by coming out together. But Rispel didn’t mind—the woman’s obvious protectiveness might prove useful. Because Rispel knew about Manus’s adopted family, and recognized Evelyn Gallagher from NSA file photos. The boy was her son.