He’d tried hard to game out all the possibilities, but that one he hadn’t seen coming. “Wait a minute . . . You mean the DNI told you to take out Manus as a payback operation, and now he says he thinks, what, the FSB or MSS broke Schrader out of prison because of blackmail videos? Did he explain any connection between the two? Or try to resolve the discrepancy?”
“I asked him about exactly those subjects. He’s keeping me in the dark. Telling me just enough to make me frustrated, but not enough to make me useful.”
“I can imagine,” Kanezaki said. He couldn’t resist, but he immediately regretted it.
Rispel chuckled. “Fair enough. As I learn more, so will you. In the meantime, see if you can get in touch with Dox. Try to find out what he knows. If there’s a storm coming, we want to batten down the hatches.”
chapter
thirty
RISPEL
After Kanezaki had left, Rispel considered.
He’d been lying, of course. The team leader had described the men in the park, and one of them fit the photographs Rispel had of Dox from when he’d been a Marine. The leader also described him as having a Texas accent.
Of course, in theory it was possible Dox was lying to Kanezaki rather than Kanezaki lying to her. But there was no way a contractor like Dox could have independently developed the intel to track Manus. It had to have come from Kanezaki.
But how could Kanezaki have acquired it?
By tracking Manus’s phone? But the man wasn’t carrying his own phone. Only a CIA-provided burner. And Manus’s exceptional surveillance consciousness was the very reason Rispel had wanted such a large team on the ground to monitor him.
Through Diaz, then?
Diaz was easy to track. If Kanezaki had keyed on her, he would have considered the park a likely nexus, just as Rispel had.
Why, though? What was Kanezaki’s interest?
She couldn’t answer that. Couldn’t imagine what advantage he would see in thwarting her.
All right. Forget why. How?
She couldn’t answer that, either. Diaz wasn’t difficult to track, but how would Kanezaki even have known to do it? Unless . . .
Guardian Angel.
No. She’d deleted all the searches related to Diaz. Deletion was unlawful, of course, but Rispel had people, trusted people, she could rely on to circumvent the safeguards.
But given that there were ways to get around the no-deletion protocols . . . could there also be a way to log the deletions themselves?
My God.
She reminded herself that she was only speculating. There was no reason to panic. She didn’t really know.
But nothing else made sense.
Who, though? Kanezaki couldn’t have done it himself. He didn’t have the technical chops, any more than Rispel herself did.
She had her people. Who would be Kanezaki’s equivalent?
She didn’t know. What she did know was that no one could get in and out of Guardian Angel without leaving footprints. And her people were excellent trackers.
chapter
thirty-one
DOX
The rain had stopped, and while they waited for Diaz to come out, Dox wiped off the sideview so he could better watch for tails. The other hand he kept on the butt of the Wilson. He didn’t expect any problems and didn’t see any, but he wasn’t taking chances, either.
Diaz came out, and Dox held the door for her as she jumped in back. He got in, and Labee was pulling away from the curb even before he had the door closed. She made an immediate right, checking the rearview as she drove.