The tapes, the tapes… if the tapes got out, the news would be all Caspers, all the time. At which point, someone would feed the media a big, juicy chunk to connect the Caspers to the OVP. That was it, the Caspers would be the punch line, and the OVP, which was responsible for everything else, must have been responsible for the Caspers, too. But what was the evidence, the dot that would connect the other dots, the information they would slot into the expectations they’d already created? What did they have on him that wouldn’t also lead back to them? There must have been something with his return address on it. What would it-

He stopped, the blood suddenly draining from his face, his chest constricting. The return address. Jesus Christ, no.

His hands were shaking and it took him three tries to open his wall safe. He took out the encrypted thumb drive and fired it up on his computer.

They’d told him they needed to set something up to take care of the Caspers. At the time, he thought it was brilliant, he’d never heard of anything like it. It sounded so good, in fact, that he’d actually conceived of it as a kind of pilot program. If it worked with the Caspers, there was no reason not to expand it to resolve other difficult situations, as well. So he’d signed off on the creation of a dummy corporation… Jesus, what had he been thinking? At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to him. The corporate fronts were routine for a dozen different purposes-safe houses, air transport of rendered detainees… Hell, half the program was conducted through corporate false fronts. He was signing off on them every day-but now, now…

What was the name of the company? Eco, Ecology, something like that? He scrolled through memos and correspondence and findings… and there it was. Ecologia. A European company that had pioneered the concept of “ecological burials.” And Ulrich had signed off on the creation of the dummy corporation that had purchased two of their units. Christ, he might as well have just filled out the purchase orders himself.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He could see it clearly now, not just what they were doing, but the way it would all play out. They’d fingered him. They’d created the narrative, exposing one by one all the different elements of the program, each time demonstrating how that element emanated from the OVP. He knew from experience that once a narrative had achieved this much momentum, this much weight in the mainstream media and the mind of the public, it was impossible to squelch it. From here, it was only going to get worse. The other players would recognize Ulrich was vulnerable, that he’d been positioned to serve as the personification of the entire thing, the poster child for the program, and they’d realize then that it was in their interest to pile on. There would be more finger-pointing, more anonymous leaks. It would be a perfect storm: the public wanting a villain; the mainstream media wanting a fall guy to protect the powerful; the potentially culpable firmament doing everything in its collective power to deliver the villain the public was clamoring for. It would be a kind of mass cleansing, cathartic for everyone involved, a ritual stoning of a symbolic individual to bury the broader sin.

And what could he argue in response? That he was only following orders? Laughable in its own right, and worse considering how motivated people would be to not hear it. Everyone but the lunatic left understood that presidents and vice presidents, sitting or former, were above the law, that the notion of trying them was simply absurd. Lieutenants, though, aides-de-camp, were a more vulnerable class. Sure, he’d have some colorable legal arguments, but those would be useless in a trial by media. He hated to admit it, but he’d really underestimated the spooks. In the end, they’d outmaneuvered him.

Or maybe not. He still had one thing that could turn this around. His final insurance policy. His suicide bomb. All he had to do was-

The secure line buzzed. He snatched up the receiver. “Ulrich.”

“Clements. Okay to talk?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“There’s a lot going on. Okay to talk?”

“Yes, for Christ’s sake, go.”

“We know who the blackmailer is. A former JSOC ISA operator, Daniel Larison.”

Ulrich had gotten that much from his contact an hour earlier. But he didn’t see any advantage in acknowledging that to this self-important moron who wouldn’t even return his calls.

“JSOC?” he said, pretending he was grappling with new information on the fly. “Horton must have known. That’s how he got ahead of us. But wait a minute. Larison? Wasn’t he one of the people who had access, but we ruled him out because-”

“Because we thought he died in Pakistan. That’s what he wanted us to think, to divert our attention elsewhere while the trail to him went cold.”

“He’s alive?”

“Very much so. Also very gay, and with a civilian lover in San Jose, Costa Rica.”

“A lover… this must be why that guy Treven was on his way to San Jose.”

“He’s the one who developed the intel.”

The pretense part was done. Now he had real questions to ask. “How the hell did JSOC get involved in this? Horton sent Treven? How did he explain his man’s presence to the national security adviser?”

Clements sighed. “He was filing UNODIR reports along the way. The national security adviser never even saw them, just like Horton knew he wouldn’t. They were complete CYA. And what’s he going to do now, reprimand Horton after the results this guy Treven got?”

UNODIR meant “unless otherwise directed.” You filed a report at the last possible minute, knowing that, by the time it was seen, whatever you were up to would be a fait accompli. Essentially, a ballsy way for gaining retroactive permission. Or, if whatever you were up to failed, for getting court-martialed. Horton had played it well.

“I told you,” Ulrich said, “we don’t want JSOC getting those tapes.”

“Understood.”

“Well, what’s the plan?”

“Don’t know yet. We’ve got an interagency meeting in three hours. I’m going to recommend we threaten the lover’s family, use them as leverage. With luck, that’ll bring Larison out in the open.”

Leverage. Yeah, that made sense. Sometimes it was all people understood.

“You there?” Clements said.

“Yeah, I’m here. Now listen. I know what you’re up to.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think I’m your Plan B, I’m going to be your fall guy if something goes wrong, if those tapes get out. And you’ve been taking steps to make it happen. But there’s something I want you to hear. Listen carefully.”

He clicked the play button on his recorder and gave Clements a few key moments from that long-ago Arlington National Cemetery meeting. When he felt Clements had heard enough, he hit stop.

“Now you understand,” he said, his voice supremely calm. “If the tapes come out, we all go down. Not just me. All of us.”

There was a long pause. Clements said, “You’re crazy.”

“And that’s only one of many. So back off.”

“Back off… I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Listen to yourself. Look at what you’re doing. You’ve created… tapes about the tapes? This problem wasn’t convoluted enough?”

“Another thing. There are copies. If something happens to me, someone I trust has instructions to release those copies.”

“Someone… someone else knows about all this? You’ve lost your mind.”

“Don’t push me, Clements. I will burn you. I will fucking burn you.”

Silence on the line. It felt good. It felt… subservient.

“So just do your job and recover those tapes. And you better keep me in the loop while you’re at it.”

He clicked off, feeling good, feeling in control again. Leverage. In the end, it was all you really needed. That, and the balls to put it to use.