Even as he was still speaking, Callie had looked at him with consternation, and she said now, “Josh, what are you doing? If you help him in any way, you’re breaking the law, you’re probably committing treason.”
“You think?” She didn’t respond, and he pointed at the laptop and said, “You think he faked that tape?” Again, she didn’t answer. “Exactly. You wanna report me, Callie, you go ahead, but I know I’m doing the right thing. Because we’ve been helping them sweep people like Dan here under the carpet, but you know what, who’s to say in five years they won’t be trying to sweep us under it?”
“There are things here that need to be answered, but if you help him, I will report you.”
Josh stared at her for a few seconds, then turned to Dan and said, “You could probably breach it without this, but I can set it up on one of your laptops there. Basically, if someone with an authorized code—someone like me—reports a malfunction on the surveillance system, the thing does a full check on itself, and after ten minutes it’ll confirm that there’s no malfunction. But here’s the thing—mother of all fuck-ups—the system shuts down all its elements and brings them back online one by one to check them, but it brings the cameras on last. So for nearly ten minutes, no cameras.”
“You can set it up so that I can hit it just before I go in there?”
“Of course. You just hit the Enter key when you’re ready to go.”
“Good. Set it up.”
Josh pulled the laptop over in front of him. Dan thought of telling him to restrict his activities to what they’d just discussed, not to try contacting anyone else, but he could tell Josh was on side now. Callie wasn’t, and it was for all the right reasons, but she was still wrong. She was staring at Josh with utter disbelief.
She could tell Dan was staring at her in turn, but she showed no acknowledgement and said only to Josh, “Aiding and abetting in the murder of four CIA officers. As well as treason, I really hope you’re calling this right, Josh, because you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison if you’re not.”
Dan said, “Even if he ends up on the wrong side, I guess for Josh to face the consequences, someone would have to report what he’s done here. That’s not me.”
Josh looked up from what he was doing and met Callie’s eyes, asking her the question.
“No, I’m not making promises like that. Not until I know all the facts.”
Dan saw that as promising for some reason, a sign that she was wavering, but Josh looked blasé now and said, “I’ll take my chances. I know I’m doing the right thing.” He looked up at Dan. “I’ll be straight, I don’t know that you’re doing the right thing, but I know I am. I always had an idea Brabham was rotten.”
Dan smiled in acknowledgement. Callie shook her head, as if unsure how any of it had come to this.
“Okay, this is ready to go. Hit the Enter key and within thirty seconds the cameras will be down and out for nearly ten minutes.”
“Good, thanks. You said one of the guys walks the grounds. About how often?”
“On a normal night, every hour, maybe. Tonight, I’d guess every half hour.”
Dan looked to the window. It was dark outside now.
“I’m heading off now. I’ll have to cuff you, like I said, so you better both have a bathroom break.” They stood, and he looked at Callie, seeing more than ever, in the way she carried herself, that she could be dangerous if she had a mind to be. “Callie, despite everything, I like you, I like that you’ve held your ground, even though I think you’re wrong. Now you might be thinking this is your last opportunity to stop me, so I’ll warn you again—if you try anything, I’ll kill you. You have to believe me on that.”
Her eyes were fierce as she said, “Why wouldn’t I believe you? It’s the only thing you’ve said for which I’ve got incontrovertible evidence.”
He showed them to the bathroom, then cuffed them to the railings at the top of the stairs. He put his bag together again, being careful to lay the primed laptop on top of everything else.
He stopped on the stairs before heading down, and looked at them, nodding another acknowledgement to Josh. Then he said to Callie, “There is one other thing I said that you know to be true.” She raised her eyebrows, giving him nothing. “I said I wouldn’t kill you if I didn’t have to.”
And with that he walked down the stairs and out into the cold Berlin night.
Chapter Forty