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  PRAISE FOR BARRY EISLER

  The Killer Collective

  “Impossibly cool.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “As usual with an Eisler novel, the plot is full of twists, the prose is muscular, and the action unfolds at a torrid pace. The result is another page-turner from one of the better thriller writers since James Grady published Six Days of the Condor in 1974.”

  —Associated Press

  “In this crackling-good thriller from bestseller Eisler, Seattle PD sex crimes detective Livia Lone, assassin John Rain, and former Marine sniper Dox form a testy alliance to combat a vile conspiracy involving corrupt and toxic government agencies . . . The feisty interplay among these killer elites is as irresistible as if one combined the Justice League with the Avengers, swapping out the superhero uniforms for cutting-edge weaponry and scintillating spycraft. By the satisfying conclusion, the world has been scrubbed a bit cleaner of perfidy. This is delightfully brutal fun.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Vicarious pleasure for anyone wanting to see the scum of the world get its due.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Eisler does a great job of creating individual personalities and tics with this group of uniquely trained professionals. A solid recommendation for fans of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne and Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon.”

  —Library Journal

  “Riveting . . . Barry Eisler pulls off an Avengers-like feat . . .”

  —The Mercury News

  “Eisler turns the heat up like never before to deliver a fun, fast-paced thriller that’s tailor-made for fans of nonstop action.”

  —The Real Book Spy

  “The fun of Eisler’s super thriller is in the excitement, the chase, and the survival. The Killer Collective binds it together into a blazing adventure of espionage escape fiction, perfect to start the new year.”

  —New York Journal of Books

  “Eisler’s The Killer Collective packs a punch like a sniper’s rifle. A solid grounding in up-to-the-minute technology and current affairs makes this a hot read for thriller lovers.”

  —Authorlink

  “A heart-pounding home run . . . Eisler has created a more literary version of The Expendables—the movie series that brought together Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, Jason Statham, Dolph Lundgren, Bruce Willis, and other action heroes . . .”

  —It’s Either Sadness or Euphoria

  “Demonstrating the extraordinary expertise in the art of espionage and special operations—including surveillance detection, cover, elicitation, operational site selection, and more—that his fans and fellow practitioners have come to venerate, Eisler delivers another brilliant, fast-paced thriller, full of well-developed characters who remind me of the special operations and intelligence officers with whom I served and in some cases against whom I worked. For a retired senior CIA Clandestine Services officer still nostalgic for his espionage operations of bygone years, Eisler’s thrillers full of intrigue, adventure, and suspense are a most welcome opportunity to get as close as is now possible to the real thing.”

  —Daniel N. Hoffman, retired Clandestine Services officer and former CIA Chief of Station

  The Livia Lone Series

  “An absolutely first-rate thriller . . . Emotionally true at each beat.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “An explosive thriller that plunges into the sewer of human smuggling . . . Filled with raw power, [Livia Lone] may be the darkest thriller of the year.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Readers may be reminded of Stieg Larsson’s beloved Lisbeth Salander when they meet Livia Lone, and will be totally riveted by the story of this woman on a mission to right the wrongs in her past.”

  —Bookish

  “You won’t be able to tear yourself away as the story accelerates into a Tarantino-worthy climax and when you’re left gasping in the wake of its gut-wrenching vigilante justice, you’ll belatedly realize you learned a lot about a social travesty that gets far too little attention . . . Livia Lone is a harrowing tale with a conscience.”

  —Chicago Review of Books

  ALSO BY BARRY EISLER

  A Clean Kill in Tokyo (previously published as Rain Fall)

  A Lonely Resurrection (previously published as Hard Rain)

  Winner Take All (previously published as Rain Storm)

  Redemption Games (previously published as Killing Rain)

  Extremis (previously published as The Last Assassin)

  The Killer Ascendant (previously published as Requiem for an Assassin)

  Fault Line

  Inside Out

  The Detachment

  Graveyard of Memories

  The God’s Eye View

  Livia Lone

  Zero Sum

  The Night Trade

  The Killer Collective

  All the Devils

  Short Works

  “The Lost Coast”

  “Paris Is a Bitch”

  “The Khmer Kill”

  “London Twist”

  Essays

  “The Ass Is a Poor Receptacle for the Head: Why Democrats Suck at Communication, and How They Could Improve”

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2021 by Barry Eisler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542005616 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1542005612 (hardcover)

  ISBN-13: 9781542005593 (paperback)

  ISBN-10: 1542005590 (paperback)

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  First edition

  For Dan, Kim, Jerron, and Nathan

  Contents

  Start Reading

  prologue MANUS

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  chapter one HOBBS

  chapter two LIVIA

  chapter three HOBBS

  chapter four LIVIA

  chapter five HOBBS

  chapter six KANEZAKI

  chapter seven KANEZAKI

  chapter eight DOX

  chapter nine LARISON

  chapter ten DOX

  chapter eleven MANUS

  chapter twelve DOX

  chapter thirteen MANUS

  chapter fourteen DOX

  chapter fifteen LARISON

  chapter sixteen DOX

  chapter seventeen DIAZ

  chapter eighteen RISPEL

  chapter nineteen LIVIA

  chapter twenty DIAZ

  chapter twenty-one MANUS

  chapter twenty-two LIVIA

  chapter twenty-three DELILAH

  chapter twenty-four DUNLOP

  chapter twenty-five LIVIA

  chapter twenty-six LIVIA

  chapter twenty-seven RISPEL

  chapter twenty-eight SCHRADER

  chapter twenty-nine KANEZAKI

  chapter thirty RISPEL

  chapter thirty-one DOX

  chapter thirty-two DOX

  chapter thirty-three LARISON

  chapter thirty-four DOX

  chapter thirty-five HOBBS

  chapter thirty-six EVIE
r />   chapter thirty-seven MAYA

  chapter thirty-eight RAIN

  chapter thirty-nine LIVIA

  chapter forty SLOAT

  chapter forty-one MANUS

  chapter forty-two DELILAH

  chapter forty-three LARISON

  chapter forty-four EVIE

  chapter forty-five RAIN

  chapter forty-six EVIE

  chapter forty-seven LIVIA

  chapter forty-eight RAIN

  chapter forty-nine EVIE

  chapter fifty MAYA

  chapter fifty-one DEVEREAUX

  chapter fifty-two MANUS

  chapter fifty-three DOX

  chapter fifty-four LARISON

  chapter fifty-five DOX

  chapter fifty-six LIVIA

  chapter fifty-seven RISPEL

  chapter fifty-eight LIVIA

  chapter fifty-nine RAIN

  chapter sixty LIVIA

  chapter sixty-one RAIN

  chapter sixty-two RISPEL

  chapter sixty-three DEVEREAUX

  chapter sixty-four KANEZAKI

  chapter sixty-five DOX

  chapter sixty-six DELILAH

  chapter sixty-seven EVIE

  chapter sixty-eight MAYA

  chapter sixty-nine LIVIA

  chapter seventy DELILAH

  chapter seventy-one RAIN

  chapter seventy-two RAIN

  chapter seventy-three DIAZ

  chapter seventy-four MANUS

  chapter seventy-five RAIN

  chapter seventy-six RISPEL

  chapter seventy-seven LIVIA

  chapter seventy-eight LARISON

  chapter seventy-nine DELILAH

  chapter eighty MANUS

  chapter eighty-one DOX

  chapter eighty-two RISPEL

  chapter eighty-three DOX

  chapter eighty-four LIVIA

  chapter eighty-five LARISON

  chapter eighty-six DOX

  chapter eighty-seven RAIN

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  About the Author

  The object of power is power.

  —George Orwell

  prologue

  MANUS

  Marvin Manus walked up a steep flight of stairs in Seattle’s Freeway Park, his breath fogging in the damp morning air. He didn’t know why they called it a “park.” There were trees and grass, yes, and a series of artificial waterfalls, too, but the heart of it was sheer blocks of concrete, arranged like a scale model of windowless, doorless buildings, all of it as dull and gray as the autumn sky. It reminded him of the juvenile facility they’d put him in after what he did to his father. Like someone had taken the prison walls and tried to refashion them into art.

  He’d read there had been problems with street crime here, and he could understand why. For one thing, he knew that places like this echoed. So you could hear a potential victim coming from a long way off. There were multiple vantage points from which to assess the victim’s suitability. And with all the mazelike concrete walls, the victim would have nowhere to go other than forward or back.

  He paused and looked around. He could see a good deal of the labyrinth, but still there were numerous blind turns. It really was well designed for criminals, and he was surprised the woman would use it for her runs even in the morning. Maybe she liked all the stairs.

  He pushed the thought away and started climbing again. Beyond what the woman looked like, he didn’t want to know anything about her.

  In his previous life, details about an assignment hadn’t bothered him. He’d believed in Director Anders. He did what the director asked, to whomever the director needed it done. But then the director had wanted him to surveil an NSA specialist named Evelyn Gallagher. Evie. Who had a deaf son, Dash. Manus had met them, as he was supposed to. The director had then told him to do more. And Manus . . . couldn’t.

  At the top of the stairs was a wall where the steps turned left. Amid the smell of damp concrete and mold and moss, Manus caught a whiff of body odor. By reflex, he dropped his hand to the Cold Steel Espada clipped to his front pocket, and moved to the right to create more space between himself and whatever might be beyond the ambit of his vision.

  He reached the landing and glanced left. An old homeless man in a tattered down vest was sitting on a folded blanket, his back to the concrete wall. Had Manus not been at the far right of the stairs, he might have run into the man. It was a bad place to sit—too easy to startle someone coming up the stairs. And there were people in the world who, when startled, reacted badly.

  As Manus moved past, the man said something, but he had a scraggly beard that covered too much of his mouth for Manus to see what he said. Probably asking for loose change. Manus would have given him some, but most people ignored such pleas, and Manus didn’t want to do anything that was likelier to be remembered than to be forgotten or overlooked.

  He kept moving. The sky had gotten darker and he smelled a coming rain.

  At the next landing was another homeless man, this one younger and standing with a shoulder to the wall. The bladed stance could have been tactical, and Manus gave the man more attention than he had the one who’d been sitting. He read the man’s lips—Spare a few bucks?—and shook his head once in response. The man frowned and spoke again: Fuck you anyway. Manus met his eyes. The man looked away and said nothing more.

  Manus was used to the reaction. It wasn’t just his size. When he looked at someone who might be trouble, he didn’t feel anything. If the person didn’t want to be a problem, Manus would keep going. If the person wanted to be a problem, Manus would go to work. Most people, when he looked at them, understood. Usually they preferred the first option.

  He hadn’t felt this way in a long time. Hadn’t looked at people this way in a long time. He didn’t like it. And he didn’t like how easily he had slipped back into it. But what choice did he have? They’d told him if he didn’t do what they wanted, they would tell Dash everything. About what Manus was. About the things he’d done. And even if all that had been before, how would a fourteen-year-old boy understand the difference?

  Evie knew, of course. She’d known a lot even before he told her all of it, on that night he’d come undone by Dash’s trust and Evie’s gentleness. He’d signed good night to Dash, returning the boy’s hug, something that had become natural for Manus after months of it being more one-way, and waited while the boy climbed into the loft the two of them had built together. Evie watched, smiling, then walked to the loft, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed her son good night. She’d followed Manus out, turning off the light and closing the door behind them.

  There was a chair in her small bedroom, and Manus sank into it, staring at the floor, gripped by a sadness he couldn’t name, as though he was grieving about something that hadn’t even happened.

  Evie knelt in front of him and touched his knee. He looked up.

  I love the way you are with him, she’d signed. And the way he is with you.

  At those words, Manus began to cry. He tried to stop himself, but it only got worse. Evie, her expression alarmed, signed What is it?

  You don’t know the things I’ve done.

  Yes, I do.

  No, you don’t.

  And then he’d told her. Told her everything. As though some part of him was trying to warn her, save her, drive her away.

  She’d listened. When he was done, when it had all come out of him, she said, You’re not that person anymore.

  Then who am I?

  You’re the man Dash and I love.

  Which dissolved him into another spasm of sobbing.

  Evie hadn’t said anything more. She stood, turned off the light, and pulled Manus to the bed. Manus hadn’t understood why—they never turned the lights all the way off. They liked to see each other, and besides, without any light they couldn’t sign and he couldn’t read her lips. But then he realized that was the point, they were done with words. Words didn’t matter.

  They made
love in the dark, Evie on her back underneath him, and when it was done, he cried again and she held him. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and afterward never spoke of what he’d told her.

  After that, there was nothing more important to Manus than being worthy of the way Evie trusted him. Wanted him.

  Loved him.

  And Dash even more. Both of them had been deaf from childhood—Dash, from meningitis; Manus, from a beating at the hands of his father. But the feeling between them was more than that. The boy’s father had never learned sign. Even before the divorce, Evie had told Manus, the relationship had been strained. Dash needed a father. And Manus . . .

  He didn’t know what he needed. Not a son, exactly. But someone . . . someone he could teach the good things he knew. The three of them were living together now, in a modern saltbox Manus had built on land they’d bought near Emmitsburg, in Maryland just south of the Pennsylvania border. Evie was done with NSA. The new director had offered her an early pension, the implicit quid pro quo being that she would forget what she knew about his predecessor’s rogue spying and assassination programs, the former of which had built on Evie’s video surveillance and facial recognition work, and the latter of which had involved Manus. And Evie had taken it, both to signal her agreement to their terms and to discourage them from seeking some other means of obtaining her silence.

  Dash had helped build the house—on weekends, holidays, and all during the summer vacation before eighth grade. Manus was proud of how fast Dash had caught on, and how well they’d worked together. And grateful that Evie had entrusted him with making sure Dash knew how to use Manus’s tools safely. Once, when Dash was running a length of plywood through the table saw, Manus had caught Evie looking on, her arms folded across her chest, her expression worried. He had signed, He’s okay. And she had nodded and signed, I know.

  In the end, maybe it didn’t matter what the bond was built on. What mattered was . . . Dash believed in him, in what he wanted to believe about himself. All he knew was that the way Dash looked at him . . . he needed to be what Dash saw.

  So he didn’t have a choice. He would do what they wanted. The problem was, once they learned they could get him to do this, they would make him do other things, too.

  Which meant that taking care of this woman would only buy him time. For what, he wasn’t sure. An opportunity. An opening. Something.