Cajun Justice

by James Patterson

  Mr. Sato grabbed a pack of Marlboros from his desk drawer and lit an imported cigarette.

  “Those things will kill you,” the doctor said.

  Sato took a drag and slowly exhaled the smoke. He looked Cain directly in his eyes and nodded. Cain could practically read his thoughts: The gaijin was better than he had expected.

  Chapter 45

  The following morning, Cain was back at his office. He had been working steadily on improving security for Mr. Sato. At Cain’s request, his team assembled in the break room to debrief the ambush from the previous day.

  “I’ve got good news and bad news,” Cain said. “Which do you want to hear first?”

  “The bad news,” one of the security officers said.

  “Okay,” Cain replied as he scanned the room. “The bad news is—wait! We’re missing a team member. Where is Nakamura-san?”

  Nakamura was one of the guards who had recently been hired. The room was silent. No one on the team said anything. Cain looked at Tanaka. “What’s going on? Where is Nakamura?”

  Tanaka stood and answered with his head hung low. “He has resigned.”

  There was an audible gasp in the cramped room.

  “The attack scared him too much,” Tanaka continued. “He said he is suffering nightmares from it.”

  Cain thought about his own nightmares, about how Nakamura was not alone. “This profession is dangerous. Each of us could lose our lives, and yesterday proved that. But there is honor in courage.” He raised a clenched fist into the air to inspire his team. “Cowards die many times before their death, but the brave taste death only once.”

  The room filled with the sound of his team members clapping in admiration. When they stopped clapping and cheering, Cain asked, “What was I saying?”

  “The good news and the bad news,” Tanaka said.

  “Yes! That’s right. Well, the good news is that even with one member gone, this room is getting more cramped for us to meet in since we’ve increased our manpower.”

  “And the bad news?” Tanaka asked.

  “Yesterday’s coordinated attack on Sato-san was a reminder of the seriousness of our business. Now you can understand that there is a method to the gaijin’s madness.” Cain pointed to his chest. “We didn’t prevent the attack, but we prevented our boss from getting killed. Now is not the time for overconfidence, though. We can’t ease up and let our guard down. Yesterday’s attack could have been much worse. Imagine if there would have been just one more motorcycle with an Uzi-wielding attacker. We might all be pushing up daisies right now.”

  Cain’s audience had a collectively confused look, and one of the guards raised his hand and asked for clarification.

  “Pushing up daisies means we’d be having this meeting in heaven.”

  “In Shinto, there is no heaven,” the security guard said.

  “But there is reincarnation in Buddhism,” Tanaka-san said.

  That started a religious discussion among the guards, who were normally much more reserved.

  “Religion and politics,” Cain muttered under his breath. He tolerated the discussion for a few more seconds, his eyes darting back and forth; he didn’t understand a word the guards were saying. Then he continued, “Team, we’re getting way off topic. The bottom line is that we should expect and be prepared for more attacks.”

  One of the guards stood and bowed before asking his question. “Who is responsible?”

  “For the attack?” Cain asked.

  “Hai.”

  “When the police tell me, I’ll let you know.” Cain was hesitant to express his belief that it was the yakuza. He understood that just muttering the word yakuza scared people throughout Japan. If the security guards felt they were up against the Japanese mafia, he’d have a hard time keeping them on the payroll. A man will throw himself in the line of fire for his country’s supreme leader, Cain knew, but finding people to do it for a businessman was a whole other struggle.

  Tanaka had brought in a copy of the Japan Times, an English-language publication.

  “You’re a hero,” Tanaka announced in front of the group.

  “Only in my mom’s eyes,” Cain replied, trying to diffuse any praise. “Hand me that paper.”

  The front page showed a picture of Cain, with bloodstained hands, with Mr. Sato in the back of the tattered Nissan President. The headline, in one-inch bold print, read THE GAIJIN!

  “Seriously?” Cain said. “We saved his life, but that picture looks like I’m about to kill Sato-san.” He began to read the story underneath the headline: “Exiled American Secret Service paid to protect Sato…” Cain rested his forehead in the palm of his hand. I knew the scandal had made international news, he thought, but damn! It’s like getting sprayed by a skunk: you just can’t escape the stink.

  The guards laughed, to Cain’s relief. Hopefully I can keep them motivated and working as a team. “Of course they would have to print that picture, and not the one of me helping get broken glass out of Umiko’s hair,” he said, and shook his head with embarrassment. “My sister already called me this morning to rub it in. She said I looked like a wild animal, and that I perfectly embodied the gaijin stereotype. I tried to explain to her that the blood was from providing lifesaving first aid to Sato-san.”

  “The media loves it,” said Aito, a friend of Tanaka’s who’d recently joined the security team. “This will be their best-selling paper of the year. Right, Tanaka-san?”

  “Yes,” Tanaka replied. “Bonnie-san is right. It makes the gaijin look like a real barbarian. I am happy to tell my friends I work for an American cowboy.”

  “Yes!” Aito agreed, and laughed.

  “The good news,” Tanaka said, “is that I don’t think we have to worry about any more attacks on Sato-san. With your picture, everyone will surely be too scared to attack now.”

  “Thanks, guys,” Cain said. “But we can’t drop our guard. We have to stay vigilant. There is a high possibility of more attacks. A lot of people lost money, and people will do crazy things for money.”

  Cain was getting more comfortable with his team members every day, but he still didn’t know enough about them to completely trust them. There just wasn’t enough time to properly vet the security detail, especially since he had hired additional bodies at the last minute. Secret Service background checks for an agent took a year; investigators would go all the way back and interview an applicant’s kindergarten teacher.

  A female receptionist announced over the company-wide PA system, “Cain-san, you have a telephone call on line number two.”

  Who would be calling me at work? Cain thought. Bonnie would just call my cell phone.

  Chapter 46

  He walked to his office and picked up the phone. “This is Cain Lemaire speaking.”

  “I’m sorry, but I asked to speak to the gaijin.” The male voice on the line had a distinctive Southern accent.

  Cain smiled as he recognized the voice from what seemed like another lifetime. “This couldn’t be the wet-behind-the-ears pup from Saint Augustine, Florida, who used to yelp in my David Clarks all those years ago, could it?”

  “Holy shit! Hurricane, it is you!” Hurricane was Cain’s navy call sign, but nobody had used that in years.

  “SFB Alvarez. I can’t believe it,” Cain said.

  “That’s Chief Alvarez to you, buddy.”

  “Jesus Christ! The navy will promote anyone nowadays. They must have short memories,” he teased his former flight engineer.

  “Obviously someone has a memory like an elephant.” The chief laughed.

  “How could I forget that?” Cain asked incredulously. “You almost got us court-martialed.”

  Naval aviators rarely got nicknames for things they did well; they were usually given when a service member screwed up. Alvarez was no different. SFB stood for “shit for brains.” It had come from a time when Alvarez’s dyslexia had caused him to transpose two grid digits on a map, causing him to mistakenly drop ordinance too clos
e to an American submarine during a training exercise. Cain had recognized the error immediately and radioed the sub’s captain to take emergency evasive maneuvers. After the disaster was narrowly avoided, the submarine’s captain screamed furiously over the radio, “I want the name of that shit-for-brains son of a bitch who tried to sink my sub!” And so “shit for brains” was shortened to “SFB,” and Alvarez had his new call sign.

  “Chief, huh? Since when?”

  “Yes, sir! Navy diagnosed me with sleep apnea. They booted me out of flying on P-3s. Got my promotion working on F-14 engines aboard the USS George Washington.”

  “Well, congratulations are certainly in order.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “How in the hell did you find me?”

  “It’s a crazy story. You see, the USS Washington is docked in Yokosuka, Japan. I was riding the train to base this morning and saw a bunch of people reading the Japan Times. This ugly, bloodied-up man was on the front page, and he looked real familiar to me. He looked a lot older so I couldn’t be sure, though.”

  “Oh, God.” Cain sighed. “I know where this is heading.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Chief Alvarez said, chuckling. “I’ve already been telling everybody on board the ship that I used to fly with that gaijin who’s all over the news.”

  “Talking with you brings back some great memories.” Cain smiled.

  “For me, too, Hurricane. Thousands of hours over the oceans looking for commie subs.”

  “Look, how about we get together for a drink this weekend and catch up? I’m at work right now and I gotta get back to it. You can imagine how intense things are at the moment.”

  “Why don’t you come down to Yokosuka and I’ll show you the base? If you’re up for it, we can even take one of the sailboats out and cruise Tokyo Bay.”

  “As long as you don’t read me poetry and try to hold my hand,” Cain joked.

  Chief Alvarez laughed. “I’m still trying to find true love”—he paused before disclosing the punch line—“at the bottom of a bottle.”

  Cain chuckled. “Then I’ll bring an ice chest full of true love for you.”

  “Don’t bring anything! I will take care of everything. If my shipmates found out that my old pilot—”

  “Jeez,” Cain said. “Easy on the old jokes. This old man can still whip your ass!”

  “That’s probably still true.” The chief laughed. “I can’t wait to smoke a stogie with you and talk about old times.”

  “And that’s how sea stories are made up,” Cain said.

  “And you’ve got a lot of ’em,” Chief Alvarez said before they hung up.

  Chapter 47

  Cain thoroughly enjoyed his Sunday getaway with Chief Alvarez in the fishing village of Yokosuka. The navy base felt like a slice of small-town USA. They had a hearty brunch at the officers’ club before renting El Viento, a sailboat from the recreation department. Far away from the US embargo against Cuba, they smoked Cohiba cigars on board the eighteen-foot boat as they sailed around Tokyo Bay and caught up on each other’s lives.

  “It’s nice to have someone I can really trust out here,” Cain said.

  “We go way back, Hurricane. I’ll never forget you bailing my butt out in El Salvador. You saved my navy career.”

  Cain nodded as he puffed on his cigar. “I appreciate that you recognize that I stuck my neck out for you. I did a similar thing for a guy I worked with at the Secret Service, but he didn’t give a damn.”

  “He sounds like a piece of shit.”

  “He’s back in DC, and I’m over here. I’m not complaining, though. I’m starting to piece my life back together.”

  “Like I said, I’ll never forget what you did for me. I’ll always have your six.”

  Cain nodded. “Hooyah.”

  When he arrived at work on Monday morning, Cain was reenergized but sunburned. It was six thirty and he thought he’d be the first one in the office, but Tanaka was already at his desk going through personnel folders, looking for potential threats, and reading through the reports the guards had generated over the weekend.

  “Good morning, Cain-san.”

  “Right back at you,” Cain said. “You’re here bright and early.”

  “Yes. I wanted to get a head start, as you might say.”

  Cain smiled. “I appreciate your work ethic. It would be difficult for me to get this job done without you.”

  Tanaka stood and bowed. “Arigato gozaimasu.”

  “So, what did you do this weekend?” Cain asked.

  “Aito-san and I went near Tokyo to fly our RC planes.”

  “Very nice! I’d like to join you guys one weekend. I need help getting better at flying those things.”

  “Yes, that would be very fun. Maybe we can build you a navy plane.”

  “Make it a fast one, like an F-14 Tomcat.” Cain smiled.

  Tanaka gave him two thumbs-ups.

  Cain headed to his desk to drop off his backpack.

  “Before you settle in, I wanted you to know we received another death threat letter addressed to Sato-san. I translated it for you.”

  Before Cain could respond, Umiko appeared in the doorway. She softly knocked, even though they both saw her.

  “Hi, Umiko,” Cain said with a smile.

  “Good morning, Cain-san. How was your Sunday?”

  “Great. Got out yesterday and saw some of Japan.”

  “What did you think about what you saw?”

  “I’m loving this place more every day.”

  Tanaka said something in Japanese, which prompted her to giggle and converse back and forth with him.

  “Um, okay, guys. You know it’s rude to talk about me in Japanese while I’m standing right here.” Cain smiled.

  “I have the solution,” Umiko said.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Tanaka-san should teach you Japanese.”

  “Well, I’m going to need a lot of help,” Cain said. “Maybe I’ll need two teachers.” He held up two fingers and then pointed to both Tanaka and Umiko.

  Umiko blushed and changed the subject. “Sato-san has asked for you, Tanaka-san, and Morita-san to come to his office. He would like to thank you for protecting him last week.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of him, and I appreciate it. But I was just doing my job. His appreciation and support are thanks enough.”

  “Japanese business, just like kendo, is very ceremonial,” Umiko explained. “And I also would like for you to be there. You saved my life, too.”

  “Those thugs wouldn’t have had a chance against you if they were brave enough to meet you in the dojo,” Cain said.

  “Especially if I had a katana instead of a shinai,” Umiko said.

  “I agree,” Cain said as he nodded. “Okay. You’ve convinced me. Plus, I have a gift for both Sato-san and Morita-san. Tanaka and I will be honored to go.”

  “The honor is ours. I will escort you to Sato-san’s office.”

  “Merci,” Cain said.

  “It’s time for you to start practicing your Japanese,” Umiko playfully suggested.

  “Arigato,” Cain said, and bowed.

  Umiko clapped. “Very good. Soon you will speak perfect Japanese.”

  “Especially with a sensei like you.” Cain smiled. “You see what I did there? I’m already piecing together Japanese words.”

  Tanaka cracked open his briefcase and pulled out a tie. He tossed it around his neck and started tying it.

  “Is it a black-tie affair?” Cain asked. He pointed to his boots. “Had I known, I would have worn my gators instead of my cowhides.”

  They walked across the parking lot and Cain noticed a brand-new 2012 Nissan Fuga.

  “Is this our new car for Sato-san?”

  “Hai,” Umiko said. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s gorgeous. Is it armored?”

  “Hai,” Umiko replied. “And it has three hundred and twenty-nine horsepower. Morita-san will be able to go even faster no
w.”

  Cain laughed out loud. “If he goes any faster, his passengers will have to clean their seats when they get out.”

  Umiko looked confused.

  “Bad joke, I guess.” Cain smiled and followed Umiko into the building.

  Mr. Sato’s bandage was gone and replaced by a tan Band-Aid. “Your neck has healed very well,” Cain said.

  “Yes, it has. Thank you again.”

  “I’m sorry about your briefcase.” Cain presented Mr. Sato with a new leather briefcase. “I bought this for you yesterday while I was at the navy base. It’s American made. I thought you’d like it.”

  Sato inspected it. “It’s fantastic. Thank you.”

  Cain then turned to Morita-san. “I also picked these up for you at the base.”

  Morita-san smiled as he saw his gift, a pair of black fingerless motorcycle gloves.

  “No more white gloves for you,” Cain said, and winked. “These are more your style.”

  Morita-san smiled wide but looked a little embarrassed by all the attention.

  “Let us begin,” Sato said, and presided over the celebration in his massive office.

  “I am alive today because of the actions of Morita-san, Tanaka-san, Umiko-san, and Cain-san. The company would like to present each of you with a certificate to demonstrate its appreciation for your courage and dedication to duty.” Mr. Sato presented each employee with an elaborate twenty-by-fifteen-inch frame, each of which contained a thick-bonded certificate written in Japanese calligraphy. Sato then turned to Tanaka.

  “Tanaka-san, you have shown great wisdom in helping Cain-san. If it were not for your expertise in showing him our protocols and procedures here in Japan, I would not be alive today. The future of this company would be in great peril without strong leadership. As a token of my personal appreciation, I am giving you and Cain-san my table for a night at Hakugei.”

  “Arigato gozaimashita,” Tanaka said several times, bowing a full ninety degrees not once but twice. Tanaka then walked backward, which prompted Cain to follow his lead.