Conspiracy

by Allan Topol

  He strapped on his shoulder holster with the Berretta and put on his jacket. Three different passports, car keys, and money were in his pockets. He looked around quickly to make sure there was nothing else he needed, and nothing left that would give away his identity.

  If he moved fast, he would have the element of surprise on his side. Approaching the door of the motel room, he pulled the car keys out of his pocket. He envisioned the scene outside in his mind. Metal staircase ten yards to the right along the balcony. His gray Mercedes twenty yards across the parking lot, facing forward toward the room.

  As he opened the door, he hit the panic button on his key ring to flush out and distract the cops. The car alarm in the Mercedes began blasting its shrill warning, and both drivers jumped out of their cars and ran with guns in hand. One ran toward the Mercedes, the other toward him.

  Terasawa made it to the second step of the metal staircase before the cop reached the bottom. He raised his gun to confront Terasawa. "FBI. Stop right there. Drop the gun. Hands in the air," the man shouted, his gun pointed up at the assassin.

  Terasawa had no intention of complying. He fired his own gun, winging the agent in the shoulder. The man's gun fell to the ground and skidded across the oil-stained asphalt.

  By then the other one had run behind the Mercedes. He dropped to one knee and took aim. Terasawa raced down the rest of the stairs and ducked behind a car, which deflected two shots. He knew that he didn't have much time before the other two agents came racing back from the motel lobby. He hit the button on the keypad that started the Mercedes engine by remote control. Then he began running toward the car, weaving in the parking lot, dodging shots and firing as he ran. His first shot narrowly missed the agent's head. His second one hit the man in his exposed knee. He screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground.

  The Mercedes was idling when Terasawa grabbed the door handle. Before he jumped in, he fired one shot each at the two FBI cars, flattening the tires.

  As he slammed the car door, the other two agents came running around the corner of the motel building with their guns in their hands. The time it took them to survey the scene was all that Terasawa needed to roar out of the parking lot and into the flow of traffic.

  Running after him, they tried to take aim at the Mercedes. But New York Avenue was a main artery with lots of traffic and pedestrians—too many people to risk a shot as Terasawa moved in and out of lanes.

  Behind the wheel, he considered his options. They must have recorded the number on his license plate. The car was hot. He had to get rid of it. Two blocks from a Metro station, he ditched the Mercedes, then took the Metro north and east to New Carrollton, next to the Amtrak train station. It was a short walk to the parking lot used by train passengers. Hoping that the owner of the car he picked wouldn't be back to report his car missing until Terasawa was through with it, he easily opened the door of a beige Toyota Camry and hot-wired it. The driver had obligingly left a parking ticket on the front seat.

  Terasawa breathed a sigh of relief. He had to make a change in his plans, but only a slight change. No longer could he wait at Cady's house. That was too risky. But there was nothing wrong with sitting on the street in the car, a few doors away. And, of course, that wasn't the only way he could get Taylor. He still had one other possibility, but that depended on her and where she went today.

  * * *

  "I'm sorry, we blew it," a distraught John Frazier said to Cady on the phone.

  "What happened?" Cady asked anxiously.

  Frazier gave him a complete report. "I'm kicking myself for being in the motel office along with George. If only I had been in the parking lot at the time. Now I've got two agents in the hospital."

  "How serious?"

  "After surgery they should be okay, but I'm angry with myself."

  Cady tried to conceal his disappointment. "You'll get him soon."

  "We've got an all-points bulletin out for the man."

  "Is there any chance you can put a man in front of my house?"

  "You think he'll go there?"

  "He was there this morning."

  Eavesdropping, Taylor pulled back in fear.

  "I'll get a man in front ASAP," Frazier said. "How about your office?"

  "I've got the security of the U.S. Courthouse. We'll be okay here."

  "And when you leave?"

  "I'm in the garage. I'll make sure I'm not followed."

  "I don't know, C.J. If I were you—"

  "Your resources are limited. Use them finding this Terasawa. I've got a gun myself. We'll be okay."

  He hung up the phone and turned back to Taylor. "Since we can't interrogate Terasawa, we're back to the issue of how we uncover additional facts on the issue of whether it's McDermott or Harrison."

  "It's not Harrison," she insisted.

  When Cady didn't respond, she said, "I'll go see Philip and talk to him. It's time to refute McDermott's nonsense once and for all."

  "Don't you think we should both go?" Cady asked.

  She raised her hand. "Please, C.J., this has to be me alone."

  He didn't agree, but he backed down.

  "Let me call and make sure he's in," she said, pulling out her cell phone.

  "Don't forget about the police order for your arrest on the Mississippi warrant. You might want to meet him outside of the office."

  When there was no answer on Harrison's line at the office, the call rolled over to the receptionist.

  Taylor tried to disguise her voice in case all firm personnel had been given orders to notify the police if they heard from her. "Is Mr. Harrison in today?"

  "Out of town on business," was the polite answer.

  "And his secretary?"

  "On sick leave. Who is this, please?"

  She hung up and dialed Harrison's home. "It's Taylor," she told Celia, his wife.

  "Oh, how are you?" Celia replied in a relaxed, friendly voice. She and Taylor had always gotten along well together.

  Taylor breathed a large sigh of relief. At least the Mississippi business hadn't reached Celia, but then again, not much from the law Firm ever did.

  "Is Philip in?" asked Taylor, holding her breath.

  "He's in Japan on business."

  Taylor was blown away. "Japan?"

  "He's been over there a few days on this trip."

  Taylor was even more confused. To her knowledge, the only Japanese project Harrison was working on now was the one for Fujimura. In fact, all of his work for Japanese clients came through her and Fujimura.

  "When's he coming back?" Taylor asked.

  Celia laughed. "I don't even bother to ask that question anymore when he leaves on a business trip. The answer is always, 'When the negotiations are over.' You want me to give him a message if he calls?"

  Taylor suddenly had an idea. "No message, but do you have your calendar around for last August?"

  "Sure. I'll get it."

  After a couple of minutes, Celia returned to the phone.

  "Take a look at August twenty-eighth," Taylor said. She heard papers crinkling. "Do you know whether Philip was in town?"

  "Definitely away. I wrote 'Philip out of town. Dinner with Mary Ann at Cosmos Club.'"

  "Do you happen to know where he was on August twenty-eighth?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Taylor knew the answer.

  Celia laughed again. "I can't possibly keep track of him. He's always going so many places. He tells me, but I never bother to write it down."

  "Did he happen to mention Argentina?"

  "I honestly don't remember."

  * * *

  Cady went to the men's room.

  Sitting alone in his office, Taylor was reeling from everything she had heard today. It couldn't be. Philip couldn't have done this to her.

  When Cady returned, he looked at her with great tenderness. He felt sorry for the enormous pain she was feeling. Still, he had to bring her back to reality. "What Celia said is consistent with what McDermott told us."

&n
bsp; "There has to be another explanation," she said without any of the vehemence she had displayed in Hall's office.

  "How well do you know Philip Harrison?"

  She felt as if she had been smashed in the stomach with a sledgehammer. "Until now, I thought very well."

  He shook his head grimly. "A picture that was grainy is now becoming very sharp."

  "It can't be right."

  "What's he doing in Japan?" Cady had meant it as a rhetorical question. Taylor still wasn't willing to believe Harrison was involved.

  "If it weren't for all of this, I would have assumed that one of his American clients is negotiating an agreement with a Japanese company or obtaining financing from a Japanese bank. Now I can't even guess."

  Cady pulled up a chair close to Taylor and sat down. "I really do think that Harrison's working with Sato. He's the American Alex Glass was trying to discover when they killed him."

  Taylor refused to believe it. "Harrison's not working for anybody in this mess."

  Cady didn't want to be too hard on her. Over and over again he had seen situations in which people didn't want to face what friends or loved ones had done. Yet he had to help her see it. "I'll bet Harrison spent enough time with you in the last couple of weeks to know what moves Senator Boyd was making in his campaign before he made them. That would have let Harrison plan this thing perfectly."

  She shot a scathing look at Cady. "I can't believe that." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Taylor felt like a fool. Cady had to be right. She had kept Harrison informed. He had been interested. She had wanted his advice. It had seemed natural.

  God, she was stubborn, he thought. And loyal to a fault. He decided to take another approach. "If Harrison was involved with Sato, then he might have some documents in his office in the law firm that confirm it."

  "And how do you propose to get access to his office? You couldn't possibly get a judge to issue a search warrant with what we now have."

  "You're right. But you could easily get into his office. You're a partner in the firm."

  Taylor stared at him, wide-eyed. "You want me to break in and search Philip's office?"

  "That puts it bluntly, but that's the idea. If he's involved, I bet he has got some incriminating documents stashed away. With attorney-client privilege and work-product rules, we lawyers never imagine anyone will get access to our own files. Besides, Harrison may have wanted to keep some papers to protect himself if Sato ever decided to let him take the fall alone."

  "I don't want to search Philip's office," she said emphatically.

  "Why not? If you don't find anything, that should give you a powerful argument that he's innocent."

  "The answer's no. No."

  "Afraid of what you'll find?"

  Cady had hit the nail on the head. She couldn't accept the conclusion that Harrison had betrayed her.

  "All right, I'll do it," she said reluctantly. "But we'll have to wait until about ten this evening, when the place is pretty much deserted. I don't want anyone seeing me there."

  Chapter 26

  With the gun on the flat panel next to the gear shift, Cady roared out of the underground parking garage in the U.S. Courthouse. He cut a sharp right, looking in the rearview mirror. He headed down one avenue and up another in random directions for five minutes until he was convinced he wasn't being followed. Then he proceeded to the law firm, parking on the street in front of the building in case he and Taylor had to make a quick getaway.

  In the lobby of the building, Bruce, the regular evening guard, sat at a desk close to the elevators.

  "Evening, Bruce," Taylor said, taking the security key from her purse that operated the elevators after normal business hours.

  Bruce stood up at his desk and looked awkwardly at her. "Sorry, Miss Ferrari. I can't allow you to go up in the elevator."

  Taylor was flabbergasted. "What did you say?"

  "I-I'm sorry," he stammered, "but you can't go up."

  "I'm a partner in this law firm. Have you forgotten that?"

  "No, Miss Ferrari, but I have orders not to let you go up."

  "Orders?" she shouted. "Who told you that?"

  "Mr. Harrison himself called me about an hour ago. He gave very strict instructions. He said that you were a fugitive from a Mississippi warrant. That I shouldn't let you up in the elevator. That if I saw you, I should call the D.C. police. He gave me a special number at police headquarters."

  Taylor was too stunned to respond, but not Cady. He whipped his wallet out of his pocket and flashed his Department of Justice ID in front of Bruce so fast that Bruce never had a chance to see his name. Then he took the .38 from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Bruce.

  "Now, listen up," Cady barked. "I'm with the FBI, here on an official government investigation. I've asked Miss Ferrari to go up to her office and get me some papers. If you don't let her go up in that elevator right now, I intend to haul your sorry ass to jail for obstruction of justice. Do you know what that is?"

  Bruce shook his head weakly from side to side.

  "It means that you go to jail for not letting the FBI do its job. Mr. Harrison doesn't go to jail. You do. You got that?"

  Cady gripped the gun in one hand and reached for the phone with the other. "Now, do I call headquarters at the FBI to have you arrested, or do you let her go up?"

  Bruce pointed to the elevator.

  As Taylor disappeared from Cady's sight, he said to Bruce, "Don't make any effort to reach for the phone." Cady moved to a position halfway between Bruce's desk and the glass front doors of the building. He wanted to keep an eye on both his car and Bruce.

  Having worked closely with Harrison for so many years, Taylor knew a great deal about his personal habits. He never kept the door to his office locked. His most confidential papers were in two locked drawers at the bottom of one of the built-in bookcases that lined a side wall. Most important, the key to those drawers was inside a silver cup resting on the bookcase, which had been his prize for being on the winning team of a Newport-to-Bermuda sailing race three years ago. Once when she was alone in his office waiting for Harrison to return from a meeting, she had watched his secretary take that key, unlock the drawer, and retrieve a file that Harrison needed.

  Not wanting to draw the attention of anyone who might be working late, she walked softly down the dimly lit corridor lined with Oriental carpets. At the entrance to Harrison's office, she turned on the lights, took a deep breath, then went inside. Her chest was pounding as she crossed the carpet toward the silver cup.

  Quickly she opened the top of the two drawers. Inside were half a dozen red file folders, all neatly tied and arranged in a row. One by one she took them out and leafed through the papers inside. They all contained documents relating to the law firm's business. She put them back carefully and opened the bottom drawer, where she found two more red file jackets.

  The first one contained documents related to a top-secret hostile corporate takeover being planned by a large French conglomerate, one of Harrison's major clients, for a Fortune Fifty American corporate manufacturer. She tied up that file and returned it to the drawer.

  From the tension of what she was doing, her hands were moist with perspiration. The last folder had an S on the front. She carried it over to Harrison's desk, opened it, and began leafing through the papers inside. Japanese writing caught her eye. She felt more bewilderment. It was inconceivable that Harrison could be doing work for a Japanese client without involving her, unless...

  She was fighting hard against what was now the likely conclusion. She went back to the beginning of the file and examined the documents one by one.

  On top, Taylor saw a draft speech in Japanese dated October 2 of this year, and a typed English translation below it. It was a speech for Yahiro Sato to deliver at the Japan Defense Agency the day after the American presidential inauguration in January.

  Taylor began reading the draft:

  The banner that led Japan into the modern era was "Rich C
ountry, Strong Army," [fukoku kyohei], and these two have always been linked together throughout history. A strong military is absolutely essential for Japan's survival in the modern world. This thinking was expressed by Fukuzawa Yukichi at the end of the nineteenth century, when he wrote, "There is no single example of a nation maintaining its independence by relying on treaties and international law."

  Today, our nation's economic development has stagnated because of our limited landmass. We have a population that is approximately half of the United States', but the total land of all of our islands is equal in size only to California, and very little of that is arable. To expand our economy we must reach out to our neighbors in Asia. This is critical if we are to expand our markets and obtain less expensive raw materials. In addition, if our neighbors compete unfairly with us in world markets, they must be persuaded to change their behavior. Finally, we must be sensitive to the threat that we are facing as the Chinese economy expands, and they continue to develop more sophisticated weapons.

  All of these factors taken together have led me to suggest a major program for development of an expanded military, which is necessary for Japan's defense and to assure its proper role in the world.

  The draft then outlined the first steps of the program for militarization, which would begin early next year:

  (1) January 30, Sato, as defense minister as well as prime minister, publicly announces that all U.S. troops must leave Japan within 30 days.

  (2) February 15, repeal Article IX of the Japanese constitution, which General Douglas MacArthur forced on Japan, contrary to the sovereign rights of every other nation of the world. It provides, "aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation.... Land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."