The Honorable Traitors

by John Lutz

  The first thing to change was his posture. He straightened up, and he wasn’t “little” anymore, but rather tall for a Japanese. As they talked and drank, he dropped the toothy smile, took off the glasses. The hooded eyes, black and lustrous as jet, fixed on hers. She could hardly look away from them. In fact she hardly seemed to have a will of her own. Once they were naked, he told her what he was going to do to her and what he expected in return. She accepted and obeyed. Even though some were things she’d never done before. Others were things she’d never heard of.

  She went over in her mind what had gone on last night in this bed. And on the desk. And when she was bent over the chair. At first the memories made her queasy. But as the sensations came back to her, her body gradually relaxed. Between her legs there was warmth and wetness. She sat up and threw the sheet off. She was naked. Tadeo’s awful sports coat and other clothes lay on the floor. He’d be naked, too.

  She got up, walked past the desk swept clean in their acrobatics of last night, the overturned chair. Well, they hadn’t done it in the shower yet.

  The bathroom door was ajar. She slowly pushed it open.

  Tadeo was standing at the sink, his back to her. She ran her eye over the lean, muscular legs, the mounds of the buttocks, paler than the rest of him—one of many things she’d learned last night was that Japanese got suntanned—the smooth back tapering outward from waist to shoulders. In the mirror she saw his face come up as he realized she was there.

  His eyes were piercing blue. Not black like last night. And something about them made her stomach squeeze up tight with fear.

  A line from the opera came back to her, somebody questioning whether Sorrow was really Pinkerton’s, and Butterfly’s maid defending her, saying, “Whoever heard of a Japanese boy with blue eyes?”

  It was Annette’s last thought

  * * *

  The Shapeshifter whirled. His left hand caught the side of the girl’s head, slammed it into the doorframe. She dropped without a sound. He knelt over her, fingers going around her throat, and carefully pressed both thumbs into the suprasternal notch, crushing the windpipe. In less than a minute she was dead.

  He got to his feet and backed away, breathing hard. One of his tinted contact lenses was lying on the floor. He licked his forefinger and picked it up, returned it to its case. The other lens wasn’t there. He dropped to hands and knees and crawled around the bathroom, searching for it. He hated unplanned killings. In the first minutes afterward there was so much to do, and any mistake or omission could be disastrous. Minor mishaps wasted time and, worse, clouded the mental clarity that was absolutely vital.

  He’d been about to reinsert the contacts. Another minute or two, and he wouldn’t have had to kill her.

  He sat up on his haunches and shut his eyes. Regret. The most pointless and disruptive of emotions. He was going to have to take the time to work his way through it, or it would continue to sap his concentration and energy.

  Last night had been self-indulgent from the start, doomed to end badly from the moment he decided to attend the opera. Madama Butterfly always amused him, the way the Italian composer portrayed the Japanese as delicate, weak, pathetic. It amused him even more to attend as a Japanese tourist, one of the horde who wandered around Washington, getting in people’s way as they snapped endless pictures of each other in front of the monuments.

  Then the final, unforgivable self-indulgence. Spotting the weeping but undeniably pretty girl and choosing to bed her. He deserved a night of relaxation and pleasure. This might be his last chance.

  But the impulse was his own. Inconsistent with the character he was playing. And the girl had noticed the change in him, once they returned to the room. She wasn’t as stupid as he’d thought. He sensed her wariness. Alcohol and desire overcame it. But even if she hadn’t seen his eyes, it would have been unpardonably careless to allow her to go on living, remembering this night, becoming more suspicious. Conceivably, even going to the authorities.

  The Shapeshifter methodically chased from his head both self-reproaches and self-justifications. Breathed deeply and evenly. When he opened his eyes, his mind was clear again. He’d refocused on his mission. And considering what it was, to brood about the death of a single American was absurd.

  He found the missing contact lens behind the toilet, put it in the case. No need to reinsert them now. Going into the bedroom, he put on his clothes, retrieved his Nikon from the night table, his opera program from the trash can, his handkerchief from the girl’s purse. He wiped clean any surfaces capable of yielding clear fingerprints.

  Then he hesitated. What about DNA? He and the girl had used condoms for conventional sex, but the police would find his semen in her other orifices. And he’d probably left hairs in the bed, traces of saliva in the bathroom—trying to clean it all up would be a hopeless task. It didn’t matter. His DNA was not on record anywhere.

  It was not necessary to look at the naked body sprawled on the bathroom floor again. But he did pause at the door of the room, reflecting that most of the hours he’d spent here had been very pleasant. He thought of Lt. Pinkerton, leaving Madame Butterfly’s house. Addio, fiorito asil.

  He shut the door and hung the “do not disturb” sign on the knob.

  It was early and there was no one to see him in the corridor or elevator. By the time he stepped into the lobby he had sunglasses and cap on. He crossed the lobby unhurriedly, nodding to the bellboy who was the only person who seemed to notice him, and stepped out into the warm sunshine of Constitution Avenue.

  There were cars on the street but few pedestrians on the sidewalks. The Shapeshifter walked on. Once he got far enough away from the hotel, he’d toss the loud sport coat into a trash can.

  His cell phone chirped. He looked at the screen and frowned. Raising the phone to his ear, he said, “Never call me from your own phone. Buy a cheap one at a grocery store. Use cash. Then call me.”

  He was about to press the off button, but she said, “Don’t hang up. I won’t call you back.”

  “You know the procedures. Follow them.”

  “I can’t be bothered.”

  “Someone in your position cannot afford laziness.”

  “Oh, God. Spare me the words of wisdom. They’re going to catch me. It’s only a matter of time.”

  The Shapeshifter considered. Her insolence was intolerable. But what if he hung up and she really didn’t call him back? Then he would have to take the additional risk of going to see her. Because he wanted to hear what she had to say. Her information had been excellent so far.

  Spotting a bench in the shade of a building, he sat down. “What makes you think they suspect you?”

  “They questioned me yesterday. A team from internal security.”

  “But they’re questioning everybody, you said.”

  “Not for as long as they talked to me. I don’t really care anymore.”

  He made his tone more gentle. “Don’t talk like that. We know the sacrifices you’re making. We appreciate your help.”

  “We. I’m not even going to ask who you really work for. It’d just be another lie. You’ve been lying to me from the start, pulled me in so deep there’s no way out.”

  “Make your report,” he snapped.

  “There’s talk of Laker being back.”

  “Talk? How credible, in your estimation?”

  “Not very. It’s coming from low-level personnel whose information is second- or third-hand. Morale is low in the Gray Outfit, what with the attack on headquarters and the internal security teams grilling everybody. Laker’s the homerun hitter. Everybody wants him to step up to the plate.”

  “Why was this rumor worth reporting to me?”

  “Because if it’s true, and he’s back in Washington, there’s only one possible reason. He’s found out something urgent and important.”

  “What would he do, in that case?”

  “Report direct to Samuel Mason.”

  “Is Mason in any shape for such
a meeting?”

  “He hasn’t been back to the office. But I don’t think you hurt him as much as you think you did.”

  More insolence. “It was unnecessary to say that.”

  “Just keeping you informed,” she said bitterly, and broke the connection.

  The Shapeshifter lingered on the shady bench, reviewing the conversation. Her hostility to him was familiar. She’d been that way since his attack on the Outfit’s headquarters. But the note of despair, of fatalism, was new. If she didn’t care about being caught, then she should be. Should he eliminate her before it happened?

  No, he decided. However she felt, she was still reporting to him. All that mattered now was to find out if Laker was back. And whether he’d made some important discovery.

  32

  Sam Mason, who used to be bald except for a gray fringe around the sides and back of his head, was now completely bald. His left eyebrow was shaved, too. A patch covered the eye. Pink, puckered surgical scars crisscrossed his forehead and right cheek. The staples looked painful. But he was listening with his usual concentration as Ava recounted to him what Tillie North had written in her encoded statement.

  “Hold it, Ava,” he said. “I can believe Tillie accepted the list of Ryo’s agents from him at the internment camp. Emotions of the moment and so forth. But once she was back in Washington, she just sat on it? Didn’t tell a soul?”

  Ava, who was meeting Mason for the first time, gave Laker an exasperated look. He could’ve told her that when Mason slowed down a debrief, asking innumerable questions, it was a sign he was taking the matter seriously.

  “Must we plod?” She burst out, leaning across the table toward Mason. “We’ve been talking for an hour, and we’re still back in the 1940s. Things are happening now. Decisions have to be made now. Will you let me skip to the bottom line?”

  Mason shook his head. “The decisions I make have to be the right ones. Go on.”

  “Do you want to read Tillie’s statement yourself? Maybe you’ll find it more convincing than my account.”

  “You’re doing fine. Just answer my question.”

  * * *

  They had arrived at Mason’s house in McLean, Virginia, shortly after dawn. His nurse held them at the door, refusing access, until the man himself appeared, knotting his flannel bathrobe, saying that he couldn’t sleep anyway. He led them down the basement steps. The best place for a secret discussion was an underground room with no windows.

  The room had a battered couch before a big television screen, a small beer refrigerator, and a poker table. Obviously it had been Mason’s man cave. But the Pirelli girlie calendar on the wall was five years old. He hadn’t used the room much since his daughters got married and his wife died.

  They sat down at the poker table after Mason turned on the overhead light that illuminated its green baize surface. Laker noticed that there were little silos of plastic chips inset in the table in front of him—red, white, and blue. He wondered if coffee was going to be brought down to them. At the Outfit, Mason banned coffee from meetings. He said it made people too comfortable, meetings too long. But the rules might be different at home.

  They weren’t. An hour had passed and no coffee had appeared.

  Resignedly, Ava answered Mason’s question.

  “Yes, I believe she just sat on the list. She thought she was out of the world of big events and powerful men. She’d had enough of it. In 1942 she was a young single girl working as a secretary like thousands of others in Washington. Doing her bit for the war effort and keeping her broken heart to herself.”

  “That changed the next year,” Mason said. “She met Ephraim North, brilliant army officer, moving up fast.”

  “In 1943, Ryo’s network didn’t seem to matter. The tide of war was turning in our favor. The Russians were helping us do it. American grandmothers were knitting socks for the Ivans at the front. People called Stalin Uncle Joe.”

  Mason turned to Laker. “You said Berilov told you Ryo’s net was neglected, his agents scattered.”

  “I didn’t believe him.” Laker tapped Ava’s decoding of Millie’s statement with his forefinger. “And this confirms it. The net went off the books. It wasn’t being run out of KGB headquarters anymore. It was being run from the Kremlin. Maybe even from Stalin’s office. Ryo was replaced. The agents were kept ready. And in the closing days of the war, they went operational.”

  * * *

  Rush hour hadn’t ended yet on the Fourteenth Street Bridge across the Potomac. Cars choked the lanes bound for Washington. But the Shapeshifter, heading for Virginia at the wheel of an inconspicuous rental car, was moving at the speed limit.

  It had taken him only a few phone calls, and a few elementary subterfuges, to establish that Samuel Mason was no longer in the hospital, and that he was not recovering at his retreat on the Chesapeake shore. He was at his house in McLean. The slackness of the enemy agency disgusted the Shapeshifter. Had they already forgotten he’d penetrated their headquarters?

  Laker’s the homerun hitter. People want to see him step up to the plate.

  The words of his source at the Outfit kept coming back to him, nettling him. He’d stood face-to-face with Laker and traded blows with him. Beaten him. Laker’d dropped helpless at his feet and only the arrival of the police had saved his life.

  Reaching the Virginia bank of the river, the Shapeshifter eased his grip on the steering wheel, shrugged the tension from his shoulders. Always respect the opponent, he reminded himself. To underestimate him is to give him an unearned advantage.

  The Shapeshifter had read the journal many times. It hadn’t told him what he needed to know. But Laker must have found something out, the Shapeshifter’s source had said. He, or the woman, Ava North. They were a step ahead of the Shapeshifter.

  A situation that would have to change.

  33

  “I don’t think we need waste time reviewing the world situation in 1945—” Ava was saying.

  “Give me the key points, as Tillie saw them,” Mason said.

  Ava’s cheeks were burning with impatience. “Fine. We plod on. July 1945. The Potsdam Conference. Churchill, Truman, and Stalin met. Germany was beaten and the Grand Alliance was falling apart. Stalin was grabbing up countries in Eastern Europe. Didn’t care to be reminded of past promises. Truman was frustrated. Then, July 16, he got the news from Los Alamos. The Trinity test was a success. The A-bomb worked. Some of the scientists were slapping each other on the back and guzzling champagne. Oppenheimer was muttering, ‘I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.’”

  “Truman’s reaction was on the backslapping, champagne-guzzling side,” Laker said.

  “He’s just been given the biggest saber of all time, and he rattles it a bit.” Ava said. “Hints to Uncle Joe that the U.S. has a new and terrible weapon.”

  Mason said, “To Truman’s surprise, Stalin blew him off. But there was a reason he wasn’t curious. He’d been following the progress at Los Alamos for months, thanks to Klaus Fuchs, his spy there.”

  “You do know all this,” Ava said.

  “Keep plodding.”

  “At Potsdam Stalin played dumb. Didn’t acknowledge that Truman’s hint was a veiled threat. Because his land-grabbing ambitions weren’t limited to Eastern Europe. Now Japan was almost beaten, he wanted to be in at the kill, grab up the spoils. Soon as he got back to Moscow, he ordered a declaration of war against Japan and sent his troops into Manchuria. Truman was apoplectic.”

  Laker took over. “The day after Trinity, the casing and the works of Little Boy left Los Alamos in an army truck convoy. They went to Hunter’s Point Navy Base near San Francisco. The uranium-235, the trigger that set off the nuclear chain reaction, arrived from Hanford, Washington. The casing and works were in two big wooden crates, the uranium in a small lead container. The crates went into the hold of the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis. The lead container was bolted to the floor of the flag lieutenant’s cabin. On July 26, the ship arrived at Tinian Island,
our forward airbase. Physicists had flown in from Los Alamos and were waiting to assemble it.”

  “Then Little Boy went on board the Enola Gay, which dropped it on Hiroshima August 6,” said Mason. “Fat Man followed the same route to Los Alamos and Hunter’s Point, arriving Tinian August 5, and was dropped on Nagasaki August 9. On August 15, Japan surrendered. Which was a good thing, because two bombs were all we had ready.”

  Ava said, “No.”

  There was no change in Mason’s slumped posture. “I guess this is where we leave the history books behind,” he said dryly.

  “There was a third bomb. Bobby Soxer.”

  “That name sounds familiar,” Mason said. He glanced at Laker. “It was in your report of Tillie’s death.”

  “Yes,” Laker said. “On the way to the Chevy Chase house, Tillie was quizzing us about World War II code names. We got Torch and Overlord. But she stumped us with Bobby Soxer.”

  Mason looked at Ava. “Your grandmother had a strange sense of humor.”

  “We’ll never know what was going through her mind then,” Ava said, meeting Mason’s eye. “She knew her death was near. It was going to be a relief to her.”

  “Tell me about Bobby Soxer,” Mason said.

  “It followed the same route as the previous bombs,” Laker continued. “At Hunter’s Point, the crates and the lead box were loaded aboard the cruiser U.S.S. Tulsa. It reached Tinian August 10, to be used August 17 if the Japanese didn’t surrender. But when the crates were opened by the physicists, there was nothing in them but scrap metal. No plutonium in the lead container, either.”

  Mason sat up straight. His one visible eye was blinking rapidly.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “So it was true.”

  “What was true?”