The Honorable Traitors

by John Lutz

  Rafella straightened her hunched shoulders. Took a deep breath. “What you said before—you’re right. I’m glad the wait to be caught is over. The future can’t be worse than the past for me.”

  Ava didn’t say anything. She hoped that was true but doubted it. She said, “I’ll tell Mason you’ve been cooperative. I have one more question. Where is Styron?”

  Rafella smiled bitterly. “Mishima was never interested in Styron. That was a ploy, to put me in his power.”

  “It was. But he really did want to find Styron. Do you remember the address?”

  “It’s not an address. You go north from the village of Hamilton, Vermont, on Route HH. Go eleven miles and there’s a road on your right. It doesn’t have a name, and after a while it’s hardly even a road. But when you come to a house, it’s Styron’s.”

  “Thank you.” Ava rose. It was the signal the two men had been waiting for. They came into the shop and stood on either side of Rafella’s chair. She rose shakily. The man on her right took her elbow and led her away. The other paused to ask, “You coming, Ms. North?”

  “Not just now.”

  She opened her purse and took out bills to pay her check. She’d promised Laker that she would do nothing that might alarm Mishima. Which meant that she’d have to go see Gerald Styron herself.

  48

  Midway through the second day of his vigil at the Whitney, Laker had developed a pattern that he repeated with only slight variations.

  He walked to the window and gazed out at the Hudson River and the skyscrapers on the New Jersey side. Then he crossed to a sculpture that looked like a ten-foot-tall blue saxophone. Next he strolled into the adjoining room and circled a twice-life-size figure of a smiling towheaded boy, made of some kind of shiny plastic. Across from it was a pile of television monitors reaching to the ceiling, where he lingered for another few minutes. Finally he headed back to his starting point, passing a low platform in the middle of the room, on which stood a cluster of man-sized wooden blocks sprouting loops of cable. To himself he called them the gas pumps.

  From the corner of his eye, he was able to see Kuroda’s Oleander the whole time. But walking slowly and pausing among other visitors who were doing the same thing, he was inconspicuous. Mishima wouldn’t notice him.

  If Mishima ever showed up.

  Laker dismissed the thought. He’d made the plan and Mason’d okayed it. Second thoughts were useless and, worse, distracting. They led to memories of Ava’s criticisms yesterday morning, and speculations about where she was now. Pointless. He had to concentrate. Appraise each person who approached the Kuroda. Any one of them might be Mishima.

  Standing at the window, Laker watched without turning his head as the latest candidate slowly crossed the room toward the huge purple canvas. It was a kid, a Midwestern tourist trying to look like a downtown aesthete, in gaudy sneakers, tight black jeans, a T-shirt that bared tattooed arms, a dumb little porkpie hat atop a pile of blond hair.

  Only the hooded blue eyes gave Akiro Mishima away.

  The moment he was sure, Laker stopped looking at him. Mishima was preternaturally alert. He would feel a gaze directed at him for too long. Laker slowly turned away. His fingers were vibrating with the urge to draw the Beretta from its holster and shoot.

  But there were people moving between them, more people behind Mishima. Laker would have to get closer. He strolled in the opposite direction from Mishima, pretending to look at paintings. Continued until he was between the room’s entrance and Mishima. Only then did he turn and begin his approach.

  Back to him, Mishima was slowly approaching the Kuroda painting. He seemed fascinated by it, almost in a trance of concentration, but even so Laker didn’t risk staring at him. He looked past him to the giant oleander, taking only an occasional glance at the figure in the porkpie hat to gauge distance. He was closing in. He had no intention of trying to take Mishima alive. The man was a master of unarmed combat. Laker couldn’t risk his getting away. As soon as he was close enough he’d draw the Beretta and put a bullet in the back of Mishima’s head. Two more paces. His right hand slipped beneath his jacket.

  “Oh hi there, you’re back again.”

  The Latina guard from yesterday was passing him with a smile. At the sound of the voice so close behind him, Mishima looked over his shoulder. Recognizing Laker, he was paralyzed with disbelief. In half a second he’d recover. No time to draw and level the Beretta. Laker lunged.

  They hit the floor with Laker on top. But Mishima used his momentum against him, grabbed his shirt, and kept on rolling. Coming up on top he clouted Laker with his forearm, a clumsy but powerful blow that allowed him to tear himself free from Laker’s grip. In an instant he was on his feet and moving.

  Propping himself up on an elbow, Laker saw the Latina guard, standing in the way of the hurtling figure, spreading her arms to stop him. Laker started to shout a warning to her. Too late. Mishima’s right arm shot out and up, his fist catching her under the chin. The force of the blow lifted her off her feet.

  Laker scrambled upright. The gas pumps were in Mishima’s path and he barreled straight through them, knocking them over like bowling pins. Laker followed. He was dimly aware of the chaos in the room, people staring at him or Mishima, crying out, backing away or crouching. Passing the guard he glanced down. She was lying still, her head turned at an unnatural angle.

  Mishima was exiting the next room as he entered it. He was sprinting down the corridor. A few more strides and he’d vanish down the stairs. Laker had to risk a shot. He stopped, drew the Beretta, and fired.

  The nine-millimeter slug blew the chubby plastic cheek off the sculpture of the smiling boy. Twenty paces beyond it, Mishima was reaching the stairs. By the time Laker leveled his weapon again, Mishima was descending them, only the top half of his body visible. Too small a target. Laker went after him. People were screaming, dropping to the floor, shrinking back against the walls of the corridor. As he passed, Laker noticed that some of them had their phones out. Calling 911 to report an active shooter in the Whitney. The police response would be swift and massive.

  And the shooter they’d describe would be Laker.

  He reached the stairs and ran down them. Couldn’t see Mishima. Stopping to take that shot had cost him distance. At the bottom of the steps he was in the crowded entrance lobby. People in line at the ticket counter were looking around with anxious expressions. They’d heard the tumult from the floor above and didn’t know what was going on. Laker caught sight of Mishima as he pushed open one of the glass doors and ran out into the street.

  Laker followed. Under the hot afternoon sun the sidewalks were uncrowded. He saw Mishima on the left, running toward the intersection. A blue-and-white police car with roof lights flashing plunged to a halt in front of him. Mishima stopped, pivoted, ran to a stairway that led up from the sidewalk. By the time Laker reached it, the two uniforms were out of their car, drawing their pistols.

  “Stop! Drop the weapon!” the nearer one yelled at him.

  “Federal agent!” Laker yelled back as he mounted the steps. He didn’t think that would do him much good. Hoped they’d at least hesitate before shooting him in the back.

  Scrambling to the top of the steps he found himself on the High Line. The elevated railroad converted to a long skinny park was crowded as usual on a summer afternoon. Laker tucked his pistol into the front of his pants and pulled his jacket over it. He plunged into the crowd, bending his knees a little and lowering his head to minimize his height. Hoped the cops behind him would not be able to spot him among the people strolling, taking pictures of the river views, examining the flowers planted in the old rail tracks, buying souvenirs or drinks from vendors.

  Somewhere ahead of him, Mishima, too, would be blending into the crowd. Laker scanned the sea of bobbing heads, hoping to spot a porkpie hat atop a haystack of blond hair. But by now Mishima would’ve discarded the hat and wig. Improvised some other disguise.

  Sirens were screaming all ar
ound him. He edged closer to the railing and looked down into the street. More police cars were going by, light-bars rippling. Some of them would be heading for the next stairway to the High Line. They’d box him in. Laker couldn’t allow them to catch him. They’d take him to an interrogation room. They wouldn’t believe his story until they checked out his ID and talked to Sam Mason. And then? A federal-state-city clusterfuck. Useless attempts to locate the bomb, to catch Mishima. Arguments. Leaks. Public panic.

  The only chance was for him to stay free.

  Laker wove his way through the strolling crowd, keeping his head down. He had to get off the High Line. He couldn’t jump, the drop to the street was too long. So the only way out was up. Tall apartment buildings crowded in close to the High Line. He scanned their flanks of glass, steel, and concrete. Finally saw what he was looking for.

  A row of balconies ran up the building on his left. The lowest one was in reach. Barely. He dodged and wove through the crowd toward it. Hopped up on the railing. Crouched and sprang.

  Each hand caught one of the metal uprights that held up the balcony’s railing. He was stretched out full length, feet dangling. Something hit his right foot. It was the Beretta, which had slipped out of his waistband. He looked down as it fell to the street thirty feet below. Behind him people were shouting. Somebody bellowed, “Police!” and he knew guns were pointing at his back. He could only hope they’d hesitate a little longer.

  Hand over hand he climbed the vertical bars. As soon as his toes reached the concrete slab of the balcony he threw himself forward over the railing. No shots yet.

  He got his feet under him and raised his head.

  The balcony wasn’t empty. A young woman in a bikini was sitting up in a lawn chair, pressing a towel to her chest and staring at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  Laker raised a calming hand. “All I want is to get out of here.”

  She pointed through the sliding glass doors. He ran into the apartment, spotted the front door. On a coat tree beside it hung a rain jacket. He grabbed it as he unlocked the door and went out to a corridor. There were elevators but he didn’t bother with them. Pushed through a door to the stairs and hurtled down three flights. As he crossed the lobby he pulled on the jacket. It was much too small, but at least it had a hood. He pulled it over his head and went out to the sidewalk.

  He turned in the opposite direction from the High Line and walked away, not too fast. People would be at its railing looking down. He waited for shouts but didn’t hear them. When he came to an intersection he rounded the corner of a building and rested his back against the wall, taking deep breaths. He’d gotten away.

  But so had Akiro Mishima.

  49

  It was dark by the time Mishima reached Gerald Styron’s house in Vermont. He took the final turn in the hilly road and emerged from the woods. The motion detectors picked up his car and the floodlights went on.

  After Styron’s book had been exposed as a fraud and his university fired him, he’d responded with a final broadside against a corrupt and doomed society, and turned his back on it. In Mishima’s estimation, Styron had never been anything but a crackpot, and his disgrace had pushed him over the edge. But he was a brilliant physicist, and his technical knowledge of early nuclear devices was solid.

  The house was a boxy concrete bunker. Its few windows were high off the ground and heavily reinforced. Coils of barbed wire and cemented-in fragments of broken glass guarded its roofline. Solar panels surrounded the observation platform where Styron was standing with his rifle in hand. Knowing Styron wouldn’t recognize his rental, Mishima tapped the pre-arranged signal, three shorts and two longs on his horn.

  He parked near the garden patch—all vegetables, no flowers—and approached the house. He could hear the generator that supplied Styron’s electricity grinding away. They were miles from the road and the nearest house. Styron appeared in the doorway, without his rifle, wearing one of the ugly denim jumpsuits he had adopted when he became a hermit. He was a skinny, bald man with a gray beard. His habitual scowl was even more unwelcoming than the rifle.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Mishima said.

  Styron folded his arms and looked down on Mishima. He was tall enough to look down on most people and enjoyed doing so. “The radio was talking about a ruckus at the Whitney. You?”

  “An unexpected run-in with Thomas Laker. What did the news say? Have they arrested him? Identified him?”

  “Neither. He’s still at large.”

  “It doesn’t matter. He’s a spent force. We can disregard him.”

  Styron chuckled. Only one topic amused Styron, as far as Mishima knew, and that was human folly. Preferably the folly of the person he was talking to. This annoyed Mishima, as did the way Styron was standing in his narrow doorway, blocking Mishima’s entrance. “Maybe you’re a little too cocky, pal,” Styron said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Our plan—meaning your plan—has a little hitch.”

  “No. There’s no hitch. Laker did not raise the alarm. He wanted me to walk into his trap. He staked everything on his ability to defeat me, one-on-one. And he failed. He has nothing left now.”

  Styron’s contemptuous look hadn’t changed. He said, “I have someone I want you to meet.”

  He turned and led Mishima into the dim, sparsely furnished interior. A figure was lying on the banquette against the wall. Styron turned on a light, and Mishima saw that it was Ava North. Her wrists and ankles were bound with duct tape. The dark red hair was loose and disordered. The gag that covered the lower part of her face was bloodstained. Above it, her left cheek was bruised and swollen. But her dark eyes gazed steadily at Mishima.

  “She showed up this afternoon,” Styron said. “Of course my motion detectors picked her up and my cameras showed me who she was. So I got ready. Put the Sig Sauer in my pocket and went out to work in the garden. When she questioned me I played dumb. Said I had no knowledge or interest in events in Washington or New York, not since the bastards took my professorship away. My tenured professorship, which they couldn’t have done if America still believed in academic freedom or any of its other supposedly cherished ideals—”

  “Stick to the point, Styron.”

  “So I just leaned on my hoe and let her ask questions.”

  “How did she get here?”

  Styron’s smile broadened. Mishima realized that his voice had betrayed how shaken he was to see Ava North here. “How do you think, pal? She found your source in Washington. Rafella Söhn. Turned her.”

  “No,” said Mishima.

  “Everything Rafella knew, she got out of her. How you used my book to approach and recruit her. How she located me for you. And Ava North figured out some things Rafella never did. Like why you need me. To arm the bomb. I would’ve shit my pants and told her everything, if I was the kind of guy who panics. Fortunately for you I’m not. I waited for my moment and hit her with the hoe. By the time she recovered she was looking down the barrel of my Sig.”

  “Ungag her.”

  Despite his scornful manner, Styron obeyed when Mishima gave an order. He cradled Ava’s head and unwound the gag. Ava said nothing. Just gazed steadily, coldly, at Mishima.

  He approached to stand over her. “It was you I was really up against,” he said. “All the way back to Hawaii, I’ve sensed your mind working against me. Laker was easier to defeat than you.”

  “You underestimate Laker,” she said. “He isn’t done yet.”

  Beside Mishima, Styron gulped. Under his beard, his throat was scrawny. Mishima could see his Adam’ s apple go up and down. For all his bragging of a moment ago, he was scared of the helpless woman lying on the banquette. His nerves were going to be a problem, Mishima realized. But for the moment he wasn’t interested in Styron. He bent over Ava.

  “What are you thinking, cousin?” he asked.

  “I’m wondering, how did it feel, murdering your grandmother? Was it any different from all the other people you’
ve killed?”

  “No. It’s hardly my fault that we never got to know each other.”

  “She had to abandon your mother. She had no choice—”

  “Not even when the spymasters asked her to turn whore? Try to get a man to betray his country? What a joke on the Americans, that he’d been a traitor to Japan all along.”

  “That’s how you came to be. The joke is on you.”

  Mishima flinched. “No! I chose my identity. I am Japanese. And I chose my mission. Revenge.”

  “You won’t complete it. Laker is waiting for you in the city.”

  “What’s he going to do?” Styron said. Mishima could hear the quaver in his voice. “What else does he know?”

  Ava was silent.

  Styron stalked across the little room, past his small stove and dining table, to the workbench in the corner. He did all repairs himself, so it was well-equipped. Drills, saws, screwdrivers, pliers hung from the wall in glittering array. Vises were clamped to the bench. “Get the truth out of her!” Styron shouted. “You know how to do it.”

  “She’s bluffing. Laker’s no threat to us.”

  Styron returned to Mishima, facing him squarely. “I’m not going to walk into a trap! We get everything she knows out of her before we head for the city.”

  “Back off, Styron.”

  He fell back a step. “Find out what she knows. Or I’m not going. And what are you gonna do without me?”

  “You’re reacting just the way she wants you to.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “She’s a temptress. Like her grandmother. Only much braver. She’s inviting us to torture her.” He bent over Ava, ran the tip of his finger over her forehead and down her nose. She didn’t flinch.

  He straightened up and spoke to Styron. “She’s been trained by the NSA. She will stall us and trick us. Give us scenarios so plausible we’ll have to check them out. It took hours to get the truth out of Theo Orton. It’ll take days to get it out of her. And the truth is that she knows nothing. Laker knows nothing.”