The Honorable Traitors

by John Lutz

  “We gotta make sure,” Styron said. “Strip her. Tie her to the bench and—”

  “I am sure. Shut up,” Mishima said, and Styron did.

  Mishima bent over Ava again, gently cradled her head, and wound the gag around it. He said to her, “You would have died like a samurai committing hara-kiri. Ritual self-disembowelment. Suffering to show your loyalty. A glorious death. I’m sorry I must deny it to you. But I will give you a fitting death. You will go with us to the city. You will be blasted and burned to nothing along with millions of your countrymen.”

  He straightened and turned to Styron. Waved him to the table across the room. Styron sat down, still grumbling. “There’s no goddam reason why we have to explode the bomb tomorrow except you say it’s got to be August 6.”

  “There will be no change of plans, which means that we’ll leave in a few hours. And I want to get a little sleep first, so—”

  “Sleep! Are you joking?”

  “It’s probably too late for you to learn self-control, Styron,” Mishima said dryly. “But I value your expertise. What do you have to tell me?”

  “You’ll recall from my book that Little Boy, the Hiroshima bomb, was a gun-type fission weapon. A crude design. Fat Man, the Nagasaki bomb, was an implosion type with a plutonium core, the same as Gadget, the bomb tested at Trinity. It was a better design. Bobby Soxer will be the same.”

  Styron bent to pick up a large, heavy box from the floor and heaved it onto the table. “Which means that we can set it off the same way they set off Gadget.”

  Mishima opened the box and looked in. He saw loop on loop of black insulated cable. “What is it?

  “I had a hell of a time getting hold of this thing. Had to find a seller who would take cash and not demand ID. It’s an exploding bridgewire detonator. We connect each lead to a high-explosive column. They go off simultaneously, which compresses the plutonium core and sets off the chain reaction. To make them do that we supply them with a terrific jolt of electricity from a large and powerful battery.”

  “Just as Oppenheimer’s men did at Trinity?”

  “Yes. With one difference. They sent the detonation signal to the battery by throwing the switch in their bunker a mile away from the blast site. It traveled over a long cable. Not feasible for us. So we’ll have to use a clock timer.”

  Mishima frowned. “Complicated.”

  “This is a fucking nuclear bomb, pal. You can’t light the fuse and walk away.”

  “How long does the timer run?”

  “Five hours.”

  “We’re going to leave it for five hours? No. Far too long.”

  “Barely long enough. We have to get off Governors Island. Then we have to get off Brooklyn, which in case you didn’t know, is also on an island. I want to be on the mainland when all hell breaks loose. So I can walk back here if I have to.”

  “We can’t leave the bomb undefended for that long.”

  “Nobody’s gonna find it. This is non-negotiable, Mishima. I’m the only one who knows how to rig the bomb to detonate, and that’s the way I’m doing it.”

  “Then I must accept.”

  Mishima bowed his head. Westerners liked it when a Japanese did that, he’d noticed. But he was thinking that tomorrow, when the bomb would be under their hands, would be a different story. He’d bend Styron to his will. There’d be no five-hour wait.

  50

  The dawn of August 6 came to Manhattan in the usual way, the sun rising from the Atlantic, lighting first the spires of the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the other skyscrapers so that they glittered against the blue sky. At street level, darkness lingered on a little longer.

  An NYPD patrol car driving along near-empty Twelfth Avenue slowed and pulled to the curb. On one of the benches facing the Hudson River, a homeless man was lying asleep. The driver’s side door opened and a middle-aged cop, his light-blue uniform shirt bulging over his gut, slowly climbed out. You could tell rousting homeless people wasn’t his favorite duty. But the guy on the bench raised his head and saw the cop coming. He made a placating wave and rose stiffly from the bench to limp away. The cop went back to his car.

  Head down and shoulders hunched, Laker walked on. He wore a greasy Yankees cap and had a tattered blanket draped over his shoulders. He’d found them in dumpsters. Joggers and dog walkers passed him. Nobody glanced twice at the homeless guy.

  He’d seen, on televisions in hotel lobbies and store windows and coffee shops, surveillance video from the Whitney, showing himself and Mishima. The Latina guard was dead. Witnesses were confused about who’d hit her, the man with a gun or the other one. Both should be considered dangerous. The search for them was ongoing.

  Laker wondered if Mason knew what had happened. Probably. But there was nothing he could do. It was now too late even to consider evacuating the city, or launching a search for the bomb. Mason would continue to rely on Laker.

  Who had staked it all on his hunch that Mishima would pay a visit to the oleander painting. And he had. The plan had worked flawlessly, except that at the crucial moment Laker had failed. Mishima had beaten him again.

  The battery of his cell phone had gone dead. Last time he’d been able to check, there’d been no message from Ava. He’d heard nothing from her since they’d parted in Washington two days ago. She might have nothing to report. Might still be mad at him.

  Lucky Laker, she’d said. Arrogant Laker.

  No question the second description was accurate. He’d proven it. But how about the first?

  When you have nothing else, press your luck. It was Laker’s old rule. He’d followed it at Pearl Harbor, when his search for Tillie’s past hit a dead end, and he wandered the base until he stumbled on the historian’s office. Now he turned away from the river and headed east into the city on West 28th Street. He discarded the blanket but kept the cap. He walked slowly toward the rising sun, head up, eyes open for a clue, an idea, anything.

  Old row houses gave way to tall office buildings as he neared midtown. Cars and pedestrians multiplied and the noise level ratcheted up steadily as the city woke up and went to work. He passed a line of small palm trees in pots. Soon he was following other pedestrians single-file down a narrow aisle between green banks of shrubs and trees. Merchants sat on folding chairs on the sidewalk outside their stores, keeping an eye on their potted zinnias and marigolds. So many that they attracted a rare Manhattan butterfly. Some of the merchants were negotiating with the florists whose vans were parked on the street. He’d wandered into New York’s wholesale flower market.

  Laker paused before a sort of frozen fireworks display, dozens of yellow starbursts of gladioli. He frowned. An idea was fluttering around him, just out of reach. Like the butterfly. He shut his eyes to the colors, closed his ears to the noise. Waited for it to settle.

  Suppose it wasn’t just Koruda’s painting that fascinated Mishima? Suppose he was obsessed with the flower itself—the oleander, symbol of Hiroshima’s death and rebirth?

  Laker pulled out his phone, remembering only then that it had lost its charge. He tossed it in a trash can. He dug in his other pockets as he walked along. Thank God you could still find pay phones on the streets of midtown. He had some quarters. He would turn to his credit card when they ran out. There were lots of florists in Manhattan.

  * * *

  Ava had begun the long journey shivering, before dawn in Vermont. At the end of it, she was stifling in the heat of the car’s almost airless trunk. Mishima had redone her bonds, gagging her, tying her wrists and ankles before they started. He hadn’t bothered to remove the surgical boot, just tied the cords over it. She’d hoped she could get her foot free, but hours of wriggling hadn’t worked. Flexing her wrists, trying to stretch the cords, she’d managed only to flay her skin till it bled.

  She assumed they were at the end of the journey. The car had been motionless for a long time, its engine off. She could smell salty air, hear seagulls crying. There were noises of machinery. But the o
nly voices she heard were Styron’s and Mishima’s. The trunk lid lifted. Blinking in the light, she looked up at Mishima. “Sorry for your discomfort,” he said. The angular face was grave. He wasn’t mocking her. “The final stage of the journey will be more pleasant.”

  Grasping her by the shoulders he hauled her into a sitting position. Then, without any sign of strain, he lifted her bodily out of the trunk and draped her over his shoulder. She struggled to lift her head and look around. There was no one near. She saw cranes and warehouses and the detritus of an industrial waterfront. She recognized it. He was carrying her down a pier in Erie Basin, Brooklyn. He bent at the knee to set her down on her feet. Styron was waiting to help manhandle her aboard a boat, an open twenty-foot vessel that smelled of well-oiled machinery. Its engine was idling. Styron and Mishima were dressed as workmen: boots, yellow vests, hard hats.

  They laid her down on a bench and Mishima threw a loop of rope over her, deftly tying her down. The bench was vibrating as the engine idled. Craning her neck, she saw a jackhammer, tool kits, a battery smelling sharply of acid, a lot of other equipment she didn’t recognize.

  Mishima cast off lines as Styron stepped into a small open pilothouse and put his hands on the wheel. The bench shook under her as the engine’s thrumming got noisier. They were under way. Lifting her head as much as the ropes allowed, Ava saw that they were heading north, toward the skyscrapers of Manhattan.

  * * *

  When he entered the suite atop the hotel, the first thing Laker saw was the large basket of purple oleander. He’d expected it. The seventeenth florist he’d called had said that he had a standing order for a delivery every day to Mr. T. Esaki at the Hotel Katabano. Today’s had already gone out.

  Ms. Sato, the assistant manager, followed Laker in and closed the door, pocketing her passkey. He’d taken the chance of presenting his NSA creds at the desk, and the staff had cooperated. They were a bit concerned about Mr. Esaki, who hadn’t been seen since lunchtime the day before.

  Laker prowled the rooms of the suite, unsure what he was looking for. It was simply but luxuriously furnished. The big windows commanded views of the midtown skyline. It was very neat. Mr. Esaki, described as a portly, middle-aged man who spoke poor English, had left few traces.

  In the bathroom, an expensive briefcase stood on the floor. Laker placed it on the counter and opened it. Ms. Sato, looking over his shoulder, took in her breath in surprise: sunglasses and spectacles with various types of frames, wisps of false mustache and beard, full wigs.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Mr. Esaki is an electronics executive, not an actor.”

  Laker picked up a small plastic case and opened it. In little wells of storage solution floated dark contact lenses. That wiped away the last traces of doubt. Mr. Esaki was Akiro Mishima.

  He went into the dining room, where Mishima seemed to have set up an office, with a laptop on the table, a notepad, a couple of manila envelopes. The top page of the notepad was blank. He canted it toward the light, but there were no indentations of writing from the page above. He checked the wastebasket. It had been emptied. He opened the envelope and slid out the Praeger 5-Boro Atlas of New York City. Riffled through it, but found no marks or notes.

  That left the laptop. He booted it up. Opened the browser and went to the history. The latest website visited was a city government URL. He clicked on it. The page was headed:

  CITY OF NEW YORK

  Department of Citywide Services

  Construction Permits Office

  Laker memorized the room number and address.

  “Do you have any idea where Esaki-san has gone?” asked the concerned Ms. Sato.

  “Maybe,” Laker said.

  * * *

  Ava lay in the darkness of a large metal trunk, head bent and legs doubled up. It was being rolled on a dolly. She could hear the squeaky wheels. That was the only sound. Mishima and Styron weren’t talking. The silence gave way to distant music and laughter. She knew that she was on Governors Island. Styron had been steering the boat toward a pier when Mishima opened the trunk, heaved out long, heavy loops of black insulated cable, and manhandled her into it.

  The merry sounds ceased abruptly. She thought they’d wheeled her into a building and closed the door. The box was lifted; she heard the men grunting as they carried it a short distance and set it down. For a while she listened to footfalls, to heavy objects being dropped near her. The men were talking now, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

  Catches snicked open and the lid lifted. Mishima bent and lifted her up and out of the box. His long, chiseled face, normally so severe, was softened by an expression of quiet joy. Her limbs straightened, tingling as the blood rushed back into them. She looked around at a dim, windowless room. A basement, probably. She couldn’t tell how large it was. There was a cinder-block wall in front of her. On the floor sat the generator, jackhammer, and other equipment the men had brought.

  Styron approached the wall with hammer and chisel. He began to make a gouge in it at waist level.

  Mishima propped her against a support beam. He unbound her wrists. Ava tried to fight, to push him back, but he was too strong. He pulled her arms behind her and tied her wrists on the other side of the girder. He came back to stand in front of her and removed her gag. “Scream if you wish. No one can hear you.”

  She didn’t doubt him.

  He stepped back, dropping the gag on the floor. “We are in the basement of a warehouse in the Fort Jay complex,” he said. “For you, the last place on earth.”

  Styron picked up a rope and tossed one end over one of the girders that supported the low ceiling. He fashioned a crude noose. “We’re gonna make a hell of a racket.”

  “That’s all right. We are entirely legal.” Mishima turned back to Ava. “The warehouse is being transformed into an arts complex. As your mighty, peace-loving nation continues to beat its swords into ploughshares.” He had been taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, as he spoke. Unfolding it he gave it to Styron. “Our permit. Post it on the door. And one of these.” He handed over a big, brightly colored poster that said, CONSTRUCTION ZONE DO NOT ENTER.

  Styron didn’t obey at once. She’d noticed that he bridled whenever Mishima gave him an order. “You sure we’re in the right place?”

  Mishima picked his way through the equipment to the wall. “Old floor plans show a room beyond this one. In recent ones it disappears. Because Captain Bart Lester, working through his connections in the U.S. First Army, made sure of a hiding place where the bomb would be kept safe.” He placed his palm on the cinder blocks, turned to grin at Ava. “It’s been a long hunt for you and me, cousin. Now only this wall separates us from our goal.”

  She twisted her head to the right as far as it would go. She could see Styron climbing a short flight of concrete steps. Mishima threw the switch of the generator and it began to whir and chug. Work lights aimed at the wall came on, and in their backwash she could see Styron opening a metal door at the top of the stairs.

  Mishima had put on ear protectors and goggles. He went down on one knee and used both arms to heft the jackhammer. He inserted it through the noose, which he then tightened so that the jackhammer was horizontal. Carefully, he guided the beveled, sharp-pointed tip into the gouge Styron had made in the wall. Mishima pressed the switch and the howling, slamming din began.

  * * *

  The Department of Citywide Services was halfway up the Manhattan Municipal Building. That was enough height to give Laker a fine view to look at as he paced. This was the office whose website Mishima had been looking at, and Laker was waiting for the staff to find the clerk Mishima had dealt with when he came in two days before. The Verrazano Narrows Bridge was faint and spindly in the distance, Staten Island a gray-brown blur. Orange ferries crawled like beetles across the blue waters of the harbor, passing between the Statue of Liberty and Governors Island.

  He turned back to the room. A formidable bureaucratic barrier of dark
oak and wrought iron separated the public from its servants. It had a row of eight windows, of which seven had lines in front of them. The end window was empty. Laker was about to resume pacing when a clerk appeared at the window and beckoned him. The clerk was a stocky African American man with glasses, white shirt and tie, and dreadlocks. He smiled at Laker. “Hey man, they said you wanted to see the guy who waited on Mr. Esaki?”

  Laker nodded. Mishima would have applied for the permit sometime before Laker surprised him at the Whitney, when he was feeling free and clear. Laker’d guessed he had used the same identity documents as at his hotel.

  The clerk’s fingers were flying over a computer keyboard. “I’ll bring him up in a sec. They said you’re from the NSA?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. So what did this Esaki guy do?”

  Laker sighed. Every once in a while, in New York, you came across somebody who wasn’t in a hurry, and it was always at the worst possible time. He said, “He’s just a person of interest. You found him yet?”

  With deliberation, the clerk adjusted his glasses and scanned the screen. “Here we go. Tadamichi Esaki, vice president of the Hadeo Children’s Theatre Foundation. We had to rush that one through. He wanted to begin work the day after tomorrow—today, I mean.”

  “Where?”

  “That permit was a real pain, you know?”

  “Okay, but where’s the work being done?”

  “All Mr. Esaki wanted to do was knock down one non-load-bearing wall. He had the required floor plans, engineers’ reports and permissions, and supposedly the whole island has been given to the city, but since it used to be federal property—”

  Laker put up one hand, palm up. “Tell me right now. Where?”

  The clerk looked miffed, but answered promptly. “Storage Facility B, basement, Fort Jay, Governors Island.”

  * * *

  The jackhammer hung in its noose, silent. Its work was done. The men were now battering a jagged hole in the wall with sledgehammers. At the moment, Styron was leaning on his hammer, resting. Mishima kept swinging away. His bare forearms were slick with sweat and his shirt was soaked through. He was panting. Ava sensed that his calm, triumphant mood had changed. So close to the goal, his nerves were getting to him.