by Mark Gilleo
Gary Raven shrugged his shoulders unconcerned with the possibility of a threat looming outside. “Sure you don’t want to spar? This is my Friday noon class. Open mat. Only black belts. I have a few students who may give you a run for your money.”
Dan looked around the dojo and inhaled deeply. The smell gave him peace. It transported him to other places, to past friends. There was something about the permeation of sweat in the mats. A hundred dojos in twenty countries with the exact same scent. It became part of the makeup of the dojo, the experience. It was absorbed into the walls, sucked into the heavy bags hanging in the corner.
Dan spoke. “I’m here on business. I need a car.”
“That’s a first.”
“And probably a last.”
“What are you looking for?”
“Something special.”
“Five minutes with my new third-degree black belt and you can have anything you want.”
“Are you blackmailing me, Sensei?”
“Offering my assistance.”
Dan thought for a moment. He looked down at his attire. He was still wearing his CVS cargo pants and t-shirt ensemble. His old shoes were blackened. He couldn’t say a quick spar would ruin his outfit. He casually rubbed the back of his head and felt the pronounced knot. He made a quick mental note to keep his skull off the mat.
“Five minutes or until someone taps out,” Dan relented.
“This kid is a tornado and you aren’t getting any younger.”
“He’ll be done in less than one. Then I want my car.”
“We’ll see.”
“What’s his specialty?”
“Everything,” Gary Raven said, smiling broadly. The teacher walked across the mat to the group of young men practicing various routines on each other.
Dan removed his shoes and bowed on the mat. He performed a few standing stretches, touched his toes, and tilted his neck from left to right.
The half-dozen students in the dojo lined up along the far wall, sitting on their knees under hooks on the wall that supported various weapons ranging from knives to wooden swords. Dan’s competition stepped on the mat and bowed in Dan’s direction. Dan returned the formality and then began his assessment.
A third-degree black belt, likely in his early twenties. A fairly high rank for someone so young, meaning he has to have some natural talent. The young man with the buzz cut did a roll on the mat as part warm-up and part intimidation. He’s wearing a double-weave jacket, which means he likes to grapple. He has on karate pants, allowing more room for kicks. The student did a flying axe kick and then rolled to the center of the mat. Nice form. But it won’t help you.
Gary Raven stepped to the center of the mat. “Five minutes. It is over when either person taps out, or when I decide I have seen enough.”
Both Dan and the young student bowed at the teacher and then again at each other. The teacher stepped away and the two men began circling each other.
The student made the first move and came in low for Dan’s knees in a lightning-fast take down attempt. Dan responded with simultaneous blows to both sides of the exposed neck. Not hard enough to cause damage, but hard enough to know he could. The young man rolled his neck and shook his head to remedy the effects of the concussive blows. Dan let the young man stand and his opponent wasted no time in his second attempt at the knees. Dan rolled over the back of his opponent, using his opponent’s rear side as a platform. With Dan’s legs no longer in their previous location, the student grasped at air before meeting the floor for a second time.
Again on his feet, the student changed tactics and fired off a series of straight kicks and punches. Dan intercepted the onslaught and countered with smacks to the face with the open palms and the backs of his hands. The smacks landed with more sound effect than impact and for the first time the student realized he was being toyed with. Low kicks came next and Dan blocked them with his own legs, raising his shins and meeting the young man’s feet in painful collisions.
The young man grunted in frustration and Dan knew the final assault was next.
His opponent disappeared into a whirl of punches and kicks, high and low. Backfist. Elbow. Waiting for the knockout attempt, Dan bent his knees just as the opponent launched his spinning back kick. Dan moved under his opponent, grabbed the man’s groin through the karate uniform, and threw him into a painful fall, head and shoulder crashing into the mat, his balls squeezed in Dan’s left hand. Within a second of impact, Dan had the man’s elbow in an extended arm bar, his heel on the young man’s carotid. Seven seconds later, the man succumbed to unconsciousness.
“He didn’t tap,” Dan said, rising off the mat.
“He never does,” Sensei replied.
“Bad habit.”
“Skill he has. Wisdom cannot be hurried.”
Dan looked over at the seated students who were stunned at what they had just witnessed. A middle-aged man walking in and besting the top martial artist in the dojo.
Sensei took the opportunity to drive home an educational lesson. “And that is why you don’t fuck around with people you don’t know. Martial arts are for defense. You never know if someone is going to have a weapon, friends, or if they are just plain more trouble than you are capable of dealing with.”
“You owe me a car,” Dan said, turning to walk off the mat.
—
Behind the dojo, on the first floor, Dan waited for Gary Raven to open the lock. “I have three cars in for customization,” Gary said, stepping through a large metal gray door into a spotless mechanic garage. The garage room had six bays and a center repair area with thirty feet of immaculate concrete flooring. There were four cars in the shop. Three were nearly identical black four-door sedans. The oddball of the group was a black Mercedes SUV. “You said three cars.”
“The SUV is the company demo vehicle.”
“And I can have any color as long as it’s black,” Dan replied.
“Just like Henry Ford and the Model T.” Gary Raven pointed at the SUV in the nearest bay. “You can have the company car for as long as you need it.”
“Does it have the usual accoutrements?”
“Bulletproof glass. Bombproof undercarriage. Run-flat tires. Has a higher-than-normal ground clearance in case you have to go over a curb or two. It also has a few other technical advances. Hell, even the headrests are bulletproof.”
“Perfect.”
“And this baby has been tested. I have shot at it myself. I even sat behind the wheel while a prospective client threw a grenade under it.”
“That is a hell of a way to guarantee your work.”
“Bet your ass,” Gary Raven said, slapping Dan on the shoulder. “Get it?”
“Yeah.”
Gary Raven turned serious. “Why do you need it?”
“Being cautious.”
“You are always cautious, but you’ve never asked for one of my cars.”
“I have thought about it, for what it is worth.”
Dan walked around the car parked in the second automotive bay. The doors were missing. The windshield had been removed. New pieces ready for assembly were neatly stacked on foam in the corner. Dan noticed the diplomatic tags in the license plate frames.
“Whose car is that?”
“French Embassy.”
“How long is it in for?”
“Until I finish.”
“Another favor. Let me borrow the tags. I’ll bring them back when I return the car.”
Gary Raven rubbed his chin and then stepped to the toolset on the work counter and picked up a screwdriver.
Dan’s cell phone started to ring and he fished it out of his cargo pants as Gary Raven removed the tags.
“Dan, it’s April.”
“What’s up, Doc?”
“She is gone.”
“What do
you mean, gone?”
“Sue is gone. I stepped out for a delivery on a woman with twins and when I came back the room was empty.”
“Did you check the bathroom?”
“Of course.”
“The other call rooms? Maybe she got confused when she came out of the bathroom. The rooms do look similar.”
“I checked all the call rooms.”
“Shit.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Let me know if . . .” Click.
Dan looked down at his phone. The display indicated the call was terminated at the thirty second mark. The phone vibrated again in his hand and a text message filled the screen. Dan read the text and shook his head slowly in disbelief. Time to pay your bills, Dan. This phone will begin working again when I get my money. Sorry, rules are rules . . . Tobias.
Dan whispered vulgarities as Gary approached, two diplomatic license plates in hand.
“Who was that?”
“Sensei, I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“Here are your tags. Bring them back in pristine condition or don’t bring them back at all. I can always report them as stolen. I can’t so easily explain how they got damaged without the car getting damaged. You know, these diplomatic tags are hot commodities. A free pass to shenanigans. They are also expensive. Special reflective paint. Rumor has it they contain a traceable wire mesh. Return them in perfect condition or throw them in the Potomac.”
Raven handed him the keys to the demo car. Dan reached into his pocket, removed Sue’s car keys, and tossed them into the air. Raven snatched them in one smooth motion.
As Raven examined the key ring, Dan explained. “Those keys are to the car in front of the dojo. A Honda Civic. It’s not mine. It belongs to a girl who has been interning with me. I’ll be back for it later.”
“Sure thing.”
Dan walked to the demo SUV and opened the five-hundred-pound door. He slipped behind the wheel, inserted the Mercedes Benz key and started the ignition. Raven nodded at Dan through the windshield and pushed the red button on the vertical support beam. The large garage door behind the car opened. Dan flicked the door locks and checked the mirrors before rolling down the driver’s side window. “I have another automotive question for you.”
“What’s that?”
“How many gray BMW M5s do you think there are in Virginia?”
“What year?”
“2010?”
“A handful at the most. BMW only sold eight thousand or so BMW M5s between 2005 and 2010.”
“That would equal about 1,600 each year.”
“That’s about right. But I am pretty sure they offered them in black, gray, white, and burgundy.”
“So maybe four or five hundred gray ones for the year 2010 . . .”
“Something like that. And that number is for the entire US. For Virginia, you have to figure ten, maybe fifteen.”
“You know your cars.”
“The BMW M5 is a good car for security modifications. We’ve seen a few of them in the shop. It has a lot of horsepower so it can handle all the extra weight that comes with armor plating.”
“I’m not sure that is good news.”
Chapter 34
—
Dan drove his security-laden Mercedes SUV up Glebe Road from Ballston. The car handled like a drunken pachyderm. Weighing in at nearly eight thousand pounds, its pavement-crushing heft was twice that of a normal vehicle its size. Armor plating, reinforced framing, and two-inch glass added weight. The diplomatic tags were an added stroke of insurance. Police in most jurisdictions around DC didn’t bother cars with diplomatic tags. Red lights, speed limits, and double yellow lines were all optional driving suggestions for those with diplomatic immunity. For the police, only the most egregious disregard for rule-of-law would justify pulling over a car with diplomatic tags.
Dan crossed Lee Highway, drove two blocks, and pulled into the main campus of Marymount University on the right. He maneuvered the car into a tight spot and the brakes worked overtime to stop the mass of metal before hitting the concrete curb.
Dan jumped from the vehicle and ignored the sign stating the spot required a parking decal. A minute later he entered the four-story all-brick Gailhac Hall and bounded up the steps of the wide staircase two at a time. On the third floor, he read the names of the faculty members on each door, walking briskly down the hall at a pace rarely seen in academia. The fifth door on the right read Professor Davis, PhD. Professor of Forensics. He looked at the class schedule taped to the door frame, checked the old-school clock on the wall, and headed for the listed classroom in the basement.
Dan peeked through the glass window in the wood door and watched as Professor Davis practiced perfect penmanship on the large whiteboard in the class. A class of approximately twenty graduate students sat smattered about in three rows of stadium seating. The students methodically copied their professor’s pontifications on fingerprint matching, typing the information presented on the whiteboard into the laptops in front of them, forever transforming the class coursework into digitally stored files.
Dan waited for a pause and when Professor Davis posed a question to a startled class body, he slipped in the back door unnoticed. His anonymity lasted one heartbeat before Professor Davis identified his acquaintance in the back of the room. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a visitor. Does anyone want to impress him with the answer to the question at hand? It is a fifty-fifty question. Doesn’t get any easier than that.”
The students glanced over at Dan as they contemplated whether to answer. “What was the question?” Dan asked.
“The question is whether or not identical twins have identical fingerprints.”
Dan glanced around at the students before answering the question himself. “They do not.”
“Indeed,” Professor Davis said before excusing himself. “Ladies and gentlemen, I will be back in one minute. Pardon the interruption.”
Dan met the professor on the side wall, halfway down the small set of stairs.
Professor Davis extended his hand and then chided his visitor. “You could call in advance. Or even stop by during office hours.”
“No phone. No time. I need the files you have on Sue Fine. I can’t get into my office at the moment and most of the information I had on her was there.”
Professor Davis eyed Dan with concern. “The files on whom?”
“My intern for the semester. Sue Fine. I think she may be in trouble.”
“I don’t have a student by that name. And the internship program has been moved to the spring semester.”
Dan’s stomach turned and a wave of nausea washed over him.
Chapter 35
—
Dan covered the six miles from Marymount to Pimmit Hills in the time it took “Hotel California” to play from start to finish on the radio. He gunned the heavy engine through the neighborhood streets, hit the gravel driveway without braking, and stopped the armored car on the other side of a small moving van in front of Tobias’s bungalow. The back door on the orange twenty-footer was raised and the contents of Tobias’s house were stacked from the floor to ceiling.
“Tobias,” Dan called out calmly, not wanting to startle a spooked man with mental inconsistencies. He knocked on the side of the moving truck as he approached the cab and then turned towards the bungalow. The front door was open and as he reached the front step of the house he rapped gently on one of the porch columns. He slowly raised his voice and Tobias stumbled forward seconds later with a box full of multi-color computer cables. The spaghetti configuration of the wires told Dan all he needed about the expediency of Tobias’s impending departure.
“Oh good. You got my message,” Tobias said.
“You disabled my phone.”
“Couldn’t be certain you were even using that phone. I know yo
u have a stash of prepaid throwaways. But just to make sure I got your attention, I also terminated Internet access at your office.”
“Can’t use my office at the moment. Can’t get to my pre-paid phones.”
“I heard about your little problem with exploding packages. Thought I had lost another acquaintance to be honest. Even raised a beer in your name and nodded to your memory. Then the news said there were no casualties.”
“Disappointed, I am sure.”
“Hard to get paid by a dead man. As you know, retirement is the only thing on my mind. And I’m too poor to retire, too old to start a legitimate career, and too rich to explain where all the money I do have came from. The only solution is to take as much as I can and get out of here.”
“Where you headed?”
“You could probably guess based on our previous conversation. Not sure how long it will take me to get there.”
“Moving is not a bad idea. In fact, I may be right behind you.”
“Not much choice. Our little search for the mystery phone number likely put this location on the map. And not a map I want to be on. I can’t risk it. Where is your sidekick? You know I liked her more than I like you.”
“On that topic, we may have an additional problem. I’m not exactly sure where she is.”
“Did you take her to the mall and lose her?”
“No, the hospital. And as it turns out, she is not who she said she was, either.”
“If that means what I think it means, it’s a good thing I’m leaving.”
“Sorry for the trouble.”
“I don’t mind the trouble if I get paid. Did you bring my money?”
“No. But I have something better than that.”
“Better than money?”
“Better than the amount I owe you. I brought you a proposition for retirement. Potentially enough money that you will never have to unpack this truck. Just drive it out into the country and set it on fire. Walk away. Vanish.”
Tobias set the box in his arms down on the front porch. “You now have my attention.”