by Barry Lancet
As passengers shuffled past, neither man showed any outward preference for any departing traveler. I moved down the tunnel. When the jet bridge doglegged right, I snuck a swift backward glance. The suits had joined the slipstream.
I shifted my duffel bag to my weaker hand and walked on. Between the suits and myself were a retired couple and a clutch of high school girls. Directly in front of me were more schoolgirls and a solitary California surfer. None of them looked threatening. None of them seemed likely points of interest for the suit-and-shades set.
In the terminal, two larger men of a different cut hovered. Black jackets and pants, dark-olive knit shirts, callous unforgiving faces. No sunglasses. They were bigger and bulkier and had the outward-curving arms of weightlifters.
The pair fell in step alongside me, one on each flank.
I had traveled solo. No one was meeting me on this end until I arrived at Naomi’s hotel. For another few moments, we would traverse a heavily trafficked public terminal. My upside would disappear once we reached the exit. Clearly, I would not be allowed to hail a taxi.
“Gentlemen,” I said. “Can I help you?”
“We’d like you to come with us, Mr. Brodie,” the smaller of the behemoths said. He was older, with a full head of silver bristles. A burning fever behind his eyes told me I was their target—and the enemy. The man topped out at six-three and two hundred forty pounds, specs exceeding my six-one, one-hundred-ninety-pound frame by a respectable margin.
“Who’s asking?” I said.
“Your government.”
Federal agents. Not good.
“I’ll take a rain check.”
Scorn darkened his features. “We’re not offering one.”
I said, “I’ve got a previous engagement and I never keep a lady waiting.”
The second, larger man grabbed my upper arm and squeezed. My fingers went numb. Larger tipped the scale at sixty pounds over my weight, and towered five inches above me.
“Take the hand off,” I said.
The troglodyte glared. “We ask nice once, Brodie. And only once.”
“I was raised better, so I’m asking a second time. The hand.”
Larger tightened his grip. Instead of resisting, I shoved aggressively into his space and caught him by surprise. I forced him back, then stomped on his instep, shot a sharp elbow into his ribs, and pivoted away and out of range. With each blow, the oversize thug grunted from behind compressed lips, his body stiffening as he swallowed the burn.
Then he pounced, a steaming mass of muscle. He took two quick check-steps, his fists rising. He attacked with a sharp right jab. I brushed the punch aside with my left arm, a right of my own following quickly for a strike that glanced off his jaw. His second jab slammed home, clipping my chin and rocking me. We both staggered back, then he charged in a second time, pelting me with a pair of hammering blows to my midriff.
I backpedaled, raising my arms and circling away. He followed. I feinted, which stalled his advance, then I dropped back farther, opening up some space between us. As he pressed forward again, I struck out with a straight snap kick to his kneecap, a blow that would have ended the fight in an instant had it connected.
It didn’t.
He dodged the thrust, spun away, and leveled a roundhouse kick in return. I swept inside the wide arc of the kick and pinned his leg against the side of my chest with my left arm, then jammed the heel of my right hand into his eye. He grunted and fell away. I released his leg. His hand snaked under his jacket for a holstered SIG Sauer I’d seen earlier. As he brought out the gun, I grabbed his wrist with my right hand, his forearm with my left, then forced the gun up and away. We wrestled for control of the weapon, our bodies slamming against the back wall of a kiosk, bouncing off, then knocking over a rack of souvenirs.
Miniatures of the White House and the Capitol Building and the Pentagon clattered across the tile floor like a fleet of tiny wind-up toys set suddenly loose. Deboarding passengers screamed and leapt aside. I smashed Larger’s arm against a sharp corner of the kiosk and the handgun flew from his grasp. I scrambled after it.
I was reaching for the SIG when the agent with the silver hair yelled, “Touch it, I shoot.”
I froze, half bent, hand outstretched, my fingers twelve inches from the pistol. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the man had his own metal trained on my chest. He was ten feet away. A no-brainer of a shot.
Moving only my head, I locked eyes with him. “Call off your man.”
“One more inch, Brodie—”
“Enough!” the first suit from the jetway said with authority. “Put it away, Swelley. Now.”
I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of the new speaker. His gun was pointed at Silver Hair. Swelley. Not a name I’d forget in this century.
With his free hand, the suit peeled off his shades. “I said stand down.” His voice projected unmistakable menace. And something more.
“We don’t answer to you,” Swelley hissed, squaring his shoulders, a fiery strength rippling through him.
“I’d like to stand,” I said. “I have no weapon. And we have an audience. A large audience.”
No response was forthcoming, so I didn’t move.
Around the terminal, there were easily fifty witnesses. A few had cell phones raised and rolling in what I suspected was recording mode, but I kept my gaze focused on Swelley. The feverish glint in his eyes told me I was in grave danger. Told me I was dealing with a fury disengaged from the man. A nearly independent force that could act on its own—to my detriment. If I wanted to get out of this alive, I needed Swelley to reel in more than his weapon.
I kept my eyes on him. I waited for my words to penetrate. It was a long, tense moment, but finally I saw Swelley blink with deliberation. His expression clarified. The unanchored animosity retreated. My words had broken through. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of the fourth agent. He held his weapon unobtrusively at his side—ready to go either way.
“I’m going to move away from the gun,” I said.
Very slowly, in nonthreatening increments, I retracted my outstretched hand. Then I straightened.
Swelley’s gun tracked my withdrawal. “Step away from the weapon,” he said.
I complied and he retrieved the errant firearm, pocketed it with blazing eyes still on me, then holstered his own piece. The remaining two weapons disappeared.
The peacemaker palmed a cell phone and tapped the touch screen without removing his glance from the other players.
The four men had clustered together in a crescent, just out of range. The stream of disembarking passengers—frozen in place as the drama unfolded—began to flow once more. Nervous glances darted my way.
A voice on the other end of the phone said, “Yes?” and the unknown mediator raised the mobile to his ear, eyes shifting to me. “Tom, we’ve got Brodie. Talk to him.” Navigating around Larger, the man advanced two steps in my direction and extended the phone.
I accepted the instrument and said, “Stockton?”
“Yeah. You have unfriendlies all around?”
“You guessed it.”
“We’re under siege here too, but I told them no one’s coming in until we hear from you.”
Tom Stockton was one of the men I’d sent to guard Ken’s daughter.
I said, “You were able to keep them out?”
“This is the Willard. Charging in here would make them look bad. We’re not criminals. Yet.”
Yet.
“Tell me what I’m looking at.”
The man who’d passed the phone listened to me but kept a watchful eye on the two aggressors. Swelley had gone still. Larger was fuming. He rocked on the balls of his feet, partly to relieve the pain, partly to prepare himself to spring if the wind changed. As dangerous as the lug I’d locked heads with was, Swelley would be the more formidable of the two. The flinty stillness in the older man’s expression told me he was calculating maneuvers broader in scope than any physical assault.
“The man wit
h the phone is Agent Dan Kastor of the FBI. I’ve known him for years. A straight shooter.”
“The others?”
“Alphabet soup. FBI, CIA, DHS. Don’t know the mix that’s braced you, though.”
The usual suspects, plus the Department of Homeland Security.
“What do they want?”
“The Nobuki woman. The deal I made with Kastor is we open up only in your presence. Your client agreed. Said she wouldn’t talk otherwise. They knew of your arrival. Homeland tried to force the issue, but Kastor’s boss held them off. Didn’t hurt that we’re hunkered down at the Willard.”
“All right. Be seeing you soon, I imagine.”
“There’ll be cars waiting. Stick close to Kastor. Part of the deal.”
Stockton was hinting at something.
I waited and the Brodie Security affiliate filled in the blank. “Guy called Swelley is leading the Homeland team. He’s ex–Special Forces and a ruthless son of a bitch. Big with silver hair. He or his people might brace you. Also, he’s got connections to the White House he flaunts. If he makes a play, try to disengage diplomatically. But if you can’t, get away at all costs. Fast. They snatch you, you could disappear for a long time, especially if they feel insulted.”
“We’re already past that point.”
Stockton exhaled audibly. “The Brodie gene pool rarely disappoints.”
The DC detective had worked with my father back in the day. We’d met for the first time in Tokyo when he attended my father’s funeral, and again a few months later when Stockton swung by San Francisco to say hello while on an unrelated job.
“What can I say?”
“No need. Like I said, glue yourself to Kastor. I got him to watch your flank.”
I hung up and said to Kastor, “I’m all yours.”
“For now,” Swelley said.
The FBI man shot him a sharp look before turning back to me. “Luggage?”
“Just what you see.”
Kastor nodded. “Vehicle’s outside.”
We moved off, Larger limping noticeably. He and the other suits hovered about two feet behind, while Kastor stayed at my elbow.
Meanwhile, my brain was miles away. First Napa. Then San Francisco City Hall. Now DC. Was anywhere safe for the Nobuki family?
Or me?
CHAPTER 17
AS we proceeded toward the exit, two more men emerged from the crowd, trailing after us three yards back.
“CIA?” I asked Kastor in a low voice, with a discreet eye-roll at our new shadows.
He nodded without enthusiasm. “Your popularity precedes you.”
With Swelley and his ape now out of earshot, I said, “Why is Homeland Security here?”
Disgust formed itself into a frown. “Never-ending power play. They stick their nose everywhere.”
The something more I’d heard earlier.
“For?”
“Control and all-you-can-eat government funds.”
“And the FBI doesn’t care who knows it?”
“The more the merrier.”
Finding themselves out of listening range, the DHS men eased closer, and Kastor and I covered the remaining ground in silence.
Transportation turned out to be three cars, all black, each a different model. Predictably, Swelley made a move to herd me into their windowless SUV, but I shoved him away and saw at once that by laying hands on him I’d made an enemy for life. I followed Kastor into a sedan with darkened windows, while his partner swung around the far side and got behind the wheel.
Once we were rolling, Kastor said, “You been to DC before?”
“Half a dozen times.”
“Why?”
“Work.”
“Which kind?”
Kastor had done his homework.
“The art kind.”
The FBI agent nodded, whipped out his phone, and punched in a number. “Enjoy the scenery,” he said. “It’s a nice ride in.”
It was my turn to nod. We eased onto the main egress road. Overhead, a jet roared by for a landing, surprisingly low, the runway stretching out just on the other side of our causeway.
In the distance, the needle-shaped monolith that was the Washington Monument split the sky. Joggers ran on a wide sidewalk alongside us. A moment later, the Potomac River, blue-green and glittering, showed itself on the left, then extended its reach to the right.
With Kastor occupied, I took a minute to consider my unexpected reception—and near abduction.
What did it mean?
What did I know?
I knew a sniper had tried to take out Ken Nobuki and me yesterday. I knew my arrival in DC had drawn dark men from the shadows, and Naomi Nobuki was the connecting link. What I didn’t know was why. I expected a hired gun might come after Naomi—but not three branches of Uncle Sam’s finest and most brutal. What had she done to draw the government down on us?
I knew Naomi had become an antinuclear-power crusader since the Fukushima nuclear plant had melted down in the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake and tsunami of 2011. I knew most of her long and ongoing campaign was—as were those of other protesters—directed at TEPCO, aka the Tokyo Electric Power Company, and sections of the government in collusion with the firm. The utility company’s mishandling of the power plant made daily headlines immediately following the meltdown and grabbed headlines to this day as the outfit continued to deceive the Japanese public. Even four years after the incident, they were caught red-handed yet again, this time allowing contaminated water to flow into the Pacific unchecked.
TEPCO and its allies were a formidable foe. Naomi’s outspoken ways had made her a target, and behind-the-scenes pressure by the utility forced her from her cherished position as a news anchor. TEPCO was a major sponsor of most big media in Japan, so journalists critical of the utility did not fare well.
Yet Naomi hadn’t stopped. A network of friends had come to her aid. Then a number of grassroots antinuclear-power groups rallied around. Her reputation surged. Next, a forward-thinking Japanese women’s magazine offered Naomi a full-time berth and she found herself plugged back into the media grid, with an expanding platform, this time predominantly female, many of them mothers and grandmothers who held strong antinuclear sentiments because of the adverse effects of radiation on young children, who were more susceptible.
As I considered various political avenues that would bring the United States into play, the FBI vehicle glided smoothly onto Highway 1. From our newly elevated perch, the Capitol Building reared up in the distance, its distinctive dome white and gleaming.
In Japan, the pro camp was represented by what was dubbed the “nuclear mafia” or “nuclear village,” a collection of energy companies, politicians, ministry officials, scholars, and media—many of which are beneficiaries of funds liberally spread around by TEPCO.
The nuclear mafia would not be pleased with Naomi’s visit to Washington.
However, the question of the hour was this: Had the Japanese pro-nuke gang started this ball rolling with a roundabout hit on Naomi’s brother back in Napa? Or was someone else set on knocking the Nobuki family off its pedestal?
* * *
Five minutes on, we raced over the Fourteenth Street Bridge. The Potomac River flowed high against the banks, brimming with a recent onslaught of winter rain and early snow flurries.
We dropped down off the bridge onto Fourteenth Street proper and crossed the National Mall, with its stout trees and long stroll paths. The sun was out and bright, and soon tourists and clusters of visiting schoolchildren would be prancing up and down the concourse, which was, today, crusted with patches of snow. I’d love to bring Jenny here one day. Maybe in spring, when the cherry trees were in bloom.
It was six in the morning on the East Coast, which meant three o’clock back in San Francisco. Jenny would be asleep in the apartment above ours, next to her best friend, Lisa Meyers. Lisa’s mother and I had a long-standing babysitting arrangement. As two single parents, we pooled our resources
. Each of us watched the other’s daughter when asked, a fair fee accompanying multiday absences on either side.
I dragged my thoughts back to the matter at hand. What else did I know?
I knew that Naomi’s father had supported her protests against the nuclear-power combine, as had I. But there the trail forked yet again. Had his activities spilled over into her life, or hers into his? Or Mayor Hurwitz’s into both of theirs? Both father and daughter lived high-profile lives. I imagined Naomi’s antinuke exertions held more sway with the feds than any endeavors of her talented artist father.
But I could be wrong. Stranger things had sandbagged me. With Mayor Hurwitz’s reach across the Pacific and Ken Nobuki’s skyrocketing art career part of the mix, I realized all I really knew was that I was facing a nightmarish mix of motives and suspects.
* * *
Kastor’s telephone conversation had turned cryptic from the outset, so I’d tuned him out. When he finally signed off, I said, “You want to tell me what the fuss is all about?”
“Your lady friend took a room two doors down from the White House. That sent everyone scrambling.”
“It’s a free country.”
The FBI agent fired me a look that said don’t even go there. “You want to fill me in on your connection?”
“Like you don’t already know?”
His eyes narrowed and he waited for my reply. Some procedures were etched in stone.
I said, “Today, I’m here as a friend to Ms. Nobuki and as consultant to the SFPD. I’m also connected to the Tokyo outfit that hired Tom Stockton.”
“Quite a nexus you got going there.”
“Not nearly as impressive as your world-class vocabulary. Are you really with the Bureau?”
His lips quivered with the beginnings of a smile. “Time to time, I have to check my badge to make sure. Heard you sidestepped a bullet outside City Hall. Saved the father’s life.”
“Did do a bit of a fast shuffle.”
Kastor nodded. “Commendable.”
“There’s that vocabulary again. What’s your interest in Naomi Nobuki?”