by Barry Lancet
Naomi turned to me. “Brodie, do you have any more information you could give me?”
I signaled for silence with a raised hand.
We’ve got a lead. We’re heading to the Karuizawa area and a place called Tsumagoi, I’d told Tad.
That was it. Her husband knew we were going out to Mount Asama because I’d been foolish enough to tell him. As an informer, Tad made a more likely candidate than either the warehouse caretaker or the Komeki truck driver. My spirits sank at the discovery.
“Actually,” I said, “I do. But you’re not going to like this, either.”
“I’m listening.”
“Tad may have set us up for an ambush near Mount Asama. When we stopped for soba.”
“Why? How?”
I linked it all up for her.
Naomi looked conflicted. “If what you say is true, wouldn’t that suggest that . . . that . . . the leverage on Tad is even more persuasive than we thought?”
“Possibly.”
Or, as Noda had said, worse.
Her confidence in her husband did not waver. “They forced him. He’s not a very physical man. Whatever it is, I can forgive him when he tells me.”
She smiled, relieved at the thought.
I met her smile with one of my own, weak but consoling. She latched on to it with a desperation that broke my heart. I couldn’t blame her. Whoever the unseen puppetmaster was, he or she had cleverly played to Tad’s weakness. Where they’d failed with the wife, they’d succeeded with the husband.
The only question was, how far had he fallen?
CHAPTER 71
WE barged in on Naomi’s husband unannounced.
Tad smiled and waved from his bed, the top half angled up so he could sit with ease. Gliding in behind me, Noda slammed the door hard.
Tad’s welcoming grin faltered. “Something wrong?”
“Narita Airport was a sham,” I said. “And so is all this.”
Naomi turned pale at my unexpected gambit. I felt terrible, but it had to be done. Simply requesting an explanation, as she had suggested, would not shake out the truth. The situation required more. On the return flight, Noda and I had decided against any advance warning. We needed Naomi to see her husband’s reaction unfiltered. We needed her to pass judgment about his innocence or guilt in real time, with as little prejudice as possible.
Tad watched my expressive hand gestures with just the right amount of bewilderment for an innocent party. His performance was very believable—unless you knew he was a lawyer and could tap into his courtroom stagecraft.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
I told him how the fixer pointed us to the lobbyists and the lobbyists pointed us to him. “You’re going to tell us everything or I sic Noda on you. For starters.”
Tad stiffened, his face reddening with rage. “Are you threatening me?”
“If you don’t come clean, yeah.”
“About what? You got my name from a couple of lawyers you probably browbeat just like this. How do you know someone isn’t trying to frame me?”
“You had to be there.”
“Well, I wasn’t. There or anywhere else in your fantasy.”
Naomi looked in my direction, questions in her eyes.
“But—” I began, but never got the chance to finish. Tad ripped into me with a razor-sharp cross-examination.
“A couple of lawyers halfway around the world drop my name when they know my family’s under attack, and you believe them? Over me? Over us, your clients?”
His disappointment in my betrayal could not have been plainer.
“I—”
“You had your say, Brodie. Now let me finish. You bring me a wild accusation and you offer it as proof? Our names are in all the papers. On the news. On the Net. It’s a setup. Look at me. The kidnappers beat me to a pulp. Do you know how long I’ve been laid up in this place? I’ve counted every stain on the ceiling, every spot of mold. Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”
“Well, I—”
“I thought you were our friend. I thought you were working for us.”
Noda said, “Both sons are dead. Daughter’s the last one.”
Tad stared at the chief detective. “So I kidnapped my own wife? Are you insane?”
I said, “That’s not exactly—”
“First you, then your bloodhound. You’re both out of your minds.”
Throwing back his blankets, Tad slid from his perch and came at me. Noda leapt forward. His fist connected with Tad’s jaw and the lawyer went down.
CHAPTER 72
NAOMI stared at us in disbelief. “I think both of you should leave.”
He’s not a very physical man.
She was sitting on the bed, with her husband’s head cradled in her lap. She dabbed his face with a damp cloth.
“Noda pulled his punch, Naomi. The idea was to—”
“I don’t want to hear it. Go. Now. Please.”
We trailed out and stood in the hall. I had thought this case could drag me no lower, but I was wrong. It hauled me deeper still, then blew up in my face. What Tad said seemed plausible. And looked impossible to refute. Had the lobbyists played us after all? If so, how would I ever explain this to Ken when he came out of his coma? If he resurfaced at all.
Noda said, “Probably should have pulled the punch more.”
“We may have overplayed our hand.”
“You believe him?”
“In my gut, no,” I said. “But what he told us makes me wonder. You?”
“Don’t believe him.”
“You got anything we can use?”
“No.”
I was conflicted. My gut screamed guilty. And yet, for Naomi’s sake, I wanted her husband to be innocent.
We were in limbo. We had the links in the chain. But Tad had been convincing. His words burned holes in our theory. He was smooth. He was also a lawyer. We needed more. If there was more to be had. The lobbyists’ admission was not a smoking gun, so we’d stepped lightly around Naomi, dropping hints before trying to badger her husband into revealing the missing pieces. But Tad had stood his ground. And, as he’d pointed out, his condition spoke volumes in favor of his innocence.
My cell chirped with a call from our young partner. I hit connect. “Hi, Mari, what’s up?”
“So while you two were flying back from Washington, I did what you asked. And you were right. I found something.”
I knew it. “Great. Tell me. We need it now more than ever.”
“I hacked Tad Sato’s work email and saw a pair of client names that were way uncool. So I lined up some white-hat hacker friends and we cruised the data streams. We hit gold.”
A pair of nurses scurried down the hall and ducked into Tad’s room. Seconds later, a staff doctor strode by, harried but dignified. He, too, stepped into Tad’s private chamber, sending a frosty glance our way.
“What exactly did you find?”
“All of the husband’s income comes from sources on the outer reaches of the nuclear mafia. Distant but connected.”
Still not a smoking gun, but closer. “When did he start working with these clients?”
“Since soon after they got married.”
Naomi had begun the protest activities several years before they tied the knot. This would crush her.
“We dug up more dirt in his tax records. They file separately, you know.”
“Didn’t know that.”
“I asked our accountant to look over the data. She said, ‘Tell Brodie the income from the original clients was barely enough for a lawyer with the usual office expenses to live on. Ninety-two percent of his current income comes from the nuclear crowd, most of it in the form of recurring retainers.’ ”
“That’s troubling.”
Good for us. Bad for Naomi.
“The uncool clients came after. Started out way slow. Two the first year. Then three. Now’s he’s got twelve.”
“As if someone were feeding him a calcula
ted supply?”
“You’d know more about that than me, but the weird thing is they are all companies on the extreme outer ring of the nuclear mafia. Most people would not make the connection.”
The timing and clustering of nuclear-related firms were far too prominent to be a coincidence. Since the Fukushima blowout, any close association with TEPCO or a firm affiliated with them carried a crippling stigma outside the pro-nuclear clique, especially since TEPCO continues to cover up radiation leakage and other mishaps even years later. And yet, curiously, Tad had not blinked at the potential disgrace or conflict of interest.
I asked for the rest of Tad’s client list.
Mari shuffled some papers. “Same half dozen minor clients he had before his marriage, plus a couple more. None in nuclear.
“How much money are we currently talking about?”
Mari told me. It was a juicy figure, yet walked a fine line. Tad could live exceedingly well on it, and stash away a grand chunk of cash, but the total fell shy of living exceedingly well ever after. Rather, the sum seemed just enough to seduce an ambitious lawyer into seeking bigger scores.
Some very shrewd deliberations had been made, I decided.
I asked the clincher: “Is all your data from official sources?”
We had to get it right this time.
“After his emails, yeah.”
Before I hung up, I asked our computer whiz for two more favors, then set the details in motion: she was to send the first one in fifteen minutes, after Noda and I grabbed another cup of coffee.
“Cool,” Mari said, giggling over my initial request as I disconnected.
I filled in Noda on what he hadn’t overheard and the chief detective cracked his knuckles.
After we’d fueled up on black gold, we charged back into Tad’s room.
CHAPTER 73
ONCE more propped up on his bed, Tad held his wife’s hand. Naomi was perched on the edge of the mattress, scrutinizing the screen of her cell phone, which she held in her free hand.
When we rejoined them, she thrust her mobile in my direction. “What’s the meaning of this email from your office, Brodie?”
The first favor I’d requested of Mari.
“Do you recognize any of the names?” I asked.
“All of them, of course.”
The weird thing is they are all companies on the extreme outer ring of the nuclear village. Most people would not make the connection.
But Naomi Nobuki—former television newscaster, journalist, and antinuclear-power activist—was not most people.
“A list of your husband’s clients after you two got married.”
Tad sneered. “Let me see that.”
Turning whiter by degree, Naomi passed the phone to her spouse. He snatched at the device angrily, gave the screen a dismissive glance, and said, “Where did you get this?”
Wrong response, Tad.
His wife stared at him. “What do you mean? Aren’t you going to deny it?”
Her husband grew indignant. “Why should I? There’s nothing improper here.”
Naomi turned paler still. “Nothing improper?”
“No. It’s just business. I have to make a living and the offers came my way. They’re minor players, Naomi.”
“But, Tad . . .”
He took his wife’s hand in both of his. His voice softened. “You’re right. They’re minor to me but maybe not you. I’m sorry. I’ve been naive. Stupid, even. And whoever’s attacking us is using my mistake against us to frame me.”
Naomi hesitated. I felt my jaw clench. We were on the verge of losing out to the silver-tongued lawyer a second time.
Then it hit me. I’d been bothered by the DC connection. Stockton had run the telephone search through his virtuoso software, but just because he was based in Washington did not explain why the link he uncovered should also be in the capital.
I said to Naomi, “Does Tad have access to your phone?”
“Of course.”
“So he could have passed on the email you sent to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to his Washington connection, who would know how to leak them to the feds. That leak put you in an extremely dangerous position. The DHS has extraconstitutional powers. When they discover a national security threat, real or potential, they can whisk the subject away for questioning. There’s a good chance you would have disappeared into the post–nine-eleven system for months, if not years, had Stockton and I not been there. That would take out another Nobuki family member.”
And the one the nuclear mafia would most like to see disappear.
“Absolute nonsense,” her husband said. “Don’t listen to him, Naomi. It’s all fantasy.”
Tad’s influence over his wife was potent. Naomi was torn. Just as any investigator would be. Or any jury.
Nothing stuck to this guy.
At that moment, Naomi’s, Noda’s, and my mobiles began buzzing in unison.
The second favor.
We each turned to our cell phone as a text message from Mari scrolled down our screens.
You were right again. The Kyoto office has three support staff for four lawyers. What you wanted was in the private text messages of the newest staffer. Her name is Kako Abiko. They seem “close.”
Naomi spoke first. “Brodie, what does this mean?”
“Why don’t you ask your husband?”
“Tad, do you know a Kako Abiko?”
Tad blanched. His courtroom face vanished.
Which said it all.
“Tad?” Naomi asked again.
Her husband only shook his head. He was scrambling to counter this latest revelation. He wouldn’t speak until he could set a new defense in place.
“Brodie?”
“Ms. Abiko works for your father’s lawyer. She’s the newest hire.”
“I don’t understand,” Naomi stammered.
“Your father’s will has gone missing. Did you know that?”
“No. This is the first I’m hearing of it.”
“Its disappearance puts the family money up for grabs. With all the deaths, and a lawyer in the family, it isn’t hard to imagine who would get control of the money eventually. Especially if your father doesn’t make it. In your grief, you and your mother would naturally turn to your husband, the lawyer, for advice on how to manage things. Then the rest is only a matter of time.”
Naomi looked from me to her husband. It was of me she asked her next question. “Are you absolutely sure about this?”
“I asked Mari to look for any correspondence where there is talk between your husband and any of the staff about disposing of the will, and she found it . . . among other things.”
Naomi disengaged her hand from her husband’s and eased off the bed. “Another woman . . . is . . . is . . . bad enough, but the rest . . . does it mean what I think it means?”
She was unsteady on her feet. Noda and I rushed to her aid.
Tad said, “Naomi, it’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that,” I said, “and more. There was no puppetmaster. No blackmailer forcing you to turn against your family. It was only you.”
“That’s not true.”
“But it is. We have your personal correspondence with the secretary conspiring to destroy the will. That says it all. You arranged the death of your brother-in-law in Napa. You put the sniper on the roof. You all but threw Akihiro and his fiancée off the temple balcony. You, and only you, hired the Steam Walker.”
Naomi was shaking her head in denial. “Tad? Tell them there’s been a mistake.”
“It’s all a mistake, Naomi. Someone very clever is framing me.”
I shook my head. “You can either tell me what I need to know or—”
Tad rolled his eyes. “Here we go again. Or what, Brodie? You’ll sic your bloodhound on me? You think I don’t know how the system works. I’m a lawyer. This is Japan.”
I exhaled noisily. “On these shores, we may not be able to make a strong enough case that you ha
d your wife’s brothers killed, but you did, didn’t you?”
“Of course not.”
“We have a solid chain linking you to the kill orders.”
“All circumstantial nonsense.”
“From you to the lobbyists to the fixer to the assassin. It will hold up in an American court.”
Tad gave me a look of pity. “A bookie and two slimy lobbyists. People who leech off the system? Who buy and sell everything your country has to offer? Those kinds of witnesses don’t play well in Japanese courts, and they are easy to paint black in your courts too.”
“I never said he was a bookie.”
“Yes, you did.”
“He didn’t,” said Noda.
“He did,” Tad insisted.
Naomi raised her hand to her mouth. For the first time, she was seeing her husband unfiltered.
I said, “Your plan was very clever, Tad. Once they converted you to the cause, you figured out a way to get the Nobuki family money and ingratiate yourself with the nuclear mafia. Disguised as an attack on the Nobukis, your plan would get you access to the family bank accounts and open the Big Energy floodgates for years to come.”
“Nonsense.”
Naomi’s legs gave way. We caught her. Tremors shook her small frame.
“I never mentioned the bookie,” I said again. “We know it. You know it. And most importantly, your wife knows it.”
Tad shot Naomi a reproachful look, and the mask fell away. “You got it all wrong, Brodie. I married into a rich family that kept me from the money.”
His wife’s eyes dilated. “What are you saying?”
I stayed quiet.
Noda stayed quiet.
Tad’s contempt soured the air. “Your father’s been giving piles of money to your artist-dilettante older brother for years, and was supporting the younger one, too. Where was our money?”
Naomi stared. “Toru’s career was finally going someplace, Tad. You know how hard he worked, and how hard it is for a sculptor to make it in Japan. He got his first big commissions only this year. And Akihiro was still in art school. Of course, my father was supporting him.”
“Nothing was coming our way.”