Fifteen minutes later, he was headed east through the town of Williams. A surge of nostalgia pulsed through him as he passed an RV park owned by a childhood friend. In the tiny downtown, a coffee shop was managed by his high school valedictorian. She still ran into Carver’s parents every Fourth of July. Will you tell Blake to call me? She would say. Everyone is always wishing he would keep in touch.
Not going to happen. I have to tell enough lies as it is.
His old friends might be aghast at the lengths to which he had gone to keep up with their lives all these years. How he had looked them up on Facebook, lingering over their family photos. How he had read their blogs and lit anonymous virtual candles on their grandparents’ obituaries. How he had donated anonymously to their causes. How he had cheered when the local church announced the births of their children.
He fully intended on reconnecting one day. In Carver’s retirement fantasies, he showed up unannounced at a high school reunion, having scarcely aged since college, and apologized to the surviving members of the senior class all at once. For your own safety, I couldn’t tell you what I did for a living. Forgive me? And in those fantasies, everyone did. They even thanked him for his public service. And he was deluged with homemade pie and invitations to Super Bowl parties.
At 4:45 am, Carver dropped the hogs off in Ash Fork. The young rancher purchasing them seemed happy with their size. Said he intended to crossbreed them with some sort of big Russian boar and make “a truly epic pig.”
At half-past five, Carver started down the craggy forest road leading to the duck pond his father had mentioned. About two miles in, he came across the gate for the gas pipeline road, put the truck in Park, and got out. He thought about picking the lock just for fun, but using the timeworn key filled him with a delicious dose of fond memories from his youth.
He pulled through the gate and locked it behind them. From there, he put the truck in four-wheel-drive mode, babying it over the rough spots so the rocks wouldn’t do much more than scratch the undercarriage. A half-mile further, he came across the rock pyramid they had made years ago to mark their personal parking space. Driving in much further risked spooking the ducks. If there were any ducks. The temperature on the dash read 29 degrees. That might be too cold for the shallow pond down the road where he had hoped to hunt.
He put on the hunting vest he had borrowed and chambered several shells into the old man’s shotgun. The steel of the gun barrel was as cold as ice.
The bitter cold didn’t dissuade his companion whatsoever. Duke’s entire rear end wagged in anticipation. “Got a feeling the pond will be frozen over, bud. We’ll check it anyhow.”
The spaniel trotted out in front as they crept along the winding game trail, stepping gingerly over timber that the forest service had felled last season. They thinned these forests as a matter of routine now for fire prevention. Despite one or two massive storms, droughts had ravaged the high country in recent years. A couple years earlier, 19 firefighters had been killed in a massive blaze down in Yarnell. A few years before that, wildfire had nearly wiped out the town of Greer.
The dog’s white and liver coat was luminescent in the pre-dawn light, bobbing this way and that, making almost no sound as they wound around the ridge that led to the duck blinds. He charged ahead 20 feet, then looped back over and over again in a constant flushing motion.
A hint of purple light was just beginning to crest the eastern mountaintops as they reached the duck blinds, two semi-circular masses of dead scrub brush overlooking a shallow cattle pond. He sat down, planting himself upon a wide stump that had no doubt been used by his father and every other hunter in the Williams area. It was too dark yet to see the pond, but if it were frozen, there would be nothing on it and nothing likely to come in.
Then Carver heard a vehicle. Or did he? Noise traveled far and wide at that time of morning.
He heard it again. The whirr-whirr-whirr of an underpowered gas engine struggling over a high spot in the road. Then the unmistakable grind of a vehicle undercarriage on rocks. There was only one road in and out of this place, and someone was coming in behind him.
Damn. He had hoped he would have this place all to himself this morning. He wondered how many keys that old rancher had given out over the years. Lots, probably. Or maybe none. Some people probably just picked it.
He listened intently as the vehicle drew closer. Not a truck. No, something far smaller. A four-cylinder sedan.
Carver figured there were just three types of people who might come back here before dawn on a Wednesday: hunters, ranchers and target shooters. And few of them would drive an economy car. This was truck country.
So what kind of idiot would come back here with a car like that? Even as he pondered the question, he feared he knew the answer.
The White House
The president sat behind the Resolute Desk, so named for the fact that it was carved from the timbers of the H.M.S. Resolute, an abandoned British ship discovered by American sailors. The desk had been a gift from a grateful Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in the 1800s. Despite taking significant fire and water damage during an attack on the White House during the previous administration, Eva had kept the desk in the interest of executive tradition.
As they had done each day since the embassy bombing, the president’s Director of National Intelligence, Defense Secretary and Secretary of State engaged in a mid-morning huddle. Aside from morning briefings, which were traditional sit-down affairs, Eva patterned her other meetings after the so-called “stand-ups” preferred in Silicon Valley. The basic idea was to come prepared to discuss what you had accomplished since the last meeting, what your next steps were, and obstacles the president could remove to help you accomplish your goals. The act of standing was essential, since it forced participants to focus on only the most important topics, thus shortening the meeting.
Now the beleaguered commander-in-chief stood across the desk from her charges with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Makeup concealed the deepening age lines around her eyes, but could not hide the dark semi-circles below them.
“Dex,” the president began, “Where are we on the embassy bombing?”
Jackson cleared his throat before speaking. “We have learned additional details, Madam President, but nothing yet that would definitively point to a perpetrator. You’ll be the first to know when there’s any break.”
“Keep me posted. Madam Secretary?”
“President Kang is still planning to attend the G8 in Tokyo, but so far, he refuses to come back to the table.”
“What’s it going to take?”
The Secretary of State laid a document on the table. “For one thing, a televised apology.”
The president put on her reading glasses to have a closer look, but not before Speers plunked down the three-inch thick leather booklet Ambassador Nakamura had given him on the antique desk. He topped it with a slew of reconnaissance photographs. “I suggest that you look these over before deciding whether to apologize.”
The president’s eyes rolled up to meet Speers’. “Context?”
“Japan’s official position is that Beijing framed the United States for the embassy bombing. This is their evidence, circumstantial as it may be.”
“And China’s motivation would be what?”
“To pave the way for an invasion of Japanese territories in the East China Sea,” Speers said with skepticism evident in his voice. “Nakamura claims the embassy bombing was part of a wider campaign to weaken U.S. resolve so that we would be reluctant to defend Japan’s sovereignty with military force.”
“Damned right we would be reluctant. Risk war with the world’s largest country over some islands that nobody but Japan cares about? Risk further scrutiny at the United Nations? Our back is up against the wall here.”
SECDEF Jackson spoke up again. “Madam President, I think we should take this seriously. If the Chinese control the islands in the East China Sea, they would then control significa
nt trade routes.”
“This is one case where economics and defense go hand in hand.”
“Exactly, Madam President. We have 50,000 American troops in Japan. Twenty-nine thousand in South Korea. Thousands more in the Philippines. The moment the Chinese take the first strategic objective unopposed, then any semblance of deterrent by our military presence evaporates instantly. And even if you don’t believe that we have a moral obligation to defend our allies, we have a duty to keep China from choking economic activity in Asia.”
Speers nodded reluctantly. “I have to agree. Nakamura says the Chinese are patterning this after the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. And one of those islands is just a few miles from our bases in Okinawa.”
Eva stood, speaking as she stared out at the Rose Garden. “That would put the Chinese right on our doorstep. Dex, do we have a play drawn up for this situation?”
“We do. This scenario came up in our joint war games with the Japanese last year. The situation calls for deploying the Pacific Fleet into the area with a tactical geo-fencing strategy. A virtual perimeter enforced by ships, aircraft, subs and satellites.
“A kill web.”
“Yes. But this strategy includes steady rotation of recon drones from our bases in Japan and Korea, and I think this may be another situation where we need an audible at the line of scrimmage. Our drones are grounded, and our carriers now appear to be vulnerable to the DF-21D. That’s China’s Carrier Killer missile, Madam President.”
“I know what it is, Dex.”
“Madam President, there is something else. Space weaponry. It’s largely untested, but a conservative estimate is that we could take out 80% of China’s satellite capability overnight.”
Speers groaned. “What’s stopping them from retaliating?”
“They’ll hit back hard. They’re going to hurt us bad. But in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”
Kaibab National Forest
Arizona
Purple light crept over the forested valley as Carver hiked up around the pond bank, traversing a steep ridge that overlooked the road. Then he scurried up the hillside until he had found a high point. At last he could see his own vehicle, its white paint barely visible in the half-light.
Further down the road he spotted the sedan, the chrome of its grill glimmering briefly as it powered through a wash that looked, for a few moments at least, as if it might trap the little car in the sand. Carver found the vehicle in his binoculars. The driver, perhaps having had enough of the gut-busting road, pulled to a clearing. Two figures emerged from the car and stepped out onto the dirt. Both were slightly built, but the way they walked and moved indicated that they were men.
Maybe they were hunters. Except for that car. In a land of trucks, why would two hunters not drive a truck? Or at least an all-terrain-vehicle?
The driver walked behind the car and opened the trunk. The other man joined him. It was still barely light, and the open trunk blocked Carver’s view, but something about their movements told him they were assembling something.
Get a grip. At dawn, you can only trust half of what you see. The rest is imagination.
Duke shivered by his side. Carver crouched, pulling the dog close. Soon the two began walking up the road toward the pond. As the light grew incrementally brighter, Carver could see that one of them carried a long rifle with a scope mounted on top. Maybe a .308 or a .30-06. There was no way to know for sure from a distance. Either way, the scope was telling. If they had come to hunt ducks or geese, they would have been carrying shotguns. Those were in season. A weapon like that was for shooting long distances. Elk or deer. Or people. But the man’s sidekick carried a short-barreled weapon with a long clip. A short range machine pistol or assault rifle. An illogical choice for big game.
The serpentine road they walked took them in and out of view. Soon, Carver spotted the blue glow of a phone screen carried by the driver. He peered into it reverentially, as if consulting an oracle.
The landscape seemed to brighten all at once as the huge orange orb broke over the distant mountaintops, warming Carver’s face. He drew back behind the foliage to ensure that the lenses of his binoculars didn’t reflect the sunlight. He turned, checking the pond behind him. Now he could really see it. Sure enough, the surface was frozen solid. So much for duck hunting. Even if there were still a few flocks in migration, it would be a good three hours before the sun melted the ice enough for any birds to land.
Carver found the men in his binoculars again. They approached the section of road where he had pulled his father’s truck into a clearing and parked it.
The point man leaned his rifle against a boulder. Then he straightened up and pulled a handgun from a shoulder holster inside his coat. He then screwed what looked like a muzzle suppressor onto the end.
The suspicious pair split up, crouching, arms at the ready, creeping up on the vehicle from both sides. They soon determined that the truck was unoccupied. The taller of the two pointed his weapon at the passenger-side tire. The muzzle flashed twice.
Tokyo, Japan
Eri Sato emerged from the easternmost Shinjuku station exit and broke into a brisk run, or as close to a run as she could manage in heels. So as not to be ID’d, her hat was pulled low over her face.
Long black hair grazed her shoulders. Her scarf billowed up around her neck. And although it was well after dark, she wore sunglasses. The fact that she could scarcely see did not matter much. She knew these streets like the back of her hand.
One by one, the sensory guideposts came to her. The sweetly sickening smell of Mister Donut. Check. The rhythmic ding-ding-ding of the pachinko parlor on the next block. Check. The sweet potato cart whose owner sang the yakimo song over a portable karaoke system.
The Golden Gai neighborhood was home to hundreds of tiny specialty bars. She stopped before the entrance to Autograph – a little dive owned by her best friend – and pretended to look at the cocktail menu while she scanned the street behind her. There was only one way in or out of the tiny place, and before going inside, she had to be sure nobody had followed her.
Now satisfied, Eri descended the steps to the tiny basement-level drinking hole. Autograph was scarcely more than three meters wide, with seating for seven. The walls were filled with memorabilia scrawled with the signatures of movie stars. A color photograph of a young Ryan Gosling. A Beverly Hills Hotel napkin signed by Jennifer Lawrence. A poster of Ken Watanabe in full samurai garb.
The Sound of Music soundtrack blared over the speakers. Six college kids were chain-smoking and singing along. The fact that they knew the words to the decades-old classic did not surprise Eri. All the regulars did. The bar’s owner, Taka, was an anglophile who played classic Hollywood soundtracks virtually every night.
Taka grinned as he spotted his favorite customer. He swept a hand across his unruly pompadour and then pointed to the end of the bar, where there was one stool remaining. Even if someone had been sitting there, he would have asked them to move for Eri.
“Hisashiburi,” he shouted over the music. Long time no see.
“Gomen,” Eri apologized before switching to English. “Kentucky Mule, please. A double.”
Taka’s right eyebrow bent into a boomerang shape. “Eh? It’s like that tonight, huh?”
Like Eri, Taka had spent some of the best years of his young life in the U.S. before repatriating to Japan to open Autograph. A longing to return to the states one day was the pillar of their friendship.
He leaned in so close that Eri could smell his aftershave. “Everything okay?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
He pulled back and winked. “Ah. A work thing?”
Eri had never explicitly told Taka that she worked for Japan’s Public Security Intelligence Agency. He had guessed one night after a couple strong cocktails. Fortunately for her, he was good at keeping secrets.
Now, as Taka mixed her drink, Eri pulled out the burner phone she had purchased on the streets of Akihab
ara earlier in the evening. She downloaded the Age of Undead Ninjas app, a vintage role-playing game. The basic idea was to slay zombie ninjas. Back in the day, when she first moved to D.C. to live with Carver, they had spent way too many late nights playing it together. Those were the good times. Before his career took over his life.
Tonight she logged into the game with the username “Fluffy.” Following the emergency plan she and Carver had agreed to many years ago, she deleted Fluffy’s profile description and replaced it with new text: You are not safe. Meet me at Naked Fish. Tuesday. 1930 hours.
Then she jammed out a quick nonsensical email. The body text was just a decoy. As Carver would surely remember, the subject line was all that mattered. In that field, she wrote: Age of the Undead Ninjas.
It was a message that only Blake Carver would understand. She just prayed that he would see it before it was too late.
Kaibab National Forest
Duke shivered and whined. Carver bent down to comfort the dog. He used his other hand to slip the backpack off his shoulder and locate Duke’s leash. “Sorry,” Carver whispered as he fastened Duke’s leash to his collar. “Gotta keep you close.”
The two assailants had shot out one of his truck tires and continued their walk up the road. It wasn’t yet light enough to see their faces through the binoculars, but as the sun continued to break over the mountain, sunlight fell across the road before them. The one on the left turned, giving Carver a view of his backpack.
He had seen it before. In Las Vegas. The Mandalay Bay Casino. On the Asian guy who had crossed the casino floor behind him.
He recalled the poker player’s face. Oval, with low cheekbones and a prominent nose. Japanese, perhaps, but there was no way to know for sure.
Rogue Empire (Blake Carver Series) Page 14