I looked at him, my eyes expressionless. “Maybe I’ll get a chance to show you sometime.”
“Dream on, pal. Now look, we had access to the autopsy report. Kawamura had a pacemaker that somehow managed to shut itself off. The coroner attributed it to a defect. But you know what? We did a little research and found out that a defect like that is just about impossible. Someone shut that pacemaker off, Rain. Your kind of job exactly. I want to know who hired you.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I said.
“What doesn’t?”
“Why go to such lengths just to retrieve the disk?”
His eyes narrowed. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I can’t. I can only tell you that if I had wanted that disk, I could have found a lot of easier ways to take it.”
“Maybe it wasn’t up to you,” he said. “Maybe whoever hired you on this one told you to retrieve it. I know you’re not in the habit of asking a lot of questions about these assignments.”
“And have I ever been in the habit of being an errand boy on these jobs? ‘Retrieving’ requested items?”
He crossed his arms and looked at me. “Not that I know of.”
“Then it sounds like you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“You did him, Rain. You were the last one with him. You have to understand, it doesn’t look good.”
“My reputation will have to suffer.”
He massaged his chin for a moment while he looked at me. “You know that the Agency is the least of your worries among the people who are trying to get the disk back.”
“What people?”
“Who do you think? The people who it implicates. The politicians, the yakuza, the muscle behind the whole Japanese power structure.”
I considered for a moment, then said, “How did you find out about me? About me in Japan?”
He shook his head. “Sorry, that would fall under sources and methods again, nothing I can discuss here. But I’ll tell you what.” He leaned forward again. “Come on in, and we can talk about anything you want.”
It was such a non sequitur that I thought I heard wrong. “Did you say, ‘Come on in’?”
“Yes, I did. If you look at your situation, you’ll see that you need our help.”
“I didn’t know you were such a humanitarian, Holtzer.”
“Cut the shit, Rain. We’re not doing this for humanity. We want your cooperation. Either you’ve got that disk, or because you were hunting Kawamura you’ve probably got information that might help us find it. We’ll help you in exchange. It’s as simple as that.”
But I knew these people, and I knew Holtzer. Nothing was ever simple with them — and the simpler it looked, the harder they were about to nail you.
“I’m in an uncomfortable spot,” I said. “No sense denying it. Maybe I’ve got to trust someone. But it’s not going to be you.”
“Look, if this is about the war, you’re being ridiculous. It was a long time ago. This is another time, another place.”
“But the people are the same.”
He waved his hand as though trying to dispel an offensive odor. “It doesn’t matter what you think of me, Rain. Because this isn’t about us. The situation is what matters, and the situation is this: The police want you. The LDP wants you. The yakuza wants you. And they’re going to find you because your cover is fucking blown. Now let us help you.”
What to do. Take him out right here? They knew where I lived, which made me newly vulnerable, and taking out the station chief could lead to retribution.
The car behind us made a right. I glanced back and saw the car that was following it, a black sedan with three or four Japanese in it, slow down instead of taking up the space that had developed. Not an effective strategy for driving in Tokyo traffic.
I waited until we were almost at the next light, then told the driver to make a left. He just had time to brake and make the turn. The sedan changed lanes with us.
I told the driver I was mistaken, that he should get back on Meiji-dori. He looked back at me, clearly annoyed, wondering what the hell this was all about.
The sedan stayed with us as we made the turns.
Oh, shit.
“You bring some people with you, Holtzer? I thought I told you to come alone.”
“They’re here to bring you inside. For your protection.”
“Fine, they can follow us back to the embassy,” I said, suddenly scared and trying to think of a way out.
“I’m not going to have a cab drive the two of us into the embassy compound together. It’s enough of a breach of security that I’ve met with you at all. They’ll bring you in. It’s safer.”
How could they have followed him? Even if he were wearing a transmitter in a body cavity, they couldn’t have pinpointed the location in this traffic.
Then I realized. They had played me beautifully. They knew when “Lincoln” called that I was going to demand an immediate meeting. They didn’t know where, but they had people mobile and ready to move the second they found out the place. They had twenty minutes to get to Shinjuku, and they could stay close enough to react to what they heard through the wire without my seeing them. Holtzer must have given them the name of the cab company, the car’s description, the license-plate number, and updated them about its progress until I got in. By then they were already in position. All while I was congratulating myself for thinking so well on my feet and taking control of the situation, while I was relaxing after getting rid of the wire.
I hoped I would live to enjoy the lesson. “Who are they?” I asked.
“People we can trust. Working with the embassy.”
The light at the Kanda River overpass turned red. The cab started to slow down.
I snapped my head right, then left, searching for an avenue of escape.
The sedan crept closer, stopping a car length away.
Holtzer looked at me, trying to gauge what I was going to do. For a split instant our eyes locked. Then he lunged at me.
“It’s for your own good!” he yelled, trying to get his arms around my waist. I saw the back doors of the sedan open, a pair of burly Japanese in sunglasses stepping out on either side.
I tried to push Holtzer away, but his hands were locked behind my back. The driver turned around and started yelling something. I didn’t really hear what.
The two Japanese had closed their doors and were carefully approaching the taxi. Shit.
I wrapped my right arm around Holtzer’s neck, holding his head in place against my chest, and slipped my left between my body and his neck, the ridge of my hand searching for his carotid. “Aum da! Aum Shinrikyo da!” I yelled at the driver. “Sarin!” Aum was the cult that gassed the Tokyo subway in 1995, and memories of the sarin attack can still cause panic.
Holtzer yelled something against my chest. I leaned forward, using my torso and legs like a walnut cracker. I felt him go limp.
“Ei? Nan da tte?” the driver asked, his eyes wide. What do you mean?
One of the Japanese tapped on the passenger-side window. “Aitsu! Aum da! Sarin da! Boku no tomodachi — ishiki ga nai! Ike! Kuruma o dase!” Those men! They’re Aum — they have sarin! My friend is unconscious! Drive! Drive! Getting the right note of terror in my voice wasn’t a reach.
He might have thought it was bullshit or that I was crazy, but sarin wasn’t worth the chance. He snapped the car into gear and hauled the steering wheel to the right, doing a burning-rubber U-turn on Meiji-dori and cutting off oncoming traffic in the process. I saw the Japanese hurrying back to their car.
“Isoide! Isoide! Byoin ni tanomu!” Hurry! We need a hospital!