Jake made a second stop at a Thai restaurant called Otong’s for an order of Pad Thai from the street-side carryout window. Chow Ying stepped into the McDonalds two doors down for a less opulent double cheeseburger and large Coke to go, keeping Jake in sight through the glass.
Chow Ying trailed the young Peter Winthrop back to his apartment at a distance far enough to go unnoticed. Jake, unaware of the danger he just led to his door, entered his apartment building without looking back. The Mountain of Shanghai, ketchup in the corner of his mouth, committed the address to memory.
Chapter 16
The Hart Senate Building was built on one of the highest pieces of ground in D.C., the altitude giving the third floor office of Senator Day a sweeping view of the capitol and the national mall that ran two miles southwest to the Lincoln Memorial. It was a room with a view, and one the senator had jockeyed position to get for two terms. Competition for perks was intense, and there was no shortage of battles to fight to improve one’s position within the elite of the elite. Senators aren’t usually elected by mistake, but when it does happen, the constituents tend to notice by the end of the first term. Three inaugurations was the standing record.
Senator Day’s page shuffled around the office, making coffee and planning his work schedule, wedging personal agendas between whatever the senator had on his plate for the day. The senator’s Ivy League all-star aide, still recovering from his water skiing injuries incurred in the west Pacific, was sorely missed. The page, a recent grad named Doug, was now teamed with Dana and four other full-time helpers. They had one task among them—caring for the self-admitted brashest senator on the Hill.
Senator Day was on the speakerphone when Dana slipped into the room and delivered the envelope. With lips colored fire-engine red, she mouthed the words “he said it was important,” before walking out. The senator nodded, gave a slight wave, and watched the tightest ass in the Hart Senate Building sway its way out of the room. The perfect office assistant.
Senator Day opened the envelope without trepidation, still engrossed in a conversation over a proposal to build a high-level bioresearch center in downtown Boston. A future incubation and study mecca for the most deadly pathogens and viruses known to man, many of which the human species itself created. The highly contested topic was gaining momentum on both sides of the political coin. Local Massachusetts politicians were focusing on the prestige and jobs the center would bring. Everyone else with an IQ above the water temperature on Cape Cod was estimating the potential death toll should a mishap occur in the state’s most populated area. As it was with most decisions, it was coming down to the important issue—money. The senator was weighing the proposals, and presently having his ear chewed off by the Mayor of Hopkinton, a small town west of Boston that was also bidding for the project.
The senator pulled the contents from the envelope and read it slowly, continuing his conversation on the bioresearch center, pausing between sentences. Yes, he understood the ramifications of a biological agent being released into downtown Boston. Yes, he understood the potential death toll could be in the tens of thousands. Yes, he could only hope that if such a calamity occurred it would claim his ex-wife as a victim. When the senator reached the second paragraph of the letter, his chest tightened, and he cut the conversation short. “I will have to get back to you, Mayor.”
The senator felt light-headed as he staggered out of his personal office. The reception room was smaller than his office with two short hallways running in either direction. The senator could hear members of his staff at work as he approached the front desk. His face pale, he asked his faithful Senate page and unfaithful office entertainment a simple question. “Where did this envelope come from?”
Both employees looked at the senator with concern. Identifying shock doesn’t require formal medical training. The senator stared at his dumbfounded dynamic duo and asked the question again, this time with enough force to arouse the rest of the staff in the adjacent rooms from their chairs. Dana looked around the reception office as if she didn’t understand the question, which may have, in fact, been the case.
Doug the Page, wearing a stunning pink bow tie, answered. “Someone dropped it off about ten minutes ago. An Asian man. Very polite. Very well-spoken.”
“Did you get a name?”
“No, he didn’t leave one.”
The senator asked for a description of the delivery person, someone doing his best to give the senator an early morning coronary. Doug the Page and Dana the Bimbo gave matching descriptions of an unremarkable Asian figure. Senator Day, face now turning crimson, walked back to his office and slammed the door behind him hard enough to put a crack in the small transom above the frame. Staring at the letter, fuming with anger, Senator Day picked up the phone.
Two floors below, Walter Payton, a seasoned veteran of the Capitol Police force, looked down at the blinking red light. A direct line ran from every Senate office in the building to the main security booth, and when the red light flashed, per protocol, everything else became less of a priority. Walter Payton raised his hand trying to silence the madness going on around him and picked up the phone.
“This is Senator Day, I’m ordering a security shutdown.”
“Good morning, Senator. This is Walter Payton of the Capitol Police. What is the situation, exactly?”
“I’m requesting the immediate apprehension of a suspicious person on the premises. Consider the suspect armed and dangerous,” the senator added with authority, almost delirious.
“Are you injured, sir?”
“No.”
“Is anyone on your staff injured?”
“No.”
“Was anything stolen or vandalized?”
“No. No crime has been committed…and I was hoping we could avoid one.”
Most of the calls to the “bat phone” were lame, emergencies only in title, urgent only to an elite group whose lives ran as smoothly as the Tokyo subway system. The adrenaline the red light had stirred in Officer Payton was already subsiding. “Could you provide a description of the suspect?” the uniformed officer asked, almost bored.
“An Asian man, approximately five-foot-six.”
Walter Payton looked down the crowded entrance hall and scratched his head. “An Asian man, you say?”
“Yes, goddamn it, an Asian man. Did I stutter?!” Senator Day screamed, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth as he leaned over his desk and yelled into his phone.
Walter Payton peered out of his steel and Plexiglas security booth at the sea of black heads surrounding him. The newly formed group calling themselves Asian Welfare and Rights Equality (AWARE) was packed into the hall, five abreast. It had taken the busload of bag-toting citizens nearly an hour to go through security, and the main hallway on the first floor of the Hart Senate Building was now buzzing like a standing-room only sushi buffet. Senator Hamilton from the state of Washington scrambled to lead the group to an open committee room, trying desperately to appease his constituents. Showing full support for the oppressed minority was a PR opportunity no elected official dared to miss.
The AWARE group was on a mission, and Kazu Ito was their poster boy. The murder of a young straight-A student, who was then framed by the police, had galvanized the Asian rim population in the Seattle suburb. They had had enough. Trumped-up moving violations by the police at four times the rate of the white population had been the tip of the iceberg. Then came Kazu, the latest of three innocent lives snuffed out in their prime.
Not even a cross-country bus trip with a toilet that overflowed twice between Minneapolis and Chicago would prevent Kazu Ito’s father from having time on the Hill. But being herded like cattle into the cramped hall, going through repeated security checks, and being forced to stand for hours was making the bus ride, stink and all, seem pleasant by comparison. The AWARE group had passed impatient. Waiting for an empty committee room only further emboldened them and strengthened their push for greater protection of their equal rights.