But it wasn’t just someone. It was the A-SAC. It was Jefferson. No one came straighter than him.
“All right,” Van Horn said. “It’ll just take a minute.”
A quarter to five, the sun red and low in the west. Keiko Kimura stood on the balcony of her second floor room at the Belle View Inn and watched a fishing boat lumber in the distance. She could not see the setting sun, but its shimmer was quite plain, and quite beautiful, on the wide waters of the Potomac.
She was in America.
The hunger roiled impatiently within. One boy could not quench the desire.
But she had to resist the temptation to seek out another just yet. There was the one she had been promised. The one she had to work her magic on.
And only that one.
America, a smorgasbord of her favorite flavors. She ached at thought of what she would miss once she was gone. Her desires denied.
Being here, experiencing here, only to leave. Torture, she thought. It is torture.
A stale bagel sat on the desk of Angelo Breem, United States Attorney, a bite-size chunk missing and a fly picking at the rest. Breem rolled a brief tight and swung at the insect, making contact and batting it across his office. It landed on the floor by the door and was squashed when Assistant United States Attorney Janice Powach came excitedly in.
“A knock would be nice,” Breem commented, turning his attention quickly back to the work on his desk.
Powach approached, a devilish, satisfied grin teasing. She stood right at the edge of Breem’s desk, red skirt pressed against it, and said nothing.
After a second, Breem knew he had to ask. It was a familiar game, and would have grown tiring long ago if the legs beneath the skirt weren’t wrapped around him on occasion. “Yes, Janice?”
“We got a transfer hit on one of Fiorello’s accounts,” Powach said. “One hundred thousand from a stateside account to an overseas account.”
“Mm-hmm,” Breem grunted, but did not look up. Fiorello had ceased being interesting, becoming more a reminder of that damn Jefferson.
Powach leaned forward on the desk, and now he looked up. She had on a white blouse, the loose one. “Don’t you want to know who got the money?”
“Okay,” Breem said, his eyes moving from her face, to her neck, and to the cleavage she was so innocently letting him admire. “Who?”
“The name is Anne Preston,” Powach said, and when Breem did not react or lift his eyes she put a hand under his chin and lifted.
“Preston. Who’s that?”
“Her name isn’t Preston anymore,” Powach explained. “It’s Jefferson.”
Breem’s eyelids batted fast, and he pulled slowly back, settling into his chair. “Anne Jefferson?”
“His pretty new wife,” Powach confirmed, standing now, the inviting curve of her body drawing no interest from her boss.
“His wife!” Breem commented incredulously. “Son of a bitch.”
“Was it okay not to knock?” Powach asked playfully. Breem was staring past her.
“He used his wife,” Breem said, a gleeful smile forming. “Jefferson, Jefferson, Jefferson. I have you.” A fist came down hard on the meaningless work of the day. “I have you!”
As he was leaving for the day, Craig Dean didn’t notice the contrast of the shiny black Chrysler LHS parked next to his aging Toyota, but he jumped when his name was called through an open window.
The shudder faded, and Dean turned and bent to look through the passenger window of the LHS. Mr. Kudrow sat on the opposite side, behind the wheel. “Mr. Kudrow.”
“Long day, Dean?”
Keys jingled nervously in Dean’s hand. “Yeah. Well, you know.”
Kudrow nodded. “Get in.”
Eyes that had been fatigued slits ballooned. “I…was heading home.”
Kudrow looked forward through the windshield, away from Dean. “It’s about MAYFLY, son. There may have been a leak.”
A wet bulge rolled down Dean’s narrow throat. He told himself to stay cool, that it was all right, that, after all, he was the one doing the postmortem on MAYFLY, and that he had been really careful with the money and they’d never find it, so there was no way he could be accused of anything. Be cool. Be cool. It was probably something simple anyway. Maybe a crypto clerk that quit some time ago — they were always leaving. Or the British. There had been that initial suspicion of someone in their structure, since they used MAYFLY, too. Cool, calm, easy.
Dean opened the door and got in, the comfortable leather accepting his wiry frame. Kudrow locked the door from his side and rolled the window up.
“We have to talk about it,” Kudrow said, then started the car.
“Where are we going?” Dean asked, nervous eyes on the ignition.
“We can’t talk here. You’ll understand.”
The LHS pulled out of its space and moved through the workers’ lot, passing two guard posts where barrier gates sank into the pavement and allowed it into a serpentine path between concrete planters. Dean forced his gaze straight ahead, glancing only once or twice toward Kudrow once they were off base and on the highway, heading northwest. Hands at ten and two, Kudrow never even tickled the speed limit.
They meandered on interstates and state routes until, just outside a place called Sunshine, Kudrow said, “We’re being followed.”
Dean looked cautiously over his left shoulder, out the tinted rear window, but all he could see were headlights that appeared no different from any other. “Where? Why would anyone follow us?”
A rural intersection came fast upon them, and Kudrow hardly slowed when he turned the LHS right, heading now for Patuxent River State Park. “Because we’re about to save your life,” Kudrow said, looking briefly at his passenger. “I’m disappointed in you, son.”
The bulge that had rolled down his throat now seemed minuscule to what Dean fought to keep down. He slid a hand onto the armrest built into the door, searching for the door release.
“It won’t open unless I want it to,” Kudrow said, flicking a switch quickly once to demonstrate. “Good old American ingenuity.” He turned left onto a narrow, rutted access road that snaked into the trees. “But you’re more familiar with how our Japanese friends work, aren’t you, son?”
“I…” Cool, cool, oh, shit, no…
The LHS bounced, and Kudrow slowed to match the road’s condition, the headlights sweeping the desolate path ahead. Dean looked out the back window again.
“They’ll wait at the road,” Kudrow said. “To make sure we’re not disturbed while we talk.”
“Mr. Kudrow, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean said, not pleading yet, even though the urge to was almost overpowering. Apologize, express remorse. Come clean. No. Not yet. He has nothing. Noth—
The micro cassette player Kudrow pulled from inside his jacket brought an abrupt end to Dean’s self reassurance. “Are you aware how far surveillance technology has come?”
Dean stared at the silvery player, the brand name almost bringing a smile to his pained face.
“Rock Creek Park, not far from the planetarium,” Kudrow said to freshen Dean’s memory and lower his resistance. His thumb hovered over the PLAY button as he spun the wheel with his free hand, guiding the car into a circular bald spot in the forest, a turnaround for construction vehicles that maintained the park’s network of primitive interior roads. As the car stopped, Kudrow looked hard at Dean and asked, “Would you like to hear what you said to Mr. Atsako last night?”
The young eyes, tired, defeated, looked away.
“Or see the pictures?” Kudrow challenged further.