The Spy Across the Table

by Barry Lancet

  Her expression sobered with my reply. “I would very much appreciate it if you could lend your talent to the endeavor.”

  I sat back, disconcerted. “Me?”

  “Yes. I’m told you know Japan and Asia and that your overseas connections are superb. That was, after all, Sharon’s territory.”

  “It was,” I said.

  My neutral response puzzled her. “I am also given to understand that you lost two friends today. Was Mr. Dillman an acquaintance of yours as well?”

  Hearing Mikey’s name spoken so openly jarred nerves still far too raw. The grief she’d sparked to life rekindled twice as hot, smothering any verbal response I might have summoned. I answered with a nod.

  The first lady divined her misstep immediately. “I have been indelicate. Please accept my apologies.”

  I nodded a second time, knowing there was more to come.

  “From what my people also mentioned . . . well . . . about you, Jim, I do not believe you are the type who will leave this matter untended.”

  My voice returned with a vengeance. “Never.”

  Which had always been true. Never had I let a serious slight, offense, or attack against friend or family go unanswered. Call it loyalty, justice, payback, or all of the above. I had the tools. I’d trained at Brodie Security, the Tokyo-based PI/security firm established by my ex-MP, ex-cop father. I’d studied martial arts in Tokyo with judo and karate masters and picked up some street moves along the way. Since I had the ability to act, I would. Period. It wasn’t my preferred activity—dealing in art was—but when necessity called I stepped up. Even if I knew I might not come away unscathed.

  “I thought not,” the first lady said. “In which case, I would be very appreciative if you would allow me to hire you and your Tokyo people to assist me personally in my inquiries.”

  My reluctance surfaced immediately. I was in this for Mikey and Sharon. The last thing I needed was the White House looking over my shoulder.

  Misreading my response, the president’s wife said, “Let me assure you I will not abandon you. Margaret or I will be available to you any time of the day or night. You should not hesitate to call.”

  “That’s very kind,” I said, “but I prefer to work alone.”

  “You know, Jim, I am a public figure. There’s little I can do openly. But today’s . . . incident . . . is as personal to me as it is to you. You would be doing me a great service.”

  Penetrating blue-gray eyes pleaded the first lady’s case with an ardor impossible to resist. Her look was silent yet deafening. But also deafening were the alarm bells blaring in my head. Joan Slater’s request ran counter to a mantra vital to the survival of Brodie Security: Never accept high-level politicals as clients. They come with too many strings, most of them hidden and treacherous.

  Our client list ran up the ladder from ordinary people to public figures of all kinds. From managing directors to movie stars to pop idols. From local Japanese politicians to minor European royalty to the occasional diplomat. But we never stepped onto the highest rungs. Brodie Security had done so once and was nearly destroyed. The White House occupied the highest rung of them all. I could already hear them screaming in Tokyo.

  Sensing my unwillingness, the president’s wife said, “Oh, before I forget, let me give you this.”

  She handed me her private card. Her name and phone number were embossed in silver on quality ivory-colored stock. The tone of the ink was subtle, not ostentatious. The card tendered no title, no official affiliation, no address, no White House emblem. The overall effect was one of unassuming and unadorned modesty.

  The gesture itself, however, told a different story.

  Joan Slater was advancing, not retreating.

  “Will you work with me to find out who did this to our friends?” she asked.

  I looked into her eyes. Their fervor had redoubled. I also saw intelligence, passion, and sincerity. I could not imagine her sandbagging me. She was not, herself, a politician.

  “Maybe I can make an exception,” I said.

  CHAPTER 9

  SPLENDID,” the first lady said. “Now, with what information may I supply you?”

  “To start, you could tell me more about you and Sharon Tanaka.”

  “Such as?”

  “For example, did you have a chance to meet before the opening?”

  Joan Slater bit her lower lip. “No. Our schedules were in conflict, so we planned to meet at the after-party tonight, then privately tomorrow . . . here.”

  “I’m guessing you were one of the people led out of the theater when the shots were fired . . .”

  She raised a delicate hand to the hollow of her neck. “How did you . . . Never mind, yes. They told me there was gunfire but I never imagined Sharon would be . . . would be . . .”

  Her eyelids began to flutter. Without warning, she rose and turned away. A lace-trimmed handkerchief appeared in her hand from a side pocket, and she dabbed at the corner of her eye. “Excuse me, Jim, I—”

  “No, excuse me,” I said.

  Misgiving swept in whenever I stepped over the line. Not only the emotional one, but also the one that dragged me from my preferred occupation of art dealer to the one I’d inherited from my father. The artists and craftspeople I display in my shop dig deep. It’s what inspires their work. It’s what brings their pieces to life. Even anonymously crafted items glow under the influence of a gifted craftsperson’s hand. In my father’s world, I’m the one who must dig deep—but into other people’s lives. Into their suffering. Into their most immediate pain. The answers I require are necessary but rarely extracted without eliciting heartache, which never fails to fill me with guilt and remorse and doubt about my second occupation.

  Her back still turned, the first lady said, “I’ll be all right in a moment. It’s just that . . .”

  Again the handkerchief rose. Joan Slater was a strong woman. She had always charted her own course, even as her husband’s political star rose. Now her ship had been rocked by an unforeseen storm and was in danger of smashing against a treacherous shore. And she’d called me to help plot a course past the obstacles.

  “Dealing with details in the aftermath is frustrating and torturous,” I said. “But necessary. For both of us.”

  Her eyes glistening but steady, the president’s wife reclaimed her seat. “Maddening for you, I expect. I so wish I could have done something to stop all this, but how could I have known? How could anyone have known?”

  Someone knew, I thought. And I would find him or her or them.

  “I am determined to get to the bottom of this,” Joan Slater said, her agony transparent and crushing. “Please continue with your questions.”

  “If you’re sure you’re up to it.”

  “I need to be.”

  Steeling myself, I tiptoed back in. “Did Sharon mention any trouble in her life?”

  “No.”

  “Did she offer any confidences?”

  “No. Those would have come tomorrow morning.”

  “How did you arrange your meeting times?”

  “A brief email exchange.”

  “Was there ever any sign of worry on her part? Any hint?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  I felt like a painter trying to mix together a last dab of color from a depleted palette. “Perhaps later you could email me a short description of how you met and a list of your social interactions over the years. I’ll also need the names of friends in common and any other person who might be of help. All in confidence, of course.”

  “Of course. By the way, I plan to attend Sharon’s funeral in Tokyo.”

  “I’ll see you there, then.”

  “I do have one more minor request,” Joan Slater said. “A Homeland Security agent by the name of Tom Swelley will be heading up the case for the government. I would like the two of you to share information. Working together might speed things along. Would you do that for me?”

  Despite an attempt to suppress my constern
ation, my brow furrowed. How was it that sitting in the refined study of the first lady of the United States—among genteel furnishings, antique china, and the work of Rothko and Klee—I could be put down for the count by a sucker punch?

  “Jim? Are you all right?”

  I exhaled audibly. “I am afraid I spoke too soon, ma’am. With the whole of Homeland Security behind you, you have no need of my services.”

  Gingerly, I retrieved Joan Slater’s name card from my shirt pocket, set it down on a side table, and rose to leave. From the way the first lady’s eyes widened, I gathered people did not refuse her often, if ever. But a gracious smile soon supplanted her initial astonishment.

  “Please, Mr. Brodie—Jim—don’t rush off just yet. If I have been presumptuous, I apologize. Even if you choose not to extend your help in the end, I don’t think our meeting should conclude on a discordant note, do you?”

  The president had married no fool. Joan Slater was moving deftly to calm troubled waters even before she could fully divine what had stirred them.

  “My refusal has nothing to do with you,” I said from my standing position. The first lady remained seated. “I’m honored to have been considered, but with Homeland in the picture, I would only be in the way.”

  She clasped her hands together in relief. “Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t offend you. Let me freshen your tea.” She rang a small silver bell by her side before I could decline.

  Immediately, the two staffers returned with a new pot and cups. The old china was whisked away while another round of tea was brewed and poured with presidential efficiency. Not ten seconds after the leaves had fully steeped, we were once more alone.

  The president’s wife looked up expectantly. Reluctantly, I retook my seat.

  “The last tea cups were from Eleanor Roosevelt’s china service,” my host said. “She is one of my personal heroes. These are heirlooms from my great-great-grandmother.”

  Eyeing the setup, I said, “Nineteenth-century Meissen. In excellent condition.”

  Joan Slater’s right eyebrow waffled. “Remarkable. My husband doesn’t know that, even now.”

  “I’m a product of a mixed marriage,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  “Curator and cop.”

  She laughed, delighted. “Yes, of course. But Meissen as well as Japanese antiques?”

  My mother had worked as a museum curator before she went to Japan as a volunteer for the Red Cross, where she met my father. His entry into law enforcement began with a stint as an officer in the American army as an MP. Once he mustered out, he joined the LAPD but soon revolted against the command structure and returned to Tokyo, where he opened Brodie Security, parlaying his Japanese connections into the city’s first successful Western-style detective/security agency. All of which Joan Slater would have learned from whatever report the Secret Service had scrounged up for her on short notice.

  “I apprenticed with a generalist,” I said. “He stocked antiques from nearly every continent.”

  “Remarkable,” my host said again. An inquiring look crept into expression. “But the distaste on your face . . .” She paused, then brightened. “Your reluctance isn’t because of Homeland but because of Tom Swelley, isn’t it? You know him, don’t you? That is the only explanation.”

  “I do,” I said. “And to know him is to . . . wish you didn’t.”

  She nodded. “Swelley is a piece of work.”

  “I voted for your husband,” I said. “For what it’s worth.”

  “This is not about politics, Jim.”

  “Not directly, but if you are friends with Swelley, I doubt you and I could work together.”

  Joan Slater gave a breezy laugh. “Actually, those very words confirm that we could work together. Unless you wish to take back your vote.”

  I chuckled in turn. “No, I’ll stand by my vote, but Swelley is . . .” I shrugged. What I wished to say wouldn’t do in polite company. To cover my embarrassment, I took a sip of tea.

  Next to me, discerning eyes sparkled. “A dick?”

  I came exceedingly close to spraying Earl Grey all over the first lady and her designer dress.

  * * *

  There was a light tap on the door, then Joseph B. Slater, the president of the United States of America, stuck his head in. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”

  “No, dear.”

  I stood and we shook hands. The president was tall and slim, with a relaxed look as open and observant as his wife’s, but honed with a shrewd glint from years in politics. No one made a fool of him. His full head of black hair, abundant and neatly parted, had a fringe of gray at the temples that had not been there when he first stepped into the White House.

  “I have the Joint Chiefs waiting for me,” he said, “but I wanted to stop by and see how Joan’s enterprise was coming along.”

  He glanced toward his wife, whose expression was the perfect study of neutrality.

  The president almost managed to work up a troubled face. “Ah,” he said. “Trouble in paradise. Sharon was a family friend, Mr. Brodie. Whatever obstacle you might have encountered, I hope you’ll find a way to circumvent it.”

  If he expected his words of encouragement to melt my resistance, a quick scan of my face assured him he was mistaken.

  He turned to his wife. “A big hurdle then, is it, Joan?”

  “Swelley” was all she said.

  “Junior?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” Her husband clasped his hands behind his back. “Mr. Brodie. Jim. Can I call you Jim?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, Jim, in this household, as in many others throughout the capital, you have only to mention the name of Tom Swelley Jr. to find, shall we say, comrades in arms. I must say I cannot blame you one bit. Even without knowledge of what your complaint may be, I am certain I would side with you in a dispute. We have known the Swelley family for years. I attended the same college as Swelley’s father. That would be Tom Swelley Sr. We pledged the same fraternity. While I cannot, in truth, say we are close, we keep in touch. When he and the missus asked us to find a place for their son in the early years of Homeland, I acquiesced with great reluctance. I was a congressman back then, and there were so many positions to be filled after the Twin Towers came down, I had little more to do than suggest his name. Junior was a deputy sheriff somewhere in small-town Pennsylvania, but that was not going well. However, I’ve heard he’s risen quite rapidly in the DHS, perhaps in part because of my introduction, though I assure you I asked for no special dispensation. This is because Junior, like his father, is trouble, and I did not want my token gesture to come back to haunt me in any manner or form. Do you understand what I am trying to say?”

  “I believe I do.”

  “Good. Your instincts about him are accurate, but please don’t let that color your decision about accepting my wife’s request.”

  I had been outflanked. Wedged between a presidential rock and a hard place.

  “Knowing the full story,” I said, “I may change my mind.”

  “I would appreciate it.” The president looked at his watch. “I have to get back to the West Wing. I’m sure the Joint Chiefs are squirming. Hopefully, they haven’t planned a war in my absence. I’ll leave you two to finish your conversation. It’s been nice meeting you, Jim.”

  “The same here, Mr. President.”

  “Joe. Call me Joe.”

  I nodded, he smiled—then he was gone. The door eased silently shut behind him before reopening a beat later. The president stuck his head back in.

  “You helped Gary Hurwitz with his Pacific exchange program, didn’t you?”

  The mayor of San Francisco.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You see him, say hello for me.”

  “I will.”

  President Joseph B. Slater smiled warmly and disappeared a second time.

  The rock had become a boulder, and the place a far tighter squeeze.

  CHAPTER 10
r />   DAY 2, MONDAY, 8:40 A.M.

  NATIONAL MALL, WASHINGTON, DC

  I SENSED their approach only a moment before the four men fell in alongside me, two on each flank. All of them were large. All of them clocked in far above the national average in height and girth. I glanced left, then right. They were flinty. Hard-edged. Trained. Their actions were coordinated.

  I was strolling along the National Mall on the way to the Freer Gallery, to keep an appointment I’d made two weeks earlier. The museum wanted some new art for its collection and I’d signed on to supply them. The sun lapped at my shoulders, warm and welcoming. The sky was cloudless and blue and promising. The deaths of my friends had dominated my thoughts—until the newcomers showed up.

  The men continued to replicate my stride step for step.

  All of them exceeded my six-one height by a noticeable margin. The two closest ones carried shoulder holsters under lightweight jackets. I suspected the two on the perimeter were also armed.

  This was the second breach of my “art day.” The first had come earlier, when I’d fired off two email inquiries. One for a background check on Sharon Tanaka, to Brodie Security in Tokyo. Another for the same to an SFPD friend about Mikey.

  The next moment Tom Swelley Jr. stepped from behind a tree. The Homeland agent wore civilian black with a slate-colored jacket. His silver hair was still cropped short. His feverish black eyes glowed with ill will.

  “What happened to your other gorilla?” I asked.

  Swelley snorted. “Guy that easy I don’t keep around.”

  Last time I flew into the capital, Swelley had sicced a six-foot-six, 250-pound Homeland apeman on me in the terminal. I’d come out on top. This time Swelley had stacked the odds irretrievably in his favor.

  “So you got new playmates. I’m happy for you, Swelley.”

  Calculating eyes glared at me from a well-tanned face of taut planes and surfaces. His crew sported the same baked look. Meaning the unit had recently returned from an assignment in toastier climes. They were in dark civilian clothing, like their leader. None of them wore any outer law enforcement markings. No protective vests with large acronyms on the back. No shoulder or chest patches. No lapel pins.