The Spy Across the Table

by Barry Lancet

  * * *

  I woke up on the floor of a windowless van. Swelley’s Washington gorillas sat side by side on a bench, rocking gently with the movement of the vehicle.

  “Where’s your boss?”

  “Getting an X-ray as we speak. He’s going to want to work you over personally when he’s back.”

  They’d hog-tied my arms and legs behind me. “Did he say that or is that your interpretation?”

  The two men exchanged a look.

  “He didn’t regain consciousness, did he?”

  Neither man replied.

  “Good,” I said.

  Ah, that’s what I’d been thinking. Dumb. It seemed my reflexes weren’t the only one of my faculties to have suffered a setback. All my frustration about Swelley’s slick moves had snuck in behind my fury over the Japanese-American agent’s inaction at Sharon’s funeral and ambushed me.

  “You won’t be saying that for much longer,” the man who had thrown the first punch said.

  But that’s where the chatter stopped. Neither of Swelley’s pit bulls rose to extract another pinch of retribution. Nor did they insult me, curse me, or abuse me in any way. They just swayed with the van and watched me.

  I’d have felt better if they’d flung some personal threats of their own. Or swore or taken another swipe at me. That was normal.

  A silent vigil was not.

  * * *

  “Is he awake?”

  “Was before, Mr. Haggis.”

  “You give him anything? Meds, another beating?”

  “No, sir. Hands off, just like you ordered.”

  “Good job, boys.” A toe nudged me.

  I wasn’t asleep, just resting. I stirred and opened my eyes. Swelley’s thugs had dumped me on my side, still hog-tied. My cheek rested on cold concrete. More cement, but of the consistency of a serious building pour, not the coarse mix of an underground dungeon to house people the government wanted to forget.

  The ground was crazed with the hairline cracks small Japanese buildings accumulate over decades of being subjected to routine tremors and quakes. So I lay in an older structure. The floor did not slant toward the middle of the room and yet it had a drain. So the place didn’t originally serve as a lockup. The metal on the drain sparkled. So I was dealing with a recently repurposed site. Up close, the faint smell of gasoline product and even fainter shadows of long straight lines presented themselves. So I’d been brought to a converted parking garage. And the room was much cooler than it should be for this time of year. So I was in a basement two or three floors down. Maybe more.

  My situation had not improved but my mental faculties had resurfaced.

  “There you are, Mr. Brodie,” the man called Haggis said. Swelley’s two watchdogs stood nearby, attentive. “You put my main man out of commission for a spell.”

  “How about that.”

  “You don’t seem too shook up.”

  “Should I be?”

  “Yes, because what you visited upon him we are going to visit upon you tenfold.”

  “Sounds biblical.”

  A tightness threaded its way into his voice. “Oh, it is. We will be sending you to your maker.”

  “For taking a swipe at Swelley?”

  “No, he’s a pro. He’ll take his lumps.”

  “What, then?”

  “For what you did to Anna Tanaka.”

  “Are you insane? I saved her.”

  “You scuttled a top secret op. Strap him in, boys.”

  “Wall or chair?” one of the leather jackets asked.

  CHAPTER 91

  IRON manacles bolted to a metal chair, itself bolted to the cement floor, secured my wrists and ankles. After locking me down, Swelley’s boys left me alone with their boss’s boss.

  “This is the armpit of hell,” Haggis said. “But don’t worry. You’re only here for a short time, then you will disappear. Uh, let me correct that. You have already disappeared.”

  Haggis paced back and forth in front of me. He was a pale man in his forties, with a well-shaped head of prematurely gray hair. The hair lent him dignity, and his large burly frame lent him a commanding air. He had a tall forehead, which gave him an intelligent look, but at the moment his brow was furrowed with a curious mix of anger and elation.

  “There must be some mistake,” I said.

  “There’s no mistake. You’re a traitor.”

  The official reason I’d been dragged here. Wherever “here” was.

  “Again, there’s got to be a mix-up.”

  Haggis’s eyes filled with fury. They were dark and predatory. “The only blunder was mine. I should have eliminated you much earlier.”

  “What is it you think I did to Anna?”

  His eyes blazed. “You scuttled a sanctioned op.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “That damn well is the answer.” He brought an inflamed face to within inches of mine. “Anna Tanaka was in play. The North Koreans were supposed to take her.”

  “What?”

  “Think way back, Brodie. I sent Swelley and his team to warn you off in DC. We tried to take you down at the ambassador’s and at the airstrip, but you escaped and managed to totally screw up the operation.”

  So Haggis, not Swelley, was the mastermind behind all the attacks.

  “I saved Anna’s life.”

  “No, you signed your own death warrant. Which I am going to enjoy fulfilling. It’s just you and me. No cameras, no microphones.”

  Then his right fist slammed into my ribs. Followed by the left. With my arms and legs strapped in place, I was helpless. He continued to pound away. In my weakened state I immediately began to fade.

  I was still trying to get my head around supposed to take her when my body went into protection mode and shut down.

  * * *

  My eyes flickered open and I tasted blood.

  Haggis strutted in a moment later. He’d said no electronics, so he had a peephole in the door I couldn’t see.

  “That’s right,” Haggis said, reading my look. “Old school. What screws you in the end is recorded evidence. You figure out the score yet, Brodie?”

  “Sure. It’s not rocket science. Sanctioned by who?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Wrong question again. The correct one is why.”

  He waited with mock expectation.

  “All right, fine. ‘Why?’ ”

  “To establish a channel of disinformation that would keep North Korea and its allies heading down the wrong path. The plan would have set back their spying capabilities years.”

  “China was after it too.”

  “The original target was North Korea, but China forced its way in and they are a bigger fish. The op would have been huge either way. I’d be looking at assistant deputy director in a few years. That’s what you screwed up.”

  I stared at him, my mind working furiously. Supposed to take her . . . There’s no mistake. . . . Supposed to take her . . . Anna Tanaka was in play . . .

  I finally understood. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing.”

  Haggis spread his arms. “What you see is what you get.”

  “You put Anna out there as bait. You set her up.”

  “I just tweaked the original op a bit.”

  “You call it a tweak? It wasn’t the North Koreans at the Kennedy Center, was it? You killed Anna’s mother so Anna would be forced to come out of hiding to attend the funeral.”

  “Yep, a tweak to end all tweaks. You’re a clever man.”

  “But not as clever as Swelley?”

  “God, no. No smarts there. Just a loyal soldier, not another brain.” Then Haggis turned indignant. “But you don’t get to ask questions. All you get to do is die. No more beatings. All that’s left for you is a shoot-and-dump.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Yes. From the beginning, you’ve been the only problem. You have the president’s ear. I couldn’t risk some small comment triggering a White House probe. The others I could
handle. Swelley and his crew know nothing but the original plan. Anna doesn’t either. Your people, it’ll be their word against ours, if they even figure it out. Once you’re gone, no one can point a finger. The official version will be that North Korea sent an assassin after Sharon Tanaka.”

  “He spoke Spanish.”

  “You think I’d send one that spoke Korean? Even the North wouldn’t do that. They’d hire a freelancer, just as they contracted out Anna’s kidnapping to the Japanese. End of story. End of you. ‘Last meal’ time, Brodie. Steak or sushi? Lucky for you I’m a traditionalist. A token display of humanity goes a long way toward pacifying the staff.”

  I studied the man before me. His face had closed up. There was a sudden aloofness to his manner. He’d made his decision and was in the process of washing his hands of me. I constituted the only loose end. Everyone else—from the Tanaka family to Zhou to the national security establishment to the American president—believed North Korea was behind all of it.

  “Others will learn I was killed here.”

  “For reasons of national security. It’s routine and no one will speak of it. Ever. Steak or sushi?”

  His comment was spot on. The clandestine services community was as close-lipped as they come.

  “Steak and fries,” I said. “Ketchup, full salad, with good tomatoes, croutons, oil and vinegar. I’m a traditionalist too.”

  CHAPTER 92

  THIS wasn’t the Farmhouse, but it might as well have been.

  I was in another windowless room. There was another dim lightbulb on a string overhead. There was another drain in the floor. And I was once again underground. Not below a range of anonymous hills, but in the subbasement of an anonymous building in Tokyo, repurposed by an American government agency. In a building that, to pedestrians strolling by, didn’t exist.

  No, that wasn’t right.

  In a place that didn’t look like what it actually was.

  Just like the Farmhouse.

  How was it that two governments with such opposing belief systems and opposing styles of rule could come up with such similar detention facilities? I didn’t know, but I knew my last meal was on its way down, after which Haggis wanted me dead.

  And he might succeed. I had no fight left in me.

  No, again my thought was slightly off-center.

  In spirit, I had plenty of fight left. It was my body that couldn’t take or give any more. Everything had been pounded out of me at the Farmhouse. In the confrontation with Swelley out at the airport, three swings of the crutch in less than ten seconds had drained my reserves. Under Haggis’s pummeling, I’d lasted only a few punches. With nothing left to draw on, my body had shut down both times.

  I would need a week to recuperate before I could fight my way out of this place, but I wasn’t going to get a week.

  I heard footsteps in the hall. The door swung open and Swelley’s leather-bound hooligans crossed the threshold. One stationed himself by the exit and drew his weapon. The other set a tray on a table near the door.

  “Here you go. Steak and fries and a salad. Don’t get it, though.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “This is Japan, man. Great sushi is everywhere. Why not go for the best for your last?”

  “So Haggis is sticking with the final meal ploy?”

  “No ploy. That’s what it is.”

  “Am I really supposed to believe that?”

  He shrugged, bored and ready to leave. “Believe what you want.”

  “Not sure I can do that.”

  The man sighed. “Let me lay it out. Do we need anything from you?”

  “No.”

  “There you go then.”

  He had a point.

  “But why?”

  “You stuck your nose where it don’t belong. You mess with national security, it messes with you. You people got to learn that.”

  I shot him a sharp look. “You don’t know why.”

  He fired back a smirk. “ ‘Need to know.’ We know you’re a traitor and that’s all we need.”

  Traitor, like terrorist, was a loaded word. Wield it in the right way and it became an all-purpose excuse.

  “You going to do it?”

  “Nah. The big boss. Now I’m going to uncuff you. Try anything at all and my partner will put you down.”

  The man at the door tightened his grip on his piece.

  “I’m not going to give you any trouble.”

  “Don’t think you can, man. Don’t know what they did to you out in China, but they emptied your tank.”

  “That they did.”

  “So we’ll be doing you a favor, putting you out of your misery.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “You got an hour to eat, and if you’re of the persuasion, say your prayers.”

  Then he backed away. Two pairs of eyes and one gun were trained on me until the door slammed shut.

  Time to eat.

  CHAPTER 93

  YOU got an hour.

  I ate my last meal. The steak was marbled Japanese beef and melt-in-your-mouth tender. It disappeared far too quickly. The fries and salad were fries and salad with nothing much to recommend them, but I polished them off as well. My body, not surprisingly, craved the calories.

  I stood and stretched. My muscles ached and my nerve endings twitched and buzzed and sent little warning charges throughout my body that sparked and fizzed and said don’t do too much. Anything beyond ordinary movement would unleash waves of pain.

  I settled gingerly back in the metal chair and closed my eyes. What else could I do but wait for Haggis? I found the overhead lighting annoying. Since I was free to roam, I shuffled over to the table, picked up the ceramic dinner plate, and flung it at the lightbulb. The bulb shattered and the room went dark.

  “Much better,” I said aloud.

  I retook my seat and closed my eyes.

  * * *

  The door banged open and Haggis stood on the threshold.

  “Your hour’s up, Brodie. Smashed lightbulb’s not going to buy you any time. Stand up, hands in the air. I’m going to enjoy this. I think I’ll start with a leg. Maybe a kneecap. Stretch things out.”

  The Homeland agent’s large silhouette filled the doorway. He aimed a firearm with one hand and held a flashlight over the top of the gun with the other, the way he’d been taught in training.

  I stood and raised my hands.

  Haggis took a step into the room and his feet flew out from under him. They went up and his head came down on the cement with a stomach-churning smack. The weapon and flashlight tumbled away into the darkness. I rushed forward, wincing with the sudden movement but not slowing. However this played out, I would not go down without a fight.

  The fall had stunned Haggis, so I hobbled past him and stuck my head out the door. There was no one in the hall. Behind me, Haggis groaned. He tried to rise and couldn’t. He tried to lift his head and couldn’t. Saved me the trouble of supplying the knockout punch, which even in my weakened condition I could manage against a stationary target.

  In a groggy voice, Haggis said, “What the hell just happened?”

  “Oil and vinegar just happened,” I said.

  * * *

  Quickly I retrieved the flashlight and used it to search for the errant gun, a Beretta 92FS, which I examined then shoved in the front of my waistband.

  I relieved Haggis of the key ring hooked to his belt. When I searched him, I found a conceal-carry Glock 27 in an ankle holster and a pair of brass knuckles in his pocket. He carried no extra magazines for either gun. I hated brass knuckles and tossed them aside. I shoved the Glock in the back of my waistband.

  Haggis said, “I need a doctor. I can’t move.”

  “You’re talking to the wrong guy.”

  “Call on the radio.”

  I looked down and saw I’d missed a two-way transceiver, which had come loose from his belt and skidded away. I flipped it to listening mode but heard no chatter. I stepped a
way and shook it. Tapped it a couple of times on the table.

  “Broke in the fall,” I told Haggis, and set it on the table.

  Haggis said, “You’re not getting out of here without my say-so.”

  “Not buying today, sorry.”

  “We’re four levels down. Each level is locked. For security purposes, none of the key rings carries more than two keys. That’s two floors. You get the next ring from a guard on the other side of a gate. You see? You’re trapped.”

  I lifted the ring and studied the keys. There was a different tooth pattern on each key. Which meant two different locks. No master key, otherwise I’d be staring at a single piece of dangling metal.

  “Give it up,” Haggis said. “You can’t get past my men.”

  He lay on the chilly cement floor, stiff and wooden. He was flat on his back. When I moved, his eyes followed me but his neck did not. Paralysis was a possibility. He could slide his arms up and down over the floor—like a snow angel spreading fresh powder—but the movement took effort and looked painful.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Won’t work.”

  “What you mean to say is that if I get out, your secret gets out.”

  He was silent for a beat. “Losing proposition, Brodie. The men have standing orders to shoot.”

  “Guess I’m going to test those orders.”

  I pulled the Glock out and considered it. I had fifteen rounds in the Beretta. I was either going to escape shot-free or after firing a round or two. Either scenario would require luck and maybe some deft maneuvering. If I needed anywhere near fifteen bullets, I wouldn’t be leaving of my own volition. Which made the Glock deadweight.

  I popped the clip, dropped eight of the nine bullets, then slammed the mag home and set the subcompact down at the edge of Haggis’s reach. His fingers could scramble over the cool cement and wrap themselves around the gun in a minute or two, but no sooner. What little he could move was moving at a glacial pace.

  “A going-away present,” I said.

  Haggis snorted but said nothing. I stepped from the cell into the dim amber light of the hall and silently locked him in.