The Spy Across the Table

by Barry Lancet

  It was time to go home—if I could.

  CHAPTER 94

  THERE were five other cells on my floor, all of them empty.

  An iron gate blocked the stairway leading up. One of the keys on the ring opened it. The passage had the impenetrable brackish look of tarnished silver. A light switch beckoned, but I left it alone. I started up, silently, with gun drawn, a stair at a time. With the knife wound in my leg throbbing, I leaned heavily on the rail.

  I paused on a landing at the halfway mark where the staircase doubled back and peered up around the bend. Another barred gate. I climbed the second set of steps at the same cautious pace. My ribs began to ache, courtesy of the beating I took from Haggis. A blue 3 was painted on the wall next to the gate. The second key unlocked the grille, and I let myself onto the third level.

  The hallway was empty. The floor again housed six rooms, but this time interrogation chambers. A light box had been positioned above each door that, when engaged, read in use. None of them were lit, but even so somewhere inside of me anger flared. Stay focused, Brodie. Get out of here first. I wanted to take a match to the whole place. Maybe I would.

  I limped toward the staircase to the second level and was confronted with another gate, but it took the same third-floor key. The staircase doubled back as the other had. At the top I found the number 2 and another gate.

  There was no guard in sight. I approached. I tried both keys but neither worked.

  Haggis had been telling the truth. I was trapped.

  * * *

  Embedded in the wall was a call button. Above it a panel with a digital clock read 11:13 p.m. The reading unsettled me. I thought it was closer to six in the evening. I pressed the button, sheltered behind the rising stairwell wall, and pulled out the Beretta, wrapping my palm around its cool steel grip.

  Nothing happened.

  I waited three minutes. No one answered my call. I hobbled from my hiding place, hit the button again, then scrambled back into the shadows.

  Nothing.

  After three more minutes I approached the grille and ran the barrel of the Beretta across the bars, which produced a loud metal-on-metal racket that echoed down the hall. Then I called out in my best imitation of Haggis’s voice.

  From my hide in the stairwell, I waited. A minute later I heard footsteps. Two sets. The leather-jacket boys. Keys jangled. I raised the gun. This would be tricky. I couldn’t show myself or shoot until the keys were within range.

  A familiar voice said, “Looking for these?”

  Shooter Watanabe, Brodie Security’s military-trained asset who had watched our back at the airfield, held up a key ring, grinning. Behind him stood Noda, a look of relief on his face.

  * * *

  They let me out in short order.

  “Where are the guards?” I asked.

  Shooter pointed at the ceiling. “Going nowhere fast. Got all three of them corralled in a holding cell one floor up.”

  “Glad to hear it. How did you find me?”

  His answer brought the second surprise of the night. “Your cop friend, Rie.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. She dug out the location from her PSIA buddy.”

  The Public Security Intelligence Agency again. Japan’s counterespionage group. The “buddy” was no doubt Ibata, the oily agent with the surgically enhanced dimples Mari and I had gone to see. Why would he help now when he’d refused earlier?

  “An obnoxious fellow,” I said, “but I may have to cut him a little slack.”

  “Don’t be in too much of a hurry. Your woman gave big to get the intel on this place, and some kind of bad came down with the good.”

  An uneasiness chilled the back of my neck. “What kind of bad?”

  Shooter shook his head, perplexed. “She was vague.”

  We’d climbed to the first basement. The next floor up led to street level, and freedom. At the end of the hall, two Brodie Security staff stood guard in front of the locked cell housing the captured personnel.

  “No matter,” I said. “We’ll pay it back. Whatever it takes.”

  Shooter frowned. “That’s just it. I don’t think you can.”

  My mind went blank as I fished for possibilities. What had Rie done?

  Then I refocused. “One thing at a time. Let’s finish here first.”

  * * *

  I stepped out into the night.

  I inhaled deeply. Fresh, untainted air filled my lungs. I breathed freely for the first time in days. I took in another lungful of the cool night air and enjoyed the way it coursed through my nasal passages and into my lungs. The simplest of acts. One I’d always taken for granted, but never would again.

  I gazed at the scene before me. I stood on a street no different from a thousand others in Japan. Ma-and-pa shops and small family businesses lined the avenue. A twenty-four-hour convenience store was open on the next block. Within walking distance I saw a steak house, a sushi restaurant, and a ramen shop.

  Noda eased up behind me. “You ready?”

  “There’s one more thing.”

  The chief detective grunted as if he expected as much. “Make it quick.”

  We returned to the first basement, which contained a locker room with showers, a guard station, the holding cell, and an office.

  “Where’s the items you took off the guards?”

  “In the office.”

  “That’s where we’re going, then.”

  The office contained six desks and looked like any other office cluttered with paperwork and computers. I hobbled over to the confiscated equipment—guns, cuffs, knives, radios, cell phones, wallets. I picked up one of three multiband, two-way radio transceivers identical to the one I’d taken from Haggis. I dropped into a chair. Noda and Shooter sat on either side of me. I flicked on the radio. I heard a light scraping sound. Haggis’s arms moving along the floor.

  I said, “You there, Haggis?”

  I’d set his transceiver to universal mode. That meant the mechanism itself switched between the speaking and listening settings automatically, sensing the sound on either end and transmitting whatever it picked up in real time.

  Silence, then: “Yeah. Radio’s not broke?”

  “Guess not.”

  I’d lied about the condition of his two-way. I thought I might want to talk to him again, but I didn’t want to retrace my steps, nor did I want him using the radio to call for help. I’d bluffed and it worked.

  “I see they got you. Boys, come get me. I’m down.”

  “They’re not coming, Haggis. I’ve been outside. It’s nice tonight. A lot of stars, the moon’s nearly full, no clouds.”

  “You’re lying. Too many gates. Too many guards. There is no way out without going through my guys.”

  “There was a way and I found it. Or it found me.”

  Silence.

  “Good-bye, Haggis.”

  “Proof of life,” he said.

  He was asking for an irrefutable sign of my escape. Proof of life was the phrase sometimes used in abduction cases to prove the hostage was still alive. It usually amounted to a live conversation or a photograph of the captive holding up a copy of the day’s newspaper.

  “There’s a convenience store on the corner and a steak house just in front of it. That where you got my meal?”

  Silence.

  “Haggis?”

  No answer.

  Then we heard the unmistakable crack of a .40-caliber bullet and gunmetal clattering on cement.

  “Time to go,” Noda said.

  I nodded.

  We stood and headed for the stairs.

  As I made the climb, favoring my sore ribs and leg, it wasn’t the sound of the Glock that echoed in my ears but Shooter’s words on the second-floor landing: Your woman gave big to get the intel on this place, and some kind of bad came down with the good.

  * * *

  The emergency room doctor gave me an encouraging prognosis, but qualified his assessment with more caveats than a Hollywood
contract. For starters, I needed to stay with them for five to ten days for treatment and monitoring, after which I would be an outpatient for at least a month.

  He and his staff did not know what to make of some of what they saw. Apparently the whole back side of my body was one giant bruise. They were stunned by the sight, and when the doctor asked what had happened, I told him about the rubberized stick but not the who or the where.

  An additional catalog of my injuries showed raw red skin where I’d been tapped with the electric prod, and blisters where my captors had dialed up the charge. Rounding out the list were a deep knife wound in my thigh, abrasions on my face, and two cracked ribs. I was also suffering from malnourishment and dehydration.

  All injuries were dressed, after which a concerned nurse led me into a clean white room with clean white walls and fresh, sanitized air. There was a bed with clean sheets and a clean cotton blanket. No mildew, no bloodstains, no drain in the floor. In my current frame of mind, this constituted heaven on earth.

  The hospital staff attached sensors all over my body that fed data to sophisticated monitors stationed around the room. The process seemed complicated. It took fifteen minutes to connect the sensors and confirm they were working. Last, the staff hung intravenous drips for rehydration, nourishment, and medication. The sacks of liquid were endearing in their simplicity.

  After Noda and Shooter completed the necessary paperwork, I told them to go home, because all I was going to do was sleep for a few hours.

  They went home and I slept.

  The “few hours” turned into eighteen.

  When I woke up, Rie was sitting in a chair next to my bed, in her police uniform.

  * * *

  “Hello,” I said, working myself into a sitting position, careful not to dislodge any of the sensors or IV feeds. “You don’t know how happy I am to see you.”

  Her lower lip quivered.

  I said, “I am actually fine this time. Especially now that I’m back in Tokyo.”

  I smiled, and received a troubled look in return.

  I tried again. “Even with the number of injuries, the doctor said there’s nothing time and rest won’t heal.”

  She nodded like I wasn’t telling her anything new.

  “What is it?” I said. “The nightmare you saw—it’s over.”

  “No,” Rie said, both lips trembling now. “It’s not.”

  CHAPTER 95

  RIE walked over to the window and closed the curtain. Brodie Security had sprung for a private room, with a window alongside the door. The curtain was to remain open except when privacy was required.

  “You know, it’s after visiting hours.” Rie’s voice was soft. “I had to claim police business to get in here.”

  Disconcerted, I sat up a little straighter. Rie never let her career spill over into her personal life. The practice had been almost a religion with her.

  “What’s happened, Rie?”

  She reclaimed her seat. Her hands fluttered around indecisively before settling, tightly clasped, in her lap. “You know, it’s a miracle we lasted as long as we did.”

  I stared at her, as confused as Shooter had been. Rie had expressed the same sentiment less than two weeks ago, only then it had been in bed and accompanied by a celebratory bottle of champagne. And couched in the present tense.

  “What’s that mean?”

  Affection and sadness mingled in her look. “It’s been nothing but thrilling for me, but . . . but . . . it’s over . . . between us.”

  “You’re talking about breaking up? Right this minute?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s what you really want?”

  “Of course not.”

  My bewilderment redoubled.

  “There are circumstances,” she said.

  I dismissed the idea with a shake of my head. “If we don’t want it to happen, then it’s not going to happen.”

  “It has to. I gave my word.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Her eyes teared up. “In the long run, it wouldn’t have worked anyway. You and I lead full and busy lives in two different countries. You’re an art dealer and a private badge. I’m public. I come from a very conservative law enforcement family. It’s a miracle we survived this long?”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “Well, it’s true. Things could have fallen apart any number of ways. Clashes over culture or career or family. We had a good run.”

  “None of those tripped us up.”

  “Which is why,” she said, blinking away tears, “it’s a miracle. But this is the end.”

  “It isn’t if we don’t say so.”

  She lowered her head, and from under tumbling black locks she said, “I say so.”

  * * *

  I was stunned.

  I thought I had heard her incorrectly but she kept her head down and her eyes averted. I scrambled to decode the meaning behind the words. I stared at the woman whom I’d spent time with on and off for the last eight months. Who had worked with me on three cases, and supplied vital insights into all of them. I could come up with no explanation for her behavior other than that something had shifted. Something big. I was willing to fight through it, but Rie, it seemed, had already capitulated. I fell back against the headboard and waited for clarification.

  Finally, with great reluctance, Rie spoke. “I told you not to go.”

  “I remember. But I’m back. In one piece.”

  She hesitated. “It’s not that.”

  “What else could it be?”

  “I . . . read my nightmare wrong. I told you I saw something terrible happen in a dream. I saw you suffering in a dark place and saw myself suffering too. I thought I was suffering for you. But I wasn’t. I was suffering for us. The end of us.”

  Could you see that in a dream? I wasn’t sure, but I said, “If I don’t see an end, why should you?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I am honored that you want to fight for me, but it is too late.”

  My throat went dry. “ ‘Honored’?”

  Her tone had turned cool and distant.

  “You made a choice to go after Anna Tanaka. I don’t blame you for that. If I were in the same position, and brave enough, I would have made the same choice. You almost didn’t come back to me, though.”

  “But I did.”

  She looked up. Tears shimmered at the edge of her eyes. And from behind them, a deep sorrow emerged. “Yes, and for that I am grateful. It is another miracle, and it’s wonderful.”

  We were talking at cross-purposes. What was I missing?

  “But,” I said carefully, as if tiptoeing around a child, “we’re past that.”

  With even more care, she said, “I’m engaged, Brodie.”

  The non sequitur threw me. “What are you talking about?”

  Had she thought I wasn’t coming back after Noda and Anna returned from China without me? Did she think I had died? Was she so insecure, she immediately threw herself into another relationship? I considered each scenario and instantly discarded them in quick succession. Rie wasn’t flighty. She was tough, sensible, loyal. And yet, when I looked into her eyes, I saw the truth of what she had done.

  I started to speak but she raised a hand to silence me. “Shhh. It’s okay, Brodie. Don’t say anything.”

  “How could I not—”

  Resignation consumed her. “Without you there would have been no light in my world. Now the light will simply be farther away. I can live with that because the . . . alternative is unthinkable.”

  She was making less sense with each passing minute.

  “I don’t understand how you could be engaged.”

  “Well, I am. To Ibata-san.”

  I nearly jumped from my bed. “The creep from the PSIA? I don’t believe it.”

  “He’s always had a crush on me.”

  Had Rie blindsided me? Had I misread every sign between us for the last eight months? Did she have some on-a
gain, off-again relationship with the guy?

  I didn’t see how that was possible. “He’s not your type.” I thought of Mari’s aversion to him. “I’m not sure the man is capable of affection.”

  “He is, just in a more . . . irregular . . . fashion.”

  “And that’s okay with you?”

  “Of course not. But I saw no other way.”

  “No other way for what?”

  Rie hesitated. “Brodie, this is very hard for me to talk about.”

  Which was evident. She’d been circling around something I couldn’t see since the start.

  She said, “Just let it go, Brodie. We’re over. I gave my word. I’ve made my decision.”

  “Why?”

  “Like you, I made a choice.”

  “Why?”

  She bit her lower lip. “Just accept it, please. I don’t wish to talk about it.”

  I grew very still. We were approaching a precipice. I could sense it even if I couldn’t see it. I was puzzled and frustrated, and yet wary to the point of near paralysis. An inner voice told me to reverse course, but I couldn’t. Instead, I tried a different approach, which gave me a shock to rival anything the Farmhouse had slung my way.

  “And,” I said, “if you had refused Ibata?”

  “Then you would have died.”

  CHAPTER 96

  HER answer left me speechless.

  Her features softened. “So, you see, my ‘choice’ was no choice at all.”

  “No, that can’t have been your only option.”

  Rie nodded sadly. “It was. It is. How do you think Noda found you?”

  Icy fingers clawed at my heart. “Shooter told me it was you, through Ibata.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you even try anyone else first?”

  “Are you kidding? I tried everyone else first. And not just me. Noda and I were both waiting for you at the airport. Once you didn’t appear, we knew something had happened. Noda was searching for you. Brodie Security was searching for you. I was searching for you. We found out very quickly you had had passport trouble and had asked for the American ambassador. Then we learned Swelley had taken you away. Once we knew that, we knew time was short. Were we wrong?”