“I don’t like it,” Treven said. “If this is another setup, we’re going to be pinned down. Let’s find our own car, hotwire it, and get the hell out of here.”
“If we have to,” I said. “But unless we’re ready to ram the gate, we’ll need a vehicle with the ticket left inside. That, plus one old enough to hot wire, probably isn’t a huge cross section. And I know we could explain that we lost the ticket, but I’d rather not have that conversation if we can avoid it. Let’s just give him a few minutes.”
On cue, I heard tires squealing against concrete on the other end of the garage. A silver minivan. Darkened outside windows.
The van came closer. Kanezaki? I couldn’t tell with the florescent lights against the windshield.
I could feel the tension building as the van approached. The rest of them were imagining the same thing I was: the side door opening and the four of us getting raked with automatic gunfire.
The van swung around and pulled up right alongside us. We couldn’t see anything through the darkened windows. None of us had drawn a weapon yet, but if that side door slid open…
The passenger-side window came down, and an attractive young Asian woman in a halter top, shorts, and a ponytail leaned across. “I’m Tom’s sister,” she said. “How’s the weather?”
I was so stunned I almost didn’t answer. She’d presented her bona fides, and was now asking me for mine. Was she a spook, too? Did Kanezaki train her? And why was she here anyway, instead of him?
“It’s…rainy,” I said, guessing this was the right response.
She nodded. “Get in.”
The side door slid open. Two little girls in booster seats, their faces and hair an appealing Asian/Caucasian mix, were in the middle row. They looked at the four of us curiously.
“Are you…where’s Tom?” I said.
“He got held up. Look, I’m in a little bit of a hurry, okay? Gotta get these guys to play practice by six, and I wasn’t expecting a trip into the city first.”
“Right.” I looked at the others. From their expressions, I gathered they were finding this as surreal as I was.
Larison broke the tension. “Come on,” he said to Treven. “Let’s get in back.”
Somehow, the two of them managed to squeeze into the third row. Dox took the second row middle seat, between the two girls. I got in front.
She drove around to the booth. There was an automated kiosk where she could have used a credit card, but either she was too savvy for that, or too briefed by Kanezaki. Or too lucky. Whatever it was, she pulled into the lane with an attendant, a bored-looking Latina.
“I can’t believe this,” she said to the attendant, rolling down the window, “but I pulled into the wrong garage.”
I kept my eyes straight ahead, and in my peripheral vision saw her hand the attendant a ticket. There was a pause.
“Okay, no problem,” the attendant said. The gate went up.
“Thanks,” Tom’s sister said, and we drove out into the hothouse sun.
“What do I call you?” I said.
She slipped on a pair of shades and made a right onto L Street. “My name’s Yukie. Most people call me Yuki.”
I noticed a tattoo on the back of her right shoulder. Two kanji: one for love, the other for war. Love of war? Militancy? It was a neologism, not a real word, the kind of thing favored by
“Okay, Yuki. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Hopefully on his way to White Flint Mall in Maryland. That’s where he told me to take you, and if he’s not there, I’ll drop you off and you’ll have to wait for him. I’m sorry, but I’m running late as it is.”
She made another right, this one onto 15th Street. She used the turning signal well in advance. Either a conscientious driver, or someone who didn’t want to give a cop even the tiniest excuse for stopping the van. Or both.
“You seemed…very competent back there,” I said. “If you don’t mind my saying.”
She glanced over at me, then back to the road. “Look, I’m not stupid, okay? If Tom works at the State Department, you guys are the Swedish figure skating team. He’s my brother and I owe him a lot. Let’s just leave it at that.”
She signaled again and we made a right onto K Street.
The little girl on the passenger side said, “What’s your name, mister?”
I glanced back, but she was looking at Dox.
“Well, my friends call me Dox, little darling. Which is short for unorthodox. You can call me that, too, but only if we’re going to be friends.”
“We can be friends,” she said, and giggled.
“All right then,” he said. He reached out and shook her tiny hand with mock formality. “And what shall I call you?”
“I’m Rina.”
“Rina. Well, that is a lovely name. It’s very fine to meet you, Rina.”
The girl on the other side said, “And I’m Rika.”
Dox turned and shook her hand, too. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen two such pretty girls. Are you twins?”
Rika said, “Yes!”
Rina said, “Are not! I’m six and she’s four.”
Rika said, “Why can’t we be twins?”
Rina said, “Tell her, Dox. It’s because twins have to be born at the same time.”
And it went on from there.
They were ridiculously cute. I thought of my own son, Koichiro. He’d be about their age now. What had they ever done to anyone? I couldn’t imagine anyone more innocent. And I’d put them in danger.
“Tom’s a good man,” I said to Yuki, as we made a right onto Connecticut Avenue, heading northwest toward the Maryland border.
She nodded. “He’s a good brother.”
“But I don’t think…I don’t think he understood what he might be getting you into. There was a…problem back at the hotel. You’ll probably be seeing it on the news tonight.”
“Seriously. I don’t want to hear it.”
“What I mean is, if that garage had any kind of surveillance cameras in position to record license plates, it’s going to be a problem for you. The people who are looking for us are going to want to know what you were doing in that garage.”
“Then it’s a good thing I changed the plates.”
“You what?”
“Look, I wasn’t always the inveterate suburban soccer mom who appears before you today, okay? I told you, I’m not stupid. I borrowed a set of plates from someone on a nice, leafy, non-surveillance camera neighborhood street. And with a little luck, I’ll get to return them before they’re even missed. So after I drop you all off, it’ll be like we never even met.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Well, I’ll still be glad we did.”
She looked at me, sidelong, with a little smile of her own. “Don’t flirt with me, okay? Remember, I am a suburban soccer mom.”
A phone buzzed. I looked down and saw a unit in the beverage holder, flashing. She picked it up and glanced at it, then handed it to me. “Go ahead,” she said. “It’s Tom.”
I flipped it open. “Hey.”
“You must be with my sister.”
“Yes.”
