Flashback

the DA’s office in and sent Dara and Harvey Cohen to Six Flags that day in September.”

“That won’t be easy,” said K.T.

“You’re squad commander, Lieutenant Lincoln,” said Nick. “When you and I were detectives second grade, we considered that position second only to God’s.”

“Yeah?” said K.T., looking at him. “Well, it’s not.”

She started scooting out of the booth again. “You have the same phone number?”

“Yeah,” said Nick but hesitated. “But if you could report to me personally—in private like this—it might be a better idea. Hard copies of the info rather than digital.”

K.T. paused and cocked her head. “Getting a little paranoid, are we?”

“Even paranoids have enemies, K.T.,” said Nick. “If the FBI and CIA kept coming back to this investigation of Keigo’s murder, odds are strong that they suspect some sort of conspiracy against Nakamura and his holdings by those cabals of corporations they have there.”

K.T. was standing next to the booth now, but she leaned over and lowered her voice. “That would be a dangerous area to poke around in, Nick. For you or for me. Since the Day It All Hit The Fan, Japan’s gone almost feudal again. You know that. Those clusters of companies—keiretsu they call them—are like fiefdoms. You’ve heard of the resurgence of the keiretsu in Japan, haven’t you?”

“Sure,” said Nick.

“Then you need to remember that the prime minister and members of the National Diet are nobodies. Heads of these corporate-alliance keiretsu like Hiroshi Nakamura, who also head up their own family monopolies called zaibatsu that have made such a comeback, all want to be Shogun of the new Southeast Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that the Japs are carving out of China and the rest of Asia. Being an Advisor to America the way Nakamura is means that he’s one of the top players in that feudal nightmare that these Nipponese samurai-businessmen call a culture. Assassination has always been fair game between these keiretsu and zaibatsu. You really don’t want to get involved in their wars, Nick.”

He looked up at her. They were so close that he could smell the subtle fragrance that she’d worn when they were partners working out of the 16th Street house. “I have to get involved in it, K.T. If there’s the slightest chance that Dara was involved, I have to be, too.”

K. T. Lincoln straightened up and seemed to be looking at the blank wall behind the booth. But she didn’t leave. After a few seconds, she said, “Do you know why I’m part of the tiny five percent of Americans who’ve never once tried flashback, Nick?”

“You’re Amish?”

His former partner didn’t smile. “No, it’s because I already have too many important dead that I’d spend most of my time visiting in the haze of that motherfucking drug. I read in a report that you saw that Google punk Derek Dean yesterday. So you know how sick this habit of going to live that false life with the dead is, Nick. Every hour under the flash is an hour lost from your real life forever.”

Nick looked at her without blinking. When he did speak, his voice was firm, emotionless. “What real life, K.T.?”

She closed her eyes for a second, then turned to leave but paused, speaking over her shoulder. “Be careful at Coors Field this afternoon. The department has info that this Hideki Sato you chose as your sniper-second is one of these zaibatsu assassins we were talking about.”

“Good,” said Nick. “Then he should be able to shoot straight. Call me as soon as you have something and we’ll meet again.”

Lieutenant Lincoln walked out of the diner with the same confident, aggressive strides she’d used to enter.

No visitor went into Coors Field armed, so Nick spent more than a half hour donning the Kevlar-Plus armor that went under his street clothes and up and over his neck and head like an overlappingly scaled and lightweight metal-ballistic-cloth balaclava. Nick’s face was exposed, so an inmate could always shoot him there—and there were guns as well as shivs, cleavers, spears, spikes, saps, and full-scale combat knives in the prison called Coors Field—but the K-Plus would turn away most blades and other cutting edges and, with luck, allow his sniper-second to step in.

But a long blade in the eye socket, struck in with lightning speed and an inmate’s Body Nazi–exercised and honed muscle, would serve as well as any bullet. These hard cases in Coors Field were the fittest and strongest men in the state of Colorado.

“Only men here?” asked Sato. Warden Bill Polansky and head guard and chief of the sniper squad Paul Campos were there watching Nick armor up. Polansky was the kind of quiet but solid midlevel administrator who, if he were in public education, would either be superintendent by the time he was forty-five or ready to blow his brains out.

Campos—with his head of silver, short-cropped curls and deep-water tan—was a man who’d blow any other man’s brains out before his own. And he’d do the job not happily but with absolute efficiency.

“Only men,” said Warden Polansky. “We have no indoor cells here except the emergency isolation holding cells under the stands. Women are housed in the nearby ex–Pepsi Center.”

“I used to watch the Nuggets and Avalanche play there,” Campos said. “And I heard Bruce Springsteen there once. Are you familiar with the rifle, Mr. Sato?”

Sato grunted and nodded.

Busy fitting the body armor over his genitals, Nick looked at the unloaded rifle that Sato was hefting. It was a basic M40A6 bolt-action sniper rifle of the sort the U.S. Marines still used. Nick could see that it had a five-round detachable box magazine. The range in Coors Field was relatively short—about one hundred eighty meters maximum—so it made sense that the prison snipers used the lighter 7.62 ? 51mm former NATO cartridges rather than heavy, armor-piercing .50-caliber models.

Campos tapped the scope. “A modified Schmidt and Bender 3 – 12 ? 50 Police Marksman II L with illuminated reticle. Daytime scope. You’ll probably be shooting into shadow under the second deck—that’s where D. Nigger Brown lives—but this will gather enough light to give you a clear shot, even if it gets cloudy.” Campos paused. “Have you used this particular weapon before, sir?”

“Yes, I have,” said Sato. He set the long gun down on its bipod on the table.

“We don’t want anyone dead,” Warden Polansky said tiredly just as Nick was pulling the K-Plus balaclava over his head. “Colorado abolished the death penalty years ago and never got around to reinstating it. So every prisoner you shoot creates a lot of paperwork for all of us. Actually, there’s more paperwork if a prisoner dies than if the visitor is killed.”

Sato nodded. Nick stared out through the eyeholes of his new headgear. His ears were covered but microphone pickups conveyed both external sounds and kept him in radio touch with Sato and others in the old press box. There was a 3D mini-cam and dual pickup microphones on the headpiece, so Sato and the others could monitor everything he was seeing and hearing… unless one of the inmates cut his head off and stashed it somewhere.

Nick started pulling on his outer clothes. The K-Plus gloves would be the last thing he put on.

Warden Polansky came over to Nick, turned on the cameras and mikes, stepped back, and folded his arms. He was scowling. “We want to accommodate Advisor Nakamura, Mr. Bottom, but is interrogating this particular prisoner really worth all this hassle?”

“Probably not,” said Nick. Fully dressed, he flexed his arms and fingers and moved his head around. He felt as if someone had sheathed him in metal-and-plastic shrinkwrap. The sweat was already pooling up under the K-Plus armor. “Let’s go,” he said.

Nick came out through the door in the centerfield wall and began the long walk across the playing field. Delroy Brown’s hovel was on the first level behind home plate, halfway up. Being a mere drug dealer in for a mere three-year fall, Brown wouldn’t warrant such a prime location, but he’d been in often and for more serious offenses and he had friends here.