Flashback

Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev smiled slowly and it was a different sort of smile than any he’d shown Nick before. “You are not as stupid as you look, Nick Bottom,” said the don.

“Neither are you, Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev.”

There was no hesitation this time before Noukhaev’s laugh, but Nick decided to quit pressing his luck.

“No, I do not believe that Hiroshi Nakamura hired you just so that he could locate and kill me, as much as he wishes and thinks he needs to do that. No, Nakamura hired you, Nick Bottom, because he knows that you may be the only man alive who can actually solve the crime of the murder of his son, Keigo.”

What’s this? thought Nick. Heavy-handed flattery? Nick didn’t think so. Noukhaev was too smart for that and—more important—he already knew that Nick was as well. What, then?

“You need to tell me why I’m the only man who can solve Keigo’s murder,” said Nick. “Because I don’t have a fucking clue—either to who did it or to why I’d be the one to know.”

“ ‘The one who figures on victory at headquarters before even doing battle is the one who has the most strategic factors on his side,’ ” said the don and this time there was no game-playing about the provenance of the quotation.

Nick shook his head. He wanted to tell Noukhaev just how much he’d always hated people who spoke in riddles—it was one reason he wasn’t a Christian—but he resisted that impulse. He was tired and he hurt.

“Hiroshi Nakamura knew when he hired you that you probably could solve the crime that none of the American or Japanese agencies—nor his own top people—could solve,” said the old don. “How could that be, Nick Bottom?”

Nick hesitated only a second. “It has to be something about me,” he said at last. “About my past, I mean. Something I know. Something I encountered when I was a cop… something.”

“Yes. Something about you. But not necessarily something you learned when you were a detective, Nick Bottom.” The don had pulled what looked to be a mayonnaise lid from the desk drawer and continued to flick his cigar ashes into it. It was almost full.

I could have used a real ashtray as a weapon, Nick thought stupidly.

“Something in my past, then,” said Nick. He shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Because of whom you do suspect as being behind the murder,” said Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev.

“Yeah.”

“And who is that?”

“Killers from one of the Japanese… whatyacallthem? Daimyos. The other corporate lords in Japan who want to be Shogun.”

“Do you know the leading keiretsu warlord clans?” asked Noukhaev.

“Yeah,” Nick said again. “I know their names.” He’d known them before Sato had recited them to him during the drive down. Why had Sato recited them to him? What was that bastard up to?

Nick said, “The seven daimyo families and keiretsu clans running modern Japan are the Munetaka, Morikune, Omura, Toyoda, Yoritsugo, Yamahsita, and Yoshiake keiretsu.”

“No,” Noukhaev said flatly, no joking or feigned friendship in his voice.

“No?” said Nick. This stuff was common knowledge. It had been true even back when he was a working homicide detective with his whole department looking into the Keigo Nakamura murder. Sato may have lied to him, but…

“The keiretsu have become zaibatsu,” said the don. “Not just interrelated, clan-owned industrial conglomerates, as in the late-twentieth-century keiretsu, but zaibatsu again—clan-owned corporate conglomerates that help win the war and guide the government, just as in the first empire of Japan a hundred years ago. And there are eight leading zaibatsu-clan daimyos running Japan. Not seven, Nick Bottom, but eight. Eight powerful men who want to be Shogun in their lifetimes.”

“Nakamura,” said Nick, naming the eighth superdaimyo. Was the don just being a wise-ass, or did this correction mean something?

“Both the Denver PD and the FBI thought that the key to Keigo Nakamura’s murder had nothing to do with local suspects—the mooks I’ve been reinterviewing—but with internal Japanese politics and rivalries,” said Nick. “We just didn’t know enough about those politics or deadly rivalries to make any sort of educated guess, and interviews with Mr. Nakamura and others didn’t help. Those keiretsu… or what you’re now calling zaibatsu again… are essentially above the law in modern-day Japan, or maybe I should say modern-day feudal Japan, so the Japanese police authorities weren’t of any help either.”

Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev gave that toothy, not-really-amused smile again and flicked cigar ashes into the mayonnaise lid. “You don’t even really know who Hideki Sato is, do you, Nick Bottom?”

“He’s Mr. Nakamura’s chief security guy,” said Nick, willing to play the stooge to get more information from this egoist.

Noukhaev laughed softly. “He’s a professional assassin and the head of his own daimyo family—one of the top forty daimyos in Nippon today and not necessarily out of the line of becoming Shogun on his own. Have you heard of Taisha No Shi?”

“No,” said Nick.

“It means ‘Colonel Death,’ ” Noukhaev said. “Do you remember Soong Jin?”

“Not really. Wait… that Chinese actress-turned-warlord about eight years ago?”

“Yes,” said Noukhaev, drawing deeply on his shortening cigar. “Soong—that’s her family name—was China’s last, best hope for reuniting. After she left the movies, she had an army of more than six million fanatics, plus the support of four or five hundred million more Chinese. She also had about six hundred bodyguards, including sixty or so of the best security people in China.”

“And she died in… I can’t remember. Some sort of boating accident,” said Nick.

Noukhaev’s smile looked sincere for a change. “She died when Taisha No Shi—the man you know as Sato— went to China and killed her,” said the don. “Whether on Nakamura’s orders, we do not know.”

“Colonel Death,” repeated Nick, drawing out the syllables. “Sounds cheesy to me. But if you’re suggesting that Sato works without Nakamura’s permission and direction, I find that hard to believe.”

Noukhaev nodded slowly. “Still, Nick Bottom, you need to appreciate that one of the foremost assassins in the world has been assigned to stay with you during your… ah… investigation. Were I in your position, I would treat that fact with sobriety and ponder its implications.”

“Whatever you say,” said Nick. He was tiring of this asshole’s sense of self-importance. “Do you want to tell me something I can use about Keigo Nakamura’s murder?”

Noukhaev smiled thinly. “I just did, Nick Bottom. ‘If ignorant both of your enemy and yourself, you are certain to be in peril.’ ”

More fucking Sun Tzu, thought Nick. He was beginning to realize that it was Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev who was acting like a second-rate Bond villain. They always tried talking the hero to death rather than just pulling the trigger when they had a chance.

“Can you tell me any questions that Keigo asked that seemed unusual?” asked Nick to change the subject. “Odd? Out of the ordinary?”

Don Noukhaev smiled. “He did ask me if I would distribute F-two the way I’ve distributed flashback. His tone suggested that the fantasy drug was a reality… or would soon be one.”

F-two again, thought Nick and something in him leaped with the hope that Keigo Nakamura had known something no one else did about the fantasy-directed superdrug. With F-two, Nick’s imagination could structure a whole new life with Dara and even with Val, not the surly sixteen-year-old Val but a cute little five-year-old. As Nick understood the promise of the drug, with Flashback-two, there would be no bad memories, only happy fantasies that felt as real as real life. On all levels. And the F-two