Flashback

with the mullahs in Tehran and Mecca. The new Shogun.”

Noukhaev was no longer smiling, merely staring. The gaze burned into Nick. He could feel it like a finger of fire against his face.

“A sort of second Louisiana Purchase,” murmured Nick. “But millions of Islamic colonists in former U.S. states? America would… never stand for it.”

Nick’s voice had been dropping from lack of conviction even before he finished the sentence. America had stood for a lot in recent decades. More to the point—what could it do to stop an organized and Caliphate-backed colonization of these desert states? America hadn’t been able to keep the territory out of the hands of the Mexican cartels in the first place.

Will they bring their own camels? wondered Nick. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He suddenly had one hell of a headache.

“I have been a poor host,” said Noukhaev. “Are you thirsty, Nick Bottom? Shall I call for some wine?”

“Not wine,” said Nick. “Just some water.”

Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev seemed to be talking to the desktop when he spoke in low, conversational tones. “Please bring some water for my guest and myself.”

A minute later, the side door opened and a guayabera-wearing man came in carrying a silver tray upon which were a crystal carafe of water, so filled with ice that it fogged the crystal with its cold, and two crystal glasses.

Noukhaev poured for both of them.

“Please,” said the don, gesturing. Nick waited, holding the cold glass. He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been this thirsty or when his head had hurt quite this much. Both, he imagined, were byproducts of the tasering.

But he didn’t drink.

Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev laughed easily and drained his entire glass of ice water. He poured more for himself.

Nick sipped. No taste, chemical or otherwise. It was water.

“Can I ask some questions now?” asked Nick. “That was supposed to be the purpose of this meeting.”

“By all means, Nick Bottom. You, after all, are the investigator. This is what Mr. Hiroshi Nakamura has said, and Mr. Hiroshi Nakamura is seldom wrong. Please, please, ask your questions.”

Noukhaev extracted a second cigar, prepared it, lit it, and sat back in his chair smoking it.

“Do you know who killed Keigo Nakamura?” asked Nick, his voice flat and hard. But the effort of speaking drove white-hot spikes of pain into his aching head.

“I believe I do,” said Don Khozh-Ahmed Noukhaev.

“Will you tell me?”

“I would prefer not to,” said Noukhaev with a small smile.

Bartleby, thought Nick. Dara had introduced him to the wicked and memorable Melville story with that sad and memorable repeated line. He thought that the full title had been Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street. Either way, right now Nick envied the little scrivener who could just roll over on his cot and turn his face to the wall of his prison. And die, remembered Nick.

“Why not?” he asked, voice still hard. “Just tell me what you know or what you think you know. It’d make everyone’s life a hell of a lot easier. Especially mine.”

“Yes, but you are the investigator, Nick Bottom,” the don said again, this time through the haze of blue smoke. “In the first place, I might be wrong. In the second place, I would never deny you the triumph of identifying the murderer or murderers yourself.”

Nick shook his head to clear it. “We know that Keigo Nakamura came down with his little video documentary team five days before he was murdered. His assistants said Keigo interviewed you on camera. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

Why would you allow such a thing? Nick thought, squinting at the older man. Why would a gunrunner, drugrunner, information seller, and international expediter of all things illegal allow himself to be interviewed, on camera, by the son of one of his greatest enemies—perhaps a deadly enemy—for a stupid documentary on Americans and their flashback addiction?

Nick struggled to put the question into a few clear words and then gave it up. His head hurt too much for such efficiency. Instead, he said, “Did Keigo say something—or ask you something—while he was here that made you want to kill him? That required he die?”

“No to your first question, Nick Bottom. A sad but total yes to the second question.”

Nick rubbed his brow as he worked that out. “So Keigo said something here that caused someone to have to kill him. That’s what you’re saying?”

Noukhaev inhaled cigar smoke, enjoyed it, expelled it. He said nothing.

“That something was on the memory chip of his camera?” Nick asked.

“Oh, yes,” said the don. “But that is not why Keigo Nakamura had to die the way he did, when he did.”

“What is the reason, Don Noukhaev?”

The don smiled, shook his head sadly, and flicked ashes into the makeshift ashtray.

“Someday,” Noukhaev said at last, “you must look into the kind of documentary the young Nakamura was really making. Why would the scion of a modern zaibatsu clan almost sure to produce the next Shogun come to America to waste his time documenting useless flashback addicts… no insult intended, Nick Bottom.”

“None taken,” said Nick. “You tell me what Keigo was doing with his little documentary, if it wasn’t to document American flashback use. I’ve seen hours and hours of the unedited rough footage. It’s all about how people use flashback.”

“All about that?” said the don.

“That and how the dealers get it… how the drug itself is transported into the country and sold. That sort of stuff. But all related to flashback and Americans using it. Are you suggesting that there’s a hidden film in his footage… a movie within the movie or something? Something telling us to expect this F-two you mentioned? Are you suggesting something like that?”

“I suggest nothing,” said Noukhaev. “Except that, regrettably, our time together is growing short.”

Nick sighed.

“But you think the one who gave the order to kill Keigo is one of the seven family daimyos competing with Nakamura for the Shogunate?”

“I did not say that.” Noukhaev turned his cigar around and blew the ash into flame.

“If I guess and give my reasons, will you confirm or deny the names?”

Noukhaev laughed his broad, aggravating laugh. Nick had had just about enough of it.

“Investigators do not guess, Nick Bottom. They deduce. They eliminate the impossible and improbable until only the inevitable remains.”

“Bullshit,” said Nick.

“Yes,” grinned the large-knuckled don.

“But you invited me to this meeting,” said Nick, more thinking aloud than communicating now. “If you’re not going to help me with the investigation, then you must have brought me here—and put yourself in some danger from Nakamura’s gee-bears—because you want to send him, Nakamura, a message.”

Noukhaev smoked his cigar.

Nick sipped more water. “Or maybe a message to Sato,” he said at last. “Were you serious about Sato being his own important daimyo in Japan? Colonel Death and all that? Ten thousand ninjas or samurai or whatever at his command?”

Nick hadn’t expected an answer but the don said, “Yes.”

“So, you’re saying, Sato’s also a player in all this. That he might have his own motives and not just be a mindless Nakamura vassal… someone who will commit seppuku at Mr. Nakamura’s order.”

“Oh, Hideki Sato will commit seppuku at once upon his liege lord’s command,” said