Barry Eisler - The Detachment

For a moment, no one said anything. There was nothing but the absurd sound of Muzak being pumped through unseen speakers.

“Are you gentlemen…with the convention?” the first Indian guy said. He was looking at Larison. Obviously, some deep portion of his midbrain was screaming, Danger! But he was a thoroughly modern man, and trapped in an elevator, too, and so rather than running for the hills the way our far more sensible ancestors might have, he was trying to make conversation with an obvious predator, instead.

“Not exactly,” Larison said.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor. The tension inside as we waited for the doors to open was explosive. The Indian guys must have been picking up on it, and I wondered what the hell they thought.

The doors opened. Two pretty young women in skirts and heels, and both with American Constitution Society badges around their necks, surveyed the crowd inside. “It’s okay,” one of them said. “We’ll wait for the next one.”

I knew I had maybe a second before Dox shoved the Indian guys against the wall to make room for the ladies. “Thanks,” I said, and hit the close button. The doors slid shut and mercifully, we were moving again.

“We are supporters of the Constitution, of course,” Dox said. “And we revere that august document. But tragically, we’re not in town long enough to be part of the convention itself. How about you? Sounds like you’ve come some distance to be here.”

I wanted to throttle him. Was he trying to get these two to remember us?

“Indeed, all the way from New Delhi,” the second guy said. “We are studying sensible ways to amend our own constitution in India. And we often joke that perhaps you Americans could lend us yours, because you seem no longer to be using it yourselves.”

The elevator chimed and came to a stop at the lobby level. Treven and I got out and Larison and Dox flattened against one of the walls to make room for the Indian guys.

“Well, goodbye,” the first one said, as they got out.

“And have a good day,” the second one added.

“And you, too,” Dox said. “And thanks for appreciating our Constitution. It’s nice that somebody does.”

The doors closed. “Jesus,” I said. “Why didn’t you just give them a business card? Or your phone number?”

He looked hurt. “Just being a good ambassador, man. They came a long way, and for a worthy purpose.”

“Yeah, and in about a half hour, when they’re being questioned by hotel security and the D.C. Metro Police and JSOC fucking assassins, they’ll remember very clearly the four men who got on their elevator on the ninth floor, the floor where four bodies were discovered riddled with bullet holes, the floor that reeked of gun smoke.”

A long moment went by. Dox said, “Well, when you put it like that, I guess I can see your point.”

The elevator chimed again. Garage level. We all reached around to the back of our waistbands and hugged the side walls.

The doors opened. We looked left, then right. All quiet, and all clear. We headed out toward the far end of the garage, keeping plenty of space between ourselves to make it harder for possible ambushers. We were all hyper alert. My mind was screaming, How the hell did they track you here? But I shoved the thought away. The problem now was how to get out. We could worry about the rest later.

The garage was full, probably from the convention, and we could have been attacked from any direction as we crossed it. Every parked car, the far side of every load-bearing pillar…everything felt like a potential threat. By the time we had reached the far end, the feeling of a concrete wall at my back was as sweet as a cold glass of water after a trek across the desert.

Larison looked around. “Your man’s not here.”

I checked my watch. “Give him a few minutes. Could be traffic, could be anything.”

“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. Come on, I thought. Kanezaki.

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 otaku -computer geeks-and bosozoku -motorcycle gangs, so I wasn’t sure what it signified.

“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 15 thStreet. 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.