Barry Eisler - The Detachment

“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.”

“Good. I’m on my way to where she’s taking you. Traffic’s going to be hell, but I shouldn’t be more than thirty minutes. I’ll tell you more then.”

“We’re going to need a vehicle. And a Civic won’t do it.”

“It’s taken care of. I’ll see you soon.”

He clicked off. I put the phone back in the beverage holder. “Sounds like we’re on schedule,” I said.

“Good.”

The ride to the mall took about forty minutes. Dox entertained the kids by telling them stories of parachuting out of airplanes and what happens if a chute doesn’t open, and insisting they had to be patient and wait until they were older before doing it themselves, and advising them they’d have to get permission from their mother before they could go with him. I envied his touch. I’ve never been good with children. I think because they sense things adults have learned to suppress.

Yuki made a right into the parking lot and circled counterclockwise over to a satellite parking area. It was far from the mall and mostly empty, the few vehicles belonging to employees, I guessed, not to mall patrons who would have had to trek across the baking pavement to reach the stores. One of the vehicles was a large U-Haul truck-twelve feet, I estimated, maybe fourteen. It struck me as a little odd that it would be parked in a shopping mall, and so far from the building itself, and I wondered if this might be what Kanezaki meant when he said the vehicle was “taken care of.”

It was indeed. As we pulled closer, the driver-side door opened and Kanezaki stepped out. He looked like pretty much any other D.C. area drone on his way home from the office-suit jacket gone, tie loosened, skin a little oily from repeated trips between air-conditioned buildings and the blast furnace outside. He still had the wireframe spectacles, but he was a little thinner than I remembered, a new maturity in his eyes and his features. Still the same guy I’d first run into in Tokyo so many years earlier, yes, but no longer a fresh-faced, idealistic kid. He’d been grappling with the real world since then, and its weight had left marks.

Yuki pulled in alongside the truck. I got out and shook Kanezaki’s hand. “Keys are in it,” he said, characteristically dispensing with small talk. “You should go.”

“You have anything new for me?”

He waved to Yuki. “The truck’s not enough?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. No new intel. But when I do, I’ll upload it to the secure site.”

“What do we do with the truck? When does it need to be back?”

“I got it for a month. Hopefully by then the pressure will be off and we’ll figure something out. The rental agreement is in the glove compartment.”

The side door slid open and Rina and Rika both exclaimed, “Uncle Tomo!”

Kanezaki waved to them.

I said, “Uncle Tomo?”

He shrugged. “You know, for Tomohisa. Uncle Tom sounds odd, anyway.”

Dox squeezed out and shook Kanezaki’s hand. “Good to see you, man,” he said. “Seems like you’re always helping us out of a jam.”

“And always in exchange for something,” I said.

Larison and Treven got out. Rina called out, “Uncle Tomo, what are you doing here?”

“Your mom’s picking me up, hon! It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”

He turned to the four of us. “I don’t know where you’re going, and it’s better if I don’t. Just make it far away. They’re going to be looking for you in the capital, and they can look hard there.”

Larison eyeballed the truck. “I like your choice of ride.”

Kanezaki nodded. “Nobody’s going to notice a moving truck. This one’s got Wyoming plates and no one looks twice even here in Maryland. Plus, two or even three of you can stay concealed in back while one drives. They’re looking for four, so best if you’re not seen together. Speaking of which. You should go.”

“My lord,” Dox said. “It’s going to be a goddamn sauna back there. Anybody mind if I drive?”

No one said anything. Dox got in the truck. Treven and Larison went around to the back.

“I didn’t have time to pick up water or anything else,” Kanezaki said. “It’s got a full tank of gas and I bought a bunch of boxes and rolls of bubble wrap so you’ll at least have something to sit on in back, but that’s about it. When it’s dark and you’re well clear of the city, you can stop and pick up whatever you need. I’ll be in touch as soon as I learn more.”

“There was a problem at the hotel,” I said.

He looked at me, his expression strained. “What do you mean?”