the boys anymore. You could explain away gray in the hair by citing adverse
genes, but a down-check would mean taking off the flight suit, hanging up
the helmet, and admitting that he was no longer good enough to do the one
thing he’d yearned for since the age of ten, and at which he’d excelled for
nearly all of his adult life. The bitterest part would be the memories of the
things he’d said as a lieutenant, j.g., about the older pilots of his youth, the
hidden smirks, the knowing looks shared with his fellow youngsters, none of
whom had ever expected it would come to them.
‘ ‘Rob, a lot of good guys never get the chance to screen for command of a
squadron. They take the twenty-year out at commander’s rank and end up
flying the night shift for Federal Express.”
“And make good money at it, too.”
“Have you picked out the casket yet?” That broke the mood. Jackson
looked up and grinned.
“Shit. If I can’t dance, I can still watch. I’m telling you, pal, you want us
to run all these pretty operations we plan in my cubicle, we need help from
this side of the river. Mike Dubro is doing a great job hanging paper with one
hand, but he and his troops have limits, y’dig?”
“Well, Admiral, I promise you this: when the time comes for you to get
your battle group, there will be one for you to drive.” It wasn’t much of a
pledge, but both men knew it was the best he could offer.
She was number five. The remarkable part was-hell, Murray thought in the
office six blocks from the White House, it was all remarkable. It was the
profile of the investigation that was the most disquieting. He and his team
had interviewed several women who had admitted, some shamefacedly,
some without overt emotional involvement, and some with pride and humor,
at having bedded Ed Kealty, but there were five for whom the act had not
been entirely voluntary. With this woman, the latest, drugs had been an addi-
tional factor, and she felt the lonely personal shame, the sense that she alone
had fallen into the trap.
“So?” Bill Shaw asked after what had been a long day for him, too.
“So it’s a solid case. We now have five known victims, four of whom are
living. Two would stand up as rapes in any courtroom I’ve ever been in. That
does not count Lisa Beringer. The other two demonstrate the use of drugs on
federal property. Those two are virtually word-for-word, they identify the
label on the brandy bottle, the effects, everything.”
“Good witnesses?” the FBI Director asked.
“As good as can be expected in this sort of case. It’s time to move with
it,” Murray added. Shaw nodded in understanding. Word would soon begin
to leak out. You simply couldn’t run a covert investigation for very long,
even under the best of circumstances. Some of the people you interviewed
would be loyal to the target of the inquiry, and no matter how carefully you
phrased the opening questions, they would make the not overly great leap of
imagination required to discern the nature of the probe, often because they
suspected it themselves. Then those non-witnesses would worry about get-
ting back to the target to warn him, whether from conviction in his inno-
cence or hope of deriving a personal profit. Criminal or not, the Vice
President was a man with considerable political power, still able to dole out
large and powerful tokens to those who won his favor. In another age, the
Bureau might not have gotten this far. The President himself, or even the
Attorney General, would have conveyed a quiet warning, and senior staff
members would themselves have sought out the victims and offered to make
amends of one sort or another, and in many cases it would have worked. The
only reason they’d gotten this far, after all, was that the FBI had the permis-
sion of the President, the cooperation of the AG, and a different legal and
moral climate in which to work.
“As soon as you go to talk to the Chairman …”
Murray nodded. “Yeah, might as well have a press conference and lay out
our evidence in an organized way.” But they couldn’t do that, of course.
Once the substance of their evidence was given over to political figures-in
Ihis case the chairman and ranking minority member of the House Commit-
tee on the Judiciary-it would leak immediately. The only real control Mur-
ray and his team would possess would be in selecting the time of day. Late
enough, and the news would miss the morning papers, incurring the wrath of
the editors of The Washington Post and The New York Times. The Bureau
had to play strictly by the rules. It couldn’t leak anything because this was a
criminal proceeding and the rights of the target had to be guarded as closely
as-actually even closer than-those of the victims, lest the eventual trial be
(aimed.
“We’ll do it here, Dan,” Shaw said, reaching his decision. “I’ll have the
A.G. make the phone call and set the meet. Maybe that’ll put the information
on close-hold for a little while. What exactly did the President say the other
day?”
“He’s a standup guy,” the Deputy Assistant Director reported, using a
form of praise popular in the FBI. “He said, ‘A crime’s a crime.’ ” The
President had also said to handle the affair in as “black” a way as possible,
but that was to be expected.
“Fair enough. I’ll let him know what we’re doing personally.”
Typically, Nomuri went right to work. It was his regular night at this bath-
house with this group of salarymen-he probably had the cleanest job in the
Agency. It was also one of the slickest ways of getting information he’d ever
stumbled across, and he made it slicker still by standing for a large bottle of
sake that now sat, half empty, on the edge of the wooden tub.
“I wish you hadn’t told me about that round-eye,” Nomuri said with his
own eyes closed, sitting in his usual corner and allowing his body to take in
the enveloping heat of the water. At one hundred eight degrees, it was hot
enough to lower blood pressure and induce euphoria. Added to it was the
effect of the alcohol. Many Japanese have a genetic abnormality called
“Oriental Flush” in the West, or with greater ethnic sensitivity,’ ‘pathologi-
cal intoxication.” It is actually an enzyme disorder, and means that for a
relatively low quantity of alcoholic intake, there is a high degree of result. It
was, fortunately, a trait which Nomuri’s family did not share.
“Why is that?” Kazuo Taoka asked from the opposite corner.
“Because now I cannot get the gaijin witch out of my mind!” Nomuri
replied good-naturedly. One of the other effects of the bathhouse was an
intimate bonhomie. The man next to the CIA officer rubbed his head roughly
and laughed, as did the rest of the group.
“Ah, and now you want to hear more, is it?” Nomuri didn’t have to
look. The man whose body rubbed on his leaned forward. Surely the rest
would do it as well. “You were right, you know. Their feet are too big,
and their bosoms also, but their manners . . . well, that they can learn after
a fashion.”
“You make us wail?” another member of ihe group asked, feigning a
blustery anger.
“Do you no! appreciate drama?” There was a merry chorus of laughs.
“Well, yes, it is true that her bosoms are too big for real beauty, but there
are sacrifices we all must make in life, and truly I have seen worse deform-
ities …”
Such a good raconteur, Nomuri thought. He did have a gift for it. In a
moment he heard the sound of a cork being pulled, as another man refilled
the little cups. Drink was actually prohibited in the bathhouse for health rea-
sons, but, rarely for this country, it was a rule largely ignored. Nomuri
reached for his cup, his eyes still closed, and made a great show of forming a
mental picture masked by a blissful smile, as additional details slid across
(he steaming surface of the water. The description became more specific,
fitting ever closer to the photograph and to other details he’d been passed on
his early-morning train. It was hardly conclusive yet. Any of thousands of
girls could fit the description, and Nomuri wasn’t particularly outraged by
the event. She’d taken her chances one way or another, but she was an
American citizen, and if it were possible to help her, then he would. It
seemed a trivial sidebar to his overall assignment, but if nothing else it had
caused him to ask a question that would make him appear even more a mem-
ber of this group of men. It made it more likely, therefore, to get important