Читаем Flashback полностью

The thought of seeing K.T. again—of having to ask her for help—made Nick’s insides hurt.

And, he realized, he’d have to get rid of Sato so that he could interview DA Ortega, K.T., and others. He had to know more about the auto accident that had killed his wife. He had to know more about what she and fat, balding Harvey Cohen were doing before that accident.

The phone chirped.

Without identifying himself, Hideki Sato asked, “What do you think about the Santa Fe trip, Bottom-san? Tomorrow after Coors Field or later in the week?”

Nick waited until his insides unclenched a bit before answering. “Whenever Mr. Nakamura’s plane or helicopter is ready.”

“Plane?” said Sato. “Helicopter? There is no plane or helicopter.”

“Bullshit,” said Nick. The fear was rising in him like a terrible tide, making his arms and legs feel weak. “I saw you fly away from the roof of my building here in one, remember? That silent, stealthy Sasayaki-tonbo whisper-dragonfly or whatever you called it. And Keigo took one of his daddy’s corporate choppers down there six years ago.”

“The skies between here and Santa Fe were not so dangerous six years ago,” said Sato. “Mr. Nakamura has no aircraft tasked for this trip. The company’s insurance carriers would not allow it.”

“Then how the hell are we supposed to get there?” shouted Nick. He hadn’t meant to shout.

“Two vehicles. Armored and weaponized. Four extra security people.”

“Blow me,” said Nick.

“I shall set the trip for Wednesday,” said Sato.

Not trusting his voice, Nick broke the connection. His hands were trembling too much to prepare the flashback vial or to concentrate on the entry point.

Padding over to his dresser, Nick poured three fingers of cheap Scotch and drank it down in two gulps.

When the trembling in his fingers abated some, Nick prepared a half-hour vial. He’d go back to a favorite time with Dara to clear his mind before doing more searching through the time after Keigo’s death and before hers. 

<p><strong>2.02</strong></p><p><image l:href="#i_003.jpg"/></p><p><strong>Disney Concert Hall at Performing Arts Center—Friday, Sept. 17</strong></p>

They were all scared shitless. Everyone except Billy Coyne, that is. And Val had long since decided that Billy the C was as crazy as a shithouse rat.

Val had gotten that old-timer’s phrase—crazy as a shithouse rat”—from the Old Man, who, he’d once told Val, had got it from his Old Man.

And Billy Coyne was as crazy as a shithouse rat.

Coyne continued to give orders all that last week, but he reserved most of his real conversation for the Vladimir Putin AI in his T-shirt. And that conversation was mostly in Russian.

The seven boys had spent the week following Coyne’s orders and preparing everything in the sewer. They’d spent a day and a half in the darkness cutting through the rusted old rebar of the steel grate on the inside, but just in a few places to allow them to get at the steel panels covering the storm sewer opening. They left the majority of the inner grate intact to keep their pursuers from sliding in and following them. Then they’d spent another day filing through the soldered welding joining the two steel panels that covered the opening to the storm sewer.

Everything depended upon Billy Coyne’s information—supposedly from his mother—being correct about exactly where the Advisor’s limo would be dropping him off. The storm sewer opening was on the north side of 2nd Street on the south side of the Walt Disney Concert Hall. When they dared to peek out on Thursday night after their many hours of soft sawing and filing and more sawing, they were looking away from the weird Disney Concert Hall building itself. Coyne insisted that the streets would be shut off except for official traffic and that Advisor Omura’s armored limo would come south down Grand Avenue, turn right onto the short block of 2nd Street, and stop just beyond the corner. The photographers, TV guys, and press were supposed to be cordoned off in the median between 2nd Street and an equally narrow lane called General Thaddeus Kosciuszko Way so all their lenses would be aiming north toward the concert hall and the steps that Omura, the mayor, and their security people and entourages would be climbing to enter the hall.

The eight members of the flashgang would have only two or three seconds to fling open the storm sewer doors and to open fire.

But they would be able to see out the closed steel panels. When the city workers welded the doors shut years ago, they’d left narrow horizontal slits near the bottom to handle the usual amount of runoff from heavy rains that built up there on 2nd Street. The gaps were too small to use as gunslits, but the boys could peer out of them until they saw Omura step out of his limo.

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