Kage (25 page)

“I have a message from your brother,” Art told me. The
dojo

was closed that morning, but he had banged on the metal door

like it was a drum. The sound let you know the person on the

other side wasn’t going away.

I cracked open the door, half expecting Martín to put a slug

in my head. Art stood there instead, big and sandy-haired and

quietly serious. Usually you could count on him to lighten the

mood. He was the calm counterpart to Micky. If my brother

gave you the eerie feeling of a human rocket poised for a ran-

dom launch, Art was the guy placidly monitoring the buttons

on the control panel. You always got the feeling that he was

going to get things under control. But, as I looked at him in the

doorway, I saw trouble.

“What gives?” I asked, moving aside to let him in. I took a

quick, furtive glance up and down the street before closing the

door. “Where’s Micky?”

Art let out a sigh. “Your brother, my partner of lo these

many years, is feverishly attempting to douse the many fires he

has recently set.”

I grunted. The acrimony between Micky and Art and their

past NYPD supervisors was legendary. Their move to lives as

independent consultants had been a godsend.

“What,” I said, “someone new has learned to hate him?”

Art waved the thought away. “We should be so lucky. Last

count, your brother had complaints lodged against him by the

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ACLU, ASPIRA, the Brooklyn Borough President, and the

Brooklyn Borough Commander. But the day is young.”

My eyebrows shot up in silent inquiry. I waited.

“There are rumblings from the counter-terrorism unit that

our contract may be cancelled. I think Mick’s pissed off too

many people this time.”

“Oh boy.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I told him,” Art said, clearly repeating

a familiar litany. “Things have changed. You go shaking the

trees, you gotta use a little restraint.”

“Restraint—not Micky’s strong suit,” I commented.

Art shook his head wearily. “He was like a wild man, Con-

nor. You were still out of it when we came to the hospital the

first time. So we drove over to the crime scene. I could see the

fuse start to burn. He wasn’t gonna let up ‘til he found the guys

behind this.”

I got a sinking feeling in my gut, a spasm of guilt. “I’m

sorry, Art.”

He looked at me and his eyes seemed hard. “We all got

things to be sorry about, Connor. I’m not sure that having a

brother who cares is what you should be apologizing for.”

The tone in his voice made me jerk my head back a little.

“What do you mean?” I got another guilty twinge.

Art didn’t answer me. He looked around the
dojo
. It was

silent, deserted. Yamashita was nowhere to be seen. It was a

cavernous, dim space of diffuse light and hard surfaces. There

was nowhere to hide.

“I’ve got a question from your brother,” Art repeated, as

if parts of our conversation hadn’t taken place. “He wants to

know what the hell you’re up to.”

I gave him what I think of as my flat face. I’ve developed it

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John Donohue

in imitation of the truly scary Japanese
sensei
I’ve crossed swords

with over the years. Narrowed eyes. Skin frozen in immobility.

It’s an expression erected with great care to prevent others from

seeing what you’re thinking—part mask, part shield.

Art had been a cop too long not to see through it. It wasn’t

that he could tell what I was actually up to, but he knew some-

thing was going on. So finally I shrugged and let out a slow,

hissing breath.

“I’m trying to put the pieces together,” I admitted. “I never

saw those guys before in my life.” Art cocked his head as if

weighing that last statement. “No, really,” I assured him.

He wandered across the
dojo
floor to the weapons rack.

Wooden swords and staffs of various lengths rested there. Art

touched the shaft of one lightly.

“You get brained by one of these things, I’ll bet it hurts,”

he mused. I nodded in agreement. “You think it makes much

difference which one gets used?” he asked me.

It might have been a rhetorical question, but I shrugged

and answered him anyway. “Choice of weapon conditions the

attack, but the results are gonna be about the same.”

Art grunted, and then turned to look directly at me. “So

what do I care about the weapon? The real question is who

wants to use it.”

I saw where he was going. “So the identity of the attackers

is beside the point?” I queried.

He held out a hand, palm down, and wiggled it. “Sort of

yes. Sort of no. The three guys who came after you are impor-

tant, but mostly because we can jump up the chain of asso-

ciation and maybe find out who hired them and who’s behind

this. And, of course, you’ve got a real issue if that freak Martín

decides to come back at you…”

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Kage

“Yeah,” I admitted.

It was Art’s turn to sigh. “You keep thrashing around, Con-

nor, and all you do is get yourself in deeper and deeper.”

Art waited for me to say something, but I didn’t respond.

“What were you doing with Osorio?” he asked in

exasperation.

“We went to see if he’d do us a favor,” I said evasively, trying

not to ask how he found out.

“The best favor he could do would be to drop dead,” Art

said. “The guy’s a cancer.”

“He’s also a businessman of sorts,” I said. “We all agreed that

it would be best if the trouble with Martín could be wrapped

up quickly.”

Art cocked his head. “You making deals with a guy like

Osorio? You’re in way over your head, Connor. Lots of ways

this could end to Osorio’s satisfaction. Martín gets you, he goes

away, and Osorio’s happy. You get Martín, trouble also goes

away, and Osorio’s happy. ”

“That’s my preferred plan,” I suggested.

Art snorted in a way that reminded me of my brother.

These two men spent so much time together they were starting

to share mannerisms. “Huh. There’s a third possibility I’ll bet

you hadn’t considered.”

“Like what?”

Art smiled bitterly. “Here’s Osorio merrily running his little

crime empire. Someone not local sends some hired muscle who

botch a hit and create trouble for him. So Osorio just wants

things to quiet down, right?”

I nodded.

“So he’s got a few options,” Art explained. He held up a thick

finger. “One, he can just hunker down and hope everything

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John Donohue

blows over. But it’s not in his nature—he’s a take-charge kind

of guy. And whatever is drawing all this trouble is gotta be a

concern to him.” He paused. “That’s you.”

Up came a second finger. “He could try to eliminate Martín

as the disruptive element. But he knows that it’s going to be

tricky and expensive. And besides, it’s going to piss off whoever

hired Martín in the first place. What you haven’t considered is,

Martín isn’t the issue here. It’s you.”

The third finger came up. “Osorio could decide that the

most efficient thing to do is to make Martín go away, end the

disruption, and not annoy whoever hired the hit squad in the

first place.”

Art looked at me and saw the realization make its way to my

eyes. So much for my vaunted flat face.

“You’re right about Osorio being a businessman, Connor,”

Art concluded. “He didn’t get where he is by not figuring all

the angles. So the third option is probably going to be the one

he’ll take. He’s gonna take the one action that will address all

his concerns.” Art was still holding up three fingers. He jabbed

my chest with them. “He’s gonna take you out, Connor. It’s the

best solution to his problem.”

I said nothing. Art’s idea hadn’t really occurred to me before,

but it didn’t change much as far as I could tell. I knew I was in

way over my head. I had been from the moment Martín and

his two companions burst through my front door. But I also

knew that there were rules Art had to follow that I didn’t. If

Micky were in trouble, it was because he had let his concern

for me push him into actions that crossed a legal line. I wasn’t

going to drag these two men any deeper into this. There had

to be a solution, but it was going to be one that I generated,

not Micky and Art. At the end of the day, I could make deals

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Kage

and do things that they couldn’t. I think Art knew that, but he

didn’t want to have to admit it out loud. If he acknowledged

even to himself the sort of thing I was planning, he was going

to have to have someone arrest me. And that would be hard to

explain to my mom at the next family picnic.

We stood looking at each other in silence for a time. A slight

noise from the loft made Art look up to see Yamashita watch-

ing us silently. My brother’s partner gave my teacher one quick

glance, then he focused on me again.

“The PD has a line on the third guy. Gangbanger from the

West Coast. Explains the tattoos.”

“I don’t see how it connects with me,” I commented.

“His record is pretty spotty, mostly run-ins with Immigra-

tion. He’s an illegal and been back and forth across the bor-

der any number of times. Word is that he’d left California for

new opportunities. Been working out of Phoenix.” He put on

a mock-thoughtful expression. “We know anyone been in Ari-

zona lately, Connor?”

I just looked at him.

“You get yourself down to Berger’s office at the 68th and tell

them about your trip.” He said tightly. “You obviously have

pissed someone off somewhere. Don’t try to figure this out

yourself, Connor. Let the pros do it.”

I let the advice marinate for moment. “Think about this,

too,” Art said. “Maybe if we can provide some assistance to the

authorities, they might look a bit more favorably on us. Be the

least that you could do, Connor.”

I was in a bind. Art was right: maybe if I came forward with

what I suspected, some good feelings might be generated and

Micky would get out of the doghouse. But this wasn’t some-

thing that was going to be solved with words. I felt the deep,

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John Donohue

intuitive tug that the Japanese call
haragei.
Blood was going to

be spilled. If I could, I was going to shield Art and Micky from

the repercussions.

So I just nodded in a non-committal way and walked Art to

the door. But he wasn’t finished.

“I been watching the Burke brothers at work for years, Con-

nor,” Art told me. “And I see a lot of similarities: the stub-

bornness…” Art stopped there, but you got the sense that his

mental catalogue of similarities was more extensive than he was

letting on. “But you know who you really remind me of?” he

finally asked.

I shook my head no.

Art jerked with his chin toward the loft, where Yamashita

stood, still as stone.

“Him.”

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14

Wolves

The briefings were always scheduled for 1:00 am, to leave

Jackson and his men some final time to digest the informa-

tion, formulate some plans, and check their gear. Of late, their

Border Patrol supervisor looked more grim than usual. The

small desk lamp that lit his notes threw shadows on his face

and showed it drawn and remote, a specter practicing augury

in a darkened temple.

“We’ve had reports of ambushes here, here, and here,” he

continued. There was a map projected on the far wall and

the cherry light of a laser pointer touched in sequence at the

ambush sites. “Units have also been sniped at with increasing

frequency. It’s been endemic down along the Texas border, now

it’s working its way along the line to us.”

“Nuisance fire?” Jackson said.

“No. Precision sniping. Nobody’s been killed yet, but who-

ever’s doing the shooting is using it to slow pursuit. In some

cases, they’re taking out vehicles with their fire.”

“Big rounds,” someone commented.

“Fifties,” the supervisor said, consulting his notes. Jackson

and his men knew that a fifty-caliber sniper rifle was the mark

of a professional. They had heard the intel about rogue elements

from the Mexican special forces getting into the drug trade. They

were pros. It changed the equation out in the field dramatical y.

“That group we tracked that was ambushed,” Jackson said,

“the scene… it didn’t strike me as the work of professionals.”

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John Donohue

“How so?”

Jackson remembered the sprawled bodies, the knife marks.

He shrugged. “It seemed like too much… gratuitous. Know

what I mean?”

“Someone sending a message?” one of his team suggested.

The supervisor looked up; the movement flashed light on

his glasses, momentarily turning his eyes into flat, bright disks.

“It’s a mess. We’ve got local gangs in the mix as well. As both