Conspiracy (33 page)

"Who are you calling?" she asked.

"John Frazier, an FBI agent I used on my Russia case. I want him to go up to the Capitol City Motel, find this Terasawa, and arrest him. If he's not there, Frazier can stake out the place and begin searching for him around town. We've got a description and a name. We're going to find this guy and get him to tell us the name of his American contact."

When they hit the ground floor, Cady told Taylor, "You wait here inside the door. I'll get the car and pick you up."

Cady didn't want to alarm her any further by telling her that he had seen the man with the scar on his face parked across from his house that morning.

* * *

Terasawa had planned to take a short nap back in his motel room to harness his energy for what might be a long evening ahead. Yet he was too restless to sleep. He climbed out of bed and turned on the radio to see if there was any news about the discovery of the bomb in Taylor's apartment or anything else about the Boyd case.

As he listened to the radio, he walked over to the window and peeked through a crack between the brown vinyl curtains. The seedy motel had two floors, and access to all of the rooms was from the outside rather than from the lobby. A balcony ran the perimeter of the building on the second floor.

Terasawa spotted two cars in the parking lot below that hadn't been there before, one on the right of 216 at the far end of the parking lot, the other on the left. They were dark, late-model American cars without any markings. There was one man behind the wheel in each car.

The telephone rang. On the third ring Terasawa picked it up. Without waiting for him to speak, the caller hung up.

That was too much of a coincidence for Terasawa with the cars out front. Each of the drivers must have partners who were in the motel office, Terasawa decided. One of them had called to determine if he was in the room. That was all Terasawa needed to round out the picture.

He strapped on his shoulder holster with the Berretta and put on his jacket. Three different passports, car keys, and money were in his pockets. He looked around quickly to make sure there was nothing else he needed, and nothing left that would give away his identity.

If he moved fast, he would have the element of surprise on his side. Approaching the door of the motel room, he pulled the car keys out of his pocket. He envisioned the scene outside in his mind. Metal staircase ten yards to the right along the balcony. His gray Mercedes twenty yards across the parking lot, facing forward toward the room.

As he opened the door, he hit the panic button on his key ring to flush out and distract the cops. The car alarm in the Mercedes began blasting its shrill warning, and both drivers jumped out of their cars and ran with guns in hand. One ran toward the Mercedes, the other toward him.

Terasawa made it to the second step of the metal staircase before the cop reached the bottom. He raised his gun to confront Terasawa. "FBI. Stop right there. Drop the gun. Hands in the air," the man shouted, his gun pointed up at the assassin.

Terasawa had no intention of complying. He fired his own gun, winging the agent in the shoulder. The man's gun fell to the ground and skidded across the oil-stained asphalt.

By then the other one had run behind the Mercedes. He dropped to one knee and took aim. Terasawa raced down the rest of the stairs and ducked behind a car, which deflected two shots. He knew that he didn't have much time before the other two agents came racing back from the motel lobby. He hit the button on the keypad that started the Mercedes engine by remote control. Then he began running toward the car, weaving in the parking lot, dodging shots and firing as he ran. His first shot narrowly missed the agent's head. His second one hit the man in his exposed knee. He screamed in pain and crumpled to the ground.

The Mercedes was idling when Terasawa grabbed the door handle. Before he jumped in, he fired one shot each at the two FBI cars, flattening the tires.

As he slammed the car door, the other two agents came running around the corner of the motel building with their guns in their hands. The time it took them to survey the scene was all that Terasawa needed to roar out of the parking lot and into the flow of traffic.

Running after him, they tried to take aim at the Mercedes. But New York Avenue was a main artery with lots of traffic and pedestrians—too many people to risk a shot as Terasawa moved in and out of lanes.

Behind the wheel, he considered his options. They must have recorded the number on his license plate. The car was hot. He had to get rid of it. Two blocks from a Metro station, he ditched the Mercedes, then took the Metro north and east to New Carrollton, next to the Amtrak train station. It was a short walk to the parking lot used by train passengers. Hoping that the owner of the car he picked wouldn't be back to report his car missing until Terasawa was through with it, he easily opened the door of a beige Toyota Camry and hot-wired it. The driver had obligingly left a parking ticket on the front seat.

Terasawa breathed a sigh of relief. He had to make a change in his plans, but only a slight change. No longer could he wait at Cady's house. That was too risky. But there was nothing wrong with sitting on the street in the car, a few doors away. And, of course, that wasn't the only way he could get Taylor. He still had one other possibility, but that depended on her and where she went today.

* * *

"I'm sorry, we blew it," a distraught John Frazier said to Cady on the phone.

"What happened?" Cady asked anxiously.

Frazier gave him a complete report. "I'm kicking myself for being in the motel office along with George. If only I had been in the parking lot at the time. Now I've got two agents in the hospital."

"How serious?"

"After surgery they should be okay, but I'm angry with myself."

Cady tried to conceal his disappointment. "You'll get him soon."

"We've got an all-points bulletin out for the man."

"Is there any chance you can put a man in front of my house?"

"You think he'll go there?"

"He was there this morning."

Eavesdropping, Taylor pulled back in fear.

"I'll get a man in front ASAP," Frazier said. "How about your office?"

"I've got the security of the U.S. Courthouse. We'll be okay here."

"And when you leave?"

"I'm in the garage. I'll make sure I'm not followed."

"I don't know, C.J. If I were you—"

"Your resources are limited. Use them finding this Terasawa. I've got a gun myself. We'll be okay."

He hung up the phone and turned back to Taylor. "Since we can't interrogate Terasawa, we're back to the issue of how we uncover additional facts on the issue of whether it's McDermott or Harrison."

"It's not Harrison," she insisted.

When Cady didn't respond, she said, "I'll go see Philip and talk to him. It's time to refute McDermott's nonsense once and for all."

"Don't you think we should both go?" Cady asked.

She raised her hand. "Please, C.J., this has to be me alone."

He didn't agree, but he backed down.

"Let me call and make sure he's in," she said, pulling out her cell phone.

"Don't forget about the police order for your arrest on the Mississippi warrant. You might want to meet him outside of the office."

When there was no answer on Harrison's line at the office, the call rolled over to the receptionist.

Taylor tried to disguise her voice in case all firm personnel had been given orders to notify the police if they heard from her. "Is Mr. Harrison in today?"

"Out of town on business," was the polite answer.

"And his secretary?"

"On sick leave. Who is this, please?"

She hung up and dialed Harrison's home. "It's Taylor," she told Celia, his wife.

"Oh, how are you?" Celia replied in a relaxed, friendly voice. She and Taylor had always gotten along well together.

Taylor breathed a large sigh of relief. At least the Mississippi business hadn't reached Celia, but then again, not much from the law Firm ever did.

"Is Philip in?" asked Taylor, holding her breath.

"He's in Japan on business."

Taylor was blown away. "Japan?"

"He's been over there a few days on this trip."

Taylor was even more confused. To her knowledge, the only Japanese project Harrison was working on now was the one for Fujimura. In fact, all of his work for Japanese clients came through her and Fujimura.

"When's he coming back?" Taylor asked.

Celia laughed. "I don't even bother to ask that question anymore when he leaves on a business trip. The answer is always, 'When the negotiations are over.' You want me to give him a message if he calls?"

Taylor suddenly had an idea. "No message, but do you have your calendar around for last August?"

"Sure. I'll get it."

After a couple of minutes, Celia returned to the phone.

"Take a look at August twenty-eighth," Taylor said. She heard papers crinkling. "Do you know whether Philip was in town?"

"Definitely away. I wrote 'Philip out of town. Dinner with Mary Ann at Cosmos Club.'"

"Do you happen to know where he was on August twenty-eighth?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Taylor knew the answer.

Celia laughed again. "I can't possibly keep track of him. He's always going so many places. He tells me, but I never bother to write it down."

"Did he happen to mention Argentina?"

"I honestly don't remember."

* * *

Cady went to the men's room.

Sitting alone in his office, Taylor was reeling from everything she had heard today. It couldn't be. Philip couldn't have done this to her.

When Cady returned, he looked at her with great tenderness. He felt sorry for the enormous pain she was feeling. Still, he had to bring her back to reality. "What Celia said is consistent with what McDermott told us."

"There has to be another explanation," she said without any of the vehemence she had displayed in Hall's office.

"How well do you know Philip Harrison?"

She felt as if she had been smashed in the stomach with a sledgehammer. "Until now, I thought very well."

He shook his head grimly. "A picture that was grainy is now becoming very sharp."

"It can't be right."

"What's he doing in Japan?" Cady had meant it as a rhetorical question. Taylor still wasn't willing to believe Harrison was involved.

"If it weren't for all of this, I would have assumed that one of his American clients is negotiating an agreement with a Japanese company or obtaining financing from a Japanese bank. Now I can't even guess."

Cady pulled up a chair close to Taylor and sat down. "I really do think that Harrison's working with Sato. He's the American Alex Glass was trying to discover when they killed him."

Taylor refused to believe it. "Harrison's not working for anybody in this mess."

Cady didn't want to be too hard on her. Over and over again he had seen situations in which people didn't want to face what friends or loved ones had done. Yet he had to help her see it. "I'll bet Harrison spent enough time with you in the last couple of weeks to know what moves Senator Boyd was making in his campaign before he made them. That would have let Harrison plan this thing perfectly."

She shot a scathing look at Cady. "I can't believe that." As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Taylor felt like a fool. Cady had to be right. She had kept Harrison informed. He had been interested. She had wanted his advice. It had seemed natural.

God, she was stubborn, he thought. And loyal to a fault. He decided to take another approach. "If Harrison was involved with Sato, then he might have some documents in his office in the law firm that confirm it."

"And how do you propose to get access to his office? You couldn't possibly get a judge to issue a search warrant with what we now have."

"You're right. But you could easily get into his office. You're a partner in the firm."

Taylor stared at him, wide-eyed. "You want me to break in and search Philip's office?"

"That puts it bluntly, but that's the idea. If he's involved, I bet he has got some incriminating documents stashed away. With attorney-client privilege and work-product rules, we lawyers never imagine anyone will get access to our own files. Besides, Harrison may have wanted to keep some papers to protect himself if Sato ever decided to let him take the fall alone."

"I don't want to search Philip's office," she said emphatically.

"Why not? If you don't find anything, that should give you a powerful argument that he's innocent."

"The answer's no.
No."

"Afraid of what you'll find?"

Cady had hit the nail on the head. She couldn't accept the conclusion that Harrison had betrayed her.

"All right, I'll do it," she said reluctantly. "But we'll have to wait until about ten this evening, when the place is pretty much deserted. I don't want anyone seeing me there."

 

 

 

Chapter 26

 

With the gun on the flat panel next to the gear shift, Cady roared out of the underground parking garage in the U.S. Courthouse. He cut a sharp right, looking in the rearview mirror. He headed down one avenue and up another in random directions for five minutes until he was convinced he wasn't being followed. Then he proceeded to the law firm, parking on the street in front of the building in case he and Taylor had to make a quick getaway.