CHAPTER 1

1.00

Japanese Green Zone Above Denver—Friday, Sept. 10

You're probably wondering why I asked you to come here today, Mr. Bottom,"said Hiroshi Nakamura.

"No," said Nick. "I know why you brought me here."

Nakamura blinked. "You do?"

"Yeah," said Nick. He thought, Fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound.Nakamura wants to hire a detective. Show him you're a detective. "You wantme to find the person or persons who killed your son, Keigo."

Nakamura blinked again but said nothing. It was as if hearing his son's namespoken aloud had frozen him in place.

The old billionaire did glance to where his squat but massive security chief,Hideki Sato, was leaning against a step-tansu near the openshoji that looked out on the courtyard garden. If Sato gave his employerany response by movement, wink, or facial expression, Nick sure as hell couldn'tsee it. Come to think of it, he didn't remember having seen Sato blinkduring the ride up to the main house in the golf cart or during theintroductions here in Nakamura's office. The security chief's eyes were obsidianmarbles.

Finally Nakamura said, "Your deduction is correct, Mr. Bottom. And, as SherlockHolmes would say, an elementary deduction since you were the homicidedetective in charge of my son's case when I was still in Japan and you and Ihave never met nor had any other contact."

Nick waited.

After the glance in Sato's direction, Nakamura had returned his gaze to thesingle sheet of interactive e-vellum in his hand, but now his gray eyes lookedup and bored into Nick.

"Do you think you can find my son's killer or killers, Mr. Bottom?"

"I'm certain I can," lied Nick. What the old billionaire was really asking him,he knew, was Can you turn back the clock and keep my only son from beingkilled and make everything all right again?

Nick would have said I'm certain I can to that question as well. Hewould have said anything he had to say to get the money this man could pay him.Enough money for Nick to return to Dara for years to come. Perhaps a lifetime tocome.

Nakamura squinted slightly. Nick knew that one didn't become a hundred-times-overbillionaire in Japan, or one of only nine regional Federal Advisors inAmerica, by being a fool.

"What makes you think that you can be successful now, Mr. Bottom, whenyou failed six years ago, at a time when you were a real homicide detective withthe full resources of the Denver Police Department behind you?"

"There were four hundred homicide cases pending then, Mr. Nakamura. We hadfifteen homicide detectives working them all, with new cases coming in everyday. This time I'll have just this one case to concentrate on and to solve. Nodistractions."

Nakamura's gray gaze, as unblinking as Sato's darker stare and already chilly,grew noticeably chillier. "Are you saying, former detective sergeant Bottom,that you did not give my son's murder the attention it deserved six years ago,despite the ... ah ... high profile of it and direction to give it priority fromthe governor of Colorado and from the president of the United States herself?"

Nick felt the flashback itch crawling in him like a centipede. He wanted to getout of this room and pull the warm wool cover of then, not-now, her, not-thisover himself like a blanket.

"I'm saying that the DPD didn't give any of its murder cases the manpower orattention they deserved six years ago," said Nick. "Including your son's case.Hell, it could have been the president's kid murdered in Denver and the MajorCrimes Unit couldn't have solved it then." He looked Nakamura straight in theeye, betting everything on this absurd tactic of honesty.

"Or solve it now," he added. "It's fifty times worse today."

The billionaire's office had not a single chair to sit in, not even one for Mr.Nakamura, and Nick Bottom and Hiroshi Nakamura stood facing each other acrossthe narrow, chest-high expanse of the rich man's slim, perfectly bare mahoganystand-up desk. Sato's casual posture over at the tansu didn't obscurethe facts—at least to Nick Bottom's eye—that the security chief wasfully alert, would have been dangerous even if he weren't armed, and had theindefinable lethality of an ex-soldier or cop or member of some other professionthat had trained him to kill other men.

"It is, of course, your expertise after many years on the Denver PoliceDepartment, and your invaluable insights into the investigation, that are theprime reason we are considering you for this investigation," Mr. Nakamura saidsmoothly.

Nick took a breath. He'd had enough of playing by Nakamura's script.

"No, sir," he said. "Those aren't the reasons you're considering hiringme. If you hire me to investigate your son's murder, it's because I'm the onlyperson still alive who—under flashback—can see every page of thefiles that were lost in the cyberattack that wiped out the DPD's entire archivesfive years ago."

Nick thought to himself—And it's also because I'm the only person whocan, under the flash, relive every conversation with the witnesses and suspectsand other detectives involved. Under flashback, I can reread the Murder Bookthat was lost with the files.

"If you hire me, Mr. Nakamura," Nick continued aloud, "it will be because I'mthe only person in the world who can go back almost six years to see andhear and witness everything again in a murder case that's grownas cold as the bones of your son buried in your family Catholic cemetery inHiroshima."

Mr. Nakamura drew in a quick, shocked breath and then there was no sound at allin the room. Outside, the tiny waterfall tinkled softly into the tiny pond inthe tiny gravel-raked courtyard.

Having played almost all of his cards, Nick shifted his weight, folded his arms,and looked around while he waited.

Advisor Hiroshi Nakamura's office in his private home here in the Japanese GreenZone above Denver, although recently constructed, looked as if it might be athousand years old. And still in Japan.

The sliding doors and windows were shoji and the heavier onesfusuma and all opened out into a small courtyard with its small butexquisitely formal Japanese garden. In the room, a single opaque shojiwindow allowed natural light into a tiny altar alcove where bamboo shadows movedover a vase holding cut plants and twigs of the autumn season, the vase itselfperfectly positioned on the lacquered floor. The few pieces of furniture in theroom were placed to show the Nipponese love of asymmetry and were of wood sodark that each ancient piece seemed to swallow light. The polished cedar floorsand fresh tatami mats, in contrast, seemed to emanate their own warmlight. A sensuous, fresh dried-grass smell rose from the tatami. NickBottom had had enough contact with the Japanese in his previous job as a Denverhomicide detective to know that Mr. Nakamura's compound, his house, his garden,this office, and the ikebana and few modest but precious artifacts ondisplay here were all perfect expressions of wabi (simple quietude) andsabi (elegant simplicity and the celebration of the impermanent).

And Nick didn't give the slightest shit.

He needed this job to get money. He needed the money to buy more flashback. Heneeded the flashback to get back to Dara.

Since he'd had to leave his shoes back in the entry genkan...