Nightwise (22 page)

The old man nodded and actually smiled. “I see now what you have been doing instead of improving your Japanese,” he said. “However, all that energy, all that maneuvering to still lose. It seems pointless to me.”

“It is,” I said. “It was to show you I had improved. It was a childish act, poorly executed.”

“You know that is your greatest weakness, Laytham-kun,” Ichi said. “It always has been. Your emotions overcome your reason. It is a fatal flaw, and it puts those who trust you in danger. A man your age should have overcome it by now.”

“Is that your way of telling me no?” I asked, looking at the queen and setting it on the table.

“It is my way of saying the man I knew ten years ago would not have been able to acknowledge a weakness, or even see it. You have grown, Laytham-kun. I will undertake the mission with you. Are there any others I will be working with?”

I smiled and tipped over my king. “Didgeri Doo. I didn't want to involve her or her new apprentice, but I will need Didgeri to give us evac.”

“Oh,” Ichi said. “I see, Didgeri Doo—the
fukusō
tōsaku-sha,
the transvestite.”

“I think she prefers transgender,” I said. “I know that stuff didn't fly too much in your time, but it's a different world now.”

“I am one hundred and fifty-nine years old,” Ichi said. “Men are men and women are women. I do not believe that will ever change. However, I can work with him, and he is a competent Shugenja, despite his perversions.”

“Yes,” I said. “She is. A very powerful Shugenja, at that.”

I decided to not try to argue or explain gender politics to Ichi. One, at his age it was doubtful I was going to change his mind about anything and, two, he might just kill me if I got too annoying.

I stood and bowed low again. Ichi stood and bowed as befit his station. I told him the address in Little Odessa to meet me at tomorrow, where I would lay everything out about the caper. I started to walk away from the beach.

“Laytham-kun,” Ichi said. “The thing you wear about your neck, I would have it please as payment for the service I do you.”

I turned and smiled. “How the hell could you know?”

“I have studied with blind Buddhist monks and Sufi masters older than I. I have traded wits with Rasputin, the mad, immortal monk, himself. Did you honestly think that you could hide something from me? Your posture screamed that you were concealing something around your neck.”

He held out his hand, and I slipped the talisman off and tossed it to him. It was a simple leather cord with a small leather pouch. Ichi opened the pouch, and a worn ivory chess piece, a white king, fell into his hand. He looked at it and then at me.

“It belonged to Bobby Fischer,” I said. “It's a very powerful charm. You may want to hang on to it the next time you play your chess buddies.”

“I see,” Ichi said.

“I needed you,” I said. “I needed to get your attention, and it's a little hard to engage you, Ichi-sama. So I figured I needed an edge. Like I said, I knew I was going to lose.”

“No, Laytham-kun,” Ichi said as he flipped his own king over. “I think you have mastered the game far more than I had previously given you credit for. Until tomorrow.”

I bowed again and took my leave of Ichi.

 

FIFTEEN

Washington, D.C., is a city of marble, blood, secrets, and lies. My kind of town. It was bright and cold when Ichi and I ascended the escalators from the Smithsonian Metro station with the teeming swarms of morning commuters to downtown D.C. Islands of snow turned to ice were packed around the bases of streetlights and parking meters along Independence Avenue.

I was dressed for success in a navy Versace suit. My hair was pulled back tight from my face in a severe ponytail. I was wearing Ray-Ban Aviators, and I was carrying a briefcase. Ichi was dressed in an older Hugo Boss suit, black, and he had a wide black tie and aviator sunglasses as well. He looked like a Yakuza undertaker. People moved out of his way. He didn't seem to notice.

We turned left off of 12th Street onto C Street. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing was two blocks up. It was an old building, neoclassical architecture with traditional Greek-influenced pillars, looking something like an ancient temple. Large worn stairs led up to the columns and the doors beyond them. A pair of BEP police officers, in dark blue baseball caps, with gun belts, radios, and scanning rods, greeted us on the other side of the glass doors.

Waiting nervously at the cops' station beside the door was a young woman in her twenties, dressed in a very flattering but functional navy power suit dress. Her hair was blond and her Treasury Department ID said her name was Elizabeth Compton. When she saw us, her face switched from worried to confident in a flash. I smiled my best corporate asshole smile and pocketed the sunglasses.

“Mr. Breenan, Dr. Isaku? Hello, I'm Liz Compton. I'll be your guide today.”

“Hi, Liz,” I said, shaking her hand. “Please, call me Larry. Dr. Isaku doesn't speak much English, I'm afraid. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks so much for getting the tour together for us so quickly.”

“Well, when Senator Hawlsey's office contacted us and told us about Mr. Isaku's time restrictions on his trip, we were happy to oblige.”

I nodded. So far, Grinner's covers for us were working great. He hadn't gotten back to me yet on the research I had asked him with, but as far as this operation, everything was looking good. I nodded to the rope line leading to the metal detectors.

“This way?” I asked.

“Yes, please,” Liz said. Ichi and I walked up to the metal detector. I placed my briefcase on a conveyor belt, next to the arch. One of the federal cops popped it open. There was an iPad, some yellow legal pads, a tin of Altoids, pens, and today's editions of the
Washington Post
and the
Wall Street Journal.
The cop took the iPad out of the briefcase.

“Sorry, this has to stay at the station. No electronic devices back in the press rooms.”

“Of course,” I said, smiling.

The case ran along the conveyor through an X-ray scanner, which showed exactly the same contents to the seated guard. So far everything was going smoothly. Ichi and I passed the metal detector walk-through and wanding with flying colors, and I retrieved my case, minus the tablet. Ichi and I showed all the appropriate identification to the guards, signed the log book, and were both issued visitor badges to clip onto our suit pockets. Liz smiled at us both as we passed through into the wide lobby. Smiles all around. Happy happy joy joy.

“Okay, well, let's get under way, shall we?” she said.

“Please, let's,” I said.

Liz took us past the lobby and down a series of corridors with numerous displays. Some were electronic and interactive, and others were simply wall displays with pictures explaining the contents of various cases. Most included different types of currency and a few dummy plates used to make currency. The halls were empty except for us and a few employees. The regular civilian tours didn't start for a while yet, and I wanted us to get this done with as few other people around as we could.

“The Bureau of Engraving and Printing,” Liz said, “is an arm of the Department of the Treasury. The Treasury Department was founded by an act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenues. The first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was sworn into office on September 11, 1789…”

“September 11?” I said.

Liz laughed. “Yes, the conspiracy theorists have a field day with that one,” she said, and then continued walking and talking. “The Treasury prints and mints all currency in circulation through the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the U.S. Mint. That's what we do here and have been doing since 1862.”

We paused at a large observation window overlooking a massive room full of printing presses. They were huge, over fifty feet long, churning out rivers of currency sheets. There were dozens of employees moving about the press floor in an intricate dance, sliding between the machines, avoiding the constant stream of wealth being created out of thin air. There were computer console stations at several locations above and on the press floor, manned by operators directing and controlling the creation process. The sound of the presses was muted behind the thick shatterproof windows, but the powerful vibrations of the machines could be felt through the floor and the walls. This was a place of power, but not my kind of power.

“Our Simultan sheet-fed, high-speed rotary offset presses and our I-10 Intaglio presses produce the traditional images on U.S. currency. Our facility here produces approximately 10,000 sheets per hour, roughly 541 million dollars a day at all of our locations.”

“Dr. Isaku's research is into the history of the engraving process of American currency,” I said. “The senator's office said we would be allowed access to the archive for the dies and the plates. It sounds like an amazing process.”

Liz smiled. “Oh, it is.” She sounded as thrilled about this as I did. It was clear that this was not her normal job for Treasury. Someone on the senator's staff had pulled strings to get her here for this private tour. She was bored with this, and she could tell I was too. It gave us a sense of camaraderie.

“Right this way,” she said.

She led us down a side hall, past more well-lit glass display cases mounted into the curving wall to a small lobby with two elevators. She raised her own ID badge, about her neck on a lanyard, and slotted it into a panel beside the elevator doors. The doors opened, and she ushered us into the car.

“So, would you rather see the engraving gallery first, where our master engravers work, or the archives where we keep the master dies and plates, dating back to the beginning of the republic?” she asked.

I looked at Ichi and asked, “Heads or tails?” in my lousy Japanese.

“I love the intricate details of your master plan,” he responded. “Truly I am in the presence of a tactical mastermind.” Then he bowed slightly to Liz, and she smiled and bowed back.

“Engraving, please,” I said.

*   *   *

The offices of the engravers were on an upper level in the newer annex building. We got off the elevator, walked down a hallway filled with framed photos of the building and its history, and eventually turned onto a corridor with a small office. A glass wall and door announced we were in the Engraving Department. A receptionist at the desk was listening to some music on computer as we passed. Liz waved to her, and she smiled back.

“The engraving for the dies used in paper currency and coins is all developed in these offices,” Liz said. “There are seven engravers that each work on different parts of the dies. They develop the patterns and symbols that are put onto the plates and have input into the designs themselves, always with an eye toward how to produce a superior artistic effect while making the currency more difficult to copy or counterfeit.”

“Only seven,” I said. She nodded. “Again, a strange number coincidence. Seven is a very powerful number in numerology.”

“Really?” Liz said, looking at me like I was a complete moron she was being forced to endure. She hid it well, but I had seen the look enough times to recognize it. “That's fascinating.”

“Very strong link between seven and the Masonic lodges,” I said. “But I'm sure I'm boring you.”

She smiled and laughed. “No, not at all. Now down this way…”

I had kept a tight lid on my senses and powers, but now in the corridors of the engravers, I opened my perceptions slightly. My Ajna chakra opened, and I sensed vague wisps of mystical energy floating between the offices like a scent of subtle perfume. There was power at work here, but it was elusive, alchemical perhaps. I peeked into an office where a slender man in rolled-up shirt sleeves was working at a drafting table on an intricate series of lines and forms, which I recognized as the tracery on American currency. There were wisps of magical energy coming off the drafting pens and tools he was using. The symbols and patterns he was creating occasionally flared and flashed with power as he muttered quietly to himself and continued to draw. The engraver, a gaunt man in his late twenties with thinning black hair and gold wire-rim glasses, paused and looked over his shoulder at me. Something about him looked unhealthy, ill, in a way no medicine could help.

“Please, this way to the conference room for the presentation,” Liz said in a hushed voice. She had backtracked and was right beside me. I smiled and waved to the engraver. He didn't smile back. As I walked down the hall past the other offices, all of the engravers, all slightly ill, slightly wrong men and women, had turned away from their work to stare at me. I left the scribes to their master's work.

We were shown a thirty-minute video about the engraving process, which included interviews with several of the engravers I had just passed. In the video, they seemed to be normal, healthy, and excited government employees.

During the video, Liz left for about fifteen minutes. I'm pretty sure she was checking our covers and clearance again. I had spooked her, but at this point I was cool with that.

“The woman is distrustful,” Ichi said softly in Japanese. “You have put her on edge with your crazy Yamabushi talk.”

“Yeah, well, there is something going on here,” I said back in broken Japanese. “They are building something, reinforcing some kind of working here. We need to get a look at those archive plates.”

Ichi snorted. “They think this engraving is detailed, that this is intricate design? Bah.”

“Did you … did you just say ‘bah'?” I said. “No one says ‘bah.' Not even super villains. I mean no one.”

“I do,” Ichi said. I shrugged and shook my head.

“Things are about to get messy,” I said.

“Very well,” Ichi said.

“Bah,” I said.