The Crafty Teddy (28 page)

Recognizing the vehicle, I shouted at Sergei. “Watch yourself! These guys are Yakuza!”

By now, I recognized the man who’d clobbered me was one of Ota’s
kobun
, and I delivered a vicious backhand blow with my cane to his right knee. He gasped with pain and fell to the pavement, but immediately bounced back to his feet as he continued his frenzied efforts to free his companion. That told me he was trying to rescue his boss.

When I didn’t hear or see any other vehicles heading in our direction, I understood that the Yakuza must have shaken the FBI surveillance team. We were on our own and I fearfully wondered if the feds had failed us in another way. Could they have been mistaken about Merrit being alive when the Yakuza left the museum?

The third gangster jumped from the Hummer and ran toward us and I suddenly regretted my decision not to carry my pistol tonight. Unfortunately, at least one of the Yakuza
had
come prepared for action, because I heard the unmistakable metallic snap of a gun’s hammer being cocked. Trying not to panic, I considered shouting for help, but knew it would be useless. As I recalled, the nearest home was almost a quarter of a mile away.

Then Ota stopped struggling and I saw why: Sergei was standing behind the
oyabun
and had him in a tight chokehold while pushing the business end of a small revolver into his right ear. I’d had no idea Sergei was carrying a gun, but considering his background in the deadly universe of espionage, I really shouldn’t have been surprised, even if he’d produced a flamethrower.

Sergei said, “No more games. Tell your lads to stand down or I’ll kill you and them.”

Ota licked at dry lips and after a long pause half-shouted something in Japanese to his goons, but it didn’t look as if they were ready to surrender. They split up and it was clear they were hoping to flank Sergei. Brandishing my cane, I moved to cover Sergei’s unprotected left side. Then Ota glanced at me and blinked in surprise. He shouted at his
kobun
again and this time they stopped, but didn’t relax their combat stances.

Ota said, “Mr. Lyon?”

“That’s right, Mr. Ota, and I guess you
are
just nothing but a
gurentai
—a freaking hoodlum. You lied to me.”

The gangster’s jaw got tight. “I did not lie! You warned me not to come back here, but I never said that I would submit to your instructions. I want my money back, or the real teddy bears.”

“I think you’re missing the bigger issue. You came sneaking back here to find Adam Mumford—or whoever he really is—and you probably intended to thump him like you did Merrit.”

“We did not kill Mr. Merrit! The other policemen can prove that.”

Ota was right, but I wasn’t in the mood to make concessions. I snapped, “As easy as it was for you to elude the other policemen tonight, it makes me wonder if maybe they just weren’t paying attention at the museum. By the way, where
is
F Troop?”

“Please?”

“The FBI. Where are they?”

“I don’t know. We crossed some railroad tracks just before a train came and they could not follow us.”

“Which provided you with the opportunity to come up here and try to murder the right guy this time.”

Ota scowled. “I was not lying. Mr. Merrit was alive when we left.”

Sergei apparently noticed one of the
kobun
move slightly. He quickly pulled his gun from Ota’s ear and aimed it at the thug, saying, “Tell your man that if he continues to slide his hand toward his back pocket, I’m going to shoot him and that’s my last warning.”

Ota yelled at the gangster, who sullenly nodded.

I said, “Okay, let’s pretend I’m stupid and I buy your story that you didn’t kill Merrit. Why the hell
did
you come up here?”

There was a long pause before Ota answered, “We
were
trying to find Adam Mumford’s home address in the administrative office, but I only wanted to talk to him.”

“Right. So, you broke into the post office?”

“No. You arrived before we could get in. You can check.”

“We will. But, I’m confused. If you’re the boss, why didn’t you stay in the truck while your
kobun
committed the burglary?”

“Regrettably, I am the only one who can read English.”

“You didn’t happen to look in box number twenty-seven, did you?”

“Yes. There are letters in the box.” Ota glanced over his shoulder at Sergei. “You are hurting my throat. Can you please let me go?”

Sergei glanced at me and I nodded. He released Ota and shoved him toward his
kobun
, while keeping the gun trained on the trio.

I said, “You say you were just going to talk if you found his home address?”

“I was going to urge Mr. Mumford to give me the bears I paid for or refund my money…without violence, of course.” Ota gave me a chilly smile.

“Yeah, I’ll bet. That explains why you fought with us when we tried to stop you from leaving.”

“I regret that. We saw from your truck that you were not the FBI and we were just trying to escape.”

Sergei slowly released the revolver’s hammer so that it was no longer on a hair trigger, but maintained his aim at the Yakuza. “So, what are we going to do with them?”

“Let me check inside the post office to see if there’s any evidence of a burglary.” I headed for the steps, keeping a wary eye on the Yakuza. “If not, we don’t have any evidence they actually tried to break in.”

Opening the door, I quickly scanned the interior of the post office, which reeked of fresh cigarette smoke. Everything looked normal and the wooden door leading to the administrative section of the building showed no signs of forced entry. I also noted that there wasn’t a back door for postal customers.

I came back down the steps and said, “Mr. Ota, I want your word that you and your
kobun
are going to get the hell out of here and never come back.”

Ota gave me a curt yet formal nod. “I give my promise.”

“You’re not going to just let them go?” Sergei sounded incredulous.

“I don’t like it any more than you do. But there’s no proof they’ve committed a crime, so we can’t arrest them. And I sure don’t want to call the FBI. They won’t find us before morning.”

“You’ve got a point.” Sergei lowered the revolver and slipped it into the waistband of his pants.

“Thank you, Mr. Lyon,” said Ota.

“You’re welcome. Now, get moving before I change my mind.”

Ota spoke to his thugs and they hustled to the Hummer and began to climb into it. Suddenly, in the near distance I could hear what seemed like several vehicle engines. I looked eastward down the road and saw the bright glow of headlights. A moment later, three sedans and a van sped into Shefford Gap. One of the cars shot in front of the Hummer and skidded to a stop, while another pulled up right behind the Yakuza’s vehicle. The gangsters were trapped.

I recognized the white van from Boyds Bear Country and allowed myself to relax a little when I realized that the newcomers were FBI agents. For once, I was impressed with the feds. Somehow, they’d actually found us. Flashlights danced and shone in the darkness as the agents pulled Ota and his
kobun
from the Hummer.

Someone approached us from the van and I recognized Special Agent Bartle. He shook his head in resignation when he saw me. “You, again?”

“I missed you too, Agent Bartle.”

“FBI?” asked Sergei.

“I thought you could tell that from the dull look on his face,” I muttered.

“And who’re you?” Bartle demanded of Sergei.

“Unless you have an Umbra clearance, that’s none of your business,” Sergei said in an equitable tone. Most people have never heard the term, but “Umbra” is a security classification several stages higher than “Top Secret.”

Bartle looked as if he’d just bitten into a lemon. Turning to me, he said, “What in the name of God was going on here?”

“We were following up on a lead in our murder investigation and interrupted them before they could burglarize the post office.”

“Why were they doing that?”

“Like I told you in Gettysburg, Ota is a teddy bear collector. A couple of months ago, he purchased a pair of antique bears over the Internet and later found out they were counterfeit. The check was mailed to a P.O. box here. Long story short: He either wants his money back or the genuine bears.”

Bartle glanced at the Hummer. “And he was going to break in and get the seller’s residence address?”

“Yep, and then do a little bill collecting. So, where have you guys been?”

Bartle grunted with frustration. “We lost them in Winchester behind the longest damn freight train I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s almost a hundred miles north. How did you manage to find them here?”

“We put our own GPS device on the Hummer before they picked it up at the car rental agency.”

A Chevy Suburban now rolled into the hamlet and I watched as the agents ushered Ota and his
kobun
into the vehicle. Ota was insisting that the feds transfer his luggage and new teddy bears from the Hummer to the Suburban, but nobody seemed to be paying him any attention.

I asked, “What are you going to do with those guys now?”

“Take them back to Washington and keep them in protective custody until their flight leaves tomorrow night. We’re done chasing them over hell’s half acre.”

“Good idea, but can you do me a favor?”

Bartle gave me a suspicious look. “That depends on the favor.”

“This is an easy one,” I said. “Let him have his new teddy bears. You and I both know that sometimes a prisoner’s property can be misplaced and I don’t want to give him
any
reason to come back here.”

Twenty-four

It was just after one-thirty in the morning by the time I got home, and it took twenty minutes to tell Ash what had happened and assure her that I really was uninjured. Then I pulled off my clothes and climbed into bed. Even though I was dog-tired, I didn’t sleep well. I never do before an arrest operation, because I’m focused on role-playing successful solutions to every possible tactical scenario, no matter how improbable. But this time my brain was working overtime. Ash had to be factored into the series of potentially lethal equations and that changed everything. Curiously enough, she’d gone back to sleep quickly and I resisted the urge to touch her cheek, for fear of waking her. It wasn’t until after the old long case clock downstairs chimed three o’clock that I drifted off into a restless slumber.

We awakened to an Andrea Bocelli CD in the alarm clock. It was 5:30
A.M.
and the sky was already gray. Ash went downstairs to let Kitch outside and make some coffee and hot cocoa, while I got into the shower. I felt like death warmed over and my eyelids were sandpapery, but I perked up a little once I’d had a couple cups of strong, black coffee. After getting dressed, I pulled my gun, shoulder holster, and handcuffs from my sock drawer and experienced a powerful and unpleasant sense of déjà vu. The last time I’d worn all this equipment, I’d been shot.

Later, I stood in front of the freestanding mirror in our bedroom, frowning at my image. I was wearing jeans, an Anchor Steam Beer T-shirt, and my shoulder holster, which felt oddly constraining. Partly because I weighed a little more now than I had when I was a homicide inspector, but mostly because over two years had passed since I’d worn the black nylon harness and I’d simply forgotten how it felt. I slipped the seventeen-shot Glock pistol into the holster and secured the safety strap. The gun felt strange under my arm.

Ash finished buttoning her blouse and came over to join me in staring into the looking glass. She said, “So, are we looking for Alice?”

“No…but does this outfit make my butt look big?” I asked in an artificially worried tone while pivoting for a profile view. The last thing I wanted was to infect her with my own anxieties.

She laughed, kissed me on the cheek, and grabbed the baggy short sleeve button-down shirt that was hanging from the bedpost. “Here, this will cover your shoulder holster and tush, which, by the way, I think is perfect.”

I tucked the handcuffs into the back of my pants and got my old binoculars from the top shelf of the closet. Going downstairs, we put an unhappy Kitch into his crate, I grabbed my cane and my old San Francisco Giants ball cap from the coat rack, and we went out to the Xterra. It was already in the low-seventies and promised to be another hot and muggy day.

Tina and Sergei were already at the sheriff’s department, sipping coffee from disposable cups and standing beside a white Ford Taurus four-door sedan. Both were dressed in casual clothing and I noticed that Tina was also wearing an oversized and unbuttoned blouse to conceal her gun. Unfortunately, the same thing couldn’t be done for the Taurus. The county motor pool vehicle screamed unmarked cop car, but I didn’t say anything, because I knew it was the best Tina could do. As I pulled up beside them, she picked up a portable radio from the trunk of the Taurus and came over to my open window.

Handing me the radio, she said, “Good morning, you guys. Sergei was just telling me about your run-in with the Yakuza last night. Why didn’t you call me?”

“I couldn’t see any point in waking you up. We ready to roll?” I asked.

“Yeah. We’ll operate on channel two. My call sign is Mike One, and yours is—”

“Mike Tyson? That way, I can also be like McGruff the Crime Dog and take a
bite
out of crime…or someone’s ear,” I said in a gravelly voice.

“It’s a little too early in the morning for your insanity,” Tina said with tired laugh. “Your call sign is Mike Fourteen.”

“Heck, you’re no fun. So, how do you want to make the arrest?”

“Sergei told me there was mail in the P.O. box, so let’s let the suspect go into the post office and get his mail. We’ll nail him when he comes back out. That way, we’ll catch him with evidence and also avoid a hostage situation.”

“Good thinking. Did you let the locals know we’ll be operating on their turf?”

“Yeah, I talked with both the Rockingham County Sheriff and the state police. They’ve agreed to stay out of the area, unless they get a service call or we shout for backup. You can do that on channel five on your radio.”