Flashback

Nick had done the entire three-tier security thing in reverse with Sato in tow: Mr. Nakamura’s personal security ninjas or whatever they were handing him off to the Nipponese Compound security people, the Japanese turning him over to the Colorado state troopers and the DS agents—the State Department’s Office of Diplomatic Security charged with protecting foreign diplomats—who gave Nick back his Glock 9 in its clip-on holster. And then Nick got in the gelding and was ready to leave, except for the fact that Sato wouldn’t fit.

“Sorry, power seat, but hasn’t worked for a while,” mumbled Nick as Sato’s mass filled all the space between the seat back and the dashboard. “Been meaning to fix that stuck harness as well.” The seat belt harness extended about twenty inches, which barely reached Sato’s shoulder, and would not extend farther.

“Do you have airbag?” asked the security chief.

“Ahh…,” said Nick and then remembered that the car had been CMRI’d on its way in. Sato must know that all the ancient hybrid’s airbags were missing. Nick had sold them years ago.

Sato fiddled with the unmoving power seat controls for a minute and then, just as Nick got out to come around to add his own useless fiddling, Sato planted his feet on the floorboards, gave out a sumo-wrestler’s grunt-growl, and straightened his legs.

The stalled power seat screeched back as far as it could go, the bearings almost tearing off their railings, until the back of the half-reclined seat was almost touching the rear seat.

Sato gave another weight lifter’s grunt and pulled down on the stuck shoulder harness with all his might.

Something in the mechanism tore and three yards of seat belt hung loose. Still half reclined, two feet farther back than the driver, Sato clicked the harness into the buckle.

Nick came back around and drove off. He would have rolled up the windows to shut out the DS agents’ laughter, but it was already far too hot in the little car and the air-conditioning wasn’t working with the batteries this low.

The low batteries were a problem.

Nick had popped his phone back in the dashboard slot and its nav function told him that the distance to the Cherry Creek Mall by the shortest route—reversing the way he’d come via Speer Boulevard, to 6, to I-70, and then the Evergreen exit to the Green Zone—was 29.81 miles. The DS guys had charged the gelding with their garage’s high-speed 240-volt charger, but the phone and car readouts both said that the old batteries only had enough charge to travel 24.35 miles, even factoring in the downhill stretch on I-70 dropping out of the foothills.

The last thing that Nick Bottom wanted on this particular Friday was to be stuck with Mr. Hideki Sato somewhere on Speer Boulevard—probably in reconquista territory south of downtown—five miles from their destination.

Fuck it, thought Nick, not for the first time that morning. No guts, no glory.

The gelding hummed, hissed, and rattled its way out of the Green Zone toward I-70.

Sato’s position, lying almost flat in the broken and fully reclined passenger seat and so far back that it seemed that Nick was a chauffeur up front and Sato the passenger in the rear seat, looked absurd, but the hefty security chief didn’t seem bothered by it. Sato folded his callused hands over his belly and looked up and out at the trees and sky.

Glancing at the sky, Nick said, “Mr. Sato, how did you get the video of me using the flashback on that cul-de-sac? Some of the shots looked to be from a handheld camera from about ten feet away.”

“They were,” said the security chief.

Nick tried to accelerate down the ramp onto the Interstate, but the gelding wasn’t in the mood to accelerate—even heading downhill. At least there wasn’t much traffic to merge into coming east on I-70. At one time, a time Nick could still remember clearly, a family could get on I-70 and drive 1,034 miles without ever leaving the Interstate except to pump gas—merging with I-15 about 500 miles from Denver in the Utah high desert and mountain country and staying on it the rest of the way to L.A.—ending up at the Pacific Ocean at the Santa Monica Pier.

Now an adventurous driver could get in his car and drive 98 miles west from Denver on I-70 to where state and federal protection ended at Vail. Beyond Vail, there be dragons.

“How did you get one of your people to within ten feet of my car with a camera?” asked Nick.

“Stealth suit,” said Sato. The short but absurdly solid man seemed totally relaxed.