CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER
I SAW OUR VISITOR TODAY. BUT only from a distance,” Masuyo said in a disappointed voice.
Steers set down her soup spoon and looked at her mother, who was, as usual, seated at the head of the table.
“I did not think you wished to greet the man who kept you a prisoner for years.”
“That is not the point. You let that man into our home after what he did to me?”
“It was necessary, Māma.”
“I do not understand you sometimes, Daughter. You are more powerful than you think. This is no time to shrink like a faded flower. You must be bold.”
“Being bold and stupid is just being stupid,” said Steers wearily as she picked up her spoon again and dipped it into her bowl.
“What did you talk to him about?”
Steers swallowed a mouthful of soup while she glanced at her mother. It seemed both women were appraising the other.
“You believe you need to know this?” said Steers.
“It was you who said that what you have is built solely on what I created. Thus, I believe I have every right to know all.”
Steers laid down the spoon again, wiped her mouth with her napkin, and leaned back in her chair.
“He is displeased with me. Not simply for having liberated you. Before this meeting he also made clear that he does not agree with the way my business is being conducted, largely with respect to this country.”
Masuyo nodded and a cruel smile emerged on her lips.
“You are not killing enough Americans to please him. I do not know what led to this, Daughter, or who you are listening to, but you are better than that.” She tapped her forehead.
“This houses your brain, nothing else. If he requires death, provide it. What do you care for this country anyway? America is our enemy! And look at Moscow. Do you think Putin wastes one minute of his time worrying about helping America? He wants to crush this country. Anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot. But then again, idiots are useful, particularly if they are highly placed. And many are,” she added knowingly. “Very highly placed indeed.”
Steers visibly trembled, as though her rage threatened to break through all her outer calm. “Hiroko-san would disagree with you. Hiroko-san would speak of one’s soul, of one’s compassion, of one’s good nature up here.” She tapped her forehead.
Masuyo’s lips curled into a sneer. “You embrace the advice of someone who never rose above the level of a servant? I do not know why you still have that foolish old woman around. But the fact that you do makes you a fool as well. And I did not raise you to be a fool. I raised you to be victorious above all others. You were named for a queen. Act like it, child!”
“All right, using my brain, I have partners who do not wish to kill their paying customers, since that is clearly bad for business. However, this man does not care about that. Indeed, as you just pointed out, he desires this outcome. Thus, I have conflict on both my flanks. An interesting challenge, would you not agree?”
Masuyo dropped her arrogant and domineering manner and assumed an engaged expression. “A challenging problem indeed. What do you intend to do about it, Victoria?”
“I have already done something about it.”
“What have you done!” snapped her mother, giving Steers a ferocious look.
Steers rose, dropped her napkin on the table, and said, “I am tired. Have a good sleep, Māma. I very much intend to. Because tomorrow belongs to no one, especially people like us.”
* * *
Two nights later Nash was lying on his bed thinking about his last conversation with Steers. Nash had wanted to ask about the prison but the timing did not seem right. Why did a man such as she had described run a prison in Myanmar? What would be the point?
He had not heard back from Agent Morris on his query about the man’s identity. From this Nash concluded that Steers had been correct in her analysis of the man and his intense desire for anonymity.
As she had said: You can accomplish so much more from the shadows.
Thura and some of the security team were on duty now so that Nash and the others could sleep.
Nash knew that Steers selling her empire to the man for really nothing did not protect her.
Her cartel partners would not be at all pleased, especially after she had laid out such an impressive business proposal envisioning a central hierarchy to manage their various empires.
When they find out who their new partner is, they will try to kill her, without a doubt.
But that did not answer the question as to why Steers was getting out of the business altogether.
And what about her mother? The woman who had created the empire in the first place?
He doubted that she would have approved, which told him that Steers had not allowed her mother to be part of this decision.
And when she finds out, Masuyo will want to kill her daughter, too. You made many enemies with this perplexing decision, Victoria-san, and I wonder why.
His phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. Agent Morris had finally replied to his secure message. He opened the email and read it.
Nash now had a name for the gentleman who had visited them.
Connor Lord had been born. . .in America.
Okay. An American cozying up to Middle Eastern and Chinese dictators.
Lord had been an Army brat, like Nash, but his father’s service had carried Lord to both the Middle and the Far East. When his father’s service ended he had come home; his then-adult son had not.
For the following twenty-five-plus years, Lord had been immersed in those twin regions of the world as a wealth builder and keen student of geopolitics.
Never in the limelight, Morris noted in the email, and not in anything they could prove was criminal.
But always in the shadows, thought Nash.
Steers had not been joking about the man being good at chess.
A fifteen-year-old Lord—who already spoke a half dozen languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Mandarin, and Japanese—had become a grand master, Morris reported.
While still a teenager, he had beaten Garry Kasparov, and Anatoly Karpov the following year.
But he had mysteriously left that competitive world before the age of twenty-one, Morris wrote.
He had next turned his interests and his reportedly 215 IQ—
Nash gasped as he read this. He didn’t even know the scale went that high.
Morris also said in the email that all efforts to learn more about the man had been met with walls of silence from those around the world in high places who surely knew Connor Lord. And that included those in the United States.
The shadows again.
Morris had asked Nash why he had made the inquiry. Nash wasn’t sure what to tell the man.
Finally, he wrote, Steers offered to sell her entire business to him for a buck.
Morris’ reply was swift. Are you drunk or high on something?
Nash wrote back, I wish. He put his phone down and stared at the ceiling.
None of this made sense, at least the way he was looking at it. Shakespeare had written about rulers kissing away kingdoms, he vaguely recalled from some long-ago college class. But people didn’t really do that. Once you had power you did everything possible to consolidate it, and then keep it.
He rose and found Thura, and spoke with him for a few minutes, then headed over to the main house. He let himself in using an electronic key card that allowed him access to the various buildings.
It was late and the enormous house was exceptionally quiet. Quiet like a morgue.
He moved through one hall and then another. He stopped and stared down the hall where Masuyo had her suite of rooms.
Down another hall was where Hiroko had her room.
He had visited with her often since they had come to live here.
He had found her favorite chocolates at a shop in town and had brought her several boxes of them.
They would have tea and she would speak with him in greater detail of Steers and her family.
As he stood there in the darkness, he recalled some of their discussions.
* * *
“I believe with all my heart that it is not too late for Victoria-san to become what she once was,” Hiroko had said.
“You mean, the shy little girl who loved to draw,” he said.
She looked at him sadly and said, “I think you know of what I speak. But with her mother having returned, things. . .things could once more become out of control.”
“You mean Victoria-san could lose control because of her mother?”
“I fear that it could be worse than that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, dread ratcheting up through his senses.
“Masuyo does not take a second seat to anyone. To. . .anyone. I know of this, believe me.”
“But she’s old and probably not in the best of health after all those years in prison.”
She shook her head. “Masuyo will outlive us all. . .unless . . .”
“Unless what?”
She shook her head again. “I cannot speak of it, Dillon-san. It is not for your ears. It is perhaps for no one’s ears. Surely old Hiroko speaks of dreams, even of fantasies. But when one is old, one thinks of things that others cannot or will not.”
And despite his attempts to draw her out, Hiroko had said nothing else.
* * *
Now, as Nash stood there, he suddenly heard a whimper filter through the hall, followed by a low moan, and then a stark cry for help.
He raced down the hall to Hiroko’s room and tried to open the door, but it was locked. “Hiroko-san? Hiroko-san, are you all right?”
The cries grew louder, but they were unintelligible. And then he heard her thrashing around.
“Hiroko-san?” Nash cried out.
A voice behind him exclaimed, “What is going on? What is wrong?”
He turned to see Steers standing there in her nightdress.
“It’s Hiroko-san. She sounds. . .ill. The door’s locked.”
She pushed past him and beat on the door. “Hiroko-san? Hiroko-san!”
When there was no response Nash pulled Steers out of the way. He backed up a few steps and then hurled his body against the door. The doorjamb broke off with the force of the collision and the door flew open.
Nash’s momentum carried him into the room, and he staggered against some furniture, knocked over a table, and fell to the floor. By the time he regained his footing, Steers had come into the room and was staring over at a chair.
Nash looked, too, and he felt his skin turn cold.
Hiroko was in the chair. Her eyes looked at them but were clearly seeing nothing. Her head was angled to the right and rested on her shoulder, and her soft white hair hung limply in her face. Her body was still, her mouth open.
Steers checked the woman’s pulse and then stepped back, her body trembling.
“My Hiroko-san. . .is. . .gone,” she said in a voice that contained more anguish than Nash had ever heard carried in words before.