Dan Simmons - Flashback

Copyright 2011 by Dan Simmons

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: July 2011

Reagan Arthur Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Reagan Arthur Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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ISBN: 978-0-316-13277-0

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Summer Sketches

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Hard Freeze

Worlds Enough & Time

Ilium

Hard as Nails

Olympos

The Terror

Drood

Black Hills

This book is for
TOM AND JANE GLENN,
who are the real future

We find a little of everything in our memory; it is a sort of pharmacy, a sort of chemical laboratory, in which our groping hand may come to rest now on a sedative drug, now on a dangerous poison.

Marcel Proust, from The Captive,
Remembrance of Things Past, translated by
C. K. Scott Moncrieff, Terence
Kilmartin, and Andreas Mayor

Y OURE 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 youre a detective. You want me to find the person or persons who killed your son, Keigo.

Nakamura blinked again but said nothing. It was as if hearing his sons name spoken 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 open shoji that looked out on the courtyard garden. If Sato gave his employer any response by movement, wink, or facial expression, Nick sure as hell couldnt see it. Come to think of it, he didnt remember having seen Sato blink during the ride up to the main house in the golf cart or during the introductions here in Nakamuras office. The security chiefs eyes were obsidian marbles.

Finally Nakamura said, Your deduction is correct, Mr. Bottom. And, as Sherlock Holmes would say, an elementary deduction since you were the homicide detective in charge of my sons case when I was still in Japan and you and I have never met nor had any other contact.

Nick waited.

After the glance in Satos direction, Nakamura had returned his gaze to the single sheet of interactive e-vellum in his hand, but now his gray eyes looked up and bored into Nick.

Do you think you can find my sons killer or killers, Mr. Bottom?

Im 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 being killed and make everything all right again?

Nick would have said Im certain I can to that question as well. He would 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 to come.

Nakamura squinted slightly. Nick knew that one didnt become a hundred-times-over billionaire in Japan, or one of only nine regional Federal Advisors in America, by being a fool.

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

There were four hundred homicide cases pending then, Mr. Nakamura. We had fifteen homicide detectives working them all, with new cases coming in every day. This time Ill have just this one case to concentrate on and to solve. No distractions.

Nakamuras gray gaze, as unblinking as Satos darker stare and already chilly, grew noticeably chillier. Are you saying, former detective sergeant Bottom, that you did not give my sons murder the attention it deserved six years ago, despite the ah high profile of it and direction to give it priority from the 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 get out of this room and pull the warm wool cover of then, not-now, her, not-this over himself like a blanket.

Im saying that the DPD didnt give any of its murder cases the manpower or attention they deserved six years ago, said Nick. Including your sons case. Hell, it could have been the presidents kid murdered in Denver and the Major Crimes Unit couldnt have solved it then. He looked Nakamura straight in the eye, betting everything on this absurd tactic of honesty.

Or solve it now, he added. Its fifty times worse today.

The billionaires 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 across the narrow, chest-high expanse of the rich mans slim, perfectly bare mahogany stand-up desk. Satos casual posture over at the tansu didnt obscure the factsat least to Nick Bottoms eyethat the security chief was fully alert, would have been dangerous even if he werent armed, and had the indefinable lethality of an ex-soldier or cop or member of some other profession that had trained him to kill other men.

It is, of course, your expertise after many years on the Denver Police Department, and your invaluable insights into the investigation, that are the prime reason we are considering you for this investigation, Mr. Nakamura said smoothly.

Nick took a breath. Hed had enough of playing by Nakamuras script.

No, sir, he said. Those arent the reasons youre considering hiring me. If you hire me to investigate your sons murder, its because Im the only person still alive whounder flashbackcan see every page of the files that were lost in the cyberattack that wiped out the DPDs entire archives five years ago.

Nick thought to himselfAnd its also because Im the only person who can, under the flash, relive every conversation with the witnesses and suspects and other detectives involved. Under flashback, I can reread the Murder Book that was lost with the files.

If you hire me, Mr. Nakamura, Nick continued aloud, it will be because Im the only person in the world who can go back almost six years to