“The unsub relayed that the members are in fact current members of Yakuza, and their number is eighteen, not eleven. Grove’s omitting. He’s either shit at Japanese, or he’s unreliable.”

Agent Grove stood and then left the unsub in the room alone with the transcribing agent. He slowly walked out before closing the door behind him. When he saw the two of us, he startled but quickly recovered.

“Agent Maddox,” he said in a nasal tone.

Anyone else might have missed the slight trembling in his fingers when he pushed up his glasses. He was a pudgy man with copper skin. His eyes were so dark that they were nearly black, and his wiry mustache twitched when he spoke.

Thomas gestured to me with the same hand that held his coffee. “This is Agent Lindy, the new supervisor for Squad Five.”

“I’ve heard the name,” Grove said, eyeing me. “From Chicago?”

“Born and raised.”

Grove had the look I’d seen often right before a person asked me if I was Korean, Japanese, or Chinese. He was trying to decide if I could speak the language he had been incorrectly translating.

“Maybe you should come in here and help. He’s got a weird accent. Keeps tripping me up,” Grove said.

I shrugged. “Me? I don’t speak Japanese. I’ve been thinking of taking lessons though.”

Thomas spoke up, “Maybe you could work with her, Grove?”

“Like I have time for that,” he grumbled, mindlessly rubbing his sweaty palms against each other.

“Just a thought,” Thomas said.

“I’m grabbing coffee. I’ll see you around.”

Thomas lifted his chin once, waiting until Agent Grove left the room.

“Good call,” Thomas said, watching Pittman doodle.

“How long have you known?” I asked.

“I’ve had my suspicions for at least three months. I was sure when I missed an arrest after walking in on an empty room that I knew had been crawling with Yakuza two days prior.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Thomas shrugged. “I was going to bring him in to translate the Title Threes we’d gotten on Benny’s guys in Vegas, but after that missed arrest, I thought better of it. Instead, I wanted to bring in someone new, someone better.”

“Someone who wasn’t a double agent?”

Thomas turned to me with the smallest hint of a smile. “Why do you think I brought you here?”

“Will you arrest him?” I asked. “What will you do?”

He shrugged. “I doubt we’ll keep using him as a translator.”

I made a face. “I’m serious.”

“Me, too.”

Thomas walked with me down the hall and out to the parking lot, tossing his coffee and opening an umbrella. “You should invest in one of these, Liis. It’s spring, you know.”