Roosevelt’s New Deal needs an adversary worthy of its bloated aspirations, to force a retreat from its initial advance. In this regard, 100 Neighbors will be mightier than any military for our means to an end will not be subject to any of the rules governing war.

—LANCASTER R. HILL, PERSONAL COMMUNICATION TO CARL LAGRECA, SEPTEMBER 1936

Vaill and Lou packed what little they had and headed off for the Wendover Suites, five miles east of the Grand Southern. Halfway there, Vaill, who had been pensively quiet, looked over at his passenger. There was reverence in his eyes.

“Do you realize what you just did back there?” he asked.

“Well, I know I noticed something we had missed seeing after hours of studying that video. Was there something else?”

“The amazing thing is, mi amigo, we’re not the only ones who had missed it.”

“The bureau analyst?”

“Not just any analyst,” he said. “You just beat the Slugger.”

Lou knitted his brows.

“The who?”

“Remember how I told you this video was logged as evidence and thoroughly analyzed by one of our best intelligence agents? No, make that our top intelligence agent.”

“I sort of remember you commenting about an analyst, but I don’t remember anything about a slugger.”

“Itsuki Sakura,” Vaill said, “not a slugger, the Slugger.”

“Confusion reigns.”

“It’s an internal nickname we have for the guy,” Vaill said. “Sakura played minor league pro ball in Japan for a short while before he moved to the States and became a legend at the agency. He’s a baseball fanatic, and I don’t mean your garden variety either. This guy is a living encyclopedia of American and Japanese baseball trivia, facts, and statistics. He’s an amazing intelligence analyst, but sometimes people use him as a last resort because he can be a bit, how should I say, tiring when it comes to getting him to focus. That aside, when the Slugger is locked in, man, he never misses.”

“Slugger. I love it,” Lou said.

“Tell me that after you’ve met him. Anyway, the Slugger looked at the video, too, but he saw nothing of real value.”

“Guess I got lucky.”

Vaill dismissed that notion with a flick of his hand.

“No. In the agency you learn that you make your own luck. This time, the FBI fell short and when the Slugger reviews this video again, he’ll be the first to agree.”

“He wasn’t prepared for the ship, that’s all. We watched that video more than a hundred times.”

As a rabid Washington Nationals fan, who took Emily to two or three games a year, Lou felt he needed to defend the Slugger’s honor.