The Nicholas Linnear Novels (118 page)

Downstairs on the milling sidewalk, she realized that she had nowhere to go. She couldn’t face the apartment, empty and lonely, most of all couldn’t face the clothes, the belongings, the photos of Nicholas there. She could not think of going to Gelda’s; that kind of depression would put her over the edge. And as for returning to her own free-lance business, the idea of starting up again seemed beyond her at the moment.

Confused, she crossed the avenue and went into a coffee shop. She could not taste the coffee set before her, which was perhaps just as well. Tears slid down her cheeks as she stared at the blurs of color hurrying by outside. I’ve got to do
something,
she told herself.

She went to the closest branch of her bank and withdrew five thousand dollars. She kept half as cash, the rest she converted into traveler’s checks. She did some clothes shopping after that, stopping into a luggage store to buy a lightweight suitcase. She charged everything. Cosmetics were no problem, but by the time she did that number she realized that she would have to go back to the apartment after all for some essentials she just could not buy duplicates of. She made it as quick a stop as she could. But still she was struck by the difference. It no longer felt like home. Everything seemed out of place or missing. The comfortable had become disquieting and sad. She wiped the tears away and got out of there, locking up as if she were going away forever.

It was only when she was already airborne, on her way to Honolulu and thence Maui, that she realized that, indeed, one item had been missing from the apartment.

The long black lacquer scabbard that sheathed Nicholas’ prized
dai-katana
, the supreme long sword, was gone from its spot on the bedroom wall. So, of course, was the deadly weapon.

Instinctively, something inside her began to wail.

Minck saw the concern on Tanya’s face as she returned from putting Linnear back on his flight east. She had heard and seen everything, secreted behind the panel of the mirror that was, in the adjoining room, a rectangle of one-way glass.

“Carroll, I don’t understand what you’re doing,” she said. “You’ve as good as killed him, sending him against Protorov like that. That wasn’t the plan…unless I missed something.”

Minck was not in a good mood, despite his success with Nicholas. “Come with me,” he said brusquely. He led her through to the opposite end of the rambling house. Here, in an area that was restricted even to some of his own staff, Minck took her through several windowless laboratories and into a steel-walled cubicle. It was very cold in there.

He flipped on the fluorescent overhead light. Tanya squinted in the harsh purple-blue illumination. Still, she saw the draped corpse immediately. It would have been hard to miss since its bulk dominated the small room.

Carefully she strode over to the head and pulled back the white muslin cloth. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “It’s Tanker.” That was not his real name. She turned to Minck. “When did he come in?”

“While you were out.”

She came away from the blued body. “I wondered why you created that ‘signature.’ Anyone with a knowledge of how it all works would have known that in signals only code names are used, not real ones.”

“Then let’s be thankful that that’s one area in which our Mr. Linnear is ignorant,” he said acidly. “Because of this beauteous package dropped on our doorstep in Honshū I now have to deal with our brother services who were obliged to transfer Tanker here.”

They stood in the dim hallway with the door closed at their backs. “We now know that Croesus is Protorov’s code name, however.”

“Tanker was the only one close,” she said.

“Obviously he got too close.” Minck closed his eyes. “Now, like it or not, we must make do with Mr. Linnear.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“That remains to be seen. But wise or not, our time has run out. I’m afraid that were we not to send Mr. Linnear into the lion’s den, the lion would eat us all for supper.”

“He may still do that.”

For a time Minck was silent. “I take it, then, that you disapprove of my improvisation.”

Tanya knew that she was on thin ice here and she thought her words out carefully. “I think he’s an amateur. Amateurs have proven in the past to be highly unreliable as well as disconcertingly unpredictable. They’re not under discipline.”

“Uhm. True enough. But that’s also one of his great advantages. Protorov cannot connect him with us as he did Tanker or as he would you.” Minck had the manner of a country yokel, sitting on his back porch of a Sunday, sleepily passing the time with a neighbor. It was as if nothing of moment was in the air. “And after all, he’s quite frightening, you know.” He seemed to be musing. “Up close like that I believe he’d frighten the devil himself.” His eyes opened and he looked at her. “Even kill him if he was given just cause. If he or those around him—those he cared about—were put in jeopardy. Mr. Linnear strikes me as an extremely loyal fellow as well as a deadly one.”

“You think he’ll be provoked enough to bring Protorov down.” It occurred to Tanya that this had been his goal all along.

“Yes,” Minck said. “I have sent our Mr. Linnear out, rather cleverly I might add, to bring me Viktor Protorov’s head; to end our feud once and for all. I don’t like this KGB connection with Colonel Mironenko. In fact, it scares me like a rattling skeleton at my door. I begin to imagine the connection between Protorov and Mironenko as being highly significant. The paranoid in me sketches out a scenario wherein the KGB and the GRU would somehow unite.”

“Impossible!” Tanya exploded, but her ashen face betrayed her own fright. “There are too many points of contention, far too much bad blood between the two.”

“Yes, yes, Tanya, my dear. We’re all well acquainted with that line of thought.” Minck seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “Still I can imagine the attempt being made; I can especially imagine Viktor Protorov spearheading that attempt. He’s got a vicious mind; he’s not a bureaucrat. That’s a particularly noxious combination in an enemy.”

He stirred. “In any case—whether this is all imagination or frightening reality—the time has come for Protorov to die. Mr. Linnear will be my terrible swift sword. I have quite a bit of faith in him even if you do not.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Not in so many words, no.” He contemplated her as if she were an entrée set before him. He rose. “But just in case you’re right in your assessment, I’ll be sending you after him in a few days’ time. Timing’s crucial so you’ll have to be ready immediately. The beeper’ll signal you if you’re out of the building. Tickets will be waiting at Pan Am; the rest’s standard procedure.”

“What about Linnear?”

Minck looked at her cynically. “The first priority—
absolutely the first
—is Protorov. If you and Mr. Linnear can come to terms and team up, so much the better.”

“And if not?”

“If not,” Minck said, moving away, “if Linnear becomes a hindrance, you’ll just have to dispose of him.”

Seiichi Sato possessed big
hara.

Kneeling across the low lacquer table from Nicholas, he had already taken the top off one of the small dishes and with artful dexterity was using his chopsticks to serve his honored guest.

Hara
, strictly speaking, was the Japanese word for stomach, but it was also the symbol of a man being well integrated with all the aspects of life.

One of the primary lessons of all martial arts required the student to find that deep well of reserves of inner strength that resided in everyone just below the navel. It was known as
tan tien
by the Chinese and
tanden
by the Japanese.

Both physical and spiritual power dwelled there. A man with big
hara
was centered within himself, grounded to the elements of nature. Japanese often observed that Westerners “bounced along” as they walked, evidence that they were centered only in their minds and therefore not attuned at all to the world around them. Japanese, on the other hand, walked with a heavier stride, their gait flowing smoothly from hips and pelvis, a certain sign that they possessed
hara.

Nicholas was intrigued by Sato’s big
hara
; it was a great compliment to pay any Japanese. He had flown the trail of “the endless night,” as the Japanese call it, chasing the darkness for twenty-one hours, leaving Washington at night, arriving at Narita the same night, one day later.

Mr. Sabayama, one of Sato’s many minions, had been waiting, bleary-eyed, for hours at the airport. He murmured away Nicholas’ apologies and, taking their bags, led them through the terminal to the waiting car. Nicholas asked Mr. Sabayama if he would take care of Craig Allonge at the Okura. Mr. Sabayama assured Nicholas that there was someone already at the hotel to see to all their needs; he would accompany Nicholas out to Sato-san’s house on the edge of Tokyo.

Outside the hotel Nicholas spoke quietly to Allonge. “I may be out of touch for several days, Craig. Even as much as a week. I want you to stay in touch with New York and keep things running smoothly. We’ve already had enough of a shakeup.”

Now Nicholas could hear the boughs of the boxwood scraping against the side of the wood and tile house. The air outside was clean and clear. On the rain-soaked streets, the pedestrians bowed before the wind, only partially protected by their
ama-gasa.
Briefly he saw the high arc of the Nihon-bashi as they crossed the river that flowed into the wider Sumida. Parasols over the span reminded him of Hiroshige’s prints, the great artist’s images speaking to him from another age.

The summons to Sato’s house came as no surprise to Nicholas considering the high-pitched tone of the Telex he had received from the man. Three murders, unexplained and bizarre, were more than enough reason for this late-night rendezvous. The Japanese were a practical people and in times of emergency even politeness might be bypassed for efficiency’s sake.

But for Nicholas the summons held other echoes, ones that Sato could not know about or understand. Being at the industrialist’s home meant that Nicholas would see Akiko again and if his luck held even get to speak to her.

He remembered the gilt and crimson fan trembling like a flower in that extended split second just before she began to lower it and changed his life forever. For it seemed clear to him now that everything he had done after seeing Akiko’s face, every decision he had made, had been so that he could see her again.

He was drawn to her as a moth is to a flame, without reason or logic, with even some atavistic knowledge that the journey might end in destruction.

Nicholas was no longer the person he had once been when he and Yukio had been so madly in love. Yet there was a piece of that madness still burning within him. And he knew that he could not get on with his life, could not fulfill his
karma,
without first investigating this last blind spot within himself. His entire life had been spent in the pursuit of pushing back the darkness. He had found that he could control the chaos of life through the mastery of the martial arts. Through that powerful conduit he had not only learned how to channel the natural forces which he had hitherto found frightening—for they were the forces which had robbed him of his father and mother—but also the spiritual forces whirling within himself.

Yukio’s power over him was obvious. She had spoken to his spirit before he had even known fully of its existence. Her attraction had bypassed his conscious mind, the rational decisionmaking sector on which he had come to rely so heavily. He was drawn to her and he did not know why. He had become frightened of her and of himself. Oddly, this had served only to deepen his love, to etch it on his heart like a black tattoo that could never be erased.

As he raced through the rain-filled Tokyo night, spangled with pink and orange neon, he was conscious only of nearing Yukio again. Impossible but true. Which was the dream and which reality? His body had quivered with the certain knowledge that soon he would find out.

But to his bitter disappointment Sato had told him in response to his query that Akiko was still away in Kyūshū, visiting her infirm aunt. He saw only Koten, the
sumō
bodyguard, lurking in the background like a well-trained Doberman.

Drinks first, then food. At night tea was subordinate to liquor for the modern Japanese. For this, too, they had the West to thank.

Nicholas thought Suntory Scotch vile but he drank it anyway, grateful that Allonge, half Scotch, was not here to witness firsthand what had been done to his nation’s most treasured asset.

As was the habit of the Japanese, they spoke of everything but what was on their minds. That would come later. Sato mentioned that Nangi-san was on his way to Hong Kong to close an important business deal.

“Would you consider it impolite,” Nicholas inquired, “if I told you that my opinion is that Nangi-san does not see this merger in a favorable light?”

“Certainly not,” Sato said. “We are drinking together, Linnear-san. This makes us friends. This binds us more than our business ever will. Businesses are not like marriages, you know. They rise and fall of their own accord. The whims of the market. Economic factors that have nothing to do with us.”

Sato paused for a moment. “But you must try to understand Nangi-san. The war left its imprint on him like a tiger’s clawing. Each day he wakes he cannot forget that we live with the atomic sunshine. You understand me. The fallout’s effects seem never-ending. He is childless and therefore without any true family but me because of it.”

“I am sorry, Sato-san,” Nicholas said. “Truly.”

Sato eyed him, his wooden chopsticks suspended above the steaming food, three kinds of cooked fish,
sashimi
, glass noodles, steamed rice, cucumber, and sea urchin in sweet rice vinegar.

“Yes, I’m sure you are,” he said at last. “I see quite a bit of your father in you. But then there is the other side. That part I do not know.” He resumed serving his guest.

For a time they ate in silence, with rapid, economical movements. Sato drank more than he ate and he ate quite a bit. It was obvious he wanted to talk openly and without restraint. That was quite impossible to do for a Japanese under normal circumstances. Once drunk, all actions, all words were immediately excusable and allowable. Therefore Nicholas drank with him. There would be no point to the session if only Sato drank and, besides, that would be insulting, as if Nicholas was saying, I don’t want to be friends.