Trifecta (65 page)

I
var managed to squirm around until he had hold
of an envelope and a large document, both of which he slid inside the folded newspaper. 
He went over to Malcolm and said he was going to use the men's room for a minute.

Ivar walked down a long corridor off the lobby.  When he
was out of sight he sprinted.  The bathroom was expensively decorated like the rest
of the hotel with gold plated fixtures and lights, but most importantly, two enclosed
stalls for privacy.  Ivar went inside one, put the newspaper on the floor and sat
balanced on the thin edge of the toilet seat.  He opened the envelope and took out
a roll of film.  It was hard to see the tiny brown tinted negatives in the dim light
of the enclosed space, but he made out many pictures of Eve and Sabrina.  He also
saw pictures of the Steinbrenner brothers, even a picture of himself.

When Ivar unfolded the document Eve had given him he was
stunned.  She knew he was following her, part of the ongoing investigation.  Still,
she had handed him all the CIA documents.  He was blown away.  The documents contained
the same information he had destroyed in the shredder two nights ago at Whitcomb's
office.

He took out his knife and started hacking up the tough
negatives, which he flushed down the toilet.  The document was large and thick and
he ripped it up into smaller pieces.  It was still too large to flush.  He took
out a book of matches and started methodically burning bunches of pages, dropping
them in the toilet.  He was working as quickly as he could, and only noticed the
smoke detector above his head when it gave out a squawk and started pelting him
with water.

Ivar moved out of the deluge and worked even faster, knowing
maintenance people would come to check the alarm.  In his haste he burned his hands
a few times.  He had just finished when he heard two men stomp in.  Ivar flushed
for the last time and walked out with his newspaper.

Two Latin types in blue hotel maintenance uniforms eyed
him with contempt.  "Hey man.  Can't you read?"  one of them asked, pointing
at the No Smoking sign.

"Sorry."  He left, stepping over the puddle that
was rapidly flooding the tile floor.

After Ivar's departure one of the men peered in the hazy
toilet stall, inhaled strange fumes, coughed, and said, "What the hell was
that guy smoking?"

E
ven before Eve got off the elevator she heard loud music. 
Then she realized it was coming from Hashimoto's suite.  Something was wrong.  She
eased herself forward and quietly stood in front of the door.  She heard a muffled
pounding.

Eve raced to the end of the hall and started sprinting
down the stairs.  The elevator would be too slow.  It took only a minute to reach
the lobby.  She hurried over to the desk clerk who had let her into Hashimoto's
safe, just minutes ago.  She explained that Hashimoto would fire her if she didn't
get an important document she had forgotten.  Eve guessed she looked very upset
because the woman led her straight back to the room with the safes.  Eve took a
large torn canvas bag out of the safe.  For extra protection she also took two sensitive
documents that she had previously scanned.

Eve thanked the woman and then hurried to a courtesy phone
in the lobby.  She asked for the hotel doctor.  She said that there was an emergency
in Mr.  Hashimoto's penthouse suite.  She raced up the stairs again.

Eve was too concerned about Sabrina to wait for the doctor. 
The music was still obtrusive in the elegant surroundings of the plush hallway,
so Eve knocked sharply.  One of the Hulks poked his head out.  He opened the door.

Eve walked in.  It was like something out of the Twilight
Zone.  All the furniture had been replaced in the sitting room and Hashimoto was
now dressed in a business suite, as were the bodyguards. 

Eve believed that Sabrina had been imprisoned in the bathroom,
the only place they could hold her.  She found it ominous that she couldn't hear
any noise from there. 

"Ms.  Miller,"  Hashimoto said, as if greeting
a guest at a dinner party.  "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I destroyed the negatives.  And the investigation
reports from the CIA.  Now we'll leave."

Hashimoto went over to the wall and turned the music dial
down.  The blatant instrumental tones quieted.  He stood looking at her, a smile
quirking his thick lips.

"I don't believe you want to leave without your sister."

Hashimoto motioned with an arm and all the bodyguards left
the room except for Kokuro, who was now lying down on a sofa across the room. 

Hashimoto casually pulled the gun Sabrina had been holding
out of his pocket.

Eve looked around the room.  There had been three bodyguards
in the room just now, so one was missing.  She walked into the bedroom and then
went to the bathroom.  Both were empty.  When she came back into the sitting room,
Hashimoto had not moved. 

"Mr.  Hashimoto, kidnapping is a federal offense,
punishable by many years in prison."

"Sabrina went quite willingly.  I wanted to negotiate
with you alone."

"There's nothing to negotiate.  I'm not willing to
go to Japan.  I have destroyed all the pictures and documents concerning my sister
and I.  I want you to stop this whole thing, right now, and bring Sabrina back. 
I had to get those pictures, as they implicate me in hurting a Soviet spy."

Hashimoto might not have heard her as he went on implacably. 
"If you do not come to Japan, I'm afraid your sister is going to be involved
in a very terrible accident."

The bodyguards were outside so they couldn't hear his threats. 
Hashimoto still thought they were easy prey.

"The important thing,"  Hashimoto continued,
"is that you will be on a plane to Tokyo with me this evening, or your sister...well,
it will be very sad, what happens to her."

With that pronouncement Hashimoto gave his horrible crocodile
smile.

There was a knock on the door.  Eve ran and opened it before
Hashimoto could move.

Eve was pleased to see her phone call had been taken seriously. 
A grey haired, middle aged man was at the door with a black doctor's bag.  Behind
him were two attendants with a folding stretcher.  Clustered around them were Hashimoto's
three bodyguards.

"Where's the injured man?"

Eve nodded at Kokuro lying across the room. 

The men with the stretcher came inside and started unfolding
it.  In a few moments the doctor had the top part of Kokuro's Gi off and was gently
probing with his fingers.

"Who did this to you?"  The doctor asked angrily. 

Kokuro shook his head as if he did not understand English.

Hashimoto walked over to the doctor and said, "I have
a medical doctor on my staff who will take care of my employee.  You may be assured
he will get the best of care."

"He has to go to a hospital.  He may have internal
injuries.  The broken ribs are the least of it.  Has he been in an accident? He
has several wounds."  The doctor was probing, talking to himself.  "It
looks like he was beaten up.  The cheek bone is fractured, also." 

The doctor turned to Hashimoto after the examination and
wanted to know how Kokuro had been injured.  Eve watched as Hashimoto tried to get
out of assuming responsibility.  Finally she told the doctor about the karate match. 

Hashimoto kept glancing at her with deadly hatred, then
switching back and smiling at the doctor, saying that she was totally mistaken. 
Kokuro did have a karate match with him.  But he fell down the stairs when he went
back to his room.

The doctor's eyebrows were expressive, as if he had heard
the story about victims falling downstairs countless times in wife and child abuse
cases.  What was astonishing was that Kokuro was so large, and Hashimoto so small. 
He frowned as he helped his attendants move Kokuro onto the stretcher.

When the doctor had left, Eve thought Hashimoto was going
to have a seizure.  She watched with interest.  Usually he conveyed emotions with
expressions that revealed nothing, or even the opposite of what he was feeling. 
Now, Eve thought, she was seeing the true man. 

Hashimoto strode around the room ranting in Japanese. 
He used words Eve had never heard, so she assumed it was Japanese profanity.  Arms
chopped and spittle flew, but she got the general drift of his violent bombastic
outpouring.  Hashimoto was furious with the loss of face he received when the doctor,
an American, had understood that he, a respected educated business man from Japan,
had beaten up one of his employees. 

After a while Hashimoto seemed to lose energy and ranted
more softly.  Finally he turned, looking straight at her, pointed his finger and
shouted, "You."

Eve almost jumped with surprise.

"This is all your fault.  You called the doctor, didn't
you.  You...."  He was speaking in Japanese and didn't seem to know it.  She
saw him start to work himself up into a rage.

A sharp slap across the face is good for a person out of
emotional control, but Eve suspected the one bodyguard who had remained in the room
would misconstrue her action and think she was attacking Hashimoto.  She didn't
want to use a counter-blackmail scheme with his documents.  He would know she could
read and understand Japanese.  And as for the money she had taken, she only wanted
to use it as a distasteful way of paying for Sabrina's freedom as a last resort. 

She could, of course, threaten to hurt him.  He knew she
was quite capable of violence.  But Hashimoto had put the gun in his pocket when
the doctor arrived.  He might take it out and fire it in his present state of mind,
which Eve considered quite unbalanced.  Also, Eve had no idea how strong she really
was and if she hurt him badly, it would be satisfying, but she might not find out
where he had taken Sabrina.

"You,"  Eve shrieked at the top of her voice. 
Hashimoto stood looking at her, quiet for the moment, so she continued shouting. 
"You have kidnapped my sister and have threatened a lethal accident unless
I go to Japan.  I'm calling the police."

"Don't get hysterical." 

"I'll get as hysterical as I want,"  Eve screamed,
wishing she could make spittle fly.  Still, she kept yelling to keep Hashimoto from
going into another rage.  "I will not go to Japan with you."

She hoped screaming would be effective, if only for a little
while.  If he was afraid someone would hear her, he might try to negotiate.  Also,
if he thought she was hysterical, he might really believe she would call the police,
so Eve played it up for all she was worth.

"Calm yourself,"  Hashimoto said caustically
when Eve's raw throat finally forced her to stop.  She had been letting him know
that he had terrible table manners, used his employees for sadistic sport, and that
he was a dirty underhanded crook to try to put Sabrina out of business, not to mention
threatening her life.

"I know you didn't have time to get rid of the documents. 
Or the pictures.  Maybe I'll let Sabrina go.  If you will give me your purse and
let me have those items."

Eve held on to her purse tightly.  "You can have this
purse and everything in it, if you bring Sabrina back.  We'll trade."

"I want it now."

Eve shook her head.

"Perhaps you would like to renegotiate the contract. 
I would be willing to give you a more substantial salary."

I will be in no condition to collect, Eve thought.

Hashimoto had regained his somewhat precarious emotional
balance and painted rosy pictures of what her life would be like in Japan.  The
traveling.  The food.  The wonderful opportunities she had awaiting her.

It was too risky to infuriate him further.  Sabrina was
missing and in his control.

Eve nodded, "I'll go to Japan." 

S
abrina came out of the darkness and tried to focus. 
There were six, which resolved into three, shiny, beetle black heads hovering in
the air, peering at her with slanted eyes.  Their images pulsed. 

She remembered vaguely pushing the safety off the gun when
a group had burst into the bathroom.  The crash as the door broke made her pull
the trigger.  Something sharp had been stuck into her hip.  After that there was
no memory.

Disembodied heads now bobbed and nodded in fast motion,
buzzing words she couldn't understand.  They were studying her like she was some
select, exotic insect.  Alien beings examining someone from outer space.  She prayed
it was a dream.

"Did you give her too much? Her pulse rate is up to
180!"

She could feel herself sliding helplessly toward unconsciousness. 
There was a major wrongness.

"Sabrina!"

"Don't let her sleep! We could lose her, you fucking
idiot!"

Someone was shaking her, slapping her face.  She frowned
in mute protest.  Then her head was violently forced to the side.

Sabrina struggled in her mind, but her body would not move. 

She was totally paralyzed. 

An incomprehensible jumble seemed to be blown in slow motion
by mouths that puffed in and out, close to her and then receding away.  She tried
to scream and a small whimpering sound emerged.

"Pulse is steadying.  Hold her head, goddammit.  She
could have a seizure—start convulsing.  We'll have to wait and see if she stabilizes."

People were handling her! She was utterly terrified with
her helplessness. 

Then, in an instant, she knew she was going to throw up. 
Her stomach was heaving.  She tasted the acrid liquid that comes unbidden from under
the tongue to start the vomiting process.  She had learned as a child that if you
spit out that nasty liquid you can keep from puking out your guts, which she knew
would happen if she swallowed.

Sabrina spit. 

"Hashimoto will kill us if anything happens to her."

"Well, let’s go ahead with the procedure.  She's in
no condition to know."

Sabrina felt more pressure pushing her head to the side
and thought, here it comes, my neck will snap.  The tendons stretched so painfully
she cried.  Then there was a cool sensation and the pain dulled away. 

Suddenly they were yanking on her ear.  They were twisting
off her ear.  She smelled burning and blood.

"Got to get her moving.  Come on.  Help me."

Sabrina was pushed off of the place where she had been
reclining.  Her body collapsed.  Someone caught her and started hauling her back
and forth, from one side of the room to the other.  It was dark and her feet dragged
over carpeting.  Someone was telling her to walk, but her legs did not accept commands
any longer.  At one point she did start to vomit and was held, bent over from the
waist, so she wouldn't compromise her air passage.  Then the endless dragging started
again.

"Sabrina.  You will remember this.  It's very important. 
You had lunch with Mr.  Hashimoto and he told you how nice it would be to live in
Japan.  All is wonderful in Japan and you will live there very happily with your
sister, Eve.  I want you to repeat what I just said."

The voice went on and on, endlessly, insistently, until
Sabrina sluggishly repeated the words.  She vowed she would never believe.  She
clenched her hands, the only part of her body she could move voluntarily, until
her fingernails broke the skin of her palms.