“Sure.”
“Then get me out of here.”
“Where to?”
“I’ll tell you on the way, and in the meantime you can fill me in.”
Rencke’s face brightened again. “Kiyoshi Fukai.”
They were on their way out and McGarvey stumbled and nearly fell on his face. “What?”
“The bad guy. His name is Kiyoshi Fukai. As in Fukai Semiconductor. Fourth richest man in the world. Worth in excess of twelve billion U.S. But I don’t think that’s his real name.”
Kathleen was waiting in a cab in front of the hospital, and when McGarvey emerged with Rencke she sat forward in the back seat, her eyes wide. McGarvey nodded to her, but hobbled after Rencke to the parking lot across the driveway. As long as Elizabeth joined her soon she wouldn’t make any noise. And within a few hours they’d be out of the Washington area and relatively safe for the time being.
Rencke’s “car” was a beat-up green pickup truck, the U.S. Forest Service logo faded but still legible on the doors. Heading away from the hospital, McGarvey caught another glimpse of Kathleen waiting in the taxi, Elizabeth just coming out to her, and he allowed himself to relax a little.
“Where are we heading?” Rencke asked.
“You can take me to the Marriott across the river. I’ll catch a cab from there.”
“Are you going out to Langley?”
McGarvey nodded. “Now, what makes you think that Kiyoshi Fukai is our bad guy?”
“Well, it’s actually quite simple once you get on the correct side and look back. But you’ve got to think about all the elements. Sorta like a big jigsaw puzzle, only in four dimensions. We’ve got to add time, you know.”
McGarvey said nothing.
“Start out with the man who says he’s Kiyoshi Fukai right now. If you talk about Japanese electronics and research his name will come up every time. For the past few years, he’s been buying up American and British electronics companies … or at least he’s been trying to do it. The feds-our feds who art here in Washington-have been putting the kibosh on his efforts to take over TSI Industries on the West Coast. Silicon Valley. Guess they’re doing too much research in sensitive areas. Word is that it won’t be long before they’re-TSI that is-the number one chip producers worldwide.”
“If Fukai owns TSI, then he’ll maintain his dominance of the world market.”
“Owns or destroys,” Rencke said. “So, we’ve got a possible motive, and a man with the money to do something about it. On top of that, Fukai hates America and Americans, and he doesn’t care who he tells it to. Tokyo has tried to shut him up on more than one occasion. And it was probably him, or someone he controls, who is writing anti-American books and distributing them to all the top Japanese businessmen and government honchos. See where I’m going with this?”
“So far,” McGarvey replied.
“Of course that profile also fit a number of other fat cats, but Fukai caught my interest because of the background he claims. He says that before and during the war he was nothing more than a humble chauffeur. His is sort of a rags-to-riches story. Only it doesn’t wash.”
Rencke concentrated on his driving for a minute or two as they entered the District of Columbia at Chevy Chase, the traffic heavy.
“First of all, humble chauffeurs do not rise to become industrial giants. At least they didn’t in the Japan of the late forties and fifties. But if Fukai had actually done just that he would have crowed about his achievement. But there’s never been a peep out of him.”
“Then how’d you find out?”
“Army records. Fukai surfaced at a verification center in Mat-suyama in December of 1945, claiming he was Kiyoshi Fukai, the chauffeur. He was friendly and cooperative with the occupying forces, and no one thought to question his identification.”
“Whose chauffeur was he?”
Rencke grinned. “Ah, that’s the point, isn’t it? His boss was a man by the name of Isawa Nakamura. A designer and manufacturer of electronic equipment. A black marketeer.
A staunch supporter of the Rising Sun’s military complex. A regular user of Korean and Chinese slave labor.”
“There’s more?” McGarvey asked, knowing there was.
“You bet,” Rencke said. “Guess where Nakamura’s wife and kiddies were killed?”
McGarvey shook his head.
“Nagasaki.”
McGarvey telephoned Phil Carrara from the Marriott Hotel.
“I’m coming out by cab. Meet me at the gate.”
“Where the hell are you?” the DDO demanded. “Your doctors are screaming bloody murder, claiming we’ve kidnapped you, and the FBI wants to know what’s going on.”
“I’m going to need my gun, my passport, and some clothes and shaving gear.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m going back to Tokyo. I know who’s behind all of this.”
Chapter 65
McGarvey flew first class from Washington to Los Angeles, and then the long haul across the Pacific to Tokyo. The cabin attendants wanted to fuss over him, but on his insistence they left him alone for the most part.
He took sleeping tablets to make sure he would get some much-needed rest, yet he dreamed about the monastery on Santorini. It was night again, the wind-swept rain beating against the stained glass windows, and Elizabeth’s screams echoing down the long, dank stone corridors. But he couldn’t do a thing to help her; he’d been crucified.
His hands and feet had been nailed to the cross above the altar, while the congregation of STASI killers watched him bleed to death.
Elizabeth was going to die unless he could help her, but it was impossible and he knew it.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled in his sleep. “Please… Elizabeth… forgive me.”
McGarvey looked up into the eyes of a flight attendant, an expression of concern on her face. “You must have been having a bad dream,” she spoke softly to him.
“What time is it?” he asked, still half in his nightmare. He felt distant, almost detached.
“Seven-thirty in the morning. Tokyo time. We’re about forty minutes out. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please,” McGarvey said, and the girl helped him raise his seat.
“The restroom is free,” she suggested.
“I’ll have the coffee first. And put a shot of brandy in it.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling.
When she was gone, McGarvey raised his windowshade, the morning extremely bright and nearly cloudless. They were flying west, nothing yet but the empty Pacific beneath them. But he got the feeling that somebody was waiting and watching for him to show up. Ernst Spranger or Kiyoshi Fukai. He knew that he would have to fight them both, sooner or later, but he wasn’t at all sure of the outcome.
Narita International Airport’s Customs and Arrivals hall was a jam-packed mass of humanity. All the Japanese officials, airline representatives and redcaps were courteous, efficient and even outwardly obsequious, though, handling the jostling crowds as if they couldn’t think of anything that would give them more pleasure.
All a sham, McGarvey wondered, presenting his passport, their smiles no more than a facade over their real emotions? The old newsreels came immediately to mind of the smiling, bowing Japanese diplomats in Washington on the day before the attack on Pearl Harbor. It was an unfair comparison, then and now, yet he couldn’t help but make it.
