“The purpose of your visit, Mr. Fine?” the passport officer asked, looking up.
“I have business in Nagasaki,” McGarvey answered. “With Fukai Semiconductor.”
“Yes, very good,” the official said, smiling. He handed back McGarvey’s passport.
“Have a pleasant, profitable stay in Japan.”
“Arigatd,” McGarvey answered, and the official shot him a brief scowl that changed instantly back into a smile.
In three hours flat Technical Services had come up with a passport and legend for McGarvey as Jack Fine, a sales rep for DataBase Corporation, a small but upcoming competitor of TSI industries. If anyone called the Eau Claire, Wisconsin number, or asked for information to be faxed, they would be told that McGarvey was indeed who he presented himself to be. DataBase Corp was a legitimate company that sometimes acted as a front for the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, and in this case as a special favor to the CIA.
Of course if Spranger was here, and got a look at McGarvey, the fiction would immediately fail. The confrontation would come then and there. He almost hoped it would happen that way.
Kelley Fuller was waiting for him on the other side of the customs barrier after he’d retrieved his single bag and had it checked. Dressed in a conservatively cut gray business suit, her hair up in a bun in the back, and very little makeup on her face, she looked like somebody’s idea of an executive secretary for an American or Canadian firm.
He hadn’t expected her to be here like this, but he had to admit he was pleased to see her, and to see that she seemed none the worse for wear.
“I have a taxi waiting for us,” she said in greeting. “Our train does not leave for another three hours, but we may need that time to reach the train station.”
“Where are we going?”
“To Nagasaki, of course.”
“But you’re not coming with me.”
“Yes I am, I have taken a great risk to speak on the telephone for so long with Phil.
He thinks the Japanese are becoming sensitive just now about such calls between Tokyo and the U.S.”
“There’ll probably be a fight. You could get hurt.”
“Yes,” she said outwardly unperturbed. “Afterwards you will need someone who understands Japanese to speak on your behalf to the authorities. Now, let’s hurry, please.”
He shuffled as fast as he could to keep up with her across the main ticket hall to the taxi ranks outside. She didn’t say anything to him about his condition, but he noticed her watching how he limped and favored his right side.
Something had happened to change her in the week since he had left her at the Sunny Days Western Ranch in Shinjuku’s Kabukicho. She was still frightened. He could see that in her eyes, but fear no longer seemed to dominate her as it had before. She’d gained self-confidence; either that or she had, for some reason, resigned herself to her fate, whatever that might be.
The cab was pleasantly clean and very comfortable. The doors automatically opened and closed for them, and when they were settled the driver took off toward the city at a breakneck speed through the unbelievable morning traffic.
“What happened while I was gone?” McGarvey asked as they careened onto a crowded freeway.
Kelley looked over at him. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“If need be I’ll telephone Phil and force him to keep you here, or better yet, order you back to Washington.”
“No,” she said so sharply that the cabbie looked at them in his rearview mirror.
“Tell me what happened, then,” McGarvey gently prompted.
Kelley’s hands were in her lap. She looked down at them, her upper lip quivering, but her eyes remained dry. It was obvious she was trying to hold herself together.
“I had this friend in Washington. Her name was Lana Toy. We used to work together at the State Department. We were roommates too. Even fought over the same boyfriend a couple years ago.”
McGarvey thought he knew what was coming.
“She’s dead. Burned up in a car accident. But it was no accident, you know. That’s how they killed Jim and Ed Mowry… with fire.”
“Who told you about it?”
She looked up. “Phil Carrara,” she said. “How else did you think I’d find out?”
Chapter 66
Hermann Becker was running late, and he was getting the feeling that someone was following him, though he’d been unable to detect any signs of it. He parked his rental car in the Cointrin Airport Holiday Inn parking lot, and walked directly from it, stopping a hundred yards away in the shadows to look back. No one was there.
It was coming up on 2300 hours, and his Swissair flight to Tokyo was due to take off at midnight. He couldn’t miss the plane because there was no other flight out until tomorrow afternoon, and he had to be in Japan by evening, Tokyo time. But he was worried about more than time.
Liese Egk had sounded strained on the telephone, but Spranger had sounded worse; so bad in fact that Becker had hardly recognized his voice. But the general’s orders had been clear and concise. The time was now.
“You must make delivery as planned. There can be no delays for any reason whatsoever.
Are you perfectly clear in this?”
“Yes, of course,” Becker had replied, his mind already racing ahead to the various steps he would have to take to insure his unimpeded arrival in Tokyo and then Nagasaki.
But the scenario had been worked out in beautiful detail months ago. They’d even made several dry runs with absolutely no difficulties. This time would be no different.
Except that Becker was worried about how Spranger had sounded on the telephone, and he had become jumpy.
Carrying his leather purse under his left arm, Becker, a small, dark-complected intense-looking man, entered the hotel, crossed the lobby and took the elevator up to the eleventh floor. His room looked out toward the airport terminal a little over a mile away.
He was assured that the hotel shuttle would run until the last flights arrived and departed.
It would take ten minutes to get downstairs and check out. Another ten minutes for the shuttle ride over to the terminal and another ten minutes to check in, which gave him something under twenty minutes to finish here if he wanted to be five or ten minutes early for his flight.
He threw the deadbolt on his door and slipped the security chain into its slot, then telephoned the front desk.
“This is Becker in eleven-oh-seven. I’ll be checking out in time to catch a midnight flight. Please have my bill ready.”
“Yes, mein Hen. Will there be any further room service charges this evening?”
“No,” Becker said irritably, and he hung up, turning his attention next to the Grundig all-band portable radio receiver.
With a small Phillips head screwdriver he removed the six fasteners holding the radio’s backplate in place. It unsnapped out of three slots at the top, slid down a fraction of an inch and then pulled directly off, exposing the outermost printed circuit boards.
Selecting a small nut driver, he loosened four fasteners holding the power supply board in place, and carefully eased it outward to the limit of its soldered wires.
Using a tiny propane torch about half the size of a ballpoint pen, he unsoldered three of the wires, and swung the power supply board completely out of the way, exposing the circuit board containing the first and second IF stages, and a series of low-and high-pass filters.
Working again with the torch, Becker unsoldered fourteen of the filters and removed them. The tiny devices
