O’Hara sat down in a large leather chair, part of a group near the entrance to the room. A single light, shaded with a Philippine basket shade, shed a tiny orb of light on the end table next to the chair. There was nothing to read.
He waited. The only sound was the ticking of a clock somewhere in the chamber.
He began to perspire. He figured that the humidity in the room must be close to a hundred percent, and the temperature had to be over eighty.
He attuned himself to the space, listening to every movement: dew dripping off the plants; the tiny feet of an insect scratching across the floor; the faint electric hum of the grow lights; the metronomic melody of the ticking clock.
And there was something else. Slow, shallow breathing. Someone else was in the room with him.
O’Hara began to peruse the darkness through squinted eyes. The sound was coming from a particularly dark corner near the plant house.
A match scratched, a burst of amber light followed by flickering flame. In its wavering light he saw Hooker’s historic profile, the hawk-like nose, the granite jaw, the long, classic neck.
‘That was very good, sir. Excellent! You were on to me in less than a minute. Incredible concentration.’
He plucked the string on the lamp; an obese Buddha, his red-enamelled belly glistening in the light, sat cross- legged at its base, staring through inscrutable, painted eyes out into the room.
‘I must apologize for that bit of melodrama. My eyes are very sensitive to light.’
The old man Sat behind an enormous campaign desk, bare except for the Buddha lamp with its ancient fringed shade and pull string, an antique wooden letter box and an appointment book. There were eight high-backed chairs in a row in front of the desk.
‘I also apologize for the humidity. I’ll be eighty on my next birthday. My blood’s gotten a bit thin. If it’s less than eighty-two degrees, I get chills. How about a drink? It’ll help.’
‘Tea would be fine.’
‘Hot or cold?’
‘Cold, please.’
He pressed a button somewhere under the desk and Travors appeared at the door.
‘Iced tea for Mr O’Hara, Sergeant_ I’ll have a glass of soda, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And he was gone.
‘Some things never change,’ Hooker said. ‘I was in the military for so long, I still think of my assistants in terms of rank rather than title.’
‘There does seem to be a lot of security people on the premises.’
‘One can never be too careful,’ lie said somewhat cryptically.
‘Actually this is quite a fortress,’ he went on. ‘Took ‘em five years to build it, 1607 to 1612. It was meant to discourage foreigners from entering Japan after the shogunate shut the country down. I’m sure you noticed the view on your way up. It commands the entire bay and the island of Kyushu.’
‘It’s quite impressive.’
‘Five years of hard work, and the old boy never came to see it when it was finished.’ He shook his head. ‘All that labour. Fact is, Dragon’s Nest has never been attacked.’
‘How come you decided to use it?’
‘Sentiment, I suppose. It was my summer HQ when I was military governor after the war. Before that, some special branch of the Japanese secret service was billeted here.’
A Japanese woman scurried into the room with their drinks, bowed and left. She was young, in her early twenties, and quite pretty, and she never took her eyes off the floor.
‘Well, Mr O’Hara, here’s to your health and good luck on your story. How can I help?’
Age had etched the rigid lines in Hooker’s face into deep crevices. His high cheekbones stood out like the pinnacles of a cliff. His skin was almost transparent from age and his eyes glowered from under heavy white brows. He stared keenly at O’Hara through tinted sunglasses as he tapped tobacco into the chalky bowl of his clay pipe.
‘I’m doing some background for a story on the oil industry,’ O’Hara said. ‘Your consortium interests me because it’s new.’
‘A youngster, so t’ speak. Actually, there’s a lot of experience in this group.’ Hooker abruptly changed the subject. ‘You’ve come a long way to do your research.’
‘I was in Japan on other business.’
‘I see. Do you like the country?’
‘I grew up here.’
‘Oh? What part?’
‘Tokyo, then Kyoto.’
‘Ah, I assume then that we have a love of the country in common.’
This is a lot of bull, O’Hara thought.. By now the old bird knows chapter and verse on me. Why is he playing games?
