Hooker nodded. ‘Right down at the foot of the hill. The Yumishawa works. We keep them busy. It is the second largest in the world.’
‘And you ship oil from other parts of the world to be refined here?’
‘Right again. I can arrange a tour for you, if you’re interested.’
‘Perhaps later in the week.’
Hooker slowly released a billow of smoke toward the ceiling. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘I think you’ll find it educating.’
‘Is Yumishawa profitable?’ O’Hara asked.
Hooker smiled. ‘We’re not a charitable organization; we’re in business to make money. Yumishawa had the capacity we needed.’
‘Is that what brought you back to Japan?’
‘AMRAN is an international company. We use several Japanese refineries. Also, I happen. .. uh, to—’
Hooker’s eyes seemed to cloud over as he spoke. He looked as though he were daydreaming. ‘—like living here.’
The old man was having difficulty concentrating. Dark memories had begun to intrude and linger in his mind, sharp and persistent memories. He listened intently to O’Hara, trying to crowd them out of his consciousness, but they remained, edging out reality...
It was the second — no, it must have been the third chameleon.
He remembered the box, although there was nothing distinctive about it, just a plain white box, and he remembered staring at it for a very long time, listening to the creature moving about inside it as hate welled up inside him.
He had been in Sydney for two months, plotting the island steppingstone campaigns that would take them closer and closer to Honshu. The house was a white frame Victorian mansion that had once belonged to a governor, a spacious and airy place that had been converted into his campaign headquarters. There were security MP’s everywhere.
And yet she had managed to get inside — with the box.
She stood before him in the big room, her face as placid as a lake, that inscrutable countenance revealing nothing. Life had been kind to her. Her skin was clear and smooth, and her almond-shaped eyes alert.
‘I remember you as being much prettier,’ he lied.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said O’Hara.
‘Oh, excu — My mind wandered. Business...’ His voice trailed off.
‘I was asking whether you yourself initiated AMRAN,’ O’Hara said.
‘In a way. It came together almost 0-ut of... uh, necessity. Several of the companies had lost their. . . executive officers during the negotiations. Each time it happened we virtually had to start over, dealing with new people.’
‘What happened to these key people?’
‘Died. Natural causes mostly. Three died of — no, maybe it was four — heart attacks, and there was an auto accident. . . At any rate, there were a great many delays. Frustrating, y’know, trying to put this together with these sudden changes in management...’
He was speaking almost by rote, for his mind kept skipping backwards in time.
In the Philippines, politics had kept her quiet and in her place. Politics and one hundred American dollars a month, a cheap enough price to avoid a scandal that would have ruined his career.
How, in the middle of a war, had she found her way from Luzon to Australia?
The box answered that question.
Chameleon had arranged it. No question about that. Twice before, the boxes had come. Inside each was his signature, a single chameleon. There had been no message in the first one, only a small snapshot of the boy standing in front of a Shinto temple in Tokyo. He looked terrified.
Hooker’s intelligence people had devoted months trying to get a fix on Chameleon. Even their agents in Japan knew very little. He was head of a special branch of the Japanese secret service. Nobody had come up with his real name.
The second chameleon, a month or so later, had accompanied the first real message Hooker received. Typed neatly on a small piece of paper, it said simply: ‘The issue is negotiable
Nothing more.
Then, after two more months of agonized waiting, she had tome to verbally deliver the message to him. The ultimate insult.
The snapshot was sadistic. Bobby, sitting in a child’s coffin. The boy looked tired, possibly even drugged.
‘What does he want?’
It must be done quickly. In the next week.’
‘What does he want?’ Hooker had demanded, angry to find himself negotiating with a Japanese officer and a concubine.
She closed her eyes and repeated, as if by rote, ‘He will exchange Molino for Admiral Asieda, whom the British are now holding prisoner here in Australia.’
