‘He must have done something. The government spent five years verifying his death.’
‘And why do you think they spent such time and money?’
‘They must have wanted him real had.’
‘They?’
‘The Army, the CID, whoever. .
‘Whoever, you say. One person, perhaps?’
O’Hara thought for a moment. ‘Yes, I suppose one person with enough clout.’
‘Ah, clout, the magic word...’
Clout, thought O’Hara. Enough clout to place a name on the list of war criminals.
‘Like a general maybe?’ O’Hara said.
‘Ah, you begin to look beyond the obvious. Not “they,” not some faceless organization. Him. One man.’
‘Hooker was military governor here for six years,’ O’Hara
‘From 1945 to 1951.’
‘Yes,’ Kimura said. ‘With a passionate hatred of Chameleon.’
‘Why?’
‘An old wound. They were deadly enemies, remember.’
‘The war was over, Tokenrui-san, a lot of enemies were forgiven.’
‘Not all, however.’
‘But what did he do to Hooker, to kindle that kind of hatred?’
The old man pondered the question for a very long time, then said, ‘Perhaps he was frustrated because he could not identify Chameleon. There were no records. And no one ever betrayed the secret of his identity.’
‘You think Hooker had some kind of revenge motive?’ Kirmura nodded. ‘It is certainly a possibility.’
‘Hooker says Chameleon is a blackmailer, an extortionist, a terrorist. You name it. He implied that the whole industry uses Chameleon’s services. Now they’re his victims. They’re terrified of him.’
‘I assure you, the Chameleon you know as Asieda is dead.’ Kimura sat before the tea table and took out a flat box of cigarettes.
‘These are Shermans from New York, It understand they are superb.’
He took one out. It was pink with a gold-wrapped filter. ‘I will have to think about the aesthetics of these,’ he said, holding up the cigarette and contemplating it; then he lit it, taking a deep drag and exhaling very slowly. ‘Five cigarettes a day. That’s what the spirits permit me.’
‘How do you know that?’ O’Hara said sceptically.
‘I asked them.’
‘Tokenrui-san,’ O’Hara said. ‘You can solve the riddle of Chameleon for me. I am certain of it. If the man is dead, let me use your knowledge to put an end to this . . . this guntai shi, this death army.’
Kimura sat on the floor, crossing his legs in the lotus position.
‘Yamuchi Asieda was a wealthy importer in Tokyo, a man of royal blood and an honourable man,’ he said. ‘He was inducted into the higaru-dashi in l939 a candidate for Tokenrui from the beginning. A man of consummate skill with the sword, as agile as a hummingbird, and a man who achieved the state of the seventh level with almost mystical persuasion.
‘Yamuchi Asieda was not in favour of the war. His business took him all over the world and he knew how great the stakes were, how big the gamble. He was not a war lord, not an assassin. He was a man who loved jewellery, paintings, Dresden china. But the Emperor himself asked Asieda to take over the training of agents for the secret service. It was quite natural. Asieda had partners all over the working, so he set about building a network of spies. The Emperor in exchange agreed that his identity would never be revealed. He took the code name Chameleon and selected Dragon’s Nest as his headquarters because it was remote and impenetrable.
‘The only people who knew his true identity were four members of the War Council, and they all died at Hiroshima. When the war was over, Asieda became a nomad, wandering the islands, his identity lost forever in the ashes of the war. He died several years ago. So you see, this man was no terrorist, not an assassin. I can tell you no more, Kazuo —to do so would violate my word of honour.’
O’Hara wanted to press him, but he knew better. Instead he took the slip of paper out of his pocket. ‘A woman who followed me on the train gave me this.’
He handed it to Kimura. The old man looked at the slip without comment and handed it back.
‘She says Chameleon will be there alone, tonight. Nine o’clock.’
‘And who was this woman?’
‘I only saw her for a moment. She appeared to be a geisha. She followed me from the train. There was desperation in her voice. I asked her why she was turning him in and she said she was a prisoner, she wanted her freedom.’
Kimura puffed on his pink cigarette and blew smoke rings in the air.
‘It seems too obvious for a trap. But then, what could be less obvious than the most obvious thing of all.’
