Kilmara picked his words to ease the tension.
'There were three men who attacked you,' he said. 'Unfortunately, all were killed. Their identification papers were all false. Their clothing had been recently purchased and revealed nothing. There were no distinguishing marks.'
Fitzduane still looked at him. It has been three weeks, the look implied.
'The one characteristic they all had in common was that they were Asian, or at least looked Asian. More specifically, they looked Japanese,' continued Kilmara. 'We put in an inquiry worldwide through Interpol and specifically to Japan through the Tokyo Metropolitan police. We trawled through other sources as we normally do when a terrorist profile is involved. And we phone our friends and called in a few favors and otherwise did a little rousting along the
Information Highway .'
'And?' said Fitzduane.
'The replies have been a little slow in coming. Of course, Interpol is not renowned for its reflexes and the Japanese are likely to chew things over before they swallow. Finally, it emerged that the three were members of a right-wing extremist group that had supposedly been broken up nearly three years back. Our three had been locked up on some technicality but were released about eight months ago.'
'The timing is about right,' said Fitzduane. The motive would have stemmed from his encounter with Kadar, the Hangman. If this was a revenge mission, he would have expected it to happen earlier. The designated hitters' being out of circulation at the Japanese government's pleasure could explain the timing. 'But why Japanese?'
'The only thing,' said Kilmara, 'is that according to Tokyo our three violent friends shouldn't have turned up on your island.'
'And why not?' said Fitzduane.
'They are supposed to be in the Middle East,' said Kilmara cheerfully. 'That's what the computer said. But what do computers know? More to the point, there is a slightly strange rhythm to the way some of the other sources have been responding. Silence, then the absolute minimum, and then a veritable feast. It's as if some people have figured out that we might be able to make a contribution to their particular game. As to who these people are…'
He looked at Fitzduane with some concern. The man was looking decidedly strange. 'Hugo,' he inquired tactfully, 'are you sure you want to get into this?'
'Aahh!' said Fitzduane, in what sounded like a long sigh of understanding or acknowledgment.
'Adeline says that sometimes,' said Kilmara cheerfully, 'and I'm never quite sure if it's good or bad. It's a contextual noise.'
'Aahh!' said Fitzduane again. He was propped up by pillows in an uncomfortable-looking hospital bed. He had turned frighteningly pale. Now he leaned forward, as if propelled from the back, and was violently sick.
Kilmara hit the emergency button, conscious that even medical help would be delayed for precious seconds by the security he had put in position. To die because of your own security, what an irony. Hugo would certainly appreciate that.
He looked at his friend. Fitzduane had sunk back against his pillows. He was now more green than pale. 'Apologies,' he muttered. His eyes closed and he slid to one side, unconscious. Some color came back into his cheeks.
The door burst open and white-clad bodies filled the room. Fortunately, they seemed to know what they were doing.
It's not nice being shot, thought Kilmara; it's not nice at all. And it's about basic things we don't like to think about – like the spilling of blood and the discharge of mucus, and splintered bone and traumatized flesh and time and pain.
The room smelled of vomit and things medical. But there wasn't the faintest trace of the smell that accompanies the passing of a life, the reminder of each and every human's mortality. The air was clean of the smell of fear.
Kilmara, sitting in the visitor's armchair, temporarily ignored by the focused emergency team, felt immensely relieved. He knew at that moment that Fitzduane was really going to make it. Hope became certainty. He felt curiously weak, as the reaction to endless days of tension set in. He wanted to laugh or cry or shout out loud, or just lie down and sleep. His face showed no change of expression.
An intern turned around to get something from a nurse and noticed Kilmara. The intern had been on duty for some ridiculous length of time and was tired, unshaven, irritable, and short on words. 'Out,' he ordered. 'You there – get out of here.'
'Get out of here, General,' said Kilmara agreeably.
He exited. Fitzduane was clearly back in the ballgame, but it was going to take a little time before he became a serious player. But, knowing his friend, not too long.
Tokyo, Japan
January 24
Wearing fatigues to avoid the distinctive smell of propellant clinging to her street clothes, Chifune shot for forty-five minutes on the Koancho Number Three internal range, working mostly under low-light conditions.
She fired at least a hundred rounds a day five days a week to keep her edge.
The work demanded total concentration. The scenarios she had selected to be projected on the target screen covered hostage-taking and similar complex situations where, apart from shooting accurately, only brief seconds – and sometimes even less – were allowed in which to determine who were the targets and who were the victims. The poor light made the work even harder, but she was practicing this way because it was the nearest thing to the environment where she was going next.
She practiced both with and without an optical sight. The EPC subminiature optical sight, of British design – the U.K. had considerable expertise in the manufacture of counterterrorist equipment – allowed her to keep both eyes open, and replaced the conventional sight with a prismatically induced red dot which automatically adjusted to the infrared level of ambient light. The sight was passive – it did not project a line of red light like a laser sight – so it was ideal for covert operation. It was proving to be particularly effective under low-light conditions. The optics gathered the light like a pair of high-quality binoculars, and where the large red dot was placed, so went the rounds.
Using the EPC optical sight on her Beretta, Chifune found she could aim and fire accurately – hitting a nine- inch plate at twenty meters – in one third of a second. The qualifying standard was double that time.
Chifune Tanabu was an exceptional shooter.
Adachi was going through the standard checklists that were used for a murder investigation and then updating his personal operational plan on his word processor.
The investigation of the last few weeks seemed to indicate that Hodama had met everyone and been everywhere. And he had lived too damn long. The classic routines of interviewing all friends and acquaintances and cross-checking their stories was taking forever. And as for trying to work out who had a motive to kill him, well, who didn't? Hodama had schemed and manipulated and bribed and double-crossed all his life. His list of enemies must be endless.
Somewhere, Hodama must have records. The house was clean and, more important, there was no indication that any volume of papers had been removed. There were no empty shelves or open filing cabinets or safes with doors open. No, Adachi was of the opinion that he had kept his goodies elsewhere. He was a devious, cautious son of a bitch, and that would be in character. Alternatively, the place had been sanitized by a true professional; and that in itself was food for thought.
They had discovered the security video – the recorder had taped all the comings and goings at Hodama's house – but could not read it. Evidently, Hodama liked to keep a permanent record of his visitors, but in such a way that it was secure. The video recording was scrambled and needed a decoder to work. Right now, the technical
