Their protests had been so vigorous that Fitzduane, in his Toyota four-wheel drive with unmarked police cars front and rear, had half expected to have to fight his way through the suburbs like a stagecoach careering through hostile Indians. The reality was more prosaic. It was a long, boring trip through heavy rain and endless Tokyo suburbia, until suddenly there were paddy fields and rice growing and a line of pine-covered hills in the distance.
Fitzduane's heart lifted. The green of the forests was a different shade, but there were echoes or Ireland. He greatly missed his island and the beauty of the Irish countryside. He cursed it often for its miserable weather and its failures, but the pull of his tragic, rain-washed island was in his soul. And Japan was a land of islands. There was a bond.
The rain stopped as the little company drove into the village. Even as he watched, men and women come out of their houses with hoes and sickles and started cutting at the undergrowth at the perimeter. It was clear that civic pride was alive and well in the hamlet of Asumae.
A tall, heavyset figure in his early sixties leaned against a stone ishidoro lantern outside a modest wood- framed two-story house and grinned at Fitzduane, then bowed. It was something of a pastiche. With his height and jutting jaw and craggy features, he was a decidedly un-Asian figure.
A pipe was clenched in his teeth, and he was wearing an unpressed khaki shirt of military cut and baggy cotton trousers of similar origin.
Fitzduane had known Mike Bergin since the early days of Vietnam, and his dress sense had not improved.
'I thought you'd be working, Mike,' said Fitzduane with a smile, indicating the villagers hacking and hoeing away.
Bergin removed the pipe from his mouth. His complexion – tanned, weather-beaten, and blotched with the patchwork of veins of a heavy drinker – hovered somewhere between unshaven and designer stubble. But there was a presence, a strong sense of human worth.
'Hugo, the Japanese believe that man is put on this earth to work, and that work, work, and more work is the solution to everything.'
'But?' said Fitzduane.
Bergin laughed. 'I ain't Japanese. Anyway, Hugo, you're a good excuse for me to revert to my decadent Western ways.'
'You'd normally join in?' said Fitzduane. Mike, the old Asia hand and battle-hardened war correspondent, had once been something of a mentor to Fitzduane, and the Irishman was curious to see how Bergin had adapted to living in Japan. He had settled in Japan in the mid-seventies after Vietnam, with the comment that 'the Pacific rim is where the action is going to be in the future.' And he had been far from wrong, in Fitzduane's opinion.
'Sure,' said Bergin. 'It's important for us gaijins to show we aren't complete barbarians. Anyway, I rather like some of their values. Community spirit is still a big thing here. Money isn't the sum of all gods, like in the West.'
'Hell, Mike, what do you know about the West?' said Fitzduane, grinning. 'You spent the late forties here with MacArthur and then didn't get much further West than Singapore. The odd foray to London and New York doesn't count.'
Bergin put his arm around Fitzduane's shoulder and ushered him into the house. 'You've got a point, old son,' he said, ' but though my lips move as I do it, I can read. Anyway, it's real good to see you. And alive, at that. Given what you get up to, it's fucking amazing.'
Privately, Fitzduane was beginning to think much the same, but he made no comment as they removed their shoes and padded in the slippers provided into the living room. Fitzduane's slippers fit. Either he was wearing a spare pair of Mike's, or Mike had regular gaijin visitors. All of which was in line with Bergin's less overt occupation.
Outside the house, the security team had safeguarded the front and rear entrances, and as Fitzduane glanced up, a liveried police car drove up. Belt and suspenders. Well, he could not blame them. He slid the shoji screen shut and went to sit across from Bergin at a battered pine table.
'Thanks for the trade goods,' said Mike, looking up from the case of French wine Fitzduane had brought. ' Sake is good stuff and it's cheap, but it's nice to be reminded of the fleshpots every now and then. I mean, rice is great, but sometimes I yearn for potatoes.'
'Once a gaijin, always a gaijin,' said Fitzduane.
'No truer word,' said Bergin. He looked distracted for a moment, and Fitzduane remembered his wife had died. She had been Japanese and had provided something of a bridge to the local community. What must it be like now?
Fitzduane reached out across the table and put his hand on top of Bergin's for a moment. 'It's good to see you, you old pirate,' he said, with quiet emphasis. 'You're a monument to the merits of hard living. You drink, you smoke, you've fucked your way through every skin shade in Asia, and you've been under fire more often than we get rained on in Ireland – and still you look terrific.'
Bergin looked up, and there was real warmth in his eyes. 'Goddamn liar,' he growled. 'I'll get a corkscrew.'
The first bottle of wine was empty by the time Fitzduane had finished his story. He trusted Mike, so he related most of what had happened under strict off-the-record ground rules.
Bergin whistled quietly to himself as the narrative came to an end, then looked across at Fitzduane and grinned. 'It might be a practical move to see that your life insurance is paid up.'
'Thank you for your concern,' said Fitzduane dryly, 'but I am hoping that with the help of a few of my friends, including the odd battle-scarred veteran, I won't need it. I'm getting tired of being a target.' He smiled, and added with some irony, 'I'm thinking of becoming… pro-active.'
Bergin raised his eyebrows. 'I would say killing four yakuza and knocking a policeman unconscious is an auspicious start. Now, how can this particular battle-scarred veteran help?'
'I need information,' said Fitzduane, 'background, context, history, perspective. So far I have been fed what other people think I need to know. Well, I need more than that. I need a sense – almost a physical sense' – he rubbed his fingers and thumb together to emphasize the tactile point he was making – 'of what I'm up against.'
Bergin stretched. 'Where do you want me to start?' he said.
'The Namakas,' said Fitzduane. 'What do you know that I don't?'
'Just as well you brought a case of wine,' said Bergin. 'This talk is going to run more than a couple of bottles.'
'I worked for CIC – the Counter Intelligence Corps – during the occupation as a special agent before my conversion to the Fourth Estate. They used to say you had to be lily-white to get into CIC and turn coal-black to stay in. We did what had to be done and to hell with the rules. Interesting times. Long time ago. But some things linger, like our friend Hodama.'
'And the Namakas?' said Fitzduane.
'The Namakas worked for Hodama in those days,' said Bergin. 'He picked them out of the gutter and used them for some of the rougher stuff. And, of course, all of them worked for us. All part of putting down communism and, like I said, to hell with the rules. Then time moved on and Hodama moved up the ladder and brought the Namakas with him. And they all started wearing silk suits. But inside, nothing changed. Nor did the old alliances. So there is no way the Namakas killed Hodama.'
'So who did?' said Fitzduane.
'I'm not sure,' said Bergin, 'but I've got a few ideas. The one thing I can tell you is this game goes way back. I think there's your pointer.'
Fitzduane looked at Bergin hard. 'You know what happened,' he said, 'but you're not going to tell me. What the hell is this, Mike?'
'I guess you'd call it a conflict of interest,' said Bergin. 'I have added some ethics as I've gotten older. I'm not in so much of a hurry.'
'If the Namakas did not kill Hodama,' said Fitzduane, 'and someone else did, then they've gone to a great deal of trouble to blame it on the Namakas. Which means they have it in for the Namakas – which means we have something in common. And thinking further about it, the timing of the killing has to be important. It's not just paying
