service was to supply the information which would enable my father to push through his reforms.'
'Your father was a clever man,' said Fitzduane, 'and dangerous. I can see why he had to be stopped. His plan might have worked.'
'No,' said Chifune. 'He never had a chance and he was too trusting. The rot ran too deep.'
'Hodama's death,' said Fitzduane. 'The strike team knew all the security precautions, the kind of things only an insider would know.'
Chifune was silent. 'He deserved to die,' she said. 'It had to be done and I'm glad it was done – but I wasn't involved…'
'Directly?' said Fitzduane.
Chifune sighed. 'Very well,' she said. 'I supplied information. I knew about Katsuda and his plans and that the Namakas had stepped out of line. We had them under surveillance because of their suspected terrorist connection, and that in turn led us to hear about this weapon they were making. At last Hodama and the Namakas became vulnerable. The Americans were not happy and Katsuda was let off the leash. I just eased the process, and I've no regrets.'
'Adachi?' said Fitzduane. 'He damn near got killed.'
'I love that man, in my way,' said Chifune, 'and I got myself assigned to the case to keep an eye on things and keep him out of trouble. I never thought Katsuda would go so far, and I never suspected that the prosecutor and Sergeant Fujiwara were his men. But it just goes to show how widespread is the cancer.'
'Are you working with Yoshokawa's clean-government group?' said Fitzduane.
Chifune nodded. 'It was my father's death which convinced them that Gamma must be kept secret. Eventually, the money politics of the government will be exposed, but meanwhile it's safer to fight them in secret.'
Fitzduane poured Chifune and himself more champagne. 'So now Hodama had done and one Namaka has gone, so you are making progress. And doubtless you have a whole lot on Katsuda to bring him into line when he thinks he's the new kuromaku. What a web you people do weave. No wonder Adachi- san blew a fuse. Which leaves our terrorist friends, Yaibo: what about them? The Namakas may have planned it, but they are the people who tried to terminate my worries once and for all.'
Chifune shrugged unhappily. 'We thought they were contained,' she said. 'We had driven them out of Japan and believed they were safely isolated in Libya.'
Fitzduane looked at her. 'You have someone on the inside of Yaibo,' he said. 'Hell, that's why you let them play. These people are almost impossible to penetrate, and you've done it. So now you think it's better to keep them on a long leash than have them break up into a number of cells you know nothing about. But,' he snarled, pointing at his scarred chest, 'the one flaw is that even if they are not running around much in Japan, they've been plenty busy in my part of the world.'
Chifune put her arms around him and stroked him. He could feel her breasts pressed against him and the heat of her sex as she wrapped her legs around him. 'We didn't know. It made sense at the time.'
Fitzduane felt himself become erect and slip inside her. Still inside her, and his arm around her, he lay back so that he could look at her.
'Chifune,' he said, emphasizing every syllable. 'You are the most beautiful and desirable woman and you have the most heartrendingly beautiful name and you touch my heart. But why do you tell me all this? I'm an outsider, a barbarian, a gaijin. This is not my battle.'
'Don't move, Hugo,' she said, and she put one arm down between her legs and took him in her fingers and wrapped the other around his lower body and did things to him and kissed him and did not speak again until they came together.
'It's because I love you,' she said, 'and I want to give to you and I want to help you in every way I can.'
Fitzduane put his arms around her and caressed her and held her close. 'Chifune,' he said, and soon they slept.
Tokyo, Japan
June 30
Looking down from the Koancho helicopter at the seemingly unending urban sprawl that surrounded and then became Tokyo, Fitzduane tried, at first, to put his feelings about the women in his life into some sort of order.
After Anne-Marie had been killed in the Congo only a few short weeks after their marriage, he had been involved with, and had enjoyed, many women, but had been reluctant or unable to commit. The pain of Anne- Marie's death had take a long time to fade, and the nature of his job, traveling from one war to another, did little to encourage lasting involvements. Then came Etan and a strong desire to settle down and build a life with this woman whom he loved and the sheer continuing joy of his first child.
But life did not work merely because you wanted it to. Fate, in Fitzduane's opinion, was heavily laced with black humor. And in this vein, Etan departed because she wanted her own freedom, just when he wanted to give up his. The next stage should have been simple enough, but it was not because he continued to love her, and she was the mother of his child, so she could never just fade into the past. Still, they had never married and they had parted and they lived separately, so their relationship was the most clearcut.
When he thought of Kathleen, Fitzduane felt a surge of emotion and love, together with feathers of uncertainty. Kathleen was a marvelous, tender, beautiful woman, physically desirable and a natural homemaker, yet she had come into his life almost too conveniently when he had been at his most vulnerable, and he was far from sure about his own feelings. Also, he was concerned about her ability to live under the permanent state of threat in which he now found himself. Kathleen was a gentle and caring soul, and she deserved a normal way of life. Yet clearly she loved him and Boots adored her, and she had settled into Duncleeve as if born for the role.
Unfortunately, Fitzduane thought, for no reason that made logical sense to him, he seemed to like a hint of danger in his women. It was an immature trait and troublesome, but its reality could not be denied. Etan had it and Chifune had it in spades, but it was the one element missing in Kathleen. Still, that was more his weakness than Kathleen's.
Chifune was an impossible situation in just about every way and should just be put down to a magnificent sexual conflagration, and yet the thirty-six hours they had spent together had affected Fitzduane deeply. Although he had been as promiscuous as any highly sexed young male in the past, as he grew older Fitzduane found it hard to sleep with a woman without his emotions being engaged, and Chifune, giving herself physically without any restraint and confiding in him both the confidences of her trade and her feelings, had won a place in his heart.
It was also true that there was an affinity between them that was not merely sexual. Both he and Chifune needed the stimulus of danger and were at their absolute best when living at the edge. But this was a recipe for eventual destruction, and if Fitzduane wanted nothing else, he wanted a stable and happy home for Boots t be an only child. Children should have other children to play with.
Fitzduane found no solutions as the helicopter flew on. He reflected that life was more than about choices than answers – and then living with the consequences.
The staff at the Fairmont – who had heard he was dead, and were not entirely surprised; and then had heard he was alive, and were not entirely sure they were relieved – still greeted him s if nothing untoward had happened.
Their bows were deep and friendly. How exactly you could tell a bow was friendly, Fitzduane was not quite sure, but there was a difference.
Fitzduane liked the staff at the Fairmont and found their behavior reassuring. He reflected that when the world is going to hell, it is nice to find that some standards are maintained. It was not an academic thought. The hotel was going to be his home for a little longer.
His killing of Kei Namaka had accomplished part of his objective, but it had upped the stakes. He, Fitzduane, and, almost certainly, Boots and Kathleen, were now in even greater danger. Faced with the loss of his beloved
