Temple of the Gods

‘In order? All over the place, tracking down Stikes—’ He stopped mid-sentence, instantly angry.

‘Stikes?’ Nina looked round nervously, as if the mercenary might suddenly appear and try to finish the job, but there was no sign of him.

Eddie shook his head. ‘He’ll be gone. He’ll be fucking gone! Bastard, that — fuck!’ He banged a rage-clenched fist against the pod. ‘I had him, I had my chance to fucking kill him, and I missed it!’

‘That’s why you were here?’ said Nina in disbelief. ‘To kill Stikes? Not — not what you told me in Peru, that you were going to prove you didn’t murder Kit?’

Her disappointment, almost disgust, immediately poured cold water on his burning fury. Several moments passed before he spoke again, more calmly. ‘It doesn’t matter, ’cause I think I’ve been set up. We both have.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Someone told me Stikes would be here — in return for me doing something for them.’

‘Destroying the statues.’ Nina pulled the case from the pod and opened it. The three stone figures inside were all intact.

‘Yeah. Only I don’t think it’s a coincidence, that chopper showing up as well. Somebody wanted all of us dead — Takashi, Stikes, you… and me. I need to find out who.’ Flashing lights caught his attention, emergency vehicles racing along the nearby roads. Ambulances, fire trucks — and police cars. ‘Can’t talk about it now, though. I’ve got to go.’

‘No, Eddie, you can’t! Look, Interpol know that Kit was up to something — if you come in, we can try to clear you—’

‘Sorry, love, but I can’t. Not yet.’ He stood, searching for an escape route. The wind turbine’s rotor had stabbed into the grass like an enormous lawn dart; beyond it, streets led into Tokyo’s urban maze. ‘I need to have words with somebody.’ He turned, about to run — then, before Nina could react, snatched the case from her hand.

She jumped up, but he was already sprinting. ‘Eddie!’

He looked back. ‘Remember something else I said to you in Peru? The last thing? I still mean it!’

Nina was too shaken to pursue him. All she could do was slump against the pod and watch as he disappeared into the night.

She did indeed remember his parting words as he fled the gas plant. They were ‘I love you’.

‘Oh, God, Eddie,’ she sighed. ‘What have you gotten involved in?’

It was a question she could also ask of herself.

10

The shinkansen — better known in the West as the bullet train — was as much a symbol of Japan as Mount Fuji, the streamlined expresses hurtling between cities with incredible speed and clockwork precision. This particular one was heading southwest out of Tokyo, the last train of the night from the capital to its final destination of Hakata on the country’s west coast, five hours and seven hundred miles away.

Eddie wasn’t going that far. His stop was Nagoya, a third of the way along the route, from where he would leave Japan via the international airport; security would be on a lower alert there than at Narita. His exit had been arranged by Scarber. Considering what had happened at the Takashi building, he was not the least bit surprised to learn when he called her that she was in the country. She had almost certainly been within sight of the skyscraper to observe events personally.

And report the outcome to her bosses.

A scrolling LED display overhead told him that the time was almost midnight. Scarber’s instructions had been that they not meet until then, after the train departed Shin-Yokohama station. Nagoya, the next stop, was an hour and fifteen minutes away. Plenty of time, she had said, for an undisturbed discussion.

He had his own suspicions about why she didn’t want to be interrupted. And had taken precautions.

In the meantime, his thoughts returned to what Nina had said to him after their landing. His relief and delight at seeing her again had been followed by dismay at her reaction on learning why he was there. She had been appalled to learn that his goal had been to kill Stikes… and, he now accepted, rightfully so. He had set out from Peru with the intention of proving his innocence, but somehow over time that had fallen away, replaced by a simpler, cruder, easier motivation. Vengeance, nothing more, taking his revenge on Stikes for everything he had done. He had always thought of such payback as unprofessional, but over the last three months he had fallen into the emotional trap. Uncovering whatever plot connected Kit, Stikes and Sophia had proved harder and so far fruitless, and he had allowed another goal chosen by some reptilian, bloodthirsty part of his psyche to drive him instead.

Now, though, his objective was investigation once more. He was going to find out who had set him up, and why.

But when he did, he might well indulge the reptile within.

There was something else to kill first, however: the last few minutes before his meeting. He flipped through the English-language edition of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper he had bought before boarding. ‘Interpol widens search for fugitive billionaire’ was a minor headline that caught his eye; the name Harald Glas stirred his memory as being connected to the IHA in some role. The Dane had apparently fled his native country when faced with charges of fraud, money laundering and drug-smuggling. Eddie imagined that Glas’s life on the lam was considerably more luxurious than his own.

Midnight. He put the paper aside and headed for the middle of the train, the ‘green’ — first-class — section. Another reason to be wary: the more expensive carriages would be less busy, especially at this hour. More privacy — or fewer witnesses.

There was another reason why the former spook had chosen her particular seat, as Eddie found when he entered car number ten to be greeted by the acrid smell of tobacco. Smoking was still permitted in certain parts of the shinkansen, and this was one of them. He had retrieved his belongings from a subway station locker and, after some rough-and-ready first aid to his injuries in a restroom cubicle, changed out of his torn and filthy suit into something more comfortable. Taking a pack of Marlboros and his lighter from the breast pocket of his leather jacket, he moved down the aisle, looking for his contact.

He found her quickly; there were only a handful of other people in the carriage, suited and bored-looking Japanese men. ‘There you are,’ rasped Scarber from a window seat in the centre of the coach, blowing out a line of blue smoke. ‘Come on, sit down.’

Eddie dropped into the seat facing her and lit his own cigarette, then returned the lighter and pack to his pocket. ‘So, you’re here in Japan, eh?’

‘Keeping an eye on my employer’s interests.’

‘I don’t need to tell you what happened, then.’

‘No, I got a pretty good idea. Jesus, what a cluster-fuck.’ She took a long drag, the cigarette’s glowing tip crackling. ‘The main thing I want to know is: did you destroy the statues?’

‘Not yet.’

She frowned. ‘The deal was that you destroy them, kiddo.’

‘The deal was that I kill Stikes.’

‘We told you he was there, he was there. Not my problem if you fuck up the hit. Where are they?’

‘Safe.’

‘They’re not supposed to be safe. You had a bag when you boarded — are they in it?’

Eddie shrugged. ‘I’ve got some questions myself first.’

‘I don’t give a crap. Where are the statues, Chase?’

He fixed her with a cold stare. ‘Why’d you try to have me killed, Scarber?’

She was silent for a moment, smoke wafting from the cigarette. Finally, she gave him a smile of patronising