Conspiracy (38 page)

Once she recovered from her flight to ecstasy, she moved her toes over his penis and testicles. She kissed him deeply, touching his chest lightly with the tips of her fingers, playing with his nipples, exciting him even more.

"Bed," he mumbled, standing up and holding out his hand to help her up. "Let's go to bed."

But she refused to budge. Instead she ran her fingers over his rigid member, touching and probing, sending twinges throughout his entire body.

"Bed," he mumbled again. "I want you now."

With her knees on the floor of the tub, she reached for the silver pitcher with the thick, cold fudge. She poured it over his erect penis, then spread it around with one hand. When he was coated, she ran her tongue over the tip of his penis and then along the shaft, licking as she went. "Um, I like fudge," she said.

He closed his eyes and gave himself over to her. She took the whole thing into her mouth and sucked. He was powerless to do anything at all. She had achieved total control over him. With her wet mouth around him, he felt the excitement rising to a climax. But then she squeezed the bottom of his penis firmly just above the balls, and that pulled him back from the brink.

At last she rose and led him to the bed. With their bodies still dripping wet, she pushed him down flat on his back, and she mounted him. They moved together in a slow, undulating rhythm. When his body began to shudder, at long last finding relief, she drove herself to climax as well. Their bodies trembled together. She remained on top of him, pressing down, resting her head on the curly hairs of his chest long after he slipped out of her.

She leaned up and kissed him gently once more. Then she rolled off. That was the last thing either of them felt before they disappeared into a deep sleep.

* * *

A powerful storm worked its way through the Pacific and lashed the island of Honshu. Torrents of water poured from the sky, flooding narrow Tokyo streets. A large black limousine pulled up in front of the office of Prime Minister Nakamura. Yahiro Sato emerged from the back of the car. Under an umbrella held by a staffer, he walked smartly into the building. Despite the hard rain, Sato had a broad smile on his face, projecting the image of a man close to attaining his cherished objective: becoming the prime minister of a remilitarized Japan. Inside, though, his stomach was churning. He wasn't able to dismiss Harrison's warning, despite his verbal bravado to the American. As long as that woman, Taylor, was in pursuit, everything he had worked for was at risk.

An hour later, when Sato left the building, an expression of grim determination marked his face. As the limousine pulled away, Sato turned to Ozawa in the back of the car and gave him a series of instructions.

"There is no room for error," he said at the end.

Ozawa was dropped at the headquarters of the Self-defense Forces. With the rain pounding down, he stood and bowed politely to his leader until the car pulled away. Then he walked swiftly inside.

The car continued driving west toward Sato's country house. When they arrived, it had stopped raining. Sato stood in front and stared up at the Japanese flag, the red sun on a white background, swinging gently in the breeze from a pole above the house. If he did not act fast, his entire plan could be ruined.

* * *

Waiting for Sato to return, Harrison soaked in the natural hot spring half a mile from Sato's house. Usually the water, so hot that steam rose into the air, relaxed him, but not now. He closed his eyes and thought about that day in Shanghai so long ago. Every detail of that morning—November 21, 1949—was indelibly etched in his memory.

An hour before sunrise, they had come, pounding on the door of the house in which seven-year-old Philip and his mother had been held in house arrest since his father's imprisonment. Petrified, his mother opened it to see half a dozen armed soldiers waiting out front. "You come with us," the officer in charge said.

"Is it my husband? Will they release him?" she said. "Have they decided it was all a mistake?"

Her words were met with a stony silence. The two of them were tossed in the back of an army truck with a red star painted on the hood. In the bitter cold of the morning, the boy huddled close to his mother.

At the gate to the prison, armed guards pushed them forward. As they were hustled up three flights of cracked and decaying concrete stairs, the terrified boy clutched his mother's hand. On the top floor, the guards pushed them out onto a balcony which overlooked the muddy yard in the center of the prison compound. At the far end stood a single wooden post.

The boy's mouth opened to cry no as he realized what was happening, but he couldn't speak.

"This is what happens to spies and traitors," an officer said. He gave an order, and another soldier restrained the boy and his mother to stop them from jumping.

When they led his father from the jail to the post, he walked with resolute dignity—a man of God who had come to China to do the Lord's work as a missionary. A man who had no regrets about how he had spent his life on earth. A man who had no fear of the world to which he was passing.

They tied him with his back to the post, his face pointed toward the boy and his mother.

A soldier offered to put a black cover over his head, but he waved the man away. He wanted to face the six soldiers who constituted his firing squad.

As the order was given—"Ready, aim..."—the boy saw the words forming on his father's lips, "The Lord is my shepherd...." Bullets from six automatic weapons tore into his father's body.

His mother uttered the most searing, heart-wrenching screams, which the boy often heard in his sleep at night even decades later. But the boy did not cry out. His mouth opened, but not a sound came out.

Philip and his mother came back to New York to live with her sister and brother-in-law on the Upper East Side. The firing squad might as well have killed her, for she never recovered. She died of a stroke two years later.

Two young women approached Harrison, holding towels in their hands. "Sato-van has returned and would like you to meet him," one of them said.

Harrison climbed out of the pool of water and grabbed a towel. Anxious to hear what Sato had learned, he dressed quickly and returned to the house.

As Sato told him that Fujimura had been present with the prime minister and reported on the meeting, Harrison became more and more disturbed. He was in deep trouble. The decision to extradite Sato was complex and troublesome for Nakamura, but not the decision to extradite Harrison. Nakamura would grant that in a heartbeat.

Harrison's only chance now was with Sato. He looked at his Japanese ally hopefully, waiting to see how he had responded.

"I suggested to Nakamura that he invite Taylor to come here along with Cady," Sato said.

Harrison was incredulous. "To Japan?"

"I told him that we should have a chance to confront them and answer these baseless charges. Once he hears both sides, I explained to Nakamura, he will have no choice but to reject the demand for our extradition."

"But I don't understand. They'll ruin both of us."

"A trap is being laid," Sato said firmly. "We will prevail one way or the other."

"But how will you stop them from destroying us?"

Sato said coldly, "In the United States you were in charge. It hasn't gotten us what we want. Here I make the decisions. We do things my way. This time we won't fail."

 

 

 

Chapter 29

 

At six-thirty Taylor was awakened by a thump outside their bungalow as one of the hotel's employees tossed the
L.A. Times
on their doorstep. Remembering how wonderful last night had been, she kissed the still-sleeping Cady on the cheek. She headed to the front door and snatched up the newspaper. On the bottom of the first page was a box with the results of four post debate polls.

"Oh, damn," she moaned as she studied the numbers. In all four polls Crane had made significant inroads, but he was still trailing by five percentage points on the average.

The phone rang. It was General Clayton. "You two all right?"

"Yeah, fine."

"There's no point having you stay at the Bel Air any longer. You accomplished whatever you set out to do. Lieutenant Farnsworth will bring you back to the base."

"What about Fujimura's call?"

"I'll have the Bel Air board patch it through. He'll never know where you are."

* * *

The call from Fujimura didn't come until noon. By then General Clayton had his electronic gear in place. As Taylor talked on the phone, her conversation would be broadcast into another office down the hall, where General Clayton and Cady could listen. The general even had an interpreter standing by, a Japanese-American air force first lieutenant.

"Is that you, Taylor?" Fujimura asked in Japanese.

Relieved to hear his voice, she let out a deep breath. "Yes, Fujimura-
san,"
she answered in English.

"I think it would be better if we spoke in Japanese. Would • it be convenient for you to fly to Tokyo with C. J. Cady?"

Taylor rocked back onto her heels. This was precisely what Cady had predicted: that Sato and Harrison would use Fujimura to lure them to Japan to kill them.

Cady came racing into the room, shaking his head furiously. "Tell him we won't come," he whispered. "I'll deliver the extradition papers to their embassy in Washington." Then he ran back to the other office.

Taylor hesitated, unsure how to respond.

"Are you still on the phone, Taylor?" asked Fujimura.

Confused, Taylor answered, "I'm surprised by your sudden invitation."

"Reservations have been made for the two of you in first class on JAL flight one-twenty-four leaving Los Angeles at four o'clock this afternoon. They're holding your tickets at the airline counter."

"What can you tell me about your discussions in Japan?" she asked.

"It would be best if we spoke about these matters when you arrive in Tokyo. The issues are quite complex."

"It would be useful if I had some idea of what happened."

"That's not possible, I'm afraid."

"Are you certain that it's necessary for me to come?"

Fujimura sighed. He realized that he had to tell her something. "Unless you and Cady come and provide the prime minister with an opportunity to evaluate the facts, he will agree to extradite Harrison, but not Sato. Now, is it convenient for you to come?"

Cady came back into the room. "Tell him no," he said in a hiss.

She looked at Cady and hesitated.

"It's convenient for me," she finally replied.

"And Cady?"

"I'll have to talk to him. Do you want me to bring anything?"

"All of the documents that you showed me at the hotel. Prepare Japanese translations to the extent possible."

"And where should I go when I arrive?"

"I'll be there personally to meet your plane."

As Taylor put the phone down, she thought Cady would explode in anger. General Clayton was standing in the doorway looking at her with a combination of admiration and concern.

"I'm sorry, C.J.," Taylor said, "but getting Harrison isn't enough. Sato started all of this. He has to pay for what he did. The only way that can happen is if we go."

He was livid. "Goddammit, Taylor, we're a team. You shouldn't have said yes like that. At least, you should have told him that you'd talk to me and call him back."

All trace of last night's romance was gone. "We don't have a choice. We can't talk to the president because we don't know where he stands. Going to the press is out of the question because it would wreck American-Japanese relations."

"I know all of that. I still think I should have been consulted before you put my life on the line."

"What do you mean, your life?" she asked tensely. "I only answered for myself."

Cady snapped, "Yeah, right. Do you really think I'd let you make that trip on your own?" He turned to General Clayton. "Can you fly us over to Tokyo in an air force jet?"

Clayton nodded. "Sure."

"I don't understand," Taylor said. "Fujimura told me they're holding seats for us on JAL one-twenty-four. We can get there in time."

"This time I'm the one who's making a unilateral decision for both of us," Cady said emphatically. "We're not flying on JAL one-twenty-four."

"What's wrong with JAL one-twenty-four?"

"I don't want to take any chances."

"You really don't trust Fujimura at all."

"It's Sato and Terasawa I'm worried about. They're capable of anything."

"You really think that—"

"Look, Taylor, we may not make it back from Japan, but I'd sure like to be certain we get there."

She sighed deeply. "Okay, I'll call Fujimura and tell him about the change in our flight plan."

* * *

Terasawa was dejected. He sat in his car across from Cady's house and continued his vigil. Deep down he knew it was hopeless. The FBI agent had left yesterday. Terasawa knew that Taylor and Cady would not return.

He also knew that he had totally failed Sato because of his inability to kill Taylor and Cady. The humiliation was almost too much to bear. He hung his head in shame, uncertain of what to do or where to go.