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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Critical Mass
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“Welcome to Japan, Mr. Orff,” the official said, stamping the passport. “Have a pleasant holiday.”
THE MORNING ON THE MOUNTAIN OVERLOOKING THE PORT CITY of Nagasaki on the south island of Kyushu was pleasantly cool, the air sweetly fresh. McGarvey indulged himself in the luxury of coming slowly awake, careful to steer his thoughts away from the reasons he had returned to Japan.
Kelley was up already. She sat outside in the garden sipping green tea, and watching the sun over the mountains just beginning to illuminate the city below.
From where he lay on his tatami mat, he could see her in profile. Her dark hair was down, spilling around her tiny shoulders, and she was dressed only in one of the snow white
yukatas
or kimonos that the
ryokan
(a Japanese inn) supplied its guests. She was beautiful, he decided, yet she was a contradiction. On the one hand she was a frightened little deer, with large dark eyes and the sudden tiny movements of the animal that is always ready to bolt at the first hint of trouble. While on the other she had a surprising depth of character, of fortitude, that made her stay.
As she'd explained yesterday afternoon on the train, she had nowhere to go. “I can't hide for the rest of my life, so I am with you to finish the assignment.”
There was an Oriental simplicity about her. Everything she did, or said, seemed to be clear-cut and obvious. Her life had been sad, and she was doing everything within her power to lay the groundwork for a big change. Like everyone else, she only wanted to be at peace, and happy.
But he was beginning to believe that that was
all
she
wanted. She seemed to have no other ambitions, and in that she was completely opposite of his ex-wife Kathleen.
A tiny table had been set up next to his tatami mat, steam rising from a pot of tea, a cup beside it. McGarvey rose stiffly on one elbow and poured a cup of tea.
Kelley turned and looked at him, a slight smile coming to her lips. “How do you feel this morning, McGarvey-san.”
“I'll live,” he said, returning her smile.
“I am truly glad to hear that, because today we will make our move against Fukai.”
 
Kelley had arranged to rent a car yesterday, and at 8 A.M. it was brought up from the city and left for them in the tiny parking lot, across the garden beyond the hotel annex. She drove because she could read Japanese—none of the road signs, what few there were, were in English—and because McGarvey's right leg had stiffened up, making it difficult to walk, let alone manipulate the pedals.
Only a few puffy white clouds sailed over the hills and mountains ringing the city, but the sky was a hazy, milky blue, illuminating the lush green countryside with an almost magical light. This region was like a fairytale land: Important in the mid-sixteenth century when Nagasaki was the only port open to foreigners; again in 1945 when the atomic bomb was dropped here; and now because of some insane plot for revenge.
Fukai Semiconductor's vast factory complex and world headquarters were located northeast of Nagasaki on Omura Bay. McGarvey's briefing package had contained extensive diagrams showing the installation's layout and something of the sophisticated security systems designed not only to detect the presence of intruders, but in some instances to neutralize them, even kill them. Fukai himself was apparently paranoid about security; and he was rich and powerful enough to maintain a substantial armed force of guards without the federal government lifting a finger to stop or in any way control him.
The compound was built like a fortress. McGarvey had
spent a considerable amount of thought on exactly how it could be breached, coming to the conclusion that he would have to get close enough for a firsthand look before he could make any plan.
He had briefly discussed the problem with Carrara and the Technical Services team that had been hastily assembled to brief him, and they agreed, with one reservation.
“If Spranger is actually working for Fukai—and we don't have any direct proof of that yet—he probably told them about you,” Carrara had cautioned.
“No doubt,” McGarvey replied. “But they won't be expecting me to show up so soon, nor will they be expecting me to come in the front door with the proper credentials.”
“I'd like to send someone over to back you up, but it's not possible.” Carrara shook his head. “There's going to be hell to pay for this. A lot of political fallout.”
“I stay out of politics,” McGarvey said.
“Right. Just like a surgeon stays out of the operating theater.”
Traffic was heavy along the narrow highway until they were well clear of the city, and even then there was no time when they had the road to themselves. Kelley was a good driver, and she apparently knew the local customs and rules of the road well enough to get along without incident.
She had dressed again in the plain gray business suit she had worn at the airport, making her look like the executive secretary and translator her legend said she was. McGarvey had let her study the briefing package he'd brought out from Langley, and afterwards he had filled in whatever gaps he could, though there were holes a mile wide in the plan.
“What happens if something goes wrong out there?” she asked.
“We play it by ear.”
“I meant what if they recognize you, or me?”
“I don't know,” McGarvey had told her, and they'd not discussed it any further. This morning she'd made no comment as she watched him reassemble his gun and then place the holster at the small of his back, but he could see that
she was troubled. There was nothing he could say to reassure her, so he said nothing about the possibilities they would be facing.
They topped a rise and suddenly Omura Bay was spread out below. Fifteen miles across they could see a jetliner taking off from the Nagasaki Airport. But directly below, spread out along the western shore of the bay, the Fukai Semiconductor compound ran for at least five miles, and included the main administration area, a huge research facility, seven large processing and assembly buildings, a landing strip and several hangars for the fleet of business jets and two Boeing 747s, and an extensive dock and warehouse area for the fleet of ships the corporation maintained.
Satellite antennae were located throughout the vast compound. Several years ago Fukai had begun putting up its own communications and research satellites, buying boosts into space from the European Space Agency as well as NASA until recently, when the Japanese themselves (with a lot of Fukai money behind them) started launching their own rockets.
Carrara admitted that the National Security Agency's current guess was that at least two of the Fukai satellites were probably being used as surveillance platforms. Parked in geostationary orbits some 22,000 miles over the western hemisphere, there was little doubt about just who was the likely surveillance target. But nothing could or would be done about it.
“Space, as it was explained to me,” Carrara said, “is still free. That means for
anyone,
not just any government.”
Also evident, even from a distance of several miles, were the outward signs of Fukai's security arrangements. An inner and an outer wire mesh fence (no doubt electrified) surrounded the entire compound. Separated by a twenty-five-yard-wide no-man's-land, the fence line was punctuated every hundred yards or so by tall guard towers.
As they watched, they could see Toyota Land Rovers patrolling the perimeter not only inside the fence, but outside as well.
The place looked like a prison. Only in this case the guards were not trying to keep people in, they wanted to keep intruders out. It made one wonder what they were doing down there that they had to go to such extreme measures.
“It's bigger than I thought it would be,” Kelley said, her voice and manner subdued.
“Yeah,” McGarvey said absently, his thoughts racing. He pulled over to the side of the road and studied the vast compound for several long minutes.
“What do we do now?” Kelley asked.
McGarvey looked at her. Security might be tight, but he thought he knew how he could get in undetected tonight.
“We'll present our credentials,” he said. “I need to take a look at something.”
DIESE EGK TOSSED HER LOUIS VUITTON BAG IN THE BACK SEAT of the Jaguar convertible parked next to the Volkswagen van in the garage. She stood in the darkness for several long moments, her hands gripping the edge of the car so hard that her knuckles turned white.
Ernst was asleep in the house, and if he'd taken the sedatives she'd laid out for him he wouldn't feel a thing for mother twelve hours. Plenty of time for her to make it down :o the waiting private jet at the Rome Airport.
But she could not leave. Not like that. Not knowing what Spranger, even in his present condition, was still capable of doing. The man was half dead, and he was a maniac, yet he was the best and most ruthless operative she'd ever known. And he still had the loyalty of the group, the contacts around he world, and the respect of a great many people who would be willing to hunt her down if it came to that.
She walked slowly to the door and looked across the compound toward the dark house and shivered even though the night was warm.
If she left like this tonight, Ernst would recover eventually and he would come looking for her. Even Fukai's promise of protection would do her no good. Ernst would find a way to get to her. And when he did he would kill her … unless she killed him first.
She turned that thought over in her mind. On the way up from Greece she had toyed with the idea on several occasions; putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger would
have been child's play. But in her heart of hearts she'd known that she wouldn't do it.
That was then. Now that she was abandoning him, she'd come back to her original decision; to kill him, when the time was right, for everything he'd done to her. For everything he'd made her do.
She shivered again.
Spranger had taught her about sex—sex with men, that is—in East Berlin when she was still a teenager. And when he was finished with her, he'd used what he called her “certain charms” to help the STASI's aims. She'd been ordered to sleep with Russians, with West Germans, Americans, and even Frenchmen.
The worst had been the most recent. She'd slept with Fukai himself on four different occasions, each time worse than the previous, because each time the old man had come to learn more and more about her body, exactly what made her respond, and she hated him and Spranger for it.
Stepping out of the garage, Liese moved silently across the courtyard and into the house. She halted just within the great room, a light breeze billowing the window shears at the open patio doors.
In the distance she heard a train whistle, and in back the pool pump kicked on. Other than those sounds the night was still. Not even insects were chirping, a fact that somehow did not register with her.
She was dressed in a short khaki skirt, a sleeveless blouse, and sandals without nylons. Reaching down she undid the sandal straps and stepped out of them.
The tile was cool on her bare feet as she moved across the great room, down a short corridor and stopped just outside the open door into the master bedroom wing.
This part of the house faced the opened veranda, and the glow of Monaco's lights provided enough illumination so that she could see the big bed was empty, the sheets thrown back.
Going the rest of the way in, she went to the night table where she'd left the glass of water and sedatives. The water was down and the pills were gone, which meant he'd be
unconscious by now. He'd probably gotten out of bed and had collapsed somewhere.
She hurriedly checked the bathroom and dressing alcove, but he wasn't in either place and as she started back to the corridor, thinking he might have gone to the kitchen, she spotted him standing on the veranda at the low railing, his back to her.
Careful to make absolutely no noise she went back to the nightstand, opened the drawer and took out the big Sig-Sauer automatic he kept there. She switched the safety off, cocked the hammer, and went to the open glass doors.
Either he'd thrown the pills away, or he'd just taken them and the sedatives had not had a chance to effect him.
In any event he seemed awake and alert enough to still be a significant danger to her if he realized that she was planning on abandoning him.
She stepped out into the night and padded softly around the end of the pool, stopping barely three yards away from him. If she shot him now, his body would pitch over the rail and plunge three hundred feet onto the rocks and thick bush. If no one heard and pinpointed the shot, which she didn't think they would, it might be a very long time before his body was discovered.
“Do you mean to shoot me now, and leave me for the carrion eaters?” he asked, his voice barely rising above the gentle breeze.
Liese was so startled that her hand shook and she nearly fired the pistol. But she got control of herself.
“You won't be missed,” she said.
Spranger turned around to face her. He leaned back against the rail for balance and smiled wanly. “Haven't you realized by now, my dear, that alone you are nothing? Even less than nothing, because your sexuality gets in the way of any sort of rational thought?”
Liese raised the pistol and started to bear down on the trigger. Spranger's smile broadened.
“You have been the means to many ends,” he said. “You
must understand that you are only a very pretty tool; of no value without the hand of the craftsman to guide it.”
“I would rather it be Kiyoshi Fukai than you.”
“That's not true,” Spranger said. “You hate the man even worse than you hate me.”
“He is a means to my end.”
“That's possible. If you could leave here and catch the plane in Rome.”
“What's to stop me …” Liese asked when she suddenly realized what Spranger had done. She pulled the trigger and the hammer slapped on an empty firing chamber. He'd foreseen what she would do, and had unloaded the gun.
He reached into the pocket of his robe and started to withdraw a pistol, when Liese suddenly came to her senses. With a small scream she leaped forward, raising her hands, her elbows stiff.
Because of his condition he was too slow to react. Liese hit him squarely in the chest with the palms of both hands, the Sig-Sauer still in her right hand, shoving him backwards over the low stone railing.
He fell without a sound, his body hitting the face of the cliff about ninety feet down, and, turning end over end, finally landing in the rocks at the bottom.
For a long time she just stared down at him, unsure of what she felt. But then she dropped the Sig-Sauer over the edge, turned and went back through the bedroom and out to the great hall where she retrieved her sandals.
Before she left the villa she washed her hands in the guest bathroom. One more job and Fukai would pay her. After that no man would ever touch her again.

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