Dark Intent (14 page)

Yunoko Spa, Nikko Reserve

Adams and the two men arrived in Nikko at nine in the evening, later than Adams expected.
They left the station and went to a nearby coffee house.

Once seated, Adams said:
‘I think we should give it another hour and then go up to the
ryokan
. Buses are less frequent at this time but they run into the early hours. Before we go this is what I have in mind.’ He drank some coffee.

‘When we get there, Brown will ask at the desk for Steiner and Carswell.
If they are not in the main areas and booked in, the receptionist will check the key rack. If the keys are gone, it is a near certainty they are in their room and the receptionist will probably reach for the phone to call them.’ Adams hesitated and then continued. ‘Before he does, ask for the room numbers and tell the receptionist you can find the room. On your signal, we’ll move. If they are pointed out downstairs, we’ll decide then what to do.’

‘A clever plan,’ said Brown.
‘I hope it works.’

‘It will,’ said Adams.
‘Let’s go and wait for the bus.’

At ten they disembarked from the bus at the Yumoto Spa
ryokan.
They looked at the one-storey building, wondering what it held in store for them.

Adams turned to Brown
‘It looks pretty quiet, which is good for us.’ He nodded towards the doors. ‘See what you can find out.’

Brown went over to the hotel and into the small lobby.
He looked at some pamphlets on the wall and glanced around the large restaurant and bar that extended beyond the reception desk. There were only two people having dinner, a Japanese couple, and there was no one at the bar. He sauntered over to the male receptionist who was bent over some hotel records.

‘I believe James Steiner and Sophie Carswell are booked in here tonight,’ he said.
‘I would like to see them if they are in.’

As predicted by Adams, the receptionist looked in his register and then at the rack of keys.
‘They are booked in and I think they are in their rooms, 311 and 312,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone them and tell them you are here.’

‘I have two friends with me,’ said Brown.
‘We can find the rooms. We would like to surprise them. Steiner’s a close friend of ours from England.’

The receptionist smiled but something about the man unsettled him.
He bowed his head in welcome.

Brown went through the main doors and to the front steps, disappearing from sight.
In an instant the receptionist reached for the phone and punched in 311. At the reply he said: ‘There are men here and they are coming to your room.’ He quickly replaced the receiver.

After a brief wave with his hand, Brown waited for Adams and Peters.
When they joined him the three men entered the
ryokan
, went past the receptionist and set off for the rooms.

Nikko Reserve

James Steiner was half asleep when the phone gave a subdued ring.
He reached for the receiver and took it to his ear. What he heard was enough to wake the dead and he replaced the receiver as he came to his feet. He knew the visitors were Adams and his two friends and he had half expected them to come for him in the hotel in the night hours. He quickly put on a pair of dark blue chinos and pulled on his soft shoes. He grabbed his bag and went across the floor to Sophie, who had not been disturbed by the phone.

‘Get up,’ said Steiner in a whisper.
‘There are men coming to the room and we have to leave. They are not friends.’

Sophie was awake instantly.
She took a look at Steiner, got to her feet and put on her jeans and shoes. ‘Where are we going?’ she urged. ‘Can’t we face them here?’

‘No,’ said Steiner, going quickly to the window and opening it.
‘We’ll have a greater chance outside. I want to head for the marsh.’

She swept up her bag and followed him.
Together they went through the window and down a fire escape to the flat ground that separated the hotel from Lake Yunoko.

‘This way,’ said Steiner, taking her hand and leading her to the corner of the lake where the road to Nikko town started. He took the footpath that skirted the shore.

They slowly disappeared from sight of the hotel and once or twice Steiner looked behind them as they ran down the path. No one was in sight and he felt they were ahead of the men. The road lights were still on and provided relief from the darkness of the night. But the light soon went when they reached the south shore and Steiner led the way along a footpath into the seclusion of the forest. After a few hundred metres on a narrow track, he stopped.

‘I think we are ahead of them,’ he said.
‘When they try the door to the room and we don’t answer, they will smash the lock. The empty futons, which will clearly have been slept on, will tell them we have gone through the window. They will follow and know we have taken this way out. We must keep moving and hope they think we have stuck to the road. There is a footpath not far from here which leads across Senjogahara Marsh to the Ryuzu Cascade, on the north shore of Lake Chuzenji.’

‘And what then?’ said Sophie in a low voice.

‘We will find a small hotel for the rest of the night,’ he said. ‘We’ll decide our movements in the morning. Let’s go.’

After another few minutes they came to the marsh.
In the faint moonlight it resembled a seething cauldron that threatened death to anyone sucked under the mass. The footpath was two metres wide and firmly constructed of wooden planks a centimetre apart. It wound like a snake and swept first to the right and then to the left until it reached the opposite shore 400 metres in the distance. To Steiner and Sophie it was a welcome sight that seemed to offer final escape from their pursuers.

They stepped onto the planks and started across the marsh.
For all its atmosphere of the surreal, it was strangely beautiful and so silent. Their progress was steady and in minutes they disembarked on the far shore, and went quickly into the forest that in places came close to the water’s edge.

‘We’ll wait here for a moment,’ said Steiner.
‘I want to see if they are following.’

From their position there was no sign of Adams and the other two and they carried on in the direction of the Ryuzu Cascade.

‘You know this area well,’ said Sophie in admiration. ‘It’s as if you were brought up here.’

‘I used to come here a lot,’ said Steiner.
‘I was usually alone and I enjoyed the quiet.’

Ryuzu Cascade was to Steiner one of the wonders of the world, and when they reached it they sat on a rock at the top, taking in the sight.
The road they were on when they left the Yumoto Spa
ryokan
passed nearby, hidden by dense vegetation.

Steiner lent back, spreading himself on a flat part of the rock.
‘It often amazes me,’ he said, ‘how something so hard can feel so soft when you need it.’

Sophie smiled and started to lie down next to him.
She was on her elbow, with her head held sideways, when she gasped and drew herself to him. He instantly knew Adams and his friends had caught up with them. He turned on the rock and pushed himself to his feet.

The three men were only metres from them, confident, grinning.
Adams took a step forward. ‘We got you at last. Did you think you could evade us?’

‘What do you want?’ asked Steiner, well aware that the men were slowly encircling them.
‘We are here on holiday.’

‘I’ll tell you what I want,’ said Adams.
‘Three weeks ago you killed one of my best friends in this reserve. You also killed two acquaintances of mine in Takamiyama. They were brutal killings of innocent men and you are going to pay.’

Sophie gasped, the raw accusations stinging her to the core.
‘I led him on in London and never admitted that to you,’ she said. ‘You chased him to Japan. He was only defending himself.’

‘You’re lying,’ said Adams.
‘I’ve never seen anyone as upset as you were then, after he had raped you. If you’re telling the truth it doesn’t change anything as far as I’m concerned. But my friends will find you satisfying after we have dealt with Steiner. They will find that only a whore can make love with unashamed desire.’

Adams waved his hand forwards and moved for Steiner.
Sophie cried out and ran at him, hitting his chest with her fists. Callously, he threw her aside and she fell onto her back, a spent force.

Steiner was silent, showing no feeling and when Adams was just over an arm’s length from him he went in.
The strike came from nowhere and Adams fell between two rocks, his arms and legs assuming the surreal. His movement fluid and continuous, Steiner closed swiftly on the others, taking the first down with a ruthless kick to the groin. As the second came in, he swept the man’s front foot away in a classical execution of
ashi-barai
, and took him heavily to the ground with the edge of his leading hand. The man collapsed, his control gone.

The three men remained where they had fallen, each partially concussed by the vicious, clinical assault.
Sophie, mesmerized by what had taken place in front of her, ran to Steiner and embraced him. She didn’t smile and again wondered what had happened to the three men who had gone for Steiner three weeks before.

‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘I find it hard to believe how anyone can move as you do. You are quite something, tall, dark and so dangerous.’ She looked at Adams and his friends. ‘What happens to them?’

‘They’ll recover,’ said Steiner, his breathing as silent as the way he moved.
‘They might try again. How are you?’

‘I feel great now,’ she said.
‘But, I didn’t when I first saw them.’

‘The town is not far and we can make it in ten minutes by skirting the far side of Lake Chuzenji.
Get your bag and let’s go.’

A little later they reached Nikko Town.
There were a number of hotels in the main street and down side roads. They chose one that was suitably discreet and got a room for the rest of the night.

When Sophie woke the next morning, she found Steiner already up and seated near the
shoji
overlooking the street. She got up and walked over to him. ‘This is one morning I feared would never come,’ she said. ‘Did I tell you how scared I was last night when those brutes descended on us out of nowhere?’ She smiled and sat down next to him.

‘No,’ said Steiner, taking her hand.
‘But that is over and I think we have to change our plans. Who knows what those men will do next. I don’t relish the idea of spending the remainder of this visit looking over my shoulder.’

‘What do you have in mind?’ she asked.

‘I think we should go back to Tokyo on the next available train and when we get there find a room in one of those hotels in Shinjuku. We can use it as a base and visit areas like Mt Fuji, which is inspiring to say the least. There are also some very interesting places to see in Tokyo. One thing is for sure. I won’t go near the
dojo
again on this trip. It seems to bring bad luck’

She laughed.
‘I agree,’ she said. ‘Let’s have breakfast and go.’

Steiner and Sophie reached Tokyo three hours after leaving Nikko Town.
They booked in at the Hilton Hotel in Shinjuku, which like the other sky-scraper hotels in the area offered everything that anyone could want. For three days they went to Mt Fuji where they spent the night in the Fuji Hotel and visited the temples, other ancient buildings and, later, the parks in Tokyo. On the Saturday they flew back to Durban and arrived early on the Sunday morning. They passed through immigration and went straight to the house where she was staying.

‘You won’t forget a trip like that in a hurry,’ said Steiner, when he was leaving.
‘I don’t think you will hear of Adams again. You did incredibly well.’

Sophie embraced him and kissed him full on the lips.
‘I can’t thank you enough for such a marvellous time. It helped me purge things from the past. I hope to see you in a day or so.’

‘Yes,’ said Steiner, turning to go to his car.
‘I also got rid of some things I wanted to forget.’

Jan Krige’s farm, near the Kruger Reserve

Four hours after leaving Malakazi township, Krige and Dalton reached Pretoria and took the road to White River.
When Dalton dropped him off at his Land Rover, Krige said: ‘I will never do anything like that again. We were lucky to get out alive.’

Dalton concurred.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was a close call as they say and the group will not get me to do their dirty work again.’ He then added, cryptically. ‘The only thing I want to remember is the two of us working together.’

They parted and half-an-hour later Krige reached his farm.
He hadn’t phoned Kirsty while he was away and he expected a deluge of questions, something he could do without after what he had been through.

Kirsty was drinking coffee on the verandah when he pulled up in the yard.
She watched him leave the Land Rover and did not leave her seat to greet him.

‘Hi,’ he said.
‘I missed you.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said.
‘It’s not difficult for someone of your intelligence to find a phone box in Pretoria. Were you really there, or were you somewhere else.’

Her words cut through him like a scythe in full swing and the saying the truth hurts passed through his mind.
‘I was there,’ he lied. ‘It was extremely hectic, but my thoughts were often of you. I’ll tell you what it was all about.’

‘Surely you must have known the gist of it before you we
nt,’ she said, without emotion.

‘I did,’ said Krige.
‘But it was not clear. That is why I didn’t tell you. I would have looked a fool.’ He poured some coffee and sat down in his beloved rocking chair. He could see she was not impressed and knew he had a real job if he was to convince her that it was a genuine business proposition.

‘Did you go in those clothes?’ she said, looking at his khaki shorts and shirt.

‘I took a change of clothing with me,’ he said. ‘It is in the back of the Land Rover. The spirit of the whole thing was informal.’

She didn’t say anything and knew in her heart that he was spewing out lie after lie.
All she could feel at the moment was that something was up, and she had to find out what it was for her own protection.

Krige looked at her and gave his story.
‘They phoned me before I received the papers by courier. They are a group of wealthy business men who want to acquire some of the best land in this area and develop it. This farm is perfect for them and the meeting was to establish the framework for negotiations if we were prepared to sell a reasonable acreage. There offer at this stage is 750 000 rand for 1000 acres on the west range.’

‘That is an insult,’ she said.
‘It is worth double that. Did you know the price they were talking about before you went?’

‘I did, but I wanted to see how serious they were and how far they would go,’ said Krige.
‘I know it is very low but in all business deals you have to meet the players in person.’

‘What did you say?’ she asked, still not believing him but preferring to listen to his lies, wondering what would come next.

‘I did not think they would go much higher,’ said Krige. ‘I rejected the offer.’

‘And it took you three days to say that,’ she said, finding the story so fictitious it nearly made her laugh.
‘Where are the papers? I would like to read them.’

‘I got rid of them,’ said Krige, a last effort to get his head off the block.

She got up and put her cup on the table. ‘I bet you did,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m going to see Maria this morning and I might stay for lunch.’ Maria and her husband owned a neighbouring farm. ‘I’ll see you when I get back. I need time to think.’

She left him with a lot on his mind.
He sat on the verandah until he heard her car and then went inside. He phoned Teichmann.

‘You must have seen the news,’ said Krige.

‘Yes,’ said Teichmann. ‘We later contributed an article on the types of men they were and their crimes that have until now gone unpunished. You did a great job.’

‘I’m afraid we only got one of the guerillas,’ said Krige.
‘The others escaped and they could be anywhere now.’

‘We will find them,’ said Teichmann, emphatically.
‘They will then get the same treatment.’

‘As long as it’s not me who has to do the job,’ said Krige.

‘You’re out of it, as I promised,’ said Teichmann. ‘We will get someone else.’ He terminated the call.

Krige knew that any dealings with the group had to be taken as it came, despite Teichmann’s assurances to the contrary.
He knew in his heart that they had him in chains.