Floating City (54 page)

“I came alone,” Tanaka Gin said formally. “Doing my duty is one thing; causing unnecessary loss of face is quite another.”

Chosa gave him a quick bow. “It is time for the bell of the Shinto shrine across the street to sound. I would appreciate it, Prosecutor, if I could hear it one last time.”

“I have no objection.”

Chosa nodded. “In that case, I’ll get dressed.” He disappeared into the bedroom while Tanaka Gin took a longer look at the Marilyn Monroe replica in its Plexiglas case.

He bent down, looking beneath the splayed-out skirt, which fluttered on its constant current of air.

The Shinto bell began to resound. One of the living room windows was partially open and Tanaka Gin went to it, looked down the twenty floors to the street below. He glanced at his watch, then strode to the closed bedroom door.

He was about to knock when he heard the sharp report of a pistol. He lifted his leg, kicked open the door. Two women, naked to the waist, were cowering on the bed. One was screaming; she had spots of blood on her cheek and shoulder.

Tanaka Gin stopped, staring at the form of Akira Chosa. He had obviously put the barrel of the gun in his mouth. The force of the large-caliber .357 bullet had torn the back of his head off as it had thrown him across the corner of the bed. He was facing away from the prosecutor, toward the window, which was wide open. A blast of cold air brought the stench of death toward him. Chosa had dressed for the occasion. He was in a neat dark suit, white shirt, and patterned tie.

Tanaka Gin could hear the sounds of running feet, and a moment later, Chosa’s guards burst into the room. They stopped short, stood staring at their fallen
oyabun.

Tanaka Gin, careful not to disturb anything, helped the two women off the bed and out of the room. He told them to wash up, get dressed, and wait for him to take their statements. Then he went back inside the bedroom. He stared at Chosa, stretched out unnaturally across the corner of the bloody bed. Something was clutched in his left hand. Tanaka Gin squatted down, poked at the fingers with a pen. It was a photo, a glossy color publicity still from an American film called
The Misfits.
The photo was of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. He was in blue jeans and a cowboy hat, a grin on his face. Perhaps he had just told a joke because Monroe, luminous as ever, was laughing behind one upraised hand.

The tolling of the Shinto bell echoed through the room, a mournful commentary on the Western-style suicide. Tanaka Gin rose and left. He thought himself a fool ever to have believed a man like Chosa would spill all the secret of a lifetime of crime to anyone, let alone a Tokyo prosecutor.
Hubris,
Tanaka Gin thought, as he recalled Chosa slumped over on his side,
is a terrible thing.

He did not return home until after three. A great deal of paperwork was involved in a death, even one so clear-cut as Chosa’s.

Ushiba was still awake, reading by lamplight in an old overstuffed chair. He looked up as Tanaka Gin came in, went into the kitchen, and poured himself three fingers of neat Scotch. The prosecutor downed it in one gulp, poured himself another.

Putting aside his book of haiku, Ushiba walked silently into the kitchen.

“What has happened?”

“Chosa’s dead,” Tanaka Gin said flatly. “He put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger rather than be tried and convicted.’’

“I can’t say I blame him.” But Ushiba turned away, staring into the darkness of the strange apartment. Is this the ending he had envisioned when he committed himself to Ken’s suggestion? How clever he had thought Kisoko’s son was when he had proposed using Tanaka Gin as the means to punish Chosa. Of course Ushiba hadn’t known this would happen. He wasn’t so cruel and calculating as to have coldly signed the death warrant of a man who had once been his friend.

And yet, how could he have not known?
I can’t say I blame him.
His own words condemned him. He knew Chosa too well. The man was too deeply spiritual to allow himself to be paraded through the media, humiliated in court, and confined in prison. Given the choice, Ushiba knew that he himself would have chosen seppuku—ritual suicide. To die in one’s own way at one’s own time had about it a dignity impossible in other circumstances. To be at the mercy of one’s enemy, to have life reduced to the space of a barred cell, was unthinkable.

I’ve killed him.
The thought was like a knife blade in his bowels. Chosa had betrayed their friendship, yes; he had betrayed the inner council and endangered the Godaishu, all in his pursuit of retribution against Nicholas Linnear. But was that enough to sentence a man to die? It had to be. Too late to believe anything else now. Too late...

“Ushiba-san?”

With an effort, the Daijin turned away from the darkness. He blinked in the light of the kitchen.

“It’s very late and I am exhausted from a long day.”

Ushiba nodded, knowing that Tanaka Gin said this for his benefit. Tanaka Gin would never shame him by asking, Are you all right?

“I, too, am exhausted. But these days sleep escapes me. It is as if I’ve forgotten how.”

Tanaka Gin poured himself another drink. “I go through periods where rest seems as remote as a vacation in Paris.” He shook his head. “I am a poor host. Can I get you something?”

“I’m afraid nothing appeals.”

They went into the living room, Tanaka Gin lighting lamps as he went; he would permit no overhead lighting in the apartment because, he said, it provided no warmth. They sat facing each other in deep Western-style chairs.

Ushiba watched Tanaka Gin’s face, which was gaunt and pale. “You think you’ve failed. That you should have been more vigilant, but how can you know what is in a man’s mind?”

“Yes, of course.” Tanaka Gin took some Scotch into his mouth, shuddered. “Oblivion. When you witness another’s death, you see reflected in it your own end.”

Ushiba, with sudden insight into this formidable man, said, “It’s only when you fear something too deeply that it can harm you.”

“Perhaps. But all too often it seems that one has no choice.”

Now he was convinced that Tanaka Gin had unwittingly disclosed his reason for becoming a prosecutor. It was the same reason that some men went to sea as a way of life: they feared it, and in seeking to master their dread, they contrived to control the circumstances of it. The prosecutor’s morbid fear of death was bridled by his daily proximity to it.

“Was it bad?” Ushiba asked after a small silence.

“Death is always bad. No matter the person or the circumstance.”

Ushiba thought that an interesting response from a Tokyo prosecutor, especially one such as Tanaka Gin, who had brought many a dangerous malefactor to justice.

“But perhaps this case proves the exception to your rule.”

Tanaka Gin looked up from his Scotch. “How so?”

“I had always suspected that Chosa was being slowly corrupted by American ethics, American values. I’ve no doubt you saw the Marilyn Monroe replica in his apartment. That dress is the original. It was made for her. It cost Chosa more than your yearly salary. Chosa, I feared, was becoming cynical of the new Japan. The land of the empty symbol, he used to call it. I thought he’d lost faith in it.”

“I see. So the way he chose to die—his last gesture, in effect—affirmed his faith.”

“Yes. He chose to die like a modern-day warrior. Death before dishonor.”

“And that makes his death, what? More bearable or understandable?”

Ushiba could see Tanaka Gin struggling with the philosophical understanding of Chosa’s death—and with that single ending a perception of death itself. Ushiba could see that his answer might be of profound import to this man. “Neither,” he said simply. “But it does give it form and substance. It wasn’t just an empty symbol.”

The DARPA laboratory for experimental nucleonics in which Douglas Serman worked was in the wilds of rural Virginia. Fifty acres assured the government a minimum of nosy neighbors, and for those curiosity seekers on the main road, the discreet sign for
THE KNIFE RIVER RIDING ACADEMY
,
BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
kept everyone else at bay. Of course a quarter of Washington knew a DARPA facility existed out here, but few asked questions about it.

In the seventies, at the height of the war in Vietnam, some arm of the federal government now long buried in a firestorm of red tape had conducted complex experiments in chemical warfare on animals here, mainly rats, but also, it was rumored, on a number of unwitting armed-services personnel. At that time, six separate lines of electrified barbed wire ringed the perimeter of the facility, which was patrolled by guard dogs and armed troops. In that department, at least, nothing much had changed, and it was a foolhardy individual who considered breaking into the place. In fact, no one had, not even during the worst moments of the now defunct Cold War, and the zealots involved in the hot war of global terrorism were, frankly, more concerned with the high-profile destruction of public buildings and priceless artwork than they were with top-secret installations where a total news blackout would negate their raison d’être.

Deplaning, Croaker had wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week, but there were only thirty-six hours to the fifteenth. Besides, he was too busy keeping an eye out for Bad Clams’s people to be inclined to stay in one spot for very long.

A colleague of Major’s had promised to radio the plane the moment Tom had emerged from surgery and was stable, and an hour before they had touched down in Washington, while those around him were lined up for the lavatory, a fresh-faced flight attendant had handed him a folded slip of paper with the news. It had been too soon for a long-range prognosis, however.

Croaker had phoned Margarite from the gigantic octopus of Dulles Airport.

“Lew, what—”

“No time, honey,” he had said breathlessly. “I want you to get Francie and get on the road.”

“But I—”

“Do as I say!” It had taken all his willpower not to shout it at her. His heart was hammering in his chest. If Bad Clams had made an attempt to hit him in London, could his threat to take Margarite’s life be far behind? He didn’t know, but he could not take the chance. “Take a couple of muscle boys with you.”

“Lew, you’ve got to tell me
something.”

“Margarite—”

“For the love of God, Lew, are you all right?”

“For the moment, but let’s just say your enemy has become my enemy.”

“Caesare?”

“Bingo. Please, Margarite, do as I ask.”

“Yes, of course, but, Lew—”

“Give my love to Francie,” he said hurriedly as he quartered the terminal again with his eyes. “When you get to wherever it is you’re going, call me and leave a message.” He gave her the Looking-Glass phone number. “But
don’t
leave an address. Find a phone booth and leave its number along with a time each day when you’ll be there, okay?”

“Yes, yes, but Lew—God, don’t hang up yet. Lew?”

He could hear her quick breathing. He had frightened her. Good. She’d take the necessary precautions now.

“I love you, whatever happens, whatever—”

“I love you.” He closed his eyes, imagining her, as if he could will her to be beside him. He wanted more than anything else to kiss her, hold her close, keep her safe from harm. Instead, he lowered the receiver into its chrome cradle.

He took a moment to compose himself, then he phoned Senator Dedalus.

“I need access to the DARPA facility.”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“London,” Croaker said, knowing the senator was doing a tap dance while his computerlike brain worked on why Croaker would need access to DARPA.

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“When you get me inside the facility, I’ll be able to tell you.”

“Shit, man, DARPA has a dozen facilities. Which one do you want to get into?”

Right now, Dedalus was right in the bull’s-eye of suspects who had compromised a critical government security agency. Someone was feeding DARPA product—that is, prototype weaponry that was far beyond state-of-the-art—to Rock and Mick Leonforte in their Floating City outside Saigon. It couldn’t be Mick’s father, Johnny Leonforte, aka Leon Waxman, because he was dead. And though Croaker couldn’t be certain until he vetted him, it was odds-on that Serman wasn’t running the program himself.

Vesper was involved and she worked for Dedalus; the late Dominic Goldoni had been involved and he had been friends with Dedalus; Margarite was involved and she had been introduced to Dedalus by her brother. There was only one name that kept reappearing.

He hadn’t planned to tell the senator Serman’s identity, but he could see now he had no other choice. He desperately needed to get his hands on Vesper and make her talk about where exactly Mikio Okami was in London.

Torch...

The horrifying specter of the impending disaster in London on the ides hung like a guillotine at the back of his neck. He could already hear the whisper of the thick blade as it hurtled down its prescribed track. Only thirty-six hours left until detonation.

“I heard a man named Serman mentioned in London in connection with the investigation. It may be nothing, Senator, but I can’t afford to overlook any lead.”

“Are you sure it’s Serman’s name you heard? Dr. Douglas Serman?”

“Quite sure.”

Dedalus grunted. “All right. I’ll send a detail of my men with you.”

“You do and I’ll clear the area by the most direct route possible. You have feds blundering around in the bushes outside Serman’s office and I guarantee you he’ll be so scared he’ll clam up tight.”

Dedalus seemed to think about this for some time. At last, he relented, giving Croaker specific directions to the DARPA lab for experimental nucleonics.

He knew he had taken an enormous risk going to the senator with the DARPA connection. On the other hand, what other choice had he had? He had neither the location of Serman nor access to him without Dedalus. Besides, if Dedalus was the mainspring of this particular timepiece, the information about Serman would make him nervous. It was Croaker’s experience that, more often than not, nervous men made precipitous moves. It was usually all the edge he needed because it was all he got. For instance, Dedalus had not mentioned that DARPA was a top-secret national security program. Also, he hadn’t brought up the meeting Croaker was supposed to have had with Vesper that never happened. Croaker wondered whether the senator knew that his operative had been in London at the same time as Croaker had been.