When she felt that she had accomplished everything she presently could at the computer in her father's office, Meiko left the factory grounds, politely requesting Sachito Kurita's waiting chauffeur to return home without her. She then walked for several blocks through the industrial area, following a gate guard's directions toward the nearest subway station. A block from the factory, she tapped in a number on her cell phone. She and Trev, through the nature of their separate professions, each had access to highly secure phone numbers that were inaccessible to most. They had agreed to never use these numbers for communication except in the cases of extreme importance, and neither had communicated via this number.
Galt answered on the first ring.
"Hello, Meiko." His caller ID tabbed her, of course. "Are you all right?" Concern rippled beneath his words across the connection.
"I've been busy."
She spoke as she walked. She passed a lumberyard where a forklift made beeping sounds as it backed up.
"I thought you were going to spend the day with your stepmother," said Galt, hearing the beeping as the sound receded. "Doesn't sound like you're at a wake."
"I'm not. I went to work, Trev, investigating. I need to see you. We need to talk."
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"I have something. I don't care how secure this line is. I need to tell you. I need to see you."
Hesitation brought crisp dead air across the connection.
"All right," he said finally. "I'm here with a friend. We were under hostile surveillance, so we initiated evasive measures. I'm not in Tokyo, but I'm close. Okay, here's where I am. And make sure you're not followed."
"All part of my investigative training." She tried to sound light, but could hear the apprehension in her own voice.
He gave her an address. They disconnected. She walked on to catch the shosen, the Tokyo subway, which was mobbed as usual. She transferred to the commuter line to Yokohama. An electric, super-express "bullet train" departed every twelve minutes. Despite this, the train she rode was so packed that she had to stand the whole way among chattering, swaying passengers crowding in against her from every side. Twenty minutes later, she was hurrying down the steps of the Yokohama Station, and was soon in a taxi heading south on the parkway along the edge of the immense harbor. She checked periodically with a trained eye, but could discern no trace of anyone following her.
Yokohama and its harbor were shrouded in the city's ever-present metallic gray smog. Many people she saw wore surgical masks as part of their standard attire. Tokyo Bay was crammed with shipping and small craft, from foreign vessels of trade to pleasure yachts and ferries to the ancient, ageless sampans. Row upon row of freighters were lined up, waiting at busy docks that bustled with cranes and work crews.
The "safe house" was a one-story warehouse of corrugated steel, located one block in from the docks, anonymous amid the commercial hubbub of the busy waterfront district. A modest, CIA-fronted import-export business made a show of picking up and then delivering the same stepvan full of crates, twice per week. The safe house was primarily a CIA message drop operated by Todd Smathers who, with his straw hair and freckles, had all the field seasoning of a military school cadet. Smathers had seemed somehow intimidated, and managed to make himself scarce after showing them the place, leaving a key like a realtor sealing a deal. This was fine with Galt. The interior of the warehouse was cavernous. Wooden crates were stacked along one wall. There was a small office with a desk, sofas and a coffee table. A pair of sleeping bags was rolled up in one corner; in another was a locked, oblong box that held weaponry ranging from pistols to rifles, with ammunition. The back wall of a "clothes closet" was the doorway to a small, hidden room, the message center and communications relay drop, crammed with miniature electronic equipment.
Galt and General Turtle were in the office, standing over the desk and studying maps and paperwork spread out across the desk's surface, when the code sounded from the buzzer at the side door, around the corner from the presently closed-off loading dock facing the street. When he opened the door to let her in and she brushed close by him, Galt was aware of the way his senses seemed to sharpen as they always did in her presence. Something about this beautiful woman stimulated him at every level, even at a time like this. She had changed from the funeral black he had last seen her in to a sedate, Western-style skirt and black blouse. He glanced out along the backtrack, but saw no sign of anything suspicious in the alley running alongside this warehouse. He closed and locked the door, then turned to embrace her.
"How are you doing, Meiko?"
"I haven't slowed down enough yet to find out."
They naturally broke the embrace. She exuded her usual air of crisp efficiency. But he knew her well enough to see in her eyes her grief for her father. Yet the coolheaded keenness in her eyes was real, too. She wore a small black purse by a shoulder strap, and held a standard-sized business envelope.
Tuttle approached, having allotted them sufficient personal time. It had taken some explaining from Galt, about his relationship with Meiko, to justify his telling her about the location of this safe house. The general hadn't made a row but he hadn't looked comfortable with it either, and he didn't look pleased now, as Galt made the introductions.
Tuttle did not extend his hand. "I wish I could be more cordial, miss, but I don't like the security of this safe house compromised by the presence of a representative of the news media." He spoke the term as if it were an epithet, with a harsh glance at Trev. She had obviously interrupted a heated debate.
She lifted her chin, and locked eyes with the general. "I can assure you, sir, that your security is not compromised."
"We'll see."
"The information I have will better enable you to carry out your mission."
Turtle was clearly impressed with the forthright response, but remained gruff. He sent Galt a sideways glance. "This whole damn operation is unorthodox."
Galt chuckled. "I hear resignation in your voice, sir." He looked at Meiko, and got serious. "So you've been at work. Something we have to hear in person, and here you are."
"Here's what I have." She handed the envelope to Galt. "Hardcopy to save you time."
She told them about overhearing the conversation in the cemetery between Anami and Ugaki. She told them that Ugaki was Oyabun of the Red Scorpion Clan, that the conversation between them at the cemetery, after Galt left, was confrontational, had seemed to her to be obscenely improper at her father's funeral. She concluded by telling them the key words she had overhead: her father's name, the word "intercept" spoken in Japanese, and the word "Liberty," spoken in English.
Turtle frowned when she was done. "The 'intercept' part is new."
"They intercepted the shuttle," she said as a statement, not a question. She locked eyes with Galt. "Was my father involved?"
"We don't know yet. But we do know that Ota Anami is in bed with the yakuza."
She looked disappointed. "You knew about the yakuza?"
"Sorry. We've been tracking that connection since Houston, but so far without much success. They used a stripper from one of their Tokyo joints to set up a NASA scientist as part of the operation to bring down the shuttle."
"I saw the news on TV in the terminal on my way here," she said, "but there was nothing about the shuttle's disappearance being engineered. Is such a thing possible?"
"It's not only possible," Galt told her, "it's what happened. That's why we're here."
Her eyes clouded. "Did you use my father's death and our relationship just as a cover to come to Japan?"
"Hey," Tuttle growled, "this is no time for a spat between lovebirds," he glared at Galt, "no matter how justified. And everything about the shuttle is classified information, Miss Kurita, and you are a journalist."
"Hey yourself," said Meiko, sharply. "My leave of absence has been cancelled. Hakura News has me on a Concorde tonight, flying back to the States. They wanted me on an earlier flight, but I held off long enough to personally deliver to you the information I uncovered. All right, Trev and I can pass on the personal matters for now. But my point is that I didn't go to Hakura News with what I learned about Anami and the yakuza. Believe I've earned a right to be trusted."
"She's right, General," said Galt. Before Tuttle could respond, he continued to Meiko, "We've just received a background package on the yakuza. The Red Scorpion Clan is quite old. Their traditional power base has always been right here in Yokohama Harbor."
"Then the Red Scorpion yakuza is involved in the downing of the shuttle?"
"We decided to get out of Dodge, I mean Tokyo, for awhile," Tuttle said in a stiff voice. "We came here to process intel, organize and strategize."
"Sounds impressive," said Meiko, obviously not impressed in the least, "and rather vague." She scrutinized Galt, watching for his reaction. "Is Kurita Industries involved?" she asked. She swallowed hard. "Was my father involved?"
"We're going to Tokyo tonight to find out," said Galt, "as soon as it gets dark."
The penthouse conference room was atop the Tanaga Building, a thirty-four-story structure of tinted glass, chrome and smooth stonework towering above Exchange Avenue in downtown Tokyo. Branches of American corporations, ranging from Coca Cola to the Chase Manhattan Bank, were located in this neighborhood that was dominated architecturally by the Sony Building, which resembled the UN. Building and was nearly as large.
Galt and Tuttle crouched in the murky shadows atop a canopied entrance to the building's underground parking garage. Each man wore casual civilian attire that just happened to be dark so as to meld with the murky shadows. Galt wore a 9mm Beretta concealed in a shoulder holster beneath his jacket. Tuttle carried an innocuous-appearing tote bag over one shoulder. Their position was some fourteen feet off the ground, separated from a side street by a circular blacktop driveway used for deliveries during business hours.
Lights were on in the Tanaga Building, office workers putting in overtime. The night was alive with traffic noise and the miscellaneous sounds of every city at night. But their position atop the canopy was a pocket of isolation.
They had climbed atop the canopy without effort. Despite his age and longtime desk jockey status, the general kept himself in prime physical shape.
Tuttle glanced up along the sleek, incredible height of the building. "You can't even see the penthouse from down here. It's like Jack's beanstalk on steroids."
"Pardon me, sir, but this is no time for idle pissing and moaning. If I want to listen in on that meeting, I'd better start climbing."
The CIA man, Smathers, had facilitated the highly illegal monitoring of cell phone traffic between Ugaki and the new CEO of Kurita Industries, Anami. Codes were obviously used in their conversation, and it had been reported that afternoon by Smathers' street operatives that the two men met in preparation for some sort of conclave scheduled to be held in this executive penthouse on this night. Of that much, Smathers' intelligence analysts were certain. Turtle, of course, had instructed Smathers that not a hint of this be leaked to any member of any Japanese law enforcement agency. What could be learned at tonight's meeting was exactly what Galt had come to Japan to find, and he was in no mood to share. Doing so would stack the odds against him. Like any good crime boss, Ugaki would have moles and bought-off corrupt cops on his payroll and would cancel the meeting had lie gotten even a whiff that law enforcement was aware of it. Ugaki would set an ambush if he'd learned that Galt was coming to eavesdrop. Either of these developments would be counter-productive in the extreme. A shuttle was down. Military powers were rattling sabers, positioning for conflict. And the ones who had conspired to bring this about so as to reap illicit profits in the untold billions of dollars were gathering to discuss the next phase of their operation. Galt could hardly allow this opportunity for intelligence gathering to slip by.
Turtle set down his tote bag, unzipping it.
"Pissing and moaning?" He handed Galt a device about the size of a matchbox, which Galt attached to his belt. Tuttle then dropped a small lapel mic and earpiece into Galt's palm, both of which Galt properly affixed. "Galt, you're about to climb up the face of a skyscraper." He next withdrew and handed over the hand and foot suction-climbing devices that had been requisitioned through his military connections and delivered to the safe house in Yokohama just before they'd left. Tuttle grumbled as he watched Galt securely strap the pads to his shoes and palms. "You do realize that if these babies decide to malfunction, they'll be shoveling you off the street."
Galt checked the fit and feel of the climbing devices, and donned the foot and hand devices. "In that case, tell them that my last words were: 'I'm sorry for blocking traffic'"
Galt approached the base of the wall of the building. Wearing the foot devices, he clumped along with the awkwardness of the Frankenstein monster.
Tuttle looked down to zip the tote bag. He looked up and saw that Galt, an apparition in black, was already scaling up past the second story of the sheer wall and climbing fast, hand over hand, up across the glass and steel. Tuttle scanned the immediate area surrounding his position. He observed minimal vehicular and pedestrian traffic on this side street.
A bright green commuter train rumbled over a nearby intersection.
Tuttle said into his lapel mic, "Good luck, man. Damn but it feels great to be back in the field again. Tell the truth, son, it makes my dick hard."
"Glad you're having a good time, sir." Galt's reply was wry in Turtle's earpiece.
Galt curtailed the conversation, expending considerable physical effort in sustaining his upward mo mentum. He climbed methodically, relentlessly, up the face of the building, feeling more now like Spider-man than Frankenstein. Insistent wind gusts tugged at his hair. He realized amidst all of the sensation and thought that every fiber of his being felt alive. True, it had been awhile since he'd given up drinking, but he realized that on this mission he was shedding that old life like a snake shedding its skin. He felt reborn, and pleased. He still had the edge. The damn desk job in Washington hadn't stolen his abilities, his gifts. He had never felt more alive. The physical stress to his muscles as he climbed only enhanced the sensation of living.
Central Tokyo sprawled out endlessly beneath him in every direction. Smog blanketed the basin, muting its lights, but he could still see Tokyo Tower, the moat and the grounds of the Emperor's Palace. The corporate logos on surrounding buildings were a who's who of Japanese capitalism: Nissan Motors, Fuji Heavy Industries, Mitsubishi Steel.
Bells chimed nearby, and for some peculiar reason, breathing heavily with his task, passing what he counted as the twenty-second floor, Galt found himself recalling the day he and Kate were married by a judge in that small-town red brick courthouse. As they were leaving the brief and modest ceremony in the kindly judge's chambers, workmen outside, who were restoring an old bell tower atop the courthouse, called out their congratulations and began gonging the antique brass bell for the whole world to hear. Wedding bells for the newlyweds. The world had welcomed these lovers. He blinked away the memory.
He reached the windows of the penthouse. The spacious conference room had bookcases along one wall and windows along the others. A long polished oak table dominated the room.
A man he recognized as Rikihei Ugaki was seated at the head of the table. The Oyabun looked sharp, dapper in a white silk suit. Galt also "made" the other men in their well-tailored business suits, seated around the table: kobun, the Red Scorpion Clan's top lieutenants and station chiefs. Each man sat with his left hand on the left knee, his right hand extended palm upward with his eyes turned to their Oyabun, the traditional yakuza sign of respect.
Galt's foot and hand suction pads securing his weight, he pasted himself against the face of the building, just below and to the side of the window, so that only his left eye peered into the room, at approximately eye-level.
Those present, including Ugaki who sat facing the window from the far end of the conference table, were wholly involved in a drama unfolding at the conference table. Even these most jaded of human sharks found the illusion of security in this cocoon, aloft on the thirty-fourth floor, which is why Galt had chosen this manner of gathering intelligence. Unfortunately, he was "dropping in" about twenty minutes into their conference. Galt needed the cover of night. Anyone spotted scaling a skyscraper would surely draw attention during the daylight hours. On the other hand, he suspected that the first part of this meeting would be the ceremonial greeting of the Oyabun as each of the kobun arrived individually, in order of their rank within the organization. And so he and Turtle had chosen to wait until night cloaked the city. He was hoping that he had only missed the introduction ceremonies and the customary serving of sake.
He used his feet suction pads, and that of his left hand, to maintain his adhesion to the sheer face of the skyscraper. He undipped a small microphone component from the device at his belt and attached the mic to the window. With its miniature suction cup to the glass, it looked like a child's dart. Galt heard guttural exchanges in Japanese between two of the men seated at the table. Japanese was one of the six languages in which he was fluent.
Far below, Tuttle would be keeping watch. There was the building's normal security staff, which was minimal. Far more importantly, there was the collective security force of Ugaki and his yakuza. The interior of the Tanaga Building, every hallway, would be thick with them. Ugaki could have the outside of the building under surveillance from street level or from surrounding buildings. The worst-case scenario was that they would be equipped with infrared Night Vision Devices, in which case they would see him. That was the risk. But he had come halfway around the world to find Kate. Too far to be dissuaded by the element of risk.
At the conference table, amenities and ceremonial greetings were past.
Ota Anami, seated at Ugaki's right, was engaged in heated debate with a man who sat opposite him, to Ugaki's left. "We have invested too much time and resources to double-cross the Korean, this Colonel Sung, now," Anami was saying. The CEO had a softness about him that looked out of place amid the others seated at the table, but he spoke with authority. "The airfield has been monitored through every phase, has it not?" Anami nodded deferentially to the dapper man, who sat unmoving, implacable, statue-like, at the head of the table. "Most often it has been Oyabun Ugaki who flew into North Korea at great personal risk to supervise Colonel Sung's preparations. Sung will gain possession of the shuttle before the Americans or the Chinese or the North Koreans, because he is the nearest one to it. He will not betray us, because he fears the power of yakuza. It is a matter of honor."
Despite longstanding and deeply rooted inter-clan warfare among some of these men, an officious air of business permeated the room in observance of enryo, a highly respected part of the Japanese culture: the code of proper conduct, which emphasizes reserve, restraint and emotional control.
"Honor." There was scorn in the opposing gangster's tone. "I disdain the notion of letting the Korean live. They are not people, but one step above baboons in intellect and honor. Sung has fulfilled his purpose. We should kill him and take command of his troops. Events will overtake themselves in a situation as fluid and volatile as this. Sung could be persuaded by his superiors to tell them everything. He must be eliminated at this crucial phase."
There was no surprise to Galt that a Japanese gangster would not trust a North Korean. Koreans were essentially the Asian "blacks" of Japan. Discrimination in Japan is subtle, never mentioned to foreigners, but it is common. The Japanese do their best to isolate those of Korean heritage from the mainstream of society, segregating them into ghettos like Heuisa Street, with housing projects and their own shopping areas.
At the conference table, all eyes remained on Ugaki who considered, at some length and without comment, what he had just heard.
This made for dead calm in Galt's earpiece. From his birdlike perch, so far removed from street level, he again vaguely heard the sound of the city, which, at this height, was merely a faint, metallic cacophony.
"You are both persuasive in your points of view,"
Ugaki said finally. "At this stage, I concur with Anami-san. It is not yet time for the removal of Colonel Sung. I will personally take possession of the, uh, merchandise after the colonel has possession of it, and I will oversee its importation into Japan. Colonel Sung is in preparation to attack and eliminate Chai Bin. Retrieval of the shuttle is imminent." Ugaki paused and smirked. "I will deal with Colonel Sung at the appropriate time, after he truly has fulfilled his usefulness." He glanced at the yakuza who had argued with Anami. "Doing so will eliminate the only connection to us from within North Korea, and their government will take the blame internationally."
The yakuza being addressed responded respectfully to his Oyabun.
Galt could hear nothing. The breeze whispered along these heights of the building wall and played with his hair, but his earpiece had gone dead; no speaking in Japanese, no static, just flat-out dead. He considered breaking radio silence with Tuttle.
Before he could say anything into his lapel mic, the doors of the conference room were flung open. Shouting men poured in carrying weapons, everything from pistols to automatic weapons to shotguns, with bodyguards shouting and gesticulating empathetically with a sense of urgency to the men seated at the table.
Ugaki was on his feet, head held erect, arms crossed authoritatively, concentrating on the window dominating the wall before him while the kobun around him and a frightened Anami scrambled for cover.
The bodyguards collectively tracked their weapons at the window and opened fire.