“This was captured by a Japanese news helicopter. Randi, I think you’ll recognize the building.”
“Noboru’s house.”
Klein nodded. “The blaze started about fifteen minutes after you were taken away.”
“Can I assume that he and his men were inside?”
“It would appear so. Obviously, the bodies are badly damaged but an initial autopsy suggests no sign of smoke inhalation. They were dead before the blaze started.”
“What about the men driving the car we were in?” Smith asked. “Did they work for Noboru?”
“I don’t think so. There wasn’t much time, but I had one of my men take a photo and the index finger of the driver—”
“The index finger?” Randi said, sounding impressed.
“I like to be thorough. Unfortunately, neither the photo, nor the fingerprint, nor a DNA analysis has revealed anything. Beyond his being of Japanese descent, I can’t tell you anything about that man. He doesn’t seem to exist.”
“What about the Japanese authorities?”
“Complete silence on the issue. My men shot up a car in heavy traffic, killing four men, and it’s like it never happened.”
“Like it never happened?” Smith said. “That takes a lot of juice in an age of cell phones and Twitter.”
He started coughing and put a hand to his mouth. It came back spattered with blood. Not much, though. It looked residual.
“Look, Jon. We’re going to get out of here and let you sleep. You focus on getting well and when the doctor gives the okay—hopefully in a few days—I’ll put you on a jet home. We can talk more then.”
16
Beijing
China
The military had closed the road to cars but pedestrians were being allowed to pass freely through the barricades.
The angry crowd had grown to over ten thousand people and Randi Russell was pretty sure that she’d collided with at least half of them. The wind direction changed and the familiar smog was reinforced by the smoke from a series of burning Japanese flags. The spike heels she was wearing weren’t exactly her first choice for massive political demonstrations, but she still managed to avoid getting run over by a pedal-powered food cart before finding some relatively clear sidewalk to the north.
Protests like this were breaking out all over China, driven by social media posts that were being selectively ignored by the government censors who spent their lives eradicating any hint of dissent from the Internet.
Of course the requisite soldiers had still been sent. There was no way the corrupt old men who ran China would let a gathering this size develop without the presence of the military. As long as the anger was aimed at their neighbor to the east, though, there would be no interference. In fact, a few soldiers had joined in and were shouting anti-Japanese slogans with at least as much gusto as the civilians around them. The difference was that instead of pumping their fists in the air, they were pumping rifles. It was an image that even Randi found disturbing. This situation had been heading nowhere good for a long time, and now the recent Senkaku standoff had combined with the attempt on Masao Takahashi’s life to fan the flame. It was time for the politicians on both sides to dump a bucket of cold water on this thing—but she doubted that would happen anytime soon. There was nothing like a little xenophobic paranoia to keep the rabble motivated.
She skirted a banner with a Photoshop-generated picture of Takahashi’s corpse and made a beeline for a high-rise condo building across the street.
A security guard nervously watching the demonstration through glass doors let her in and then quickly locked them inside. The shouts and bullhorn-amplified diatribes subsided a bit, but enough still penetrated to stave off any illusion of calm or normalcy.
Two more security guards admired her as she teetered toward their desk, digging a lipstick from the huge leather bag on her arm.
“Hey, y’all,” she said, further reddening already garish lips. “I’m here to visit Li Wong.”
She purposely mangled the pronunciation of Kaito Yoshima’s Chinese name, but the guards just smiled. His passion for Western blondes would be well-known to them.
They told her in Chinese to go up and she squinted at them, affecting a deep expression of concentration. That got another grin from the men and they just motioned toward the back of the lobby.
“You’re sweethearts,” she said, starting toward the elevators. “Have a terrific day, now!”
She could feel them staring but who could blame them? She’d gone all out with the miniskirt—glittery silver and short enough that it took all her discipline not to keep tugging it down. The look was completed by huge silver hoop earrings and a vest made of a fur she couldn’t identify. Considering the market she’d bought it at, rat was her best guess.
Randi watched the numbers light up as she rode to the top floor, grateful that no one else got on. Though she’d been blessed with the body and face for it, she found this persona exhausting. The hijab disguise had made her lazy.
When the doors opened, no one was in sight. There were only four condos on this floor, keeping traffic to a minimum. Of course there were cameras and she had no doubt the guards were watching, probably entertaining themselves with graphic speculation about what Yoshima’s evening with this particular blonde would involve. She guessed that their imaginations were probably a lot less interesting than what reality would hold.
Randi dug in her bag for a key card and then pulled out her cell phone, pretending to pick up a call as she shoved the key into the lock. She feigned annoyance and bent over to examine the doorknob, presenting what she calculated would be a fair amount of the white thong she’d purchased for that very purpose.
It would keep the men’s attention away from the thin wire connecting her phone to the key card and the fact that it was taking the algorithm longer than normal to find the entry code. Leave it to Yoshima to upgrade his damn security.
After an excruciating ten seconds, the red light on the door flickered to green.
“Show’s over,” she said under her breath as she straightened up and stepped into the dark condo.
Her heart rate rose noticeably when she slid the silenced Glock from her purse and pushed the door quietly closed with her back.
She’d run into Yoshima on a number of occasions but they’d never had any reason to go at it. He was a bit of an odd guy—a unique combination of intellectual, philosophical, and ridiculously dangerous. She imagined that it was the result of him being forced into the spy business as a child as opposed to choosing the profession himself. It was a background that could create personalities pretty far from the norm. She had a pretty good nose for people in her business and even she would have probably pegged him as a history professor or engineer if they happened to meet in a bar.
There was no sound at all and the place had the smell of having been closed up for a while. After almost a minute of complete motionlessness, she felt along the wall for a light switch. A moment later the expansive room was illuminated in a subdued glow.
The Chinese clearly compensated their covert operatives better than the Americans. The decor was a vague take on ancient Rome but managed to avoid kitsch. The art tended more toward the modern and looked original to her eye. Sofas were unblemished leather, and the crystal lined up on the bar looked like high-end Czech. The thing that jumped out, though, wasn’t what was there but what was missing. There wasn’t so much as a hint of anything Asian.
She kept the gun in her hand as she crossed the living room, turning down a hallway and heading for a small study that she knew was there from his CIA file. It was a little messier and more personal than the rest of the space, and she leafed disinterestedly through the papers lying on the desk. There was a laptop too, but she didn’t bother to turn it on. There wouldn’t be anything of interest on it.
Finally she turned her attention to a photograph of Yoshima and what she guessed was his mother. There was no denying that he was a good-looking guy. Beneath g
lasses his file said he didn’t need were eyes that always seemed to be looking at something he couldn’t quite fathom. A thin scar running along his left cheek gave his delicate features a certain ruggedness. If she recalled correctly, the man who gave it to him hadn’t lived long enough to see it bleed.
Yoshima had an undergraduate degree in physics that he’d gotten by going to school between missions. No one at the CIA had ever figured out why he’d bothered, but having met him a few times Randi suspected it was out of simple interest in the subject.
And that brought her to an interesting hypothesis: If China needed someone to mess with a Japanese nuclear plant, who could possibly be more perfect for the mission than Kaito Yoshima?
She wandered out of the study and into his bedroom, giving it a cursory search before peeking into the bathroom to admire a travertine shower that could have fit ten people comfortably.
The truth was that she felt a little sorry for Yoshima. He’d been torn from his family, brought up in a brutal government facility, and now regularly risked his life for a country where his Japanese features made him the target of racism, suspicion, and even hate. No wonder he liked Western blondes. They just saw Asian. Ninety-nine percent of them wouldn’t be able to tell Chinese from Japanese if you put a gun to their hair spray–encrusted heads.
She wandered back out into the living room, finding another photo of him. In this one, he was with a group of laughing people outside a bar. His smile wasn’t entirely convincing, and the eyes seemed to look right through the camera.
The agency’s analysts pegged him as clinically depressed, and based on her experience they were probably right. It was one of the things that made him such a dangerous opponent. He genuinely didn’t seem to care if he lived or died.
Randi considered riffling though a few more drawers and shelves, but then decided against it. That wasn’t why she was here.
She was here to send a message.
17
Beijing Airport
China
Kaito Yoshima handed his passport through the window and smiled easily as the control officer examined him with unveiled contempt. The standoff in the Senkaku Islands had calmed somewhat with the withdrawal of Japan’s new battleship, but his unsuccessful attempt on General Takahashi’s life had inflamed both countries. Just as he’d predicted.
Of course his superiors would run for cover. They would blame his inexplicable failure for the escalation between the two countries. As though a successful assassination would have been more palatable to the Japanese people and China would treat Takahashi’s death with solemnity instead of celebrating it in the streets.
“What is your purpose here?” the man said in halting English.
Yoshima pulled out a piece of paper covered with Chinese characters. The document said that he was an economic consultant under contract to the Chinese government. A convenient cover story for when it was impractical for him to travel under his Chinese identity.
In the past the document had made these low-level workers snap to pretty quickly, but that power seemed to be waning. Instead of handing it back to him with a curt nod, the man examined it with an expression turning from contempt to disgust.
Finally he slammed his stamp into the well-worn Japanese passport and looked past him to the German tourist next in line.
Yoshima walked through the crowded hallway toward baggage claim, spirited along by the flow of people around him.
It had been impossible to know how to react to his situation, so he’d done what he always did: taken the most dangerous course.
Now, though, he was beginning to regret his decision. There had been nothing but silence from his masters after Takahashi’s survival was confirmed by the press. And while he was confident that he would soon find himself in the role of scapegoat, there was some question as to what that meant exactly. After the inevitable flurry of politicians looking to leverage the failed assassination to further their careers, would it be quietly acknowledged that he had followed his orders to the letter and that Takahashi’s survival was a bizarre fluke? Would he receive a formal reprimand that would be completely meaningless in a profession as clandestine as his? Or would he disappear like so many of his classmates before him?
In truth, though, that wasn’t what was causing him to hang back and obsessively scan the crowd surrounding him.
No, at least in the short term, he had a much more dangerous situation to contend with.
Of course he had cameras and other security devices hidden in his condominium, each uploading to its own secure site on the Internet. He knew Randi Russell had been there, but he also knew that she’d made no effort to disable his security, disguise her identity, or even make her search look workman-like. Why? Was this her idea of a request for a parley? Or was that just what she wanted him to think? Perhaps her real goal was to draw him close enough to kill.
Yoshima felt someone press a hand against the back of his neck and then a sudden weight in his jacket pocket. He spun violently only to find the startled face of an old woman who quickly scurried into the crowd. A quick brush of his fingers beneath his collar turned up a strip of tape stuck to his skin and the small, hard bump beneath it.
A search for who had put it there would be futile, he knew. It could have been anyone—even the old woman. Randi loved criminals and he had no doubt that in a scenario like this, she would have employed one of the finest pickpockets in the country.
His jacket vibrated and he reached for the phone that had been placed there, once again letting himself be swept forward. There was little point in further caution or worry. He was entirely at the mercy of the person on the other end of the line.
“Hello, Randi.”
“Kaito—or should I say Li? Who are you today?”
“I’m Kaito.”
“The thing stuck to the back of your neck is an explosive. It’s one of our latest. Tiny, subtle, surprisingly quiet. Not qualities you appreciate apparently, but enough to snap your spine.”
He sighed quietly. Undoubtedly her words were an allusion to the massive explosion in Tokyo and the admittedly unconscionable number of innocent victims. “I suspected as much.”
“It’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you, Kaito. You’re not stupid. Did you check luggage?”
“No.”
“Come out through baggage claim. I’m in a blue BMW.”
When he stepped out onto the sidewalk, Randi leaped from the car in a silver miniskirt that bordered on the obscene. She had long blonde hair that Yoshima suspected was a wig and narrow heels that he noted would make it hard for her to move quickly—a detail he filed away in the chance it might become useful in the future.
She threw her arms around him and kissed him hard on the lips. She was hardly the first blonde to pick him up from the airport this way, and it would look completely normal to anyone who might be watching.
She had a cell phone in one hand, and he focused on it for a moment while playing along with the charade she’d crafted. Undoubtedly the detonator for the device on his neck was integrated into the phone but he had no way of knowing how it worked. Did she have to push a button? Or perhaps she was already pushing the button, and it was releasing it that would separate his vertebrae.
“Why don’t you drive, sweetie?” she said, climbing into the passenger seat and closing the door.
It started to rain while he was standing there and he walked deliberately around the back of the vehicle, tossing his hand luggage into the backseat and then slipping behind the wheel.
“It’s good to see you,” she said as they merged into traffic. “How long has it been? Four years?”
He shook his head. “You’re forgetting Cambodia.”
“Oh, God, you’re right. It was a hundred and six degrees with ninety percent humidity. And don’t even get me started on the snakes.”
“Is the car clean?” he asked.
“I got it out of the lot, so I assume it is. But with this police state you li
ve in, it’s hard to say for sure.”
“You stole it?”
“Me? You’re the one driving.” She flashed a broad smile. “Relax. I’ll return it when I catch my flight tomorrow morning.”
“After you’ve killed me?”
“For God’s sake, Kaito. Can’t a girl visit an old friend? Catch up a little?”
He didn’t respond.
“Is your condo clean?”
“Yes.”
“Great. We’ll do our catching up there.”
18
Northeastern Japan
General Masao Takahashi sat silently in the open vehicle, looking ahead at the rail it rode on disappearing into the gloom.
The tunnel was almost perfectly round and five meters in diameter, dug into a mountainside in a remote part of Japan. Widely spaced overhead lights intermittently illuminated the rock walls and the security detail seated around him. Beyond that, there was nothing.
They would descend nearly a kilometer into the earth before arriving at a set of blast doors leading to what had originally been conceived as a storage facility for Japan’s nuclear waste. After the Fukushima disaster, though, many of the country’s plants had been shut down, leaving the complex largely idle.
It was then that he’d had control transferred to the defense forces under the cover of making certain the radioactive refuse was secure. The real reason was that he needed a replacement for the Reactor Four lab that had been lost. A replacement that offered both foolproof containment and distance from prying eyes.
It took another ten minutes to reach the entrance, and Takahashi could feel the cold from the cave beginning to penetrate his uniform. Or maybe it wasn’t the temperature at all. Maybe it was something more.
The massive doors opened automatically as the vehicle approached and they glided to a stop inside. Before his takeover of the facility, this section had been lined with concrete. All that was gone now, replaced by the natural dirt and rock.