Collector of Secrets (24 page)

With a sense of foreboding, Max stepped from the Ginza Line subway car before pressing through the platform crowd to hug the gritty tiled wall. He couldn’t recall if the U.S. Homeland Security level was Yellow or Orange. No recent terror attacks came to mind, but then he hadn’t really been paying attention to the newspaper the last few days. Being chased by madmen had that effect. He tested his sore ankle by rotating it, noticing that even with all the activity, it was finally starting to feel better. Standing between two glossy cosmetics posters, he scanned above the crowd. Nothing seemed unusual. He thought how odd it was that he could be so paranoid, even in a crowd of millions.

The city’s morning commute was tapering off, but the flow of people in both directions was still unbroken. From overhead, a recorded female voice bounced off Toranomon Station’s low ceiling.

Max’s gaze swept the area as he moved to a stairwell. Climbing the steps, he approached the top at exit number five, mere blocks from the embassy.

Just stay on the opposite sidewalk from the police and get inside the gate. The
Yakuza
won’t come around here, and there should be other Americans heading to work, so it’ll be easier getting lost in the crowd.

He rose to sidewalk level and slowed as he peered out, but the unrelenting crowd jostling past threatened to push him onward before he felt ready to move. A patch of morning sky revealed broken white clouds on a light blue canvas. Traffic was creeping past as a construction crew hammered on the road to his left, and heavily fortified barricades could be seen several hundred yards up the road.

Max felt himself unconsciously flinch, pressing tighter against the wall at his side. Something was out of place. Twenty paces away, a dozen police officers were standing on the curving sidewalk in the direction of the U.S. Embassy. They were blocking most of the walkway, and pedestrians were being forced onto the street’s edge to navigate around the group.

The group’s attention was focused on a man standing directly in front of them. Max couldn’t see his face, but he was dressed in a knee-length, olive green trench coat. He appeared to be addressing the officers while holding a clipboard, rotating it so all the men could see. With his free hand, he motioned in the air as if indicating the height of a tall person. The uniformed officers nodded at every statement. All of them were unusually attentive. In fact, they seemed apprehensive.

The sharp, goose-like honk of a passing truck drew the attention of the group. The truck trumpeted at a miniature car trying in vain to squeeze past the construction work. As the Japanese man in the trench coat turned his head, Max could see that he had a trim black mustache and appeared to be in his late thirties.

The shouting truck driver continued cursing out his window until an officer blew his whistle and motioned for order. The commotion seemed to signal an end to the meeting, and the mustached leader pressed the clipboard against his leg before bowing slightly. Turning swiftly, he strode toward the subway entrance. It would be mere seconds before he reached the top of the stairs.

Max flipped his hoodie up onto his head and took a couple of steps back down into the station. He wasn’t sure why he felt so anxious. Maybe it was just his nerves getting the better of him, but he chose to trust his gut. Turning, he raced back the way he’d come, entering the tunnel to his right. The only place to go was the newspaper kiosk, by the far wall at the tunnel’s end. He grabbed the closest magazine, opening it to shield his face as he slouched down. Seconds ticked by while he remained motionless, noticing the veins in his neck pulsing.

The guy must have walked past me by now.

Max lowered the magazine an inch and peered over the top. The olive green trench coat was standing right next to him.

Shit!
His body stiffened in anticipation of an attack.

Tense seconds ticked by while a stream of people continued to pour through the lobby.

Lowering the magazine a little further, Max could now see that the man’s back was facing him. He had bent over, attempting to leaf through some newspapers with one hand while being jostled by other customers purchasing cigarettes and candy bars. Frustrated with his inability to find what he wanted, the man set down his clipboard and used both hands.

Max felt his cheeks flush as a fresh wave of panic punched him in the gut. On the clipboard, staring back was a full-size photograph of his own face. He jerked the magazine up. The urge to run felt overwhelming. It screamed and rattled inside his brain, almost drowning out the little voice in the back of his head that commanded him to remain stone-still.

He stood paralyzed for what seemed an eternity, until finally the kiosk owner’s angry voice forced him to lower his shield. Behind the counter, the owner was forming two fingers into a circle, demanding payment. Dropping the magazine, Max turned and scanned the busy subway lobby. The mustached man was nowhere in sight.

I was right!
The police are hunting for me.

Max rushed to the nearby ticket machine, sorting hastily through the coins in his pocket while glancing uneasily around the station. His own suspicions had been confirmed, and it was a pretty sure bet that if the cops were looking for him then they were also looking for Tomoko. He needed to get back to the Love Hotel right away and warn her. They had to find somewhere safer to hide.

VINCENT LEMOINE dozed in a half sleep. His facemask and earplugs insulated him from the surrounding first-class passengers. Lying prone in 2A, he could feel the comforting pulse of the 777-300ER’s powerful dual engines vibrating up through the flatbed seat. It was certainly a far cry from the military transports he’d taken a quarter century earlier as a young Navy Seal.

Pulled into the CIA’s Black Ops program at twenty-four, he had resigned fifteen years later, having been approached quietly by Senator Andrew McCloy. The good representative from Tennessee had set forth an offer that Vincent couldn’t refuse. It was an opportunity to serve God and country, but more importantly, the chance to earn a boatload of cash in just ten years. The Freedom 50 plan—retiring to the French countryside—could be a reality. And so Vincent had bitten.

In the years after World War II, General Douglas MacArthur’s office had charted a shadowy network of global informants. There was always someone close to those in power willing to do the job—easy money for very little work. Each man’s single task was to monitor chatter within his designated area. Anything that could threaten to reveal the past’s dark secrets or blow open the unsavory actions of the present was to be reported. The informants were instructed to take no direct action. They were simply required to dispatch information to a central location. The appropriate course would be determined only after careful analysis. The Code’s strict communications protocols were designed and implemented—and thus the role of “Lloyd Elgin” was born. Over the decades, the hitmen who monitored the chatter and acted on the reports each bore the same working name.

Vincent’s mind ran back over his predecessor’s encrypted data files. The last trip to Tokyo had been eighteen years earlier. At the time, it appeared that former Prime Minister Takeshita’s fifty-eight-year-old secretary, Mr. Ihei Aoki, was getting ready to talk publicly—the prime minister had just resigned over the “Recruit” bribery scandal.

The former Lloyd Elgin had found the distraught secretary face down in a karaoke watering hole and had befriended him. After several rounds of drinks, Ihei Aoki grinned and whispered to his new American friend that he was going to change the landscape of Japanese and U.S. politics forever. He would reveal truths that would make the current scandal look insignificant.

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 26, 1989, the two men had stumbled from the bar together. But only one of them was actually drunk. The former Lloyd convinced the intoxicated Aoki-
san
that they should walk back to his apartment instead of taking a taxi. The remainder of the electronic file revealed an almost gleeful telling of the assisted suicide. While the American was efficient and effective, he also harbored a sadistic joy when it came to death’s delivery. Back at the apartment, the drunken secretary had passed out repeatedly. Each time he was revived, a razor was carefully returned to his hand. The sympathetic voice in his ear urged him to bear responsibility for Japan’s fallen leader. A death with honor was the right thing to do. After seventeen futile attempts, there was blood everywhere. A necktie and a curtain rod finished the job.

V
incent felt a hand gently touch his shoulder, triggering him to remove his sleeping mask. Standing in the aisle next to his seat was an ANA flight attendant. She was grinning like a love-struck schoolgirl as she touched her lower lip and whispered in perfect English, “Mr. Elgin, we are going to be serving breakfast soon. Shall I bring you something now? Anything? Coffee perhaps?”

He nodded his head and then watched her walk slowly and seductively toward the airplane’s cockpit. A little mile-high action would be an excellent way to wake, he thought, but he couldn’t draw undue attention to himself. And besides, there was his beautiful new wife to think about. In a year’s time, he would be unshackled from his work, and they would be living in a Provence villa.

Vincent stretched his muscular torso before walking the several steps forward to the lavatory.

Warm water splashed his tanned face while he mentally refocused on the job ahead. Staring into his own eyes, he whispered into the bathroom mirror, “Now is not the time to get sloppy, pal. Until you’re back in Washington, your only goal is to confirm if there’s a problem, and then eliminate it.”

JUN’S HULKING frame paced along the stark edges of the dimly lit underground room; a single bare bulb illuminating a spot near the windowless metal entrance. The damp concrete walls were closing in all around, and he struggled to shake off the bad night’s sleep on the cold floor. Besides the two thin mattresses against the back wall—Hiro lying nearly invisible on one—the only other furniture was two chairs and a wooden table in the room’s center. The natural, unfinished top appeared stained, as if ink had been poured in abstract patterns over its rough surface.

Flicking his fingertips lightly over his face, Jun felt the dried blood that had formed on the field of tiny cuts. Yesterday’s chase had gone from bad to worse. Not only had the
Gaijin
slipped away, but they’d had to leave Oto’s van nose-down in the ditch. Hiking west into the forests of the Hakone Mountains had seemed logical at the time, at least until it grew dark and the temperature began dropping.

Finally finding a narrow country road, they had been able to direct a pickup car to their location. Within minutes, elation turned to trepidation as the driver stated that Oto wanted to see them, and he wasn’t happy. Several hours later, the sedan pulled into the underground parking garage of the Yebisu Garden Terrace. But instead of being marshaled to the elevator, the driver locked them overnight on the P5 level of the complex.

Jun stopped pacing as the rusting lock on the door cranked open with a groan. One of Oto’s bodyguards entered the room, followed by the great man himself, dressed in a purple velvet tracksuit. The aging leader looked as if he could have been out for a leisurely morning stroll. Oto pointed at Jun and barked a command. “Sit!”

The bodyguard dragged Hiro to his feet and shoved him roughly him into the second chair.

Oto paced in the meager pool of light. His dog-tag chains slapped against his protruding belly. “You greatly disappoint me. I gave you a simple task. ‘Go and get me a book.’ Is that so hard?” Saliva clung to his lower lip. “I guess so, because you let a boy pluck it from your grasp. Then I asked you to follow his girlfriend and find him . . . and the result is that you jump the wrong
Gaijin
.” Oto’s deep voice rose and echoed inside the cave. “And finally, I send you to the Izu for a second chance to get it back. What do you do? You kill an old lady, smash a few police cars, and abandon my van.”

Even in the dim light, Jun could see the heavy veins protruding from Oto’s neck. “Father, we tried—”

“Don’t speak, boy! Excuses are not what I’m looking for.”

The hinges on the metal door sang out of key as the second bodyguard entered the room. Bowing at the waist, he handed a dagger to Oto, then stepped back away. Sliding the simple knife from its metal sheath, Oto walked to the center of the room. He jabbed the dagger into the center of the table, where it stood upright.