The man nodded and walked away quickly, waving to one of his colleagues.
A news crew pushed its way toward Joji Hosaka. When the team was twenty feet away, he raised his hand. The lead reporter dropped his microphone and herded the cameraman away.
Yemon watched the process with interest. Ever since he'd been a boy, he could only remember it being this way. No matter what the situation, no matter who was involved, it had always been Joji Hosaka in control. Until now. The thought made him feel good, and he realized Saburo's unplanned death had actually moved things along much faster, as had the unexpected pressure from the American Justice agent.
"What did Saburo wish to speak to you about?" his father asked.
"I never had the chance to find out. We had just gone into the office when the American broke in on us and shot him." His men would all swear to that. Again he faced the look from Ogata and didn't flinch.
Two ambulance attendants approached Hosaka with a gurney, pulled out the legs and set the gurney before him. Yemon watched his father pull the blood-spattered sheet back and stare at the face beneath. Saburo's features had been untouched by the bullets. It looked as if he were only sleeping.
"I'm sorry, Hosaka-san, but the body must be taken downtown."
Yemon turned and saw Goro Fujitsu standing to one side.
"I will not allow them to cut him."
"It is the law," Fujitsu said, walking forward until he was on the other side of the gurney.
"The law?" Joji Hosaka repeated incredulously. "It was the law who was supposed to keep this from happening."
"I am sorry, Hosaka-san, but that is the way it must be."
Without facing his bodyguard, Joji Hosaka said, in a voice loud enough to be heard by Fujitsu, "Kiyosha, I want the man who is responsible for this dead. I want you to bring me his head on a stick."
"Yes, Hosaka-san." Ogata bowed and melted into the shadows.
"That will not make matters any better," Fujitsu stated calmly.
"Yes," Joji Hosaka said with slow deliberation, "it will." He spread his hands. "Now, if I may, I'd like to spend a few moments with my son."
Fujitsu responded with a grudging nod, then stepped away.
Someone touched Yemon on the shoulder. He turned and found one of his private guards at his side.
"There is a call for you in the car, Hosaka-san," the guard whispered. He looked lean and hard, wearing black sunglasses and black gloves.
"Take a message," Yemon said impatiently, intending to show support for his father.
"It is from Singapore."
"I'll take it."
The guard nodded and fell into step beside him.
"The old man, Ogata. Have you got someone on him?"
"Yes, Hosaka-san."
"I want men following him constantly, and reports given to me regularly. If he can find Belasko, I want both of them dead."
The guard nodded.
Sliding into his father's limousine, pleased with the way things had turned out and the fact that Ogata was now gone from his father's immediate defense, Yemon lifted the receiver and said hello.
Chapter Twenty-One
Philip Picard took breakfast alone on the balcony of his luxury motel in Singapore. Below, broad boulevards and towering skyscrapers contrasted with narrow winding streets crowded with rows of homes and shops. The section of the harbor within his view was filled with shrimp trawlers and pleasure craft of all sizes. One of them was his, but he couldn't see it from his present position.
He buttered another croissant, then poured a fresh cup of coffee. The telephone rang, and he picked it up before it could wake Cherie.
"Picard," he said.
Keith Caputo identified himself at the other end. "Christ, do you know what time it is here?" the investments manager complained.
Picard consulted his watch. It was shortly after 11:00 a.m. in Singapore. "It should be a little after three in the morning for you," he told the broker. "You're late."
Caputo sighed. "I overslept," he confessed. "But I have the stock reports concerning the Japanese market. As expected, the stock market is showing stress from the Japanese problems. The Dow Jones took another plunge yesterday when news of Kokan's murder hit the wires. Trading is at an all-time low since the fall in 1987." Caputo sounded worn and haggard. "Truth to tell, I'd been considering dusting off the old résumé, then realized I've never really done anything other than work in fast-food restaurants and deliver newspapers."
Picard smiled and added honey to the croissant now that the butter had melted. "It will get better before long."
"I'm glad you've got all the faith you have, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I wish I had the millions to lose that you seem to have. You could damn well bet I wouldn't be putting them in American stocks right now."
"Think about it, though. With as much buying as I'm doing in the ever-weakening stock market, how much could it possibly be worth when the market comes back into shape?"
"We're talking 'if here, not 'when'.
"It will."
"One of these days you need to tell me where you get all your money, and what it's like to be one of the incredibly rich. The last place I expected you to be is Singapore, or anywhere out of the United States, with the markets crumbling the way they are. What are you going to do if the dollar suddenly turns up worthless?"
Picard looked through the gauzy balcony curtains and saw Cherie beginning to show signs of life. "Take the day off," he advised, "before you end up on an operating table."
"I wish I could, but I've been spending ten and twelve hours a day on the phone talking to frantic people who think I'm personally responsible for what's happening to their investments."
After a few more sympathetic exchanges with the broker, he hung up and ate the croissant, savoring the postponed flavor, reflecting that the best things in life were the ones you had to wait on.
Finished with breakfast, he poured a final cup of coffee before reaching for the phone. Tuley wasn't in so he left a message for the man to return his call.
A few minutes later the phone jangled. When he answered it, Tuley was on the other end. "Winterroad will be there within hours," Picard said. "I want to see to it that we keep him covered at all times. I want nothing to happen to him."
Tuley was silent for a moment. "John actually signed on?"
"You were the only one with doubts. He's a good man, like you, and tired of not getting any recognition for his efforts. I won't say that he'll take up our fight as readily as you have, but at the moment, it's enough to have someone inside the enemy camp. By the way, that was good work with Tucker. My sources at Langley tell me nobody has any idea of who took him out or why. Don't worry about being replaced. You're the only man I want handling the enforcement arm of this operation."
"I wasn't worried about that," Tuley said quickly enough to let Picard know that the thought had been on his mind. "I just couldn't picture John turning on the Agency so fast."
"Just keep in mind the fact that he didn't burn you when he could have. He stood by you like a partner should."
"I know."
"Trust me on this. I know what I'm doing. It's almost downhill from here. But the time has come for Brognola to bow out of the picture, too. Once Winterroad arrives and makes contact with you, I want your team to ensure the Justice team is left leaderless. The more confusion we can build in the next few days, the better."
"I'll handle it myself."
"Good. Then I won't have to worry about that." Picard hung up and went to find out what Cherie wanted from room service, deciding to order something else for himself in celebration. Tonight he would put the finishing touches on the Hosaka angle. Personally.
* * *
The small house sat on a verdant hill surrounded by a forest of oak trees. Akemi drove the four-wheel-drive Suzuki Samurai up the steep, winding dirt road that was little more than an overgrown trail.
Bolan rode in silence, his leg stretched out to take the pressure of
f the wound in his side. He studied the countryside through the windows, catching Ransom's reflection occasionally in the glass. Her color still hadn't returned to normal, making her look ashen and gray. She gritted her teeth from time to time as the Samurai crawled over a bumpy incline.
Akemi braked the 4×4 in the small yard and waved toward the house. "This was my father's home. I visit it occasionally as I find time from the temple, but I have not been here in months. I apologize for any inconvenience."
Bolan gave the man a ghost of a smile. "A safehouse has more important qualities than hot and cold running water and an indoor toilet."
Akemi nodded. "True, very true."
The warrior opened his door and stepped out. Red stone lanterns sat in a semicircle outlining a rock garden on either side of the entrance. The slight wind carried the sweet fragrance of flowers and the after-odors of early-morning rain. As Bolan reached for the suitcase containing his blacksuit and his weapons, a second Samurai roared over the final hill and sputtered to a stop. Akemi walked back to speak with the driver.
Ransom disembarked carefully, obviously trying not to move her head. She wore a canary-yellow dress that showed generous amounts of shoulder and thigh. Akemi had apologized and blushed when he had given it to her, saying that it was all he could find on short notice that would fit her. She carried the matching high heels in one hand. The green duffel bag in her other hand looked totally out of place. She caught Bolan staring at her and didn't look away.
Bolan moved forward and reached out a hand. "I'll carry your bag for you."
Her voice was soft and firm. "Thank you, but I have it."
Bolan nodded and turned his attention back to the house.
Akemi returned, carrying a portable radio. "There is no electricity," he said apologetically as he led them to the door. "To heat water for a bath you must first light the heater in the bathroom, then draw your bath in buckets. Likewise, there is no phone. This radio will keep you up-to-date on the news, and I have brought extra batteries."
Inside, the house was hot, humid and musty. The furniture was of dark wood, handmade, and serviceable. Colorful knitted spreads adorned the sitting cushions.
Bolan made a circuit around the house while Akemi talked to Ransom, checking the visibility from each window. The house was no hardsite, but it didn't have to be as long as no one knew they were there. So far even Brognola didn't know where he was.
Leaving his suitcase in one corner of the living room, Bolan returned to the 4×4 for the sacks of groceries Akemi had purchased earlier in the morning.
Akemi returned from the bedroom he had shown to Ransom. "If there is anything else I can do, please don't hesitate to get in touch."
"You've done more than enough already," Bolan said.
"Still."
"I will."
Akemi tossed over the keys to the Samurai they'd arrived in. "Take care of her," he said in a low voice.
Bolan nodded. He took the Beretta 93-R from his suitcase, shoved it into the waistband of his pants and followed the man outside, staying under the shade of a spreading oak tree as the Samurai bounced back down the way it had come.
Farther below, at the foot of one of the hills ringing the area, was the small town where Akemi had told him a phone could be found. Bolan turned and found Ransom standing ten feet away. The look on her face revealed nothing of what was on her mind. Her sheathed sword was in her hand.
"The news reports list you as Saburo's murderer," she said.
"I know."
"That has made things even more complicated. My grandfather will be looking for you now, and Joji Hosaka will have told him to kill you."
"What will he do when he finds out you're involved?"
"I don't know." Ransom looked at him with wet eyes. "We need to talk now. Before things get any worse."
Bolan nodded and followed her into the house, not sure if anything concerning the operation could take a turn for the worse.
* * *
"You've got your hands on some dynamite," Aaron Kurtzman told Hal Brognola. "Provided it's all true, and provided you can prove it."
The Fed cradled the phone to his ear as the fax machine he had commandeered in the Tokyo American embassy continued to spit out page after page from the computer disks he'd sent to the Stony Man complex by modem hours earlier. "Tell me what I'm looking at, Aaron," he said, putting the sheets of paper to one side. A picture faxed through, and he looked at it with interest, seeing a much younger Joji Hosaka in the middle of what looked like a labor strike. The reproduction was a grainy black-and-white, and Brognola judged it to be sometime in the early 1950s.
"According to the files you transmitted, Joji Hosaka was an agent of American G-2 forces after World War II," Kurtzman said. "I won't go into everything he did, but there are plenty of ties to the black market and the Yakuza."
"I take it he was a busy boy."
"You take it right."
Another picture emerged from the fax. Hosaka, in the middle of a marketplace, was in animated conversation with a lean, raw-boned man. Someone had written August 21, 1962, in one corner of the picture. "I just got the picture of Hosaka talking to an unidentified man."
"He's still unidentified, and he's the subject of Tucker's investigation. You'll find a list of his known aliases on page nineteen of the document."
Brognola found the page and dragged his thumb down the dozens of names. More pictures spilled through, showing Hosaka with the same man. "What's the story on this guy?"
"He was CIA during the occupation," Kurtzman replied, "and, under the code name Sacker, he was responsible for engineering a lot of the Yakuza-oriented strike breaks and various other activities G-2 undertook after the war."
"Through Joji Hosaka?"
"Hosaka was his main man, but by no means his only. Sacker has always operated under a layer of controls, from what I gathered of the files, and always as an aggressive covert chief."
Brognola sat down in the chair behind the desk holding the chattering fax machine. "He liked it."
"Yeah."
Spreading the sheets out before him, the big Fed tried to take it all in. "So where does that leave us now?"
"Tucker believed Sacker was ramrodding the purge in the States, using men whose loyalty he'd culled from his time with the Agency."
"Is this guy still with the CIA?"
"Tucker wasn't sure. I'm still running down the aliases, but most of them are dead ends. I think it's safe to assume the guy has built a new identity for himself and dropped into it."
"But why come out now?"
"Tucker thought Sacker was after a piece of the pie Hosaka's assembling in Tokyo."
"Blackmail?" Brognola scanned the sheets again. "That doesn't wash, Aaron. This guy was a player, he thrived on the excitement. I can't see him turning this operation just to get his hands on a few dollars."
"A few million dollars," Kurtzman corrected. "Possibly more. Let's not forget how big Hosaka's piggy bank is."
"That may be, but it doesn't feel right from this end."
"Those were Tucker's feelings. Don't forget, you're also dealing with a guy who's undoubtedly seen the best years of his life. Maybe his bank account's running too low to suit him."
The sheets quit feeding through, then a heartbeat later the fax machine turned itself off. Brognola looked at his watch, automatically checking the one on the wall. "Is there any indication whether Tucker went to anyone with this?"
"No."
"Apparently he's been sitting on this information for some time," Brognola mused. "Why?"
"According to these files, Sacker dropped entirely out of sight in the early eighties. What would you do if you were looking for an invisible enemy?"
"Keep my head down and keep a low profile." Brognola shifted in the chair uneasily. He took a cigar from his pocket, unwrapped it with one hand, then chewed on it. "So what brought Tucker to their attention?"
"If there's an answer, I don't think it's these files. If they
had known about them, Sacker's wrecking crew would have made sure they disappeared, too."
"Yeah." Brognola turned it over in his head, juggling it around as he tried to get it to fit the pattern of logic he was attempting to build. "Unless Tucker's assassination was planned to develop something else. Did you run down the names of the people Striker took out over here?"
"Yeah, and a lot of them dead-ended where Sacker's name did. It looks like they're his people — if you allow your imagination to make the jump that proof can't."
"What about Ross Tuley?"
"Recruited for the Air America program," Kurtzman replied. "The Agency isn't aware they donated the files I have here, by the way. I might have left a few fingerprints in their computers, so that could be something we'll be dealing with later. Smash-and-grab isn't my specialty. I usually go in more for the subtle entry. But comparing the time of Tuley's hitch in Air America to the knowledge of Sacker's record that Tucker was able to outline, I'd say Sacker recruited him."
"There was no mention of Sacker in Tuley's files?"
"No, but one of the aliases Tucker mentioned is."
"How did Tucker make this guy?"
"I don't know, but judging from the different entries, it took Tucker a few years to come up with the intel he did have. Another thing — according to Tuley's files, Tucker was instrumental in having Tuley thrown out of the Agency for unsanctioned hits scattered across Europe and Asia. It's possible Tucker came across Sacker there."
Brognola sighed. "We may never know for sure."
"No. But it doesn't really matter, does it? I mean, if Tucker was correct, and Sacker's behind the strikes against the Japanese, this gives us a shot at him."
The big Fed dumped the shredded cigar in the wastebasket beside the desk, checked his watch again and said, "Take a stroll through those files of yours and see what you get when you enter the name John Winterroad."
Computers keys clacked in the background. A moment later Kurtzman came back on the line, his voice subdued. "Winterroad was recruited during the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He was also Ross Tuley's partner when Tuley was shelled out of the Agency after Tucker's investigation. Why?"
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