Following the directions written by Mrs. Kurita's chauffeur, he took the final exit just before the Masahino Mountains, and found himself quite suddenly traveling through remote countryside, on a two-lane rural blacktop highway that ran between foothills to the west, steep slopes covered with thick forests of cedar and pine in the moonlight, and, to the east, tiers of water-filled rice fields. The road took him past an occasional thatched-roof farmhouse, and then the agricultural homesteads gave way to a more exclusive environment of upscale, in many cases walled, residential estates. Privacy, a cherished commodity in Japan, is most often the domain of the very rich.
He found the Kurita address easily enough. He assessed what he could of the security here as he up-shifted the Toyota along a gravel driveway lined with chestnut trees. Conifer trees and bamboo grew in abundance across the expansive grounds. To his left was a grove of katsura and birch, with flagstones leading to a six-foot-high bronze statue of Buddha, beyond which was a massive garden.
The main house was a traditional home beneath a gray-green slate roof that curved upward at each corner, high-lighted by the moonlight and by some artfully-placed lighting.
Galt parked in front of the main entrance. His was the only vehicle in sight. He left the car and approached the house, habitually wary of new surroundings, his peripheral senses probing the darkness around him beyond the light, processing no real danger lurking out there at this time. To Galt, a peaceful neighborhood was as dangerous as a jungle trail in Chiapas or a walk to the corner store for a pack of gum in Beirut. Things might seem tranquil enough on the surface, and perhaps they were, but paranoia was the only sane course. Your best bet was to expect trouble from any direction at any time. There were places that were like that, and Galt recognized that his whole life had become "like that" now that he had dropped out of sight as completely as only a man with his background, experience and connections possibly could.
He expected that the gate guard had called ahead, that a servant or maid would greet him and show him into the house, to Mrs. Kurita and Meiko. And so he was mildly surprised when, as he stepped onto the front step and raised an index finger to press the doorbell, the front door was opened inward not by a maid or a servant.
Sachito Kurita stood there, holding the door open for him, with Meiko next to and only slightly behind her. The two women, separated as they were by more than two decades in age, were framed side-by-side in golden illumination, from inside the house, that caressed and highlighted their beauty better than any Hollywood studio lighting director ever could. The widow wore a tastefully elegant black silk Meikoono with a black sash.
Meiko wore a wraparound dark skirt and an embroidered silk blouse with loose sleeves that conveyed more than a suggestion of the traditional Meikoono, while being thoroughly modern.
Mrs. Kurita extended her hand. "Trev, welcome. Your journey from the city was uneventful, I trust?" The handshake was as warm and vibrant as her flesh tone.
He presented her with the bottle of sake he'd brought along. "Please accept this as a gift for your home. Tokyo traffic is always a challenge," he added with a muted smile of his own, "but Meiko will tell you that I embrace challenge. Thank you for having me."
Meiko looked as if she wanted to throw herself into his arms with a hug of appreciation and gladness, as a Western woman would with a male friend or a lover in this situation. But he saw this in her eyes only because they were lovers. Outwardly, she held back with the traditional cultural reserve of the Japanese woman. She too extended a hand.
"Trev. So good to see you." Her handshake was more vibrant than Mrs. Kurita's had been and lasted a moment longer.
"We'll have drinks, then dinner," said Mrs. Kurita.
The sitting room, where a servant eventually did materialize to properly serve them the sake, was appointed in the classic Japanese style: flower-painted wall screens, a glimpse of a formal garden and fragile cloisonné vases of ikebana, the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging. Upon a short rosewood table was a portrait of Meiko's father: a once handsome, delicately sculpted face wrinkled with age. In the picture, long snow-white whiskers flowed from Mr. Kurita's chin. But the eyes were youthful and alert, piercing and direct.
When the sake was served, Meiko faced the photograph and raised her glass in a toast.
"To my father. A great man."
Galt lifted his glass appropriately and sipped the sake.
Sachito Kurita started to raise her glass, then paused. Her lower lip trembled. She set down her cup and lifted the picture, clasping the framed portrait over her heart. Tears seeped from the corners of her eyes.
"I miss him so. He was a great man, your father. He loved you so much, Meiko. And I loved him."
There was an awkward silence of some duration, which Galt broke by posing some banal question to their hostess concerning the history of the region. An awkward flow of conversation resumed. Galt interpreted Meiko's brief glance in his direction as one of appreciation for smoothing things over. There was not a drop of affection between these two, even given the somber circumstance of having been drawn together by Mr. Kurita's passing. Sachito and Meiko showed Trev to the guestroom where he would be staying. His sleeping quarters were directly across a corridor from Meiko's bedroom, and Galt found himself starting to wonder if this was such a hot idea. He had much to accomplish, a potential Third World War to avert, even if some thought that what was truly at risk here was him starting World War III! And yet here he was, caught up in this female psychodrama. But there was nothing to be done for now until he connected with Tuttle, and the fact of the matter was that he had committed himself to this course. . . .
Eventually, a maid politely appeared to bow deeply and inform Madam Kurita that dinner was ready. The dining room was also traditional, with a lacquered beamed ceiling and a plank floor of immaculately polished cypress. There were low stools and tables, antique Japanese landscape paintings and shelves filled with carved animals out of Japanese mythology, each wooden statue delicately painted and gilded. Sliding portions of the left wall were half-open, revealing a glimpse of the massive garden beyond, directly outside. The sounds of soft, atonal music wafted on air delicately scented with incense. Dinner was at a long table with Galt and Meiko seated opposite each other, and Mrs. Kurita at the far end.
They ate sushi from exquisite rose china plates. Galt silently chopsticked his meal as if blissfully oblivious of the unspoken, hostile undercurrent that continued between the women, just beneath the surface of cool civility.
At one point, Sachito attempted to make eye contact across the table with Meiko, at first to no avail. "Meiko, please do not think harshly of me."
Meiko looked up from her mostly untouched portion of sushi. "I am sorry, stepmother, but it cannot be otherwise. I am a guest in your home. I will not disrespect you. I will leave with Trev, if you wish."
"That is hardly my wish, my dear. This is my home only because I was your father's wife. But it is your home before that, and I will not disrespect that. You were born in this house. You spent the first eighteen years of your life here."
"It was my home when my mother was alive," said Meiko. "At least my father waited a suitable time after becoming a widower to marry you. He waited until I was overseas."
Yearning glistened in Sachito's dark eyes. "Why do I displease you so, Meiko? I am a good woman. I treated your father well. Was he not entitled to happiness after grieving the passing of your mother? Life must go on. Your father loved me. Why can you not at least like me? Perhaps you did not know that for the last year of your father's life, his business decisions were relayed to his attorneys and the board of directors through me. Toward the end, when your father was bedridden, he was so weak that he deferred to my judgment in the resolution of many major decisions. I know the workings of Kurita Industries intimately, both in Japan and worldwide. I allowed your father to feel a sense of pride and productivity during his final days. I should think that you would feel somewhat beholden to me for that
alone, if not a sense of kinship, since we both loved and have lost him."
Meiko set down her chopsticks. "I understand that some of my feelings are irrational, which is why I have not voiced them," she said in calm, measured tones. "You took my mother's place in my father's heart . . . and in his bed. I know that such resentment on a daughter's part is irrational and is, in fact, standard behavior, which infuriates me; a form of grieving my mother, even after the passage of time. I despair for this weakness in my character. But some of what I feel toward you is rational. Why was I not summoned home at once, if my father was so ill? I had no idea. Why was I not informed? Whose decision was that? Father and I spoke on the telephone at least once a week after I first went to America. They were brief conversations, but he sounded healthy enough to me."
"It was his wish that you not be told of his condition," said Sachito. "He wanted your career to come first. He did not want to burden you with his health problems."
"You could have told me," Meiko said plaintively, in the voice of a little girl enduring deep inner suffering; an unsettled mixture of regret, accusation, hurt and uncertainty, which Galt had never heard from her before.
Sachito remained seated stiff-backed at the head of the table. She too had set down her chopsticks beside her half-finished meal.
"It was his wish," she repeated. "I obeyed the wish of my husband, as a good wife should. And he wished until his last breath that you would take me into your heart."
"I cannot." She leapt to her feet, muttering the words more in shame than anything else, thought Galt. She whirled from the table and exited the dining room, leaving Galt and Mrs. Kurita alone in uncomfortable silence.
Galt finished the last of his sushi, set down his chopsticks and rose from the table. "I'm sorry. I'll talk to her. I'll do what I can."
Sachito's eyes were moist, unreadable. "My heart goes out to her." There was resignation in her words. "Tomorrow is . . . the day. It will be best, I think, if we attend the funeral together, the three of us. That is the only right way. It is what Mr. Kurita would have wanted."
"I'll do what I can."
"I shall now retire for the evening, Mr. Galt. Please accept my apologies for what can only have been an uncomfortable ordeal for you, listening to Meiko and me quarrel. And yet I want to thank you very much for being here . . . for Meiko."
"It's my privilege to help, if I can. I'll speak with her."
He rose from the table with her, and they exchanged another handshake. "From what her father told me about Meiko, my guess is that you will find her in the garden." Her grip was more fragile than before, and was more fleeting. "Good night, Mr. Galt."
A pair of stone lanterns framed the entrance to the mossy quiet of a formal Zen rock garden, which was surrounded on three sides by a low bamboo fence and sheltered by the sweeping overhang of the roof. Waxed paper screens on this side of the house made a fourth decorative wall. Galt followed a series of hexagonal stepping stones that led him between angular rocks and Japanese dwarf maple trees, twisted and gnarled, to where he found Meiko standing before a small arched bridge of red lacquered wood, and a Shinto shrine. He stepped up behind Meiko, making just enough of a scuffle upon the stepping stones for her to become aware of his presence. He slid his arms around her.
She leaned back against him. Her subtle musk perfume tantalized his nostrils like an invisible, scented feather. Exhaustion, spiritual and physical, emanated from her as he held her in his embrace.
"I'm sorry, Trev. I'm overwrought. It's jet lag. It's everything. Father's death. This place. That woman."
"You know your Zen Buddhist philosophy." He spoke softly through her hair, his lips close to her ear, with a lover's intimacy. "We study our lives. We master ourselves. We assume responsibility"
She sighed, observing the Torri gate with its unusual carvings in wood of dragons and dogs. "I know what you're telling me. Oh, Trev. I don't know what to think. I can't control the memories that flood through me, being here. This is where I grew up with my mother and father. Such happy days for me. I wish you had known them. I was lucky to have them both." A bittersweet, nostalgic melancholy softened her tone. "Mother never taught me very much about housework. Even when I was a young girl, she always let me know that she respected my goals. She let me feel that I could be whatever I wanted to be. That is so important to a young girl in any culture, at any time. When I came of age and announced an interest in pursuing a career in journalism, my father at first vehemently opposed the idea. He was against any alternative except marriage, opposed to any education beyond high school. I do not judge him harshly for this. My father was a man of tradition, of a different time. And he did acquiesce after considerable lobbying on the part of my mother. Once he had accepted the notion of his daughter pursuing a higher education, Father naturally favored a proper girl's school. I wanted to go to Tokyo University. It's the best in Japan, and my father had gone there. I knew it would offer the best education for the work I wanted. He stringently resisted me attending a coeducational university. Again Mother helped me, in her own ways, to overcome his resistance. She had married young and it wasn't always easy for her, despite my father's wealth and position. She ingrained in me early the notion that a woman should be independent. I was made strong by her support. My father's opposition also toughened me. And in the end, he was fair. He told me that if I could pass the exam, if they would take me, then I could attend Tokyo University. That is what happened, and is but one of many reasons, from the tapestry of my life, why I love and cherish his memory so and why my emotions run deep." Her voice thickened with a sob. "I miss him so."
Galt turned her in his arms, his lips remaining near her ear. "Tomorrow is the funeral. Your father wanted you to be there with the woman he married. You know it's what you're going to do."
Her forehead leaned against his shoulder, and the scent of her raven's-wing black hair tantalized his nostrils again, more than before. With her head on his shoulder, she nodded.
"I will go to the funeral with Sachito and. . ." she raised her moist eyes to him, ". . . with you?"
"Of course. That's why I'm here."
That made her body stiffen somewhat. She drew back, not from his embrace but to sniffle back another sob and use the palm of one hand to brusquely wipe away a tear that had beaded in the corner of one of her eyes. "I know that you care for me, Trev. But my father's death and what I'm going through . . . you came here with me to exploit my situation for your own ends."
"Honey, we had this conversation in Washington before we left."
Her green eyes softened with still another mood shift. "I am sorry, Trev. My mood seems to change every half-second. I am glad you're here." And she lifted her face to deliver him a chaste kiss on the cheek.
"Focus," he suggested. "Get through tomorrow. After that, your healing will begin. I know you're that strong, Meiko."
"Thank you for saying that. Right now I feel like the most fragile person on earth. And the most selfish. What you're doing, your real reason for coming to Japan . . . it's for Kate, to find her and the crew of the Liberty. You're an incredible and noble man, and I do want you to succeed."
"Thanks for saying that, and for the vote of confidence. I know that in your heart, Meiko, you understand. Now, how about some sack time?"
Her eyes twinkled weakly. Her lips curved feebly. "My, aren't you the devil."
"Not really. Not this time, anyway. Even if we had adjoining bedrooms, which we don't . . . well, you're not the only one who's dragging, kiddo, believe me."
They returned to the house, holding hands.
There was no sign of anyone when they re-entered the home. The traditional music had ceased, although tendrils of incense still wafted through the air. The servants had cleared away the table in the dining room, and disappeared. When they were stepping lightly past the closed partition to Sachito Kurita's bedroom on their way to their bedrooms, they could hear her muffled sobbing, as if she were clutching and wailing into a pillow; an aching m
oan of torment audible enough to cause a wince to pass between Galt and Meiko as they hurried past.
The sounds had faded by the time they reached the partition of Meiko's bedroom.
"Good night, Trev. I'm sorry I'm so confused and emotional. It isn't like me."
"I know that. Good night, Meiko."
She stood on her tiptoes, kissed him quickly, warmly, on the lips, then disappeared into the bedroom.
Minutes later, Galt was stretched out on his futon, willing his senses into a restful state. But his rational mind kept pecking away at any attempt to relax. Come tomorrow, everything would be kicking one way or another. There was so much to be done. But first, of course, a target had to be ascertained: the space shuttle's location. That's where General Tuttle came in.
His subconscious prevailed, with the help of applied yoga meditation technique, and his conscious mind temporarily put conflict to rest and he yielded to a mild, restful sleep-like replenishment of his mind, spirit and body. But one recurring conscious ripple did make his slumber a fitful one. Tomorrow could not come fast enough. He had come to this part of the world to find Kate and Liberty, and nothing short of death would stop him.
Chapter Seventeen
North Korea
Ahn Chong topped the hill and walked slowly into the graveyard.
The night air was heavy with the dampness of dead leaves, mingled with the scent of the pine. The mountain breeze whispering through the pines was normally a comfort to him when he came to this spot, but not tonight. He might find solitude here, but there was no place on this night where he would find comfort. When he would walk here to visit Mai's grave, his thoughts were most often of his loss, his grief. Not tonight. Tonight he walked slowly along the winding path through the trees that led to the wilderness clearing, the misshapen quadrangle of land where his village buried its dead. Tonight, as he walked along, he tried to project the appearance of a man lost in thought. But his eyes were busy, scanning the forested surroundings like a hunter. He did not see or hear anything unusual by the time he reached the graveyard. He sensed no other human presence but his own.
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