Korean Intercept

by Mertz, Stephen

  "I told you, I don't need proof. I went straight to Barney after leaving you and Meiko at the airport, and that, Mrs. Kurita, puts my friend's murder right at your feet. You were the only one Meiko told about our flight number and time of arrival. You passed that information on to Ugaki, so he could have his hit team in place when we touched down. That's the vital piece of the puzzle that took awhile to click in my mind, but once it did, I had all the proof I needed to convict you in my mind, Baroness."

  Meiko clenched her fists, her eyes blazing.

  "Between you and Ugaki," she said to Sachito, "who initiated the germ of this grand scheme? Before you murdered my father, you were unfaithful to him with Ugaki. You and a yakuza contaminated the sanctity of my father's world. You let this yakuza filth into your bed."

  Sachito again lowered her eyes. She said nothing.

  Galt told her, "if you and Ugaki were lovers, you should know it won't stop him from coming after you. This shuttle hijack, luring that NASA scientist astray, personally coordinating the construction of an airfield in North Korea, it's got to be the biggest deal Ugaki has ever undertaken. He's got a lot of face to save after fumbling this one, if he intends to hold onto his power in the yakuza, and he will take severe measures. To him, you're a liability, Baroness. And you're the perfect scapegoat. And he may know that you double-crossed him. You saw how hot Meiko was to learn the truth, after she saw Ugaki and Anami together at her father's funeral. You allowed her complete access to her father's computer files. That's how you double-crossed your lover boy. You wanted Ugaki the yakuza to take the whole blame, if everything fell apart. Ugaki may be in the hospital, but I'll wager he's got a team on its way here right now. And if I'm a judge of the character of a guy like Ugaki, he'll be riding in the car with his hit team when they show up here, even if he had to be carried out of the hospital. He'll want to be here when his men pay you back for your betrayal. You know how much stock guys like him put in personal loyalty. And you know how far-reaching his power is. There's nowhere for you to escape from him anywhere in the world, and you know this." He nodded to the pistol. "That's what the gun is for."

  Sachito looked up at him. Her eyes were sorrowful. "Do not attempt to dissuade me from taking my own life."

  Meiko snorted. "Hardly that. You have not lived your life honorably, but you can still end it honorably. You are Japanese, after all."

  "Frankly, Baroness," said Galt, "we came here to encourage you to take the honorable way out. Meiko wants that because of what you did to her father. As for the authorities, your suicide will be tied to your grief for your departed husband. Unfortunate and sad. But the Kurita name will be spared scandal and humiliation. Everything can be pinned on the CEO, Anami. He's too dead to defend himself."

  "And you, Trev Galt," said Sachito, "will you have your vengeance and be satisfied?"

  "I don't deal in vengeance, lady," said Galt. "I owe this to people who died because of you, and what you and those yakuza scum have done. But to answer your first question, yes, there is enough electronic and paper trail evidence to bring you to court and you know it."

  A tear formed in the corner of one of Sachito's eyes, and glided down her cheekbone. "The humiliation of a public trial would be unbearable."

  Galt reached down and picked up the pistol, a petite snub-nosed .22 revolver with a pearl-handled grip. He broke it open with a flick of his thumb across the latch and a shake of his wrist, revealing a single cartridge chambered in a cylinder that could hold six bullets. He snapped the cylinder back into the frame with another sharp flick of his wrist and replaced the pistol upon the bench, inches from her right hand.

  "We're done here," he said to both women.

  A car horn beeped once in the near distance. Sachito glanced into the darkness, in the direction of the sound. "Ugaki," she said.

  Galt nodded. "Or the police. Goodbye, Baroness."

  "I am sorry." She spoke softly, in a voice that ached with infinite weariness. Her sad eyes turned to Meiko. She asked, "Can you forgive me?"

  Meiko spat upon the ground between them. "Never, you worthless, murdering whore."

  Galt's eyes tightened. Meiko deserved to be in on this, and she was certainly entitled to her emotions. But until now, since he had known her, Meiko had always been the one in control of her emotions, not the other way around. Her outburst surprised him, and there was no more for him here. He walked away.

  Meiko followed Galt's cue, withdrawing with him from the garden, along the flagstones, past the bronze statue of the Buddha, to the grove of katsura and birch. They retraced their line of approach. The manicured lawn was slippery with moisture.

  From the direction of the Zen garden, Galt heard a single gunshot.

  From the direction of the road, he saw headlights turning into the Kurita driveway. He gauged that the headlights would belong to a compact sedan. He hesitated, and Meiko drew up beside him. The car traveled alone up the gravel driveway lined with chestnut trees. There were no flashing lights. The headlights were on high beam, approaching a vapor lamp that was midway between the road and the main house.

  When the car passed through the circle of light cast by the lamp, Galt had a clear view of a white Toyota compact with a dented right front fender. He had seen the same car before, when he had exercised such ingenuity, or so he thought at the time, in evading this yakuza hit team; it was the same Toyota seen speeding away after the murder of Barney Markee.

  "It's Ugaki's hit team," said Galt. "They beat the police here." He withdrew the triggering device, no larger than a cigarette lighter, from one of his pockets, and thumbed open the cap that covered a toggle switch.

  "Ugaki is in that car." Meiko's ragged whisper hardly sounded like her: the throaty rasp of a feline with fangs and claws bared. "He is the one who plotted with the whore to kill my father."

  "Keep it together, Meiko," he said. His thumb moved to the toggle switch.

  "This is a blood debt," she said.

  She seized the device from his fingers with a ferocity that caught him by surprise.

  He mouthed a silent curse. The headlights were almost, but not quite, to where he had set the charge of high explosives. It would do no good for the HE to be detonated prematurely.

  "Meiko, don't do this. Give me that. This is my job."

  Her beauty was unrecognizable, a mask of hatred. "This is a blood debt," she said again, this time in a detached voice. She flicked the toggle switch.

  The red-orange explosion thunder-clapped an instant prematurely, and the Toyota's front end lifted, rather than the car being blown to pieces as Galt had intended. Then the secondary explosion came and the gas tank erupted. A fireball engulfed the Toyota and those in it. Someone in the car was screaming as it fell back to the ground like a burning log. From within the inferno, the screams ended abruptly.

  Meiko's hand, holding the detonator device, drooped to her side. She offered no resistance when Galt retrieved the device. He started to speak. This was no time for a breakdown. There were still the authorities. . . .

  A shot rang out before he could speak.

  Meiko's body jerked violently. Her arms twitched like the wings of a dying bird, and her knees folded. And Galt knew from the way she fell that Meiko was dead.

  Oh God, no! he thought. No!

  Instinct sent him into a sideways dive, and from a prone position he steadied his aim. Meiko had caught the first round, but many bullets were zipping past. His Beretta sought and found targets.

  Three men stood perhaps a dozen feet away, limned in the firelight of the burning Toyota. In the flickering light, Galt recognized Oyabun Ugaki. The yakuza boss of bosses leaned on a cane. Ugaki wore a hospital-issue robe. He looked pale, bent over, nothing like the glimpse Galt had caught of him before tossing a high explosive into that yakuza meeting in an executive penthouse. But Ugaki's compact, physically slight stature still radiated a palpable sense of power and command. He had a gunman to either side, and one of these—it didn't matter to Galt which—had
killed Meiko. Both gunmen were firing at where Galt had been heartbeats earlier. The flames cast angry shadows across Ugaki's features. He held a pistol that was pulling in Galt's direction.

  Galt assessed the younger, healthier, faster gunmen to be his primary threat. He shot one of them between the eyes. The other gunman triggered a round, hastily aimed, that came nowhere near Galt, who squeezed off a second shot that took out this man with another not-so-clean head shot. Before either dead man could hit the ground, Galt was bringing the 9mm back on Ugaki, when the yakuza fired faster than Galt had expected. He felt the searing burn of a bullet crease across his upper right shoulder, a flesh wound that made him lurch, losing target acquisition.

  Ugaki laughed and aimed for a better shot. He shouted, "Die, gaijin dog!"

  Before either man could fire, there was a shot from a third pistol.

  A round, black hole appeared in the center of Ugaki's forehead. He crumpled, seeming to curl languidly downward, around the hospital cane, to the ground.

  Kate materialized into the fading glow of the flames, lowering a .38 revolver. She wore the military-green coveralls that had been provided for her in Yokohama.

  "I owed him," she said. 'That son of a bitch caused me a world of trouble. Trev, are you all right?"

  He holstered his pistol. "I'm all right."

  The truth was, he felt dazed, winded, and it had nothing to do with the scratch where a bullet had creased him. His attention, his very being, telescoped to the fallen form of Meiko, and he went to her. He fell to his knees beside her body.

  He eased his arms around her and held her. For the last time, he thought. He could not see the wound that had killed her, and for that he was grateful. Her eyes were closed, as though she were asleep.

  Police sirens shrilled in the distance, drawing closer from several directions.

  Kate stood beside him, touching him delicately. Her eyes were pools of understanding. "Trev, honey."

  It was difficult for him to concentrate on anything but the lifeless body in his arms.

  "She was a good woman, Kate."

  "I know, hon." Her eyes flicked to the sprawl of gangster bodies. "Meiko doesn't deserve to be found with this filth. She was my friend."

  Galt thought, How we love defines who we are.

  He had come halfway around the world to find his wife, to learn how much he loved her. And he had just lost a woman he loved.

  He blinked away the emotion and rose to his feet, lifting Meiko with him, cradling her in his arms. When he looked at Kate, he was grateful for what he saw in her eyes.

  They withdrew and, before long, left a stand of conifer and bamboo and crossed the road in the light of dawn, to where the rental car was parked.

  The sirens were drawing closer.

  A gentle, fine mist began to fall.