The Seventh Samurai

by Doug Walker

  "No," Maeda said, "my grandfather died in Osaka years before I was born. I've always been interested in the place."

  "Your grandfather. He would be quite old today."

  Maeda smiled. "Probably over one hundred, but I believe he was in his forties when he died."

  "He was a native?"

  "I never knew him. He was a gaijin, an American soldier, there after the war to interview Japanese returnees. He and my grandmother were in the Philippines when the war started. He was taken prisoner and forced on the Bataan Death March. Miraculously, he survived the march and prison camp, only to be murdered after the war. He could have returned to the States, but he spoke good Japanese and wanted to stay in Japan in hopes my grandmother and my father would show up. They did, but he was dead."

  "That's an awful story," Watanabe said. "Was it a tavern fight, or something like that?"

  "No. He was a quiet man. And not really well after his treatment as a prisoner. He was murdered in his room. His money and his watch were stolen. The murderer was never caught. Years ago, when I was a young cop, I tried to get the files on the case, but no luck. They were sealed up someplace in the States."

  "You were turned down?"

  "Definitely. I got a report that an investigation had been made and closed. It was emphatic."

  Watanabe was puzzled and he told Maeda that he had been able to obtain such records in the past. He would try to get the information if Maeda would give him the facts.

  When the Tokyo detective had written down the pertinent facts, he passed the sheet to Watanabe. "Master Sergeant Burt Chalk," he read. He asked why the detective's last name wasn't Chalk.

  Maeda smiled. "Can you imagine a Tokyo policeman named Goro Chalk?" Watanabe couldn't. "I got to choose my citizenship. Most of the folks were Japanese, so I picked Japanese. You cannot be a Japanese citizen without a Japanese name. My father was half Japanese and my mom was totally Japanese, but at that time in Japan, not long after the war, a lot of people didn't actually get married. They just moved in together. It's a bit confusing. Anyway, I picked my grandmother's maiden name, and thanks to her I mastered English at an early age. So here I am."

  The two men shook hands, and Watanabe went off to his hotel to meet Shibata. Then they would board the Bullet Train for the ride past Mount Fuji, the beautifully shaped, but often cloud-shrouded symbol of Japan. Then Osaka.

  CHAPTER 26: The Search

  Guy Blades was telling the captain that the merchant ship that was the object of their search had to pass between Singapore and Australia. Blades wore the two-inch stripe of a U.S. Navy rear admiral. "But goddammit," he added hotly, "the fuckin' Israelis took so long in letting us in on their little secret that it might have passed already. And," he threw up his hands in frustration, "we don't know where it's bound. The Israelis have made a mess of this so far, but maybe we can pick up the ball."

  "How do we know the ship hasn't been altered in some way?" a senior captain asked.

  "We don't," Blades said. "It could have been repainted, renamed, the superstructure changed in many ways. Parts added. Remember this, whatever it is, was well planned. And these monkeys aren't playing kid games. But the length and tonnage would remain about the same." He looked grimly at the officers in the room. "We must check every vessel that might be, and I stress the words that might be the Pride of Dakar. This is more important than fighting in a war. This could prevent a very nasty war."

  "If we don't know where she's bound, why should she pass between Singapore and Australia?" someone asked.

  "This is speculation, but logical speculation. India was ruled out. So were Burma, the old Burma that is, Malaysia, Sumatra. Scratch also Australia and New Zealand. But we do have the Aussies keeping a weather eye out. We ruled in the Pacific Rim. Had to. The ship is going someplace."

  "What about South America?" the man who had asked the first question asked. "If that's the case, it would go well south of Australia."

  "That's a possibility and we don't intend to ignore any possibility. We will continue to talk with Australia and give them help if need be. Of course New Zealand will be useless as always. It could also be lying in some tropical river covered by a jungle canopy. Keep that in mind. Talk to the locals if you get the opportunity. Enlist their help. Ask if they have seen anything strange."

  "Sir," a young officer shouted from the back of the room.

  "Yes, lieutenant."

  "Just what is the importance of this vessel? What is its cargo and where might it be bound if not India and other countries you mentioned?"

  "Details of the cargo are not to be discussed. But I can tell you, and don't pass this on, it's highly sophisticated and deadly military hardware that needs to be matched up with other highly sophisticated hardware in order to be effective. We need to keep the two apart."

  "Something like the big cannon parts that were intercepted on the way to the Mideast years ago?"

  "I suppose. Parts that must be joined. But in this case we don't know who it is we're dealing with. We do know that they're fanatics, but high caliber fanatics. They know what they're doing. They have technical people at the top level."

  "You're saying they have capacity to put together and use nuclear weapons?" another captain said.

  "I didn't say that," Blades replied. "You did. But there is technical skill here, not unlike that possessed by the Koreans, the people on Taiwan, or the Japanese. Or maybe some group in Singapore or Hong Kong. Whether the cargo is going to some country where these people, whoever they are, live, or to some deserted place where they will link up, we don't know. But we want an all-out, all weather, round-the-clock search."

  "It shouldn't be too difficult to find a certain sized merchant ship, some slow-moving tub, even if it has been painted," a lieutenant commander put in.

  "It's a wide ocean," Blades replied. "Let's hope luck is on our side. But let me add that the captain of this slow-moving tub is a man named Silverman who served in the Norwegian navy, resigned to captain a cruise ship of considerable size, after that skippered supertankers. Finally took early retirement after an unfortunate oil spill. He was not to blame, incidentally, but took responsibility, as he should. So he came out of retirement to captain the Pride of Dakar. And this ship was modified in Italy before it took on its present cargo. The entire deck section over the hold can be easily removed. We also think there was engine room work done and new screws installed. It could move faster than we think."

  "Will we concentrate on the South China Sea, Sir?" someone asked.

  Admiral Blades moved his pointer around the map behind him. "The South China Sea, the Java Sea, the Banda Sea, the Straits of Malacca, the Philippine Sea, the East China Sea, the Sea of Japan, the Pacific Ocean. You name it. We must be ubiquitous. We will be ubiquitous."

  "When will we get the specs of the Pride of Dakar?"

  "We have packets for each of you. They are to be considered top secret. Specific orders will be available within two hours."

  "Does this mean no shore leave?" a young lieutenant asked wistfully. The rest of the men in the room laughed, as did Admiral Blades.

  "Absolutely. We are going on full alert without saying it's full alert. I personally would like to tell the world what we're doing if it's this fuckin' important, but we have orders. Pretend that yours is the only ship on full alert, or do whatever you have to do to further the deception. Remember, crewmen do e-mail home. The bar girls throughout the Pacific will know immediately that something's up, and it's not what they were hoping for." Again, everyone laughed and the admiral dismissed them.

  As Blades was speaking, the newborn merchant vessel Glory had passed through the Java Sea and was in the sea road of the Makassar Strait, steaming in pleasant weather for the Celebes Sea, there to continue a devious course north.

  ***

  In Israel, Eli Kotcher, under greater pressure after the assassination of Nat Lowe, had every Mossad agent available interviewing Lowe's acquaintances and checking and double-checking his
movements before he boarded the Pride of Dakar.

  In a desert barracks complex, the Israeli commandos who had been on board the carrier when Lowe was murdered were under close guard and being interrogated by teams of specialists.

  Kotcher was certain they would find the assassin even if they had to resort to drugs, isolation and rough treatment, but he was also reasonably certain that when they did find their man that he would know nothing about the overall plan. He was right on both counts.

  CHAPTER 27: Pieces of the Puzzle

  Taro Watanabe had no difficulty obtaining the old U.S. Army report on the murder of the Tokyo detective's grandfather. It was faxed to him two hours after he made a couple of telephone calls to the States.

  From the look of the report there hadn't been much of an investigation. Watanabe suspected that it would have been next to impossible for the American authorities to locate anybody in Japan, criminal or honest, during those chaotic times just after the war.

  The report stated that Sergeant Burt Chalk had been murdered in his bunk, a wound in his chest from a bayonet he kept in his room. His roommate, Sergeant McKay, was in the infirmary with the flu at the time. Chalk's cash was missing and his wallet was found on the floor. His watch was also missing. Sergeant McKay thought it was a Benrus. He wasn't certain. He had seen it on Chalk's wrist and remembered it had a pinkish face, or pinkish crystal.

  There were fingerprints in the room that belonged to neither Chalk or McKay. They had been on the wallet, on the plastic enclosure for photo and cards, and in other parts of the room. These prints were available if Watanabe thought he had come up with a suspect. A list of the Japanese returnees who Chalk had interviewed during the days just prior to the murder was also available upon request. There was also a note on the report that whoever killed Chalk would be a very old man and very likely dead. The note writer added that there was no clue whether the evil deed was done by an American or a Japanese.

  Watanabe read the report carefully. As old as it was it fell into his jurisdiction because it involved a foreigner in the Kansai. He photocopied the report and mailed it to Detective Goro Maeda in Tokyo. The original he put in his desk drawer. There was something in the report that bothered him, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He shrugged it off. Any unsolved murder of a gaijin in the Osaka area would bother him, no matter what.

  Watanabe called Nana and asked her to meet him at the Hawk & Thistle after work for a beer and a snack. He had just hung up when the mysterious Digger called and asked for a meeting, this time on a pedestrian street overpass in the heart of the entertainment district. Watanabe sat back in his chair and sighed. There were so many questions, so few answers.

  Digger was already on the overpass when Watanabe arrived. It was a good choice. Few people climbed the stairs, preferring to wait for the light to change at street level. A ragged bum slept on flattened cardboard boxes, his clothing caked with dirt. Otherwise, the two of them were alone. "G'dye, Myte," Digger said cheerfully.

  "I read about your press release. The mystery of the tunnel. Anything come of it yet?"

  "No. We've had a few calls. People who agree that something has been going on for quite awhile. A few people with missing relatives, in fact. But nothing solid. What's on your mind this fine day?" Watanabe looked over the rail at the swarms of people coming out of the covered shopping street, crossing the wide boulevard and reentering what appeared to be a huge cave devoted to commerce.

  "It's this Mossad thing I mentioned earlier. It's heating up and it seems to be focusing on our part of the world, the Pacific Rim. The U.S. Navy's gotten into the act."

  Watanabe smiled. It seemed an unlikely partnership, the Mossad and the U.S. Navy. "I don't understand."

  "That makes a pair of us, Myte. The Navy's on full alert from the Indian Ocean to the North and South Pacific. They're looking for something, probably a certain ship. And the Mossad is looking over their shoulder. There's some big shit coming down, Watanabe. My people haven't seen fit to be candid with me, if indeed they know what it is."

  Watanabe assumed he meant the CIA headquarters in Northern Virginia. If they weren't keeping their own people posted, it must be super secret. But with the entire Pacific Fleet involved, how could it be secret? "There is a Japanese military intelligence, of course. But they don't confide in me," Watanabe said. "Maybe you should ask them."

  "I'm not tight with them, either," Digger confessed. "What is it exactly that you're investigating at the Tsugaru Strait?"

  "Something under water," Watanabe said without thinking.

  "You mean in the water? On the bottom, not in the tunnel?"

  "I suppose so," Watanabe replied. I never really thought of it in that light. I had been thinking, been led to believe, that maybe money was stolen, skimmed off somewhere. But in truth, the scuba divers must have found something in the water."

  "On the bottom?" Digger questioned.

  "Yes, I would think on the bottom, near the tunnel. And in the tunnel, too. A man named Ikeda, his son died there, worked in the tunnel, but there were not any official records. Ikeda is the one who mentioned the Seventh Samurai and the Fuurin Kazan.

  "Wind, forest, fire and mountain," Digger said.

  "Exactly, the ancient battle standard."

  "Then what you have is some sort of secret military organization working inside and outside the tunnel, but always underwater," Digger reasoned.

  "Yes," Watanabe agreed. "I had never thought of it in just that way before, but what a great cover water would make for such an operation."

  "Particularly if one had gills," Digger smiled. "But you are working on a wet case, and I have the U.S. Navy and the Mossad, also interested in salt water. Maybe we can put the two things together."

  "I doubt that." Watanabe glanced at his watch. It was just after five. "I'm meeting Nana at the Hawk & Thistle soon as I can get there. Care to lift a few?"

  "Bob's your uncle, if you're shouting, Myte."

  Watanabe recognized the bit of Aussie slang to mean, yes, if you're buying. The two set out for the authentic British pub that sold Kirin beer and was owned by a smiling Japanese merchant.

  CHAPTER 28: Akira Yoshimoto's Lust

  Yoko Kaji arranged white and pink flowers in a vase in Finance Minister Akira Yoshimoto's inner office. It was late in the day, too late for fresh flowers, but Yoko changed the flowers in the office as frequently as possible. It was one way of being near the old man and drawing his attention. She wore a tight skirt and tried to posture as provocatively as possible during her forays with the flowers. Of course she still had to maintain the traditional shyness that older men expect of a young Japanese lady.

  The fact of the matter was that her family was poor and Yoshimoto was known to be very wealthy. Yoko wanted at least a trip to Hawaii. If possible she would like to go to Los Angeles and visit Disneyland. She loved Mickey Mouse and had her bedroom strewn with his photos and stuffed effigies.

  "You look tired, Kaji-san," Yoshimoto said. "Perhaps you have been working too hard." He had taken the girl into his office staff as a favor to her grandfather and had no idea what her duties were other than to serve green tea and arrange flowers. But she was a pretty young thing and obviously in the flower of life. Her clothing hid little.

  Yoko did her best to blush and place a hand over her mouth. "I have been studying English at night, Yoshimoto-san. I thought it would help me in my work." In fact she had been writhing and panting on the bed of a love hotel until four in the morning. Her partner was a sushi chef she had met three days earlier.

  Yoshimoto puzzled to himself how her knowledge of English would help her either serve tea, or arrange flowers. On impulse he asked her to stay late and tell him about her studies. When she agreed, he buzzed his secretary and told her she could go home. He invited Yoko to sit on the couch, and he sat across from her. Her short skirt was drawn up almost to her hips when she was seated and she made no effort to conceal anything. "How old are you, Kaji-san?" he asked.

/>   She hesitated a moment and placed a hand over her mouth again to show shyness. She was almost twenty-one and she knew Japanese men preferred girls in their teens. She dodged the question by saying, "I just graduated from junior college in March."

  "And what did you study there?" Yoshimoto asked. He was hardly aware of what he was saying. His thoughts were on her young body and the tight-stretched skirt. In his lifetime, he had never been to one of the love hotels that had hourly rates and were scattered everywhere in Japan. Nor had he visited the soaplands, the semi-legal houses of prostitution. Almost all of his colleagues had regularly been untrue to their wives, while he had remained faithful to his cousin-mistress with his sights set rigidly on one goal.

  Now that his work was almost ended, his carefully laid plans about to be executed, his moment of fame possibly just a few days away, if he just had a fresh, unblemished thing like this to share it with? someone who would truly admire and idolize him. Not Kyoko Suzuki, who was more likely to criticize than she was to praise. Even now as he looked at Yoko he could feel his passion rise. Her body was like a full, ripe peach, he thought, lush with the juices of life.

  Yoko shifted her body in a sensual manner. "I was a secretarial major, but I studied English, too. My teacher told me I was very good." As she spoke she remembered when her teacher had said that. They had been in bed together in his apartment. She stuck her tongue out slightly and wet her lips. "I think you are very handsome and very mature, Yoshimoto-san. There is so much more to you than the silly young men my age." She put both hands on her knees then drew them up slowly on the sides of her hips, finally using them to smooth her lap.

  "Do you live alone, Kaji-san?"

  "Yes, I do. And sometimes I'm very lonely. But I have my studies." Her studies consisted of a Japanese-English dictionary that she placed under a leg of a table to keep it from wobbling.