The Man With The Red Tattoo

by Benson, Raymond

  Tanaka held up his glass of water and waited for Bond to do the same. He then clinked the glasses together and said, “Kampai.”

  At three o’clock in the morning, the delegates were asleep, the building was completely silent and the night guard made his rounds throughout Benesse House for the fifth time that night. He started in the basement’s main gallery, where the reception would be held in just a few hours.

  Walking up and down the aisles formed by the cloth-covered tables and planters, he focused the beam of his torch over every object and surface. Nothing appeared to be amiss. He made a notation in his logbook, then climbed the stairs to the first floor. He would return in one hour to repeat the process.

  The first indication that the gallery was not completely vacant was the slight scraping noise that came from the plaster heart in the centre of the gallery. An astute listener might have recognised the sound as the unscrewing of a panel from the inside of the hollow object, but no one was around to hear it.

  The heart appeared seamless but in fact it was made of several panels that had been fitted and fastened together from the inside. Very slowly and quietly, one panel was removed and placed inside the object. After a moment, two small legs popped out of the opening, followed by the trunk, arms and head of Junji Kon, the killer dwarf known as Kappa.

  He had spent the last four days inside the heart, but he was used to confined quarters. He was equipped with everything he could possibly need: food, water, a portable toilet, even reading material and a light and the all-important clock. The inwardly curved bottom of the sphere was lined with cushions that a normal-sized man might find uncomfortable to sleep on, but it was perfect for one the size of Kappa.

  The Koan-Chosa-Cho knew that the heart was owned by a wealthy patron of the arts. What they and the staff at Benesse House didn’t know was that the collector was Yasutake Tsukamoto’s Saiko-komon, or advisor, the equivalent of the Italian Mafia’s consigliere. The Saikokomon had used his influence to dictate how the heart was built and delivered to Naoshima Island. Kappa was installed in the finished work of art and it was brought to the island in one piece. It only had to be fitted on its pedestal once it was inside the museum.

  Kappa emerged from his lair, reached back inside and removed a case that he placed on the floor. He opened it and revealed a number of glass mosquito canisters exactly like the one he had used on the Cassiopeia. Each container had a timed hinge and was filled with water and recently hatched mosquitoes. The insects had been developing for a week, had become adults and would have dry shells within a few hours.

  Diligently and meticulously, Kappa went around the room and, using his trowel, dug holes in the flowerpots and planters. He then buried one canister in the soil of each stationary pot and planter so that the containers were spread out over the entire room. When he was finished, he went back over his handiwork to make sure that the soil was flattened and did not appear to have been disturbed.

  Glancing at his clock, Kappa saw that he had a little more time before the guard returned. It felt good to be out of that heart for a while! He reached inside, pulled a raw cucumber out of a plastic bag and began to munch it. After he had eaten half of it, Kappa set the remains on the heart’s pedestal and then proceeded to stretch his short legs, perform lifts on his toes and reach for the ceiling to exercise his back. He was about to repeat the regimen when he heard a door creak somewhere nearby, alerting him to the guard’s imminent return. Carefully picking up his tools, Kappa crawled back inside the heart and replaced the panel. When it was screwed on tightly, he settled onto his cushions and went to sleep.

  TWENTY-SIX

  RED WIDOW DAWN

  THE DAWN BROUGHT A BEAUTIFUL CLEAR DAY, ALTHOUGH THE FORECAST predicted that the temperature would rise considerably. Alone in his room, Bond was already feeling the heat and it was not yet seven o’clock.

  The outfit that Tiger had provided him with was not exactly summer wear, either. Beneath his three-piece Ozwald Boateng suit Bond wore something that had been made exclusively for the situation at hand. Patterned after the full-bodied ninja suits, the garment was worn underneath the outer clothes like a complete body stocking and had extensions that could be rolled out to cover hands and head. In case of a mosquito attack, Bond could quickly protect his exposed skin. It wasn’t foolproof but it was better than nothing.

  He took a moment in front of the mirror, examining his hard face. The scars and scabs from the beating were still present but looked much better. Nevertheless, Bond noticed that many of the people he had met the day before were nervous in his presence. Perhaps that was a bonus.

  Zero hour!

  Bond made sure that his headset was working and then he left his room. He took the monorail down the hill to the main building, made his way down the stairs and into the main gallery, where Tanaka, Nakayama and the other men were already busy with last minute preparations.

  “Bondo-san, ohayo gozaimasu!” Tanaka said warmly. “Are you ready for another day of international espionage and combating terrorism?”

  Bond laughed. “Ohayo gozaimasu to you, too.”

  “This line of work beats going to an office every day, does it not?”

  “Office or not, I’ve clocked on,” Bond replied. “Are we on time?”

  “Everything begins in an hour. So far everything is on schedule.”

  Bond squinted at his friend and said, “Tiger, you still look a little pale.”

  Tanaka frowned, rubbed his chest, and said, “Do not worry, Bondo-san, I am all right. It’s probably just nerves.”

  Bond nodded and then turned to inspect the room. He walked along the perimeter, paying special attention to the plants and flowers. He noted that the plaster heart was rotating on its pedestal, the motor emitting a low hum. The tables looked immaculate, as they were now dressed with fine china, chopsticks and silverware for those guests who were unaccustomed to using them. Satisfied that Tanaka’s men knew what they were doing, Bond stood out of the way beside three standing figures that were a part of the museum’s permanent art collection. They were painted, flat silhouettes of men with mechanised jaws that moved up and down. The piece was appropriately named “Three Chattering Men.” Bond surveyed the entire room one more time from this vantagepoint and then went to check on the British contingent to the conference.

  By 8:15 the room was packed with people. The main delegates sat at the head table with Benesse Corporation’s president, Soichiro Fukutake. Bodyguards stood behind the table looking particularly conspicuous while attempting to be the opposite. The aides and other conference attendees filled the other tables. Breakfast was part-Japanese, part-Western to accommodate everyone’s tastes. Glasses of orange juice and champagne were served for toasting purposes and that duty was handled graciously by Mr. Fukutake, who welcomed the delegates to his museum and hotel. While people ate, conversation was lively and animated throughout the room. None of the guests had been informed of the possible terrorist threat. It had been decided early on that it was unnecessary to alarm anyone unless the Koan-Chosa-Cho had evidence of something concrete. Tanaka had made the decision to keep a low profile for the time being.

  Bond, Tanaka and the other secret service men patrolled the perimeter of the room, keeping an eye out for anything unusual. Tanaka positioned himself near the plate-glass window looking out at the pit containing the marble “Secret of the Sky” sculptures. He happened to glance at the planter full of lovely white irises that was sitting beside him.

  Was the soil moving?

  Tanaka leaned over to examine the dirt more closely. It was moving! Something was buried beneath the soil and was attempting to dig out, like a mole might do. It was some kind of trap door—no, the lid of a jar, Tanaka thought.

  Then, the hinged top of the glass container opened fully, knocking aside the soil that was on top of it. Tanaka was horrified to see a swarm of mosquitoes fly out of the container and into the air.

  He spoke into his headset, “Alert! Alert! There is—” b
ut he found it difficult to continue speaking. He was seized with a sudden, sharp and excruciating pain in his left arm and chest.

  No! he thought. Not again!

  The iron crab clutched at his heart, paralysing him, squeezing the breath out of his lungs. He broke out in a sweat and the lights dimmed to black. He stumbled backwards and tried to catch something to hold on to, but it was useless.

  He didn’t feel the floor when he crashed headlong onto it.

  Bond saw Tanaka fall and spoke rapidly into his headset. “May Day, May Day, Tanaka is down!” He and three other agents rushed to the end of the room and knelt beside the unconscious man.

  “Call for medical help,” Bond ordered Nakayama. “Quickly!”

  The delegates and other personnel stopped chattering and craned their heads to see what was happening. Bond stood and addressed them.

  “No cause for alarm,” he said. “It appears we have a man with a heart condition. We have sent for help. Please, there is no cause for alarm.”

  Fukutake approached Bond and said that the helicopter was on its way. It would take Tanaka to Okayama immediately. After a moment, four members from the emergency medical team that was stationed outside the building entered with a stretcher. They spent a few minutes on the floor with Tanaka, trying to revive him but they quickly realised that they would do better in the ambulance. They capably loaded him onto the stretcher and carried it outside. Bond watched from the front door as his friend was loaded into the vehicle. Before long it sped away towards the beach and the helipad.

  “You are in charge now, Bond-san,” said Nakayama, who was standing behind him. “This was Tanaka-san’s order.” Distracted, Bond nodded and turned to rejoin the breakfast meeting in the main gallery.

  The commotion had served to distract everyone in the room from what was happening around them. Operation Red Widow Dawn had commenced, silently and with meticulous timing. The rest of the mosquito containers had opened inside their respective planters and flowerpots, releasing the deadly insects into the air. No one noticed them at all; the insects were practically invisible, especially in the bright light of the morning sun that streamed in through the plate glass windows and the skylight.

  Bond wiped his brow as he re-entered the room. He was concerned for his friend, but it was out of his hands; he had to hope and pray that the doctors could do enough.

  Slap!

  Bond whirled around to see one of the women from Italy with her hand on her bare arm. She then looked at her palm and made a face.

  Bond’s heart skipped a beat. He snapped his head up, turning his gaze to the space above the guests’ heads.

  Another slap on skin, this time from the British Prime Minister’s aide.

  “Someone let in a mosquito,” the man said casually.

  “Get everyone out, now!” Bond called into the headset.

  His eyes darted back and forth as he felt a rush of adrenaline. Were they in the room? Was it happening?

  And then he saw them. Sure enough, dozens of mosquitoes were flying above the guests’ heads, gliding lightly and delicately and looking for targets on which to land.

  The bodyguards and aides leaped into action. “Ladies and gentlemen, please come this way. Do not panic!” Nakayama called out. An evacuation had been rehearsed among Tanaka’s staff and therefore was initiated smoothly and efficiently. The delegates, not at all sure what was going on, rose from their seats and began to file out of the room in an orderly fashion.

  The Prime Minister addressed Bond, saying, “Double-O Seven, would you mind telling me what is happening?”

  “Please, sir, just get out of the room,” Bond said, his eyes still searching the space above their heads. “Nakayama-san, please make sure that door doesn’t stay open for too long,” he ordered. The men at the door acknowledged him by closing it after three people went through, then opening it again for three more.

  As the evacuation progressed, Bond unrolled the extra pieces of his undersuit, put on gloves and unfolded the mask and hood that neatly covered his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out goggles to wear. They were specially tinted to highlight objects that were in front of a light background. Once the goggles were in place, he could see the insects much more clearly. They were coming out of the planters!

  Bond ran to the covered object in the corner of the room. He pulled off the cloth, exposing the strange contraption.

  It was a Mosquito Magnet, a device originally created in America but adapted by the Japanese. It resembled the type of professional hairdryer that was found in a salon, only there was no chair. The device is commonly used by vector control organisations to attract and blow mosquitoes into a collection container so that their population density can be tested for viruses. Its operation is simple enough—a warm, moist carbon dioxide plume is produced from propane gas to attract the bloodsucking insects. Mosquitoes are naturally attracted to carbon dioxide, as well as to body heat and other chemicals present in the breath of warm-blooded hosts. As they approach the source, they are vacuumed into a net where they dehydrate and die. It is powerful enough to be effective outdoors in an area the size of nearly an acre.

  As soon as Bond flipped the switch on, he could see many of the insects change their flight plan and head towards it. He watched in amazement as the mosquitoes flew straight into the container; they were trapped and had no escape route.

  Another item sat on the floor next to the Mosquito Magnet—a large metal bucket full of machine oil, something that would come into play shortly.

  Bond checked on the progress of the evacuation and was relieved to see that nearly everyone was out of the gallery. “Nakayama-san, after you have the conference attendees safely outside, get all of your men out. I don’t want to take the chance of anyone getting bitten.”

  “Bond-san, some of us should stay and help you,” Nakayama replied through the headset.

  “That’s an order, Nakayama-san.”

  “Hai!”

  Bond immediately began to move from planter to planter, removing the glass containers from the soil. After he gathered an armful of them, he then went back to the table and dropped them into the bucket of oil, thereby immediately killing any remaining pupae and eggs. He continued this procedure until he had gone completely around the gallery.

  Next he went back to the Mosquito Magnet to check on its progress. There were dozens of mosquitoes trapped in the can. He scanned the air around him and noted that there were a few insects still flying. He rotated the machine so that it faced toward the centre of the room and waited until he could see that more of the mosquitoes were gravitating towards the fan. Bond tapped his headset and said, “Nakayama-san, I think I’ve done all that I can do in here. I’m coming out. Let’s seal the room and wait a while. These bugs will either be caught in the trap or they’ll die in a few hours. I just hope that none got out of the gallery.”

  “Me too, Bond-san.”

  “How are things out there?”

  “Fine. Some of the delegates are demanding to know what has happened and why they weren’t told about it beforehand.”

  “I’ll let your government handle that one.”

  “I believe that three people were bitten,” Nakayama said. “A bodyguard for the German diplomat, an Italian woman and an aide to the British Prime Minister.”

  “Bad luck. Perhaps if we get them to the hospital before symptoms occur, they might have a chance.”

  “They’re on their way.”

  Bond moved away from the table and walked past the plaster heart in the centre of the room. He reached down to switch off the rotation motor and noticed something peculiar.

  Half a raw cucumber was lying on the edge of the pedestal.

  Bond picked it up and studied it. Why were alarms bells going off in his head?

  Then he remembered.

  He turned his attention to the plaster heart and tapped it. Hearing the hollow sound was the catalyst that he needed. Bond picked up a chair and swung it as hard as
he could at the heart, shattering its shell. He struck the object again, this time enlarging the hole he had made. He kept at it, striking the heart as if it were a Mexican piñata. But no sweets or prizes fell out of the object when he was done—there was just a big hole.

  Could his hunch have been wrong?

  He carefully moved closer to the heart so that he could peer inside.

  Nothing.

  Kappa leaped out of the object, grabbed hold of Bond’s upper body and wrestled him to the floor. Bond grappled with the dwarf and felt a sharp pain on his left shoulder. Kappa held a Balisong and had managed to slash through Bond’s suit and cut him. Bond put all of his energy into blocking the dwarfs jabs but the assassin was fast and stronger than he looked. Bond didn’t want a repeat of what had happened in the Seikan Tunnel, so he locked both of his hands on Kappa’s wrist. He dug his thumbs hard into the soft spot, causing the dwarf to yelp in pain and drop the butterfly knife. Bond let go of the wrist and backhanded the killer with a sharp, surprising blow that knocked Kappa completely off him and onto the floor.

  The dwarf used his uncanny ability to bounce back to his feet, but instead of attacking Bond, he ran towards the exit. By the time Bond had got up, the dwarf was already at the door that led into the circular gallery at the front of the museum. Bond chased him into it but when he got there, the dwarf was nowhere to be seen.

  Damn! The trickster had used his freakish skill to hide.

  “Nakayama-san,” he said into his headset. “Be on the lookout for a dwarf.”

  “A dwarf?” Nakayama asked.

  The “100 Live and Die” sculpture blinked randomly at Bond … Speak and Die … Kill and Live … Stand and Die … Sick and Live … Yellow and Die … Smell and Live …

  The stone staircase curved around the room to the top floor. The dwarf couldn’t have made it up that far. Nakayama and his men were beyond the front entrance and reception area, so the killer couldn’t have gone that way either. There was only one place he could be.