by Pam Richter
Eve walked in. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone. All the furniture had been replaced in the sitting room and Hashimoto was now dressed in a business suite, as were the bodyguards.
Eve believed that Sabrina had been imprisoned in the bathroom, the only place they could hold her. She found it ominous that she couldn't hear any noise from there.
"Ms. Miller," Hashimoto said, as if greeting a guest at a dinner party. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"I destroyed the negatives. And the investigation reports from the CIA. Now we'll leave."
Hashimoto went over to the wall and turned the music dial down. The blatant instrumental tones quieted. He stood looking at her, a smile quirking his thick lips.
"I don't believe you want to leave without your sister."
Hashimoto motioned with an arm and all the bodyguards left the room except for Kokuro, who was now lying down on a sofa across the room.
Hashimoto casually pulled the gun Sabrina had been holding out of his pocket.
Eve looked around the room. There had been three bodyguards in the room just now, so one was missing. She walked into the bedroom and then went to the bathroom. Both were empty. When she came back into the sitting room, Hashimoto had not moved.
"Mr. Hashimoto, kidnapping is a federal offense, punishable by many years in prison."
"Sabrina went quite willingly. I wanted to negotiate with you alone."
"There's nothing to negotiate. I'm not willing to go to Japan. I have destroyed all the pictures and documents concerning my sister and I. I want you to stop this whole thing, right now, and bring Sabrina back. I had to get those pictures, as they implicate me in hurting a Soviet spy."
Hashimoto might not have heard her as he went on implacably. "If you do not come to Japan, I'm afraid your sister is going to be involved in a very terrible accident."
The bodyguards were outside so they couldn't hear his threats. Hashimoto still thought they were easy prey.
"The important thing," Hashimoto continued, "is that you will be on a plane to Tokyo with me this evening, or your sister...well, it will be very sad, what happens to her."
With that pronouncement Hashimoto gave his horrible crocodile smile.
There was a knock on the door. Eve ran and opened it before Hashimoto could move.
Eve was pleased to see her phone call had been taken seriously. A grey haired, middle aged man was at the door with a black doctor's bag. Behind him were two attendants with a folding stretcher. Clustered around them were Hashimoto's three bodyguards.
"Where's the injured man?"
Eve nodded at Kokuro lying across the room.
The men with the stretcher came inside and started unfolding it. In a few moments the doctor had the top part of Kokuro's Gi off and was gently probing with his fingers.
"Who did this to you?" The doctor asked angrily.
Kokuro shook his head as if he did not understand English.
Hashimoto walked over to the doctor and said, "I have a medical doctor on my staff who will take care of my employee. You may be assured he will get the best of care."
"He has to go to a hospital. He may have internal injuries. The broken ribs are the least of it. Has he been in an accident? He has several wounds." The doctor was probing, talking to himself. "It looks like he was beaten up. The cheek bone is fractured, also."
The doctor turned to Hashimoto after the examination and wanted to know how Kokuro had been injured. Eve watched as Hashimoto tried to get out of assuming responsibility. Finally she told the doctor about the karate match.
Hashimoto kept glancing at her with deadly hatred, then switching back and smiling at the doctor, saying that she was totally mistaken. Kokuro did have a karate match with him. But he fell down the stairs when he went back to his room.
The doctor's eyebrows were expressive, as if he had heard the story about victims falling downstairs countless times in wife and child abuse cases. What was astonishing was that Kokuro was so large, and Hashimoto so small. He frowned as he helped his attendants move Kokuro onto the stretcher.
When the doctor had left, Eve thought Hashimoto was going to have a seizure. She watched with interest. Usually he conveyed emotions with expressions that revealed nothing, or even the opposite of what he was feeling. Now, Eve thought, she was seeing the true man.
Hashimoto strode around the room ranting in Japanese. He used words Eve had never heard, so she assumed it was Japanese profanity. Arms chopped and spittle flew, but she got the general drift of his violent bombastic outpouring. Hashimoto was furious with the loss of face he received when the doctor, an American, had understood that he, a respected educated business man from Japan, had beaten up one of his employees.
After a while Hashimoto seemed to lose energy and ranted more softly. Finally he turned, looking straight at her, pointed his finger and shouted, "You."
Eve almost jumped with surprise.
"This is all your fault. You called the doctor, didn't you. You...." He was speaking in Japanese and didn't seem to know it. She saw him start to work himself up into a rage.
A sharp slap across the face is good for a person out of emotional control, but Eve suspected the one bodyguard who had remained in the room would misconstrue her action and think she was attacking Hashimoto. She didn't want to use a counter-blackmail scheme with his documents. He would know she could read and understand Japanese. And as for the money she had taken, she only wanted to use it as a distasteful way of paying for Sabrina's freedom as a last resort.
She could, of course, threaten to hurt him. He knew she was quite capable of violence. But Hashimoto had put the gun in his pocket when the doctor arrived. He might take it out and fire it in his present state of mind, which Eve considered quite unbalanced. Also, Eve had no idea how strong she really was and if she hurt him badly, it would be satisfying, but she might not find out where he had taken Sabrina.
"You," Eve shrieked at the top of her voice. Hashimoto stood looking at her, quiet for the moment, so she continued shouting. "You have kidnapped my sister and have threatened a lethal accident unless I go to Japan. I'm calling the police."
"Don't get hysterical."
"I'll get as hysterical as I want," Eve screamed, wishing she could make spittle fly. Still, she kept yelling to keep Hashimoto from going into another rage. "I will not go to Japan with you."
She hoped screaming would be effective, if only for a little while. If he was afraid someone would hear her, he might try to negotiate. Also, if he thought she was hysterical, he might really believe she would call the police, so Eve played it up for all she was worth.
"Calm yourself," Hashimoto said caustically when Eve's raw throat finally forced her to stop. She had been letting him know that he had terrible table manners, used his employees for sadistic sport, and that he was a dirty underhanded crook to try to put Sabrina out of business, not to mention threatening her life.
"I know you didn't have time to get rid of the documents. Or the pictures. Maybe I'll let Sabrina go. If you will give me your purse and let me have those items."
Eve held on to her purse tightly. "You can have this purse and everything in it, if you bring Sabrina back. We'll trade."
"I want it now."
Eve shook her head.
"Perhaps you would like to renegotiate the contract. I would be willing to give you a more substantial salary."
I will be in no condition to collect, Eve thought.
Hashimoto had regained his somewhat precarious emotional balance and painted rosy pictures of what her life would be like in Japan. The traveling. The food. The wonderful opportunities she had awaiting her.
It was too risky to infuriate him further. Sabrina was missing and in his control.
Eve nodded, "I'll go to Japan."
CHAPTER 31
Sabrina came out of the darkness and tried to focus. There were six, which resolved into three, shiny, beetle black heads hovering in the air, peering at her with slanted ey
es. Their images pulsed.
She remembered vaguely pushing the safety off the gun when a group had burst into the bathroom. The crash as the door broke made her pull the trigger. Something sharp had been stuck into her hip. After that there was no memory.
Disembodied heads now bobbed and nodded in fast motion, buzzing words she couldn't understand. They were studying her like she was some select, exotic insect. Alien beings examining someone from outer space. She prayed it was a dream.
"Did you give her too much? Her pulse rate is up to 180!"
She could feel herself sliding helplessly toward unconsciousness. There was a major wrongness.
"Sabrina!"
"Don't let her sleep! We could lose her, you fucking idiot!"
Someone was shaking her, slapping her face. She frowned in mute protest. Then her head was violently forced to the side.
Sabrina struggled in her mind, but her body would not move.
She was totally paralyzed.
An incomprehensible jumble seemed to be blown in slow motion by mouths that puffed in and out, close to her and then receding away. She tried to scream and a small whimpering sound emerged.
"Pulse is steadying. Hold her head, goddammit. She could have a seizure—start convulsing. We'll have to wait and see if she stabilizes."
People were handling her! She was utterly terrified with her helplessness.
Then, in an instant, she knew she was going to throw up. Her stomach was heaving. She tasted the acrid liquid that comes unbidden from under the tongue to start the vomiting process. She had learned as a child that if you spit out that nasty liquid you can keep from puking out your guts, which she knew would happen if she swallowed.
Sabrina spit.
"Hashimoto will kill us if anything happens to her."
"Well, let’s go ahead with the procedure. She's in no condition to know."
Sabrina felt more pressure pushing her head to the side and thought, here it comes, my neck will snap. The tendons stretched so painfully she cried. Then there was a cool sensation and the pain dulled away.
Suddenly they were yanking on her ear. They were twisting off her ear. She smelled burning and blood.
"Got to get her moving. Come on. Help me."
Sabrina was pushed off of the place where she had been reclining. Her body collapsed. Someone caught her and started hauling her back and forth, from one side of the room to the other. It was dark and her feet dragged over carpeting. Someone was telling her to walk, but her legs did not accept commands any longer. At one point she did start to vomit and was held, bent over from the waist, so she wouldn't compromise her air passage. Then the endless dragging started again.
"Sabrina. You will remember this. It's very important. You had lunch with Mr. Hashimoto and he told you how nice it would be to live in Japan. All is wonderful in Japan and you will live there very happily with your sister, Eve. I want you to repeat what I just said."
The voice went on and on, endlessly, insistently, until Sabrina sluggishly repeated the words. She vowed she would never believe. She clenched her hands, the only part of her body she could move voluntarily, until her fingernails broke the skin of her palms.
CHAPTER 32
Eve hurried straight to Ivar through the bright, busy lobby. She looked at his astonished face and said, "I to have to speak to you openly. There's an emergency. Sato Hashimoto has Sabrina. He won't release her unless I go to Japan."
"They're holding her against her will?" Ivar asked, frowning.
Eve nodded. She explained that she had agreed to meet Hashimoto at LAX that night. He would release Sabrina when she got on the plane to Tokyo.
Ivar glanced over at Malcolm, who had lost all interest in covert surveillance and was watching them with undisguised curiosity.
"Hashimoto says Sabrina will be in a terrible accident, unless I do what he says."
"Did anyone hear his threats?"
"A bodyguard of his, named Kokuro. But Hashimoto beat him up and a doctor took him to the hospital. And he'll probably pretend he can't speak English, anyway."
Eve saw that Malcolm was walking over, so she explained quickly that Hashimoto wanted her computer and planned to dissect her to get it. There was no time to pussyfoot around. Ivar probably knew, or suspected, anyway.
When Malcolm reached them, Ivar explained the situation to him. He omitted homicidal threats, an implanted computer, a beaten bodyguard and the swap at LAX. He had a ferocious desire to protect Eve from those who planned to open her head and take her treasure.
Malcolm was dazzled just to be this close to the person he had been fantasizing about. He did not question the story, just said he needed to speak to Ivar alone for a moment.
Eve heard the conversation because they didn't know about her enhanced auditory ability. Ivar pointed out that Burgess Whitcomb expected them to bring in both of the women. One would not do because they couldn't tell which was which. The Japanese wanted to take Eve out of the country, an occurrence that Burgess would probably kill them for. After he kicked them out of the CIA. If they let it happen.
Malcolm agreed to help, but said it had to be 'by the book.' Eve wondered if that meant more delays as she sat and twisted in a chair, watching all the interesting costumes pass by in the crowded lobby. These women, leaving the Republican Party luncheon, were probably rich and would be the targets of Sabrina's new fashion design store. Eve thought the majority of them looked silly. The women behaved theatrically, with dramatic, exaggerated and frantic body motions. Sabrina would be doing them all a favor by opening her shop where they could get some help. They were all named Dear and Darling, and were overtly affectionate in strange ways, kissing air around the peoples faces they talked to. They all smelled terrible to Eve's nostrils, overly sensitive to strong perfumes.
Eve went over to the bank of lobby telephones, passing distinct pathways of perfume scent. She noticed nauseating areas where two distinct fragrances lingered and mingled in obnoxious combinations. Her upturned nose twitched with revulsion.
Eve called the Los Angeles Times Newspaper and got Mark. She explained that Sabrina was missing, a prisoner of Sato Hashimoto. She mentioned Hashimoto's threats.
Mark suggested she leave Sabrina alone and go somewhere far away and never bother to come back. Then he said he would be right over to help search for Sabrina. Eve told him to hurry and to bring his camera.
Ivar came over to her. He said that to conduct the search they had to get permission from the hotel manager. The process could take some time. The hotel manager would probably be adamant that the Japanese Embassy be contacted. And then the FBI would get involved.
"Call it off."
"My thought exactly," Ivar said.
"What will we do about Malcolm?" Eve asked.
"He agreed to let me handle it if we don't work strictly legitimate. Malcolm doesn't want to lose his job. Hashimoto is leaving the hotel, so he'll follow Hashimoto."
Eve told Ivar that they would have to wait for Mark Ponti. He could be useful because he was a journalist.
"These places have master keys," Ivar said, as they sat down in the lobby. "The maid service uses them routinely. I wish we could get one. I'm afraid if we do find the right room, we won't be able to get in."
"I'll break the door down."
Ivar thought she was joking and commented, "Too noisy."
Eve started telling Ivar that there were some things about her that he didn't know, and that she would explain. She was interrupted when Mark rushed through the glass doors into the lobby, spotted her, and hurried over.
Eve felt an instant surge of pure love for Mark, which she immediately recognized as a Sabrina Emotion. She realized she truly had to get Sabrina and Mark back together again.
Eve introduced Ivar and Mark. They were sizing each other up like two wary animals meeting for the first time. Sabrina had probably told Mark about her relationship with Ivar. Mark must know that Ivar was a spy. That realization did not help Mark's response to Ivar, w
hich was definitely cool. Mark looked at her and she could tell he was wondering how she could have involved a spook into this predicament.
To defuse the situation, Eve started talking very fast, "I'll run up the stairs and peek down hallways. As soon as I find a door with one of the bodyguards outside it, I'll come back to the lobby and get you two. Mark, you have to get pictures of the guard in front of the door. You'll have to be very fast. When we get inside, I'm afraid they will be restraining Sabrina. Remember this, Mark, because it's very important. Take the pictures before you run to Sabrina.
"And Ivar, when we get inside, you pull out your ID and act very official. Scare them into letting her go."
Mark looked at Eve dubiously.
"We'll get her back, Mark, don't worry, but I would rather not have to hurt anyone."
Both men watched her stride quickly away.
"Damn," Mark said sighing and shaking his head in gloom. "She's pure trouble."
"She was kidding about hurting people. Wasn't she?"
"Don't you know anything about your girlfriend? She breaks peoples legs. And bites them. And now look what's happened. Sabrina's been kidnapped!. The strange thing is, Sabrina is totally loyal to Eve. Even with her whole life in a shambles. You'd think they really were sisters."
"Identical twins. Aren't they?" Ivar asked.
Mark looked at Ivar with pity. He didn't trust the man enough to tell him the truth. The funny thing was, he had a gut instinct he could rely on the guy, even though Ivar looked like a movie star spy, and Mark didn't usually trust handsome men. As he sat waiting, Mark decided that Ivar was the type of man that Sabrina had been looking for all along, while dating him. It was probably true because Eve, who was Sabrina's duplicate, had fallen for him like a brick.
"You'll have to ask Eve about her relationship to Sabrina," Mark said, finally.
* * * * *
When Hashimoto arrived at the intensive care ward at Cedars Sinai Hospital, he caught sight of Stephan and Alexander coming down the hallway to visit their father.