The Samurai Inheritance

by James Douglas

  ‘I think that’s enough, Mr Saintclair.’ Magda pulled herself away with a wry look after they’d travelled a hundred metres. ‘Wouldn’t it have been perfectly acceptable just to hide below the door sill?’

  ‘No.’ Jamie grinned. ‘It had to look authentic.’

  She punched him on the arm and the taxi driver leered in the rear-view mirror and said something that was neither English nor Japanese.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘I think he told us to get a room.’

  For the first time in hours they were able to relax and sit back as the driver chain-smoked cigarettes and listened to what sounded like a snooker match as he weaved through the traffic. Magda asked if they could open a window and as she held the driver’s attention Jamie pushed the hammer and pliers under the front seat and surreptitiously dropped the guns out on to the road. They were passing the Wangan Road freight terminal and approaching the Haneda tunnel when Jamie’s mobile phone began to chirp. He checked the caller ID and before he refused the call Magda saw Keith Devlin’s name on the screen.

  ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘I think I’ve had enough of Keith Devlin pulling the strings. We have the Bougainville head and if he wants it that much he’s going to have to prove it.’

  ‘What do you have in mind,’ she said sweetly, ‘or are you going to surprise me again?’

  ‘Ask our friend here how much he wants for his jacket and cap.’

  They entered the airport terminal building at Haneda separately and by different doors. Jamie had the driver drop him off just short of the entrance and told Magda to stay in the car until the last possible moment. When he entered the terminal he marched in, trying to look as if he owned the place, the way Americans of his acquaintance had a habit of doing. He chewed imaginary gum, kept his head up and his chest out. As well as the cap and jacket, their new friend had entered into the spirit of things by insisting Jamie take a pair of spectacles left in the car by a fare. It meant he had to peer in order to read anything, but the gesture and the broad-rimmed glasses aged him and added to the disguise. He headed for the escalator and took it up to international departures on the third floor. At the periphery of his vision he saw Magda attach herself to a group of Caucasians laden with luggage. He watched admiringly as she insisted on helping carry some of the smaller bags to the check-in area. While she stood among them Jamie made for the Cathay Pacific ticket desk. The departure board said the airline’s next flight to Hong Kong was due to board in three hours.

  ‘Two first-class tickets on the Hong Kong flight,’ he requested. The beautiful girl on the desk frowned. ‘It is a little short notice, sir, but of course we will do our best.’ Jamie waited, trying not to fidget while she checked her computer. The frown deepened, she chewed her lip, found a solution, and her face relaxed as she smiled. ‘You are fortunate we had a late cancellation and that poor passenger MacDonald who believes he is being upgraded will now find himself back in Business. Do you have any luggage to check in? No? Then have a good flight, Mr Saintclair.’ She handed over the tickets.

  As he set off back towards the check-in desks Jamie noticed four Japanese men – standing in two pairs – studying passengers heading for the security gates. From time to time they’d glance down at something in their hands, presumably photographs taken by the video cameras at the Dragon Lady’s house. Jamie had intended they go through security separately, but the Yakuza seemed to have concentrated their watchers on the main security gate. The way they were deployed hinted they were there to snatch their quarry, not to kill, which meant Magda would be more vulnerable alone. He made his decision and went directly to her.

  ‘Stay close and don’t look anybody in the eye,’ he whispered.

  He handed her the second ticket and steered her towards the almost empty priority line for First and Business Class passengers. Their passports were in a side pocket of the rucksack and he retrieved them as he reached the gate, with the scanners beyond. Would the scanners show the heads for what they were, or just a couple of shapeless objects? Magda must have had the same thought because as she was ushered through she cast a nervous glance back towards the watching men. The movement drew the attention of the man nearest them and his eyes leaped between the face that swam into his vision and the picture in his hand. By the time he’d made up his mind they were out of sight, but Jamie heard a quick-fire burst of Japanese that signalled they’d been spotted.

  ‘We’re not out of it yet,’ he told her. ‘The chances are they’ll have someone inside too. This way.’ Magda followed him down through the avenues of shops, bars and cafes until they narrowed into a corridor that led towards the main boarding gates. Dozens of men and women talking on phones, but none yet with the tense watchfulness that would spell danger. Suddenly, at the far end of the corridor, Jamie noticed someone who didn’t fit the pattern.

  ‘Keep your head down,’ he hissed.

  The man was fifty paces away, talking into his phone and unashamedly studying every white face he encountered. Another few strides and he couldn’t fail to see them.

  ‘This way, honey.’ Jamie politely steered Magda to the right where, with a flourish of their tickets, they were ushered into the sanctuary of the First Class lounge. They were safe. For now.

  XXXV

  ‘May I tempt you with a glass of champagne? Today we are serving the Dom Pérignon 2002.’ The Japanese hostess hovered beside the secluded booth overlooking Tokyo Bay.

  Magda hesitated. ‘No thank—’

  ‘You should,’ Jamie encouraged her. ‘We might be here for quite a while.’

  ‘But those men …’

  ‘Won’t be able to reach us in here.’ He gave her a tired smile. ‘The Saintclair philosophy is that as long as you’re alive you might as well make the most of it.’ He saw her resolve weaken. ‘Two glasses please, and can you bring us the menu?’ Smiling, the hostess poured from the green and gold bottle, the liquid frothing gently into the narrow crystal stem.

  ‘To life,’ he said, lifting his glass to clink it against hers.

  Her face dissolved into a disbelieving grin. ‘You really are the most infuriating, illogical …’ She gave up. ‘To life.’

  ‘May it be a little less eventful than in recent times.’

  ‘A sentiment I’d gladly echo.’ She took a sip of the champagne, wrinkling her nose at the exploding bubbles. ‘Except that with Jamie Saintclair around that seems a little unlikely. What time does our flight leave?’

  ‘The Hong Kong flight takes off in about two hours, but I don’t actually plan for us to be on it.’

  ‘But the tickets …?’

  ‘The tickets bought us sanctuary, a glass of champagne and a hot meal, but more important they bought us time. The men in the lobby and at security were here to abduct us if they got the opportunity, but their priority was to track us. By now they’ll know we’re holed up in here and booked on Cathay Pacific CX 6321, departing from Gate 112 at six thirty a.m.. They’ll be relaxed because they have us where they want us.’

  ‘Trapped,’ she pointed out.

  ‘Succinctly put.’ The hostess returned with the menus. ‘May we have another glass, please?’ He smiled at Magda. ‘You order for us both while I make a phone call.’

  One and a half ring tones before it was answered. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’ An Australian accent; harsh with authority and a touch of threat, but not the mining tycoon.

  ‘You’re not Devlin. I only speak to Devlin.’

  ‘Jumped-up messenger boys don’t dictate to the boss. Do you have the head?’

  ‘Look, old son, somebody should have told you I don’t react well to threats. Why don’t you put Devlin on and go and work out your issues somewhere else? Either that or I can hang up.’

  ‘You don’t want to be doing that, Jamie boy.’ Keith Devlin’s rasping voice was full of chummy bonhomie, but Jamie felt the hair on the back of his neck rise like an angry cat’s. ‘Just a little misunderstanding.’

>   ‘Sure, Keith. Just a little misunderstanding that’s supposed to remind me you have the heavy squad ready to wade in if I happen to get the wrong idea.’

  ‘But the question stands, son, and this is important: do you have the head?’

  Jamie let the silence lengthen before he replied. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And where are you?’

  ‘Let’s stop playing games, Keith. You know exactly where I am. The only reason you gave me the credit card was so you could track it. You know I booked two tickets for the Okinawa ferry about an hour and a half ago and you know I bought two flights to Hong Kong at Haneda airport. The trouble is that the minute I walk out the doors at Lantau it will be straight into the arms of certain people it wouldn’t be healthy for me to meet.’ He gave Devlin the short version of the night’s events.

  ‘So Madam Nishimura wants your guts for garters, and when she gets it, she’ll take the head back and I can whistle for it?’

  ‘Well put, except that it would be more accurate to say that she wants my head for a wall lamp. Which is why we’re staying here until you get us out.’

  ‘And how in the name of Christ do you expect me to do that?’ the tycoon spluttered.

  Jamie told him.

  ‘That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. Why don’t I just send you a bloody magic carpet instead?’

  ‘Come on, Keith. You’ve got the money. You’ve got the resources. And didn’t I read that the Japanese government were trying to persuade Devlin Metal Resources to invest in a scheme to extract rare earth minerals from under the Pacific? That should give you a few favours to call in.’

  Devlin grumbled for a moment before making a grudging capitulation. ‘All right. I’ll give it a go, but it could take a bit of time.’

  Jamie smiled. ‘Make it happen, Keith, or maybe I’ll have to negotiate with Madam Nishimura instead.’

  ‘You’re forgetting about your girlies, Saintclair.’

  ‘No, I’m not, Keith. But this is my life we’re bargaining over and we both know you won’t touch a hair on their heads.’

  ‘Don’t be so certain about that, son.’ He heard the hesitation in the Australian’s voice. ‘If you believed that why didn’t you just walk away?’

  ‘Because I like a challenge.’

  He rang off and found Magda studying him with a question in her eyes.

  ‘We could be here for another two hours or another two days,’ he told her, ‘so make yourself comfortable.’

  ‘Won’t they call us?’

  ‘No, I’ve arranged for our tickets to be cancelled without any fuss.’

  She looked as if she was about to say something. Thanks? A verbal slap on the wrist for keeping her in the dark again? He’d never know because she thought better of it and wandered over to a shelf scattered with international newspapers. She picked up a copy and began to flick idly through the pages. He saw her stiffen and was on his feet before she turned her head.

  ‘Jamie? This … I can’t …’

  ‘What is it, Magda?’ He kept his voice steady because two or three of their fellow passengers had sensed her concern and were looking towards them. Her hand shook as she folded the paper and showed him the headline: Russian oligarch assassinated by bodyguard.

  ‘Christ,’ he breathed. He took the paper and they went back to their seats.

  ‘I can’t believe it. He seemed … I don’t know … such a good man. Not like the others. We had tea with him less than a week ago.’

  Good. Jamie wasn’t so sure. He supposed your opinion of Arkady Berzarin depended on your definition of good. A good businessman? Certainly, but a good businessman was generally a ruthless businessman. Good to his workers? Probably. Good to his competitors and rivals, definitely not. He remembered the man with respect, but he’d been glad to get out of the house unscathed, without experiencing his generosity or animosity. Still it was hard to believe he was dead.

  Russian billionaire Arkady Berzarin was assassinated by one of his bodyguards as he drove to meet his son in nearby Krasnoyarsk.

  The respected businessman, who dominated Russia’s aluminium industry for decades and had commercial interests all over the world, was shot several times by Yuri Prasolov before the killer was gunned down in his turn …

  A shadowy and hitherto unknown Chechen terror organization had claimed responsibility, citing the Russian’s profiteering and abuse of his workforce in the Caucasus … Tributes led, naturally, by the Russian president … We will hunt them down wherever they hide …

  Berzarin had feared no one. Not terrorists, not the Mafia, not the unions and not his rivals. Only one person had coveted his power in Siberia. And one person had coveted what he believed was his by right, but which Berzarin claimed he did not have.

  Why? Why didn’t matter, except as it affected Jamie and Magda. The deed was done and could not be undone. He felt certain they’d been used in some way, but he couldn’t work out how. Maybe Berzarin had upped his security after their visit and the cryptic warning from Sergei. Maybe … No, maybe didn’t matter either. The question was: is this the end of it? Or was there a further reckoning? He had a feeling his good friend Vatutin was out there somewhere smiling at the mess he’d got himself into. But was the Russian there to protect him? Not much evidence of that, it was true. Or – for reasons he didn’t understand – had his usefulness ended with Berzarin’s death?

  He flicked through to the share prices. Devlin Metal Resources was down another five points on the Nikkei and seven on the Dow. No wonder Keith Devlin was getting edgy.

  ‘Mr Saintclair?’ Three hours after his call Jamie looked up to see a man in a dark uniform and a pilot’s peaked cap looming over him. They’d used the time to take turns at sleeping on the leather couch. Magda opened her eyes, blinking against the bright light, her hand automatically reaching protectively for the backpack beneath the seat.

  ‘Yes,’ Jamie said warily.

  ‘Mr Devlin sent us?’

  Jamie looked past him to where two other men and a woman dressed in the same smart livery stood waiting. They all had the small wheeled suitcases you saw flight crews dragging through airports the world over. He smiled. ‘In that case, let’s get it done.’

  A few minutes later he was sharing the lounge’s male shower room with the corporate jet’s steward, an American called Brett who hailed from New York.

  ‘You must have some clout, man. We were heading from Seoul to pick up the East Asia director in Manila when we had word to get our asses to Tokyo. You could hear his cusses from the galley when Cap told him about the change of plan.’

  ‘Well, you know how it is, Brett,’ Jamie said as they exchanged clothes and Brett handed over the neck lanyard carrying his ID badge. ‘Old man Devlin will do anything for his favourite nephew. Sorry about the state of the jacket.’

  The flight attendant studied the battered Mets bomber and grinned. ‘Damned if I wouldn’t feel like a traitor if I wore that thing anyway. They’ll have something to fit me in the mall. Be pleased to take that cap off your hands, though.’ Jamie handed it over and studied himself in the mirror as the other man squeezed himself into his black designer jeans. He wore a white shirt and dark maroon tie. The trousers fitted him for length, but the waistline was a little loose, though nothing that a belt wouldn’t fix. He’d borrowed Brett’s shaving kit and looked about five years younger without the stubble he’d allowed to accumulate over the past week. There wasn’t a lot he could do about his hair, but the peaked cap would hide that. The biggest problem was the immaculately shined wingtips. The American was about two sizes larger and they were alarmingly loose. They eventually solved the problem by the age-old fix of stuffing the toes with paper towels. He shrugged on the tailored jacket and pulled the pilot’s cap down at a rakish angle over one eye.

  ‘How do I look?’

  ‘Like you’ve been doing the job all your life. Just one thing …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘When you’re heading for the plane, narrow y
our eyes, square your shoulders and think like a B-17 pilot heading for a trip to Berlin. I always find it helps smother the crushing knowledge that I’m just an overpaid, mile-high gofer in a snazzy suit.’

  He came to stand beside Jamie and ran a comb through his thick dark hair. They were approximately the same height and build, which was fortunate. Jamie wasn’t sure he could have persuaded the pilot to give up his wings. ‘I hope this isn’t putting you to too much trouble?’

  Brett’s face dissolved in a dreamy smile. ‘Who wouldn’t swap serving lobster at thirty thousand feet for two nights of expenses-paid R and R in Tokyo? And with Miss Perfect along to add a sporting interest.’ Jamie raised a questioning eyebrow and the other man slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Hell, I’ve got fifty bucks riding at two to one with the Cap that I can’t get her into the sack by Friday night.’

  When they emerged from the shower room, Magda was already there, but it took Jamie a second to recognize her.

  ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You were born to be in a uniform.’

  Miss Perfect was probably a size larger than Magda’s slim figure, but they’d contrived to make the skirt and jacket look as if they’d been made for her. The effect was military, but somehow she managed to give the uniform a softer and more feminine quality. A black pillbox hat perched jauntily on her raven hair completed the ensemble. ‘It’ll take me a while to get used to the idea of you in killer heels, though.’

  ‘Don’t push your luck, Saintclair.’ She smiled. ‘Though I admit you don’t look so bad yourself.’

  ‘Are we ready?’ the captain urged. ‘We’ve got the eight fifteen slot and I don’t want to miss it.’

  ‘Just one more thing …’ Jamie took Brett’s overnight case and swapped the contents with those of the rucksack. As his hands touched the wrinkled ovals something like a mild electric shock ran through him. It struck him he knew more about Magda’s grandfather than the man whose remains had turned his life upside down. For the first time he was tempted to take a closer look, to see if something remained of the features that would give him a clue to the type of human being this Solomon Islander had been. But this wasn’t the time. He looked up to find Brett peering over his shoulder.