Just up the road was Akihabara, where anything and everything electronic could be purchased. Turn in the other direction and there were the moat and grounds of the ImperialPalace and, nearby, the Yasukuni Shrine, the memorial to the war dead.
The area had character and amenities, and it was on a subway route. It was a nice place to live. Occasionally, Adachi jogged up the road and rented a rowing boat and paddled around the moat of the ImperialPalace. Other times, he took his ladder and went up through the roof-light onto the flat roof with a bottle of sake and sunbathed. There was a low parapet around the edge of the roof, so he had a modicum of privacy.
He also used to make love on the roof from time to time, but the advent of the police airship rather took the fun out of that. It tended to hand around central Tokyo quite a lot, and he had been up in it and knew what you could see from a thousand feet with good surveillance equipment.
Like most Japanese homes, Adachi's was decorated in a mixture of Japanese and Western styles but all blended in a distinctively Japanese way. Western furniture, where used, was modified for the shorter and slighter average Japanese physique. In Adachi's case, since he was tall, it was a modification he could have done without.
Adachi had been reared to sit upright on the floor when required like any civilized human being, and could maintain that position for hours without any discomfort. But his present posture was less traditional. He was sprawled out on the tatami mat floor of his living room with his head on a pillow. The room was in semidarkness, lit only by two candles.
Facing him, slightly to one side, was Chifune, also on the floor but sitting in a manner considered more appropriate for her sex. Her legs were tucked under her and she was resting back on them, her hands in her lap. She looked submissive and demure, every Japanese man's dream, which only goes to show, thought Adachi, that what you see is rarely what you get.
She was wearing a short Western skirt of some soft beige material, and in that position it was well above her knees. She had removed the matching jacket. Her blouse was cream-colored and sleeveless.
She was truly delectable. The Beretta automatic pistol she carried in a holster tucked inside the waistband of her skirt in the small of her back had been removed and place in her purse. She also carried a silencer, Adachi knew, and two spare magazines of hollow-points. The weapon was more than a precaution. It was meant to be used. Still, she did not look in a shooting mood at the moment.
Adachi tried to remember where he had left his revolver and when he had last trained with it, but neither answer came quickly to mind. Those were tomorrow's problems. He looked through the skylight at the glow that was the Tokyo night sky when it was cloudy, and missed the stars.
He looked back at Chifune and then raised himself on one elbow. He drained his glass and she refilled it. As she came closer to him, he was acutely conscious of her body and the softness and texture of her skin. She returned to her original position.
"What is Koancho's interest?" he said.
She shook her head. "I can't tell you. You know that."
He smiled. "I know very little about you," he said. "I don't know what you may or may not do. I only know what you do where I am concerned, and you do that extremely well."
Chifune returned his smile. "You're a male chauvinist," she said sweetly, "but perhaps a little less extreme than most Japanese men. Make the most of it. Times are changing."
Adachi had to admit that she was correct on all three points. He did like — and had been brought up to expect — subservience in a woman. But he also had learned to enjoy and respect independence in the opposite sex. Truth to tell, Adachi liked women.
"Tell me about Hodama," he said.
"You know about Hodama," she said.
"Tell me anyway," he said. "The what I know will join with what you know and that will add up to what we know, which quite probably will be more than I know right now. I think it's called synergy."
"Gestalt psychology," she said. "The whole of anything is greater than its parts."
"Tell me about the whole Hodama," he said. "Who would want to boil a nice little old man like that — to death? Actually, it looks like he died of a massive heart attack almost immediately, but you know what I mean."
"I think our problem is going to be too many candidates," said Chifune. "Hodama led a long, active, and mostly evil life."
"‘Our problem’," said Adachi. "That's encouraging. I thought observer status meant just that. Koancho is not really into the sharing business." He grinned. "Like most security services, more into paranoia."
"‘Our’ problem," Chifune repeated quietly.
"Ah!" said Adachi, savoring this new insight. He decided not to pursue it for the moment, at least verbally. Instead he stretched out a bare foot and slipped it between Chifune's knees and then a little further. She did not resist. There was a faint flush in her cheeks.
"Hodama," he said, "but perhaps the shorter version for now."
Chifune was an expert in various martial arts and related disciplines. They all put a heavy emphasis on mind over matter. She drew on this training as she spoke.
"Kazuo Hodama was born in Tokyo early in this century, the son of a civil servant. He actually spent much of his early life in Korea. His father was part of the Japanese occupation forces. Hodama therefore grew up with both military and other government connections — which he was to put to good use later on in life."
The occupation of Korea was not one of the high points in Japanese history. Japan had annexed the country in 1910, and for the next thirty-six years Korea had been subject to an arbitrary and frequently brutal Japanese military-dominated regime.
"In Korea, Hodama worked extensively for the authorities and specialized in putting down resistance. Mostly, he worked behind the scenes. He organized gangs of thugs to beat up or kill Koreans who wanted independence, thus enabling the administration to pretend they were not involved in the more extreme acts of repression.
"Hodama returned to Japan in the 1920's. The world was in recession. That was a period when there was major conflict in Japan between democratic government and the ultraright headed by the military. Since the moderates could not seem to do anything about fundamental issues like feeding the people, it is scarcely surprising that the rightists won out. The same thing happened elsewhere — in Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Empty rice bowls are not good for democracy."
"That was a period of secret societies and assassinations," said Adachi. "Various moderate government ministers were assassinated. Wasn't Hodama involved in all that?"
"So it is rumored," said Chifune. "Whether he did any of the actual killing, we don't know. Anyway, for plotting to assassinate Prime Minister Admiral Saito, Hodama was actually sent to prison by the moderate regime in 1934, and served over three years, but then he was let out when the extremists took over. And, of course, having been in prison for the cause put him right in there with the new regime. His rightist and nationalist credentials were impeccable. He had endless contacts in government and in the military and through the various secret societies he was involved with. From then on, he was into everything — but always operating behind the scenes. He was already a kuromaku."
Kuromaku, thought Adachi. The word had a sinister ring. There was a long tradition of such figures in Japanese life. Kuromaku literally meant ‘black curtain,’ a reference to classic Kabuki theatre, where a concealed wire-puller controlled the action on the stage from behind a black curtain. The English equivalent would perhaps be godfather or string-puller or kingmaker, but a kuromaku was more than all these. The word implied a person of very special caliber, and more recently it suggested links to both organized crime and politics at the highest level. Above all, the very sound represented power.
"Into everything?" said Adachi. His eyes were closed. He was rubbing Chifune's soft wet center with his toe. The sensations were incredibly exotic. Her voice in itself was an aphrodisiac.
"Everything," said Chifune. There was a slight
quaver in her voice. Aikido, a martial art which taught self-control, could take a woman just so far. "He wheeled, he dealed, he traveled, he traded, he spied, he made and broke people. He had vast commercial interests. He finished World War Two with the rank of Admiral, though there is little evidence that he knew much about the navy except how to make money out of it. He both supported and used the Tojo militarists."
"And," said Adachi. This was an area where Koancho files would be more complete than his own. The police were not invulnerable to political pressure. The war was a sensitive issue. Detailed records of behavior during that period were not encouraged by those in power.
"Prior to Pearl Harbor," said Chifune, "he had connections with U.S. Army Intelligence. He supplied them with information about China. He was there a great deal. Prior to the actual outbreak of war, there were certain mutual areas of interest between the U.S. and this country."
Adachi whistled. "Energetic little fellow, wasn't he? Was he actually an American spy?"
"We don't know," said Chifune. "They may have thought so, but I doubt he was in the sense you mean. Certainly he balanced things out by actually funding part of the Kempei Tai — the secret police — operations in China."
"And then came the bombs," said Adachi. "Distracting even for a kuromaku."
"Very distracting," said Chifune. "Japan surrendered, the Americans landed, MacArthur arrived, and within a short space of time Hodama was arrested and slung into Sugamo Prison to await trial. He was classified as a Class A war criminal."
"I imagine he was," said Adachi. "But nobody hanged him."
"He had a great deal of money hidden away," said Chifune, "on the order of hundreds of millions of yen — and he was a good talker. And he knew people and things, and he could make connections. And he had people outside who worked for him. Part of his money went to found a new political party — democracy now being in fashion again."
"The Liberal Party," said Adachi, "which merged with the Democratic Party in 1955, which as the Liberal Democratic Party has ruled this country ever since. Ouch! Why couldn't somebody less controversial have got himself killed?"
"You're leaping ahead," said Chifune. She looked straight at him as she slowly unbuttoned her blouse and then removed it. Underneath it, her skin was golden. She removed her bra. She had small but full breasts and prominent nipples. "Don't," she said.
Adachi raised an eyebrow. He was glad he had changed into a yukata when he had returned to his apartment. Its light cotton could accommodate his growing excitement. Western trousers would have strangled the thing. Heavens, in some ways the West had a brutal culture.
"The war crimes trials took place. They lasted for two and a half years right here in Tokyo, and on December 23, 1948, seven of the defendants — six generals and one premier — were executed. Shortly afterwards, Hodama was released. He was never formally charged, let alone tried."
"The guilty are punished; the innocent go free," said Adachi. "That's modern justice for you."
"Ha!" said Chifune. She unzipped her skirt, raised herself slightly off her knees and then slid the garment over her head with a technique that would have done credit to a striptease artist. Adachi wondered how many times she had performed that movement before, and for whom. The thought hurt a little.
She moved forward and untied his yukata and gently slid him inside her. Adachi groaned with pleasure. Sex with Chifune was decidedly not like that with other women he had known. Chifune was an artist. Sight, touch, sound, taste, smell; she played on all his physical senses, but most of all she played games with his mind. He was obsessed with her, but he feared her. He loved her, but did not trust her. There was no certainty or predictability to their relationship. He knew little about her, and her file, as an employee of the security service, was sealed.
"Until 1952 when a formal treaty was signed with the U.S.," said Chifune, "we were an occupied country. And as always, Hodama gravitated to where power lay. His release came neatly in time to avail of a major opportunity — suppressing the rise of communism."
As the full scale of the threat to the West of Stalinist communism became clear, anti-communist opinion in Washington hardened. The Central Intelligence Agency was founded. The West began to fight back. The threat was worldwide. The scale of the menace demanded drastic solutions. Some were legal. Some were not.
In what the Japanese called the gyakkosu, or political about-face, SCAP — the predominantly military administration of Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers — and the conservative Japanese government in power at the time carried out an official purge of communism. It was decided that a strong Japan was needed to stand against Soviet communism, and if that meant leaving some of the militarist and their prewar industrial support structure in power, then so be it.
But just so much could be done through official channels. Where more drastic methods were required — to break up a communist union or intimidate a left-wing newspaper, for example — SCAP and the new organization, the CIA, used gangs of local thugs. Fairly soon, it became clear that these ad hoc arrangements required organization, and into this opportunity stepped Hodama. Heavily funded by the CIA, he used the yakuza to do the strong-arm work and bribery to ensure that the appropriate anti-communist politicians got elected.
Japanese politics, as the prewar assassinations and other excesses showed, were never exactly squeaky clean, but the contamination of Japan's new and fragile post-war democratic system by institutionalized bribery could be traced directly to the CIA. The same thing was happening in France and Italy and in many other countries.
Communism was checked, but at a high price. Organized crime received a major cash injection and direct links with the political establishment. And links with the politicians meant protection.
In such an environment, Hodama, the kuromaku, thrived.
Adachi opened his eyes. Chifune had stopped speaking and was reaching behind her head, her breasts uplifted by the gesture. Her hair, glowing richly in the candlelight, came tumbling down. Then she leaned forward to kiss him, and he put his arms around her and held her and caressed her while they kissed.
* * * * *
Connemara RegionalHospital
January 2
There was no time to bring in a rescue helicopter, so Kilmara had decided to use the aircraft in which the terrorists had arrived.
There was no margin for any other decision. The Rangers had done the best they could, but it was not enough. Fitzduane had been too seriously wounded. He was losing ground.
Kilmara made the reasonable deduction that a machine meant to be used in such a covert mission would be fully fueled, and the tank would probably have been topped up when they had landed on the island.
So it proved. One of the Delta men was Unit 160 trained. He could fly low and fast and land on a dime. Unfortunately, he had no idea of the local geography or Irish radio procedures. Anyway, thought Kilmara privately, his Georgia drawl would be practically unintelligible to the locals. Sergeant Hannigan went with him to monitor the injured, navigate and act as an interpreter.
Flying low was vital. Fitzduane had a punctured lung. The higher he flew, the thinner the air, the greater the pressure put on his lung as he struggled to breathe — and the greater the risk of his lung collapsing.
To the Delta warrant officer, trained in contour flying, low meant low. It was the most hair-raising and exhilarating flight of his Ranger comrade's life. Unfortunately, Hannigan was able to enjoy little of it. Seatless, he had to work from a kneeling position. The noise and vibration of the helicopter meant vigilant observation of the injured passenger's essential signs. He took blood pressure and pulse repeatedly, monitored airways occasionally, fought to keep the drips in place in the exposed interior.
By the time the helicopter arrived at ConnemaraRegionalHospital, Hannigan was of the opinion that on the balance of probability, Fitzduane was going to die.
* * * * *
The helicopter trip took thirty minutes. It
was now forty-five minutes since the shooting.
Mike Gilmartin, the casualty consultant, had been briefed ahead by radio, and made his own diagnosis now while his team went to work.
The consultant anesthetist, Linda Foley, checked the airway for obstructions. Clearly, he could not breathe adequately for himself. "Bag him," she said. An oxygen venting mask was attached and connected to an Ambu-bag, and an anesthetic nurse began manually compressing the bag, forcing oxygen into the patient.
The patient was waxy white and his skin was clammy and cold to the touch. He was struggling and bewildered, straw-colored serous fluid leaking from his wounds, his clothing saturated in clotting blood. Closer examination showed his breathing to be thirty-five gasping breaths per minute and his blood pressure to be over eighty and unrecordable. His pulse showed one-forty beats per minute.
Fitzduane was showing a basic animal response to severe injury. Unbidden by his conscious mind, he was cutting of the blood supply to the less important areas and preserving the blood supply to his brain so that his body could fight back.
Gilmartin percussed Fitzduane's chest, and hearing the dull sound, immediately ordered a chest drain. Quickly, he injected a local anesthetic, and without waiting for the three to five minutes it took for the drug to fully effective, made an incision in the muscles over the lower end of the fifth rib space and opened up the muscle with a forceps.
It was not enough. He inserted his surgical-gloved finger to open the wound up more, then replaced it with a forty-centimeter-long plastic tube.
Blood, a mixture of bright-red arterial and bluish venous, rushed out in a bubbly, dirty-red stream through an underwater seal and into a container on the floor. A second tube protruded from the container and released the air that was escaping from Fitzduane's lung. Half a liter of blood came out in the first two minutes.
Oblivious to his surroundings, semiconscious, confused, and terrified, Fitzduane was struggling. The anesthetist and her staff watched with concern and quickly moved to tape down the cannulas. It was all too easy for them to dislodge from the veins and go into tissue.
Rules of The Hunt f-2 Page 5