James Maxted 03 The Ends of the Earth

by Robert Goddard

  C handed Appleby a copy of the list as they stepped into the first-class compartment he had reserved for their use. The blinds were down on the corridor side. The guard had been spoken to. They would not be disturbed.

  ‘You’ve done well, Appleby,’ said C. ‘Extraordinarily well. You’ve saved the Service. And a good many lives. I’m very grateful. As would your country be, if they ever knew about this, which they won’t, until you and I, and probably you too, Mrs Underwood, are long dead.’

  ‘Mrs Underwood has performed admirably throughout, sir,’ Appleby said. ‘I’ve had to ask her to carry out some unpleasant tasks. She’s never complained or shirked them.’

  ‘Good work, my dear,’ said C. ‘We’ll let you get back to your husband now this is over.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Veronica. ‘I was conscious we had to do what we did. The tragic outcome as far as the Hanckel boy is concerned couldn’t have been averted by any action of Mr Appleby.’

  ‘I’ll await your full report on that, Appleby,’ said C. ‘There’s no question it’s damnably unfortunate.’

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said Appleby.

  ‘What about this Foreign Office fellow you used – Brigham?’

  ‘He played his part well, sir. We should acknowledge that. What I asked him to do fell well outside his normal duties.’

  ‘Very good. Now—’ The train lurched into motion. As it cleared the canopy of the station, sunlight flooded into the compartment. Shakespeare Cliff was a dazzling wall of white. Appleby lowered the blind to shade their eyes. ‘First things first,’ C continued. ‘Word from our consulate in Geneva. The boy found drowned at Morges has been officially identified as Eugen Hanckel, aged fifteen. Also, the lawyer Dulière and his secretary were found shot dead at his office in Ouchy, Lausanne, last night.’

  Appleby gave a fatalistic nod. ‘Killed by one of Lemmer’s operatives, obviously. My money would be on Meadows.’

  ‘Mine too,’ said C. ‘The upshot is that Lemmer probably knows by now his son’s dead.’

  ‘I’ve advised Max to leave Japan as soon as possible.’

  ‘And will he?’

  ‘I doubt it. He has personal matters to settle with Count Tomura.’

  ‘Then we can do nothing for him. Lemmer has been defeated and we’d all have wished to settle for that. But the death of his son will have made matters personal for him as well. He’ll surely pursue Max.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, sir.’

  ‘We must hope you trained him well in the short time you had at your disposal.’

  ‘We must, sir, yes.’

  ‘As for your activities in Evian-les-Bains, I anticipate the French authorities will drop all inquiries once we’ve supplied the Deuxième Bureau with the names on that list. As for the Swiss, they’ll huff and puff if they discover our involvement, but huffing and puffing needn’t concern us. Talking of which, please smoke if you wish.’

  With every appearance of relief, Appleby lit his pipe.

  ‘Now,’ C proceeded, ‘I take it there are no means by which Lemmer can establish that Mrs Underwood, or indeed Brigham, assisted you during this mission, Appleby?’

  ‘Definitely not, sir.’

  ‘But he will know you personally organized and carried it out?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then you must realize he’s likely to seek revenge on you too. To expose his spies is one thing. To kill his son …’

  ‘There’s nothing I can do to stop him coming after me,’ said Appleby, puffing philosophically on his pipe.

  ‘You could make yourself hard to find.’

  ‘I’m too old for that game, sir. I’d rather face him, if I have to.’

  ‘You’re thinking Max may help you out there?’

  ‘I can’t alter what’s happened. Or what will happen in Japan. I’d prefer to concentrate on doing useful work in London while we … await events.’

  ‘Well, there’s plenty of useful work to be done, no question about it. A lot of cleaning of stables is going to be needed in the weeks and months ahead. Not just by us. Other departments. Other countries. The French; the Americans; the Italians: they’ll all be seeking your advice as the man who revealed how deeply Lemmer had penetrated their defences. There are bound to be doubts about the terms of the peace treaty now we know some of those who framed them were on Lemmer’s payroll. Though since the treaty was hardly soft on the Germans, that renders his strategy all the more difficult to divine.’

  ‘I think we can say for certain what his strategy was in Japan, sir.’

  ‘Yes. And we’ve scotched it. Thanks to you.’

  ‘And Max.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten him, Appleby.’ C looked thoughtful. ‘I never shall. Such men … shine brightly.’

  Rousing himself almost physically from this brief descent into soulfulness, C smiled across at Veronica. ‘I wonder if you’d mind stepping out of the compartment for a while, Mrs Underwood. Appleby and I have matters to discuss which someone about to leave the Service needn’t be troubled with.’

  Veronica smiled back at him, amused by the gentleness of her dismissal. ‘Certainly, sir,’ she said.

  As the door of the compartment slid shut behind Veronica Underwood on the Dover to London train, the door of another compartment slid open on another train six thousand miles away.

  Nadia Bukayeva stepped into Fritz Lemmer’s berth on the Tokyo to Kyoto sleeper and closed the door quietly behind her. The bed had not yet been made up and Lemmer’s expression, as he looked up from his seat, did not suggest sleep was something he had much use for. His eyes blazed with a fierce energy. His mouth was set in a determined line.

  ‘Is there anything you need?’ Nadia asked.

  ‘Nothing you can supply,’ he replied, with no implication of rebuke.

  ‘What are you reading?’

  ‘This?’ He raised the book he was holding in his left hand, his forefinger marking his place. ‘Clausewitz. He clears my mind.’

  ‘Can I ask—’

  ‘What we are to do now my network has been exposed? Now C has the contents of the Grey File before him? Now I am defeated?’

  ‘You are not defeated.’

  ‘I am, Nadia Mikhailovna. Oh yes. I am defeated.’ He gestured for her to sit down opposite him. ‘But not destroyed. I should have foreseen what Anna would be prepared to do for her son. I should have realized her love of him would outweigh her loyalty to me. When she learnt he was dead, I knew what she would do. I did not try to stop her. She was too weak to live. I am too strong to die. I will not be stopped by this. I will build another network. I will take back what I have lost. You ask yourself: how? Stand by me and you will see. I tried to recruit Appleby, you know. Shortly after his son was killed in the war. I thought the loss would make him vulnerable. I was wrong. It made him stronger. My loss will make me stronger too.’ He nodded to her in emphasis. ‘It already has.’

  MAX ALREADY KNEW Laskaris was a cautious man, so perhaps the location of their next rendezvous should not have surprised him: the roof garden of the Mitsukoshi department store, Tokyo’s answer to Harrods, a little before noon, when the shade of the artfully rigged arbours had drawn shoppers from the floors below to sip tea and nibble bean-paste confections while gazing out across the roofs of Nihombashi.

  Laskaris was puffing at one of his ubiquitous cigars when Max joined him by the parapet, high above the traffic of the city, overlooked only by the limply hanging flag of the store.

  ‘You mean to rescue her,’ said Laskaris, running a keen-eyed glance over Max. ‘I see it in your face.’

  ‘You can’t have imagined I’d do anything else.’

  ‘Some might, in view of the impossibility of the task and the fact that you have no memory of her.’

  ‘She’s my mother. And I don’t believe the task is impossible.’

  ‘No? Kawajuki-jo is a well-guarded fortress. According to Jack Farngold, his sister is confined within an inaccessible inner portion of that fortress. Th
e men you brought here to help you are either dead or under arrest, pending deportation. Your chances of success are close to zero.’ Laskaris smiled. ‘I take no pleasure in saying this. It is the simple truth.’

  ‘Why did you give me the letter, then?’

  ‘Because you were entitled to read it, as the son of the man it was sent to.’

  ‘You said you could tell me something about the Dragonfly.’

  ‘I can. But it will not help you, if all you have to offer is foolhardiness.’

  ‘It isn’t all. You’re right, of course. The odds against pulling this off are formidable. But it can be done. If you let le Singe help me.’

  Laskaris shook his head. ‘I will not send Seddik to his death.’

  ‘Freeing my mother would enrage and humiliate Tomura. I thought that’s what you wanted to do.’

  ‘But you can’t free her, Max. He has too tight a hold on her. The information I can supply about the Dragonfly counts for nothing if you can’t enter the castle. And it’s impregnable.’

  ‘We’ll go in through the secret tunnel.’

  ‘You know who the monk is that Jack Farngold spoke to?’

  Max let the significance of the moment hang between them. Then he said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Through his sister. I’m confident he’ll agree to help us, just as he agreed to help Jack Farngold.’

  ‘And you want me to allow this “us” to include Seddik?’

  ‘I propose to take her out without anyone knowing. If the place is as well guarded as you say, that’s the only way it can be done. In and out through the tunnel. I’ll go alone if I have to. But I’d like to have le Singe – Seddik – with me. There’s no one better suited for such a mission. You know that.’

  ‘What of your other friends – Twentyman and Miss Hollander?’

  ‘They’ll be helping from outside the castle.’

  ‘Just you and Seddik inside?’

  ‘We’d be the perfect team.’

  Laskaris took a thoughtful puff at his cigar. His gaze rested on Max for a long moment. Then he spoke decisively. ‘The Dragonfly’s real name is Hashiguchi Yoko. Her great-grandfather, Hashiguchi Azenbo, is said to be the man who designed and installed the traps around Uchi-gawa – the Inside – on the orders of Tomura’s great-grandfather. It is also said he had Azenbo killed to ensure the secret of the traps could not be revealed. That would explain why Jack Farngold thought Yoko could be persuaded to help him. As to how she might have come by her great-grandfather’s secret, I do not know. You would have to find that out.’

  ‘She betrayed Jack Farngold. She helped Lemmer set a trap for him in Keijo. Why would she do anything for us?’

  ‘Because Tomura doesn’t trust her. She supplied Lemmer with information he used to persuade Tomura to help him strike a deal with the Japanese government. Her businesses in Keijo were closed down last year on the orders of Governor General Hasegawa, following complaints about her activities from the Oriental Development Company. And Tomura is—’

  ‘A director of the ODC.’

  ‘Exactly. It was punishment for telling Lemmer what she knew about him, do you think?’

  ‘It’s the kind of thing he’d do.’

  ‘Indeed. The Dragonfly was obliged to return home to Kyoto. She lives in a house in the hills west of the city. She has retired, so it is said. But her retirement is probably unwilling. So …’

  ‘If she sold information to Lemmer, she might sell it to me.’

  ‘She might, yes.’

  ‘If I can find the tunnel and learn how to defeat the traps inside the castle, then with Seddik’s help …’

  Laskaris pondered the issue, before nodding in evident satisfaction. ‘If you can do those things, Max, I will let Seddik help you. If he is willing. As I think he will be. He would feel it atoned for his part – his unwitting part – in your father’s murder. But tell me this. Maybe you can get in. Maybe you can get out. With Seddik’s assistance. But how do you get away? Once Tomura learns Matilda has escaped, he will pursue her – and you. He will turn all his resources to catching you before you can leave Japan.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to leave Japan as quickly as possible.’ Max smiled. ‘That’s where you come in, Viktor.’

  Even as Max disclosed to Laskaris the plan he had concocted, the two people he had concocted it with, Malory and Sam, were waiting on the landing-stage in Fukagawa, a few alleys away from the Shimizus’ shop. Malory had paid a boy loitering by the adjacent boathouse tavern a few sen to carry a message to Chiyoko. Malory was confident she would come to meet them, as long as she was there to receive the message. Her mother could not be trusted to pass it on.

  But soon enough Chiyoko appeared, contriving to smile and frown at the same time when she saw them.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said anxiously. ‘It is not safe … for you to be seen.’

  ‘The police are no longer looking for us, Chiyoko,’ said Malory.

  ‘But we’re looking for you,’ added Sam.

  Chiyoko turned her wide eyes on him. ‘Why?’

  Because some man certainly ought to be, he was surprised to find himself thinking. Before he could frame a more appropriate answer, Malory said, ‘Will you come for a short trip with us?’ She indicated the choki-bune moored at the landing-stage. The boatman was drinking tea and smoking on the verandah of the tavern, swapping gossip with some old men playing Go. Malory had paid him in advance and he was not complaining.

  ‘I cannot leave my mother in the shop for long. Where are we going?’

  ‘Nowhere. But we can talk on the boat without being overheard. The boatman doesn’t speak any English.’

  ‘This is important?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘It’s more than that,’ Sam put in. ‘It’s a life’s worth of important.’

  ‘We need you, Chiyoko,’ said Malory.

  ‘We do,’ said Sam.

  ‘Then I go with you,’ said Chiyoko, the trust she placed in them lighting her face.

  ‘It is possible, I grant you,’ said Laskaris, bestowing a strange, half-surprised look on Max, as if he had not expected a plan that would go so far towards convincing him. ‘It might even succeed.’

  ‘We should proceed without delay,’ said Max.

  ‘So long as it’s understood the failure of one link will signify to me the failure of all. Then Seddik and I will withdraw.’

  ‘It’s understood.’

  ‘And you should do the same.’

  ‘I’ll do what my conscience dictates, Viktor.’

  Laskaris took off his hat then, in a sweeping motion. The strength of the sun made it seem an odd thing to do. Then he nodded in the direction of something – or someone – behind Max.

  ‘C’est une affaire entendue, Seddik.’

  Max turned. Le Singe was standing close behind him. He was dressed in Japanese clothes, with soft leather boots rather than sandals, striped trousers and sashed tunic beneath a loose, long-tailed, sleeveless coat. He looked neither Asian nor Arab, with a brown cap worn low on his head, though there was something of the desert in his far-seeing gaze.

  ‘He will understand everything you say,’ said Laskaris. ‘And everything you do. Trust his instincts above your own at all times.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you again, Seddik.’ Max held out his hand. ‘I need your help.’

  Very slowly, Seddik Yala stretched out his own hand. He seemed as conscious as Max of the significance of the gesture.

  ‘I have much to tell you.’

  ‘Less than you think,’ said Laskaris.

  ‘Thank you for saving my life.’

  At this Seddik gave a small bow of acknowledgement.

  ‘And thanks for agreeing to do this.’

  Another small bow.

  ‘We must go,’ said Laskaris. ‘There is much to be arranged.’

  Seddik looked at Max expressly. Already it was clear he did not need words to convey his meaning. It was settled. T
hey would go forward together.

  The boat returned to the landing-stage after an hour circling the waterways of Fukagawa. Chiyoko disembarked, but Malory and Sam stayed aboard.

  ‘We’re sorry if your mother’s nose is going to be put out of joint,’ said Sam as she looked back at them.

  ‘Her … nose?’ Chiyoko’s English clearly did not extend to such a metaphor.

  ‘We’re sorry for the trouble you’ll have with her over this,’ Malory explained.

  ‘It cannot be avoided,’ Chiyoko stated, as if declaring a self-evident philosophical truth. ‘My aunt will help her. They will enjoy complaining about me.’

  ‘They wouldn’t complain if they knew what you were doing,’ said Sam.

  ‘No. They would be too frightened.’ Chiyoko smiled gamely. ‘Better for them not to know.’

  ‘I’ll see you this evening,’ said Malory.

  ‘Yes.’ Chiyoko nodded decisively. ‘I will be there.’

  MORAHAN WAS PROPPED up in bed and looking considerably better when Max, Sam and Malory called at the University Hospital late that afternoon. ‘As long as I don’t move a muscle, I feel just fine,’ he said ruefully. A tube was still in place in his side, draining his punctured lung. ‘The bullet smashed a rib on its way in and the surgeon didn’t do anything by halves. I’m not exactly fighting fit.’

  ‘You should be grateful just to be alive,’ said Malory.

  ‘Well, damn it, Malory, I am. Even in a country where I’m not welcome. Your friend Fujisaki looked in earlier, Max. He served me with an official deportation order. Grover, Gazda and I are being shipped back to San Francisco on Thursday.’

  ‘Only if your doctor says you’re well enough,’ said Malory.

  ‘I’ll be well enough. Unless you need me to swing a delay?’

  ‘No,’ said Max. ‘You should go with Ward and Djabsu on Thursday.’

  ‘With our tails between our legs.’

  ‘We haven’t failed yet, Schools.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means we have a plan,’ said Sam brightly.

  ‘A plan to do what?’