by Peter Tasker
At first he had been dubious. Her courage was beyond question, but did she have the strength of will, the sheer patience to follow the plan through to its conclusion? He needn’t have worried. She had plunged into her role with enthusiasm, enjoyment even. The new identity had been her own idea. She had even located the ideal candidate—a fellow student at the American university she had briefly attended, a quiet girl with no friends or family. The young general had provided the resources, but the operation had been [247] supervised by his daughter herself and she had acted fast and boldly, never ceasing to surprise him with her resolve. And thanks to her efforts, a communications empire that spanned the globe, reaching deep into the dreams of the masses, had now been captured without battle even being joined.
The American side could look after itself. After today’s triumph in Japan, it could wind down its activities for a few years, if necessary. What that scholar-fool Peng Yuan had called the flux point had already been passed. There was no going back. From now on, Japan would be like a child’s spinning top that had decelerated too much to hold its equilibrium. It would break away from its former path, dipping and lurching crazily from side to side. And at the lightest of touches it would topple over, never to rise again.
He knocked back the last of the whiskey, and immediately poured himself another inch. Then he reached for the phone and called his father. Strangely, there was no reply, so he called the man from Shanghai instead.
“I just saw the news. You’ve done well, Comrade.”
“Thank you, General. It has been a great honor to carry out this work.”
“Have you received confirmation from our people yet?”
“Not yet, General, but I have sensitive information to discuss with you urgently.”
The man from Shanghai sounded as stiff and cautious as ever. That was his way. He was a good soldier, but totally lacking in strategic vision.
“Come over to my office. We can drink whiskey together.”
“This is a difficult time, General. There are many details that still have to be dealt with.”
“Understood, understood. In that case I’ll come over to your place. And I insist that you drink whiskey with me.”
The young general put down the phone, grabbed the bottle of whiskey, and called for his chauffeur. As he got ready to leave, he noticed the headline on the stock price terminal.
“Tokyo killing—chaos reported at political rally”
It was a fifteen-minute drive across Zhongnanhai to the offices of the Asian Peace Journal where the man from Shanghai had been installed as editor. The young general sipped whiskey from the bottle and contemplated the bustling street scene. His father always said that there was too much prosperity, that the Chinese people were going soft. But how could you march forward without prosperity? How could you develop the weapons and technology? Another of his father’s sayings was that every country needs an enemy, and that losing an enemy was worse than losing a friend. Well, now China was about to find a new enemy, or rather an old enemy that had been lost for half a century. America was a useful enemy, arrogant and interfering, but it would never have a deep effect on the passions of the masses. It was too far away, [248] too abstract, too different. Japan was another story. It had usurped China’s rightful place in the world, grown rich and arrogant while the Chinese people suffered. This was an enemy to treasure, as perfect a match as a childhood sweetheart. With Japan to confront, the Chinese people would never go soft.
The young general’s Mercedes eased to a halt in front of the Journal’s offices. He got out and marched through the door, swinging the half-empty bottle in his hand. He went up the stairs and entered the man from Shanghai’s office without knocking. The latter was sitting at his desk, and there were three men sitting on the sofa in front of him.
“Who are you?” growled the general. They had hard, bitter faces, the kind that never show a glimmer of respect for their betters. Just breathing the same air as them had dampened his good spirits.
The three men stood up and saluted. The oldest one held out his ID card. “As you can see, we are officers from the political crimes division of the security police.”
“What? Get out at once, or I’ll have you arrested.”
“No, General. We are here to arrest you on the grounds of bribery, illicit use of state resources, and treasonous political activity.”
The young general rocked backward as if he had been thumped in the chest.
“Are you mad? Do you know who I am? One word from my father, and you would be executed tomorrow!”
A gloating sneer spread across the officer’s face. “I doubt that. You see, your father has just been arrested on the same charges.”
“That’s impossible! My father is a great hero of the Chinese people!” He glanced at the man from Shanghai, who was sitting quietly at his desk as if nothing unusual were happening. “This is your office. Tell these idiots to leave at once. We have important matters to discuss.”
Just then the man from Shanghai looked up, and the young general saw an expression on his face that he’d never seen before. Not cautious any longer, but cunning. Not stiff, but exultant. And as if a strobe light had exploded in his brain, the general understood what was happening.
“You must come with us now,” said the officer, grabbing his arm. The general tried to shake him off, but the man was surprisingly powerful. One of the others grabbed his left arm, twisting and squeezing with vindictive force, and together they marched him toward the door.
“Just a moment,” barked the man from Shanghai. He stepped forward and lifted the bottle of malt whiskey from the other’s grasp.
“You’ll pay for this with your life!” screamed the young general, as they bundled him into the corridor.
The man from Shanghai sat down at his desk and poured himself a generous slug. It was finally over, all the long years of patient scheming, the secret [249] meetings, the strain of constant duplicity. What mattered was this—he had chosen the right side, the side that had won. The enemies of the old general had seen the opportunity. They had waited until the time was exactly right. Then they had pounced, as a mongoose pounces on an ancient, slow-blooded snake. Everything had gone perfectly. The sharpshooter Li had performed according to his reputation. Matsubara and her friends had never suspected a thing. The Japanese authorities had been as discreet and efficient as ever, providing all the resources requested then arranging a suitable cover story. Undoubtedly there would be many other opportunities for cooperation in the years to come, which he would exploit from his new position of power and influence.
Outside there was the noise of a car engine starting. The man from Shanghai stood up, raised his whiskey glass to the window, and knocked it back in a single satisfying gulp.
It was late in the afternoon when Martine got back to her apartment. She locked and bolted the door, closed the blinds and the curtains, and unplugged the phone. Thoughts and images were buzzing around her head like a swarm of bees. She tried yoga, but it was no good. Her nerves were too scrambled. She took a bottle of Makoto’s premium beer from the refrigerator and drank it. That worked better. Creamy, cool, with a dark, slightly bitter taste—it was like Makoto himself in liquid form.
She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed, sipping beer from the bottle. She had six hours to put her thoughts together before the Tribune’s deadline. But what could she write? She had seen a man kill three people, shoot them with a rifle right in front of her nose. But who was he, and why had he done it? She had no more idea now than when she was racing down the litter-strewn staircase of the pencil-shaped building, hardly daring to believe that she was still alive. She didn’t have a story. She had half a story, maybe less.
And what about the police? Should she go to them and report what she had seen? Almost certainly they wouldn’t believe her. Almost certainly she would be stuck in a police station for the next twenty-four hours, answering the same questions over and over again, trying to come up with a convinci
ng explanation of what she’d been doing there in the first place.
She finished the bottle and lay back on the bed. Suddenly she felt more exhausted than she had ever felt before in her entire life. A short doze was what she needed. It would refresh her mind, put her in the right mood to do the article.
[250] Martine closed her eyes. There were noises inside her head, of Nozawa ranting, people yelling and shouting, gunshots. There were images drifting across the inside of her eyelids, of the middle-aged woman falling backward, blood speckling the wall, the skinny guy staring at her, completely expressionless.
Gradually the noises and images faded. The world turned darker and warmer and she was floating upward, as if she were being slowly lifted in a giant hand. Where was she being taken? Somewhere strange, but safe. For the first time in her life she would have a home.
And there was someone else there waiting for her. A man. She saw him smile in the darkness, welcoming her. He was above her, below her, behind her, surrounding her. She knew this man. She knew his scent and his taste. She knew the stroke of his hand and the touch of his tongue and the rough gentleness as he held her and the slow strength as he filled her. She knew everything about him, except one thing. She had forgotten his name. It was in a language that she didn’t understand. How could she learn the man’s name? How could she have him for her own if she couldn’t say his name?
The thought rose within her like a wave as he moved faster, harder, abandoning restraint. She threw her hands to each side and gripped the sheets, bit her lip to summon concentration. She had to remember! It was almost too late. What was his name? It was there in the back of her mind. What was his name? What was his name? Here it was. Now!
“Makoto!” she screamed, and the sound of her voice woke her up.
She was lying on the bed, trembling, covered in sweat. And the clock told her it was six o’clock in the morning.
The way the NHK newscaster furrowed his brow told the world that unpleasant things were happening, but that the damage had been successfully contained. No need to worry, citizens. You can go to work secure in the knowledge that the authorities have the situation under control.
There was a short clip of the panicky scenes in front of the station—Shimizu being lifted onto a stretcher, Nozawa with blood on his shirt, wild-eyed and shaking, bellowing at the crowd not to go away. Then the newscaster returned, eyes narrowed and mouth pursed in an unmistakable expression of disapproval. Be careful citizens, his eyes were saying. This is what happens when we allow unruly elements to disturb our social harmony. Then there was a press conference at which a senior policeman explained how the notorious international terrorist Reiko Matsubara and her daughter had been killed while attempting to escape.
INN had given the story a different tweak. The big-haired female newsreader could hardly contain her joy as she announced the good news.
“Yesterday, Japanese police stormed a terrorist hideaway, saving the life of an American hostage and killing two of the world’s most-wanted criminals in [251] a shoot-out. The American ambassador in Tokyo has delivered a personal message from the president of the United States, thanking the Japanese police for their prompt and courageous action. Earlier today we spoke to Jake McCloskey, the freed American hostage.”
The screen showed a balding, podgy-faced man blinking unhappily at the camera.
“So Jake McCloskey—how does it feel to be a free man?”
“Aw, it’s great, Shelley. First of all, let me say that the Japanese police did a fantastic job. These terrorists were very bad people. They definitely deserved to die.”
“Do you remember much about what happened?”
McCloskey looked uneasy, his eyes shifting from side to side.
“Not really. You see, these terrorists pumped me with drugs to keep me from escaping. I just remember the police coming in, a lot of shouting and shooting. Then they took the tape off my face and, man, was I glad to be alive!”
“I’ll bet you were. Now we understand that you’ll be leaving Japan next week and returning to your hometown in Minnesota.”
“That’s right.”
The newscaster’s rubbery lips stretched toward her ears. “And what’s the first thing you’re going to do when you get there?”
“Go to my favorite restaurant and have a double cheeseburger, followed by a chocolate sundae with whipped cream.”
“Sounds good, Jake. And if your mom is watching now, do you have a message for her?”
The podgy gray face assumed an expression of puppylike sincerity.
“I love you, Mom,” said Martine, sitting in front of her TV, a cup of coffee balanced on her knee.
“I love you, Mom,” cooed Jake McCloskey on the screen.
The newsreader’s smile was so wide now that her mouth was occupying the entire bottom third of her face. Martine, hit by a spasm of nausea, switched off the TV.
Ninety minutes later she walked into the office with a spring in her step and presented Kyo-san with a large box of her favorite rice crackers. She sat down at her computer and checked her messages. There was nothing from James Murphy, nothing from Gary Terashima, not a peep from her terrorist stalker. She had a strong suspicion that his interest in her was now finished.
“My, you’re looking healthy today,” said Kyo-san, gazing at her keenly over the top of her glasses.
“Well, thanks. You make it sound so unusual.”
“No, seriously. You’ve got a glow in your face, looks like the stress has all gone.”
[252] Martine shrugged. “It must be my new diet—tofu and chocolate cookies, in equal quantities.”
“Hmmm ...” Kyo-san’s gaze returned to the newspaper on her desk which, unusually, was not the Tribune. “So what do you think about these rumors?”
“Which rumors? There are so many these days I can’t keep track.”
Kyo-san tapped the paper with a bright red nail. “The changes at InfoCorp. There’s a piece here in the gossip column of the Journal.”
The Journal was the Tribune’s great rival, smarmy and tediously ideological but with a good reputation for accuracy.
“Go on, then. What’s the story?”
“Jenny Leung is on her way out, and Mark Fletcher is going to take over the entire organization, Asia and the US included.”
“Wow!”
“That’s not all. Apparently he’s planning a major restructuring of the Tribune, including a shake-up of the editorial team and distribution of half the equity to employees.”
“Wow again!”
That was the kind of information that could have come from only one source—Mark Fletcher himself. Leaking it to the Journal would be as good as telling the Tribune’s editorial team that they were finished. No wonder James Murphy had gone quiet. With a bit of luck, his stint as Tokyo bureau chief would be over before it started.
Martine celebrated with a couple of rice crackers, then a couple more.
She spent the next hour stringing together a piece on the political reaction to the Shibuya incident. She got official reactions from a couple of politicians, and some bland quotations from political analysts and academics. From the National Regeneration Party, there was nothing but a terse “No comment.” Did they already sense that their momentum was waning? Probably. In the words of the antique dealer, Shiina, the storm had passed. She had read it in Nozawa’s panic-stricken face as he yelled for the crowd to come back, and in the disapproving frown of the NHK newscaster.
And after Martine’s next article there would be no doubt. “Leading Politician in Hit-and-Run Cover-up”—this piece had to appear as soon as possible. She owed it to Kyo-san, to Saya, to Makoto, to Ichiro, to all the good people she knew. She even owed it to Nozawa himself. The Morikawa school had manipulated him like a puppet, but now he could turn his back on it, just as the crowd would turn its back on him. The statute of limitations would keep him out of jail, but his popularity would blow away like cherry blossom. Tsuyoshi Nozawa would become a curiosity, an e
mbarrassment, and then, eventually, a forgotten face from the past, a fit subject for a “Where are they now?” profile. Maybe he would go back to playing tiny clubs in regional towns. [253] Maybe he would start writing some decent songs again.
In mid-morning there was a call from Kimura’s friend. He sounded unusually nervous.
“Martine-san, I have some important information for you.”
“Yes?”
“It can’t wait.’
“Well, go on then.”
Kimura’s friend’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Not over the phone. It’s too risky.”
So they arranged to meet at the most discreet location Martine knew—on the topmost viewing platform of Tokyo Tower, two hundred feet above the ground.
When Martine arrived, the only others present were a group of junior high school children on an outing and a courting couple gazing wordlessly at each other. There was a gusting northern breeze that tugged at her hair and made her dress billow out like a sail. Martine rested her elbows on the railing and gazed out at the hazy sprawl of the giant city, stretching to the north and the east as far as the eye could see, the mighty tangle of bridges and roads and train tracks, the chaos of signs and messages, the dizzying density of human events.
From this angle Tokyo didn’t look like a city in crisis; it looked prosperous and peaceful, comfortably settled in its ways. Perhaps, thought Martine, this crisis really was ending. Or—a strange thought—perhaps the crisis had never existed. Perhaps it had been a mental state, a trauma that had built up over time and then suddenly erupted. There was a gap between the city that people lived and worked in, and the city they had built in their minds between the city of needs and the city of desires. The second of those cities was crumbling fast. The first was changeless, unending.
Kimura’s friend appeared a few minutes later, his floppy hair bouncing in the wind. His usual calm had evaporated.
“Martine-san, please understand. I’m just an ordinary computer guy, I don’t know anything about high-level political matters. It’s too dangerous for someone like me.”