High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Your intelligence is not bad,” McGarvey said. “The Russians can put together wing panels cheaper than we can, and I’m sure cheaper than you. Besides that, my government is willing to make loan guarantees to the Russians to make the deal work. We can’t miss. With you it’s a different story.”

  “Your company is practically bankrupt.”

  Bingo, McGarvey thought. “I thought you weren’t supposed to aggravate me,” he said. “In this case your intelligence isn’t so good. Guerin may be at its limit, but the company is sound.”

  “Why did you approach us?”

  McGarvey looked at him and smiled. “Is it you I’m supposed to be meeting? Are you Yamagata’s principal? Because if that’s the case, I damned well will be out of here on the first flight.”

  Eto’s jaws tightened. “Iie,” he said. He flagged down a passing cab. “I will drop you at your hotel.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll walk.”

  “That’s not possible, Mr. McGarvey,” Eto said as the cab pulled up. “It’s too far, and the streets here are very … confusing.”

  “I think I can manage. I’ll see you at the hotel in the morning.”

  “It could be dangerous.”

  “Are you telling me that the streets of Tokyo are unsafe?”

  “There is very little crime in Tokyo compared to New York.”

  “As a Gai Jin I’m in danger, is that it, Eto-san? Or am I specifically in danger because of why I’m here? Which is it?”

  Eto looked helplessly at McGarvey. The rear door of the cab was open, and the cabby waited patiently behind the wheel. The cab was spotless. All taxis in Japan were always clean and in very good repair. It was the law.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Eto said.

  “I need to be alone. I’ll see you in the morning.” McGarvey turned and walked down the street, aware that the Japanese was watching him.

  McGarvey turned right at the corner and sprinted down a narrow alley twenty yards away, where he pulled up in the shadows of a shuttered stall. Moments later the cab passed on the street, Eto sitting ramrod straight in the back seat.

  The confrontation had answered a number of questions, among them just how importantly the Japanese were treating his offer, and just how bad Japanese sentiment toward Americans had become. He’d been treated shabbily at the airport and at his hotel, and Eto seemed to be genuinely frightened for his safety tonight.

  McGarvey lit a cigarette as he continued to watch the street. Eto’s concern for his safety involved more than a fear of simple street crime. No matter what Japanese group had targeted Guerin, there’d be opposition. Eto and whoever he worked for—which sure as hell wasn’t JAL—had enemies. By association they would also be McGarvey’s enemies. But they would be a group who, for whatever reasons, opposed the takeover of Guerin. They were one of the reasons he’d come to Japan.

  The cab, with Eto still in the back seat, passed on the street again. Even at a distance it was clear that the Japanese was agitated.

  “Thanks,” McGarvey said. The man had just proved the supposition.

  He’d been seen with Eto at the hotel’s hinoki baths and at the club. From this point two forces would be in motion: that of the principals Eto worked for and that of the opposition. Actually three forces, he corrected himself. If the Russian Abunai network got wind that he was in Tokyo—which was likely—the mix would be further changed, perhaps muddied if it believed Guerin was trying to cut a deal with the Japanese.

  Working both sides of the fence almost always produced a reaction of one sort or another. And the side that reacted first and with the most force was usually the group with the most to lose.

  McGarvey flipped his cigarette away, hunched up his coat collar, and headed toward his hotel.

  The Sumidagawa River, which emptied into industrial Tokyo Bay, was somewhere off to his right, beyond Sumida Park. He could smell the odors of oil and creosote wafting up from its banks. A few blocks in the opposite direction was the ancient Sensoji Temple, which had been one of the first things to be rebuilt after the war.

  Kelley Fuller had called this place shitamachi, the heart and soul of downtown. She’d worked deep cover for the CIA’s Tokyo Station, and when McGarvey had come over on an assignment she’d helped out. He remembered her very clearly, and remembered everything she’d told him. By that time she’d been burned out on Japan and on the Company and wanted nothing more than to return home to Hawaii. But it would be nice to have her with him now. Despite her love-hate relationship with the country, she knew the Japanese psyche very well and was able to be objective.

  It was difficult for an American to negotiate directly with a Japanese because of the vast cultural and language differences between them. The only saving grace was that if Americans had trouble understanding the Japanese, the Japanese had the same difficulty trying to figure out Americans.

  Kelley’s perspective had been unique in that she’d been able to clearly see and understand both sides.

  McGarvey climbed a broad set of stairs to a long open-air mall, with shops along either side of a brick thoroughfare. Fountains, trees, and park benches were scattered here and there. The only illumination came from a few large globes on short aluminum stanchions. In the early evening with shops open, people strolling or sitting and chatting, the effect would be soothing. Now the mall was in shadows.

  McGarvey held up at the head of the stairs and listened to the city sounds, which were far away and faint. The air still smelled of the river, but there were other odors here: spices and flowers and perhaps cooking food. But something was wrong. The hairs at the nape of his neck prickled.

  The mall ran roughly east and west for about two blocks, opening at one end on what was probably Nakamise-dori Avenue, which during the day was busy with traffic. The other end of the mall was lost in darkness.

  McGarvey had left his pistol in Portland. If he’d been caught trying to bring it through customs he would have been arrested and kicked out. He hadn’t come here with any intention of getting into a situation where he might need it, but just now he was sorry he hadn’t tried.

  A motorcycle engine roared into life, and the bike came slowly up from the dark end of the mall. McGarvey backed up, his left hand trailing on the burnished aluminum stair rail.

  The helmeted driver was dressed in black leather, and as he passed, he looked at McGarvey and smiled like a Cheshire cat.

  Before he got to the far end of the mall, a second motorcycle started with an angry whine and headed up from the darkness, the driver weaving a path through the benches, trees, and fountains. As he passed McGarvey he looked over and smiled like the first biker.

  A third and fourth bike started up and came from the end of the mall, and as McGarvey started to turn back a pair of motorcycles appeared at the bottom of the stairs. The drivers revved the engines, the snarling noises echoing off the storefronts. Two more bikes started up and came from the dark end of the mall as the first four returned.

  McGarvey sprinted away from the stairs toward a small tree protected by a low circle of bricks, one of the bikes just missing him as it spun around the fountain a few feet away.

  The second bike passed in a roar, something hard smashing into McGarvey’s back, driving him to his knees. He looked up in time to see a third and fourth bike heading for him, the drivers swinging what looked like pieces of steel or lead on the ends of three-foot chains.

  He’d found the opposition, but they didn’t seem inclined to stop and talk.

  McGarvey rolled left, away from the first pair of oncoming motorcycles, and they flashed by, the lead weights missing him. He was up on his feet as the two bikes from below burst over the head of the stairs and came directly at him.

  He swung around the tree, avoiding the first bike, and then stepped directly toward the second. At the last possible instant he moved aside, like a bullfighter allowing the charging bull to pass. He ducked under the swinging weight, then popped up behind it and grabbed a handful of the biker’s
leather jacket, dragging the man off his motorcycle and swinging him directly into the path of another charging bike.

  The force of the impact spun the downed biker violently around, his left arm catching in the rear wheel’s mag struts, taking it off just above the elbow and sending the motorcycle and driver crashing into one of the park benches.

  Blood pouring from the open wound sprayed everywhere as the Japanese screamed and tried to get away.

  McGarvey snatched the heavily weighted chain that the downed biker had dropped and stepped back.

  “This man needs help!” he shouted.

  The other bikers circled slowly, well out of range. “Rising Sun is going to get you,” one of them taunted.

  The Japanese whose arm was torn off lay crumpled in a heap, the flow of blood from his wound slowing. The biker who’d crashed into the bench lay beneath his motorcycle, his head lying at a severe angle.

  “I came here to talk to you, not fight, goddammit,” McGarvey tried to explain.

  “Too bad you’re going to die now,” one of them shouted.

  Two of the bikes cut out of the pack and suddenly roared toward him from opposite directions, the drivers swinging their weighted chains.

  “You stupid bastards,” McGarvey yelled in frustration. He swung the weighted chain twice over his head and let it fly at the biker to his left, then darted across the path of the other bike, jumped up on the back of a park bench, and leaped at the oncoming driver.

  It happened too fast for either biker to get out of the way. McGarvey came over the handlebars and crashed into the Japanese, driving him off the bike, both of them smashing into the bricks.

  McGarvey yanked the weighted chain out of the Japanese’s hand and, as he scrambled to the left, tossed it at the wheel of one of the other bikes still circling. The chain caught in the mag struts of the front wheel, sending the machine crashing into the bike in front of it.

  The bike to his left was down, the driver getting to his feet. The Japanese reached inside his jacket, but then he suddenly looked up and stepped back.

  “I want to talk,” McGarvey shouted.

  The biker McGarvey had knocked down yanked his still idling motorcycle upright, climbed aboard, and roared away, while the Japanese to his left jumped on another bike’s pillion as it raced past.

  All of the bikes swung around and charged down the stairs at high speed. Only after they were gone did McGarvey hear the police sirens, a lot of them, closing in.

  “I’ve finished with the repeater design, and it won’t take me very long to build seven or eight of them,” Louis Zerkel said. “But there’s another problem.”

  “With the circuit design?” his brother Glen asked. Louis had been in an odd mood all morning. He was twitchy.

  “It’s embarrassing.”

  “What’s your problem, Louis? I can’t help you if I don’t know what it is.”

  Louis looked down at his hands resting on the terminal keyboard. “In California it was different. I didn’t have to ask anyone, not even Dr. Shepard. I knew where to go to get what … I needed.”

  “What?”

  Louis looked up, and shrugged. “A woman.”

  Glen shook his head and grinned. “Shit, man, I can dig it. You’re horny. Now that you mention it, so am I.”

  “Can you do something, Glen?”

  “No sweat, brother. I’ll talk it over with Mr. R. See what we can come up with. Just hang tight.”

  “Good,” Louis said. “Only thing that’s left after the repeaters will be setting up the signal paths from Tokyo and one test of the sensor unit in the Faraday cage.”

  There was no use running, McGarvey told himself, because he’d been set up the moment he got off the airplane. If they wanted him they would have no trouble finding him. Besides, cops had the habit of shooting at a moving figure first and a stationary target last. Watching the half-dozen or more squad cars, sirens blaring, lights flashing, race into the mall from Nakamise-dori Avenue, he was glad he’d heeded his first instinct to leave his gun at home. It would not have helped him very much against the bikers, and if he had it now it would definitely start to become a serious problem in about thirty seconds.

  He stepped into the pool of light cast by one of the globes and raised his hands over his head, his passport in his left.

  The first radio units screeched to a halt in front of him, their headlights making it difficult to see anything. Other units were arriving, and he could hear a lot of activity. Of course there were bodies all over the place, and the police had no real idea what they were walking into.

  McGarvey stood perfectly still.

  Several uniformed cops, their weapons drawn, fanned out on the double on either side of him. Someone from behind the lights shouted something in Japanese, and a man in civilian clothes slowly approached to within a couple of feet of McGarvey. He glanced at the upraised passport.

  “You’re an American?”

  “Yes. My name is Kirk McGarvey. I’d like to speak with someone from my embassy.”

  “Are you armed?” the Japanese asked him. His English was very good, but he was dressed in a baggy suit and a rumpled trench coat that made him look like a detective out of a forties movie.

  “No.”

  The plainclothes cop said something in Japanese, and two uniformed cops hurried forward, took McGarvey’s passport, then quickly frisked him. When they were done, they pulled his arms behind him and secured his wrists with a plastic wire tie. They were quick and efficient.

  “What happened here?” the plainclothes officer asked. He pocketed McGarvey’s passport without looking at it.

  “They called themselves Rising Sun. Said they were going to kill me.”

  “This was all of them?”

  “There were more of them. Five or six others.”

  The cop glanced at the crashed motorcycles and the three bodies. A great deal of blood had pooled up around the biker who’d lost his arm. “Who helped you here, Mr. McGarvey?”

  “No one. If you won’t call my embassy, contact Mr. Asagiri Eto. I have his number. I had dinner with him this evening.”

  The plainclothes cop studied McGarvey. “What are you doing in Japan?”

  “I’m here on business.”

  Again the Japanese cop studied McGarvey. “I think your business is not possible now,” he said. “I am placing you under arrest at this time.”

  “What am I being charged with?”

  The plainclothes cop smiled faintly. “Murder, of course.”

  “Eight against one?” McGarvey asked. “I call it self-defense.”

  “I see only three bodies, Mr. McGarvey. And you are a very large, obviously very powerful man. Whereas your victims were nothing but boys. Not a fair fight, if you ask me.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Reid said, surprised.

  “It’s not so much to ask, considering everything he’s done so far,” Glen Zerkel argued. “Question is, can we get someone out here without putting ourselves in danger?”

  “I don’t think that would be terribly difficult,” Reid answered. “But I don’t know if it would be very smart.” It was late afternoon by the time he’d come out from the city. He’d put his latest newsletter to bed, and he’d waited until all the copies had been machine-addressed and mailed. This had caught him completely off guard.

  “We’re not home free yet, Mr. R. We still need him, maybe for another week or two.”

  “Can’t he wait?”

  Mueller came into the living room from outside. “Who can’t wait for what?” he asked, mildly.

  “Young Louis tells us that he wants a whore,” Reid said.

  Mueller shrugged. “Washington has whores. Get him one.”

  “We were thinking about the danger.”

  “When he’s finished with the woman I’ll kill her and put her body with Karl’s. How are his experiments progressing?”

  TWENTY-TWO

  McGarvey was taken to Metropolitan Police Headquarters downtown on Saku
rado-dori Avenue. They removed his wrist restraint, searched him with a metal detector, took everything out of his pockets, and locked him in a small interrogation room furnished only with a steel table and three chairs. It was a half-hour before the plainclothes cop who’d arrested him came in.

  “I will ask you some questions, Mr. McGarvey,” the cop said, setting up a cassette tape recorder. “It will save time if you tell me only the truth.”

  “Fine,” McGarvey said. “But first I want your name, and I’ll want to see some credentials. Then I want a cup of coffee or tea, and my cigarettes and matches.”

  “There is no smoking.”

  “In that case you’d better give my embassy a call right now, because I’m not telling you anything until I speak to a consular officer.”

  “You will answer my questions,” the cop said sternly, his expression menacing. “You have no rights here.”

  “If you want to create an international incident, go ahead and push. Otherwise, fuck you.”

  The cop managed a faint smirk as he eyed McGarvey speculatively. “You are a murderer, Mr. McGarvey, and just now sentiments are running very high against Americans. I meant it when I said that you have no rights here. So this can be easy for you, or very hard. It is your choice.”

  “Actually it’s your choice,” McGarvey said. “Sooner or later the people I came to see will find out what happened and they’ll get me out of here. In the meantime we can chat like civilized men, or you can try to force some answers out of me.”

  “The trouble is that you lied to me from the beginning, so I find it difficult to believe anything you say. You are a murderer and liar.”

  “You cooperate with me, and I’ll cooperate with you,” McGarvey offered.

  The cop’s eyes narrowed. “The number you supplied me has no record of this man you mentioned—Asagiri Eto.”

  McGarvey said nothing.

  “How do you explain this discrepancy?”

  Still McGarvey maintained his silence.

  The cop switched off the cassette recorder, got up, and came around the table to McGarvey’s side. “Did this man help you murder those boys?”