“It could be,” Harry Pender said, “but it takes time, and we’re moving out of here when I hang up.”
“Then let’s cut out the hamming,” Jack Rhyce said. “I’m waiting for that offer, Harry.”
It came in mild, insinuating tones.
“You’re fond of Ruth, here, aren’t you, Jack? You wouldn’t want to have her taken to the mainland, for instance, or go through any kind of drill? She wouldn’t be much fun to see afterwards, would she? And you know, they do keep alive—surprisingly often—don’t you, Jack?”
Jack Rhyce tried to laugh. It would have been shameful if he had betrayed his pain.
“I understand your build-up. Why don’t you get to the point?” he said.
“Don’t get mad,” Harry Pender said. “The point is, we’re busy here, and we don’t want you monkeying around. We want you the hell out of here. How does that one sound, Jack?”
He felt his heart beat faster. Mr. Moto had been right. They thought he might know something that was dangerous.
“If you want it straight, Harry,” he said. “I don’t like this town much, or the folks in it, including you.”
“Now you’re talking,” Harry Pender said. “I had an idea we could get together, Jack. You’d like to have Ruth Bogart back at the hotel tonight, safe and sound, wouldn’t you, and you know what I mean by safe and sound, don’t you? If not, there’s a pal of yours named Big Ben here who might explain it. Would you like to talk with Ben, Jack?”
He could hear Big Ben singing at the other end of the wire. He was singing “Every Day Is Ladies’ Day with Me.” Jack Rhyce put his hand to his forehead. His face had grown damp, but he kept his voice steady.
“Let’s cut out the technique,” he said. “Consider you’ve scared hell out of me. Yes, I’d like Ruth back safe and sound. So what’s the proposition?”
“It’s easy.” Harry Pender’s voice was as warm and as enthusiastic as a radio announcer’s advertising a commercial. “Half an hour from now Ruth here will be knocking at your door. There’s a night flight leaving for Honolulu at eleven, and we have two tickets for you free. Merely pack your bags, and shut up and go to the airport. How do you like that, Jack?”
“It sounds wonderful,” he said, and he noticed that there was genuine relief in Harry Pender’s voice. He was thankful that, under the circumstances, he could still put two and two together.
“I thought you’d get the point, Jack,” Harry Pender said. “There’s nothing like being reasonable.”
“That’s right,” Jack answered carefully. “And how do I know we’ll ever get to the airport, Harry?”
“You’ve got to trust us for that, Jack,” Harry Pender said, “Just the way we’re going to trust you. Give me your word—you communicate with no one from the minute you set down that telephone, and Ruth here will be back with you in half an hour, with a nice boy from our office to expedite your passage. And you have my word, you’ll get that plane, Jack. How does it sound to you? Would you like to speak to Ruth?”
“Yes, I’d like to speak to her,” he said. There was a pause, and he was glad that it was not a long one. He was trying to think of some palliation—some way out. Then he heard her voice, and it was excruciating agony to hear it. Her voice was faint and level.
“Hello, Jack.”
“Ruth,” he asked, “are you all right?”
“I’m all right, Jack,” she said, “but don’t do it. Don’t—” Her voice was choked off in a stifled gasp that ended in a scream.
Mr. Moto was watching him, and Mr. Moto’s expression had changed when their glances met. Jack could not tell whether the expression was one of sympathy or surprise. He only knew that his own expression had revealed his pain. It was over in an instant because Harry Pender’s voice was back on the wire.
“Sorry for the interruption,” he said. “Will you take the proposition, or won’t you?”
“Suppose I don’t?” Jack Rhyce said.
“We’ll handle you anyway,” Harry Pender said. “Give us twenty minutes and Ruth will tell us what you know. Won’t you, Ruth?”
Jack Rhyce felt a new wave of nausea sweep over him, and he set down the telephone. There was one thing certain—she did not know enough. He sank down in a chair, drew out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Then the telephone rang again.
“Let it ring,” he said. “To hell with it. Let it ring.” For a moment he felt as though he were going to be sick to his stomach. For a moment he could not speak.
“Take those goddam earphones off,” he said. “Excuse me. I’ll be all right in a minute.” He felt his shoulders move convulsively and he hid his face in his hands for a second.
“Excuse me,” he said.
“That is quite all right,” Mr. Moto said. “Would you like a little whisky, Mr. Rhyce?”
Jack Rhyce shook his head.
“You didn’t think I’d do it, did you?” Jack Rhyce said.
“No, I did not,” Mr. Moto said. “You are a very nice man. But please be easier in your mind, for you did what you should have, Mr. Rhyce.”
“How in hell can I be easy in my mind,” he said, “when we should have put a guard here?”
Mr. Moto raised his hand and let it fall abruptly to his side.
“It is something that we’ll regret always—you more than I, I am so very much afraid,” he said. “But in life we cannot relive regrets.”
“That’s right,” Jack said. “Excuse me again, I’m all right now.”
He was far from all right. He knew that he would never be the man he had been an hour or so before. There were certain things that could haunt one always—things that time itself could never solve. But he had to go on with it. He had to keep moving straight ahead, and all he could do was to try to make what was happening to Ruth Bogart to some extent worthwhile.
His training had not left him. He had learned long ago not to forget words or pauses on a telephone.
“Pender said a boy from the office, didn’t he?” Jack Rhyce said. “That was a slip, I think.”
“I’m not quite sure that I follow you,” Mr. Moto answered.
Jack Rhyce was not impatient. He actually did not care whether Mr. Moto followed him. His mind was moving forward to another fact.
“We know right from the horse’s mouth that Skirov is in town,” he said. It was Skirov who would be calling the plays, now that he was in town. It was necessary to give thought to this other personality. “That’s another mistake of Pender’s. Maybe we can connect with him now. Anyway, there’s no use hanging around here any longer.”
“No,” Mr. Moto answered. “We must go to where the call came from. They will have gone, but there may be traces.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Jack said. At least his mind was moving forward again out of the nightmare of self-incrimination that had entangled it. Mr. Moto’s statement was still true, that they would not have attempted what they had if they had not been afraid that he knew something, and Harry Pender had said himself that they had not guessed his identity until just before lunch. He remembered the accelerated swing of the glasses in Mr. Pender’s hand that morning when he had pursued the subject of liberal politicians, and he recalled the exact point in their conversation when the swing had changed.
All that Intelligence finally consisted of was finding facts, evaluating them and fitting them together until they formed a larger fact. A lot of it was choice and chance. You often could not tell whether you were right until the very end, and there were many times when you had to leave the path of painfully accumulated evidence to play a hunch. All he had left was a hunch—not a good one, but one which at least could fit the circumstances as he knew them. He was prepared to play it because it was all that was left, and it was better to move than to do nothing.
“I wouldn’t go chasing down that call,” he said again, “and if you do, I won’t go with you. Did you ever hear of a man named Noshimura Hata?”
“Oh, yes,” Mr. Moto said. “I know Mr. Hata.
”
“He’s a very important liberal, isn’t he?” Jack Rhyce asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said. “Where did you hear of him, please?”
“In Mr. Pender’s office, this morning,” Jack Rhyce said. “Pender said he was head and shoulders above any other politician in the liberal party, and afterwards I think he was sorry that he had said it.”
Mr. Moto’s gold teeth gleamed, but he was not smiling.
“So—” Mr. Moto said, “so—”
“It’s only a guess,” Jack Rhyce said, “but maybe it’s worth a gamble. I can only tell you what I think.”
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said. “Thank you, and tell me what you think.”
“I think they were going to kill this Mr. Hata tomorrow—but now I think they will do it tonight, now that I didn’t take their offer. I’d get him out of his house, if I were you. I’d be delighted to wait there for whoever is coming to do the job, and I’ll bet it will be Big Ben.”
Mr. Moto was on his feet.
“I think that is a very nice suggestion, Mr. Rhyce,” he said, “and I think you are a very nice man. Let me have the telephone. We must arrange to move at once.”
“It’s only a guess, you know,” Jack Rhyce said.
“Yes, but one must always guess,” Mr. Moto answered. “I shall be there with you, Mr. Rhyce, to wait for whoever may be coming.”
Jack Rhyce had a friendlier feeling for Mr. Moto than any he had previously experienced.
“I don’t know whether you are a very nice man or not,” he said, “but anyway, you’re willing to take a chance.”
“Thank you so very much,” Mr. Moto said. “And now if you will move, please, I shall use the telephone, Mr. Rhyce.”
Mr. Moto spoke Japanese. His voice was not strident like that of most men in authority; instead it was gentle, musical and melodious. Jack Rhyce stood for a moment listening. It was a matter of logistics, men, motors and distance. As he listened, his own anguish, which had been dulled for the last few minutes, returned to him again. He could control it now, but he knew that it would be with him always. He walked to the overturned suitcase and replaced the tumbled-out clothing very carefully in an order of which he hoped she would have approved. He walked to the dressing table, picked up the comb and brush and perfume bottle, and put all three in the suitcases. He touched his lips to the back of the brush, and he did not care in the least whether Mr. Moto saw him or not. He closed the suitcase and snapped the lock, and, as he did so, he knew in his heart that he was doing all he ever could for Ruth Bogart.
19
HE MUST have been on fifty similar cases since he had been connected with the business, although in this one the setting was more interesting than in many. Again it was the old matter of waiting. Again, it was the trap or ambush or whatever technical name you might choose to give it. But this time, from the very beginning, there had been a feeling of promise in the air. Since so much of Intelligence consisted of moving tentatively into the unknown and never knowing exactly when you would finally collide with a stone wall or step upon the deadfall, it was never wise to leave premonition out of any calculation. Again and again in his professional career Jack Rhyce had experienced the gambler’s conviction that the right numbers were coming up, and if you had it, it was surprisingly apt to be correct. You could call it nonsense, or fourth dimension, but it was there—whatever name you gave it. He knew as sure as fate that things were going to work that night. If you sacrificed enough, he sometimes thought, you were bound to get something in return, and the only thing that we wanted just then was to see the job through, and meet Big Ben in the process. He had paid down enough for the privilege. For the rest of his natural life he had given up peace of mind. Even though she had told him to go ahead—and her voice and her scream would echo in his memory always—he would wonder whether duty had been worth it. Even afterwards his ingenuity would work on belated plans that might have saved her and still have achieved what they were there for. Undoubtedly, given time, he would figure out a way.
The actual plan for assassination was conventional and safe. As it turned out later, the prognosis was correct that it would look like an American job. A stolen American army car was in the picture, and the only thing that gave Jack Rhyce a shock was that wallet subsequently discovered on the premises—purported to be his, with excellently forged identity papers considering the short space of time allowed for their preparation. They had said that they would handle him, and they had meant it either way.
The house and grounds stood in one of Tokyo’s most comfortable and desirable districts on land not far from the palace grounds themselves. In the old days the great Tokugawa fortress had been surrounded by concentric ramparts. Beyond these had been a further ring of houses occupied by the Shoguns’ most trusted retainers. Further back the houses of the minor officials had stood, including the land of the Hata family which had been subdivided toward the end of the last century. The house of Mr. Noshimura Hata still occupied part of it. Actually, as it happened, Jack Rhyce never set eyes on the liberal politician, because Mr. Hata had been carried to a safer spot before Mr. Moto and he made their appearance. So also had the servants, who had been replaced by operators. The operation had run with a smoothness that had impressed Jack Rhyce professionally.
The lights were on by the gate in the small front garden, and the larger garden with the lawn in back was also lighted by stone lanterns.
“It is fortunate,” Mr. Moto said, “that Mr. Hata likes to leave many of his ground lights on at night. He is afraid of burglars, which is amusing I think, when he is such a very liberal man.”
After what had happened earlier, rigorous precautions were taken in case the house was watched; a schedule had been made of the household routine. This had all taken time, but it was worth it. It was half-past eight o’clock once they were inside the house, and Mr. Hata’s retiring hour was ten.
“First he walks through the garden,” Mr. Moto said, “Having put on the kimono and recited Buddhist prayers. I shall be Mr. Hata, and you may watch me from the house. We must all be very careful, but I do not think the killing will be in the garden.”
The austere charm of that house formed a violent contrast to Jack Rhyce’s thoughts. The sparseness of its furnishings, the bare space of its walls, gave a balanced beauty to its interior that was a rebuke to the overcluttered houses back at home. Space had a more eloquent appeal in an overcrowded country like Japan. It was prized more than material possessions, and Jack Rhyce had never been more conscious of its beauty than he had been when he stood on the resilient floor matting in the sleeping room of Mr. Hata’s house. It was a room intended solely for rest. Aside from the bedding prepared for the night and a black lacquer head rest, there were no other furnishings except a low table and a scroll painting of flowers in a niche sunk into the inside wall with an arrangement of flowers beneath it. The outer wall was formed entirely of sliding glass panels that opened on Mr. Hata’s garden, and on that warm evening the panels had been pushed back so that the garden with its stone lanterns was a projection of the room itself. Although his thoughts were still in turmoil, Jack Rhyce was not immune to the garden’s beauty. He was vaguely aware of a way of life different from his own, more serene and more peaceful, and one deriving pleasure from a few small things rather than from ostentatious masses of larger ones. The garden from the standpoint of area was a very small affair, but assiduous art gave the illusion of its being a Japanese countryside. The lawn was a plain, the carefully twisted and trained pines and the small deciduous trees that bordered it became in imagination wind-swept forests. The eccentrically eroded stones that had been placed in relationship to each other only after hours of study were mountains and wild country. The miniature chain of ponds magnified themselves to lakes. While watching this miniature achievement, one could think with sorrow how fast the world was changing, and how a little time might be left, tomorrow, even in Japan, for a garden like Mr. Hata’s. The garden spelled peace, but it did not
give him peace of mind that night.
Nevertheless, he had not been outwardly restless. The business had taught him long ago the patience of a fisherman or a hunter, who could be alerted at any second—but there was more to it than that. Patience in the business demanded an endurance that raised the watcher beyond self, to a realm where personal consideration meant nothing. It resembled an artist’s dedication, although it could hardly be said that the business was an art. He had not been restless, because of training; but his thoughts were beyond control. He was back again looking at the suitcase that had tumbled on the floor. He tortured himself again with what might have been if she had not been left alone, with how she had looked on that long drive to the mountains, with what she had said when they were alone at Wake, and finally with the knowledge that everything was ended and all contact had been cut forever. He could not think what was happening to her now, or speculate on whether she was alive or dead. It was best to know that it was absolutely ended.
He was waiting in a corner of the sleeping room when Mr. Moto stepped through the paneled windows from the garden.
“Is it time to turn off the garden lights?” Jack Rhyce asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Moto said, “as soon as I have seen arrangements are understood, the house will go to sleep. We may still be a long while waiting.”
It was impossible to know how long they would wait, but by then they both must have believed they would not draw a blank. There was a feeling in the air, a telepathic sense of something already moving.
“When the garden lights go out,” Mr. Moto said, “I shall ask you to step outside, Mr. Rhyce, and stand by the corner of the house. I shall rest on the bed. The windows will be open. I think he will approach through the garden and attempt to enter by the windows. When he is near enough you may move on him, Mr. Rhyce, but please let us be patient and wait until he is near, for we do not wish shooting. There are so many questions in a neighborhood whenever shots are fired.”
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