Tell me, have you or I or the entire CIA made even the slightest difference on how events have turned out over the past fifty years?”
Carrara looked up at him. “I have to believe we have, McGarvey. Else why do we do our jobs?”
The conviction that his entire life had been nothing but an exercise in futility suddenly welled up in McGarvey’s breast. “Christ,” he said softly, Mati’s face rising up in his mind’s eye. It took everything within his control not to turn on Carrara.
“Jim Shirley, our chief of station in Tokyo, was murdered on Friday by two as yet unidentified Japanese,” the DDO said. “We learned overnight that Ed Mowry, our acting chief of station, may be next on their list.”
McGarvey was listening with one part of his mind, while with another he was still thinking about Marta. Her mistake had been falling in love with him. It had cost her her life.
“Shirley had apparently been conducting a series of meetings with a man by the name of Armand Dunee, who supposedly was a spy for a Belgian bank operating in Tokyo.
But he was an imposter.
In the beginning, in Lausanne, Mati had been a diversion. His real work had been the bookstore and his research on the French writer-philosopher Voltaire. But he’d been deluding her and everyone else, including himself. Once a spy, always a spy.
Hadn’t he heard that line somewhere?
“We have a blind source there who may have spotted one of Shirley’s assassins following Mowry.”
Mati had wanted him to give it up, as did Kathleen. But neither of them understood the thing inside of him that was his driving force. His sister had come close a number of years ago when she’d pleaded with him not to sell their parents’ ranch in western Kansas after they had died. She’d inherited the cash and securities, but he had been given the land. “There’s nothing wrong with being tied to the land,” she’d argued.
“A piece of ground cannot be tainted. Not that way.”
But he’d disagreed, and had sold his parents’ property without going back to see it. Daughters are not guilty of the sins of their fathers, he’d told another of his women. But what about the sons?
“We have a team in Tokyo, but no doubt they’ve been spotted. You might have a better chance of not only protecting Mowry, but finding out who wants to kill him and why.”
McGarvey turned around. “Have you warned him?”
“He’s been told that he may be a target. I sent over some help from Technical Services.
But you’ve got to understand that we’re limited in what we can overtly do just now.
The Japanese authorities are very touchy.”
“Have you told him about your blind source?”
Carrara looked uncomfortable. “Of course not.”
“So Mowry doesn’t specifically know that he’s being tailed?”
“No.”
“How about the Technical Services team?”
“We’re keeping the need-to-know list to a minimum.”
McGarvey shook his head. “What the hell is going on, Phil? The Company never did this sort of thing before.”
“The world has changed,” Carrara replied tightly.
“And that’s it? The world has changed?”
Carrara said nothing.
“What’s going on in Tokyo? Why was your chief of station killed, and why the blind asset?”
“I’m sending a briefing book with you so that you can familiarize yourself on the flight over. But in broad strokes we were asked to investigate the possibility that a Japanese corporation, or consortium of corporations, were going to institute an all-out technological-economic war on us. Specificially in the military-aerospace electronics field. First they would mount an espionage operation against U.S. companies doing research and development in order to find out to what point we’d taken the technology. And then they would simply better it.”
“To what end?”
“Economic blackmail. Either we buy their new developments or they’d sell them on the world market.”
“Shirley was killed because he was on to them?”
“It may not be that simple, Kirk. It may be that Shirley was involved in kickbacks. We’re just not sure. But what’s at stake here amounts to billions of dollars.”
“Maybe they’re after improvements in nuclear technology as well.”
“ModTec is not the only manufacturer of those switches, nor are they the best.”
“Assuming Shirley got caught in the middle, why target Mowry?” McGarvey asked.
“I don’t know. Perhaps he was involved as well, or they think he was. Either way we’d like you to find out.”
“What about your blind asset?”
Carrara handed McGarvey a photograph of Kelley Fuller. “She works as an interpreter for the USIA at our embassy under the name Yaeko Hataya.
She was Jim Shirley’s lover.”
“Shit,” McGarvey mumbled half under his breath as he studied the photograph. She was a good-looking woman.
“You’re going to have to stay out of the way of the Tokyo police. Needless to say they won’t be sympathetic.”
“Do you think the government is involved?”
“I don’t know. I hope not, but I don’t know.”
“What’s the girl’s situation? How will we make contact?”
“Mowry has put her up in one of our safehouses. Once you’re settled in Tokyo she’ll get word to your hotel. She knows you’re coming.”
“But Mowry knows nothing about this?”
“That’s right.”
McGarvey had to shake his head. “When do I leave?”
“Immediately,” Carrara said.
Chapter 27
It was dawn. Igarshi parked the blue and white police van at the end of the block from the apartment building on Sakurada-dori Avenue, and watched the activity on the street for a few moments. Already traffic was getting heavy. In another hour the area would be a madhouse, and therefore anonymous.
He studied the apartment building through binoculars. The shutters on the second-story windows were still tightly closed and there was no sign of activity yet. But Mowry would be showing up sometime this morning. He wouldn’t be able to leave his whore for long. At least in that aspect all Americans were alike.
A uniformed police officer came up the street on foot from the direction of the Imperial Palace. Igarshi started the van’s engine. He did not want to be caught here.
“What’s wrong?” Kozo Idemitsu asked from the back.
“A policeman is heading toward us.”
“Ido?”
“I think so, but I’m not sure,” Igarshi said. He raised the binoculars and studied the approaching figure. At first he couldn’t quite tell, but then the cop raised his head, and Igarshi had him. “It’s Ido.”
“Something must have gone wrong. Contact Tanaka again and see if there has been any change.”
As of ten minutes ago their observers near the American embassy in Minato-ku had reported that Mowry was still inside. There was little likelihood that he could have gotten out without being spotted, but if he was on his way now it could make things difficult.
Igarshi picked up the bulky secure walkie-talkie lying on the seat next to him, and keyed the READY TO TALK button.
“Tiger, this is lion,” he said. “Has hummingbird departed yet? We may have a developing situation.”
He pressed the TRANSMIT button, and his digitally-recorded words were encrypted, compressed into a one-microsecond burst, and sent out.
“Stand by, lion. It looks as if his people have just pulled up out front.”