He couldn’t help compare the situation to the days before Pearl Harbor, when there’d been another serious lapse in hard intelligence on what the Japanese were up to.
Rightly or wrongly there was a growing paranoia about exactly just where the Japanese were headed these days. As Carrara pointed out, it wasn’t so much that they seemed to want to buy everything they could get their hands on in the States-the British owned nearly twice as much property in the U.S. as the Japanese did. But it was what the Japanese were buying, and how they were going about it.
Owning a building in midtown Manhattan was one thing, but buying out a major communications industry, including a movie production company and a major book publisher, was another.
As was a rumored move to buy out a major U.S. aircraft company. In each case the Japanese promised not to make any changes in company policy. That, of course, was forgotten the moment the ink was dry on the contracts.
“We can’t afford anti-Japanese sentiment, but neither can we afford a Japanese buyout of what’s vital to this country,” Carrara said.
Finding out who was behind the assassination of Shirley, and how that connected to Carrara’s sweeping generalizations was a tall, if not an impossible order. One which McGarvey had his doubts about being able to fulfill. And there was still the nagging suspicion at the back of his mind that somehow the Japanese were connected with Spranger and his group of ex-STASI officers.
At the south end of the gardens the ornate Sakuradamon Gate crossed another moat to the end of Sakurada-dori Avenue. A couple dozen joggers were warming up in the courtyard between the portals of the gate. McGarvey stopped just inside the garden.
On the corner was the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Building, and across the street was the Ministry of Justice housed in a nondescript old brown brick building. This area was the heart of the Japanese government. Within a few blocks were the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Education, International Trade and Industry.
The CIA’s safehouse was in a building used by foreigners doing business with the government. Activities unusual for any other part of Tokyo were common here and raised few suspicions.
“So far Mowry hasn’t officially told anyone that he’s stashed Kelley over there,”
Carrara had said.
“Which means he’s got something to hide.”
Carrara shrugged. “The Station leaks, and he doesn’t want to end up like Shirley.”
“What’d the girl tell him?”
“That she saw Jim Shirley’s murder and that she’s frightened she’ll be next.”
“But he hasn’t told any of that to your Technical Services team?”
“No, but they’re keeping an eye on him twenty-four hours a day. They know he’s got a girl there, but they don’t know who she is.”
“And you haven’t clarified the situation.”
Carrara shook his head.
“You really are a bastard after all,” McGarvey said, but the DDO hadn’t responded.
It was the business, McGarvey thought, watching the street. When government policies became the primary consideration, people became expendable. It had happened to him, only he’d been tough enough-and lucky enough-to survive. So far.
Already the first of the clerks and bureaucrats were heading to work, and traffic was beginning to pick up. In another hour or less all of Tokyo would become a congested mass of humanity on the move. Half hour taxi rides would take two hours or more.
Buses and trains would be packed to overflowing. The city streets would become anonymous for the field officer as well as for the killer and his victim.
Crossing Harumi-dori Avenue with the light, McGarvey headed past the Police Headquarters keeping his eyes and ears open, trying to absorb what was the norm for this area; looking for the routine, the ordinary, the usual ebb and flow so that he could pick out the odd, out of place person or vehicle.
In Europe he understood what he saw. Here, though, it was different: The people, the scenery, even the flavor and odors on the air were odd by Western standards.
“Between you and the girl you can keep an eye on Mowry,” Carrara had said. “If they do make a try on him, you’ll get your lead.”
“Short of that?”
“Keep your eyes open,” Carrara said. “Something will come up. With you it always does.”
The safehouse was in the block beyond the Police Headquarters. Some shops were beginning to open, and traffic, especially pedestrian, was getting heavy.
At the near corner a uniformed police officer was speaking on a telephone at a police callbox outside a tiny cubicle. At the far end of the block a blue and white police van was parked on the opposite side of the street.
As McGarvey passed, the cop at the callbox glanced up at him, but then turned away.
Something was happening here. Or was about to happen. That much he could pick out.
Then he spotted her. Kelley Fuller had just emerged from a building in the middle of the block and was heading directly toward him. She was thirty yards distant, but he had no trouble recognizing her from the photographs Carrara had included in the briefing package.
Nor was there any doubt from the way she was moving that she was in trouble. Immediate trouble.
Igarshi could hardly believe his eyes. It was Mowry’s whore. She was on the move.
Now! Of all times! She must have seen something and warned the American. She’d probably spotted Ido. The bastard!
He grabbed the walkie-talkie, pushed the READY TO TALK button and screamed into the microphone. “Tiger, this is lion. The woman just left the apartment. She’s getting away!”
He hit the TRANSMIT button and a moment later, Tanaka came back.
“Never mind her for now. We’re just around the corner from you. Get ready.”
“We can’t let her escape,” Igarshi shouted.
“Stand by. We’re coming.”
Igarshi tossed the walkie-talkie aside, and started the van’s engine, as Mowry’s chauffeured Lincoln appeared in his rearview mirror, the opposite direction from where he’d expected it.
Ten feet from McGarvey, Kelley glanced over her shoulder, back the way she had come, and she pulled up short, almost stumbling over her own feet.
A big American car had just turned the corner at the end of the block and was barreling up the street. A light blue Toyota with two men inside was directly behind it.
The woman started back, but McGarvey caught up with her in two steps and grabbed her arm.
Something was starting to go down. The blue and white police van was pulling away from the curb, and a red Mercedes was squealing tires coming around the corner.
Kelley tried to yank her arm free, but McGarvey forcefully pulled her off to the side. “Miss Hataya, it’s me. Kirk McGarvey!”
For a split second Kelley’s face was screwed up in a grimace of terror and the raw animal reaction to being cornered. She looked back over her shoulder, wildly thrashing her free arm in an effort to escape as the Lincoln made a sudden U-turn and stopped in front of the apartment building.
“We have to warn him,” she cried.
The blue Toyota pulled over to the curb across the street, the police van and Mercedes right behind it.
“We’re not going up against the Tokyo Police,” McGarvey said, hauling her into the shelter of a small used-book stall.
“Something is wrong, I tell you,”
“Wait,” McGarvey said forcefully. Something was wrong here, but he didn’t know what it was. No matter how agitated the Japanese authorities were because of the incident involving the CIA, arresting an American diplomatic officer was an extreme move.
The koban cop from the corner came past in a run, his pistol drawn, as the police van pulled up opposite Mowry’s limousine. The acting chief of station got out of the car, and turned to see what was happening.