Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02]

by Fire in a Faraway Place (epub)

  “One question—are you sure you never played tarok before?” Olivier grinned. Moments later, he found himself drifting down. He opened his parachute and glided to a landing on a very wide white beach as the shuttle sped away into the night.

  Slipping out of his harness, Olivier bundled his chute and stuffed it in a large green trash can. Walking a few hundred meters up the beach, he took off his coveralls and stuffed them into a different trash can. Straightening his tie, he walked up the hill to the lifeguard station and used the map there to orient himself as Thomas and the other reconnaissance troopers had taught him. Selecting the proper coin, he called an all-night taxi company to pick him up from the road.

  An hour later, he checked himself into a medium-size hotel. Computing the time difference in his head, he placed a call to the small Berenger et Cie Bank in Geneva. “Hello. I have updated instructions for account 0110-7342-8119.”

  “Yes, monsieur.” The clerk punched up the account on his terminal. “May I have the first phrase, please.”

  The clerk had a hair-thin mustache and an insouciant air that vaguely irritated Olivier. “The first phrase is 734-0021-7622-0912.”

  “That is correct, monsieur. And the second?”

  ‘The second phrase is 482-9093-6550-3218.”

  “A moment, monsieur. Yes, that is correct. What may we do for you?”

  “What is the current value of the account?”

  “At current prices, that would be 345,632,873.37 ECU.” Deftly noting Olivier’s slight hesitation, the clerk added, “That is European Currency Units, monsieur.”

  “Very good. Please convert the trust principle. I wish to sell short the stock of the following companies ...” Olivier rattled off the names, beginning with United Steel-Standard. “Put one hundred million francs into USS and split another one hundred million among the remaining issues, with a delivery date thirty days from now.”

  By selling “short,” Olivier was paying to “borrow” stock shares to sell at the current price, while promising to deliver the same number of shares in thirty days.

  The clerk made a slight gasp. “These stocks are doing quite well at this moment, monsieur. Are you sure that they will make such a dramatic turnaround so quickly?”

  “These are my instructions. I have my reasons. Will your bank carry them out?” Olivier asked patiently.

  “One moment, monsieur. I really should speak with my director. May I have your name?”

  “Please tell him that I am Jopie Fourie,” Olivier said. He spelled out “Fourie” for the clerk.

  A few moments later, the clerk came back on the line. “We will comply with your wishes, monsieur.”

  “Next, please place another one hundred million into selling sixty-day DKU Group index futures contracts, and another twenty-five million into selling short the Japanese yen.” Olivier smiled sourly. “You may keep the remaining trust money as a margin reserve so your director will feel more comfortable.” The clerk swallowed. “As you wish, monsieur.”

  “Thank you. I expect prompt execution. I will call again in a few days to find out how you have done.” Olivier smiled thinly. “If you have any money of your own, you might consider selling United Steel-Standard stock short.”

  “Oh, no, monsieur. That would not be proper. My director would not approve.”

  “I assume that you are recording this conversation. I have told you nothing improper. Tell your director he might consider selling USS short,” Olivier said and hung up the phone.

  The hotel was a good business-class establishment. Olivier turned on the monitor and called up the stock markets to find some good newspapers to buy up in the days and weeks—and years—ahead.

  Ago Bay, the Japanese Pacific Coast

  THE SHUTTLE CONTINUED ON ITS WAY UNTIL THE LAND MASS OF

  Honshu, Japan’s main island, rimmed by tiny islands cloaked in pine trees and the white gossamer of waves breaking against the cliffs, rose abruptly out of the night.

  “Passing Ago Bay, sir,” Zerebtsov said. He pointed his thumb at the glow of lights on the horizon. “The Kashikojima resorts.”

  Kokovtsov altered course a few degrees and lifted the shuttle’s nose to begin climbing the coastal mountains. He leveled off just above the height of the tallest trees. Dipping into a valley, Kokovtsov muttered, “Thank heaven we don’t have a full load.”

  Coidewe nodded. The minutes passed, and he dozed fitfully until the copilot tapped him on the knee. “Sir, there’s Mount Asama. We’re almost there.”

  “Oh. Yes. Tell everybody in back to get ready.” Coidewe snapped completely awake and peered out the window to study the terrain through his night-vision glasses. Moments later, he spied the first potential drop zone they’d selected from the maps, a tree-lined meadow overlooking a mountain lake. Lit by a small sliver of moon, the lake glistened. An unpaved road led away from it toward the Ise-Shima Skyline Drive that ran along the highest part of the ridge in front of them.

  They circled the meadow twice slowly, scoping it for irregularities. Finally, Coidewe nodded. “Try not to drop us on top of any hikers.” He began moving to the rear of the shuttle.

  Kokovtsov whipped the ungainly shuttle around and climbed high enough for the parachutes to deploy. Then he slowed almost to stalling speed, opened out the clamshell doors in back, and hit the jump light. As he circled the meadow, fifty-four men and a miscellaneous collection of equipment came raining out of the sky.

  As the shuttle spun around for its final pass, Kokovtsov closed the clamshell doors and slipped a programmed course into the automatic pilot, then he and Zerebtsov exited through the side door.

  Twenty-five seconds later, the shuttle obediently turned around and flew itself back out to sea, where a calculated jag would cause it to ditch itself.

  Drifting down, Coldewe watched it go. There are three essential elements to a really good raid: getting in, wreaking havoc, and getting back out. “I hope we find another one of these when the time comes,” he murmured under his breath. As he landed and struggled from his chute near the forest edge, the first of the equipment chutes touched down with a gentle thump that was absorbed by its break-away pallet.

  Leaving his lieutenants to organize matters unhindered, Coldewe ambled through the trees out to the road and sat down. He was quickly joined by a security team. Almost a half hour passed. Then he froze at the sight of approaching headlights.

  The vehicle stopped a good distance away. A uniformed man got out and walked up the path shining a flashlight back and forth. Coldewe held his breath and motioned to the security team. The team leader acknowledged. As the man approached, a recon trooper materialized in front of him and stood up.

  The park custodian waved his flashlight uncertainly. “Who are you? What are you doing here?” he snapped in Japanese.

  The soldier cradled his weapon and placed his palms together as a gesture of supplication. Then he held one finger, signaling the man to wait, and beckoned into the shadows.

  As the man started to say something, Senior Intelligence Sergeant Aksu stepped forward, hidden behind his face shield, and the rifleman faded into the gloom.

  “I am Major Yosuhiro, Imperial Security Police Special Detachment,” Aksu said, his Japanese marked by a slight trace of the thick Kagoshima ben. “What is the problem?” He deftly turned his body so that custodian’s flashlight caught the black stripe down the side of his pants leg.

  “You shouldn’t be here! I was never told—” the man stammered with a shade less authority.

  “Please excuse me, but where precisely is ‘here’?” Aksu asked him mildly. “Our pilot may have made a slight error in navigation. I am disoriented.”

  “This is Ise-Shima National Park.”

  “Shimata!” Aksu grunted and slapped his hand to his head. “Please excuse me, we are not even in the right prefecture.” He explained, with complete sincerity, “This is quite serious, and you should not be mixed up in it.”

  “But—” the custodian started to s
ay deferentially.

  “Please! Let me think,” Aksu said quietly but forcefully.

  “As I have said, this is quite serious.” He pretended to ponder for a moment. “Can I trust your judgment and discretion? This is extremely secret!” he barked out assertively.

  The man nodded, like a puppet.

  “For the next ten days, say nothing to anyone about this, not even your wife. It would be . . .’’-Aksu paused delicately.

  .. highly embarrassing. We should be elsewhere at this moment.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out paper and a pencil. “Let me take your name and address, and I will have a letter sent to you commending you for your assistance. For the next day or so, ignore anything unusual you see here.” After chatting for a few minutes to discover what the man had observed, Aksu packed him off. As soon as the man disappeared from sight, Aksu motioned for two of the recon boys to follow him and watch.

  Coldewe joined him. “Good job.”

  “He thinks he saw four chutes, honored sir. We are not compromised. My life on it.”

  “It is.” Coldewe paused. “And if he’d smelled a rat?” Aksu patted his silenced submachine gun.

  “Just checking.” Coldewe squatted and flipped open a notepad.

  Aksu’s curiosity got the better of him. “Honored sir, what are you doing?”

  “Writing him his letter of commendation. I’ll pick up an envelope somewhere and drop it in a postbox just before we go in.” “Of course,” Aksu agreed blandly. He pulled out his own notepad. “Would you like his name and address?”

  “Not just yet. If we get blown, it might save him a lot of explaining if they didn’t find it on my body.”

  Aksu nodded thoughtfully in the gloom as he began taking off his uniform.

  Lieutenant Danny Meagher joined them. “We’re set for the night. Most of the equipment made it in one piece. One of the Sparrows is junk, and we lost two fuel bladders.”

  Coldewe nodded. “Well within tolerances.” He jerked his head toward the lake below. “Get rid of the pallets and the chutes. What about jump casualties?”

  “Two sprains. Nothing serious,” Meagher told him.

  “Good enough,” Coldewe responded as he pulled off his mask. “Get the drivers into civvies. Aksu and I are going to find ourselves a phone booth. Time we rang up Mizoguchi.”

  Aksu looked at him. “I confess that this is the part that I do not like.” __

  “I know.” Coldewe pointed to the stitches stretching the skin around his eyes. “How do I look?”

  “Fortunately, it is very dark.”

  They found a phone booth in front of a robatayaki full of late diners on the outskirts of the town of Uji. Accompanied by a nervous Aksu, Coldewe ambled over and began thumbing through the phonebook.

  “See,” he said, pointing to the entry on the tiny screen, “easy as sipping beer.”

  “Let us hope that it is the correct Hiroshi Mizoguchi. It has been eight years for him, after all,” Aksu commented.

  “One way to find out ” Coldewe replied, dropping coins in the slot and dialing the number. He pressed a button so that the connection would be sound only.

  A sleepy guttural voice answered.

  “Hello, Mizo? This is Hans. Long time, it’s been.” Coldewe cradled the receiver against his shoulder. “What say we get together.” He suddenly looked up at Aksu. “Damn,” he exclaimed incredulously, “Mizo dropped the phone.”

  Mizoguchi lived in Nagoya, about an hour away by train. He arranged to meet with Coldewe five hours later in the town of Ise-shi in the back room of a nabemone restaurant. When Coldewe entered, Mizoguchi was seated at the table. Beside him were two bowls of kabe-nabe and a bottle of amakuchi sake. The ubiquitous television screen in the comer was showing a cartoon show about a family of sea otters. Uncomfortable in his civilian clothes, Coldewe sat down on the tatami and squeezed his knees under the table opposite the sightless man. “Hello, Mizo.”

  “Hello, Hans,” Mizoguchi said, an older Mizoguchi than Coldewe remembered, with deep lines in his face. “The owner here is a cousin. He can be trusted. I had my wife drive me to the train station. I told her that you were a former colleague and that you might have a better job for me. I will take the train back, and she will pick me up when I call her.” The blind former lieutenant stared through Coldewe. “How can you be here? I never expected to see you.”

  Coldewe picked up the amakuchi bottle, poured out some of the sweet liquor, and looked around the room to see if Mizoguchi’s cousin had left out any o-tsumami worth nibbling on. “Actually, I’m not here.” He gave Mizoguchi a second or two to

  digest that statement. “First off, the Variag sent me here to thank you. We owe you. If you hadn’t told us what was going on, we would have been wearing our trousers around our ankles.” “Then ... Admiral Horii’s expedition arrived before you left.” “This is good stuff.” Coldewe listened to the sounds from the kitchen to make sure that Mizoguchi’s cousin wasn’t eavesdropping. Then he changed his tone of voice. “Mizo,” he whispered, “do you remember when we used to get tipsy and talk politics? What are yours, these days?”

  “I am a pensioner. I have none,” Mizoguchi said bitterly in the English that he had almost forgotten he knew. He tossed down a shot of the liquor.

  “How are things for you?”

  “They are well,” he said automatically.

  “Funny. You can usually tell when someone’s lying to you by the way that their eyes dart up and away. You’re blind, so I didn’t think it would work with you. How bad is it?” Mizoguchi did not speak for a few minutes. Finally, he said, “I have adjusted, Hans. I do the cooking—my wife says that I cook better than she does. I have never seen her, but I know what she looks like—my hands and my body see her. So I don’t need eyes—after all, you close them when important things in your life are going on. If I were a painter, I would, but I have other senses. Look at how many sighted people cannot see. I was more blind when I had eyes.” He said fiercely, “I am well, Hans. I am well.”

  Coldewe took a deep breath. “Mizo, I asked about politics for a reason. How interested are you in shaking things up?” Mizoguchi gaped.

  “Mizo,” Coldewe said very quietly, “you can forget you ever saw me. I have an envelope here stuffed with cash which you can consider a small token of our esteem. Or you can come in. All the way in. Call your wife and tell her that you’ll be away for three or four days.” He grinned. “Tell her that it might be the opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “And afterward?” Mizoguchi asked in a low whisper. “Truth is, Hiroshi, if you come in, there might not be an afterward. We came here to do some crazy stuff. I told Raul and the Variag that we didn’t need to bring you in. That we really didn’t need you, and that you were a security risk—a bad one. And the Variag looked right through me and said, ‘But he is one of our own.’ And Raul looked right through me and said that anyone who would send the message that you did wouldn’t change in six years or sixty. Do you have children to worry about?”

  “No, but my wife is ... kind. Not every woman would marry a sightless man.” Mizoguchi began talking quietly to himself. “Things are not good. Because of the time dilation, my family and my friends are older. They changed, and they do not like it that I did not age as they did. There is also resentment that I am holding a position that a sighted man could hold. Jobs are difficult to find, even though they have begun conscripting young men for military service. There is also much discontent. The people are very unhappy with the state of affairs.” Mizoguchi turned his head toward Coldewe.

  “People say they have seen Oshio Heihachiro stalking the foothills of Mount Fuji. This is ridiculous—most people no longer remember who Oshio Heihachiro was, but they believe that more and more their needs are being ignored. Taxes are very high. People talk about lowering the taxes on smaller businesses and individuals, but the government does not do anything about it. Everywhere, officials are supposed to set an ethical example and to do things to bene
fit the people, yet everyone repeats the proverb, ‘Officials are honored and the people despised.’ ”

  He clenched his fists. “But I think that if it is this bad here, it must be worse elsewhere. We Japanese have become too inward-looking. I know what it was like in other countries and on colonial planets. People outside Japan must be very, very angry, Hans. It frightens me. The politicians, the companies, the ministry bureaucrats have seduced us with their leavings. We Japanese have lost our spirit.”

  Mizoguchi took a deep breath and struggled to fit his thoughts into an alien language. “People do not speak about these matters. With the police everywhere it is too dangerous. You could only talk about such things with close friends after you had both drunk a great deal, and at such moments words are unnecessary. But I think that most people believe that what we are doing must stop.”

  “And?” Coldewe asked slowly.

  “I also think that Colonel Vereshchagin knows me better than I know myself. I will call my wife.” He paused. “If we live through this and the opportunity presents itself, I would like you to see her. I wish to know if you think she is pretty. I have often felt her face, but I wish to know.”

  “I will,” Coldewe promised. He cautioned, “Just tell her you think that you have something good lined up, and that you’ll be out of touch for three or four days. The less you tell her, the better it will be for her.”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “I will try to make sure you get an opportunity to explain everything to her.”

  “Yes. It is not necessary, but—thank you, Hans.”

  “Anton says that he asked you to register a company and to get to know some reporters.”

  “It has been so many years. Yes, the company still exists, and the money that he gave me all of those years ago has been safely placed in an account. I know two reporters. They are not friends, but they are acquaintances.”

  “Good. Large wads of cash make people nervous, and we’ll need the reporters. Here are your business cards.” He set a pack of them in Mizoguchi’s hand.