Assignment Tokyo

by Edward S. Aarons

  “How do you think they killed your grandfather?” he asked bluntly. He saw he had to shock her further, to make her fully realize their dangerous situation. “They also killed your friend Nishi at the House of Dolls.”

  Her head came up with a jerk, her thick, black hair swinging. She wore it cut in bangs across her round forehead, teased a little on top, although most of her efforts had been destroyed by the violence of the past hour.

  “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I’m all right now. I was very ill, you know. Some sort of sickness at Hatashima—and I can’t remember much about it.”

  “But you feel all right now?”

  For the first time her full mouth quivered, as if she might smile. She didn’t quite make it. Her eyes were soft and tragic, hurt beyond comprehension. “I’m all right now, yes. But as I said, I can’t remember certain things. It frightens me, because I must have done something terrible, something very wrong, for the police and all these men—and you—to chase me this way. Why am I important? What did I do? Did I—” Her mouth trembled again, differently. “Did I kill anyone?”

  “No. Quite the opposite.”

  “Are you sure I didn’t do some—awful thing—?”

  “You’re quite innocent. A Typhoid Mary in reverse. I have to get you to a doctor, you know.”

  “Why? I’m not sick now.”

  “That’s just it. You’ve recovered. Everyone else at Hatashima died or is dying right now.”

  She stared at him without understanding. She shook her head and looked down at her folded hands on the restaurant table. The place was full of noisy tourists, the clatter of dishes, the smell of steamy food. Outside the night was darkening, but neon lights on the town’s main street flickered on and off in gaudy patterns. Yoko wore a simple blue shift, almost like a schoolgirl’s smock, and the cheap raincoat she had evidently picked up somewhere on her flight. Her fingers, trembling slightly, were long and sensitive. She wore no rings, no jewelry of any kind. He could see why Bill Churchill had fallen so desperately in love with her.

  “You have to trust me, Yoko,” he said urgently. He made himself smile with assurance. “We’re both in trouble because we have to get out of here safely. I can’t reach Tokyo, and I can’t reach Bill, and I doubt that the local police can help us at the moment.”

  “How well do you know Bill?” she whispered.

  “We went to college together.”

  “Oh, yes. He told me. Columbia, wasn’t it?”

  He smiled at her simple strategem. “No, it was Yale. You know that he did some work for me and for Mr. Charles occasionally?”

  “Oh, yes. It was government designs, was it not?”

  “Not quite.” He added bluntly, “It was intelligence work, here in Japan.”

  Her mouth opened, then closed. “CIA? I was afraid—”

  “K Section,” he said. “I’m his new boss. We have a desperate problem, Yoko, and we’ve been looking for you for the past thirty-six hours, ever since we heard that you survived the sickness at Hatashima. You don’t know how important you are.”

  “To whom? Your government?”

  “To the Japanese people. Perhaps to the whole world. There is no known way to stop or cure the illness that is killing people at Hatashima. And it’s spreading. You survived by a pure chance of nature; you were infected with a mutated strain, and in your blood are antibodies that could help develop a serum that will stop the Hatashima plague cold in its tracks. But you’ve been hard to find.” He smiled. “And I’m not going to lose you now.”

  She was intelligent, and despite the shocks and the stress of the last two days, despite her panic and flight and the terror of feeling that she had committed some ghastly crime, she quickly understood what he said. A waiter came and frowned at their untouched food and began to argue with them, demanding to know what was the matter with the menu, and Durell put him off by ordering hot saki. He saw Yoko swallow several times, then she looked directly at him.

  “Are you sure I didn’t—didn’t do something awful?”

  “Quite sure. You are completely innocent.”

  “Then why do those men—there was a Russian, too, and some Japanese police—why do they hunt me?” She shivered again. “All these killings—I do not understand it.”

  “You’re very valuable. In your blood stream you hold the price of life for thousands, maybe millions.”

  She touched her face, her hair, her arms in wonderment, trying to define the secrets that lived in her body. Then for a long moment she studied Durell’s face, searching out its lines and scars, touching the gray at his temples, the shape of his mouth, the blue of his eyes.

  “Sam Durell?”

  “That’s right.”

  “May I call you Sam?”

  “Please.”

  “You look like a cruel man.”

  “Perhaps I am,” he admitted.

  “A—a dangerous man, I think.”

  He waited.

  “I cannot remember much, as I said. I was sick, I was burning up; I went into the ocean to—to cool off. On the island I was chased by a Russian and then by Chinese. I did not know where to turn. I did not know why I was being hunted. I thought, as I told you, I was guilty of having done something terrible, while I was delirious with fever. It is not that I wish to escape punishment if I am guilty. But I wanted to see Bill first. He was supposed to meet me at the Ohnaya Inn above Hatashima. Instead, I was attacked there by strange men, by Chinese, and I fled again, here to my grandfather’s place, after seeing Nishi. I caused her death, I suppose. And my grandfather’s. And perhaps others.”

  “You can save lives now, Yoko. As I said, perhaps millions of lives may depend on you.”

  “I cannot accept that. I am not an important person.” “You are, just now.”

  “You must know that I hate war; I am not a political person. I see beauty where others see only ugliness. I wish to give, where others fight and kill in order to take. I do not wish to be involved in your business, Sam Durell.”

  “But you are, whether you choose to be or not.”

  “Yes, I can understand that. But I will do nothing until I see Bill and he tells me what I must do.”

  “We don’t know where Bill is.”

  “I think I can find him,” she said. “If he was at Hatashima and learned I was ill and a prisoner behind that barbed wire—”

  “The wire was only a quarantine precaution.”

  “But I did not know it then. And if he failed to find me, and if he knows I am still alive, then he will also know where to wait for me.”

  “Where is that?” Durell asked.

  “Will you help me to get there?”

  “I’m here to keep you alive. Believe that.”

  “It is difficult for me to accept the things you have told me. I am still frightened.”

  He smiled. “So am I.”

  “I do not quite trust you yet. You see, I must be honest. I will not tell you where we are going, where Bill must be waiting for me. But I will let you accompany me.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “I do not know. Normally, by train—but there are no more trains from here—only three hours.”

  “Back to Tokyo?” he guessed.

  “No. Do not try to—to pump me, as you would say.” “How can we get there then?” he asked. “Every minute is imperative, Yoko. Even after you are in the hands of the doctors, it will take precious time to get the serum from your blood samples. And in the meantime, people will die, scores and hundreds. The plague is spreading. It’s broken out of Hatashima now.”

  She was pale under her peach complexion. Her eyes were wide again, fixed on him with honest anguish.

  “We will hurry,” she said quietly.

  23

  A COLD WIND blew from the north, whistling down through the gaps in the hills, when they left the restaurant. There was minor traffic on the single main street of the village, To
yotas and Datsuns and two large American cars. A policeman stood on the corner, wearing his dark uniform coat. The sky looked scrubbed; the stars were burnished. Durell took the girl’s arm and steered her in the opposite direction from the cop. He guessed that if he turned her over to the police, however frail such safety might be, she would consider herself betrayed and refuse to cooperate again. The policeman did not look their way.

  Durell had left the car they had taken from the Chinese securely hidden in dark shadows behind the restaurant. At the corner he turned up a narrow lane between wooden resort cottages, and they climbed uphill and then turned left again until they were above the small lot where the car was parked. The sound of radios, blending a Noh play dialogue with the agitated reports of a sumo wrestling match gave way to a news reporter’s account of a Zengakuren student riot at Tokyo University, protesting the “mysterious Western imperialist atrocity committed at Hatashima.” Durell halted and listened, holding the girl close to him. She shivered in the cold wind.

  “What is it?”

  “The news of Hatashima has leaked to the radicals,” he said. “No details yet, but enough to start things boiling.”

  “The Zengakurens are foolish youngsters,” Yoko said.

  “It’s the people who lead them who count.”

  “Is it so bad if the secret is out?”

  “It gives us less time.”

  “I still cannot believe I am so important,” she said. “You can believe it.”

  He walked past a sagging wooden fence to survey the area of shadow where he had parked the car. It was still there. Yoko started forward, but he held her back.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “We can’t use the car.”

  “Why not—?”

  He pointed. Two—no, three—dark shadows stood motionless at various points around the parking lot. Durell could not see the faces of the men, but they were big, larger than Japanese police would be. Colonel Po had managed to get reinforcements. He had moved fast, while they caught their breath at the restaurant, and they had located the car he had used to escape from Kamuru’s place. Now Po was like a fat spider, ready to spring his trap. Even if they managed to retrieve the vehicle, Durell decided, all Po had to do was to phone a false police report to delay them. Here in the hills no police station would be safe from a raid by Po’s men.

  “What can we do?” Yoko’s voice was small and helpless. “I told you, I will not cooperate with you unless Bill confirms what you say.”

  “We’ll have to take a chance on the bus back to Sendai, and then on south toward Tokyo. Is that right?”

  “Osaka,” she said.

  “Is that where you meet Bill occasionally?”

  He could not see her blush. “We have a place we use—in what you call the Japanese Alps. We—we didn’t exactly look for crowds, of course.”

  “We’ll have to chance the bus then,” he decided.

  It was a twenty minute wait for the local bus to come down the main street of the resort village. It was almost eight o’clock now. Durell wondered if he should try to reach Dr. Freeling in Tokyo again. He decided against it, rather than leave the girl’s side just now.

  There was a pachinko parlor near the tiny bus terminal, a kind of glorified pinball emporium, and he waited there with Yoko, and ordered beer, which the girl did not touch. The time dragged endlessly. He saw a police car drift up the steep grade of the street, but no one interfered with them. If Po was getting impatient watching the car, there was no sign of him or his hired men. Sooner or later, however, someone would find the old doll maker, Kamuru—and Liz Pruett. The image of her ugly death drifted through his mind and he cut it off only with an effort.

  “What are you thinking of?” Yoko murmured.

  “Nothing.”

  “You had such a strange expression—”

  “It was nothing.”

  She said tentatively, “Who was the girl who—?”

  “Liz—Miss Elizabeth Pruett.”

  “Did she work for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that why she—she was killed, too?”

  “Did you see her?” he asked.

  “I—I heard it. I was in the house. I thought I was safe. Grandfather told me everything would be all right. Then there was a sound in his shop, and he went out, and I peeked from a window and saw your Miss Pruett arrive. She talked to Grandfather and they both went into the shop. That was when—when the others, the Chinese, appeared. They were so—so quick.” Yoko shuddered. “I tried to run, but they were faster than I, and they caught me and held me in the house, after showing me what t-they had done. They told me they were going to kidnap me and take me somewhere. You say it was China? Perhaps. But then you came and called my name, and they were surprised, so I tried to escape and ran out of the house, and you managed to catch up with me. The Chinese—are they agents like you?”

  “Not quite like me,” Durell said.

  “The girl—was she important to you?”

  “Liz? Yes. Everyone is important to me.”

  “She was—special? Your girl?”

  “No, I have a girl.” He thought of Deirdre Padgett back in Washington, working in General McFee’s HQ office. He had not seen Deirdre for three months now. Their jobs for K Section did not often bring them together. Suddenly he was overwhelmed with longing for her calm and serene person, her beauty, and quiet, reliable love. He wanted her so much that he ached. When he tried to dismiss her image from his mind, it was much more difficult.

  The bus appeared, headlights swinging toward the tiny platform beside the street. Two Japanese couples, the men short and slim and spectacled, the women stout and in modem dress, stepped from the little waiting station. The bus squealed to a halt. No one else appeared. The bus doors opened and the two Japanese couples got aboard, and the driver lit a cigarette, leaving the doors open.

  “Let’s go,” Durell said.

  It was about twenty yards from where they stood in a house doorway to the stopped bus. Durell walked quickly with Yoko, holding her hand. The second couple to board the bus had begun a small argument with the driver about the fare. For a moment Durell began to think they would make it aboard.

  The men seemed to come from nowhere. They must have been waiting as quietly as himself, motionless in the darkness. They were young men, all Japanese, wild-haired, tough and muscular, and their shouts exploded in the chill serenity of the resort village. They burst into sight from behind the bus and raced for Durell and the girl, screaming epithets and obscenities about Westerners and Japanese girls who gave themselves to Americans. Durell saw at once that it was a setup, a small mob paid for, no doubt, by Po. But there was no way out. The hoodlums came around the front of the bus and blocked the door, and at the same time two cars nosed down the street from the slope above. All in an instant the little terminal was in an uproar of violence.

  Yoko screamed as one of the wild-eyed young men tried to grab her away from Durell. Durell knocked the fellow aside, pulled Yoko free from another, and drove toward the bus doors. The vehicle was being rocked back and forth by some of the others. The bus driver blew his horn desperately for help. From far away Durell thought he heard a police whistle.

  It was hopeless. He felt dismay and anger with himself for finally being trapped. He felt a blow on his shoulder, another on the back of his neck. Yoko was tom from his grip. He heard her scream again, and then from nowhere came a roar, and a massive body came crashing and bellowing through the dozen toughs and reached his side, holding Yoko.

  “Ho, Cajun American!”

  It was Cesar Skoll. Durell had no time to wonder about the Russian’s sudden appearance. They worked well together, shielding Yoko between them, battering their way to the bus. For several moments, it did not seem as if they would make it. A knife flashed, and Skoll roared again. One of the young men went down under his massive fists, and then another. Durell drove two others aside, and then they were at the bus door.

  “Get
in!” Durell shouted.

  The driver was trying to close the door on them, not sure of what was happening. Durell kicked at a wild angry face below, saw the man fall away, and pushed Yoko on up the bus steps. She fell against the driver, and then Skoll backed up the steps into the vehicle.

  “Boom boom, Amerikanski!” the Russian bellowed.

  Durell fought free of the last clutching hand and fell back inside. The driver closed the door. He looked wildeyed and frightened.

  “Get going!” Durell snapped at him.

  The engine cranked up rustily, the bus jolted and rocked again as the hoodlums outside smashed a window with a rock and tried to overturn them. The driver stepped desperately on the gas, and they lurched ahead. The other passengers, perhaps half a dozen, sat in frozen terror of the sudden riot. The bus rumbled ahead, swerved violently to avoid the running Zengakurens, came free of the little terminal, and gathered speed going downhill out of the village.

  “It’s all right now,” Durell assured the driver.

  The frightened man looked at him without comprehension, but he gripped the wheel hard and turned down into the mountain road. All at once the noise and violence was behind them. Durell drew a deep breath and walked to the back of the bus.

  On the last seat, Cesar Skoll was holding Yoko and patting her hand. The bearlike Russian looked up with a grin that showed his steel teeth.

  “You see, I have forgiven you, Durell,” said Skoll. He had a cut on his gray scalp, another on his massive jaw. But, he was surprisingly gentle with the small Japanese girl.

  “At last we have found our treasure,” he sighed.

  He looked at Yoko fondly, and covered her small hand with his huge, possessive paw.

  24

  BEYOND Karuizanva the air changed, and there were hints of snow on the upper slopes of the Japanese Alps. The premature snowfall lightened the early evening and burdened the larch and birch trees on the slopes. They had changed buses twice, until they could connect with the Shinetsu rail line that ran from Ueno Station in Tokyo to Takasaki, where they had changed again to the branch line that went west through Karuizawa and then north to Lake Nojiri and the Akakura ski slopes. It was much too early in the season to expect good snow for sport, but the light fall had already drawn