Assignment Tokyo

by Edward S. Aarons

“I will go,” Yoko said mildly.

  “Never!” Skoll shouted. He looked apoplectic. “Have we come so far, just to submit to those—those devils—”

  “They are your comrades in socialism,” Durell said. “Deviationists! Terrorists! Anarchists! Murderers!” Durell smiled.

  Skoll’s heavy face was dark in the dim light. “I will not permit it. You cannot do it. It is madness. It is surrender, just when we—we have the young lady. She is all we need. Everything we have done has been for this goal, to turn Yoko over to your Dr. Freeling.” The Russian spread his hands. “You see, I cooperate. I, too, capitulate. It is up to you, Durell. You are a clever and capable man. You know the business. Surely, you will not turn Yoko over to Po now.”

  Durell said quietly, “She wants to go, to help Bill.”

  “She cannot!”

  “If she doesn’t get to him, she won’t cooperate with our medical authorities.”

  “What is one life?” Skoll sputtered. “Thousands, tens of thousands may die! It could spread all over the world! Can you measure one life against all those others?”

  Yoko said again, “I will go.”

  “Po will not kill your Bill,” Skoll assured her. “It is a bluff. Churchill cannot be ill. Po would never expose his own precious person to the disease. A bluff, eh?”

  Durell said, “This is not a time for lies, Skoll.”

  “I am a liar? Treacherous? I only want—”

  “I know what you want and why. But the matter must remain in Yoko’s hands.”

  “I will go,” she said a third time.

  Skoll drew a deep breath and glared at Durell with cold, hard eyes. “We can force Yoko to do what we wish. The decision can not be left to her as an emotional reaction. She only wishes to go in the hope of saving her young man. But you know the Chinese gentleman too well, Cajun. Churchill is probably dead by now. It is a futile, romantic gesture. Yoko cannot escape us; we have her in our hands; she can be given a sedative, turned over to your Dr. Freeling—”

  “No,” Durell said. “Not that way.”

  Skoll looked baffled. “I do not understand you. In your dossier in Moscow, you are considered cool and analytical, a man without emotion. You do nothing without a motive—”

  “True,” Durell said.

  “You have a reason for giving yourself to Po?”

  “I intend to kill him,” Durell said.

  It was not his words that made the Russian pause. There was something in Durell’s voice, in the way he stood, in the dark cast of his face. Both the Russian and Yoko were momentarily silent, staring at his tall height in the gloomy, red shadows within the cottage. He looked tired, and his eyes were somber, and there were lines of strain about his mouth; but Skoll saw strength still there, a determination to sacrifice himself if necessary, to pay any price—

  Skoll said, “But you must think of your duty, Durell. You have done what you were ordered to do. You have the girl. Will you give her up now? And cause endless deaths from the plague, the deaths of thousands of innocent poeple?”

  “No,” Durell said. He turned to Yoko. “Do you understand? Skoll is right. One life cannot be balanced against the many. But we can compromise, if you will. You want Bill back. You want him safe and well. It may or may not be true that Bill has the fever. If true, it is also true that only you can save him. Bill is my friend, too. It might be that we’ll both be killed—or end up in Peking’s Black House, which could be worse. But I’ll go with you, if that’s what you wish.”

  “To go to your death!” Skoll shouted. “Are you a romantic fool? Is this the age of chivalry? We are in a business that has no such ethics, Durell. It is cruel and hard, and you and I are products of its rules.”

  Durell turned his head. “Yoko?” he asked quietly.

  She gave him a small smile. “Will Po kill you?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Can you be sure?”

  “Nothing is sure!” Skoll objected. “He is an idiot!”

  “Yoko, before I go with you,” Durell said, “we need a few cc’s of your blood. Just in case we don’t come back. Skoll can keep the specimens safe for us, for Dr. Freeling.”

  The Russian was both astonished and dismayed. “You would trust me with it? You are so sure I would turn it over to your CBW teams? Why do you think I would? I could take it with me to Vladivostok—”

  “I don’t think you’d do that,” Durell said.

  “Besides,” Skoll retreated, “we have no syringe.”

  “I have one.” An image of Liz Pruett’s body, crushed in the scrap bin at Mr. Kamuru’s workshop, of her handbag under her, his reaching for it and her empty, dead eyes watching him, flickered through his mind. He dismissed it. “Liz Pruett packed it for me, when we left Tokyo.” He took the green leather kit from his pocket. “Well, Yoko?”

  She asked in a small voice, “What time is it?”

  “Nine twenty.”

  “The Iris Garden, the Shobu-en, is at the little shrine across the lake. Bill and I often walked there many times in happy days. It will take twenty minutes to reach it.”

  “You have to decide,” Durell said. “I can’t go with you, I can’t let you go unless we have the sample first.”

  “Yes,” Yoko whispered. “Yes, take my blood. Of course. Give it to Skoll.”

  Cesar Skoll took one of his thin, crooked Italian cigars from his breast pocket, bit off the end with a spitting sound, and bent over the coals in the charcoal heater to light it. His face looked red and cruel, as inscrutable as one of his Mongol ancestors. He stood across the room, as if detached from the proceedings, while Yoko rolled up her sleeve and Durell thumbed the vein in her elbow ready for the needle.

  The Russian said, “I will tell you, Comrade Cajun. No boom boom, no jokes, nothing between us now, eh? You go to your death, so I will tell you. We had a problem at our own Biological Warfare Laboratory near Vladivostok. We had developed a virus culture somewhat like your Pearl Q, and it escaped us and was loose. I think we trade with the devil in such things. We lost three of our most eminent men and over a dozen of our laboratory technicians. It was a crisis. We did not know if our quarantine devices were effective. We did not know if this thing at Hatashima was ours or not. But we saw a chance to help ourselves. My orders were plain, very arbitrary. I needed Yoko Kamuru, this innocent child here. Yes, standing between us, between a man like you and one like me, she is most innocent, eh?”

  Skoll puffed at his thin cigar. “Well, we solved our problem without Miss Kamuru. The USSR takes care of itself. Our sanitary cordon worked. The virus was contained.”

  “When did you learn this?” Durell asked, not looking up.

  “At noon, today.”

  “But you kept hunting for Yoko?”

  Skoll shrugged. “It is interesting, how we are caught in our own snares. Our work grows and divides almost mindlessly, like the virus in its culture medium. We become automatons ourselves. Orders for the sake of orders. Yoko would be useful to us to develop a defense against your secret weapon, Pearl Q.”

  “The Hatashima virus was not developed by the United States. And we’ve withdrawn all CBW items for discontinuance.”

  “True, the germ came from China, and not your country,” Skoll conceded. “An error on Peking’s part, too. But defense needs are common to us all, and our Yoko is a defensive weapon of value to you and me and Peking.” Durell filled one small vial with Yoko’s venous blood, looked up at her calm face, left the needle in her vein and inserted a second vial in the syringe cylinder, and drew a second sample. A spark flew from the glowing hibachi in the small room. The smoke from Skoll’s cigar curled in the air. Outside the wind made small piping sounds in the eaves of the tiny cottage.

  Skoll said, “Do you still trust the sample with me?” “I must. You’ll have to refrigerate them. In the snow, I suppose.”

  “You are breaking all the rules, Cajun.”

  “Perhaps. One must take a foolish step now and then. As you said,
we’re very much alike. I’m betting on it. The end justifies the means, perhaps, but I have to take this step and trust you.”

  “Do you do it to avenge Miss Pruett, perhaps?”

  “To help Yoko, too,” Durell said.

  Skoll sighed and crossed the room. His cropped head gleamed in the firelight like something carved from dark stone. “It is an unfair burden you give to me, Durell. If Moscow learns of it, I could be shot. ... But I shall try to keep you alive. You may count on it.” His eyes were shrewd. “Do you give me both specimens?”

  “Only one.”

  Skoll leaned back against the wall and grinned and puffed at his cigar. “Of course. I did not underestimate you, after all.”

  26

  YOKO pointed to the right. "The other way to the Iris Garden is shorter.”

  “Look back and see if Skoll is in sight.”

  He wasn’t. Durell quickened his step, and Yoko kept pace with him. In the starlight her small face was like the closed bud of a blossom. He could not guess what she was thinking. From the deserted ryokan they crossed the icy lawn and found the road and turned a bend in it until a grove of larches blocked their view. At first the road seemed deserted. Then starlight glinted briefly on metal, and a figure moved and he saw Teru’s mini-van parked in dense shadow. He walked that way and called softly, and the young man appeared from the darkness. The dim face of his girl moved behind the windshield of the three-wheeler.

  “Durell-san?”

  “I’m glad you waited, Teru.”

  “I was about to leave. I was about to call the police, as you directed. Is everything well?”

  Durell handed him the extra vial of blood he had taken from Yoko’s arm, along with the last of his currency. “Get this to the local clinic and notify the police, Teru. It’s very important. Be sure they call two people—Major Yamatoya, and a Dr. Freeling at the American Embassy in Tokyo.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do it now. It’s urgent.”

  The boy trotted back to his little truck. The motor coughed and the wheels spun and the three-wheeler rocked away down the road and out of sight.

  Yoko said, “Mr. Skoll was right, then. I see that you do nothing without reason, without preparation.”

  “It’s one way to stay alive,” Durell said grimly. “It’s better to cover your bets. Let’s hurry, now.”

  They were almost to the shrine of Shobu-en on the other shore of the little mountain lake. In the starlight Durell saw by his watch that it was ten minutes to ten. From this point, he could see across the lake to the darkened inn they had left. He wondered if Skoll was still there. He hunched his shoulders in the cold wind and took Yoko’s arm, but she stopped suddenly and tilted her small face up at him.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “About you. Your real job is done, isn’t it? Your work here is finished. You obtained my blood sample—surely enough for the laboratories to start working on a serum, am I not correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “If it is delivered to your Dr. Freeling, you have finished what you were ordered to do?”

  “Yes,” he said again.

  “Then you truly have no reason to come with me and take the risk of helping Bill. It cannot really matter to you what happens to me—if I am taken to China or not.”

  “You won’t be taken to China,” he assured her.

  “If Po gets you, you may be killed. You put yourself in his hands to help Bill and me. Is this what you are directed to do?”

  “Just the opposite,” he admitted. “But the job is not quite done. Come along. We haven’t much more time.”

  He did not want to explain his own anger to her—his impatience, directed against himself as well as against Po. By all the rules of the business, Skoll was right. He was out of it with a whole skin. He had the blood sample that was needed. The rest was up to the others, now. But his anger against himself was false, and he knew it, and inside he laughed wryly and urged himself to walk on.

  “And your girl?” Yoko asked suddenly. “This Deirdre, whom you spoke to in Tokyo, who just arrived. Will you be able to explain to her why you do this for me and Bill? She is on your mind, or you would not have mentioned her after you telephoned.”

  “She’ll understand.”

  “And if you are killed?”

  “She will still understand.”

  They walked on.

  “Sam?”

  He was studying the little shrine on the shore of the lake. It was like a crystal jewel, reflecting the bluish light of the ice and the stars. The red lacquer looked dark, and the portico and torii gate were in deep shadows. A garden, surrounded by a low wall, was crusted with the premature snow. A series of wide, shallow steps led up to the main entrance, and there were thick groves of birches behind the Shobu-en.

  “Sam?”

  “In a moment.”

  He went a few steps ahead of her, just under the gate, and started back, a warning shout in his throat for Yoko to stand clear. He was too late. He did not see where the blow came from. One moment he was aware of the chill wind from the lake, the looming height of the gate beams over his head, the lumps of shadow that should not have been there.

  It was like a soundless, painless explosion.

  And there was nothing.

  27

  THE PAIN came slowly. He swam up carefully out of the darkness, and was immediately blinded by a glare that seemed to shatter his eyes and his mind. He tried to twist his head away, but something pressed down on his forehead, a strap that bound his head and kept it immobile. He blinked, closed his eyes, waited for the pain to subside.

  “Durell?” a voice asked softly.

  Yoko’s voice said: “Is he alive?”

  “Of course. I promised you he would live.”

  “Please. It is all my fault—”

  The voices thundered and rasped and echoed in the cavern of Durell’s brain. He remembered the torii gate, the unusual carvings in wood of dragons and dogs, and the lumpy shadows that were not carvings but men, clinging to the huge redwood posts overhead, waiting for him to approach. He did not feel too badly about the trap. He had been expecting it on that last approach to Shobu-en. He felt relief that Yoko was apparently unharmed. “Durell?” asked the soft voice again.

  “Please let me attend to Bill,” Yoko begged.

  “Durell?”

  He opened his eyes again. The light was gone. For a terrible moment he thought he was blind. Then a face swam out of the mists, and he looked at it, and felt the pain ebb from his head and neck, and he tried to move his hands and feet. Everything worked, but just so far. His freedom was strictly confined to just an inch or two. His teeth chattered and he began to shiver, and he discovered he was naked.

  “I am sorry,” said the soft, cultivated man’s voice. “With a person such as you, Durell, I take no chances. Not a stitch of clothes, no shoes—we found your Thermit capsules, your gun, your knife, your gas cartridges. Very nice equipment. According to our records, you rarely use such devices.”

  “To hell with you,” Durell muttered.

  His voice frightened him. It was harsh and unnatural. He cleared his throat and turned his eyes toward the voice. The face swam into his vision again. Po Ping Tao. Round, cruel, hard. The face smiled. The voice laughed. It was a flat sound, like the skin of a snake sliding over a rock.

  “It is you, my dear Durell, who will find his way to hell and torment tonight, not I.”

  “How is Churchill? Do you really have him?”

  “I have him. He was in the ryokan. Ah, the poor lad is ill, burning up with fever.”

  “Is he dying?”

  “I fear so, unless Miss Kamuru can help us.”

  “Aren’t you afraid of contracting the plague from him?”

  Po’s mellifluous voice was amused. “But of course, it is a risk we all must take in this precious little place. But we have Miss Kamuru now, our talisman of good health. And Dr. Tung, my companion, is taking all precautions. Dr. Tung ha
s been my best student of Middle Kingdom medicine and the methodology of inquisition. Do you understand?”

  “I’ve heard of your tortures,” Durell said grimly.

  “You shall experience them firsthand, I promise you. Not now, of course. We must move fairly quickly. Everything has been arranged. The trip will be most interesting for you, Durell. The Peacock Branch will be pleased to have you as a specimen. There is so very much we would like to ask you about the operational functions of K Section. You have been on the Black House list for far too long, my dear sir.”

  Durell was beginning to feel a little better. Po’s words were almost meaningless as he focused his attention on his surroundings—as much as he was permitted to see. There was a lacquered beamed ceiling above him, illuminated by a dim light. The heavy beams formed a grid, and within each square was the painting of an iris blossom, each subtly different from the other. Shobu-en—the Iris Garden. Po was making good use of the deserted shrine. Looking to the right, he saw an expanse of polished floor, of teak planks, and a round orb that was difficult to define until he identified it as an enormous bronze gong on a wooden stand. To his left was a wall of shelves filled with carved animals out of Japanese mythology, each wooden statue exquisitely painted and gilded. He could not raise his head because of the straps that bound him. He was helpless, naked, and he had never felt so utterly trapped and impotent.

  “Yoko?” he asked.

  Her voice bled with sympathy. “I am here. I have not been harmed. But Bill is very sick. I shall do as Po asks. He wants my blood, first. I feel—feel so strange about it. As if I were something less than a person, but only an animal desired for laboratory experiments—”

  “Po won’t hurt you.”

  “Indeed not,” Po’s voice interrupted. The Chinese face again swam into his vision. Po wore a heavy, fur-collared jacket and strong leather shoes, and he prodded Durell’s ribs with a steel-capped toe. Durell’s ribs ached. Po said, “Tell me, Mr. Durell, is Dr. Freeling in Japan now? This Dr. Freeling, your head of CBW for your imperialist government—”

  “What of it?”