Assignment Tokyo

by Edward S. Aarons

  Skoll came out of the woods.

  “Well, Comrade Cajun?”

  Durell gestured to the Russian’s gun. “It’s up to you.”

  “Did I get Po?” Skoll asked.

  “He’s away. So are his pick-up thugs.”

  “We must be careful. It is a miracle you survived.”

  “Thanks to you.”

  The KGB man grinned. His steel teeth looked blue. He wore a heavy, fur-collared coat, and his close-cropped gray head bobbed and then shook sidewise in disappointment.

  “I will lose my medal for sharpshooting,” Skoll grumbled. “I was sure I had him in my sights.”

  “Never mind. Let’s get out of here. Or—,” Durell paused. “You have the winning hand. Your gun. Are you going to take Po’s place?”

  “Nyet. I have called the local police, blown my cover.” Skoll waved a rueful, big paw toward the lights at the inn. The tiny figures of several men could be seen moving around over there. “I did it to save you. In return, you can do me one large favor, Amerikanski.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let me disappear. Gracefully, silently, eh? It would be embarrassing to answer Yamatoya’s questions. In our business one should remain anonymous. For you, you have your cover in Tokyo. For me it would be a disaster.”

  “Done,” Durell said. He kept searching the dark woods. “I’m worried about Po. He’s still loose.”

  “Let Yamatoya worry about him now. It is all over. We are even, you and I. In Morocco you won, and almost ruined my career. But I have no hard feelings.” Skoll’s round face crinkled with a grin. “Now it is you who owe me something, next time we meet.”

  For the first time, Durell shook hands with the Russian.

  Yoko helped him to start the boat’s engine and get Bill aboard. The ice was too thin on the lake to give them any trouble. Skoll trotted away like a shambling bear, into the dense larch woods behind the Shobu-en. The Russian did not wave or look back.

  “Sam?”

  Yoko Kamuru’s voice was small and tentative. She sat in the bow as Durell headed the boat back across the lake, crashing through the skin of ice. He felt cold in the Japanese robe. He hadn’t bothered to go back for the clothes that Po had stripped from him.

  “Sam?” Yoko asked again.

  She sat with Bill’s head cradled in her lap. The searchlights from the inn swept across the lake and caught them in the glare. Her small, blossomlike face was very serious.

  “Bill is terribly sick,” Yoko said.

  “Only you can help him now. He’ll be all right.”

  “You look pretty awful yourself,” she said.

  “I’m fine.”

  “My throat still hurts where you grabbed me.”

  Durell said nothing.

  “Sam, would you have done it?”

  “Done what?” he asked.

  “Strangled me. To keep me from Po.”

  He did not lie. “Yes,” he said.

  29

  HE SLEPT, and when he awoke once, someone said, “Hush, Sam,” and he slept again. He was not aware of time or thought for many long hours. He did not dream or stir. And yet he knew someone was always with him, sitting quietly, watching him. It did not trouble his rest. He knew that day came and went, and night fell. And when he awoke again, he looked at the person who sat beside his bed in the lamplight and saw it was Deirdre Padgett.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hello, Sam.”

  “You snored,” she said, and smiled. “Hungry?”

  “Starved.”

  “American-style breakfast?”

  “If possible.”

  “It’s all arranged. Special dispensation from the chef. I’ll be down in his kitchen for a few minutes.”

  The windows were dark. He was in a Japanese room, but he was not sure where it was or how long he had been here. He watched Deirdre Padgett stand. She did everything with a quiet, serene grace, an inner calm that shone in the beauty of her copper-colored eyes. She wore a Japanese kimono with natural ease; her black hair was piled up atop her head and pinned with an exquisite ivory comb. If there were shadows under her eyes, they did not make her less beautiful.

  Fear for her began to touch him. He remembered Po Ping Tao, and hoped the man was long gone back to Peking. But he could not be sure. The score was not yet settled.

  He walked to the sliding window and looked at the lake. He was still at the Ichii Akakura inn. The ice on the lake had melted after the unseasonable cold snap, and the management had apparently rushed up and belatedly opened the establishment. In the starlit night he could see across to the Shobu-en; the jewellike shrine was clearly visible across the limpid water. There was still snow on the higher peaks, and the ski lift was working; a glare of light came from the upper slopes, and there were skiers visible, tiny flecks of humanity hurtling with enthusiasm down the thin snow. The inn was alive with guests and help, miraculously transformed from the dark and dead place it had been the other night. Durell looked at his watch. It was past ten in the evening. He had slept the clock around.

  From the window, he could see through the larch woods to where a van was parked next to the cottage where Yoko and Bill once kept their trysts. A couple of blue-uniformed police stood there, and other men, unobtrusive, were posted on the paths nearby. Durell began to dress, finding some of the clothes from his Tokyo apartment laid out in the wardrobe. Deirdre must have brought them, he decided. He chose his usual dark suit and button-down white shirt and dark knitted necktie. He looked for his gun, but it was not there. He was still looking for it, under the pillow and under the bed, when someone knocked.

  He opened the door with care.

  Dr. Freeling came in. The tall man looked more brittle than ever. The light cast splinters from his gold-rimmed glasses. He moved with his usual angularity, all bones and clicks and straight planes. He wore a white lab smock over slacks and a rough sweater. His fingers were stained.

  “You are looking better, Durell.” He neither smiled nor frowned. “You had some nasty bumps and bruises.”

  “Did you get Yoko?”

  “She’s fine. We’re turning out the stuff right now in the laboratory truck. You’ve seen it?”

  “How is Bill Churchill?”

  “We’re trying the first batch of mutated virus in him now. Prognosis looks good. It’s all makeshift, of course, but we have the Chichibu Pharmaceutical people started on mass production. Preemptive program to contain the Hatashima plague. It looks good. The matter isn’t your concern any more.”

  “Bill is really still alive?”

  “Oh, yes. Don’t doubt it. Yoko is with him every moment.” Freeling sat down, knees raised to his chin like a huge insect at rest. His mouth ventured a thin smile. “It’s just a matter of time and organization and more subjects to give us more serum. But we have it beaten. The newspapers, for a change, are giving us favorable notices. It was nip and tuck for a while, whether we’d be internationally condemned. But nobody is saying where the plague came from originally.”

  “China,” Durell said.

  “Yes, but you can’t prove that.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  Freeling poked up his glasses. “What’s troubling you? Are you feeling sickish, too?”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “What, then? Melvin Cummings has been recalled to Washington, you may be glad to hear. Probably booted upstairs and gotten out of the way. It’s men like him who give men like you a hard time . . . You’re not happy about that?”

  “Cummings never really bothered me,” Durell said. “Then what does?”

  “It’s Po,” said Durell. “Has he turned up?”

  “No trace. Probably made good his return to Peking.”

  “I doubt if the Peacock Branch would give him much of a welcome for his failures. He even hoped to snatch you to China, too, did you know that?”

  Freeling’s face was blank. “I was warned of it. But it didn’t happen, thanks to you.”

>   “I think he’s still around,” Durell said flatly.

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I just know.”

  “Extrasensory perception?”

  “Business instinct.”

  Freeling said, “I wouldn’t worry, Sam. Major Yamatoya is alerted; he’s here with his security people now. You just take it easy. Po gave you a bad time, eh?”

  “I’ve had worse,” said Durell.

  When Freeling went out, Durell looked at his watch again. Deirdre was late returning from the ryokan’s kitchen.

  He waited five minutes more, then quit his room. Some college students were in the main corridor, youngsters with bright black eyes, some well-groomed, others with an acquired American hippie look, the cult of the ugly. He looked at the latter with care, wondering if there were any Zengakuren people of the sort helping Po. A riot here could easily be started with the aim of destroying the lab hidden up in the woods. But the youngsters went by him, laughing, splendid in their health and new ski outfits. Durell went down to the main lodge, which was a Japanese version of a Swiss ski chalet. A roaring fire warmed the room, where other early-winter sports addicts had gathered. Waitresses in traditional kimonos, at odds with the skis and sweaters, served quickly and with smiles. He did not see Deirdre. He found his way to the kitchen. There were two chefs and three young assistants. The kitchen was modem, spotless, all stainless steel and blue tiles. The cooks were busy with late demands for food and refreshments.

  Deirdre was not here.

  “Durell-san?”

  He turned quickly—betraying his concern—and saw a smiling, portly Japanese of middle age, with carefully brushed silvery hair and a bright smile. The smile looked forced. It was hot in the kitchen, but not hot enough to account for the sheen of sweat on the man’s face.

  “Durell-san, you look for Padgett-san, perhaps? The young lady is this way. Come, please.”

  “Who are you?”

  “A thousand pardons. I am Mr. Waikaizi, manager of the Ichii Akakura, at your service, sir, in any difficulties—”

  “Is there any difficulty?”

  “No, no, please. Not to worry, sir. Come, sir.”

  Durell wished he had his gun. As he followed Mr. Waikaizi, he passed a hardwood chopping block where several knives rested in wooden slots. He palmed the nearest, a sharp, short-bladed fish knife, and it was up his sleeve before he reached the pantry door.

  “This way, sir. No problem at all.”

  “ You have the problem, Waikaizi-san,” said Durell.

  He touched the point of the knife to the back of the manager’s neck. The Japanese did not have to turn to know what it was. The swinging door to the pantry swung shut behind them with a soft hiss of pneumatic stops, and the Japanese began to tremble violently. The pantry was empty of kitchen help at the moment; it was a long, narrow room filled with shelves stocked with commercial-sized cans of food. A door at the opposite end gave a glimpse of the back lawn and the woods and the glow of lights surrounding the laboratory parked up above.

  “Where is Padgett-san?” Durell asked.

  Mr. Waikaizi stuttered. “Oh, p-please—I do not know, truly. He came. He took her.”

  “A Chinese gentleman?”

  “Y-yes. Very dangerous type, quite disheveled, as if he—he spent the day in the woods on the mountain. A criminal, sir? He took the girl and told me to bring you.” Mr. Waikaizi swallowed. “To the—the boathouse, sir.”

  Durell did not ease the pressure of the knife on the nape of Waikaizi’s neck. “Lead the way.”

  “Please, I am afraid!”

  “So am I,” said Durell. Mr. Waikaizi opened the outer door to the pantry, and they stepped outside.

  The evening was milder than the previous night, but there was still snow at the top of the ski lift. The flood of sudden guests at the inn enjoyed their distant screams and shouts, and a loudspeaker mouthed country-style guitar music, heard faintly down here. Durell did not stop to think. He did not dare consider what might be happening to Deirdre at this moment. He was dismayed by his long sleep, while Po was still loose nearby. There was no time now for anything but a direct reaction to the threat against Deirdre.

  The boathouse was small and dark, about five hundred feet down the shore. It stood on a small point of land that made a sheltered cove, and it could not be approached by stealth, although some of the trees came down close to the water beyond it. The building was a long shed, but with the upturned eaves of most Japanese roofs. It looked dark and lonely, and as dangerous as a nest of white-faced hornets.

  “Must I go with you?” Mr. Waikaizi pleaded.

  Durell urged him into the woods parallel to the lake. The fat man stumbled and breathed very loudly.

  “What do you keep in the boathouse?” Durell asked.

  “Two motor launches, sir, canoes on racks—”

  “How many doors to the shed?”

  “There are large doors facing the lake and the boat ramp, but we lower the launches through an opening in the shed floor and pull them out from underneath. Then there is a regular door on this side, for entry—”

  “Is it a trapdoor, or just an opening in the floor?”

  “A kind of trapdoor, yes, it folds back—”

  “Locked?”

  “It has never been necessary to lock it.”

  “All right. Just be quiet now.”

  Durell turned uphill through the woods, pushing Mr. Waikaizi ahead of him. He felt inside himself a singleness of purpose that nothing could deny. He knew exactly what he had to do, and how to do it. The price did not matter. He was rarely subject to feeling hatred, but what he felt toward Po went beyond definition. He was afraid for Deirdre, for her life and sanity in Po’s hands, and this fear moved in his gut and blood and sinews. He showed none of this outwardly. His face was impassive as he walked through the woods behind Mr. Waikaizi. When he was above the dark boathouse, he started down at a slant through the larches. A pale yellow light shone over the mountain, where the moon was about to rise. He quickened his step, forcing Waikaizi to gasp and stumble again.

  When he stood in the brush beyond the boathouse, he could hear the quiet lapping of the lake and the occasional tiny click of broken ice that remained on the shore.

  He turned to the innkeeper. “You can go back now.

  Go directly to the laboratory van and tell Dr. Freeling and Major Yamatoya exactly where I am and what happened. Tell them Po is here, and he has Deirdre, and I’m going to get her back.”

  “Yes, sir. Yes.” Mr. Waikaizi’s whisper was a hiss of gratitude. “I shall remember. And, you will be careful? The man seemed so very dangerous—”

  “Go on,” Durell said.

  He waited until the other had vanished in the woods. The moonlight grew stronger. Durell took off the clothes he had just put on. It was about ten feet to the water’s edge, from where he stood in the brush. He hoped that if Po was still in the boathouse, he was watching in the direction of the inn, not this way. But he couldn’t be sure of that. He could never be sure of anything about Po.

  He went silently into the icy water, shuddering with an involuntary reflex. The breath seemed squeezed out of his lungs when he slid smoothly under the surface. He knew he could not stay conscious, or even alive, in the nearfreezing water for more than a few minutes, but he swam strongly, and covered half the distance before he had to surface for air.

  His heart seemed about to stop from the cold. He held the knife between his teeth as he dived again under the surface of the bitterly cold water. It was an eternity of agony before he felt a piling and pulled himself up to the surface under the mossy planking of the boathouse.

  It was utterly dark. He could hear nothing except the faint lapping of water around the pilings. After a moment he thought he caught a dim footfall overhead, but he had no time to make certain. He had to get out of the freezing water.

  The shed was about fifty feet long and half as wide. In the center was a long, narrow rectangle and a
dangling pair of cables. Beyond the boat hatch, fortunately open, he could see a pair of hoisting davits, and above them, the roof beams and the pale sides of a motorboat and a rack of canoes.

  Carefully, Durell reached for one of the loose cables and slowly drew it taut until it could support his weight. It was hard to control his shivering muscles. When he was sure he could swing up and onto the inner platform, he paused again and listened.

  This time the sound of a footstep on the planks above was sharp and definite. He heard a deep, indrawn breath. He listened for some sign to show that Deirdre was still alive.

  He could wait no longer. The cold was sapping his strength. With a single, convulsive movement he hauled himself up and out of the water and swung on the cable until his wet feet caught on the upper stringer of the hatch.

  His explosive, upward entry, lunging up out of the water, gained some partial surprise. The dim interior of the boathouse smelled of must and mildew and oil. There was a slight blur of movement, a shifting of shadows, and then the racketing, ear-splitting din of a gunshot in the narrow confines of the building. Durell’s hand was jolted and the knife he held went spinning away to splash into the water. There was a moment when the hollow rectangle in the plank floor was filled with surging, splashing waves from Durell’s abrupt entry.

  Even without the knife he did not stop. There was no time to look for Deirdre. Every fiber of his being was concentrated on the figure of Po Ping Tao.

  All of Po’s reactions were keyed above normal, to a point where the man was faster than a striking cobra, more ferocious than a wounded tiger. There was another blur, another shot—but Durell, naked and blue with cold, dived behind the hull of one of the hanging launches. The bullet splintered wood and shrieked off through the single window, shattering the glass. Durell lunged forward, keeping low, and dove for the spit of the muzzle flame. For an instant he saw Po’s face, vindictive and desperate.

  Then it was gone in another blur of rapid movement. Po was trying to get to the other end of the boathouse, beyond Durell’s back. Maybe Deirdre was there. No time to look. Maybe she was dead. No time to think about it. He was without a weapon, and Po had the gun.