by Ashton, Hugh
“What about that poor waiter?” asked Mieko.
Barclay answered her. “They told me in the police station when I arrived. He was not in a serious condition, but he was badly shocked by the whole incident, as you can imagine. Ken, I think you should just continue with what happened after that.”
“Well, there isn’t that much more to tell. The hotel security called the police, and I had a fairly uncomfortable interview with what I guess was their secret political police or intelligence service – am I right about that?” Barclay nodded. “They decided I wasn’t working with the North Koreans, but put me up in one of their executive cells and someone contacted Major Barclay here who hopped on a plane and fixed things at a very high level, it seems.”
“Not just me. You owe your thanks to Ishihara and Kurokawa here.”
“Hang on a minute,” Vishal said. “This is all sounding very wonderful, but it is all being very worrying into the bargain. Do you think that the North Korean goons are after Meema and Mieko and me as well as they are for Kenneth here?”
“Almost certainly they will have done their homework, and marked you three down as additional targets,” said Barclay. “Sorry to sound so casual about it, but I see no point in sugar-coating the truth for you. You’re all mature adults and can handle bad news.”
“So what is your opinion on all this?” asked Vishal. “And what is going to happen to us all?”
“You need protection,” said Kurokawa. “The sort of protection that top diplomats get. We’ll have people looking after you to make sure that nothing happens, wherever you are.”
“Why should Japan do this for us? We’re not even Japanese citizens,” asked Meema.
“Why not? It’s the police’s job to protect you. And the more danger you are in, the higher the level of protection. Really quite simple. And if you want a reason that’s connected with self-interest, the Japanese police have no interest at all in seeing another unsolved murder of a Briton.” He was referring to two murders of British girls in recent years, where the Japanese police had appeared spectacularly incompetent, leading to criticism from the British authorities, up to Prime Ministerial level. “So you’re getting the best, and I mean that. These people are as good at their job as anyone else in the world, and we’re lucky to have them working with us. I promise you that they won’t be in your way. They’re professionals, and it’s part of their job to be unobtrusive.”
“It all sounds all right for now,” said Meema. “But we can’t spend all our lives being followed around by policemen. Even if the Japanese government is willing to do this for us for ever, which I doubt.”
“And that brings us to part two of the operation,” answered Barclay. “We have to find a way of one, either silencing these people permanently, or two, directing their fire in another direction.”
“It sounds as though you want to kill them when you talk about silencing them permanently,” said Mieko.
“Not really. Only if they play rough. I meant arresting them and making sure that they won’t be a nuisance to society in the future. But I have the beginnings of a plan B in my head that may just stop them bothering you and kill two birds with one stone. I’ll tell you all about it later, Ken.”
-o-
The doorbell rang, and Sharpe answered the entryphone system.
“It’s our bodyguards,” he announced to the others. “Or so they say.”
“I’ll check,” said Kurokawa. He strode to the door and talked to the men outside. As he looked at each man’s ID, he spoke into his mobile phone, and waved in the visitors one at a time.
“I am sorry,” he said, when all the visitors had been admitted, “but the men here speak very little English. Some of the officers in the team do speak English, but not the ones on this shift. You will all receive 24-hour coverage, and the shifts will change every eight hours. We will need duplicate keys to this office and to your homes. You are not required to provide food for these officers, though if you do, it will be appreciated, I am sure.” He went on at some length about the way in which Sharpe and his friends would be protected. The procedures were obviously the result of experience, and Sharpe, for one, felt much happier when he understood the attention to detail that had gone into the system.
“One question,” asked Meema. “Do our friends have guns?”
“Yes, they do, and they’re trained how to use them. More importantly, maybe, they’re trained as to when their use would be inappropriate. If you’re worried about accidents, you shouldn’t be. These are professionals. Any more questions?”
There were none, and the minders paired off with Sharpe and his friends, introducing themselves informally.
Sharpe and Vishal went to the back of the room and started talking quietly.
“Meema’s got to get back to India,” said Sharpe. “She’s the perfect person to look after your sister and make sure that she gets the treatment she needs.”
“I suppose so. You’ll be finding me coming round to your place an awful lot for meals until I go back to join her, you realise?” Vishal grinned.
“You’re going back for good?” Sharpe was surprised.
“Kenneth-san, do you honestly think there will be jobs for all of us here in Tokyo, now that the world is coming to an end?”
“I hadn’t really thought too much about it,” Sharpe confessed. “I’ve had my mind on other things over the past few days.”
“Well, I am just worrying about how we are going to survive over the next few years until things are returning to normal. And you, of course.”
“We have enough money to last, unless Tomiko decides she’s going to steal it all.”
Their conversation was interrupted by a loud crash as something burst through the window in a shower of splintering glass. The brick bounced on the floor and was closely followed through the window by something that smoked and smelled of gasoline. One of the bodyguards fell on the plastic bottle with a burning rag sticking out of it and smothered the flame with his hand wrapped in his jacket, which he’d managed to remove as he raced across the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” exclaimed Sharpe. “What the hell was that?” He helped the policeman to his feet. “Domo arigatō gozaimasu – thank you very much. Are you OK?” The policeman said nothing, but picked up the bottle and edged sideways to the broken window, unholstering his automatic pistol as he did so.
Sharpe moved towards the window, but was waved towards the opposite corner of the room, where he joined the others. Mieko and Meema appeared terrified, and Sharpe couldn’t blame them. A series of short commands in Japanese, and two of the remaining three police shot out of the door. Sharpe could hear their feet pounding down the stairs.
There was silence for about a minute, and then suddenly the noise of a shouted argument came from below through the broken window. There appeared to be three voices, one louder, and the other two softer. After a short time, the louder voice stopped, and there was an eerie silence from below. A couple of minutes after that, the two police who had left appeared, with a shabbily dressed man between them. His hands were behind his back, and as he turned round to face the policeman by the window, Sharpe noted that the wrists were joined by some sort of plastic handcuff device. One of his cheeks looked swollen, and a bruise was starting to form.
The policeman by the window, together with Kurokawa, started to shout at him in Japanese which was too fast and too idiomatic for Sharpe to follow, as were the replies. He turned to Mieko.
“He was doing this because he’s lost his job. No he wasn’t, he lost money with us, so this is his revenge.”
“Bullshit. We never had any clients other than Kim.”
“He’s changing his story with every answer. Wait until they get the truth out of him.”
“If they ever do,” said Sharpe.
During this exchange, the firebomb thrower had turned to look at Sharpe. There was a click of mutual recognition as their eyes met, and Sharpe found himself on the receiving end of a low respectfu
l bow.
“He’s one of Kim’s men,” Sharpe explained.
“Which means he’s one of Tomiko Katsuyama’s men now, doesn’t it?” replied Kurokawa. He spat some more Japanese out at the man who continued bowing apologetically. “Yes, he is,” said Kurokawa. “Mr Sharpe, do you have her telephone number to hand?”
“It should be somewhere in my phone. She called me not so long ago. Wait a moment … Yes, I do.”
“Call her now. We can’t arrest her or even touch her for this, but I want you to make her understand that this is not in any way acceptable and that we’re here to take care of you, and any more tricks like this will make her life very difficult.”
“What should I say?”
“I’m sure you’ll find the right words,” Barclay told him.
“Please set the speakerphone on,” Kurokawa told him. He brought a small recorder out of his pocket and flicked a switch. A red light came on. “Recording.”
Sharpe dialled, and waited for three rings before the phone was picked up.
“Tomiko Katsuyama?” he said, before she could say anything.
“Hai.”
“Can we speak English?”
“Yes.” A little grudgingly after some silence.
“This is Kenneth Sharpe here.”
“Oh.” More silence. “When am I going to get the money that you promised to my father?”
“I really don’t want to go over all that again. Please take the trouble to read and understand your newspapers and find out what’s going on in the world. More importantly, we have your man here. The one who threw your little present at us.”
“My man? What are you talking about?”
Sharpe sighed. “Please, can we stop playing silly games? The police have him here now in handcuffs and he’s told us everything.”
There was an intake of breath at the other end. “The police? What are you doing with them?”
“I called to let you know that, courtesy of Tokyo’s finest, my friends and I now have 24-hour police protection. If you know what is good for you, your recent visitor to us will be the last one you send round.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise. And it’s not me making it, either. It’s someone who has the power to make that promise come true.”
“I’m not going to forget this, you know. And that’s a promise, as well.”
“Love you too, dear,” said Sharpe under his breath, as he cut the connection. “I hope that got the message across,” to Kurokawa.
“We might reinforce it with a friendly visit from the local police some time soon. But I think you made it clear enough. Excuse me, I think the refuse collectors have arrived.”
He opened the door to two uniformed police who entered, and after an exchange of paperwork, led Tomiko’s goon out of the room.
“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” said Barclay. “Nicely done, lads,” he said to the bodyguard squad. To Sharpe, “I think you and Kurokawa-san and I need to sit down and talk strategy. Apologies to the rest of you, but this is something where I really only want a few people to start with. Later we’ll talk about what we’re going to be doing in more detail. I’m off now, and I’ll call for you here at 10 tomorrow morning, Ken, and we’ll go on together. Kurokawa-san, you know where to find me. Bye for now, all.”
-oOo-
Chapter 17: Tokyo
True to his word, Barclay appeared at the office at 10, and he and Sharpe, together with Sharpe’s minder, took a taxi to Barclay’s lair. They walked in after Sharpe had watched Barclay’s fussing with a number of complicated locks, including a fingerprint reader.
“No, that’s not what it is,” said Barclay, when Sharpe mentioned it. “It actually reads the infrared patterns in the fingertip veins. Almost as distinctive as fingerprints.”
“And no-one can lift your fingerprint and make a fake using Photoshop and gummi bears?” suggested Sharpe. “And no-one can cut off your finger and use it to get in, right?”
“Exactly. Which is one reason why Japanese banks are using this and the palm vein readers rather than fingerprint or handprint.”
They sat and waited in silence. Barclay looked at his watch which for some reason best known to himself, Sharpe had noticed, he always wore on the inside of his wrist.
“Strange. Ishihara’s usually pretty punctual, and he makes a point of calling ahead if he’s going to be held up.” As he spoke, the phone rang on his desk.
“Yes. He what? Thank you. We’ll be right along.” He put the phone back, and Sharpe noticed his hands were shaking.
“I need a bloody drink. Doesn’t have to be a big one, but by God, it has to be strong.”
He opened one of his desk drawers and pulled out a bottle of whisky and two glasses, into each of which he poured a finger’s worth of neat spirits. He pushed one over to Sharpe.
“What for? I don’t want this.”
“You will, laddie, you will. That was Kurokawa. Ishihara’s been found dead. Knifed to death in his office. Kurokawa went in there to check on something, thinking Ishihara was with us and found him there just now.” He tossed down the whisky and shuddered.
“Dear God!” exclaimed Sharpe. “I suppose it’s the usual suspect?” He reached for his own whisky.
“You mean Jonny? Almost certainly. No evidence, of course. No traces, but if it turns out to be anyone else, you can kick my arse all the way up Mount Fuji. And down again.”
Sharpe drank his whisky in one gulp. Barclay was right, it had some sort of calming effect. “Why the bloody hell would he do that?”
“I really don’t know. I just told Kurokawa we’d be over there. Come on, let’s di di mau.”
“Let’s what?”
“Get the fuck out of here. Come on, lad.” The two of them, together with Sharpe’s minder, piled out of the room, with Barclay locking up carefully, and once on the street, hailed a taxi.
Barclay gave an address in Kasumigaseki, the government office district, and they sped off, Barclay and Sharpe using their combined Japanese to explain the situation to Sharpe’s baffled monolingual bodyguard. Once they arrived, Barclay raced out of the taxi faster than Sharpe had ever seen him move, leaving the other two stumbling in his wake. When they caught up with him, Sharpe saw him talking in very passable Japanese to the security guard at reception, and showing an ID card that was being very carefully scrutinized. There seemed to be an impasse, but this was quickly overcome by the production of a very official-looking piece of plastic by Sharpe’s minder, and they took the lift to the fifth floor. Yellow crime scene tape criss-crossed the corridor, and police were already swarming around the place, taking photos, measuring, and generally getting in each other’s way.
Kurokawa was standing to one side, and moved towards them as he saw them come out of the lift.
“Want to see him before they move him?” he asked. I warn you, he’s far from being nice to look at.”
He led them to an office where the police were swarming in greatest numbers, and nodded to one of the policemen, who pulled down a sheet covering something large and lumpy on the floor.
There was a lot of blood. The face was … “Sorry,” said Sharpe and rushed out of the room. His legs turned to rubber, and he half-fell to the floor. His minder and a sympathetic policeman knew exactly what was happening, and where he wanted to go, grabbing an arm each and half-dragging his collapsing body to a toilet, where he vomited copiously and painfully. Barclay followed him into the toilet a little later. He, too, looked more than a little green.
“Don’t worry about losing it like that, Ken,” he said. His voice was almost gentle, and his usual flippancy had completely vanished. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Half the police here lost their lunches, and they should be used to it.”
“I don’t know how you could ever get used to seeing someone with their eyes gouged out and their nose cut off. It’s like something out of a really sick horror film.”
Barclay nodded. “It is sick, isn’
t it?”
“Why did no-one hear him?”
“You didn’t notice the gag? Poor bastard was tied up and gagged before Jon started his filthy work.” The veins were actually standing out on Barclay’s neck as he spoke. “To think that bastard’s British. We’ll be lucky to have a fucking embassy in Japan if the truth of all this comes out.”
“It won’t,” said Kurokawa, who had followed them in and shooed out the others. “Don’t worry about that. But I do want to see that little bastard of yours safe where he can do no harm, Major.”
“He’s not my little bastard,” growled Barclay. There was nothing comic about the little man now. He was very obviously more than simply angry, and looked extremely dangerous. “Kurokawa. Sharpe. Come back with me.” He marched out of the door. Kurokawa and Sharpe looked at each other, shrugged and followed. There wasn’t a lot of choice.
-o-
Once back at Barclay’s lair, the three of them sat around the desk. Sharpe’s minder sat to one side, nursing a cup of coffee.
“Why?” asked Sharpe.
“Oh, for God’s sake, Ken. To make him talk, of course. Campbell obviously thought he knew more than he actually did, and this was his way of getting to the knowledge. I was up practically all night following up the leads you gave me. Let me tell you, Ken, the stakes in this are enormous.”
“I thought they were pretty high.”
“You don’t know the half of it, lad. Kim’s family was originally pretty high up in the Central Committee and Party hierarchy. This is some time back, you understand – nearly at the start of the Great Leader’s reign. And as one of the clique in charge of the country, the family amassed a considerable sum of money, which they converted into gold. Remember that North Korea mines gold in relatively large quantities. Quite easy to convert cash into gold if you have the right connections, which of course they did. Some of the filthy lucre may also have been war loot, some might have been bribes, or confiscated from prisoners. Dirty money, blood money, whatever. It’s not clean or nice money at all.”
“How much?”
“Hold your horses, I’ll save the best to last, if you don’t mind. Some time ago – at least thirty – our Mr Kim’s parents fell foul of the Great Leader, in one of the purges. They died, and the teenaged Kim escaped with his older sister to the South. Not quite sure how he managed to get through the border, but I am sure money played a significant role there. Then to America, as he may have told you. And when things got too hot for him there a few years later, he came to Japan. It was relatively easy to pass himself off here as a Korean whose family had been brought over to Japan in the war, and he could play on guilt feelings and so on. Of course, he had little to do with the North Korean community here, since they could make life very unpleasant for him if they were to find out exactly who he was and where he was coming from. So Kim knows – knew, rather – that he was heir to a goodly number of dollars in gold—”
