by Ashton, Hugh
“I suppose that’s true. Seems to me that we’re throwing this all away for no good reason that I can see. I’m going to make a copy to keep for myself, in any case.”
-o-
After only a day, Kurokawa called Sharpe. “Everything is sorted out,” he smiled. “Here’s the piece of paper.”
Sharpe read it through. He assumed that the English and the Japanese were the same. In any case, someone had inserted a clause stating that the English was to be used as the official text in cases of disagreement. All the clauses seemed to be in order, and promised that any arrests made of him, Vishal, Meema or Mieko in connection with that was termed “the Katsuyama technology” would be mere formalities, and that they would never be brought to trial. Furthermore, all record of such arrests would be removed from the records, leaving a clean sheet.
“Who is this?” asked Sharpe, pointing to the name and seal at the bottom of the document.
“A very senior civil servant in the Ministry of Justice. You’re all very well covered, believe me. All you have to do is sign. All of you. There’s a copy for each of you and two more for the government.”
Sharpe went round collecting the signatures, and passed two copies back to Kurokawa.
“Thanks. Now, if you don’t mind, Mr Sharpe, I’d like you to call Campbell and arrange a handover.”
“How long till you’re ready, Vishal?”
“About another three days, if the testing goes well.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Five.”
“And I reckon I’ve got at least five days’ writing to do, so let’s tell him this time next week. You happy with that, Vishal? There’s no pushing this deadline back, you know.”
“Go with it, man. I’m with you all the way.”
“You want to record this call?” Sharpe asked Kurokawa.
“Yes. Don’t put it on speaker this time, though. Can you do it from your office phone?”
“Sure.”
Kurokawa brought out some cables that connected the phone to his pocket recorder. “When you’re ready,” he invited Sharpe.
Sharpe took a deep breath and started dialling Jon Campbell’s mobile number. It was answered after about six rings.
“Hello?” came Jon’s voice. “Who’s this?” Obviously the number displayed by the office Internet phone system had confused him.
“Kenneth Sharpe here.”
“Ah, Kenny.” Sharpe gritted his teeth. “How nice to hear from you. I heard from Tomiko that you have some special friends looking after you who don’t really want me to meet you. Is that still the case?”
“It is indeed, Jonny,” said Sharpe, returning the compliment. “Where are you? And who’s giving you that information?”
“Both of those are my business, not yours, I think.”
“Please yourself.”
“So what can I be doing for you, then?”
“Actually, it’s what I can be doing for you,” Sharpe corrected. He tried to make his voice sound a little more submissive. It wasn’t that hard to feel frightened when he remembered what he had seen of Ishihara’s face.
“Go on.”
“We’re not in a position to give Tomiko the money she wants. You know as well as I do how fucked up the markets are right now.”
“I can accept that. I’ve tried to explain all this to the crazy bitch but I think it’s a case of the deliberate dumbs. So? You’re not calling me just to say you can’t pay, are you?”
“No. I’m going to make you a present of the whole of the Katsuyama technology. The hardware, which as you know, is the only one of its kind, the original disc he gave to me, a real live working system – a copy of the one we were using, and the instruction manual. It’s going to take a little bit of work for you to set it up and get it working, but I’m busy writing down how you can do that.”
“You’re not going to do that for us?”
“You wish. No, I’m not. I don’t want you or Tomiko breathing down our necks while we do it. There’s lots of competent people out there you can use to set it all up and get it working, now the banks are shedding IT staff like dandruff.”
“How poetic you are, Kenny. We may call on you for help.”
“The way I write manuals, you’re not going to need any help. It will all happen nice and smoothly.”
“Famous last words. So why this sudden burst of generosity? Has Christmas come early this year?”
“Let’s just say that I’m rather fed up with the lifestyle you and your lady friend have imposed on us. I’d like a return to normality, and this seems the best way of going about it.”
“Fair enough. And when are you putting on the Santa suit and driving the reindeer over? On second thoughts, no reindeer. Just you.”
“The system and the documentation won’t be ready for another week.”
“An IT contractor’s week or a real week?”
“Very funny. A real week.”
“OK, I’ll call you in a week’s time and give you the time and place. And no funny stuff. Any tricks and you’re history, mate. Trust me on that, and keep it in mind any time you think about being clever.”
“I understand.”
“Then you’ll have the pleasure of hearing my voice this time next week. I’ll pass on the news to Tomiko and I’m sure that she’ll send out a hands-off notice, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It does, as it happens.”
“Then I’ll bid you a fond farewell until next week.” Jon hung up, and Sharpe looked up at Kurokawa who was grinning.
“Excellent, Mr Sharpe. That’s exactly what I expected. So as soon as you get the time and place, send me a message on my mobile, and I’ll get the men in position to protect you. Good luck with your work.”
-oOo-
Chapter 19: Tokyo, Shonan
Sharpe and Vishal’s work went smoothly. Vishal approached the task as if he were making a commercial product for sale, smoothing out any rough edges, and providing what he called a “pretty damn’ fine turnkey installation”. All his hard work was to fit on one small USB memory stick.
“And all they have to do is to run the configure script and answer questions that even you could answer, Kenneth-san,” he said proudly.
Sharpe ignored the implied insult to his computer skills. “Fine, so the installation works. What about maintenance? How can they fine-tune the latency on the Quick feed? I need to write about that.”
“They shouldn’t need to. I rewrote a routine so that it’s self-adjusting.”
Sharpe sighed. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Have you never heard that saying?”
“Well it was broken. That’s why I fixed it.”
“And tested it?”
“Of course.”
Sharpe sighed again. Though he trusted Vishal’s ability, sometimes he leaped ahead of himself and caused problems for other people down the line who couldn’t follow his thinking. “So you’re saying that I don’t need to document that at all? Is that right?”
“That’s right, Kenneth-san. You’re worrying too much. None of this is going to matter in the end, is it?”
“You never know.”
As it happened, Vishal hit no major snags, and Sharpe’s writing was surprisingly easy, at least partly because he had spent so much time setting up the system in the first place. As a result, everything went much smoother than Sharpe had expected, and the work was all finished with a few days to spare.
“If I were you, I’d get out of Tokyo with Meema. Get yourselves off to a hot spring in the country or something,” Sharpe said to Vishal. “Come to talk of it, why the hell is she still in Tokyo and not on a flight to India?”
“We talked it over, and contacted my sister as well to talk to her. We think that Meema doesn’t have to go until you’ve got all this mess sorted out. A week or so won’t make a lot of difference to my sister’s condition, the doctors tell her. She told me that she wants to make sure that you’re safe. She’s very grateful
– we’re all very grateful to you, if you hadn’t guessed.”
“I’m touched. So why don’t you and Meema go away for a few days and take Mieko with you? This is something I want to do without any of you around. I don’t want you too close to this. I have this feeling it is going to get rather messy.”
“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do?”
“Something like that. Really, I’ve dragged you all into enough of a mess as it is. I really don’t want you guys to suffer any more. If anyone ends up in the shit this time, it’s going to be me. Anyway, I have to do this on my own – that’s what Campbell said. If there’s anyone else with me, God knows what’s going to happen.”
“Well, if you are being really sure about this, I’ll do it.”
“I’ll make sure that you know when it’s all over. If I’m still officially arrested, we’ll arrange for Kurokawa to contact you when it’s safe. Happy?”
“Not the word I would be using, but all right.”
-o-
Vishal booked himself, together with Meema and Mieko, into a Japanese-style inn in Izu, to the south of Tokyo. Kurokawa made sure that the minders went with them. “It’ll be a nice break for them,” he said. “Not often that they get this sort of opportunity to get away from Tokyo like this. I think we’ll put two watchers on you, all the time, though, since your lady and her watcher aren’t going to be with you.”
So Sharpe spent a lot of his time at the flat, drinking beer, and losing at go to one of his minders, who, he found out, had been his university’s champion.
It was late one evening when the call came.
“Why isn’t it ready?” was Jon’s first question, launched with no warning.
“It is ready. Packed up and ready to go.”
“Oh. Apologies. That’s the first time in my life that I’ve ever heard of an IT project being ready on time.” The surprise sounded genuine, even if the apology didn’t. “Then you’re ready to meet me tomorrow, then?”
“Sure.”
“Alone, you understand. Any funny business, and things will start to go very pear-shaped in your general direction.”
“Understood.”
“So we’re going to meet at Enoshima. Ever been there?”
“Yes, I know what you’re talking about.”
“Then I’ll see you in the middle of the causeway leading to the island. Six fifty-two.”
“Isn’t it going to be a bit crowded for us?”
“Not going to be crowded at six fifty-two in the morning, is it? Tomorrow morning, six fifty-two. am, that is. Middle of Enoshima causeway. Got it?”
“Got it,” replied Sharpe.
“Good. Don’t be late. I fucking hate hanging around in the cold early mornings. And remember, I want just the one of you. Not a crowd.”
As Jon hung up, Sharpe was already calling Kurokawa. Damn it, answer your bloody mobile, man. A recorded voice came on the line telling him in Japanese that Kurokawa’s phone couldn’t be contacted, and inviting him to leave a message. He pressed the appropriate key on his phone and started to speak, but a hideous electronic squeal interrupted him about five seconds into the message and a voice thanked him for recording his message. He hung up and tried again several times, but every time he was unable even to connect to the voicemail system, which seemed to be out of action.
He tried Kurokawa’s office number, but he very much doubted if this would be any use, since the mobile appeared to be out of range, and it was therefore unlikely that Kurokawa was in his office. Sure enough, he heard at least twenty rings at the other end before he disconnected in disgust, cursing the fact that there was no voicemail system in Kurokawa’s office. The problem now was that he really didn’t have much time to make contact. Less than twelve hours from now. He decided that at the very least he could text Kurokawa’s phone and send an e-mail message to his office. Surely he’d see one of those, or possibly both.
He pulled out Kurokawa’s business card, and sent an urgent message to the office e-mail address that had been handwritten on it, outlining the situation. Now for the text message. Probably easier to do it in Japanese than fight the phone’s English input system – he reckoned his language skills were just about up to the job. He wrestled with the phone’s overly convoluted interface and eventually managed to get his message giving the time and place into what he hoped was tolerable Japanese, and sent it off. All he could do now was wait.
He packed up his folder of documentation, Vishal’s memory stick, and Katsuyama’s original disc into a small day rucksack, and added a box containing Katsuyama’s gadget wrapped in anti-static plastic. He left the rucksack by the door, and checked the train times on the Internet. Ouch! He’d have to leave at about 4:30 the next morning.
Time to let Mieko know what was happening. He called the country inn where she was staying with Vishal and Meema.
“Good luck,” she said when he’d explained what the arrangements were. “Wrap up warmly as well.”
Sharpe laughed. “I think that’s the least of my worries.”
“No it’s not,” she said, seemingly quite seriously. “I have every confidence in you, Kenneth, that you can beat this man’s nasty tricks and come out of it alive. I’m just not sure that I trust you to put on a warm pair of socks and wear an undershirt.”
Sharpe found himself laughing and crying at the same time. “I love you, Mieko,” he managed to say. “Who else would ever say anything like that to me?”
“I love you, Ken-chan,” she replied. There was a harmonious silence between them which said more than any words could express.
“So,” he said after a minute had passed.
“So. We’ll see you soon. I miss you, Ken-chan.”
“And I miss you,” he replied. “Bye, love.”
He hung up. His minders had discreetly turned their backs during the conversation. Even if they didn’t understand the English, they could understand his tears.
He explained to them that he had to go early the next day, and he had to go alone, but that he had tried to contact Kurokawa, so that he would be safe.
“We’ll come with you to the Enoshima monorail station,” one of them said.
“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Sharpe. “If Campbell is working for Tomiko, they’ll almost certainly be watching all the possible trains I could come on, and … It just wouldn’t be a good idea. Let me go on my own.” His mobile phone beeped, and he read the text message from Kurokawa, thoughtfully in English. “Look,” showing them the phone. “It’s OK. He says he’s got my message and that his men are going to be there to look after me. Please, this really is something I have to do on my own.”
The two shook their heads dubiously, but eventually agreed, given the message from Kurokawa confirming Sharpe’s protection.
The message relieved Sharpe’s mind more than he wanted to admit. Ever since Jon Campbell’s phone call he realized that the butterflies in his stomach had been multiplying and that he was living on adrenaline. Booze now would be a bad idea, he thought to himself. Maybe something to eat would help.
Did they fancy sushi? he asked the two police minders. Fine, they told him, and about thirty minutes later, they were all sitting round the table demolishing a tray of sushi that had been ordered by phone.
“Early morning tomorrow,” said Sharpe afterwards, with a grin that he didn’t feel. “I’m off to bed. Goodnight.”
-o-
The alarm clock jolted Sharpe awake only a minute or so after he’d finally got off to sleep, or so it seemed. He blearily killed the sound, and debated with himself whether to put the clock on snooze for another five minutes. Lethargy fought the fear of what would happen if he didn’t keep the appointment, and fear won. His wake-up ritual didn’t include a cold shower, but he took the trouble to shave properly, which helped to wake him up a little. He put on a clean undershirt and a thick pair of socks, remembering the previous evening’s conversation with Mieko, and smiling as he did so.
&
nbsp; Time for a … He looked at his watch. Damn! There really wasn’t time for coffee or breakfast. The condemned man got up late and missed his hearty breakfast, he thought. Famous last words. His two minders, who’d obviously changed with the previous evening’s shift some time when he was asleep, bowed to him deeply as he left the flat, picking up the rucksack he had left there the night before. He returned the bow, and made his way through the surprisingly cold dark streets to the station. He’d worked it out that he only had to change trains once to catch the slow train down to Ōfuna, from where he could catch a monorail down to Enoshima, the seaside resort near Kamakura, south of Yokohama.
Usually, he could doze on trains and wake up automatically at his destination, but as the train rattled through Tokyo, through the grey industrial suburbs of Kawasaki, and through the endless enormous blocks of flats of southern Yokohama, he found himself too wound up to even consider closing his eyes. After what seemed like a whole day’s journey, he arrived at Ōfuna. He only vaguely remembered the monorail from a day spent there the previous summer, but happily it was signposted, and he bought his ticket and found a seat in the three-car futuristic monorail that ran to the coast about four miles away, suspended beneath its track, and running up and down hills and through tunnels.
After the monorail had reached its final destination, he made his way down the concrete steps and started to walk towards the shore, and the causeway where he was to meet Jon. A cold wind blew in from the sea, and he wished he was wearing something more than the fleece jacket he had snatched up as he left the house. As he passed a vending machine, he bought a can of hot coffee. Disgustingly sweet, and he didn’t think that whatever made it white had ever been near a cow, but at least it warmed him up.
He went through the underpass that led to the causeway, noticing some types who looked more than a little out of place. Heavy-set middle-aged men in dark suits and permed dyed hair didn’t really seem like what you would expect to see in Enoshima before seven o’clock on a weekday morning. He hoped to God that the police snipers had been a little more subtle in their attempts to be inconspicuous.
