by Ashton, Hugh
As he climbed the steps from the underpass to the causeway, he could see a lone figure waiting halfway along, wearing a long leather coat, and what appeared to be a strange shiny hat. He walked closer, and realised that Jon wasn’t wearing a hat, but had shaved his head, probably in imitation of something like The Matrix. Prat, thought Sharpe to himself.
He got to within five yards of Jon and stopped, obeying the upraised hand.
“Thank you,” said Jon. “Now stay where you are, just put that bag down, turn round and put your hands in the air. Have to make sure you’re not wired.”
With rivers of cold sweat running down his spine, Sharpe did as he was asked. He felt Jon’s hands running over him, and emptying his pockets, turning the contents out onto the ground, and thanked God that he and Kurokawa had decided against his wearing a bug, or recording the conversation.
“It wouldn’t be admissible in court, anyway,” Kurokawa had explained. “Laws for the protection of personal information and so on. I trust you and your memory to give an accurate account of the conversation.”
“OK, turn round,” came the order. “Now pick up that bag and hand it to me.”
Once again, Sharpe did as he was told, seeing no point in arguing. He watched as Jon went through the contents, searching through all the zipped compartments and pockets.
“What’s this?” Jon asked, holding up the USB memory stick.
“It’s the whole of the currency trading system. The loose-leaf binder there tells you how to get it onto a PC and how to get it working.”
Jon flipped through the pages of the binder. “Impressive, I’ll give you that.” He put the USB stick into his coat pocket. “And this?” holding up Katsuyama’s original CD that had formed part of the contents of the Hello Kitty box so long ago.
Sharpe explained. “It’s encrypted,” he added. “But we broke the encryption. That’s also documented.”
“OK. And this?” holding up the box containing the circuit board.
“That’s the real goodies,” said Sharpe. “Without that, you’re stuffed. Take good care of it, because that’s Katsuyama’s masterpiece.”
Jon opened the box to look inside. “So that’s what it looks like,” he said. “Hardly seems worth all the people, does it? That poor sod at Shinjuku station, and then Al Kowalski and Ishihara, Kim, and you.”
“Me?” said Sharpe. “That’s not part of the agreement, is it?”
“I lied. You hardly thought I was going to let you walk away from all this, did you?”
“Don’t you have any sense of honour? Or even any common-sense? How the hell do you think you can walk away from this?” Sharpe asked. This was going to be tricky. He couldn’t see for the life of him where the snipers were going to be stationed. It would be a bloody long shot, wherever they were, and there was a strong wind blowing in from the sea. Not good odds.
“Not a lot of honour, no. Al Kowalski trusted me right up to the end, and look where it got him.” He grinned.
“That was you?”
“That was me. I got away with that. What makes you think I can’t repeat the process? I am a diplomat of sorts, after all.”
“I see.” A pause. “A question. Why did Katsuyama have those pictures on him? The ones that Al Kowalski had?”
“Because he took them off Tomiko. Or she gave them to him. Not sure which.”
“And just what was she doing with them?” Sharpe looked around him desperately. There was no-one in sight whose attention he could possibly attract to save himself. Just a fishing boat some way off. He hoped to God that Kurokawa’s snipers were in position.
“Don’t bother looking. There’s no-one there to help you. We’ll just carry on talking for a bit if you want. Why did Tomiko have the photos? Oh, Al Kowalski gave them to her. This was after he cocked up that burglary round your place. He wanted her to get Katsuyama’s gadget off you. Seduce you or something. Or send her dad’s boys round.”
“And who told him that I had it in the first place?”
Jon just grinned at him.
“So he was working for you?”
“Yep. He just thought he was working for Ishihara, through me.”
“But?”
“He was working for Kim and Tomiko, through me.”
“Why didn’t he get all the stuff directly off Katsuyama? Or why didn’t you? If you were so close to Tomiko, why couldn’t you have done it?”
“There was no way in hell that anyone could have got into his lab and taken the gadget. Too much security. And we had no idea, quite honestly, what to take in terms of the software. We had to wait until Katsuyama was ready to take it out of the lab and give it away to someone – you – before we could start making a move.”
“I suppose it was too risky just to knock him over the head and take it?”
Jon nodded. “Exactly. All the time he was carrying the thing, he was watching his back. No way could we get to him.”
“And how the hell did Kowalski know to go straight to the Hello Kitty box when he turned over my flat?”
“Remember the day you met Katsuyama? It was the same day I met you and fed you that bullshit about mantises, right?” Sharpe nodded. “You don’t think all of that, meeting me and him on the same day, was a coincidence?”
“But you never saw the box. You couldn’t have done. You were never close enough, were you?”
“Didn’t need to. Remember that little tyke on the trike shouting that she wanted the box?” Sharpe nodded. “Thought you might. All I had to do was to get Al to look for anything with Hello Kitty all over it.”
“Why the hell did you use Kowalski to do your dirty work? Why didn’t you try to get it yourself?”
“I did try to get it myself, after Al had fucked things up. Why the hell do you think I took you to see Tim Barclay?”
“I was wondering that myself. You never told him what it was all about, though, did you? He thought it was all to do with image recognition.”
“Do you think I’m completely daft? Of course I didn’t tell him. I took you there because I wanted you to be under some sort of control instead of running round Tokyo sitting on a bloody fortune without knowing about it. Tim Barclay can pull weight where I can’t. Didn’t work, though, did it?”
Sharpe thought for a moment. “The timing’s wrong. Katsuyama skipped the country the day I met him, or the next day. The burglary happened the evening after I met him. There’s no way that Kowalski could have got the photos to Katsuyama via Tomiko.”
“Shows how little you know about all that, doesn’t it?”
“And how did Al Kowalski die?”
“More painfully and slowly than you will. He’d fucked up and let me down, after all. You’ve come through with the goods. You deserve something for that.” Jon reached inside the leather coat, and came out with a long wicked-looking knife.
“Why the hell did you put the head in the locker?” Sharpe wanted the answers. Anything rather than find out what it was that Jon thought he deserved.
“I didn’t. That must have been Kim’s idea of a joke. Or maybe it was Tomiko’s. She has a strange sense of humour sometimes, that one.”
“How did Kim get hold of the body, then?”
“I left it with him to dispose of. He has more practice than me at these things, after all. You talk too much, Sharpe. You’ve been asking too many questions, and wasting my time giving you answers that won’t do you any good in the long run. Time for you to say bye-bye to the world.” He advanced towards Sharpe, the knife held in an underhand grip. It looked like a reasonably experienced move, as though he knew how to use the knife, and Sharpe instinctively edged backward, towards the railing by the side of the causeway.
“Thanks,” Jon said, with his teeth bared in a snarl. “It’s going to be easier to get rid of you with you standing there. Just stay where you are and don’t move. There’s a good boy.” He lashed out with the knife in a slashing movement, and Sharpe instinctively raised a hand to guard his face. The tip of
the knife grazed the back of his hand, and Sharpe felt a searing pain.
Jon chuckled and took a step further, thrusting with the knife this time.
“One more question,” said Sharpe. He really didn’t expect any answers at this stage, but he was desperately trying to buy time before his deus ex machina in the form of Kurokawa and his men arrived to save him.
“All right,” said Jon. “I suppose I’m feeling in a generous mood today, I suppose. Ask away.”
“How did Kim die?”
Jon shook his head. “Not guilty there, either. Crazy bitch,” he added.
“Tomiko? Why?”
“I suppose you know by now that there’s a whole shitload of money out there which the Kims stashed away some time back?” Sharpe nodded. “She didn’t want to share what she saw as her wealth with a whole load of North Korean apparatchiks. She wanted to pay the money and get as much out for herself as possible. He really did want to do something about changing the country, you know, silly sod, even if it wasn’t the exact story he might have told you. A lot of that money that he wanted to retrieve would have stayed in Korea, lining the pockets of some senior army officers, and some would have gone to grease some palms in China. She didn’t want that. They argued. She picked up a knife. She was fast. He was too slow. End of story. RIP. Happy now?”
Hardly the word Sharpe would have chosen to describe his feelings at that moment, but he nodded, and Jon suddenly lunged forward, leading with his knife hand.
Sharpe wasn’t going to try to block the knife, but he thought he might be able to catch Jon’s wrist and twist the weapon out of his hand. Faint hope. Jon’s hand shot out and back far too fast for Sharpe to have any chance to even think about catching it. He was quick enough to avoid the thrust, though, as he stepped sidewise and back.
Jon lunged again, using only his arm, and Sharpe took one more step back, stumbling over a pile of garbage that had probably been swept up the previous evening, waiting to be picked up that morning. His shaky legs gave way under him, and he fell to his knees. He put his hands down on the ground to push himself up to his feet again.
“Don’t bother, it’s a waste of time and effort,” came the mocking voice. Jon crouched down so his face was only slightly above Sharpe’s eye level, and the knife was at about throat level. Throat-cutting level, Sharpe corrected himself in his thoughts. His left hand, behind his back, came into contact with something in the pile of garbage that felt long and hard and round, and gripped it tightly. Bringing his hand forward, he discovered that he was holding a toy wooden sword, of the type often sold as a souvenir at Japanese tourist spots. About three inches had broken off the tip – presumably the reason why it had been thrown away. As a weapon against a knife, it was pretty pathetic. Still, it felt better than nothing, even if it was only as a psychological prop.
Sharpe had studied kendo, but that didn’t seem to be any use in the present situation. Kendo is a martial art that depends on movement for most of its effect, and kneeling isn’t a recognized kendo stance. However, a kendo friend had introduced him to the basics of iaidō – the art of drawing a sword, often from a sitting or kneeling position, and killing one’s enemy swiftly –and if ever there was an occasion for this obsolete and somewhat unusual martial art, this was it. Sharpe straightened up his kneeling position, and held the wooden sword by his side. Jon laughed. “Never give up, do you?” The knife waved hypnotically from side to side in front of Sharpe’s face. Sharpe went through the movements of the first and easiest iaidō exercise, which was the only one he could bring to mind. Happily, that was the one which actually seemed most appropriate for the current situation.
He used his right hand to grab the sword and slash it in a horizontal arc in front of him, missing Jon’s face by a matter of inches, making him draw back in surprise as Sharpe rose to one knee.
“What the—?” but Sharpe had already raised the sword above his head and, sliding forward while kneeling, brought it down two-handed with a loud crack on Jon’s shaved head. The sharp splintered tip gouged a deep gash in Jon’s skull as it slid off, and landed hard on his collarbone with another crack. The knife dropped out of Jon’s hand as his left arm clutched his right shoulder.
“You fucking bastard, Sharpe. What the hell did you want to go and do that for?” Sharpe noticed that Jon’s eyes appeared to be unfocused, staring into space. The blood from the cut on his scalp was pouring down his face, giving him a truly ghastly appearance, like something out of a cheap horror film.
As Sharpe scrambled to his feet, Jon appeared to notice him, and made a lunge in his general direction, but Sharpe managed to avoid the blind rush easily. He felt like a bullfighter, but the bull appeared to be on its last legs.
“Where the hell are you?” Jon’s face was now a mask of the blood which was welling from his lacerated scalp, and Sharpe could hardly see his eyes. “Why has it gone dark?” He seemed to focus on Sharpe and made another charge. Sharpe stepped aside in another matador-like move, dropping the wooden sword, and Jon careered past him to the railing, which caught him at about the level of his waist. He doubled over, seemingly staring at the heaving sea below.
“I can’t see a fucking thing. Jesus. I spend over two fucking years setting up this whole bloody thing, and I end up getting hit on the head with a fucking stick. Christ, Sharpe, where are you, you bastard?”
“I’m here,” said Sharpe behind him. “Get away from that rail or you’ll fall in.”
“What the fuck do you care about it?” asked Jon. “I’m fucked anyway. Hell, I can see those fucking mantises again. Been seeing them every night for months now. Oh, shit. There’s no way I’m going to get out of this, is there?” He leaned further over the rail and then, suddenly, he was in the water below. The long leather coat floated obscenely behind him like some sort of weird sea creature, impeding his movements.
“Fucking cold in here. Don’t bother coming in after me,” he called up to Sharpe, before his nose and mouth went under the waves. Sharpe could hear noises now. The sputter of the motor of the fishing boat he had noticed earlier got louder, and the fishermen in it were shouting to Jon, calling to him to swim towards them. Waste of time, thought Sharpe, he can’t hear you with most of his head underwater.
He’d half-noticed some of Tomiko’s thugs running towards him from the mainland side of the causeway as he started his attack on Jon with the wooden sword. Now he heard the sound of a siren, and saw that the gang members had slowed their pace. A police car was coming up the causeway towards him. About time, he thought, and continued watching the fishing boat, which had reached the place where Jon’s body had sunk and had throttled back the engine. Two men in the bow of the boat were fishing with poles and nets, and as he watched, he saw Jon’s limp body brought to the surface.
He was hardly aware of the siren’s noise getting louder, and the car screeching to a halt behind him until he felt hands gripping his shoulders.
“Oh, it’s a foreigner,” he heard a voice say. In slow, careful Japanese, the voice added, “Turn round slowly, and put your hands in the air.” Sharpe did so, with a feeling of déjà vu.
“Where is Kurokawa-san?” he asked the more senior-looking policeman.
“Who is that?” came the reply. “I don’t know any Kurokawa-san.”
“Then why are you here?” Sharpe asked, astonished.
“Those fishermen saw a fight and called the emergency number on their mobile phones. Our car was nearby, so we came. Now please get in the car.”
Sharpe did as he was told. There was little point in arguing.
-oOo-
Chapter 20: Shonan
At the Fujisawa police station, Sharpe was pushed into a small room with a table and two chairs, and told to sit on the chair facing the door and wait. He was left alone, listening to the sounds of the police station coming to life. He looked at his watch. Not even eight o’clock yet.
The door opened, and a senior-looking uniformed officer entered. Sharpe stood up and bowed d
eeply. It seemed like a sensible thing to do, and from the reaction, was the right thing to do under the circumstances. The officer grunted in surprise and bowed back.
“Sit down,” he said. “Your name and address, please.”
Sharpe provided these details, together with one or two other pieces of general information. There was no move on the other’s part to introduce himself. He might have been an automaton playing an assigned role and used few words except to ask the routine questions. He did, however, seem to possess a fairly wide vocabulary, in the form of grunts, which he used to respond to Sharpe’s answers as he wrote them down.
“Now, who is this Kurokawa you were talking about? And what has been going on?”
Sharpe decided to ignore the second question for the moment. “He’s someone I know in Tokyo who works with a special police department. I think it would help if you were to speak with him.”
A grunt from the repertoire. “Do you have his number?”
“Of course. Here you are.” Sharpe passed over Kurokawa’s card, which, like “Sugita’s” card that he had been given what now seemed like years ago, contained little except the two characters for Kurokawa’s name and a mobile phone number. Kurokawa had added his e-mail address, though.
“Thank you.” He picked up the phone on the desk and started to dial. Pray God that he’s awake and his phone’s in range, thought Sharpe to himself. His prayers were answered – the phone was obviously picked up on the second ring. Sharpe’s interrogator introduced himself, and then suddenly reacted to what was being said on the other end. He sat up straight in his chair (Sharpe wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as “sitting at attention”, but the phrase certainly seemed to fit here) and started answering in short sharp monosyllables. After a few minutes of this, he passed the phone to Sharpe.
“He wants to talk to you,” and bowed as the phone changed hands.
“What the hell are you doing in Fujisawa police station? You’re not meant to be there until this evening.”
