by Barry Eisler
Okay, change of plan. I saved the message, hung up, and called Midori. I told her I had found out something important and would tell her about it when I got back, that she should wait for me even if I was late. Then I backtracked to Sugamo, once notorious as the site of a SCAP prison for Japanese war criminals, now better known for its red-light district and accompanying love hotels.
I picked the hotel closest to Sengoku. The room they gave me was dank. I didn’t care. I just wanted a landline—so I wouldn’t have to worry about my mobile phone battery dying—and a place to wait.
I dialed the phone in my apartment. It didn’t ring, but I could hear when the connection had gone through. I sat and waited, listening, but after a half hour there still wasn’t any sound and I started to wonder if they’d left. Then I heard a chair sliding against the wood floor, footsteps, and the unmistakable sound of a man urinating in the toilet. They were still there.
I sat like that all day, listening in on nothing. The only consolation was that they must have been as bored as I was. I hoped they were as hungry.
At around 6:30, while I was doing some judo stretches to keep limber, I heard a phone ring on the other end of the line. Benny answered, grunted a few times, then said, “I have something in Shibakoen—shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
I heard his buddy answer, “Hai,” but I wasn’t really listening anymore. If Benny was going to Shibakoen, he’d take the Mita subway south from Sengoku Station. He wouldn’t have driven; public transportation is lower profile, and there’s nowhere for nonresidents to park in Sengoku anyway. From my apartment to the station, he could choose more or less randomly from a half-dozen parallel and perpendicular streets—one of the reasons I had originally chosen the place. The station was too crowded; I couldn’t intercept him there. Besides, I didn’t know what he looked like—I had to catch him leaving the apartment or I would lose him.
I bolted out of the room and flew down the stairs. When I hit the sidewalk, I cut straight across Hakusan-dori, then made a left on the artery that would take me to my street. I was running as fast as I could while hugging the buildings I passed—if I timed this wrong and Benny emerged at the wrong moment, he was going to see me coming. He knew where I lived, and I couldn’t be certain any longer that he wouldn’t know my face.
When I was about fifteen meters from my street I slowed to a walk, staying close to the exterior wall surrounding a house, controlling my breathing. At the corner I crouched low and eased my head out, looking to the right. No sign of Benny. No more than four minutes had passed since I’d hung up the phone. I was pretty sure I hadn’t missed him.
There was a streetlight directly overhead, but I had to wait where I was. I didn’t know whether he’d make a right or left leaving the building, and I had to be able to see him when he exited. Once I’d gotten my hands on him I could drag him into the shadows.
My breathing had slowed to normal when I heard the external door to the building slam shut. I smiled. The residents know the door slams and are careful to let it close slowly.
I crouched down again and peered past the edge of the wall. A pudgy Japanese was walking briskly in my direction. The same guy I had seen with the attaché case in the subway station at Jinbocho. Benny. I should have known.
I stood and waited, listening to his footsteps getting louder. When he sounded like he was about a meter away, I stepped out into the intersection.
He pulled up short, his eyes bulging. He knew my face, all right. Before he could say anything, I stepped in close, pumping two uppercuts into his abdomen. He dropped to the ground with a grunt. I stepped behind him, grabbed his right hand, and twisted his wrist in a pain-compliance hold. I gave it a sharp jerk and he yelped.
“On your feet, Benny. Move fast, or I’ll break your arm.” I gave his wrist another hard jerk to emphasize the point. He wheezed and hauled himself up, making sucking noises.
I shoved him around the corner, put him face-first against the wall, and quickly patted him down. In his overcoat pocket I found a mobile phone, which I took, but that was all.
I gave a last jerk on his arm, then spun him around and slammed him against the wall. He grunted but still hadn’t recovered enough wind to do more. I pinched his windpipe with the fingers of one hand and took an undergrip on his balls with the other.
“Benny. Listen very carefully.” He started to struggle, and I pinched his windpipe harder. He got the message. “I want to know what’s going on. I want names, and they better be names I know.”
I relaxed both grips a little, and he sucked in his breath. “I can’t tell you this stuff, you know that,” he wheezed.
I gripped his throat again. “Benny, I’m not going to hurt you if you tell me what I want to know. But if you don’t tell me, I’ve got to blame you, understand? Tell me quick, no one’s going to know.” Again, a little more pressure on the throat—this time, cutting off all his oxygen for a few seconds. I told him to nod if he understood, and after a second or two with no air, he did. I waited another second anyway, and when the nodding got vigorous, I eased off the pressure.
“Holtzer, Holtzer,” he rasped. “Bill Holtzer.”
It was an effort, but I revealed no surprise at the sound of the name. “Who’s Holtzer?”
He looked at me, his eyes wide. “You know him! From Vietnam, that’s what he told me.”
“What’s he doing in Tokyo?”
“He’s CIA. Tokyo Chief of Station.”
Chief of Station? Unbelievable. He obviously still knew just which asses to kiss.
“You’re a CIA asset, Benny? You?”
“They pay me,” he said, breathing hard. “I needed the money.”
“Why is he coming after me?” I asked, searching his eyes. Holtzer and I had tangled when we were in Vietnam, but he’d come out on top in the end. I couldn’t see how he’d still be carrying a grudge, even if I still carried mine.
“He said you know where to find a disk. I’m supposed to get it back.”
“What disk?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that in the wrong hands it would be detrimental to the national security of the United States.”
“Try not to sound like the Stepford bureaucrat, Benny. Tell me what’s on the disk.”
“I don’t know! Holtzer didn’t tell me. It’s need-to-know, you know that, why would he have told me? I’m just an asset, no one tells me these things.”
“Who’s the guy in my apartment with you?”
“What guy—” he started to say, but I snapped his windpipe shut before he could finish. He tried to suck in air, tried to push me away, but he couldn’t. After a few seconds I eased off the pressure.
“If I have to ask you something twice again, or if you try to lie to me again, Benny, it’s going to cost you. Who is the guy in my apartment?”
“I don’t know him,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut and swallowing. “He’s with the Boeicho Boeikyoku. Holtzer handles the liaison. He just told me to take the guy to your apartment so we could question you.”
The Boeicho Boeikyoku, or Bureau of Defense Policy, National Defense Agency, is Japan’s CIA.
“Why were you following me in Jinbocho?” I asked.
“Surveillance. Trying to locate the disk.”
“How did you find out where I live?”
“Holtzer gave me the address.”
“How did he get it?”
“I don’t know. He just gave it to me.”
“What’s your involvement?”
“Questions. Just questions. Finding the disk.”
“What were you supposed to do with me after you were done asking me your questions?”
“Nothing. They just want the disk.”
I pinched his windpipe shut again. “Bullshit, Benny, not even you could be that stupid. You knew what was going to happen afterward, even if you wouldn’t have the balls to do it yourself.”
It was coming together. I could see it. Holtzer tells Benny to take this Boeikyo
ku guy to my apartment to “question” me. Benny figures out what’s going to happen. The little bureaucrat is scared, but he’s caught in the middle. Maybe he rationalizes that it’s not really his affair. Besides, Mr. Boeikyoku would take care of the wet stuff; Benny wouldn’t even have to watch.
The cowardly little weasel. I squeezed his balls suddenly and hard, and he would have cried out if I hadn’t had the grip on his throat. Then I let go in both places and he spilled to the ground, retching.
“Okay, Benny, here’s what you’re going to do,” I said. “You’re going to call your buddy at my apartment. I know he has a mobile phone. Tell him you’re calling from the subway station. I’ve been spotted and he needs to meet you at the station immediately. Use my exact words. If you use your own words or I hear you say anything that doesn’t fit with that message, I’ll kill you. Do it right and you can go.” Of course, it was always possible these guys used an all-clear code, the absence of which indicated a problem, but I didn’t think they were that smart. Besides, I hadn’t heard anything like an all-clear code on the call Benny got in my apartment.
He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. “You’ll let me go?”
“If you do this letter-perfect.” I handed him his phone.
He did it, just like I told him. His voice sounded pretty steady. I took the phone back when he was done. He was still looking up at me from his knees. “I can go now?” he said.
Then he saw my eyes. “You promised! You promised!” he panted. “Please, I was only following orders.” He actually said it.
“Orders are a bitch,” I said, looking down at him.
He was starting to hyperventilate. “Don’t kill me! I have a wife and children!”
My hips were already shifting into position. “I’ll have someone send flowers,” I whispered, and blasted the knife edge of my hand into the back of his neck. I felt the vertebrae splinter and he spasmed, then slumped to the ground.
There was nothing I could do but leave him there. But my apartment was already blown. I was going to have to find another anyway, so the heat this would bring to Sengoku would be as irrelevant as it was unavoidable.
I stepped over the body and took a few steps back to the parking area I’d passed. I heard the door to my building slam shut.
The front of the parking area was roped off, and the ropes were strung across pylons planted in sand. I grabbed a fistful from around one of the pylons and returned to my position at the corner of the wall, peeking out past the edge. I didn’t see Benny’s buddy. Shit, he’d made a right down the narrow alley connecting my street with the one parallel to it, about fifteen meters from my apartment. I had expected him to stick to the main roads.
This was a problem. He was ahead of me now, and there was nowhere I could set up for him and wait. Besides, I didn’t even know what he looked like. If he made it to the main artery by the station, I wouldn’t be able to separate him from all the other people. It had to be now.
I sprinted down my street, pulling up short at the alley. I flashed my head past the corner and saw a solitary figure walking away from me.
I scanned the ground, looking for a weapon. Nothing the right size for a club. Too bad.
I turned into the alley, about seven meters behind him. He was wearing a waist-length leather jacket and had a squat, powerful build. Even from behind, I could see his neck was massive. He was carrying something with him—a cane, it looked like. Not good. The sand had better do the trick.
I had closed the gap to about three meters and was just getting ready to call out to him when he looked back over his shoulder. I hadn’t made a sound, and I’d been keeping my eyes off him for the most part and diverting my attention. There’s an old, animal part of you that can sense when you’re being hunted. I’d learned that in the war. But I’d also learned not to give off the vibrations that set off a person’s alarm bells. This guy had sensitive antennae.
He turned and faced me, and I could see the confusion in his expression. Benny had said I’d been spotted at the station, but now I was coming from the other direction. He was trying to clear the disparity with the central computer.
I noted he had cauliflower ears, puffed out and disfigured from repeated blows. Japanese judoka and kendoka don’t believe in protective gear; practitioners sometimes wear their scarred lobes, which they develop from head butts in judo and bamboo sword blows in kendo, like badges of honor. Awareness of his possible skills registered at some level of my consciousness.
I used everything I had to project that I was just Joe Pedestrian wanting to go around him, to buy myself the extra second. I moved to the left, took two more steps. Caught the recognition hardening on his face. Saw the cane start to come up, his left foot driving forward to add power to the blow.
I flung the sand in his face and leaped aside. His head recoiled but the cane kept coming; a split second later it snapped down in a blur. Despite the power of the blow he brought it up short when it failed to connect with his target, and then, with the same fluid speed, he cut through the air horizontally. I moved back diagonally, off the line of attack, staying on my toes. I could see him grimacing, his eyes squeezed shut. The sand had hit him squarely. Keeping his hands from wiping his eyes showed a lot of training. But he couldn’t see.
He took a cautious step forward, the cane on guard. Tears were streaming from his wounded eyes. He could tell I was in front of him but he didn’t know where.
I had to wait until he was past me to make my move. I’d seen how fast he was with the cane.
He held his position, his nostrils flaring as though he was trying to catch my scent. Jesus, how is he keeping himself from wiping his eyes? I thought. He must be in agony.
With a loud kiyai he leaped forward, slashing horizontally at ankle level. But he’d guessed wrong; I was farther back. Then, just as suddenly, he took two long steps backward, his left hand coming loose from the cane and desperately wiping at his eyes.
That’s what I’d been waiting for. I plunged in, raising my right fist for a hammer blow to his clavicle. I brought it down hard, but at the last instant he shifted slightly, his trapezius muscles taking the impact. I followed with a left elbow strike, trying for the sphenoid but connecting mostly with his ear.
Before I could get in another blow, he had whipped the cane around behind me and grabbed it with his free hand. Then he yanked me into him with a bear hug, the cane slicing into my back. He arched back and my feet left the ground. My breath was driven out of me. Pain exploded in my kidneys.
I fought the urge to force myself away, knowing I couldn’t match his strength. Instead, I wrapped my arms around his neck and swung my legs up behind his back. The cane felt like it was going to cut through my spine.
The move surprised him and he lost his balance. He took a step back, releasing the cane and pinwheeling his left arm. I crossed my legs behind his back and dropped my weight suddenly, forcing him to overcorrect and pitch forward onto me. We hit the ground hard. I was underneath and took most of the impact. But now we were in my parlor.
I grabbed a cross grip on the lapels of his jacket and slammed in gyaku-jujime, one of the first strangles a judoka learns. He reacted instantly, releasing the cane and going for my eyes. I whipped my head back and forth, trying to avoid his fingers, using my legs to control his torso. At one point he grabbed one of my ears but I yanked loose.
The choke wasn’t perfect. I had more windpipe than carotid, and he fought for a long time, his groping getting more desperate. But there was nothing he could do. I kept the grip even after he had stopped struggling, rotating my head to see if anyone was coming. Nobody.
When I was sure we were well past the point where he could be playing dead, I released the grip and kicked out from under him. Christ, he was heavy. I slid away and stood, my back screaming from the cane, my breath heaving in ragged gasps.
I knew from long experience he wasn’t dead. People black out from strangles in the dojo with some regularity; it’s not a serious thing
. If the unconsciousness is deep, like this one was, then you need to sit them up and slap them on the back, do a little CPR to get them breathing again.
This guy was going to have to find someone else to jump-start his battery. I would have liked to question him, but this was no Benny.
I squatted, one hand on the ground to steady myself, and went through his pockets. Found a mobile phone in his jacket, and the pepper spray. Other than that, I came up empty.
I stood, pulses of pain shooting through my back, and started walking toward my apartment. Two schoolgirls in their blue sailor uniforms were passing just as I emerged from the alley and turned left onto my street. Their mouths dropped when they saw me, but I ignored them. Why were they staring like that? I reached up with my hand, felt the wetness on my cheek. Shit, I was bleeding. He’d scratched the hell out of my face.
I walked to my building as quickly as I could, wincing as I went up the two flights of steps. I let myself in, then wet a washcloth at the bathroom sink and wiped some of the blood off my face. The image staring back at me from the mirror looked bad, and it was going to be a while before it started to look better.
The apartment felt strange. It had always been a haven, an anonymous safe house. Now it had been exposed, by Holtzer and the Agency—two ghosts from a past I thought I’d left behind. I needed to know why they were after me. Professional? Personal? With Holtzer, probably both.
I grabbed the things I needed, shoved them into a bag, and headed for the door, turning once to glance around before leaving. Everything looked the same as always; there was no sign of the people who’d been here. I wondered if I would see the place again.
Outside, I headed in the direction of Sugamo. From there I could catch the Yamanote line back to Shibuya, back to Midori. Maybe the mobile phones would provide some clues.
CHAPTER 13
By the time I reached the hotel, the pain in my back had become a dull throbbing. My left eye was swollen—he’d gotten a finger in it at one point—and my head ached, probably from when he’d tried to tear loose one of my ears.
