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.
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.
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-