Beijing
China
Kaito Yoshima walked to the bar in the corner of his living room and poured two drinks. Randi hung back. She had her phone in her hand and her thumb hovering over the touchscreen but was still starting to regret suggesting coming back to the condo. Who knew what surprises he’d built into the place? She’d given him the home-field advantage.
He walked over to her and held out a crystal glass filled with what was undoubtedly very good scotch. She just shook her head.
“It’s not drugged, Randi. You have my word.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you, Kaito. Of course not. It’s the calories, you know?”
He smiled and fell onto a sofa, patting the cushion next to him. She took a chair opposite, keeping a heavy coffee table between them.
“So can I assume you’re here because the CIA suspects that I had something to do with the attempt on Masao Takahashi?”
It was a good bet, but she actually had no idea what agency analysts had come up with on that. It did provide a convenient way into this interrogation, though. A bit of misdirection.
“Shouldn’t we?”
He waved a hand dismissively as though the attempted assassination of Japan’s ranking soldier was too trivial a topic to dwell on. “We don’t get paid enough for this, Randi. More and more we’ve become the eminently expendable pawns of insane and stupid men whose only interest is to cling to power.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
“Have you ever thought about leaving the government and taking your skills private?”
“It occasionally crosses my mind.”
“I think about it more and more every day. And now…” He fell silent for a moment. “They’re going to lose control of this situation, Randi. And when they do, millions are going to die. For nothing. For a piece of political theater meant to keep people’s minds off their real problems.”
“Pick a category of people and tell the masses that everything wrong with their lives is that group’s fault,” Randi said. “It’s been a winning message for thousands of years.”
“With terrible consequences even when humans were limited to swords and clubs.” He took a sip of his drink. “My country has always been difficult to govern. Too big, too diverse, too opportunistic. Frankly, too racist. The government has bribed the population with economic growth but that growth is unsustainable. And now that it’s beginning to falter we face a very dangerous situation. Perhaps even the breakup of China. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
“And if your country broke up, where would you go, Kaito?”
He crossed his legs and spread his arms across the back of the sofa. “I thought perhaps Japan, but I don’t belong there either. I don’t belong anywhere.”
“So, a mercenary.”
“What better job for a man without a country?”
Randi nodded silently. As was so often the case with Yoshima, what was most interesting about this conversation was what was missing: a denial of his involvement in the Takahashi assassination attempt.
“China’s banging the war drum,” Randi said. “But like you say, it’s only for show. Everybody knows it except—”
“General Takahashi,” Yoshima said, finishing her thought. “He’s a brilliant man. His grasp of technology, strategy, history, and the art of war is unparalleled. In many ways he’s a perfect military being. If he’d led the Japanese during World War Two, I wonder if things would have gone as well for America.”
“Lucky we were allies by the time he enlisted.”
Yoshima finished his drink and reached for the one he’d poured Randi. “His family was one of the wealthiest and most powerful in Japan before the war. MacArthur considered them part of the feudal system that had created Imperial Japan and stripped them of everything. Did you know that? Takahashi’s childhood was one of cold and hunger. His family was forced to find shelter with former servants and do hard labor just to survive.”
“I guess you can’t keep a good man down.”
“Clearly. His father began rebuilding his empire almost immediately—during the American occupation. At first his business affairs were less than legal but eventually he managed to legitimize them. Now the family is once again one of the wealthiest and most powerful in Japan.”
“I’m not sure I understand, Kaito. If Takahashi’s as smart as you make out, why isn’t he playing the game? Why is he courting a confrontation that would turn into a disaster for his country?”
“I admit that it’s perplexing. Perhaps his mind is going. Sometimes the past looms large to the elderly. The defeat at the hands of the Americans, the years of humiliation, the loss of self-determination.” He smiled. “All things too complex to be considered by crude weapons like ourselves, right, Randi? Now, where were we before I was diverted into this subject? I believe it was our business enterprise.”
“And what enterprise is that?”
“Think about it, Randi. You and me. Hanging out our…roof tile.”
“Shingle.”
“Of course. Shingle. We would name our own price and be turning away work within twenty-four hours of moving into our luxury office suite. I was thinking Dubrovnik. Lovely place. But of course I’m open to suggestion. Paris? Rome? Istanbul? The world is our…Help me. I find American idioms so challenging. It’s not clam…”
“Oyster.”
“Precisely.”
The dull thump of helicopter rotors became audible and Yoshima laid down his drink to walk to the window. “We’d have the power to choose our jobs. Think of it. Nothing we aren’t interested in. Nothing we don’t believe in. I’d rather trust my own conscience than—”
Suddenly he was in motion, diving to the right and slamming a hand into what looked like a blank section of wall. A moment later a series of steel curtains fell from the ceiling, covering the windows.
Startled, Randi grabbed the Glock from her bag but then spun at the sound of a battering ram hitting the front door. The crack of splintering wood accompanied the first impact, but the second blow generated the dull ring of steel on steel. Clearly not the stock condo door.
When she turned back, Yoshima was calmly punching a code into a safe set into the floor. He pulled out a Sig Sauer and a small bag that Randi assumed was full of passports, fake credit cards, and cash. She had similar bags stashed all over the world.
“You must have been recognized at the airport. I was afraid that might happen.”
“Then why the hell did we come back here?”
“Where better? Besides, I thought perhaps we’d have a few drinks, some conversation…” He studied her for a moment. “Who knows where it might have led?”
The hammering on the door continued, growing louder as the men holding the ram became increasingly frustrated. The sound of machine-gun fire erupted outside and the metal curtains billowed inward with the impact. She dived over a chair and flattened herself against the floor, slithering forward to see if Yoshima had been hit.
He was just standing there, looking calmly down at her.
“It’s an internal security helicopter,” he shouted over the sound of bullets slamming into steel. “I assure you that I’m quite familiar with them and they don’t have anything on board powerful enough to penetrate.” He pointed toward the door behind her. “That, though, could be a problem.”
She stood and looked back, seeing that the door was now bowing dangerously with every impact.
“Can I assume you have a way out?”
“Maybe,” he said, starting for the kitchen with her close behind. “But more important, what do you think about my proposal?”
“Which? Going into business together or going to bed together?”
He paused for what seemed like an inordinately long time in their current situation. “Both.”
She had to admit that he was an attractive guy and intriguing as hell. “Bed, maybe. But I’m thinking no on the business idea.”
He smiled and went for a pantry-sized cabinet next to the stove. “It’s an answer I can live with.”
The machine guns out front fell silent but the hammering on the door got even louder, and the shouts of the men on the other side were no longer fully muffled.
“That remains to be seen, Kaito.”