*  *  *  *  *

Even before Eve got off the elevator she heard loud music.  Then she realized it was coming from Hashimoto's suite.  Something was wrong.  She eased herself forward and quietly stood in front of the door.  She heard a muffled pounding.

Eve raced to the end of the hall and started sprinting down the stairs.  The elevator would be too slow.  It took only a minute to reach the lobby.  She hurried over to the desk clerk who had let her into Hashimoto's safe, just minutes ago.  She explained that Hashimoto would fire her if she didn't get an important document she had forgotten.  Eve guessed she looked very upset because the woman led her straight back to the room with the safes.  Eve took a large torn canvas bag out of the safe.  For extra protection she also took two sensitive documents that she had previously scanned.

Eve thanked the woman and then hurried to a courtesy phone in the lobby.  She asked for the hotel doctor.  She said that there was an emergency in Mr.  Hashimoto's penthouse suite.  She raced up the stairs again.

Eve was too concerned about Sabrina to wait for the doctor.  The music was still obtrusive in the elegant surroundings of the plush hallway, so Eve knocked sharply.  One of the Hulks poked his head out.  He opened the door.

Eve walked in.  It was like something out of the Twilight Zone.  All the furniture had been replaced in the sitting room and Hashimoto was now dressed in a business suite, as were the bodyguards. 

Eve believed that Sabrina had been imprisoned in the bathroom, the only place they could hold her.  She found it ominous that she couldn't hear any noise from there. 

"Ms.  Miller,"  Hashimoto said, as if greeting a guest at a dinner party.  "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I destroyed the negatives.  And the investigation reports from the CIA.  Now we'll leave."

Hashimoto went over to the wall and turned the music dial down.  The blatant instrumental tones quieted.  He stood looking at her, a smile quirking his thick lips.

"I don't believe you want to leave without your sister."

Hashimoto motioned with an arm and all the bodyguards left the room except for Kokuro, who was now lying down on a sofa across the room. 

Hashimoto casually pulled the gun Sabrina had been holding out of his pocket.

Eve looked around the room.  There had been three bodyguards in the room just now, so one was missing.  She walked into the bedroom and then went to the bathroom.  Both were empty.  When she came back into the sitting room, Hashimoto had not moved. 

"Mr.  Hashimoto, kidnapping is a federal offense, punishable by many years in prison."

"Sabrina went quite willingly.  I wanted to negotiate with you alone."

"There's nothing to negotiate.  I'm not willing to go to Japan.  I have destroyed all the pictures and documents concerning my sister and I.  I want you to stop this whole thing, right now, and bring Sabrina back.  I had to get those pictures, as they implicate me in hurting a Soviet spy."

Hashimoto might not have heard her as he went on implacably.  "If you do not come to Japan, I'm afraid your sister is going to be involved in a very terrible accident."

The bodyguards were outside so they couldn't hear his threats.  Hashimoto still thought they were easy prey.

"The important thing,"  Hashimoto continued, "is that you will be on a plane to Tokyo with me this evening, or your sister...well, it will be very sad, what happens to her."

With that pronouncement Hashimoto gave his horrible crocodile smile.

There was a knock on the door.  Eve ran and opened it before Hashimoto could move.

Eve was pleased to see her phone call had been taken seriously.  A grey haired, middle aged man was at the door with a black doctor's bag.  Behind him were two attendants with a folding stretcher.  Clustered around them were Hashimoto's three bodyguards.

"Where's the injured man?"

Eve nodded at Kokuro lying across the room. 

The men with the stretcher came inside and started unfolding it.  In a few moments the doctor had the top part of Kokuro's Gi off and was gently probing with his fingers.

"Who did this to you?"  The doctor asked angrily. 

Kokuro shook his head as if he did not understand English.

Hashimoto walked over to the doctor and said, "I have a medical doctor on my staff who will take care of my employee.  You may be assured he will get the best of care."

"He has to go to a hospital.  He may have internal injuries.  The broken ribs are the least of it.  Has he been in an accident? He has several wounds."  The doctor was probing, talking to himself.  "It looks like he was beaten up.  The cheek bone is fractured, also." 

The doctor turned to Hashimoto after the examination and wanted to know how Kokuro had been injured.  Eve watched as Hashimoto tried to get out of assuming responsibility.  Finally she told the doctor about the karate match. 

Hashimoto kept glancing at her with deadly hatred, then switching back and smiling at the doctor, saying that she was totally mistaken.  Kokuro did have a karate match with him.  But he fell down the stairs when he went back to his room.

The doctor's eyebrows were expressive, as if he had heard the story about victims falling downstairs countless times in wife and child abuse cases.  What was astonishing was that Kokuro was so large, and Hashimoto so small.  He frowned as he helped his attendants move Kokuro onto the stretcher.

When the doctor had left, Eve thought Hashimoto was going to have a seizure.  She watched with interest.  Usually he conveyed emotions with expressions that revealed nothing, or even the opposite of what he was feeling.  Now, Eve thought, she was seeing the true man. 

Hashimoto strode around the room ranting in Japanese.  He used words Eve had never heard, so she assumed it was Japanese profanity.  Arms chopped and spittle flew, but she got the general drift of his violent bombastic outpouring.  Hashimoto was furious with the loss of face he received when the doctor, an American, had understood that he, a respected educated business man from Japan, had beaten up one of his employees. 

After a while Hashimoto seemed to lose energy and ranted more softly.  Finally he turned, looking straight at her, pointed his finger and shouted, "You."

Eve almost jumped with surprise.

"This is all your fault.  You called the doctor, didn't you.  You...."  He was speaking in Japanese and didn't seem to know it.  She saw him start to work himself up into a rage.

A sharp slap across the face is good for a person out of emotional control, but Eve suspected the one bodyguard who had remained in the room would misconstrue her action and think she was attacking Hashimoto.  She didn't want to use a counter-blackmail scheme with his documents.  He would know she could read and understand Japanese.  And as for the money she had taken, she only wanted to use it as a distasteful way of paying for Sabrina's freedom as a last resort. 

She could, of course, threaten to hurt him.  He knew she was quite capable of violence.  But Hashimoto had put the gun in his pocket when the doctor arrived.  He might take it out and fire it in his present state of mind, which Eve considered quite unbalanced.  Also, Eve had no idea how strong she really was and if she hurt him badly, it would be satisfying, but she might not find out where he had taken Sabrina.

"You,"  Eve shrieked at the top of her voice.  Hashimoto stood looking at her, quiet for the moment, so she continued shouting.  "You have kidnapped my sister and have threatened a lethal accident unless I go to Japan.  I'm calling the police."

"Don't get hysterical." 

"I'll get as hysterical as I want,"  Eve screamed, wishing she could make spittle fly.  Still, she kept yelling to keep Hashimoto from going into another rage.  "I will not go to Japan with you."

She hoped screaming would be effective, if only for a little while.  If he was afraid someone would hear her, he might try to negotiate.  Also, if he thought she was hysterical, he might really believe she would call the police, so Eve played it up for all she was worth.

"Calm yourself,"  Hashimoto said caustically when Eve's raw throat finally forced her to stop.  She had been letting him know that he had terrible table manners, used his employees for sadistic sport, and that he was a dirty underhanded crook to try to put Sabrina out of business, not to mention threatening her life.

"I know you didn't have time to get rid of the documents.  Or the pictures.  Maybe I'll let Sabrina go.  If you will give me your purse and let me have those items."

Eve held on to her purse tightly.  "You can have this purse and everything in it, if you bring Sabrina back.  We'll trade."

"I want it now."

Eve shook her head.

"Perhaps you would like to renegotiate the contract.  I would be willing to give you a more substantial salary."

I will be in no condition to collect, Eve thought.

Hashimoto had regained his somewhat precarious emotional balance and painted rosy pictures of what her life would be like in Japan.  The traveling.  The food.  The wonderful opportunities she had awaiting her.

It was too risky to infuriate him further.  Sabrina was missing and in his control.

Eve nodded, "I'll go to Japan."