Chameleon (32 page)

‘Is there a message?’ Hooker said.

Garvey took out a piece of paper. ‘It says: “The fish will eat the fisherman.”

Hate boiled in Hooker’s throat, and with a mighty slash of the letter opener, he decapitated the lizard.

2

They had flown from Miami to San Francisco and taken the Great Circle flight over the Pole to Tokyo. Then they collapsed for two days. The pickings were slim. The Magician was going to check out Red Bridges’ shipyard and then snoop around, see what he could dig up. Eliza had a lunch date with Ira Yerkes, the Tokyo bureau chief for Howe News Service, hoping to pick up some background on AMRAN. 0’ Hara set out to find an old friend in Japanese army intelligence. As usual, they would use the hotel telephone as a drop in case of emergency.

She had interviewed Yerkes two years before, while he was back in Boston on vacation. He was tall arid slender, in his late thirties, and hyper; a darkly handsome man who could hardly sit still long enough to eat lunch. He hadn’t changed a bit. She remembered him as a man buzzing with energy and mildly flirtatious, but who acted as if he always had someplace else to go — right that minute, and not necessarily on business, just anyplace at all. It was his nature, and possibly because of it, he was one of the best reporters in the Howe chain.

He picked up some sandwiches in an American-style restaurant and led her to a small park at the edge of the Ginza, near his office building, spread out the food like a picnic and immediately lay back with his eyes closed, facing the sun.

‘I really need to get some rays. It’s been an inside wintuh,’ he said. His long New England vowels seemed strangely Out of place in Japan. ‘So what’re you doing in Tokyo, where are your cameras, all that stuff?’

‘That’s part of it. I’ll probably have to arrange for a camera crew and truck before I leave.’

‘No problem. The old man’s got the best in Japan. And twice as much as he needs. You speak the language?’

‘Uh-uh.’

‘That could be a problem. Maybe I’ll go with you as interpreter.’ He looked up suddenly. ‘Are you on to something hot?’

‘Nah.’

‘You got a reputation for poppin’ outa the box with some crazy shit, lady.’

‘Tourist stuff. Maybe a little something on Japanese industry.’

‘A little something on Japanese industry she says,’ Yerkes said around a laugh. ‘You can’t do a little something on Japanese industry. That’s like doing a little something on Uncle Sam. Where do you start?’

‘How about oil?’

‘There isn’t any in Japan. Not enough to do thirty seconds on. Refining, maybe. Lotsa refining.’

‘What do you know about AMRAN?’

‘Don’t tell me you’re interested in Hardluck Hooker.’

‘Why do you call him that?’

‘You don’t know about Hooker?’

‘I know he was a big-shot general in the war. What do you want from me — I wasn’t born until 1949.’

‘So — it’s history. He’s got a great war record but he steps in shit every time he turns around. He got chased outa the Philippines by the Japs, his son was killed in the war, he got axed out as a presidential candidate, and half a dozen of his partners in AMRAN have dropped dead on him. He’s been trying to put this consortium together for years.’

‘I didn’t know about his son.’

‘It’s been soft-pedalled. Excuse me, you’re in my sun...’

‘Sorry.’

‘That’s better. Anyway, the Hook was military governor of one of the southern provinces here during the Occupation. He was very sympathetic to the needs of the country, helped put it back on its feet. Even arranged some loans for some of the local big boys. He doesn’t talk about the kid anymore. Bad politics.’

‘Why does AMRAN have its main offices over here?’

‘Why not? Oil is an international business. Also I think the old man likes it here. The Japanese either love him or hate him.’

‘Hate him?’

‘The younger ones think he was a dictator. Maybe he was, but what the hell, he was the conqueror. He could have been a real asshole.’

‘What do you think of him?’

‘He’s a war hero, right up there with Patton and MacArthur. History’ll probably give him about eight out of ten.’

‘Can I talk to him?’

‘If you luck out. I did a piece on him about a year ago. I said he was the most tragic figure in World War H. Some dipshit on the international desk changed it to “one of the most tragic figures.” Anyway, if you’re interested in AMRAN, check the assignments desk in Boston. I filed a ten-page wraparound on that yesterday.’

‘On what?’

‘On their merger with San-San.’

‘What’s San-San?’

‘San-San means The Three Sirs, a triad, It grew out of the war. It was a little scandalous. The head knocker, Shichi Tomoro, was one of Japan’s industrial giants during the war. MacArthur let him off with a wrist-slapping, then Hooker helped finance their whole gig. Now it’s one of the most powerful industrial groups in Japan. Very strong politically, and they got more money than the Rockefellers.’

‘What kind of industries?’

‘Oil refining. Shipbuilding. Electronics.’

‘Maybe I should talk to Tomoro.’

Yerkes raised his chin slightly to get the full benefit of the sun. ‘You’re too late, He packed it in a couple of months ago.’

‘You mean he’s dead?’

‘Dead, cremated and scattered to the winds.’

‘How—’

‘He had a wild-boar preserve up on the north end of the island near Aomori. Accidentally shot himself.’

Chameleon at work again, she thought. It had to be. It fit the pattern perfectly.

‘Ira, ever hear of anyone called Chameleon?’

‘That’s his name, Chameleon? What does he do ‘-sit around the house and change colours?’

‘It’s his nom de plume.’

‘Nope. Why?’

‘Just curious.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘What do you mean, bullshit?’

‘I mean bullshit. C’mon, you just don’t casually ask about somebody called Chameleon, for Christ’s sake. What is he, some hot new rock singer?’

‘Punk rock.’

‘Oh, forget it. I’m just getting into disco.’

They got up to leave and Eliza remembered the ‘Midas’ notation in Lavander’s book. ‘One other thing, Ira, does the word “Ghawar” mean anything to you?’

He carried their trash to a basket and dropped it in. ‘The only Ghawar I know is in Saudi Arabia,’ he said.

‘Saudi Arabia?’

‘Sure. It’s the largest oil field in the world.’

The Kancho-uchi, headquarters of the secret service, was in a three-story building in an obscure corner of the government complex. O’Hara was escorted to the third floor by a young woman in a white suit. She was formal to the point of making him uncomfortable. Hadashi was waiting for him at the door of his office.

O’Hara had not seen Bin Hadashi for three years. The Japanese agent had changed little. He was in his early thirties, a tall man for a Japanese, slender, his hair cropped short. He was a cum laude graduate of Princeton.

‘Hey, Kazuo, where you been,’ Hadashi said with a broad smile. ‘I heard you were on the dodge. Your own man was trying to get you hit, hunh?’

Something like that.’

‘Some asshole.’

He led O’Hara into a small spotless office. There were no pictures on the walls, and the desk was empty except for the telephone and a can of apple juice.

‘He was never anything different,’ O’Hara agreed.

‘And then he called it off.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What an asshole. You still writing for a living?’

‘Trying. There’re easier ways of feeding yourself.’

‘What you snooping around here for? You want something, right?’

‘Just a little information.’

‘That’s the hardest thing to get around this place. You know how we Japanese are. Inscrutable bastards.’

‘The guy I’m looking for maybe the most inscrutable bastard of all. You ever hear of a Japanese agent calling himself Chameleon? This was back during the war.’

‘Which war, World War II?’

O’Hara nodded and held up two fingers.

‘This guy — Chameleon — was a spy, that it?’

‘He was head of some kind of special training section for Japanese agents.’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Any old-timers around here who might know something?’ ‘You think this guy’s still alive?’

‘A hunch.’

‘Anybody that dates back that far— is either dead or retired.’

‘Then, how about somebody who’s retired? I just want to talk to somebody who remembers him.’

Hadashi pinched his nose a coup1e of times. ‘You buying lunch?’

‘A rich publisher back in the Stats is buying.’

‘In that case, I thought of a guy. And he’s right here in the building.’

‘Will he talk to me?’

‘He’ll talk to anybody who’ll listen’

They went down in the elevator— to the subbasement and walked through a grim, poorly lit subterranean tunnel to what

appeared to be the basement of the adjoining building. Steam

pipes hissed angrily overhead.

‘They must dislike this guy to put him down here.’

‘They’ve probably forgotten he’s here.’

They entered a large room which was divided by rows of steel shelves stuffed with file folders, books, logs, seemingly endless stacks of paper. The old man sat cross-legged on a tatami. He was sorting through file , using a brush and black

ink to log entries in calligraphy on ledger sheet. There was

no desk in the room, just the mat a.-id the old man and a very modem brass gooseneck lamp over his shoulder.

He was ancient, a shrunken memory of a man with wisps of white hair that flowed down almost to his shoulders. He had no eyebrows. He wore thick horn - rimmed glasses. His face was so wrinkled, only a prune could love it.

He finished the character he was drawing and looked up.

‘Ah, Hadashi-san, how nice of you to come by.’ His soft voice sounded like an echo of yesterday.

‘It is an honour, Kami-sama. I have brought you a small gift.’ He handed the man a package of Redman chewing tobacco.

‘The spirits will reward you at the proper time. Thank you, my friend.’

He immediately opened the package and stuffed a cluster of brown ringlets into his cheek.

‘This is my friend O’Hara, although he is known here as Kazuo. He has a question and I think only you can answer it.’

‘Ah, quite a distinction. You understand I am only a clerk. I have never been more than a clerk. I am the custodian of all this. Records that have been fed to a computer. Our history has been reduced to beeps on film. But these are true records. lam indexing them.’

‘How long have you been doing this?’ O’Hara asked.

‘Oh, I really don’t know. Ten years perhaps, and I am only a little way along. It takes a while, you understand, one tends to get interested in the files. I spend a lot of time reading. There’s no hurry. When I’m through they’ll just make me quit and go home and die.’

‘How long have you been clerk of the records?’

‘Since 1944. I was too old for the service.’ He paused to draw another character in his ledger. ‘All the records went through my hands. I have a good memory for small facts.’

‘Do you remember an agent called Chameleon?’

His eyes widened. He laid down the brush and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. ‘The Chameleon I am thinking of was a true chameleon. He changed colours constantly, so who can say what his true colour was.’

‘I am talking about the man whose code name was Chameleon.’

‘So am I. Nobody knows who he was. It is a secret that went with him to the gods.’

‘He’s dead, then?’

‘Since 1945. He died at Hiroshima. It was verified by your own intelligence people. It was in the records.’

‘What do you know about him?’

‘Only what was in the records. That he existed and that he died. Nothing more.’

‘So, the only proof that he is dead is that the Japanese secret service says so.’

‘Would they lie?’

O’Hara took out a slip of paper. It was the print-out from Izzy of the CIA report on Chameleon:

—Chameleon. N/O/I. Head of special Japanese training unit for intelligence agents. On list of war criminals, 1945-1950. Believed killed at Hiroshima, 8.6.45. Declared legally dead, 2.12.50.

‘Perhaps someone wanted to protect him. Why did it take the US Army Intelligence five years to verify his death?’

‘That you will have to ask Army Intelligence. But I don’t think they were at fault. They would have declared him dead long before that, except for one man.’

‘Who’s that?’

‘Your General Hooker. He was passionate in his desire to find Chameleon.’

‘Do you know why?’

‘I would rather not guess.’

‘How could a man in the military service conceal his identity from so many people?’

‘Perhaps that was one of his many colours. Perhaps he was not in the service. It is possible he was a civilian serving the Emperor. There were many like that.’

‘In which case the people who served under him would certainly know who he is.’

‘That is of no consequence, Kazuo. The records for that section were destroyed just before the war ended. They were kept with the unit at all times. I never saw them. I saw only the final report, closing an empty file.’

‘Did the section have a name?’

‘Yes — Chameleon. That is all, just Chameleon. They had their own headquarters in the south.’

‘Where?’

‘At Dragon’s Nest, a fortress in the mountains.’

‘And that’s all there is to know about Chameleon?’ The old man nodded slowly as he mulled the tobacco in his cheek. ‘There is nothing more to know. He was a chameleon and he died,’

Hadashi looked at O’Hara and shrugged. ‘Thank you, Kami-sama, you have been a great help.’

‘It was nothing. Next time ask me something difficult. I have little left to do but show off.’

On their way out of the building Hadashi remarked, ‘It’s probably a strange coincidence, but this Dragon’s Nest the old man was talking about. ..‘

Yeah?’

‘It’s in Tanabe. It is now AMRAN’ s corporate headquarters. And Hooker is head of AMRAN.’

3

He hurried through lunch and left Hadashi with a fast ‘Thank you,’ anxious to meet Lizzie and the Magician and exchange information. But something else was gnawing at his brain, an insistent thought that had been bothering him ever since they arrived in Tokyo. He was thinking about what Kami-sama had said, feeding it into his memory bank for future reference, and it merely bolstered his ideas.

If Chameleon had died at Hiroshima, why had it taken Army Intelligence five years to officially declare him dead?

Taking shortcuts through alleys and side streets, he hurried across the city toward the hotel. He was three blocks from it when he first sensed that he was being followed. He stopped at a street corner and casually looked around but it was hopeless to try to single Out anyone in the crowds. He slowed his pace, began zigzagging through more isolated byways, hoping to confirm his paranoia. O’ Hara did not like surprises, and the intuition was undeniable. So he altered his course, working in a tightening spiral toward an enclosed alley that connected two of the most crowded boulevards in the Ginza, Showa-dori and Chuo-dori.

The walkway was dark and forbidding, coursing through a building that had been condemned several months earlier. It was rarely travelled because it was dim and the building was unsafe. Only two overhanging lights illuminated the block-long passage. O’Hara entered it and started toward Showa-dori.

In its dying years, before the building had been scheduled for demolition, the passageway had become a seedy shopping mall, its cheap antique shops and trinket parlours now deserted. Some were boarded up, windows had been smashed out of several of them, others were exactly as they had been left when the building was closed. Doors stood open, sale signs still dangled in dusty show windows, trash tittered the vacant stores. If he was being followed, O’Hara felt sure he’d be able to confirm it here.

Was he simply being followed? Or was he marked?

Walking down the alley, he listened to each step crinkling in the glass underfoot. The sounds of traffic faded away, and then he heard the telltale echo of his own footsteps. One. And a moment later another echo behind hint Two.

The third man was in front of him in one of the deserted stores, betrayed by a rustle of cotton, an errant breath. O’Hara exhaled slowly through his mouth, slowing down his own keen senses, listening, judging distances. The two behind were ten or so yards back. The other, the one in the store, was closer.

They were good, moving swiftly on feet of air. The alleyway was alive with energy. Ions swirled about O’Hara like seaweed in the surf.

Then they surprised him. The man in the store stepped out and stood before him not six feet away, a trim, hard-bodied youth in black, wearing Adidas sneakers, his back pole- straight, legs slightly bent. O’Hara flashed a look back up the alley. The other two were frozen in place, statues of rock framed against the dim light at the mouth of the alley.

These are not street fighters, 0’ Hara thought. They have too much style. The one in front moved slightly; residual light etched the side of his face. His smile and his bow were as subtle as a memory, but he made the challenge. Traditionalists, thought O’Hara, probably Okinawan. They were working as a triad and he guessed that the man directly behind him, the man in the middle, would be the best, the one in front the fastest and the last man would be the backup, the toughest to take out. He instantly decided on his moves.

It was 0’ Hara’s turn to surprise them. He whirled on the ball of one foot and made three hop steps toward the two men behind him, heard his challenger accept the bait, and then O’Hara stopped and executed three basic higaru moves almost as one, focusing his first blow on the lead man’s stomach before he even turned. The moves were designed to confuse the man at his back, to make him think O’Hara was attacking the middle man, a fast left to right jag, a thrust forward, and then as the lead man rushed forward, O’Hara executed a perfect ushiro-geri, forward and down from the waist until his head almost touched the ground and lashing out with a vicious back kick, straight into the attacker’s gut. O’Hara’s foot shattered the hard muscles in the lead man’s stomach and thrust deep up into his diaphragm. Something inside of the man exploded, his face seemed to crumble and he flipped forward to ease the force of the kick, but it was too late — his reflexes were not working. He landed badly and flopped over on his back in time to take a second kick to the temple. He rolled away, unconscious. The moves were so fast that the other two hardly had time to react. O’Hara dove between them, rolled and landed on his feet and launched himself straight up, shattering the third man’s jaw with the top of his head. The surprised assailant soared backward through one of the empty shop windows in a shower of glass.

The man in the middle whirled and kicked, jumped sideways, crouched and struck, O’Hara was waiting. He parried the blow, caught the fighter’s wrist and twisted it out and down and thrust a knee into his side. The fighter rolled away from him, got his feet under him and charged again, this time throwing a uraken, a back fist strike at the jaw. It was perfectly executed, his fist moving in a rotary movement and arcing past O’Hara’s elbow and catching the American on the edge of the jaw. The blow knocked O’Hara sideways into the boarded-up front of another store. He shattered the boards, burst through them and felt a nail tear at the shoulder of his jacket as he fell into a dusty window display of tasteless, gaudy lingerie. He kept rolling, bending his back and flipping back on his feet as the middle man dove after him, pressing the attack. O’Hara met him and then rolled back again, using the attacker’s own momentum to throw him farther into the store. Flipping backward and landing on his knees on the middle man’s chest, he struck twice, the first a nukite, a spear hand thrust straight to the bridge of the nose, the second a crippling chop to the throat. The middle man gasped, tried to throw a nukite and missed. O’Hara’s third blow should have finished him, but the fighter was tough. He rolled, threw O’Hara off balance, then twirled violently the other way, and O’Hara was thrust off.

The backup man now appeared in the shattered storefront, his face slashed by broken glass, one arm sliced open and bleeding. O’Hara did not retreat. He leaped sideways, deep into the darkness of the store, out of sight of the two remaining men for an instant, then charged the backup man from the darkness, jogging to the right and left and twisting sideways and diving under the man’s outstretched arms, coming up with a palm-heel shot that demolished what was left of the man’s jaw, knocking him back into the alley. A second later he felt a knife foot shot to his kidney, a blow that sent pain streaking up his spine and cramping his shoulders. It knocked him forward, but again he did the unexpected. He took two quick steps and then thrust backward, twisting as he did and colliding with the middle man, dropping to his knees, grabbed two handfuls of sweater and flipped the man over his head through the shattered window. The middle man landed on top of his backup.

O’Hara ignored the pain in his side and attacked again, this time using his favourite move, one which combined the arcing swing of the side foot blow with the ball of foot, a move requiring total commitment, for he had to literally twist in midair, picking up momentum from the swing of his foot, then turning it so the ball of his foot landed up under the nose. It was a perfect strike and the middle man sighed as he whirled away and collapsed.

But the backup man was still not out. His arms whipped into a defensive position as he stood and then just as quickly he tried his own side kick to O’Hara’s ribs and followed with combinations, an elbow shot followed by a two-fingered thrust up under O’Hara’s chin that snapped his head back and missed his windpipe by a fraction of an inch. Backup’s mistake was overconfidence. As O’Hara’s head jerked backward, the backup stepped in and tried a back fist strike.

O’Hara landed flat on his feet, saw the peculiar auguring punch coming, moved backward with it, let it glance off his cheek, slashed down with his own arm and locked Backup’s elbow under his own. He spun him around, snapped a knee into the man’s groin, and as he arched forward, got his other hand under Backup’s chin and twisted. The elbow snapped and O’Hara let the arm go, completed the move by swinging Backup in a full circle, letting him loose and hitting him twice with two spear hand punches. Backup dropped in a heap at his feet.

O’Hara turned toward the other two. It was all over. He instantly shook out the aches, massaged the pain from his kidney as he ran out of the passage, leaving the three attackers behind, and continued his journey back to the hotel.

He entered the hotel and found a quiet place near a rock garden in the corner of the lobby. Focusing on the water, he went to the wall and, entranced, began playing back everything he knew so far. The chain was becoming clearer to him. Chameleon, Hooker, Danilov — they were the keys. And one other. Dragon’s Nest.

Everything led to Kyoto and beyond, to Tanabe. They were getting close, the attack proved that. He didn’t know how long his three assailants had been following him, but it was safe to assume that they knew about Eliza and the Magician. They were all in danger.

It was Eliza who broke his concentration. ‘What happened to you?’

She was standing over him, looking at the torn jacket, the two bruises that were beginning to appear under his jaw line.

We’re shaking them up, whoever “they” are,’ O’Hara said. ‘I just got jumped by three pros a few blocks from here. I don’t know how long they’ve been following me, but the message is perfectly clear. Somebody’s nervous.’

She was more concerned about O’Hara than about the implied danger to all of them. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. I may have a sore throat for a couple of days, but other than that I’ll live. Have you heard from the Magician?’

No, but I have some interesting news,’ she said and recounted her conversation with Yerkes. ‘And there’s one other thing,’ she added.

‘What’s that?’

‘You remember the notation in Lavander’s book about Midas? It said ‘lgr. Ghawar.’ Remember that?’

O’Hara nodded.

‘O’Hara, Ghawar is the largest oil field in the world. It’s in Saudi Arabia. Maybe Midas is an oil field and the ‘lgr.’ means larger than. Larger than Ghawar.’

‘Which would make Midas the largest oil field in the world.’

‘Right!’

‘Well, where is it?’

‘I don’t know the answer to that one.’

‘You just can’t hide the largest oil strike on earth.’

‘Maybe the Magician’s turned something up,’ she said. ‘I’ll check the message desk.’

‘Wait,’ O’Hara said. ‘When you find the Magician, I just want you both to get out of Tokyo. Get the Howe satellite van and drive down to Kyoto tonight. I’m going on ahead by train.’

‘Can’t we all go together?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve made arrangements to talk to Hooker. The sooner I get there, the better.’

She touched the bruises on his throat. ‘You’re sure you’re all right?’

‘I’m okay. I just want you two out of Tokyo. Besides, the answers aren’t here, they’re at Dragon’s Nest.’

She kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘Look, I’ll just check the desk...’

‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, ‘or I’ll miss the train.’

‘But—’

‘I’ll make reservations for you at the Royal Hotel. You should be there by morning.’

‘But—’

‘Just check out the van, round up the Magician and do it.’ He kissed her on the cheek.

‘But—’

He was gone.

God, she thought, he’s maddening the most impulsive man I’ve ever met. She went to the desk and checked both her messages and O’Hara’s. There was an urgent message to meet the Magician at a street whose name she could not pronounce. She rushed out to try and stop O’Hara, but he was gone.

‘Shit,’ she said aloud and hailed a cab.

The place was near the waterfront, do.vn a dirty rut road that led across the railroad tracks and past a coal shack. The place was a dump, an overgrown lean-to with a red, white and blue sign that said ‘Harry T. ‘s.’ Rusting metal beer signs pockmarked the place, while behind it the sprawling Bridges shipyard obscured the bay.

The Magician was standing near the door of the place with his hands in his pockets looking forlorn. The sleeve of his Suit was torn loose and there was a large rent in his pants.

‘My God,’ said Eliza, ‘you look like an eighteen-wheeler backed over you.’

‘Worse,’ he said.

‘Worse?’

‘Worse. I got attacked by a bear.’

‘By a bear?’

‘I’ll tell ya all about it. Where’s the Sailor?’

‘He got this hot flash. He went to Kyoto. We’re supposed to meet him there tomorrow night.’

‘Shit. What am I doin’ here?’ the Magician said to nobody in particular and looked off into space shaking his head. ‘The last thing I needed was that fuckin’ bear, I’ll tell you that.’

‘Magician, what in hell are you talking about?’

‘What happened is, I was doin’ these waterfront bars down here tryin’ ta get a lead on Red Bridges. I mean if there’s one, there’s fifty bars down here. I was just hopin’ to, you know, luck into something, I am, after all, a piano player, not fuckin’ Front Page Harry.’

‘Maybe the next time there’ll be something you can do on the piano.’

‘I can piss on it, if it’s anything like the piano in there,’ he said, jerking his gloved thumb toward Harry T’s. ‘Anyway, they’s a lot of American sailor types around here, workin’ these yards, and everybody is telling me if I want info on Bridges, I need to talk to Kraft American.’

‘Who?’

‘Kraft American.’

‘Is that somebody’s name or what you had for lunch?’ “It’s the guy’s name, okay? What do I know. So that’s how I wound up here.’

‘Why here?’ asked Eliza.

‘Because Kraft American owns the joint.’

‘So? Is that it?’

‘No, there’s more. I just didn’t get to it all yet.’

‘Why?’

‘I had a run-in with this bear in there. Y’know, four legs, lotsa hair, long nose, big teeth, big fuckin’ teeth.’

‘What kinda bear?’

‘I dunno, a Japanese bear, I guess. He’s wearing this little straw hat that says “Win with Nixon” on the brim.’