High Flight (30 page)

Read High Flight Online

Authors: David Hagberg

“We can only take them one at a time, Al.”
“Yeah,” Vasilanti said. “But God help us all if this was sabotage and the Japanese were behind it.”
“Al?”
“Yes?”
“It won't happen again.”
“I hope not, David,” Vasilanti said, a distant quality in his voice.
McGarvey came over when Kennedy hung up the telephone. His face was red from the cold.
“I just heard from one of Lyalin's people. What happened?”
“Same as '90,” Kennedy said. “The port engine flew apart.”
“Survivors?”
Kennedy shook his head.
McGarvey looked away for a moment. Everyone was busy, no one paid them any attention, and for the moment there were no Russians in the room. “Mintori Assurance Corporation,” he said, turning back. “They're the ones after us.”
“What else?” Kennedy asked.
“That's all, but the timing gets you, doesn't it?” McGarvey replied. “You guys show the world your new design, and one of your airplanes falls out of the sky.”
“You don't think it was an accident?”
“No, I don't, David. And neither do you.”
 
McGarvey took a shower and changed his clothes before he left the hotel again, this time by the front door. He picked up a tail immediately, two men in an old Mosk-vich station wagon who followed his cab over to the Arbat Restaurant on Kalinin Prospekt. Yemlin said it was one of the few places in the city that had anything decent to serve.
The former Washington
rezident
was waiting at a table overlooking the dance floor. “I didn't know if you'd show up after what happened in Washington. From what I understand there were no survivors.”
“That's right.” McGarvey sat across from him. “I hope to Christ I never find out that the FIS heard rumors and didn't pass them along.”
“We heard nothing, I swear it. But we've queried Tokyo Station.”
None of McGarvey's old friends had much bitterness about the old days. They were too busy trying to survive in Russia's new free-market economy. But McGarvey was still having trouble believing and trusting Yemlin or anyone else from the old KGB. Still, this was his idea, and they didn't have much choice. Especially not now.
“Do you have a name for us?” he asked.
“We know who heads the Mintori Assurance Corporation, but that's not to say he's personally involved in any
sabotage attempts. He's a very old man. He may be nothing more than a titular leader.”
“The Japanese don't run their corporations like that, and you know it.”
“His name is Sokichi Kamiya,” Yemlin said. He took an envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it across the table. “He's eighty-one years old, and by various accounts, he's the eighth or ninth richest man in Japan.”
“Is there a
zaibatsu?”
Yemlin nodded. “Kamiya is in the middle of it. Electronics, exotic materials, some petrochemicals, mostly R&D for industry. There's apparently some linkage between Mintori and a banking
zaibatsu
at Kobe. Tokyo Station is still working on that.”
“Any possibility of getting inside Mintori? Bugging its boardroom?”
“I think you're expecting too much too soon, Kirk,” Yemlin objected.
McGarvey sat forward. “There were no survivors of that crash, and I expect there'll be more disasters to come.”
“This sort of thing takes time.”
“We don't have time,” McGarvey said harshly. “If need be we'll put this on the table with Minister Matushin as a condition of the deal. And you people can handle the Japanese if it gets out.”
“I'll see what can be done,” Yemlin replied tiredly. “We can't work miracles. You can't believe how difficult it has become for us.”
“After seventy years of communism it's not surprising, Viktor Pavlovich. But pardon me if I have no fucking sympathy for you. Just get the job done for us, and skip the excuses.”
 
“
Ohay
Go-zai-ma-su, Kamiya-san,
” Arimoto Yamagata said. He spoke on a secure phone in the Japanese consulate in San Francisco. It was a little past noon on the West Coast, which made it two in the morning in Tokyo. A very bad time for the call. But Yamagata was confused.
“Are you calling because of the crash?” the old man asked sharply.
“Yes,
Kamiya-dono.
Has it begun? Have you given the order?”
“No, of course not. It must have been a coincidence, or a technical flaw. We sent you to America to prevent such a necessity. What have you accomplished? What information are you offering me this morning?”
“I am ashamed to admit that I have very little to report. But,
Kamiya-san,
mightn't we use this incident to our advantage?”
“Of course we will. But first we must know how and why it has happened. If someone else is behind it. If someone has discovered what steps were taken seven years ago, we must know this. It may be the Russians. They have begun to spy on us through one of their crude networks here.”
“For what reason,
Kamiya-san?”
The world as he understood it, as everyone had understood it, had changed in the past five or six years.
“I don't know yet, but Guerin may be behind it somehow. A number of its top executives have been meeting with the Russian Minister of Aviation in Moscow. There were some of them aboard that airplane.”
“
Iie,
it was no coincidental crash in that case. But if the cause had been anything other than it was …”
“It gives one pause for thought,
Yamagata-san.
Now you know what must be done.”
“
Hai, Kamiya-dono.
I will not fail you.”
“No, you will not fail me.”
 
Russians loved to have formal dinner gatherings at midnight—a custom, Kennedy thought, getting to his feet, his people were going to have to get used to.
Their last meeting at the Council of Ministers building in the Kremlin had been subdued because of the tragedy in Washington. Yet they'd all felt a sense of optimism because the State Department had given its approval in principle to hammer out a loan guarantee package that
would work for everybody. The only proviso State had placed on the deal was that the Russians would have to work out their differences with the Japanese first. It was a provision that Kennedy had not brought up with Minister Matushin. Nor did he have any intention of doing so.
“This will remain a business deal and nothing more,” he told Vasilanti. They both sidestepped the work the Russian Secret Service was doing for them for the moment.
“I would like to propose a toast,” Kennedy said, raising his wine glass. Minister Matushin and the others around the table raised their glasses. This deal was going to be good for all of them, despite Soderstrom's concerns to the contrary. Kennedy could feel it.
“To our joint venture of developing and producing what will prove to be the most advanced airliner the world has ever seen. An airplane that will take us out of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. An airplane that will not only transport the general public in safety and comfort to the far corners of the earth with flight times of minutes rather than hours or days, but to the edge of space. An airplane that will become an important link in building the chain of trust and friendship between our two countries. Minister Matushin, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate us all.”
Everyone drained their glasses. The Russians banged theirs on the table and the waiters moved in to refill them. Minister Matushin got to his feet and raised his glass of vodka. They'd been drinking for nearly two hours, and his face was flushed, his forehead sweaty.
“I will toast to the success of our cooperation, but I will also drink to your brave executives and airplane crew who gave their lives. I make the suggestion that the Guerin-Moscow Wing Panel Development and Assembly Facility be named the Soderstrom-Grant-Siegel Assembly Facility Number One,”
For a long second or two no one said a word, or made a move. The Russians watched the Americans to see
their reactions, and Kennedy and his staff were caught off guard.
But then Kennedy smiled wanly and raised his glass. “It is a wonderful suggestion, Minister Matushin. One which touches us all, and one which I wholeheartedly support.”
He drank his wine, put his glass down, and turned and walked out of the hall. Time now to go home, he thought, to begin picking up the pieces.
 
From his modest home near the Maritime Self Defense Force Academy overlooking the city of Yokosuka and the lower reaches of Tokyo Bay, Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda could see the
Samisho
at her berth. A barrier had been placed on the quay, lights had been strung up, and guards had been posted.
Within hours after the
Samisho
had docked she had been fully provisioned, and Kiyoda had been allowed to take a taxi to his home. That was forty-eight hours ago. Since then no one had been allowed in or out, nor were communications with the crew allowed.
Minori had been correct when he predicted there would be no parade for them this time. No one from the Admiralty had come to greet them or to accept their patrol report, nor had they received any communication whatsoever. It was, in Kiyoda's mind, ominous.
It was early morning, and low dark clouds continued to move in from the northwest, threatening more rain. Whitecaps marched along the broad expanse of the bay. Kiyoda shivered.
His two children were away at boarding school in Kobe, which left with him only his wife Moriko, their cook, and their gardener. Sitting on a tatami in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his private sitting room, Kiyoda listened for their sounds as he stared down at the town and the harbor, but he could hear nothing. They were up and about, but they were being discreet for his sake.
The sinking of the Russian frigate had been in all the
newspapers and on all the television channels. Half the country was calling him a warmonger and villain, while the other half was calling him a hero, the hope for Nippon. It placed the MSDF, and in fact the entire government, in a difficult position, because no matter what action was taken half the country would find fault with it.
Yesterday, Yabe Takagi, his sensei from the Mishima Institute, had come to the house. They had spoken briefly about honor and about self-control, which were so necessary to a Japanese
bu-shi
.
“Dishonor is like a scar on a tree,
Kiyoda-san,
” his instructor told him. “Time will not erase this scar but only enlarge it. Understand that patience and forgiveness are a part of honor.”
“I understand,” Kiyoda whispered.
“To bear what you think you cannot bear,
Kiyoda-san,
is really to bear.”
Kiyoda heard the car coming up the road from the city, and he sat up straighter.
The car pulled up in front and stopped. He heard two car doors open and close, and they were at the entry. Two of them. It was to be expected.
His wife Moriko came to the rice-paper door. “I am sorry for disturbing your peace, my husband, but two officers have come from the admiral. They wish to speak with you.”
“They are honored guests in our home,
Moriko-san.
Please offer them tea, and bring them to me,” Kiyoda said.
“As you wish, my husband,” his wife said softly, and she left.
Kiyoda remained seated for five full minutes before he got to his feet and faced the open door. He wore his winter dress blues as did the two officers in the doorway. Both of them were full commanders, he was pleased to note.
“Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda, you are under arrest,” the tall, fair-skinned officer said. “On orders
from the Admiralty, you are requested, sir, to come with us.”

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