High Flight (53 page)

Read High Flight Online

Authors: David Hagberg

“No.”
“Then I'll get my things.”
Eto smiled faintly. “Your suitcase is downstairs in the car.”
 
“I told you there'd be trouble with that sonofabitch,” CIA General Counsel Howard Ryan said.
“Still just circumstantial, Mr. Ryan,” Carrara said, although even he was beginning to have doubts. After listening to what the FBI was working on he knew McGarvey was in the middle of something all right, but after talking with Phillipe Marquand in Paris he didn't know anymore. Maybe McGarvey
had
turned. “He was up front with me about Arimoto Yamagata's connection with JAL, and about Mintori, so he's not masking all movements from us.”
“But he didn't tell us that he was going to Tokyo,” Ryan said: The former Wall Street attorney had come down to Carrara's office just before quitting time for an update.
“He's not working for us.”
“But he asks for our help.”
“That's right, and I was told by the general to do just that.” Carrara maintained his composure. Ryan's gripe with McGarvey went back several years, and in the DDO'S opinion the general counsel's behavior and attitude were anything but professional. But the man had his point: McGarvey was showing up in too many places at too many times. The Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry stepping in to get him
out of trouble was problematic, as was the interest in him shown by the FBI and the French Action Service. “What are you telling me, Mr. Ryan? That I should refuse any further contact with him?”
“I'm not saying that,” Ryan was quick to correct.
“Well, maybe we should bring him in. Tokyo Station would make contact and pass the message on to him.”
“Nobody is calling for that either.”
“What then?”
Even if Gates could get to him, there wasn't much chance that Kirk would come running.
“What can I do for you?”
“You're his friend. I understand and appreciate that, so I'm not asking you to stab him in the back.” Ryan dismissed the notion with a shake of his head. “In fact, the man has done a lot for us. Accomplished some remarkable feats, actually. But you have to admit that this has become something entirely different. Now he's involving himself directly in international politics.”
“He's working for Guerin Airplane Company.”
“Spare me,” Ryan cut him off. “Practically on the eve of one of the most important summit meetings ever facing this country, the Japanese decide to get into it with the Russians. And who shows up out of the blue in Moscow and then in Tokyo? None other than McGarvey. Of course, whenever McGarvey shows up someplace dead bodies fall like cordwood.”
“Mr. Ryan, I repeat, what can I do for you?”
The general counsel looked at him coolly. “Kirk McGarvey is your friend. Find out what he's doing and stop him. For his sake, if not the nation's.”
Carrara got slowly to his feet, every muscle in his body bunched into knots. It took everything within his control not to lunge across the desk at the smug bastard. He even managed to nod. “I'll do my best, Mr. Ryan.”
“That's all I'm asking, Phil. I'm sure you'll do the right thing.”
“Yes, sir.”
 
Heading north out of Tokyo the air cleared and traffic thinned dramatically, so that by the time they were in
the foothills, the narrow road was all but deserted. McGarvey and Eto rode in the back seat of the stretched custom Lexus. Their driver was a precise-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses whom Eto said had been a Formula One driver until an accident three years ago.
“Ura Nihon,
” McGarvey commented, looking out at the terraced fields that led up into the snow-capped mountains.
Eto was startled. “Where did you learn that?”
“A long time ago from an old friend,” McGarvey replied absently. He and Kelley Fuller had traveled south together to Nagasaki. The countryside had seemed peaceful and delicate, dollhouse-like, completely different from the bigger-than-life, frenetic pace of Tokyo and Japan's other large cities.
Ura Nihon,
she'd called it. The other Japan. The ancient Japan. Tradition. Honor. Beauty.
Bushido.
McGarvey glanced at the Japanese. “The old ways are the best. No
kata tataki
out here, no tapping on the shoulder to tell you that you have been voluntarily laid off. That's just for the cities.
Shoganni, Eto-san?
Nothing can be done about it?”
Eto returned his gaze. “You are indeed a troubling man, Mr. McGarvey. If I had my way I would send you back on the very first flight.”
“But you don't.”
“No.”
“Then let's hope for the best, because I sincerely do not want to be your enemy,” McGarvey said.
The road climbed higher into the mountains of Nikko National Park, the terraced farm fields giving way grudgingly to forests of tiny trees that seemed to be trimmed, the growth around them carefully cultivated. From a narrow defile the car was passed through a massive wooden gate that swung on a huge arch ornately carved with the figures of fierce dragons. From there a perfectly maintained road of crushed white gravel led up the valley to a broad forested ledge through which a narrow stream bubbled and plunged over the sheer edge. The view from the top was breathtaking. Perched on the far
edge was a traditionally styled Japanese house, low to the ground and rambling in every direction. Tiled roofs, rice-paper screens and walls, carved beams, courtyards, broad verandas, gardens, ponds, and ancient statues and figures gave the spot an unreal air, as if it were a setting in a fairy tale.
“Whoever owns this must be a very lucky man,” McGarvey said, and again Eto gave him an odd, measuring glance.
At the house their driver let McGarvey out of the car and a young woman in a flowered, pale-pink kimono came across the broad porch to greet him. Eto remained in the car.
“Ohaya go-zai-ma-su,
McGarvey-
san
,” Good morning, the young woman said, smiling.
“Ohay
go-zai-ma-su,
” McGarvey said, bowing slightly.
“Eigo o hanashimasu ka?”
The young woman tittered and returned his bow. “Yes, of course, I speak English. Please, if you will follow me, tea has been laid out for you. The morning is beautiful, is it not?”
“The morning is brilliant,” McGarvey agreed. He removed his shoes and without looking back at Eto followed the young woman into the house, down a wide corridor of highly polished teak, and finally out onto a very broad veranda that overlooked a beautiful garden. Part of the stream had been diverted through the garden, and it splashed gently on the rocks. A windchime hanging in a gnarled old tree tinkled on the pleasant breeze.
At first McGarvey did not notice the old man seated cross-legged like a Buddha in front of a low table at the edge of the veranda. He was dressed in a snow-white kimono and sat absolutely still until the girl led McGarvey across to him. Then he looked up and smiled.
“Please sit down, Mr. McGarvey. You have come a very long way, and you must be weary.”
The old man's English was good, his accent British upper class. He looked to McGarvey to be in his seventies, possibly older. His eyes were wise, and from the
expression on his face, and the way he held himself erect, sure of himself, McGarvey could guess that he was rich, even wealthy. All of a sudden the light bulb went off in his head.
“Sokichi Kamiya. Mintori Assurance.”
Kamiya inclined his round, nearly hairless head, slightly in acknowledgment. “Actually quite clever of you to guess so soon. And to take your quest into the lion's den. Sit down. I'll pour us some tea.”
McGarvey stared at the old Japanese for a beat. He'd been finessed, and he suspected that Kamiya was a master at it. But it had been so easy. Like scratching an itch, or swatting a fly. Effortless.
“This is a nice spot,” McGarvey said, looking out across the garden.
“It belongs to a young friend of mine.”
Another light went off. “Arimoto Yamagata.”
“Yes. This place is his solace, although as of late he has not been able to enjoy any peace. But it is war.”
McGarvey stared at a lone rock about the size of an irregularly shaped soccer ball. It was placed to one side in the garden. He suspected it had some significance. For the first time since Santiago, what seemed like a thousand years ago, McGarvey felt out of his league, even outclassed. His showing up on Yamagata's doorstep in Washington had come out of the blue, and yet Kamiya's organization was so far reaching and so strong it was able to suck McGarvey in and maneuver him to this place and time. It was tidy.
“Guerin Airplane Company is only part of it, then,” McGarvey said.
“A key element, but only that.”
“Without Guerin you would fail.”
“But we will have Guerin, Mr. McGarvey. There is no question of that. No question whatsoever.”
 
McGarvey sat across from Kamiya. “Maybe I'll kill you.”
“You would be dead before you got within striking
range,” the old Japanese said. He was supremely confident.
McGarvey had studied the garden for signs that anyone was hiding. Now he studied the facing wall and roofline of the house. No one was in sight, which didn't preclude some kind of remotely operated weapons system. Kamiya would have to be out of the line of fire, but it wouldn't be too difficult a system to engineer. McGarvey could think of several ways of doing it.
“Did you bring me here to kill me?”
“No, merely to neutralize you, Mr. McGarvey,” Kamiya said. “You have become a nuisance. A thorn in my side.”
McGarvey pushed back away from the table. There was nothing to fight, or to defend against.
“Even as we speak, Mr. McGarvey, a situation is being arranged that will diminish your effectiveness to nearly zero.”
“Maybe I'll leave now.”
“Then you will die now. You need to remain a little longer.”
 
They came in two teams, leapfrogging out of the city, Isaacs and Ireland in a plain Toyota van and Shapiro and Littell in a four-wheel-drive Subaru. Greg Isaacs got out of the lead car about twenty-five yards from the big gate and immediately started through the thick woods up the mountain. At thirty-eight he was in the best physical shape of the four CIA legmen, so he'd been volunteered for this part of the mission. The others waited on the main road, one car well above the gate, the other retreating to the highway at the bottom of the valley about four miles away. Isaacs carried a powerful pair of binoculars, a sound amplifier with a small parabolic pickup dish, and a walkie-talkie.
The first hundred yards were relatively easy, but then the slope sharply steepened, and until he finally made it to the crest of the defile Isaacs wasn't sure he could do it without mountain-climbing equipment. At the top he
found himself at one end of a long ledge, the mountains rising in the back and a sheer cliff plunging five or six hundred feet in the front. A big house was perched at the edge of the dropoff about two hundred yards away. Isaacs raised his binoculars and saw McGarvey seated with another man on a veranda.
Isaacs keyed his walkie-talkie. “I have him.”
 
“You said that this is war. Do you mean a shooting war between Japan and the United States?”
“It may come to that,” Kamiya replied calmly. “But not necessarily.”
“Not necessarily.”
“It depends upon what Russia does in the coming days, and on how your government reacts to certain events that will soon occur.”
“I can stop you.”
“How?”
“By telling someone in my government what you've said to me. I think I can convince the right people to listen, and to believe enough to at least start an investigation. Tokyo would help.”

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