Chapter Four
Thursday 7:28 a.m.
"Hai, so deshoo," Taro Ikeda, project director, bowed into the red telephone receiver, using that breathy, clipped speech all Japanese reserve for their superiors. "Kore wa honto ni muzakashi desu. It has been difficult, but they have finally agreed on the revised schedule. In nine days-"
He paused to listen, then continued. "Hai, so. There is no other way. Hai. The Diet will never approve the treaty unless there is some dramatic symbol of the advantages of the alliance."
He halted. "Hai, security has been maintained here. With deepest respect, the problem would seem to be with your-" He paused again.
Now tiny beads of sweat were glistening on his brow. "Hai, we are ready. The vehicle is . . . hai." He bowed again. "Of course, there will be no delay. The revised schedule is firm. Hai, Mino-sama, we-" He was bowing ever more rapidly into the phone. "Hai, we have pushed them as hard as we can." He bowed even deeper. "Hai, by tomorrow's report. Of course, Mino-sama. Thank you, domo arigato gozaimashita. . . ."
The line, a high-security satellite link connecting the Hokkaido facility to the Mino Industries Building in the Ueno section of Tokyo, had gone dead. Tanzan Mino, CEO of Mino Industries Group, had other matters to concern himself with.
Taro Ikeda repressed a tremble. The technical part, the project here on Hokkaido, was going well; what was happening on the Tokyo end? First the delay of the funds, and now a rumored breach of security. KGB had intercepted the protocol. That was the word from his informant close to the CEO in Tokyo.
Shigata ga nai, he thought; sometimes things can't be helped.
Taro Ikeda was proud he had been personally selected by the CEO to be project director for the top secret Hokkaido operation. He was fifty-four years of age, a graduate of Tokyo University Law School, a twenty-five-year veteran, now retired, of MITI, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. He was, in short, a mover in the New Japan and he looked it-elegantly graying temples, tailored silk suits, a small mustache to set off his high cheeks. At one time he had been the inside choice for MITI vice minister, before the CEO offered him a chance to fulfill a vision no official source in the ministry could ever admit existed.
Overall, he told himself, the CEO should be pleased. He had carried out his own responsibilities flawlessly. And MITl was providing an unofficial umbrella of technical support, covering any unexpected requirements. Through this project the CEO had set into motion a plan that would soon alter dramatically Japan's place in the equation of world power.
Bushido, the Way of the Warrior. The element of surprise. No one outside Mino Industries knew what was really planned, not even the prime contractors for the project. Security every step of the way. And now the drama was ready, the curtain poised. Only a few more days, and a technological miracle would soar upward from the earth, symbolizing the first step in the realization of Japan's age-old ambition. The world would know the twenty-first century had arrived, the Japanese century. Mino Industries had made it possible.
The CEO's sense of timing was impeccable. Only last week he had approved Taro Ikeda's final briefing to Noburu Takahashi, executive director of the National Space Development Agency. NASDA, through contracts to the Space Systems Division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in charge of the major hardware of the Japanese rocket program. Takahashi was also an executive of the new Daedalus Corporation, an unofficial "consultant."
Together they had traveled to the agency's space center on Tanegeshima, the island six hundred miles south of Tokyo, to monitor the shakedown launch of Japan's new H-2 rocket series. Although that vehicle was far superior to both the American Titan 34D and the European Ariane 4, it was a technological dinosaur compared to this project. This was unlike anything the world had ever seen.
The project had begun over two years earlier, when he was still director of MITI's Kokuki Buki-ka, the Aircraft and Ordnance Section. An "anonymous" scenario-conceived by the CEO of Mino Industries Group, Tanzan Mino-had arrived on his desk, detailing a revolutionary proposal. Every director in MITI had received a copy.
The eventual "consensus"? It was too visionary, would aggravate Japan's already delicate relationship with America. The Liberal Democratic Party could never be seen to embrace such a project publicly.
Accordingly, MITI's parliamentary vice minister turned it down. Officially. But that was merely tatame, his "public face." Afterward the classified moves, the real moves, began. Perhaps, it was hinted, if the idea were "explored" outside regular government channels. . . . Top-secret feelers were sent to the Soviets.
With a green light, Tanzan Mino had immediately created the Daedalus Corporation, hiring away Taro Ikeda and forty-seven of his MITI aerospace engineers, the best and brightest, from Kokuki Buki-ka. Start-up financing had been provided by the CEO personally, with some matching contributions by the top executives of Japan's major zaibatsu, industrial groups. The scenario was an easy sell, since they all realized its payoff would be staggering. The only requirement was that it remain top secret until the appropriate moment, when the Diet would be formally notified. By that time, however, there would be no turning back. Everything would have to go forward as a package.
Under the CEO's direction, Taro Ikeda and his forty- seven MITI engineers had relocated here on Hokkaido to oversee a secret, fast-track project. Forty-seven. Perhaps, he sometimes mused, that number was no coincidence. Perhaps it was an unconscious act of historical resonance. Forty-seven brilliant young technicians, just like the forty-seven ronin, the samurai of the famous legend. Those ronin had bided their time for many years, living in obscurity and ignominy until the moment when they rose up in triumph.
Bushido. You must always make your opponent do battle on your own terms. And today money and technology were Japan's most powerful weapons. Why not use them strategically, the CEO had argued. The time had come to engage other unsuspecting nations with concentrated strength, in a forcible move to achieve Japan's long-term objectives. The Way of the Warrior.
Taro Ikeda surveyed his office, his personal command center. The space was appointed like the headquarters of a field marshall: a deep metallic gray with video screens along one wall permitting him continuously to monitor activities in every sector of the facility. And across the top of his black slate desk was marshalled a line of gray telephones with scramblers, each a secure direct line to the offices of one of the project's prime contractors.
The first was to Nagoya, to the head office of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Theirs was the initial contract let by the CEO after the project financing was in place. Indeed, Mitsubishi's Nagoya Aircraft Works was the ideal choice to manufacture the air-breathing turboramjets-scramjets for the vehicle. That conglomerate had produced over fifty thousand aircraft engines during the great Pacific war, and, more recently, their new Komaki North plant was responsible for the powerful oxygen-hydrogen engines that composed the first stage of the giant H-2 booster. The phone on his desk connected him directly to the office of Yoshio Matsunami, Mitsubishi's general manager for space systems. The massive scramjets for this project had been manufactured in Nagoya under a veil of total secrecy, then static-tested at their aeropropulsion test facility and individually shipped here to Hokkaido in unmarked railcars.
Another line connected him to the head office of Nissan's aeronautical and space division in Tokyo, already in charge of all solid rocket boosters for the Japan Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science. The CEO had hired their senior propulsion engineers to resolve problems connected with air-breathing combustion of liquid hydrogen.
The third connection was to Hitachi City, sixty miles from Tokyo. Hitachi, Limited manufactured the booster cases for the new H-2 vehicle, and their extensive experience with composite alloys at high-temperatures made them the obvious choice to create the hypersonic airframe.
There were other lines as well. The vehicle's inertial- guidance system and flight controls-both based on advanced Soviet designs-had been produced at Japan's Nation
al Aerospace Laboratory. Preliminary wind-tunnel tests had been assigned to the Kakuda Propulsion Center, whose rocket-engine development facilities were already being used to support NASDA's program in oxygen-hydrogen thruster R&D.
The last high-security line connected him directly to Tsukuba Space Center at Tsukuba Science City, forty miles from Tokyo, the nerve center for all Japanese manned space-flight research. Their clean-rooms and deep-space tracking facilities were comparable to any in the world, and their Fujitsu SX-10 supercomputer-which, with 128 processors for parallel processing, performed nine billion calculations per second-could provide realtime simulation of a complete hypersonic flight profile.
Feeling impatient now to begin the day, Taro Ikeda settled back and reached for the phones. Each contractor would give him a quick morning update, and then he would outline any further component tests or retrofitting as required. In truth, these exchanges had long since become scarcely more than rituals, since the project was all but completed. The major components had already been designed, delivered, and assembled. The contractors had been paid, the reports and evidence of their participation declared top secret and locked away from any possible prying eyes. All traces of the project had been safely secured.
There was, he reminded himself, only one major problem remaining. As part of the initial scenario, the Soviets had agreed to provide a laundered payment of one hundred million American dollars, to be used for Tanzan Mino's "incidental expenses" in the Liberal Democratic Party hierarchy. To avoid another Recruit-bribe fiasco like the one that brought down the prime minister in 1989, the money had to be scrupulously clean and totally untraceable.
But the funds had not arrived.
How the Soviets had secured the hard currency required outside of regular government channels, he could not imagine. There were even reports the money had been secretly "embezzled" from certain slipshod ministries. That it was, in fact, hot money.
But if those funds didn't come through within eight days, fully laundered, the project would have to be put on hold, as a matter of strategy, and precaution. The treaty could not be placed before the Diet unless passage was assured. Promises had to be kept.
What had happened to the money? Whatever it was, he thought with a worried sigh, the CEO had better solve it and soon. If he didn't, the whole project might have to be put on hold until next year's session of the Diet, and their secrecy would probably be impossible to maintain for another whole year. A disaster.
He had just completed the last call when he noticed a flashing alert on the main computer terminal, advising him that the morning's hypersonic test in Number One was scheduled to begin at 0800 hours. He grunted and typed in an acknowledgment. In his view it was a waste of time, overkill. The SX-10's simulation had already taken them further than they needed to go. But, all right, humor the Soviet team. It would only require a morning.
His contractor briefings now out of the way, he transferred all communication channels to the computer modems that lined the walls, then rose and walked back to the small alcove at the rear of his office. He paused a moment to calm his thoughts, then slid aside the shoji screens to reveal what was, for him, the most important room in the facility.
Here in the North Quadrant the CEO had constructed a traditional teahouse, tatami-floored with walls and ceiling of soft, fresh cedar and pine. In this refuge Taro Ikeda performed an essential morning ritual, the brief meditation that quieted his spirit. He knew well the famous adage of swordsmanship, that the true master lives with his mind in a natural state.
The challenge ahead would require all the discipline of a samurai warrior, the Way of Zen. And the first rule, the very first, was your mind must be empty, natural, unattached, in order to succeed.
As he seated himself on the reed surface of the tatami,zazen-style, he methodically began clearing his mind. The moment was sacred.
But then, drifting through unasked, came an admonition of the great Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. "Intelligence is everything. You must know your opponent's plan even before he knows it himself."
It was true. The security for this project had been airtight, except for one minor breach. Someone in the Tokyo office had stupidly transmitted the final protocol over an unsecured satellite channel. It had been intercepted by Soviet intelligence.
Fortunately, the Russian blunderers had been unable to decipher the encryption. But someone-either in the KGB or the GRU-had been so desperate he had secretly enlisted the assistance of the U.S. National Security Agency's top cryptographer. It was a brilliant move, because NSA's supercomputers might eventually be able to break the code.
When Tanzan Mino learned of the breach, he had given orders that the NSA expert be neutralized, quickly, and the protocol retrieved. If it became public knowledge prematurely, the entire scenario could be destroyed. Now, happily, the NSA individual had been identified. The rest would be easy. An unfortunate price to pay, but a simple solution.
With that thought to comfort him, he gazed at the polished natural woods of the teahouse and let his mind drift into perfect repose.
Thursday 1:07 a.m.
The first round went wide, nicking the edge of the dolphin fresco. Vance listened, startled, at the explosion, at first thinking it was a sharp crack of thunder from outside. Then he heard the bullet sing into the dark, a high-pitched hiss. For a moment he wondered if he was dreaming, his mind adrift in the bloody myths of the palace. Then a second explosion flared from the direction of the archway, grazing his neck.
"Eva!" He threw his body across hers, slamming her against the alabaster portico. His free hand slapped awkwardly at the candle, crushing out the last sputter of flame. As he swung around, the empty ouzo bottle clattered into the dark, spinning, its revolving sound a beacon. Get it, he thought, and stretched across the stone to grope in the dark. Finally he felt the smoothness of the glass gliding at the edge of his reach. Slowly, carefully, his fingers circled the neck and he pulled it toward him.
The room was black now, its silence deep as a tomb. Then the gun flamed once more, and again, the two rounds ricocheting off the ancient walls somewhere around them. After that, silence returned, no sound except for the heave of breathing, whose he wasn't sure.
As he reached to quiet her, she whispered. "Michael, they want me." She tried to struggle up. "You've got to let-'"
"No." He forced her back, whispering. "We can't leave when the party's just beginning."
Still grasping the neck of the bottle, he moved silently across the floor. The stone slabs were icy, while the night music of the rain seemed to come from another world.
He pressed against the wall, feeling for the doorway until he sensed a shadow slip past, slowly edging into the room. The muzzle of a pistol glinted against the flare of lightning outside, and he realized it was no more than a couple of feet away.
Now.
He swung the empty bottle with all his might, aiming for the tip of the muzzle.
The impact coursed up his arm as the bottle splintered against the metal. The intruder's startled intake of breath was masked by the clatter of the weapon against the stone floor.
He'll reach for it, Vance told himself. Lots of luck, pal.
He brought the fractured bottle upward with all his strength, aiming for the face. Although the figure was still formless, he let instinct guide his hand. The rough feel of shirt fabric brushed past his fingers and then the softness of flesh. A scream of surprise pierced the dark. Bingo.
Got the neck, he thought, and with a twist he drove the shattered bottle in. A warm wetness gushed against his hand.
I hit an artery. Blind luck.
The figure stumbled backward into the dim passageway. In a flash of lightning Vance saw hands clawing at a neck. Then came the sound of stumbling footsteps, retreating, and again silence.
Still gripping the sticky neck of the bottle, he bent down and began to search the floor. Near his feet he felt a hot muzzle and followed it upward to the still-warm grip. It was, he rea
lized, a 9mm Baretta. He kept an identical chrome-plated model on the Ulysses.
All right, chum, now we'll have a rerun.
Grasping it with both hands, in firing position, he turned and peered out the open archway. The glimmers of distant lightning showed nothing but stone walls and an empty passageway. All he could discern was the vertical shaftway connecting the many levels of the palace.
He pressed against the cold stone wall and edged into the hallway leading toward the steps. Then he felt a sharp sensation against the ball of his left foot and reached down. A spent cartridge shell, still warm, lay up-ended on the icy floor.
Pasiphae, he suddenly found himself thinking. It's as though Eva had lured the killer here, to this very room, like the white bull. And now he, they, who knows how many? want to kill us both. Somebody realized she knows too much.
He tried to control his breathing, straining to hear as the adrenaline continued to pump. From the staircase up above, the crickets had resumed their high-pitched medley. He listened as they chorused, the sounds of centuries past, their hymn to the rain. There was nothing else.
No, faint sounds ... far above, maybe in the central court. Men were arguing. It was a heated exchange. He heard them grow louder, and with that the metallic click of another automatic weapon being readied. He waited, holding his breath, as the voices became even more animated.
What had happened? There must have been two, maybe even more.
Good time to find a new place to party.
He turned back to the silent room. It was, he suddenly realized, too silent. He felt his way back to the alabaster portico and reached across.
"Eva."
The quiet that followed told him he had been right; she'd panicked, run. No, he thought, she only wants to save you. She thinks she drew them here, and now she's trying to lure them away. Bad time to leave. Just when things were getting interesting.
He reached down and felt for the right-hand pocket of his trousers, still lying crumpled in a pile on the floor. Finally he slid his hand in and searched. The keys were gone. She had taken them, slipped away, left nothing. No trace. Only the smashed candle remained.
Annoyed, he located a box of hotel matches in his shirt and struck one. The room was empty, totally bare, its dolphins frisking alone in their placid sea. Across, on the other side, was the passageway leading through the queen's "bathroom." Beyond it lay the labyrinthine twists of the palace hallways. Perhaps by now Eva had found her way out and escaped. From the maze of Daedalus?
He tried to think as he finished donning his wet clothes in the dark. Eva clearly had gotten too close to somebody's plans. Where would she go?
Cautiously he moved out and began to mount the marble staircase, his rubber soles noiseless against the steps. The automatic was beginning to feel comfortable, even though it had nearly taken his life only minutes before. But he never trusted life to a chunk of metal, no matter how efficient.
Above him the voices still quarreled, and he found himself straining to catch the language. What was it? Greek? no, maybe Russian. Whatever it was, a fierce argument was raging. Again he tried to guess how many there were. He checked the metal clip and decided he had enough rounds to take them all-if he had to.
But that was getting ahead of the game. If she had eluded them, then why bother? The best thing would be to try to slip past the courtyard, get through the fence, maybe join her at the car. Then they could move the party back to the hotel, keep the momentum. . . .
He moved carefully on through the hall of the procession, edging along the wall. Against his back he could feel the cold frescoes of the cup bearers, locked in their sterile march through time.
Then he heard another voice, this time female.
"Pazdolba! Delaetye vcyo, shto vam yugodno-mnye vcyo ..."
It was Eva yelling in rapid-fire Russian. Arguing, shouting orders? He couldn't make it out.
Now he edged through the final archway, grasping the Baretta. At that moment an eruption of gunfire splintered the silence, a fiery burst in the rainy night, while Eva was yelling for it to stop. It was over as quickly as it had come, but she was still screaming, swearing actually.
Whoever was there, they were no more than thirty feet away. But she was still safe. He could hear her curses, now half muffled in the storm.
Gingerly he edged on out through the entryway and stood at the edge of the courtyard, Baretta cocked and ready. A lighter blossomed in the rain, was brought upward to a cigarette, and momentarily framed a face.
Alex Novosty.
He was holding what appeared to be an Uzi, peering down at the glistening stones. Sprawled across from him were two bodies, both in dark raincoats. Now he was saying something to Eva in Russian, but she was staring past him, toward the entryway where Vance stood. In a flare of lightning their eyes locked, and he saw in hers anger and disbelief.
At that moment the flame of the lighter was cut short, but not before Novosty whirled and followed her gaze.
Instinctively Vance threw himself against the inside wall of the processionway. An instant later, the Uzi blazed again, drowning the sound of Novosty's challenge. He held his own automatic, barely breathing, while the rounds ricocheted against the stone walls. Was Eva part of it? What in hell . . .
Then her voice rose again, through the dark, a mixture of Russian and English. She was screaming at Novosty. Finally she called out.
"Michael." A pause, then her voice cracked. "You may as well stop the charade."
Charade? That wasn't the game they'd been playing. He decided to wait. The moment seemed part of a giant contest where none of the players wore team colors.
"Michael, old man, terribly sorry about that." This time the voice was Alex's. "It's been a trying night."
"Novosty," he yelled back. "I've got an automatic too, chum. Touch one hair of her head and you're history. I swear to God. Now let her go, and then we'll talk."
"My friend, my friend, I'm not keeping her." The hesitation in his voice belied his attempt at calm. "You don't understand. We have a problem here, very serious. And I am getting wet. Why don't you come out and let's discuss it somewhere dry."
"No way. You and I have a little catching up to do. Let her go. She's not part of it."
"Ah, but she is very much a part of it. Why do you think I am here tonight, risking everything? I need you now, Michael, more than ever. We are all in deep trouble because of her."
As Vance started to respond, he felt a glancing blow against the side of his neck, powerful, numbing. Awkwardly he stumbled forward, cursing his own stupidity. Of course! The man he'd wounded had merely disappeared into the palace labyrinth. He'd been back there somewhere, waiting. Now they'd guided him here with all the shouting.
He felt the Baretta slip from his grasp as his head slammed against the hard plaster of the fresco. His attacker was reaching for the gun, hands slippery with blood. There was hot breath against his face, the gurgle of labored breathing. It was a dying man with nothing to lose.
Now Alex was shouting at Eva through the rain, telling her to run for it.
Good, he thought, and turned to shove his fist into the face of the figure struggling to turn the pistol on him. The weapon fired, a lethal blast next to his ear, but the muzzle was still directed away. The round glanced off the stone archway and ricocheted down the hallway. As their struggle continued, he heard the sound of the Saab, its engine coughing to life.
Too bad. I'll miss the ride back.
With that he brought his knee against the assailant's groin, shoving him against the wall. Even then, though, he still could not see the face; it was darkened or swathed in a black cloth, he couldn't tell which.
Suddenly the passageway flared, and he looked up to see Novosty, rain-soaked, holding his small Italian lighter. In his left hand. In his right was the black metallic shape of the Uzi. Just then the attacker, drenched in blood, finally wrenched away the Baretta and was turning, trying to speak. Vance noticed, absently, that blood streamed from
a gash across the side of his neck.
"I am sorry, my friend." Alex was lifting his weapon, calmly and with perfect precision. "Things have become complicated, but do not worry. I have handled it." And the Uzi erupted.
The dying man actually managed to squeeze off a round, a shot that went wild, as the impact of the Uzi slammed him against the wall. Then he fired again, almost a death tremor, and pitched forward.
Vance started to stretch for the pistol as it clattered across the floor toward him, but Novosty's voice sounded through the storm.
"Michael, do us both a favor, just leave it. I've killed enough men tonight. Three. And I knew them all. I am very weary of it, so please . . ." He was walking over, still holding the Uzi. "Let's have a drink and talk. This is very unsettling to my nerves."
"You and your friends screwed up a perfectly fine evening. You'd better have a good excuse." Vance watched him, very much wanting the pistol in his hands. Should he make a grab for it and take his chances?
"As I tried to tell you just now, it is very complicated." Novosty was picking up the Baretta, grasping it carefully with a piece of wet cloth he'd ripped from the dead man's shirt. Then he looked up. "Are your prints on this?"
"Sort of figures, doesn't it? I borrowed it from him." He pointed down at the blood-soaked corpse between them.
"So we must clean it," he sighed. "What happened here tonight was a terrible accident, my friend. Obviously. How else can it be explained? There will be an international inquiry. We must now try and simplify the work of whoever has that unpleasant duty."
"You've got some explaining of your own to do. What about Eva?"
"Ah yes, Eva. She should have known better than to come here." He looked up. "Tonight simply need not have happened. It has always distressed me, the imprudence of some women." He sighed again. "I do not know if I can cover up this affair. It may well be the end for me."
"No kidding. Killing those two men out there may dampen your welcome in these parts."
"I regret to say it was necessary. They wanted to take her. But when I reasoned against it, they became suspicious. Which is why I had no choice."
Was Novosty here protecting Eva, he suddenly wondered? After all, there was age-old blood connecting them; Eva Borodin and Alex Novosty went back centuries together, centuries of Russian history. Aristocrats both, they shared family, pain, and glory from an age long before the October Revolution. But would she turn to him for refuge? No, not likely. She'd never be that desperate.
"Like you said this morning, Alex, it's unhealthy in this business to know too much. Tends to spoil all the interesting surprises."
"Yes, I agree. Ignorance is often bliss, I think that's the expression. But having solved one problem, I then faced another. What to do about them? Happily our friend here was available to help. I honestly think he would have died anyway from his neck wound." He glanced up. "Did you do this?"
"Spur of the moment."
"You are still good, Michael." He bent over and examined the severed artery again. "My compliments. You haven't lost it. An excellent job. I believe this incision would have been fatal." He turned back and smiled. "You have a surgeon's touch."
"Are you going to tell me who the hell he is, or do we play twenty questions?"
"He was . . . a professional acquaintance. This was most regrettable. For everyone. Mine was a distasteful task, I assure you." He sighed once more as he laid both weapons against the wall. "I will trust you, Michael. In turn you must trust me. And help me. We need to move this poor unfortunate to a more plausible location."
Vance now realized what Novosty was planning. He was about to pin the murder of the two outside on a dead man, this one. But who were they? Whoever this one was, one of his hands only had three fingers; the little finger had been cut away just below the knuckle.
"Forget it. I'm not going to help you do anything. I'm going to walk out of here, try and find Eva, and get the hell away from all this. You're a negative influence, Alex."
"My friend, be reasonable." He pointed toward the weapons. "We have work to do. We must remove all the prints from those, yours and mine, then create an accident."
"Look, you broke up a small party I had going here tonight. But now that you've ruined my evening, I damned sure don't plan to help you clean up."
"Michael, neither of us had anything to do with this unfortunate business. You or me. I wasn't even in Greece. It must have been some terrible misunderstanding among men of questionable livelihood. Tempers obviously flared. Who knows? Everybody is dead, so there can be no explanation beyond what appearances suggest." He shrugged and slipped his arms underneath the body. "Incidentally, they told me that Volodin was captured this morning. But he didn't talk. Instead he killed himself. So our situation is still secure."
"You must have a hearing problem. Maybe you ought to get it checked. I just told you it's Eva I'm going to help, not you. You can take the money and-"
"My friend, my friend, you are impetuous. Please. Everything is going as planned. But now we must move quickly." He smiled. "By the way, did you leave anything down below?"
"Just a broken bottle." Vance stared out into the rain.
"Then you might wish to make it disappear." He began dragging the body into the courtyard. "It will have prints. Glass preserves them perfectly."
He's right for once, Vance thought. Rubbing at his neck, a glimmer of pain intruding, he turned and retraced his steps into the dark, into the labyrinth.
As he descended, the chill of the palace enveloped him. He was bored with the place now, its ancient horrors and its modern ones. When the dark became too depressing, he extracted a folder of hotel matches and struck one. Its puny light flared and then expired, almost helpless against the blackness engulfing him.
The sound of crickets followed as he entered the bedroom of the queen once more. He paused a moment in the dark, then struck another match and walked over to the stone bed. There was the neck of the splintered bottle, covered with bloody fingerprints. Novosty was right about one thing: It would have opened a whole new area of inquiry. Nobody at Interpol had his prints on file, at least as far as he knew. But that wasn't good enough. Leave nothing to chance.
Carrying the fractured bottle, he began remounting the steps. This time he wanted the dark, needed it, to clear his mind, to mask the horrors of the palace. The confusion of the shootout swirled in his mind. Alex Novosty had killed three men as calmly as lighting a cigarette. Why? Was it just for the money?
When he emerged, distant lightning glinted on the ancient stones of the courtyard, contrasting brightly with the darkness below. For an instant the palace seemed magical all over again.
And there, perfectly choreographed on the wet pavement, was evidence of a lethal duel. Three bodies lay across from each other, two together and one opposite, gripping a weapon, his neck slashed. Perhaps it looked too pat, but who would know? Things happened that way.
The only participant missing was Aleksei Ilyich Novosty.
He gazed around, but he knew he would see nothing. Yes, Alex had gotten out quickly and cleanly. He'd always been hit and run.
All right, Vance told himself, now it's time to answer a few questions. Who the hell is looking for Eva, and who wants to silence her? Are they the same people?
Carefully, methodically he began to search the pockets of the two men Novosty had killed outside. He knew what he was looking for. The first appeared to be in his fifties, pockmarked cheeks, looked very Russian in spite of it all. He had a small Spanish Llama 9mm compact in a shoulder holster.
The other man was younger, though already balding. His cheeks were drawn, and blood was already staining around the two holes in his cheap polyester suit. His last expression was one of disbelief frozen in time. He's the back-up, Vance told himself, number two. That's always how they work. He should have stayed back home, maybe digging potatoes.
The passports were Bulgarian, a forgery, stamped with a Greek entry visa one week old. Port of entry: Ath
ens. But they had to be KGB. No wonder Novosty was in trouble now. He was playing both sides of the game.
Finally he pulled around the head of the other man, the one swathed in black, the one who had almost killed him twice. This was the one he'd been saving till last, trying to guess.
A bloody, brutal face stared back at him, and through the torn shirt he could see a garish tattoo covering the back and chest. At first he couldn't believe it, so he lit a match and cupped it against the rain while he ripped open the rest of the cloth to be sure. History swirled around him.
Irezumi. The rose-colored dragon-and-phoenix tattoo was regulation issue-insignia of a kobun of the right-wing ultranationalist Mino-gumi, the foremost Yakuza crime syndicate of Japan. He knew it well.