Ellery Queen

Guess Who’s Coming to Kill You

Chapter 1

Wilkinson’s most valuable asset was that he looked like a tired businessman pushing fifty. He was in fact tired and pushing fifty, but he was not a tired businessman pushing fifty. He was a tired spy pushing fifty.

He had seen it all before and he had been through it all before. That was the trouble, as he was to find out shortly. There is a deadly hypnosis about repeated experience that lowers the guard; or, if the guard-up is automatic, like a reflex, the muscle response is not. He was to find that out shortly, too.

Wilkinson leaned against the wall in the alley behind The Golden Obi watching tradesmen and porters going and coming through the rear door. He was well in the shadows. He was thinking: what am I doing here?

That was bad; a bad sign. Holloway would have been distressed, if a spider can be credited with emotion. Worse, or perhaps better, he would have seen to it that Wilkinson was cashiered on the spot. But Holloway was in his web in Washington, D.C., an ocean and a continent away, and that was Fred Wilkinson’s misfortune.

The wail of soul music came from somewhere inside the square building. On the street side the building was all neon flash; in the alley it was a dump. Times Square-like nightclubs and soul bands had been enthusiastically ingested by the Japanese along with other condiments of the American cuisine. It produced in Wilkinson the stomach revolt felt by the fastidious everywhere. That was another of Wilkinson’s weaknesses; he was fastidious, or rather he had grown fastidious with the multiplication of his assignments; another bad, very bad, sign.

The dirt offended him, the flash offended him, the smells offended him, and it was all very like home, which he sometimes thought offended him more than anywhere. Home to Wilkinson was Washington, and Washington meant the Holloways, and the Holloways meant FACE and CIA; which brought Wilkinson full circle.

At times on assignments like these he had to remind himself that he was in a foreign country. Tokyo was a let-down. It was not openly dangerous like Saigon; not seething with cockroach spies like Berlin; not a gateway to Mediterranean hocuspocus like Lisbon, or a boiling pot like Buenos Aires. Things had settled down in Tokyo; which was why, Wilkinson suspected, Holloway had put his okay on the CIA mission. Even a Wilkinson, Holloway’s eyes had seemed to say, could pull this one off.

Sometimes he yearned — increasingly these days — for a book-type adventure. He did not know a Château Lafite Rothschild 1918 from a Bordeaux Rouge ’64 — he knew of no one in the trade with James Bond’s oenological and other expertise; but it would be nice, it would be nice. Like inhabiting a fairy tale, where bullets missed or left laughable flesh wounds, and the hero enjoyed professional beatings from which he blithely strolled away. Being young again would be especially nice, with its tireless sexuality. Bond kept tumbling in and out of bed with breasty beauties as if his body had never heard of gonad fatigue. (There was even supposed to be a counterpart in reality, a school near Moscow where the KGB trained selected spies to perform prodigies of intercourse; the British intelligence agents Wilkinson had met insisted on its existence with a fervor, Wilkinson suspected, that had led Ian Fleming astray.) Being young again... being anything but what he was.

Wilkinson took a drag and sighed smoke. Two policemen sauntered past the alley entrance, glancing in. They did not see him. Not that it would have mattered if they had. He had his cover story ready — his “legend,” as the fancy boys called it — in case he was questioned. A hostess in The Golden Obi had promised to meet him in the alley and he, poor sucker, was waiting. The club hostesses in Tokyo often rid themselves of importunate foreigners that way; the story was plausible enough. To lay the groundwork for it Wilkinson had had two drinks in the club with a hostess before slipping into the alley. He was ready for the meet if Krylov was serious.

He glanced at his wristwatch in the glow of his cigarette — a natural action if it should be overseen; male foreigners hot for Japanese girls were notoriously impatient. He felt a stir of pride at the fact that he still made the right moves automatically. He had a lot of good missions left in him, Wilkinson knew — “runs,” as they called them nowadays — even though he couldn’t seem to convince anyone in Washington. For “anyone” read Holloway. They all added up to Holloway. Damn Holloway.

At the home office the Holloway boys had hinted that he was skid-bound. They hadn’t come right out with it, but they might as well have. His crown was balding, his waist was blowing up, he was walking on the flats of his feet. All right for a Class II or a contract agent who had to do only transmission, cutout, or courier work, but not for a Class I man who was expected to be everything from an Olympic athlete to a psych major.

Wilkinson drew deeply on his cigarette and shifted his stance. At that moment he saw curtains part in a second-floor window in the rear wall of the building and froze to attention. He caught one glimpse of the sheared silhouette of a tall, bulky man, but in that glimpse Wilkinson made out the crop of dark hair and the square face with its professional camouflage of boyish charm and recognized Krylov. Krylov was of course allowing himself to be seen from the alley to let Wilkinson know he was still waiting for a chance to come down unseen. He must be desperate, Wilkinson thought; what Wilkinson could see others might see, too.

He kept watching, refusing to reveal himself. After a moment Krylov’s silhouette moved away from the window and the curtains dropped back.

Wilkinson ground his cigarette out. Okay so far. They could yatter all they wanted about his going to seed, but it took a man of long experience to set up a proper meet and carry it through. They had even had the gall to ask for his plan in advance instead of letting him work out the details in his own way — a demand they would never have made in the old days. In revenge Wilkinson had worked out two plans, giving them their choice. The first had set the Seibu department store for the meet, either in the basement, which looked like a hero-sized American supermarket, usually crowded with people shopping for meats and delicatessens and delicacies from all over the world; or on the top floor, with its dozens of restaurants and coffee shops, always jammed, where a shopper could dine on soba and seaweed for eighty yen or a kobe beefsteak dinner for a thousand; the Seibu was a favorite haunt of foreigners. A cultural attaché like Krylov, tired of the relative austerities of GUM, could be expected to browse or dine there, and an American tourist was one of the Seibu’s commonest sights. Wilkinson’s alternative plan had been The Golden Obi alley.

He had passed the plans along through channels — the usual two cutouts and a communicator — and they had made him wait almost two days for the nod for the second plan. It rankled. Not their choice of the second plan, but the wait. It was a good plan, based on the existing situation, as good plans should be. Aleksei Krylov was known to frequent The Golden Obi; he had gone soft on a hostess there named Kimiko. It would be easy for Krylov to excuse himself ostensibly to visit the men’s room and instead slip out the rear door to make the meet. Even if they were observed it would appear a casual encounter. And in the open alley such normal hazards as bugs or eavesdropping would be minimized. The kids they used for Class I agents these days were dead shots and expert karate fighters and they maimed and killed without hesitation, but could they think things out ahead of time? Wilkinson thought not. The organization lost a lot of Class I agents because of it, he was convinced.

An odd sound interrupted his thoughts. It was a spatter of thin musical notes in a minor key; a sort of chance remark in song that managed to make itself heard above the noisy street. Wilkinson smiled, knowing immediately what it was. He glanced toward the mouth of the alley and saw the tall covered handcart with its hanging paper lantern. Its owner was pushing the cart along as he played his musical identification on the tiny double-reed flute, the instrument they called a charumera. In the cart there would be containers of soba, the thick Japanese noodles, and for a few yen the vendor would dish out a bowl and hand you a pair of chopsticks and wait patiently while you ate. In large Japanese cities it was a common practice to top off an evening of carousing with a bowl of steaming soba from a charumera cart on the way home. The tinkle of the charumera was one of the few sounds, in Wilkinson’s view, that made Japanese nights tolerable.

The soba man turned into the alley, straining against his cart, the picture of sore feet. For a moment Wilkinson thought that he had come into the alley to rest; but no, the man headed for the rear door of the club. Sometimes the hostesses, tired of the steak sandwiches and other occidental fare served in these places, succumbed to a yen for a bowl of soba; vendors often visited the tradesmen’s entrances to serve them. Wilkinson felt the juices begin to flow in his mouth; the noodles smelled delicious. Why not? he argued with himself. A foreigner waiting in an alley for an assignation with a nightclub hostess could get hungry for soba like anyone else. But he pushed the thought away. Krylov might show at any moment.

The soba man raised his little flute to his lips and blew his announcement. Having advertised, he waited at the door. He was a stocky Japanese of indeterminate age in shabby clothing, wearing a towel twisted about his head, the badge of the working class. If he had seen Wilkinson standing in the shadows some fifteen feet away he gave no sign; Wilkinson rather thought not. The man was shifting from foot to foot; he must have calves of iron, from all the walking and pushing he had to do, but even iron gets tired. And Wilkinson knew how to blend with a shadow.

The American agent hoped that Krylov would not choose this time to appear in the alley. It would be better if they talked with no one else there. Their conversation ought not to take more than a few minutes. Tonight Krylov was to pass along his decision. If he said he wanted to come over, for which Wilkinson considered the odds good, it would then be a mere matter of developing a workable plan, something quick and simple. Like the theme of a Bach invention. Pure logic.

Wilkinson smiled at his conceit. He was a classical music buff, and Bach was a passion of his.

Wilkinson had no doubt of his ability to bring Krylov safely out once the Russian gave the nod. It would be pick-and-spade work: get him quickly into a plain car and hustle him off to the American embassy; then, before his people could find out what had happened, stow him in a plane from one of the U.S. military bases in Japan and away he’d go, to the States and sanctuary. Routine stuff. What excited Wilkinson’s imagination was not the modus operandi of Krylov’s defection. It was the shot in the arm the coup would give his own career.

For Krylov would be quite a catch for the U.S. He was far more than the cultural attaché at the Soviet Union’s Tokyo embassy that was his cover. He was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, having worked in Soviet intelligence in a dozen important posts from Rangoon to London. What was more, he was something of a white-haired boy; he clicked vodka glasses with the most prestigious comrades in Moscow. So Krylov would have a lot to tell FACE. In fact, his defection would be second in importance only to that of General Levashev, the biggest Soviet fish they had ever netted, who had defected in Vienna a year ago. The organization would have to be grateful — even Holloway, that damned think-tank. They would offer Wilkinson a fat desk job in Washington, as they had once before, when they were trying to kick him upstairs. And, as before, he would turn it down, but this time with bargaining power. He would insist on nothing less than being kept in the field as a Class I agent in spite of his age, and he would make a pitch for one of the juicy posts. Berlin. He had always liked Berlin. (There had been a lonely blonde in her mid-thirties — the best age — who worked in an airline office on the Kurfürstendamn and with whom Wilkinson had come dangerously close to falling in love; she was no doubt married and fat by now, but Berlin offered thousands like her.) It had a surplus of lonely women, and they had bedroom eyes for Americans. Yes, Berlin. Definitely. He’d hold out for Berlin.

The noodle vendor put away his flute and with some difficulty balanced his tall cart on its two wheels again, apparently giving up. The bottom half of the cart was a sort of chest; it was here that he kept his ingredients. There should have been a charcoal fire in the well of this chest to keep the noodle pots warm. There was no fire in this one. That was a detail Wilkinson had not noticed before. He must be about ready to call it a night. On top of the chest four posts supported the overhead canopy from which hung the paper lantern. It was a picturesque piece, this noodle cart, and Wilkinson had often played with the notion of buying one and converting it into a garden bar for his home. If he ever achieved a home.

The vendor was having trouble starting his cart. When it did start it got out of hand. It swerved and began to roll toward the shadows where Wilkinson was waiting. The Japanese was trying manfully to stop it, but from his struggle he was too tired. The cart was bound to crash into the wall and reveal the lurking man. Wilkinson made a decision.

He smiled and stepped forward, as if to lend a hand.

As Wilkinson came out of the shadows, the Japanese saw him, grinned, bowed, and gestured toward the cart.

“Glad to help,” Wilkinson said. The guy probably didn’t understand English, but the tone ought to disarm him.

Wilkinson set himself to stop the cart.

It was done quickly and well. There were three piston jabs of a blade that looked like an overgrown icepick and Wilkinson felt the numbing of his kidneys even before the terrible pain. He made very little noise as he fell, only a grunt and a moan, the grunt at his dying and the moan at the failure of his reflexes.

The noodle man eased Wilkinson down. After that, with no sign of fatigue, he shoved the body through the side doors into the chest of his cart.

He wheeled the cart out of the alley and once more brought the charumera to his lips and sent its tinkle sadly into the Tokyo night. He had no noodles to sell that anyone with developed, taste buds would buy, but that was not why he was tinkling away. Perhaps he was a humorist, tootling a derisive mass for a spy slowed down by age and the Japanese equivalent of Weltschmerz.

Chapter 2

“A 1959 Pommard Rugiens,” Megan Jones said, holding up the bottle of red burgundy. “Pierre Poupon, you know. Let’s hope it traveled well.”

“I don’t know,” Peter Brook said. “I don’t know a damned thing about French wines. You sound like a knowledgeable broad.”

“I have my good points,” Megan said. “Do you want some of this perfect burgundy or don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call them points exactly,” Brook said critically. “No, I don’t. I prefer a Scotch and soda.”

“Square,” said Megan. “Who drinks soda any more? You’ll at least sample this? I bought it in your honor.”

“Oh, hell,” said Brook. “All right.” He took the bottle from her, and the sommelier’s corkscrew, spun the handle deftly enough, and twisted the screw in the cork. Two elegant candles burned on the small dining table. She had put some Schubert on the stero. It was satisfactory to Peter, since it was just what he would have set up for Megan in his own apartment; but there was a gleam in her eye that dampened his libido.

“You oughtn’t to waste vintage wine on me,” he said, pulling out the cork.

“It’s no waste. I’m educating you.”

“To what?” he asked cautiously.

“To the better things of life,” Megan said, presenting her glass.

“Or the worse?”

“For better or worse? Exactly.”

It confirmed his fears.

She raised the wine to her lips. They were fleshy and glistened as they parted. They reminded Brook of a silk-covered mattress. Megan was altogether a silk-mattressy sort of girl. Her face was offbeat, with a chin a little too firm, eyes a little too big — pearl gray, set wide; her nose was turned up; there was a faint constellation of freckles across the bridge. A face that looked best, he thought, in a horizontal position. As did the rest of her. There was something Minoan about her — broad shoulders, full breasts, tiny waist. The ones who jumped over bulls. All these goodies she had wrapped in a housecoat that was more like a negligee, translucent and given to parting, like a pair of theater curtains at the beginning of a performance. That there would be a performance tonight Brook was very sure. It might be dangerous. Megan wasn’t the sort, once she had her hooks in, to let go.

So he proceeded warily, smiling. Behind her, through the picture window, in the semidistance, lay the glowing dome of the Capitol. Around him the apartment, which she had done in what was supposed to be Danish modern — the phrase always made him think of pastry — rose high over a bend in the Potomac. It made for a cunning illusion of privacy far above the madding crowd that was Washington.

“You can have your Scotch and — ugh! — soda later,” Megan said. “First you drink that wine.”

“It sounds like symbolism.”

“What’s wrong with symbolism?” She sipped again, and set her glass on the table. She had cleared it in a marvel of legerdemain after the remarkable dinner she had cooked in a kitchenette no bigger than a small sloop’s galley. Obvious point: to demonstrate her housewifely efficiency. No doubt, no doubt. “Do you realize how long we’ve been getting to tonight?”

“Weeks,” Peter Brook said, shifting in the chair.

“Months,” she said severely. “One excuse after another. First your operation. Then that long trip you had to take. After that the long trip I had to take. A senator’s secretary shouldn’t have to take long trips, but my senator’s from all the way across the country.”

“I know,” said Brook. “Nothing ever quite works out in Washington.” He ran his hand down his side. It was still a little rough over the space between the ribs where the Congolese sniper’s bullet had gone in. They had flown him back after the infection set in. There seemed no doubt that Megan would get to see the scar this evening, so he would have to invent a legend for it.

She was eying him with a frown. “Why you, I wonder?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, you’re attractive enough in a Madison Avenue sort of way. You dance nicely, play a good bridge game, and you hold doors open for ladies. But when you come right down to it, Peter, we haven’t a lot in common.”

This is it, Mr. Brook thought, and put down his wine. The gambit called for the automatic countermove, and he made it. He began to loosen his tie. “We’ve hardly exhausted the possibilities, Miss Jones. Let’s get to it, shall we?”

“Pig,” Megan said. “A boor as well! It just goes to show.”

“Don’t you want it?” he asked, half relieved.

“Did I say that?”

“You said—”

“I say not yet,” Megan said. “Slow is the password for tonight, buddy.” The curtains parted on cue. He could only admire the art of the scenic designer.

“You’re not really romantic, Peter. Not like me, certainly. And another thing. You can’t sing. That’s unforgiveable. Ever hear of a girl of Welsh descent falling for a man who couldn’t sing?”

“Oh, there are a few cases on record,” Brook said. “Can Richard Burton sing? If so, I never heard of it. And I am too romantic. When I’m sailing my boat I’m Jean Lafitte and Captain Kidd and every other pirate that ever lived. When are you coming sailing with me, by the way?”

“Another of those things we don’t seem to get around to.”

“That’s Washington for you.”

“Then why don’t we get out of it? Why don’t we both?”

“I don’t know about you, but as for me, I guess I like my job.”

“And that’s another thing. Why don’t you ever talk about your job? Especially when you like it so much?”

“What’s to talk about? Can you communicate a color? I’m a research analyst. Sort of high-toned bookkeeper. You have to have the soul of a bookkeeper to appreciate it.”

“Come on, Peter, it must be more important than that.”

“That’s what we keep telling ourselves,” Brook said, laughing. This time he got out of the chair and turned out two lights. That left only the dim one in the corner. He went to the door of the kitchenette, “Shall I make you a Scotch and soda, too?”

There was only a slight pause before she said, “Yes.” She said it in a murmur, as if she had never scoffed at the concoction.

Moments later they were on the sofa with Brook’s arms around Megan. He was clutching her warm body and marveling how, without actually moving, it seemed to crawl with life.

This was always the dangerous time with girls like Jones. It was not that it placed him under the shotgun of Damocles; they were both adults who knew how to take care of themselves, and Megan wasn’t the sort to scheme out a permanent arrangement via pregnancy. The thing was, he found himself liking it and yearning for more. That way loomed the license bureau. And the license bureau could have no place in his life, not if he wanted to hang onto it. A wife and kids were out of the question.

Her lips had the impact of a steam iron; the little hairs on her skin rose to his touch like flowers. She nipped his ear. “And I can cook, too,” her warm breath said, “you know I can,” and she laughed. He laughed back immediately. Laughter during love was very nearly the best part of it, because it was the safety valve that kept things under control. Brook bent to his task.

And there was an anxious little buzz that stopped them cold.

“Damn!” Peter Brook said.

“That,” Megan murmured, pushing away, “is a goddam dirty trick.”

He was glaring at his wristwatch, which was still buzzing. He pressed the button and stopped it. “Never fails to go off at the wrong time. The guy who invented the alarm watch must have thought he was doing something great.”

Megan said, “He was probably descended from the Puritans.”

Brook reached for his drink. She watched him. After a while he said, “It does knock hell out of the mood, doesn’t it?”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Megan murmured, the curtains parting again. “The other way is to have fun getting it back again.”

“Megan,” Brook said. When the buzzer sounded all things took a back seat, even sex. “How long have you known me?”

“Total time? Six months. Actual contact? About six-minutes.”

“I mean do you know me well enough to believe I have my moments?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“This is one of them. I want to take a walk. All of a sudden.”

“You want to what?”

“Walk in the night. Hard to explain. This damned alarm watch. Spoiled everything. I have to cool off and calm down before I can start again.”

“What are you, a human sensitive plant? My God!”

He made his nod solemn. He’d better hurry.

Megan shrugged. “Well, you’re predictable enough in most other ways. I suppose if this is a hangup, you’re entitled to it.”

“That’s what I like about democracy. Everybody’s entitled to his hangups.” Brook reached for his hat.

“To hell with democracy!” Megan said. “Go take your walk and hurry back.”

He found a drugstore nearby. In the booth he dropped a dime and dialed. The voice on the other end said, “Yes?”

“Brook,” said Brook.

“Oh, yes. Good little gadget, that buzzer.”

“You go to hell,” Brook said. “You’ll never know what you stopped.”

“Never mind that rot,” the voice said. “How soon can you get down here?”

“Fifteen or twenty minutes, but—”

“No buts,” said the voice.

“Chief—”

“If the girl gets sore, find another one.”

“Yes. But this one—”

“Priority deal,” the voice said.

Brook sighed and hung up.

The building had the usual uniformed guard in his after-hours post at a desk in the lobby; Brook showed his I.D. and was admitted with a reluctant wave. The elevator took him to an upper floor. There was another guard here. Beyond the guard, over a set of frosted doors, was the legend: Federation for Art and Cultural Exchange. The second guard said, “Good evening, Mr. Brook,” but scrutinized his identity card even more carefully than the man downstairs. Brook started forward. “Just a moment, sir,” the guard said. “Super.”

“Duper,” Brook said.

The guard at once became bristly.

Brook grinned. “Excuse me. Not duper. Suds. Super Suds. I never could remember these damn passwords. Do I qualify for admission to the Holy of Holies?”

“I have my orders, sir,” the guard said, unsmiling, and pressed a button on his desk. A voice in the communicator said, “Yes?” and the guard said, “Peter Brook. One-nine-four-four-six-two.”

“It’s about time,” the voice said. “Let the bastard through.”

The guard pressed another button; it unlocked the frosted doors, and Brook went in. He had to go through office after empty office. Finally he came to an unmarked door. He braced himself and barged in with a show of confidence.

“My arithritic mother could have made it sooner.”

“It’s only eighteen minutes, sir—”

“Check your watch. Or your eyes. It’s been nineteen minutes thirty-five seconds. Sit down.”

Holloway was at his desk. Looking back down the years, Brook could recall no occasion when he had seen Holloway anywhere else. He could have been paralyzed from the waist down for all Brook knew. That desk was his home and his church. If he led any sort of life elsewhere, it was the best-kept secret in Washington.

In appearance he was unremarkable. He seemed to inhabit a gray area — gray hair, gray complexion, gray eyes with all the warmth of the North Atlantic, and Brook had never seen him in anything but a gray suit. His department knew nothing about their chief but the facts in his career dossier: a major in OSS during World War II in Normandy; after the war a post in State Department Security; then the Central Intelligence Agency, where he had risen to a supervisory and finally the executive level before being named Director of Operations in the Federation for Art and Cultural Exchange — FACE — which in its true function had as much to do with art and culture as the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan; less. From scraps picked up here and there — not, certainly, from Holloway — his agents deduced that he had once led a peripatetic existence, unbelievable as that was: Zanzibar, Hainan, Aden, Capetown, Pnompenh were mentioned; and a dangerous one, which was not hard to believe at all; standing or seated before that wound-up spring of a man behind his desk, his people could readily credit him with his share of kills and narrow escapes; he knew everything there was to know about violent death.

Perhaps that explained his tension. He sat in his chair like a catapult about to be triggered. It made Brook think sometimes that Holloway hated his swivel chair; that he kept himself seated there only through the fiercest self-discipline, because remaining in the seat was best for FACE and the United States of America. He was hard on everyone around him. No man Brook knew loved him; no man Brook knew, including himself, would not have laid down his life at Holloway’s nod.

The Director held up a sheet of paper.

“Not again,” Brook muttered.

“Again,” Holloway said.

Brook looked at the ten telephone numbers written on the paper. Holloway held the paper up for another few seconds, then put it back on his desk face down. Brook took a breath and repeated the ten numbers.

“Good,” Holloway said. “Forgetting the basics is how agents get killed. That’s how Fred Wilkinson got it in Tokyo.”

“Wilkinson? Baldy Wilkinson?”

“You knew him?”

“I had him as an instructor in Organization when I first joined CIA. I remember looking forward to his lectures because he talked a lot about foreign women. Baldy didn’t like lecturing. Always wanted to get back in the field.”

“He went back and that’s where he got his. He let somebody get close to him while he was waiting for a meet. Something a kid fresh from Operations school wouldn’t do.” Holloway pushed a sheaf of papers across the desk. “Here’s the story.”

Brook read fast under Holloway’s eye; Holloway had instituted a rapid-reading course for all his trainees, and by now it was a habit with Brook. Fred Wilkinson, veteran security agent... trying to contact Aleksei Krylov, cultural attaché, Soviet Embassy, Tokyo... strong preliminary indications Krylov wished to defect... Wilkinson’s body found floating in moat around Emperor’s palace... cause of death, several stab wounds with icepick-like weapon...

“Bad,” Brook said, looking up.

“Worse,” Holloway said, with his coldwater stare. “It was a foulup. I’d sent Wilkinson out of FACE last year, when it was obvious to me he was over the hill. CIA took him, and they were coordinating this. They gave Wilkinson the run. Even sent him to me for my opinion. Because he’d been one of my agents. I told them he’d had it, but they assigned him anyway under a FACE cover. Part of this is my fault. I should have put my foot down. I didn’t.”

Brook could scarcely believe his ears. Holloway confessing to human error? “Why doesn’t CIA make the run themselves?”

“It can’t be a regular agent, certainly not a resident, who contacts Krylov. With Krylov in Japan, and Japan so touchy about its Asian image, if anything should happen — if even part of the cover is blown — it has to look as if there’s no official connection. So now, after the foulup, it’s been handed over to FACE, which should have had it in the first place.”

And that was all the requiem the late Fred Wilkinson was going to get out of Holloway, Brook thought. Aloud he said, not thinking, “We’ve got it now?”

“Didn’t I just say so?” Holloway said. Brook wished he would turn the icewater off. “You’ve got it.”

“Yes, sir.” Brook sighed; and that was his requiem to Megan Jones. “Deadline?”

“Your jet leaves Washington International for Albuquerque at seven fifteen tomorrow morning. That gives you plenty of time to study the folder. You can sleep on the plane.”

“Thank you, sir,” Brook said.

“Good agents,” Holloway said, “don’t get sarcastic.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Oh, you’re good enough, although not half as good as you think you are. At least I haven’t fired you.”

“Or kicked me upstairs.”

“The only direction a man can go in this organization, Brook, is down. Your job is to stay where you are. As long as you do, you’re good. Well, good enough.”

Coming from Holloway, that was praise indeed. FACE agents secretly thought they were the best, and secretly Holloway thought so, too. He had made quite sure of it.

They came from everywhere; Brook’s background was fairly typical.

His mother had been Swiss; his father, a foreign service officer at State, had married her and brought her to the United States. Peter Brook had been raised in a middle-sized, middle-class town. Outwardly he was the median young American at the outset of his career. But he had grown up speaking French and German as well as English, and with his home training in languages he had acquired Spanish and Italian, and even some Russian, at school. The Army had immediately placed him in intelligence. Then the CIA had recruited him, and there he had received his training and early experience in espionage. FACE pried him loose from the CIA in one of Holloway’s periodic raids on the personnel of other security organizations, who would grumble and curse in vain. FACE — Holloway — had friends in astonishing places.

Brook could understand why the official intelligence agencies looked on FACE with disapproval. FACE came in handy for the jobs they were not permitted to touch; they were professionally jealous of the freedom they believed it enjoyed as a non-governmental agency.

FACE was largely financed by foundations and corporations. On all the other floors of the building it carried out legitimate activities designed to promote international cultural exchanges and so spread about the world the more salubrious aspects of the American scene. It was a nice, gentlemanly, even humane way of fighting the Russians and the Chinese. But that was its cover. Its real purpose was the dirty fight, and the in-group of business and government leaders formed the Special Research Section of FACE, with Holloway as its director, for precisely this purpose.

Brook glanced through the folder. “Krylov is in Tokyo. Why do I take a plane to Albuquerque?”

“Because Benny Lopez will join you there,” Holloway said.

“Good enough.” Benny Lopez was a gem.

“And because Lopez will take you to see General Levashev. What do you know about Levashev?”

“Only what every Joe Blow in the trade knows. What was it the Undersecretary said? When Levashev defected it was like getting one of their rockets.”

“The Undersecretary,” Holloway said, “talks too much. Levashev is hidden away in New Mexico. No one else — but no one — except a few top-security guards knows where he is. The place has a hundred defenses, none of them visible. It would be as easy for an assassin to get to him as to the ready room at SAC.”

“But what has General Levashev to do with this Krylov business?”

“For one thing, Levashev knows Krylov, and he can fill you in on details about him; the better informed you are about this man the better prepared you’ll be to bring him over. More important, when you do bring Krylov over—” Brook noted absently that Holloway did not say “if” “—we want a confrontation. Levashev’s been out of the center of things in Moscow for over a year, and with what Krylov can tell him in bringing him up to date Levashev can put a lot of twos together for us. Need anything else?”

Brook shook his head.

Holloway immediately turned back to the pile of paper work on his desk.

Chapter 3

The ends of the wooden viga beams protruded from the thick walls like thumbs; the geometry of Navajo blankets was worked into the décor. It made the Albuquerque airport unique. Brook always enjoyed landing there.

At a travelers’ booth he worriedly asked where hotels and courts were listed. The girl in the booth had a skin like coffee, but there was no trace of Indian in her neat suit and horn glasses; she looked out of place. She flashed the automatic smile of service girls everywhere.

“I’m looking for a court not far from the university,” Brook said. “I’ll be doing some research for a few days.” He made his explanation sound necessary. He had thrown it in as part of his cover, a precaution against the farout possibility that he was being tailed. It was Standard Operating Procedure; wherever you went you carried a cover, and you uncovered it in a manner appropriate to what you were pretending to be whenever you got the chance, although not in an obvious way.

The girl produced her list. Brook chose the motor court he had had in mind all along. He thanked her bashfully, retrieved his luggage, and hailed a taxi.

In his motel room he went through the routine motions of refreshing himself. It was unnecessary; the jet trip had been clean and untiring. But you never knew. Researchers in the common view were absent-minded, fussy, obsessive personalities; their habits were usually ritual. So much for the probably nonexistent tail. Brook sat down in the plastic overstuffed chair, lit a cigarillo, and waited for the knock on his door.

He wondered why he had been upset by last night. He had been summoned to Holloway’s desk before in the midst of a passage at arms and legs, and it had never produced more than a momentary annoyance and regret. It was one of the minor drawbacks of his profession. He decided that what had bugged him was the summons coming so close to the beckoning carrot. Megan was a tasty one; it was the ones you never quite got around to who stuck in a man’s mind. Oh, well, she’d still be there when he got back from Japan.

Then suddenly Brook decided that it hadn’t been interrupted sex at all. It was Holloway. What had it been about Holloway? He had seemed his usual inhuman self, a man who had long since stopped asking why to concentrate on the hows. And yet Brook could not get over the feeling that there was something about this run that... he could not quite put the feeling into a word. Whatever it stemmed from, Holloway had given no hint of it. But like all good agents Brook had developed a highly sophisticated sense for wrongness — the thing that made a man turn around at the approach of danger when there was no physical reason to do so.

Brook glanced at the television set on the other side of the room and half decided to turn it on. Introspection in an agent could be lethal... then why had he chosen to be one? He almost laughed. He had always been a parodox — an inner-directed, outgoing man. He could not deny to himself that, in spite of its disciplines and restraints, he enjoyed his work. He had the talents for it, the linguistic skills, the reflexes, the ability to blend with the wallpaper. He liked the travel part of the job, the assortment of people it gave him the opportunity to meet and observe — his major at college, in fact, had been cultural anthropology, and if his life had worked out differently he might at this moment be jotting down notes on significant tribal rites on some Pacific island. Instead, he was in a profession where deceit was the way of life and moral values were ignored. He smiled, thinking about it. Pete Brook, the nondescript guy who sat here in an inexpensive suit and who, without makeup or change of costume, could pass for anything from a truck driver to a college professor, outwardly the mildest and most predictable of conformists, had in the regular course of his employment broken every law on the books, including murder. Maybe that was the nitty-gritty. He was able to do all the forbidden things that every man darkly wanted to do and, instead of being punished for them, was paid.

He heard the signal knock he had been waiting for and got up to let Benny in.

Benigno Lopez was far from inconspicuous, although he was dressed as inconspicuously as Brook. Lopez had the high chest and short legs of the Aztec ancestor who had, willingly or not, mixed her blood with the blood of some conquistadore; his cheekbones were broad and his eyelids had the epicanthic fold. He looked more like an Indio than the peónes of his native Mexico. He was nearly Brook’s age, but already the deposits of the years were fleshing out his jowls. He could have been a Mexico City businessman except for his mashed nose. He was a good man in a fight, one of the best.

The two men shook hands warmly. “Long time, primo,” Benny said. His black eyes were sparkling.

“Six months,” Brook said. “Tangiers, wasn’t it? A great town for a couple of redblooded lechers.”

The Mexican showed his perfect teeth. “How long did we wait? — sixty days? And the guy never showed up. What a waste of the taxpayers’ money.”

“Let’s hope we have better luck this trip.”

“Thees time? I’m not so sure.” His wetback cover-accent sometimes showed when he was telling jokes on himself. “I was all set to go see Mondragon.”

“Who?”

“Juan Mondragon of Spain, in my opinion the greatest torero in the world. He’s fighting in Mexico City Sunday. Who knows when he’ll fight here again?”

“I bleed for you,” Brook said.

“In Sevilla he made eleven natural passes in a row and finished with a magnificent pase de pecho. They awarded him both ears and the tail. Goddam, I’d like to have been there.”

“Come on, Benny,” Brook said. “Today it’s a bear, not a bull. I’ll bet if you ask Levashev he’ll tell you they invented the bullfight.”

Benny said something about the land of the commissars in dirty Spanish.

They rode toward the hills. The horses were moth-eaten and querulous, poor stock. They could have taken a jeep over the dirt road, but Lopez thought it would look better if they seemed to be riding out for pleasure, so they had rented the nags at the shack and corral outside town. He had brought along for Brook a pair of blue jeans, a screaming sports shirt, shiny new boots, and even a Stetson in Brook’s size; he had changed into a similar costume. Two tourists out for a gander at the great Southwest.

“You can see some of the buildings now if you squint,” Lopez said.

Brook squinted.

“It used to be a ranch owned by a retired admiral, of all people. The government bought the spread just to keep Levashev there.”

“Were you in on this from the beginning, Benny? You seem to know a lot about it.”

“You are speaking,” Lopez said, “to one of the in-group, amigo. I am a very important man.”

Brook told him what he was in dirty English. The ranch was clearer now. It looked as if it had grown out of the New Mexican earth. “Pity the poor taxpayer again.”

“Worth every cent,” Lopez said. “Levashev’s their walking memory bank. Every time they need a fact about the other side the General has it. They’re always coming back to him.”

“I wonder what he thinks about all this.”

“All what?”

Brook nodded at the lunar landscape. “Presumably Levashev defected because he wanted to get free. And here he is, a prisoner.”

“Listen, Pete, this Levashev is a realist, like most Russkies. He knows that the minute our side let him loose the KGB would have a killer on his back. He’s got all the vodka he wants, he’s past the age of tomcatting, and from what I hear he’s nursing a real hate for the present commie regime. Remember, he was one of the original Bolsheviks, a pal of Lenin’s. He knows how much the brass at KGB want to get him. He’s perfectly happy here.”

“It’s hard to believe, being stashed away at the bottom of nowhere.”

“The Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce will not like you, señor! What’s with you, Pete? Levashev is an old man. All he wants is peace. Are you putting yourself in his place?”

“Maybe that’s it,” Brook said.

They came to an innocent-looking barbed-wire fence. Brook edged his horse toward it.

“Cuidado!” Lopez said.

“Electrified?”

Lopez nodded. “And a lot more not visible to the eye. This place is like something out of a science-fiction story! Let me lead.”

They followed the fence line until they came to an ordinary-looking gateway with a shack beside it. Before the shack, watching them approach, stood a Mexican in a wide straw hat and dusty work clothes. At least he looked like a Mexican. Brook kneed his horse closer to Lopez. “A leftover from Pancho Villa’s army?”

Lopez laughed. “That’s Shel Rifkin, born in Brownsville.”

“Texas?”

“Brooklyn. The other two in the shack are CIA, too. In case you’re interested—”

“—they’re holding rifles on us. What am I, blind? I thought they were expecting us.”

“They are. But how do they know we’re not Brezhnev and Kosygin in disguise?”

In the shack Brook was introduced to the three CIA men. Rifkin’s companions were also in clothes that went with the terrain. The CIA men checked their credentials, made the standard cracks about the cushy life enjoyed by FACE’s pampered playboys, and why didn’t they resign and join a real intelligence outfit? They also grumbled about having to pull nurse duty in the wilderness — apparently on this assignment agents were not rotated as often as usual — and indulged in other comments that came under the heading of shop talk. But in spite of their camaraderie, Brook noticed, they carried out a minute doublecheck; one even announced their arrival time, to the second, over a powerful transmitter in a corner of the shack.

Brooks and Benny Lopez were given a jeep. They drove for a mile or so along a two-rut road that led across a succession of low ridges and arroyos in a landscape stippled with boulders and scrubby piñones. At last they arrived at the ranch house, which was surrounded by old trees.

Brook looked around. There was no one in sight.

“No guards here?”

“Not where you can see them,” Lopez said with a grin. “They keep ’em out of the way so Levashev won’t be reminded he’s a target.”

A soft-footed Filipino houseman in a white coat led them into a Texas-sized rancho living room. A slight, small old man stood looking out a windowed roor that opened on a patio. His back was to them. In Russia Brook had been surprised at the generally short stature of the populace; he was reminded of it now. The old man wore a gray Stalin-type jacket and carried in his hand what Brook took to be a pipe.

General Levashev turned. It was not a pipe. It was a pistol.

He had the broad flat Mongolian-Turkish look of his Tartar ancestry, with overhanging clumps of cotton for brows and a shock of white hair. His eyes were young and alert; the puffy peasant hand that held the pistol was steady.

Brook was one coordinated linkup of muscles; without glancing at Benny, he knew that Benny was, too. It was automatic, like a knee-jerk. There were moves to make when a pistol was pointed at you and he and Benny Lopez without conscious thought were reviewing those moves just as automatically.

“Peace,” Peter Brook said in Russian; and then he said in English, “Put that thing down, General. You’re supposed to be expecting us. I’m Peter Brook. This is Benigno Lopez. Both of FACE.”

Levashev lowered the pistol. He allowed himself to smile, but without relaxing. Here’s a man, Brook thought, who tastes death every minute of his life. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.”

Brook nodded at the pistol. “You feel that’s necessary, General?”

Levashev must be close to eighty, Brook thought, and his yellowish skin was as unlined as a boy’s. Still, there was a musty aura about him, a smell of old age. It was more than weariness; he looked empty of belief. “A personal precaution,” he said. His English sounded like Gromyko’s, thick and heavy. He shrugged and went to a desk and placed the pistol in a drawer. He did not shut the drawer. “I am told the defenses are impenetrable here. Yet one does not arrive at my age, in this world we live in, by faith alone. So I have insisted on a last defense, in what they tell me is the impossible event that someone should slip through. Nothing is impossible, only unlikely. Forgive me. Will you be seated, gentlemen? Make yourselves comfortable.”

Brook and Lopez sat down on a settee, and Levashev sank into the armchair facing it. He did not move with marked slowness, yet all his movements spoke of lassitude and indifference, as though he had gone through every possible motion innumerable times and no longer cared to improvise new ones.

“A drink?” he said. “Wine? Whisky? I believe there is even bourbon. That is what Americans prefer, I find.” His tone suggested that he, Levashev, found bourbon barbarous. Once a Russian always a Russian, Brook thought.

“Nothing, thanks.” Benny Lopez shook his head, too.

Levashev folded his thick fingers in his lap. “Well, then. What can I tell you gentlemen?”

“You must have been briefed, General,” Brook said. “We’re here to learn all we can about Aleksei Krylov.”

Levashev reached for a pipe with a curved stem. “Aleksei Vassilievich Krylov. I know him very well. The first time I saw him I knew that he would one day become an important man. Do you know why? Because he was never a very good socialist.”

“I don’t follow,” Brook said.

Levashev’s smile thinned. “In the Soviet Union these days, Mr. Brook, no good socialist succeeds. The only means of rising above the masses is by cultivating contempt for them — discreetly, of course. One never calls it that. Instead, you pretend that the benefits you are enjoying enable you to serve the dear Ivans and Mashas better. Since everyone in the — what you call the Establishment — is doing the same thing, no one contradicts you. Russia was really the wrong country for revolution. That is the tragedy of it.”

“I wish we had more time to discuss these things, General,” Brook said respectfully. “But time is of the essence. We have to get specific information about Krylov and take off.”

Levashev shrugged; the shrug said that Americans were a hurrisome people. “What shall I tell you? His background?”

“We know Krylov’s background. Up through the party ranks, special training in the Foreign Institute, the usual. His first foreign assignment was China, back in the Fifties. When your people were still welcome in China.”

“Interesting, that assignment of Krylov’s.” Levashev filled his pipe with slow fingers, applied a match, puffed and puffed; Brook thought he would never get it going. The Russian finally sat back. “We sent a number of advisers to China to help build their socialist state. Krylov went along to help organize the secret arm of their state security apparatus — it came under what was called internal security, but it was really their foreign intelligence network. They were naïve in those days. It took our Chinese comrades some time to realize that Krylov was there to gather information on their young security system for the central index in Moscow. I suspect they have never forgiven Krylov for it.”

“He had other assignments after China,” Brook prodded him.

“But before as well. That is most important. As a young man Aleksei Krylov served his apprenticeship — as an apparatchik — in various posts abroad. He was, in fact, a simple kidnapper and assassin. As time went on, he showed such talent as to rise rapidly in the KGB, where he is now a lieutenant colonel. Krylov has traveled a long and difficult road since the days when he was a mere professional murderer. He has developed proper contempt for the masses, almost bourgeois manners, perhaps too much of a taste for the luxurious trivia of the West. Of course, while serving abroad attached to embassies and legations in various spurious posts, he operated throughout as part of the Soviet intelligence apparat. I am sure you are familiar with the dangers of this sort of life to a Soviet agent. Krylov has done well, nevertheless. I suspect they have sent him to Tokyo as a reward. A breathing spell, you might say. For a year or two. That was a mistake, it now appears.”

“Yes,” Brook said. “You don’t have to be a capitalist in Tokyo to enjoy its fine line of vices.”

“That is why only the most trusted agents are sent to such posts. Even then they are watched; sometimes they are forbidden to leave the Embassy grounds. Krylov, however, has been very nearly above suspicion. There will be some red faces — and perhaps some rolling heads — if he should defect. He was given the best cover of all, that of cultural attaché. This permits him to mingle freely with the foreign community. In fact, he is encouraged to do so.”

Brook nodded impatiently. “We know all this, General. What we hoped to learn was the inside stuff about Krylov. His hobbies, likes, dislikes, weaknesses — things like that.”

Levashev stared at him. “I should say that most of Aleksei Vassilievich’s personal interests are of the capitalist, even the aristocratic, mold. He fancies himself a gourmet and a connoisseur of vintages. He likes to ride pour le sport, and in Denmark and England he even developed a fondness for yacht racing, the most capitalist pleasure of all. He has become reckless, I believe. Yes, a ripe plum for you.”

“Doesn’t this make him suspect in the eyes of his superiors?”

“Yes and no. He is clever and slippery and plausible. His explanation, when he attends certain garden parties and sporting events that are not on the official list, for example, is that he is carrying out the spirit of his orders, which are to mingle with the enemy in order to learn secrets. It is a fact, moreover, that he has produced invaluable intelligence for the KGB. In the Soviet Union nothing succeeds like success, as I believe you say here. So Krylov has managed to keep his position, with only an occasional reprimand for too much zeal. But you ask about his weakness. It is this fondness for luxuries.”

“That’s a Russian Communist speaking,” Brook said. “Forgive me, General, but in the United States the achievement of luxury is the common man’s dream.”

“And that is your weakness, too,” old Levashev retorted. “But let us not become embroiled in argument. Krylov has the requisite working-class background, or he would never have advanced so rapidly in the first place. Luxury is not natural to him, which is perhaps why he pursues it so fiercely. And why, because he must feel guilty about it, he is constantly parading his knowledge of ‘the finer things’ he pursues. Perhaps I am painting too crude a picture. While he exhibits many of the characteristics associated with your nouveaux riches, he is not at all obvious or stupid about it. I call it a weakness only because such things are self-deceptions. In the Soviet Union we have made an art of this, for all our practicality. It is this that, in my opinion, will result in the eventual collapse of the Marxist state.”

“Then you would recommend playing on Krylov’s love of Western luxury, General?”

“It is my recipe for traitors.” Levashev paused to relight his pipe. Brook and Lopez stared at him. Didn’t he realize that he had just damned himself as well? The men in the Kremlin were certainly not calling General Levashev a Hero of the Soviet Union. He was an astonishing old man. “How do you plan to bring Krylov over, Mr. Brook?”

“No plan yet, General. I’ll size up the situation when I get there. The main thing is how badly he wants to defect. We’ve received indications that he’s about ready. You know how delicate these things are.” Brook could not resist it.

“Oh, yes,” Levashev said; he sat blinking at them with his Stalin eyes. “I began that way myself. The idea begins as a little lesion, a sort of psychic tumor. It is at first frightening, but as it grows one becomes less afraid of it. It is the leaving of your own kind, your country — forgive me if I sound chauvinistic — that gnaws at a man. I would not be seated here today if the schemers in the Kremlin had not betrayed the socialist revolution.”

“Then you still believe in that crap?” Brook exclaimed.

“Mr. Brook.” Levashev sounded hurt, and Brook felt ashamed. But then Levashev smiled and waved his pipe. “This, as you Americans are fond of saying, is a free country, is it not? Of course I am still a Marxist. Your intelligence is well aware of my ideological loyalties. It is precisely because of them that I decided to oppose the present regime. I shall never see the results of what I am doing — not in my lifetime — but one must live with a purpose, and this is mine. To help destroy those who have betrayed us.”

“And you’re content to live here like a prisoner to do it?”

Levashev’s shrug was broad. “What do I need beyond the small comforts I find here? To have purpose is enough. If we had more time I would explain in detail, but I am sure it would bore you.”

“Let’s get back to Krylov,” said Brook, nodding at once.

“If you wish.” Levashev struck another match.

In the room at the motel Brook mixed a Scotch and soda for Benny Lopez and one for himself.

“Here’s to Tokyo,” said Lopez, raising his glass. “May it turn out better than Tangiers.”

“Now, Benny,” said Brook. “There won’t be much time for fleshpotting.”

“When is there ever? You know the reason I joined this damned outfit? I thought I’d see the world, with a girl in every port. But every place I go, I don’t have time. Maybe after this one I’ll quit. Open a law office. Santa Fe, maybe. Run for office.”

Brook smiled.

“Yeah.” Lopez drank sadly. “What am I kidding myself for, compadre? Nobody ever quits this racket.”

Brook looked at him. “You believe that rumor?”

“Rumor.” Lopez laughed. “In the last five years three FACE agents have quit. Only three. And they were all dead from ‘accidents’ within a year.” He twirled the glass. “You believe it?”

“I don’t know.”

“To hell with it,” said Lopez, and raised his glass again. “To Tokyo.”

“To Tokyo,” said Brook, and drank with him.

Chapter 4

Brook kept goggling about as he taxied from the railroad station to the complex along the shore known as the Katori Spa. There were farm women in their billowing trousers as they toted baskets of tangerines slung from shoulder poles; leathery fishermen mending nets; racks of tiny mackerel hanging in the sun. He acted nervous as the driver drove him too fast along the narrow streets that cobbled toward the shore. Brook had visited Japan many times in the military service and later on intelligence assignments; a seaside spa (there were dozens along the Izu Peninsula south of Tokyo) was hardly a novelty to him. But he rubbernecked as if he had never been closer to Japan than a picture postcard.

The taxi deposited him at a big central structure at seaside. It was a concrete box, out of place in this setting. The sign over the front door said: KATORI SPA RECREATION CENTER, in English — to indicate, Brook supposed, that most of its patrons belonged to the foreign community.

He registered for one of the Japanese-style individual cottages strung along the shore and let a muscular maid in a kimono pick up his bag and go off with it. He looked past the desk out the picture window. There was a terrace, beyond the terrace glittered the sea, and a mile offshore he could see the delicate sails of small boats in a lively race.

The moon-faced clerk at the desk noticed his interest. “You like sail boat, sir?”

“Very much.”

“Ah! Then you very like Katori. Is best sail place in Japan.”

“That’s what I’ve heard, all right.” Brook took a notebook from his pocket, opened to a page, and frowned at a name jotted there. “Is Mr. Stark in, by any chance?”

“Stark-san?” The clerk showed all his teeth. “He boss.”

“Boss? Oh, you mean manager. I’m hoping to see him. Could you give him my card?” Brook fumbled for a business card and found it.

“‘Mist’ P. Brook, Naval Architect.’” The clerk looked up. “You like I call Stark-san now?”

“Please.”

The clerk dialed an extension number — from the clicks, to Brook’s practiced ear, it was 347. The man spoke for a moment in Japanese, mentioning the name Brook, and handed the phone over.

“This is Peter Brook,” Brook said.

“Toby Stark here,” said a hearty voice with an Australian accent. “What’s all this about naval architects? That bloody idiot at the desk never gets anything straight.”

“Didn’t you get my letter about a week ago? That explained things.”

“Letter? Don’t recall a letter from anyone named Brook. Small wonder. Foreign mail is always fouled up in this bloody country.”

“Well, now that I’m here it doesn’t matter.” Brook had counted on the Japanese postal confusion to explain the failure of a letter he had not had time to write. “I’m here to look into the possibilities of boat-building in Japan, Mr. Stark. The company I’m with manufactures yachts. As I understand it you’ve dealt with a number of boatyards, so I thought I’d combine business with pleasure, visit your resort and talk to you at the same time.”

“Good show,” said Toby Stark’s voice. “You settled in yet?”

“On my way to my cottage.”

“Right. Well, then, soon as you wiggle out of your girdle, why not drop by the castle?”

“The castle?”

“That’s what they call where I live. Rich old farmer’s house, actually. The boys will take you here. Just ring that stuttering cobber at the desk when you’re ready.”

The cottage was done in the Japanese equivalent of Grand Rapids, and Brook pretended to admire it as he washed and changed into sports clothes. He killed a few more minutes reading a pamphlet about Katori Spa. The complex had been built on the site of a watering place that had been a favorite of court nobles in the old days. Here at Katori, the brochure said, the volcanic mountains come to the very sea and from them gush the health-giving waters in which many Emperors and Noble Visitors have bathed. In modern times Katori Spa, with its swimming, golfing, sailboating, and other delights has become a favorite of the respected foreign community as well as of discerning Japanese patrons.

Brook tossed the pamphlet aside and called the desk. A few moments later a houseboy in a white coat was leading him upslope and through a rocky garden to a large house perched on the hillside, overlooking the resort.

Toby Stark’s “castle” was surrounded by a thick high wall; Brook had to pass through a great torii gateway. To one side he saw a small pavilion in which hung a verdigrised bronze bell as tall as a man; suspended beside it was evidently its clapper. In another direction loomed a tallish structure with slits for windows that vaguely resembled a blockhouse. Brook thought he had seen something like it before; then he remembered. It was a grain-storage building. Through the pines he made out a small shrine and part of a pond in which carp and ducks were swimming.

As he came up to the front doors of the main building they slid apart and a big fat man in a black kimono grinned out at him. He was not Japanese. He had a Texas sort of complexion, oversized features, a blob of a nose, and bulging eyes that looked idiotic and missed nothing. The grin was bracketed by two obscene dimples.

“Brook? Stark. Come in, come in. What do you drink?” His handshake was warm and flabby.

The big living room was Japanese except for the chairs, which were Western; one was a great overstuffed affair in red Naugahyde, evidently reserved for Stark. In one corner there was a businesslike teakwood bar. Stark headed for it immediately, waving Brook to a chair. Just as the American was about to sit down a door at the other side of the room slid back and a woman came in. He straightened.

“I am sorry,” the woman said at the sight of Brook. “I did not know you had company, Stark-san.” Her English was colored with the faintest accent, more European than oriental, Brook thought, although her eyes were slanted. Probably a Eurasian. She was quite impossibly beautiful. She wore the tight-fitting, slit-skirted cheongsam, of black silk, as if it had been invented for her; it molded her body like a cast. The mere sight of her stirred Brook’s manhood. Her dark hair came to her shoulders; there were reddish glints in it — a charming heritage, he thought, from her probably Celtic papa.

The fat man glanced up. “Oh, it’s all right, Jazz. Mr. Brook here. But I suppose we will be talking a bit of business.”

“I will go, then.”

“Don’t have to.”

“No, it was nothing of importance.” She lowered her eyes to Brook. But as she brought her head up again she gave him a most occidental onceover, from head to toe, pausing briefly at his chest and shoulders with unmistakable interest. He smiled at her.

She smiled back and left the room. The answering smile bothered him.

“What’s your pleasure, Brook?”

“Oh?” Brook turned to Stark. “Anything. Same as yours.”

“Whisky-soda, then,” said Stark, bustling behind the counter. “In your country whisky can mean several types. To us there’s only one, and only the bloody Scotsmen know how to make it.”

He came forward with two tall glasses. Brook said, “Thanks,” and sat down.

Stark loomed over him. “What do you think of Jazz?”

“The young lady?”

“Jasmine, really. Although that’s a name she took.”

“She’s very beautiful. Is she Mrs. Stark?”

Stark’s belly shook. “Not exactly. A very good friend. I’d probably go off my bloody wicket without her. I’m not complaining, mind you — Katori Spa’s a marvelous place. But a man like me does get lonely here. Jazz helps.”

“I’ll bet.” Brook looked about. “Quite a place you’ve got here, Mr. Stark.”

“Not mine at all,” Stark said. “I’m just the bloody resident manager. A salaried flunkey like the rest. And just as underpaid, I might add.”

“Then you don’t own the Spa.”

“Not likely! It’s the property of a cartel of bloody rich Japanese. They set this up for foreigners, so they wanted a foreigner to run it, and here I am. I’ve become identified with it, damn those Jap Scrooges! Up in Tokyo they don’t say, ‘Let’s go down to Katori Spa,’ they say, ‘Let’s go down to Toby’s.’ Not that I’m the only attraction, character though I am — good business, you know? We have everything here. Golf, swimming, yacht basin — girls, too, if they don’t bring their own, though we’re a bit careful about that.”

Brook laughed. “I’m sold, Stark. You don’t have to give me the pep talk.”

Stark roared, everything bounding. He waddled to the overstuffed chair and made himself comfortable, nuzzling his glass. “When you’re not naval architecting, what’s your pleasure?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I mean, what else are you down here for? Do you like girls?”

“Very much.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. You never know these days. What else, Brook?”

“Sailing. I understand you have your own boats.”

“How right you are. Very good class, too — designed and built here. The Tsuru class — means ‘crane.’ Seventeen feet long and frisky as a virgin, or so the sailing lads tell me. Race every Saturday and Sunday, weather permitting. Trophies at the end of the season, and all that. Nicely organized, if you’ll pardon the puff.”

“I hope I can get in some sailing. It might be profitable for my company to have these Tsuru boats, or any other good class, for that matter, built over here to export to the States. Cheaper labor costs, for one thing. I’d like to try out your boats. In a race, if possible.”

Stark nodded and tilted his glass. Brook permitted himself to look anxious. “I’m sure we can arrange it, Brook. What the club members do is list their names for the races each week, a skipper and one crewman to a boat. But there’s always somebody funking out, so the chances are good of getting on. See here, why don’t we amble down to the basin and have a look?”

“Fine,” Brook said promptly.

“Just leave your whisky,” Stark said. “We’ll get another there.”

The fat man held on to Brook’s arm all the way down the winding path through the rocks and trees past the guest cottages. Brook pumped him openly; Americans had a notoriously long nose for other people’s business, and it would have been out of the character he was playing to act otherwise. Besides, if the plan he had formulated was to go through successfully, a working knowledge of Katori Spa’s manager might be helpful.

Stark babbled on about himself happily enough. His first sight of Japan had been as a member of the Aussie army when the Australian forces had taken part in the Occupation. “I was scrawny then,” the fat man laughed, “believe it or not.” He had been a mess sergeant. “That’s what began to fatten me up.” After his discharge he had worked at resort hotels — everywhere from Istanbul to Acapulco, he said — winding up in Tokyo, where he landed the managership of Katori Spa; by that time he had acquired a managerial reputation, it seemed. The Japanese owners appeared pleased with him, and they had given him to understand that the job was his for as long as he wanted it.

“If those bloody Japs think I could stand this life for the rest of my days, they can think again. Too bloody dull for my taste. But then there’s Jazz, and I’m not quite ready to dump her. She’s got a way of making a man feel like the big joss.” His Japanese lantern of a face wrinkled in a leer. “Aside from her other talents.”

“Is this place her home, Stark?”

“She’s living here, if that’s what you mean. She’s part Chinese, part Irish, part Portuguese, and God knows what else. No family, all dead or scattered to hell knows where. Raised in Macao, you know, speaks half a dozen lingoes. Drifted to Japan a few years back and claims she likes it. I suppose she thinks what she’s got with me is permanent.” He shrugged his mountainous shoulders. “So far it is,” Stark said, and winked, looking suddenly like a frog.

Brook tucked the information about the girl away.

Stark showed Brook through the yacht club, proudly pointing out the sundeck with its pedestaled binoculars, and introduced him to several of his Japanese assistants and workmen. At the basin breakwater Brook looked over one of the sailboats and counted a dozen others on moorings in the harbor.

They finished their tour in the club bar. Stark ordered two Scotch-and-sodas and pointed to the blackboard on the wall. “There’s the race lineup for Sunday. They won’t all be here, Brook; you can step in right enough.”

“Jones, Hakayama, Sirois, Christiansen, Echeveria — sounds like a rollcall at the United Nations,” Brook said. Each name had a boat number after it.

“The whole bloody international crowd. We’ve even got a real live Soviet Roosian.”

“Is that so?” Brook said.

“That’s the bloke right there. Krylov. Nice chap as Rooskies go. He’s with their embassy in Tokyo. Practically commutes here every weekend. Absolutely hooked on sailing. No one’s ever told him it’s a capitalist sport, I suppose.”

Brook responded with the laugh Stark expected. “Whose name is that under Krylov’s? His crewman?”

“Right. Quackernack, Jan Quackernack. A Dutchie with some oil company here. He and the Roosian get on pretty well, so they always sail together.”

“Let’s hope I draw a congenial skipper on Saturday.”

“They’re all decent types. Well, now, what else can I do for you? Quarters comfortable, and all that?”

“Couldn’t be cosier.”

“Then I’ll be running along. Sure you don’t need a little company for later this evening?”

Brook laughed. “Another time, Stark. I have some paper work to do tonight.”

“That’s the Yank in you,” said Stark, grinning. “The only thing that can keep a Stateside bloke from chasing skirts is business.”

“It doesn’t work that way with you?”

“’Arf ’n’ ’arf, you might say. I try to mix the two whenever possible.” He was still chuckling as he lumbered off. Brook was relieved to see him go.

Jan Quackernack turned his little Japanese sedan toward the gateway of his own house, switched the lights to dim, and got out of the car to open the gate. He was a tall thin man, all arms and legs, who had some difficulty extricating himself. He was swarthy, as some Dutchmen are; his long face was usually either saturnine or anxious, depending on his mood.

It was not unusual for Quackernack to arrive home after dark; he was a man of late working habits, as everyone knew who took the trouble to telephone his office.

He had represented the Half Moon Oil Company in Japan for two years, and he put himself out to be accepted by the international community and his Japanese associates. His two boys, nine and twelve, were receiving a sound education in the international school; his wife Heidi, as plump and blonde as he was thin and dark, kept herself happy with afternoon teas and flower-arrangement classes. Quackernack had hesitated before latching onto Aleksei Krylov, the Soviet attaché, because he was not sure that his friends would approve; he was not the sort to rock boats. But when he saw how the yachting crowd took to Krylov, he struck up an acquaintance and was soon sailing with the Russian at Katori Spa. What muttering there was about the Russian came from the Americans — they were on to him, they would say darkly but even they acknowledged Krylov’s skill on the water.

Quackernack unlocked his gate. He was already savoring his wife’s dinner; she was a splendid cook, and she would not hear of the Japanese cook’s preparing the Dutch meals her husband loved. A nip or two of the Holland gin from the stone bottle (Quackernack loved the cheesy odor that made most non-Hollanders shudder); then the delicious dinner; then an evening with the phonograph and the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam... life was good.

A blur of shadow came out of the deeper shadows. He turned to face it in surprise. It was a Japanese in shabby clothing, with the twisted towel on his head. Quackernack could not see the face, but the man was short and muscular.

He began to say in Japanese, “What do you want?” when the blur was on him. Hands flashed. He instinctively raised his arms.

That was his last memory for some time. Something that felt like an ax struck the side of his neck, and he fell.

The shabby man leaned over, took Quackernack’s compliant arm and, using both hands, snapped it across his thigh. It made a sound like ice breaking in the spring thaw. He dropped it, rose, and walked off without looking back.

In the public telephone booth a few minutes later the operator made his connection, and the shabby man dutifully dropped a number of ten-yen pieces in the depository.

“Yes?”

“Everything’s hunky-dory and chop suey,” said the shabby man.

“Then he won’t be sailing Saturday.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Thanks, Benny,” said Brook, and hung up.

Chapter 5

It was going to be a fine day for sailing, Brook decided at the clubhouse window. The mischievous fifteen-knot wind that had been predicted by noon was just beginning to tinker with the sea. The sky was clear and small; cumulus mobiles overhung the horizon.

Brook sipped his coffee. He stood at the end of the teakwood bar unnoticed by the score or more of belly-uppers who were gathered in their sailing clothes before the race. He had never been able to explain his talent for making himself invisible in a crowd; it was part of him, like the Cheshire Cat’s face. Once he had discussed the matter with a fellow-agent, an ex-actor, who had argued rather loftily that it was simply a state of mind: if Brook became unaware of himself he would not seem to be there to others. Brook remembered thinking that the argument had all the real force of a debater’s point. No, it had to be something else. He had once even considered discussing it with Holloway, but had sensibly decided against it.

The sailors made an animated group; there was ozone in the air as well as spirits. It was remarkable what a polyglot bunch they were, all talking English with the accents of a dozen different tongues.

He sensed a stir — no more than a hesitation — as a big man came into the bar. Brook recognized him immediately. It was Aleksei Krylov. A boyish smile was on the Russian’s lips, the effect helped along by the gap between two of his upper front teeth. His face was strongly Slavic; good muzhik features, Brook supposed they would be called in Russia. But it lacked the dourness of the typical Soviet face, that look of waiting for a blow to fall which even the highest specimens in the Kremlin seemed to have. Krylov’s was all candor, peace, and joy. His dark hair was curly with unkemptness, as if in rueful resignation to the inevitable. Here, you instantly felt, was a big eager puppy of a man on whom you would turn your back with complete trust.

Like everyone else in the bar the Russian intelligence agent wore sailing clothes. In his case it was a polo shirt and khaki shorts which revealed manly arms and legs covered with a shag bleached by the sun.

The pulsebeat pause broke into waves; there were calls of greeting. Hi, Alex!.. What d’ye say, old boy?... Krylov grinned and waved back. He walked to the bar.

Brook spotted Krylov’s shadow, a man with Brook’s talent for melting into backgrounds. He wore a dark suit that might have been a chauffeurs uniform or an undertaker’s working clothes. He was short and squat. His lumpy, yellowish face had all the character of a washed potato. The eyes were a pale blue-green. As Krylov moved smiling into a place made for him at the bar, this man was suddenly seated in a wicker armchair to one side of the room, the gloomy side, leafing through a yachting magazine. He began to read something with the air of an aficionado.

Brook sipped as Krylov traded banter with the men beside him. When the Russian’s coffee arrived he dug out a pack of Russian cigarettes, selected one, crimped the long cardboard tube, put it to his boyish lips, and lit up. He smoked Russian style, holding the cigarette with the thumb, forefinger, and middle finger from beneath. Brook had no doubt that he could smoke American style with equal facility.

The dumpy man in the wicker chair continued to watch Krylov from behind the magazine.

Brook watched him, too.

From the pantomime — Brook was too far away to hear the conversation — he caught Krylov’s discovery that he would be without a crewman in the morning’s race. Krylov stared at the blackboard, frowned his boyish frown, then looked about the room.

Brook set his cup down and elbowed his way to Krylov’s side. “Good morning. Are you Mr. Krylov?”

“Yes?” The Russian agent sounded friendly enough, but there was no amiability in his blue eyes. No hostility either, of course; he was too well-trained for that. What he was doing was sizing Brook up; you did that automatically.

“I’m Pete Brook. New around here, but I’m aching to get into the race. I hear you’ve lost your crewman.”

“Yes,” Krylov said. A little warmth had crept into his pleasant voice; it said, I don’t know what your game is, Amerikanski, but I’m going to play it. “My man inconsiderately had his arm broken last night by a street ruffian. You are experienced, Mr. Brook?”

“Some. I’m a naval architect, mostly small-craft design.”

“That sounds fortunate for me.” Krylov nodded toward the bartender. “A drink, perhaps?”

Brook traded him boyish grins. “After we win the race, positively.”

“I like a prudent man. Good, come along.” He glanced at his watch. “We have some time. Let us spend it getting acquainted.”

“Sounds like the thing to do,” said Brook. “I want another coffee.” He squirmed up to the bar.

Krylov was surveying him with a smile. “You’re American, of course.”

“Sure thing.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Not really. I know your name from the blackboard.”

“I am cultural attaché at the Soviet Embassy in Tokyo.”

“Oh? Glad to meet you, Mr. Krylov.”

“You do not disapprove?”

“Disapprove? What the hell for?”

Krylov shrugged a Slavic shrug. “Some Americans become emotional at the discovery.”

Brook laughed. “Not me. Anyway, there’s no politics in sailing, I always say.”

“I am happy to hear it.” Krylov glanced at the man in the wicker chair. He wanted me to see that, Brook thought, and wondered why.

Brook promptly said, “Your friend?”

“My chauffeur,” Krylov said with another shrug. “You know the diplomatic services. Or perhaps you do not. My embassy prefers that we do not drive ourselves. This seems to be especially important in the Orient, with its preoccupation with face. And Volodya takes his duties seriously, sometimes too seriously for my taste. He does not allow me out of his sight.” He chuckled at bureaucracy everywhere. Was it a warning? A feeler? Brook could not decide. Krylov said suddenly, “But you, Mr. Brook. Is this your first visit to Japan?”

“I’m on a business trip this time,” Brook said. He recited his legend about manufacturing sailboats. It seemed to satisfy Krylov. He’s a good one, Brook thought. He reacts to subtleties like an honest man. Not that, if Brook were an agent, Krylov would expect to fool him. These were the traditional gambits, tried and proved in ten thousand deadly games.

“We do not sail much for sport in my country,” the Russian said, shrugging again. “I was bitten by the bug, as you Americans say, when I was sent abroad. Now I am completely infected. It is difficult to explain the mania to others, is it not? I have a theory about this. Sailing is partly art, partly science. It appeals to a man with an interest in both.”

“You may be right at that,” Brook said. “In designing a boat you can construct a line — the sheer line along the deck, for instance — according to a mathematical equation, but it somehow never comes out as well as the line you draw by eye.”

The conversation took this pleasant tack for some time. Krylov was well-informed; he knew how to listen, and he made sensible responses. Like most sexless male conversations, this one wandered. The Russian skimmed a number of subjects, from vintage wines to the proper ammo for big-game hunting. Brook noticed only a trace of what General Levashev had mentioned in his briefing — that Krylov was just a little eager to show off his knowledge of the leisurely life. He embraced the role of dilettante as though to prove that a Soviet Russian could become a cultivated man as well as anyone if he set his mind to it.

If it was Krylov’s weakness, it had its advantages. In a remarkably short time they had established a rapport. On guard as he always was, Brook found himself liking the fellow nevertheless; he sensed, suspiciously at first, and then with conviction, that Krylov liked him. They quite naturally began calling each other “Alex” and “Peter.” I’ll really have to watch my step with this operator, Brook thought. Observing and weighing Krylov’s charm at close range, he saw that the Russian’s value to his service must be considerable. All he had to do was mix with the foreign community; sooner or later his charm, his ease of manner, his man-of-the-world air, his cultural and scientific catholicity, would loosen tongues. He must pick up a great deal of information.

They drifted with the others down to the breakwater, where an attendant in a launch ferried them out to the boat to which they had been assigned.

“Number Thirteen.” Krylov grinned. “Are you superstitious, Peter?”

“I’m a realist,” Brook said solemnly. “That ought to meet with approval in your country.”

“Officially, of course. But at heart we Russians are creatures of sentiment. That makes us unpredictable. It is an advantage.”

An opening? It would not be hard to turn the subject of national traits into a discussion of national ideologies, and then to drop a hint about Krylov’s reputed desire to defect. But Brook resisted the temptation. It was too early for that. If he pushed too hard, Krylov might smell a trap and shy off. It was a matter of timing, of sensing the moment when Krylov would be most vulnerable.

As they rigged the boat, Krylov watched him frankly. Brook raised the jib and reminded him to put the battens into the main. Without being told, he pushed the boom down at the tack to tighten the mainsail, then fastened the downhaul smartly on the cleat.

Krylov beamed. “It is good to have a sailor aboard. I was furious when I heard Jan could not come.”

“Jan?”

“Jan Quackernack, my regular crewman. It was very strange, what happened to him. As I mentioned, he was attacked by a Japanese — at least he was in Japanese clothing — near his house. Jan was knocked unconscious, but not robbed.”

“You mean it’s strange because he wasn’t robbed?” That’s going to cost you, Benny, Brook told himself grimly. It was an unforgivable oversight.

“No, no, the man might have been frightened off by some passerby.” Brook felt relieved. “No, Jan told me on the telephone that the ruffian rendered him unconscious with a karate blow. I ask you, Peter, what ordinary hooligan is familiar with karate?”

“In Japan?” Brook said innocently. “I thought every Japanese knew karate?”

“That is not so, although it is widely believed in the West. And then there was the matter of Jan’s arm. It was broken.”

“Oh, your friend probably broke it when he fell down.”

“Perhaps.” Krylov did not sound convinced. Damn, Benny should have taken the guy’s wallet. “Jan does not remember how that happened.”

“Does it matter, Alex?”

Krylov laughed. “To a Russian everything matters. Especially strange things in a foreign country. It is like catching a misstep in the ballet. Or a false note.”

“But what could be wrong?”

“If I knew, my friend, I would not be wondering about it.” Krylov glanced at the sails, then shrugged, sat down, and took the tiller. “We can move now,” he said abruptly. Brook threw off the bowline and backwinded the jib to bring the boat around on its course.

They sailed in silence out of the small basin to sea, where other boats were already coasting up and down, their skippers trying them out before the first warning signals. Brook sat on a thwart and manipulated the backstays and jib sheets, trimming the small forward sail constantly so that it drew just the right amount of wind.

He was thinking: Maybe we goofed in taking Quackernack out. Benny for using karate, and not robbing the guy, myself for not cautioning Benny beforehand. Krylov was sharp, and they should have allowed for it. He might have mentioned the incident to let me know he knows who I am and just what’s going on. To throw me off balance? If that was his purpose, damn him, he’s succeeded.

To the eye Brook and Krylov were in close communion. Brook saw immediately that Krylov was a superb sailor, ruthlessly competitive. Although they were merely making their way to the starting line, the Russian insisted on the finest possible trim with each changing puff. He was dedicated to the main point of pleasure sailing, which was to move the boat economically and beautifully.

The first warning flag rose on the committe launch’s short mast. Krylov pointed to it, and Brook nodded.

“Practice start,” Krylov said. “You have a stopwatch?”

Brook tapped the Rolex on his wrist.

“What I shall try today is a start to the right of the committee boat. Twenty-five seconds on a broad reach, ten seconds to jibe, then twenty-five seconds to return to the mark on a close reach. We will be on the starboard tack when we cross.”

“We’d better not overshoot or undershoot. We’ll never get in.”

“I know, I know.” Krylov smiled. “It is a risk, but that is how one wins, is it not? By taking risks?”

“Sometimes,” Brook smiled back. And wondered again if Krylov was giving him an opening. It’s that damned Russian accent, he thought. Or my conditioning to it. He decided to play hard to get a little longer.

They joined the boats milling about near the line and practiced Krylov’s tactic. The perfect start would be to cross at the crack of the gun. If they crossed early they would have to turn around and cross again; in this case the other boats would have right of way, making it difficult to get back fast. On the other hand, if they came to the line too late, the others would have the advantage of a head start. Krylov handled his boat skillfully in the tryout and they reached the line again fifty-two seconds after they had left it. “All right,” Krylov said with satisfaction. “Twenty-two seconds out, eight seconds to jibe, twenty-two back. That should do it if the wind does not change.”

Brook lost himself in their preparations for the race. Krylov was keeping a sharp eye on the warning flags as they changed, putting the boat through several maneuvers; at one point he had Brook crawl forward and give the forestay turnbuckle another turn.

Once Brook glanced toward shore. Sure enough, there was the squat figure of Volodya, the “chauffeur,” silhouetted on the breakwater.

He kept calling the time, and on the tick of the final warning flag’s rise they were racing away from the committee launch and the fleet; most of the other boats were using the orthodox tactic of sailing to leeward at right angles to the starting line. He divided his attention between his stopwatch and the trim of the jib. At twenty-two seconds Krylov jibed the boat like a master and headed back. Brook called off the seconds. Judging the rapidly decreasing distance to the line, Krylov slowed or accelerated by letting the mainsail in or out. His performance was astonishing: at the last moments Brook thought they would cross the line early, but in a lightning maneuver Krylov swung to windward and back again. His final pull on the helm and mainsheet, while Brook swiftly brought the jib in tight, put them in close-hauled, with their bow only a few feet from the starting line.

The gun went off.

They were first across, showing their tail to the nearest boat by many yards. For some time to come Krylov would stay on his present course, the first leg of the tacking route to the buoy.

“Very nice, comrade,” Brook said with absolute sincerity.

“Thank you.” Krylov’s grin was shy.

On his way to the first mark he not only held their lead but lengthened it. Brook busied himself trimming the jib and changing it whenever Krylov called for a tack. The Russian maneuvered their zigzag course so that they were able to round the buoy by tacking rather than jibing. In an incredibly short time they were skimming across the wind on their reaching leg, the boat’s fastest point of sailing. She was heeled over now, her lee rail awash, and Brook and Krylov leaned far out to windward to balance her.

“This is living!” Krylov cried.

“For me, too!”

“I began sailing in Denmark. The first time, the very first time, it excited me. I was overwhelmed. I looked about at the sea, the world, and I said, ‘What have I been missing? This is for me!’”

“That’s the way we capitalists get you guys,” Brook said gaily. Might as well take the plunge now. The moment felt right. “It can’t have been the only thing that grabbed you about the West.”

Krylov laughed. “Certainly not. I have been seduced in many ways. Here, out of range of ears human and electronic, I admit it freely. To a sailor like you I do not mind saying such a thing. In confidence, of course.”

“Of course.” Brook looked at him. “Could be you’ve found the right man to talk to, Alex.”

It appeared to Brook that the Russian was not surprised. “What does that mean, Mr. Brook?” he asked. There was nothing to be squeezed out of his voice.

“It was Peter a minute ago.”

“Now, I think, it should be Mr. Brook. Until we have developed this curious dialogue.” Krylov’s blue eyes remained on him. “What did that remark mean?”

Here goes. “We’ve been trying to get to you for some time, Alex. You had an appointment a while back with a man named Wilkinson. That appointment was never kept.”

He watched Krylov closely, without subterfuge. The Slavic face showed no more than his voice. “You are this Wilkinson’s surrogate?”

“Talk plainer English than that.”

“You are from his apparat?”

Brook smiled. “You must have known, when you started dropping hints here and there months ago, that they’d get back to us. My hunch is you’ve been waiting for somebody like me to show up.”

Krylov worked the tiller and mainsheet. When he turned back to Brook there was the faintest crease between his heavy brows. “You have some identification?”

“Oh, come on, Alex.”

Krylov was silent.

“You’ll just have to take my word for it. If you want something badly enough, you’ve got to take risks — isn’t that what you said a few minutes ago? This is it, Alex. Put up or shut up.”

Krylov muttered, “In one I lose a race. In the other my life.”

“Maybe this will help. At the Canadian Embassy garden party on September tenth last year, you had a chat with Major General Buey of the United States Air Force. No one else was near; no one not officially informed could possibly know of the conversation. You expressed admiration for the United States and said to the General — I’m quoting — ‘Perhaps some day I shall be able to visit your country, for a long time, without restrictions. It would depend, of course, on what opportunities develop.’”

“Yes,” Krylov said. “Yes.”

“General Buey reported your words, and a special file was started on you. I couldn’t possibly know about it if I weren’t what I represent myself to be.”

He saw Krylov swallow.

Poor bastard. He was laying his life on the line, all right.

Brook waited patiently to let him think it out. He would have done the same thing. He might well be an agent from Krylov’s side, sent to lure the “attaché” into a treasonable admission.

“Stand by to jibe!” yelled Krylov.

Brook looked around and saw that they were at the second buoy. Krylov turned the boat and Brook brought the jib over to the right side. He was glad that these smaller boats were raced without spinnakers; he would have time to talk instead of fighting to put up a billowing sail. In a moment, Krylov had the boat on its new course, running with the wind slightly over the starboard quarter. Yards behind them several other boats were just beginning to approach the mark they had rounded.

“There were other occasions when you made similar remarks,” said Brook. “I can repeat them to you—”

“It will not be necessary.” Krylov squinted back at their pursuers and took a breath of the salt and neutral air. Brook felt a twinge — half satisfaction, half regret. He really liked the guy. It was like seeing a man spit in his mother’s face. She could be a bitch, but she was still his mother. He smiled at himself. Bourgeois sentimentality, the old Krylov would have called it. Something stronger and saltier in Holloway’s damnation. “For some reason I find myself wishing to tell you a very long story. How I became disenchanted with the rigors of Communist life, the fears that followed like Siberian wolves, the suffocation of — why should I not say it? — the soul. How I struggled to understand what was happening to me, why I wished to come over to your side—” he shrugged “—defect. Defector. It is like saying ‘traitor.’ But it is not treason to my country, only to its system of government. I prefer the other term.”

“Plenty of time for that,” Brook said. “Right now we’d better start making arrangements.”

“Not yet, Mr. Brook,” Krylov said. “Not quite yet. There are several points that must be laid down first. Let us call them conditions.”

“All right. Shoot.”

“Perhaps we need that long story after all,” Krylov said. “At least its denouement. There is a difference between thinking of taking such a step and actually taking it — a very great difference, my friend. For each temptation a man succumbs to, he resists a hundred. This is not romanticism, it is a fact of life — anyone’s life. And when the contemplated act has such enormity as this, there must be a more immediate temptation than ideology.”

“Oh,” Brook said. “A woman.”

“Yes,” Krylov said. “I fell in love.”

“Oh?” Brook said again.

“You smile. Do not smile like that at me again, Mr. Brook, Ever.” There was a thickness in Krylov’s voice, a furry savagery, that raised Brook’s hackles. “Do you think we do not fall in love in the Soviet Union? I assure you we are as intense and energetic in such matters as the Italians, and with much greater depth. And sometimes with catastrophic results. That is what has happened to me. I have managed to fall in love beyond reason. Her name is Kimiko. She is a hostess at a nightclub in Tokyo. She is — beautiful. I have no other word.”

“You don’t need one,” Brook said. “I’ve seen her photo. It’s in your folder. I apologize, Alex. We thought it was one of those things. We didn’t know it was serious.”

“Your people are thorough.”

“So are yours.”

“Yes. Well. Then you know. It would be impossible for me to take Kimiko back to the Soviet Union. It would not be permitted. Besides—” he hesitated, then laughed “—I already have a wife in Moscow. Her uncle is high in one of the ministries. We made a marriage of convenience many years ago. She resembles a Mongolian pony — stubborn and bad-tempered. I will not miss her, she will not miss me. She will no doubt say that I am insane and a capitalist spy, and that she was about to denounce me.”

“So you figured you can take Kimiko with you to the United States.”

Krylov nodded. “The Japanese government would not grant me asylum, I think; they are anxious to promote good relations with the Kremlin. So it was this that finally settled the matter in my mind. Therefore my conditions: For me to come over to your side, your side must agree to bring Kimiko Ohara to the United States. It must be arranged so that we can remain together. Secondly — if you will forgive the capitalist note — the means for a comfortable existence in your country must be provided for us.”

“What do you mean by a comfortable existence, exactly?”

“So. We bargain.”

“No. I have to know what you have in mind.”

“Whatever it is you are paid by your government per annum, plus fifty percent.”

“All right. You know, Alex, I can’t agree to your conditions. I can only pass them along. You understand that.”

“Of course.”

“Now, for arrangements—”

“No,” said Krylov. “I will not discuss the matter further until I am given assurances that my conditions will be met.”

“Fair enough,” Brook said with a frown, “but it complicates our problem. I mean, we might not have another chance to talk alone like this.”

“Granted. It will be difficult. If we tried to sail together again I think it would be once too much. They are watching me — of late more closely. It could be that they already suspect my loyalty. So that it will not do to plan, for example, on my walking into your embassy and asking asylum. I would almost certainly be killed before I reached your doorstep.”

“Then why don’t you—?”

“No,” Krylov said. “My conditions first.”

“All right, all right.”

“Then there must be a plan, and it will have to be a clever plan.”

“I’ll come up with something.”

“Very well. When will you know the answer?”

“It shouldn’t take more than a few days.”

“Then let us plan to meet here at Katori Spa next Saturday. We shall have to be careful. I must ask that you do not make any attempt whatever to get in touch with me before then, either yourself, through an emissary, or by any sort of message.”

“Understood.”

“One thing more. You must see Kimiko for me. Under the circumstances it would not be wise for me to go to her nightclub again. It must look like a mere passing affair — it is quite important that my people should believe that it is over. You must tell Kimiko to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. She will understand. We have discussed it many times.”

“You’re sure it’s wise to let her know so much, Alex?”

Krylov shrugged. “I would stake my life on it. In fact, Peter, that is what I am doing.”

He glanced back over his shoulder. The boat behind them was gaining. Krylov reached forward to push the boom of the mainsail out another inch.

Brook adjusted the jib and glanced toward the finish line, which extended from the committee launch to an orange buoy, and beyond it to the breakwater that jutted out from shore. In the distance he could just make out Volodya’s dark suit on the jetty. There were twin glints of reflected sun in the area of the man’s eyes. Krylov’s shadow had a pair of binoculars trained on their boat. He hoped fervently that the man was not a lip reader.

Chapter 6

Brook strolled into the main room of The Golden Obi. The lighting was dim, reek hung in the air, soul music came from the bandstand. At a circular bar topless go-go girls were disjointing themselves. Waiters and serving girls scurried about. Couples convulsed on the dance floor. Others sat at tables wearing glittery paper hats.

A waiter brought Brook to a small table well out of things. Brook ordered a drink and the waiter asked if he would like a hostess. The waiter was a young man who spoke classroom English — a college student working nights, Brook guessed.

“You have a hostess here named Kimiko Ohara?”

“Ah, so,” beamed the young man.

“I’d like her.”

“Miss Ohara entertains a customer now.”

“I’ll wait.”

“May be very impossible, sir.”

Brook tucked a thousand-yen note in the young man’s hand. “But not absolutely?”

The waiter gave him the national grin. “Not absolutely, sir, no.”

Brook cased the club as he waited. Most of the customers were Japanese, with enough foreigners about to make him inconspicuous. Nearly all the men’s companions were club hostesses; in places like this, one didn’t bring his own woman. A majority of the hostesses wore Western party gowns, a few kimonos; Brook noticed that these girls tended to gravitate toward the older Japanese. The hostesses came in all shapes and sizes and degrees of attractiveness. To Brook’s eyes, some were pigs. The theory, he supposed, was that you could never foretell a customer’s esthetic standards. From the general air of pleasure, it seemed soundly based.

He sipped the bad Scotch that another waiter brought, smiling as he thought of how Benny Lopez would have enjoyed this part of the run. He must be sure to needle Benny with a report in depth on the club’s girls.

“Good evening, sir.”

He looked up. The girl was in a black evening gown; one scarlet rose was pinned between her breasts. Her hair was long and black and patent-leather-glossy; the face, neck and shoulders framed by the gown were purest ivory. The oriental features had a touch of Manchurian. Her eyes were a deep purple, almost black. She was stunning.

Brook rose. “Miss Ohara?”

“Yes.” She had a surprisingly deep voice for a Japanese.

“I’m Peter Brook. Please sit down.”

Kimiko Ohara found a cigarette in her beaded handbag. She waited for Brook to offer her his lighter, and sent twin jets of smoke to the table. “I have not seen you before, Mr. Brook. Who gave you my name?”

“Aleksei Krylov.”

Her fluid calm found its level almost immediately. “Oh? Aleksei is well?”

“Yes.”

“I have not seen him for two weeks.”

“He said you would understand why he couldn’t come here now.”

Kimiko glanced around quickly. “Aleksei sent you?”

“With several messages.”

She reached across the table and put her hand on Brook’s, smiling; he knew it was not for his benefit. “Do not tell me now. You must act like the others. Order a drink for me.”

Brook caught the attention of the waiter, and when he had gone off for Kimiko’s champagne cocktail, she smiled again. “I do not know how they do it in your country, Mr. Brook, but our cocktails — the ones the men order for us — are chiefly water. We are paid a commission on the drinks. This is how we earn our living.”

“It’s an international custom,” Brook assured her. “If I were a regular, there’s a question I’d be sure to ask. So I’ll ask it. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this? And don’t tell me you haven’t heard it before.”

This time Kimiko laughed. “Many times. From foreign men, of course. This is Japan, Mr. Brook. What else can I do?”

“There must be other work.”

“No. At least none at which a woman can make so much money. We are hostesses for a few years, we save, and then perhaps we leave and open a small business. A bar, a dressmaker’s shop. It is very common.”

“Come on.” Brook sipped his whisky. “You’re not the least bit common, Kimiko. Perfect English, great looker — you’re a knockout, as if you didn’t know. Compared with you these other girls are frumps.”

She frowned.

“Frumps. Dogs. Ugly.”

“I think in your country — you are American, yes? — it would mean something. Here I am a woman like thousands of others. Tokyo has become very Western, but in these matters it is still a Japanese man’s city. That is why I hope sometimes to go to America.”

“I gather you and Alex have discussed it.”

“Oh, yes, many times.” She was too nervous.

“Then you’ll like my news.”

“Please. Not now.”

Brook said lightly, “We’re being watched?”

“I am not sure. I have had the feeling for some time.”

“You may be right. Sometimes it’s the best indicator. Where can we talk?”

“There is only one place that will not appear suspicious. You must go to my apartment. I will come there after my work. For a hostess to invite the man to her apartment is expected. A custom.”

“I understand.”

“No, you do not. It is a custom, but it has not been my custom. Now we will dance.”

“Whatever you say.”

“We must be natural. We dance, you buy me drinks. You leave after an hour. I will write down my address; you will take a taxi. I will give you my key. Wait for me there. If anyone is watching, it will seem very innocent.”

Brook grinned to himself at this Japanese conception of innocence. Or maybe they had the right idea. “Did Aleksei teach you all this, or was it part of your occupational education?”

“Please.” She seemed frightened. “We must not mention his name here.”

Brook said, “How about that dance?”

He thought of Benny again as he faced Kimiko on the floor, jerking to the music, twirling his hands, going through the motions of enjoying himself in the current mode. Benny thought it was great. Brook preferred the old-fashioned style, where a man could grab some flesh. As he watched Kimiko doing the shing-a-ling — or whatever it was — before him, her body writhing and flowing to the music, he found himself thinking that he wouldn’t have minded grabbing some of her flesh.

He could well believe that Krylov had got in over his head with her. She was worth taking risks for.

At sea Brook was blessed with a sense of navigation; he could estimate his position with fair accuracy even out of sight of land. In Tokyo’s labyrinthine night streets he became hopelessly confused. He made an attempt, as the taxi twisted and turned corners, to memorize their route, but he soon gave up. Aside from the fact that Kimiko’s apartment was somewhere on the outskirts, he was worse than at sea.

The taxi finally drew up at a large apartment building on a dark street. It seemed the only such building in a neighborhood of private homes. They had turned off a main street not long before and Brook thought he remembered how to get back there, at least.

He paid the driver and, following Kimiko’s instructions, climbed an outside stairway to the fourth story. Her apartment, like the others, opened on a balcony that ran the width of the building; another part of the building, with another balcony, paralleled it across a narrow space. He used the key she had given him and entered a miniature vestibule. There were several pairs of women’s shoes in a box just inside the door. He removed his own shoes.

He switched on the living room lights. It was a small room with an appealing and expensive look. Japanese touches had been applied to the Western décor. There was a kitchenette; in another direction stood a half-open door through which he could see into a small bedroom. The sliding windows opened onto the balcony.

Kimiko had said to make himself at home, so he mixed a drink for himself at the little lacquered sideboy. There was a stereo set and a collection of recordings, mainly from the States. He dropped a platter of the Tijuana Brass on the turntable, stretched out on a Japanese couch, sipped his drink, and peacefully enjoyed the music.

Turning over in his head what had happened so far on the Krylov run, he decided that he didn’t like it. His contact with the Russian had been too easy; was that it? He reviewed what Krylov had told him. For Krylov to be defecting because he had fallen in love struck a solid note — truer than if the Russian had claimed to be coming over for ideological reasons only. There were usually personal considerations in political asylum cases. General Levashev with his Marxist orthodoxy had to be counted a rarity.

Of course, you looked on all defectors with a suspicious eye; planting agents by having them appear to defect was hardly an exclusive ply of the KGB. All right, then, the motivation stood up. Then what was bothering him?

He decided that it was his alarm system. It had not often failed him — it had, in fact, saved his life more than once — but the trouble with it was that it gave no clues, only warnings. It said: Go slow, proceed with caution, with not a hint of what was wrong.

Not a comforting state of affairs. It was a little like indigestion. Some of the ingredients in the Krylov stew were acid-forming.

Krylov’s superiors apparently trusted him enough to allow him freedom of contact with Tokyo’s foreign community; now, suddenly, they had him under surveillance. Krylov had admitted it himself. Why? Had the KGB brass connected Wilkinson’s murder with Krylov? Or had they had Baldy taken out themselves? And if so, was his own cover already blown?

Not likely, he thought. Still, the possibility had to be kept in mind.

Halfway through the flip side of the album the apartment door opened.

It was Kimiko. “Hello. You look comfortable.”

“It’s a comfortable place.” He got up, sipping his drink.

She stepped out of her high heels, put aside her stole of Thai silk, and went to her bedroom, saying that she would only be a moment. He watched her ooze across the room. It was a pleasant sight, like watching a good sailboat on a heaving sea.

They were always sexier with their shoes off, he thought. He felt the familiar surge in his groin. Whoa, boy! Not this one.

She came out in a black kimono-like dressing gown secured at the waist with a gold cord. She had wiped her face clean of makeup; it gave her little face a classic simplicity. She picked up his glass and went to the sideboy for a refill. She made one for herself.

“I am so glad you came, Mr. Brook. At night, home from the club, I am lonely. Now that I do not see Aleksei, it is even worse.”

“I hope I’m not too poor a substitute,” Brook said.

“I think I am very glad you are here.” She brought the drinks back to the coffee table, set them down, and seated herself beside Brook. He became instantly conscious of her body and the illusion of perfume. Only a robot would have been immune to her. He had to make an effort to keep his mind on his work.

“You speak wonderful English,” he said. “Where did you learn it?”

Kimiko laughed. “I was an orphan, raised in a missionary school. I am sure the Sisters would be unhappy if they knew I am a hostess at The Golden Obi. But as I explained, it is difficult to do anything else.”

“That’s where Alex met you?”

“Yes. It was the usual thing in the beginning. He came one night with a party of Japanese and foreign diplomats. I was assigned as his hostess — we have a number system for the girls. But after that Aleksei came often, always asking for me, and soon we began to see each other regularly. He is really one of the nicest gentlemen I have ever met.”

Brook looked at her. “That’s a funny way to talk about someone you love.”

Her frown puzzled him. “They spoke of love at the mission school, too. I am not sure I understood it in quite their meaning. It was the same with their reglious teachings. Everything they taught us seemed not of my world. I’m afraid I am hopelessly of the East.”

“Are you trying to say that you don’t really love Krylov?” He had not foreseen this at all.

“Oh, I will be very good to him,” Kimiko said quickly. “It is not important to love.”

“But if you don’t love him, why Krylov? Why not somebody else? You must have dozens drooling over you.”

“I have had other lovers, yes. And, as you say, there are so many men always available. But Aleksei offers what I really wish. He will make it possible for me to leave Japan. It is my country, but it is so difficult for a woman with amibitions. I studied fashion design, you know. As a designer in Japan I would be working for a Japanese woman’s pay, which is very little. I think in America it will be otherwise.”

“Why don’t you just go to the States on your own?”

“It takes a great deal of money, Mr. Brook, which I do not have. And there are visa problems — you must have an American citizen’s sponsorship, must you not? No, I shall let Aleksei take me there.”

She said it all very matter-of-factly, and Brook almost chuckled. So the great Krylov was being taken! It was a joke he must remember to tell Benny, who would appreciate it. Well, it was really no business of theirs. There was little or no chance of trouble after the pair got to the States. Love or no love, Kimiko would carry out her part of the bargain; that was the oriental way.

But it did put a different light on what was going on in his groin.

She had turned to examine Brook. “But you have a message from Aleksei.”

“Yes. He says you’re to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. The word will come in a week or so. Arrangements are being made.”

“You are helping him?”

“I’m acting as a go-between.”

“How good of you, Mr. Brook.” She put her hand on his thigh.

He pretended not to notice; things were happening. “You must be careful not to tell anyone, Kimiko. Alex thinks it’s wiser not to see you; his people are watching him. He wants you to sit tight, be patient.”

“That is a hard thing,” the girl said. Her voice was suddenly soft. She leaned toward him. “To be patient, I mean. It is even harder when a girl is lonely.” Then her arms were around his neck and her tongue was prying his mouth open.

It took Brook by surprise in spite of everything. But he had been trained too well to lose his head. If circumstances had been different he would have tried to resist her. But he was not sure of anything. The thing to do, his instinct told him, was to play along.

It was a pleasure. Her tongue, her body, wriggled with life; her fingers kept stroking the back of his neck; she kept pushing at him like an animal seeking warmth. He slipped his hand under her gown and pulled it open, cupping her breast, kneading it, letting nature take its course.

The night air was cool but not sobering; Brook’s blood still raced. It had been a rare bout. Love, shove — Krylov was a lucky bastard.

Kimiko had pressed him to stay, but he had explained that it was best for him to leave while it was still dark. She had knelt to kiss him goodbye. It was an hour before he could tear himself away.

There were some departments, he thought, in which FACE training missed badly. How to walk away from that. When I get mine, he thought, it’s going to be through a girl like Kimiko.

He walked the empty street, hearing the whisper of his own shoes and nothing else. It was just before dawn. He would be able to find a taxi, Kimiko had said, on the main street a few blocks away.

Brook suddenly heard a run of thin high musical notes. It seemed to be coming from a side street ahead. It was a dark little phrase that made a union with the night.

It startled him at first. But then, from somewhere in his memory banks, he found the answer: he had heard it once before in Tokyo. Someone had explained that it was the call-in-trade of a noodle vendor, made on a fluty little instrument called a... he could not remember the Japanese word.

A yellowish light appeared from around the corner and came bobbing toward him. A moment later he made out the shape of the vendor’s tall handcart. The yellow light was a lantern hanging from the canopy.

Brook suddenly felt hungry. He had had no dinner, and Kimiko had given him a great deal of exercise. Why not? FACE instructors were always preaching the desirability of conforming to local customs abroad. He had sampled soba more than once; the steaming noodles in their savory sauce were delicious. By God, Brook thought, I’ll stop that clown and have a bowl. He could already taste it.

By God, Brook thought, I won’t. I’ll be the hero I wasn’t up in Kimiko’s apartment. Controlling this kind of appetite had been thoroughly covered in FACE training, and in that course he had scored high. I’ll get something to eat at the hotel, or in some all-night joint nearby. He was long overdue at the hotel; the message he was expecting from Benny Lopez might have been waiting for him there for hours.

The noodle vendor’s cart was coming close.

From habit he inventoried the cart and the stocky man pushing it. Short cotton curtains hung from the canopy, each printed with a Japanese character; a small tin disc nailed to one post had a number on it — 76495 — probably a license. There were eight bowls stacked on a rack and three ladles hanging from a crossbar.

The noodle vendor looked up at him and grinned. Brook nodded and grinned back.

He continued walking.

In the next slivered second he was throwing himself violently to one side. The stocky man with the towel twisted about his head rushed by.

That was when Brook saw the overgrown icepick in the man’s fist.

He had no time to thank his stars, his sixth sense, and his reflexes. The lunge had been close, too close. The man would not catch him unprepared a second time.

He dropped into a half crouch, balancing, and waited. He had very little time to wait. The man was extraordinarily quick. In the light from the lantern on the cart Brook saw the Japanese face clearly. It was hard and brown and might have been hacked from driftwood. The man held his weapon knife-fighter style, thumb and forefinger in a controlling grip where the haft met the blade. He had whirled at the end of his rush and was on his way back in almost the same motion.

He’s a fool, Brook thought, for all his experience. He should have waited for an opening. He expects to catch me off balance.

Brook pivoted and sucked his belly in like Benny’s toreador. The blade flashed past a half-inch from his belt. He caught the man’s knife arm with his left hand, wedged his shoulder into the man’s armpit, and heaved. The man shot forward under his own momentum. The blade fell to the pavement.

But he was back up and charging even as Brook reached for it. Brook had to grapple with him.

One part of him heard windows sliding open and excited Japanese voices.

The little guy knew a lot. With skillful locks and arm maneuvers he kept Brook tied up, unable to throw a chop. He tried the obvious tricks, kicking around Brook’s ankle to trip him, trying to stamp on his instep; and one or two that were not so obvious, like knuckle-jabbing at pressure points on the neck, elbow, torso. The battered wooden face straining against Brook had a weapon of its own, an overwhelming smell of garlic. It bothered Brook more than the rest of him.

Brook kneed him. It was not well done; it only sent the Japanese reeling back. But it gave Brook the split second he needed to scoop up the stabbing weapon. When he straightened the little man was backing away. For a moment the Japanese went into a crouch and began a circling movement. But it died after a short arc, and he stood still.

“Now we answer questions,” Brook said. “Who are you? Who sent you to kill me?”

The man stared back. If he was afraid, he did not show it, or perhaps his face could no longer show anything. He was backed against his cart.

“You understand English,” Brook said. “I know you do. Who sent you?”

The man grinned. Brook was not deceived. A Japanese grin did not necessarily indicate humor or friendliness. This man grinned like a hyena.

“Okay,” Brook said. “We’ll play it by your rules.”

He gripped the blade ready to lunge, heard something behind him, and spun around. What he saw almost made him laugh. There were two Orientals dressed like the noodle vendor but with surgical masks tied around their mouths and noses — straight out of a psychedelic turn-on. One of the newcomers stood a little forward of the other; he held what looked like a spray can of bug-killer in his hand.

The can hissed and a milky mist enveloped Brook’s face. The mist grew, and the street, the world, began to move in slow circles. Space-monster colors glowed. Then Brook heard a very highpitched buzz, like the sound of a microscopic bee. It seemed far away and it seemed in the very core of his head.

Then there was nothing.

Chapter 7

At first Brook thought it was the lantern on the noodle cart floating before his eyes. Then his focus sharpened and he began to understand that it was a flashlight. It moved to one side and a sober-faced young Japanese in a policeman’s hat was staring down at him.

“Good morning,” Brook said. For the life of him he could not think of anything else to say.

“You... okay... sir?” The policeman’s English was painful.

“I think.” Brook rose, reeling, and the policeman put out a hand. Then Brook saw the black-and-white police sedan, red roof-light flashing, and a second policeman by the door. “How did you happen to be here, Officer?”

“Somebody call. They say big fight in street.”

“Did you get them?”

“No understand.”

“The men who attacked me.”

The policeman shook his head. “We find you. No men.”

“They must have taken off when they heard your car.” Brook shook his head; it was full of mush. It also ached, and his throat and nose were bitter-sweet with something.

The policeman had dug out a notebook. “You tell what happen, please.”

“Three men jumped me. After my wallet, I guess. One of them knocked me out, then I suppose you came along.” And you’re Mrs. Brook’s luckiest little boy.

“Ah, so.” The policeman wrote. “Name. Identi-fi-cation. Must have, please. Then we go police station.”

It could have been worse. He got into the police car.

Brook had to tell his story five times at the stationhouse. He kept it fundamental. He had been walking along the street after visiting a friend, looking for a taxi, when three men jumped him from the shadows in the dark street. They were undoubtedly robbers. He had fought them off for a while — this had apparently been confirmed by the residents of a nearby private house who had witnessed the fight — and then in some way unclear to him, possibly a karate blow, he had been rendered unconscious. And what was the name of the friend he had been visiting at that hour of the morning? Well, to tell the truth, it had been a young lady. They glanced at one another wisely. These Americans! These Japanese girls! Who was the young lady? Where did she live? Brook looked abashed. He didn’t know her name, he was ashamed to say. As for where she lived, it was somewhere in that neighborhood, but he had walked along so many streets and taken so many turns it would be impossible to find it again — all the houses looked alike to him. Ah, so. Where then had he met the young lady? Brook looked bashful. In a bar downtown. Which bar? He shrugged; he hadn’t the faintest idea. There were hundreds of bars downtown, and he was new to Tokyo. He was here on a business trip from the States, and the crazyquilt of streets were a big mystery to him.

It was well into the morning before they let him go, two or three of the officials still looking unconvinced. But it was a story they couldn’t possibly check, so Brook was unconcerned. He was told to notify them promptly if he should change his hotel address, and as he left he heard a heated gabble of Japanese which made him grin.

He went back to the hotel.

There was no message from Benny Lopez.

He showered, shaved the blue sheen off his jaws, slugged an inch and a half of Scotch down neat, and went to bed naked. Just before he rolled over and plunged into sleep he set his alarm for 3 P.M.

When he went back downstairs he found Benny’s message.

Brook snapped a picture of the swans in the moat of the Emperor’s palace. Every tourist in the park took pictures of the swans, the tower-like gatehouses with their curved gables, and the graceful Nijiubashi Bridge. It was a clear sunny day and the park was full of foreigners and Japanese. Nobody paid any attention to him.

A powerful little man with a bag of peanuts strolled toward him, followed by a retinue of pigeons. Today Benny was dressed in his American clothes. It seemed to Brook more of a disguise than the costume in which Benny, with his Aztec face, chose to pass for a Japanese.

Lopez came to a halt at the edge of the moat. “Hi. Has it been fun?”

“Up yours,” Brook said. “How about you?”

“Dullsville,” Benny complained. “Who invented this legend for me? I’m supposed to be studying the Japanese political system here for my masters. So I had to call on a few politicians. You know something? They’re just as full of hot air here as back home. I got invited to a couple of bashes and had to turn ’em down in case you called. I hope you appreciate the sacrifice.”

“I’ll mention your devotion to duty in my — what did they call them in Maugham’s time? — my dispatches.”

Something that sounded like “Vete á otro con ese cuento” came out of Benny’s mouth. “Translation: get off my goddam back. Some assignment! I found a kiosk where they have El Universal Gráfico from Mexico City, but it’s five weeks old. I don’t even know what’s doing at the bullfights.”

“To hell with the bull fights,” said Brook. “What’s doing at the home office?”

“They said okay to Krylov’s conditions. They’ll pay the Ohara girl’s passage to the States — what is she, Irish? — and arrange a legend for her. She’ll get an offer for a nightclub appearance in Washington through a booking agent. They’ll supply the plane ticket. She’ll proceed separately from Krylov.”

Brook nodded, not happily. “I’m afraid we’ve got a little something on the agenda before we wrap this up.” He told Benny of his visit to Kimiko, leaving out the more robust details, and of the street attack by the noodle vendor and his friends.

Benny frowned. “Thees no smell kosher, I theenk.”

“Suppose I like it? Maybe they were just out to roll a foreigner for the yen in his jeans, but somehow I doubt it. That spray can and those masks were pretty sophisticated for a gang of muggers. And then that overgrown icepick the soba guy attacked me with — Wilkinson was stabbed with a weapon like that. Our cover may be blown. I don’t know why they’d go about it just this way; I don’t even know whom they’re working for. If they are. We’ll have to find out more about them, Benny, before we can risk going ahead with Krylov.”

“And how do you propose doing that, compadre?”

Brook looked around as he lit a cigarette. But no one seemed interested in them. He raised his camera and took another shot of the swans. “That noodle cart had a license number. Seven-six-four-nine-five. I’d also recognize its decoration if I saw it again.”

“So what? There must be hundreds of noodle carts in this burg.”

“You don’t read enough guidebooks, Benny. The way I understand it, they load up with noodles in the evening in only a few places around town. The license number might narrow it down to one. Work through the regular security man here. After that, we take a look.”

“I still don’t like it.” Benny tossed a handful of peanuts and watched the pigeons, wings beating, descend greedily.

“Got some other idea?”

“No. Except that if our cover’s blown we ought to get the hell out of here fast.”

“That’s what we ought to do,” Brook nodded. “If we worked for the National Safety Council.”

“You sound more like Holloway every day! Keep on like this and you’ll wind up behind a desk.”

Brook said thoughtfully, “Or in the moat here, like Baldy.” He waved and walked off, busy changing the film in his camera.

For the next two days Brook bolstered his legend by calling on some boatyards to investigate yacht-manufacturing possibilities for the American company he was supposed to represent. Unlike Lopez, Brook found his cover enjoyable; he was always happy on boats, or near them, or talking about them. At the same time he found himself restlessly wondering why Benny was taking so long locating the noodle vendor. Each time he got back to his hotel he asked for messages; each time his box was empty.

He was not convinced that their cover was blown. They had been cautious, using different hotels and different legends to explain their presence in Japan. In making contact by phone they had used the initial call method, during which no business was discussed; this was followed by an immediate return call from an outside telephone. In only one case had they violated their M.O.: when Benny had called Brook at the Katori Spa to tell him that Krylov’s Dutch sailing partner, Quackernack, had been taken out. But even that call, made by Lopez from a public booth, had probably been all right.

The phone in Brook’s room finally rang early on the morning of the third day, while he was shaving. He dashed out of the bathroom like a mad dog.

“Hello, Charley?” said Benny’s voice.

“My name’s not Charley,” Brook said.

“You’re Charles H. Barrymore?”

“No. What room you calling?”

“I was calling twenty-six-o-one.”

“You’re way off, fellow. Must be a mistake.”

“Sorry.”

Brook hung up, finished shaving, and slipped on a shirt and jacket. Before leaving he paused at the little desk in the corner to jot down the following:

Charlie = C = 3

H. = H = 8

Barrymore = B = 2

Room 2601.

Phone number 382-2601.

He memorized the number, burned the paper, and flushed the ashes down the toilet.

He walked several blocks, pausing at shop windows. Presently he came to a street booth. He stepped in and dialed 382-2601.

“Amigo” said Benny’s voice. “What took you so long?”

“Getting here the slow way.”

“A tail?”

“I don’t think so. But you know how it is with icepicks.”

Benny said with sadness, “Some day when I want to talk to somebody I’ll phone him just like that — start right in saying what’s on my mind.”

“What did you find out?”

“This noodle cart of yours. It stands in a yard with a lot of others daytimes. Owner’s name Takeo Muramoto. His home address is within spitting distance.”

“Let’s take a look. I’ll meet you in front of the Imperial in twenty minutes, the new building.”

“Should I bring baggage?”

“No,” Brook said. “We can’t afford to get caught with weapons on us.”

“Who says we’re going to get caught?”

“We’re wasting time,” Brook said. He hung up.

He strolled through Hibiya Park on his way to the Imperial Hotel, pausing to admire some chrysanthemums in a sidewalk flower display. No tail. He got to the rendezvous exactly twenty minutes from the time he had hung up. Benny was just approaching the entrance. The two men paused like acquaintances who meet by accident, engaged in a compatriot conversation, and moved off together, gesticulating. On the street beyond the hotel Benny hailed a taxi; he gave the address.

Their destination was near the river. Like all riverfront neighborhoods it was weathered brown and dilapidated, with aged buildings and a few concrete warehouses. They walked half a block to a dirt lot enclosed by a drunken wood fence. In the lot stood several dozen noodle carts. Each was tilted on its handrails.

The Americans walked along the line of carts. At last they came to the one that wore the license tag 76495. Brook glanced at the designs on the cotton half-curtains and nodded. “This is the one, Benny.”

Benny led him across the lot to a side street. The buildings here were frame, with warped beams and the universal browning. “Over there, Pete. First floor rear.”

Brook looked around. The street was empty. They went in.

The smell was predictable — fish, soya sauce, stale air, urine, and a trace of faeces. They passed along a time-scarred hall with a midget’s ceiling and Benny paused at a door. Brook put his ear to it.

“Nothing.”

“Then he doesn’t snore.” Brook could barely hear Benny. “He’s in there. The itch in my crotch tells me.”

Brook tried the door delicately; it was locked. “Back window, Benny.”

They retraced their steps and turned into the alley that led to the rear of the building.

“Amigo, what’s the point of this?”

“If I can get a good look at this Muramoto on his home grounds we might learn something about him.”

“For what?”

“We might have to take him out.”

“Suppose he’s just a peón in this setup, Pete. Taking him out won’t cool it.”

“That’s one of the things we might find out.”

They moved toward Muramoto’s rear windows. As they drew near one of the windows suddenly opened. Brook and Lopez burrowed into the wall. They heard running water. Then silence. They waited. A man cleared his throat. Brook edged to the window.

There was a spurt of rock followed by a voice speaking in Japanese. Then more music as the man inside explored his radio. After a while the sound snapped off.

“Just getting up, if we’re in luck,” Brook whispered. “If he leaves soon we can search his pad.”

Benny looked more interested.

They heard a phone being dialed. Brook concentrated, counting the clicks.

“Ten digits. A long distance call.”

“I know,” Benny said severely. “I can count, too.”

The man began talking. He was talking in English.

“Hello. Hello? This is Han.” His English was heavily spiced, but where the spices had been grown eluded them. I wish, Brook thought, I knew more about the Far East. “Yes, I understand... Okay... Yes, I will. On time. Goodbye.”

They heard him hang up, begin to move about. Benny Lopez muttered something violent in Spanish, but he waited as patiently as Brook. Suddenly they heard a door open and close.

“What are you waiting for, Pete?”

The room was unoccupied. He climbed over the sill fast, and Benny landed on Brook’s heels. A sagging unmade bed, a low table or two, several filthy tatami mats. The walls were decorated with color photographs cut out of magazines. They all showed muscle-men, Asiatic, Negro, and Caucasian, in gaudy animal skins — they seemed to favor leopard — flexing their mighty thews in “health” poses.

“Homo sexualis draws no color line,” Benny said with a grin. “Pity the poor noodle vendor. These guys are as far out of his reach as a Playmate to a skid row wino. But he can dream, can’t he?”

“Maybe it’s part of his legend,” Brook said dryly. “And he’s no ordinary noodle salesman. Ordinary noodle salesmen don’t listen to rock and make long distance calls in colloquial English.”

“Or use a cover name.” Benny looked thoughtful. “I wonder why ‘Han.’ Sounds Chinese.”

“It also sounds Korean, Japanese, and a few more, Benny. We won’t get anything out of that. Let’s use his phone.” Brook dialed the ten digits he had identified by the clicks.

A tenor voice said, “Yes?” in English.

A one-syllable word tells little about a voice. Brook plucked a name out of the air. “Hello? This Ronald Q. Forsythe?”

“Who?”

“Mr. Forsythe. Isn’t this Mr. Forsythe?”

“You have made a mistake.” The connection was bad; the voice was overlaid with scratches. Brook thought he detected an accent. But whether it was European or Asiatic he could not tell.

“I want to talk to Ronald Q. Forsythe. He told me to call.”

“There is no Forsythe here,” the voice said. As it stopped, another sound took its place. It was a sort of drawn-out moan, but there was something non-human about it. A note played on the bass pedal of an organ? “You have the wrong number.”

“Look, what the hell’s your name?” Brook demanded angrily. “I’m going to report you to Mr. Forsythe—”

The receiver went down at the other end.

“Nice try,” Benny said.

“Holloway doesn’t pay off on nice tries,” Brook said. “I handled that stupidly. We’ve got to find out who owns that phone number.”

“I’ll have it checked by the security resident,” Benny said. “Big deal.”

“I’ll bet you it’s a bootleg circuit not listed anywhere.” Brook took a step and stopped. “That moan.”

“What moan?”

“Over the phone while the line was open. At his end. I think it was at his end, though it might have come from the circuit. A long low note that gradually faded away. Almost like music.”

“Ship’s whistle?”

Brook shook his head. “It wasn’t like that, Benny. Hard to describe. If I could pin it down, it might give us a lead to Muramoto’s — ‘Han’s’ — contact.”

“That’s detective story stuff,” Benny scoffed. “By God, I’m going to report you to Holloway.”

“You do that,” Brook said, “and I’ll take you apart. Let’s get out our Sherlock Holmes kit and give this pad the treatment.”

Brook was in the closet and Benny was half under the bed when the door opened. Benny had just remarked in disgust that they were a couple of wild geese. At the opening of the door Benny clawed his way back from under the bed in a comical way and Brook dived out of the closet like a linebacker. The noodle vendor Muramoto — “Han” — was standing in the doorway gaping at them. His surprise lasted for two blinks. Then he was back in the hall behind a door-slam.

By the time they reached the street the sky was clear; it was 11 A.M. and the sun was hot. A cat scooted across their feet. It was the only sign of life.

“You and I,” said Benny, “ought to be barking up trees. What a goof-off!”

“One of us should have staked out while the other searched.”

“All right,” said Benny, looking Aztec.

“Blown,” Brook said. “The whole run blown! Come on, Benny, let’s go tell Holloway we’re coming home.”

“Is that bad?”

“You’ll find out how bad it is.”

Benny nodded unhappily. “I was just trying to cheer myself up.”

Just before midnight the phone in Brook’s room rang again. It was Benny; from the coded conversation Brook picked up the number he was to call. He dressed, sought out a street booth, and this time Benny asked urgently that they meet in ten minutes at an all-night coffee shop near the hotel.

They found a secluded spot at the rear and said nothing until Brook ordered their coffee and cake.

“I talked to Holloway,” Benny grunted. “Direct radiophone from one of the safe houses.”

“I take it he wasn’t happy-joyous,” Brook said.

“He was not. Let me give it to you in the Master’s words. ‘Do you realize your cover’s blown for certain?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Do you know it would be extremely dangerous, possibly even suicidal, to continue the run now?’ I said, ‘Yes, sir.’ Then you know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘Finish the run.’”

“You’re putting me on!”

Benny shook his head. “That’s what I said to Holloway. He said in that computer voice of his, ‘I don’t care for humorists, Mr. Lopez,’ and repeated the order. Blown cover, increase in danger, the whole bit — go ahead and get Krylov anyway, per plan. A risk, Mr. Holloway granted, a calculated risk, but this was important enough to lay a couple of FACE necks on the line. I suppose from his viewpoint behind that desk in Washington it makes sense. Only they’re our necks. You want more?”

Their coffee and cake arrived. Brook sipped until the waitress left. “Sticking your neck out, Benny, is the name of this game.”

“My hero,” Benny Lopez sneered.

Chapter 8

Brook sat in the marina bar of the Katori Spa and sipped a dubious concoction of rum, sugar and tea, served scalding hot. The bartender with the gold tooth had assured him in unarticled English that everyone sipped rum and tea when the weather was bad and there were doubts about sailing.

He looked out the broad windows that showed the sundeck and the sea. Gleeful clouds skimmed the oyster waters; the waves were trimmed in gray lace. Like a thumbed nose, the red small-craft warning flag was sticking straight out from its halyard on the club mast.

Only half the usual number of buffs had gathered in the bar this morning. Brook overheard a conversation about the weather. One man said, “This is the kind of sailing weather, my friend, that separates the men from the lubbers.” The other said, “The damn fools, you mean. Only a Shark would go out in a sea like that.” There were defenders of both viewponts. The race committee was in a huddle trying to make up its collective mind whether to race or not to race.

Brook glanced over at the blackboard listing the skippers and their crews. There were plenty of blank spaces; it would not have been hard to become Krylov’s sailing partner again. But he had already decided against it. He was certain now that his cover was high in the sky; he was undoubtedly under surveillance at this moment. And besides, Krylov had forbidden it at their last meeting.

He did not bother to look over the individuals in the bar; anyone on his tail would be a hard professional, competent not to give himself away. There was even the possibility that his opponents, whoever they were, figured Brook to be aware of his blown cover, and so would disdain to mount a continuing surveillance. They would say to themselves that, his activities already having been circumvented, their purpose in hamstringing him had been achieved. It worked that way more often than not, back and forth, in and out, like a ’coon hunt.

He put the rum and tea to his lips and in the act saw Toby Stark enter the bar with his gander gait. Stark wore a chaotic sports shirt and loose slacks the color of persimmons; the beltline had slipped below the perimeter of his stomach. His face was all balloon geniality as he swapped profanities with the customers.

Behind Stark, a respectful step, trailed the woman Brook had seen in the house on the hill. She was nautical to the topmast: slacks, middy blouse, rakish captain’s hat, in the style you might find in a fashion magazine, clothes for posing rather than sailing. She walked in a fashion model’s walk and she wore a fashion model’s mechanical expression. Some of the men hailed her as she passed and tried to engage her in conversation. But she merely followed Stark.

The fat man barged into a group at the other end of the bar. Jasmine’s eye chanced on Brook. He was making an ocular pass at her to keep up with the Joneses and the Schultzes and the Takahashis, a pleasant enough pastime. He could not be sure, but he thought that she began a smile. It never burgeoned; Stark turned to say something to her and she immediately gave all her attention to the fat manager.

Brook sipped his rum and tea. Had it been a stillborn invitation? He had the curious feeling that Stark’s personal property had been trying to communicate something. That she knew she followed Toby Stark about like a trained bitch but there was an explanation for it and wouldn’t he like to hear it? It would have been more than all right with him. He would love to get to know Jasmine in any sense of the word, especially the Biblical; it was a misfortune that it would interfere with the run. I hope there’s another time, he said to her silently over the cup. Some day he’d take a leave and go on a woman-hunt for the sake of the chase alone, and to hell with the Stars and Stripes. Maybe if he succeeded in bringing Krylov over Holloway would crack a smile and let him loose for a month or two.

He noted the time, set down the rum and tea, and wandered out to the sundeck. He walked over to the end that overlooked the pool and parking lot. There were half a dozen swimmers in the sea in spite of the threatening skies; beyond, near the breakwater, attendants were working at lines and dinghies. Near the edge of the lot a chauffeur waited behind the wheel of a Toyopet sedan. This man turned his head toward Brook, nodded, and raised his hand in a signal.

Brook stepped over to the fat telescope on its pedestal by the rail that was used to watch the racing boats. He swung it toward the Toyopet. Benny Lopez’s face grinned at him. Benny looked remarkably like a Japanese chauffeur. Brook turned the telescope away and for a few minutes scanned the sea. Then he went back into the bar.

He ordered another rum and tea.

A small round sunburned man in a yachting blazer stood beside him. Brook had seen him in the club before. He did not know the man’s name. Chubby was about fifty, his hair was blond and gray, and his watery eyes were floating on watery-looking bags.

“New here, old chap?” the man said, very British. He examined Brook in an almost hostile way. His eyes kept bobbing.

“Yes.” Brook felt like apologizing.

“American?” It seemed to rhyme with “scum.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Thought so. I’m Conrad Ponce-Wilby. Getting to be an American club, y’know. There are so many of you. Wherever one goes.”

“We’re not loved,” Brook said sadly.

“No offense, old boy,” Ponce-Wilby said. He had a rum and tea before him and he sipped at it hastily. “Good enough chaps among you now and then. Just that it all grows so overwhelming. Hot dogs — revolting term! Coca-Cola. Wherever you go. Deepest Africa. Everywhere.”

“You don’t like our best exports?”

“Love them. Just tire of seeing them everywhere.” Ponce-Wilby hiccuped as he pushed back from the bar. “I’m drunk, y’know. Usually am. Ask anyone. Only defense left. What’s your name?”

“Peter Brook.”

“Good English name. You’ve stolen our names and you’ve stolen our language. And what have you done with ’em? Care for a drink, Brook?”

“Working on this one, thanks.”

“I’ve offended you. No tact at all. And Mother wanted me to go to Whitehall. Barman!” Ponce-Wilby snapped his fingers at the bartender and ordered another rum and tea, “Twenty foul years now I’ve been tootling over the damned world for my company. Import-export, y’know. Damascus, New Delhi, Bangkok, Nairobi — all more and more American. D’ye know, Brook, you’ve got the ruddy burden we used to have? Now it’s you hot-dog chaps who must take care of the wogs.”

“Wogs?” Brook said, as if he had never heard the word.

“Anyone who doesn’t resemble an Englishman in important respects, cum color, is a wog,” Ponce-Wilby explained. “Not official policy, of course. Entirely my own. Americans don’t like me. Fact, neither do most of my countrymen. I enjoy it. Rather! Sure you won’t have a drink? Top-hole day for it.”

The Englishman continued his tipsy monologue, and Brook remained patiently by his side.

Ten minutes later Krylov came in. His watchdog, Volodya, trotted at his heels. The Russian agent was in sailing clothes. Once more Volodya found a chair near the door and settled down with a yachting magazine. Krylov ordered a coffee and became involved in the grave discussion at the scheduling board. Suddenly Brook noticed that Stark and his Jasmine were gone. He supposed that they had left while he was on the sundeck.

The Englishman was still prattling. “It’s the damned work ethic, I tell you. Spoils everything. What this world needs is a play ethic. Only reason for working is to wangle the time and money to play. Even the wogs know that. It’s one lesson they’ve learned. Too bloody well, if you ask me...”

A Japanese in workman’s clothes came through the door on a run, calling excitedly to the bartender. Their confused colloquy was translated, and Brook heard someone cry: “It’s a fire in that embassy car!” There was a general rush for the exit, the chauffeur Volodya leading the pack.

Brook caught Krylov’s eye. Krylov nodded.

In thirty seconds the room was clear. Even the bartender was gone.

Brook moved over to the Russian. Krylov was showing the gap between his front teeth.

“You catch on quick, Alex.”

“Yes. But I must join the others outside very soon. Volodya is quick, too.”

“He’s got a fire in his back seat to put out. Sorry to damage your car — only way we could do it. You ready to go?”

“I am ready.”

“Next Saturday. Get in the boat race — weather permitting. If not next Saturday, the next time there’s a race. After you round the first mark, while you’re on the reaching leg, capsize your boat. Be sure you’re well away from the others. I’ll be there in a fast launch and pick you up. It’ll look like a rescue. But we won’t take you back to shore. We’ll go out beyond the limit and meet an American submarine there. And you’ll be on your way.”

“So. It is to happen at last.” Krylov looked grim. Brook understood. But there were other things on his mind.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, Alex. I have the feeling I’m under surveillance. Be very careful.”

“I am always very careful. And Kimiko? What did your people say?”

“They’ve bought your conditions. You’ll meet her in Washington. You’ll be going separately, of course.”

“I am taking a chance.” Krylov’s eyes bored into his. “You could be giving me what you call the doublecross.”

“Why should we? You can always refuse to cooperate if we do. We know that.”

Krylov seemed relieved; at least he nodded. “You saw Kimiko? How is she?”

“Blooming. And as beautiful as you said. You’re a lucky man, Alex.” And if you or Holloway ever find out how I put the boot to her the other night, Brook thought, there goes old Pete.

“I am a foolish man, Peter. To be in our trade and fall in love...” The Russian squared his shoulders. “Well. But you must see Kimiko once more. Be certain she is safe until you get her out of Japan. Perhaps you can assign someone to guard her.”

Brook shook his head. “I can’t promise a stakeout, Alex. We just don’t have the personnel available here for a thing like that on such short notice. But she ought to be safe enough. I’ve watched my Ps and Qs.”

“I suppose that will have to do.” Krylov glanced over his shoulder. “We have talked too long. Is there more?”

“That’s it.”

“Next Saturday, then.” Krylov hesitated, and put out his hand. It was warm and firm. He looked into Brook’s eyes again and held the grip for so long that Brook became disturbed. It was as if the Russian were about to say something earth-shaking. But then Krylov’s lips broadened and he let go and strode from the room.

Brook waited three days before visiting Kimiko Ohara again. He told himself that it was because he was so busy — the arrangements had to be confirmed by Benny via the safe radio; Brook had to go through the same dreary motions to meet his cutout for each transmission of information; and he had to keep calling on boat people to hold up his legend.

The real reason had nothing to do with these; it had to do with the battle between his obedience to Holloway and his ever-demanding manhood. FACE held its agents through the thrall of Holloway’s charisma. It was not that they were patriots less than that they hated and feared Holloway more. One of Holloway’s least flexible pronunciamentos was that an agent did not take time out of an assignment to exercise his libido except in line of duty. By no stretch was bedding Kimiko Ohara in the line of this duty; quite the contrary. So the battle raged for three days. At the end of the third day Holloway lost.

Brook’s final rationale was that Krylov had asked him to see her.

That Tuesday night Brook dined late in the main restaurant of his hotel, allowing the spurious French sommelier to recommend a wine suitable to his American-style cutlets that turned out, predictably, to be a Bordeaux ’64 bad enough to arouse even his undeveloped taste buds to criticism. Score one for Megan Jones and her campaign to civilize him. His thoughts about Miss Jones of Washington, D.C. were arrived at by another route as well: his guilt over Kimiko, not because of Krylov but because of Holloway. Compared to Kimiko as an appetite-pleaser, Brook ruminated, Megan would turn out a greasy-spoon hamburger. It was in her stars. Megan could hardly escape being a prisoner of the Puritan ethic; the seasoned wisdom of the East in such matters was as far out of her reach as her prospect of becoming Mrs. Peter Brook, her evident goal. But of course Megan did not know that he was a FACE agent, and she was unacquainted with FACE’s handbook on sex. Sex was permitted on duty so long as it did not interfere with or compromise said duty; the judgment was the agent’s own, and if it proved to err with disastrous results to the mission the agent faced Holloway, which in at least one case Brook knew of had been a fate equivalent to death (the man had shortly found himself committed to a mental hospital, diagnosed an incurable schizophrenic). Love was absolutely forbidden. (As Krylov well knew, Brook thought; even not defecting he would have been through at KGB.) Marriage, of course, was the ultimate crime. Instant dismissal was its mildest punishment. Its most drastic was covered by The Rumor.

He decided to stop thinking.

Brook went back to his room, showered, shaved, used the Right Guard, slapped Brut on his cheeks, sipped a short whisky, and spent a few minutes considering what he should wear. He finally decided on a black Italian suit of silk, a maroon tie and socks, and slip-on alligators that had set him back a C-note. Gaudy, but what would you expect from a visiting U.S. fireman out on the town? And to hell with you, Holloway.

It was past midnight when the doorman got him a taxi. The driver wore a short wiry chin beard and a grinful of bad teeth.

“Where you go, sir?” The “sir” came out in a shower of sibilance.

With the doorman standing there and people entering and leaving the lobby, Brook said, “Oh, just drive.”

The cab shot off with an acceleration that slammed Brook back against the cushions. The bearded Japanese began weaving in and out of traffic madly.

“You like go summer festival?”

“Hell, no. Go to Nerima-ku.” Brook added Kimiko’s address.

“Nice festival tonight. On Tama River. Have much firework. All foreigner go there.”

Brook shook his head.

The driver looked disappointed. “You no want see festival?”

“No. Why are you so anxious to take me there?”

The driver grinned. “I like festival—”

“Look out!” Brook yelled.

The Japanese wrenched his wheel within a whisker of an oncoming pair of headlights. Brook was tossed to one side.

“Just watch the hell where you’re going,” Brook growled.

They ran a red light. “No worry. I number-one Tokyo driver. American want hot-shot driver, call Danny Boy.”

“Danny Boy?”

“Japanese name Hideko Dan. Very good Japanese name. English sound like Danny. So you call Danny Boy. I very famous with foreigner. What your name, sir?”

“Auschwitz.”

“You like war, Auschwitz-san?”

“War? No.”

Danny Boy nodded approval. “War no goddamn good. That why I flower boy.” A Japanese hippie! “Read about flower boy in America. They no like war, too.” He gestured toward a vaseful of small chrysanthemums hanging near his rearview mirror.

“Don’t take your hands off that goddam wheel!”

“Sorry,” Danny Boy said. “You no afraid, Auschwitzsan. I best driver in town. I fight in big war,” he continued. “No damn good, that war. Wet my pants all time. My job drive tank.”

“That explains it, all right.” Brook flinched as the cab careened around a corner, just missing a bus. He leaned back and tried to relax. Danny Boy kept pushing his heap at a suicidal pace, still talking. Brook only half listened. Danny Boy was launched on his life story: how he had worked for the American Occupation forces after the war as a driver, until his free-enterprise technique had apparently frightened some general out of his stars; how he had switched to cab-driving; how over the years he had learned intimately every unnamed street, alley, and passageway in Tokyo. His great ambition was to go to San Francisco. There, where the flower people flourished, he, Danny Boy, would take part in peace demonstrations every day.

He was still going strong when the cab pulled up at Kimiko’s apartment building. Brook jumped out with gratitude. He paid the fare, added a tip, and was about to turn away when Danny Boy said, “You want I wait for you, Auschwitz-san?”

“No, no. I’ll be here quite a while.”

“Maybe she not home,” Danny Boy said.

“Maybe who’s not home?”

“Girl you go see.”

“How do you know I’m going to see a girl?”

Danny Boy showed his rotten teeth. “Why else man come Nerima-ku this time night? You go see if girl home. I wait.”

Brook shrugged and climbed the outside stairway to Kimiko’s door. There was no answer to his knock. He knocked again, waited again, consulted his watch. It was still early; she probably hadn’t yet returned from The Golden Obi. He supposed he ought to ride around in Danny Boy’s cab for another half hour or so, and come back.

On the off chance he tried the door; to his surprise the knob turned in his hand. He pushed the door open.

Beyond the entryway the lights were on in the living room. He could see Kimiko Ohara lying half on her side on the floor, head twisted toward the coffee table. She was in her dressing gown. The gown was open to her thighs and he saw the curve of one naked buttock.

Brook shut the door behind him noiselessly. He knew what he would find, and he found it.

He stooped over her and touched her shoulder and her face flopped his way. It was a congested blue. Her eyes bulged and that vital tongue was stuck out at him. The gold obi cord was biting into her neck, knotted neatly at the nape.

Chapter 9

He undid the slipnot and tested the carotid. It was the routine exercise in futility. Whoever had strangled her knew his business. She was dead and already turning cold.

He straightened up with a surprising feeling of regret. This one was like smashing a valuable vase. Also, Kimiko had died in terror. There goes my imagination again, he thought. Choking to death, the revolt of the body at the fundamental denial, never failed to leave the expression one had died with. She had probably not had time to realize what was happening until the gold cord was ripped from her gown and snapped around her throat. He shrugged. Well, she was nothing but meat now. If he was queasy, it was because he could still smell her in the apartment.

Brook searched. He did it thoroughly, overturning cushions, raising the sofa, moving the Japanese pallet in the bedroom, going through drawers and closets. Absolutely nothing. A pro, all right.

He left no traces of his search.

He went over the floors to make sure he had dropped nothing, not even a thread. Then he backtracked to the entryway and the front door.

He did not glance at Kimiko again.

He opened the door a crack and held it there. A red light was rotating against the side of the building. It was the flasher on a parked police car.

He heard feet running up the outside stairway.

Brook slipped out, low, and ran doubled over to his left, away from the stairs. Just ahead the balcony turned a corner. As he ducked around it he heard the running steps arrive at the fourth-floor level. Had he been spotted? He deliberately put out of his head the question of who had called the police and why.

The extension of the balcony ended a few feet around the corner. He risked a look over the parapet. He was four stories above the court; too far to jump.

He considered the gap between his balcony and the neighboring wing of the building, making haste slowly. The balcony there was slightly below him. The distance across was — what? — eight feet. More than he could jump from a standing start? But he would be jumping downward. The parabola would help. Maybe.

Brook balanced himself on the parapet, flexed his knees, and hurled himself across. His hands slammed against the concrete, stunning his fingers. He exploded with effort, a surge that was as much built-in habit as muscle. His fingers held. Then his toes found a foothold in a curlicue of the concrete, and he was able to push himself up, hook an elbow over the parapet, and vault to safety.

He could hear men’s voices speaking excited Japanese on the balcony across the court. A hand flash probed his way. He reacted at once, but he was too late. Before he could fall flat, his face was caught in the beam.

Brook ran. Behind him a voice called: “Matte! Matte!” That, he supposed, meant that he must stop. The hell with you, little yellow brother, Brook thought; and he kept sprinting toward the stairs.

But he knew that he was in for big trouble.

Brook emerged in a street he had not seen before. It was a typical side street of the Tokyo residential neighborhoods, narrow and dark and lined by low walls of pitted lava stone. He ran, away from the area. When he came to a street that veered to his right he took it, ran a block, and turned left again. He made several such maneuvers, always working away from Kimiko’s apartment house.

At last he stopped running and changed to a brisk walk.

He had been walking for ten minutes without meeting anyone when he came to an embankment. A narrow path ran alongside. He made out a railing on top of the embankment and to his left the lights of what seemed to be a railroad station. Tokyo was crosshatched by suburban rail lines; any one of them should take him back to midtown.

He headed for the station.

And stopped.

Headlights had appeared a hundred yards ahead. They were coming from the station.

A police car? For a breath he considered running back to the street from which he had just emerged. But he dismissed it. No flasher; it was not a police car. And the station, if he could get there undetected, was his best bet. He continued walking, making no effort to stay in shadows. Let the occupants of the approaching car see him. There was nothing remarkable in a foreigner’s walking toward a station in the early hours. Most of the bar girls lived in these districts.

The car was coming close. It did not accelerate. That was an encouragement. Brook slipped into the relevant mood. He was an American finding his way back from a bit of after-midnight poontang. He found himself thinking of Kimiko the last time he had seen her alive and panting. His step slowed, became languid; he felt himself smiling.

Just as it seemed that the car would pass him it stopped, not five feet away. Brook was preparing to spring to his right and race for the railroad embankment when a familiar voice called from the car, “Auschwitz-san. Where you want go now?”

It was Danny Boy, leaning out displaying all his bad teeth.

“Maybe you get in,” the Japanese flower boy grinned. “Fuzz near this place. Many-many. Tak’san!”

Brook abruptly got in. Gears ground, the taxi shot off.

“Okay, Danny. How did you find me?”

“Lucky you,” Danny Boy said. “I know street Nerima-ku very good. All bring you near station.”

“How did you know the cops were after me?”

Danny swung his cab onto another street. “I see fuzz come apartment. I see you jump. Why you jump if you not trouble with fuzz?”

“Good thinking,” Brook said dryly. Then he said, “How come you’re sticking your beard out?”

“Huh?”

“For all you know you’re making yourself an accessory to a crime.”

“Oh.” Danny Boy’s beard waggled happily. “Flower boy and cop enemy all over world. Japan, too.”

“I suppose,” Brook said. “Okay, I’m in your hands. Where do we go from here?”

“You no want go back hotel?”

“I don’t think so,” Brook said.

“Ah, so. You have big trouble with fuzz?”

“Pretty big.”

“Ah, so,” Danny Boy said again. He was silent for some time. Suddenly he said, “Okay. Where we go?”

“Just drive around a while. I have to do some thinking.”

“You like go firework festival? All night at Tama River tonight.”

“All right.” A crowd was just the thing.

Danny Boy concentrated on his driving. Soon he swung his cab onto a wider street with tram tracks and a spatter of traffic. He had turned his head to Brook several times, and now he said, “What happen apartment? What kind trouble?”

Brook did not hesitate. “It’ll be in all the papers in the morning,” he said heavily. “I’m in one beaut of a spot, Danny Boy, the kind you get nightmares about. I went to visit a girl and found her dead.”

“Ah!”

“Absolutely. What kind of town do you have here, anyway? Somebody strangled her. I might just as well be back in the States.”

“Who do this?”

“You’ve got me, pal.”

It seemed to him that Danny Boy’s happy voice hardened. “You kill girl?”

“Who, me? Why would I knock off a looker like that? Look, if that’s what you’re thinking—”

“No think. Just ask.”

“The only thing is, Danny Boy, your cops saw my face.”

“Ah,” Danny Boy said. He fell silent again.

“You can let me out. I don’t want to involve you.”

The big shoulders behind the wheel shrugged. “Who know? Maybe you give me big tip.”

Brook sank back.

The cab sped along in a southerly direction. Brook sorted out the probabilities. Item: it was possible that Kimiko had been murdered by an ordinary thug, or even some jilted lover from her past — that there was no connection between her death and “Han” the noodle man’s attack on him; or with the Krylov affair, for that matter. If, indeed, “Han” was connected with any of it, although it was highly probable that he was, and that Brook’s cover was blown. Benny Lopez had kept a check on the noodle man’s room since their interrupted search, and “Han” had not returned to it. If the man was mixed up in the Krylov affair, he would never return to it — his cover was blown.

Item: a Japanese policeman had enjoyed a good look at Brook’s face during his escape. This would probably lead to his identification. Together with his known connection with Kimiko — they had been seen together at The Golden Obi — it made for easy police work. Besides, they might connect him with the foreigner who had been attacked in the neighborhood of Kimiko’s apartment house a few nights before. So a return to his hotel was out of the question; he might find them waiting for him.

Item: Benny had to be warned. He might have to set up a plan to get Brook out of Japan in such a way that the immigration authorities would not spot him. The trouble was that getting in touch with Benny by their roundabout M.O. tonight would be time-consuming and risky. His hotel phone might be under surveillance.

It all added up to a badly bungled mission. Holloway wouldn’t like it. Brook could stand in the dock before Holloway and prove all day long that none of it had been his fault, Holloway still wouldn’t like it. Brook didn’t like it himself. The fact was, the only convincing reason he could give for going to Kimiko’s apartment tonight was the real one, itchy pants; it had been his fault. And having to drop a run with so many unanswered questions left hanging was the worst of it.

He thought and thought and could find no way out.

He heard some half-distant booms. Sonic? Brook looked up absently. Danny Boy was gesturing toward the skies ahead. Great blossoms of colored fire were blooming in the heavens and wilting just as fast.

“Pretty firework!” Danny Boy said, all smiles.

“Very pretty,” Brook said.

They turned onto a road that ran parallel with the Tama River. Soon they came to the sandflats along the shore. Hundreds of automobiles were parked here; beyond, a vast garden of carnival tents and shelters had been planted. Colored plastic lanterns bobbed everywhere. Exuberant crowds were shuffling about buying soft drinks and souvenirs at the makeshift stands. The river’s edge was black with people watching the explosions in the sky.

“Big contest every year,” Danny Boy was explaining. “Two great Japanese firework artist come Tama River. Everybody come see who make greatest firework. Like World Series.” He found a space in the parking lot and pulled in.

Brook glanced at the meter and peeled off the tab from his wad of thousand-yen notes. “That’s for your meter, Danny.” He added half his wad. “And that’s for never having seen me.”

Danny Boy’s mouth opened. “All this for Danny Boy?”

“All this. Thanks for everything. Maybe we’ll meet some time when the heat’s off.”

“Oh, we no speak sayonara now!” the bearded Japanese panted. “You make Danny Boy rich man. I stay with you, Auschwitz-san. We see firework together. After I take you where you want go, no charge.”

Might be safer at that, Brook thought. They’ll be looking for one man, not two. Certainly not a Japanese.

They wandered toward the stands, joining the crowds streaming along the alleys and walkways. Danny Boy proved a knowledgeable guide, explaining the traditional souvenirs on sale and the lore surrounding the fireworks festival.

“And here is Kappa!” The Japanese stopped at a stand, pointing out a doll with a humanoid body and a bird’s bill. “Kappa live in river. When pretty girl come river, he like steal them. See hole like little dish in top Kappa’s head? You spill water from hole, you catch him.”

“I’ve learned something,” Brook said. He was watching the crowds. Young men were tilting bottles of sake and Japanese whisky. Shrill music was tumbling out of loudspeakers. Among the swarms of Japanese enthusiasts were many foreigners; he noted them with pleasure.

They came to a platform festooned with red and white streamers. Men and women in yukata, the summer kimono, were moving in dance figures around the platform; to Brook it looked like a Japanese version of a square dance. Beyond the platform stood a portable shrine, a small structure on carrying poles; the forty or fifty young men who had been carrying it had paused to refresh themselves with rice balls and sake. Their only clothing was loincloths.

There were more booms over the river. This time a moan of appreciation came from the crowds as the explosions in the sky formed a hanging outline of Mount Fuji.

Brook stared with the others, conscious of the two policemen standing near a shelter fifty yards away. One was looking his way. Too fixedly. He turned to mutter in the other’s ear. Then both looked his way.

Brook said to Danny Boy, “Let’s go,” and drifted toward one of the alleys.

The policemen started toward him.

He moved with the crowd. The instant he passed out of sight of the policemen he stopped drifting and lengthened his stride.

“Where you go?” gasped Danny Boy, short legs pumping.

“The fuzz, Danny. They’ve spotted me. Better get lost.”

“Wait!” Danny Boy cried.

Brook left the bearded Japanese behind. There was a technique for escaping from this sort of situation; the trick was to make time without leaving a trail of provoked bystanders. You did it by moving fast, but not too fast, slipping through openings in the crowd when there were any, making openings when there weren’t by seeming to be interested in something up ahead, craning and elbowing. It was astonishing how much ground a hunted man in a crowd could cover in this way without arousing a posse. He headed for the outskirts of the festival site, away from the river, objective some residential section and a complex of narrow streets in which to lose himself.

Taller than the Japanese about him, Brook could look over their heads. He was almost out of the thick of the crowd when he saw four more policemen trotting in his direction. Beyond them a police car was braking; policemen began jumping out before it stopped.

No doubt about it now: he had been identified. Probably his description had been tied in to his police-station appearance the other night, the radio had sent out the alarm, and some alert officer had spotted him on the festival grounds. With the reinforcements pouring in, he was a going goose.

He reversed his field and headed back toward the river. People seemed unaware of a chase. Those he jostled gave way either with smiles or angry exchanges in Japanese. The smilers were usually older people, the angry ones youths. Old Asia hands from Foggy Bottom had grown accustomed to the anti-Americanism of Japanese youth; but then they did not venture into Japanese festival crowds.

Brook watched his step.

His backward progress brought him again to the platform with the circle of dancers in their yukata. A few yards away the several dozen half-naked young men were just preparing to lift the carrying poles of their portable shrine. Brook scanned the neighborhood. A temporary shelter of bamboo and reed matting stood nearby; to one side it cast a deep shadow. He slipped into the shadow and stripped to his shorts, shoes, and socks. Then he came out busily and squeezed his way among the young men and set his shoulder under one of the poles.

The youth ahead of him turned around, saw his Caucasoid eyes, and glowered. Brook rolled the offending eyes like a clown and nudged him and said, “Man, that’s mucho good sake!” The youth gave him a look of contempt and said something in Japanese to the grinning men around them. They all laughed. Whatever the American was saying, it had included the word sake; from the foreigner’s slurred speech he was drunker than they. And it was the summer festival, when hearts are gay. On with the shrine!

They carried it down the main street of the festival grounds. They made their little shrine sway and buck as they hauled it along, to prove that the devil-spirit inside was alive and kicking. To this demonstration they provided a chant in unison: “Wa-sheh! Wa-sheh! Wa-sheh!” Brook chanted his Wa-shehs as heartily as any.

Policemen ran past several times. Once an officer stared at him and Brook thought it was all over; but then the man moved off, proving the FACE instructors’ point. The average police mind the world over was conventional: if you were hunting a man of thirty, you would not look for him in a home for the aged. These policemen were hunting an American in American clothes; through this narrow lens anything else became invisible.

But he was spotted just the same.

“Peter! Pete Brook!”

The voice was familiar; Brook risked a glance. It was a fat man with the eyes of a frog and a whole series of dimpled grins. Toby Stark.

“Pete, you crazy bastard!” the manager of the Katori Spa said, squeezing in beside him. “Full of the bloody festival spirit, I see. Or is it your rotten bourbon?”

Brook decided. “Stark... Toby... I need help,” he said between Wa-shehs. “Grab hold of the pole.”

Stark inserted himself in the line, shouting “Wa-sheh!” Then he said, “I should damned well think you do. Where are your clothes?”

“The cops are after me, Toby. Swarming over the place. Something I didn’t do. I’ll explain when we have time. You’ve got to help me get away from here.”

“Righto. Hands across the sea and all that.”

“Have you a car?”

“Sure. Parked over there—” The fat man roared, “Wa-sheh!”

“You’ll have to drive me out of here.”

“Do you suppose we can get away with it?”

“We’ll have to improvise. Please.”

Stark grinned. “Well, damn it all, why not? Come along. Wa-sheh, Wa-sheh! Pretend to be drunk.”

He grasped Brook’s naked arm and yanked him out of the line, saying something in good-natured-sounding Japanese to the young men in their vicinity. Brook reeled and retched. Half dragged, half supported, he let Stark lead him through the crowds, which opened knowingly before them; in what seemed to Brook a century they reached the parking lot and Stark’s Toyopet sedan.

“Well done, O noble Yank,” the fat man said with satisfaction. “That’s fooling the bastards. What do they think you did?”

“Hold it.” Brook stopped in the act of opening the forward door of the sedan. He was studying the nearest exit from the festival area.

Toby Stark turned to look. A police vehicle was drawn up at the exit; policemen carring lanterns were stopping outgoing cars. “That looks like business. What the devil did you get yourself into?”

“Later, Toby. Look, there’s a bamboo shack behind that dancing platform. My clothes are on the ground outside there, in the shadow. Get ’em for me, Toby. I’ll wait here.”

Stark rubbed his blob of a nose. “Well, I don’t know, Peter. I thought it was a lark of some sort. I can’t afford to get mixed up in anything serious.”

Brook said, “I’m absolutely at your mercy.”

“Well.” The fat man pulled at the blob; there was no merriment in his protuberant eyes now. “I suppose I ought to have my bloody head examined.”

Brook said, “Hurry.”

He crouched in the rear of the little sedan while he waited for the Australian to get back. The minutes dragged by. Several times lights bobbed by the Toyopet: men with lanterns searching among the parked cars. He held his breath. Damn Kimiko!

Then the door opened and there was Stark.

“I thought you’d never get back.”

“Bloody fuzz all over the place.”

Brook slipped into his clothes.

“Now what, Peter?”

“I’ll get into the trunk, you drive us out. You’ll have no trouble, Toby. You’d hardly be taken for me.”

Stark grinned his multiple grin. “Always been a law-abiding bloke myself. Don’t like this one bit.”

“I’m not exactly in love with it. Oh, and thanks.”

“All right, damn it, let’s get it over with.” The fat man took his car keys from his pocket, went around to the rear of the sedan, and opened the trunk.

Chapter 10

Sometimes Brook thought about it. Usually when he had had a couple of whiskies, and he was alone, and there was no urgent matter on the agenda. At such times he permitted himself the forbidden luxury of those little finger exercises in deceit he had to perform as a matter of course. So that in time, and not so very long a time, either, deceit became another motor function and if somebody asked you the time of day you automatically calculated how you might lie about it and make the lie plausible. Deceit piled on deceit, cover story to cover cover story, and then still another to cover everything your second story didn’t quite. Like the soup cans. As a boy he had been much taken with a brand of soup that showed on its label a small picture of its label in which there was a still smaller one, and another, and another, so that he would get dizzy trying to figure out where it all ended. In this trade you also wondered where it ended. You were forbidden to, but you did. At times.

Half smothered in the little trunk compartment, Brook found that this was one of those times. He had to tell a lie within a lie within a lie to Toby Stark. For some reason it bothered him. It was only when they were safely away from the festival grounds, on a dark stretch of road, as Stark let him out of the trunk and he climbed into the sedan, that Brook stopped worrying about it. That was the best time in such interludes: when you had it and could stop worrying about it.

He sat beside Stark as the fat Australian directed the Toyopet south along the coastal highway toward Katori Spa. His legs still ached with cramp, and he rubbed them as he spun his yarn.

“I’m not really with a boatbuilding company, Toby. Or maybe you’ve guessed that by now. The truth is, I’m a U.S. Treasury agent. I’ve been nosing into certain smuggling operations that originate here in Japan. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but — well, I’m beholden to you, Toby, for getting me out of a tight spot, and you’ve earned my trust. I can only hope you’ll keep it under your hat.”

Stark seemed relieved. “Is that it! Well, I should say. Always had a soft spot for Yanks. Blundering idiots, most of you, but the nicer sort — almost speak the Aussies’ language. Bloody few friends we have in this world. What went wrong?”

“The thing I’m investigating is due to break in a few days. We’ve identified most of the members of the smuggling gang, but we’re waiting for the big man to arrive in Tokyo. Obviously our most important job is to nab the boss.”

Toby Stark chuckled all over. “Like in the bloody films!”

“What?” Then Brook laughed. “I suppose it would strike an outsider that way. Anyway, with most of my work done, and with some time on my hands, I made the mistake of looking for a little whoop-de-do.”

“Aha,” Stark said. “The plot thickens.”

“It sure did,” Brook said ruefully. “I went to a nightclub, met a sexy hostess — Japanese — and made the usual arrangement to go to her apartment after she’d knocked off work.”

Stark looked aggrieved. “Damn it all, Peter, why didn’t you come to me if you were horny? I can fix you up at Katori Spa with a beautiful piece, and not half the running about.”

“Next time don’t think I won’t! But let me tell you about this, Toby. When I got to the girl’s apartment I found her dead—”

“You what?” The car swerved; Brook had to correct the wheel. “Sorry, old boy, but that gave me a turn.”

“Imagine what it did to me! She’d evidently been killed by a burglar or something. I understand they’re having a lot of trouble with these house robberies in Tokyo. Anyway, I’d been seen in the nightclub with the girl, so I knew the police wouldn’t lose any time connecting me with her murder. It’s so damned easy to identify a foreigner in these Asiatic countries! That meant being held for questioning, maybe worse, before it was straightened out. I couldn’t afford the time; it would completely foul up my assignment. Even if I was released in time the publicity might blow the scene. So I couldn’t do anything but run. And wouldn’t you know? Just then the police — how the devil they got there so fast I can’t imagine — showed up, and they caught a glimpse of my pan before I got away. That really tied it. They must have identified me in minutes. Anyway, they put out an alarm, and I was spotted at the fireworks festival.”

“Now that you tell it, it doesn’t sound so bad,” Stark said. “Your hand was forced, all right. They must have figured you’d try to lose yourself in a crowd, and the festival always pulls a mob of foreigners.”

“Well, that’s about it, Toby.” Brook hesitated. “The only thing is, I’m not out of the woods. And I don’t know who else I can turn to at the moment but you. I need your help.”

“You’ve got it.” The fat man laughed. “Most excitement I’ve had since my first night with little old Jazz.”

“You see, I’ve got to drop out of sight until Saturday. Katori Spa might be just the place to do it.”

“Say no more. I’ll put you up at the castle, hush-hush. Not a bloody soul will know you’re there.”

“Toby, I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Shove it, chappie.” Toby Stark drove on, humming.

Brook was thinking: You got the good breaks and the bad ones in equal proportion; lucky for him the balance was in his favor this time. His string had started with Danny Boy and his prejudices against the fuzz. Then Stark’s running across him as he was stuck in the line of the shrine-toters. It had been apple pie after that.

That was one way of looking at it.

There was another way. When you got a streak of good luck in a tight situation, you examined it. With suspicion! There was something about smooth going in nasty waters that made the smart sailor uneasy. The calm before the storm sort of thing. You felt something tugging at the sleeve of your consciousness, trying to warn you.

You could look at it either way. You had damned well better look at it either way.

But just before dawn, after the kind of night he had had, rocked with fatigue, his body craving sleep and rest, the best thing was to note the other possibility for future consideration and stop looking at it any way at all.

Brook shut his eyes. He fell asleep.

The sun was just peering over the edge of the sea when Stark led Brook through the torii gateway to the blockhouse-like building at Katori Spa.

“It’s a grain-storage house,” Stark explained. “Japan’s the only place I know of where they build grain-storage houses to look like a bloody feudal palace. Not even a window. Nobody’ll know you’re here, Pete old boy. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

“Right now I’m not anything but pooped.”

The fat man opened the heavy door, reached in, switched on the light, and stood aside. Brook went in. It was a square room the size of a conventional bedroom. A couch, several Western chairs, a desk, two bookcases half filled.

“Fixed it up as a study for myself,” the Australian said, shutting the heavy door behind them. “Can you keep a secret, Pete?”

Brook was able to grin. “One good secret deserves another.”

“I thought I’d write a bloody book. I daresay everybody gets that bug one time or another. Historical fiction about the early settlers in Australia. Thought of a title, too. Kangaroo Moon. Damned catchy, what? Though I haven’t a story to go with it, not yet. I’ve been so bloody occupied I haven’t got round to it. Well, make yourself at home, chappie. I’ll send Jazz around with some shaving gear, and we’ll bring you food from time to time.”

Brook shook his head. “You’d better not tell Jasmine I’m here, Toby. The fewer in on this the better.”

“Don’t worry about Jazz. I’ve trained her to keep her yap shut. They’re just like dogs, these slant-eye women. Feed ’em, pet ’em, give them a little loving and a touch of the whip now and again, and they eat out of your bloody hand. Besides, Jazz likes to drop in here when she wants to mope or something, so she’s got to be let in on it.”

Brook sighed. “All right, Toby, if you think it’s safe.”

Stark waved and went to the door.

“And thanks again. Good night.”

The Australian went out, shutting the door behind him. Brook looked up at the high blank walls. No windows, as advertised, but there were slits up near the ceiling beams; they were a good ten feet above floor level.

The floor was dirt covered with mats of rice straw.

Brook turned his attention to the door. It was of iron, with a huge medieval-looking lock and a six-inch-square peep-window barred with a crisscross of iron slats. The damn place, he thought, has all the hominess of a rat trap.

Brook tried the iron door. It opened. The early light was beginning to bring out details; he shut the door quietly.

He sank onto the couch, took off his jacket, loosened his tie. His lids weighed a ton, but for some reason he had lost the wish to sleep. He was also hungry, rapaciously so. Bad. His appetite became overdemanding only when he was disturbed.

He nodded to himself. He had reason to be disturbed. He had booted security right and left. Maybe his luck, fantastic so far, would hold out.

He would need all he could get. The morning papers would be full of Kimiko’s murder and his name and description. It would hit Krylov like a ton of brick. Would it make Krylov change his mind about coming over? There was a chance, a better than fair chance, that it would not. The Russian was smart enough to know that the last people in Tokyo who would put his woman on ice were the American agents. The answer for Krylov had to lie elsewhere, in uneasy directions. No, Brook thought that Krylov would be more than ever anxious to go through with it.

Benny Lopez would see the English-language editions. For that matter, they would be brought to Holloway’s attention in Washington. Would they change the plan? Brook saw no reason why they should. So Benny would go ahead with the run; he would have the motorboat ready at the prearranged spot a short way up the coast on Saturday morning. But I’ll have to know it definitely, Brook thought; I’ve got to get in touch with Benny soon. It was best done without Toby Stark’s help or even knowledge. An amateur friend could be far more dangerous than a professional enemy.

The door opened. Brook’s eyes flew wide; he had dozed off. It was Jasmine.

“Well, hello!” Brook said.

She was certainly something to see first thing in the morning. She did not make the mistake of wrapping herself like a mummy to suggest the charms underneath; she wore angular vermilion silk slacks and a loose jacket embroidered in gold, everything loose, everything flopping, everything left to the imagination. In spite of his fatigue he found his working overtime.

“I brought you these, Mr. Brook.” Even her voice called on the imagination; it was slow and surly, inviting a contest. She deposited on the table a bundle wrapped in a silk scarf, and undid the knot. In the scarf lay a razor, shaving cream, toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, and a hand towel.

“Thanks.” He did not rise, watching her. “What did Toby tell you?”

“Everything. He always tells me everything.” She smiled, but not with her eyes. It was queer about her eyes; they seemed to flick from side to side like the tip of a tail. Even the set of her lips was provocative, a smile and not a smile, shifting from moment to moment. There’s an underlying aggressiveness in all this, he thought, some secret game she plays that gives her kicks. She seemed to be saying yes, I am desirable, all men want me, including you, Mr. Brook, and maybe you can have me and maybe you can’t.

“Then you know, Jasmine, why nobody must find out I’m here. I have to be sure about that.”

The smile flickered, a match struck for a moment in the dark. “You are safe from me, Mr. Brook. Even if I wished to tell, whom do I see here to speak to?”

“Something’s bothering you.”

“Me? I don’t think so, Mr. Brook.” That’s right, he thought; give me the wide eyes.

“The name is Pete. May I guess? You’re stuck at Katori Spa here. No excitement. And you’re a girl who likes to stir things up. Right?”

“That could be said about most women, Mr. Brook. Peter. Who has no problems?” The hidden shoulders twitched. “I must go now.”

“Just a minute. Could I have breakfast? I’m starved.”

“I will bring it when the servants are gone from the kitchen.” Jasmine glided to the door. “Is there anything else you wish?”

“A bottle of Scotch would help.”

She nodded and went, shutting the door carefully behind her.

Brook washed and shaved, drawing out his toilet not so much to kill time as to bring it alive. He found his thoughts going back to Jasmine. Toby Stark had boasted of her talents in bed. It would be nice to find out first hand. A dirty trick on Toby, of course, but the hell with that. The only thing was, it was out of the question. Right now his job was to keep matters simple, not complicate them further.

When he had finished, Brook picked up his jacket to drape it over a chair. As he was doing so he saw a bulge in the right pocket. He frowned, wondering what could be causing it. He never stuffed his pockets. He explored the pocket and a frigid mouse ran down his spine. He knew what it was even before he pulled the stuffing out of the pocket.

It was the gold cord from the lounging outfit Kimiko Ohara had worn. The cord that had strangled her. The cord he had removed from her neck — and put in his pocket!

Why? For the love of Holloway, how could he have done a stupid thing like that? If the Japanese police had succeeded in laying their hands on him... The mouse ran down again.

Talk about a run of luck! This was one detail a Presidential directive couldn’t have made him put into his report to the Director.

There was a big ceramic ashtray on the table. Brook made for it, feeling for his lighter. He hoped the braided cord would burn.

The door opened again.

She had changed her costume. This time she wore a hot pink Chinese cheong-sam. Phase Two apparently: a little less strain on the imagination, a closer look at the goodies. If I can get her to come in here often enough, Brook thought as he slid the gold cord into his pants pocket, she’ll be down to the buff. He did not think she had noticed the cord; his body had been in the way.

“Hello again. Yum-yum!”

She brought the tray with his breakfast to the table. Standing up from the tray like a lighthouse was a bottle of Chivas Regal.

“That’s fine, Jasmine, elegant.”

“It is nothing, Peter; I had to hurry. But it will keep you from starving. Tell me now if you will need something more. I can come here only when no one is watching.”

“This ought to take care of everything. Well, almost.” After all, why not? It would endanger the run only if Stark found out. And she certainly wouldn’t tell the Australian. She might not even want to play. But he owed it to his manhood to find out. “I could use a little company with my breakfast.”

He was looking at her lips. They were very red and satiny. That strange smile lifted them briefly. Then her tongue appeared. Just the tip. “Oh? Very well, I will stay a little if you like. Toby is busy at the hotel this morning, as always at this time of day.”

Okay, kid, I’ve got the message. Amusing how suddenly his muscles had recovered their tone. No sleepiness at all, either. Like taking an amphetamine. Instant zap.

This time he held a chair for her. She smiled up at him, and he touched her neck briefly. In Japan a woman’s neck was an erogenous zone, out of bounds except in intimacies. If she had any Japanese in her it ought to get a reaction.

It seemed to him that her eyes acknowledged the pass as he sat down opposite her.

He dawdled with the bacon and scrambled eggs, sipped the coffee, disdained the toast. He was no longer hungry. He reached for the Scotch.

Jasmine pushed a glass toward him. “May I join you?” Her smile was a millimeter wider.

“Excuse me,” Brook said, and obliged. He should have figured her for an early-morning drinker. But then he noticed how she brought the glass to her lips, and he said, “You don’t really want that.”

The exquisite shoulders shrugged. “It is part of your sex ritual, is it not?”

“I suppose so.” It rather startled him. He had never thought of it that way. Was the Western man bucking up his own guts, or trying to loosen the Western woman’s inhibitions? He realized that, in light of the prevailing mores, it was rapidly losing its physiological function and becoming what Jasmine called it, a ritual; a sort of psychological appendix.

She set the glass down. “You must not be mistaken in what you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking all the right things,” Brook said, smiling.

“Perhaps not, Peter. You see, I do not often join a man in a drink like this, certainly not at this hour. I have accepted the attentions of many attractive young men, but I choose carefully.”

“And you’ve chosen me this morning. Why?”

“You have a strong and quiet look.”

“We call me the strong, silent type.” He was still smiling. “The Orient’s full of us. So there must be another reason.”

“You are also perceptive. Yes, there is. I think I have grown tired of the way things are with me.”

“You mean being tied to Toby Stark? Stuck out here like a house pet? Why don’t you cut out?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why not leave him?”

“It is not so simple, Peter. You see, I went with Toby in the first place because I was tired. I am not as young as I look. To find someone else who can afford to give me what I want may not be as easy as it once was. So I stay. He takes care of me and I give him his pleasure. But I am tired of him.”

Brook rose. He circled the table and went to the back of her chair. She looked up and around, smiling.

“Yes,” she said, as if he had asked her a question; and she took his hands and placed them on her breasts. “That is something I know how to do very well.”

It was a massive understatement. She made the late Kimiko Ohara’s technique look like the stammering efforts of a sophomore at Miss Briggs’ Finishing School for Young Ladies in the year 1910.

Less than an hour later Brook was aroused by the tolling of a deep bell from somewhere. It was probably the big bronze affair he had seen hanging in its pavilion on the grounds. The bell sounded unlike any he had ever heard, he was sure. Or was he? He wondered why it annoyed him. Each note sustained itself for a long time, like self-perpetuating thunder. He could feel its vibrations through the walls of the grain-storage house. It died away lingeringly.

Jasmine stirred on the couch beside him, pulled him down to her, and licked the tip of his nose. “It is only the bell, Peter. The servants, the workers, they like it. It helps them to feel religious.”

Then he remembered.

The cold mouse made its run again.

The moan as the bell died away. Jasmine’s voice, husky, that could be mistaken for a man’s voice if you didn’t know and she was on the other end of a telephone line.

She circled her palm ever so lightly over the hair of his chest. “I must leave now.”

Brook nodded.

“I will be back.” She swung from the couch, picked up her clothes from the floor, began to dress. He watched her. “I am glad you came here, Peter. I feel as if I have known you for a long time.”

“Do you?”

She laughed. “But we do not really know each other, do we?”

“We’ve made a good start.”

“Be serious. I want you to tell me about yourself.”

“It’s a dull story.”

“Don’t be modest! Toby says you chase smugglers for a living. You must lead an exciting life. Tell me everything.”

“Next time, Jazz. I’d rather Toby didn’t find you here.”

“Yes, yes. Next time.”

“Soon,” he said.

“Soon.”

He kept staring at the door until long after she had gone.

It was a cute setup, all right.

He thought it out.

Finally he poured himself an inch and a half of Scotch, drank it neat, and began to dress as carefully as if he were about to meet Holloway. He wished he had an iron; the silk suit was wrinkled. Well, it would have to do. He removed the books from the bookcase, carried the case to the wall below the window slit, and stood on it to look out. Between his tower and Stark’s “castle” there were only rocks and bushes and flowerbeds and the pool with its ducks and golden and speckled carp. And there was the rear of the house, not fifty yards away. The sun was well up and the day was warmer. And no one in sight.

He stepped down, went to the iron door, pushed it open very slowly. The garden was still clear. He walked out of the tower, shutting the door, glanced over at the pavilion where the great green bell was hanging. No one there.

The bell was silent.

Brook walked toward the house deliberately. A strolling man is far less noticeable than a hurrying one. Halfway across the garden he heard a splash, but it was only one of the carp breaking the surface. Then he was at the back door of the main house. He peeped inside. A big kitchen. Empty. He went in, quickly now.

He stood near the door, listening. He could hear nothing from the rest of the house.

He crossed the kitchen to a swinging door, opened it an inch, and cased the adjoining room. It was the one in which Stark had first entertained him. The telephone was on a table in a corner and he ran toward it on the balls of his feet. He picked it up, listened for the dial tone. Instead, a voice speaking English with a Japanese accent said, “’Lo. Desk.”

It was the voice of the clerk in the recreation center; Stark’s line went through the switchboard. Brook did his best to imitate the Australian’s boomy accent.

“Stark here. Look, ring me the Mitani Hotel in Tokyo, will you, there’s a good chap? I’ll hang on.”

“Mitani Hotel. Yes, sir. You know number?”

Brook gave him the number. The dialing, clicking, buzzing were interminable. He shifted his weight and kept glancing over at the doors. Risky, making this call. His chances would have been better if he had slipped away from the Spa.

Benny Lopez, at last. “Hello?” Brook could have kissed him.

“No time for the phone routine, Benny. I’m at Katori Spa. I’ll meet you Saturday morning per schedule. Don’t worry about me.”

“Don’t worry,” Benny grunted. “You see the morning papers, amigo?”

“No. But I can imagine.”

“You didn’t knock her off, did you?”

“Of course not. Look, Benny, to play it safe get out of your hotel pronto. Don’t say where you’re going. Better still, lie about it. Find some other pad and hole up.”

“You won’t know where I am.”

“Can’t be helped. Problems here.”

“What if you don’t show Saturday morning? I don’t know how to take that boat to where—”

“I’ll be there. No more time, Benny. Hasta.”

As Brook hung up he heard someone or something. He looked about for concealment; there was none. So he waited where he was. Nothing happened. It must have been the breeze scraping a bush against the house.

He got back to the grain-storage house without incident, feeling like a million.

He was lighting one of his little cigars when the iron door opened behind him.

“Hello, Brook,” said the boomy voice.

Brook turned to look into the muzzle of a Luger. Toby Stark was smiling; the weapon in his hand was not. Jasmine was in the doorway behind him.

Chapter 11

“Is it all right if I sit down?” Brook said.

The Luger waved hospitably. Brook backed up till he felt the seat of the couch against his legs. He sat down.

“Heeled, Peter?” asked Stark.

“Never.”

“No,” Jasmine said.

“Well,” Brook said.

“Yes,” Stark said. Jasmine shut the door. The Australian’s pulpy eyes had taken on a certain hardness and the layers of fat in his face no longer gave him a jolly look. “I thought you’d ask why the artillery. Try to bluff it through, that sort of thing.”

“Not much point in that,” Brook said.

“You bloody Americans.” Stark laughed; it was not at all the kind of laugh he bestowed on the workaday world. “The old unexpected, eh, Brook? Put the jolly old fat boy off guard. You can forget it, chappie. I’ve killed more smart lads than your analyst ever dug out of your bloody dreams.”

“I’m sure you have.”

Stark looked unconvinced. “Oh, yes? And how did you find out?”

Brook shrugged. “When I phoned from that noodle-vendor boy’s of yours, I heard the bell here. It puzzled me — I couldn’t quite identify the sound. Also Jasmine’s voice. I know now it was Jasmine’s. I thought then it was a man’s.”

“Hear that, Jazz?” Stark said. “He thought you were a man.”

“I know better now,” Brook said.

Jasmine stared back at him. The talented lover of a few minutes ago had quite gone, although she had left her formidable equipment behind. Her eyes were blanked out, as empty of feeling as a snake’s.

“Hope you enjoyed it,” Stark said affably. “You’ll be interested to learn that Jazz didn’t. But then you couldn’t know, could you? That masculine-sounding voice is no accident. She prefers her own sex, whatever that is. But she’s a bloody good actress, what?”

“This talk is not necessary, Toby,” Jasmine said.

“Just a bit of man-talk, my dear. Too bad I couldn’t let the play go on. It was fun. Worked it out rather neatly, Peter, didn’t I?”

“Not bad,” Brook said. “A little on the complicated side, though. All that trouble planting Danny Boy and having him drive me to the festival where you could come to my rescue like a U.S. Marine. What were you trying to do, build me up to the big let-down?”

“You’re marvelous, Peter,” Stark said, “absolutely marvelous. Now you’re trying to divert me. While all the time your brain’s working like mad. And you sit here playing for time. You won’t get a chance to make a break, old chap. I assure you of that.”

Brook watched the Luger. It gave him no confidence.

“Toby,” Jasmine said, coming in and shutting the door. “Let us get on with it.”

“Plenty of time, Jazz. Whom were you telephoning at the Mitani Hotel, Peter?”

Brook did not reply.

“It doesn’t matter. We have the room number.”

“You won’t find anyone if you go there, Stark.”

“Probably not, but we’ll check it out just the same, eh? Bad luck, making that call. I walked into the lobby just as you hung up. Clerk’s jaw falls. He knows I’m a wizard, but he looks bloody surprised all the same. How could I be calling from the castle and standing in the lobby, too? Of course, it was a dead giveaway. Must say it’s forced my hand. And lost you a few rare moments. If you hadn’t made that call you might have enjoyed some more tussles with Jazz.”

“While she pumped me.”

“Very true.”

“Which means there’s still a lot you’re in the dark about.”

The fat shoulders shook; the hand holding the Luger did not. “A few details, old boy. I know you’re here to take Krylov over. That’s the main thing.”

“Then you’re one up on me, Stark. I don’t understand why, if you don’t want Krylov to come over, you don’t just ship him back to Moscow.”

The Australian stared at him in amazement. Then he laughed all over. “Hear that, Jazz? The Yank doesn’t know! Marvelous, absolutely marvelous.”

Brook was puzzled. “What don’t I know?”

“You lose more points, Peter,” Stark said, wagging his head. “What don’t you know? Why, that we’re not Krylov’s people.”

Brook said softly, “China.”

“How quick he is, Jazz,” Stark said.

“Krylov spent some time there in the old days. Helped set up the Chinese espionage network. So he knows too much about it. Bad enough when he was a loyal Russian Communist, but catastrophic if he should come over to us and spill what he knows about your Chinese playmates.”

“Go to the head of the bloody class.” He sounded piqued.

“But how did you know Krylov was fixing to come over? How did you find out we were working on him?”

“For one thing, we’ve watched him proper. Saw a lot of the same signs your people must have seen. We had your man Wilkinson compromised some time ago, and when he went after Krylov it was obvious what was in the wind. As for you, Brook, we weren’t sure till you went to see Krylov’s Jap doxy. The waiter overheard a few things when you talked to her, we put it together with your behavior here at the Spa — going to all that trouble to be alone in a boat with Krylov — and we had a clear notion what you were up to.”

“Why didn’t you kill Krylov a long time ago?”

“Seldom got the chance, for one thing — he’s well-guarded, you know. Also, orders from the top. They didn’t want to risk the KGB’s guessing we were responsible. Or something. We don’t question our orders. Do you?”

“So you took Wilkinson out, and that night when I left Kimiko’s you tried to take me out.”

“Now you have it, chappie.”

“Then you took out Kimiko. What was it? — did she know too much?”

“Actually,” the Australian said with a frown, “that’s the bloody thing. No reason for us to kill the girl. Either it was one of those coincidences — a prowler, or one of her ex-boy friends — or you did it yourself. Didn’t you?”

“No.”

“Didn’t think so. I loathe coincidences, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Brook said. Then he said, “How is it Krylov came yachting here — in the very place you were planted, Stark? Don’t tell me that was a coincidence, too.”

“Hardly. I installed the boats at Katori Spa, remember. Just made sure Krylov heard about it. Then sent him a diplomatic discount, along with the other foreign-service lads in town. With that Roosian’s mania for boats, it couldn’t miss, and it didn’t. We do things methodically, you see. Krylov and his bloody gang don’t realize how well they taught us in the old days.”

“So you’re a Marxist,” Brook said with a laugh.

“Me? Gawd, no! Oh, I had some notions in the days when I was mucking about with party members, but I never really fell for the line. Thing is, they’re bound to come out top dog sooner or later, and I like to run with the pack. And then there’s the travel and the excitement. Hard to explain, really.”

“Toby,” Jasmine said through her magnificent teeth, “we are wasting time.”

“Be nice, Jazz, and I’ll fetch a cute little geisha for you to play with tonight.”

She hissed at him.

“Oh, for the love of Christ,” Stark said. “How often do I get a chance to chin with a fellow-professional? Even if he does think he’ll see a chance for a break.” He grinned and wiggled the Luger.

Brook said, “Two questions, Stark. Why didn’t you take me out when Danny Boy handed me over to you? And why don’t you take me out right now?”

“Orders from up top again, chappie. Got them after we made that first try. Good sense, when you think of it — they’ve got brains up there. You see, Brook, what we need from you is the information Jazz was hoping to squeeze out while she was giving you the time of your life. It’s obvious you’re set up to take Krylov over. We want to know how so we can make an intercept. Your maneuvers have presented us with a shining opportunity, as they say.”

“Yes,” Brook said. “Though it seems to me your side’s being a little stupid about this.”

“Oh? How so? It’s always nice to get a professional opinion.”

“You can stay out of it completely. Just by seeing to it that the Soviet embassy gets the word about Krylov’s intentions. They’ll do the rest for you, I guarantee it.”

“Thank you,” Stark said, grinning, “but no thank you. By doing it ourselves without tipping off the Roosians we can so arrange it that your people are blamed for it instead of us. That’ll make the Roosians mad at you, chappie, even madder than they are about Viet Nam.”

“Nonsense. This sort of thing goes on all the time.”

“Well.” The fat man shrugged. “I don’t make policy. Those are my orders.”

“Of course,” Brook said reflectively, “you see the hole in it.”

“What’s that?”

“I have to talk for your scheme to work. They used to call me Gabby before I started to shave, but that was before I started to shave. I’ve learned to be awfully tongue-tied.”

“We’ll see.” Stark smiled sweetly. “And that, I suppose, brings us to what Jazz here has been tapping her little tippy-toes about all this time. Truth is, she’ll enjoy it more than I will. Her favorite author is de Sade.”

“Toby,” Jasmine said icily, “you are a fat fool.”

Stark ignored her. “You all primed for it, old boy?” he asked Brook.

Brook hoped that his sneer was convincing. “Fire away, Gridley. I can take anything you’ve got.”

And that’s a lot of horseballs, he thought as he tried to prepare himself. That night in Belgrade, when they were working on his testicles, he had been as ready to fall as a tree-ripened apricot if they’d only had the sense to let up. But they had kept going, and he had kept screaming, unable to get out the words they were torturing him for. And then he had passed out, and their opportunity was gone. Maybe he had been lucky then to fall into the hands of a bungling crew. His stomach and groin were telling him that Jasmine, at least, was no bungler in these matters.

“Maybe you can,” Stark said, “and maybe you can’t. It’s been my experience, chappie, that there’s no such thing as holding out. Whoever you are. Of course, a well-thought-out torture takes time — the Chinese are awfully good at it, as I suppose you know — but time is what we have little of. So we’ll have to do it the crude way, Brook. Or you can be sensible about this and answer my questions and save yourself a lot of grief.”

Brook shook his head. “You know I can’t, Stark. Noblesse oblige, and all that. I could never look myself in the face again.”

“You’re an idiot,” the fat man said, almost with surprise. “Well, then. Can you judge where I’m pointing this pistol, Brook?”

Brook said, “About eight inches below the belt.” Here we go again, he thought. Somebody must be trying to tell me something. They consistently go for my posterity.

“That is correct, Brook,” Stark said. “Now I’m very good with a pistol, you understand. I can put a slug into a two-inch circle in that area ten times out of ten from this distance, and at just the right angle. Quite surgical with this thing, I am. You understand, of course, that you would then be rendered the promptest medical care to keep you alive. That’s the dirty part of the trick, Brook — being left alive after a thing like that.”

Brook was shaking his head. “That’s bad psychology, Stark. I’m too well trained to talk before the shot, and after it I’d walk through six shots to get my hands on you for what you’d have done to me. This is no way to make me talk.”

“What do you take me for?” the Australian said. “This isn’t to make you talk. It’s to make you wag your tail like a nice little doggie till Jazz here can do her part of the job. Listen carefully, Brook. Jazz is going to step near you. She’ll be within your reach for a few seconds. I’m advising you what I’ll do if you make the slightest twitch toward her. The slightest bloody twitch of a fingertip.”

“Oh,” Brook said, and fell silent.

Jasmine was stalking him with a hypodermic syringe.

“You will roll up your sleeve, Brook,” said Stark. “I don’t have to tell you how.” The Luger never wavered.

She stepped to one side and out of reach while Brook rolled up his sleeve. He did it with considerable care. I wonder what the ineffable Bond would do in a jam like this, he thought. Probably leap like a tiger to use her as a shield while the fat man’s shot obligingly went wild.

“Very nicely done, old chap,” Stark said. “I’m happy at your good sense. Now hands down and under your buttocks. Sit on ’em; that’s it. Gives me the split-second advantage, you see, in case you’ve got rash ideas. Now hold very still. That’s a good chap.”

She did it with admirable efficiency. He had barely time to feel the sting of the needle when the contents of the syringe were in his arm and she was out of reach again.

Brook glanced down at his arm. “Scopolamine?” He had been hoping it was sodium pentothal. Once Holloway had put all his agents through a practice in resisting the effects of the so-called truth drug; it could be done, the Director had insisted, if a man’s will was strong enough. But he knew it was not the truth drug. Sodium pentothal worked with great speed, and he still had his senses.

Stark shook his ponderous head; Brook could see the wag quite clearly. “A homologue of succinyl choline chloride. Something new. Developed here in Japan.”

“S.C.C.? Isn’t that the stuff that slows everything down and makes a man seem dead?”

“This is a related compound. The effect’s a little different, Brook. I see you’re beginning to feel it.”

Yes. The outlines of the fat face were blurring and the high-walled room was rocking like a cradle. He was conscious of a buzzing that seemed to be able to approach and recede simultaneously. Then the whole room rose and spiraled away from him. His body began to turn upside down counterclockwise. It continued to revolve in gentle circles.

Length. Breadth. Depth. But no time. Interesting. The present belonged to the moment past and the moment to come. He was still revolving. Or maybe it was the room. Toby Stark had become an elongated oval, featureless. There was a slimmer oval that must be Jasmine.

Toby Stark was striking him. Toby was powerful and his arm landed like a house-wrecker’s ball. The echoes bounced around in his skull whenever he was struck. Toby was kicking him, too. Not kicking him, kneeing him. So he hadn’t escaped that after all. But pleasantly, no pain. And no anger. He did not mind Toby’s beating and kneeing him, nor Jasmine’s leaning forward to watch. Time had stopped and with it all feeling.

Except love.

How right. He felt love. Adoration. For Toby. Or fear? Love and fear. In a curious mixture he had never felt before. Toby, Toby, you’re my master, I love you, I’m afraid of you, father, boss, CO., Holloway. Dear Australian. Dear fink. Dear bastard. I will do as you say. I must. Elephants must. Elephants go into must — musth? — and they never forget. They are loyal. Royal. Toby, you royal son of a bitch.

The house-wrecker’s ball crashed against his cheek. Again, dear Toby. Do it again. I love-hate you.

“Who’s working with you, Brook? This Benny you called. Benny what? What’s his cover name?”

“Wilfred Jennings Schnickelburger,” Brook said. Hilarious. To make a discovery like that at a time like this. The stranger who looked just like him had stepped out of him and now stood well-planted beside him, not revolving at all, answering in old Brookie’s voice. Of course the look-alike was lying his head off. Benny’s name wasn’t Wilfred Jennings Schnickelburger. That was the look-alike’s name. Didn’t Toby — dear old Toby — see that?

Crash-bang. One-two. Button your shoe, up the flue.

“When is the meet with Krylov? Where?”

“In the meet shop. He’s bringing his wife and kidneys.”

Wham. “Answer my question, damn you!”

“I love you.”

The lesser blob that was Toby’s head was turning toward the other blob. “I can’t make this out, Jazz. Too big a dose?”

“Wait,” the other blob said. “It will settle down.”

Down. Down. But no time. At stroke of gong will be half-past afterward. Which of course has already happened.

Bonggggg.

Correction. No gong. That was dear Toby smashing him again. Wham. Better. More like it. Love is a manysplendored think.

“What’s the plan, Brook? How you going to get Krylov out?”

“Get out, get out, wherever you are.” Somebody was laughing. It was Wilfred Jennings Schnickelburger.

In the world outside his head Brook knew that time was passing for everybody but him. It came to him that what the clock and the calendar would call two days had passed, although they differed in measure and quality no more than two seconds or two years. During this period Brook saw Stark and Jasmine often. Invariably when they appeared he was beaten and Stark’s questions would race around in Brook’s head like white mice in a psychologist’s drum. At intervals there were other faces, slant-eyed, whom the Australian called by names Brook could not remember. The owners of these faces would try their hands at beating him, sometimes with bamboo sticks in various places, sometimes with their hands, sometimes with things he could not identify. Once there was “Han,” the noodle man. Brook told Battered Face, “I love you,” and “Go to hell.”

Jasmine gave him repeated injections.

“He doesn’t react normally, Toby. I am told it happens this way sometimes. Although rarely.”

“We’d have to catch the exception! That bloody dope of yours just isn’t doing the job, Jazz. Not on him.”

“We had better try another way.”

“You’re bloody damned right we’d better!”

When had they said that? Long ago? Just now? Or had he developed the gift of second sight and it was something they were going to say? Brook floated in a void, remaining perfectly still at the speed of light. He couldn’t have cared less.

Dreams ran before his awakening like ancient heralds. He hung by hairs from impossibly high places. He was chased through fuming bogs by unspeakably pathetic monsters. He gasped. He moaned. He jerked in his sleep. Twice he sat up and screamed, only to fall back into his nightmares.

Brook opened his eyes. He could see normally again. Probes of light dug into his eyes from the slits high in the wall.

He was alone.

He was lying on the floor.

He turned his head right, left. The room had been emptied of furniture; there was only the mat on which he lay. His body throbbed and burned; his mouth was full of cat fur.

He sat up and rubbed his face. It was greasy with sweat and blood and felt like mohair.

He went to the iron door on a zigzag course. The door was locked, and he returned to the middle of the room to eye the slits in the walls through the swelling. He was not sure why he wanted to reach them; they were too narrow to squeeze through. Anyway, they had left him nothing to stand on.

He saw now that he was naked and that his body looked as if it had run through a meat chopper. The sight of the welts and cuts and bruises reminded him of the pain he had not felt under the drug. He sank onto the mat for a few moments to discipline his nerve-endings. That was a bad time. When he rose again his body was wet; in its macerated condition he looked as if he were sweating blood.

He took his first hard look at the room and saw his shirt and tie and suit lying on the floor in a corner where someone had tossed them. He picked them up and found the contents of his jacket pocket undisturbed: the box of little cigars with four cigars still in it, the ballpoint, the pocket comb, even the gold obi cord he had removed from Kimiko’s neck. Stark had either overlooked them or did not consider them important. Perhaps not. But they were here and he was no longer empty-handed. Problem: how to use any or all of them to effect an escape.

Brook sat down on the mat again. He felt surprisingly strong; or the two-day assault on his nerve-endings had left them half numb. It might be a false strength. Better conserve it while he figured a way out.

A key rattled. Immediately he stretched flat and shut his eyes to slits.

The noodle man, “Han,” stepped into the room. He stood there in the doorway looking about, blinking to adjust his pupils to the gloom. His fighter’s face seemed to Brook to wear a stupid look. He held a carbine in the crook of his left arm. He stared at Brook lying there, still apparently out, for some time. Then he stepped back, and Brook heard him lock the door.

Brook sat up again. He rubbed his beard and began to crave hot water. He smelled foul, not only unwashed but sick. He looked about and saw the evidence; he had been sick, all right, and they had not bothered to clean the mess up. He got up and went over to the iron door. The carbine suggested that the noodle vendor was standing guard outside. He had probably been told to look in every once in a while to see if Brook was conscious; they couldn’t be sure just when the drug would wear off, they had given him so much of it. If they found him conscious they would undoubtedly go at him on a new tack; or rather on the old one, the tried-and-true torture technique instead of the fancy stuff Stark, out of his grandiosity, had tried. In his weakened condition they would break him very quickly. There was no defense against the old-fashioned methods.

So he must find a way to get through “Han,” and right away. There was always the possibility that “Han” was not alone on guard out there, but it was a chance he would have to take.

Brook put his clothes on tenderly. He looped the gold cord in one hand and with the other he banged on the door.

He stepped to one side as he heard the key in the lock.

The door swung open and the noodle vendor stuck his head in. Brook flipped the cord over his head, jerked him inside, kicked the door shut, kicked his man prone, straddled him, tightened the cord. He kept up the pressure until the noodle vendor’s flinging about stopped. It took some time.

Brook rose, stuffed the cord in his pocket, and opened the door a crack. From the light and the shadows of the rocks and bushes it was late afternoon, almost evening. In one direction, across the garden, Stark’s “castle” stood in peace; in the opposite direction the big green bell hung motionless.

Brook slipped out, shut the iron door with love, and headed for the wall.

Chapter 12

Benigno Lopez stood on the wharf in the fishing village of Umazaru and watched a glittering launch with a mahogany foredeck move in snugly along the pilings. Two sailors jumped off and made it fast with a pair of clove hitches on the fore and aft lines. A third sailor, with three stripes under the embroidered eagle on his arm, left the wheel, stepped ashore, and walked up to Benny.

“You Mr. Lopez?”

“That’s me.”

The sailor was all leather and raw bones and red hair. He had a Davy Crockett accent. “I’m supposed to deliver this here boat to you, Mr. Lopez.” He sounded incredulous.

“That’s right,” said Benny.

“It’s the Admiral’s barge,” the sailor growled.

“So what?” Benny said.

“It ain’t never been loaned out before.”

“My compliments to the Admiral. There’s a first time for everything.”

“I just don’t know,” the sailor said. He scratched the red sandpaper under his chin.

“You don’t know what, sailor?”

“Well, now, look it here, this boat is my baby. Keeping it shipshape is my job.”

“And a fine job you’ve done,” Benny said warmly.

“Yeah. But I mean I don’t feel right loaning this boat out to just anybody.”

Benny nodded. “I understand. I imagine you’ve got your orders, though.”

“Yeah. Only my orders is also take care of the boat and be goddam sure nothing happens to it. So how about you take her away from the dock, Mr. Lopez, and bring her back in again. Just so I know you can handle her.”

“I never handled a motorboat before in my whole life,” Benny said.

The sailor looked appalled. “The hell you say! Look it here, mister, orders or no orders—”

“But there’ll be somebody here who can,” Benny said.

The sailor said stubbornly, “Then I better wait. When’s this guy due?”

Benny looked at his watch. “He was supposed to be here at eight.”

“I’ll wait,” the sailor said. He shouted at the two other sailors. “Come on, drop a couple fenders over the side. Get the lead out!”

“Sure, Boats, you bet, Boats,” one of the sailors said, and they both hopped back aboard to hang bumpers on the dockside gunwale.

Boats frowned out at the little harbor and the sea beyond. “Wouldn’t be so goddam bad on a calm day, but that’s a mean chop kicking up out there. I had to keep her throttled down all the way from Yokooska. Look, Mr. Lopez, what’s going on? I never heard of the Navy’s all of a sudden lending out the Admiral’s barge.”

“It’s a secret test,” Benny said promptly. “They’re thinking of using these boats on the rivers in Nam. The man who’s coming here is a marine engineer.”

“One of them experts.” The sailor curled his lip to show what he thought of experts. “That him?”

Benny turned. He said gratefully, “That’s him.”

Benny was alarmed at Brook’s appearance. Brook was filthy, red-eyed, unshaven, a mess of facial bruises and cuts; his suit was a shambles; and he gave out an unpleasant odor.

“Hello, Pete,” Benny said. “Long time no smell. You all right?”

“I’m all right,” Brook said. He was looking the launch over through painfully squinting eyes.

“What kept you?”

“I’ve been detained, you might say. This our boat?”

Benny nodded toward the boss sailor. “It’s his boat. And he’s worried about it.”

“Yeah,” the sailor said. “If you’re going to handle this thing, mister, I got to be sure you know how.” His glare said that if Brook had been Navy he would personally have handed him over to Shore Patrol. A plastered civilian taking out the Admiral’s boat after a night on the town!

“All right,” Brook said, “I’ll run her once around the harbor.” He climbed aboard slowly, the sailor at his heels. He ran his puffed eyes over the controls and put his hand on the wheel. “Okay. Cast off.”

He took her away from the dock cleanly and started a wide circle around the harbor. “Anchor? Plenty of line? Life jackets? Flashlight? Paddle? Emergency flares? Compass corrected?”

“Don’t worry,” the sailor said. “I check this baby personally before it goes out.”

“Then you might tell your crew to haul in those fenders hanging on the port side. Very lubberly.”

The sailor looked surprised. Then he said, “Yes, sir,” and sprang to obey.

The sea was choppy, as advertised. The waves were now wearing whitecaps. The clouds that had been puffy earlier in the morning were flattening out. Brook kept the launch at half throttle as she pounded along.

“Tell me about it, amigo,” Benny said compassionately. He was carefully to windward.

“Things got tacky there for a while,” Brook said. He ran through the taxi-driver-Toby-Stark-Jasmine-“Han” story; how he had been drugged and tortured; how he had escaped by garroting the noodle man. He had made his way through the countryside on foot during the night and managed to strike the main road leading north to Umazaru. “I wasn’t even sure what day it was till I came to the railroad station and saw an English-language paper on the stand.”

“You should have seen the one after you left Kimiko’s pad. They still think you did it, by the way. They’re still looking for you.”

“Too bad I missed my publicity.”

“No such luck,” Benny said, and brought out of his pocket a clipping.

Brook read:

NIGHT CLUB HOSTESS

STRANGLED IN LOVE NEST

Tokyo: Police found the body of Kimiko Ohara, 27, nightclub hostess, dead on the floor of her apartment in Nerima-ku this morning. Miss Ohara was nude except for a houserobe. According to the police medical authorities, she had been strangled some time during the early morning or last night. Police coming on the scene saw an occidental man fleeing, but they were unable to apprehend him. It is believed that the foreigner may be Peter Brook, American marine architect, visiting Japan on business. Brook has been seen in Miss Ohara’s company on several occasions recently. He was further identified as the target of a street attack by robbers one night last week. A dragnet is out for the suspect. Detective Inspector Koichi Nakajima, in charge of the case, said, “Japan is a small country, and foreigners are conspicuous. We have every confidence that Mr. Brook will be apprehended.”

Brook handed the clipping back. His try at a smile was pitiful. “I did better than that in Cairo. That time the Egyptian cops said I was a ‘handsome’ foreigner.”

“In Cairo any man under three hundred pounds looks handsome,” Benny said.

“Joy killer.” Brook glanced at the compass. “And speaking of appearances, I’d better do something drastic about mine.”

“You also stink, amigo.”

“Try lying in your vomit for two days and nights. That looks like a galley and sink below. Take the wheel, Benny.”

By the time he returned from his ablutions the shoreline at Katori Spa was in sight. White sails were scudding about the sea like feathers. The surrounding waters were full of launches trailing white water. Brook nodded. Theirs would be just another launch.

He used the binoculars from the rack near the companionway and picked out Krylov’s boat. The Russian, big shoulders hunched over the tiller, was unmistakable. His dark thin companion looked like the Dutchman, Quackernack. Yes, it was; he had a cast on one arm. A one-armed sailing crew! There was nothing about a sense of humor in Krylov’s file.

“Everything okay?” Benny asked.

“Looks all right. They’re maneuvering for the start now.” He swung the binoculars toward shore. The lenses picked out the squat figure of Volodya in his chauffeur’s uniform on the end of the jetty; Volodya was doing a study job on Krylov’s boat through a pair of binoculars, too. “We could use some fog,” Brook said. “Any suggestions?”

“Nada se consigue solamente á pedir de boca,” Benny said.

“Damn you, you know I can’t understand you when you talk so fast. What did you say?”

“You’re just ignorant.”

Brook ignored this as beneath his dignity. By some miracle he was feeling better. He took the wheel back and put the boat on a course that took it slightly seaward of the race area, closest to the reaching leg, across wind, of the triangular course around the buoys. He kept an eye out for the pleasure boats dashing about. With the Admiral’s launch he ought to be able to beat any of them to Krylov when the Russian capsized himself.

A new flag ran up the halyard of the committee launch. The sailboats behind the starting line tacked or jibbed, most taking an initial course away from the starting line. Brook picked out Krylov’s Number 13 high on his mainsail. He was using his favorite tactic, sailing abreast of the starting line.

“Why do they chase around like that?” Benny asked.

“Jockeying for the start. A sailboat’s hard to control with exactness. And the idea is to get across the line when the gun goes off, or close to it.”

“Ah, the timing! That’s very good. Like the bullfight.”

“It’s not the least like the bullfight,” Brook said shortly.

“What have you got against bullfights?”

“Not a thing. Only don’t compare it to a sport. The essence of a sport is that you don’t know who’s going to lose. The bull always loses. Bullfighting’s a ritual.”

Benny was calm. “Like human sacrifice, hey? Like in the spy business.”

“Now you’ve got it, Benny.” His thoughts were on Krylov. It was always that way. He was in no mood for wandering.

But Benny was a natural-born nomad. “And this is the faena.” He followed the tracks of his notion like an Indian. “That’s the climax of the fight, when the matador goes out alone with his little cloth and his sword. Now we go after Krylov.”

“Your metaphor reeks, Benny. The idea is to keep Krylov’s ears on his head. And the steel out of his brain.”

“No, wait, wait,” Benny said. “Sometimes when the bull has been picked too much by the picadores and caped too much in the quites, the excitement’s all over — he’s too weak and tired for a proper faena. I think we’ve already done our hardest work with Krylov.”

“Drop it, Benny, will you?”

“You have the soul of an apparatchik,” Benny said, insulted.

Brook kept watching. The starting gun cracked, and the first of the racers crossed the line and swept ahead on their windward legs.

Then for some reason he felt like talking. He said, “Benny?”

“Yes,” Benny said.

“Why do I feel this way?”

“Which way?”

“Uneasy. Like when Toby Stark picked me up at that fireworks festival. I just happened to run into a Japanese cab driver who helped me get away from the cops. He just happened to bring me to where Toby Stark just happened to be.”

“I think,” said Benny, with the short i, “you’ve just figured out why you’re uneasy.”

“I haven’t figured it out. That’s the trouble, Benny. I mean, not this latest wrinkle.”

“The Ohara girl?”

“Yes. Why did Kimiko get killed when she did? This crap about assault during a simple housebreaking would arouse the suspicions of a Quaker. It happened right in the heart of things. I don’t buy it for a second, Benny.”

“Don’t look at me,” Benny said, grinning. “I’m not in the market, either.”

“You think it’s funny? If I didn’t know you better... and Krylov — he’s bound to know she’s dead by now. She was his main reason for defecting.” Brook stared out at 13.

“But he’s here racing, Pete.”

“He’d have to be, anyway. You know something, Benny? Maybe he won’t capsize his boat today. Maybe he’s changed his mind.” He wondered why he had been so sure before that Krylov would not.

Benny shrugged. “And if he does?”

“Then we go home to face Holloway.”

This time Benny made a face. “Amigo, you and I waste a lot of the taxpayers’ money. I wish we had more fun doing it.”

Brook kept watching the race. Even if Krylov had changed his mind and they didn’t pick him up today, the run was not a total foulup. He had neutralized Toby Stark and some of Stark’s cadre, gaining an unexpected set of points against Communist China’s Internal Security of the People’s Republic — as they called it in their Orwellian style — for Stark would now leave Katori Spa quickly and withdraw any of his agents Brook might have seen. Holloway would want a detailed report on Stark’s group; he’d be disappointed not to have been able to act fast enough to send someone to take them out permanently, but Holloway was never satisfied. There were several Class I agents on hand who specialized in that sort of thing, although such a job was occasionally given to one of the regular men. Brook had been sent hunting twice for compromised enemy agents; they were assignments he didn’t particularly relish. That, he supposed, was vestigial sentimentality. Whether you were sent out to kill or happened to find it obligatory in the natural course of events was much of a muchness. There was no such thing as murder in the spy’s vocabulary, only an occasional tactical necessity.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Benny suddenly. “I don’t like the look on what used to be your face.”

Brook did not answer.

Three racers rounded the first buoy and began to heel in the brisk wind on their reaching legs. Number 13 was one of them. Brook raised the binoculars again. Krylov was still hunched over the tiller; his skinny companion with the cast on his arm was crouched on the forward thwart. Beyond the perimeter of the course three or four motorcraft were putting along with an idle air.

Then it happened. Brook had Krylov in the binoculars as the big Russian hauled in his mainsail and deliberately shifted his weight to the lee rail. Forward, his crippled crewman sprawled in surprise, adding his weight to the lower side.

The boat went over.

Brook jammed his throttle forward. The big gas engine surged under his deck as his bow came out of the water and the stern quarters began to plane, sending a flat-plumed wake far behind. They reached the capsized sailboat very quickly. The Dutchman, Quackernack, was treading water and looking up at them with his mouth open. Krylov was near the hull of the sailboat; he pushed away and swam toward them. Brook maneuvered in a tight circle, approached Krylov upwind, and brought the boat to a stop as the Russian drifted into the bow. Benny had already thrown the ladder overside; he helped Krylov climb aboard.

Krylov looked grim. “Good morning, gentlemen. Did you think I would not?”

“Hang on.” Brook jammed the throttle forward again.

As they were speeding south from the broad mouth of Sagami Bay they felt the sea-change, even though the low silhouette of the Izu Peninsula was visible and the mound of the live volcano on the island of Oshima, almost dead ahead, humped against the hazy sky. The sea was rough. But Brook kept his engine at three-quarter throttle. The bow thumped into the oncoming waves in a cannonade.

Krylov and Benny, with tight handholds, stood in the cockpit near Brook. The Russian kept staring astern as if expecting pursuit at any moment. He had dried himself off and changed into a pair of khakis below. They were tight on him. He had to shout to be heard.

“Well, it has happened,” he said. “I find it impossible to believe.”

“We’re not home free yet,” Brook said.

“Home free. A typical American expression. I am going away from home, not toward it.”

“Alex,” said Brook, “you surprise me. None of us have homes in our business.”

Krylov kept staring back. “I had such stupid dreams. Kimiko and I... a little dacha somewhere with all those American machines of yours. We would go to concerts and she would wear fine dresses and jewels. I would buy a dinner jacket. Do you know I have never owned a dinner jacket? I always had to borrow one from the embassy.”

“I’m sorry about Kimiko,” Brook said. “I thought it might change your mind.”

“It almost did. I think that if I had not gone so far, I might very well have done so. Now I have nothing, nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Brook said again. He stepped from the wheel. “Take it, Alex. I have to check the chart. We don’t want to miss that submarine.”

He went below, opened the chart, rested his pencil and the parallel rules and divider on it. Then he went back on deck. Using the pelorus mounted on top of the cabin, he took sightings on Oshima and the tip of the peninsula. He was back below and drawing in a corrected course when he heard Krylov call.

“Peter!”

Brook ran up on deck. Krylov pointed astern. Brook squinted and saw the blob hanging in the sky above the horizon. He grabbed for the binoculars, looked again, then took the wheel and handed the binoculars to Krylov.

“It is coming this way,” said Krylov. He sounded worried. “One of your Navy helicopters?”

“I don’t know,” Brook said with a frown. “We discussed an escort, but I said flatly I didn’t want any aircraft hanging about.”

“Your people, Krylov?” Benny said. He took a hitch in his pants.

“I cannot see the markings yet.” Krylov was studying the aircraft with an intentness that made Brook feel sorry for him. “I don’t believe it is my people. They could rent a helicopter if they wished, of course, and we have two qualified pilots in the embassy, but they would not have had time to do so.”

“There’s somebody else who’s had plenty of time,” Brook said.

“Eh?” Krylov lowered the binoculars to look at him. “Who is that?”

“Your ex-comrades from the Chinese mainland. They got on to me and gave me some trouble. They know why Benny and I are here. They could have made a smart guess as to how we planned to make the run.”

“Your plan did not have proper security?” Krylov sounded shocked.

“We were tight enough. But their resident here is Toby Stark. Didn’t you know that?”

Krylov’s shaggy brows shot up. “I did not. But Stark would be a good one for it, yes. He would be in an excellent position. We wondered who could be their supervisor in Japan. We knew it would probably not be an Oriental. Stark. Of course.”

“He watched me maneuver to talk to you alone, saw us go sailing together that first time. He might figure we’d pick you up at sea.”

Krylov went back to watching the approaching helicopter. His lips were locked.

Brook heard a click. He turned and saw the .32 in Benny’s hand.

“Yes, I brought it this time,” Benny said.

Brook nodded and held the wheel and throttle steady. Benny and the Russian faced aft, waiting. Presently they heard the helicopter’s engine and the whump! whump! whump! of its blades.

The ’copter made a swift pass, coming in from the starboard quarter and zooming away off the port beam. Brook made out the figures of two men in the bubble cockpit. One man was bulky; unmistakably Toby Stark.

Benny’s revolver went off.

“Don’t waste it,” Brook said.

“Peashooter!”

The ’copter made a broad circle and this time approached the bow. As it came over, Toby Stark leaned out the side door with a submachine gun in his hands. The gun eructed, two belches of steel, planting a line of little waterspouts inches from their hull. Brook swung hard to port. Benny’s gun blasted again as the craft blurred overhead and passed far astern.

Benny watched it recede. He waved the .32. “They know I’ve got this now. They won’t come in straight again. That means we’re sitting ducks.”

“Also, that popgun of yours won’t go on shooting forever,” Brook pointed out.

Benny went back to his wetback accent. It gave his profanity character.

The helicopter circled once more. This time it came to a hover well away from their port beam. They saw Stark lift a hailer to his lips. His voice came to them faintly.

“Listen carefully, Brook. You haven’t a bloody chance. We want Krylov. We’ll drop a sling for him, and after that you can go on your way. Otherwise we sink your boat and shoot you all in the water. It should bring up the sharks. Take your choice. It makes little difference to me.”

Brook laughed. “Your choice, he says. He’ll sink us afterward whether we give him Krylov or not.”

“Of course,” Krylov said.

Stark’s voice boomed faintly again. “Have that man of yours throw his revolver overboard, Brook. Do it so we can see it.”

“Go ahead, Benny. Toss it.”

Benny looked stupefied. “Amigo, are you nuts?”

“Do as I say, Benny.”

“Pete, we have a chance with this. Not much, but a chance. There’s most of the cylinder left. I might be lucky—”

“Throw it overboard so they can see.”

“God damn it, Pete!” Benny cried. “We can’t just give up! They’ll kill us, anyway! You just said so.”

The voice from the helicopter said, “I am giving you ten seconds to throw that revolver overboard.”

“You heard him, Benny,” Brook said.

Benny said, “No.”

He backed up, snarling. Brook left the wheel and went to Benny and took the revolver from his hand. He waved it by the muzzle for the benefit of the helicopter and flung it far overside. It dropped into the sea with a happy little splash.

“Damn you,” Benny panted. “Damn you. You knew I couldn’t shoot you, Pete. You know what, Pete? You’re a yellow-balled bastard, that’s what you are.” He turned his back on Brook, clutching the rail and bracing himself for the machine-gun burst from the ’copter.

“A coward?” Krylov said. He sounded surprised.

Brook went down into the cabin, and Krylov grabbed at the wheel as the boat veered. The ’copter began its approach, low over the water, moving like a crab. There was triumph in every swish of its blades. Brook came back out on deck. One hand was casually at his side, the side turned away from the approaching aircraft. At Krylov’s intake of breath Benny turned away from the rail, and he saw what was in Brook’s hand, too.

“Amigo,” Benny said reverently.

“It may work,” Krylov muttered.

The huge horse-collar of the sling began to come down on its cable. Directly overhead Toby Stark half leaned from the ’copter’s side, the submachine gun in his fat hands. Brook could clearly make out the frog-eyes and the series of dimples in his cheeks. The Australian was grinning. The ’copter pilot was an Oriental who wore a billed khaki cap; he was busy with the controls.

The submachine gun in his right hand, Stark raised the bullhorn with his left. “Krylov, go to the stern. You two stay where you are. Cooperate and you and your buddy won’t get hurt, Brook.”

“Go ahead, Alex,” Brook said.

Krylov stepped toward the transom, gripping the stanchions to keep his foothold.

“Now stop your boat,” Stark called.

Brook reached out with his left hand and eased the throttle back. The helicopter moved to within a few yards, tilted slightly so that the pilot could see across Stark’s bulk and judge the distance. Brook brought his right hand up in a flash. He was gripping a pistol-like device with a short fat barrel. He pulled the trigger. The flare gun went off, kicking back with force. Its charge, like the fireball of a Roman candle, flew into the ’copter’s cockpit and exploded with a ferocious red and orange light.

They saw the pilot clap his hands to his eyes. Stark flopped backward, dropping his gun into the sea. The aircraft dipped sharply, hung for a moment, then flipped over and plummeted into the water. Its blades struck the sea first and snapped off and whirled away like skipping stones. The fuselage followed, making a king-sized splash. A moment later there was an explosion. The concussion flattened the three men; sea washed over them.

Brook scrambled to his feet, got to the wheel, heeled the throttle, kicked the clutch forward, and jammed the control to the full.

Their boat lifted its bow like a high diver taking off and plunged for the open sea. Behind them they left a wild party of sharks.

Chapter 13

TOP SECRET

(Eyes Only)

SUBJECT: Project Summary LN-42-93001-68 (Short Title: Crossover)

TO: The Undersecretary

1. Political asylum having been granted and coordinated with pertinent agencies under the provisions of SR-358-B, Paras. 3c and 11m, subject project is now closed and further operations promulgated by this matter designated Project LN-54-34597-68 (Short Title: Cactus).

2. Subject defectee, Aleksei Vassilievich Krylov, now in protective custody of this agency at Sanctuary K-41 where he is undergoing review and interrogation in presence of Lazar Andreivich Levashev for purpose of coordinating related information supplied by both defectees. (See Project Summary HB-12-57884-67, Short Title: Wichita.) It is expected that interviews will continue for approximately thirty (30) days at which time subject defectee will be released and placed under Class D minimum protective measures.

3. Pre-interview interrogation is being conducted for this agency under purchase order provisions (appropriate authorization cited below) by FACE agent Peter Brook who implemented original defection of Krylov. Narrative summary Mr. Brook’s activities in connection with this project follows in Para. 4, below, and copies of his report are attached. (See Tab B.) It was felt desirable by the Director, FACE, that Mr. Brook conduct the predebriefing because of the rapport it was claimed he has established with subject defectee; however, this agency, while submitting to the directive nominating Mr. Brook for this activity, continues not to concur in this approach for reasons cited in previous communication this matter...

The room, with its musty pine-smoke smell of old ranch houses, was at peace and beyond the open window the red willows and tamaracks stood guard in the morning light.

General Levashev sat behind the mahogany desk in one corner of the room. The curved pipe, its tobacco charred but gone out, lay before him. Near the pipe his right hand rested, to steady itself. It gripped a pistol which was aimed at the center panel of the door, about waist high to a tall man.

At the knock the General called, “Enter.”

The Filipino houseman came in. Behind the houseman loomed a broad-shouldered man with a boyish face and a smile that revealed a gap between two upper front teeth. Behind the broad-shouldered man sauntered a man who looked as if he was recovering from a fall from the Matterhorn.

“Dobroye utro, Aleksei Vassilievich,” Levashev said.

“Good morning to you, General,” Krylov replied in English. He was looking at the pistol, still smiling. “I see you take no chances, not even here.”

“Especially not here,” Levashev said with an answering smile. “Come in, gentlemen, come in. Pazha1’sta. Be seated.”

The Filipino waited for Levashev’s nod. Then the man left, shutting the door without sound. Brook deposited a tape recorder on the table, opened the case, and plugged the machine into a wall socket. Krylov lumbered to a chair, ignoring the weapon in Levashev’s fist. Only when Krylov had lowered himself into the chair did the General drop his pistol into a drawer. He reached for his pipe and relighted it.

“Well, it has been a long time since our last meeting, Aleksei Vassilievich,” Levashev said. He looked to Brook like some wrinkled leprechaun over a cookstove.

“Yes, General.” Krylov seemed uncomfortable in his new American suit. The flowered silk tie he had selected struck a wrong note against the conservative jacket.

Brook said: “Don’t let this machine bother you, gentlemen. Just talk naturally. I’ll throw in a question only if it seems important. All this is preliminary, anyway. We can get down to specifics later.”

Levashev looked annoyed. He said to Krylov: “You have been well?”

“Quite well, General. And your health?”

“Good enough for an old man.”

“I hope to reach your age with the same grace.”

Levashev showed his tired smile. “Life is fragile, Aleksei Vassilievich. Especially for people like you and me. We went through some exciting days.” He glanced at his pipe and produced a penknife, gouged the dottle, and emptied it into an ashtray. “I hear you have experienced some excitement yourself in the past few weeks, Aleksei.”

“There were difficulties,” Krylov said with a shrug. “Mr. Brook managed to overcome them. A good man, Mr. Brook. He would have made a valuable agent for us in the old days.”

Levashev turned his potato nose toward Brook, at the tape recorder. “You hear, Mr. Brook? That is a Krylov compliment. Believe me, they are rare.”

Brook said: “Alex and I got along from the start. But please ignore me, gentlemen.”

Krylov laughed. “But of course I will never know if you were making yourself agreeable, Peter, merely in the line of duty. You see? That is our trouble. We will always suspect motives. Someone comes along and says, ‘Good morning,’ and we say, ‘What is he trying to conceal from me?’”

“It is an occupational disease.” Levashev reached for his tobacco jar and a different pipe.

“The trouble we had, General,” said Krylov, crossing his legs and leaning back, “came from a not unexpected source. I am reasonably sure that at the embassy, and in Moscow, they did not know that I was going to come over, although what they — or that robot Volodya — suspected or may have suspected is another story. But it was our friends the Chinese who guessed it for a certainty.”

Levashev’s heavy brows rose. “So? They improve, our Maoist comrades.”

“Perhaps you recall, General, that after I returned from China — how long ago that seems! — I submitted a report that warned of the Chinese potential, citing what I believed to be excellent reasons. If China was a sleeping giant, as Napoleon stated, she is opening her eyes with a vengeance. I can attest to that.”

“I remember your report.” Levashev lighted his pipe. “It was the subject of two conferences at the time. We felt that your projections were too intuitive, and you know how little stock we place in anything immaterial. No precision, it was said; too little fact. I confess that I was one of those who took that view.”

Krylov waved. “It does not matter now, General.”

“It does not matter at all, I agree,” Levashev said. “For I have discovered that in America, Aleksei — the land of the free, as our new friends like to call it — the bureaucrats are almost as pigheaded as those in the Soviet Union.”

Both men laughed, glancing at Brook. He laughed back.

“Tell me about our Chinese ex-comrades, Aleksei,” said Levashev, “and how you escaped from them.”

“They attacked us from a helicopter at sea. Peter brought them down with a signal flare. It was well that he did, for they meant to kill us. Before that, they had got their hands on Peter and made things uncomfortable for him. There is one thing more that they did — if indeed they were the ones who did it. There was a woman in Tokyo, Lazar Andreivich — if I may address you familiarly?—”

“I am hardly in a position to demand protocol,” Levashev said, smiling. “Of course. Now what is this about a woman—?”

“I fell in love with her. I shall be frank, General. It was because of Kimiko that I decided to defect.” Krylov’s eyes wavered, and he swore in Russian. “I do not like that word!”

General Levashev shrugged. “A word is a word, if a man is a realist. You will have to learn to live with it, as I have. But I am interested in the Japanese girl. Tell me about her, Aleksei.”

“Beautiful. Like porcelain. But a woman to her skin. I cannot describe her. I had thought myself beyond such bourgeois antics. It was like being offered a second chance at life, Lazar Andreivich. She made me feel like a boy. There were other reasons, of course; much like yours, I suppose. But it was Kimiko who brought them to a focus.” Krylov’s tone hardened. “Before I left, she was murdered.”

“The Chinese?”

“I am not sure.”

“But why should they kill her?”

Krylov’s forehead became a terrain of ridges and valleys. “They may have reasoned that I was defecting because of her, and that by killing her they would remove my motive for going over. Who knows how the Chinese think?” Krylov suddenly got out of the armchair. He went to the window and stared out at the clean desert landscape. “If they were responsible...” He struck his left palm with his right fist. “I will take the greatest pleasure in giving any information that would hurt them.”

Levashev was looking at the man’s broad back. “Revenge, Aleksei Vassilievich? Revenge is a pointless emotion.”

Krylov whirled from the window; his jaws were working as if they were grinding nuts. “That is easy for you to say! You did not love her. You did not know her. To kill such beauty! And in such a horrible way. They strangled her, General. A gold cord around her neck.” He made two fists. “For that they will pay. I swear it on the Christ my mother used to worship in secret.”

“Sit down, Aleksei,” Levashev said gently.

“I am sick when I think of it!”

“Time, Aleksei. Time will cure the sickness.”

Krylov came back and sank into the armchair.

Brook had been listening with perfunctory attention. He had doubted that either Russian would say much of value in this first meeting. He had been instructed not to push them, on the ground that they could be expected to hold back until they got over the unavoidable awkwardness of the confrontation. So Brook stood by the table watching the slow spinning of the recorder, only half interested in what was going on.

They kept conversing; they were still taking each other’s measure.

And the alarm bonged in Brook’s head.

It had happened to him once before, when as a totally unimportant lower-echelon fledgling he had first laid eyes on Harold Adrian Russell Philby at a party in Washington. He had been looking forward to meeting the fabulous “Kim” Philby of M.I.6, whose work at that time was liaison with American security agencies; and they had actually shaken hands. It was the touch of Philby’s hand that set off the alarm. Brook had never been able to explain it; he had never told anyone about it. Low men on the security pole did not go about telling their superiors that a respected agent of a friendly power was a traitor without the customary hard facts; they certainly did not do so on the basis of a handshake. Yet something had flashed from Philby’s grip to Brook’s, an unintended message that was better than a lie detector. Years later, when Philby disappeared from Beirut and subsequently turned up in Moscow and the whole story of his lifelong service for the Soviets came out, Brook could only mourn his timidity in not laying his ESP on the line after that Washington party.

Brook casually glanced at Krylov, who had jumped to his feet again and was striding up and down talking his head off. But this time it was more bookkeeping than ESP. Little file cards began to flutter into slots. The explanation for his vague feelings of disturbance throughout the game stood bold against daylight. All the little puzzles, the ones that had scarcely seemed worth solving, were solved.

At this moment he caught Krylov’s eye, or perhaps it was the Russian’s eye that caught his.

Their meeting of the eyes broke up in no more than three blinks. Then Krylov glanced away, still pacing and talking to Levashev.

Brook said to himself: He knows I know.

What happened after that happened fast. Brook turned back to the tape recorder to cover his movement toward his shoulder holster. As he was reaching he heard a slight scuffle behind him. This time he turned not his body but his head only and it was just as well that he did. Holloway’s training usually proved out.

Krylov was behind the desk beside General Levashev’s chair, and the pistol the General had dropped into the drawer was in Krylov’s hand, pointed at Brook.

Brook’s hand remained under his coat.

“No, Peter,” Krylov said. “Remove your hand slowly.”

Brook removed his hand slowly.

Krylov stepped back.

Levashev looked up; there was something oriental in his absolute lack of expression. “So,” he said to Krylov.

“So,” Krylov said; but he kept his eyes on Brook. “Peter, you will open your jacket so that we can see, and you will take out your weapon with two fingers only. You will move as if you were under water. We understand each other?”

Brook nodded.

“Now.”

Brook’s hand inched into view. It was holding the butt of his pistol by two fingers.

“Drop it to the floor.”

Brook dropped it to the floor.

“Too close. Kick it into the middle of the room.”

Brook kicked it into the middle of the room.

“Thank you,” Krylov said. “I must say this is all very quick, Peter. I had not expected you to see through it so soon.” He shrugged, smiling. “So are important events decided. You should have shot me when our eyes met.”

“You’re right, of course,” Brook said. “Will I ever get the chance to be fired by my boss, Aleksei? Or do you have other plans for me?”

“You will enable me, Peter, to leave this place.”

General Levashev said calmly, “Are you both mad, or is this what I suspect it is?”

“Shall I tell him, Peter, or shall you?” asked Krylov.

“It’s brutally simple, General,” Brook said. “The KGB sent him to kill you. His cover was the defection.”

“How else, General,” Krylov asked, smiling, “could I have got close to you here?”

Levashev was silent. Then he said, “I knew, of course. It had to be.”

Krylov said something in Russian that did not go with the smile, and Levashev said something back that made Krylov’s smile vanish. They spoke too rapidly for Brook, with his smattering of the tongue, to get any of it.

The Soviet agent made an effort to regain his composure; at no time, as Brook professionally noted, did Krylov allow him the slightest chance for a move. “But we are being rude to Mr. Brook, General. I have made a mistake, for which no doubt I shall be made to pay when — perhaps I should say if — I return to Moscow. I realized my lapse as soon as it left my lips. One plays these parts too thoroughly sometimes.”

The General said nothing. Since their interchange in Russian he seemed to have dwindled, like Alice. The pipe lay in his old man’s hand, forgotten.

“Tell him, Peter,” Krylov said.

“The gold cord Krylov just mentioned, General,” Brook said with a shrug. “I took it off Kimiko’s neck when I found her strangled and dropped it into my pocket. The Japanese police never saw it; it was never reported in their newspapers. Only someone who had seen Kimiko’s body before I came on the scene would have known what was used to strangle her. That someone would almost certainly have to have been her strangler. I’m curious, Alex. Why did you kill Kimiko? Of course, all this grand-passion put-on of yours was an act, but even so, she couldn’t have known anything. Why kill her?”

Krylov sighed. “She would have complicated matters for me here, in view of my assignment. I had no wish, believe me, to liquidate her. But I was under orders. It was a pity.”

Brook nodded. That was the way it worked, all right.

“She was indeed beautiful. We selected her after examining a number of young women. There had to be a girl, you see, and it had to seem that I had fallen in love with her. This is a complication that Americans are ready to understand, with your sex-ridden culture. I do not have to tell you, Peter — as one professional to another — that few persons defect from their homelands on ideological grounds alone; there is almost always a corollary factor — money, fear for one’s life, public exposure and, especially in the West, love. By involving myself with Kimiko I presented your people with a motive for defecting that you would instantly accept.”

“So,” General Levashev said again.

“Oh, Alex is a cutie-pie, General,” Brook said. It was necessary to keep this going. Only a miracle would serve. He wondered if he would live long enough to hear Holloway’s snort. “They considered Alex’s mission so important that they surrounded the operation with more than the usual hocuspocus. Alex told us that his people were watching him closely. They actually were. But that was for our benefit, not theirs. I’m sure the watchdog they put on Alex never realized that his man was supposed to defect. They knew we expected a tough run, so they gave us a tough run, knowing that if it looked too easy we’d get suspicious. I’m ashamed to admit I fell for it. We actually helped them get Alex in here to do his job.”

“You understand, General,” Krylov said, “that I have no personal feelings in this.”

“When did you ever have feelings, personal or otherwise, Aleksei?” General Levashev asked; there was a certain hoarseness in his throat. “You are still the common assassin you were when you began.”

“I would not use the word common, General,” Krylov said. “You demean yourself. You are big game. The biggest.”

He’s talking beautifully, Brook thought. He has a flair for drama; he can’t resist this scene. “Alex, I never figured you for a blowhard. It takes no special skill to carry out a suicide mission.”

“I would not call it that,” Krylov said. “I had planned to wait for a more favorable moment, of course. Now it will be more difficult, I grant. But I shall get out of here and make my way in time to Moscow.”

“Not a chance, Alex,” Brook said cheerfully. “You won’t get off these grounds.”

“If I thought I would be able to collect,” Krylov said, “I would make you a wager on that.”

Brook had already noticed Levashev’s right hand. The General, his back to Krylov, had reached for another pipe. In moving his hand across the desk, he had touched the buzzer beside the blotter. Brook was positive Krylov had not noticed. So maybe there would be a miracle after all. Brook said, “I’m interested Alex. How do you figure you have a chance?”

“The nearest guards are almost a mile away. They would not hear gunshots from inside this house. Of course, I shall have to kill the houseman, too. And anyone else who may appear.”

“The fence is electrified and patrolled. There are other defenses.”

Krylov looked disapproving. “Is it possible that you underestimate me? We have both gone through patrol lines before, Peter. I assure you you will not talk me out of this. Oh, yes. And we have talked enough.”

Krylov pointed the pistol at the back of Levashev’s head.

The General looked around slowly. When he saw the muzzle three feet from his head he paled. He turned his head back and placed both his palms flat on the desk. Brook saw his lips move. By God, the old Marxist’s praying! he thought.

“Wait, Alex, think it over,” Brook said. “You’ll have to take me out to keep me from coming after you. Because I’m not going to let you pull that trigger without giving it the old college try. My life isn’t worth a damn now, anyway, when my superiors find out how I’ve loused this up. I’m diving for that pistol on the floor. You can either shoot me or shoot the General, but one of us will get to you. Put the gun down, Alex, unless you have a real yen to commit suicide. We can work out a deal.”

“Thank you for reminding me of your pistol. Stand still, Peter. One move and my first shot is for you. I do not think, at the General’s age, that he will give me any trouble. Very still.”

He glided forward, his eyes and the gun on Brook. Brook was glaring at Levashev, trying to communicate. This was their chance! If only the General would jump at Krylov, throw the ashtray at his head, anything to divert his aim... but the old Russian sat there, eyes closed, praying like any muzhik.

Here goes nothing and bye-bye Mr. Holloway, Brook thought. He set himself.

Behind Brook the door opened.

Krylov, in a crouch over Brook’s pistol, fired at the door with Levashev’s. In an extension of the same motion he scooped Brook’s pistol from the floor. Brook hurled himself edgewise in a forward parabola. An instant before he crashed into the KGB man, lightning blinded him and an A-bomb went off in his ear. Krylov had fired again. Brook felt no pain. He and the Russian were grappling now; he had a hard grip on the hand that held General Levashev’s gun. The weapon the Russian had snatched from the floor was back there, dropped at Brook’s lunge.

The struggling men swung about in a slow half turn, like adagio dancers. Brook saw a white-coated figure slumped face down in the doorway — the Filipino houseman who had answered the General’s buzz.

They were locked; there was no room for maneuver. Krylov was very strong. Too strong. He wasn’t worked over by Stark and his China boys two weeks ago, Brook thought. For the first time he considered defeat. Krylov was bending his arm back, gradually breaking the grip on his wrist.

They were eyeball to eyeball; those blue eyes were searching his in a routine way. The Russian’s face was without expression. There was no bloodlust in it; almost no interest.

From somewhere behind them Brook heard General Levashev moving at last. He hoped it was in their direction, with the ashtray. His arm was now bent so far back that the pain was invading his groin. In a moment his grip would be broken, or his arm, and then Krylov would shoot him.

The pain became intolerable. Krylov broke free and shoved him powerfully away. As Brook staggered back, the Russian whirled and got off a snap-shot at an oblique angle. General Levashev, on hands and knees, was scrambling for Brook’s pistol. The old man fell violently forward as Krylov’s bullet struck him, and lay still.

Brook was in a spring before Krylov could turn Levashev’s gun on him. There was no time for subtlety. He swung a haymaker. It caught the Russian on the side of the face, too high to put him out, but stunning enough to make Krylov stumble and drop to one knee and lose his grip on the gun.

So there they were, in that tiny stasis, with both weapons on the floor, facing each other across a few feet of no man’s land, Levashev’s body to one side and their courses predetermined by training and instinct. Brook dived for the nearer pistol, which was his. Krylov dived for the other, which was Levashev’s. And they were on their feet, each with a pistol aimed at the other, in the same microsecond.

Krylov spoke first. “So, Peter. A stalemate.”

“Looks that way.”

Each man’s eyes were fixed, not on the other’s face, but on the forefinger curled about the trigger.

“Marx says somewhere that when you have reached a stalemate you negotiate. I have forgotten the exact quotation. It has been some time since I read the texts.”

“Negotiate,” Brook said. “Which means give yourself time to get the jump. I remind you, Alex, that in a situation like this nobody wins. You might beat me to the shot by a hair, but good old Mother Nature will pull my trigger, too, and there we’ll be — two dead men, or two critically wounded men. Either way you don’t escape.”

“I see,” Krylov said. “Yes, that makes sense. Then let us negotiate in good faith. I have a suggestion.”

“What?”

“I walk out of here. You give me one hour’s grace. Of course, it leaves me at a disadvantage. I would have to take your word that you will not raise an alarm before the hour is up.”

“You’d take it?”

“I see no alternative. Do you?”

“Of course. Drop your pistol. You’ve done your job. You can’t possibly make it home free. Why die for nothing?”

“It is the chance I must take. It is better than committing suicide.”

“You wouldn’t necessarily have to die, Alex. You know how these things go. Life imprisonment, for the record, and an exchange for an American agent later.”

“I do not think so,” Krylov said. “Not in this case. And life imprisonment for me would be the same as dying.” His eyes flicked up for just a moment.

Brook’s did not. His finger tightened imperceptibly on his trigger.

“I see,” Krylov said. “You are very controlled, Peter. So.”

“Bringing us right back to where we were.”

“You play chess, Peter?”

“Yes,” Brook said. “It’s one of my boss’s aberrations.”

“Then you know that in a stalemate the board is cleared and a new game begun. There is no other choice. I will leave through that window. One hour from that moment you may report this. I must have your word.”

“I wouldn’t keep it. You know that.”

“Perhaps. I have the curious feeling you might.”

“You’re a fool.”

“Perhaps.”

They stood there, silent. Then Brook said reflectively, “That’s a report I wouldn’t like to make.”

“Embarrassment before your superiors, even punishment, is better than dying here, is it not?”

“You have a point, Alex.”

“It is more than fair. Under this arrangement the odds are all with you. You cannot possibly die, whereas even with an hour’s start I may well be caught anyway. So then you win the new game with a quick checkmate. I am taking all the risks. Your word, Peter.”

“Let me ask you, Alex,” Brook said. “Suppose our positions were reversed. Would you keep your word?”

The slightest frown appeared between the Russian’s heavy brows. “I am not sure. I should have to find myself in your position.”

“All right,” Brook said, “it’s a deal. You have my word. I suggest we both lower these pistols together, at the same time and rate, very slowly, and we’ll drop them—”

“Rather let us put them in our belts. I shall need this if I am to stand a chance of escaping.”

Brook shook his head. “Nothing doing, Alex. One of my people might be killed. You know I can’t agree to that.”

Krylov considered. Brook could only admire his calm. The Russian was in an all but impossible spot. “Very well,” Krylov said at last, “I concede. Are you ready?”

“Now,” Brook said.

It was a beautiful exercise in unison. Inch by inch the hands holding the weapons lowered. Neither man took his eyes off the other’s gun-hand. When the pistols were pointed at the floor Brook said, “We drop them now, Alex. At the count of three. One... two—”

That was the critical moment. Would Krylov try a shot? Brook was ready. But the General’s pistol dropped from Krylov’s hand. A breath later Brook’s followed.

“You did not trust me,” Krylov said reprovingly.

“That’s why I’m still alive.”

“You could have shot me.”

“I’m a fool, too.”

They almost smiled at each other. “That makes me feel better about my chances,” Krylov said. “However, I have still to get out of this room. I think, Peter, it would be more professional if I did not leave you with the pistol at your feet while I go to the window. Accompany me.”

They walked side by side to the window. Krylov glanced out and around quickly. Then he threw a leg over the sill.

“Goodbye, Peter.”

“Dasvidanya, Alex.”

Krylov was through the window and running. Brook stood there until the Russian was lost in the rolling sandhills among the piñon trees. He glanced fretfully at his watch. He was still undecided. Since when did a FACE agent’s word to the enemy mean a damn? It was downright treason, or would be so called by Holloway. Yet something held him back. Damn it all, he thought, I grew to like the bastard. Maybe I’ll give him ten minutes.

“Mr. Brook.”

He whirled. In a half-seated pose on the floor, leaning on an elbow, was General Levashev.

The old man was holding his bloody side. “I thought you were dead,” Brook said, running over. “Lie back, General. I’ll get a doctor.”

“It is painful, but only a flesh wound, I think,” the Russian said. “If you thought I was dead, so did Krylov. I did not dare let him know that he had missed a vital organ. He would have finished me off.”

“Don’t talk, General.” Brook ripped the old man’s shirt away. The bullet had drilled through the externus muscle in the fleshy part between the rib cage and the hip — messy, but hardly serious. “Is there a first-aid kit somewhere?”

“In the bathroom. It is off the hall.”

On his way Brook paused briefly to check the Filipino. There was no pulse in the carotid artery. The houseman was dead. When he got back with the kit he applied a dressing to the General’s wound, raised him, and helped him to the couch. Then he went to the telephone. Levashev was watching him. “Yes, I’m going to break my word to Krylov, General. It’s the only way I can get a doctor here.”

“I take it, Mr. Brook,” Levashev said, “that except for this you would have kept your word?”

“I haven’t had time to think about it,” Brook said shortly.

“I think that is not so,” the Russian said. “You are strange people, you Americans. Is this what your service teaches you? I am astonished.”

Brook did not reply. It was like being dressed down by Holloway. He was staring down at the dial.

“For the gatehouse,” Levashev said, “you dial nine.”

Brook shook himself alert. “I’ve got to call Washington first.” He took a breath and dialed a long series of digits.

“Special Projects Section.”

“Code Two,” Brook said.

“One moment, sir!”

“Yes?” Holloway’s voice, a knife made from an icicle.

“Brook. Is the wire secure?”

“One second.” There was a click. “Okay, scrambler on. What is it, Brook?”

“Krylov was sent to kill Levashev. He made a play, and there was a hassle. He wounded Levashev — not seriously — and got away.”

“You let him get away?” Holloway had digested the whole thing with the speed of a computer; as usual, he came up with the nitty-gritty.

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. I’ll be interested in the detailed report. How about you?”

“I’m all right.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Nobody but the General. I haven’t had time to call the guards, wanted to report this to you fast. I don’t see how Krylov can get away. Oh, yes. He killed the houseman.”

“He was no houseman. He belonged to our friends across the Potomac.”

“Well, he’s had it.”

“There’s something about this you’re not telling me, Brook. What is it?”

“You want my resignation, sir?”

“All right, all right,” Holloway said, to Brook’s surprise. “Hold it a minute.” Listening to the humming silence, Brook wondered what was going through that mind. “Maybe,” Holloway’s voice said slowly, “maybe this is the break I’ve been looking for. Yes, I think it is. Still in possession of your baggage?”

“Yes.”

“You couldn’t possibly have been dumb enough to let Krylov get in with a weapon. Did he use yours, or Levashev’s?”

“Levashev’s.”

“That’s what I figured. All right, Brook. Use that one.”

Brook was bewildered. “For what, Mr. Holloway?”

“To kill the General,” Holloway said.

Chapter 14

“Tell him what?” Brook said.

“I didn’t say tell. I said kill.”

“I see.” Brook didn’t see. Brook didn’t see anything. He thought he must be dreaming. At last he said, “Very funny.” Holloway cracking a joke?

“Brook, pay attention.” Brook could see him sitting there at his desk, a man so gray he drained the color out of his background, looking out at a world on which he had declared war through his North Atlantic eyes. “I want you to kill Levashev. Right now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do it in such a way as to make it look like Krylov’s work. Use the pistol he took from Levashev. The two bullets we’ll find in Levashev’s body will prove out from the same weapon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, hang up and do it.”

“Mr. Holloway—”

“You have your orders.” The Director hung up.

Brook returned his phone to its cradle grudgingly. He felt disoriented. General Levashev’s frail body was stretched out on the couch in absolute helplessness. The old man’s eyes were shut and there was a look of weary peace on his face.

Just a peace-wanting old man.

You didn’t walk up to a dozing, peace-wanting old man and put a bullet through him. Who didn’t? People didn’t. Ordinary people. The people who spent their lives looking for peace — peace across frontiers, peace in their streets, peace from their wives, peace from their bosses, peace from the banks and the bill-senders, peace from their internal struggles... above all, that peace, the kind all the others added up to: peace of mind. It was for such people, the argument ran, that all this deceit, this plotting and counterplotting, this torture, this murder took place. It was in their interests that the skillful robots of FACE and the CIA and M.I.6 and the KGB and the rest had been created. Or so the big brains said. It was for them that the Peter Brooks of the world sold themselves to the intelligence establishment. It was for them that you crossed over and gave up your membership in the human race.

That’s what they told you. That’s what you came to believe. It might even be so. There was nothing else a Peter Brook could tell himself. It was the only justification in town. But always there was that little nag of doubt.

You were luckiest if you grew calluses through the daily exercises in indecency. The closer to the robot, the easier it became. If you achieved the ideal state you needed no justification. The act was its own excuse.

Kill Levashev.

Tug-of-war. To do it was a hard thing, because he was still in some vital part of him a man. Not to do it was an even harder thing, because unquestioning obedience was the hallmark of FACE and its brother organizations; a bit of man he might still be, but the robot part was in the ascendancy.

All this time Brook was crossing the room. General Levashev’s hands were folded laxly on his chest; he looked as if he were already lying in a coffin. Brook paused, took out his handkerchief, and picked up Krylov’s pistol and his own; his own he returned to its shoulder holster, Krylov’s he gripped through the handkerchief. The weapon he now held was Levashev’s, but he thought of it as Krylov’s.

He went up to the dozing old man and stopped at the precise distance which had separated Krylov from Levashev when Krylov had got off his shot.

He raised the pistol.

Levashev opened his eyes.

“You know,” the old man said. “You have known all along.”

Brook was startled. “What?” he said.

“I see,” the old man said. “I see you do not.” He was looking not at the muzzle but at Brook’s face. “You have just been ordered to kill me, Mr. Brook?”

Brook said, “Yes.”

“I think—” Levashev raised his head slightly “—I think you do not wish to. Yes. It is in your face, Mr. Brook. Krylov had no hesitation. But you are disturbed. Why, Mr. Brook? Is it because I am an old man?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Brook said roughly.

“But there is. It was your superior on the telephone who gave you the order, yes?” Struggling, General Levashev swung his feet to the floor. Brook stepped back to adjust the distance. “This leads me to believe that he has just discovered why I am here. At first glance it would seem to be that. But one learns to look beyond the obvious.”

“Sorry, General. No more time.” His finger contracted.

“Wait! Do not begrudge me a few moments. It is my final opportunity to analyze an event for what lies behind it. Do not deny me this.”

“Sorry.” But Brook did not pull the trigger.

The old eyes went to the weapon. “My pistol, not yours,” he said thoughtfully. “Why? Why indeed. Follow the logic of this, please. Krylov used my pistol to wound me. Therefore you have been ordered to finish me off with the same weapon. It falls into place. From the beginning your Director knew that Krylov was not a genuine defector, that he was being sent here to assassinate me. It follows, then, that your Director knew even more. From the beginning he knew why I had defected.”

“I don’t know,” Brook said. “I don’t care.”

“Ah, Mr. Brook, that is not so. You care very much.” And there was the old man incredibly propelling himself from the couch and plunging toward Brook, hands extended like claws. Brook stepped back and squeezed off three shots: one, two, three, the first in the head, the second in the chest, the third in the abdomen. The old man jerked with each impact. The top of his head came off in a bloody bean curd, roses bloomed rapidly on his chest and abdomen. Then he fell on his face.

The old man’s right leg twitched twice like a lizard’s on a dissecting table. It stopped.

Brook stooped to feel the neck.

Then he went to the telephone and dialed the gatehouse.

“Yes,” the Director said, looking at Brook, “I believe I will.”

Brook had asked out of politeness; everybody knew that Holloway didn’t drink. Maybe he was a secret lush. You would almost have to be in his job. Correction: I would have to be in his job. “With or without, sir?”

“On the rocks.”

Brooks poured and delivered the drink to the lemon-yellow plastic easychair and Holloway. The Director took it and held it. So he had said yes out of politeness. That was even more startling than the secret-lush theory.

“Thank you,” Holloway said. Mirabile dictu. It had been big, all right.

Gone — or concealed — was the coiled spring. Holloway sat back in the easychair with every evidence of relaxation. His icefloe eyes even held a certain... not warmth, but a lesser chill.

“Have a good air trip?” Brook asked. They were in the same motel Brook had used on his first trip to Albuquerque to talk to Levashev.

Holloway looked puzzled. “They’re all the same,” he said. He glanced down at the glass in his hand and leaned over to set it on the night table. Brook sat down on the edge of the bed and tasted his drink. “I suppose you’re wondering, Mr. Brook.”

“Frankly, yes, sir. You don’t usually visit the scene.”

“This was of unusual importance. I had to be sure you set it up this morning convincingly. So far everybody appears convinced Krylov did it.”

“No problem. The locals, the guards in the gatehouse, swallowed my story in one gulp.”

“So it seems. But before you dislocate your arm patting yourself on the back, Mr. Brook, I point out that Krylov got away from you.”

“From everybody, sir,” Brook said, piqued. “I didn’t set up the security on that rancho. Krylov is one of the best.”

“We’ve got to put the arm on him before he gets out of the country.”

Brook put his glass on the floor with a bang. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Holloway, I’d like to be let in on exactly why it will be better. What in hell’s been going on?”

The Director actually smiled. “Are you slowing down, Mr. Brook? Think now. Why did I order you to go ahead with Krylov when you reported from Toko that your cover was blown?”

“Because,” Brook said bitterly, “agents are ten kopeks a dozen.”

“Hardly,” Holloway said. “Agents cost the government forty-two thousand dollars a head before they’re trained and ready for assignment with FACE to my satisfaction. I don’t say I haven’t thrown my agents to the wolves on occasion, Mr. Brook, but the sacrifice is always carefully weighed against the benefits. In this case you and Mr. Lopez were expendable, valuable as you are. Also, knowing that Krylov’s real mission was to kill Levashev, I could count on his completing his fake defection whether you had blown your cover or not.”

“I guess I am slowing down. I don’t understand any of this. From the way things have turned out, you wanted Krylov to kill General Levashev. For God’s sake, why?”

“We dug up the real skivvy on Levashev not long after he defected to us. Bits and pieces put together in the Analysis Branch. We doublechecked until the conclusion was inescapable. Meanwhile sources of ours behind the Curtain learned of Krylov’s assignment. We could have taken Levashev out ourselves at any time, of course, but this was made to order for our purposes. It was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. It’s worked out beautifully. Krylov, on orders of the KGB, is now officially General Levashev’s murderer. Even you, I’m sure, Mr. Brook, must see that the worldwide news story will have immense propaganda value for us.”

Brook was shaking his head. “It doesn’t look that way to me, sir. The KGB will get a lot of mileage out of Krylov’s being announced internationally as the killer of Levashev. It’ll scare hell out of every would-be defector in the Communist world. Unless you’ve left something out. What do you mean, the real skivvy on the General?”

“The General,” said the Director of FACE with a certain enjoyment, “was working with and for the Red Chinese.”

“The Red Chinese — Levashev?”

“Since way back, Mr. Brook, even when he was in the KGB. That’s what we put together after he ‘defected’ to the West. He was a hard-core Marxist — genuinely so; he even used this motivation, very cleverly, to explain to us why he turned his back on the Soviet Union. He was always saying how the big boys in the Kremlin had betrayed the Revolution. What he didn’t tell us, and what we found out, was that he had taken the logical next step: since Soviet Communism had strayed from the Marxist path, he had gone over to Chinese Communism, which sticks to it.”

It all fell into place rapidly. Brook sat on the bed shiny-eyed, drink forgotten.

“As a top man in the KGB, Levashev was in a unique position to pass its most important secrets over to Peking. A little over a year ago somebody in the Politburo became suspicious of him. Before they could arrest him he defected and got clear. His original purpose seems to have been to go to China; that’s why he holed up in Vienna so long while the messages went back and forth. The Mao people saw no profit in his hanging around in Peking; they finally convinced the old sucker that he could do more for them as their agent in the United States. So he came over to us. And here he sat, giving us leads whenever he got the chance that favored Red China as against the Soviet Union, occasionally learning or figuring out some of our plans vis-à-vis Red China and passing them on to Peking through a man we thought was a U.S. government agent.”

“Who was that?”

“The houseman we thought we put in there. Dead ringer for the CIA man we had assigned, a man of Filipino descent, whose bones are probably whitening in some arroyo in the desert. We’ve checked the dead man’s prints against the real Filipino’s on file; there’s no question about it. Somebody’s going to pay for that.”

“Some setup,” Brook muttered. “The Red Chinese with a listening post in the middle of our operations. I owe you an apology, Mr. Holloway. I thought you’d gone off your rocker.”

“Soviet agent liquidates Red Chinese agent,” the Director said with a trace of animation. He actually reached over and picked up his Scotch and took a sip. “Yes. Very nice. Helps widen the rift between them. Important overall policy for the U.S. just now. It’s their own technique, by George. About time we tried it. What’s the matter, Mr. Brook? Feeling unloved again?”

“Not again,” Brook said, “yet. I just remembered how you used me.”

“To be used, Mr. Brook, is a condition of your function,” Holloway said severely. But then he said, “Take a few days’ leave when you get back to Washington. Go to bed with a pretty girl or two. It will restore your usefulness to me.”

“Thank you, Mr. Holloway,” Brook said. “Shall I lick your hand?”

The Director rose. “Sometimes I think it would be less taxing to run a corps of he-she ballet dancers than you prima donnas. See you in the morning, Mr. Brook.”

Brook was dreaming of a woman. Sometimes her face was Kimiko Ohara’s, sometimes Jasmine’s, but at last she developed a crop of freckles across the bridge of her nose.

Whoever she was, she was wearing a filmy nothing that for kicks kept coming apart. The walls were covered in leopard skin. He was seated on a piano stool, naked, and she was coming across the room to him in great slow leaps.

“Turn out the light!” she was crying. “Turn out the light!”

“I like it better on,” Brook heard himself say.

“Out, out!” Megan Jones picked up a girl’s field hockey stick that turned into a giant Luger as she raised it. She pointed it at the light and said, “Bang.”

But instead of going out the light waxed in a flash.

Brook sat up in bed.

The light in the motel room was on, and Aleksei Krylov was standing at the foot of the bed pointing a pistol at him. His smile showed the gap between his teeth.

Brook made a brushing gesture. “Go away.”

“Oh, I shall,” Krylov said. “Both of us, Peter. No, you are not dreaming.”

“I wish to hell I were,” Brook said.

“No doubt.” The Russian moved a little closer, but still out of range. He was disheveled and dusty; there was a long scratch on the hand that held the gun. Where had he found a gun? “I have the feeling, Peter, that you are not a man of your word after all. You did not wait the hour we agreed on. There were roadblocks set up in every direction too quickly. And here in your desert there are not many roads. Every escape is cut off.”

“That’s your problem.” The gun was his own; Brook could only not look at the empty holster hanging on the chair beside the bed. That’s what comes of arming agents except for kills, he thought. A dumb practice.

“Our problem, Peter.” Krylov’s head jerked in the direction of the window. “You still have your rented automobile outside. That is fortunate for me. And the blanket you threw aside when I awakened you. Yes, we shall need the blanket, too.”

“What for?” Brook moved his legs slowly on the bed, as if he felt cramped.

“I shall be in the rear of the automobile under the blanket. The pistol, of course, will be pointed at the back of your head at all times. You will be stopped at the roadblocks. You will present your impressive identification and they will wave you on without searching the car. Careful!” Krylov steadied the gun as Brook swung his legs to the floor.

Brook remained in the sitting position on the bed. “Not bad, Alex, except that it won’t work.”

“For me it must. And I believe there is a good chance. I must point out, Peter, that your life depends upon it.”

“That gun isn’t loaded.”

Krylov laughed.

“Take a look.”

“No, I shall not take a look. You are lying, Peter. If the gun were not loaded you would have attacked me before this.”

“I’m telling you, Alex, I empty it at night. The cartridges are in the desk drawer there.”

“Not good enough, Peter.”

“You can’t be sure it’s loaded, and you can’t risk a shot to find out. Everybody in earshot will come running — the motel’s full.”

“You are deliberately wasting time.”

“You’ll defeat your own purpose, Alex.”

Krylov frowned. He shifted the pistol ever so little and raised it swiftly for a glance at the cylinder.

Brook dived.

It was a reasonable gamble. Krylov would instinctively expect a grapple. Brook hit him under the knees. The bullet went over his head as Krylov topped and dropped the pistol. They scrambled for it like two boys playing a game. Each man secured a grip, partly on the weapon, partly on the other’s hand. They rolled about the floor. Brook punched with his free hand. Krylov’s answering chop hit a shoulder. Brook’s knee whistled up in a try between Krylov’s legs, but the Russian locked his thighs a split second before and the knee hit muscle.

They rolled again.

The gun went off again.

Krylov looked surprised. “Nyet, nyet” he muttered. “Chto sluchilos?”

“What’s happened, Alex, is that you’ve had it.” Brook looked down at the Russian. He held the gun ready more out of habit than necessity. Krylov twitched a little, staring up at him. The bloodstain on his chest was spreading through the powder burn.

“Piotr,” Krylov said.

“Yes, Alex.”

“Eta dalyeko?”

“Yes, Alex, it’s very far.”

The Russian’s eyes lost their gloss. They stayed open.

The door exploded. Holloway, ludicrously dressed in purple-striped pajamas and brandishing a .45, almost fell to his knees as he burst in. He recovered his cool very quickly. But he was still unsettled enough to say, “I’ll be damned.”

“Won’t we all?” Brook said, still looking down at the Russian’s body. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“Did he say anything?” the Director of FACE demanded.

“Nothing, sir,” Brook said respectfully, “you’d consider important.”

In her high-rise efficiency apartment with its picture window overlooking the Potomac, Megan Jones brought Brook his favorite libation from her kitchenette. It was a night that promised favors. She had put on a chartreuse dress, not too mini; a sensible dress, Brook thought. What gave it its sensible character was that the length made leotards unnecessary, and there was a line of buttons down the front.

Megan handed Brook his Scotch, sat down on his lap, and twined her arm around his neck.

“Thank you,” Brook said.

“You’re welcome,” she said, “but very unappreciative.”

“I’m saving my appreciation, Megan.”

She pouted. He hated women who pouted.

“Look at that.” She nodded toward the table where the two chartreuse candles were still burning. The cradled bottle of wine lay there with its cork loosened and its contents undisturbed. “I went to all the trouble — not to mention the expense — of getting you a Mouton-Rothschild ’55, a grand premier crus. And you haven’t even tasted it.”

“I’m a vulgarian,” Brook said. “Besides, I’ve been saving my taste buds for this—” he touched his lips to the Scotch “—and this—” he touched his lips to her lips.

“Your appetites are so basic, Peter.”

“Primitive,” Brook said, nodding.

“Let me refine them.”

“That sounds awfully civilized. Give me the primitive state any time.” He wondered suddenly how amenable she would be to a course in Jasmine’s technique, or even Kimiko Ohara’s. Hell, no. She’d probably accuse him of being a sexual offbeat.

“I feel exploratory tonight.” Megan took the glass from his hand, placed it a little shakily on the coffee table, and reached up to turn off the bridge lamp. “To tell you the truth,” she said, bracketing his cheeks with her palms and bearing down on him with all her weight, “I feel positively wicked.”

Brook began to be interested in the game.

He was just completing the opening moves when the alarm watch on his wrist buzzed.

“Oh, no,” Megan moaned. “Not again!”

Brook cursed. He shoved her off the sofa and rose.

“Peter Brook,” Megan wailed. “You’re not going out for another walk. The last time you did that you didn’t come back for almost a month!”

Damn Holloway.

“You know how it is with research analysts.”

He left to go back to the war.

Content

Ellery Queen
Guess Who’s Coming to Kill You

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14