Chameleon

11

Le Croix entered the dungeon stairwell in Dragon’s Nest and went down the wide stone staircase. The dog, an ugly mongrel, was expertly trained. It strode ahead of him, its nose first in the air, then along the ground, sniffing, alert.

Le Croix’s instincts had been sending out warnings ever since he saw O’Hara at the fortress earlier in the day. It was the first time since he joined Master that he felt threatened. For three years everything had gone perfectly, not a slip-up. Then things started going a little haywire. First there was the job on the Thoreau when Thornley was killed. Then Lavander was snatched, Then Garvey and Hooker pulled him into Dragon’s Nest to head up security. It seemed to him they were getting defensive, and Le Croix’s game had always been an offensive one. Now this reporter, who was supposed to lead them to Chameleon, seemed to be getting closer to them instead.

He hated the dungeons. They were cold and dank and the wind, crying through cracks in the mortar, was unnerving. Even the dog got spooky down here.

When he was sure the place was secure, he retreated back upstairs to the warmth of the security office and sat watching the monitor screen as the camera scanned the dungeon stairwell. Something was in the air, he could feel it as surely as he felt the cold drafts down below. He would have some coffee and check again in thirty or forty minutes. He did not trust the electronic devices. He did not trust anything or anyone but himself.

The wall of Dragon’s Nest rose out of the trees above them like an enormous gray shroud. They had climbed up the mountain from the road below and now they were at the mouth of a gaping water drain, its masoned stones green with centuries of moss. A trickle of water fell from its mouth and splattered on the rocks below. Red eyes glittered in the beam of O’Hara’s flashlight. The creature squealed and scurried back into the opening. Vines cluttered the entrance.

‘No wonder they’ve never paid any attention to this drain,’ O’Hara whispered. ‘You have to be crazy to do this.’

‘Welcome to madness,’ Chameleon said and slithered through the vines into the drain. O ‘Hara followed him, his hands slipping on the moss-covered rocks. The drain was four feet in diameter and long. It snaked out of light range. Far in the back, O’Hara could hear the steady trickle of a dozen streams echoing through the tunnel. Cold air moaned past them.

Chameleon moved on all fours, like a cat. And fast. They were both dressed in black pants and turtlenecks and black sneakers. Chameleon carried a rope with a small telescoping grappling hook on one end. They had four microwave transmitters, each wrapped in heavy Styrofoam, tucked in their sweaters. Nothing else but the flashlight.

They both crept along on all fours, their backs curved away from the top of the drain, past two feeder drains. At the third, Chameleon stopped. He pointed up and O’Hara flashed the light toward the ceiling. A shaft went straight up into the guts of the fortress. It was thirty or forty feet straight up to a grate at the far end. Chameleon put his back against one wall and his feet against the other and started shinnying up. It was a torturous ascent because the walls of the shaft were dripping wet. Foot by slippery foot he jerked his way up the narrow enclosure. When he reached the top he fastened the grappling hook to the grate and unwound the rope. It dangled down to O’Hara’s fingertips. He climbed up ii, hand over hand. He braced himself with feet and back while Chameleon very cautiously pushed up the grate and slid it aside.

The subterranean passage was grim. Only two lamps illuminated the low-ceilinged dungeons. What were once cells had been converted into storage bins, but the place still seemed to be permeated with soughs of torture and despair, as if history were whispering through its cold stoae corridors. It was the wind, keening through cracks in the walls and down the stairways,

They quickly pulled themselves into the hail and replaced the grate. They hid the grappling hook and ran to an open winding stairway. Chameleon cautioned O’Hara to wait. They looked up and saw a camera shake its head Lack and forth, slowly scanning the staircase and the hail above. As it swept away, toward the hallway, Chameleon ran up the stairs and stopped directly under the camera. He stood with his back against the wail as it moved silently overhead, pointing back toward the stairwell. Then he ran the rest of the way down the hail to a fire door. The locker room was just inside. He had to make a move before the camera completed its swing back, If there was someone in the hallway on the other side of the door, they were in trouble.

He opened it and stepped through. The hallway was empty. Behind him, O’Hara dashed to the spot under the camera and waited until it swung back and then ran to the doorway.

They ran to the locker room and jumped through the door. A man was standing in front of them.

Outside, Eliza and the Magician had driven to the top of the mountain to a point where the road curved close to the edge of a precipice. Eliza pulled off to the side and parked. They could not see into Dragon’s Nest from there, but the Magician was sure the reception would be excellent. He was sitting in the back of the van before three built-in videotape decks and monitors, twisting dials, looking for the signal. There was nothing but static.

‘They’re not in there yet,’ he said.

‘I just hope when they do get in they get it done and get their fannies out of there,’ Eliza said.

‘I just hope they don’t run into one of those sumo wrestlers they have as guards. Four hundred pounds of bad news.’

They had left a Toyota parked near the bottom of the mountain. If they were being chased when they left, Eliza would take the tapes and switch to the car. O’Hara, the Magician and Chameleon would stay with the truck and lead pursuers away from her.

It was O’Hara who had realized that they only needed to get some tape of the pumping system on Midas to prove that AMRAN had stolen the plans. That and the existence of the Midas field itself would be enough for them to justify blowing the AMRAN story wide open.

The Magician looked at his watch.. They had been gone an hour. That’s how long Chameleon had estimated it would take to get into the control-panel corridor behind the big map. The Magician would monitor the video screens in the truck and record anything that was shown. Each of the transmitters was set to beam its signal at a different frequency so the pictures would not overlap. He couldn’t think of anything they had forgotten,

The man in the locker room appeared to be in his fifties. His eyes were faded, his skin was creased with age and his white hair was as thin as wisps of cotton.

‘You’re early,’ he said in Japanese.

‘Yes,’ Chameleon said quickly, ‘there is a problem with one of the air conditioners.’

‘It takes two of you? My, times have changed. It is much too extravagant for a janitor like me. Good night. Don’t work too late.’ He left.

‘Close,’ said O’Hara.

‘Let us hope he does not mention it to anyone on the way

‘What next?’

‘Check the open lockers. The fixing men usually leave their internal ID badges on their coveralls,’ Chameleon said. There were several, and the members of the maintenance crew obviously were not as large as those on the security force. They both found coveralls that fit.

Chameleon handed O’Hara a hardhat and said, ‘Put this on. Keep your head down so the cameras will not see your face. If you see anyone, just nod and go on.. You will find there is little conversation up above. We will go to the top of the stairs and enter the main floor. The map room is immediately to your left, and the corridor leading behind the map is next to it. We are lucky. We do not have far to go.’

‘We hook up, check the map room to make sure the cameras are scanning what we want and then split,’ O’Hara said. ‘No hanging around rummaging through wastebaskets, okay?’

‘I will try to control myself.’

Getting behind the map was a piece of cake. The main corridor was empty and the door was unlocked. The wall was a myriad of TV monitors.

‘It’s going to be tough to find the monitors for the map room,’ O’Hara said.

‘They are marked. See.’

Each of the boxes had its location written on the frame with a felt-tip pen. Checking the inscriptions, O’Hara and Chameleon had no trouble locating th monitors for the two scanners in the map room. They hooked a tiny alligator clamp attached to a thin wire on the ‘video out’ lug of each of the monitor boxes and plugged in the transmitters, which were three by five inches, and an inch thick. The wires connecting the clips to the transmitters were long enough to permit O’Hara to slide the boxes out of sight under the monitors.

Then O’Hara noticed another interesting monitor. It was for the scanner in Garvey’s office. O’Hara hooked it up, too.

‘Okay, let’s check the game room once and get out of here. And let’s hope they’re picking up something outside.’

In the news van, the Magician slowly twisted the small fine-tuning knob on one of the monitors. Suddenly the picture popped in. He was looking at the room Okari had described. The map was easily thirty feet high and twenty feet long. Recessed in it were a dozen diod screens. The camera was moving and the Magician watched ii pan across the room and back. He tuned the other two. One of them was a stationary shot of an office. A small man with a waxed moustache was talking on the phone. The Magician recognized him from O’Hara’s description. It had to be General Garvey.

‘We got it, Lizzie. You’re not gonna believe this. We got two different angles on the map.’

‘Can you see Midas?’

‘Yeah — but the camera’s still mowing. O’Hara’s got to get in there now and freeze it.’

He tuned the sets as sharply as possible. The camera swept to the centre of the room and then started back.

There it was. There were four screens on the Midas location. Two exterior and two interior.

‘Incredible!’ said the Magician.

‘Do we have sound?’

Voices murmured in the map room.

‘Yeah. And a million-dollar picture on all three—’

He stopped in mid-sentence. He was listening to Garvey.

‘Quill. Nine twenty-five, April 8_ 730-037-370. Red urgent. We have not heard from you for twenty-four hours. It is important you make contact immediately.’ He hung up.

‘Well, I’ll be damned. We just got a bonus,’ the Magician said.

‘What?’

‘We got Quill, on film. And guess who it is?’

‘Hooker?’

‘Garvey.’

‘How do we get to the cameras?’ O’Hara asked. ‘Aren’t they pretty high up?’

‘There is a ladder with wheels iii the map room. There will be four men there, five at the most, and they won’t pay any attention — they’ll be too busy. It is from this panel that all the machines on Midas are controlled.’

‘We just walk right in, that it?’ O’Hara said.

Chameleon nodded. They entered the big room. O’Hara was stunned at the size. Then, on two of the diod screens, he saw Midas for the first time.

The exteriors were both eerie. Gray soundless pictures under the sea. One was the dish, a saucer under water with its superstructure hanging down toward the bottom of the ocean.

The other was even more bizarre. A long line of rusted ships, settled deep in the sand, wavered before the camera. Powerful underwater searchlights peered through the murky water, etching the forms and shapes. One of the screens showed a close-up of the pumping station, the heart of the entire system.

There it was, the evidence they needed, in living colour.

Four men were at work at the enormous console. One of them glanced back over his shoulder as they entered the room, then turned back to whatever he was doing. Chameleon rolled the eighteen-foot ladder in place under the cameras. Since there was no way for him to check the parameters of the two cameras, he wanted to make sure one of them was aimed at the crucial part of the map, the TV close-up f the pumping station. And there was no way for them to know for sure whether the transistors were working. At this point ‘they were playing it by ear.

O’Hara went up the ladder. There was a small switch at the bottom of the camera which stopped it from scanning and froze it in place. Once O’Hara stopped the camera it would be only a matter of time until somebody in the security office noticed and came to check. They needed to get out fast once he threw the switch.

He was reaching for the switch when the door opened and Garvey came in. He was directly below O’Hara, who quickly looked away and started fiddling with the camera. Chameleon, too, turned his back to the jaunty little man.

‘Everything okay?’ Garvey asked as he passed them.

Chameleon nodded. ‘Just cleaning the lenses,’ he said.

But Garvey was much more interested in the console. ‘What’s it look like?’

‘We’re about ready to bring in Number Seventeen,’ one of the operators said.

‘Better get the general. You know bow he loves to watch these new wells come in.’

‘Not much to see,’ the man at the console answered. ‘Just the on-line lights going and the digital counter clocking off the gallons.’

‘Ours not to reason why,’ Garvey sighed. He picked up a phone and pressed a number and waited. ‘General, we’re about to punch in Seventeen ... Very good, sir.’ He hung up. ‘He’s coming in.’

It was then O’Hara realized what was happening. They were getting ready to bring an oil well on-line.

They had to get out of there fast. O’Hara reached up and switched off the scanning button. The camera stopped roving. It was aimed directly at the Midas screens. He hurried back down the ladder and jerked his head toward the door.

Chameleon did not move. He was staring at the door. O’Hara grabbed his arm but Chameleon shook his head. He could not leave.

He had to see Hooker.

Just once, he had to be an arm’s length away from the man he had hated since he was a child.

The general entered the room from his office.

O’Hara busied himself by returning the ladder to the corner, keeping his face away from Hooke r and Garvey.

We have to get out of here fast, thought O’Hara. Everyone’s in this room but Le Croix, and God knows where he is. If Hooker or Garvey spot me, the game’s over. He turned back.

Chameleon was edging closer to the tall hawk-faced man. Christ, O’Hara thought, he’s blowing it,

But the small cluster of men at the console were all riveted to the instruments, to the action at the console.

The key operator said, ‘Okay, we’re ready.’

‘Close-up on the valve,’ Garvey said.

The operator punched a key, and the camera, obviously equipped with a zoom lens, was triggered. The picture on the TV screen changed slowly as the lens zoomed in.

It was perfect. A close-up of the stolen pumping station actually in the process of switching on a new well. Now all he had to do was get Chameleon the hell out of there without being obvious. The tattooed man stood a few feet behind Hooker, transfixed, staring at the sharp profile.

His own father, a few feet away.

‘On-line programmed,’ the operator said.

He punched some more keys.

‘Counting down ... five, four, three, two, one ... and switch-in.’

The TV screen told the story. On the console of the pumping valve, a bank of lights blinked on in sequence. Then the numbers on the digital counter began switching so fast that it was hard to read them.

‘And we’re in,’ the operator cried.

The general laughed and clapped his hands. ‘Well done, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Congratulations. Jess, come on into the office, I’ve got champagne on ice.’

‘Right, sir, in a minute.’

Hooker wheeled around and started back toward the office door. For a moment he came eye to eye with Chameleon. The general looked at him briefly, then nodded and marched off.

Chameleon was right behind him. Nobody else saw him but O’Hara. The others were still staring intently at the nerve centre of Midas.

What the hell’s he doing? O’Hara thought.

The general entered his office, and Chameleon, waiting until the door was almost closed, leaped through it sideways. The door clicked shut.

Well, I’ll be damned, O’Hara thought. What now?

In the van, the Magician and Eliza were howling with glee. There it was, a close-up of what they needed, and in the process of bringing in a new well.

‘We got it!’ the Magician yelled.

‘We’ll get another minute or two, then we’ll have to get rolling. They should be on their way out. We need to get back down the hill.’

‘Hey,’ the Magician cried, ‘something fucked up!’ Garvey was yelling, pointing off-screen, clawing at his belt. A machine pistol appeared in his hand. Then suddenly O’Hara leaped into the screen. He slapped Garvey’s gun hand away, grabbed it, wrenched it backwards.

The pistol coughed a half-dozen times.

Bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap.

The bullets ripped into the sprawling glass map. A string of holes splattered across South America. The glass weakened and shattered. Behind it, the maze of wires that controlled the electronic marvel was sliced by falling glass. Sparks showered the room. Streaks of fire raced up the wall.

Inside the van, Eliza and the Magician were staring hypnotically at the tape recorders. They did not see the shadows at the edge of the road begin to vane, were not aware anyone was there until the side door slammed back and they turned to face the biggest human being they had ever seen. Four hundred pounds if an ounce his neck bulging over the shirt collar, his eyes scowling out from a balloon face.

‘Holy shit!’ the Magician cried. He started looking for a weapon, a club, anything.

The guard reached in with a tire-sized arm and grabbed Eliza, lifting her out the door as if she were a doll. She did not utter a sound. She made a fist, stuck out her forefinger and little finger and thrust them into the guard’s eyes. He roared with pain. She kept gouging, grinding the two fingers into his eyes. He dropped her, and she leaped back in the van and got behind the wheel.

The Magician jumped out, a lug wrench in hand, and hit the guard with a powerhouse swing. It made a flat smack as it smashed into the side of his head. The guard, temporarily blinded, shook off the blow as if it were a flea bite.

The Magician wound up and this time brought the steel wrench straight down on his head. The blow stung the Magician’s hands.

The guard staggered and started toward him.

‘Get in!’ Eliza yelled as she pulled the gear shift into first.

The Magician took his third strike.

The tire iron flipped out of his hands. This time the wrestler went down like a stricken buffalo.

He dove into the van and Eliza whipped it in a tight circle and fishtailed down the road.

When Chameleon jumped into Hooker’s office, he first stood flat against the wall, watching the general walk to his desk, lean over the champagne bucket and twist the bottle in the ice with the palms of his hands.

Then Chameleon moved slowly toward him. The old man looked up and glared at the maintenance man. ‘What is it, something wrong?’ he asked.

The man did not answer. He walked slowly across the dark room toward Hooker and stood in front of the desk.

He was unbuttoning his shirt.

The room was deadly still except for the ticking in Hooker’s chest. The clock began to run faster.

Tick... tick... tick ... tick,..

‘What are you doing? What’s the meaning of this?’ Still no answer. The man’s eyes were filled with hatred. He opened the shirt.

Tick, tick, tick, tick...

Hooker’s eyes bulged as he saw the tattoos. He was hypnotized by the spectre standing before him. His brain was fumbling with a half-dozen disparate thoughts.

‘Permit me, General. I am Chameleon,’ the man said. Ticktickticktick...

The clock in Hooker’s chest was frantic.

The ticking increased. It sounded like a Geiger counter. ‘Y-y-y-you’re too young,’ he croaked.

‘Capice Military Hospital, 23 September 1933,’ he said. It took a moment for the information to register.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The day I was born ... Father.’

The old man began to shake. The pacemaker went berserk. ‘You’re lying,’ he said. His voice was an echo squeezed from his chest.

From the map room he heard the muffled, staccato bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap of Garvey’s machine pistol, but he barely paid any attention.

‘Mother called me Molino, you called me Bobby. Would you like the date you murdered her in Australia? April—’

A tiny streak of fire crept across the ceiling. Hooker’s eyes fled to it and then flicked back.

Hooker’s ‘No-o-o-o!’ was as anguished as the death cry of a wolf.

The old man snatched open a desk drawer and pulled out a Colt .45. He held it in both hands and pointed it straight between Chameleon’s eyes.

The pacemaker was hammering.

And then it fell silent.

No more ticking.

What little blood was left in the general’s face drained away. His lips began to shake. His trigger finger trembled.

The door flew open and O’Hara burst in. He stopped cold. The general was pointing his pistol straight ahead. It was inches from Chameleon’s nose, and yet he made no move toward Hooker.

The gun hand wavered. The general’s eyes began to glaze over. He made one last effort to squeeze off the shot but there was no strength left.

‘You’re dead, General,’ Chameleon said.

Hooker’s eyes crossed and he plunged face down across the desk.

‘For God’s sake, let’s get outa here,’ O’Hara yelled. ‘All hell’s breaking loose.’

Behind him, half a dozen wires. crossed and exploded in fireworks, Coloured shards glittered in the air and turned the map room into a giant kaleidoscope.

Garvey stood in the middle of the room, staring in disbelief as the glass showered around him.

O’Hara and Chameleon ran for it.

Pandemonium.

Garvey was screaming orders.

Fire stitched the ceiling, snapped at the timbers. The short-circuited wires were like streaks of fire. Sparks showered around them as they ran through the map room and out the door. Security guards dashed pest them with fire extinguishers.

They ran toward the stairs leading to the dungeons.

Behind them they could hear Garvey screaming, ‘Stop them! Stop them!’

They did not look back. The’ raced toward the stone staircase. As they turned the corner into the stairwell, a gun boomed behind them. Bullets chewed pieces out of the stones and they stung O’Hara’s face. ‘Keep going,’ he yelled as he slammed the fire door leading to the dungeons and bolted it behind them.

They heard the dog before they turned around. It was a foot away. And behind it, Le Croix, a gun in his hand, had just reached the top of the Stone stairway. He was not prepared for what happened next, for Chameleon moved instantly, dove over the dog and rolled past Le Croix.

‘Keep going!’ O’Hara yelled and Chameleon raced down the steps. Le Croix, distracted for a moment, shouted an order to the dog: ‘Le Cou! The neck. And as the dog went after Chameleon, Le Croix turned and fired at O’Hara. But Chameleon’s diversion had given the reporter the instant he needed. Feinting first to the right, then the left, he leaped and kicked at the same moment, his eyes on Le Croix’s gun hand. The pistol roared, bullets smacked the door behind O’Hara as his toe shattered Le Croix’s wrist. The gun flipped out of his hand.

Chameleon jumped the last few steps to the floor of the dungeon and turned toward the grate. The dog was right behind him, its hackles trembling, its teeth bared. But it made no sound. As Chameleon turned to face it, the dog leaped toward his throat. Chameleon dropped in a crouch and rolled on his back. The dog landed behind him, paws scrambling as it twisted around.

At the top of the stairs O’Hara landed flat-footed, stepped in and snapped Le Croix’s head back with the flat of his hand. The scarred man fell, but as O’Hara jumped over him, Le Croix tripped the reporter. O’Hara staggered but did not fall.

Behind him, Le Croix hesitated for a moment. A leash dropped like a snake from his sleeve. It was attached by a small padded bracelet to his wrist. He whirled it like a lasso and it sang through the air as it flicked toward O’Hara’s head, and O’Hara, hearing the whoof of the wire, turned for an instant, saw the deadly noose and ducked, raising his arm to ward it off. The noose snapped over his arm and tightened on his wrist, cutting into the skin. He jerked it and Le Croix fell forward into him. The two of them tumbled over each other down the stairway.

The second time the dog jumped, Chameleon was prepared. He dropped low again, and as the dog soared over him, he reached up and grabbed it by the throat with both hands, slamming it against the stone floor. The dog’s claws slashed desperately at his arms, tearing away the sweater, drawing blood. Chameleon squeezed and twisted the dog in his powerful hands, got his feet under him, and standing, smashed its head against the wall. The dog shrieked once before it died.

‘Kazuo!’ he called.

Drop the rope!’ O’Hara yelled.

The fire door began to give as half a dozen sumo guards battered it.

Chameleon recovered the grappling hook from its hiding place and began to slide the grate back while halfway down the stairwell Le Croix and 0’ Hara grappled, connected together by the thin wire attached to their wrists Le Croix was a brute, but fighting O’Hara was like fighting air. He slipped away, jumped to his feet, hauled Le Croix up by the wire and chopped him across the throat with his free hand. Le Croix fell backwards, dragging O’Hara with him. The patch fell away from his face, revealing a gruesome gray socket, split by the deep scar that ran the length of his face. The one-eyed assassin tried to twist the wire around O’Hara’s throat, but once again the reporter moved too fast. He hopped over Le Croix, pulling his arm sideways. The wire wrapped around Le Croix’s throat instead. 0’ Hara pulled the loop and Le Croix’s hand was jerked against his neck. The wire bit into his flesh. His good eye swelled with fear. He grabbed for O’Hara with his free hand, but the reporter pulled his arm back and the noose tightened around Le Croix’s throat. Le Croix thrashed, out his legs under him and lunged for his adversary’s throat. O’ Hara rolled nimbly, and Le Croix dove over him and skittered off the edge of the stairwell. He seemed to poise for a second, and then he dropped. O’Hara’s hand was tugged violently by the weight of the falling body. And then he felt the wire snap taut and slice into his wrist.

And he heard Le Croix’s neck break, like a dead branch.

The man’s weight pulled him to the edge of the stairwell. Le Croix was dangling grotesquely on the ‘wire, his feet dancing on air inches above the ground, his hand pulled tight against the side of his face, his tongue protruding obscenely, his good eye rolling wildly beside the barren socket. He jerked there for several seconds. The wire bit deeper into O’ Hara’s wrist, blood gushing from the torn skin. Then Le Croix’s eye rolled up and he just hung there.

A moment later Chameleon appeared on the floor below and lifted up the dead man, easing the pressure. O’Hara released the ratchet and the wire noose fell off.

Splinters flew from the fire door. A crack appeared. O’Hara crawled to his feet and ran shakily down the rest of the stairs.

‘Can you make it with just one hand?’ Chameleon asked.

‘I can try.’

‘Go,’ said Chameleon.

O’Hara didn’t argue. He grabbed the rope and dropped into the black abyss.

The door burst from its frame and crashed to the floor. Three guards tumbled through the opening.

Chameleon started down the rope.

O’Hara was sliding down so fast that the rope scorched his hand. He could feel Chameleon on the rope above him. Then suddenly he wasn’t going down anymore. He looked up. The grinning face of one of the sumo guards leered down at him. The man was pulling them back up as though they were puppets.

‘Drop!’ O’Hara yelled and let go.

He had no idea how high up he was. He plunged into the darkness, down into the main water tunnel, hit and rolled. Chameleon landed seconds later and rolled on top of him.

They shot down along the wet moss, end over end, like children in a funhouse, uncontrollably swept along by their momentum, and burst out of the tunnel, carrying vines with them as they continued tumbling down the mountainside until they were stopped by the undergrowth.

The van was ten feet away.

O’Hara’s hands were rope-burned, his shoulder was skinned raw and blood streamed from his torn wrist. He tried to get to his feet, saw the Magician running toward him. ‘Chameleon...?’ he asked.

‘Right here, tomodachi,’ the tattooed man said, helping him up. It was the first time he had called O’Hara ‘friend.’

They jumped in the van and fell on the floor.

‘Get rolling!’ the Magician ordered, and Eliza jammed the van into gear and headed down the rest of the hill.

‘What the hell happened?’ the Magician said.

‘Shit hit the fan,’ O’Hara gasped.

‘I am to blame,’ Chameleon said. ‘I lost it there for a few minutes. It was an emotional—’

O’Hara sat up. He laid his hand on Chameleon’s arm. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘who’s complaining?’ He turned to the Magician. ‘Did we get anything on tape?’

‘The whole megillah.’

O’Hara laughed and fell back on the floor of the van. ‘Is there a first-aid kit in the house?’ he said. ‘I think I may be bleeding to death.’

Eliza sped down the mountain and out into the flat at the edge of Tanabe. Behind them, yellow flames boiled up from Dragon’s Nest. Chameleon watched through the rear window of the van and rubbed his aching arms.

‘It is a cleansing fire,’ he said. “When it is over, the fortress will still be standing and we can restore it to what it once was, a nest for dragons, not weasels.’

He leaned back and closed his eyes and the pain in his face was not from his cuts and bruises. Without opening his eyes, he said, ‘I am sorry, Kazuo, for violating my promise. I could have got you killed back there.’

‘But you didn’t. The Tokenrui-san will say it was just an instant in time. The poets will pass it by.’

‘It was the sight of him, being that close to Hooker. It made me crazy. I needed to reveal the truth to him, just as you must reveal the truth about him to the world.’

‘Let it pass, Okari, let it pass,’ O’Hara sighed, and he slumped down to nurse his own aches and pains.

The Magician pulled the three tapes out of the recorders and wrapped a band around them as Eliza pulled into the clearing where they had left the Toyota.

‘Maybe the Magician ought to go with—’ O’Hara started to suggest, but she had slammed on the brakes and was already out of the van. As planned, she jumped in the car, started up and zoomed off.

‘I’m gonna tell yuh sumpin, okay? I wouldn’t drive back to Kyoto with her. She drove this van so fuckin’ fast, half the time I wasn’t sure if she was drivin’ it or it was drivin’ her.’

They drove the three hours back to Kyoto without incident. The fire was apparently keeping Garvey and company too busy to bother with them.

As they reached the center of Kyoto, Chameleon asked to be dropped off. ‘It is better that I leave now.’ He reached out and took O’Hara’s hand. ‘Whoever Kimura-san selects as Tokenrui will please me. If it is to be you, tomodachi, it will be my honor to serve you. If you ever need anything, this kendo master is at your service.’

‘I feel the same,’ O’Hara said. Arigato, my friend.’ He watched Okari limp down a side street until the darkness swallowed him up. The reporter lay back on the floor of the van. It had been a long night filled with surprises, and despite his torn wrist and battered ribs, he felt suddenly refreshed. The truth was on the tapes. Howe would have his big story. Lizzie would get her shot at New York. A heavy burden had been lifted from Chameleon’s shoulders. Yet to O’Hara, the victory seemed strangely empty. He thought instead about Falmouth, who had lied to him and betrayed him, It was a lesson that would stay with him forever. What was it Kimura-san said... ‘The wise man has many cuts.’ But he also said, ‘The happy man forgets his scars.’

The Magician broke the spell. ‘Weird,’ he said.

‘What’s weird?’

‘All those fuckin’ tattoos.’

They drove back to the hotel.

‘We catch the first train out in the morning, the way I see it,’ the Magician said after they had parked the van. ‘We can be back in the States, shit, tomorra night this time.’

O’Hara nodded slowly. ‘Let’s hope Lizzie didn’t kill herself driving back here.’

He grabbed the first house phone he saw in the hotel lobby and dialed her number. It rang and the operator came on.

‘Who please?’

‘Eliza Gunn, USA.’

‘Missa Gunn, she check out.’

‘Checked out!’

‘Hai. Maybe twenty minutes.’

‘Thanks.’

The note was in his box. It read: ‘I lucked out. Found a young pilot willing to fly me to Tokyo tonight. You get the big story, I get the tapes. Seems fair, doesn’t it? By the way, would you mind returning the van to Howe/Tokyo. Thanks. See you in Boston. xxx E.’

He handed it to the Magician.

‘Well, I’ll be goddamned,’ the Magician said, and he started laughing. ‘She scooped yuh, pal!’

12

Charles Gordon Howe wheeled himself into his spacious office overlooking the Haymarket. It had been a busy day, thanks to his two top reporters, and a fruitful one. The fire at Dragon’s Nest had attracted news coverage, but Hooker’s death got most of the space. All that did was whet everyone’s appetite for the whole story, and they had it all. Eliza was coming on with a fifteen-minute news special. She had been editing it all night. He’d get a huge share on the news tonight. And O’Hara was on his way back with a front-page banner for the Star. All the fine details. The old man leaned back in his wheelchair and stroked his chin.

Excellent.

Eliza’s bright face popped on the set, but it was wearing a serious expression. Nothing light.

‘Good evening,’ she began, ‘this is Eliza Gunn, Six O’Clock News—’

‘Don’t worry, she’ll do a helluva job.’

Howe recognized the voice immediately. It came from a dark corner of the office, back among the plants.

O’Hara stepped out into the light.

‘You scared the bedevil outa me there, Lieutenant. What the hell’re you doing hiding back there among the goddamn shrubs?’

‘I was hanging boxes in the air.’

‘What?’

‘It’s an old Zen trick. Really nothing more than logic.’

‘Is that right?’ Howe said. He was watching the television set, almost leering as his star reporter described the operation known as Master and its perpetrators.

‘There’s a lot more to it than she has,’ O’Hara said.

‘There’s nothing wrong with the stuff she’s got.’

‘Tip of the iceberg.’

‘Well, can it wait until this is over, sir?’ Howe was getting annoyed. ‘Every station in the country’s gonna want to pick this up. How far along are you on your yarn?’

‘It’s finished.’

‘Great. Let’s just see what she does with the story and then we’ll talk about you — okay, m’boy?’

‘I want to talk now.’

‘Goddammit, after the show, Lieutenant, after the show.’ ‘It won’t wait.’ He switched off the television set. Howe looked up and scowled. ‘I beg your damn pardon?’ ‘It won’t wait. You can watch this later, on tape. Garvey spilled his guts. In fact, he’s probably still spilling them, only I’ve got enough to suit me. We can leave the rest to the historians.’

‘Garvey? Which one was he?’

‘He was the man called Quill. He picked the assignments.’

‘Magnificent. Goddamn, man, you’ve broken one of the biggest stories of the century. Now can we just turn the damn

TV—’

O’Hara cut him off. ‘Not we. Me. I’ve got the story.’

‘That’s the way, lad. By God, we’ll tear up the Star and give you the whole front page. Now, if you don’t—’

‘No. It isn’t going to work that way.’

Howe began to get interested. 1-us mind shifted from the television set. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, you don’t get it both ways.’

‘Both ways?’ Howe was genuinely stumped.

‘Sure. Look at the way it’s sizing up. They can pin the takeovers on the little squids out in Texas who were in on the plan from the beginning. The ones that told them who to kill, who was strong and who was weak in the companies. It’s called conspiracy, although they’ll probably end up doing time in some government country club, like the Nixon bunch did.’

Howe shook his head. ‘I still don’ t—’

‘The way I figure it, Hooker’s dead. Garvey and a couple of Texas millionaires are in for a lot of grief. One hell of a big cartel is going down the tubes. There’s probably going to be several international murder trials_ The whole intelligence community’s going to be thrown for a loop. But the best part of the story will never be told.’

‘And why is that, Lieutenant?’

‘Because nobody can prove it.’

Howe leaned forward, eyes aglitter.

‘But I have to deal with it,’ O’Hara went on, ‘for my own sake — do you understand what I’m saying? I have some feelings of my own about it.’

‘So?’

‘So, I don’t believe in coincidence . I don’t believe Falmouth just came to you because he liked reading the Boston Star. I was set up from the start.’

‘I don’t follow you, Lieutenant.’

‘Sure you do. You follow me just fine.’

Howe’s expression got cold. Anger tweaked the corners of his eyes. ‘You saying I had something to do with this?’

‘No question about it.’

‘You’re a bit smug.’

‘I feel smug.’ He moved some things off the corner of Howe’s desk and sat down. ‘It was Quill, or Garvey, whichever you wish, who started me thinking. According to him, do you know who really started the whole thing? Poor old Red Bridges, only he didn’t have any idea how it was going to turn out. In March 1945 a Japanese supply ship called the Kira Maru was limping toward Tokyo after our dive bombers crippled her. She foundered, and most of the crew made it to the Bonin Islands. Five years later an ex-sailor named Red Bridges was running a salvage operation off the coast of Japan. He signed on a couple of sailors that had been on the Kira Maru. They told him about the freighter, and they located her in shallow water off one of the Volcano Islands. He went down to take a look, and what he found was oil bubbling up through the ocean floor at less than twenty fathoms.

‘Only Red knew about it. He didn’t share the information with the crew, he shared it with one man, his old friend Alexander Hooker, who was military governor of southern Honshu. It made Red a rich man and it ultimately killed him. And it made Hooker one of two men in the world that knew the location of what turned out to be one of the richest oil strikes on earth.

‘So Hooker started building his empire. He got his financing for it from wealthy friends. People who were elitists like himself. Who believe that the spoils go to the victor. Like the robber barons you admire, Mr Howe. Fisk and Doheny and Morgan and all the rest of those pirates, people like some of your friends in the photographs on your boat, Hell, you even bought a yacht that once belonged to Doheny.’

‘Get to the point,’ Howe said.

‘The point? The point is, you were one of them. You anted-up along with a bunch of other people in key places. I think you were one of the bankers on this merry-go-round. You used your clout to call off the Winter Man because you were all afraid of Chameleon. Hooker convinced you that Chameleon was a real threat, and Falmouth convinced Hooker that I was the man who could find him. Hooker was too close to pulling it off to have it blow up after all these years of planning—’

‘Pulling what off?’

‘A financial panic. First, drive up the price of oil and ruin the automobile industry. When it goes, the steel industry goes with it. Then keep pushing up the prime rate and wipe out the real estate business. Force the unions to their knees. Hell, right there’s enough to start a wholesale panic. And when it’s over, who’s got the money? You’ve got the money. Prime stockholders in Master.’

‘Ridiculous oversimplification, Lieutenant. Not worthy of you.’

‘Hooker didn’t think it was. He was going for broke. I don’t know whether it would have worked or not, that depends on the numbers. And we’ll never know who all the Players were because Hooker was the only one who knew, and he’s dead.’

Howe leaned back in his wheelchair. ‘Pie in the sky, m’ boy.’

‘The bubble’s busted, Howe. There’s not going to be any more AMRAN. No more Master. No more Mr Quill moving his assassins around the board.’

‘I was never involved in that.’

‘I believe it. I don’t believe any of you knew what was really going on. All you wanted was results. But you did know Falmouth would kill me if I led him to Chameleon. You marked me, Mr Howe.’

The old man seemed to sag into his chair, to grow older as O’Hara watched him.

‘I suppose you’ve got some kind of silly bug in your collar, recording all this rot.’

O’Hara shook his head. ‘No bugs. Just you and me talking.’

‘I didn’t know they planned to kill you. Not until Eliza told me this morning. All I did was get you and Falmouth together. Hooker was falling apart. It was important to put an end to this Chameleon thing.’

‘And you didn’t know about the Thoreau? The Marza business?’

Howe did not answer.

‘You walk out of this one clean, don’t you, Mr Howe? Only one thing — you don’t get it both ways.’

‘What do you mean, both ways? That’s the second time you said that.’

‘I mean, you’re a newsman before anything else, Howe. Greed comes second. I think you figured no matter how it went, you couldn’t lose. If I turned up Chameleon, Falmouth would take him out and either Gunn or I or both of us would have the story for you. If Falmouth killed me, too, Gunn would still have the story for you. Both ways see what I mean?’

Howe chuckled. ‘Well, son, whatever I thought is known only to me. But it does look like it turned out that way — now, doesn’t it?’

‘Not quite.’

‘Oh,’ Howe said, raising his eyebrows, ‘and how’s that?’

‘I gave your story away.’

Howe looked at him for several seconds, then said, ‘Gave it away?’

‘I gave the story to an old pal of mine, Art Harris of the Washington Post. With enough to substantiate the story.’

The realization slowly sank in. ‘What the hell are you talkin’ about, O’Hara?’

‘I gave the story to the Washington Post, Howe. But it’s okay, I left you out of it completely. That’s what you want, isn’t it? Anonymity. That’s what you got.’

The expression on Howe’s face turned from disbelief to doubt to realization to anger. ‘Goddamn, you can’t—’

‘Did it.’

‘I’ll sue you until—’

‘Not likely. Not without turning over a can of worms you can’t afford to turn over.’

‘You’re a thief. You gave away my goods.’

‘You don’t own something you never had. Remember our deal out on Cape Cod? I could walk away from the story anytime I wanted and let somebody else finish it. Well, that’s what I did, Mr Howe. Except I picked the guy to finish it.’

Howe shook his head. ‘You’re crazy. You went through all that and what do you end up with?’

‘I got even, Mr Howe.’

‘And what do I get?’

‘Anonymity. And a ninety-eight percent share, at least for tonight.’

There were two messages in Eliza’s typewriter when she returned to her office. One was to call Howe. The other was in an envelope. She tore it open. The message was simple.

Dear Lizzie:

Caught your act. Terrific. You get the scoop-of-the-year award. I don’t even get the girl. xx O.

The shaggy mane of pines on Kinuasa-yama swayed before the west wind, which had brought rain with it earlier in the day. But by the time the sun began t fall behind the spire of Tofuku-ji, the rain was gone, and fog, painted with the dying sun, swirled across the verdant park. The park was always a lush green, even in winter.

He was bone-weary and sore when he entered the grounds. But there was still an hour or so before it got dark. Time enough to begin. When he came back to the house in Kyoto, it always seemed as though time had stopped while he was gone. Nothing had changed, no new flowers had blossomed, none had fallen. Everything was the same. What was it the Tokenrui had once said,.. ‘We are just a speck in the infinity of time. Nothing ever changes,’

There were fresh flowers in the vase in his practice room. The dogs sat at his feet, looking up, waiting to be petted and reassured.

He opened the package and took out the gogensei he had just purchased. It was a gray tunic, bunched at the waist, made of rough cotton. He took off his clothes and put on the gogensei. It felt good against his skin. Then he heard the dogs bark and he knew she was coming.

She stopped in the doorway when she saw him, and then she looked at his clothes and back at his eyes.

‘You are going again,’ she said.

He nodded.

‘Now?’

He nodded again.

She came close to him, touched his lip with her fingertips, licked her lips.

‘It is very late,’ she said. ‘Tomorrow is not that far away.’

And she moved against him. He stood for a moment and then slowly put his arms around her.

She was right. Tomorrow would be a better day to start the Walk of a Thousand Days