Chameleon

7

After Garvey had ushered O’Hara out of Dragon’s Nest, he returned to Hooker’s office. The old man was sitting behind his desk, his face the colour of clay, the pacemaker hammering in his chest.

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

‘Take it easy, sir. I was monitoring the room, I heard it all.’

‘Did you hear him ask about Midas?’ Hooker croaked.

Garvey nodded. ‘We’ll just have to change our plans a little,’

‘How did he get all this information!’ the old man roared suddenly. Blood flooded his face and the colour changed to bright red.

‘He’s good, General. As good as they come. It was a calculated risk.’

‘Then we need a new goddamn calculator.’

‘We’ll have him out in a couple of hours.’

‘And what about Chameleon?’

‘General, we’re that close to him,’ Garvey said. He held up a thumb and a forefinger, an inch apart.

‘We’ve been that close to him for too long,’ Hooker said. He stood up and walked to a dark corner of the room, standing with his hands clenched behind his back, his tall frame outlined by the grow lights in the hothouse behind him. ‘I should have been President instead of that son of a bitch Eisenhower,’ he went on. ‘I should have been a lot of things that I wasn’t, thanks to that ... that albatross around my neck. Damn it, man, damn it.’

He fell silent, and the faulty metronome in his chest finally began to slow down.

‘Kill them both,’ he said, and the venom seemed to linger on his lips like spit. ‘Kill them both tonight.’

Fog whisked through the train station, urged by a chilly breeze. At one end of the station, a tall Caucasian sat smoking a Gitane. There was a phone booth next to him and when it rang the first time he ignored it. It rang only once - Then a few seconds later it started again. The second time he stood up and answered

it.

‘Higashiyama station,’ he said in a soft Gaelic accent.

‘Excuse me, I must have the wrong number.’

‘Whom did you want?’

‘The Italian gentleman.’

And the name?’

‘Spettro.’

‘Good evening, Mr Quill.’

‘Is your phone clean?’

‘Public booth at the train station.

‘Excellent. There is a change in plans.’

‘All right.’

‘O’Hara has become a problem. He’s gone much further than we thought possible. And in the wrong direction. It is important that he be terminated immediately. Is he covered?’

‘He’s due here in three minutes.’

‘Do it as quickly as feasible, using your customary élan.’

‘How about the others?’

‘Get this done first. Everything else is scrubbed.’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Sorry old man, you’ve done A-I. The man’s smarter than we thought. It’s a question of priorities.’

‘I understand.’

‘Let me know as soon as possible.’

‘Of course. Komban wa.’

‘Komban Wa,’

Tony Falmouth hung up the phone and sat back down to wait for the train.

O’Hara first noticed the woman when she got on the train at the Tofuki-ji station on the outskirts of Kyoto. He noticed her again as he got up to leave the train, three stops later, at the Higashiyama station. He saw her reflection in the window, staring at him from the other side of the car. The doors opened and he hurried out, eager to get back to the house and discuss the Hooker meeting with Kimura.

The woman moved out behind him, scurried around other passengers and shuffled up beside him. ‘Please, follow me. I must talk to you,’ she whispered and hurried on.

O’Hara was preoccupied by the woman and paid little attention to the other passengers in the station. Tony Falmouth was sitting at the far end of the platform. He got up, walking quickly after O’Hara, side-stepping pools of street light.

O’Hara followed her through the marketplace, past the fish stalls, ignoring the vendors who shouted at him and shook eel and octopus in his face, to the edge of Maruyama Park. She was a tallish woman for an Oriental, and woe the gown and obi and the chalk-painted face and blood-red Lips of a geisha. A jade hairpin protruded from the bun at the back of her head. It was dark, and fog drifted out of the park and swirled down into the market.

‘It is dangerous for me to be here,’ she whispered. ‘Please, stand with your back to me. The bus will come soon. When it comes, please get on it and go a stop or two before you get off.’

O’Hara hesitated for a moment. A dark street, fog, and he was standing with his back to her. Not smart. He stood very still, listening for sounds of movement from her. At first he heard only her breathing and then there was something else. It was not a sound as much as a feeling. He felt almost dizzy with excitement, and although he could not see the woman, he felt drawn to her, as if there were an electric current flowing between them.

He turned and looked up the street at the lights shimmering in the fog and the headlights of the bus, pinpoint halos in the distance.

‘What do you want?’ he asked.

‘Was it not you who asked for information at the Kabuki-za in Tokyo?’

He hesitated again. The pull was so strong that he almost turned around. Fog swirled around them Like flux.

‘Yes,’ he said finally.

She spoke in a whisper. ‘You seek the one known as Chameleon?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘To talk.’

‘Talk? Hah! You must kill him.’

He wanted to turn again. His nerves were humming. He felt strangely in tune with her, but it was a feeling he could not interpret. He thought back to the previous night when he was doing his exercises and the presence of Chameleon had seemed overwhelming. Now he felt it again. It was as if the woman was marked with Chameleon’s scent.

‘I am not an assassin,’ he said.

‘You will understand when you met him.’

‘When will that be?’

She leaned closer. ‘Chameleon is there.’

Now he felt almost elevated. His blood surged through his veins, and fuses of fire streaked down his arms and legs. He could almost reach out and touch the danger in the air but, oddly, he felt no immediate threat.

‘You mean here in Japan?’

‘In Kyoto.’

‘Where in Kyoto?’

‘I have written the address — a house in the Shiga prefecture

— on this piece of paper. He will return tonight at nine. And he will be alone.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘I know. The why of it is not important. He will be there.’ The bus lights swept over them.

‘Why are you doing this?’

There was a pause. ‘Because I am a prisoner and I want to be free,’

‘A prisoner?’

‘Yes. Here, take the paper, put it in your pocket. Quickly, he has spies everywhere.’

Without turning, O’Hara said, ‘I must know. . . how did you know I was looking for Chameleon?’

The bus pulled up at the curb and stepped.

‘Please, do not betray me,’ she said. ‘Go now. Nine o’clock. Do not be late.’

There was no time left.

O’Hara jumped aboard the bus and heard the doors swish shut behind him.