Mission of Honor

Chapter Sixty-Six

The red telephone beeped in Shigeo Fujima's office at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The head of the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau had no intention of answering it. Not unless the call came in on his private black line. Fujima was waiting to hear some very specific information. Without that information, other conversations were not relevant. Nor were they of any interest at the moment. Fujima's deputies could handle those.

The young, clean-cut intelligence officer was smoking an unfiltered cigarette. He sat with the phone headset resting on his head as he looked at a map of Botswana on his computer. The map was marked with symbols signifying copper, coal, nickel, and diamond mines. China produced a great deal of coal. But those other assets would have been useful to them. The map was also marked with red flags. Those were targets he had hit. One at the airport in Maun. The other, a psy-ops strike, at Dhamballa's camp in the Okavango Swamp. His people had used a laptop to re-create Seronga's voice, using taped radio communiques. Communiques that also enabled them to pick up the password. Then they had broadcast their own message to Dhamballa, that Seronga had been the one who killed the American bishop.

That had put doubt in Dhamballa's mind about the loyalty of Leon Seronga. If the Botswanans had not brought Dhamballa down, Fujima had to make certain that the cult itself was unstable. The Vodunists could not have been allowed to succeed with what they were planning.

Now, just two things remained:

First was to make sure that both the Europeans failed. That was an easier task.

Then there were the Chinese. That would take more time, but it must be done. Beijing and Taipei were an even greater threat.

The outside line kept beeping. Fujima used one cigarette to light another. He looked at his watch. It was about eight A. M. in Botswana. The operatives should have reached the target by now. They tracked him from the swamp, first by boat and then by air. They should have found him.

And then the call came. Fujima continued to smoke as he punched the button to answer. He inhaled quickly, then blew out smoke to relax.

"Mach two," Fujima said, using the code word that was changed daily. "Go ahead."

"I would recognize that exhaling of cigarette smoke even if you did not use the code word," the caller remarked. "So might an enemy, if he were using my secure phone."

"Point taken," Fujima said. That was the trouble with so many field agents. They had to be invisible and silent most of the time. When they got a chance to speak their mind, they did. Agent Kaiju was no exception.

"We found him," Kaiju went on.

"Where?" Fujima asked. As the intelligence director spoke, he accessed a drop-down menu of the cities in Botswana.

"City one, sector seven," the caller reported.

"I'm there," Fujima replied. The Belgian was in Gaborone near the athletic stadium. He dragged silently on his cigarette. Then he exhaled from the side of his mouth.

"He is in a hotel," Kaiju informed him. "The sign is in English. I cannot read it."

"The Sun and Casino," Fujima told him, consulting the map. "That's the only one in the area."

"Very good," the caller said. "What do we do?"

Fujima thought for a moment. "Debrief and neutralize," he replied.

Kaiju repeated the instructions. Fujima acknowledged them.

He hung up and promised to call back when he and his partner had more information.

Fujima sucked hard on his cigarette. He blew out angrily. He did not like to authorize killings. But surgical eliminations were sometimes necessary to prevent greater loss of life in the future. It was made easier by the fact that the target was someone who had helped to create the current chaos.

But even with that accomplished, Fujima did not imagine that the looming crisis would go away. All the interrogation would give them was more information, more time to plan a response.

His telephone continued to beep. Fujima continued to ignore it. He had not slept in over a day, and he was tired. He did not want to slip and say something he would regret.

Instead, the intelligence director punched out his cigarette. He sat back in his high leather chair, closed his eyes, and waited. He waited to hear that this part of the mission was at last concluded. Though the respite, he suspected, would be a short one.