The Seventh Samurai Read online

  Through the years Yoshimoto had held various government posts and at present served the Diet cabinet as finance minister. He had seen to it that his cousin had also assumed increasing responsibility, but never in his department. Through a network of strategic friendships, she had eyes and ears throughout the bureaucracy.

  "Kyoko, it might be more seemly if you wore kimono when we are here together in the evening." It was a familiar theme, one that Yoshimoto harped on every three to four months.

  "Oh, Akira," the woman replied with some exasperation, "You should know that I haven't owned a kimono for more than 20 years. I don't even wear them to weddings."

  "There are shops; we have money," he replied evenly. "You look like someone out of an American movie," he added, eyeing with some distaste the oversized sweatshirt and blue jeans. Both of them were barefoot on the tatami mats.

  "I'll make a deal with you. I'll start wearing a kimono when you do. No one ever complained about men wearing western styles. Your shirt, suit and tie are like a uniform. And always white T-shirt and white boxer underpants. Black socks, Black shoes."

  "That's different," the aging bureaucrat said, pushing his sake cup towards Kyoko for a refill. She carefully refilled the cup and poured herself more Kirin beer.

  "And too," she continued. "Do you know how much trouble it is to properly put on a kimono? I'd need a hairdresser and a dresser every night. It's crazy. Anyway, there are more important things. I'm concerned about us killing people. We could become reckless."

  "What we are doing is akin to war, and those who died did it almost cheerfully. What we are doing is for Japan and the Japanese people. How many did we lose in building under the sea? Such dangerous work, and doubly so because it was done in secret. Those who died are heroes!"

  "It's not that, Akira. I was thinking of the young American. We were forced to seek the help of an American hoodlum. I'm not concerned with the loss of life. It's the possibility of detection that alarms me."

  "I see. The danger might lie in the opposite direction. Dead men are profoundly silent. That noisy American was a fly in our sake cup. We may have made a mistake by simply not having him disappear here in Japan. But it's always a problem when foreigners are involved, especially Americans. Their government is so touchy about their rights."

  "Then there is this detective, this Watanabe, and his gaijin. Did they contact the man before he was killed and, if so, what did they learn?"

  "Nothing that would lead him back to us, I can assure you. It's all suspicions, but nothing concrete. And time seems to be on our side. Everything is going well. The warheads will soon be at sea. No one can stop us, Kyoko."

  "I wish I had your confidence," she replied. "This Watanabe is no dummy and he keeps poking around. He could turn up something."

  Yoshimoto sipped his sake. There was mild amusement in his eyes. "You want to have Watanabe killed and probably his girlfriend as well. Is that it?"

  "I think it would be wise. He's the only one who even has a hint of suspicion. My point is, if the two of them are to be killed, it must be planned and executed with extreme care. It must look like an accident."

  "Yes, I see. If it is to be done, that's how it should be done. But there's one hitch. Watanabe has a patron, an old superintendent supervisor named Yasunobo Shibata. He's a tough old bird and well known in Osaka. And he has many admirers in Tokyo. It would be hard to fool Shibata, and for his prot?g? he would dig into the case like a bulldog. There is an unfortunate domino thing - one tile falls and topples another. I've been thinking of having Watanabe reassigned to some office make-work project for six months. That's more than enough time. The girl is just a western whore and means nothing. This Watanabe is another matter. He is not a true Japanese."

  "Yes," Kyoko agreed, "he seems to be doing a little independent thinking."

  "I don't need your sarcasm, Kyoko. " Once more Yoshimoto pushed his cup over for a refill. "But Watanabe was reared partly in the States. His father was a salary-man and his company sent his family abroad with him. Always a mistake. Watanabe remained for college and then got a job with the Boston police department. For three years he worked there as a detective. He has a different outlook, a different approach to things, which makes him unpredictable and dangerous."

  "And if he is dangerous and persists in his snooping, there is another way," Kyoko said. "Shibata could precede the two of them in death. Or, ideally, the three of them could die in the same accident. Say a single prop plane flying them to a meeting somewhere or the other."

  "If it becomes necessary, that is a splendid plan." Yoshimoto raised his sake cup. "To us, Kyoko, and the years we have invested in our careers, years that will soon bear fruit. Japan will soon assume its place as the leader in a very different world - a well-ordered world. Banzai!"

  CHAPTER 12: Panic in Israel

  Mordechai Baker sat on a small couch near the desk in his spacious office. The brilliant Middle East sun streamed in through French doors that opened into a well-kept garden. As he often did to relax, he played the harmonica. As he played, the words of the tune danced through his head: "Hurrah for the Bonny Blue Flag?"

  Baker had been born in a small community in North Carolina, USA, where his father ran a dry goods store. He had lived in a big white frame house within sight of the Pasquotank River. He could sit in a great wooden rocker on the front porch and hear the bell of the drawbridge as it lifted to allow the passage of vessels.

  He had spent his high school days fishing for blues near Cape Hatteras and partying on the beach and playing in the wild surf. During his last summer in college he had worked in a kibbutz in Israel, and the experience, the surge of energy he felt, of a youthful nation struggling for survival, caused him to return immediately upon graduation.

  Now he could be called the most important man in Israel, for the moment anyway. He had pieced together a coalition government and was well into his second year as prime minister.

  A sharp rap on the door caused him to wipe the harmonica mouthpiece on his trousers and stuff the instrument into his shirt pocket. "Come in," he shouted.

  His secretary entered followed by Eli Kotcher, who as head of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency, could be thought of as the most dangerous man in the small country. He had information at his fingertips that could wreck careers and cause financial panic.

  "Mr. Kotcher insisted on seeing you immediately," the secretary announced sharply with a withering glance at the miscreant. She was obviously upset by Kotcher's manner, which at best could be described as brusque.

  Mordechai said "Shalom" and shrugged his shoulders.

  After the secretary stalked out, Kotcher asked, "Is this office clean?"

  "With the help you get nowadays, who knows?" the prime minister responded. He enjoyed being flippant now and then, particularly with Kotcher.

  "This is serious business, Mordechai." The Mossad chief seemed to be highly worked up.

  "No bugs that I know of. We have people constantly checking. You can talk freely."

  "How about the secretary? Can she hear us?

  "You are serious, aren't you? We have an intercom, but it's turned off. The door is soundproof. There's no one in the garden. There's only one other entrance and it's locked from the inside. There are guards, as you know. You can talk, Eli. What's on your mind?"

  Kotcher sat down on the couch close to Baker and spoke in a low voice. "Twenty-five nuclear warheads are missing."

  "And I am the Queen of Syria," Baker replied, trying to mock Kotcher's deadly tone.

  "Look,. Chief, I'm serious. Twenty-five of those babies are gone. And they've been gone for some days. It was dumb luck that we learned of the theft at this time." Kotcher stared at the now speechless prime minister and said for emphasis, "They are gone, stolen! S-T-O-L-E-N."

  Baker rose to his feet and finally said, "I can't believe it. The security. We have a special agency with that sole responsibility. The high-voltage fences. The mines. The dogs. The hardened bunkers. Steel
doors. Concrete. It's not like shoplifting in a dime store, Eli. Gottenyu (Oh God), tell me you're putting me on."

  "I'm sorry, Chief. They are missing. We've looked and counted and re-looked. They were in containers. The containers are empty. As you know, they're moved from place to place occasionally for normal maintenance. At that time, they're removed from their containers, checked out thoroughly and repacked. Of course each warhead is individually numbered."

  Baker sunk into his large leather chair behind his desk. His face was pallid and his mind a maelstrom of confusion at the enormity of what Eli was saying.

  "As it happened, a maintenance technician found he had not attached the proper paperwork to one of the warheads. When they brought that one back in they found that container empty. Of course, then all of them were checked and the thefts discovered."

  "That's a major share of our arsenal," Baker said, still stunned. "Who did it? Who's the thief?" he demanded.

  "I don't know," Kotcher said.

  "Goddammit, Eli, you're suppose to head the best intelligence service in the world. Surely someone can't walk off with twenty-five nuclear warheads and not leave a trace, not a footprint, not a fingerprint!"

  "Well, Mordechai, it must be an inside job. The fact is you're the only one I've told, except for the technicians and guards who were in on the discovery. A leak would be ? there's just no words strong enough. No one must know."

  Baker eyed the security chief suspiciously. "Are you crazy, man? Twenty-five warheads drifting around and we can't tell anyone? What if the Arabs have them?"

  "I don't think any group or organization in any Arab country is capable of pulling off a job like this. I'd stake my reputation on it."

  "Your reputation isn't worth shit right now, Eli. If it wasn't the Arabs, who took them, then who, and why?" Baker was just regaining his powers of reason.

  "Why, I don't know. Blackmail. Ransom. A war. Say it was the Arabs. It would take them a long time to learn how to use them. They would have to fit them onto rockets, work out some sort of delivery system and they would have to know exactly what they're doing. Even with fair technology, there would be no immediate danger. And we would hear of it. I'm certain of that. The Mossad is the best, and we aren't limited by politicians like the CIA, nor will there be snapshots of us abusing prisoners. But I don't think the Arabs could take them. Certainly they would have needed tremendous assistance from highly-placed Israelis and I don't see that sort of treachery."

  "Treachery!" Mordechai shouted. "This is treachery and you're telling me that Israelis are responsible? Is that what you're saying?"

  "Well, yes. Certainly no outsider could have penetrated our security. There's just no other answer."

  "You think this was done by Israelis for Israelis?"

  "That puzzles me, Mordechai. I don't understand the motive. Maybe they're hidden somewhere nearby and there'll be a ransom note. That would be the easy way to get off the hook."

  "I don't believe there will be an easy answer. If it were ransom, stealing one would do, certainly not twenty-five. But we must get busy. You must get busy. And there are people who will have to be told!"

  "Yes, a few. But for God's sake, not the cabinet. There'll be an instant leak. How would it look for high-tech, high-security Israel, a nation that won't admit to having the bomb, to suddenly announce that twenty-five of them have been stolen?"

  "I'm aware of all the implications, Eli. Of course our careers would be over. But that's nothing compared to the threat if these are in the wrong hands. And I don't know what the right hands would be. Say they were stolen by enemies of Israel. No rockets or missiles would be needed. They could be right here in Israel. Detonated. That's enough to blow little Israel off the map ten times over. It's one of those unthinkable, Armageddon-type things. I know what it means now to have your blood run cold. I'm thoroughly chilled out. How can we eat, sleep, do anything while this hangs over our heads? It's like total paralysis."

  "I came to you first, Chief. I'll hand pick a small group of tight-lipped professionals and get the hounds in the field. As you say, we'll go around the clock. And one more thing. We must be ruthless in questioning our own people."

  "I don't quite understand," the prime minister said.

  "We must move under the assumption that it is an inside job. There are only a limited number of people who could do this. We will have to question them and question them in a serious manner. The Third Temple people spring to mind. It will mean giving some rough treatment to some highly respected professionals, probably most of them completely innocent. And we will have to hold some of them incommunicado for an indefinite period."

  Baker shook his head grimly. "Yes, the Third Temple people. But how and why? They've certainly been a thorn in our side. But mostly they've been protesting pulling the settlers out of Palestinian territory. That hilltop, Temple Mount, has been the focus of attention for both sides, but what would the bombs have to do with it?"

  "The group known as Revava might just be a stalking horse," Eli said. "They are the obvious out-front people who want to build the third temple on that site the Arabs call Al Aqsa. So it stirs up a lot of sand. There are many others who want the prophecy fulfilled. There are many others in Israel and abroad who want to see Israel expand into all the Palestinian area and to see it endure forevermore."

  "My mind is beginning to grasp the picture, maybe grasping at straws, but it seems whoever has perpetrated this foul deed must have strong allies abroad, Arab or otherwise. And otherwise would be the path if we are talking about what one might refer to as extreme right-wing Israeli patriots. So if you must use harsh methods, you must. It's odd, but for all the effort to be poured into this quest, we simply seek to return to square one. And there should be a way to question without answering too many questions. We could say there's been a major theft, but not a nuclear warhead. We must find a mosser (stool pigeon) or a moisheh kapoyer (klutz) among the guilty. Mirtsishem (God willing)."

  "I'll do the best I can. I simply wanted to warn you that some innocent toes, highly placed toes, some toes in the religious community, are going to be trod on. You'll get complaints, probably cabinet members asking for my head on a pikestaff."

  "I understand. What about other agencies? Does Shin-Beth know?"

  "I'll have to tell somebody there," Kotcher said, referring to the agency in charge of internal security. "Of course somebody there might be in on this. But so what? Telling them about it would be old news if that's the case."

  "What about our allies? The US in particular? They scream if they think they've been left out of something important."

  "Too much danger of a leak. Down the road we might have to bring others on board. Maybe we'll get a quick break. But remember, many of the Third Temple people are deeply religious and might be called the backbone of Israel. And these people already believe there has been a religious miracle."

  "Miracle?"

  "Of course. That God gave Israel a victory over twenty-two Arab states."

  "Oh, yeah, that. I think Ezer Weizman's preemptive strike against the Arabs might explain that. We caught them with their pants down."

  "But we did win against heavy odds. Then the next phase is the ongoing gathering of the people of Israel around the globe to the Promised Land."

  "I don't really believe in these phases, Eli."

  "You may not, but the devout do. Then comes the liberation and consecration of the Temple Mount and then the building of the third temple."

  "Along with the restoration of animal sacrifices?"

  "That goes hand in glove with the temple, but I don't think there'll be a need for money changers. A few ATM's will do the job. But at that time we'll be ready for the final step, the arrival of the King of Israel, Messiah Ben David."

  "Hooray, Eli. You may be right. You may be wrong. But let's move rapidly and quietly to ferret out these lost souls."

  "Shalom, Mordechai."

  When the Mossad chief was gone, Mordechai walked to his F
rench doors and stared at the peaceful greenery of his garden. Then he proceeded to a credenza and mixed himself a stiff drink.

  CHAPTER 13: Watanabe Takes a Leave

  Detective Taro Watanabe wrestled through a few sleepless nights over what to tell his boss about the meeting near El Centro with Ben Hardy. Even in the chill of Osaka, the night before he would make his report, he found himself sweating. Watanabe and the aging superintendent supervisor had great respect for one another and the young officer didn't want to tarnish the relationship with a lie. He toyed with the idea of telling Yasunobo Shibata that he simply couldn't locate Hardy. In the end he decided on the truth, but not the whole truth. He told him that he and Nana did meet Hardy, that Hardy had told his story, and that was all. He simply pretended that he and Nana had driven off before the band of Actors had biked up to the shanty and slaughtered Hardy for money there on the California desert.

  "It would seem that there is some sort of unusual cover-up going on," Shibata said, after he had heard Watanabe's story. Watanabe thought to himself that he couldn't agree more. He himself was covering up the fact that Nana had killed the fat man. But Shibata was right; something crazy was afoot at a high level. He was about to tell Shibata his plan for the next step, but the older man continued talking.

  "I have an unusual assignment for you, Watanabe. You are to be a liaison man with the American Navy, the shore patrol, down in Kyushu for a few months. I've been assured the assignment will last no more than six months."

  "But why me?" Watanabe asked in amazement.

  "Tokyo asked for you. Actually, it's very flattering. You know you were picked directly by Tokyo for the job you're in now. Not only because of your English, but because of your service with the Boston police department. They've had a lot of troubles between the locals and the U.S. Navy personnel down that way. You'll be talking to both sides, a counselor holding sensitivity sessions, that sort of thing. It makes sense."