He waited. The only sound was the ticking of a clock somewhere in the chamber.
He began to perspire. He figured that the humidity in the room must be close to a hundred percent, and the temperature had to be over eighty.
He attuned himself to the space, listening to every movement: dew dripping off the plants; the tiny feet of an insect scratching across the floor; the faint electric hum of the grow lights; the metronomic melody of the ticking clock.
And there was something else. Slow, shallow breathing. Someone else was in the room with him.
O’Hara began to peruse the darkness through squinted eyes. The sound was coming from a particularly dark corner near the plant house.
A match scratched, a burst of amber light followed by flickering flame. In its wavering light he saw Hooker’s historic profile, the hawk-like nose, the granite jaw, the long, classic neck.
‘That was very good, sir. Excellent! You were on to me in less than a minute. Incredible concentration.’
He plucked the string on the lamp; an obese Buddha, his red-enamelled belly glistening in the light, sat cross-legged at its base, staring through inscrutable, painted eyes out into the room.
‘I must apologize for that bit of melodrama. My eyes are very sensitive to light.’
The old man Sat behind an enormous campaign desk, bare except for the Buddha lamp with its ancient fringed shade and pull string, an antique wooden letter box and an appointment book. There were eight high-backed chairs in a row in front of the desk.
‘I also apologize for the humidity. I’ll be eighty on my next birthday. My blood’s gotten a bit thin. If it’s less than eighty-two degrees, I get chills. How about a drink? It’ll help.’
‘Tea would be fine.’
‘Hot or cold?’
‘Cold, please.’
He pressed a button somewhere under the desk and Travors appeared at the door.
‘Iced tea for Mr O’Hara, Sergeant_ I’ll have a glass of soda, please.’
‘Yes, sir.’ And he was gone.
‘Some things never change,’ Hooker said. ‘I was in the military for so long, I still think of my assistants in terms of rank rather than title.’
‘There does seem to be a lot of security people on the premises.’
‘One can never be too careful,’ lie said somewhat cryptically.
‘Actually this is quite a fortress,’ he went on. ‘Took ‘em five years to build it, 1607 to 1612. It was meant to discourage foreigners from entering Japan after the shogunate shut the country down. I’m sure you noticed the view on your way up. It commands the entire bay and the island of Kyushu.’
‘It’s quite impressive.’
‘Five years of hard work, and the old boy never came to see it when it was finished.’ He shook his head. ‘All that labour. Fact is, Dragon’s Nest has never been attacked.’
‘How come you decided to use it?’
‘Sentiment, I suppose. It was my summer HQ when I was military governor after the war. Before that, some special branch of the Japanese secret service was billeted here.’
A Japanese woman scurried into the room with their drinks, bowed and left. She was young, in her early twenties, and quite pretty, and she never took her eyes off the floor.
‘Well, Mr O’Hara, here’s to your health and good luck on your story. How can I help?’
Age had etched the rigid lines in Hooker’s face into deep crevices. His high cheekbones stood out like the pinnacles of a cliff. His skin was almost transparent from age and his eyes glowered from under heavy white brows. He stared keenly at O’Hara through tinted sunglasses as he tapped tobacco into the chalky bowl of his clay pipe.
‘I’m doing some background for a story on the oil industry,’ O’Hara said. ‘Your consortium interests me because it’s new.’
‘A youngster, so t’ speak. Actually, there’s a lot of experience in this group.’ Hooker abruptly changed the subject. ‘You’ve come a long way to do your research.’
‘I was in Japan on other business.’
‘I see. Do you like the country?’
‘I grew up here.’
‘Oh? What part?’
‘Tokyo, then Kyoto.’
‘Ah, I assume then that we have a love of the country in common.’
This is a lot of bull, O’Hara thought.. By now the old bird knows chapter and verse on me. Why is he playing games?
0’ Hara nodded. ‘Kyoto is my favorite spot in the world.’
‘A bit tranquil for an old soldier like myself,’ Hooker said, leaning back in his chair and gazing at O’Hara over the smoldering bowl.
‘You’re also the only American petroleum operation based in Japan,’ O’Hara said, ‘and that interests me.’
‘Well, there’s nothing mysterious about it. There are a lot of reasons why we located in this particular spot.’
O’Hara smiled. ‘That’s one of the reasons I’m here, to find out some of them.’
‘Good. Fire away.’
O’Hara took out a pad and felt-tip pen. He could still hear a clock ticking somewhere but there was no sign of it. The sound seemed to be coming from the general. A watch perhaps.
‘You seem concerned about something, sir,’ Hooker said.
‘It’s nothing. I keep hearing a clock ticking somewhere.’
‘Ah. The clock is in here, Mr O’Hara,’ he said, tapping his chest. ‘A noisy but efficient pacemaker. My doctors don’t want to go tampering with it now.’ He laughed. ‘If it stops ticking, please call my doctor.’
O’Hara began with obvious questions about Hooker and his association with AMRAN.
‘I was president of Intercon Oil. We first proposed the consortium.’
‘When did you get involved in the oil business, sir?’
‘Oh, fifteen, twenty years ago. When I was a candidate for President. Some of my staunchest supporters were Texans. When I dropped out of the race, I was asked to take over Intercon. The company was in trouble. Lack of strong top management. In two years we had it purring like a freshly tuned jeep.’
‘Why did you propose a consortii.zm?’
‘It gave the companies involved new financial strength. Like any industry, it takes money to make money.’
‘Do the members of the consortium share information?’
Hooker nodded. ‘The technology of all the companies is mutually shared, but they operate individually. Their profits are their own. AMRAN is not a profit centre, it is more of a service organization.’
‘Are you still connected .with Intercon?’
‘Only in an advisory capacity. Most of our time here is spent on AMRAN operations.’
‘When was the consortium actually formed?’
‘We finally got chartered about a year ago. It took quite some time to put this together. You can imagine the problems, trying to bring several major companies under the same umbrella. It took a helluva lot of negotiating to satisfy the needs and demands of each of the corporate structures. I repeat, Mr O’Hara, each of these companies retains its autonomy.’
‘Yes. How long did the negotiating take?’
‘We started talking about it back in ... oh, seventy-five, thereabouts.’
‘Which companies eventually joined’?’
‘My own, Intercon. Then there was Sunset Oil, Hensell, American Petroleum ...‘ A swift recollection, a brief flash from the past, pierced his concentration, uninvited and unexpected, and erased what he was about to say from his mind. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, perturbed, ‘what ... uh, was I saying?’
‘You were giving me a list of AMRAN members.’
‘Of course! Let’s see, where was I. -
He went on, but the memory persisted, forcing him to deal with it. It was in Sydney, he thought. The first box came right after we got set up in Sydney. He shock the thought off.
‘Intercon, American Petroleum, Hensell, Sunset O’Hara reprised the list for him.
‘Of course ... let’s see, there’s Bridges Salvage Corporation, The Stone Corporation. Then we have an arrangement with a small Italian motor company.’
‘Why a shipyard?’