The soba man turned into the alley, straining against his cart, the picture of sore feet. For a moment Wilkinson thought that he had come into the alley to rest; but no, the man headed for the rear door of the club. Sometimes the hostesses, tired of the steak sandwiches and other occidental fare served in these places, succumbed to a yen for a bowl of soba; vendors often visited the tradesmen’s entrances to serve them. Wilkinson felt the juices begin to flow in his mouth; the noodles smelled delicious. Why not? he argued with himself. A foreigner waiting in an alley for an assignation with a nightclub hostess could get hungry for soba like anyone else. But he pushed the thought away. Krylov might show at any moment.
The soba man raised his little flute to his lips and blew his announcement. Having advertised, he waited at the door. He was a stocky Japanese of indeterminate age in shabby clothing, wearing a towel twisted about his head, the badge of the working class. If he had seen Wilkinson standing in the shadows some fifteen feet away he gave no sign; Wilkinson rather thought not. The man was shifting from foot to foot; he must have calves of iron, from all the walking and pushing he had to do, but even iron gets tired. And Wilkinson knew how to blend with a shadow.
The American agent hoped that Krylov would not choose this time to appear in the alley. It would be better if they talked with no one else there. Their conversation ought not to take more than a few minutes. Tonight Krylov was to pass along his decision. If he said he wanted to come over, for which Wilkinson considered the odds good, it would then be a mere matter of developing a workable plan, something quick and simple. Like the theme of a Bach invention. Pure logic.
Wilkinson smiled at his conceit. He was a classical music buff, and Bach was a passion of his.
Wilkinson had no doubt of his ability to bring Krylov safely out once the Russian gave the nod. It would be pick-and-spade work: get him quickly into a plain car and hustle him off to the American embassy; then, before his people could find out what had happened, stow him in a plane from one of the U.S. military bases in Japan and away he’d go, to the States and sanctuary. Routine stuff. What excited Wilkinson’s imagination was not the modus operandi of Krylov’s defection. It was the shot in the arm the coup would give his own career.
For Krylov would be quite a catch for the U.S. He was far more than the cultural attaché at the Soviet Union’s Tokyo embassy that was his cover. He was a lieutenant colonel in the KGB, having worked in Soviet intelligence in a dozen important posts from Rangoon to London. What was more, he was something of a white-haired boy; he clicked vodka glasses with the most prestigious comrades in Moscow. So Krylov would have a lot to tell FACE. In fact, his defection would be second in importance only to that of General Levashev, the biggest Soviet fish they had ever netted, who had defected in Vienna a year ago. The organization would have to be grateful — even Holloway, that damned think-tank. They would offer Wilkinson a fat desk job in Washington, as they had once before, when they were trying to kick him upstairs. And, as before, he would turn it down, but this time with bargaining power. He would insist on nothing less than being kept in the field as a Class I agent in spite of his age, and he would make a pitch for one of the juicy posts. Berlin. He had always liked Berlin. (There had been a lonely blonde in her mid-thirties — the best age — who worked in an airline office on the Kurfürstendamn and with whom Wilkinson had come dangerously close to falling in love; she was no doubt married and fat by now, but Berlin offered thousands like her.) It had a surplus of lonely women, and they had bedroom eyes for Americans. Yes, Berlin. Definitely. He’d hold out for Berlin.
The noodle vendor put away his flute and with some difficulty balanced his tall cart on its two wheels again, apparently giving up. The bottom half of the cart was a sort of chest; it was here that he kept his ingredients. There should have been a charcoal fire in the well of this chest to keep the noodle pots warm. There was no fire in this one. That was a detail Wilkinson had not noticed before. He must be about ready to call it a night. On top of the chest four posts supported the overhead canopy from which hung the paper lantern. It was a picturesque piece, this noodle cart, and Wilkinson had often played with the notion of buying one and converting it into a garden bar for his home. If he ever achieved a home.
The vendor was having trouble starting his cart. When it did start it got out of hand. It swerved and began to roll toward the shadows where Wilkinson was waiting. The Japanese was trying manfully to stop it, but from his struggle he was too tired. The cart was bound to crash into the wall and reveal the lurking man. Wilkinson made a decision.
He smiled and stepped forward, as if to lend a hand.
As Wilkinson came out of the shadows, the Japanese saw him, grinned, bowed, and gestured toward the cart.
“Glad to help,” Wilkinson said. The guy probably didn’t understand English, but the tone ought to disarm him.
Wilkinson set himself to stop the cart.
It was done quickly and well. There were three piston jabs of a blade that looked like an overgrown icepick and Wilkinson felt the numbing of his kidneys even before the terrible pain. He made very little noise as he fell, only a grunt and a moan, the grunt at his dying and the moan at the failure of his reflexes.
The noodle man eased Wilkinson down. After that, with no sign of fatigue, he shoved the body through the side doors into the chest of his cart.
He wheeled the cart out of the alley and once more brought the charumera to his lips and sent its tinkle sadly into the Tokyo night. He had no noodles to sell that anyone with developed, taste buds would buy, but that was not why he was tinkling away. Perhaps he was a humorist, tootling a derisive mass for a spy slowed down by age and the Japanese equivalent of Weltschmerz.
Chapter 2
“A 1959 Pommard Rugiens,” Megan Jones said, holding up the bottle of red burgundy. “Pierre Poupon, you know. Let’s hope it traveled well.”
“I don’t know,” Peter Brook said. “I don’t know a damned thing about French wines. You sound like a knowledgeable broad.”
“I have my good points,” Megan said. “Do you want some of this perfect burgundy or don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t call them points exactly,” Brook said critically. “No, I don’t. I prefer a Scotch and soda.”
“Square,” said Megan. “Who drinks soda any more? You’ll at least sample this? I bought it in your honor.”
“Oh, hell,” said Brook. “All right.” He took the bottle from her, and the sommelier’s corkscrew, spun the handle deftly enough, and twisted the screw in the cork. Two elegant candles burned on the small dining table. She had put some Schubert on the stero. It was satisfactory to Peter, since it was just what he would have set up for Megan in his own apartment; but there was a gleam in her eye that dampened his libido.