She returned quickly to tow me into one of the more private dining compartments. The compartment had a leg well around the table, a concession to Westerners, which she knew I preferred because of a bad knee. She slid the wood-and-paper door shut. Moments later a waiter appeared with ocha, green tea, and the, ingredients for shabu-shabu, a sort of do-it-yourself beef stew. Another favorite; she wasn’t overlooking a thing.
The meal went by uneventfully as I described some of the less sensitive portions of my trip. We alternated tending the small burner on the table. I finally sat back, sated and mellowed by the onslaught of earthly delights. The uneven graph of my stubborn existence, which had too often plunged me into gritty, bloody, hang-by-your-fingernails valleys, demanded I savor these fleeting soft-rich moments. Sometimes they could be eternities apart.
“Quillon, did you enjoy your trip to Korea?” Keiko said gently, breaking a reverie.
I nodded, swirling the tea in the bottom of my teacup. The Japanese found meaning even in teacups. A good teacup in Japan must be faintly cracked. A minor defect gives character and warmth. Weren’t the best frogmen always slightly flawed?
“More than on those other trips you take?”
“No, about the same.”
“Why didn’t you take me with you?”
No doubt about it. Fattened for the slaughter. Beware, frogman, of sirens bearing gifts.
“Because it was just a short business trip and I didn’t think you were interested in going.”
She thought for a second. “Honto? Next time you take me. Okay?”
Whittled to helplessness in seconds. Keiko looked up at me with a slight tilt to her head. Those big, dark, liquid eyes could have asked for virtually anything. It is the eternal male conceit that we are the masters of our own destinies.
Of course, I knew what lay behind all this. Keiko had—justifiably—little cause to concern herself that I might let my eye wander during my trips to the Middle East, Europe, or Africa. But between Japan and Korea there is an ancient rivalry. No right-thinking Japanese woman would allow her man to go to Korea unguarded against the well-known evils of Korean women. Korean women were without shame.
“All right,” I said, knowing when it was tactically necessary to give ground, “but bear in mind that I’m going to be pretty busy this next time. I may not be much fun to be with.”
She smiled and put her arms around me, her palms drawing me toward her. I could feel the warmth of her body through the sheath dress, her firm breasts burrowing below my rib cage.
“If the restaurant can run itself, perhaps we should continue this discussion topside.”
She looked at me slyly and slid the door to one side. “Yes, I think so. It is a small restaurant, not worthy of too much attention. As for you, you are not worthy of too much attention, either, but I make sure you have very little energy except for business when you go back to Korea.”
As we turned the corner and passed through the bar, I saw something that put an abrupt chill on the evening.
Keiko was quick to sense it. “Koibito, is something wrong? Did…?”
“No, Kei-chan, nothing’s wrong. You run ahead. I’ll be with you in a second.”
There in the bar, in his full-bodied perverse glory was Thomas Alderson Ackert III. All. of him. He revolved ninety degrees on his stool and beamed that tidewater blue-blood smile that said, “Screw you, sucker, me and my career are going to make it to the top standing on the heads of patsies like you.”
He raised his glass and waved me over in grand style.
“Hey, Fraze-buddy, how you doin’? Join me for a drink?”
“Some other time, Ackert.”
“Now, now, Fraze. Ol’ Ackert came here special to see you. Nice place your Nip honey’s got herself. Right nice.” He gave the room a generous sweep with his arm.
“Look, Ackert, you’re a long way from Yokosuka or wherever you’re based, so shove off. They’re kind of fussy about the caliber of people they serve here.”
We were two kinds of naval officer, and they didn’t mix well.
“Well, then, you better just come on over here and listen careful.” The smile was gone. No use wearing it out.
“I’m out here doin’ a nice tour with the Defense Intelligence Agency. You remember them, they feed intelligence to the Company, analyst stuff. Well, the Company asked that I get in touch with you—seeing that we’re old war buddies and all. Seems they’re a tad upset about some cold-weather advertising you’ve been doin’. Get the picture?”
The picture unfolded like a recurring bad dream. A bad dream whose uncontrollable momentum brought unescapable horror.
My stomach felt as if it were falling from some great height. If he knew this early, who else might know? And how much?
“Don’t know what you and they are talking about. Better check to see they’re not overpaying their source.”
“You don’t?” Ackert said nonchalantly. “Well, if it’s a third-world operation, who cares? But if it’s a Warsaw Pact country, we say cool it.” He tugged a shirt cuff into proper alignment—appearances meant everything to Ackert.
“I can play hard or I can play easy. Now I always did say you were a smart boy, just prone to get hung up on things that’ll get you nowhere fast. But maybe you already know that. Hangups and all, your problem is you just don’t get with the program.”
The smile had returned.
“I can maybe fix it so you can’t go swimming or skiing for a couple months. Or better yet we…”
We again. How much did we know? Who else knew?
“…could get the government of Japan to throw you out of the country permanently. Now, that sure would be a shame. Keep you away from the slinky buddha-head dolly of yours. Course, I’d look after her for you, nice spirited piece of stuff like that. She might not take to me at first, but she’d come around. Hell, they always do. Just got to know how to show ’em who’s boss. Maybe dust some of that spirit off ’em.” He winked broadly.
My ears warmed and great ripples of anger distorted my vision. Sometimes reaching out and smashing something low and ugly is the best thing to do. Slam it, smash it, grind it under your foot. The trouble was, the habit of command had cursed me with a subdued, rational approach to confrontation. Restraint, I hoped, would protect the mission.
It didn’t. That was my second mistake.
My first had occurred many years ago in Vietnam…
CHAPTER 7
The procession of eight sampans snaked silently through the choked and twisted mangrove swamp, tracing the barely discernible bed of the core river. The air tasted of steam and smelled of wet, rotting vegetation. We were on a fool’s sojourn into a damp green labyrinth.
Each crew could just make out the sampan ahead of it, for little of the quarter moon penetrated the gloom of the triple-canopy foliage. Swathed in mosquito netting like unworldly beekeepers, it was hard to resist the tooth-gritting urge to swat the insects that choked the air around us.
I gave the signal for the lead sampan to put more distance between it and the main body. Smooth, orderly movement to the objective was imperative if we were to succeed.
Soon we would have to eliminate the series of sentries on the next quarter mile of riverbank between here and where the two American POWs were held.
The lead sampan surged ahead, nearly capsizing. Two of the boat’s Vietnamese scouts paddled steadying strokes, the third lay low in the waist section.
“Lai day.”
The lead boat was being challenged from somewhere up ahead. The procession, now bristling with flat-black steel, halted, and only the lead boat continued.