Katsuda's truly repulsive appearance severely limited his public appearances.
He lived in the seclusion of his own world, in the darkness and shadows of his own creations. This behavior limited neither his work nor his ambition, but regularly he felt a need for release. Apart from his women and the ambivalence he felt toward them because of his burn-distorted features, his relaxation and his window to the outside world were the movies.
He watched them to the point of obsession. The movies were not inwardly disgusted by how he looked. They were pleasure, pure and simple.
Film fulfilled his need for escape, stimulated his imagination, and appealed to his sense of the dramatic. Privately, Katsuda considered that if events had not taken the direction they had, he would have made an outstanding actor. He had a fine voice and projected it well, and his movements were well-coordinated. All that was missing were looks.
From the movies, Katsuda had followed the extraordinary developments of special effects and, of even more interest, specialized makeup. Sometimes, the results on the screen were so good that it seemed to him he could apply them to his own situation and appear, albeit for a limited time, normal.
He had cultivated one of the leading makeup artists in Japan and had even sent him to Hollywood to advance his craft to state of the art. The results were encouraging, brilliant even, if he was seen from a short distance away, but in close-up the artificiality was always detectable. It was a bitter disappointment, but he persevered. One day, he thought, they would get it right, and it was undeniable that makeup skills were steadily improving.
For the meeting with Fumio Namaka, such an artifice was arguably not necessary, but it appealed to his sense of theater.
It would be an entirely appropriate way to lead into the final act of his destruction of the Namaka clan; and the actual execution method he planned to employ deserved such a buildup. Decades ago, Hodama and the Namaka brothers had eliminated Katsuda's family in a locked, burning house. Now the last of the Namakas would also die in flames.
Katsuda was very aware that Fumio might have a few tricks up his sleeve, so had devoted a great deal of time to taking precautions. He had studied the plan of Hodama's residence for several days and finally had come up with something that he was sure beyond any doubt at all would guarantee surprise. And, of course, his own preparations were in addition to the fire support he would be getting from Schwanberg in the airship.
Nothing was certain, but as his limousine approached the gates of Hodama's house, Katsuda was as sure as any reasonable man could be when making a major movie that his preparations would ensure success.
* * * * *
"See anything?" said Fitzduane.
"Negative," said Chifune, what was all business when operational.
"A lot of pebbles," said Lonsdale, who felt the mood could do with some lightening.
Both Chifune and Lonsdale were professional and would report instantly anything untoward, but Fitzduane was getting increasingly concerned and a little strain was showing. He could still see nothing but Fumio standing beside the open-sided summer house where they were to have the meeting and Katsuda being checked in and searched at the gate. Surely, he should have detected something else by now. He could not see the pair of them meeting and just sticking out their tongues at each other.
He had two snipers, Lonsdale and Chifune, eyeballing the confrontation, but their vision was severely restricted because their eyes were glued to their telescopic sights. That had been the original plan and had made sense with Fitzduane and Mike Bergin and the pilot monitoring the bigger picture, but it was somewhat problematical now they were short two pairs of eyes.
It was time to make a change in the arrangements.
Lonsdale was targeted, but Chifune was not yet allocated, and right now it was not much good having an extra sniper if she had nothing to shoot at. Also, in training he had noticed that Chifune was about as fast as anyone at acquiring a target, so if she had to return to her scope in a hurry, it should not cause any serious grief. Chifune was not as good with the Barrett as Al, but she was one hell of a combat shot p to about a kilometer.
For both of them, five hundred yards, with precision equipment, made for virtually guaranteed single-shot kills. The best of special-operations people were somewhat frightening.
"Chifune," said Fitzduane. "Try binoculars. We need a second kibitzer. I think I'm missing something here."
"Affirmative," said Chifune, and put down her rifle. Her binoculars gave her a much wider field to examine, and the brilliantly lit triangle seen from above was easy to search.
She followed the driveway in and searched the open garden area to the right. There was a bench, some stone pots containing dwarf plants, and a couple of stone lanterns strategically placed on a bed of pebbles. It was very simple and beautiful, and the thought came to her that whatever villainy Hodama had been up to, he had good taste. The entire garden was an exercise in simplicity. Which meant there were very few places to hide in, and the house had already been searched by representatives of both sides and sealed. No, Fitzduane was right to worry. Something they had not anticipated was going to happen.
She swung her binoculars to the left of the driveway and began searching the much larger area of garden there. Her glasses rested on an ornate well with a small pagoda top, but she was looking diagonally and could not see down it.
"The well," she said. "It's a possibility. It's big enough."
"Maybe," said Fitzduane, "but it doesn't lead anywhere and it was searched and sealed when they did the house."
"They're going to zap each other with telepathy," said Lonsdale.
"Shut the fuck up, Al," said Fitzduane politely. "Please," he added.
Chifune scanned to the open-sided summer house. Still nothing, except Fumio Namaka standing there and Katsuda, still about thirty yards away, walking toward him on the irregular stone path that circumscribed the house. By agreement, their respective drivers had both stayed with the limousines.
She was running out of time. She searched the bank of ornamental plants. No room to hide even a midget here. She swept on past another ishi-doro to a decorative pond which was positioned to the side of the house fairly close to the surrounding wall. A stone bridge led to a miniature island which actually touched the perimeter wall.
"A way-out thought," she said. "Could they have tunneled under the wall?"
"Supposedly not," said Fitzduane. "There are sensors against that possibility and the police have the outside walls under observation."
Chifune did a quick sweep along the back of the house past an inscribed Garden Tablet and then moved on to a boulder garden. Still no sign of anything except what was supposed to be there.
Something niggled at her.
The circling airship had now moved on so that she could see not only Hodama's residence, but also the adjoining house and gardens. This was an area of luxury residences. The neighboring house also had a pond and it was on the other side of the wall from Hodama's Neither actually touched the wall, but the congruence looked more than coincidence.
Suppose they shared the same water? A culvert between them or maybe just a grating. Sensors in the water with goldfish and turtles paddling about the irises? Unlikely!
"The pond," she said urgently, her binoculars now focused on the black surface of the water. "Hugo, LOOK AT THE POND!"
Fitzduane had been concentrating on Fumio Namaka and the approaching figure of Katsuda, but at Chifune's shout he looked quickly at the black water. Something was decidedly odd about it.