The soaring atrium was a truly magnificent waste of Tokyo real estate. Such impracticality cheered up Fitzduane immensely, and he was already in a good mood. His favorite waiter had brought cold milk for his tea that morning, and no one had taken a shot at him or tried to cut him into pieces when he had gone for a prebreakfast run with his convoy. Also, it had not been raining, which was a decided improvement.
It was soon clear that the loss the developers of the New Otani had taken with the atrium was being compensated for elsewhere. The offices of the Japan-World Research Federation were exquisitely finished, but tiny. It was the smallest suite of offices Fitzduane had ever seen, and everything — desks, cupboards, tables, chairs — seemed to be shrunk in proportion. Schwanberg was small, too, a not-quite-a-yuppie-anymore in his early fifties with thinning hair and a smooth, manufactured face. He wore a tie with a stickpin, and as he moved there was a flash of red suspenders. His jacket buttons were covered with the same material as his suit.
For a brief moment Fitzduane remembered that horrendous scene from decades earlier as, without explanation or warning, Schwanberg suddenly inserted the blade of his knife into that young Vietnamese girl's mouth. He could never forget the gush of red blood and the terrible animal noise she had made. It had been reported, but then the Tet Offensive had intervened, and when the fighting died down again the file had been lost and the affair glossed over.
Fitzduane despised the man. In his opinion, Schwanberg was vicious and cunning but absolutely without core values. He was also an extraordinarily colorless individual. Fitzduane had the feeling Schwanberg knew clamps were needed to climb the slippery bureaucratic pole, but otherwise he had been chose to match the furniture. Still, Kilmara had made the current introduction, and the game was not played by being overly concerned about personalities.
"Colonel Fitzduane," said Schwanberg, smiling broadly and taking Fitzduane's hand in both of his. "This is a genuine pleasure and a privilege. It's good to see an old war buddy. We've both come a long way since then."
Fitzduane extracted his hand, kept his face in neutral, and barely restrained himself from doing something painful and destructive to the little toad. The man's eyes were curiously dead, as if feelings and emotions were alien.
Schwanberg snapped his fingers. Fitzduane's umbrella was removed by a bowing office lady and he was shown into a miniature conference room.
Tea was brought in by another OL. Frankly, he could not see where they put all these people. The place was seriously small. They must rack up the staff in the filing cabinets. There did not seem enough space for a couple of real humans.
Schwanberg pressed some buttons on a console recessed into the conference table and the door slid shut and there was the sound of humming.
"We're now totally secure," said Schwanberg. "A bubble. A lot of dollars went into this place. Totally soundproof, totally bugproof. Nada gets out, Hugo, so we can speak quite freely."
Fitzduane smiled disarmingly. "Speak away, Schwanberg," he said, and sat back in his miniature chair expectantly. Schwanberg looked at him, as if expecting him to say something. Fitzduane just nodded reassuringly, but said nothing.
"You know, Colonel," said Schwanberg, "you've got one hell of an impressive track record. Most in the counterterrorism business just shuffle paper, send each other classified E-mail, and maneuver to get the most out of the public trough, but you and I and General Kilmara get right in there and get our hands bloody."
He grinned. "Forgive me. I've been a desk jockey too long. The fact is that, compared to most in this business, you two are right at the top in terms of hands-on experience. You guys are not the product of endless expensive training and computer war games. You people have actually done it. You've tracked down the bad guys and wasted them. You know what to do and how to do it and how to get others to do it. In fact, apart from maybe the Israelis, there are few people more experienced at the game."
Fitzduane drank his tea. He had absolutely no idea where Schwanberg was heading, except that he was being flattered for some, doubtless unpleasant, purpose.
"Schwanberg," he said, "what you say is probably true about General Kilmara, but if your records are accurate, they will show that apart from a stint in the Irish Army, I have spent most of my life, including my stint in Vietnam, as a war photographer. I became involved in counterterrorism by accident, by being on the receiving end, and I am here as a consequence of that accident. I am not the expert you imagine. My rank is a reserve title, nothing more."
"Colonel," said Schwanberg, the thumb and forefinger of his right hand repeated pinching the flesh on the back of his left in an irritating mannerism, "you're entitled to your story, but how you tracked down our friend the Hangman is a classic right up there with the Entebbe raid. You may have gotten into this business by accident, but you sure operate as a professional and you come highly recommended. And that's why we're talking. You're one of us. You're a member of the club, and, frankly, it's hard to get into, but it's even harder to leave."
It crossed Fitzduane's mind that even if he had not realized it, he had crossed the line between amateur and professional. What the unpleasant Schwanberg was saying was true. Circumstances had forced him into the bloody world of counterterrorism, and the reality was that he seemed to have a talent for it. But it was not a concept he enjoyed.
Violence might be necessary on occasion, but it was corrosive to the spirit. He thought of Boots. He wanted desperately to shelter his small son from that world. But the paradox was that, to shield him, he was prepared to do what had to be done. It was the endless spiral of destruction that seemed integral to the human condition.
"The club?" he said.
"The small group of us," said Schwanberg, "who do what is necessary so that Mr. and Mrs. Average Citizen have nothing more serious to worry about than the IRS. The protectors of Western values, if you want to be pompous about it."
"That is being pompous about it," said Fitzduane. "I am really not overly keen on flag-waving. And to focus this discussion a little more, where does Japan fit into your Western values?"
Schwanberg flashed his organization man's professional grin. "That's the question that preoccupies us local boys," he said, "and right now it is a little delicate. Bergin will have told you some of it, but he's an old man now and out of the game, so he doesn't know much. I'll tell you what you need to know. It's a minefield out there, and we don't want a good friend and fellow club member treading on any of the mines. They are there for a purpose. We have specific targets in mind."
"Hodama and the Namakas," said Fitzduane. "Onetime allies who strayed a little and got too greedy and now have exceeded their shelf life. Time for a little stock rotation. It's something the CIA is pretty good at. Look at what is happening in Italy these days, to name just one other country."
Schwanberg was no longer smiling. He was looking at Fitzduane intently, s if weighing the issues, and as if one of those issues was the Irishman's continued existence. "You sound judgmental, Colonel," he said. "I would be disappointed to find that you are that naïve. Japan has notions of going its own way, but that is just tatemae. The honne is that Japan has always had a kuromaku, and since the end of World War Two that has been Uncle Sam's job. People like Hodama were the tools of power but not truly powerful in themselves — and circumstances change and tools wear out. That's the way life really is. People are organic. They degrade."