He nodded again. "I always knew a great deal more than you suspected, Nick. About you and AXE. You knew me as a friend, and as your karate and judo teacher. I was working for Japanese Intelligience."
"So Tonaka told me."
"Yes. I told her that at last. What she could not tell you, because she does not know — very few people do — is that I was a double agent all those years. I also worked for the British. For MI5."
Nick sipped at his saki. He was not particularly surprised, though it was news to him. He kept his eye on the stubby Swedish K machine gun that Matu had been carrying — it was on the table — and said nothing. Matu had brought him many thousands of miles to talk. When he was ready he would. Nick waited.
Matu was not yet ready to get down to cases. He stared at the saki bottle. Rain played a tinny ragtime on the roof. Someone coughed somewhere in the house. Nick cocked an ear and looked at the big man.
"A servant. A good boy. We can trust him."
Nick refilled his cup with saki and lit a cigarette. Matu refused. "My doctor does not permit it. He is a liar and says that I will live a long time." He tapped his huge belly. "I know better. This cancer is eating me alive. My daughter mentioned this?"
"Something of it." The doctor was a liar. Killmaster knew death when it was written on a man's face.
Kunizo Matu sighed. "I give myself six months. It is not much time to do the things I would like. A pity. But then I suppose it is always like that — one stalls and delays and puts off, and then one day Death is there and the time is all gone. I…"
Gently, very gently, Nick prodded him. "I understand some of it, Kunizo. Some of it I do not. About your people and how you have come back to them, the Burakumin, and that things are not well with you and your daughter. I know you are trying to make amends before you die. You have all my sympathy, Kunizo, and you know that in our profession sympathy is not given easily and is hard to come by. But we have always been honest and blunt with each other — you must come to the point, Kunizo! What do you want of me?"
Matu expelled a long breath. There was about him a peculiar odor and Nick wondered if it was the actual smell of the cancer. He had read that some of them did stink.
"You are right," said Matu. "Just as in the old days — you were usually right. So listen carefully. I told you that I was a double agent, working for both our intelligence and for British MI5. Well, in MI5 I came to know a man by the name of Cecil Aubrey. He was only a junior officer then. Now he is a knight, or soon will be — Sir Cecil Aubrey! Now, even after all these years, I still have many contacts. I have kept them in good repair, you might say. For an old man, Nick, for a dying man, I know pretty well what goes on in the world. In our world. The espionage underground. A few months ago…"
Kunizo Matu spoke steadily for half an hour. Nick Carter listened intently, interrupting only now and then to ask a question. Mostly he drank saki, smoked one cigarette after another and fondled the Swedish K machine gun. It was an exquisite piece of machinery.
Kunizo Matu said: "So you see, old friend, it is a complex matter. I no longer have official connections, so I have organized the Eta women and do the best I can. It is frustrating at times. Especially now, when we are confronted with a double plot. I am sure that Richard Philston has not come to Tokyo merely to organize a sabotage campaign and a blackout. There is more to it than that. Much more. It is my humble opinion that the Russians are going to swindle the Chinese somehow, double-cross them and leave them in the soup."
Nick's grin was hard. "Old Chinese recipe for Duck soup — first catch duck!"
He had come doubly alert at the first mention of Richard Philston's name. To catch Philston, even to kill him, would be the coup of the century. It was hard to believe that the man would leave the safety of Russia just to oversee a sabotage ploy, no matter how massive. Kunizo was right about that. It had to be something else.
He filled his saki cup again. "You're positive that Philston is in Tokyo? Now?"
Fat billowed as the old man shrugged his big shoulders. "As positive as one can ever be in this business. Yes. He is here. I had him and then I lost him. He knows all the tricks. It is my belief that even Johnny Chow, who is the leader of the local Chicoms, does not at the moment know where Philston is. And they are supposed to be working closely together."
"That means Philston has his own people, then. His own organization apart from the Chicoms?"
Again the shrug. "I suppose so. A small group. It would have to be small to avoid attention. Philston will operate on his own. He will have no connection with the Russian Embassy here. If he is caught doing — whatever it is that he intends doing — they will disavow him."
Nick thought a moment. "Their place still at 1 Azabu Mamiana?"
"The same. But it is no good watching their Embassy. For days now my girls have kept a 24-hour watch. Nothing."
The front door began to slide open. Slowly. An inch at a time. The grooves were well tallowed and the door made no sound.
"So there you are," said Kunizo Matu. "I can handle the sabotage plot. I can get evidence and, at the last moment, hand it over to the police. They will listen to me because, although I am no longer active, I can still bring certain pressures to bear. But I can do nothing about Richard Philston and he is the real danger. That game is too big for me. It is why I sent for you, why I sent the medallion, why I ask now what I thought I never would ask. That you pay a debt."
He leaned suddenly over the little table toward Nick. "A debt / never claimed, mind you! It is you, Nick, who has always insisted that you owe me for your life."
"That is true. I do not like debts. I will pay it if I can. You want me to find Richard Philston and kill him?"
Matu's eyes burned at him. "I do not care what you do with him. Kill him. Turn him over to our police, take him back to the States. Give him to the British. It is all one to me."
The front door was open now. A spate of rain drifted in to wet the matting in the hall. The man moved slowly toward the inner room. The pistol glinted dully in his hand.
"MI5 knows that Philston is in Tokyo," said Matu. "I saw to that. I spoke of Cecil Aubrey a moment ago. He knows. He will know what to do."
Nick was not particularly pleased. "That means I might be falling all over British agents. CIA, too, if he asks our help officially. Things could get cluttered. I like to work alone as much as possible."
The man was halfway down the hall now. Carefully, without the betraying snick, he eased the safety off the pistol.
Nick Carter stood up and stretched. He was suddenly bone weary. "All right, Kunizo. We'll leave it at that. I'll try to find Philston. When I leave here I'll be on my own. Just to keep it from getting too fouled up I'm going to forget about this Johnny Chow and the Chinese and the sabotage plot. You handle that angle. I'll concentrate on Philston. When I get him, if I get him, then I'll decide what to do with him. Okay?"
Matu had also risen. He nodded and his chins trembled. "As you say, Nick. Okay. It is best, I think, to concentrate and narrow it down. But now I must show you something. Tonaka let you see the body at the — the place you were first taken?"
The man in the hall, standing in the dark, could see the dim silhouettes of the two men in the inner room. They had just risen from the table. One was stretching.
Nick said: "She did. Gentleman name of Sadanaga. Due to go into the harbor any time now."
Matu went to a small lacquered cabinet in a corner. He stooped with a grunt, his big belly swaying. "Your memory is as good as ever, Nick. But his name is not important. Not even his death. He is, not the first and he will not be the last. But I am glad you saw bis body. It, and this, will serve to explain just how rough a game is played by Johnny Chow and his Chicoms."