“Hai.”
Joseph Lee was having trouble maintaining his composure in the wake of the launch delay and his security chief’s inability to find and deal with McGarvey. He sat in front of a low table, his back erect, an austere expression on his narrow features, as two girls served him his lunch.
Kunimatsu was busy at launch control and with the international news media at the media center five thousand meters from the pad, so he wasn’t available to explain the trouble with the rocket’s computer system. Nor was Miriam here to lend him her good counsel. He didn’t dare telephone her at their Washington home, because he knew the lines were bugged. He was alone with his thoughts, a rare occurrence that he did not enjoy.
Time was against them now. The extra thirty hours gave McGarvey a chance to somehow make it here, and the time gave the media that much more of an opportunity to find out about the death of Major Ripley, even though the rest of the American Tiger team had been isolated from the news people and were being denied access to outside telephone lines or cell phones.
Hirota telephoned from Nagano, and Lee dismissed the two young women.
“It was my people in the car,” the security chief said. “He shot one of them to death and somehow broke the other’s jaw and neck.”
Lee held himself in check. “Were there no witnesses?”
“Not after they arrested him at the train station in Ichinobe,” Hirota said. “Every shinkansen station and every airport in Japan is being watched, but so far he hasn’t shown up.”
“You should have sent more men. You underestimated him.”
“There was a need to keep this contained,” Hirota said, respectfully. “But flying across the Pacific and driving all night, he has to be tired. And without transportation he must be hiding somewhere here in Nagano.”
“No,” Lee said emphatically. “I disagree.”
“Hai,” Hirota replied immediately. Lee appreciated the security chief’s instant compliance; it was so much unlike Kondo.
“He is long gone from Nagano, and well on his way here by now. Come back and we will plan for his arrival.”
“But how will he get to the island?”
“He’s going to steal a boat,” Lee said. He looked out the window that faced the launchpad, the rocket standing tall in the azure sky, and he felt powerful, all-seeing, as if he could foretell the future. “You must admire this man, Hirota-san,” he said dreamily. “Before he dies I wish to talk with him. You will see to that.”
“Hai,” Hirota said, but this time his answer wasn’t so quick in coming.
It was dark by the time the congested four-lane highway crossed the narrow strait from Shimonoseki and McGarvey arrived on the south island of Kyushu. This was Japan’s most ancient region, and the feeling of the lush but volcanic countryside changed immediately from the hustle-bustle frenetic pace of the north, to the more rural, relaxed atmosphere of the south.
Traffic thinned out, and a light, gentle rain began to fall, with a mysterious mist rising from the Inland Sea. The main highway bypassed the coastal town of Kokura, splitting southeast toward Beppu and southwest to Kyusho’s largest city, Fukuoka. He headed southwest.
He had checked into the Fujiya Hotel in Nagano. The desk clerk at the three-hundred-year-old ryokan had been very helpful renting him the royal suite for three days at ¥30,000 per day and arranging for a rental car for the entire period. McGarvey had taken a long, leisurely bath, changed clothes and was on the road by 9:00 A.M.
The Lexus ES400 was supremely comfortable and very fast. Since he was driving a car with the proper paperwork, he got on the main north-south toll road and made excellent time, stopping only for something to eat when he refueled the car.
By noon, when he was well away from Nagano, he telephoned Rencke with his new plans.
“They’ll never expect that,” Rencke said. “It’ll take me about twenty minutes. Can I call you back?”
“Yes.”
Traffic had been very heavy on the toll road, but it moved fast, though not as fast as the interstates in the U.S.
Rencke was back a half hour later. “Okay, you want to go to Fukuoka. I’ve booked you a room at the Hotel New Otani Hakata under your Allain work name. Everything else should be set within the next couple of hours, and I’ll fax the package to you at the hotel.”
“You might take some heat for this, so cover yourself.”
“Don’t worry about me, just watch yourself,” Rencke warned. “It’s you with your ass hanging out in the wind, and when Lee looks up and sees you standing there, he’s going to be one unhappy camper.”
McGarvey had to laugh. “I hope so.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
When Maggie finished packing, it was coming up on 8:00 P.M. She looked out the window where two guards were waiting with the van that was to take them to the airstrip. The countdown clock was at T-minus three hours, and activity at the launchpad and in launch control was heating up. But she and the rest of the Tiger team would miss it.
She went back to the bed where she zippered up her B4 bag and folded it. She could not get the vision of Frank’s broken, bloodied body out of her mind. She’d lived with it for nearly forty-eight hours, going over and over the part where she’d bent down to touch his cheek, but then recoiled. She was frightened that she didn’t have better self-control. She was an engineer, a pilot, an astronaut, and yet she’d been afraid to touch the body of the man she’d loved.
She went into the tiny bathroom, where she splashed some cold water on her face, brushed her hair and then studied her haggard reflection in the mirror. They had murdered Frank for what he had seen, or thought he had seen, and for once in her life she didn’t know what to do. The enormity of it was staggering. And the past two days of house arrest had been surreal; her isolation made all the more complete because the one man she could have talked to about what was happening was dead.
Frank had made an unauthorized trip to the top of the payload service tower, where he apparently lost his balance and fallen over two hundred feet to his death. There were no witnesses. Kimura and another man who’d been identified as chief of security for the center were sympathetic but skeptical when Maggie and the others swore they didn’t know why Frank had gone out there.
Afterwards, when she had tried to telephone Hartley, her call had been blocked, and she and the others had been taken to their quarters where they were placed under house arrest. They had served her meals in her room, refusing to answer any of her questions about what was going on, why they were treating her like this and what was happening to Hilman and others. Her laptop had been taken away, the phone and television were dead and she had nearly lost her mind with fear, anger, boredom and guilt about Frank.
A half hour ago, one of the security people in white coveralls with the NSDA logo on the breast had come up and informed her that she must pack; she and the others would be leaving the space center sometime before the launch.
“Once we get back everything will come out, you bastard,” she blurted.
The security officer looked at her without blinking, then turned and left.
She sat down on the bed now, her hands clasped between her knees, and tears of rage and frustration slipped down her cheeks. She was being foolish; she knew that, but she didn’t think that she would ever trust a Japanese again. They had murdered Frank, and they were arrogant enough to send the rest of the team home without so much as a word of explanation.