Conspiracy (2 page)

Sato held the phone close to his mouth. "Distract the man," he whispered. "Any way you want. And make sure he stays distracted until we leave town at noon tomorrow."

Terasawa closed up his cell phone and put it in his pocket. He would enjoy dealing with the spy. As he ran his hand over the long scar on his left cheek, a souvenir from a knife battle during his youthful days with the Yakuza, a plan was already taking shape in his mind.

* * *

Up on the eighth floor, Hayaski waited until the bellman had been gone for ten minutes before he peeked out of the door into the wide blue-carpeted hallway to make certain it was deserted. Then, in his stocking feet, he tiptoed into the corridor and planted three tiny round silver metallic objects, each the size of a watch battery, under the edge of the carpet, along the wall, spaced at equal intervals between the elevator and the presidential suite at the end of the hall. All three were motion sensors that would trigger an alarm in Hayaski's briefcase and let him know when someone was walking in the corridor. He could then go over to the door of his room, look out, and see who was entering Sato's suite. In the event he missed them going in, he would remain at his open door until they emerged. Then he would take their picture with a tiny handheld camera that resembled a pen. If Sato left the suite, the sensor would go off and Hayaski would follow him. It was a perfect plan. Nothing could go wrong.

Knowing that the alarm would alert him, he could relax in the suite, maybe doze off a little, because he was still jet-lagged from the long flight. Hayaski ordered dinner from room service. Yet when it arrived, the Argentine beef he had heard so much about was tasteless and stringy when compared to Kobe. The Argentine beer was watery. He had never been to the country before, but he was beginning to see why it was second-rate. As he ate, Hayaski became irritated. He had been sent a long way on a stupid assignment. What difference did it make with whom Sato met? The man had no chance of being elected prime minister. He was a joke out there on the right-wing fringe.

Once the waiter had cleared the dishes, Hayaski picked up the thin booklet on the television set, which described the pay movies that were available. All were in English or Spanish, so he couldn't understand much of any of them, but that didn't bother him. The erotica offering was
Hot, Wet, and Wild.
He'd get what he wanted from that movie even if he didn't know what they were saying.

Before he turned on the television set, the alarm in the briefcase rang. Hayaski turned it off. Still dressed in pants and a white shirt, he hurried to the door and opened it. An elderly man and a woman were staggering down the hall, speaking English loudly and slurring their words. They had obviously had too much to drink at dinner. He watched them go into a room across the hall. Then he closed the door and returned to the television set.

Fifteen minutes into
Hot, Wet, and Wild,
three naked women were in a hot tub fondling each other. Hayaski was propped up in bed against a pillow. He'd slid out of his pants and tossed them onto a chair. His erection was sticking out of the opening in his white cotton boxer shorts.

The alarm rang again. He turned it off and ran over to the door. As he peeked out, he saw a gorgeous woman with long black hair walking from the elevator in the direction of the presidential suite. She was tall, almost six feet, wearing stiletto heels and a black leather jacket that ended halfway up her thighs. He couldn't tell what she had on underneath because the coat covered up the rest. Yet he could clearly see her curves. Maybe Argentina wasn't such a bad place after all.

As she came closer he shut his door, deciding to rely on the peephole until she was past so he didn't seem to be eavesdropping, particularly if she was headed for Sato's suite, as he expected.
You lucky bastard,
he thought with envy.

To his astonishment, she stopped in front of his door and knocked softly. Worried about being seen by someone so close to Sato's room and compromising his mission, he kept his door shut and looked out through the peephole.

"Yes, please," he said, in English.

"They sent me from the agency," she said.

He didn't know what the hell she was talking about.

She responded to his silence by untying the belt of her black leather jacket and letting it hang open. Underneath she was wearing a flimsy see-through bra that held only about half of her voluptuous round breasts, and a sheer G-string that covered a fraction of her thick black pubic hair.

Hayaski gaped. Stunned by what he saw, he was frozen to the spot.

When he didn't open the door, she closed up her jacket. "They must have made a mistake," she said. She turned and started to walk back to the elevator.

Hayaski couldn't stand it anymore. She must have gotten the room numbers mixed up, he decided. If he acted quickly, Sato's loss would be his gain. He opened the door and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her into his room. "No mistake," he said.

Once the door was closed, she held out her hand. This time he knew what she meant. That was a universal gesture. He walked over to his pants, reached into his pocket, and peeled off several hundreds from the roll of dollars he had for the trip. That seemed to satisfy her, because she put the money in her jacket pocket.

He began groping her, but she pulled away. She gave him a little feel through his cotton pants and said, "Later. First I'll dance for you."

She pointed to the bed. When he was sitting there, she turned off the television set and turned on the radio. She tried a number of different stations until she found what she was looking for: a tango. She hung her jacket over a chair and kicked off her shoes. Then she began dancing near the door, writhing to the music in a sensuous, undulating motion, swaying and twisting with the rhythm. Hayaski's mouth fell wide open, his cock hard and swollen. He had never seen anything like it in his life. The women who stripped and danced at the Roppongi bars that he liked to frequent were rank amateurs compared with this one.

Hayaski's staring was interrupted by the sound of the alarm in his briefcase. He cursed loudly. With all of his heart he wanted to ignore it, but his sense of duty was too strong. He reached across the bed and turned off the alarm.

Before he had a chance to go to the door and look out, the woman wheeled around and grabbed the doorknob. Twisting it, she unlocked the door.

"Hey, what..." Hayaski cried out, but he knew exactly what was happening. He charged toward the door, keeping his body low and close to the ground. Leading with his right shoulder, he knocked her out of his way. He slammed into the door, hoping to blast it shut, which would kick the lock on and give him time to call hotel security. But he was too late. The door was being opened by a force that was greater than his own.

With a sudden kick the door flew open, flattening Hayaski against the wall, then knocking him to a sitting position on the floor. Through a daze he watched a Japanese man wearing a suit and tie and white gloves, with a long, ugly scar on one cheek and a gold tooth in the front of his mouth, close the door. He handed the woman some money. In a few seconds she put on her shoes and her black jacket and left.

The man with the scar picked Hayaski up high in the air as if he were a baby and tossed him onto the bed on his back. Then he climbed up and straddled Hayaski, pressing his knees against Hayaski's arms. He removed a piece of piano wire from his jacket pocket. Hayaski's mind told him to fight back, to resist, but his assailant was too powerful.

Hayaski watched in helpless terror as his assailant looped the piano wire around his neck and pulled it tight. His eyes bulged as the pressure made him cry out in pain. At last his body gave one final shudder.

Terasawa let go of the wire and climbed off the bed. He reached into Hayaski's pants and took out all his money, American and Japanese. After tossing Hayaski's wallet on the floor, he removed a condom from his own pocket and placed that on the table next to the bed.

The cops would have no doubt that Hayaski had been robbed and killed by a prostitute he had invited into his room. They wouldn't make any effort to investigate. When so many Argentines were the victims of crime, why bother to investigate the murder of a Japanese tourist who was stupid enough to invite a stranger to his room to get his rocks off?

As Terasawa was preparing to leave the room, he looked around for the Do Not Disturb sign, which had fallen to the floor in the melee. He picked it up and placed it on the outside of the door as he left.

He was confident that no one would enter the room before noon tomorrow. By then he and Sato would be gone.

When he was back down in the lobby, he called Sato on his cell phone. "Mission accomplished."

* * *

At ten-forty-five, the dining room table in the three-bedroom suite was fully set. The waiters had departed, leaving behind platters of smoked salmon, caviar, smoked whitefish, cold meats and cheeses, bowls of exotic fruit, a basket of bread, a bottle of wine, and a large pot of coffee.

Sato poured himself a cup of coffee and walked with it past the baby grand piano in the living room toward the high floor-to-ceiling windows that provided a view of the broad Avenue Alvear below. The nighttime traffic was heavy, stop-and-go, on the wide streets and boulevards of the Recolete, which sliced through what was considered the most fashionable area in all of South America. The city had always reminded Sato of Milan.

The end of winter in Argentina and the beginning of spring matched Sato's mood. All things were possible. The conclusion of the long-running Japanese economic nightmare. The end of the even longer Japanese military weakness, relative to its historical enemy: China. All that was needed was proper leadership in Tokyo, and a meaningful program to emerge from the depths of weakness and subservience. Sato was ready to supply both of those.

Looking out of the window, he tried to get a good view of the entrance to the hotel. He had no doubt that the American would come. The man's desire for revenge had to be overwhelming.

Promptly at eleven o'clock he heard a firm knock on the door. He put the cup down and straightened his silk Hermes tie as well as the jacket of the double-breasted navy blue Brioni suit.

"I'm Yahiro Sato," he said as he closed the door behind the American.

Sato waited to see if the American shook his hand or bowed. He did neither.

"I know who you are." The reply was terse. "I read the newspapers."

Sato pointed to the dining room table. "Perhaps we can talk while we eat." He started to move that way.

The American remained fixed in place. "I didn't come here to eat," he said in a gruff tone that Sato had heard often from powerful Americans over the years. "I've come a long way. Tell me why you wanted to see me." The tone was impatient. "Why you sent me the note that said 'November twenty-first, 1949.'"

Sato sighed. He preferred to pursue a discussion like this in a slower, more orderly manner, but he had no choice. "I want your help in removing the one obstacle blocking my objective of evicting the American military from Japan and rearming my country in order that we can challenge China for control of Asia."

His words produced a skeptical expression on his visitor's face. "What are you telling me?"

"If Senator Boyd is elected president, then I won't be able to implement my program. I can't let that occur."

"What do you care? Why not implement your program regardless of what the American president says?"

"Unfortunately, it's not that easy. If your president opposes my program, the Diet will never approve the necessary constitutional change or back me on the withdrawal of American troops. Both President Webster and Crane would support me. You know I'm right on that. I've made every effort to win Boyd over, but—"

"You'll never win him over. He'll placate the Chinese in the hope that they'll curb their growing bellicosity, and we'll all live in peace and harmony." He snarled. "Ridiculous claptrap."

Sato walked over to the dining room table to pick up a red folder.

In stony silence, the American watched Sato place the folder on a glass coffee table.

"Inside," Sato said, "you'll find the information you need. You'll know what to do with it."

"What makes you think I'll help you?"

The question hung in the air. The American looked at Sato for an answer, but Sato turned away, walked back into the dining room, and poured himself a cup of coffee. The man was left alone with his remembrances.

Everything about that day in early October of 1949 was firmly embedded in his mind as if it had happened yesterday. He had been seven at the time, living in Shanghai in a courtyard house with his mother and his father, a missionary from the United States. They had just finished breakfast, and he was putting his books in his bag for school when five Chinese soldiers burst into the apartment, guns in their hands. The red stars on their caps caught his eye.

From then on their lives were ripped apart. The nightmare began as his father was hauled off to a Chinese jail and charged by Mao's government with being a spy for Chiang Kai-shek. Six weeks later, on November 21, the nightmare reached a crescendo. Nor did it end. For the boy it continued on and on.

Sato watched the American roll up his hands into fists. The man's eyes were on fire.

"My father was framed for political reasons to strike a blow at the American government and the Christian religion."

"So now I'm offering you a chance for revenge against Mao's successors."

The American sat down, opened up the folder, and leafed through the contents.

"You'll find in there," Sato said, "an envelope with a fax and telephone number in Tokyo, should you wish to reach me. Ask for Nara, and relay the information to the woman who answers to that name. Use the code name R.L., letters I selected at random, for this and any other communications. In Japan I have a special electronic device that will scramble the numbers on any call you make to me. No one will be able to connect us from those calls."

Sato was aware that he hadn't received any response from the American. Still, he pressed on, sounding confident that his visitor would do what he was asking. "I also want your help in writing speeches that I give in Japan and in the United States that will make me sound reasonable. Not like the way Alex Glass has been describing me in the
New York Times,
as some type of fascist. Together we can change the political face of Asia."