On the Fifth Day (42 page)

drium
dinoflagellate. Then he watched for repeat occurrences and went hunting."

"Do you know where?" asked Kumi. It was a cautious question, and her glance at Parks let Thomas know what she was really asking:
If you know, will you tell him? Do you trust
this man who has attacked you twice before?

Thomas met her gaze, then looked past her to the temples nestled in the rich green of the hills.

"If I try to leave the country by conventional means," he said, "I'll be stopped and turned over to either the Italians or some antiterrorist division in the U.S. I don't want to spend the rest of my days waiting for a trial at Guantanamo."

"What about going to Devlin?" said Jim.

Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but he caught some

thing in Kumi's face, a shadow, maybe a memory or a realiza

tion. He looked at her, but she just shook her head fractionally. She wanted something kept to herself, for now. Parks was watching Thomas, smirking with anticipation.

"Come on, Tommy boy," he said. "Share."

Kumi turned away, staring out across the wooded valley. Thomas slowly drew the papers from his jacket pocket and spread them out. He had plotted the satellite image coordi

nates onto a map of the Philippines.

"The day before Ed left Japan," he said, putting his finger 315

O n t h e F i f t h D a y

on a tiny island in the remote Sulu Archipelago, "a red tide bloom began here. It lasted almost a week. By the time the seas returned to normal, my brother was dead."

For a long moment they all stared at the map. Then Parks flexed his fingers back, one hand at a time, till the knuckles cracked, and grinned.

"Anchors away," he said. "All aboard that's going aboard."

"Not me," said Kumi. "You might have found something and you might not, but I think you should hand it off to the au

thorities before other people get killed. You should call the embassy, tell them what you know, and stay out of it."

"Oh," said Parks, "like we can trust
them.
"

"Jim?" said Kumi.

"I came to help," said the priest. He shook his head, thought

fully, wrestling with something. "I owe it to Ed. If there's some

thing I can do . . ."

"Thomas?" she said, suddenly seeming very tired and small.

"Sorry," he said. "I have to. Till I know. Till it's over."

She nodded, resigned, but said nothing.

"Guys' trip!" said Parks. "All right! Get the beer and I'll see that we score some hookers. Except for Joe Celibate, here."

"Wait," said Thomas. "There's something else you might want to look at before you start volunteering for this particular cruise."

The others looked at him.

"Thanks to Matsuhashi and the NHK meterological office we got some other images, satellite photographs taken at thirty-six-hour intervals of about a half-mile stretch of beach in the center of the red tide outbreak."

He laid each picture out in turn.

"This is the first one," he said.

"Looks idyllic," said Kumi, scanning the pale sand of the palm-fringed beach viewed from above. "Apart from the red water, of course. What are these?"

"Fishing boats," said Thomas, "pulled up onto the shore. And here are the huts of the village just beyond the tree line. Now, here's the second image."

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It was almost impossible to make out anything except the red water. The land was blotted out by a thick gray cloud.

"Is that a storm?" said Parks.

"I thought so, at first," said Thomas. "But the larger-scale images show no significant weather in the area."

"So it's . . . ?" Kumi faltered.

"Smoke," said Thomas.

"You can't be sure," said Parks, looking uneasy.

"Here is the third image," said Thomas.

The sea was blue and sparkling, the beach as idyllic as be

fore, except for some dark smudges close to the trees.

"Where are the boats?" asked Kumi. The question had been casual, but when no one answered she followed it with another, and this time her voice was full of dread. "Where is the village?"

"Gone," said Thomas. "It's all gone."

CHAPTER 90

The sun had barely risen over Fuji's snow-capped symmetry when the helicopter from Narita slowed to a roaring hover just above the trees that lined the river bank. The door was already open, and in no more then fifteen seconds the three assault troops had slid down the nylon cord and onto the sandy shore. No one saw them come, and by the time early risers were gap

ing out of windows at the sound of the helicopter, it had al

ready moved off, heading swiftly northeast toward the city. The soldiers were clad in black battle dress uniform and class three flak vests, Eagle jackets, and Nomex hoods that left only the eyes uncovered. They moved with practiced speed, their Heckler and Koch MP-5-SD6 submachine guns with integrated silencers pivoting, scanning, like parts of their bodies. They had been ordered to be cautious, to use deadly 317

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force on any civilians who might derail the mission only when absolutely necessary, but they were taking no chances. The targets themselves, of course, would be given no such latitude. On that, their orders were perfectly clear. "Targets pose an im

mediate and credible threat and are to be eliminated by any available means."

Still, it was supposed to be a stealth mission, kills made silently, the bodies spirited out by helicopter in no more then fifteen minutes. The soldiers moved quickly up the river bank to the south side of the single-story
ryokan.
They had no spe

cific information on which rooms the targets were occupying and there could well be other foreigners in the building, a building for which they had no specs, no blueprints, no real reconnaissance of any kind. The attack squad were also the in

formation collectors, so target location needed to be doubly prompt.

The team leader nodded and the other two soldiers sepa

rated, staying low to the ground, moving almost on all fours, the long-barreled silencers of their guns' eyes searching for prey. He wished they had gotten here an hour earlier. This was a predawn mission if ever there was one. What minimal intel they had said that there were only five guest rooms and the liv

ing quarters of the woman who ran the place, but they couldn't be sure how many rooms the targets were using: could be as few as one or as many as three.

The team leader rose carefully and looked into the window four feet above the ground: a kitchen, no sign of life. He moved laterally, stopping behind a manicured yaupon holly. He was close to the front entrance and the building's most ex

posed side, which gave onto a gravel road into the village. He returned to the kitchen window, applied a suction pad to the window pane, and drew a brisk circle around it with a diamondtipped glass cutter. With a little pressure on the suction pad the circle snapped neatly out and he was able to reach in and flip the latch. In less than thirty seconds, he was inside. The kitchen was cramped and bursting with oversized blackened iron pots, one of which hung over the hearth from a 318

A. J. Hartley

chain. The surfaces were of a graying wood, the floor slabs of stone. Apart from the egg-shaped electric rice cooker, the place might have been a thousand years old. Leading with the muzzle of his weapon, he ducked into a squat low enough to see beneath the navy cotton
noren
that hung from the door lin

tel and moved through into the hallway, leaving dark boot prints on the pristine floor. No sign of anyone. A series of sliding doors extended down the matted hall. With the exception of the kitchen, the whole building was ba

sically a single room divided by paper covered
husuma
into six-mat tatami rooms all branching off this central corridor. A sneeze at one end would probably be heard in every bedroom. He inched along the hallway, aware of deep, rhythmic snoring coming from the nearest room. As he laid his hand to the screen door, the second of the team appeared at the other end of the hall. They had come in through the back door. He shook his masked head once: nothing to report so far. The team leader pushed the screen sideways and it slid in its wooden grooves with only the smallest whisper. The room was dark, but the sleeping form was an elderly Japanese fe

male, curled up on a futon on the tatami floor: the proprietor. He closed the door and moved down the hall as his second leaned back out of the room he had checked: still nothing. They were running out of rooms.

He tried the next door, then the next, weapon poised and ready to fire. Both were deserted. A look at his second con

firmed the same at his end. The targets had moved on. He nodded back to his second, suddenly anxious to get out of this strange wooden house with its air of foreignness and antiquity, and gestured dismissively with one hand.
Move out.

Once a terror cell like this was flushed out into the open, their advantage quickly diminished. He'd get them next time. CHAPTER 91

They had gotten off the train at Zenko-ji, a couple of stops be

fore the main Kofu station, because they didn't want to be standing around there waiting for their connection to Shizuoka. Kumi would leave Thomas and the others there, taking the train to Tokyo and the rest of her life. She sympathized, she said, but she had to walk away. They would say their farewells here at her request, in a place that had once been special to them, then walk the rest of the way to the main station and their respective trains.

But Kumi had one piece of news to offer, something she confessed she had been wary of telling Parks. Thomas, forc

ing himself to the decision, said she should tell them all what she knew. They needed to trust each other. She shrugged, un

convinced, but told them anyway.

"Devlin," said Kumi. "His visit isn't just about taxes. He's hammering out the details for a trade deal. Guess what he wants to import?"

"Fish?" said Jim.

"Yep," said Kumi. "Japan is the biggest importer of fish in the world and he wants in."

"From Illinois?" said Thomas, skeptical. "From where, Lake Michigan?"

"He's sponsored some semisecret farming program," said Kumi. "There are these greenhouses in southern Illinois grow

ing tomatoes and such hydroponically . . ."

"Hydro what?"

"No soil," said Parks. "The plants grow in nutrient-rich water."

"And they are farming fish in that water," said Kumi.

"Tilapia at the moment. And they are trying the same condi

tions for a specially cultivated hybrid striped bass. Could be a 320

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massive boon for the Illinois economy if Devlin can pull off an import deal here."

"He never mentioned it," said Thomas, looking to Jim for confirmation.

"Keeping it quiet," said Kumi. "Get an edge on the compe

tition."

"Maybe," said Thomas.

Parks was looking thoughtful. Thomas could feel them all trying to make the connection in their minds, but either they didn't know enough, or it wasn't there, so they sat in silence. In any case, Thomas had something else on his mind. The faded red temple where they had first met after Tokyo was pri

vate and secluded after the grandeur of those they had just vis

ited. It was the perfect place to give voice to an idea that he had been holding on to like a man protecting a candle flame in a strong breeze.

"Listen, I've been thinking," said Thomas. "I know it sounds crazy, but has anyone considered the possibility . . . ?"

"What?" said Kumi. She looked wary.

"Now just hear me out," he said.

"Go on."

"Has anyone considered the possibility . . . ?"

"That Ed isn't dead," said Jim. "That's what you were thinking, isn't it?"

"I was just wondering," said Thomas.

For a long moment they all just stared at him, and the si

lence of the temple precinct seemed absolute.

"Your brother's dead, Tom," said Kumi, at last.

"So they say," said Thomas. "But we haven't seen a body. We don't have clear evidence where or how he died. Maybe he didn't, maybe he just went underground . . ."

"Tom," said Kumi, cutting him off like someone laying down a heavy burden as gently as possible. "We know there was some sort of explosion. A lot of people died. He was among them."

"We don't know that for sure," he said. "If there were lots of bodies, if they were . . . damaged, unrecognizable, who is 321

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to say someone didn't just assume he was among them be

cause he'd been in the area or . . ."

"They were sure, Tom," said Kumi, weary again, and sad because she didn't want it to be true but couldn't make herself believe it wasn't.

"And how can we trust what we're being told anyway?"

Thomas continued. "We're being given the runaround by everyone. Why should we believe anything they say? Why do we take it on trust that he's dead?"

"You can't let yourself believe this, Tom," said Kumi.

"I'm just saying . . ." Tom began.

"Let him go," said Jim.

"You too?" said Thomas, rounding on him. "I thought you were the man of faith, the man who could believe things?"

"Not this, Thomas," said Jim. "I believe he's dead."

"It's hard," said Kumi, "but you have to accept it."

He turned on her then, an old anger suddenly boiling up in

side him as if a forgotten wound had split open.

"
You
tell
me
to accept it?" he snapped. "
You
are telling
me
to get over it? Oh, that's perfect."

Kumi flushed. "That's enough, Tom," she said, though there was the hint of a plea in her eyes. "Don't."

"Don't what, Kumi?" he shot back, the pain making him cruel. "Don't what? Don't mention the little stone babies over there?"

"Shut up, Tom," she said, tears starting to her eyes, her hands rising to her ears to block him out, silencing him as a child might.